ess; so
In women and the young

A modesty is seen,
Not virtue, noble yet;
Comes virtue from what's noble, as
From black comes violet;

Or from the parent root
It springs, as said before,
And so let no one vaunt that him.
A noble mother bore.

They are as Gods whom Grace
Has placed beyond all sin:
God only gives it to the Soul
That He finds pure within.

That seed of Happiness
Falls in the hearts of few,
Planted by God within the Souls
Spread to receive His dew.

Souls whom this Grace adorns
Declare it in each breath,
From birth that joins the flesh and soul
They show it until death.

In Childhood they obey,
Are gentle, modest, heed
To furnish Virtue's person with
The graces it may need.

Are temperate in Youth,
And resolutely strong,
Love much, win praise for courtesy,
Are loyal, hating wrong.

Are prudent in their Age,
And generous and just,
And glad at heart to hear and speak
When good to man's discussed.

The fourth part of their life
Weds them again to God,
They wait, and contemplate the end,
And bless the paths they trod.

How many are deceived! My Song,
Against the strayers: when you reach
Our Lady, hide not from her that your end
Is labour that would lessen wrong,
And tell her too, in trusty speech,
I travel ever talking of your Friend.

CHAPTER I.

Love, according to the unanimous opinion of the wise men who discourse
of him, and as by experience we see continually, is that which brings
together and unites the lover with the beloved; wherefore Pythagoras
says, "In friendship many become one."

And the things which are united naturally communicate their qualities
to each other, insomuch that sometimes it happens that one is wholly
changed into the nature of the other, the result being that the
passions of the beloved person enter into the person of the lover, so
that the love of the one is communicated to the other, and so likewise
hatred, desire, and every other passion; wherefore the friends of the
one are beloved by the other, and the enemies hated; and so in the
Greek proverb it is said: "With friends all t