more terrible to a guilty heart, than the eye of a respected friend. This made me determine with myself, thinking it a less fault in friendship to do a thing without your knowledge, than against your will, to take this secret course, which conceit was most builded up in me the last day of my parting and speaking with you, when upon your speech with me, and my but naming love, when else perchance I would have gone further, I saw your voice and countenance so change, as it assured me my revealing it should but purchase your grief with my cumber, and therefore (dear Musidorus!) even ran away from my well-known chiding: for having written a letter, which I know not whether you found or no, and taking my chief jewels with me, while you were in the midst of your sport, I got a time, as I think, unmarked by any, to steal away I cared not whither, so I might escape you, and so came I to Ithonia, in the province of Messenia, where, lying secret, I put this in practice, which before I had devised. For remembering by Philanax’s letter and Kalander’s speech, how obstinately Basilius was determined not to marry his daughters, and therefore fearing lest any public dealing should rather increase her captivity than further my love; love (the refiner of invention) had put in my head thus to disguise myself, that under that mask I might, if it were possible, get access, and what access could bring forth commit to fortune and industry, determining to bear the countenance of an Amazon. Therefore in the closest manner I could, naming myself Zelmane, for that dear lady’s sake, to whose memory I am so much bound, I caused this apparel to be made, and bringing it near the lodges, which are hard at hand, by night thus dressed myself, resting till occasion might make me to be found by them whom I sought; which the next morning happened as well as mine own plot could have laid it. For after I had run over the whole pedigree of my thoughts, I gave myself to sing a little, which, as you know, I ever delighted in, so now especially, whether it be the nature of this clime to stir up poetical fancies, or rather as I think, of love, whose scope being pleasure, will not so much as utter his griefs, but in some form of pleasure.