g that he still got a Roland for his Oliver,[205]
gave over pleasantry and addressed himself to the governance of the
kingdom committed to him. Wherefore, letting call the seneschal, he
was fain to know at what point things stood all and after discreetly
ordained that which he judged would be well and would content the
company for such time as his seignory should endure. Then, turning to
the ladies, "Lovesome ladies," quoth he, "since I knew good from evil,
I have, for my ill fortune, been still subject unto Love for the
charms of one or other of you; nor hath humility neither obedience,
no, nor the assiduous ensuing him in all his usances, in so far as it
hath been known of me, availed me but that first I have been abandoned
for another and after have still gone from bad to worse; and so I
believe I shall fare unto my death; wherefore it pleaseth me that it
be discoursed to-morrow of none other matter than that which is most
conformable to mine own case, to wit, OF THOSE WHOSE LOVES HAVE HAD
UNHAPPY ENDING, for that I in the long run look for a most unhappy
[issue to mine own]; nor was the name by which you call me conferred
on me for otherwhat by such an one who knew well what it meant."[206]
So saying, he rose to his feet and dismissed every one until
supper-time.

[Footnote 205: Lit. that scythes were no less plenty that he had
arrows (_che falci si trovavano non meno che egli avesse strali_), a
proverbial expression the exact bearing of which I do not know, but
whose evident sense I have rendered in the equivalent English idiom.]

[Footnote 206: Syn. what he said (_che si dire_). See ante, p. 11,
note.]

The garden was so goodly and so delightsome that there was none who
elected to go forth thereof, in the hope of finding more pleasance
elsewhere. Nay, the sun, now grown mild, making it nowise irksome to
give chase to the fawns and kids and rabbits and other beasts which
were thereabout and which, as they sat, had come maybe an hundred
times to disturb them by skipping through their midst, some addressed
themselves to pursue them. Dioneo and Fiammetta fell to singing of
Messer Guglielmo and the Lady of Vergiu,[207] whilst Filomena and
Pamfilo sat down to chess; and so, some doing one thing and some
another, the time passed on such wise that the hour of supper came
well nigh unlooked for; whereupon, the tables being set round about
the fair fountain, they supped there in the evening with the utmost
delight.

[