LAUSO.
Unto the ground I sink on bended knee,My suppliant hands clasped humbly, and my breastFilled with a righteous and a loving zeal;Holy disdain, I worship thee; in theeAre summed the causes of the dainty feastWhich I in calm and ease enjoy full well;For, of the rigour of the poison fellWhich Love's ill doth contain,Thou wert the certain and the speedy cure,Turning my ruin sureTo good, my war to healthy peace again.Wherefore not once, but times beyond all measure,I do adore thee as my kindliest treasure.Through thee the light of these my wearied eyes,Which was so long troubled and even lost,Hath turned again to what it was before;Through thee again I glory in the prizeWhich from my will and life at bitter costLove's ancient tyranny in triumph bore.'Twas thou that didst my error's night restoreTo bright unclouded day,'Twas thou that ledd'st the reason, which of oldFoul slavery did hold,Into a peaceful and a wiser way;Reason, now mistress, guideth me to whereEternal bliss doth show and shine more clear.From thee I learned, disdain, how treacherous,How false and feigned had been those signs of love,Which the fair maid did to my eyes display,And how those words and whispers amorous,That charmed the ear so much, and caused to roveThe soul, leading it from itself astray,Were framed in falsehood and in mockery gay;How the glance of those eyes,So sweet and tender, did but seek my doom,That unto winter's gloomMight be transformed my springtime's sunny skies,What time I should be clearly undeceived;But, sweet disdain, thou hast the wound relieved.Disdain, disdain, ever the sharpest goadThat urges on the fancy to pursueAfter the loving, long-desirèd need,In me changed is thy practice and thy mood,For, by thee led, the purpose I eschewWhich once I followed hard with unseen speed;And, though Love, ill-contented with my deed,Doth never, never, rest,But spreads the noose to seize me as before,And, to wound me the more,Aimeth a thousand shafts against my breast,'Tis thou, disdain, alone that art my friend,Thou canst his arrows break, his meshes rend.My love, though simple, yet is not so weakThat one disdain could bring it to the ground,Countless disdains were needed for the blow,E'en as the pine is doomed at last to breakAnd fall to earth—though on its trunk resoundFull many a blow, the last 'tis brings it low.Weighty disdain, with countenance of woe,Who art on love's absence based,On poor opinion of another's lot,To see thee hath been fraughtWith joy to me, to hear thee and to taste,To know that thou hast deigned, with soul alliedTo beat down and to end my foolish pride.Thou beatest down my folly, and dost aidThe intellect to rise on lofty wingAnd shake off heavy slumber from the mind,So that with healthy purpose undismayedIt may the power and praise of others sing,If it perchance a grateful mistress find.Thou hast the henbane, wherewith Love unkindLullèd my sorrowing strengthTo slumber, robbed of vigour, thou, in prideOf glowing strength, dost guideMe back unto new life and ways at length,For now I know that I am one who mayFear within bounds and hope without dismay.
Unto the ground I sink on bended knee,My suppliant hands clasped humbly, and my breastFilled with a righteous and a loving zeal;Holy disdain, I worship thee; in theeAre summed the causes of the dainty feastWhich I in calm and ease enjoy full well;For, of the rigour of the poison fellWhich Love's ill doth contain,Thou wert the certain and the speedy cure,Turning my ruin sureTo good, my war to healthy peace again.Wherefore not once, but times beyond all measure,I do adore thee as my kindliest treasure.Through thee the light of these my wearied eyes,Which was so long troubled and even lost,Hath turned again to what it was before;Through thee again I glory in the prizeWhich from my will and life at bitter costLove's ancient tyranny in triumph bore.'Twas thou that didst my error's night restoreTo bright unclouded day,'Twas thou that ledd'st the reason, which of oldFoul slavery did hold,Into a peaceful and a wiser way;Reason, now mistress, guideth me to whereEternal bliss doth show and shine more clear.From thee I learned, disdain, how treacherous,How false and feigned had been those signs of love,Which the fair maid did to my eyes display,And how those words and whispers amorous,That charmed the ear so much, and caused to roveThe soul, leading it from itself astray,Were framed in falsehood and in mockery gay;How the glance of those eyes,So sweet and tender, did but seek my doom,That unto winter's gloomMight be transformed my springtime's sunny skies,What time I should be clearly undeceived;But, sweet disdain, thou hast the wound