[De duobus amantibus Euryalo et Lucretia]

Complaint: the complaints of those who love. Farewell, my hope and my fear. As a wall, which is broken internally by an unassailable force, falls outwardly if it is pushed, so Lucretia was conquered by the words of Eurialus. After she recognized the diligence of her lover and revealed the love she had hidden, she opened up to Eurialus with these words:

I am already called yours, though I am a miserable woman, who accepted your letters and am to be exposed to very many dangers unless your faith and prudence aid me. You see how those things I wrote have happened. Now, if you abandon me to your love, you are cruel, a traitor, and the worst of all. It is easy to deceive a woman, but the easier it is, the more shameful. The matter is still whole; if you think I should be abandoned, say so before love burns more. And let us not begin what we might regret having started later. In all things, the end must be considered. I, as you know, see little. You are a man; it is proper for you to take care of me and yourself. I give myself to you now, and I follow your faith. And I do not wish to be yours except that I may be yours forever, and you mine. Farewell, my protection and the guide of my life. After this, many letters were sent on both sides. And Eurialus did not write as ardently as Lucretia responded fervently. There was now only one desire for both: to meet together. But it seemed arduous and almost impossible to escape the eyes of all who observed Lucretia, who never went out alone and never lacked a guard. Menelaus did not watch his wife as diligently as Argus guarded Io, the beloved of Juno. This opinion is widespread among the Italians: everyone shuts up his woman like a treasure, in my judgment less usefully. For almost all women of this kind are such that they desire most that which is most denied. When you want them, they are unwilling; when you are unwilling, they offer themselves. If they have the reins of letters, to watch they sin less. And it is as easy to guard flies of the vigilant as it is to observe a flock in the midday sun. Unless a woman is chaste by her own nature, the husband strives in vain by placing guards around her. But who guards the guards themselves? She is cautious who begins with them, the wife. Woman is an untamed animal and cannot be held by any reins. Lucretia had a foster-brother; she had often sent letters to him to be delivered to Eurialus, for she had made this man duty the minister of her love. With him, therefore, it was agreed that Eurialus would be received secretly into the house that she had near the house of her mother, which Lucretia often visited and was visited by her more often, for they did not live at a great distance. Dido was therefore so positioned that, after the house was closed to Eurialus, after the hearing of ecclesiastical ceremonies