What Maurisa said set all those who listened to her in amazement, and they were more amazed when they saw that the cruel Gelasia, without moving from the spot where she was, and without taking account of all that company who had their eyes set on her, with a strange grace and spirited disdain, drew a small rebeck from her wallet, and stopping to tune it very leisurely, after a little while with a voice of great beauty began to sing in this wise:
GELASIA.
The pleasing herbs of the green shady mead,
The cooling fountains, who will e'er forsake,
And strive no more the fleet hare to o'ertake
Or bristling wild-boar, following on with speed?
Who will no more the friendly warblings heed
Of the dear, simple birds within the brake?
Who in the glowing noon-tide hour will make
No more his couch within the woods at need,
That he the fires may follow, and the fears,
Jealousies, angers, rages, deaths, and pains,
Of traitorous Love, that doth the world torment?
Upon the fields are set my loving cares
And have been, rose and jessamine my chains,
Free was I born, on freedom am I bent.
Gelasia was singing, and showing in the motion and expression of her face her loveless disposition; but scarcely had she come to the last verse of her song, when she rose with a strange swiftness, and, as if she were fleeing from some terrible thing, she began to hurry down by the crag, leaving the shepherds amazed at her disposition and astounded at her swift course. But straightway they saw what was the cause of it, on seeing the enamoured Lenio, who with dragging step was ascending the same crag, with the intention of coming to where Gelasia was; but she was not willing to wait for him, so as not to fail in a single instance to act in accordance with the cruelty of her purpose. The wearied Lenio came to the summit of the crag, when Gelasia was already at its foot, and seeing that she did not check her steps, but directed them with more haste through the spacious plain, with spent breath and tired spirit he sat down in the same spot where Gelasia had been, and there began with desperate words to curse his fortune, and the hour in which he raised his eyes to gaze on the cruel shepherdess Gelasia, and in that same moment, repenting as it were of what he was saying, he turned to bless his eyes, and to extol the cause that placed him in such a pass. And straightway goaded and urged by a fit of frenzy, he flung his crook far from him, and, stripping off his coat, cast it into the waters of the clear Tagus, which followed close by the foot of the crag. And when the shepherds who were watching him saw this, they believed without a doubt that the violence of his love-passion was depriving him of reason; and so Elicio and Erastro began to ascend the crag to prevent him from doing any other mad act, that might cost him more dear. And though Lenio saw them ascending, he made no other movement save to draw his rebeck from a wallet, and with a new and strange calm sat down again; and turning his face to where his shepherdess heard, he began with a voice mellow and accompanied with tears to sing in this fashion:
LENIO.
Who drives thee on, who leadeth thee aside,
Who makes thee leave all loving thought behind,
Who on thy feet hath rapid pinions tied,
Wherewith thou runnest swifter than the wind?
Wherefore dost thou my lofty thought deride
And think but little of my loyal mind?
Why fleest thou from me, why leavest me?
Harder than marble to my agony!