“The passion extreeme which I endure, (Madame) through the feruent loue I beare you, is sutch, as besides that I am assured of the little affection that resteth in you towards me agayne, in respect of that incredible seruitude which my desire is ready to employ, I haue no power to commaunde my force, ne yet to rid my selfe from my vowed deuotion and will to your incomparable beauty, although euen from the beginning I felt the pricks of the mortall shot which now torments my mynde. Alas, I do not know vnder what influence I am borne, nor what Fate doth guide my yeares, sith I doe perceyue that heauen, and loue, and hir whom alone I honor, doe confirme themselues with one assent to seeke myne ouerthrow. Alas, I thinke that all the powers aboue conspired together, to make me be the faythfull man, and perpetuall seruaunt of you my mistresse deare, to whom alone, I yelde my heart afflicted as it is, and the ioy of hidden thoughts noursed in my minde, by the contemplation and remembraunce of your excellent and perfect graces, whereof, if I be not fauored, I waight for death, from whych euen now I fly: not for feare of that whych she can doe, or of the vgly shape which I conceyue to be in hir, but rather to confirme my life, this Body for instrument to exercise the myndes conceypts for doinge your Commaundements, which Body I greatly feare shall proue the vnworthy cruelty, both of your gentle nouriture, and of those graces which Dame Nature most aboundantly hath powred in you. Be sure Madame that you shall shortlye see the Ende of him, which attendeth yet to beare so mutch as in him doeth lye, the vehement loue into an other world, which maketh me to pray you to haue pity on him, who (attending the rest and final sentence of his Death or Lyfe) doth humbly kisse your white and delicate handes, beseeching God to giue to you like ioy as his is, who desireth to be, Wholy yours or not to be at all Philiberto of Virle.{”}