and to dissipate the fear that masters thee know that I am resolved to place thee in our illustrious alliance by making thee mary Asteria and to leave thee yet a more precious gage receive the word which now I give thee thou knowst being what I am that it is inviolable and sacred remember then that I swear to thee by ALLA that as long as Soliman shall be living thou shalt not die a violent death judge now whether I can doe more and whether thou hast not been too blame to doubt of the firmness of my affection It is true my Lord said Ibrahim that I am the most ingratefull and the most faulty of all men but my Lord and as he would have proceeded he was suffocated in such sort with grief as it was impossible for him to speak in a long time The Sultan surprised with this unexpected emotion knew not whereunto to attribute the cause of it In the mean while Ibrahim being somewhat come to himself again resolved no longer to conceal the truth of his History casting himself then once again at the feet of great Soliman I know well my Lord said he unto him that if thy Highness be just thou wilt hate me as much as thou hast loved me for after I have been so daring as to disguise my thoughts unto thee after I have been yet more in now telling thee that I am not in a condition to accept of the honor which thou presentest unto me I dare not hope for so much patience from thy moderation as to hear that which might render me excusable It seemes to me Ibrahim ansvvered the Sulttn that after all the graces vvhich I have conferred on thee thou oughtest to expect any thing from me and yet to add one more to that which thou hast craved of me I promise thee to suspend my judgement and not to think any thing to thy disadvantage till I am forced therunto by thine own confession prepare thy self then no longer to conceal any thing from me that concernes thee Thou knowst that I have divers times endeavoured to oblige thee punctually to recount unto me both thy birth and thy adventures but having alwaies observed how that discourse did not please thee I have had so much goodness as to speak to thee no further of it but now that there is question of thy rest and my satisfaction thou must make a recitall to me of it with as much truth as thou hast used dissimulation heretofore It is true my Lord replyed Ibrahim that all that I have told thee hitherto is but a fable but it is true also that all that which thy Highness is now to understand is the very truth I cannot chuse but blush to think how I am going to discover all my weaknesses and if I did not know that Love doth oftentimes become the tyrant of the greatest spirits and that thy Highness hath not been alwaies insensible of that passion I should not be so inconsiderate as to acquaint thee with my miseries The Sultan desiring that none should come to interrupt this narration went from his chamber into his Cabinet where siting down on Cushions of cloth of Gold Ibrahim began to speak in these tearmes The History of Iustiniano and Isabella THe City where I took beginning and that gives name to our Republique is situated on the bank of the Sea which the antient Romanes called Ligustique and is at this day termed the River of Genoua this goodly City I say whereunto for the magnificence of Palaces of marble Jasper and Porphirie is given and that with reason the title of Superb by all the people of Italy is built on the bending of certain high and barren Mountains which are so unfruitful as all the industry of agriculture joyned to the heat of the Sun the serenity of the air and the sweetness of the dew cannot make one tree to grow one flower to spring or so much as one herb to come up there But if as nature had taken pleasure to shew contraries opposed there is leading toward France a Coast all alongst the which Final Savonna Saint Reme and Monaco are seen whose fertility is so great that it produceth abundantly Dates Oranges Pomegranads Iasemine and Mirtle The many Rivers and Fountaines which are there make not the lest beauty of those places for those waters are so pure and quick as they furnish sufficient coolness to temper the extreme heat of the Sun It is on that Coast about tvvo miles from Genoua in going out of a Gate called the Lanterna that a Borough stands by the Italians named Arena where one may say that winter never comes since it is certain that the spring and Autum reign there alwaies together the first causing flowers continually to spring and the other fruites to ripen in it But before I ingage my self to a more particular description of the deliciousness of a place that hath been the occasion of so much misfortune unto me it vvill not be from the purpose to make an abridgment of the Government of Genoua to thy Highness to the end thou maist the more easily comprehend what the persons are of vvhom I am to speak in my History It is to be knovvn then that about two hundred yeares since the Genoneses elected a Duke according to the manner of the Venetians who after he had conquered the Island of Ciprus taken the King and Queen thereof prisoners and performed many other brave exploits died at length in the warres After him they elected two more whereof the first acquired by his valor the Isle of Meteline to the Genoueses but at length after the death of the last they put themselves into the protection of Charles the seaventh King of France of whom being weary they not long after chose the Duke of Milan for their Defendor who having not given them full satisfaction it obliged them to chuse a Duke once again but that proceeding being not equally agreeable unto all because some held the party of France and others that of Milan it hapned that this disorder returned them absolutly under the Dominion of the French which commanded them untill the time that Andrea Doria who is of one of the most illustrious races of Genoua put our City into the estate which now it is namely under the Government of the Nobility I have made known unto thy Highness the divers mutations which have befallen our Republique to the end thou maist with the less difficulty comprehend that which hath made all this Commonalty be divived a long while since into two principall factions the Heades of these two parties are the Fregozes and the Adornes ingaged as well as all the rest of Italy in two opposite factions so known and famous under the name of the Gnelphes and Gibelius with whom the Fiesques the Doriaes the Spinolaes the Grimaldies the Justinianoes and all the other illustrious Families of Genoua have taken part But to come to that which regards me directly I
of this Prince is onely a facility whereof love and his gentle nature are the causes and that in fine he hath so many rare qualities as he is not unworthy the esteem of the incomparable Axiamira The affection whâ—ch you bear to this Prince replyed she justifies if not all that he hath done at least-wise all his intentions And though he be in some sort the cause of the greatest part of my miseries yet I promise you O generous Ibrahim to give credit rather to your words then to mine own experience and never to speak of this Prince but as you speak of him your self I will complain of Fortune without murmuring against Soliman and albeit I am resolved to weep all my life-time for the loss of those two illustrious children of his yet will I not accuse any for it but the cruel Roxelana and the perfidious Rustan This conversation lasted yet a good while longer and was spent in civility on either part Felixana in her particular gave Ibrahim a world of thanks and assured him she would render Vlama an exact account of that which he had done for her to the end he might help to acknowledg it in publishing it since they could never acquite themselves of it other-ways Presently thereupon the Grand Visier took his leave of the Princess and told her that she might depart the next morning if her health would permit her As indeed all her equipage was ready accordingly but with such magnificence as if she had been in Persia This excellent Princess had made her self to be so beloved of them that guarded her as they could not see her part without abundance of tears though they very much rejoyced for all that to know that her prison should not be thence forward so strait But amongst the rest Halima was so afflicted at it as she was not to be comforted she gave her two Slaves who had always waited upon her during her imprisonment and Axiamira in recompence thereof gave her a chain of Diamonds which she had still kept in all her misfortunes In the mean time Ibrahim had sent away Vlama's Slave whom he had brought away from the Castle of the seven Towers the day before to advertise his Master to repair to Bitilisa if his strength would permit him there to receive the Princess But in case he should no be able so to do he dispatched away another man with a command from the Grand Signior to all the Governors of those Towns which were upon the road whereby she was to pass to render her as much honor as if she had been the Sultana Queen And the Grand Visier to omit nothing that might be for the Princess of Persia's safety had also commanded five thousand Janizaries to be her convoy whom she found ready attending for her a days march from Constantinople This Princesses journey had as prosperous a success as Ibrahim had wished it should She was received with a great deal of magnificence at all the places where she passed and without having any other commodity then that which the weariness of so long a way might occasion she arrived at Bitilisa whither Vlama though very weak of his hurts and sickness was to come to receive her and to enjoy the sight of his deâ—r Felixana When as he was advertised of their approach to the Town he went forth to meet the Princess with half the Garison the principal inhabitants of Bitilisa received her at the gate and conducted her to Vlama's Palace who out of respect had left it to her so as it seemed that Axiamira was the Governess of Bitilisa rather then that Bitilisa was the priâ—on of Axiamira It is easie to imagine what the joy of these three illustrious persons was at this interview but very hard to express it well especially that which Vlama felt in finding Felixana again living and faithful after he had beleeved her to be dead or inconstant But whil'st Ibrahim asswages other folks sorrows his love renders him every day more unhappy The more he sees Soliman the less appearance he sees of obtaining his liberty which he had resolved to demand of him at his departure from Monaco This Prince ceased not dayly telling him that he had been dead if he had not returned that he was the soul of his Empire that he could not subsist without him that six months absence of his had been the cause of more misfortune to him then he had had in all his life besides and that in fine not being able to live without him he must resolve to dye with him To all these particulars the illustrious Bassa made no other answer then with low submissions but by his sighs and silence he testified sufficiently to the Sultan that he expressed not all his thought and that the sight of his Mistress had rather augmented his love then diminished his unquietness Nevertheless whereas the Grand Signior was desirous to avoyd all occasions that might constrain him to refuse Ibrahim he made as though he did not perceive his sadness but endevored to gain him absolutely and divert him from his melancholy by all the honors by all the liberalities and all the caresses that a great Prince can confer on a great Minister But the more the Bassa saw himself obliged the more affliction he had He received the Sultan's presents as so many new chains which tyed him unto him his favors were torments unto him and though in his heart he loved this Prince dearly yet would he not have been loved of him so certain it is that love is stronger then amity In this deplorable estate lived Ibrahim with an extream constraint he delt no longer in affairs as he was wont he declined the world as much as he could yea the very sight of Soliman became insupportable to him and not daring to desire of him the power to return into Italy out of the opinion he had that he should be denyed he sought no longer for any thing but onely solitude It was not because his grief was the less sensible to him by it but it was because he knew that the liberty to bewail ones self is some kinde of consolation to an afflicted person At length after he had well consulted with himself he resolved to speak plainly to the Grand Signior with an intent if he were refused as he almost made no doubt but he should to abandon himself in such sort to grief as death would be constrained to succor him but he knew not when he took this resolution that he could not execute it for as often as he went to the Serraglio for that purpose Soliman with so much address avoyded all manner of discourse that might carry the Bassa to speak to him of Isabella and always took such care to let him know the necessity he had of his presence as the Grand Visier no longer doubting but that Soliman would deny him if he demanded his liberty of him undertook not to augment his displeasure yet further by
stead of a pennon This fantastick troop was followed by a mixture of Trumpets Attabales Hoboyes European Drummes Cimballs and Fyfes which composed a musick little less extravagant than the equipage of those that preceded them An hundred Pages rode after these same mounted on white Barbes and suited in vvhite velvet studded vvith silver Behind these Pages tvventy Aâ—apes lead in their hands ten Horses royally harnessed vvhereof the last vvhich vvas called the Horse of the Body or the Horse of Battaile had the bitt of the bridle and the stirrupps of massive gold all beset vvith pretious stones the Saddle vvhite all over vvith pearles and sparkling vvith diamonds the Sultans Target hung at the Saddle bovv by strings of gold at the ends wherof great tasselles of Orientall pearles trailed to the ground Next to these horses marched even together the Tubenter Aga and the Chiodar Aga vvho carried the Turbant and Mantle Imperiall Behind them Ibrahim Bassa the the Grand Visior rode alone mounted on a black Barbe vvhose furniture vvas of velvet of the same color as vvell as the habit of that illustrious Bassa all imbroidered vvith great pearles he carried in his hand vvithout a Scabbard the Scymitar Imperiall The hundred Peikes or footmen of the Grand Signior follovved next but in order vvith bonnets of massive silver on their heads in the midst vvherof vvhite feathers of an extraordinary greatness stuck in a quill covered vvith precious stones Fifty Archers on foot vvent after them vvith bovves arrovves in their hands in the midst of whom was Sultan Soliman arrayed in a roabe of cloth of gold imbroidered vvith pearles and diamonds his Turbant vvas ardorned vvith five plumes of Hearons and as many great jevvells of rich stones and the furniture of his Horse vvas all covered over with Emeraulds and Rubies He was followed by all the Bassaes and Beglierbies of the Empire After whom a Boluch Bassa marched in the head of two thousand Janizaries which were the last Troops of this stately Entrie After that this marvelous Triumph had made a turn about the Hipodrome all ranked themselves on the right and left hand and the Sultan went and lighted at a Tent of cloth of Gold vvhich had been pitched for him under the windows of the Sultana Queen All the Grandees of the Port stood on both sides Ibrahim alone was set at his Highness feet on a Cushion of cloath of Silver When every one had taken his place the Bassa of the Sea who that day exercised the Charge of the Master of the Ceremonies advertised the Ambassadors that they might go to the Baise-main and offer their presents which they had no sooner done and were returned to their seats but the Mufti appeared sitting on a Throne that was carried on the back of a Cammell and holding in his hands the Book of the Alcoran He was waited upon by all the Alfaquis Calenders and Dervis of the City of Constantinople all these Religious men cried and howled with a dreadfull poise and to accompany their voices and their dance they beat upon kettles and basons and rung little bels so that this modest Clergy resembled not a little the Orgies of antient Greece and the Bacchanals of old Rome When they were before the Sultan they stood still made prayers for the prosperity of his Highness offered him a Book of their Law covered with Gold and Turquesyes and after they had slashed their arms and their faces with great knives for the love of their Prophet and the Sultan they retired and gave place to those that were to succeed them The Turkish Christian and Jewish Merchants appeared then richly attired and in the midst of them a Chariot drawn by twelve Cupids crowned with flowers upon the which was erected a shop of cloth of Gold and Persian Tapestry which they presented to the Sultan The Goldsmiths followed them with a Cupbord of Gold Plate ingraven upon a frame of unpolished Silver dravvn by four white Horses which they gave to his Highness Every Trade appeared one after another each of them making shew of some rich piece of workmanship of their profession but with so extraordinary a diligence that before the turn of the place was finished the Present was in estate to be offered to great Soliman He received them all very graciously and instantly gave them to his dear Ibrahim to whom he said they were justly due since it was by his courage and conduct that he had obtained the Victory and this Triumph After that all these liberall Troopes were past as Turkie is the onely place in the World vvhere the most Juglers and Tumblers are there appeared above tvvo thousand of them vvho in the presence of the Grand Signior did all that the sleight of the hand and all that the address and force of the body could naturally permit men to Next to them vvas seen the great Frame representing the City of Tauris vvhereof the Tovvers vvere covered vvith Persian Colours as vvas knovvn by their antient Images of the Sun vvhich they all had it vvas follovved by tvvo hundred Slaves belonging to the Bassa of the sea half of them armed after the Turkish and half after the Persian manner vvith scimitars and bucklers of Silver vvho to the sound of fifty Hoboys danced that which the Greeks called the Pirrhique dance and that vvhich might be termed an armed dance the blovvs vvere given and received in a due cadence the changing of figures therein represented the advantages and flight vvhich fall out in battels and the noise of bucklers and scimitars marked out the measure of paces vvith as much even time as the instruments Amongst these Slaves there vvas one in the Turkish Troop vvhich by his good aspect and behaviour drevv the eys of all the beholders upon him the Grand Visier no sooner perceived him but he trembled vvith amazement and joy no way doubting but that it was he whom he thought he knew In the mean time the Frame and the two Troops having made a turn about the place the City was set down just against the Grand Signior and the Persians cast themselves into it Then at the sound of all the Trumpets Atabales Drums Hoboys Fifes and Cimbals in the Assembly the Turks gave an assault to that feigned City of Tauris If the assault were vigorous the defence was no less the Persians were seen to give ground the Turkes were also seen to be repulsed and this false Image of of war had all the apparences of a true fight But at length after a great resistance the well-made Slave forced the gates mounted first on the walles and plucking down the Sophyes Colours for to set up those of the Sultan his valor and address were the cause that the Moon made the Sun to be eclipsed his victory was seconded with a great shout of the Janizaries and of all the people and nothing was heard over all the Hipodrome but long live Sultan Soliman In the mean time Ibrahim Bassa who
my Lord thou seest before thine eyes sayd she shewing Osman two of the most infortunate persons that ever were we have enemies whom we cannot whom we ought not hate to whom we ow respect to whom we ow obedience to whom we ow affection enemies I say to whom we ow our lives and for whom also we would lose them with joy if there vvere occasion for it Nevertheless it is against such dear persons my Lord that I am to speak at this time and for obtaining the justice which we demand of thee and whereupon depends the happiness or unhappiness of our lives I must discover the cruelties of my father and Osman must accuse his Judge then my Lord whether my tears be not just and whether loving our enemies as we do we be not exposed to an extreme misfortune in being thus constrained to publish their shame to accuse them and to demand justice against them Alibech found her self so oppressed vvith sorrow that she stood a good while unable to speak But Soliman having commended so sweet a resentment in her and having commanded her once again to let him understand their differences she continued her discourse Since I must sayd she obey and that I cannot conserve my husband without discovering the misfortunes of my father I must I say let thy Highness know that his name is Arsalon that he was born the subject of the Sophy of Persia and that in the time he was in that Court he was Satrap of Aderbion and so considerable vvith Tachmas as there was not any person in that Empire vvho vvas more than he but whereas his humour hath been alwayes violent in every thing being become desperately in love with a maid of excellent beauty of great vertue and of much spirit he espoused her though she were of base condition And whereas the Laws of the State do not permit a Gentleman to mary a wife that is not noble they also will that the great ones which commit such like offences shall lose the honors and charges they possess and be declared ignoble and uncapable of all manner of dignities My father was not ignorant of this custom and law but he was perswaded that Tachmas would have infringed it for his sake and if he would not that want of affection would be a reason strong enough to oblige him to make the Province revolt where he commanded and whereof he believed he was absolutely the Master howbeit the matter succeeded not so for the enemies which my Father had made him by his violences meeting with so fair an occasion to hurt him they represented unto the Sophy that if he pardoned him this fault it would make him the more insolent for the future yea and that it would even overthrow all that Empire the glory and force whereof consisted in the valour of noble persons wherewith it is replenished at length they wrote in such manner that my Father was declared guilty as contravening the fundamentall Laws of the State and constrained to undergo the chastisement which I shall come to speak of by reason that the Province where he commanded so absolutely when he was in grace revolted against him and left him not scarcely the liberty to seek a refuge otherwhere for I forgot to tell thy Highness that the same Law which commanded the utter ruine of my Father commanded also that he should pass his life in a perpetuall prison and the person whom he had maried in another for fear that living together and having children it might one day cause disorders in the State My Father seeing himself in so pitifull a fortune went not about to move the heart of Tachmas with payers and submission but contrarily sent him word that deserving not to be served by a man of his courage and valor he vvould go out of his Estates vvith an intention never to re-enter into them again but to bring war along with him Being then in Mingrelia he bought a Man of War wherein he imbarqued himself on Mare major with his vvife who as she was the cause of his misfortune so would she not abandon him in his exile They continued some time in this sort not knowing what resolution to take nor having any other design in the course that they held than to cloign themselves from Persia my Fathers great heart not permitting him to go and seek unto the enemies of Tachmas for a place of retreat for though he be somewhat cruell yet is he notwithstanding generous neither would he likewise address himself to the Princes that were allied to our Empire for fear he should not be favourably received by them In the mean time these irresolutions having no end the provisions of the ship diminished daily The Pilot was well hoped up to ask him where he would land vvhen as he found no place in the vvhole universall Map vvhither ro go Six moneths past avvay in this sort in running over all the Seas of the Levant and whereas my mother was with child of me at such time as she imbarqued her self she was not far from the term wherein I was to see the light when as Arsalons victualls utterly failed him and having imployed all his money in the buying of the Vessell and such provisions of War and for the mouth as he had laid into her he knew not what part to repair unto for the supplying of himself in so adverse an adventure The souldiers and Mariners consulted together and having gained the Pilot they wrought so with him that maugre the command my Father had given him to the contrary he steered directly to an Iland which they had discovered whereupon Arsalon being in a rage to see his authority contemned went and pushed away the Pilot so rudely for to make him abandon the helm as the poor wretch fell into the Sea and my Father becoming his own Pilot he took his scimitar in his right hand and the whip of the rudder in his left and menacing them that would oppose his will he made his Vessell take a quite contrary course choosing rather to die by famine than expose his misery to the eyes of the world fearing nothing so much as that Tachmas should come to understand his misfortunes He had already lost sight of that Hand which he had beheld as a rock and his souldiers being no longer retained but by the tears of my Mother might at length peradventure have been carried to some strange resolution without an adventure that befell them which was that my Father discovered a Vessell comming towards his which bare a Flag of Persia in her top as he thought and as indeed it proved to be Upon the sight of her he began to think that he should be revenged of Tachmas in revenging himself upon his Subjects and this desire of revenge joyned to the present necessity made him propound to his souldiers the attacquing of that Vessell who animated more by the fear of famine than by their courage resolved to obey his pleasure
