My adorable Sylvia,
I can no more describe to thee the torment with which I part from Bellfont, than I can that heaven of joy I was raised to last night by the transporting effects of thy wondrous love; both are to excess, and both killing, but in different kinds. Oh, Sylvia, by all my unspeakable raptures in thy arms, by all thy charms of beauty, too numerous and too ravishing for fancy to imagine--I swear----by this last night, by this dear new discovery, thou hast increased my love to that vast height, it has undone my peace--all my repose is gone--this dear, dear night has ruined me, it has confirmed me now I must have Sylvia, and cannot live without her, no not a day, an hour----to save the world, unless I had the entire possession of my lovely maid: ah, Sylvia, I am not that indifferent dull lover that can be raised by one beauty to an appetite, and satisfy it with another; I cannot carry the dear flame you kindle to quench it in the embraces of Myrtilla; no, by the eternal powers, he that pretends to love, and loves at that coarse rate, needs fear no danger from that passion, he never was born to love, or die for love; Sylvia, Myrtilla and a thousand more were all the same to such a dull insensible; no, Sylvia, when you find I can return back to the once left matrimonial bed, despise me, scorn me: swear (as then thou justly may'st) I love not Sylvia: let the hot brute drudge on (he who is fired by nature, not by love, whom any body's kisses can inspire) and ease the necessary heats of youth; love is a nobler fire, which nothing can allay but the dear she that raised it; no, no, my purer stream shall never run back to the fountain, whence it is parted, nay it cannot, it were as possible to love again, where one has ceased to love, as carry the desire and wishes back; by heaven, to me there is nothing so unnatural; no, Sylvia, it is you I must possess, you have completed my undoing now, and I must die unless you give me all----but oh, I am going from thee----when are we like to meet----oh, how shall I support my absent hours! Thought will destroy me, for it will be all on thee, and those at such a distance will be insupportable.----What shall I do without thee? If after all the toils of dull insipid life I could return and lay me down by thee, Herculean labours would be soft and easy----the harsh fatigues of war, the dangerous hurries of affairs of State, the business and the noise of life, I could support with pleasure, with wondrous satisfaction, could treat Myrtilla too with that respect, that generous care, as would become a husband. I could be easy every where, and every one should be at ease with me; now I shall go and find no Sylvia there, but sigh and wander like an unknown thing, on some strange foreign shore; I shall grow peevish as a new wean'd child, no toys, no bauble of the gaudy world will please my wayward fancy: I shall be out of humour, rail at every thing, in anger shall demand, and sullenly reply to every question asked and answered, and when I think to ease my soul by a retreat, a thousand soft desires, a thousand wishes wreck me, pain me to raving, till beating the senseless floor with my feet----I cried aloud--'My Sylvia!'--thus, thus, my charming dear, the poor Philander is employed when banished from his heaven! If thus it used to be when only that bright outside was adored, judge now my pain, now thou hast made known a thousand graces more--oh, pity me----for it is not in thy power to guess what I shall now endure in absence of thee; for thou hast charmed my soul to an excess too mighty for a patient suffering: alas, I die already----
I am yet at Dorillus his farm, lingering on from one swift minute to the other, and have not power to go; a thousand looks all languishing I've cast from eyes all drowned in tears towards Bellfont, have sighed a thousand wishes to my angel, from a sad breaking heart--love will not let me go--and honour calls me--alas, I must away; when shall we meet again? Ah, when my Sylvia?--Oh charming maid--thou'lt see me shortly dead, for thus I cannot live; thou must be mine, or I must be no more--I must away--farewell--may all the softest joys of heaven attend thee--adieu--fail not to send a hundred times a day, if possible; I've ordered Alexis to do nothing but wait for all that comes, and post away with what thou sendest to me----again adieu, think on me----and till thou callest me to thee, imagine nothing upon earth so wretched as Sylvia's own
PHILANDER.
Know, my angel, that passing through the garden this morning, I met Erasto----I fear he saw me near enough to know me, and will give an account of it; let me know what happens----adieu half dead, just taking horse to go from Sylvia.
To PHILANDER.
Written in a leaf of a table-book.
I have only time to say, on Thursday I am destined a sacrifice to Foscario, which day finishes the life of
SYLVIA.