g in front, saw I of the bare
bosom uncovered, whiter, than is the new-fallen snow. My pain
would indeed have been alleviated if I could have seen the whole
of the arrow. Right willingly if I had known would I have said
what the tip of the arrow is like: I did not see it; and it is
not my own fault if I cannot tell the fashion of a thing that I
have not seen. Love showed me then nought of it except the notch
and the feathers; for the arrow was put in the quiver; the quiver
is the tunic and the vest wherewith the maid was clad. Faith!
This is the wound that kills me; this is the dart; this is the
ray with which I am so cruelly inflamed. It is ignoble of me to
be angry. Never for provocation or for war shall any pledge that
I must seek of love be broken. Now let Love dispose of me as he
ought to do with what is his; for I wish it, and this is my
pleasure. Never do I seek that this malady should leave me;
rather do I wish it to hold me thus for ever; and that from none
may health come to me if health come not from that source whence
the disease has come."

Great is the plaint of Alexander; but that which the damsel
utters is not a whit less. All night she is in so great pain that
she neither sleeps nor rests. Love has set in array within her a
battle that rages and mightily agitates her heart; and which
causes such anguish and torture that she weeps all night and
complains and tosses and starts up, so that her heart all but
stops beating. And when she has so grieved and sobbed and moaned
and started and sighed, then she has looked in her heart to see
who and of what worth was he for whose sake Love was torturing
her. And when she has recalled each wandering thought, then she
stretches herself and turns over; and turning, she turns to folly
all the thinking she has done. Then she starts on another
argument and says: "Fool! What does it matter to me if this youth
is debonair and wise and courteous and valiant! All this is
honour and advantage to him. And what care I for his beauty? Let
his beauty depart with him--and so it will, for all I can do;
never would I wish to take away aught of it. Take away? Nay,
truly, that do I not assuredly. If he had the wisdom of Solomon,
and if Nature had put so much beauty in him that she could not
have put more in a human body, and if God had put in my hand the
power to destroy all, I would not seek to anger him; but
willingly if I could would I make him more wise and more
beautiful. F