Here lieth Lucretia, less chaste than the Roman, but more fair: Tarquin did not force her, but love; and although she died for her infidelity, love, who was the cause, has the power to excuse her.
So the faire Lucretia remained in mortal rest, and her name, in my imagination, is not worthy of blame: for having been overcome by the excellent parts of her lover, and by that unchangeable force which love ever useth against great and free courages."
The pilgrim’s imprisonment had not passed at so easy a rate of his patience, had not Everard (so was the knight called that made this discourse) favoured his affairs: for his innocence could not gain him his liberty, nor good opinion, which he did deserve; so powerful was his only habit, to work in the judges an evil conceit of his person; yet Doricles (captain of those robbers) being pardoned, and received again into the city’s favour; the pilgrim was also absolved, as were his confederates.
His curiosity to hear the fisherman’s singing having brought him to receive a hurt in his arm with a piece, into an extreme danger of hanging, unto three months imprisonment, which without the help of Everard had been insupportable. They took their leaves one of another, with a thousand loving embraces, and Everard having further obliged him with some money, he resolved to go to Montserrat, and I to finish this First Book.
The end of the First Book.
Book Two
By a straight way, between thick trees and shady did the pilgrim go towards Montserrat, who turning his head at a noise which he heard behind at his back, he saw two young men with palmer's staves, whose fair faces and blond hair showed them to be either Germans or Flemings. He saluted them, and joyful of so good company, he imposed silence unto a thousand sad thoughts, which solitariness had brought into his memory. Travelling together, they began to discourse of diverse matters, with which they easily and with pleasure passed away the craggy, and uneven way of the mountain, until they came unto a fountain, which bubbling into a valley, made a gentle harmony. So that as it were invited by the sweet noise and the fresh shade, they sat down upon the rushes which grew by the brook's side, and admired the sweet complaints of the nightingale. One of the Germans, which shewed a good nature embellished with learning, began to discourse of Filomela's love, saying that now she would recompense with her infinite notes, for all the time that she had been dumb after Terreus had cut out her tongue. The Spaniard replied that Martial had uttered the same conceit, and the German rejoicing to find in him more capacity than in common persons (for it is an insupportable labour to travel with an ignorant man) rose from the place where he sat, and embracing him with a great deal of contentment, after many other discourses, Let us go, said he, to adore the blessed Virgin. In this image so much renowned, through all the world, we cannot make a more holy voyage, nor I in better company than thine: let us go said the Spaniard by this path, which seemeth to me to be much the shorter, although a little steeper, for the most part of the way.
This being said, they took their way towards the abbey, which they discovered shortly after, built upon the side of a sharp mountain, and under a great rock, which did seem to threaten it with ruin.
When they were entered, with devotion and humility, casting their eyes upon tapestries of France, Germany, and almost all the world: they were astonished, to see the walls decked with so many excellent paintings, histories, and accompanied with a thousand several kinds of offerings, which with an admirable correspondence did stir up and astonish the senses altogether. There did they pour forth their prayers and their tears, and after they had seen and been informed of all that was considerable in the monastery, the day having lost her beauty by the sun's absence; they retired altogether until the morning shining through the eastern gates gave them knowledge of the new day's approach. Then they resolved to visit the divers habitations of the hermits which lived in these mountains, and being come unto the seventh hermitage, they found a young man of an agreeable countenance and a goodly presence, whose long and well combed hair gave a reverent majesty unto his aspect. This man stayed them dinner, and after their repast, being entreated by the pilgrims to tell them what devotion had confined him into these solitary mountains, he related the history of his life, in this manner: