Thee to undeceive I seek, For I understand the meaning: 'Tis the humble and the meek, Rather than the overweening, Who of Love's delights can speak. Greater beauty cannot be Than the beauty thou desirest; Thy excuse I fail to see, How it comes that thou aspirest Where is no equality. Fancy, if it hath desire Something raised on high to view, Looks and straightway doth retire, So that none may deem it true That the gaze doth thus aspire. How much more doth Love arise If with confidence united Whence it draws its destinies. But if once its hope be blighted, Fading like a cloud it dies. Thou who lookest from afar On the goal for which thou sighest, Hopeless, yet unto thy star True,--if on the way thou diest, Diest knowing not thy care. Naught there is that thou canst gain, For, amidst this amorous strife, Where the cause none may attain, Dying is but honoured life, And its chiefest glory pain. The enamoured Elicio would not so soon have ended his agreeable song, had there not sounded on his right hand the voice of Erastro, who with his herd of goats was coming towards the place where he was. Erastro was a rustic herdsman; yet his rustic lot, out in the woods, did not so far prevail with him as to forbid that Gentle Love should take entire possession of his manly breast, making him love more than his life the beauteous Galatea, to whom he did declare his plaints whenever occasion presented itself to him. And though rustic, he was, like a true lover, so discreet in things of love, that whenever he discoursed thereon, it seemed that Love himself revealed them to him, and by his tongue uttered them; yet withal (although they were heard by Galatea), they were held of such account as things of jest are held. To Elicio the rivalry of Erastro did not give pain, for he understood from the mind of Galatea that it inclined her to loftier things--rather did he have pity and envy for Erastro: pity in seeing that he did indeed love, and that in a quarter where it was impossible to gather the fruit of his desires; envy in that it seemed to him that perhaps his understanding was not such as to give room for his soul to feel the flouts or favours of Galatea in such a way that either the latter should overwhelm him, or the former drive him mad. Erastro came accompanied by his mastiffs, the faithful guardians of the simple sheep, which under their protection were safe from the carnivorous teeth of the hungry wolves; he made sport with them, and called them by their names, giving to each the title that its disposition and spirit deserved.