relieved.Disdain, disdain, ever the sharpest goadThat urges on the fancy to pursueAfter the loving, long-desirèd need,In me changed is thy practice and thy mood,For, by thee led, the purpose I eschewWhich once I followed hard with unseen speed;And, though Love, ill-contented with my deed,Doth never, never, rest,But spreads the noose to seize me as before,And, to wound me the more,Aimeth a thousand shafts against my breast,'Tis thou, disdain, alone that art my friend,Thou canst his arrows break, his meshes rend.My love, though simple, yet is not so weakThat one disdain could bring it to the ground,Countless disdains were needed for the blow,E'en as the pine is doomed at last to breakAnd fall to earth—though on its trunk resoundFull many a blow, the last 'tis brings it low.Weighty disdain, with countenance of woe,Who art on love's absence based,On poor opinion of another's lot,To see thee hath been fraughtWith joy to me, to hear thee and to taste,To know that thou hast deigned, with soul alliedTo beat down and to end my foolish pride.Thou beatest down my folly, and dost aidThe intellect to rise on lofty wingAnd shake off heavy slumber from the mind,So that with healthy purpose undismayedIt may the power and praise of others sing,If it perchance a grateful mistress find.Thou hast the henbane, wherewith Love unkindLullèd my sorrowing strengthTo slumber, robbed of vigour, thou, in prideOf glowing strength, dost guideMe back unto new life and ways at length,For now I know that I am one who mayFear within bounds and hope without dismay.
Unto the ground I sink on bended knee,My suppliant hands clasped humbly, and my breastFilled with a righteous and a loving zeal;Holy disdain, I worship thee; in theeAre summed the causes of the dainty feastWhich I in calm and ease enjoy full well;For, of the rigour of the poison fellWhich Love's ill doth contain,Thou wert the certain and the speedy cure,Turning my ruin sureTo good, my war to healthy peace again.Wherefore not once, but times beyond all measure,I do adore thee as my kindliest treasure.
Through thee the light of these my wearied eyes,Which was so long troubled and even lost,Hath turned again to what it was before;Through thee again I glory in the prizeWhich from my will and life at bitter costLove's ancient tyranny in triumph bore.'Twas thou that didst my error's night restoreTo bright unclouded day,'Twas thou that ledd'st the reason, which of oldFoul slavery did hold,Into a peaceful and a wiser way;Reason, now mistress, guideth me to whereEternal bliss doth show and shine more clear.
From thee I learned, disdain, how treacherous,How false and feigned had been those signs of love,Which the fair maid did to my eyes display,And how those words and whispers amorous,That charmed the ear so much, and caused to roveThe soul, leading it from itself astray,Were framed in falsehood and in mockery gay;How the glance of those eyes,So sweet and tender, did but seek my doom,That unto winter's gloomMight be transformed my springtime's sunny skies,What time I should be clearly undeceived;But, sweet disdain, thou hast the wound relieved.
Disdain, disdain, ever the sharpest goadThat urges on the fancy to pursueAfter the loving, long-desirèd need,In me changed is thy practice and thy mood,For, by thee led, the purpose I eschewWhich once I followed hard with unseen speed;And, though Love, ill-contented with my deed,Doth never, never, rest,But spreads the noose to seize me as before,And, to wound me the more,Aimeth a thousand shafts against my breast,'Tis thou, disdain, alone that art my friend,Thou canst his arrows break, his meshes rend.
My love, though simple, yet is not so weakThat one disdain could bring it to the ground,Countless disdains were needed for the blow,E'en as the pine is doomed at last to breakAnd fall to earth—though on its trunk resoundFull many a blow, the last 'tis brings it low.Weighty disdain, with countenance of woe,Who art on love's absence based,On poor opinion of another's lot,To see thee hath been fraughtWith joy to me, to hear thee and to taste,To know that thou hast deigned, with soul alliedTo beat down and to end my foolish pride.
Thou beatest down my folly, and dost aidThe intellect to rise on lofty wingAnd shake off heavy slumber from the mind,So that with healthy purpose undismayedIt may the power and praise of others sing,If it perchance a grateful mistress find.Thou hast the henbane, wherewith Love unkindLullèd my sorrowing strengthTo slumber, robbed of vigour, thou, in prideOf glowing strength, dost guideMe back unto new life and ways at length,For now I know that I am one who mayFear within bounds and hope without dismay.