since as I have before delivered he was at Genoua unknown The matter failed not to fall out even as he had conceived it for he was advertised that the Prince of Masseran was in this walk attended but with two of his servants he went forth then speedily with the like number and overtaking him in a place where few persons could be witnesses of his action As soon as he was so near him as he might speak to him he asked him whether he knew my name and whether it were possible he should be ignorant that Isabella could not lawfully be his because she was mine but since the thing was done he must at least render himself worthy of so noble a conquest by the loss of his life as I had bought it with my blood in saying so they both drew out their swords and Doria without attending the Prince of Masserans answer attacqued him so vigoriously as he was constrained to give ground They that accompanied him would have opposed themselves to this fury but they that followed Doria would not suffer them so to do and whereas they were equall in number they began a just combat whereof the modesty of my friend kept him from telling me the particulars but in the end notwithstanding whatsoever the Prince of Masseran could perform the victory sided with reason and Doria after the receiving of a slight hurt pressed his enemy with so much courage as he ran him into the body in four severall places which made him fall down as if he were dead A minute after Nature doing her last devoir he opened his eyes and seeing Doria coming from parting their followers and giving order to his help to carry him to some place he had yet so much strength as to call him and before he expired to crave pardon for the outrage he had done me and to pray me to consider the power of Isabellaes eyes for the excusing of his fault moreover he conjured him to tell me that the Princess had kept her faith inviolable to me then he acquainted him in few words with all the violences of her mother with all the resistances which she had made thereunto and at the last swore that he was not her husband but that Julia had used this artifice in hope to make me away as I have already told thy Highness not doubting but that if I were dead she should have carried her daughter to all that she had desired Scarcely had that infortunate Prince made an end of speaking but he dyed in Doriaes armes who with sorrow remitted him into the hands of his servants to goe and provide for his own safety so that without losing time and before this combat was divulged he sent to hire a Feluca and without returning into the City he imbarqued himself for Naples for in the uncertainty of the event of the combat he had brought mony enough about him to mak his retreat into that place and had left a letter in his Cabinet which instructed one of his friends with the order hee would have taken in his affaires He departed then safely away in this sort but the next day he incountred the Pirate Arsalon and in the manner which thy Highness understood yesterday he came to Constantinople But my Lord to make all the rigor of my destiny known to thy Majesty I am to tell thee further that not long since Doria hath met with a slave of Monaco who hath related unto him that as sooon as Julia knew of the death of the Prince of Masseran anger and grief seized so upon her as she died therewith in a little time so that Isabella seeing she was Mistress of her self had sent a man into Germany to desire me to come and take care of her State and to receive her person for a reward of my fidelity For she knew nothing either of my jealousie or despair which having carried me far enough from the place whither she had sent to seek me beguiled all her hopes and destroyed her felicity by the fruiteless return of him she had imployed unto me since that she lived in a very austere and melancholick solitariness saying openly that she was resolved to renounce the world as soon as she knew that I was no longer in it And whereas there ran a bruit in Genoua about a year ago that I had been seen in Naples she dispatched away this man for to goe and see if it were so having made a vow if his voyage proved vain to shut her self in a Cloister for all the rest of her life but whereas fortune hath never done any but extraodinary things in my adventures she so wrought that this man putting himself into a French Barque to pass over thither was taken by a Pirate whose vessells lay under the covert of a Rock which is near to a place by the Italians called Porto Hercoles And whereas he had a grat number of Slaves he stayed not long from going to sell them at one of the Islands of the Archipelago from whence by divers accidents this man came to Constantinople where Doria by chance knew him as having at other times seen him in Rhodolphoes service After all this my Lord it will not be difficult for thy Highness to imagine the deplorable estate wherein I find my self by thy bounty and by the proposition which thou hast made me concerning the Sultana Asteria I should not be so hardy as to speak to thee in these termes if I did not call to mind that the charmes of the divine Roxelana have been of sufficient force to vanquish the most victorious Monarch of the world and that for this reason I may hope to see thee sensible of my misfortune to obtain pardon for my ingratitude and to be heard in my justifications It is true indeed that to excuse my fault I need no more than to beseech thy Highness to consider that if I could even banish from my heart the image of Isabella forget her affection her oathes and her constancie become the most ingratefull of men to his Princess cause her death by my change which she would quickly know prefer my Master before my mistress and my duty before my love the Religion I profess prohibiting me the plurality of wives which that of the Mahometans doth permit I could not dispose of a faith which I have already given seeing I am a Christian under the habit of Mussulman although I be not believed to be so in all the extent of thy Empire But whereas for all that it is not just that my temerity should be vanquished deprive a man of thy favor who refuseth an alliance which a great King outght to receive on his knees Banish from thy sight and Court a man whom so many benefits whom so many greatnesses and to say all whom thy affection cannot make perfectly happy and to satisfie the Sultana Austeria I am ready to reenter into the irons from whence she drew me and to die her Slave since I cannot
longer hereupon it shall suffise to say that after the battel of Varnes he conquered Peloponnesus that he dismissed himself absolutely from his Empire which to took upon him again soon after for to obtain a battel against the valiant Huniades he made the King of Bosnia also his Tributary which was his last victory For the couragious George Scanderbeg Castriot King of Albania who had been his Slave and that had acquired unto himself with so much justice the glorious title of the Buckler of Christendom oposed all his enterprises with such valour as this great Prince seeing him self forced so raise his siege from before Croya dyed with grief and spight at it The Pourtrait of Mahomet the second the eleventh Emperor of the Turks IT was not without some cause that this Prince would be surnamed Bovi which is to say Great or the Terror of the World seeing all his actions have been so great and high that if his excellent qualities had been without blemish this Prince had been incomparable He was great in his enterprises great in courage great in conduct great in prudence a great Politician great in conquest great in beauty and in subtilty of wit but he was also great in impiety in dissoluteness in revenge in perfidiousness and in ambition The greatness of his courage and of his enterprises carried him against the Greeks Hungarians Trebisondians Mifians Valachians Transilvanians Bosniaus Albanians Rhodians Venetians and divers other people In conclusion my dear Doria this Prince had to do with all the Warlike Nations of the World but this Table contains too many things to be explaned particularly unto you wherefore it shall suffice that you only do admire the exquisite ordering of it and that I tell you in generall how Mahomet conquered in two and thirty years that he reigned twelve Kingdoms and two Empires that of Trebisond and that of the Greeks together with this mighty and renowned City of Constantinople as also that of Croya and all Albania Valachia Bosnia Scodra Peloponesus and the Town of Otranto He reduced the Caraman under his obedience Stiria Carinthia Synope the Iland of Metelin and after the battell which he gained against Usuncassan he constrained him to seek his amity Howbeit he was not equally fortunate for the valiant Huniades and the valorous Scanderbeg vanquished sometimes in him the Vanquisher of all others And whereas ambition was the predominant passion in the heart of Mahomet it followed him even to death ordaining that upon his Tomb there should be set after a long narration of all his Victories in the Turkish tongue this subscription in Latin He had a purpose to ruin Rhodes and superb Italy But the divine justice extinguished his desires with his dayes The Pourtrait of Bajazet the second the twelfth Emperor of the Turks THe life of this Prince is so replenished with divers adventures as it cannot be defined certainly whether he had more good than bad fortune The begining of his Reign was established by three Battels which he obtained against a Brother of his who was constrained to fly unto Rhodes When he was at peace he conquered Caramania did great spoyl in Moldavia took the Town of Chilliem together with the Castle and that of Moncastro the chief of the Province he took also Lepanto Modon Coron and Junqua from the Christians whom he defeated iâ— a Navall-fight as you may behold in this Table where the Painter verily hath done prodigies See you not continued Ibrahim these two vessels grapled together consider a little with what ardour the assailants seem to go to the fight and how one of these Janizaries striving to leap aboord this small vessel is repulsed by this Christian how in falling he hath seized on his enemy whom he drags along with him Behold also on the left hand this vessel which the Turks had invested and how that rather than they would yeeld they have blown up themselves observe withall these flakes of fire which light upon this other vessell whose tackle and sayles already begin to burn and how this great cloud of smoak which steals away the rest of the Army from our eyes is an address of the Painter who wanting room hath repaired that defect by this invention But without standing on the last disorders of this Prince which were strange whether for the violent deaths that he caused or for that which he received let us pass on to thiâ— other piece The Pourtrait of Selim the thirteenth Emperor of the Turks THis gloomy physiognomy and this haughty look do not ill paint forth unto us the ambition and cruelty of Selim but they conceal from us his vertues which certainly were very great He was prudent and advised amidst dangers prompt and vigilant in his enterprises indefatigable in War of an invincible courage a reasonable Justicer manger his cruelty extremely liberall and that which is of most marvail in this Prince is that he was never vanquished after he was Emperor He loved the reading of History he made verses in his own tongue was very skilfull in Painting and even to the point that he sent as I have already delared the Battell which he obtained against the Sophy drawn with his own hand unto the Venetians who conserve it still unto this day in their Treasurie There is also a great number of his works to be seen in the Seraglio He was very Eloquent and nothing curious of the magnificence of Apparell and that which I most admire in him is that he alwayes refused those adorations which are accustomed to be rendred to the Turkish Emperors never suffering any to cast themselves on the ground in speaking to him nor to do him reverence on their knees And truly if this Emperor had not blemished his glory by that prodigious desire of reigning which carried him to take away the life of him from whom he had received his to cause two of his Brothers eight of his Nephews and as many of his Bassaes to be strangled he had been excellent in all things But to pass over his Victories lightly because time doth press us I will onely tell you in few words that he won a famous Battle of the Sophy at Zaleran that he took Tauris which he kept not long and Keman at his return he rendred himself Master of Aladulia after he had vanquished King Ustagelu he passed into Siria where he defeated Campson Gauri Sultan of Cairo in a battel neer to Aleppo which was rendred unto him as well as Damascus and all the rest of Siria from thence going to Jerusalem he conquered all Palestina by the valour of Sinan Bassa who obtained a Battel neer to Gaza whereupon Selim having passed the deserts of Egypt fought a battel vvith Thomombey hard by Matharea and constrained him to retire to Cairo where was given the most memorable battel of our Age for it lasted three dayes and three nights in continuall fight but in the end Selim was victorious and forced the Mamelucks to abandon
slavery but at length the first of these Vessells being come to the shore and the Ambassador who was seen on the poop being known of the people which were already gathered together in a very great number and they no longer doubting but that these vessells which now they knew brought them back both their brethren and their children such a noise of acclamations arose on the suddain as they all spake without understanding what they said themselves and without being understood of others wives called for their husbands fathers inquired after their children some ran into the City to advertise their friends of it others ran out of it with their whole families they in the Vessells cryed to let them know whether all were well at home at last so great a noise was formed of all these cries and murmures as the Ambassador had much adoe to make his orders be understood He commanded all the Chieftaines to accompany him to the Palace and particularly Alphonso not to be far from him they traversed the City in this sort followed by the popular multitude who ceased not from testifying their joy both by their teares and by their acclamation When they were at the Gate of the Palace the Ambassador advanced three or four steps before his Troop that he might the better surprise that honorable Company At his first appearing they sought to know the success of his voyage in his face but as soon as they perceived all the Commanders of their Vessells the gravest and most moderate amongst them could not chuse but shew signes of their amazement and joy and when this first emotion was appeased the Ambassador having made a low obeisance to the Duke and the like to the whole assembly began to speak in this sort The Oration of Antonio Lomelino to the Duke and Senate of Genoua IF the prosperous success of my voyage had been an effect of my conduct of my care and of my address I should without doubt have had so much modesty as to declare in few words the estate of things for to attend from so honorable an Assembly the praise which a service of such importance would have deserved without giving them to my self and I should also have been so generous as to have been fully satisfied with the onely thought of having been profitable to my Country but whereas I have no part in the glory of this action but contrarily I my self am obliged for my life to the Deliverer of so many illustrious Slaves as I have brought you back and which are all either your kinsmen or your friends it behoves me both that I may not be ingratefull in my particular and that also I may keep you from being so in generall to report fathfully unto you how the matter hath past to the end that by understanding all the circumstances you may the better know how it is the interest of the Republique which makes me speak with so much earnestness You are to understand then my Lords that whereas the Emperor Soliman believed that the Law of Nations had been violated in the person of his Chaoux he thought that he might doe the like in that of your Ambassador so that as soon as I was arrived at Pera and that according to the custom I had demanded audience of his Highness I saw my self constrained to pass by his order from my Vessell into a streight prison without telling me the cause therof in such sort as he that came to obtain the liberty of others saw himself deprived of his own and laden with chaines I was two dayes intreated in this manner with a great deal of rigor and I very well perceived by the countenance of them which guarded me that they believed my head was the onely price of my liberty As I was in this unquietness I saw the Aga of the Janizaries enter who caused me to be told by Dragoman of the grand Signioes whom we call an interpreter that his Highness willing to give me audience had commanded him to conduct me to Constantinople without any ceremony this mutation surprised me so much the more for that I could not imagine the cause of it having been well enough informed that Soliman doth not easily change his resolutions and that repenting is a motion of the soul which is almost unknown to him In the mean time I beheld my fetters broken off without seeing the hand that delivered me and in this uncertainty I attributed that to the inconstancy of Fortune which I owed her not at all But my Lords why should I longer conceal this mighty and generous hand which hath delivered me The impatience which I see in your looks to know the name of our Deliverer invites that also which is in me to tell it you wherefore I must interrupt my order and without going to Constantinople to paint forth unto you the resentment the choler the menaces of the Sultan I say unto you that he unto whom you ow the return of your vessells the lives of your children and the peace of this Republick was not carried to this brave action by a sense of acknowledment it is a man who could have revenged himself instead of serving you without committing an injustice it is a man whom you have exiled because he withstood a violence it is a man whom you have chased avvay because he had been so generous as to save his enemies life it is a man whom you have banished because he shed his blood to take part with the vveaker and vvho by misfortune killed one of your Citizens not only to secure his ovvn person but to assist an undefended man finally my Lords it is by Justiniano that vve are living it is by him that vve breath the air of our Countrey it is by him that vve do not see an Army of an hundred thousand men at your Gates and it is also by his liberty and that of Doria vvho is conjoyned to his fortune that you may pay our ransome as the only price which great Soliman hath set to redeem us It is in preserving this illustrious person that you may preserve the glory of the Senate and it is upon this condition that according to the power which I had for it I have ingaged the Publique Faith for the revocation of a Sentence which you signed with regret and which you accorded rather to the tears of Philippo Spinola whom I see here in this renowned Company than to Soveraign equity It is not because I will condemn in him the apprehensions of Nature but contrarily I purpose to stir them up in his heart by letting him see that if by misfortune Justiniano hath deprived him of one sonne the same Justiniano hath restored him another in bringing him back Alphonsâ— who with tears in his eyes begs of him by my mouth the grace of his Deliverer They which are sensible of outrages ought to be so likewise of benefits especially when injuries have not been done by a premeditated malice and
and for that effect he caused a generall assault to be given And though there were a body of the enemies Army in the field he commanded nevertheless that they should not care so much for the guard of the Trenches as for the attacquing of the place and the reason of this was because the enemy had never appeared nor had used indeavour either to cast Troops into the City or to raise the siege In the mean time it hapned that an hour after the assault was begun and that above twenty times there had been already lost and regained five or six foot of ground which was to render Soliman Master of the Town there was heard notwithstanding the dreadfull noise of Cannons of armes and of the cries of them that fought towards the Grand-Signiors quarter a great volley of musket shot which put much fear into our souldiers hearts Soliman who was present at this fight for to give direction in person confirmed them the best that possibly he could and after he had commanded the Bassa Sinan to continue the assault he went to see what the matter was followed only by two thousand Janisaries but he was quickly cleared in it for he had not marched fifty paces but that he saw the rest of his souldiers come in disorder having avoided the fury of the enemy who was pursuing them still Soliman no longer doubted then but that this was Zellebis his Army which attacqued his Camp and being a Prince of a great and generous spirit he purposed to fight with them But as he was ready to march directly to the enemy he was much surprized to behold from the Towns side that not only his souldiers had abandoned the assault but that Zellebis in the head of those of Chientaya went beating them before him in a terrible disorder As for me who always followed the Prince without other arms than a light chain which I wore on one of my legs I assuredly believed that he was lost as indeed without almost a supernaturall assistance it is certain that he could not have escaped He was closed up in the midst of his enemies his Army was dispersed fear had seized upon his Troops and if an advantagious plot of ground had not been met withall to put part of his Forces and his Person in safety this mischief had been without remedy But Madam must I tell you how it was by my means that this day so unlucky in the beginning had a glorious end Yes Madam I must tell it you and since my valor was but an effect of my despair and that you were the cause thereof it is just to let you understand how it was by you that I saved both the life and the glory of great Soliman Remember then if you please this verity in the process of this Narration to the end I may not be accused of vanity in delivering things which I had not executed without you I shall tell you then Madam that in this universall disorder I conserved so much judgement to observe that on the left hand of that quarter where we were there was a place which Nature had so well fortified as with very little defence it was impossible to be forced I advanced then boldly to the Grand Signior and maugre the press I let him see what I had already noted and caused him to perceive that in attending the rallying of his troops he might be there not only in assurance but in an estate to keep those of the town from joyning with them that were without This advice having satisfied him he commanded to go and seiz on that plot but as if the enemy had been acquainted with this design he advanced to dispute it with us There it was Madam that I ceased to be slave for to be a soldier for having taken a scimitar which I found amongst the dead bodies I got into the head of our troops with so much resolution so much good fortune as I did things there which I dare not relate in the end Madam I inspired our soldiers with such valor as reasuming courage we repulsed the enemy seized on the place whereof I have already spoken to you But when I saw Soliman in safety I went and cast my self amidst some of our forces which were fighting still with those that were come out of the City and perceiving that our souldiers were preparing to flie in hope to get to the place where Soliman was I threatned to kill them if they returned not to the fight This so extraordinary a discourse being seconded by some effects which seemed marvellous unto them they resolved to follow me Behold me then the head of this couragious Brigade whom I conducted so fortunately as I made them carry that in two hours which a whole Army could not do in six weeks before At last Madam being resolved to perish or do some great matter I so hotly pursued the enemies that after we had killed a great number of them made the rest to flie and put fear into all the remainder I drove them even into their town where being entred alone with them certainly I performed things which made me plainly see that despair is more powerfuller than valor but whatsoever I could have done doubtless I should have fallen there if I had not called to minde that the breach being abandoned I might through that place cause our forces to enter thither I made then with extreme speed and finding none on the Ramparts but disarmed people who were there assembled to see the success of the business I easily got to it and presently discovering those which had followed me to the City-gate I cried unto them Victory Victory for to oblige them to turn head towards me When as they knew me by my slaves habit they were so surprized to see me still living as no way doubting but that I was a man sent by their Prophet to succour them they resolved to abandon me no more and superstition mingled it self so happily amongst them to excite their valor as I can say that I never saw souldiers more couragious They came then unto me with incredible speed and were no sooner mounted on the breach but I pulled down an Ensign which the enemies had set up on the wall to put one of Solimans in the place of it and having left some for the guard of the breach I went with the rest to seize on the gates of the town and their Magazine of Arms. The people no sooner heard long-live victorious Soliman cried in the streets but their weapons sell out of their hands assuredly believing that their Army was defeated and that the Emperors was in the City In the mean time Zellebis used all his endeavour to put heart into his souldiers again but seeing it altogether impossible he resolved to flie fearing nothing so much as to fall alive into Solimans hands As soon as the people knew that their Defendor had forsaken them we had no further resistance except
the Patriarch told them that as amongst us we daily see religious men sent forth in the habit of Merchants or Cavaliers for the converting of souls so the same disguisement might be permitted to one provided it were for the same cause and that the sole interest of Christendom carried me to this deceit which certainly would bring me to happiness in heaven and to glory on earth if I could resolve to execute it generously that the power which I had over the spirit of Soliman might peradventure be so great as to make him doubt of his Religion that it may be his conversion might be reserved for me and that if this should happen it would render the greatest service to Christendom that ever was rendred unto it that thereon peradventure depended the safety of an hundred thousand persons and that in conclusion his advice was that I could not fail in this occasion This opinion being become generall amongst them they conjured me to submit my sense to theirs in satisfying Soliman and that they would ingage their consciences to me that mine should be discharged of all fault in this incounter so as I let not my self be blinded with greatness and that the protection of Christendom were the only motive that carried me to this disguisement I did what I could to oblige them to change their advice I made an hundred objections and an hundred demands to them I told them that although I should not bear arms against Christendom as I was fully resolved not to do yet I should not alwayes forbear hurting it if I served in other occasions because I should still be augmenting the Turkish Empire But they told me so as I carried the war to the Persians it would amuse Soliman unprofitably for himself and profitably for the Christians for that the conquests which the Turks made upon the Persians could never through a kinde of extraordinary fate be conserved by them that in this sort occupying Soliman in that war it would deprive him of the means of turning his Arms against Christendom that of two evills the least was alwayes to be chosen and finally that I should in my person answer for the miseries which should arrive unto them if I did not yeeld a blind obedience to what they ordained whenas I sufficiently knew that reason would have it to be so I was forced then to follow their directions and to go unto Soliman after I had been instructed by them concerning all that I was to do As for that Prince when he had propounded the matter to the Muphti in such terms as testified that he desired it he that made no other use of the Religion whereof he was the Head but his own profit failed not to tell the Sultan out of the hope of a recompence that the thing was not only permitted but was also meritorious seeing it conduced to the service of the Empire which the Prophet had established As soon as the Sultan saw me he came to me and beholding me with a fixed eye he sought to know the thoughts of my heart by the motions of my face but not giving him leave to speak to me I assured him that I came to obey him provided that his Higness would accord me three things which I desired of him I had no sooner said thus but that without knowing what I would have this Prince assured me that they were granted unto me I besought him then to hear me first to the end that precipitating nothing I might never give him occasion to complain of me After he had given me the liberty to say what I would to him I humbly requested him not to take it ill that being his Slave I should be so bold as to capitulate with him and give bounds to his Authority for my Lord said I unto him I do not consent unto this disguisement which thy Highness desires of me but upon condition that thou shalt never speak to me to put that in effect which I am going to do in shew that thou wilt permit me to have always about me in the habit of a Slave a Priest of my Religion whom I will procure to come from one of thâ— Ilands of the Archi-pelago and that which is the most important that thou shalt never command me to bear Arms against Christendom If any of thy Subjects said I to him further shall rebell as Zellebis if thou wilt conquer Persia if any other of thy Neighbours that is not Christian shall oblige thee to make war upon him or if thou wilt render thy self Master of all the rest of the Orient hold me for the basest of thy Slaves if I spare either my blood or my life for the glory of thy Arms. If thy goodness doth not refuse me this which I beg of thee on my knees dispose of me as thou pleasest I am resolved to follow thy directions exactly and to obey thee in all things Soliman was so contented with the obtaining of that which he desired as he swore unto me above an hundred times that the thâ—ee things which I had demanded should be inviolably observed But not to lose time said he unto me I will have thy change published presently to the end the people may not be surprised with it in the mean space I will go and give order for the Muphti to come to me and will command him to repair to thee eight dayes one after another to make the world think that he instructs thee and prepares thee for this Ceremony which shall oblige thee to keep thy chamber the whilst the better to make it be believed that it will be performed At length Madam not to prolong this discourse with vain repetitions the business was done as it had been propounded and this dumb shew was so well carried as no body beleeved it but to be so As long as I kept the house I was visited by the chiefest of the Empire who judged rightly that the affection of Soliman having no other obstacle to hinder him from imploying me would without doubt bring me into an estate able to serve them as indeed it was not long before I perceived that their conjectures were true for the second day after this imposture I found that I had an house a magnificent train rich clothes and to conclude an equipage proportionable to the imployment which Soliman gave me by making me Generall of the Army in the place of the Bassa Sinan And to testifie his amity the better unto me he gave me wherewith to render secretly to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the rest that had counselled me the Tribute which he had drawn from them the last three years and caused also the foundation of a Palace to be laid which afterwards I finished In the mean time he had taken care that I should have troops ready to march when I had satisfied the civilities of the Ceremony so that at such time as I went first to salute him in a Turkish habit I found that
