who desires a thing ought indeed to request and pray for it. How?
Shall I then pray him? Nay, indeed. Why not? It never happened
that a woman did aught so witless as to beg a man for love unless
she were more than common mad. I should be convicted of folly if
I said with my mouth aught that might turn to my reproach. If he
should know it from my mouth, I deem that he would hold me the
cheaper for it, and would often reproach me with having been the
first to pray for love. Never be Love so abased that I should go
and entreat this man, since he would be bound to hold me the
cheaper for it. Ah God! how will he ever know it, since I shall
not tell him? As yet I have scarce suffered aught for which I
need so distress myself. I shall wait till he perceives it, if he
is ever destined to perceive it. He will know it well of a truth,
I think, if ever he had aught to do with Love or heard tell of it
by word of mouth. Heard tell! Now have I said foolish words.
Love's lore is not so easy that a man becomes wise by speaking of
it unless good experience be there too. Of myself I know this
well; for never could I learn aught of it by fair speaking or by
word of mouth; and yet I have been much at Love's school, and
have often been flattered; but always have I kept aloof from him,
and now he makes me pay dear for it; for now I know more of it
than an ox does of ploughing. But of this I despair--that he
never loved , perhaps, and if he does not love, and has not
loved; then have I been sowing in the sea where no seed can take
root; and there is nothing for it but to wait for him and to
suffer till I see whether I can bring him into the right way by
hints and covert words. I will so act that he will be certain of
having my love if he dares to seek it. Thus the end of the whole
matter is that I love him and am his. If he does not love me, I
shall love him all the same."