'I do not doubt of this,' replied Galatea, 'if the evils which are dreaded or suffered were so slight, as to leave free and unimpeded the working of our intellect; but you know well, Damon, that when the evil is such that this name can be given to it, the first thing it does is to cloud our perception, and to destroy the powers of our free will, our vigour decaying in such a way that it can scarce lift itself, though hope urge it the more.' 'I do not know, Galatea,' answered Damon, 'how in your green years can be contained such experience of evils, if it is not that you wish us to understand that your great discretion extends to speaking from intuitive knowledge of things, for you have no information concerning them in any other way.' 'Would to Heaven, discreet Damon,' replied Galatea, 'that I were not able to contradict you in what you say, since thereby I would gain two things: to retain the good opinion you have of me, and not to feel the pain which causes me to speak with so much experience of it.' Up to this point Elicio had kept silence; but being unable any longer to endure seeing Galatea give tokens of the bitter grief she was suffering, he said to her: 'If you think perchance, peerless Galatea, that the woe that threatens you can by any chance be remedied, by what you owe to the good-will to serve you which you have known in me, I beg you to declare it to me; and if you should not wish this so as to comply with what you owe to obedience to your father, give me at least leave to oppose anyone who should wish to carry away from us from these banks the treasure of your beauty, which has been nurtured thereon. And do not think, shepherdess, that I presume so much on myself, as alone to make bold to fulfil with deeds what I now offer you in words, for though the love I bear you gives me spirit for a greater enterprise, I distrust my fortune, and so I must needs place it in the hands of reason, and in those of all the shepherds that pasture their flocks on these banks of Tagus, who will not be willing to suffer that the sun that illumines them, the discretion that makes them marvel, the beauty that incites them and inspires them to a thousand honourable rivalries should be snatched and taken away from before their eyes. Wherefore, fair Galatea, on the faith of the reason I have expressed, and of that which I have for adoring you, I make you this offer, which must needs constrain you to disclose your wish to me, in order that I may not fall into the error of going against it in anything; but considering that your matchless goodness and modesty must needs move you to respond rather to your father's desire than to your own, I do not wish, shepherdess, that you should tell it me, but to undertake to do what shall seem good to me, with the purpose of looking after your honour, with the care with which you yourself have always looked after it.'