Lauso sang no more, though what he had sung sufficed to fill those present with wonder, for, as all knew that the day before he was so much in love and so content to be so, it made them marvel to see him in so short a space of time so changed and so different from what he was wont to be. And having considered this well, his friend Thyrsis said to him:
'I know not, friend Lauso, if I should congratulate you on the bliss attained in such brief hours, for I fear that it cannot be as firm and sure as you imagine; but nevertheless I am glad that you enjoy, though it may be for a little while, the pleasure that freedom when attained causes in the soul, since it might be that knowing now how it should be valued, though you might turn again to the broken chains and bonds, you would use more force to break them, drawn by the sweetness and delight a free understanding and an unimpassioned will enjoy.'
'Have no fear, discreet Thyrsis,' replied Lauso, 'that any other new artifice may suffice for me to place once more my feet in the stocks of love, nor count me so light and capricious but that it has cost me, to set me in the state in which I am, countless reflections, a thousand verified suspicions, a thousand fulfilled promises made to Heaven, that I might return to the light I had lost; and since in the light I now see how little I saw before, I will strive to preserve it in the best way I can.'
'There will be no other way so good,' said Thyrsis, 'as not to turn to look at what you leave behind, for you will lose, if you turn, the freedom that has cost you so much, and you will be left, as was left that heedless lover, with new causes for ceaseless lament; and be assured, friend Lauso, that there is not in the world a breast so loving, which disdain and needless arrogance do not cool, and even cause to withdraw from its ill-placed thoughts. And I am made to believe this truth the more, knowing who Silena is, though you have never told it me, and knowing also her fickle mood, her hasty impulses, and the freedom, to give it no other name, of her inclinations, things which, if she did not temper them and cloak them with the peerless beauty wherewith Heaven has endowed her, would have made her abhorred by all the world.'
'You speak truth, Thyrsis,' replied Lauso, 'for without any doubt her remarkable beauty, and the appearances of incomparable modesty wherewith she arrays herself are reasons why she should be not only loved but adored by all that behold her. And so no one should marvel that my free will has submitted to enemies so strong and mighty; only it is right that one should marvel at the way I have been able to escape from them, for though I come from their hands so ill-treated, with will impaired, understanding disturbed, and memory decayed, yet it seems to me that I can conquer in the strife.'
The two shepherds did not proceed further in their discourse, for at this moment they saw a fair shepherdess coming by the very road they were going, and a little way from her a shepherd, who was straightway recognised, for he was the old Arsindo, and the shepherdess was Galercio's sister, Maurisa. And when she was recognised by Galatea and Florisa, they understood that she was coming with some message from Grisaldo to Rosaura, and as the pair went forward to welcome her, Maurisa came to embrace Galatea, and the old Arsindo greeted all the shepherds, and embraced his friend Lauso, who had a great desire to know what Arsindo had done after they told him that he had gone off in pursuit of Maurisa. And when he was now seen coming back with her, he straightway began to lose with him and with all the character his white hairs had won for him, and he would even have lost it altogether, had not those who were there known so well from experience to what point andhow far the force of love extended, and so in the very ones who blamed him he found excuses for his error. And it seems that Arsindo, guessing what the shepherds guessed of him, as though to satisfy and excuse his affection, said to them:
'Listen, shepherds, to one of the strangest love-affairs that for many years can have been seen on these our banks, or on others. I believe full well that you know, and we all know, the renowned shepherd Lenio, him whose loveless disposition won him the name of loveless, him who not many days ago, merely to speak ill of love, dared to enter into rivalry with the famous Thyrsis, who is present; him, I say, who never could move his tongue, were it not to speak ill of love; him who with such earnestness was wont to reprove those whom he saw distressed by the pangs of love. He, then, being so open an enemy of Love, has come to the pass that I am sure Love has no one who follows him more earnestly, nor yet has he a vassal whom he persecutes more, for he has made him fall in love with the loveless Gelasia, that cruel shepherdess, who the other day, as you saw, held the brother of this damsel' (pointing to Maurisa), 'who resembles her so closely in disposition, with the rope at his throat, to finish at the hands of her cruelty his short and ill-starred days. I say in a word, shepherds, that Lenio the loveless is dying for the hard-hearted Gelasia, and for her he fills the air with sighs and the earth with tears; and what is worse in this is that it seems to me that Love has wished to avenge himself on Lenio's rebellious heart, handing him over to the hardest and most scornful shepherdess that has been seen; and he knowing it, now seeks in all he says and does to reconcile himself with Love; and in the same terms with which before he abused him, he now exalts and honours him. And nevertheless, neither is Love moved to favour him, nor Gelasia inclined to heal him, as I have seen with my eyes; since, not many hours ago, as I was coming in the company of this shepherdess, we found him at the spring of slates stretched on the ground, his face covered with a cold sweat, and his breast panting with strange rapidity. I went up to him and recognised him, and with the water of the spring sprinkled his face, whereat he recovered his lost senses; and drawing close to him I asked him the cause of his grief, which he told me without missing a word, telling it me with such tender feeling, that he inspired it in this shepherdess, in whom I think there never was contained the sign of any compassion. He dwelt on Gelasia's cruelty, and the love he had for her, and the suspicion that reigned in him that Love had brought him to such a state to avenge himself at one blow for the many wrongs he had done him. I consoled him as best I could, and leaving him free from his past paroxysm, I come accompanying this shepherdess, and to seek you, Lauso, in order that, if you would be willing, we may return to our huts,for it is ten days since we left them, and it may be that our herds feel our absence more than we do theirs.'
