My love, though simple, yet is not so weak That one disdain could bring it to the ground, Countless disdains were needed for the blow, E'en as the pine is doomed at last to break And fall to earth--though on its trunk resound Full many a blow, the last 'tis brings it low. Weighty disdain, with countenance of woe, Who art on love's absence based, On poor opinion of another's lot, To see thee hath been fraught With joy to me, to hear thee and to taste, To know that thou hast deigned, with soul allied To beat down and to end my foolish pride. Thou beatest down my folly, and dost aid The intellect to rise on lofty wing And shake off heavy slumber from the mind, So that with healthy purpose undismayed It may the power and praise of others sing, If it perchance a grateful mistress find. Thou hast the henbane, wherewith Love unkind Lullèd my sorrowing strength To slumber, robbed of vigour, thou, in pride Of glowing strength, dost guide Me back unto new life and ways at length, For now I know that I am one who may Fear within bounds and hope without dismay. Lauso sang no more, though what he had sung sufficed to fill those present with wonder, for, as all knew that the day before he was so much in love and so content to be so, it made them marvel to see him in so short a space of time so changed and so different from what he was wont to be. And having considered this well, his friend Thyrsis said to him: 'I know not, friend Lauso, if I should congratulate you on the bliss attained in such brief hours, for I fear that it cannot be as firm and sure as you imagine; but nevertheless I am glad that you enjoy, though it may be for a little while, the pleasure that freedom when attained causes in the soul, since it might be that knowing now how it should be valued, though you might turn again to the broken chains and bonds, you would use more force to break them, drawn by the sweetness and delight a free understanding and an unimpassioned will enjoy.' 'Have no fear, discreet Thyrsis,' replied Lauso, 'that any other new artifice may suffice for me to place once more my feet in the stocks of love, nor count me so light and capricious but that it has cost me, to set me in the state in which I am, countless reflections, a thousand verified suspicions, a thousand fulfilled promises made to Heaven, that I might return to the light I had lost; and since in the light I now see how little I saw before, I will strive to preserve it in the best way I can.'