O thou wretch, depraved beyond all other women, and deserving of greater punishment than the most infamous of thy sex, what fury blinded thy chaste eyes on the day when Panfilo pleased thee? Where didst thou abandon the piety due to the holy laws of wedlock? Where didst thou fling aside chastity, that supreme crown of womanly honor, when thou didst forsake thy husband for Panfilo? Where is now the almost reverential affection which thou didst expect from the beloved youth?
Where is the consolation in thy misery to which thou hadst such a claim? He lets the time slip by gayly in the society of another, and cares not for thee. And this is what should deservedly and reasonably happen to every woman who prefers to a lawful love an unlawful passion. Thy husband who, more than anybody else in the world, ought to harbor malice in thy regard, does his very best to comfort thee, and he who ought to comfort thee heaps scorn upon thy head.
Is not this husband of mine quite as handsome as Panfilo? Certainly he is. In virtue and nobility, and in every other distinguished quality, is he not far superior to Panfilo? Is there anyone on earth that doubts this? Then, why didst thou forsake him for another? What blindness, what heedlessness, what sin induced thee to commit such a folly? That is a thing of which I am wholly ignorant.
The only reason I can discover is that we are wont to esteem whatever we can obtain easily and freely as of no account, although in reality it is most precious; while whatever we have the greatest trouble in getting, we reckon most precious, although in reality it is most vile. The excessive fondness of my husband for me, to which I sometimes refused to respond, did not give me the pleasure it should have given, and for this do I now bitterly lament.
“I should have gathered strength to resist Panfilo from the vision the gods showed me during the night and morning which preceded my ruin. Now that I cannot depart from loving, although I wish to do so, I know of what nature was the serpent that pierced me under the left breast, and then departed full of my blood; and, similarly, I see what the garland which fell from my unfortunate head was intended to signify; but too late has this warning reached me.
The gods, whose wrath I must evidently have incurred, repented them of the warnings they had given me in visions, and therefore deprived me of the power of interpreting the signs they had shown me. In this wise, did Apollo, after he had conferred on his beloved Cassandra the gift of prophecy, deprive it of all value by attaching to it the condition that her predictions should never be believed. Wherefore it is not without reasonable cause that I have been foredoomed to misery, and destined to consume my life therein.”
In such complaints, then, did I pass the night, tossing about on my bed in restless agitation, unable to sleep; for even when sleep did enter my weary brain, its efforts to remain there were so feeble that every slightest change in my position expelled it.
When morning had dawned, my faithful nurse, from whom no part of my misfortunes was hidden, inasmuch as she had been the first to gather from the expression of my countenance the fact that love had stricken me, and from it had predicted my future misery, entered my chamber as soon as she was aware that my husband had left it. She had been present when the news of Panfilo’s love for another lady was imparted to me, and, being in great alarm about me, she was eager to render me whatever service was in her power.
Seeing me lying almost dead from the anguish of the past night, she began with divers words to try to alleviate the sorrows that were maddening me, and, raising me with her arms, she began wiping away the tears from my wretched face with her trembling hand; and from time to time she spake such words as these:
“Sweet lady, thy woes afflict me beyond measure, and would afflict me more grievously still, if I had not erstwhile forewarned thee of what was sure to happen. But, thou, being self-willed rather than wise, didst spurn my counsels and pursue thine own pleasures, wherefore with sorrow do I perceive that thou hast come to the end to which such deeds as thine always bring the doer. But since we can all, provided we are willing, and as long as we are in this life, abandon the path of evil and return to the path of virtue, it is my fondest hope that thou wilt clear thine eyes of the darkness wherewith this foul tyrant has covered them, and let the bright light of truth shine upon them.
How base he is, the brief delights and the long tortures, for which thou hast been, and art, indebted to him, must surely show thee. Thou hast loved, moved thereunto by thy will rather than by thy reason, as was natural in so young a woman; and, having loved, thou hast enjoyed that happiness which all who love desire from love. How brief is that delight thou well knowest; and more of that delight than thou hast had, thou canst not have nor desire to have.
“Even if thy Panfilo returned to thine arms, thou wouldst have the wonted delight no more. Love is inflamed by novelty, and, because a thing is new, it is believed to contain some hidden good, which, haply, it does not, and they who hoped for this and are disappointed soon become disgusted; but the things which are not hidden and are familiarly known are usually desired with more sobriety and moderation. But thou hast acted in quite a different fashion, being hurried away by thy ungoverned fancy and altogether bent on thine own destruction.
Discreet persons who happen to find themselves in places full of peril and difficulty, as soon as they perceive the dangers by which they are surrounded, at once turn back, not foolishly thinking that, as they have lost so much time in coming so far, they ought to go farther, but rather feeling that, by going farther, they surely incur the risk of death. Do thou, therefore, imitate the example I have set before thee; show more self-restraint than thou art wont to exhibit, and place thy reason above thy will.
Free thyself from the danger and the anguish into which thou hast allowed thyself to be hurled, and prove that thou hast some wisdom. Fortune has been very gracious to thee, if thou but well consider the matter: she has not closed the path of retreat behind thee, so that thou canst easily return along the road which thou hast trodden until now, and be again the same Fiammetta thou wert wont to be. Thy reputation is untouched, and, inasmuch as anything thou mayest have done is unknown to the people, it has suffered no tainture in their minds.
And this is fortunate, for the loss of reputation causes many young women to fall into the lowest depths of infamy. Do not thou advance any farther on this path, lest thou lose that which Fortune has reserved for thee. Try to comfort thyself with the thought that thou hast never seen Panfilo, or that thy husband is Panfilo. Fancy can adapt itself to any purpose, and a good imagination can be so, used as to effect wonders. This alone can restore thy cheerfulness, a thing which thou shouldst desire exceedingly if thy present anguish harms thee as much as all thy deeds and words show that it does.”
To such phrases, or, at least, to phrases resembling them, did I listen, not once, but frequently, giving them my grave and earnest attention, and, albeit they troubled me much, yet did I know them to be, true; but still my badly disposed mind derived little profit from them.
Indeed, after a time, I began tossing about in violent excitement, and it happened at last that I worked myself up to a state of furious irritation and, careless of the presence of my nurse, and, in a hoarse and raging voice (that most unseemly thing when it comes from a woman) which was frequently interrupted by floods of bitter tears, I said:
“Ye Furies of hell, Tisiphone, Megæra, Alecto! ye who pierce the souls of the sorrowful with your secret stings! make straight your appalling locks till every hair stands on end! To your ferocious serpents add new terrors! Then fly swiftly to the foul chamber of that shameless woman; light the abominable torches that shall witness her union with my stolen lover, wave them above the enamored pair as a sign of baneful augury to their most abominable loves!
And all ye other denizens of the sunless abodes of Dis, and all ye gods of the immortal Stygian realm, be present there, and with your horrid moans strike terror into the breasts of these traitors! And thou, abhorred Owl, shriek thy bitterest cry above the ill omened roof! And ye, O Harpies, threaten them with future harm!
Shades of the nether world,
