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(Franco to an unnamed man.) Sir, your virtue and your great valor and your eloquence had such power that they freed my heart from another's hand; and that heart I soon hope to see placed within your noble breast, and ruling there and doing your will. What I most loved I now despise, and I no longer value weak and frail beauty and repent of ever having delighted in it. Unhappy me, who loved a mortal shadow that I should have hated and loved you instead, endowed with infinite, undying virtue! The sea does not have as many grains of sand as the number of times I weep over this: loving frail beauty, I disdained endless virtue. Sighing I confess my mistake, and I promise and swear to you truly that I'll banish beauty in favor of virtue. Longing for your virtue, I languish and die, my heart freed from that evil chain, with which the little archer god bound me; once I followed my senses, now reason is my guide...... [ll. 1-22; pp. 85] |
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