Epistulae

I READ over your letter in silent fear, nor suffered so much as a murmur to escape me, lest my tongue might rashly swear by some of the gods. I even think you would have ensnared me again, but that, as you own yourself, you knew it was enough I was once promised to you. Nor would I have read it over, but from a fear that my obstinacy might have encreased the anger of the too cruel goddess. Although I forget nothing to appease her, and adore her with the smoke of pious incense, yet the partial Goddess still remains your friend; and, according to your own wish, leaves no room to doubt, that the injury with which you are threatened is the cause of her resentment. Scarcely was she so favorable to her own Hippolytus.

It is surely more proper for a virgin, not to shorten a virgin's years: I am afraid she has only allotted a few to fulfil my fate. For the wasting illness remains; the cause lies hidden; and I languish without hope of relief from the physician. You can scarcely conceive how thin and feeble I am, when I write you this, or with what difficulty I support my wasted limbs in the bed. I am also full of apprehensions, that some beside my faithful nurse may know of our thus conversing with each other. She always sits by the door, and, that I may write to you with the greater security, tells every one who enquires after me, that I am asleep. But when sleep, the best pretence in the world for long privacy, ceases to be a plausible excuse for the tedious retirement, and when she observes persons coming, to whom she can hardly with a good countenance deny admittance, she coughs, and warns me of the danger by some known sign.

Intent as I am, I leave the half-written words, and slip the well-dissembled epistle into my beating bosom. I take it out thence when alone; and it again fatigues my moving fingers. Judge only yourself what pain and anxiety it costs me. And yet (to be honest) let me die if you deserve it; but I am kind beyond what is due, or even what you could in reason expect. Have I then, on your account, so often hazarded my life? Have I suffered, and do I still suffer the punishment of your too successful artifice? Is this the fruit I reap from a beauty that made you an admirer? And must I pay so dearly for appearing agreeable to you? Had it been my good fortune to seam ugly, how happily might I have escaped this train of disasters! Now, because I am admired, I groan in anguish; now I am undone by your rival contentious, and perish by the wounds I receive from my own beauty. For while you refuse to yield, and he imagines himself in no respect your inferior, each stands an invincible obstacle to the other's desires. I, in the mean time, am tossed like an uncertain ship, driven by a strong North-wind to the open sea, but forcibly kept back by the tide and waves. When now the nuptial day, so earnestly wished by my dear parents, is at hand, a burning fever spreads over all my joints; and, at the very time

appointed for the threatening solemnity, stern Proserpine knocks hideous at the palace gate. I blush; and, though conscious of no crime, dread that I may be thought to have in some respect merited the wrath of Heaven.