'I know not if I should tell you in reply, Arsindo,' replied Lauso, 'that I believe you invite me rather out of compliment than for anything else to return to our huts, having as much to do in those of others, as your ten days' absence from me has shown. But leaving on one side most of what I could say to you thereon for a better time and opportunity, tell me again if it is true what you say of Lenio; for if it is, I may declare that Love has wrought in these days two of the greatest miracles he has wrought in all the days of his life, namely, to subdue and enslave Lenio's hard heart, and to set free mine which was so subjected.'
'Look to what you are saying, friend Lauso,' then said Orompo, 'for if Love held you subject, as you have indicated hitherto, how has the same Love now set you in the freedom you proclaim?'
'If you would understand me, Orompo,' replied Lauso, 'you will see that I in no wise contradict myself, for I say, or mean to say, that the love that reigned and reigns in the breast of her whom I loved so dearly, as it directs itself to a purpose different from mine, though it is all love,—the effect it has wrought in me is to place me in freedom and Lenio in slavery; and do not compel me, Orompo, to relate other miracles with these.'
And as he said this he turned his eyes to look at the old Arsindo, and with them uttered what with his tongue he kept back; for all understood that the third miracle he might have related would have been the sight of Arsindo's gray hairs in love with the few green years of Maurisa. She was talking apart all this time with Galatea and Florisa, telling them that on the morrow Grisaldo would be in the village in shepherd's garb, and that he thought there to wed Rosaura in secret, for publicly he could not, because the kinsmen of Leopersia, to whom his father had agreed to marry him, had learned that Grisaldo was about to fail in his plighted word, and they in no wise wished such a wrong to be done them; but nevertheless Grisaldo was determined to conform rather to what he owed to Rosaura than to the obligation in which he stood to his father.
'All that I have told you, shepherdesses,' went on Maurisa, 'my brother Galercio told me to tell you. He was coming to you with this message, but the cruel Gelasia whose beauty ever draws after it the soul of my luckless brother, was the cause why he could not come to tell you what I have said, since, in order to follow her, he ceased to follow the way he was taking, trusting in me as a sister. You have now learned, shepherdesses, why I have come. Where is Rosaura to tell it her? or do you tell it her, for the anguish in which my brother lies does not permit me to remain here a moment longer.'
Whilst the shepherdess was saying this, Galatea was considering the grievous reply she intended to give her, and the sad tidings that must needs reach the ears of the luckless Grisaldo; but seeing that she could not escape giving them, and that it was worse to detain her, she straightway told her all that had happened to Rosaura, and how Artandro was carrying her off; whereat Maurisa was amazed, and at once would fain have returned to tell Grisaldo, had not Galatea detained her, asking her what had become of the two shepherdesses who had gone away with her and Galercio, to which Maurisa replied:
'I might tell you things about them, Galatea, which would set you in greater wonder than that in which Rosaura's fate has set me, but time does not give me opportunity for it. I only tell you that she who was called Leonarda has betrothed herself to my brother Artidoro by the subtlest trick that has ever been seen; and Teolinda, the other one, is in the pass of ending her life or of losing her wits, and she is only sustained by the sight of Galercio, for, as his appearance resembles so much that of my brother Artidoro, she does not depart from his company for a moment, a thing which is as irksome and vexatious to Galercio as the company of the cruel Gelasia is sweet and pleasing to him. The manner in which this took place I will tell you more in detail, when we see each other again; for it will not be right that by my delay the remedy should be hindered, that Grisaldo may have in his misfortune, using to remedy it all diligence possible. For, if it is only this morning that Artandro carried off Rosaura, he will not have been able to go so far from these banks as to take away from Grisaldo the hope of recovering her, and more so if I quicken my steps as I intend.'
