Ed.

"I am well aware, ladies, that this long tale may have been wearisome
to some among you, but had I told it as it was told to me it would have
been longer still. Take example, I beg you, by the virtue of Florida,
but be somewhat less cruel; and think not so well of any man that, when
you are undeceived, you occasion him a cruel death and yourselves a life
of sorrow."

Having had a long and fair hearing Parlamente said to Hircan--

"Do you not think that this lady was pressed to extremities and that she
held out virtuously?"

"No," said Hircan; "a woman can make no more feeble resistance than to
cry out. If she had been in a place where none could hear her I do not
know how she would have fared. And if Amadour had had more love and less
fear he would not have desisted from his attempt for so little. So
this story will not cause me to change my firm opinion that no man
ever perfectly loved a lady, or was loved by her, that he did not prove
successful if only he went the right way to work. Nevertheless, I must
praise Amadour for having in part done his duty."

"What duty?" asked Oisille. "Do you call it a lover's duty to try
and take his mistress by force when he owes her all reverence and
submission?"

Here Saffredent took up the discourse.

"Madam," he said, "when our mistresses hold their state in chamber or
hall, seated at their ease as though they were our judges, we lead
them to the dance in fear; we wait upon them with all diligence and
anticipate their commands; and we are so afraid of offending them and so
desirous of doing them service that those who see us pity us, and often
deem us more witless than brutes. They account us dull and void of
understanding, and give praise to the ladies, whose faces are so
imperious and their speech so fair that they make themselves feared,
loved, and honoured by those who only know them outwardly. But when we
are together in private, and love alone can judge our behaviour, we
know full well that they are women and we are men. Then is the name
'mistress' changed to 'sweetheart,' and the 'slave' becomes a 'lover.'
As the proverb says--'By service true and loyalty, do servants rise to
mastery.' They have honour equally with men, who can give it to them and
can take it away; and seeing us suffer in patience, they should reward
us when they can do so without hurt to their honour."

"You do not speak of that true honour," said Longarine, "which is the
greatest happiness t