And yet Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard’s weede:  The heavenly Godes have sometime earthly thoughts:  Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bull, Apollo a shepheard; they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man appointed to love.[63]

The story of “Philomela,” “penned to approve women’s chastity,” is the best of Greene’s tales, and approaches more closely the modern novel than any work of the time.  It is related with much less than the usual prolixity, and contains two characters of distinct individuality.  The scene is placed in Venice, partly in consequence of the Italian origin of the story, and partly, it would seem, because writers of fiction imagined that the further distant they could represent their incidents to have occurred, the more interest and probability would attach to them.  Philippo Medici possessed a wife Philomela, renowned, “not for her beauty, though Italy afforded none so fair—­not for her dowry, though she were the only daughter of the Duke of Milan—­but for the admirable honours of her mind, which were so many and matchless, that virtue seemed to have planted there the paradise of her perfection.”  Philippo was so prone to jealousy, that he suspected even this paragon, and worked himself into a belief in her infidelity by such euphuisms as these:  “The greener the Alisander leaves be, the more bitter is the sap, and the salamander is the most warm when he lieth furthest from the fire,” therefore “women are most heart-hollow, when they are most lip-holy.”  Inflamed by this reasoning, he induced a friend, one Lutesio, to attempt his wife’s virtue, enjoining him to bring immediate information in case of any evidence of success.  Lutesio, after some misgivings, undertook the task, and under the influence of Philomela’s beauty, found it a very agreeable one.  His most elaborate discourses on love in the abstract were met by Philomela with replies fully as long and fully as lofty, but when he made the conversation personal, and declared his attitude to be that of a lover, he was met with a virtuous indignation which fully bore out the reputation of Philomela.  Even this conclusive test did not satisfy the jealous mind of the wretched Philippo.  Having hired two slaves to swear in court to his wife’s infidelity, he procured her banishment to Palermo.  By the efforts of the Duke of Milan, this infamous proceeding was finally exposed, and Philippo, overcome by remorse, set out in search of Philomela.  At Palermo, he accused himself, in a fit of despair, of a murder which had been committed in that city.  But while the trial was in progress, Philomela, in order to shield her husband, appeared in court and proclaimed herself guilty of the crime.  The innocence of both was discovered.  Philippo, as he deserved, died immediately in an “ecstacy,” and Philomela “returned home to Venice, and there lived the desolate widow of Philippo Medici all her life; which constant chastity made her so famous, that in her life she was honoured as the paragon of virtue, and after her death, solemnly, and with wonderful honour, entombed in St. Mark’s Church, and her fame holden canonized until this day in Venice.”