Ah, how often did I visit her altars and offer incense,
crowned with a garland of her favorite foliage! How often did I think
scornfully of the counsels of my aged nurse! Nay, furthermore, being
elated far more than all my other companions, how often did I disparage
their loves, saying within myself: "No one is loved as I am loved, no
one loves a youth as matchless as the youth I love, no one realizes such
delights from love as I!" In short, I counted the world as nothing in
comparison with my love. It seemed to me that my head touched the skies,
and that nothing was lacking to the culmination of my ecstatic bliss.
Betimes the idea flashed on my mind that I must disclose to others the
occasion of my transports, for surely, I would reflect, it would be a
delight to others to hear of that which has brought such delight to me!
But thou, O Shame, on the one side, and thou, O Fear, on the other, did
hold me back: the one threatening me with eternal infamy; the other with
loss of that which hostile Fortune was soon afterward to tear from me.
In such wise then, did I live for some time, for it was then pleasing to
Love that I should live in this manner; and, in good sooth, so blithely
and joyously were these days spent that I had little cause to envy any
lady in the whole world, never imagining that the delight wherewith my
heart was filled to overflowing, was to nourish the root and plant of my
future misery, as I now know to my fruitless and never-ending sorrow.
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