to her that Lothario looked at her somewhat more freely
than when he had been at home; but that now she was
undeceived and believed it to have been only her own
imagination, for Lothario now avoided seeing her,
or being alone with her. Anselmo told her she
might be quite easy on the score of that suspicion,
for he knew that Lothario was in love with a damsel
of rank in the city whom he celebrated under the name
of Chloris, and that even if he were not, his fidelity
and their great friendship left no room for fear.
Had not Camilla, however, been informed beforehand
by Lothario that this love for Chloris was a pretence,
and that he himself had told Anselmo of it in order
to be able sometimes to give utterance to the praises
of Camilla herself, no doubt she would have fallen
into the despairing toils of jealousy; but being forewarned
she received the startling news without uneasiness.
The next day as the three were at table Anselmo asked
Lothario to recite something of what he had composed
for his mistress Chloris; for as Camilla did not know
her, he might safely say what he liked.
“Even did she know her,” returned Lothario,
“I would hide nothing, for when a lover praises
his lady’s beauty, and charges her with cruelty,
he casts no imputation upon her fair name; at any
rate, all I can say is that yesterday I made a sonnet
on the ingratitude of this Chloris, which goes thus:
At midnight, in the silence, when the eyes
Of happier mortals balmy slumbers close,
The weary tale of my unnumbered woes
To Chloris and to Heaven is wont to rise.
And when the light of day returning dyes
The portals of the east with tints of
rose,
With undiminished force my sorrow flows
In broken accents and in burning sighs.
And when the sun ascends his star-girt throne,
And on the earth pours down his midday
beams,
Noon but renews my wailing
and my tears;
And with the night again goes up my moan.
Yet ever in my agony it seems
To me that neither Heaven
nor Chloris hears.”
The sonnet pleased Camilla, and still more Anselmo,
for he praised it and said the lady was excessively
cruel who made no return for sincerity so manifest.
On which Camilla said, “Then all that love-smitten
poets say is true?”
“As poets they do not tell the truth,”
replied Lothario; “but as lovers they are not
more defective in expression than they are truthful.”
“There is no doubt of that,” observed
Anselmo, anxious to support and uphold Lothario’s
ideas with Camilla, who was as regardless of his design
as she was deep in love with Lothario; and so taking
delight in anything that was his, and knowing that
his thoughts and writings had her for their object,
and that she herself was the real Chloris, she asked
him to repeat some other sonnet or verses if he recollected
any.
“I do,” replied Lothario, “but I
do not think it as good as the first one, or, more
correctly speaking, less bad; but you can easily judge,
for it is this.
