freedom, appears to have deprived thee of understanding as well as of
liberty, I will put thee in mind of many things, and entreat thee to
fling off and banish wicked thoughts from thy chaste bosom, to quench
that unholy fire, and not to make thyself the thrall of unworthy hopes.
Now is the time to be strong in resistance; for whoso makes a stout
fight in the beginning roots out an unhallowed affection, and bears
securely the palm of victory; but whoso, with long and wishful fancies,
fosters it, will try too late to resist a yoke that has been submitted
to almost unresistingly."

"Alas!" I replied, "how far easier it is to say such things than to
lead them to any good result."

"Albeit they be not easy of fulfilment," she said, "yet are they
possible, and they are things that it beseems you to do. Take thou
thought whether it would be fitting that for such a thing as this thou
shouldst lose the luster of thy exalted parentage, the great fame of thy
virtue, the flower of thy beauty, the honor in which thou art now held,
and, above all, the favor of the spouse whom thou hast loved and by whom
thou art loved: certainly, thou shouldst not wish for this; nor do I
believe thou wouldst wish it, if thou didst but weigh the matter
seriously in thine own mind. Wherefore, in the name of God, forbear, and
drive from thy heart the false delights promised by a guilty hope, and,
with them, the madness that has seized thee. By this aged breast, long
harassed by many cares, from which thou didst take thy first nutriment,
I humbly beseech thee to have the courage to aid thyself, to have a
concern for thine own honor, and not to disdain my warnings. Bethink
thee that the very desire to be healed is itself often productive of
health."

Whereto I thus made answer:

"Only too well do I know, dear nurse, the truth of that which thou
sayest. But a furious madness constrains me to follow the worse course;
vainly does my heart, insatiable in its desires, long for strength to
enable it to adopt thy advice; what reason enjoins is rendered of no
avail by this soul-subduing passion. My mind is wholly possessed by
Love, who rules every part thereof, in virtue of his all-embracing
deity; and surely thou art aware that his power is absolute, and 'twere
useless to attempt to resist it."

Having said these words, I became almost unconscious, and fell into her
arms. But she, now more agitated than before, in austere and rebuking
tones, said:

"Ye