Galatea approved of what Maurisa was saying, and so she did not wish to detain her longer; only she begged her to be kind enough to return to see her as soon as she could, to relate to her what had happened to Teolinda, and what had happened in Rosaura's affair. The shepherdess promised it her, and without staying longer, took leave of those who were there, and returned to her village, leaving all contented with her charm and beauty. But he who felt her departure most was the old Arsindo, who, not to give clear tokens of his desire, had to remain as lonely without Maurisa as he was accompanied by his thoughts. The shepherdesses, too, were left amazed at what they had heard about Teolinda, and desired exceedingly to learn her fate; and, whilst in this state, they heard the clear sound of a horn, which was sounding on their right hand, and turning their eyes to that side, they saw on the top of a hill of some height two old shepherds who had between them an aged priest, whom they straightway knew to be the old Telesio. And, one of the shepherds having blown the horn a second time, the three all descended from the hill and journeyed towards anotherwhich was hard by, and having ascended it, they again blew the horn, at the sound of which many shepherds began to move from different parts to come to see what Telesio desired; for by that signal he was wont to call together all the shepherds of that bank whenever he wished to address to them some useful discourse, or to tell them of the death of some renowned shepherd in those parts, or in order to bring to their minds the day of some solemn festival or of some sad funeral rites. Aurelio then, and almost all the shepherds who came there, having recognised Telesio's costume and calling, all came on, drawing nigh to where he was, and when they got there, they were already united in one group. But, as Telesio saw so many people coming, and recognised how important all were, descending from the hill, he went to receive them with much love and courtesy, and with the same courtesy was received by all. And Aurelio, going up to Telesio, said to him:
'Tell us, if you be so good, honourable and venerable Telesio, what new cause moves you to wish to assemble the shepherds of these meadows; is it by chance for joyous festival or sad funereal rite? Do you wish to point out to us something appertaining to the improvement of our lives? Tell us, Telesio, what your will ordains, since you know that ours will not depart from all that yours might wish.'
'May Heaven repay you, shepherds,' answered Telesio, 'for the sincerity of your purposes, since they conform so much to that of him who seeks only your good and profit. But to satisfy the desire you have to learn what I wish, I wish to bring to your memory the memory you ought ever to retain of the worth and fame of the famous and excellent shepherd Meliso, whose mournful obsequies are renewed and ever will be renewed from year to year on to-morrow's date so long as there be shepherds on our banks, and in our souls there be not wanting the knowledge of what is due to Meliso's goodness and worth. At least for myself I can tell you that, as long as my life shall last, I shall not fail to remind you at the fitting time of the obligation under which you have been placed by the skill, courtesy, and virtue of the peerless Meliso. And so now I remind you of it and make known to you that to-morrow is the day when the luckless day must be renewed on which we lost so much good, as it was to lose the agreeable presence of the prudent shepherd Meliso. By what you owe to his goodness, and by what you owe to the purpose I have to serve you, I pray you shepherds to be to-morrow at break of day all in the valley of cypresses, where stands the tomb of Meliso's honoured ashes, in order that there with sad hymns and pious sacrifices we may seek to lighten the pain, if any it suffers, of that happy soul which has left us in such solitude.'
