Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/396

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COURTIER lukewarm, and feigning new suspicions that they are not loved, they give sign of wishing to break with him absolutely. And so, because of these obstacles, the poor fellow is by very force com- pelled to go back to the start and pay court as if his service were beginning ; and daily to walk the earth, and when the lady stirs abroad to accompany her to church and everywhere she goes, never to turn his eyes another way: and now he returns to plaints and sighs and heaviness of heart, and if he can speak with her, to supplications, blasphemies, despairings, and all those ragings to which unhappy lovers are put by these fierce monsters, who have a greater thirst for blood than tigers have. 75 "Such woeful demonstrations as these are but too much seen and known, and often more by others than by her who occasions them; and thus in a few days they become so public that not a step can be taken, nor the least signal given, that is not noted by a thousand eyes. Then it happens that long before there are any sweets of love between them, they are believed and judged by all the world; for when women see that the lover, now nigh to death and overwhelmed by the cruelty and tortures inflicted on him, is firmly and really resolving to withdraw, they at once begin to show him that they love him heartily, and to do him all manner of kindness, and to yield to him, to the end that (his ardent desire having failed) the fruits of love may be less sweet to him and he may have less to thank them for, in order to do everything amiss. "And their love being now very well known, at the same time all the results that proceed from it are also very well known; thus the women are dishonoured, and the lover finds that he has lost time and pains and has shortened his life in sorrow^s, without the least advantage or pleasure; for he attained his desires, not when they would have made him very happy with their pleas- antness, but when he cared little or nothing for them, because his heart was already so deadened by his cruel passion that it had no feeling left wherewith to enjoy the delight or content- ment which was offered him." 76.— Then my lord Ottaviano said, laughing: " You held your peace awhile and refrained from saying evil of women; then you hit them so hard that it seems as if you were gathering strength, like those who draw back in order 240