Argument.

Prasildo, a nobleman of Babylon, to his great anguish, falls in love with
his friend's wife, Tisbina; and being overheard by her and her husband
threatening to kill himself, the lady, hoping to divert him from his
passion by time and absence, promises to return it on condition of his
performing a distant and perilous adventure. He performs the adventure;
and the husband and wife, supposing that there is no other way of her
escaping the consequences, resolve to take poison; after which the lady
goes to Prasildo's house, and informs him of their having done so.
Prasildo resolves to die with them; but hearing, in the mean time, that
the apothecary had given them a drink that was harmless, he goes and
tells them of their good fortune; upon which the husband is so struck
with his generosity, that he voluntarily quits Babylon for life and the
lady marries the lover. The new husband subsequently hears that his
friend's life is in danger, and quits the wife to go and deliver him from
it at the risk of his own, which he does.

This story, which has resemblances to it in Boccaccio and Chaucer, is
told to Rinaldo while riding through a wood in Asia, with a damsel behind
him on the same horse. He has engaged to combat in her behalf with a band
of knights; and the lady relates it to beguile the way.

The reader is to bear in mind, that the age of chivalry took delight in
mooting points of love and friendship, such as in after-times would
have been out of the question; and that the parties in this story are
Mahometans, with whom divorce was an easy thing, and caused no scandal.

THE SARACEN FRIENDS.