Carino, Silvia's relative, from being a mortal enemy owing to a certain wrestling match they had one feast day before the whole village, at which many lusty Swains attended, when Crisalvo got down Carino and ill-treated him, which gave rise to a perpetual enmity, and not a less one was entertained also against my other brother, for opposing him in his amours, and carrying from him the fruits which Carino expected. This rancour and settled ill-will Carino concealed till time favoured him with an opportunity to avenge himself on both through the means of a very cruel artifice. He was my friend-for the admission to Silvia's house was no impediment-Crisalvo loved him that he might advance his suit with Silvia, and such was the amity, that whenever Leonida visited Silvia, Carino was a companion-on which account it seemed good to Silvia, being my friend, to avow the love which I entertained for Leonida, which went on then so briskly by the intervention of Silvia that time and place alone were wanting to cull the fruit of our immaculate desires, the which being known to Carino, he chose me as instrument for a disgraceful treason. For one day (playing the loyal with Crisalvo and infusing into him an idea that he more highly prized his friendship than the honour of his parentage) he said to him that the principal cause why Silvia neither loved nor encouraged him was from her being enamoured of me, and of that he was convinced; and that now as our loves were known, that had he not been blinded by passion he had discovered it by a thousand signs-and, to certify the more what he averred, that henceforth he should look to him, because he plainly perceived that without any impediment, she accorded to me unusual favours. On this representation Crisalvo became furious, as it seemed he was by what ensued. From this juncture Crisalvo employed spies to observe what took place between Silvia and me, and as I had frequent cause to be alone with her, not on account of love for her, but for that which related to my own interests, these were assumed by Crisalvo as being favours which arose from pure friendship, and which Silvia offered to me. Hence the indignation of Crisaivo attained such a point that often he essayed to kill me, as I thought, not on account of love matters but by reason of the ancient family enmity.

BOOK I.

GALATEA.

21

Seeing, however, he was Leonida's brother, I took great care not to offend him, knowing for certain, if I married his sister, our opposition would cease. This he regarded not, he even thought that I malevolently courted Silvia to spite him and not for love. The end was that he lost his reason

from annoyance and rage, though he was scarce a reasonable being, and there needed no great effort to consume all he had and it drove him so far out that he began to detest Silvia in an inverse ratio with his former predilection for her, because of her presumed preference for me, as he averred; so in whatsoever company he was he jeered Silvia and gave her ugly epithets. The world, however, knowing his intractableness and Silvia's blandness, it all went into thin air. Such being the case, Silvia concerted with Leonida that both should wed, and to effect it nicely that one day Leonida should come with Carino to a certain house, and not return to her parents' house that night, and that with Carino she should repair to a hamlet some half league off, where some of my rich relatives dwelt, in whose house with greater quiet the affair might be consummated. For if in the event the parents of Leonida were not satisfied, at least, she being away, the plan would be easiest to accomplish. This appointment arranged, and notice given to Carino, he offered with much cheerfulness to remove the willing Leonida to the other hamlet.

The services I did for Carino out of pure good will, the words of kindness I uttered, the embraces which I gave him, one had supposed had quenched in a heart of steel all covert ill-feeling. Yet did this traitor Carino, turning his back on my kindness, efforts, and promises, regardless of what he owed me, conceive the treason which I will recount.

Carino being cognisant of the wish of Leonida, and seeing it to be in conformity with that of Silvia, planned on the first approach of darkness, how he should undertake to conduct Leonida in as secret and honourable a way as possible. After this concert which you have heard, he went to Crisalvo as I since learned, and he told him that his relative Silvia was so forward in her amours with me, that on a certain night he had determined to force her from her parent's house, and remove her to another village where my parents dwelt, and where he might perpetrate vengeance on both;

on Silvia for the little respect she had to his services, on me for the ancient enmity and the disgust I had caused in drawing him from Silvia. Hence Carino learned to cajole and say what he pleased, and with a heart cruel as his own, induced bad thoughts in him. The day having arrived which I deemed to be most to my content, failing to tell Carino not what he had done, but what he ought to do, I went to the other hamlet to give orders how to receive Leonida― and it was recommended to Carino to leave her as a poor simple lamb is left to hungry wolves, or a gentle dove in the claws of a fierce hawk who would tear it in pieces. Ah friend! at this point of imagination, I know not how to collect force to sustain life, or thought to reflect on it, much less language to express it. Oh evil-counselled Lisandro ! Know you not the double conditions which bound Carino? But who would trust to words which were not reinforced by deeds? woe to thee ill attained Leonida-what evil have I touched by your preference of me. In fine, to end with the tragedy of my disgrace, know thou, discreet shepherd, that the night which Carino set aside for the abduction of Leonida to the village where I expected her, he called to another shepherd, who was an enemy, though he concealed his aversion under his accustomed dissimulation, whose name was Libeo, and asked him to be his companion that night, for that he resolved to abduct a shepherdess, so attractive, to the hamlet which I told you of, where he trusted to make her his wife. Libeo, both gallant and amorous, made no objection to become his companion. Leonida dismissed Silvia with tumultuous clasps and loving tears, as presuming this to be the last farewell. She should then have reflected on the treason against her parents, and not what Carino had arranged, and how bad an account of her was rife in the village. Now passing over all these thoughts, and impelled by the love which overcame her, she surrendered herself to the custody of Carino, and that he would bear her whither I expected. How oft does it recur to my memory, at this point, what I dreamed that day, which I had thought most lucky, if in it I had closed my existence! I remember that quitting the village a little ere the sun departed from our horizon, I found myself at the foot of an ash tree on the very spot that Leonida should

