and main to conciliate my good-will, calling me worthy gentleman, by which insinuation thou wouldst fain induce me magnanimously to desist from further chastisement of thy baseness.  But thy cajoleries shall not now cloud the eyes of my mind, as did once thy false promises.  I know myself, and better now for thy one night’s instruction than for all the time I spent at Paris.  But, granted that I were disposed to be magnanimous, thou art not of those to whom ’tis meet to shew magnanimity.  A wild beast such as thou, having merited vengeance, can claim no relief from suffering save death, though in the case of a human being ’twould suffice to temper vengeance with mercy, as thou saidst.  Wherefore I, albeit no eagle, witting thee to be no dove, but a venomous serpent, mankind’s most ancient enemy, am minded, bating no jot of malice or of might, to harry thee to the bitter end:  natheless this which I do is not properly to be called vengeance but rather just retribution; seeing that vengeance should be in excess of the offence, and this my chastisement of thee will fall short of it; for, were I minded to be avenged on thee, considering what account thou madest of my heart and soul, ’twould not suffice me to take thy life, no, nor the lives of a hundred others such as thee; for I should but slay a vile and base and wicked woman.  And what the Devil art thou more than any other pitiful baggage, that I should spare thy little store of beauty, which a few years will ruin, covering thy face with wrinkles?  And yet ’twas not for want of will that thou didst fail to do to death a worthy gentleman, as thou but now didst call me, of whom in a single day of his life the world may well have more profit than of a hundred thousand like thee while the world shall last.  Wherefore by this rude discipline I will teach thee what it is to flout men of spirit, and more especially what it is to flout scholars, that if thou escape with thy life thou mayst have good cause ever hereafter to shun such folly.  But if thou art so fain to make the descent, why cast not thyself down, whereby, God helping, thou wouldst at once break thy neck, be quit of the torment thou endurest, and make me the happiest man alive?  I have no more to say to thee.  ’Twas my art and craft thus caused thee climb; be it thine to find the way down:  thou hadst cunning enough, when thou wast minded to flout me.”

While the scholar thus spoke, the hapless lady wept incessantly, and before he had done, to aggravate her misery, the sun was high in the heaven.  However, when he was silent, thus she made answer:—­“Ah! ruthless man, if that accursed night has so rankled with thee, and thou deemest my fault so grave that neither my youth and beauty, nor my bitter tears, nor yet my humble supplications may move thee to pity, let this at least move thee, and abate somewhat of thy remorseless severity, that ’twas my act alone, in that of late I trusted thee, and discovered to thee all my secret, that did open the way to compass