familiar friends, departed from Ravenna, and rode to a country
dwelling-house of his own, about three or four miles distant from the
city, at a place called Chiassi; and there upon a very good green
erecting divers tents and pavilions, such as great persons make use of
in the time of progress, he said to his friends which came with him
thither that there he determined to make his abiding, they all returning
back unto Ravenna, and coming to visit him again so often as they
pleased.

Now it came to pass that about the beginning of May, it being then a
very mild and serene season, and he leading there a much more
magnificent life than ever he had done before, inviting divers to dine
with him this day and as many to-morrow, and not to leave him till after
supper, upon a sudden falling into remembrance of his cruel mistress, he
commanded all his servants to forbear his company, and suffer him to
walk alone by himself a while, because he had occasion of private
meditations, wherein he would not by any means be troubled. It was then
about the ninth hour of the day, and he walking on solitary all alone,
having gone some half a mile distance from the tents, entered into a
grove of pine-trees, never minding dinner-time or anything else, but
only the unkind requital of his love.

Suddenly he heard the voice of a woman seeming to make most mournful
complaints, which breaking off his silent considerations, made him to
lift up his head to know the reason of this noise. When he saw himself
so far entered into the grove before he could imagine where he was, he
looked amazedly round about him, and out of a little thicket of bushes
and briars round engirt with spreading trees, he espied a young damsel
come running towards him, naked from the middle upward, her hair lying
on her shoulders, and her fair skin rent and torn with the briars and