Per

pass, expecting that the night would close in to advance my object and to receive her, not knowing how, I fell asleepand scarcely surrendering my eyes to that influence, it seemed to me that the tree against which I leaned, yielding to the fury of a stiff wind which blew, deracinating the deep roots from the earth, it fell on my body, and trying to elude the heavy weight, I rolled from side to side. So standing in this predicament, I imagined that I saw a white deer close by, to whom I offered supplications that as well as it could it might avert from me the impending danger; and while soliciting the animal to be moved by compassion, at the same instant a fierce lion rushed from the wood, and seizing the deer with his sharp claws took it off into the thicket, and now that by a heavy labour having escaped, I went to seek the deer in the mountain, and there found her mangled and rent into a thousand pieces, whereon such grief seized me that my soul was shocked by reason of the compassion the deer had evinced towards me, so that in my sleep I wept sore, and the tears awakened me. ceiving my cheeks to be tinged with moisture, I was beside myself, when I reflected on what I had dreamed; yet was the hope of seeing Leonida so high, that I considered my dream but as a stroke of fate, which awaking I should realise. When I opened my eyes, night began to close in all its darkness, and with such thunder and lightnings, as to facilitate the horrors which were to be transacted in it. As Carino issued from the house of Silvia with Leonida, he delivered her to Libeo, ordering him to accompany her to the village I mentioned, and as Leonida was surprised to see Libeo, Carino declared that he was no less my friend than his, and with all security she could go with him until he gave me news of their arrival. The simple then enamoured one believed the words of the false Carino, and with less mistrust than was judicious, conducted by the plausible Libeo, continued her steps to her destruction, hoping only to find satisfaction. Carino advanced from the two, as I said, and reported to Crisalvo what had occurred, and what with the other four relatives on the same road took place, and all were surrounded on every side by wood, and remained concealed, and told them how Silvia came up, and that I alone accompanied her, and that they should

rejoice at the good opportuni.v which fortune had put into their power to avenge themselves of the injury they had received, and that it would be on Silvia, though a relative, the first who should experience the edge of their steel. The five cruel butchers quickly appeared to dye themselves in the innocent blood of the pair, who without suspicion of a treason of such magnitude came that way, and having reached the point of ambush, the perfidious homicides fell on them and enclosed them. Crisalvo joined Leonida, mistaking her for Silvia, and with injurious and heated language, and beset by the hellish rage which mastered him, with six mortal stabs left her extended on the soil, at the same time that Libeo, with the four others, thinking it was on me they struck with reiterated slashes, reeled to earth. Carino, discerning how well his traitorous intent had succeeded, without asking questions, went off incontinently before them, and the five traitors in themselves content, as if they had enacted some valorous exploit, returned to the hamlet, and Crisalvo went to Silvia's house to inform the parents of the event to aggravate their grief and sensibility, saying they must now bury their daughter Silvia whose life he had taken, because she had paid more attention to the frigid solicitations of his enemy Lisando than to his repeated services. Silvia, who felt all that Crisalvo said, averred that she was still in being, and free from all imputation, but that she grieved at the murder no less than if it had been her own death; and with this she told him that her sister Leonida had left the house that night in an unusual apparel. Crisalvo, surprised to see Silvia alive, fearing most assuredly she lay dead, with no slight bound made off for her house, and not finding there her sister, in the most profound confusion and rage returned alone to see who it was he had murdered, for Silvia it was not.

During the passage of these events I stood in extreme anxiety awaiting Carino and Leonida, and thinking them later than they should be, I desired to go out and find them, and to learn the cause of their delay that night. When I was not far on the road, a voice of woe struck my ear, saying, "Oh Sovereign Creator of Heaven, withdraw thy arm of justice, and open the fonts of mercy, in favour of the soul now about to render account of the offences it has offered to you!"