of his Vessell which the waves had brought to Land so that despairing of any comfort he went to the habitation that was nearest to the place where he was and stayed there certain days to make search if at least the body of Axiamira might have been found as also to meet with some means for him to return to Constantinople As for the Princess all his care in vain he found indeed some dead Souldiers and Mariners along the shoar but of her he never could have any tidings so that the unhappy Axiamira is doubtless without life and without sepulture In the mean time Rustan thinking of his return although he were neer to a place where Prince Gianger the youngest of Solimans sonnes was residing yet would he not demand any assistance from him for fear he should be obliged to tell him a thing which was to be concealed wherefore he had recourse to the Governor of a small Town that was not above four miles from thence where he had suffred shipwrack who furnishing him with all things requisite for his journey he returned by Land to Constantinople with so melancholick a countenance as at first sight one might easily perceive that his enterprize had not been prosperous I was at that time with his Highness and I have not lost the remembrance of so dolefull a conversation As soon as Rustan had made an end of relating to the Grand Signior that which you have heard he would have excused himself for having forcibly carried away Axiamira without his order but Soliman said unto him with a face wherein grief and choller equally appeared Speak no further unto me thou base and infamous ravisher and know that if thou hadst not maried my daughter Chimeria thy death should have satisfied for that of Axiamira Ah poor Princess said he how deplorable is thy face and how unhappy is mine Then turning himself towards me who was present at this mournfull relation do not reproach me my dear Ibrahim said he unto me for not giving credit to thy counsell which I remember but too well for my content and the estate wherein I am punisheth me sufficiently for my imprudence Can any innocent be found more infortunate than I But what say I innocent continued he I cannot be so of the death of this Princess it is I that have delivered her into the hands of Rustan it is I that have exposed her to the tempest and it is I that have been the cause of her loss Could I be ignorant that she was not an ordinary person No Ibrahim I could not I loved her under the name of Felixana but I was to adore her in my heart as a great Princess I saw something so high and so majesticall in the air of her face as I cannot be excusable for not knowing her for howsoever if the possession of Axiamira was necessary for my felicity she was to be intreated after another manner and if my love would have constrained me to have recourse unto violence I should have gone in person in the head of an hundred thousand men to make so noble a conquest with honor she should have been brought in a triumphant Chariot and not in the Vessell of a Traytor and impious man I should not have thought of possessing her till I had set a Crown upon her head and if I could not have obtained her I should have changed my love into respect and with admiration have looked upon a bliss that was forbidden me But Rustan did not believe that I was capable of such noble apprehensions he hath judged of my minde by his own he thought because he is violent that I should be wicked he hoped for a recompence of his crime and out of an inhumanity which is without example he hath betrayed an innocent Princess he hath put a stain upon my life which I shall not be able to deface and hath reduced my soul to an estate never to be comforted Then addressing his speech to the Princess as if she â—ould have heard him and calling to mind her last words which he had caused to be repeated to him more than once he cried out with an exceeding transport Yes Axiamira thy death shall be the cause of the revenge which thou desirest and the grief which I shall have for it all my life shall be instead of an eternall punishment unto me There needs no Arms to invade my State there needs no proclamed Enemy to fight with me I carry oâ—e in my bosom which shall alwayes surmount me repentance and sorrow shall be inseparably with my spirit and the image of so unhappy and of so beautifull a person shall accompany me even to the grave Soliman having been constrained by the excess of his displeasure to give over speaking I did what I could to restore tranquillity to his soul but his grief was so vive and so strong as I needed a great deal of time to vanquish or to say better to moderate it Behold Madam the History of the unfortunate Axiamira all the particulars whereof which I have told you I learned from Rustan and more too from one of his souldiers who returned a little after him and was saved almost in the same manner Isabella could not then forbear interrupting of Justiniano to lament the misfortune of Axiamira but after she had satisfied her compassion she desired to make an end of contenting her curiosity and intreated Justiniano to continue his discourse which he did in this sort The Sequele of the History of Iustiniano I Will not stand Madam to relate unto you how I imployed my self after my return from Natolia in regard I know that Doria purposeth to let you understand that Ibrahims Palace was built by my direction and how it was in that intervall of peace and assoon as I was Grand Visier that I caused the ornaments thereof to be made having seen that work finished but a little before Doriaes arrivall at Constantinople It is true said Doria that I have a desire to describe that inchantâ—d Palace to her Excellency and to acquaint her with all the magnificences and all the grandeurs which you have quitted for her sake and to make her comprehend a part of what I say I am but to present her with that which the Grand Signior hath seâ—t her saying so he drew out of his pocket the box of gold which Soliman had delivered unto him and having opened it he let her see one of the goodliest things in the world Isabella was so surprized with the richness of this present as she would not have received it but at length Doria having told her laughing that he was not determined either to keep it or to carry it back to Constantinople she was constrained to accept of it Doriaes jesting made Justiniano fetch a great sigh beginning already to apprehend the end of his narration and for that cause had spun out that of the Adventures of Axiamira as much as possibly he could in exactly recounting her
History and all because he was not yet well resolved whether he should deliver the truth of things to Isabella in the mean time whereas she was in much impatience and that night began to come on she desired him not to lose such precious minutes but to prosecute his discourse I would willingly have had you dispence with me answered Justiniano for leading you once more to the wars but since you will be acquainted with all my fortunes I am to let you understand that being absolutely determined not to wear a Turbant unprofitably for Christendom I had no other thought but to divert the Arms of Soliman from Hungary where I knew he had a design to imploy his greatest forces the loss of Axiamira furnished me soon after with means to put so just a resolution in effect For whether it were that some of the Princesses women were saved by a prodigious good hap and had acquainted Tachmas with the cause of the death of his daughter or that the aboad or sudden departure of Rustan who had alwayes past at Mazanderon for a Merchant of Constantinople had begotten some suspition of the truth advertisement came that Tachmas was levying a mighty Army The Truce which had been so long between these two Princes could be no obstacle to this war for it had never been observed exactly and some particulars had often committed acts of hostility on either part so that according to the Maxims of State a plausible pretext could not be wanting for an Army to march into the Orient as often as Soliman had a mind to it In the mean time it happened that the Georgians having past over Euphrates did much spoil in Comagena robbing all that went to or came from Mesopotamia so that the Sangiacs of the Province having complained of it and seeing that Soliman took no order therein they passed to Diarbech where in all the Countrey about Birtha they did great havock and rendred that with usury which the Georgians had lent them This conjuncture seeming too favourable unto me to be neglected I repaired unto Soliman who notwithstanding the advertisement he had received that Tachmas had put himself into Arms could not be drawn for all that to think of this war the image of Axiamira reigned still in his heart he could not resolve to fight with the Father whose daughter he had caused to perish and if some resentment of glory had not been still remaining in him I think he would rather have let Tachmas invade his Empire than oppose himself against him But to shew unto you how hardly this Prince was drawn to make a war which he believed to be unjust I have no more to say than that after I had used all my address to remonstrate unto him that the war of Persia was a thing no longer in his choice since knowing what his Governors had done in Diarbech and Tachmas having an Army on foot he was not to doubt yea though he wre ignorant that he was the innocent cause of Axiamiraes death but that he would fall upon him that after I had told him how it was alwayes advantagious for great Princes to begin the War that it was a mark of love to his Subjects not to suffer the fire to be brought into their houses and that I had made him also to consider that at last it would be better to be in an estate to shew grace to his Enemy than to receive it from him that in this occasion it did not concern his particular glory alone but that of the Empire that being innocent of the misfortune of Axiamira he was not to fear that heaven would be contrary to him and that if this death was to be lamented it would suffice to imploy his tears and sighs therein without beholding the blood of his Subjects shed After all these things I say he made no other answer but Axiamira is dead for me I must sacrifice a part of my State for her and that my Subjects may not murmure at the Conquests which I shall suffer Tachmas to gain upon me I will labor to obtain others of the Christians without obliging thee as I have promised to serve me therein I vow unto you Madam that this discourse surprized me extremely not knowing which way to oppose my self against a will so fully determined And that which put me into further despair of being able to execute my design was that the Mother and Wife of the Emperour hated me with a secret hatred because I had always favoured Mustapha and Gianger excellent Princes and the children of Soliman for though this last be the sonne of Roxelana yet leaves she not to hate him because he loveth Mustapha This hatred was the cause then that these two women opposed the voyage of Persia onely to contradict â—e with so much address and violence as I stood in need of some extraordinary mean to destroy all their artifices The first represented unto Soliman that the wars of the Orient had always been infortunate to the Othomans that his Armies would be exterminated with hunger and thirst if he carried them to a place from whence his father Selim although victorious brought back no other advantage than the loss of his best souldiers As for Roxelana she imployed nothing but her tears wherewith alone she was more powerfull than reason it self so that all these things being joyned to the loss of Axiamira wrought in such sort as I saw almost an impossibility in diverting the storm which was ready to fall on Christendom But in the end after I had tried all wayes in vain I bethought my self how Soliman being mightily perswaded that Judiciary Astrology is a Science which men may practise with certainty I might peradventure bring him to what I desired if I could get an Arabian to come from Damascus that was an excellent Astrologer and Mathematician called Mulé Aral whom the people accused of Magick by reason of the wonders which every day he did hoping after I had won him with gifts to make him say unto Soliman whatsoever I would have him I sent then secretly unto Damascus not knowing how to meet with any other expedient that could satisfie me otherwise and whereas my orders were as well executed as the Grand Signiors it was not long before he was brought to me In the mean space I was resolved to speak no more of this war to Soliman untill such time as that which I projected should utterly fail me As soon as Mulé Aral was arrived at Constantinople I talked with him in private and after I had ingaged him absolutely to do what I would have him I discovered my design unto him which nevertheless I covered with the good and glory of the Empire to the end too he might serve me the more faithfully But this man told me how he held it fit that the Stars should be observed and his books consulted with a little about this war because it might so happen that without any imposture or lying
tyed up with carnation-silver'd ribbon and her hair with the same which did not misbecome a person fair-complexioned The second had on a night attire of pure white silver tinsell which gave a kind of lustre to her serious and modest aspect the third alwayes glittering was in a wastcoat of gridilyon sattin set all over with silver oes as for the youngest though her garment was plainer than the rest yet was it the gallantest her habit was nothing else but silverd tiffany imbroidered with flowers lined with carnation taffata and her head was covered over with carnation and white feathers which must needs doe well with a young person whose hair was black complexion clear and lively and eyes wonderfully sparkling All these Sisters were much amazed in themselves at the care which each of them had taken on one and the same day in setting forth themselves as much as possibly they could and the Marquis was so surprised to see them all at once with such magnificence and jollity that he could not imagine what should be the cause of it for commonly they observed this order amongst themselves that there was one alwayes carelesly drest to the end that each of them in their turn might shew both affected handsomness and handsome carelesness But at length the Marquis accoasts them divides his complements and looks commends them all four together and without knowing what was in their thoughts does things which confirms them in their opinion He talks to them of love openly swears that he is in such a passion for them as he was never in the like before and whereas their minds were prepossessed they beleeve that it is an address of Court to speak overtly of these matters and to leave it to her whom one loves to apply it to her self She whom he beheld beleeved that it was as much as to say it is for you and those whom he did not behold beleeved that out of respect he durst not encounter their eyes in speaking of a thing which might make them blush in fine they were all very well contented and very well satisfied The Marquis who did not love to make unprofitable visits demands new favours of them he will have a bracelet made of the hair of all four they laugh at it at first they refuse him or to say better they make him the more earnest to intreat them for it and at last they grant it him still in the thought that it is a trick whereby he will get the hair of her eh loves without making shew that it should be a particular favour or that she should have cause to be offended at it This promise was soon executed the youngest of these maids being the most dextrous was she that plaited this hair together and made a bracelet of it where the different colour of their hair appeared all asunder In labouring at this work she laughed in her sleeve to think how her Sisters were beguiled if they beleeved that it was for them the Marquis had desired that which she was making and the rest who thought they were more cunning mocked at the simplicity of their younger Sister for taking such paines about a thing wherein she had so small a share And those severall concealed opinions which they all had gave them so strong a disposition to laugh as upon the least pretext for it they fell into it finding too amidst their laughter occasion to redouble it each of them beleeving in their mind that the rest would not alwayes laugh with so good a will when once the Marquis should declare himself As for him who never lost time after he had spoken to them all in generall according to the French liberty he spake to them in particular he singles out one into a corner of the room and there sayes gallantries to her a little after he talkes with another at a window which looks upon the garden and seeming to admire the beauty of the flowers he praises that of her eyes he accompanies the youngest when she goes forth and makes use of this occasion to cajoll her And when they walk in the garden he sometimes draws one of them also from the rest that he may be able to speak two or three words to her in private or to kiss her hand In the mean time Marsé who had not received such caresses at the Marquis his house returns to his own where he finds him still to be he does what he can to make him stay all night but the Marquis who began to fear lest Marsé should press him to explain himself withstands it parts from this fair company carries away the bracelet and comes back to his Sister who was very melancholick For it had happened that her Lover being returned had surprised her talking with Marsé and whether he had understood of his design or that she had before acquainted him with it they had saluted one another very coldly and had talked as men that took pleasure to contradict each other So that said she to the Marquis after she had recounted unto him that which had befallen I see the matter in a case to break forth and suddenly to produce some mischief if we doe not look to it in time No such thing answered the Marquis for whereas I have promised nothing to Marsé and that he too hath not spoken to me of his love to you or of any purpose he had to marry you I may tell him if he moves me about it that I am engaged to another and to make that true cause your Lover to come to me and I will promise him my consent I know that thereby I shall banish my self from a place where I have a great deal of pleasure but since I am of necessity to be gone away within eight dayes to the Court I could not make a better end of this adventure For Marsé forbidding me his house I shall have a fair occasion to write them a letter of adieu and despair withall continued he I perceive that I begin to accustome my self to the favours which I receive from these Gentlewomen so that now the happiness which love gives me being turned into an habit it is no longer hapiness to me The Marquis his Sister was so astonished to hear him talk thus as she could not forbear laughing at it They past the evening in this sort and not to lose time the Marquis his Sister advertised her Lover that the next morning he should repair to her Brother to acquaint him clearly with the intentions he had for her The note which she sent failed not to work the effect she expected from it her Lover comes just as the Marquis is rising speaks to him of his passion for his Sister shews that he covets his alliance and in the end expresses his desires so clearly that the Marquis without further delay leads him to his Mothers chamber who favoured her Daughters wishes propounds the matter unto her gets her to agree unto it and whereas
this Lover was absolute Master of his Estate and of his own will they resolved to accomplish this Mariage within four dayes to the end that the Marquis who was to return to the Court might be at his sisters wedding Things being in these termes Marsé arrives who was come on purpose to his Mistresses Mother to discover his design unto her As soon as the Marquis saw him enter he descends he goes and imbraces him invites him to his sisters wedding before he acquaints him to whom she is to be maryed seemes to believe that he is not interessed therein talks to him of dancing and joy hoping thereby that Marsé seeing the matter resolved would not explain himself further and peradventure would alter his mind As indeed Marsé hearing this discourse and knowing that his rivall was returned makes no doubt but the Marquis spake the truth onely he doubted in regard of the manner of the Marquis his speech to him whether he had observed that he affected his sister He was mad that he had not declared himself sooner and that he was arrived so late and in this unquietness he knew not whether he should goe in or no to be the spectator of his Rivals tryumph whether he should quarrell with the Marquis though he knew not as yet that he was faulty whether he should depart away without saying any thing unto him or whether he should trouble this wedding with some strange violence in fine he was so confounded as not knowing what to doe in so unpleasing a conjuncture he suffered himself to be conducted along by the Marquis whose adress in this occasion was such as without seeming to perceive any change in his countenance he still continued talking to him of diversion and joy and that too with imbracing and putting him gently on towards his Mothers chamber whereunto as soon as ever they were entred the Marquis presented his brother-in-law to Marsé who saluted him very coldly in the mean time he had leasure to tell his Mother and his sister in two words that to keep Marsé from shewing his hatred and resentment he was not to be left alone with any body After that civilities were rendred on either part the Marquis thought it was fittting that he should entertain the company he began then to quarrell with his sister for that she was the cause of his rejoycing at a thing which was repugnant to his mind but withall he was well assured that this thing should never give him joy again either for her or any other and that this compliance was no doubt the greatest mark he could render her of his love Marsé hearing this discourse demanded of him whether he meant mariage by that which he spake and the Marquis without further delay answered him laughing that it was of that destroyer of love of that Tyrant of libertie of that enemy of pleasure which most commonly disjoynes all that Love hath united which discovers all the defects of the mind and humor to persons that believed they were altogether perfect and that which was worse than all the rest for him which banishes love inconstancie and gallantry from amongst men to introduce into the stead of it jealousie of honor a false constancie and domestick cares So that as you speak replyed Marsé interrupting him you believe it may be that you should much oblige one of your friends if you should mary his Mistress to another If he should tell me answered the Marquis that he would mary her I should not contradict his intent for I am so much an enemie to constraint as I never oppose any thing but otherwise if a worthy man of my friends should appear to me extremely amorous I doe not think I should doe him any great wrong if I should deprive him of the meanes of marying his Mistress in case his passion should disorder him so far as to give him a desire to doe so And in the humor that I am the greatest proof of affection that I can render unto a maid when I become inamoured of her is not to marry her yea and I have met with some unto whom the more favourably to receive my affection and to testifie unto them the respect which I bare them I have declared at the first sight that in becoming their Servant I had no design to become their Master and in assuring them that I was their slave I assured them that I would never be their Tyrant It may be replyed Marsé you have not alwaies spoken so openly that I have not answered the Marquis when I believed that those whom I loved had wit enough not to suspect that I had any such bad intent but howsoever I have never done or said any thing which could make them believe that I had any other aym than to love them to be kindly received of them to be heard with pleasure and to obtain of them all those petty favours which are no part of the Husbands demean and which ought alwaies to remain in the disposition of Ladies therewith to gratifie their Lovers For since there are not men found which amuse themselves in wearing bracelets of their wives hair which demand favours of them which are ravished with kissing onely the tip of their gloves with saying gallantries to them praising their beauties giving them serenades making verses to their glory and telling them that they burn and dye for love of them Is it not strange they should be deprived of all these pleasures and is it not unjust that men which doe not love them should possess them absolutely and that they which adore them should not at leastwise have all those petty things which are not directly opposite to vertue Your maximes are so bad said the Marquis his Sister speaking to her Brother that if you had not alwayes been at Court and that we had alwayes been brought up together I should have some cause to fear that one might imagine you had perswaded me to your opinion I dare not say replyed her Lover that these maximes which you condemn have nothing in them that clashes with reason nor also maintain that they have nothing in them but that which is bad for I have too much love for the Sister and too much respect for the Brother but howsoever I am confident that you will not follow them It is true said Marsé tartly enough that inconstancie is not that wherewith he is to be reproched and I know not whether on the contrary Vertue opposed will not prove to be the onely crime that may be imputed to him The Marquis perceiving that the other was preparing himself to answer and peradventure with bitterness continued to speak of the injustice of men in the discerning of things For said he if the diversity of good books renders a man knowing if diversity of voyages serves him for an agreeable study which illuminates his mind and informs his judgment if the diversity of fair arts is a knowledge that pleases if the diversity of
