Alexander loves and desires her who is sighing for his love; but he knows not, and will not know aught of this until he shall have suffered many an ill and many a grief. For love of her he serves the queen and the ladies of her chamber; but he does not dare to speak to or address her who is most in his mind. If she had dared to maintain against him the right which she thinks is hers in the matter, willingly would he have told him of it; but she neither dares nor ought to do so. And the fact that the one sees the other, and that they dare not speak or act, turns to great adversity for them; and love grows thereby and burns. But it is the custom of all lovers that they willingly feed their eyes on looks if they can do no better, and think that because the source whence their love buds and grows delights them therefore it must help their case, whereas it injures them: just as the man who approaches and comes close to the fire burns himself more than the man who draws back from it. Their love grows and increases continually; but the one feels shame before the other; and each conceals and hides this love so that neither flame nor smoke is seen from the gleed beneath the ashes. But the heat is none the less for that; rather the heat lasts longer below the gleed than above it. Both the lovers are in very great anguish; for in order that their complaint may not be known or perceived, each must deceive all men by false pretence; but in the night great is the plaint which each makes in solitude.