s mine enemy and put an end to my expenditure, and I
am ready to do it, provided you will obtain me a favour; the which is
this, that on the coming Friday you make shift to have Messer Paolo
Traversari and his wife and daughter and all their kinswomen and what
other ladies soever it shall please you here to dinner with me. That
for which I wish this, you shall see then.' This seemed to them a
little thing enough to do, wherefore, returning to Ravenna, they in
due time invited those whom Nastagio would have to dine with him, and
albeit it was no easy matter to bring thither the young lady whom he
loved, natheless she went with the other ladies. Meanwhile, Nastagio
let make ready a magnificent banquet and caused set the tables under
the pines round about the place where he had witnessed the slaughter
of the cruel lady.

The time come, he seated the gentlemen and the ladies at table and so
ordered it that his mistress should be placed right over against the
spot where the thing should befall. Accordingly, hardly was the last
dish come when the despairful outcry of the hunted damsel began to be
heard of all, whereat each of the company marvelled and enquired what
was to do, but none could say; whereupon all started to their feet and
looking what this might be, they saw the woeful damsel and the knight
and the dogs; nor was it long ere they were all there among them.
Great was the clamor against both dogs and knight, and many rushed
forward to succour the damsel; but the knight, bespeaking them as he
had bespoken Nastagio, not only made them draw back, but filled them
all with terror and amazement. Then did he as he had done before,
whereat all the ladies that were there (and there were many present
who had been kinswomen both to the woeful damsel and to the knight and
who remembered them both of his love and of his death) wept as
piteously as if they had seen this done to themselves.

The thing carried to its end and the damsel and the knight gone, the
adventure set those who had seen it upon many and various discourses;
but of those who were the most affrighted was the cruel damsel beloved
of Nastagio, who had distinctly seen and heard the whole matter and
understood that these things concerned her more than any other who was
there, remembering her of the cruelty she had still used towards
Nastagio; wherefore herseemed she fled already before her enraged
lover and had the mastiffs at her heels. Such was the terror awakene