ed to me his purity of purpose, I told him that mine was to live
in perpetual solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits
of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty; and if, after this open
avowal, he chose to persist against hope and steer against the wind, what
wonder is it that he should sink in the depths of his infatuation? If I
had encouraged him, I should be false; if I had gratified him, I should
have acted against my own better resolution and purpose. He was
persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated. Bethink
you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid to my
charge. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way to
despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter himself
whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive; but let not him
call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon whom I practise
no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. It has not been so far
the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to expect me to love
by choice is idle. Let this general declaration serve for each of my
suitors on his own account, and let it be understood from this time forth
that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy or misery he dies, for
she who loves no one can give no cause for jealousy to any, and candour
is not to be confounded with scorn. Let him who calls me wild beast and
basilisk, leave me alone as something noxious and evil; let him who calls
me ungrateful, withhold his service; who calls me wayward, seek not my
acquaintance; who calls me cruel, pursue me not; for this wild beast,
this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of
desire to seek, serve, know, or follow them. If Chrysostom's impatience
and violent passion killed him, why should my modest behaviour and
circumspection be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the
trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob
me of it? I have, as you know, wealth of my own, and I covet not that of
others; my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint; I
neither love nor hate anyone; I do not deceive this one or court that, or
trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the shepherd
girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations; my
desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it
is to contemplate the beauty of the hea