And as he said this, moved by the tender regret the memory ofMeliso's death caused him, his venerable eyes filled with tears, most of the bystanders accompanying him therein. They all with one accord offered to be present on the morrow where Telesio bade them, and Timbrio and Silerio, Nisida and Blanca did the same, for it seemed to them that it would not be well to fail to attend at so solemn an occasion and in an assembly of shepherds so celebrated as they imagined would assemble there. Therewith they took leave of Telesio and resumed the journey to the village they had begun. But they had not gone far from that place when they saw coming towards them the loveless Lenio, with a countenance so sad and thoughtful that it set wonder in all; and he was coming so rapt in his fancies that he passed by the side of the shepherds without seeing them; nay, rather, turning his course to the left hand, he had not gone many steps when he flung himself down at the foot of a green willow; and giving forth a heavy and deep sigh, he raised his hand, and placing it on the collar of his skin-coat, pulled so strongly that he tore it all the way down, and straightway he took the wallet from his side, and drawing from it a polished rebeck, he set himself to tune it with great attention and calm; and after a little while he began in a mournful and harmonious voice to sing in such a manner that he constrained all who had seen him to stop to listen to him until the end of his song, which was as follows:
LENIO.
Sweet Love, I repent me nowOf my past presumptuous guilt,I feel henceforth and avowThat on scoffing it was built,Reared aloft on mocking show;Now my proud self I abaseAnd my rebel neck I place'Neath thy yoke of slavery,Now I know the potencyOf thy great far-spreading grace.What thou willest, thou canst do,And what none can do, thou willest,Who thou art, well dost thou showIn thy mood whereby thou killest,In thy pleasure and thy woe;I am he—the truth is plain—Who did count thy bliss as pain,Thy deceiving undeceiving,And thy verities as deceiving,As caresses thy disdain.These have now made manifest—Though the truth I knew before—To my poor submissive breastThat thou only art the shoreWhere our wearied lives find rest;For the tempest pitilessWhich doth most the soul distress,Thou dost change to peaceful calm,Thou'rt the soul's delight and balm.And the food that doth it bless.Since I this confession make—Late though my confession be—Love, seek not my strength to break,Temper thy severity,From my neck the burden take;When the foe hath made submission,None need punish his contrition,He doth not himself defend.Now I fain would be thy friend,Yet from thee comes my perdition.From the stubbornness I turnWhere my malice did me placeAnd the presence of thy scorn,From thy justice to thy graceI appeal with heart forlorn;If the poor worth of my mindWith thy grace no favour find,—With thy well-known grace divine—Soon shall I my life resignTo the hands of grief unkind.By Gelasia's hands am IPlunged into so strange a plight,That if my grief stubbornlyWith her stubbornness shall fight,Soon methinks they both will die;Tell me, maiden pitiless,Filled with pride and scornfulness,Why thou wishest, I implore thee,That the heart which doth adore thee,Should thus suffer, shepherdess.
Sweet Love, I repent me nowOf my past presumptuous guilt,I feel henceforth and avowThat on scoffing it was built,Reared aloft on mocking show;Now my proud self I abaseAnd my rebel neck I place'Neath thy yoke of slavery,Now I know the potencyOf thy great far-spreading grace.What thou willest, thou canst do,And what none can do, thou willest,Who thou art, well dost thou showIn thy mood whereby thou killest,In thy pleasure and thy woe;I am he—the truth is plain—Who did count thy bliss as pain,Thy deceiving undeceiving,And thy verities as deceiving,As caresses thy disdain.These have now made manifest—Though the truth I knew before—To my poor submissive breastThat thou only art the shoreWhere our wearied lives find rest;For the tempest pitilessWhich doth most the soul distress,Thou dost change to peaceful calm,Thou'rt the soul's delight and balm.And the food that doth it bless.Since I this confession make—Late though my confession be—Love, seek not my strength to break,Temper thy severity,From my neck the burden take;When the foe hath made submission,None need punish his contrition,He doth not himself defend.Now I fain would be thy friend,Yet from thee comes my perdition.From the stubbornness I turnWhere my malice did me placeAnd the presence of thy scorn,From thy justice to thy graceI appeal with heart forlorn;If the poor worth of my mindWith thy grace no favour find,—With thy well-known grace divine—Soon shall I my life resignTo the hands of grief unkind.By Gelasia's hands am IPlunged into so strange a plight,That if my grief stubbornlyWith her stubbornness shall fight,Soon methinks they both will die;Tell me, maiden pitiless,Filled with pride and scornfulness,Why thou wishest, I implore thee,That the heart which doth adore thee,Should thus suffer, shepherdess.
Sweet Love, I repent me nowOf my past presumptuous guilt,I feel henceforth and avowThat on scoffing it was built,Reared aloft on mocking show;Now my proud self I abaseAnd my rebel neck I place'Neath thy yoke of slavery,Now I know the potencyOf thy great far-spreading grace.
