[De duobus amantibus Euryalo et Lucretia]

You have urged me ten times now, and I refuse no longer what you have asked for so persistently. Yet, I will not be a fabricator, as you demand, nor will we use the poet's trumpet when it is permitted to report the truth. For who is so foolish that he would choose to invent when he can rely on the truth? Because you have often been a lover, and do not yet lack the fire, you want me to weave the history of two lovers for you. It is a business that does not let you be an old man. I will be obedient to your desire and I will cause this sickness of the groin a metaphorical reference to lust to itch, my friend. Nor will I invent, when there is such an abundance of truth. For what in the whole world is more common than love? What city, what small town, what family is free from its examples? Who, having reached his thirtieth year, does not commit some folly for the sake of love? I make a conjecture about myself, whom love has sent into a thousand dangers. I give thanks to the gods that I, a miserable man, escaped the snares set for me, more fortunate than Mars, whom Vulcan ensnared with his iron net while he lay with Venus, exposing him to the laughter of the other gods. But I will touch upon the loves of others, not my own, lest while I uncover the ashes of an old fire, I find a spark still living. I will expose the crimes, or the wonderful and almost incredible love, with which two lovers—no, two madmen—burned for one another. I will not use ancient or forgotten examples, but will expose the faces burning in our own time. You will not hear of Trojans or Babylonians, but of the loves of our

city Siena. One of the lovers was born under the northern sky, and perhaps he fled here for some advantage. For when the girl who appears in the argument died, the lover, while lamenting and indignant, breathed out his soul; the other, after this, was never a participant in true joy. This will be a certain warning for youths to abstain from these yokes. Let the young listen, therefore, and having been instructed by this case, let them see to it that they do not find themselves lost after the loves of youth. This history instructs the young not to engage in the warfare of love, which has more gall than honey. But leaving aside this lasciviousness that makes men insane, let them apply themselves to studies which can bless their possessor with glory. If anyone does not know from elsewhere how many evils lie hidden in love, he will be able to know from this. Farewell, and listen attentively to the history you force me to write.

whence you have your origin.
When Sigismund the Emperor arrived,
what honors were paid to him is already known everywhere. A palace was prepared for him near the chapel of the Holy Mother, on the road that leads to Tofor, at the narrow gate. After the ceremonies were completed, when they had arrived, Sigismund encountered four matrons of nobility, beauty, age, and ornamentation, whom everyone thought were not mortals but goddesses.