by those who strive too much to appear
beautiful; by Fame, who had as followers those too hungry for glory; by
Pluto, signifying Riches, behind whom were seen those eager and greedy
for them, and by Bellona, who was followed by the men enamoured of war;
contriving that the sixth company, which comprised all the five
described above, and to which he wished that they should all be
referred, should be guided by Madness, likewise with a good number of
her followers behind her, signifying that he who sinks himself too deep
and against the inclination of Nature in the above-named desires, which
are in truth dreams and spectres, comes in the end to be seized and
bound by Madness. And then this judgment, turning, as a thing of feast
and carnival, to the amorous, announces to young women that the great
father Sleep is come with all his ministers and companions in order to
show to them with his matutinal dreams, which are reputed as true
(comprised, as has been told, in the first five companies), that all the
above-named things that are done by us against Nature, are to be
considered, as has been said, as dreams and spectres; and therefore,
exhorting them to pursue that to which their nature inclines them, it
appears that in the end he wishes, as it were, to conclude that if they
feel themselves by nature inclined to be loved, they should not seek to
abstain from that natural desire; nay, despising any other counsel as
something vain and mad, they should dispose themselves to follow the
wise, natural, and true. And then, around the Car of Sleep and the masks
that were to express this conception, were accommodated and placed as
ornaments those things that are judged to be in keeping with sleep and
with dreams. There was seen, therefore, after two most beautiful Sirens,
who, blowing two great trumpets in place of two trumpeters, preceded
all the rest, and after two extravagant masks, the guides of all the
others, by which, mingling white, yellow, red, and black over their
cloth of silver, were demonstrated the four humours of which bodies are
composed, and after the bearer of a large red ensign adorned with
various poppies, on which was painted a great gryphon, with three verses
that encircled it, saying:

Non solo aquila e questo, e non leone,
Ma l' uno e l' altro; cosi 'l Sonno ancora
Ed humana e divina ha condizione.

There was seen coming, I say, as has been told above, the joyous Love,
figured as is customary,