Allegories; Frame stories; Plague -- Europe -- History -- Fiction; Storytelling -- Fiction
And that wherein I most delight is this,
That as I love him, so he loveth me:
So thank thee, Love, I must.
For whatsoe'er this world can yield of bliss
Is mine, and in the next at peace to be
I hope through that full trust
I place in him. And thou, O God, that dost
It see, wilt grant of joy thy plenishing.
Some other songs and dances followed, to the accompaniment of divers sorts
of music; after which, the queen deeming it time to go to rest, all,
following in the wake of the torches, sought their several chambers. The
next two days they devoted to the duties to which the queen had adverted,
looking forward to the Sunday with eager expectancy.
--
Endeth here the second day of the Decameron, beginneth the third, in which,
under the rule of Neifile, discourse is had of the fortune of such as have
painfully acquired some much-coveted thing, or, having lost, have recovered
it.
--
The dawn of Sunday was already changing from vermilion to orange, as the sun
hasted to the horizon, when the queen rose and roused all the company. The
seneschal had early sent forward to their next place of sojourn ample store
of things meet with folk to make all things ready, and now seeing the queen
on the road, and the decampment, as it were, begun, he hastily completed the
equipment of the baggage-train, and set off therewith, attended by the rest
of the servants, in rear of the ladies and gentlemen. So, to the chant of,
perhaps, a score of nightingales and other birds, the queen, her ladies and
the three young men trooping beside or after her, paced leisurely westward
by a path little frequented and overgrown with herbage and flowers, which,
as they caught the sunlight, began one and all to unfold their petals. So
fared she on with her train, while the quirk and the jest and the laugh
passed from mouth to mouth; nor had they completed more than two thousand
paces when, well before half tierce,(1) they arrived at a palace most fair
and sumptuous, which stood out somewhat from the plain, being situate upon a
low eminence. On entering, they first traversed its great halls and dainty
chambers furnished throughout with all brave and meet appointments; and
finding all most commendable, they reputed its lord a magnifico. Then
descending, they surveyed its spacious and cheerful court, its vaults of
excellent wines and copious springs of most cool water, and found it still
more commendable. After which, being fain of rest, they sat them down in a
gallery which commanded the court, and was close imbosked with leafage and
such flowers as the season afforded, and thither the discreet seneschal
brought comfits and wines most choice and excellent, wherewith they were
refreshed. Whereupon they hied them to a walled garden adjoining the palace;
which, the gate being opened, they entered, and wonder-struck by the beauty
of the whole passed on to examine more attentively the several parts. It was
bordered and traversed in many parts by alleys, each very wide and straight
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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