her
to stay mee from the Halter: but in doyng so, thou doest mee
greater wrong, than doeth despayre whych eggeth me therunto.
Suffer I say, that mine afflictions may take some end, sith
cruel fortune willeth it to be so, or rather vnhappy fate: for
sowre death is sweeter in my conceit, than bitter life contriued
in sharper sauce than gall or wormwood." Elisa hearing her
speake these wordes, sayd: "For so much as thy myshap is such,
as onely death is the nearest remedy to depriue thy payne, what
wicked chaunce hath induced thee, in this house to finish those
thy miseries? What hath prouoked the to sutch augury to this our
most happy and ioyfull family?" "Forced is the partye" (sayd
Philene) "so to doe when destenye hath so appointed." "What
desteny is that?" demaunded Elisa. "Tell mee I beseech thee,
perchaunce thou mayst preuent the same by other remedy than that
whereabout thou goest." "No," (answered Philene) "that is
impossible, but to satisfie thy request which so instantly thou
crauest of me, I wil tel thee the summe of al my miserie." In
saying so the teares gushed forth hir eyes, and hir voice brake
oute into complaints, and thus began to say: "Ah Elisa, why
should I seke to prolong my wretched life in this vale of
wretchednesse, wherein I haue ben so miserably afflicted? my
mother pitieng mine estate and seeynge me voide of frends, and a
fatherlesse child vpon hir death bed, disclosed vnto me a
treasure which she had hidden vpon this beam whervnto this
halter (the best remedy of my misery) is tied: and I making
serch for the same, in place of that treasure found this halter,
ordeined as I suppose (by what misfortune I knowe not) for my
death: and where I thought among the happy to be the most happy,
I see my selfe amongs al vnlucky women to be the most
vnfortunate." Elisa hearing hir say so, greatly maruelled and
sayd: "Why then I perceiue thou art a woman and not a man."
"Yea, truly," answered the vnhappy mayden: "A singuler example
of extreme misery to all sortes of women." "And why so?"
demaunded Elisa. "Bicause" (answered Philene) "that the
pestilent planet vnder which I was borne, will haue it to be
so." And then she told hir al that which had chaunced from the
time of hir mother's departure out of Carthage, and how she went
into Scicilia and recounted vnto hir the loue that she bare to a
Scicilian Gentleman, and howe that he disdayning hir for hir
pouerty, refused to be hir husband: whervpon to atchieue