ORFENIO. I saw before mine eyes A noble inn, that did in bliss abound, I triumphed in my prize, Too soon, alas, I found That vile it had become, Changed by my fate to darkness and to gloom. There, where we ever see The bliss of those who love each other well, There is my misery; There where is wont to dwell All bliss, is evil plain, United in alliance with disdain. In this abode I lie-- And never do I strive to issue hence-- Built by my agony, And with so strange a fence, Methinks they to the ground Bring it, who love, see, and resist its wound. OROMPO. Sooner the path that is his own, the sun Shall end, whereon he wanders through the sky After he hath through all the Zodiac run, Than we the least part of our agony According to our pain can well declare, However much we raise our speech on high. He who lives absent dies, says Crisio there, But I, that I am dead, since to the reign Of death fate handed o'er my life's career. And boldly thou, Marsilio, dost maintain That thou of joy and bliss hast lost all chance, Since that which slayeth thee is fierce disdain. Unto this thought thou givest utterance, Orfenio, that 'tis through thy soul doth pass, Not through thy breast alone, the jealous lance. As each the woes through which his fellows pass Feels not, he praiseth but the grief he knows, Thinking it doth his fellows' pangs surpass. Wherefore his bank rich Tagus overflows, Swollen by our strife of tears and mournfulness, Wherein with piteous words we moan our woes. Our pain doth not thereby become the less, Rather because we handle so the wound, It doth condemn us to the more distress. We must our plaints renew with all the sound Our tongues can utter, and with all the thought That can within our intellects be found. Then let us cease our disputation, taught That every ill doth anguish bring and pain, Nor is there good with sure contentment fraught. Sufficient ill he hath that doth constrain His life within the confines of a tomb, And doth in bitter loneliness remain, Unhappy he--and mournful is his doom-- Who suffereth the pangs of jealousy, In whom nor strength nor judgment findeth room,