'Where are you going, whom do you flee, fair Galatea? If you part from us who adore you, who shall hope for your company? Ah fair foe! how heedlessly you go your way, triumphing over our affections! May Heaven destroy the warm affection I bear you, if I do not long to see you in love with some one who may value your plaints in the same degree as you value mine! Do you laugh at what I say, Galatea? Then I weep at what you do.' Galatea could not answer Erastro, for she was going away, guiding her flock towards the stream of palms; and bowing her head from afar in token of farewell, she left them. When she saw herself alone, whilst she was making for the spot where her friend Florisa thought she would be, with the exquisite voice Heaven had pleased to give her, she went along singing this sonnet: GALATEA. Away with noose and frost, with dart and fire, Whereby to strangle, freeze, or wound or burn, Love doth essay! 'Tis vain: my soul doth yearn For no such knot, nor doth such flame desire. Let each bind, freeze, kill, press, consume in ire, 'Gainst any other will its anger turn, But mine shall snow or net or arrow spurn, To hold me in its heat let none aspire. My chaste intent will chill the burning flame, The knot I shall break through by force or art, My glowing zeal will melt away the snows, The arrow shall fall blunted by my shame, And thus nor noose nor fire, nor frost nor dart, Shall make me fear, safe in secure repose.