Lope de Vega

“ I took him on my shoulders, and carried him to the monastery, where he died in my arms before the gate was opened: I do not desire to live, but the care which I have of another's life more than mine own makes me seek my liberty contrary to my desire; if thou canst procure me it, I am a knight, and of a family from which ungrateful man nor traitor ever sprang: thou shalt do a heroic deed worthy of an illustrious lady, and though I should never merit it, yet heaven will not fail to acknowledge it. ”

“ But night had hardly all hid her black head, crowned both with sleep and fear, when the deceived Thesander waked out of the most sorrowful dream that could possess his fantasy, representing to his imagination the absence of fugitive Nisa, together with her deceitful words, her sweet disdains, and her fair face; a thing which sometime happens principally to him which loves or fears. Inasmuch as those things which threaten us do represent to us in sleeping, the same cares which we have in the day awake. ”

“ So did Pamphilus accuse himself for having left Nisa for any danger; no more nor no less than as one who travailing upon the way remembers something of importance which he had forgotten at home, breaking off from his discourse and from his company, turns back again to his lodging where he thinks he shall never come time enough; with the same haste Pamphilus makes his way back again to Barcelona, from which both in haste and fear he had departed. A strong chain of lovers, which tied to their desired beauty, shortens itself by the force which lengthens it, until it returns to its centre. ”

“ At the course of these crystalline waters Pamphilus stayed his flight, sitting down upon the bank of the river, which began to swell with his tears, so pitiful to behold, that the very winds did seem to condole with him in his complaints by their doleful noise, amongst the leaves of the trees, and the birds warbling out their woes. There was not anything of life which had not some show of sorrow with him, unless it were the fishes, which being dumb did not put forth their heads out of their clear waters at the importunity of other voices, yet their silence did seem to join with him in sorrow. ”

“ It is easy to be seen in thy youth and in thy beauty, that love hath brought you into these parts; and if it be of a gentleman of whom thou dost complain, I believe I know him. It may be so, said the pilgrim of Madrid, and believe me so soon as I saw you I was abashed, because you have the very countenance of my enemy; you wish me evil by all circumstance, then said Nisa: rather all good replied the pilgrim; for all that resembles his body is agreeable to me, only I complain of the cruelty of his mind. Will you not tell me his name or his parents? said Nisa. ”

“ So said Celio, and turning his back to Finia left her in the greatest grief that a woman could suffer; which is in these accidents to lose his presence under whose protection she lives: especially when it seems to her that she cannot hope for any other remedy or succour. Celio hiding the tears which he shed in going away, and consulting with the fury of his jealousy, and his rage for the injury which he did think he had received, concerning the revenge which he should take, waited for Nisa’s enlargement, that he might kill him. ”

“ She accomplished it so ill, replied Celio, that within a few days she loved him better than she loved herself, proving the verse of the famous poet Dante to be infallibly true: that love excuseth no one who is beloved from loving. But how came it (said the pilgrim) that a maid should love; who had hearkened with so much disdain in the beginning? Because, answered Celio, that all maids for their first answer consult with shame, and for their second consult with weakness: although for my own part, I think that Pamphilus despairing of his remedy helped himself with charms. ”

“ This short tyranny, the bane of youth, the illusion of the sight, the prison of the soul, and the darkener of the sense, which is called Beauty, and which heaven seemeth to give women for our mischief: blinded so my eyes at the first knowledge, which they had in the world, that my spirit did not live so much in myself, as in her whom I loved, nor found more rest out of her sight, than things do out of their centre ”

“ Then asked the Earl, into how many parts music was divided? The madman answered, according to Boetius, into the theoretical and the practical, be it either natural, artificial, celestial or human; the natural and celestial is that which is considered in the harmony of all the parts of the world: the human is that which treats of the proportions of the body and of the soul, and their parts: for Plato, Pythagoras and Architas have thought that the motions and conversions of the stars cannot be without music. ”

“ Thesander rising in this imagination, began to search Nisa guided by the light of his soul, and not finding her, it little wanted that he did not die with grief for her departure; neither his father nor the rest of his parents had power enough to keep him from running after. And so he came to Toledo a long time before Nisa, for a lover who follows that which he loves doth go faster than he who flies from that which he doth not love; because he which doth not love grows sorrowful in going, and he which loves by going puts off his grief. ”

“ But if all the madmen in Spain were as you, and that my children should remain there, I should rather desire to have them ignorant than learned; know said the fool that if it were possible a man should desire to be born in France, to live in Italy and to die in Spain, to be born for the nobleness of the French, who always have had their king of their own nation, and never mingled with any other; to live, for the liberty and felicity of Italy: and to die for the Catholic faith which is so certain in all Spain. ”

“ The news of this accident came speedily to Nisa's ears, for the report of evil successes come sooner to the ears of lovers than that of happy events: what her grief was it is not necessary to express, otherwise than in representing Nisa far from her parents, out of her own country, and from any friends, and which was most, from the dear presence of him for whose sake she had quitted all these, and for whose loss she was almost out of her wits. But as the greatest encounters of fortune do sometime bring forth the greatest strength and courage of the mind ”

