LXXXIX
"When to Anselmo's early doubt and fear
Are joined the threatnings of the signs above,
How stands his heart may well to thee appear,
If thou hast known the accidents of love;
And worse than every woe, wherewith whilere
The afflicted spirits of that husband strove,
Is that it by the prophet is foretold,
Argais' honour will be bought and sold.
XC
"Now to support his wife, as best he may,
From falling into such an evil deed.
For man, alas, will sometimes disarray
The altar, when he finds himself in need,
What gold and gems the judge had put away,
(A plenteous store) he leaves; and field and mead,
Rents, fruits, and all possessions whatsoe'er
Leaves to his consort; all his worldly gear:
XCI
" `With power,' he said, `not only without measure,
These, as thou needest, to enjoy and spend,
But do with them according to thy pleasure,
Consume and fling away, and give and vend:
Other account I ask not of my treasure,
If such as now I find thee in the end;
But such as now remain; — at thy command
(Even shouldst thou squander both) are house and land.'
XCII
"Unless she heard he thither made repair,
He prayed that she would dwell not in the town;
But would a farm of his inhabit, where
She might with all convenience live alone.
And this besought he of his consort fair,
As thinking, that the rustics, which on down
Pasture their flocks, or fruitful fallows till,
Could ne'er contaminate her honest will.
XCIII
"Her fearful husband still embracing close,
Her arms about his neck Argia threw:
A burst of tears her visage overflows:
For from her eyes two streams their way pursue.
She grieves, he guilty should his wife suppose;
As if she hath already been untrue:
For his suspicion to its source she traced;
That in her faith no faith Anselmo placed.
XCIV
"Citing their long farewell, I should exceed.
`— To thee at length,' he so the dame addrest,
`I recommend my honour'; — and indeed
Took leave, and on his road in earnest prest;
And truly felt, on wheeling round his steed,
As if his heart was issuing from his breast.
She follows him as long as she can follow
With eyes whose tears her furrowed visage hollow.
XCV
"Poor, pale, unshorn, and wretched (as whilere
To you in former strain by me was said),
Homeward meanwhile the wandering cavalier,
Hoping he there should be unknown, had made.
Beside the lake that pilgrim journeyed, near
The city, where he gave the serpent aid,
In that thick brake besieged by village swain,
Who with his staff the reptile would have slain.
XCVI
"Arriving here, upon the dawn of light,
For yet some stars were glimmering in the skies,
Approaching him, in foreign vesture dight,
Along the shore, a damsel he espies.
Though neither squire nor waiting wench in sight
Appears, yet noble is the lady's guise.
With pleasing visage she Adonio boards,
And then breaks silence in the following words.
XCVII
"Albeit thou know'st me not, O cavalier
I am thy kin, and greatly bound to thee:
I am thy kin; for of the lineage clear
Derived of haughty Cadmus' seed are we.
I am the fairy Manto, that whilere
Laid the first stone of this rude villagery;
And (as thou haply mayst have heard it famed)
Mantua from me the rising town was named.
XCVIII
" `O' the fairies am I one: with that to show
Our fatal state, and what it doth import;
We to all other kinds of ill below
Are subject by our natal influence, short
Of death; but with immortal being such woe
Is coupled, death is not of direr sort.
For every seventh day we all must take
By certain law, the form of spotted snake.