'After our dance and Artidoro's song were ended, as I have already told you, fair shepherdesses, it seemed good to all of us to return to the village to perform in the temple the solemn rites, and because it likewise seemed to us that the solemnity of the feast in some way gave us liberty; but not being so punctilious as to seclusion, we enjoyed ourselves with more freedom. Wherefore we all, shepherds and shepherdesses, in a confused mass, with gladness and rejoicing returned to the village, speaking each with the one who pleased him best. Fate, and my care, and Artidoro's solicitude also ordained that, without any display of artifice in the matter, we two kept apart from the rest in such a manner that on the way we might safely have said more than what we did say, if each of us had not respected what we owed to ourselves and to each other. At length I said to him, to draw him out, as the saying goes: "The days you have spent in our village, Artidoro, will be years to you, since in your own you must have things to occupy you which must give you greater pleasure." "All that I can hope for in my life," replied Artidoro, "would I exchange, if only the days I have to spend here might be, not years, but centuries, since, when they come to an end, I do not hope to pass others that may give me greater joy." "Is the joy you feel so great," I replied, "at seeing our festivals?" "It does not arise from this," he answered, "but from regarding the beauty of the shepherdesses of your village." "In truth," I retorted, "pretty girls must be wanting in yours." "The truth is that they are not wanting there," he replied, "but that here there is a superabundance, so that one single one I have seen is enough for those of yonder place to count themselves ugly compared to her." "Your courtesy makes you say this, oh Artidoro," I replied, "for I know full well that in this hamlet there is no one who excels so much as you say." "I know better that what I say is true," he answered, "since I have seen the one and beheld the others." "Perhaps you beheld her from afar, and the distance between," said I, "made you see a different thing from what it really was." "In the same way," he replied, "as I see and am beholding you now, I beheld and saw her. Happy should I be to have been mistaken, if her disposition does not agree with her beauty." "It would not grieve me to be the one you say, for the pleasure she must feel who sees herself proclaimed and accounted beautiful." "I would much rather that you were not," replied Artidoro. "Then what would you lose," I answered, "if instead of not being the one you say, I were?" "What I have gained, I know full well," he replied, "as to what I have to lose, I am doubtful and in fear." "You know well how to play the lover, Artidoro," said I. "You know better how to inspire love, Teolinda," he replied. Thereon I said to him, "I do not know if I should tell you, Artidoro, that I wish neither of us to be deceived."