ing awhile with Tedaldo's
wishes, suddenly altogether withdrew her good graces from him and not
only refused to hearken to any message of his, but would on no wise
see him; wherefore he fell into a dire and cruel melancholy; but his
love for her had been so hidden that none guessed it to be the cause
of his chagrin. After he had in divers ways studied amain to recover
the love himseemed he had lost without his fault and finding all his
labour vain, he resolved to withdraw from the world, that he might not
afford her who was the cause of his ill the pleasure of seeing him
pine away; wherefore, without saying aught to friend or kinsman, save
to a comrade of his, who knew all, he took such monies as he might
avail to have and departing secretly, came to Ancona, where, under the
name of Filippo di Sanlodeccio, he made acquaintance with a rich
merchant and taking service with him, accompanied him to Cyprus on
board a ship of his.

His manners and behaviour so pleased the merchant that he not only
assigned him a good wage, but made him in part his associate and put
into his hands a great part of his affairs, which he ordered so well
and so diligently that in a few years he himself became a rich and
famous and considerable merchant; and albeit, in the midst of these
his dealings, he oft remembered him of his cruel mistress and was
grievously tormented of love and yearned sore to look on her again,
such was his constancy that seven years long he got the better of the
battle. But, chancing one day to hear sing in Cyprus a song that
himself had made aforetime and wherein was recounted the love he bore
his mistress and she him and the pleasure he had of her, and thinking
it could not be she had forgotten him, he flamed up into such a
passion of desire to see her again that, unable to endure longer, he
resolved to return to Florence.

Accordingly, having set all his affairs in order, he betook himself
with one only servant to Ancona and transporting all his good thither,
despatched it to Florence to a friend of the Anconese his partner,
whilst he himself, in the disguise of a pilgrim returning from the
Holy Sepulchre, followed secretly after with his servant and coming to
Florence, put up at a little hostelry kept by two brothers, in the
neighbourhood of his mistress's house, whereto he repaired first of
all, to see her, an he might. However, he found the windows and doors
and all else closed, wherefore his heart misgave him she