on the part of any.  Furthermore, nought that has been said from the first day to the present moment has, methinks, in any degree sullied the immaculate honour of your company, nor, God helping us, shall aught ever sully it.  Besides, who is there that knows not the quality of your honour? which were proof, I make no doubt, against not only the seductive influence of diverting discourse, but even the terror of death.  And, to tell you the truth, whoso wist that you refused to discourse of these light matters for a while, would be apt to suspect that ’twas but for that you had yourselves erred in like sort.  And truly a goodly honour would you confer upon me, obedient as I have ever been to you, if after making me your king and your lawgiver, you were to refuse to discourse of the theme which I prescribe.  Away, then, with this scruple fitter for low minds than yours, and let each study how she may give us a goodly story, and Fortune prosper her therein.”

So spake the king, and the ladies, hearkening, said that, even as he would, so it should be:  whereupon he gave all leave to do as they might be severally minded until the supper-hour.  The sun was still quite high in the heaven, for they had not enlarged in their discourse:  wherefore, Dioneo with the other gallants being set to play at dice, Elisa called the other ladies apart, and said:—­“There is a nook hard by this place, where I think none of you has ever been:  ‘tis called the Ladies’ Vale:  whither, ever since we have been here, I have desired to take you, but time meet I have not found until today, when the sun is still so high:  if, then, you are minded to visit it, I have no manner of doubt that, when you are there, you will be very glad you came.”  The ladies answered that they were ready, and so, saying nought to the young men, they summoned one of their maids, and set forth; nor had they gone much more than a mile, when they arrived at the Vale of Ladies.  They entered it by a very strait gorge, through which there issued a rivulet, clear as crystal, and a sight, than which nought more fair and pleasant, especially at that time when the heat was great, could be imagined, met their eyes.  Within the valley, as one of them afterwards told me, was a plain about half-a-mile in circumference, and so exactly circular that it might have been fashioned according to the compass, though it seemed a work of Nature’s art, not man’s:  ’twas girdled about by six hills of no great height, each crowned with a palace that shewed as a goodly little castle.  The slopes of the hills were graduated from summit to base after the manner of the successive tiers, ever abridging their circle, that we see in our theatres; and as many as fronted the southern rays were all planted so close with vines, olives, almond-trees, cherry-trees, fig-trees and other fruitbearing trees not a few, that there was not a hand’s-breadth of vacant space.  Those that fronted the north were in like manner covered with copses of oak saplings, ashes and other trees,