A young lady being enamoured of the Prince of Salerno sends for one of his chaplains and declares to him that she has received from the said prince numerous letters praying for her love. The chaplain, having divined her motive, enters into a plot with her and brings the affair to the issue desired.
At that time when our most glorious lord and king, Don Fernando, was entertaining Naples, according to his constant use, with those joustings, those marvellous hunting parties, and those sumptuous festivals which were famed far and wide, it chanced that amongst the other merry-makers was a certain young damsel, of beauty almost unrivalled, and a scion of one of the noblest houses of our Parthenopean city.
Now for some time past she had often let her eyes regale themselves with the beauty and the grace of form belonging to my most illustrious lord, the Prince of Salerno, and beyond this had heard sung, over and over again, the praises of his extraordinary worth. By this time she was more than ever captivated by him, wherefore she became so lovesick that she could only give thought to the gentleman by whom her fancy had been ensnared.
After she had let her thoughts ... engage themselves in many and divers plans by which she might honourably achieve the victory in so worthy an adventure, she found that all these schemes were over-difficult to compass; wherefore it more than once came into her head that she would follow the advice of certain other ladies of her acquaintance, who, whenever they found they could not refrain from entering the lists of love, were wont to send word to the gallant youths beloved of them and challenge them to the amorous warfare.
But this damsel, who was gifted with no small prudence, and was persuaded at the same time that she would not, by following such a course, be setting a very high value either upon herself or upon her undertaking, suddenly determined that she would make trial of a novel and very crafty stratagem to induce the prince aforesaid to cull the first fruits of her virgin garden. Having chosen a time when the prince had gone to other parts for diversion in the chase, she let come to her a certain priest, a man whom she could fully trust, and one who was much about the house, and to him she gave directions as to what she would have him do.
This priest now brings Fra Paulo, the chaplain and the prince’s most trusted attendant, to the damsel who alleges the receipt of impassioned love-letters from the prince. She is at a loss to know whether these letters have been concocted by one of her brothers with a view to putting her constancy to proof, or whether they have really been written by the prince who “is in sooth taken with love of me, seeing that I have at times kept my eyes fixed upon him somewhat more than was due.” The text continues:—
With these, and with other words of a like character, which had been prepared with the most consummate art, she laid before the chaplain the letters aforesaid, by way of giving him still farther assurance of the truth of her craftily devised discourse. Fra Paulo, although, as a prudent man, and as one accustomed to bring contests of this sort to a victorious issue, he had fully detected and comprehended the hidden wishes and purpose of the young lady, nevertheless, as she went on step by step with her reasonings and arguments, was astonished at finding so great ingenuity and astuteness in the brain of a damsel so delicate and youthful.
Still, as he remarked more than once that, whenever she mentioned the name of his lord the prince, her face changed colour, he understood that the passion which possessed her must be indeed burning and fierce. Wherefore he determined to let this same wind speed his own bark over such a pleasant sea, and he thus made answer to her:—
“Lady mine, because of your kindness, you have thought well enough of me to unveil to me your secret affairs, you may rest assured that, no less for the preservation of your own good name than for the safeguarding of my lord’s, I will deal with this matter with all that silence and secrecy which, according to your judgement and mine as well, the gravity and importance of the same demand....