However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it A corps perdu, without making capitulations or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says to his soul, "Take thy ease": I met presently not only with many little encumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither repent nor alter my course. Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum. Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, and have now at last married, though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.
———Nec vos, dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos Musæ, libertas, otia, libri,
Hortique syvæque anima remanente relinquam.
Nor by me e'er shall you,
You of all names the sweetest, and the best,
