When these words smote upon my heart, it experienced the same change that must have come upon ˛none’s, when, from the lofty summit of Mount Ida, whither she had betaken herself to watch for her lover’s return, she beheld Paris coming with his Grecian mistress in the Trojan ship. I could hardly prevent the anguish of my soul from appearing on my face, albeit I yet managed to do so, and, with a false laugh, I said:
“Certainly, what you say is very true. This country should not be at all pleasing to him, seeing that it was not able to provide him with a sweetheart commensurate with his merit. If he have found such a one there, he acts wisely in staying with her. But tell me, how does his newly wedded wife endure this? Does it not anger her?”
To which he answered:
“He has no wife. It is true that, not very long ago, a lady took up her dwelling in his house; but it was not as his wife, but as the wife of his father.”
No sooner were these words uttered than it seemed to me as if the torture I had hitherto endured had left me, and another, infinitely more unendurable, had taken its place. I was straightway pierced with anguish and anger, and my affrighted spirit quivered in every part of my body. I felt that all my strength was forsaking me, and, summoning whatever calmness and resolution I possessed, I retired from the company with such decorum as might prevent them from seeing anything strange in my demeanor, and sought refuge in my chamber.
As soon as I was alone and safe from the presence of every human being, mine eyes, like unto two full-laden springs that overflow in some humid valley, shed such streams of bitter tears that it seemed as if they should never cease. I cried aloud: “Panfilo,! why hast thou betrayed me?” Then I threw myself upon my couch, or rather fell thereon, helpless and supine. Words failed me, being lost as it were in the course of their journey to my lips, and suddenly all strength was wrested from my tongue, as well as from my other members.
Then I lay like one dead, and dead I was believed to be by those who first saw me, and who watched by my bedside for a very long period, without discovering any sign which would indicate that my wandering soul had returned to its seat.
But, after a time, it recalled its scattered and vanishing forces, and again took up its abode in my suffering body, and the lost light of life came back to my eyes. Then, raising my head, I saw bending over me several ladies who had bathed me all over with precious liquids, and, after rendering me this compassionate service, they were still weeping; and I perceived near me also several other appliances, intended to minister to my recovery. And, seeing these things and the tears of the ladies, I did not a little marvel.
When the power of speech was at length restored to me, I inquired what was the occasion of these things being there. Whereupon one of them made this answer to my question: “These things were brought here for the purpose of recalling thy soul which, we thought for a time, had forsaken thee altogether.”
After heaving a bitter sigh, I said:
“Alas! ye imagine yourselves pitiful, and yet what a most cruel service is this ye have rendered me! Believing that you were conferring a benefit upon me, you have harmed me exceedingly, and that, too, contrary to my wishes; and the soul which was ready to forsake the most wretched body that mortal ever possessed, you have by main force kept in its tenement. Oim! was ever anything desired with such eager longing as that which you have denied me! Just as I was about to be freed from all my tribulations, you stepped in and deprived me of the boon I craved above everything else in the world!”
The ladies endeavored to comfort and console me in divers ways, after I had spoken these words. Vain, indeed, were their attempts. Yet did I feign to be somewhat soothed by their sympathy, to the end that, having got rid of them, I might indulge my sorrow by myself without their interference.
When one of them had taken her leave, and I had dismissed the others, assuming for the occasion an almost gay expression of countenance, I remained alone with my old nurse and with the maid who was privy to all my misfortunes.
They at once began to apply such cooling remedies for my sickness as must have cured me of it, if it had not been mortal. But I, having my mind wholly fixed upon the words I had heard, and straightway having become the enemy of one of you, O ladies, I know not of which, proceeded at once to nurture thoughts of the most baneful description; and the grief which I could not entirely keep within myself, I forced out of my gloomy breast with furious words, speaking in some such wise as follows:
“O most false-hearted of men! O foe to all tenderness and good faith! O Panfilo!—baser than the basest!—who, having forgotten me, dost now abide with a new love! Accursed be the day that I first saw thee! Accursed be the hour, the instant, when thou didst first please me! Accursed be that goddess who, by appearing to me in visible form at the very moment when I was firmly resolved to resist the temptation of loving thee, caused me by her deceiving words to alter my righteous purpose! But, of a truth, I do not believe that she was Venus.
Nay rather, she must have been one of the Furies of hell, who assumed the form of the goddess to drive me wild with madness, just as she did erstwhile to the wretched Athamas. O most cruel youth, perniciously chosen by me as being the best among so many others who were noble, valiant, and handsome! Where are now those prayers wherewith thou hast so often tearfully entreated me, declaring frequently that only by my kindness could thy life be saved, and that when thou wert dead, as thou soon must be, thy death would lie at my hands? Where are now, O wretch, those lugubrious and weeping eyes?
Where is now that love for me which thou didst so violently exhibit? Where are now the perilous and bitter hardships thou wert ready to undergo in my service? Where are thy sweet words? Are they all blotted out now from thy memory? Or hast thou been using them again to entrap in thy snares the lady thou hast just captured? Ah, accursed be that pity of mine which rescued that life of thine from death!—that life which, though it render the life of another woman blithe and merry, will surely conduct mine to a gloomy death.
Now are the eyes, which in my presence shed so many tears, smiling and laughing for the delectation of the new love; the sweet words, and the fickle heart are now all for her. Where now, Panfilo, are the gods thou hast forsworn? Where the promised faith? Where the infinite tears, which I sometimes drank, believing they were shed in compassion for me, and unwitting that they were but the outward and most positive signs of thy treachery? All these things which thou didst steal from me when thou didst steal away from me thyself, thou hast now entrusted to the new charmer.
“Oimè! what affliction I endured when I heard that thou hadst been united with another lady by the chaste and holy rites of Juno! But, as I felt that the vows pledged to me must take precedence of all others, and even of these, I bore this, albeit for a time overcome by my righteous anger and grief; or, at least, the anguish I had endured at first gradually diminished. Now, indeed, that I know thee to have bound thyself to another by the very same ties whereby thou wert bound to me—how can I ever support such intolerable and heartrending pain? Now I know the true cause of thy absence and now, too, do I know my own artless simplicity, which induced me to believe that thou wouldst return to me, if it were in thy power to do so.
“Now, Panfilo, were such cunning wiles really needed to deceive me? Why didst thou swear the most solemn oaths and pledge thy most inviolate faith (inviolate, indeed!) if it was all the time thine intention to deceive me in this manner? Why didst thou not depart without bidding me farewell and without any promise to return?
Hadst thou done so, I should doubtless have forever despaired of thy love, but I should at once have been aware of thy treachery, and either death or oblivion would have put an end to my torments, which thou, by holding vain hopes before mine eyes, hast wished to keep alive, and hast succeeded in keeping alive, to the end that my sufferings for thy sake might be
