Meek slavery is changed to lordship bold, Pain into pleasure, glory into wind, 'For nature is by such transformings fair.' Damon ceased singing, and straightway beckoned to Timbrio to sing likewise. He, to the sound of Silerio's harp, began a sonnet which he had composed in the time of his love's fervour, which was as well known to Silerio as to Timbrio himself. TIMBRIO. My hope is builded on so sure a base That, though the fiercer blow the ruthless wind, It cannot shake the bonds that firmly bind, Such faith, such strength, such fortune it displays. Timbrio could not end the sonnet he had begun, for Silerio's hearing of his voice and recognition of him took place together, and, unable to do aught else, he arose from where he was seated, and went to embrace Timbrio's neck with tokens of such strange content and surprise, that without speaking a word he became faint and was for a while without consciousness, with such grief on the part of those present, who feared some mishap, that they already condemned as evil Thyrsis's artifice; but she who showed the most extremes of grief was the fair Blanca, as the one who tenderly loved him. Straightway Nisida and her sister came up to give remedy to the swoon of Silerio, who after a little while came to himself, saying: 'Oh, mighty Heaven! is it possible that he I have before me is my true friend Timbrio? Is it Timbrio I hear, is it Timbrio I see? Yes it is, if my fortune does not mock me, and my eyes deceive me not.' 'Neither does your fortune mock you, nor do your eyes deceive you, my sweet friend,' replied Timbrio, 'for I am he who without you was not, and he who would never have been, had Heaven not permitted him to find you. Let your tears now cease, friend Silerio, if for me you have shed them, since now you have me here, for I will check mine, since I have you before me, calling myself the happiest of all that live in the world, since my misfortunes and adversities have been so discounted that my soul enjoys the possession of Nisida, and my eyes your presence.' By these words of Timbrio's Silerio knew that she who had sung, and she who was there, was Nisida; but he was more sure of it, when she herself said to him: 'What is this, Silerio mine? What solitude and what garb is this, which gives such tokens of your discontent? What false suspicions or what deceptions have brought you to such an extreme, in order that Timbrio and I might endure the extreme of grief all our life, being absent from you who gave it to us?' 'They were deceptions, fair Nisida,' replied Silerio, 'but because they have brought such ways of undeceiving they will be celebrated by my memory so long as it shall last in me.'