hinking perfect peace to find,
And all my arms upon the ground I laid,
Yielding myself to thee with trustful mind:
Thou, harpy-tyrant, whom no faith may bind,
Eftsoons didst swoop on me,
And with thy cruel claws mad'st me thy prey.

Then thy poor captive, bound with many a chain,
Thou tookst, and gav'st to him, whom fate did call
Hither my death to be; for that in pain
And bitter tears I waste away, his thrall:
Nor heave I e'er a sigh, or tear let fall,
So harsh a lord is he,
That him inclines a jot my grief to allay.

My prayers upon the idle air are spent:
He hears not, will not hear; wherefore in vain
The more each hour my soul doth her torment;
Nor may I die, albeit to die were gain.
Ah! Lord, have pity of my bitter pain!
Help have I none but thee;
Then take and bind and at my feet him lay.

But if thou wilt not, do my soul but loose
From hope, that her still binds with triple chain.
Sure, O my Lord, this prayer thou'lt not refuse:
The which so thou to grant me do but deign,
I look my wonted beauty to regain,
And banish misery
With roses white and red bedecked and gay.

So with a most piteous sigh ended Elisa her song, whereat all wondered
exceedingly, nor might any conjecture wherefore she so sang. But the
king, who was in a jolly humour, sent for Tindaro, and bade him out with
his cornemuse, and caused them tread many a measure thereto, until, no
small part of the night being thus spent, he gave leave to all to betake
them to rest.

--
Endeth here the sixth day of the Decameron, beginneth the seventh, in
which, under the rule of Dioneo, discourse is had of the tricks which,
either for love or for their deliverance from peril, ladies have
heretofore played their husbands, and whether they were by the said
husbands detected, or no.
--

Fled was now each star from the eastern sky, save only that which we call
Lucifer, which still glowed in the whitening dawn, when uprose the
seneschal, and with a goodly baggage-train hied him to the Ladies' Vale,
there to make all things ready according to the ordinance and commandment
of the king. Nor was it long after his departure that the king rose,
being awaked by the stir and bustle that the servants made in lading the
horses, and being risen he likewise roused all the ladies and the other
gallants; and so, when as yet 'twas scarce clear daybreak, they all took
the road; nor seemed it to them that the nightingales