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This morning a handmaiden of the lady Tisbina applied to me for a secret poison; and just now it was told me, that the lady herself had been at this house. I am old, sir, and you are young; and I warn you against the violence and jealousies of womankind. Talk of their flames of love! Satan himself burn them, say I, for they are fit for nothing better.
Prasildo, a nobleman of Babylon, to his great anguish, falls in love with his friend's wife, Tisbina; and being overheard by her and her husband threatening to kill himself, the lady, hoping to divert him from his passion by time and absence, promises to return it on condition of his performing a distant and perilous adventure.
Stay, or go this instant, as it seems best to you." A stronger feeling than compassion moved the heart of Tisbina at these words. "This indeed," replied she, "I feel to be noble; and truly could I also now die to save you. But life is flitting; and how may I prove my regard?"
Nay," concluded the wretched husband, "I feel as though I should die over again, if I could call to mind in my grave how you were taken from me." Iroldo became dumb for anguish. It seemed to him as if his very heart had been taken out of his breast. Nor was Tisbina less miserable. She was as pale as death, and could hardly speak to him, or bear to look at him.
This personage, whose name was Prasildo, happened to be of a party one day with Tisbina, who were amusing themselves in a garden, with a game in which the players knelt down with their faces bent on one another's laps, and guessed who it was that struck them.
Tisbina was wrong; because, having lost Iroldo, she did not know what Prasildo would do; but so soon as the latter offered to fill up the place, she nobly and magnanimously resigned herself to her fate." Ut sup. vol. iii. p. 336. It might be thought inconsistent in Tisbina, notwithstanding Mr.
To this serpent he himself was destined to be sacrificed, when Prasildo, the possessor of his wife Tisbina, hearing of his peril, set out instantly from Babylon, and rode night and day till he came to the abode of the enchantress, determined that nothing should hinder him from doing his utmost to save the life of a friend so generous.
He begged her to name her own place and time for receiving the bough at his hands, taking care to remind her of her promise; and he could not help adding, that he should die if she broke it. Terrible was the grief of Tisbina at this unlooked-for news. She threw herself on her couch in despair, and bewailed the hour she was born.
But before he had ended, Tisbina sunk on the floor in a swoon. Her weaker frame was the first to undergo the effects of what she had taken. Iroldo felt icy chill to see her, albeit she seemed to sleep sweetly. Her aspect was not at all like death. He taxed Heaven with cruelty for treating two loving hearts so hardly, and cried out against Fortune, and life, and Love itself.
Iroldo then covered his face and head, not daring to see her depart for the house of Prasildo; and Tisbina, with pangs bitterer than death, left him in solitude. Tisbina, accompanied by a servant, went to Prasildo, who could scarcely believe his ears when he heard that she was at the door requesting to speak with him.
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