What thou willest, thou canst do,And what none can do, thou willest,Who thou art, well dost thou showIn thy mood whereby thou killest,In thy pleasure and thy woe;I am he—the truth is plain—Who did count thy bliss as pain,Thy deceiving undeceiving,And thy verities as deceiving,As caresses thy disdain.
These have now made manifest—Though the truth I knew before—To my poor submissive breastThat thou only art the shoreWhere our wearied lives find rest;For the tempest pitilessWhich doth most the soul distress,Thou dost change to peaceful calm,Thou'rt the soul's delight and balm.And the food that doth it bless.
Since I this confession make—Late though my confession be—Love, seek not my strength to break,Temper thy severity,From my neck the burden take;When the foe hath made submission,None need punish his contrition,He doth not himself defend.Now I fain would be thy friend,Yet from thee comes my perdition.
From the stubbornness I turnWhere my malice did me placeAnd the presence of thy scorn,From thy justice to thy graceI appeal with heart forlorn;If the poor worth of my mindWith thy grace no favour find,—With thy well-known grace divine—Soon shall I my life resignTo the hands of grief unkind.
By Gelasia's hands am IPlunged into so strange a plight,That if my grief stubbornlyWith her stubbornness shall fight,Soon methinks they both will die;Tell me, maiden pitiless,Filled with pride and scornfulness,Why thou wishest, I implore thee,That the heart which doth adore thee,Should thus suffer, shepherdess.
Little it was that Lenio sang, but his flood of tears was so copious that he would there have been consumed in them, had not the shepherds come up to console him. But when he saw them coming and recognised Thyrsis among them, he arose without further delay and went to fling himself at his feet, closely embracing his knees, and said to him without ceasing his tears:
'Now you can, famous shepherd, take just vengeance for the boldness I had to compete with you, defending the unjust cause my ignorance set before me; now, I say, you can raise your arm and with a sharp knife pierce this heart where was contained foolishness so notorious as it was not to count Love the universal lord of the world. But one thing I would have you know, that if you wish to take vengeance duly on my error, you should leave me with the life I sustain, which is such that there is no death to compare to it.'
Thyrsis had already raised the hapless Lenio from the ground, and having embraced him, sought to console him with discreet and loving words, saying to him:
'The greatest fault there is in faults, friend Lenio, is to persist in them, for it is the disposition of devils never to repent of errors committed, and likewise one of the chief causes which moves and constrains men to pardon offences is for the offended one to see repentance in the one who gives offence, and the more when the pardoning is in the hands of one who does nothing in doing this act, since his noble disposition draws and compels him to do it, he remaining richer and more satisfied with the pardon than with the vengeance; as we see it repeatedly in great lords and kings, who gain more glory in pardoning wrongs than in avenging them. And since you, Lenio, confess the error in which you have been and now know the mighty forces of Love, and understand of him that he is the universal lord of our hearts, by reason of this new knowledge and of the repentance you feel, you can be confident and live assured that gentle and kindly Love will soon restore you to a calm and loving life; for if he now punishes you by giving you the painful life you lead, he does it so that you may know him and may afterwards hold and esteem more highly the life of joy he surely thinks to give you.'
To these words Elicio and the remaining shepherds who were there, added many others whereby it seemed that Lenio was somewhat more consoled. And straightway he related to them how he was dying for the cruel shepherdess Gelasia, emphasising to them the scornful and loveless disposition of hers, and how free and exempt she was from thinking on any goal in love, describing to them also the insufferable torment which for her sake the gentle shepherd Galercio was suffering, on whom she set so little store that a thousand times she had set him on the verge of suicide. But after they had for a while discoursed on these things, they resumed their journey, taking Lenio with them, and without anything else happening to them they reached the village, Elicio taking with him Thyrsis, Damon, Erastro, Lauso and Arsindo. With Daranio went Crisio, Orfenio, Marsilio, and Orompo. Florisa and the other shepherdesses went with Galatea and her father Aurelio, having first agreed that on the morrow at the coming of the dawn they should meet to go to the valley of cypresses as Telesio had bidden them, in order to celebrate Meliso's obsequies. At them, as has already been said, Timbrio, Silerio, Nisida and Blanca wished to be present, who went that night with the venerable Aurelio.