Sir what have you done I doe not know said I stepping a little back but if thou canst re-accommodate this disorder During this Lucretia swore false oaths to her Mistress for the clearing of her innocency and the poor Livia was so surprised as she could resolve of nothing in fine we were all four exceedingly perplexed I was vexed for having spoken so lavishly Lucretia was much troubled in justifying her self my Agent knew not what to doe either for Lucretia or for me and Livia could think of nothing that would satisfie her She vvould fain have railed on me but she savv that I vvas too much acquainted vvith her affairs to be incensed more She could have been contented never to have seen me again but she feared lest parting avvay vvithout saying any thing unto me I should publish that vvhich I knevv At last she vvould vvillingly have recalled me for I vvas stept a little from her and stood musing with my self but her heart vvould not consent that she should use any civility to me after that vvhich I had said unto her Behold Madam the estate vvherein vve stood vvhen as la Roche the most daring fellovv that is approched unto Livia and said unto her for the justification of Lucretia with a seeming sinceritie I know very well Lady that I do put my self in danger of being turned away by my Master in discovering a thing unto you which he greatly labours to conceal but the condition wherein you are and the innocency of Lucretia forces me to open it unto you Know then continued he that whatsoever he hath said unto you is not the effect of my bodies treason but of Astrology which he understands perfectly It is a science wherein he is become so expert that if I should recount unto you the mervailes which I have heard him tell you would be mightily surprised with it And whereas he is passionately in love with you seeing you very rigorous to him he hath spent every night for these eight dayes in contemplating the Starres and turning over his books to discover the cause thereof and without doubt it was by this meanes that he is come to know that which he hath said unto you he hath shewed me continued he the garden where you were in a great glass though I would not understand what you said Truely the invention of this lad amazed me it was in vain for me to make signes unto him to hold his peace the more unquietness that I shewed the more he continued speaking and I may say that I was never in greater pain for I heard all that he said But whereas I saw that he went confounding things and that from an Astrologer he would quickly make me pass for a Magician in talking of an inchanted glass I resolved to help forward this trick that so I might make him hold his tongue wherefore I called him somewhat rudely and having commanded him to withdraw I came to Livia with civilitie enough just as Lucretia was saying to her boldly how she had already heard it assured indeed that I dealt with telling of fortunes And having saluted her for the better colouring of the business I seemed to be very angry with la Roches imprudence in discovering to her a thing which I would not have known in regard of the brutishness of the people who imagine that one cannot observe the Starres without having commerce with the Devill and know not how to put a difference between Astrologie and inchantments But since the fault was done I desired her to oblige me to her discretion by not publishing that which had been told her I said unto her also that parting from the Court of France I had past through Provence where hapning to be lodged near to a great Nostradamus so admirable in this science as it was not known whether he should be tearmed a Prophet or an Astrologer I had been so happy as to touch his inclination and to gain his friendship even to the point to teach me a part of the excellent things he knew either for Astrologie Phisiognomy or Chiromancie In fine I spake to her with so much art as she beleeved me and beleeved too that Lucretia was innocent who on her side played her part so well as she made me ashamed She clapt her hands together she accused her Mistress for having accused her and the poor Livia was almost ready to make excuses unto her so well was she perswaded And the cause why a discourse of this kind did not surprise her so much as another and was more credible with her was for that she had all her lifetime heard her Father talk of this science who just as we were there came out of his house assoon as I saw him I would have been gone but Livia stayed me and said to me with a great deal of spirit I know too well what respect a man of your condition doth owe to one of my sex to be affrayed you should be indiscreet and since it is true that yâ—u doe know the force of destiny and the influences of the Starres you may well know by them that I cannot eschue what they have resolved In the mean time the old man who was not accustomed to see his daughter in such a conversation drew near and after he had but coldly saluted me demanded of her what she did there but I was strangely amazed when as she answered him that meeting not long before with a friend of hers whom she loved very well she understood by her that I was one of the greatest Astrologers in the world and that being curious to know wether she should be maried or no she had desired my acquaintance which the same friend had procured her I perceived that Livia had spoken in this manner notwithstanding the request that I had made unto her to the end she might know whether I had said the truth so that I resolved to stand to it But I found my self much perplexed when as this old man said to her in a grave tone that many men had imployed all their lives in this study and had taken upon them the name of Astrologers but that few had come to the point of deserving it Then turning him to me with a more open countenance he said unto me that if I were such a one as his daughter told him he would serve me with all his heart that he was very much affected to men of merit and to the lovers of sciences whereof the vulgar were ignorant and that in conclusion if he should tell me truth he must confess that in times past he had given himself to judiciary Astrology but that the trouble of domestick affaires had kept him from excelling therein howbeit that he still knew enough to be able to discourse a little with me of it if I would come and vissit him at his house whereof he shewed me the door I leave you to judge Madam in vvhat a case a man might be that knevv not
you asked me for your Ring and I have made you to find it to Livia I have told you the most concealed particulars of your adventure to Leander I made you hope for the possession of Aurelia which she promises to you her self to Aurelia I have undeceived you from Hortensio and made you acknowledge the fidelity of Leander to the traveller I promised you that you should not be robbed by the way and I have kept my vvord with you for I am sure you are not in case so to be la Roche having provided for that by taking away your mony vvhich I command him to restore unto you presently so that you see I have not failed in my promise to every one for touching my self sayd I laughing you perceive I am he alone for whom I have done nothing so that to recompence me in some sort for so many unprofitable pains grant me Valerioes pardon vvhich especially I demand of Leander as of the most offended but withall the most obliged to his friends gullery since without him he durst never have thought of the happiness which he possesseth In conclusion said I to them still laughing whereas you know that I am a dangerous enemy I counsell you as persons whom I esteem to receive me for your friend They burst out then into so great a laughter as they thought they should never have been quiet again to hear the complement which Leonardo made me who assured me that the pleasure I had given him by my relation was so great as he should alwaies remember it as an important service which I had rendred him and that he would not for any thing but that this gullery had been it was so diverting Livia told me next that she was of her fathers mind and though she had denyed me her love yet did she promise me her friendship Hortensio added thereunto that he was so much obliged unto me for drawing him out of prison as he could not chuse but swear an inviolable affection to me and Leander vvho was engaged to me for the possession of his Mistress gave himself wholly unto me for Aurelia as she was least satisfied so was her complement the coldest being contented onely to tell me that she should never forget the visit I had given her but nevertheless whensoever she had any hate it should not be for me whereupon she would have gone away but I advised Leonardo to send for Cinthio her Uncle and also for Valerio to the end they should not part asunder till all things were peaceably concluded This was almost as soon executed as I had mentioned it in the mean time Livia and Aurelia having talked a pretty while together alone called Hortensio and Leander to them and such things passed between them as they found themselves all four extremely contented Cinthiâ— and Valerio being come and a fair conclusion made on all sides the whole company supped with Leonardo though none but I was invited Howbeit that I may not Madam further extend a relation which is already but too long I shall tell you that within a while after I was bidden to their wedding whither I came with more love than all these four together had for I had enough for every woman of the assembly But at length night being come I left them maryed and coâ—tented I say contented because I am not an Historian but for the first day of their Nuptials which ordinarily is full of joy and gladness Nevertheless that which troubled me afterwards was how not able to keep the matter from being divulged the same people who had pointed at me before as at a Magician looked upon me then as on an impostor and jeered me in such sort as I durst not peep out of doors But it is also true that the same adventure was the cause of a greater good unto me for by the Count of Lauagnes curiosity I got the honour of his acquaintance and friendship which hath likewise produced yours too Madam and hath also given me the noblest passion that ever I had in my life I must confess sayd the Princess that you are incomparable and that in regard of what I have heard there is none but will say how you are a dangerous enemy and a pleasing friend Ah Madam sayd the Marquis do not ruin me with Aemilia no no sayd this mayd for I promise you not to judge of you but by your self who as I beleeve will perswade me that which her Excellency speaks of better than she can as eloquent as she is I would fain know sayd Doria speaking to the Marquis whether they from vvhom you take your love may pretend still to your friendship Yes answered he provided they have been favourable to me for as for the rest they are so indifferent unto me as it would be more advantageous for them that I should hate them This is a pretty discourse indeed sayd Justiniano since that by this reason the fair Aemiliae ought not to be cruell unto you to the end she may by receiving your love favourably pretend one day to your friendship I confess said the Count that the Marquis his opinion teaches me a new tenet which I did not beleeve could be possible I have always heard it sayd that friendship is many times a way to love but that love should be the way to friendship is a thing which hath but few examples and no reason at all This dispute would be a little too long sayd the Princess both for the time and the place and I think it were fitter for us to return unto Monaco before the ending of the day which will not permit us to walk but this agreeable discourse hath given us so much satisfaction as we have no reason to regret it The whole company then arose the Count led Isabella the Marquis Aemilia Justiniano and Doria went together and the Princesses women together with other of her servants followed after without order All this fair troop went aboord of the Galley which brought them thither whereof the Princess never made use but when she went to this place The rest of the evening was wholly imployed in talking of the Marquis his adventures each one repeating in particular that which had seemed most pleasant to them therein Isabella likewise caused her kinswoman who had an excellent voyce to sing the Marquis plaid on the Lute and sung also with the beautiful Aemilia so that concluding this day with Musick they bid the Princess good night and retired to their lodgings IBRAHIM OR THE ILLUSTRIOUS BASSA The second part The Third BOOK HOw delightfull soever this company might be yet was the Count to return unto Genoua not daring to stay longer in a place whither he had been sent He took his leave then of the Princess who desired him to assure the Senate of her acknowledgement and that ere long she would be at Genoua her self to render them thanks in particular for the honor they had done her The Marquis also kissed
seeing him in this case conjured him again with more earnestness to acquaint her with the cause of all these alterations in him that they might labor to give some remedy unto it Alas Madam said he unto her with somewhat a low voice that he might not be heard by one of the Princesses women who was at the other end of the Cabinet the knowledge which I shall give you of my disease will not make you find a remedy for it for it is of a nature not to be cured but by death Yet if I should suffer it my self alone I would not complain of it but I am afraid that it would be contagious for you that the knowledge which you should have of it would increase my grief by causing yours that I should be more infortunate in your person than in mine own and that in conclusion you would be yet more to be lamented than I who deserves the miseries which oppress me since I am the cause of all yours The Princess judging rightly by this discourse that there was some great matter to be known commanded her woman that was still in the Cabinet to go and stand at the door for to keep any from coming to interrupt her This order given she turned back to Justiniano and scarce knowing what to say or what to demand in so unexpected an occasion she beheld him a while without speaking neither durst he likewise open his lips but after she had recollected her spirits and knew that it concerned not the sickness of the body having a great and generous soul she said unto him with a firm and assured voice What mark have you had my dear Justiniano of my little affection or of my weakness that you fear so much to give me a part in your griefs No no cast off this fear and permit me to tell you before you acquaint me with that which I can neither divine nor comprehend that besides the loss of your affection there is no misfortune wherein I shall not receive some comfort partaking it with you Ah! Madam said Justiniano interrupting her cease to be unjust in being too good to me and believe that when you shall know the point where at this present we are you will finde that I have reason to be greatly troubled in resolving to acquaint you with it Why said the Princess exceedingly impatient concerns it life liberty or honor if it be the first provided I may die before you I have felt sorrows sharper than death if it be the second and that I may be a slave with you I will accustom my self to wear irons but if it concerns honor I confess that we have reason to despair and that to conserve it any thing is to be done you see said she unto him that I am prepared for the greatest misfortunes and for such as seem to be the furthest off from me hold me no longer then in pain if it be true that I have any power over you Justiniano seeing he could not avoid it went on with his History from the point where he had left it he recounted unto her his pains his unquietness and his joys when as he knew that she was not inconstant that not knowing what els to do he had been constrained to acquaint Soliman with his whole life and consequently that the permission which he had obtained to come and see her was but for six months only having ingaged his word to that Prince to return unto him precisely within that time Judge after this Madam said he with sighs that well neer suffocated him and that scarcely suffered him to speak whether my complaints be not just whether I am worthy of your favour and whether death alone be not the remedy which I can find for my miseries For consider I beseech you the pitifull estate whereunto I am reduced which way soever I turn me I see you still infortunate but unhappy and infortunate only for the love of me Ah Madam if you knew how touching this object is how sensible and grievous it is you would easily apprehend the evill that I suffer it is so great as there is no expression strong enough to represent it well You have believed me to be dead and I have thought that you were inconstant your vertue hath been tryed by a long absence and my crime hath been punished with slavery but when as fortune seemed to be weary of persecuting us when as your constancy was sufficiently known and when as my crime was punished enough she made some truce with us I knew that you lived for me and you were not ignorant that I always lived for you I am returned Madam but must I repeat it once again I am returned a Slave fortune hath but lengthened my chain and not broken off my irons You seem Madam continued he by your silence to tell me that I had done better for your rest not to have returned and to have left you in the belief of my death than to come for to assure you that I do live but that I do not live for you I think Madam that reason is on your side but it is a reason which I cannot follow My voyage is not an effect of my reason nor of my will I never stuck at the taking of this resolution I followed my sense and my love and my passion so mightily blinded my reason as my soul abandoned it self wholly to joy I no longer thought that I was to return again to Constantinople but only that I was going to Monaco that I should have the pleasure to see you there and that afterwards I could not be unhappy In fine Madam I have not done that which I ought but I have done that which I could not choose but do In the mean time I have no sooner seen you but I have beheld you as a good which I was to lose and as a person which I have made unhappy For Madam if I break my word with Soliman I am an infamous creature I shall put your State and your Honor in danger and if I abandon you I am treacherous to you and cruell to my self and to say all I am so unhappy as death alone can succor me But for all that Madam it is you that must pronounce my sentence and dispose of my life Justiniano then felt himself so prest with grief as he could say no more The Princess who had heard him with a great deal of attention astonishment and sorrow was also a good while without answering him agitating in her self so difficult a thing to be resolved She was then leaning with one arm on a little table of ebony looking on Justiniano who durst not lift up his eyes for fear of incountring those of the Princess which were full of teares But at length this generous person who had a great and noble soul brak off her silence and said unto him with a constancy which hath scarce any example I confess my dearest Jusâ—iniano that our miseries
with him before my window or in all other places where I might have you for a witness that his love did not displease me No Horatio I have omitted none and the affection which I bore you made me have recourse to this artifice hoping I should know by giving you some cause of jealousie the force of your passion but I have not seen though you have seen all these things that you had any sense of them and albeit I knew that by this untoward experience I should be in danger of losing you if you were sensible yet chose I rather to resolve upon it and to assure my self of your love than to conserve you with a luke-warm and indifferent affection I have ever heard that jealousie is the daughter of love yet do I not say that love cannot be without jealousie Questionless you will tell me that by my own reasons I am unjust in complaining of you since it is possible that you may have love without having jealousie But alas this discourse hath not so much as an apparent reason neither can I suffer my self to be perswaded to that which I desire so passionately And to shew you that I cannot force my mind to deceive my self hear a thing which hath made me to think upon this matter I have been perswaded then that love alone cannot produce jealousie and how it is necessary that jealousie should have a mother which may contribute to her birth this mother if I be not deceived is occasion and as love without her cannot produce jealousie so she without love canot beget jealousie This reasoning seemes so powerfull to me as you cannot make any objection which it destroyes not for in fine you may well have love without jealousie when as you have no occasion for it but I having given it you and you not having taken it is to say absolutely that you have had no love Ah! fair Hypolita answered Horatio how I doe rejoyce at these complaints of yours for the more reasons you have brought to maintain your opinion the more have you established my felicity You say then amiable Hypolita continued Horatio that there can be no love without jealousie and because I have not been jealous I have had no love you shall pardon me if you please if without losing the respect which I ow you I dare take the libertie to contradict you in maintaining with reason that the perfectest and sincerest reason is that which admits of no jealousie It is a thâ—ng known of all reasonable and dis-interessed persons that he who loves truly loves only to love and not to be beloved or ro expect any recompence for that thought is too base and abject for so noble a passion Now if the love of beauty which is that whereof we speak springs from an object that is pleasing to the sight it followes that so long as this object seems amiable unto us so long will our love continue and whether the person beloved answers our affection or answers it not this love shall be still the same love But that I may make use of a comparison as well as you a man sees a fair Lady and love arises in his heart is it necessary for him to examine whether this Lady be ingaged to another in affection it is certain that it is not and it is every day seen that love doth subject us to them whose love is ingaged otherwhere so that one may wel judg from thence that a man ought to persevere in his love though some cause be given him of jealousie since when he was not beloved and that he was induced to love by the only sight of beauty he left not to be infinitely amorous And if I may be permitted to make use of History in this encounter what sympathy or what affection could that young Athenian expect who became so desperately in love with a beautifull Statue and whose passion was so extreme as the like was never heard of It is very certain that he loved only to love seeing the object of his passion was absolutely incapable of any correspondence Now then if it be true that a Lover is satisfied in knowing that he loves he is most assured that jealousie is not of power enough to destroy his love and that this jealousie is rather an effect of a defective than of a perfect love And to speak freely unto you tell me I pray you who can be so hardy after a worthy person hath had the goodness to receive our services favourably and to testifie some affection unto us as to suspect she should have the same thoughts for another Ah fair Hypolita the gallantry and civility which you have used to the eldest of the Adornes could not oblige me to draw so bad a consequence against you And to comprehend all the rest of my reasons in one alone I am but to say that he who by his discourse gives some marks of his jealousie to his Mistress names her inconstant facile and almost infamous Judge now fair Hypolita whether these be words agreeing with a Lady In the mean time it is most undoubted that in what tearms soever jealousie is expressed it cannot be expressed but in this manner whereas quite contrary this confidence which we have in the person beloved which makes us to approve of all her actions is the true mark of perfect love and indeed merits the most acknowledgement if I may be permitted to say so I have not suspected you then beautifull Hypolita of inconstancy because I have esteemed you very much and if I had had as good a place in your heart as you have had in mine you would questionless have done me justice â—n not accusing me of infidelity Hypolita was not sorry to find Horatio's reasons stronger than hers but whereas she was high-minded she would not let him see that she began to repent her but contrarily making shew as if she thought it strange her brother should leave her so long entertaining Horatio she called him for fear she should be constrained to say something that would be too obliging unto him And whereas Doria could not satisfie himself he came out of his Sisters Cabinet and went down to wait on Horatio whom she could not let part without beholding him in such a sort as he might easily perceive that he was in better terms with her than when he came thither for it is the custom of those that are easily angry to be as easily pacified to accuse that one may justifie himself and to complain that ' they may be satisfied In the mean time Doria had no sooner left Horatio but the Marquis came to him for to show him a Letter which he had written to Aemilia Why said Doria unto him do you think of her still I must needs think of her said the Marquis in the necessity I am in But before you marvelâ—t my constancy read that which you shall finde written in this paper and halving opened it he saw that it
