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Updated: June 19, 2025
Zanovitch asked me to dine with him the following day, and I should have thanked him and begged to be excused if Donna Ippolita had not pressed me to come. She assured me that I should find good company there, and that the cook would excel himself.
He felt a curious chill there when he got up in the morning, a dead weight, a mass to lift with every choked beat. Perhaps the Jew would end what Ippolita had begun. If so, well. But, ah, Ippolita, Ippolita bella, Ippolita crudel! Ah, ohimè! Habit set him to work.
Emilia waved her hand out of the little window; chords of music sounded from the street; the voices of men and ladies rose upon a madrigal "Fior' di Maggio Soave, pio e saggio Salve, Ippolita!" the work of Alessandro's muse upon that night of discord from the Jew. So she went downstairs.
This idyllic state of things might have lasted no one knows how long, with Ippolita-Silvestro finding joy in unreasonable service, and Pilade both ease and reason. Where either partner was so admirably suited it might have been interesting to see what would have happened: whether Ippolita would have betrayed herself or Pilade found her out.
There was Pontano, the founder of the Academy of Naples, who was busy writing his Latin eclogues on the myrtle bowers of Baiae and the orange groves of Sorrento. There was her aunt, the accomplished Ippolita Sforza, Duchess of Calabria, who had learnt Greek of the great teacher Lascaris in her young days at Milan, and whose wedding had brought the magnificent Lorenzo to the court of the Sforzas.
For it is cheaper to please a woman with a sonnet than with a jewel, and as my Ippolita was not avaricious, I was blithe to oblige her in golden numbers in lieu of golden pieces. Wherefore I set my wits to work one morning after an evening of delight, and found the muse complaisant.
They followed her by the Via Zitelle, over the Ponte della Morte, further yet, between garden walls topped with lilac, into the Prato della Valle. There the three unconscious girls mingled with the concourse of those who took the air under the still trees. Ippolita, that slim, tall marvel, seemed not to be remarked by any; Alessandro, swooning on his friend's arms, could scarcely believe it.
A bath? What, water." "Full to the brim with water, on the faith of a Catholic. Of course, if this continues I must die." "Oh, sicuro, sicurissimo!" she agreed. "This is very serious, Ippolita. Eh, let me feel you. Are you ever dry, my poor child?" "Dry to the touch, Nannina, dry to the touch. But it is within my body I fear it. I must be sodden, dearest."
Ippolita sat very scared on her throne, and endured what she could by catching firmly to the knobs of it and blinking her eyes. One by one they came creeping, these silken ladies, these slashed and curled young lords, to kiss her hand. "Dio mio!" thought she. "What is all this about? And are maids courted this way among the great?" She knew very little about it, yet was quite sure they were not.
"Now he has me," thought poor Ippolita, and set her teeth. But he lay at her feet most of the day, and though at night he led her into the garden, if you will believe me, he never even kissed her hand. "Who is mad?" thought she to herself, staring from her bed into the shadowy angles of the room. "Am I mad? Are these signori all mad? Is this a mad-house? Dio! it soon should be at this rate."
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