brought the youth to
Florence. But I will have it suffice me to have told this much of the
present story and return to those for whose behoof I have related it.

Some, then, of my censurers say that I do ill, young ladies, in
studying overmuch to please you and that you please me overmuch. Which
things I do most openly confess, to wit, that you please me and that I
study to please you, and I ask them if they marvel thereat,--considering
(let be the having known the dulcet kisses and amorous embracements
and delightsome couplings that are of you, most sweet ladies, often
gotten) only my having seen and still seeing your dainty manners and
lovesome beauty and sprightly grace and above all your womanly
courtesy,--whenas he who had been reared and bred on a wild and
solitary mountain and within the bounds of a little cell, without
other company than his father, no sooner set eyes on you than you
alone were desired of him, you alone sought, you alone followed with
the eagerness of passion. Will they, then, blame me, back bite me,
rend me with their tongues if I, whose body Heaven created all apt to
love you, I, who from my childhood vowed my soul to you, feeling the
potency of the light of your eyes and the sweetness of your honeyed
words and the flame enkindled by your piteous sighs,--if, I say, you
please me or if I study to please you, seeing that you over all else
pleased a hermitling, a lad without understanding, nay, rather, a wild
animal? Certes, it is only those, who, having neither sense nor
cognizance of the pleasures and potency of natural affection, love you
not nor desire to be loved of you, that chide me thus; and of these I
reck little.

As for those who go railing anent mine age, it would seem they know
ill that, for all the leek hath a white head, the tail thereof is
green. But to these, laying aside pleasantry, I answer that never, no,
not to the extreme limit of my life, shall I repute it to myself for
shame to seek to please those whom Guido Cavalcanti and Dante
Alighieri, when already stricken in years, and Messer Cino da Pistoja,
when a very old man, held in honour and whose approof was dear to
them. And were it not to depart from the wonted usance of discourse, I
would cite history in support and show it to be all full of stories of
ancient and noble men who in their ripest years have still above all
studied to please the ladies, the which an they know not, let them go
learn. That I should abide with