WHEN Protesilaus left Laodomia, to go to the sacred Trojan war, she fainted away; and, when she heard of her husband’s end, could live no longer. Phoenician Dido killed herself, after the fateful death of Aeneas; nor would Portia live, when Brutus had been slain.

And thus our lady, when Euryalus had passed from her sight, fell fainting to the ground, and was taken up by her servants and laid upon her bed, till she should recover her strength. And when at last she came to herself, she put away her robes of purple and gold and all the adornments of her joy, and wore dark clothes. Never from that moment was she heard to sing, far less was she seen to laugh: no jokes nor gaiety nor any jests could recall her to happiness. And after she had survived for some time in this humour, she fell ill, and because her heart had been taken from her, her mind could discover no consolation. In the arms of her mother weeping bitterly, and amid her mourning relatives, who vainly tried to comfort her, she breathed out her indignant spirit.

Euryalus, when he had passed out of sight of those eyes he was never to see more, spoke to no one all the way, but filled his thoughts with Lucretia, and wondered if he would ever return; and so at last he reached the Emperor, who was still at Perugia, and then followed him to Ferrara, Mantua, Trient, Constance, and Basel; and so at last to Hungary and Bohemia. But, as he followed Caesar, so Lucretia followed him in his dreams, and gave him never a night’s repose; so that her true lover knew her to be dead. Shattered by this great sorrow, he put on mourning and would not be consoled, until the Emperor wedded him to a maiden of ducal rank, most beautiful, and chaste, and virtuous.

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And now, my dearest Marianus, you have heard the out-come of this love, a true story and an unhappy one: And may all who read it take a lesson from others that will be useful to themselves: let them beware to drink the cup of love, that holds far more of bitter than of sweet. Farewell.

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Vienna, the third of July, in the year of Our Lord, fourteen hundred and forty-four.

Here ends Aeneas Sylvius’ little tale of the two lovers.