r linen cloth, and covered it with earth, in
which she planted sundry heads of right fair basil of Salerno; nor did
she ever water these with other water than that of her tears or rose
or orange-flower water. Moreover she took wont to sit still near the
pot and to gaze amorously upon it with all her desire, as upon that
which held her Lorenzo hid; and after she had a great while looked
thereon, she would bend over it and fall to weeping so sore and so
long that her tears bathed all the basil, which, by dint of long and
assiduous tending, as well as by reason of the fatness of the earth,
proceeding from the rotting head that was therein, waxed passing fair
and very sweet of savour.

[Footnote 241: _i.e._ to the place shown her in the dream.]

[Footnote 242: _i.e._ in their service.]

[Footnote 243: Lit. unhung (_spicco_).]

The damsel, doing without cease after this wise, was sundry times seen
of her neighbours, who to her brothers, marvelling at her waste beauty
and that her eyes seemed to have fled forth her head [for weeping],
related this, saying, 'We have noted that she doth every day after
such a fashion.' The brothers, hearing and seeing this and having once
and again reproved her therefor, but without avail, let secretly carry
away from her the pot, which she, missing, with the utmost instance
many a time required, and for that it was not restored to her, stinted
not to weep and lament till she fell sick; nor in her sickness did she
ask aught other than the pot of basil. The young men marvelled greatly
at this continual asking and bethought them therefor to see what was
in this pot. Accordingly, turning out the earth, they found the cloth
and therein the head, not yet so rotted but they might know it, by the
curled hair, to be that of Lorenzo. At this they were mightily amazed
and feared lest the thing should get wind; wherefore, burying the
head, without word said, they privily departed Messina, having taken
order how they should withdraw thence, and betook themselves to
Naples. The damsel, ceasing never from lamenting and still demanding
her pot, died, weeping; and so her ill-fortuned love had end. But,
after a while the thing being grown manifest unto many, there was one
who made thereon the song that is yet sung, to wit:

Alack! ah, who can the ill Christian be,
That stole my pot away?" etc.[244]

[Footnote 244: The following is a translation of the whole of the song
in question, as printed