'You would be right in what you have said, oh Thyrsis,' replied Elicio, 'if my desires were to wander from the path befitting her honour and modesty; but if they are so measured, as is due to her worth and reputation, what avails such disdain, such bitter and peevish replies, such open withdrawal of the face from him who has set all his glory on merely seeing it? Ah, Thyrsis, Thyrsis, how love must have placed you on the summit of its joys, since with so calm a spirit you speak of its effects! I do not know that what you say now goes well with what you once said when you sang:
"Alas, from what a wealth of hope I come
Unto a poor and faltering desire"—
with the rest you added to it.'
Up to this point Erastro had been silent, watching what was passing between the shepherds, wondering to see their gentle grace and bearing, with the proofs each one gave of the great discretion he had. But seeing that from step to step they had been brought to reasoning on affairs of love, as one who was so experienced in them, he broke silence, and said:
'I quite believe, discreet shepherds, that long experience will have shown you that one cannot reduce to a fixed term the disposition of loving hearts, which, being governed by another's will, are exposed to a thousand contrary accidents. And so, renowned Thyrsis, you have no reason to wonder at what Elicio has said, and he as little to wonder at what you say, or take for an example what he says you sang, still less what I know you sang when you said:
"The pallor and the weakness I display,"
wherein you clearly showed the woeful plight in which you then were; for a little later there came to our huts the news of your bliss celebrated in those verses of yours, which are so famous. They began, if I remember rightly:
"The dawn comes up, and from her fertile hand."
Whence we clearly see the difference there is between one moment and another, and how love like them is wont to change condition, making him laugh to-day who wept yesterday, and him weep to-morrow who laughs to-day. And since I have known her disposition so well, Galatea's harshness and haughty disdain cannot succeed in destroying my hopes, though I hope from her nothing save that she should be content that I should love her.'
'He who should not hope a fair issue to so loving and measured a desire as you have shown, oh shepherd,' replied Damon, 'deserved renown beyond that of a despairing lover; truly it is a great thing you seek of Galatea! But tell me, shepherd—so may she grant it you—can it be that you have your desire so well in bounds that it does not advance in desire beyond what you have said.'