'These and other things of more jest and laughter I then sang to Timbrio, seeking to adapt the spirit and bearing of my body, so that I might in every way show myself a practised buffoon: and so well did I get on in the part, that in a few days I was known by all the chief people in the city, and the fame of the Spanish buffoon flew through it all, until at last they desired to see me in the house of Nisida's father, which desire I would have fulfilled for them with much readiness, if I had not purposely waited to be asked. But at length I could not excuse myself from going there one day when they had a banquet, where I saw more closely the just cause Timbrio had for suffering, and that which Heaven gave me to rob me of happiness all the days I shall remain in this life. I saw Nisida, Nisida I saw, that I might see no more, nor is there more to see after having seen her. Oh mighty power of love, against which our mighty powers avail but little! can it be that in an instant, in a moment, thou shouldst bring the props and armaments of my loyalty to such a pass, as to level them all with the ground! Ah, if only the thought of who I was had stayed with me a little for aid, the friendship I owed to Timbrio, Nisida's great worth, and the ignominious costume in which I found myself, which all hindered the hope of winning her (the staff wherewith love, in the beginnings of love, advances or retires) from springing up together with the new and loving desire that had sprung up in me. In a word I saw the beauty I have told you, and since to see her was of such moment to me, I sought ever to win the friendship of her parents, and of all her household; and this by playing the wit and the man of breeding, playing my part with the greatest discretion and grace in my power. And when a gentleman who was at table that day asked me to sing something in praise of Nisida's beauty, fortune willed that I should call to mind some verses, which I had made, many days before, for another all but similar occasion; and adopting them for the present one, I repeated them to this effect: SILERIO. 'Tis from thine own self we see, Lady fair, how kind is Heaven, For it hath, in giving thee, Unto earth an image given, Of its veiled radiancy. Easily we come to know, If it could not more bestow And thou couldst no more desire, That he highly must aspire, Who aspires your praise to show.