waiting to be entreated, ready virtuously to do unto others
that which it would have done to itself. Nowadays its divine effects
are very rarely to be seen in any twain, by the fault and to the shame
of the wretched cupidity of mankind, which, regarding only its own
profit, hath relegated it to perpetual exile, beyond the extremest
limits of the earth. What love, what riches, what kinship, what,
except friendship, could have made Gisippus feel in his heart the
ardour, the tears and the sighs of Titus with such efficacy as to
cause him yield up to his friend his betrothed bride, fair and gentle
and beloved of him? What laws, what menaces, what fears could have
enforced the young arms of Gisippus to abstain, in solitary places and
in dark, nay, in his very bed, from the embraces of the fair damsel,
she mayhap bytimes inviting him, had friendship not done it? What
honours, what rewards, what advancements, what, indeed, but
friendship, could have made Gisippus reck not of losing his own
kinsfolk and those of Sophronia nor of the unmannerly clamours of the
populace nor of scoffs and insults, so that he might pleasure his
friend? On the other hand, what, but friendship, could have prompted
Titus, whenas he might fairly have feigned not to see, unhesitatingly
to compass his own death, that he might deliver Gisippus from the
cross to which he had of his own motion procured himself to be
condemned? What else could have made Titus, without the least demur,
so liberal in sharing his most ample patrimony with Gisippus, whom
fortune had bereft of his own? What else could have made him so
forward to vouchsafe his sister to his friend, albeit he saw him very
poor and reduced to the extreme of misery? Let men, then, covet a
multitude of comrades, troops of brethren and children galore and add,
by dint of monies, to the number of their servitors, considering not
that every one of these, who and whatsoever he may be, is more fearful
of every least danger of his own than careful to do away the
great[470] from father or brother or master, whereas we see a friend
do altogether the contrary."

[Footnote 470: _i.e._ perils.]

THE NINTH STORY

[Day the Tenth]

SALADIN, IN THE DISGUISE OF A MERCHANT, IS HONOURABLY
ENTERTAINED BY MESSER TORELLO D'ISTRIA, WHO, PRESENTLY
UNDERTAKING THE [THIRD] CRUSADE, APPOINTETH HIS WIFE A TERM
FOR HER MARRYING AGAIN. HE IS TAKEN [BY THE SARACENS] AND
COMETH, BY HIS SKILL IN