But I have not deserved this at thy hands. Oim! how sweet were those tears of thine to me once! Now that I know what they meant, they have, indeed, become most bitter. If Love has been such a tyrant to thee as he has been to me, was it not enough that thou shouldst have been captured by him once, without allowing thyself to be trapped by him a second time? But what is this I am saying? Thou hast never loved! Nay rather, it has always been a delight to thee to show thy scorn for women.
If thou hadst been capable of loving, thou wouldst have been still mine. And to whom couldst thou ever have belonged that would love thee more than I? Whoever thou mayst be, O lady, who hast taken him from me, though thou art mine enemy, I feel that mine own very anguish compels me to feel compassion for thee. Be on thy guard against his guile and duplicity, since—and that thou surely knowest—he who has once deceived, has lost the sense of honest shame, and will continue to deceive ever afterward without having a consciousness of his guilt.
“How many prayers, how many offerings, O most base-hearted youth, have I brought to the altars of the gods for thy health and safety, for thee, in fine, who, all the time, wert planning to abandon me and give thyself to another! O ye gods! ye have, indeed, returned a favorable answer to my prayers, but for the profit of another woman! I have had the torture and the anguish; another is to have the happiness!
Tell me, thou recreant, was not my form beautiful enough to content thee, and was not my noble birth at least equal to thine? Certainly it was, and much more than that, did I ever refuse thee a share of my wealth, or ask for a portion of thine? Certainly not. Has any other man except thee been loved by me, either in word, deed or appearance? None! And this thou wilt acknowledge, unless this new love of thine has entirely deprived thee of truthfulness. Has any fault of mine, then, has any just cause, or any greater loveliness, or more ardent love, bereft me of thee and bestowed thee on another? Certainly not.
And let the gods be my witnesses that the only fault I ever have committed in thy regard has been in loving thee overmuch. Thou knowest whether this deserves the treachery which thou hast plotted against me. O ye gods! righteous avengers of the crimes of mortals! I call upon ye to inflict on him a punishment which shall not be unjust.
I neither desire nor seek his death, which he has already escaped through my intervention, albeit he wishes mine; nor other harm do I wish him than this: if he loves his new sweetheart as I love him, may she betray him and give herself to another, as he has betrayed me; and may her desertion have the effect of forcing him to lead such a life as he has now forced me to lead.”
I then flung myself back on my bed, writhing and tossing about in unutterable agitation and ungovernable frenzy.
The whole of that day was passed in a state of excitement and paroxysm, varied by the utterance of such wild words as those above. When night had come—night more unpropitious than day to every sorrow, for darkness is more in harmony with misery than light—and I lay beside my dear husband, I remained awake, indulging silently in my dolorous thoughts, turning over in my mind the days that were no more, both those that had been pleasant and those that had been painful.
Above all, the thought that Panfilo was lost to me, because of this new love of his, increased my anguish to such a height that I could no longer curb it, and it found a vent in most lamentable moans and exclamations, albeit I succeeded in concealing the occasion of my woe. My weeping grew so loud that at length my husband, who had been wrapped in the profoundest slumber, awoke, and turning to me all bathed in tears, and taking me in his arms, he thus addressed me, in most compassionate and loving tones:
“Oh. sweetest soul of my soul, what cause leads thee to weep so inconsolably in the quiet night? I beseech thee to tell me why thou hast been so dejected and woebegone for such a length of time. Nothing that disquiets thee should be hidden from me.
Is it that thy heart craves for something which I can procure for thee, and which I yet have not given thee, although thou hast asked for it? Knowest thou not that thou art my sole comfort and consolation, the only good that I prize? Knowest thou not that I love thee above all things else in the world? Of this thou art assured, not by one single proof, but by many. Why, then, dost thou weep? Why art thou afflicted with such extreme anguish?
Do I not seem to thee to be in every way worthy of thy noble race? Or have I committed any offense against thee for which I am bound to make amends? Tell me! speak! reveal thy desire! thy every wish shall be fulfilled, if only the fulfilment be within my power.
The change which I have witnessed in thy appearance, thy dress, and thy entire deportment, has for many months rendered my life utterly wretched; but never yet hast thou seemed to me so wasted, so broken hearted and so wholly altered as thou hast to-day. I was wont to think that bodily weakness was the reason of thy pallor; but now I am well aware that it is mental anguish that has brought thee to the condition in which I now behold thee. Why, then, shouldst thou not disclose to thy husband the source of the ills that trouble thee?”
Whereunto I, taking counsel with my sex’s duplicity, resolved to answer by a lie, although lying was once an art entirely foreign to me:
“Husband, dearer to me than all the world beside, I lack nothing which thou couldst bestow on me, and I know that thou art in every way worthy of me, and that beyond any doubt. That which has reduced me to this state of sadness, both before and now, is the death of my beloved brother, of which thou art well aware. This it is that forces the tears from mine eyes every time his melancholy fate recurs to my memory.
And certainly I do not weep so much because of his death, for I well know that to death we must all come at last, as because of the manner of it, which, as thou wittest, was most unfortunate and shameful. The things, too, which happened afterward were calculated to increase my sorrow.
I cannot for a moment close my sad eyes in sleep that he does not appear unto me with features of ghastly pallor and with raiment all covered with blood, while, at the same time, he points to his hideous wounds. just now, when thou didst hear me weeping, he showed himself to me in my sleep, with a countenance so utterly weary and frightful, and looking so paralyzed with terror, that it was no wonder he could hardly utter the words he wished to speak.
After a time, but only with the greatest effort, he said: ‘O dearest sister, try to rid me of this shame, which causes me to wander dolefully among the other spirits with disturbed mind and downcast eyes.’
Then, albeit I derived some consolation from seeing him, wretched though he was, I was so overcome with grief on account of his apparel and of his melancholy words that I was straightway aroused, and sleep fled from me. Afterward followed those tears—a tribute due from sisterly affection—which obtained thy loving and most soothing commiseration and sympathy.
And well the gods understand that were arms suited to my woman’s hands, I would have avenged him long before to-day, and enabled him to move among the other spirits with lofty brow. Now thou knowest, beloved husband, that not without reason am I depressed and unhappy.”
Oh, what compassionate words did he thereupon employ to, mitigate a feigned sorrow, which, indeed, had once existed, but had been long allayed! What ingenious arguments did he use to engage me to moderate my anguish! True and sincere arguments they were, forming a great contrast to my lies! When he believed he had somewhat consoled me, he again fell into a deep sleep; and I, affected by his exceeding pity for me, and weeping from still more intense desperation, resumed again the dismal discourse which I had before begun to utter within my heart, saying:
“O ye most cruel caverns that are the lairs of savage beasts!
O Hell, thou noxious prison decreed before all time to be the eternal abode of the wicked! If there be any other place of torment hidden within the bowels of the earth, do thou seize me, the guilty one, and draw me down to the tortures I have deserved!
O Jove supreme! whose wrath I have justly provoked, hurl thy thunderbolts against me with thine own unerring hand! O sacred Juno, whose most holy laws, I, vilest of women, have most foully violated, avenge thyself on my head! O ye Caucasian rocs, tear to pieces this wretched body!
O ye swift winged birds of prey, and ye most ferocious beasts, devour me! O ye fleet-footed steeds that mangled the body of the
