flesh that was sweeter and softer and more living than the water of the
brook which ran by them under the sallows.

At the sight, Fra Mino fell, in mind and intention, into deadly sin. He
desired to be one of these demons, half men and half beasts, and hold to
his bosom, after their carnal fashion, the fair lady of Florence he had
loved in the flower of his years, and who was now dead.

But already the goat-men were scattering through the country-side. Some
were busied gathering honey in the hollow trunks of oaks, others carving
reeds into the shape of flutes, or butting one against the other,
crashing their horned brows together. Meantime the bodies of the nymphs,
sweet wrecks of love, lay motionless, strewing the meadows. Fra Mino lay
groaning on the Chapel flags; for so fierce had been the desire of sin
within him that now he was filled full of bitter shame at his own
weakness.

Suddenly one of the nymphs, chancing as she lay to turn her eyes upon
him, cried out:

"A man! a man!"

And pointing him out to her companions:

"Look, sisters; yonder is no goat-herd, he has no flute of reed beside
him. Nor yet do I recognize him for the master of one of those rustic
farmsteads whose garden-close, sloping to the hill-side beneath the
vines, is guarded by a Priapus hewn out of a stump of beech. What would
he among us, if he is neither goat-herd, nor neat-herd, nor gardener?
His looks are harsh and gloomy, and I cannot read in his eyes the love