had given me a suspicion, so that even now I have not forgotten them. Though it may be irksome to you to hear them, I shall have to repeat them to you, only because they are needful for you to understand, stage by stage, through what stages love has brought me to the pass in which I find myself. They are as follows: Wild, close-confined and gloomy be his night, Never may he behold the longed-for day, Incessant and unending be his woe, Far, far away from bliss, and joy, and laughter, Ought he to be, wrapt in a living death, Whoso without sweet Love shall spend his life. Full though it be of joyousness, yet life Naught save the shade can be of briefest night, The veritable counterfeit of death, If during all the hours that fill the day It doth not silence every pang of woe, And gladly, gladly welcome Love's sweet laughter. Where liveth gentle Love, there liveth laughter, And where Love dieth, dieth too our life, Our choicest pleasure is transformed to woe, Into the darkness of eternal night Is changed the radiance of the peaceful day, Life without Love is naught but bitter death. Dangers wherein the issue is but death The lover doth not flee: rather with laughter He seeks his chance and longeth for the day, When he may offer up his treasured life-- Until he shall behold the last calm night-- Unto Love's flame, and unto Love's sweet woe. The woe that is of Love, we call not woe, Nor yet the death that Love bestoweth, death: Let none to Love's night give the name of night, Nor call Love's laughter by the name of laughter. His life alone can be accounted life, Our only merriment his joyous day. Oh blest, thrice-blest to me this happy day, Whereon I can restrain my bitter woe, Rejoicing that I have bestowed my life On her who can bestow or life or death! What will it be, what can I hope save laughter From that proud face that turns the sun to night? Love hath my cloudy night to cloudless day Transformed, to laughter my increasing woe, And my approaching death to length of life. These were the verses, fair shepherdesses, which my Artidoro sang that day with wondrous grace and no less pleasure on the part of those that heard him. From them, and from the words he had spoken to me before, I took occasion to consider if by chance the sight of me had caused some new sensation of love in Artidoro's breast; and my suspicion did not turn out so vain, but that he himself justified it to me on our return to the village.'