A FEW days later, Euryalus set off for Rome with the Emperor, and he had not been there many days when he fell ill. This was a grave misfortune; for to the fires of love was added a burning fever and, as passion had already well-nigh destroyed his health, when the sufferings of disease were added, he barely escaped alive. Only the physicians’ remedies kept life within him which, otherwise, had departed. Every day the Emperor came and comforted him, as he would his own son, and bade the doctors try all the cures known to Apollo. But no medicine did him so much good as Lucretia’s letter, which told him that she was safe and sound. This knowledge slightly lessened the fever, and Euryalus was able to get up and to be present at the Emperor’s coronation, when he was made a knight and received the golden spurs.

After that, while the Emperor went to Perugia, Euryalus stayed in Rome, for he was not yet completely restored, and thence returned to Siena, though still weak and very thin in the face. But, though he saw Lucretia, he could not talk with her. Several letters passed between them, and again they spoke of flight. Euryalus stayed there three days, but at last, when he saw that all means of approach had been taken from him, he announced his departure to his mistress. And never had their intercourse been so sweet as now their separation was bitter.

Lucretia was standing at her window, when Euryalus rode down the street. With streaming eyes, they gazed at one another. Each of them was in tears; each was suffering torments, and felt as though their hearts were being torn violently out of their breasts.

If there is anyone that does not know the agony of death, let him consider the parting of these two lovers, although this sorrow is much sharper, this torture far more cruel. For in death the spirit grieves to quit the body that it loves; but the body, when the spirit is gone, nor grieves nor feels anything. But when two are bound together by love and have become one spirit, then is their separation the more painful, the more intensely either loved one feels it. And here, indeed, were not two spirits but, as Aristotle believed it to be among friends, two bodies made from one soul. So that one spirit was not taking leave of another; but a single spirit was being cut in two, a single heart divided. Part of one mind was going, part remaining; and every sense in turn was being broken up, and bewailed the separation.

Not a drop of blood was left in the lovers’ faces: but for their tears and sighs, they were like the dead. And who could tell, who could describe or even contemplate their mental agony, unless he had himself known madness?