serve you and to acquaint me with all your misfortunes to the end that knowing them I may the more easily finde necessary remedies for them But I know fair Felixana that this is to constrain your inclination and that you had rather talk with Vlama's Slave then renew your sorrows by calling them to remembrance but to comfort you I will promise to leave this Slave with you until we have some pleasing news to send Vlama Felixana thanked him for this favor and assured him that she had no greater desire then to obey him though the remembrance of her miseries would augment them and that it may be they would afflict him too For my Lord said she unto him my adventures are so intermingled with those of the Princess of Persia and of two Princes whom you have dearly loved as I am constrained to recount them seeing it is certain that mine make but a part of theirs Ibrahim was glad to see her in this resolution for he hoped he should know that by her which Soliman would not tell him so that causing her to sit down and Halima by her he summoned her to the performance of her promise which she accomplished in this manner The History of the Princess AXIAMIRA ULAMA and FELIXANA THat which you desire to know of me generous Ibrahim hath cost me so many tears and sighs that if I did not strive to turn away my thought from the last adventures of this History it were impossible for me to relate the beginning where you will finde nothing but the hopes of an extream felicity for me But to take things from their first source and to render my discourse more intelligible I am to tell you that Scach Tachmas whom we call the Sophi otherways King of the Persians remained a widower almost as soon as his wise who as I have heard say was an excellent Princess had brought him two sons Ismael and Mahamed whereof the last is blinde and two daughters of which the one is the Princess Axiamira or to say better the wonder of her age and the youngest named Perca is of an indifferent beauty of a malicious humor and of a minde uncapable of any kinde of friendship As for Ismael it might be said that as he hath no great virtues so he hath no great defects and that he is in the rank of those persons who do almost pass away their lives so as they can hardly be known to live if their quality did not make it appear that they are in the number of the living Now for Mahamed the same cannot be said of him but contrarily it seems that Nature hath deprived him of the light of the day to make it shine the more in his minde For whether it be that this privation of sight is the cause of its better recollecting it self and operating with the more activity or that his memory which is so marvelous in him as it may be thought he hath never forgotten any thing doth furnish him with that which renders him agreeable so it is that his conversation is so charming as one can never be weary of it But that which is most excellent in him is that he is exceeding virtuous and that his passions though violent have never surmounted his reason Behold my Lord what the royal Family was when I was brought to the Court which was at that time in the City of Tauris My Father had always been considerable enough in this Monarchy and the Sophi to testifie the esteem he had of him had made him Governor of Strabat and Mazanderon two very fair Towns which are scituated on the bank of the Caspian Sea But whereas my Father had marryed the sister of the Governor of Tauris it was by his means that I was put to Axiamira with a many other maids of a condition equal to mine which were divided between those two Princesses and were with them as one might say rather to help them to pass away the time then to do them any service Axiamira might be about fourteen years of age and I fifteen and whereas she was younger then the Princes her Brothers Mahamed as I think was not far from sixteen But to let you first know all the persons of whom I am to speak in this History I shall tell you that there was at the same time in the Court one named Deliment whose birth was not very noble but who had by means of his high spirit and extream riches so wrought himself into the Court and good grace of the Sophi as there was none but was afraid to be in ill terms with him I say afraid because it is certain that no man desired his friendship but for fear least his hatred should be prejudicial unto him and truly it is not to be marvelled if one could have no other opinion of him for he was insolent ambitious undertaking beleeving there was scarce any thing worthy of him easily offended never pardoning and that which rendred all his bad inclinatâ—ons more dangerous was that he had a great wit Now if Deliment were of this humor Vlama was opposite to him in all things for his birth is noble as being the chief man of Caramania his courage is without brutishness and whereas you have not seen him but since he was infortunate I conceive I may be permitted to tell you what he was during his felicity When I arrived at the Court nothing was spoken of but the valor of Vlama for it was a little after the War of the Azemites where having done wonders and to say all been the cause of the Sophies carrying away the victory to recompence him for this great action he made him Satrap of Caramania at two and twenty years of age and gave him his sister in marriage whom Vlama espoused rather out of obedience then out of inclination it being certain that this Princess as the incomparable Axiamira hath oftentimes told me had nothing recommendable in her but her birth And indeed as if Heaven had found this marriage unjust a month after it was accomplished she dyed of a burning Feaver And whereas it is the custom of the Kings of Persia to have all the royal Family lodged in one and the same Palace Vlama as brother-in-law to the Sophi was lodged there too so that though the women live very straitly kept all over Persia yet left we not for all that to have a great deal of liberty and to lead a life happy and pleasant enough having in the same Palace the two Princes and Vlama whom we saw as much as they pleased for the Sophi had ordained that the Princesses lodgings should be open to them when they would I and that all the Satraps young sons might see and speak to us when as they accompanyed the Princes Things being in these terms at such time as Vlama's wife dyed the Princesses went by the commandment of the Sophi a little after the Funeral to give a visit to Vlama whom I had scarcely
had any thing that was agreeable in my face yet could he not have been touched with it being not able to see it and as for wit I was in an age which ordinarily is not capable of making great conquests Indeed it is true that my complying with him might render me pleasing to him for whereas all my fellows were not of my humor they when Mahamed was with Axiamira declined his conversation or at least-wise applyed not themselves to it and this out of the thought that being incapable of seeing their beauty they beleeved him to be also incapable of love and for this reason they would not lose that time with him which they thought might be better employed in the entertaining of all those young persons of quality which accompanyed the Princes to Axiamira As for me who cared not as yet either for loving or for being loved I gave my self onely to things that pleased me and whereas I was infinitely taken with the conversation of Prince Mahamed and that generosity it self carryed me thereunto I set my self as often as I could to talk with him but that which engaged me yet farther to this compliance was that the Princess Axiamira loved him dearly for whereas Ismael and Perca were unworthy of her affection the first for the defects of his spirit and the other for her malice she had placed all her liking on Mahamed so that when the Princess could not entertain him her self she commanded me to stay with him which I did with a great deal of joy because there was nothing of more power at that time in my minde then the desire to please the Princess who in all her actions seemed to prefer me before all my fellows On the other side the Sophi who would fain know whether I would be as agreeable to his eyes in the Princesses Lodging as he had found me in Vlama's or whether the shining of so much light and that chamber hung with black had not served to deceive him used to come sometimes to the Princesses without giving me notwithstanding any greater mark of his affection then to behold and commend me more then the rest when occasion was presented for it for whereas I was very young at that time he durst not as I understood afterwards speak plainly to me of his passion fearing I should not be discreet enough to conceal it from others But whil'st he attended the improvement of my reason the time whereunto the ceremony of mourning had confined Vlama being quite expired he came to render his duty to the Princesses and to thank them for the honor they had done him and whereas I was almost never absent from Axiamira he saw me in her chamber and by a second view confirmed himself in the advantageous opinion he had conceived of me and so strongly resolved to love me as fearing he should be obliged to dislodg from the Palace because the Princess his wife being dead without children he was scarcely any longer of the royal Family he purposed to endevor all he could to discover his affection unto me for fear he should be deprived of the commodity of doing it so easily if he were constrained to be gone from thence As for me I confess to you blushing that in this visit which he gave to the Princess I felt a desire arise in my heart that I might be pleasing unto him and without making any reflexion on this thought I remember well that although it had been a great Court that day I never thought of heeding my apparel but as soon as Vlama was entred I observed my self with care and without knowing any reason for it I would have been glad that I had been better drest then I was But in fine my Lord two or three hours after Fortune was so favorable to Vlama's design as having found me alone in the Princesses Chamber who was shut up in her Cabinet he spake to me of his affection with so much passion as I knew not what to answer him having never met with such like encounters And whereas his speech had ever since remained in my memory and that it hath been the beginning and cause of all my pleasure and of all my misery I cannot forbear repeating it unto you He no sooner entred into the chamber but I advanced towards him to let him know that I was very sorry for that he could not see the Princess as yet and that having forbidden me interrupting her I durst not advertise her of his being there Do not afflict you self fair Felixana said he unto me for a thing which is infinitely pleasing to me and if you will render me perfectly happy trouble not my good fortune in doubting of this truth What said I unto him exceedingly surprized do you come to see the Princess and yet are glad that you cannot meet with her truly this seems so strange to me as I cannot comprehend the reason of it It is not for all that very difficult to finde out answered he me for I come to see the Princess Axiamira out of duty and the beautiful Felixana out of inclination I am her subject but I am your servant and that in such sort as you shall raign eternally in my soul there being no kinde of service which I will not render you with joy and henceforth continued he receive fair Felixana all the duties which I shall tender to the Princess as appertaining to you and beleeve that I am ravished with finding you thus alone whereby I have had the opportunity to make this Declaration unto you This discourse surprized me in such manner as I should have been much perplexed to have answered it if Axiamira had not at the same instant called me so that being prest to obey the Princess all that I could do was to tell him that knowing him and my self too I should always be able to discern how to beleeve that which was fit for me to beleeve both for his glory and mine But my Lord without particularizing all these things unto you it may suffice me to tell you that in six months space Vlama gave me so many marks of his love and discretion as I should have been ingrateful and insensible not to have rendred him some testimony of my good-will and whereas I was neither the one nor the other Vlama received from me all the proofs of friendship which virtue could permit me to give him and I may say that this was the onely time wherein I lived with pleasure And truly I must confess that the life which I led was happy enough I saw my self favored by the most amiable person that ever was caressed by the Sophi esteemed of Mahamed and passionately beloved of Vlama who without contradiction surpassed all that were at the Court in that blessed time Prince Mahamed resolved then to declare his passion overtly to me so that one day when the weather was very fair and that according to Axiamira's custom we were gone down into the
would be the undoing of all because if the Sophi did love me he would be so incensed thereby as he might peradventure be carryed to a violence which otherwise he would not be capable of As for Vlama he had secret apprehensions which incessantly tormented him the power of his Rival made him afraid neither was he so assured of my constancy but that he feared ambition would move me more then his love But whereas it was not long before I perceived his unquietness I wrote unto him for his better assurance that nothing but death could keep me from performing the promise which I had made him to be wholly his when he had setled his affairs so as he might marry me For whereas he was a widow r by the dâ—ath of the Sophi's sister civility would not permit him to think so soon of a second marriage espâ—câ—ally with a person whose birth though noble and illustrious enough came not neer for all that to the former Things being in these terms we were a good while without having any great occasion to increase our unquietness because the Sophi and Deliment having consulted a second time together and resolved to seek to gain me by gentlâ—ness before they would come to force there was nothing but sports and entertainments And whereas according to the order I had for it so often as Deliment spake to me of the Sophi's love I made as though I did not beleeve there was any truth in his words Tachmas being thereof advertised and desiring to give me a proof of the esteem he made of that they called beauty in may face he did a thing which hath since been the cause of a great deal of mischief for generous Ibrahim it happenâ—d for our ill fortune that there arrived about that time at this Court a Painter of Europe whom chance or the desire of travelling had brought thither and that drew pictures in little so admirable resembling the life as the like had never been hear of And at the same time certain Merchants came thither also who amongst other rarities which they had made shew of a number of the pictures of the fairest women of such several Nations as they had passed through These two things joyned together caused the Sophi out of the design he had to oblige me to give command that all the maidens of quality which were at the Court should present themselves at his Palace on a certain day appointed for it together with the Princesses and their maids sumptuously apparelled This ceremony whereof we knew not the cause for they made a secret of it somewhat troubled us but at length that day being arrived and all this fair Assembly compleated the Sophi followed by Ismael Mahamed Vlama Deliment and the Painter of whom I have spoken to you entred into the room where we were all set in order but without the Princesses holding the rank which they ought to have had for so had the Sophi ordained it and that which also redoubled the impatience we were in to know for what reason they had caused us to be attired so richly was to see the Sophi hold in his right hand two Crowns of gold set with Diamonds and taking the Painter with his left hand whom neither the Princessâ—s nor any of their maidens knew as yet to say unto him that he established him the judg of the beauty of all those which composed this fair Assembly as knowing better then the rest of the world the just proportion of the features of the face that which made up the delicacy freshness and vivacity of the complexion and what the difference was between an animated beauty and another that hath no life nor grace in it And that to make him give a more equitable sentence he had so ordered it as he could not discern the condition of the fair ones of whom he was the judg but howsoever that he nevertheless reserved to himself the right of crowning them whom he should judg to be worthy of that honor This said he led him all over the room and making an exact stand at each of them that so none might be disobliged he finished his first turn none being able to judg that he had given advantage to any nevertheless I perceived when the Painâ—er made a stand beâ—ore me that the Sophi seeing me cast down my eyes as pretending to no part in this victory had said softly that I had not so much as need of their sparkling to merit the Crown having beauty enough other-where It is certain that I blusht at this discourse and that lifting up my eyes again I encountred Vlama's wherein I marked so much unquietness as it pityed me exceedingly Prince Mahamed was close by him who not able to see but with others eyes demanded softly of him what they were doing But at last when the Painter for ceremonies sake had separated twelve from the rest whereof the Princess Axiamira and I were two and that the Sophi had willed him once again to be equal whether it were that Tachmas had made me known to the Painter without my perceiving it as in all likelyhood he had or whether he was not very knowing in beauty I was the first that was declared victorious and on whose head the Sophi set one of the Crowns But whereas I knew very well that this victory was an effect rather of the Sophâ—'s love then of my beauty it brought me more spight then joy so that taking the Crown which had been given me I went to place it at the feet of Axiamira just as the Sophi by the sentence of the Painter set the other on her head But he seeing this action of mine took that which I was going to place on the ground and giving it me again a second time Is it said he unto me for that the Crown which I offer you is not beautiful enough or that the hand which presents it to you is not illustrious enough It is neither the one nor the other my Lord answered I but it is because I am neither beautiful nor illustrious enough to wear a Crown that parts from the hand of so great a Prince And then coming nearer to me Receive this same said he to me softly fair maid and beleeve if you will be reasonable that this shall not be the last you shall receive from me All the answer I made to this discourse was onely blushing and so I shuffled in my self amongst my fellows with as much displeasure for my victory as they had vexation for that they had not carryed it But in conclusion my Lord Axiamira and I were painted in the habit of Amazons which as he said who drew our pictures was pleasing to all Nations When they were done the Sophi caused him to make six copies of each of us which he put into Cases of Gold enriched with Diamonds and gave them to those Merchants who had shew'd him so many forraign beauties but with an oath that they should never sell
him Howbeit imagining that the Princess would visit him during his feigned sickness and that I being her Confident would not fail to accompany her thither spight re-assumed its former place and made him execute his resolution The next day he feigned himself sick and would let no body see him but fearing lest Axiamira should be troubled at it he sent her word that she should not be disquieted for it assuring her that the greatest remedy he had need of was her conversation or to be alone The Princess understood well enough what the Prince desired of her so that as soon as she had met with occasion fit for it she went to see Mahamed carrying none with her but an old Governess one of my fellows and me But Perca having understood that Axiamira was gone to see Prince Mahamed who was not well perswaded Ismael and Deliment to go thither too so that we were hardly arrived at Mahamed's chamber but we were advertised that this Enemy troop was coming to trouble our rest The Prince was so enraged at it as Axiamira fearing he should be carryed to some violence made haste to be gone so that meeting them in the anti-chamber where she stay'd them she told them that the Prince being asleep she would not suffer him to be awaked and thereby obliged them to return In the mean time Mahamed who could not forbear giving me to understand that he lived still for me called to him his guide named Amariel who oftentimes served him also for a Secretary He recommends secrecy and discretion to him and after he had made him swear an hundred false oaths he dictates a letter unto him for me which he wrote very faithfully And having caused him to read it over more then once unto him he gives him order to go the next morning for to know how the Princess does and then to deliver me that letter as secretly as he could Amariel promises to acquit himself thereof as he ought and very glad of his adventure he retires from the Prince and goes with all speed to do an act of fidelity to the Sophi and of treachery to Mahamed The Sophi caresses him extraordinarily and taking the letter with very much impatience he sees that it was extreamly passionate and that Deliment's suspicions were not ill grounded He sent immediately for him shewed him the letter which he had and exceedingly moved with choller demanded what counsel he should take Deliment as more cunning and less preoccupated told him how by this letter well considered one migh easily see that Mahamed was passionately in love with me but that one could not judg whether I answered his passion or no so that to be cleared therein Amariel was to deliver this letter to me and crave an answer of it That for his part he beleeved that I did not hate him because one of Perca's maids had heard me say somewhat as she went out of Axiamira's chamber that made him think so This resolution being taken Amariel according to his directions came unto me rendred me Mahameds letter and gave me the commodity to answer it For whereas he was come very early the Princess was not yet awake and I was still in my chamber without any other company then a maid that waited on me Until then I had beleeved that I was not obliged to let Vlama know any thing of Prince Mahamed's love but when I foresaw that it was like to have some sequel I resolved when I could finde a favorable occasion to say something to him of it and in the mean time so to live with Mahamed as he should have no cause to be offended with me nor yet hope to engage me to the affection which he desired of me I answered him with a great deal of respect and turning the sence of his words as dextrously as I could I answered to a letter of love as if it had been a letter of friendship Amariel had no sooner gotten mine answer but he went away very well satisfied to the Sophi who was not sorry to see that I had not so much affection for Mahamed but that he might hope to be able to break it He consulted then with his ordinary counsel that is to say with Deliment and they resolved together that from thence forward they would change the Letters which the Prince should cause to be written to me because for so much as they could judg by that which they had seen they would be too well endited and too passionate purposing also if it fell out that I should answer him too obligingly not to let it be read so to Prince Mahamed who as if fortune would be assistant to our Enemies became so sick indeed as he was fain to keep his chamber fifteen days together In which time there past not a day wherein he did not write unto me and I did not answer him without ever knowing for all that what we said one to another because the Sophi retained all Mahamed's Letters and caused others to be written to me and likewise kept all my answers in making me speak as he pleased I confess that many times I marvelled at the questions wherewith those Letters which I beleeved were Mahamed's were filled and confronting the first I received from him with the rest I found so great a difference between them were it for the gracefulness of the stile oâ— for the things he said to me as I knew not what to think of it Nevertheless seeing it was always the same hand and receiving them the same way all I could conclude upon it was That the blindness of this poor Prince possessed him with such thoughts for love as never any body had the like but he For whereas the Sophi's and Deliment's design was to render Mahamed contemptible to me they made him write strange things by Amariel Sometimes they made this blinde Prince say that he was grieved he did not see me that the beauty of my eyes was always present before him in another Letter that for the more conformity he would willingly that I had been blinde as he was and the rather for that then I should not see the Sophi whom he knew to be his Rival In another he conjured me to let him have my picture and to send him word whether I were fair or brown I leave you to think since I could not despise Mahamed because I esteemed him very much other-ways whether these Letters did not move me to compassion and though Deliment's cunning did always intermix something of the Sophi among yet I had always so much discretion or good hap as not to make any answer to that particular But if Deliment drew up such sensless Letters for Mahamed those which he made for me as I understood afterwards were not much more reasonable And the Prince hath told me that when Amariel read them to him he could not chuse but make him read them over again and again It was not because Deliment who ordinarily
