Upon which jumping from her, to avoid the sting,
I made off. The old woman in a great rage pursu'd me, and tho' drunk
with wine, and their more hot desires, took the right way: and
follow'd me through two or three villages, crying stop thief; but with
my hands all bloody, in the hasty flight, I got off.
When I got home, to ease my wearied limbs, I went to bed, but the
thoughts of my misfortunes would not let me sleep; when considering
how unparallel'd a wretch I was, I cry'd out, "Did my ever cruel
fortune want the afflictions of love to make me more miserable? O
unhappiness! Fortune and love conspire my ruin. Severer love spares
me no way, or loving, or belov'd a wretch: Chrysis adores me, and is
ever giving me occasion to address: She, that when she brought me to
her mistress, despis'd me for my mean habit as one beneath her
desires; that very Chrysis that so scorn'd my former fortune, pursues
this even with the hazard of her own; and swore, when she first
discover'd to me the violence of her love, that she wou'd be ever true
to me. But Circe's in possession of my heart, I value none but her,
and indeed who wears such charms? Compar'd to her, what was Ariadne
or Lyda? what Helen, or even Venus? Paris himself the umpire of the
wanton nymphs, if with these eyes he had seen her contending for the
golden apple, wou'd have given both his Helen and the goddesses for
her.
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