'Listen, shepherds, to one of the strangest love-affairs that for many years can have been seen on these our banks, or on others. I believe full well that you know, and we all know, the renowned shepherd Lenio, him whose loveless disposition won him the name of loveless, him who not many days ago, merely to speak ill of love, dared to enter into rivalry with the famous Thyrsis, who is present; him, I say, who never could move his tongue, were it not to speak ill of love; him who with such earnestness was wont to reprove those whom he saw distressed by the pangs of love. He, then, being so open an enemy of Love, has come to the pass that I am sure Love has no one who follows him more earnestly, nor yet has he a vassal whom he persecutes more, for he has made him fall in love with the loveless Gelasia, that cruel shepherdess, who the other day, as you saw, held the brother of this damsel' (pointing to Maurisa), 'who resembles her so closely in disposition, with the rope at his throat, to finish at the hands of her cruelty his short and ill-starred days. I say in a word, shepherds, that Lenio the loveless is dying for the hard-hearted Gelasia, and for her he fills the air with sighs and the earth with tears; and what is worse in this is that it seems to me that Love has wished to avenge himself on Lenio's rebellious heart, handing him over to the hardest and most scornful shepherdess that has been seen; and he knowing it, now seeks in all he says and does to reconcile himself with Love; and in the same terms with which before he abused him, he now exalts and honours him. And nevertheless, neither is Love moved to favour him, nor Gelasia inclined to heal him, as I have seen with my eyes; since, not many hours ago, as I was coming in the company of this shepherdess, we found him at the spring of slates stretched on the ground, his face covered with a cold sweat, and his breast panting with strange rapidity. I went up to him and recognised him, and with the water of the spring sprinkled his face, whereat he recovered his lost senses; and drawing close to him I asked him the cause of his grief, which he told me without missing a word, telling it me with such tender feeling, that he inspired it in this shepherdess, in whom I think there never was contained the sign of any compassion. He dwelt on Gelasia's cruelty, and the love he had for her, and the suspicion that reigned in him that Love had brought him to such a state to avenge himself at one blow for the many wrongs he had done him. I consoled him as best I could, and leaving him free from his past paroxysm, I come accompanying this shepherdess, and to seek you, Lauso, in order that, if you would be willing, we may return to our huts, for it is ten days since we left them, and it may be that our herds feel our absence more than we do theirs.'