Which being done he looked very curiously upon himself, sometimes
fetching a little skip as if he had said his strength had not yet
forsaken him: but Zelmane having in this time {125} gotten some
leisure to think for an answer, looking upon Gynecia as if she thought
she did her some wrong: “Madam,” said she, “I am not acquainted with
those words of disguising, neither is it the profession of an Amazon,
neither are you a party with whom it is to be used: if my service may
please you, employ it, so long as you do me no wrong in misjudging of
me.” “Alas! Zelmane,” said Gynecia, “I perceive you know full little
how piercing the eyes are of a true lover: there is no one beam of
those thoughts you have planted in me but is able to discern a greater
cloud than you do go in. Seek not to conceal yourself further from me,
nor force not the passion of love into violent extremities.” Now was
Zelmane brought to an exigent, when the king turning his eyes that way
through the trees, perceived his wife and mistress together, so that
framing the most lovely countenance he could, he came straightway
towards them, and at the first word, thanking his wife for having
entertained Zelmane, desired her she would now return into the lodge,
because he had certain matters of estate to impart to the Lady
Zelmane. The queen, being nothing troubled with jealousy in that
point, obeyed the king’s commandment, full of raging agonies, and
determinately bent that as she would seek all loving means to win
Zelmane, so she would stir up terrible tragedies rather than fail of
her intent. And so went she from them to the lodge-ward with such a
battle in her thoughts, and so deadly an overthrow given to her best
resolutions that even her body, where the field was fought, was
oppressed withal, making a languishing sickness wait upon the triumph
of passion, which the more it prevailed in her, the more it made her
jealousy watchful, both over her daughter and Zelmane, having ever one
of them intrusted to her own eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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