to follow the Princess it being credible that the Sophi would not refuse me the first thing I should crave of him especially not mentioning at all my opposing of his pleasure It was not because the Princesses great heart did not resist the following this counsel but because she being unable to finde out any other was forced to consent unto it The next day the Sophi came to the Princess where after he had amplified the merit the vertue and the courage of Deliment he told her that she was not to take it ill if he had had the boldness to speak to her of love seeing he had not done it but by his order because having resolved to marry her to him he would have been glad that he should have got her good-will My Lord answered the Princess with a feigned amazement if I had known that the boldness which Deliment hath used in speaking to me had been an effect of his obedience to you I had received him in another manner I had not termed him audacious I had been contented with complaining and not accusing of him and had cast my self at your feet to cause you to change a design whereunto I have such an aversion as I cannot think of it without grief The Sophi seeing some change as it seemed to him of the Princesses minde was extream glad of it and though he saw she did not render her self he beleeved nevertheless since she came to entreaties that with some patience he might vanquish her This hope was that which induced him the more easily to grant her the request she made him to give her time to resolve upon it And truly he had been the cruellest of all men if he had not let himself be moved with the reasons complaints supplications and tears of the most amiable Princess that ever was But when he had permitted her to go to Mazanderon which she had propounded unto him for the passing away of the time of her exile as in a place where she had been before times for her pleasure he told her that she was to leave me behinde with the Princess Perca to the end the Court might not be desolated and for fear also lest my father having me in his power should not restore me unto her when she returned I was in a corner of the chamber where I understood all that they said but when I heard this proposition without thinking of the respect which I owed the Sophi I interrupting him cast my self at his feet and I said so many things I shed so many tears and answered him so favorably to certain questions that he asked of me and which concerned the design he had upon me as at length I found that the tears of a beloved person are very powerful arms seeing the Sophi granted me that which I demanded of him though it were absolutely against his minde But that Deliment might not have leasure to get the permission which had been given us to be revoked we parted away the next morning yet was it not without dispatching an express to Vlama who advertised him of all the slights that had been used against us of the resolution we had taken of the place whither we were going and of all our affairs We left Prince Mahamed so afflicted as I never beheld the like grief As for Perca she seemed to be so too but indeed she was not sorry to see us go for though she was willing that Deliment should marry Axiamira yet did she not much desire that I should be the Sophi's wife As for Deliment it is certain that the permission which the Sophi had given us no whit pleased him but to be secured in some sort as he is the cunningest man in the world he did that which you shall hear and which extreamly surprized us for when we arrived at Mazanderon we found that my father was gone from thence to the Court by the commandment of the Sophi from whom he had received express order to repair thither with all speed and that by the counsel of Deliment who as soon as he knew that we were gone to Mazanderon perswaded the Sophi to send for my father before we should be arrived there and to ordain him to come another way for fear of meeting us to the end said he to the Sophi that Felixana knowing her father in your hands may not carry the Princess to disobey you nor her self to resist you as hitherto she hath done I leave you to judg whether this adventure did not give us unquietness enough especially to me What I said I must I betray Vlama or abandon my father to the Sophi's violence Ah no! I had rather dye and not able to satisfie both my duty and my love to Vlama I will dye that I may not be wanting either to the one or the other But at length we understood by a Letter which Prince Mahamed caused his sage Governor to write unto us and by one that my Father sent me how the Sophi entreated him very well and made him hope for great things The first sense of grief then being over we began to breathe and take some rest But alass how soon was this rest thwarted and what a strange remedy did Fortune make use of to deliver us both from the Sophi's tyranny and Deliment's violence The Princess to be free from the importunity which she received by the visits of three or four women of quality which came too often unto her had for a good while together accustomed to go a fishing for as I have told you Mazanderon is on the Sea-shore At the same time there arrived in that Port a Vessel laden with the rarest things that come to us from Europe but alass we knew not that he who seemed not to come but to traffique should be our ravisher and the cause of our greatest misfortunes Felixana making a little pause for to sigh Ibrahim who was as well acquainted with Rustans artifice as she I can said he unto her fair Felixana spare you the pains of recounting unto me how that Merchant going to the Castle to shew the Princess some Pictures and Mirrors saw you and knew that it was not you he was to carry away by force and having conferred the picture which had been given him beleeving it to be yours because he that had sold it had assured so much having I say conferred it with the Princess Axiamira he found that she was the original of it and how aâ— length having made a shew of being gone he one day as you were taking the ayr on the sea boarded the Princesses Vessel carryed you into his and labored to win her by perswading her that she would be happy to be in the power of Soliman in fine beautiful Felixana I know all that hath arrived unto you until your shipwrack but I confess unto you that I an altogether ignorant by what prodigy you escaped out of it Felixana was going to proceed on in her discourse
part of the passion I am in for you which peradventure I durst not have done otherwise although it be most pure and most innocent be assured that now when as I know how this passion is worthy of the son of Soliman nothing can separate me from your interests Command then absolutely and be most confident that you shall be obeyed I had not much ado to be perswaded continued he that a person whom I judged worthy to be Queen of all the world should be the daughter of the Sophi of Persia but I marvel much at my blindness that I could not discern you were that indeed which I have so often wished you were Since your generosity permits me to speak said the Princess interrupting him Let not the wicked designs of Rustan my Lord be executed by Prince Gianger let me not be conducted by your hand to the Serraglio nor let the Princess of Persia have the destiny of Slaves For my Lord not to conceal my thoughts from you I will dye a thousand times over rather then do any thing unworthy of that which I am You know my Lord that Soliman having marryed Roxelana cannot according to his Law have any other lawful wife so that if you put me into his hands and that I am not generous enough to have recourse unto death this Princess who all her life-time hath had no other passion but that of glory and honor would be the most infamous of her condition Judg now my Lord whether my prayers be not just and if I have not reason to employ my tears to obtain that which I desire of you The Prince heard Axiamira with great agitations of spirit He was ravished to see that his passion had so noble and so great an object but the Sultan's love gave him no little unquietness and not knowing what to do he continued a while without speaking but at length he said thus Do not think Madam that my silence is an effect of my irresolution I have not been considering whether I ought to serve you but of the means I am to use for it Fear not then that I will carry you to Constantinople and beleeve that therein I shall serve my self no less then I shall serve you But Madam when I shall be resolved exactly to follow your pleasure will it be just that for saving you from peril I should remain the most unhappy of men That for delivering you from the violence of Soliman you should abandon me to the violence of my despair by ordaining me to let you return into Persia For Madam henceforward my destiny is inseparable from yours and I see no mean betwixt dying and abandoning you The Prince made this discourse with so many testimonies of affection as the Princess was in some sort moved therewith My Lord said she unto him I should esteem my self very infortunate if my encounter should prove fatal to you and that by a destiny wholly particular to me my misfortune should be so great as to be communicated to the persons that assist me But I will beleeve that the matter shall not go in that manner and I wish with all my heart that you may have as much prosperity as I have misery And that you may know I desire your felicity consider to what rigors of Fortune I am exposed I request you that you will not conduct me to Constantinople to avoyd the violence of Soliman and I request you also that you will not conduct me into Persia to avoyd the violence of a father and the insolence of a brutish man who will both usurp the Empire and force me to be his wife But my Lord as I request these two things of you so I request yet one more and that out of a sence of glory and honor which are the two most powerful inclinations of my Soul and it is my Lord that I may remain no longer in your hands For albeit I fear nothing from so vertuous a Prince yet shall I be very glad that Envy may not find any thing to charge my reputation with So do then my Lord that I may not go to Constantinople that I may not return into Persia that I may not continue in your hands that I may find a sanctuary where Civility permits me to abide or that I may dye at your feet Gianger was so ravished with the vertue and wisdom of Axiamira as turning himself to me It must be acknowledged said he to me that the Princess is incomparable that I have been blind indeed not to know her and to resist the secret motions which advertised me of my duty After this he stood a pretty while without speaking then suddenly beginning again If I had not Madam said he unto her found out the means to place you in safety and to content my self also I should dye with grief but if I be able to offer you the company of a Princess whose vertue is without stain whom you may absolutely command and who is wife to Prince Mustapha my Brother I think you will have cause to be satisfied Axiamira was exceeding glad of this proposition having oftentimes before heard speak of the vertue of Mustapha's wife who she had been told was descended of the ancient Kings of Cappadocia So that addressing her self to the Prince with a great deal of satisfaction may I hope my Lord said she unto him that Prince Mustapha and his excellent wife will permit me to live unknown in their Palace until that Fortune weary of persecuting me shall no longer keep me from returning into my Country Your vertue alone will oblige theirs to succor you but if that were not the strict friendship which is betwixt us will oblige them sufficiently unto it All Mustapha's interests are mine even as my Fortune is his And truly we are far from those apprehensions of State which for so long a time have made the children of the Othoman family to tear one another in pieces like enraged Tygers and I am well assured that if Mustapha my eldest Brother comes once to the Empire he will let me enjoy the felicity of his Raign and will not send me either mutes or slaves to strangle me I tell you all these things Madam to the end you may not doubt but that the sanctuary which I have propounded unto you will be inviolable Moreover whereas Mustapha is Governor of Amasia and that City is the Capital of Cappadocia which we call Amasia you may well conceive that you will be far enough from Constantinople and not so far from Persia but that you may easily hear from those which are affected to you there All these particulars having seemed very reasonable unto me I the more confirmed the Princess in the design she had to accept of them both for her interest and mine own it being most certain that I no less feared the Sophi's love then she did Deliments This resolution taken nothing was thought on but executing it Gianger dispatched a man who was faithful to
she owed her all things and since Ibrahim could not acknowledg it to her himself it was for her to do it Asteria who certainly had wit generosity and more address then the retirement wherein she lived seemed to permit answered her that her sight and acquaintance recompenced her beyond that which the service she had rendered her deserved That pity being a sense so natural to the sex whereof she was she merited no great glory for having had compassion of so gallant and handsom a man as Ibrahim For continued she although I know very well that they talk amongst the Christians of us as if we were barbarous yet I can assure you that this rule is not so general but it hath exceptions And pity which is a thing quite opposite to that which is beleeved of us is one of the first precepts of our Religion it extends even to unreasonable creatures and there are found amongst us such careful Observers of the Law as they buy up Birds to let them fly Judg after this whether that which I have done deserves to be ranked in the number of extraordinary things and whether contrarily there had not been cause to wonder if seeing a man carried to dye whose countenance so little resembled a Slayes or Malefactors I should not have had the thought to save him And then again added she if any one ought to recompence me for this action it must be the Sultan since I have preserved him a man whose brave actions have rendred his Empire famous and whose merit and conversation hath made up all his felicity ever since he was here For as for you continued she I do not see how you are obliged to me if I had been contented with saving of Ibrahim's life you might well have said so but since it was I that was the cause of the Sultan's seeing loving him and retaining him in his service methinks I ought rather to demand pardon of you for robbing you of him then to attend thanks for his preservation Isabella who did not think that Asteria was acquainted with all her history knew not how to answer her which the Sultana perceiving desired her not to marvel if she understood by her discourse that she was not ignorant of all her adventures She told her then how the Sultan her father had been almost constrained to impart them unto her for a reason which she would tell her another time it being unjust to keep her any longer from the liberty of lamenting an absence which could not chuse but be very grievous unto her Isabella was so satisfied with the civility and wit of Asteria that she felt some consolation in finding a reasonable person in a place where she imagined there had been nothing but stupidity so that to oblige her she requested her with a great deal of tenderness and respect not to leave her for that reason nor to defer to another time the acquainting her with that which she would fain hear although she knew it Asteria then recounted unto her what Ibrahim had already told her namely that Soliman had purposed to have married her to him but she particularizing the matter further unto her in letting her know how this business had not been so hastily carried but that some days were past after the Grand Signior had spoken to her of it when as Ibrahim's discourse obliged him to propound it sooner unto him then he had intended That whereas he could not foresee how this marriage should be disagreeable to Ibrahim he had resolved to have had her conducted to his Palace upon the day of his Triumph to the end he might do the more honor to the grand Visier but that he had been hindred from it by a Persian named Alibech who came to demand Justice of him against the Bassa of the Sea and had kept him till it was night in the Hipodrome That having learnt all these things from the Sultan's own mouth and seeing afterwards that nothing came of all this she had cast her self at Soliman's feet and besought him to let her know for what cause Ibrahim had refused her and that after many intreaties having had experience of her discretion in other encounters he had declared unto her the truth of the matter That after this she had far more esteemed of the Bassa then before and that his fidelity to her had in such sort touched her heart as far from being incensed against him for the refusal he had made of her she had commended him for it in her talk with Soliman Do not disquiet your self said this Sultana to Isabella if I dare say to you that I have been your Rival that Ibrahim's glory had touched my inclination and that I could have resolved with joy to have been his wife since I had not thus opened my heart unto you if it had not been free enough to offer you all manner of service and to assure you that that which I felt for the Bassa could not be named Love but a simple desire to marry a gallant and vertuous man Do not regard me then as your Rival seeing that could not be without hatred but as a person that hath no stronger a passion then to serve Ibrahim in you You are too generous answered Isabella and Ibrahim too happy for him to be indebted to you I should condemn him nevertheless continued she for not failing in his fidelity to me had he had the honor to know you but his misfortune hath made him commit this fault Do not accuse him then for want of judgment in preferring my conservation before your Conquest since his ignorance hath been the cause of it and seeing you know my whole life as well as I lament us without accusing us But what say I added Isabella reprehending her self rather admire Ibrahim's good fortune in that he could oblige you to save his life and afterwards gain the affection of the greatest Prince of the Earth and to joyn our good fortunes as our interests are joyned I must add further in having procured me the honor of your acquaintance This conversation having lasted an indifferent long time combined the Sultana Asteria and the Princes in so strait a league of friendship as they were almost inseparable so long as Isabella continued in the old Serraglio The day after she was come thither Soliman visited her and by this last sight made the chains which captived him stronger then before The incertainty he was in wholly ceased and the combat which he had in his heart between his fâ—iendship to the grand Visier and the passion he was in for Isabella was at an end and love remaining absolutely victorious his mind had some more peaceable moments so thâ—t he had no other thought then of the Conquest of Isabella But whereas he knew that to make himself be beloved he must first please he complyed so far with her as not to speak of any thing but Ibrahim in this first visit He craved pardon of the Princess for
being the cause of his absence from her he desired her not to remember it was he that caused her to be brought away by force and to think that she was in a place where she might absolutely command where she should see no body but that would obey and serve her with joy Isabella answered to so obliging a discourse with all the civility and acknowledgment she was capable of but whereas she was sad though she constrained her self to seem otherwise he intreated her to be as merry as she could for fear lest melancholy diminishing her beauty it might be layd to his charge that he had but ill preserved so rare a thing The Princess having promised him all that he desired he went away very much satisfied and very amorous and left her with as great an esteem of him as Ibrahim could not have more And whereas Asteria seldom abandoned her she talked to her the rest of the day of â—othing but of the admiration she was in of Soliman of the vertues of this Prince of the greatness of his spirit of that exceeding and generous friendship which he testified to our illustrious Bassa After this first visit there were nothing but magnificences in the old Serraglio Soliman sent every day new presents to Isabella and in consideration of her to the Sultanaes which lived in the same place for fear lest envying her they should come to hate her and so lose the care of pleasing her And whereas there passed not a day wherein this Prince did not visit Isabella Roxelana who knew him to the very bottom of his heart quickly perceived the true reason that caused these visits Yet did not jealousie seize upon her Soul for all that and the only design of making use of this occasion to destroy Ibrahim and to labor the re-establishment of Rustan was that which made her work in the manner as shall be seen in the sequel of this discourse But for as much as the grand Signiors Mother hated Ibrahim because she loved Roxelana she communicated her suspicions unto her and they both concluded that in all likelyhood Soliman's assiduity was an effect of love and that if it were so it would be almost an infallible mean to destroy the grand Visier who it was said was desperately in love with this person For coming to know this passion he would questionless do things which would make him be banished if he did not voluntarily banish himself Having held this secret counsel Roxelana far from troubling Soliman's designs thought of nothing else but making him more in love with the Princess being not jealous but of her authority and fearing Ibrahim's power much more then Isabella's beauty And for this effect whereas there is scarce any faith in Turkey of proof against presents she suborned one of the Slaves who went dayly to offer her some new liberality from the Sultan to the end that according to the occasions she might invent some obliging compliment to him from Isabella who ignorant of all these things lived with as much content and rest as the absence of the grand Visier would permit her Asteria had so great a care of her and Soliman rendred her so many devoirs as she had scarcely any leasure to think of her misfortunes In the mean time the Sultan was not a little perplexed out of the fear he was in to discover his love to the Princess for albeit he knew she esteemed him yet he beleeved that it was as much for the affection which he seemed to bear to the Bassa as for his own merit So that not daring as yet to declare himself openly he contented himself with praising her beauty her wit and all the excellent qualities which were in her in talking to her of Ibrahim and this name which had been so considerable with him was employed against him that owed it For so often as he commended Isabella he would exagâ—rate how happy Ibrahim was to be beloved of so marvelous a person what judgment Ibrahim had shewed in the choyce he had made of her and out of a malicious gallantry he told her many times that Ibrahim was to blame for abandoning her at Monaco to come and keep his word with him that it was a great fault in him to go to the Persian War and not to dye with grief rather then to quit her that for him if he had been in his place he would never have done so thinking it a great deal sweeter to dye then to be absent from her So artificial a discourse was not for all that interpreted by Isabella as Soliman desired and without seeking for any hidden sense in it she beleeved that it was a pure effect of the Sultan's compliance who thinking to please her would talk to her of Ibrahim in any manner whatsoever In this ignorance she always answered him very civilly and with a great deal of respect so that interpreting in this sort all that Soliman said unto her she put him into an extream pain For without telling her precisely that he was in love with her beauty he would fain have had her perceive it being so afraid to offend her that this fear peradventure might have wrought that in him which Reason could not do had it not been for the messages which the Slave whom Roxelana had suborned at several times brought him But whil'st Isabella talked of Soliman's generosity all the Sultanaes had no other discourse but of the love which he bore her Asteria perceiving it as well as the rest and knowing to what violences this passion carried the Grand Signior was much afflicted at it for Isabella's interest whom she exceedingly loved This melancholy was quickly marked by the Princess and whereas her cares and her merit had given her an high place in her affection she one day conjured her to acquaint her with the cause of it Asteria judging with reason that if she should tell her the truth it would very much grieve her excused her self from it at first as well as she could but coming to consider that it might be the ignorance wherein Isabella lived might further augment her unhappiness she resolved to confide in her and to impart unto her the suspicions she had That which made Asteria be interessed so strongly for all that concerned Ibrahim as to forget the Sultan's interests was because she had understood how mightily he had protected Mustapha and Gianger her brothers whom she had infinitely loved and how he had always opposed the violences of Roxelana to whom she bore a secret hatred whose chief foundation was in her proper vertue Asteria following her resolution after she had prepared Isabella's mind by a long discourse to make good use of the advice she was going to give her and after Isabâ—lla had on her side promised her all manner of fidelity told her that knowing the Sultan her father as she did she feared lest her beauty had possâ—st him with more love for her then he had friendship for Ibrahim and
extream peril that his Gallies were full of his Enemies that the people resounded all about the word of Liberty and the name of Giovanni Lodovico that furious men ran up and down with Arms in their hands that there was nothing seen but blood and slaughter and that every where was talking of outrages against the Nobles and menaces against his life So dreadful a relation perswading Andrea that the matter was past remedy he resolved to attend the violence of his Enemies in his Palace and to yield to them whom he could not resist But his wife and his servants with their tears intreaties and reasons made him at last resolve to let himself be carryed down into his Palace-yard where they set him on an horse with much ado in this estate they conducted him to Mazona which is a Castle belonging to a Kinsman of mine and from thence to another place where they understood the death of Jannetin with which he was sensibly touched In the mean time the Conspirators still advanced their design and whereas this noise and Tumult had awaked every one all the Count 's particular friends having heard the people cry Long live the Count of Lavagna went forth with Arms in their hands to see what the matter was and to joyn themselves with him and amongst the rest Doria the French Marquis and I who by chance lay together that night going also forth to seek the Count met some thirty paces from my lodging Giralomo with all his Troop who sought for him as well as we All the people that took his part required to see their Deliverer but though there was crying every where Long live the Count of Lavagna and that every one enquired after him yet no body answered thereunto This silence made us fear some disastrous success yet did it not make them give over the design of pursuing a victory which seemed so certain Giralomo left a sufficient Guard at the gates and sent Ottobuono to take a care of the Gallies in case his Brother was not there The French Marquis followed him and I stay'd with Giralomo who being accompanyed onely with two hundred Soldiers went as he had resolved through all the streets of Genoua to cause the people both with his speeches and the hope of Liberty to rise And though the Count appeared not yet each one declared himself for him with earnestly demanding where he was The City in the mean space was in a general confusion and consternation every one ran up and down in the streets without knowing whither they went every one asked of one another what was the cause of this dreadful disorder without knowing what to answer the women out of their windows in the midst of the cries and lamentations which they made called for their husbands their brothers and their children The Nobles in so great a disorder would willingly for the publique interest have resorted to the Palace that they might have advised together what to do but their particular interest kept them from it and the doubt they were in lest their houses should be plundered in their absence retained them still there Caesars Embassador surprized with this unexpected accident was upon the point of going out of Genoua for fear lest the person of the Prince to whom he belonged should be outraged in his but at length after he had gotten company about him he resolved to see the matter decided and according to occasions to take such a course as should be most advantageous for his Master To that effect he went to the Palace where he found Cardinal Doria and some others who consulted with the Senate whereof Nicola Franco was the Chief there being no Duke at that time They resolved that Bonifacio Lomellin one of the Pallaxucins and Antonio Calvo with the Ensign of the Guard and fifty Soldiers should go and defend S. Thomas Gate but having on the way encountred with the Troop where we were they were constrained to retire into one of their friends houses but not without leaving some of their men prisoners Part of them went in great haste by another street to the same gate to learn some news of Andrea but finding it well guarded and Lomellin having at the very first been made a prisoner thâ—y fled away with great precipitation whereat ours were so joyful as this prisoner escaped from them In the mean time it was not known where the Count was they that were with Giralomo thought he was at the Port they of the Port on the other side believed that he had left them to repair unto his brothers Ottobuono not finding him there thought that he was gone to visit the Gates or it may be to Doria's Palace they of the Gates were perswaded that he was in the City in fine every one thought any thing save the truth But amongst all the rest Baptista Verrin as having the greatest share in the enterprize was most earnest in asking after him He saw the business so well carried and the Victory so certain as he was mad for that he could not see the Count the Gates of the City were theirs they were Masters of the Port the people favored them the Nobles seemed to make no opposition the Senate had no Duke Andrea was fled and had left the field to his Enemies and Jannetin was dead in fine there wanted nothing but that the Count should shew himself to the people for receiving the Oath of Allegeance from them But all Verrin's care was in vain so that hearing no news of him and seeing the enterprize ruined if he did not appear he retired in despair unto the Gally to the end that if the Count came he might secure him the Port still which was a matter of extream importance and if the enterprize were ruined by his absence that he might have the means to fly to Marseilles This resolution was the cause of very much mischief to Giralomo because the Conspirators neither seeing the Count who was their Head nor Baptista Verrin who had been always the principal Agent in the Conspiracy did not so much rely on the conduct of Giralomo who being very young and of an haughty humor carried things with more impetuosity then discretion They followed him for all that out of the hope that the Count would appear ere it were long but it was not with that confidence which makes one abandon his life without unquietness and obey without repugnancy an Head whom one esteems and of whose prudence and valor one is assured so that one reserves no more care then to fight and obey but contrarily the most part began to murmur yea and some thought already of seeking some occasion to withdraw or at leastwise to go and enquire out the Count. On the other side the Senate not knowing what resolution to take and beleeving that affairs were altogether remediless desired Cardinal Doria and some others to go and find out the Count of Lavagna which at first he accepted of but some having
