[De duobus amantibus Euryalo et Lucretia]

"...your letter, which puts an end to complaints about the go-between. This torments me, that you think lightly of my love. For though many others love you, no one's fire is to be compared to mine. But you do not believe this because I cannot speak with you. If that were granted, you would not despise me. O, would that I could become a swallow alluding to a myth of transformation, or would that I were more willingly transformed into a flea; I would wish to close you in the window. But I do not grieve because you do not wish it, but because I cannot. For that I do not look at my own spirit—ah, in Lucretia, why do you not want what you want? Or if it could happen, would you not wish me to speak to you because I am entirely yours? I who desire nothing more than to comply with your ways; if you order me to go into the fire, I will obey more quickly than you desire. Send, I beg, a word; to this man, the power is not given, though the will is present. Kill me with a word, if you do not like my address, rather than making me live in the presence of someone else. But change that sentence which you said, that my labor would be empty. Away with this cruelty! Be milder to your lover. If you continue to speak thus, you will be a murderess, do not doubt it. You will intimate me more easily with a word than another with a sword. I cease now from asking for rewards so that you may proclaim my state; I ask for nothing that you can object to, no one can forbid you this. Say you love me, and I am blessed. My little gifts are, in any way, with you; it is pleasing that they will sometimes remind you of my love, but they are small, and the ones I send now are lesser; you, however, do not wish to despise what a lover gives beyond greater ones daily, from the small ones they should be asserted; when it is present, you will receive from me. Your ring will never recede from my finger, and I will return it to you wet with frequent kisses. Farewell, my delight, and give me what solace you can."

When this had been frequently replicated, in this manner Lucretia finally gave a letter: "I would wish, Eurialus, to comply with your ways and to make you a participant of my love as you ask. For your nobility deserves it, and your ways demand that you do not love what is less than noble. I am silent about how much your form pleases me and your face full of kindness. But it is not my custom to love you. I do not wish to be myself if I begin to love, nor will I observe measure or rule. You cannot be here for long, nor could I do without you once you come into the play. You would not wish to take me away, but I would not wish to stay. The examples of many women frighten me who have been deserted by pilgrim lovers. Should I follow your love? Jason left Medea, by whose aid he killed the watchful dragon and carried off the golden fleece. I deliver myself to the bait. But Adriane, trusting in counsel, escaped; yet she left her deserted on an island. What of unhappy Dido, who received the fugitive Aeneas? Did foreign love give her death?"