[175] On this point see an incident related by Lina Duff Gordon in her charming Home Life in Italy (Methuen, 1908), p. 157.
[176] See Ameto, ed. cit., p. 224 et seq.; cf. Crescini, op. cit., pp. 80-2, and Della Torre, op. cit., p. 270.
[177] For all these particulars and the following see Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 168-9, 174, 178-9. Without doubt these passages are biographical. See Crescini, op. cit., p. 82, and Della Torre, p. 270 et seq.
[178] Fiammetta was afraid of the dark since her childhood; she always had a light in her room. Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 55.
[179] "Col tuo ardito ingegno, me presa nella tacita notte secura dormendo ... prima nelle braccia m' avesti e quasi la mia pudicizia violata, che io fossi dal sonno interamente sviluppata. E che doveva io fare, questo veggendo? doveva io gridare, e col mio grido a me infamia perpetua, ed a te, il quale io più che me medesima amava, morte cercare?"—Fiammetta, ed. cit.; p. 67. Not so argued "Lucrece of Rome town."
[180] It was a cowardly threat from our point of view, but probably not an idle one. Men go to bed in Sicily and die of love in the night. And then, too, this violence was part of the etiquette, and in some sort is so still, in Southern Italy, at any rate.
[181] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 180. In the Ameto, ed. cit., p. 225, he says it was Hecate who brought him in.
[182] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 39.
[183] Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 84-8.