the Crown unto him And grant also that the wickedness of this man should prove contageous to the King be assured that I will never abandon you and will hazard all things to keep you from having any violence offered unto you These fair Slaves gave her thanks for a discourse that was so advantageous unto them commended her vertue and her generosity lamented the misfortunes that had arrived unto her detested the cruelty of Aly and making an exchange of their own sorrows it might have been said that Mariama felt their miseries more then her own and that these fair Slaves who were no less generous nor less sensible then she had as much sense of her past fortunes as of their present mishaps After that so sad a conversation had lasted some time and that out of the compassion which they had one of another they had in some sort mitigated their griefs the Princess Mariama told them smiling how it would not be just that whil'st she was thinking of their protection one of their Troop should undertake to revenge Hipolita of the Kings love with another love desiring them to advertise the Slave which danced with so good a grace that the Princess Lela Mahabid was her sister because she believed that either he knew not so much or that he had forgotten it Sophronia perceiving by Mariama's speech that she meant the Marquis and that she also had taken notice of his inclination to the Princess Lela Mahabid thought it was best to acquaint her with his humor to the end she might not be offended if he continued the gallantry he had begun Sophronia then drew the Marquis his picture so agreeably and so advantageously for him as the Princess told her that she was very glad of the conquest her sister had made and that she might in some sort share with her thereâ—n it was fit she should more particularly know so extraordinary a man and so the Princess Mariama and Sophronia became his Confidents without having any purpose to be so and procured him the pleasure to see the Princess Lela Mahabid almost every day at the Princess Mariama's lodging The first time he was there I remember that we brought him thither with some kinde of repugnancy for he had understood from Sophronia her self in what manner she had spoken of him It is not said he unto us because I am angry that Sophronia hath spoken the truth but it is because I do not feel my self in a disposition to make it appear by experience that I am as inconstant as she hath described me it being very certain that I am perswaded I cannot love any think here but the Princess Lela Mahabid With this little vexation the Marquis was brought to Mariama's lodging where all those fair Slaves were present as well as the Princess Lela Mahabid who received him with a great deal of civility At first Mariama commended his address and rememb'ring how admirably he had danced in the last Assemblies she marvelled how he could in so short a space surmount all the Moors in gallantry and a good grace The Moors said he unto her Madam have not had so good a Master as I. And when as Mariama had demanded of him who he was he answered her that Love had taught him all that he knew it being most sure as he said that without him he had been the ignorantest of all men For continued he the sole desire to please the person whom I loved hath taught me all that I know If that be so answered Mariama and that which hath been told me of you be true you should be one of the most universally knowing men in the world since by that reason the diversity of persons whom you have loved should have taught you a wonderful diversity of things Truly Madam you have Reason replyed he but that which makes me know them but superficially is because I have stayd so little a while in one school as I have had no more leasure then to learn to speak a little of things without any perfect knowledg of them The first person of whom I was enamored loved valor and that was the cause why I took care not to appear cowardly She that touched my heart next loved musique and instantly I learned to sing to play on the Lute and the Gittern Another placing her greatest delight in reading of verses inspired me with the desire of making some One of my Mistresses loving Romanzes above any thing else possessed me with the desire to furnish the subject of one with mine own adventures I learned also to be fit for all compliance I became a Painter an Astrologer and a Mathematician Love made me learn languages by him I grew many times eloquent liberal discreet and pleasing in fine I do not know a vertue for which I am not indebted to this noble passion I profess said the Princess Mariama that this is the finest way of commending ones self that ever was heard of But said she to the Marquis how comes it to pass that in so little a time as you have been here you have so perfectly attained to that which the Granadins who are our masters in gallantry are so long a learning for as you say your self there are things which you understand but superficially because your love to those that affected them was not long enough It is Madam answered he because I have at this present a greater desire to please then ever I had in all my life She that hath given you this desire said the Princess Lela Mahabid unto him should have a great deal of merit or should be very much obliged to you She hath so many excellent qualities replyed the Marquis as I may say that in this illustrious person I love all those whom I have loved in all my life-time it being most certain that I have never admired any thing in all the others whom I have served which I do not finde yet more eminently in her whom now I adore She is wonderfully fair she hath a spirit as full of brightness as her eyes are of light and there is seen in her whole person a charm so powerful and so extraordinary that it is impossible to conserve so much reason as to remember that one ought not to have any other then veneration for her one must of necessity give place to love she cannot inspire other thoughts and not working like ordinary beauties which makes one pass from admiration to esteem and from esteem to love she renders her self at the first instant absolute Mistress of all their souls that behold her One cannot have indifferent thoughts for her one must either not see her or adore her and from the very first moment that I beheld her I had all at once both admiration esteem and love I was no longer mine own I was absolutely hers and though I know full well that I am unworthy of this honor yet can I not imagine that I am faulty It seems to me also at
in your own dispose as in mine wherefore then if you have not deceived me do you not obey me When as I promised you that which you say replyed Alphonso I hoped that I might if not raign in your heart at leastwise not be surmounted there by any body Leonida perceiving then that jealousie was the disease that tormented him and knowing that she had given him no reasonable occasion for it fell a smiling and reaching him her hand with that gallantry which is so natural unto her Affict not your self said this amiable creature nor fear that I will be displeased to understand that you are jealous I know said she unto him still smiling that we fear to lose the good which is extream dear to us that jealousie is an undoubted sign of a strong passion and of the merit of the person whom one loves because if she were not amiable she would have no Lovers and consequently she would give no cause of jealousie And I am the less offended continued she to see you touched with this passion in regard it is easie for me to help you For to speak more seriously to you added Leonida you have no Rivals which can keep me from giving you the pleasure when you will to hear me termed by them cruel inhumane rigorous and inexorable In fine said she unto him you have a malady whereof you shall no sooner have acquainted me with the cause but you shall be cured of it I do not think answered Alphonso with as much anguish as Leonida had gallantry that it is as easie for you to restore tranquâ—llity unto my Soul as it was easie for you to deprive me of it for continued he I have no Rivals whom you can ill intreat and yet I am the most jealous that ever was I do not understand you said Leonida to him with more coldness then before and if you do not explain your self better I shall beleeve that either you have lost your Reason or that with a premeditated design you purpose to break off with me But take heed Alphonso of leaving me long in this suspicion for fear lest whereas I am proud and disdainful I do not prevent you and it be too late for you then to have recourse to my goodness Alphonso surprized both with Leonida's discourse and the manner wherewith she spake resolved at length freely to tell her the cause of his grief I know very well said he unto her that I am going to speak in vain for my self and indeed it is rather out of despair then Reason that I am carried to obey you Know then continued he that I am jealous and that I shall be so eternally since the Rival that surmounts me in your heart can never dye for to conceal the truth from you no longer the blessed Octavio is the object of my jealousie The tears which you shed for his memory are the cause of those which I shall pour forth all my life time the sighs which you fetch for him shall always make me sigh and his past felicity shall beget the misery of all the rest of my days You have loved him so much continued he and you love him so much still that I can find no place in your Soul He much raign there alone for indeed you do not suffer me there but only to conserve the memory of him the better Ah cruel man cryed Leonida hearing him speak in this sort is it possible that you have the inhumanity to open the Tomb of Octavio to persecute me and in stead of weeping with me or at leastwise of bemoaning and comforting me you are so audacious as to give me marks of your hatred to a person whom I have so much loved and whose memory is still so dear unto me and yet in grateful as you are said she to him you owe the affection which I bear you to that little resemblance you have with Octavio but as this infortunate creature hath been the cause of it so shall he likewise give an end to it for in regard of that which you have said to me I ordain you never to speak to me and never to see me more Why do not you shut your self up then in Octavio's Tomb answered Alphonso since you can love none but him Reply no further to me inhumane that you are said she to him and take from my sight the persecutor of Leonida and the enemy of Octavio Alphonso seeing Leonida in such choller and not able to give her a good reason either for the maintaining of his error or for the obtaining of his pardon went away more jealous then before Alas said he to himself how sensible she is on that side I what a powerful mark of her love is her choller if she had loved me she would have used me after another manner she would have taken pity of my weakness she would have given me some new proof of her affection but she could not disguise her heart all her thoughts have been for Octavio and all her words have been against me In this opinion Alphonso got him home with an intent to obey Leonida exactly and never to see her again As indeed he came no more at her and that be might avoyd meeting with her any where he feigned himself sick Leonida seeing to what a madness this ill-grounded jealousie carried him desired at leastwise to conceal it from the eyes of the world and to that effect she advanced a voyage which she was to make to Albengua where as you know she hath some means and affairs She departed then from Genoua so incensed against Alphonso that she could not so much as resolve to do him the favor to complain of him by a Letter Her departure did not cure Alphonso of his frensie but contrarily it augmented it for he beleeved that Leonida did not abandon Genoua but to bewail Octavio with the more liberty This thought for all that was not the most powerful in his heart the impossibility of seeing Leonida redoubled his desire of it and love being stronger still then jealousie he purposed an hundred times to go to Albengua to cast himself at Leonida's feet to crave her pardon and to obtain an oblivion of his fault of her But no sooner did the Phantom of Octavio present it self to his imagination no sooner did he call the tears and sighs of Leonida to remembrance but he re-entred into his former furies He made an hundred impossible wishes which destroyed one another and led a very irksom and melancholick life During that time he wrote divers Letters to Leonida according to the divers thoughts wherein he was but when as she perceived so great an inequality in his mind and such marks of an unsetled Reason she returned no answer thereunto and although she loved Alphonso so much as to be extreamly grieved to lose him yet could she not imagine how she might cure him of this fantasie so that finding no expedient for it and being very much incensed against
him she lived with so much anguish that if Alphonso had known her most secret thoughts he would have been healed of his jealousie and would have been assured that she did not grieve more for the death of Octavio then for the loss of his affection It was in this sort then that Leonida and Alphonso lived until that infortunate day wherein we were constrained to forsake Genoua And I make no doubt but that Alphonso's despair induced him to follow us as well as the generosity which he testified to us in this occasion in not abandoning us in the sorrow we were in since he absented himself from a place where Leonida was not You know in like manner what that Tempest was which luckily for him drove us to Albengua neither are you ignorant how the compassion and generosity of Leonida obliged her to imbarque her self with us But doubtless you do not know what Alphonso's and her thoughts were when as after they had had the goodness to lament our misfortunes they had the leasure to think of the terms wherein they stood For whereas we had scarcely been upon the Sea without a Tempest without fear of death and without extream sorrow for the loss we sustained there they had never talked together in private during this troublesom Navigation but when we were at Marocco and at those times wherein we had the liberty to see and speak to one another Leonida who desired to conceal the terms wherein she was with Alphonso entertaining him with indifferent things found that his understanding was as deeply wounded at Marocco as it had been at Genoua with this difference nevertheless that at the first time he spake to her he moved her to anger and the second time he moved her to pity What is the reason said he to he with tears that I can neither continue loving you nor begin to hate you and wherefore since you are capable of some affection for me must I not only share it with another but I must owe it wholly to him and without being able either to change my passion or revenge my self I must eternally be the most wretched of men He that imposeth a necessity on himself replyed Leonida cannot complain with reason seeing he himself is the cause of the evil that arriveth to him Ah cryed Alphonso that you said true and that I could dispose of my thoughts Yes Leonida said he unto her would I could love you less to the end I might love you always and live happily in sharing your affection with another But to endure that in speaking to me you should always think of Octavio that whil'st I sigh for love you should sigh for affliction and having absolutely given you my heart I should have but a piece of yours is that which I cannot suffer But how is it possible said Leonida interrupting him unjust and cruel Alphonso that a man who is no longer in an estate to have any affection for me can give you jealousie You do not comprehend replyed he what is the true cause of jealousie the affection Which any one should bear you would not displease me it is of your thoughts that I am jealous and not of those of others I would be willing chat you should be loved and that you should be adored but I would have you love none but me I should not care to see you have an hundred Lovers provided I were alone in your heart I do not hate my Rivals in their person but in yours only it is you that can increase or diminish the hatred which I have for them by the good or bad usage you shall give them and whereas you may love Octavio as well though he is not in being as if he were living you are not to think it strange that I am jealous In fine continued he you reduce me to those terms that I had rather you should not love me at all so as you would love nothing then to love me as you do in loving Octavio better then me But Octavio is no longer in being said Leonida to him sighing Yet he is still in your Soul answered Alphonso and this sigh which you fetched testifies it but too much unto me No no Leonida said he unto her that which I suffer is without remedy one may sometimes make present mishaps cease and decline those which may happen unto us in time to come but when we are unhappy by the remembrance of that which is past death alone can finish our pains It is not in your power to forbear sighing shedding of tears and to say all loving of Octavio more then Alphonso wherefore marvel not if it be not in your power to cure my mind of the jealousie that possesseth it It was much after this sort that the first conversation ended which Leonida and Alphonso had together at Marocco But whereas Leonida affected him and saw the estate whereunto this fantastical jealousie reduced him she opened her heart to me and having asked my advice what she should do I counselled her I think as she desired to be and as indeed was just I told her then that she was to do all that she could to set his heart at rest that this caprichiousness proceeding meerly from an excess of love she was to pardon so bad an effect since it came from so noble a cause and labor to restore his Reason to him which she had deprived him of I agree with you said she unto me that Alphonso is to be eased but in what manner do you think I may do it if he were jealous of the French Marquiss of Doria or of any other it would not be difficult for me to satisfie him The coldness which I would shew to them should soon set him at rest and if there were no other means for it I would deprive my self absolutely of their company to preserve it but as the case stands I know no remedy for it It is from my self that Alphonso hath learnt the affection which I have born to Octavio I cannot unsay it and if I should be so base as to swear to him that I have not loved him so much as he imagines I should tell a lye to no purpose it being very certain that he would give more credit to my tears then to my latter speeches and then again that is a thing I could never do Counsel me then continued she how I shall carry my self I profess unto you that I was then very much perplexed what counsel to give her for I saw no assured means that could cure Alphonso Nevertheless after I had mused a little my opinion was that the only thing which she could do was to endeavor to perswade Alphonso that she loved him as much as she had loved Octavio as indeed I think I did not oblige her to tell an untruth At first Leonida told me that this would serve to no purpose but finding nothing to stand with more reason she resolved to follow my advice So that the
first time she could speak with Alphonso in private his melancholy still increasing she demanded of him whether he were resolved to live long in that manner Truly no answered he for I do not doubt but from the misery which I feel death will come shortly and deliver me Is it not possible said she that Alphonso should make use of his Reason in this encounter I perceive very well answered he that you have some pity of the hurt you have done me but know that it is not that which I desire in the estate wherein Octavio is I could endure that you should have compassion for him provided you would have affection for me but I could not endure that you should have love for him have nothing but pity for Alphonso What change said she unto him is there come to me since the time that you were contented with my affection have I loved Octavio more or have I loved you lest then I did in no wise at all I swear unto you Wherfore then since I am not changed for you are you changed for me If I had known my unhappiness sooner replyed he I should have been less unhappy it being certain that I should not have engaged my self so straitly in the love of a person that could never love so much as she had loved It is true said she unto him that I have loved Octavio as much as I was able to love in the age wherein I was and it is true also that his memory is dear and precious unto me but who hath told you that I have not the same thoughts for you I know it from your own mouth replyed he for in having assured me that you loved me less then he you have let me understand that you have done that for his consideration which you have never done for mine You loved him as soon as ever you opened your eyes said Alphonso unto her he was agreeable unto you as soon as ever you knew him and your Reason hath told you since that you would have done out of choyce what you had done out of inclination he hath had the happiness to please you always without ever giving you cause to be displeased you have sighed for him in divers occasions you have many times bewailed his absence as much as I could pretend to be lamented by you if I had lost my life in your service and for my last unhappiness he dyed in speaking to you of love It may be if he had lived longer you would have repented the tears which now you shed for him but as the case stands there is a shadow of Octavio remaining which is in stead of his person to you that possesses your soul and will not suffer you to have such thoughts for another How unjust you are said Leonida unto him to speak to me thus howsoever since I am resolved to try whether I can draw your minde out of that disorder whereunto this strange jealousie hath carryed it promise me that if by my discourse I can let you see that you have received more testimonies of my affection then I have given to the infortunte Octavio you will then repent you of your error restore tranquillity to your soul and leave mine in rest Alphonso after he had withstood it a while in saying that she propounded an impossible thing to him and by consequence he was not to answer unto it resolved for all that to hear her and promised her that if she kept her word with him he would crave pardon to his fault and would live better for the future After they had made this agreement tell me Alphonso said she unto him if I can make it appear to you that since the day wherein I permitted you to serve me you never have had occasion to complain of me and if I can shew you that the unhappy Octavio if he were living might with justice accuse me of little affection would you not have reason then to be contented That will not be enough answered Alphonso for it may be that you have never given me just cause to complain and that you have given Octavio occasion so to do and yet for all that I cannot be happy But that which I desire is you would let me know that you have not done any thing for Octavio which you would not have done for me and that I think will not be easie for you to perform I will peradventure shew you yet more replyed Leonida and to begin to cure you is it not true Alphonso that the original of the affection which I bear to you is far more advantageous to you then that which I have born Octavio when I began to wish him well continued she I was in an age wherein perchance that which I then called love was none wherein I counted for great services petty things which now I should not regard and wherein I acted without knowledg and without judgment I said Alphonso interrupting her but not without inclination which is that which renders affections the stronger and more durable I agree with you therein said she unto him but howsoever I had this inclination in an age wherein at first my reason did not combat with it for I had none at that time That is the cause said Alphonso why it is so will setled in your soul And that is the cause replyed Leonida why I do not know whether it were any whit strong since I did not make resistance against it But as for you Alphonso when as you began to please me and that my inclination carryed me to like of your services I was in an age wherein my Reason was in a condition to oppose it self against it as indeed it did resist it as much as it could You had to vanquish in my heart not onely that wisdom and that modesty which permits not a woman to engage her self lightly in affection to a man but had also the memory of Octavio to surmount in forcing me if one may say so to commit a greater infidelity against him then when as I abandoned him to obey my Father seeing it is certain that I marryed Livio without loving him and that I could not keep the promise which I had made to my self never to love any thing more after the death of Octavio This discourse is very subtil replyed Alphonso but have you not told me that you did not love me but because I resembled Octavio I have indeed told you answered she that by this resemblance you comforted me for the loss of Octavio but not that this conformity which you have with him was the onely cause of the good-will which I bear you And certes to speak truly since I must retract what I have said with shame if there had been no other then this reason and that my inclination your services and your merit had not constrained me I should rather have avoyded the sight of you then sought it It was not yeâ— so long since I lost Octavio that I