“ Who will believe that in the space of one night so many fortunes should happen to one man, if it were not known that things are written to be marked, and that evils do seldom come alone, seeing that the evils which happen in one night to one unfortunate man, do surpass all the prosperity which can happen to a fortunate man in all his life? The soldiers seeing the honest and grave countenance of this pilgrim, his youth and his innocence, and being otherwise mollified with his prayers ”

“ Emilio being then persuaded that this mad creature was a woman, or at the least having evident tokens thereof, inquired with great care of her sadness, using her as a gentlewoman, and with respect due unto her sex. Nisa who had now neither care to disguise herself nor to live, confessed she was a woman, and would not be comforted by Emilio’s words: but Emilio, who the more he conversed with her the more was engaged in her love, in the end suffered himself to be vanquished in her beauty: for Nisa now ceasing to appear as a man captivated all those who beheld her with her marvellous grace. ”

“ It is thou fair Nisa, who over the sharp mountains of Toledo didst courageously follow my steps, from their highest tops even to the sands of the Spanish Sea: thou art she, who in the battle of Ceuta didst bitterly bewail my captivity: art not thou o my dear Nisa she who under the habit of a Moor and under the name of Hassan Rubin, drew me from the Kingdom of Fez, and from the captivity of Sali Morata? Wert not thou cast away with me at sea, in our return from Italy within the view of Barcelona's walls, and whom the sea cast up on the shore, as unworthy to possess so rich a pearl? ”

“ The devils do delight themselves in things which are naturally melancholy, inhabiting in horrible places, obscure and solitary, and loving darkness and sadness: all which qualities are common with them which love, and cannot attain to that which they pretend, they desire solitary places, and the dens of deserts, there to entertain in silence their sad thoughts, without anything to trouble them, no not the light of heaven. But let me entreat thee to proceed in thy story of this knight, for I desire with passion to know the end. ”

“ What travails can weary them? And what dangers can make them fear? O love strong as death: seeing that a lover living in that which he loves, and being dead in himself, hath no more feeling of torment then a body deprived of a soul. With what tears were these two separated at night, by the cruel officers of this prison? (If it be cruelty to deal rigorously with mad folks) with what care and languishment did they attend the day that they might see one the other? ”

“ Hardly had he revolved in his imagination the confusion of his life, a thing which often (the body being at rest) is represented to the mind, when as sleep which is truly called the image and brother of Death, possessed his senses with that force which it is accustomed to use on weary pilgrims. All that part, which the sun abandons when it goes down to the Indies was in a deep silence, when the noise of some horses awaked Pamphilus. ”

“ To whom this woman (never known to be so in that place) who had seen him carried unto the oaks of the mountain, where Captain Doricles had commanded his soldiers to hang him, for whose death she had shed so many tears, and sighed out so many complaints, that the violence of her grief had troubled her understanding; and yet also doubting of his life, though she did see him; tremblingly answered, that she was wont to know him. Already was this pilgrim, by the voice, by the fearfulness, and by the tears assured that this mad body was the master of all her wits ”

“ A strange and never heard of story, that a man should be jealous of himself, and fly from his own presence. Nisa who now thought it as impossible for her to be without Pamphilus, as the Earth without water, fire without matter to burn, or as the celestial harmony without their first mover, said unto him in weeping, that she would have him take her away with him, and that she would follow him over the world ”

“ The Captain was astonished, the pilot pale, some cried, others silent and without stirring remained as men in a trance with fear. And in this confusion which continued six hours, the miserable galley split against the rocks; Emilio who now no more remembered his love, and who knew not that the unfortunateness of Nisa brought forth this effect (clean contrary unto Caesar's fortune, which appeased storms) endeavoured to save his life with much travail: and the heaven reserving Nisa’s life to run greater fortunes, cast her as formerly she had been upon the shore of Barcelona. ”

“ Amongst them was his brother, who seeing Pamphilus bloody, and in a pilgrim's habit (which is enough to make an honest man suspected) cried out, Oh thou Castilian traitor, thou hast murdered him to rob him. And at the very instant, the same friend who had killed this poor knight, and who the better to cover his treason, accompanying the brother, took hold of the pilgrim's arm: thou robber and infamous assassin, what hath made thee murder the noblest knight in this country? ”

“ Hardly had Nisa heard Pamphilus' resolution when in an extreme fury she said unto him, Ah perfidious traitor and barbarous enemy: without God, without faith, without love, without loyalty; is this that which thou owest unto heaven, to thy parents, to thy country and to the unfortunate and miserable Nisa? Who to deliver thee hath put herself into such great dangers? I knew well my most beloved Nisa, answered Pamphilus (embracing her) that this subtlety was necessary, for to make thee reveal thine ”