Solimon He discamped then the next day with a great deal of order and diligence howbeit he had the satisfaction before his going out of Persia to understand that Mahamed had been received into the throne of his Fathers with joy that Ulama had maried Felixana that Arsalon was received to his dignity and that after so many misfortunes those Illustrious persons vvere happy For Mahamed and Axiamira took care to advertise him of it in sending him so magnificent a Present as there was no King in the world but it was worthy of Axiamira wrote also to Soliman in the name of the Sophy and of her self wherein with a great deal of address she found the means to make the Illustrious Bassaes Elogium In the mean time he advanced as much as he could and they were no sooner in Solimans Territories but he committed the conduct of them to the Bassa Piali and after he had sent one of his servants certain daies before hand to Pera he took the same way followed by some of the Commanders and wholly filled with hope love and joy he arrived there when as it was so late in the night as the Port vvas shut and the Guards set so that how impatient soever he was to see Isabella he was constrained to attend till the next morning being unwilling for this time to make use of the privilege which he had The Fifth Book THe Illustrious Bassa having past the whole night without sleeping so much had the hope of seeing Isabella pleasingly entertained him sent as soon as the Sun appeared to know whether Soliman would be pleased that he should come wait upon him and render him an account of his voyage The Sultan surprised with a thing which he had not much apprehended in regard he thought it not so near gave not his answer so speedily He marvelled at the grand Visiers return considering the order which he had sent him not to come back before he heard from him what prosperous success soever he should happen to have but in fine it being no longer time to reason on things past and being constrained to answer precisely to that which was demanded of him his mind was in a great disorder The name of Ibrahim vvho vvas so near possessed him with some remorse of his fault but the thought then of losing the Princess made him instantly repent him of so good a motion and wish never to see Ibrahim more that he might still retain Isabella whom he had not seen since that cruell instant wherein out of his fear of the Bassaes return he had joyned threatnings to entreaties and given her but only eight dayes time to resolve once for all whereof six were already past when as the Bassa came back to Constantinople and he had been three moneths away without any news at all of him so exactly had the resolution which he had taken for it been executed But in fine how violent soever Solimans love was yet could he not resolve to see Ibrahim and keep Isabella from him For whereas he had alwaies a strong disposition in his heart to good and some thoughts of friendship for the Grand Visier the shame of his crime the small hope he had of vanquishing Isabella and the short time he had to resolve in made him send Ibrahim word that he might come presently and that at his arrivall he should find Isabella at his Palace whither he was going to return her This Prince certainly would never have yeelded to this had he had any hope left of gaining the Princesses heart but since the day that he had last spoken with her and that he had taken great care to have her narrowly observed he had learnt that she was in so great an affliction as he was afraid the extremity of her grief would kill her So that considering he should commit a crime to no purpose if he should retain Jsabella he was the more easily induced to let her go forth of the Seraglio In this thought he would not see her but sent for the Sultana Asteria vvho vvas no sooner come to him but he commanded her to go and tell Jsabella that Ibrahim was returned and that out of an excess of bounty he permitted her to go out of the Seraglio but that she should beware of acquainting the Grand Visier with ought that he had said unto her because an extreme-mischief might thereby arrive both to him and to her Asteria went and executed her commission with a great deal of pleasure for albeit she loved Isabella very dearly yet the desire of her conserâ—ation was stronger in her soul than her own content The Princess received this news with so excessive a joy as her heart was not capable of resenting it sufficiently Emilia likewise was infinitely glad of it At first Jsabella could not beleeve it after she had beleeved it she gainsayd her self and she was so accustomed to misfortune as she could not think so great a good hap was befallen her In the mean time the Chariot which was to carry her to Jbrahims Palace being come she embraced the Sultana Asteria promised her that Soliman should have no cause to complain of heâ— gave her thanks for her goodness in protecting her assured her that shee would never lose the memory of it and then she got into the Charioâ— vvith Emilia and went to Jbrahims Palace to meet with her friends to whom shee gave a greater and a purer joy than that which shee felt her self for as she was going into the Chariot that Slave whom Soliman had so often imployed to her came and told her from him that in going out of the Seraglio she did not goe out of his power and that he would not fail to send to know her resolution that nevertheless he would to favor her give her yet eight dayes longer for it For as if the Prince had undertaken to be his own enemy and to punish his own fault he scarcely formed a designe but he straightway destroyed it so that he had no sooner let Isabella know that she should goe out of the Seraglio but he seemed to repent it and sent that slave Roxelanaes confident with that message to her and she was no sooner gon but his love and the desire of seeing her augmented nevertheless in regard the thing was done and that Ibrahim was suddenly to arrive he changed not his order In the mean time the grand Visier having made no doubt but that he should easily obtain the permission which he had desired of Soliman caused a stately Galliot which he knew was in the Arsenal at Pera to be launched into the water and it was for this purpose that hee had sent one of his servants certain dayes before to the end he should give order secretly for the having of it in a readiness against he came As soon then as he understood the Sultans pleasure hee imbarqued himself attended by all the Commanders which had accompanied him and truely there was never a more magnificent
or more agreeable object seen than this Galliot especially when Ibrahim was abord it All that was looked upon was painted and gilt the whole Poop was hung with Persian Tapestry whose ground was gold it was covered all over with flaggs and streamers of divers colours all the slaves that rowed were fastned with silver chaines and all of them had garments of cloth of gold twelve Trumpeters were on the Coursey cloathed in velvet whose ground was gold all the Commanders apparell vvas imbroidered vvith pearles and diamonds and in the midst of this stately troup stood Ibrahim alone though he had six great cushions of cloth of gold at his feet He held in his hand a battoun of command and was so superbly apparelled as it was easie to perceive that this petty triumph was an effect of peace since riches and abundance were every where seen and very few marks of war Ibrahim had that day on a robe of cloth of silver imbroidered with gold and diamonds intermixed with certain carnation silk twist which added very much to the beauty of that habit His turbant was covered all over with carnation and white plumes of feathers set up with jewels of diamonds of an inestimable value His Scymitar and the golden chaines whereunto it was fastned were answerable to the gorgeousness of his garment now although silk silver gold pearl and diamonds richly appeared there yet might it be said with truth that Ibrahim gave rather a new luster to all those things than that he recived any from them His shape was goodly well made and advantageous his cariage free and noble his face ovall his eyes black and full of fire and sweetness his mouth agreeable his complexion neither too delicate nor too gross neither too pale nor too red but such as Mars is painted when as he is amorously represented unto us His hayr was of chesnut color and his nose somwhat aquilin yet so as it served to give him the better aspect His physiognomy was promising and sprightfull his soul was seen in his eyes his courage and his affabilitie appeared equally in them and without having ought of the beauty of a woman he was the goodliest man that ever was beheld In fine there was seen in his whole person a lofty ayr without pride a gallanterie without affectation a neglectfull handsomness a freeness without artifice a civility without constraint and somthing so great and so high therein as one could not behold him without judging him worthy to wear a crown All these naturall graces had a new lustre the day wherein Ibrahim entred into Constantineople and the hope of seeing Isabella had painted such a joy in his face as gave him a certain extraordinary agreeableness This petty triumph was not without spectators for Ibrahims return being known whereas he was universally beloved all the Grandees of the Port and all the people of Constantinople repaired to the Haven and by the shouts which they gave as soon as the Galliot approached they testifyed their zeal and affection to him Soliman more provoked than by the agitation of his soul and by an impatience without reason than by the good will which he bore to Ibrahim had also placed himself upon a Terrace with a Ballustrade of Jasper vvhich lookes to the Sea on that side and vvhen every one still continued their shouts of joy Must all these people sayd hee to himself reproach mee vvith my fault must the sight of Ibrahim cause more joy in them than in me and must he be more beloved of them than of me who am obliged thereunto by so many reasons Yes said he Love and Isabella will have it so and I cannot hinder it But at length Ibrahims Galliot being come so near as it permitted him to discern Soliman who was leaning on the Balustrade he saluted him with a profound respect and being landed all the people redoubled their shouts The most considerable approached to salute him and they that could not do so did at the least what they could to be seen of him After that this multitude had sufficiently considered him whom they acknowledged for their Protector Ibrahim followed by all â—he Grandees and all the people went to the Seraglio where he entred alone for Soliman feeling the disorder of his soul vvould not give him any but a private audience When as he was come into the Sultans chamber Soliman could not chuse but be somewhat glad yet was he possessed with confusion at the very same instant and received not the Bassa with that freeness wherewith he was wont to testifie the affection which he bore him Before time he would rather have spoken to him of the grief his absence had been the cause of to him of the fear he was in for him of the health of Isabella and of the joy he had for his return than of affairs of State but in this encounter he would needs have him at the very first render him an accompt of the War and although he had resolved to give Ibrahim no marks of the disorder of his soul yet could he not forbear it In the midst of his relation he asked of him whether he had not received a new order which he had sent him And when as Ibrahim had assured him that he had not he seemed to be vexed at it without telling him what it was And at such time as the Grand Visier had informed him how advantageous the peace which he had made in Persia was for him he could not chuse but tell him things which might make him judge that he would have been glad he had not terminated the War as yet Howbeit Ibrahim suspected nothing else of it but that during his absence Roxlana and Rustan had perswaded him from making a Peace so soon This thought gave him some unquietness nevertheless it presently diminished for Soliman perceiving what he had done disguised his mind a little better and out of a sense of jealousie he began to caress Ibrahim more to the end that retaining him the longer wâ—th him he should not go so soon to see Isabella it being certain that out of â—n excess of passion Solimâ—n looked no more on the Bassa after his return but with that unquietness which the sight of a favoured Rivall gives But at length Ibrahim who did not penetrate into the truth of things seeing that the Sultan still retained him and that he had no sooner answered to one question but straightway he asked him another My Lord sayd he unto him with the same freedom wherewith he was used to talk to him wil thy highness be pleased to permit me now that I have given an account of my voyage to my Master that I may go and do my duty to my Mistris Soliman blusht at this discourse and desiring to conceal his confusion from the Bassa he dismissed him sooner than otherwise he would have done and remained in so extraordinary an unquietness as he thought twenty times to call back Ibrahim to send and
doubt of nothing but Pirates and Tempests Doria Horatio and Alphonso prepared themselves for all that might happen with constancy enough the French Marquis began already to talk according to his accustomed humor when as Justiniano who was not so well assured of his good fortune but that he had as much fear as hope began to cry out that they were pursued and that he saw a Galley which made towards them amain Indeed he discovered Rustans Galley even as they were near to that strait where the two Castles of Sestos and Abydus are situated which the Turks at this day call Dardanelli Justiniano having seen this Galley turned himself to Jsabella and asked her whether she would not permit him to dye in defending her Your death sayd she unto him him I may not endure but that excepted I will consent to any thing rather than to fall again into the hands of Soliman After this discourse Justiniano and his freinds began to prepare themselves for defence and though he had but few men for to carry the business the more secretly he durst bring no more yet were they not easie to be vanquished for as well slaves as Merchants were sufficiently obliged to fight and the others had not only their lives liberties to defend but their Sisters their Mistrisses too On the other part Rustan knowing that this vessel was the same which he sought for and fearing that the Christian slaves which were in his Galley would not row speedily enough he promised them their liberty if they imployed all their force in this occasion and that by their means he might stay Ibrahim so that carried by this hope and without inquiring whether those which they would take were Turks or Christians they rowed with so much vigor as in a little time his Galley was within Cannon shot of Ibrahims Vessell And to keep him from flying he discharged a piece of Ordnance to advertise them that were of the Guard in the Castles of Sestos and Abidus that enemies vessells were in that place This device failed not to work the expected effect for Ibrahim knowing that there were on both sides of this straight forty pieces of Ordnance planted even with the water which without doubt would after this signall discharge upon him if he attempted to pass found himself strangely troubled For of one side he feared lest he should see Isabella carried away with a Cannon-shot on the other Rustans violence was little less terrible to him and in this unquietness he commanded his Pilot to doe one thing and by and by unsayed it again Isabella would have had them expose themselves rather to the fury of the Cannon than to fight with Rustan but they were not long in an estate to choose what they had to doe for this Galley which pursued them having overtaken them and spite of their utmost indeavours to the contrary having grapled her self to them Ibrahim followed by his friends performed such things in this occasion as surpassed the valour of the most illustrious Heroes He wounded Rustan with his own hand all those that presented themselves against him fell presently dead either at his feet or into the Sea All Rustans souldiers fled from his incounter and chose rather to set upon ten others than defend themselves from him alone In the mean time fresh succor came to Rustan for they of the two Castles of Sestos and Abidus hearing the piece which he had caused to be shot off came in Frigots with a great number of souldiers to see what the matter was and finding a Christian Vessell set upon by Turks they never inquired further but joyned with them and Ibrahim seeing his enemies redoubled redoubled his courage too One would have said that he had recovered new forces he past from one place to another in an instant he maintained his own men assaulted his enemies and fighting desperately yet without losing his judgement he might peradventure have wearied and vanquished them that assaulted him had not Rustan whilst he was busie in defending himself from fix which fought with him together bethought him of a wile which alone made him victor He went with some souldiers to the Captains Cabbin with his Scymitar in his hand where the Princess and her dear friends were more dead than alive in attending the event of the fight When first he entred Isabella gave a great skriek but this cruell man without hearkning to her complaints drawing her with one hand and holding his Scymitar in the other pulled her to the Cabbin-door and calling to Ibrahim who turned his head that way Resolve thy self said he unto him to render up thy arms or if thou dost it not to see the head of her I hold here taken from her shoulders This dreadfull speech made Ibrahim stop a little during the which Jsabella without daunting prayed him not to yeeld for to keep her from death seeing she desired it But Jbrahim being about to advance towards Rustan and seeing him lift up his arm to strike Isabella hold said he unto him throwing down his arms and tendring his hands to them that invironed him spare the life of this person since I did not fight but to preserve it set her free and make me a slave and if I may obtain this of thee I will not complain of thy cruelty Alas cried Jsabella then the laying of you in irons is not giving me liberty nor is the putting your life in the power of your enemies the preserving of mine In the mean time Doria Alphonso Horatio and the French Marquis were still indeavouring to doe their uttermost but Jbrahim fearing lest some out-rage should be done to Jsabella cryed to them to render themselves which they were constrained to doe for Jbrahim fighting no longer and being loaden with chains by Rustans commandment they had all the enemies upon them so that fight how they could number prevailed over valour and Rustan made himself Master of the Vessell and of the persons whom he sought for and having forced them to pass into his Galley he returned to Constantinople These infortunate ones had yet the consolation to make this voyage together without being separated for Rustan busied about stopping the blood which he lost at the wound he had received had not the inhumanity to keep them from talking together Jbrahim was likewise as well as Horatio Alphonso Doria and the French Marquis loaden with chains which had been knocked off from some of those slaves who had been the cause of their taking by rowing with such speed Jsabella and her friends being with them and not able to succour them augmented their torments yet more with the extreme affliction that appeared in them Alas said Jsabella to Jbrahim if I were sure that death would be the greatest misery that can arrive unto me in the place whither we are going I should easily comfort my self yea and I should regard it as an happiness rather than a misfortune but the crueltie of our enemies will
not stay there for whereas Soliman knowes that I fear neither torments nor death he will make me suffer in your person and that makes up all my grief Fear not for me said Jbrahim unto her but onely think of preserving your self Soliman loves you labour then to move his heart rather than to incense it and be confident that death cannot be grievous to me if I were assured of your life No no answered Jsabella this is not the way I mean to hold and you would blame me without doubt if I should follow your counsell I will die as well as you and if my prayers can obtain any thing of Soliman it shall be that we may die together Augment not my torments replyed the Illustrious Bassa and speak not of your death if you will not have me advance mine live my dear Jsabella and let me alone perish I live cried Jsabella Ah! no no Jsabella knows not how to survive her glory and Justiniano which are the only things that can make her life agreeable without the which she wil not preserve it I may added she live unhappy infortunate laden with chains exiled from my country without means and without liberty but I cannot live without honor and without Justiniano so that if Soliman will ravish me of my glory and bereave me of the onely person that I love I shall not waver between death and life and I know what coâ—rse I am to take Ah! too generous Isabella cryed Ibrahim then why have I loved you to cause you to fall into so many miseries Why have I not alwaies been your enemy to keep you from having such cruell ones But what say I sensless man continued he I merit the torments which I suffer if I can repent me of having loved you No Madam I cannot doe it I would that my death might hinder yours I would that I might indure all things for you but I cannot wish that I could not adore you That wish would be unjust replyed she and would questionless doe great wrong to our affection which is not the cause of our misfoâ—tunes it is two pure and too innocent to bee punished for a crime and the onely thing which comforts me in our miseries is the belief I am in that wee doe not deserve them and that Heaven sends them to us rather to try our vertue than to correct our faults But added she before we are seperated as without doubt we shall be promise me that what artifice soever our enemies may use to perswade you unto any thing to my disadvantage you will never beleeve it For hold it for most assured that Isabella will dye a thousand times rather than do any thing unworthy of her vertue and yours Let me then have the satisfaction to hope that the malice of our persecutors shall make you beleeve nothing to my prejudice Ah! Madam cryed Ibrahim it is for me to demand this favour of you for whereas I have not rendred you so many markes of my affection as I have received from your vertue you may the more easily doubt of it But beleeve Madam that I will dye adoring you and if the loss of my life may oblige Soliman to restore you to your liberty as I purpose to beseech it of him I shall dye even with pleasure Let us not separate our destinies anfwered the Princess either let us live together or let us dye together After so sad a discourse the excess of their affection forced them to hold their peace and their displeasure being shut up in their heart they felt it more vively than they did whom as they eased themselves with their complaints The unhappiness of the persons which were ingaged in their misfortune afflicted them the more and they saw all about them so many occasions of dispair as it might be said that never was the vertue of a person put to so hard a triall Hipolita Sophronia Emilia and Leonida were wholy dissolved into teares Alphonso Doria Horatio and the French Marquis were also infinitely afflicted and if Rustan could have been touched with any compassion hee had been doubtless with so lamentable an object But far from having any humanity for another he was cruell to himself for though he were wounded yet the desire which he had to destroy Ibrahim and to finish a thing which he had so well begun made him in stead of repayring to his house to look to his wound to goe directly to the Serraglio assoon as he arrived at Constantinople and to behave himself so as if he had not been hurt at all Presently upon his landing hee sent to advertise Soliman of his return and of the success of his voyage And whereas this Prince had increased his fury with his solitariness he instantly commanded that Ibrahim and Isabella should be brought into the Seraglio and put into severall places with a sure guard and that all those which had followed them should bee put likewise into another place Never was so deplorable a thing seen as the execution of this commandment Isabella would not quit Ibrahim he too would not abandon her and though they had well enough foreseen that they should be separated yet could they not for all that consent thereunto Their frends likewise would not leave them and if Soliman could have been a spectator of so sad a conversation hee might peradventure have been moved to pitty But at length Ibrahim and Isabella being constrained to resolve for that which they could not avoyd took their farwell of each other as persons that were never to see one another again and following each other with their eyes as far as they could they svvare unto themselves to dye loving one another as faithfully as they had mutually promised After Rustan had conducted Ibrahim to one quarter of the Seraglio caused Isabella to bee carried to another and their friends to a third he went to Soliman whose minde had never been quiet since he knew the success of his voyage For seeing Jbrahim and Jsabella in his hands he scarcely knew what resolution to take for in the estate wherein things were he must destroy the Bassa or render him his Mistress Regarding him as the Lover of Jsabella he desired his death considering him as a fugitive he sound it just but remembring the affection which he had born him hee had much ado to resolve to destroy him What shall I do said he to himself with this ingratefull creature who after so many favors which he hath received from me so many honors which I have conferred on him so many marks which I have rendred him of my good will goes out of my Empire without my leave This perfidious man cried he should have considered me-thinks how I had heretofore broken his chains to share my Empire with him and how he to whom he owed his life and his liberty ought to have obliged him to a more exact fidelity But this wretch preferring the possession of a woman before the greatness wherein
Soliman less then it would have done at any other time For as he could not but remember that she had been the object of his affection so could he not but much more remember that she had been the cause of all his misfortunes and of all his crimes and that she would have carried him to put to death the only man of the world whom most he loved This feigned death of Ibrahim was carried with so much address by the prudent Achmat that every body beleeved it to be so and that is it which hath made Paulus Jovius and all those which have spoken of the raign of Soliman to say that the grand Visier perished in that sort but indeed the matter past as I have delivered it For a Greek Caloyer who had this History from Justiniano's and Isabella's own mouth left a relation thereof which is come even unto us In the mean time three days after the feigned death of Ibrahim the true Justiniano Isabella Sophronia Hipolita Emilia Leonida Horatio Alphonso Doria the French Marquess and a number of Christian Slaves whose liberty Justiniano had obtained imbarqued themselves one night and set sail for Genoua without fear of other enemies then the winds and the Seas but Fortune had made too much tryal of their vertue for to inflict new disasters on them and indeed she was so favorable unto them that never was there a more prosperous Navigation heard of During this Voyage thâ—se illustrious persons had no other entertainment then to talk of the dangers which they had avoyded And whereas Justiniano and Isabella had promised that they would be inseparable in their felicity as they had been in their unhappiness that Horatio and Hipolita had done the like that Sophronia and Doria had sworn never to quit one another and that Alphonso and Leonida following the others example had taken the same resolution it fell out that only the French Marquiss and Emilia remained without matching together yea and that would never match with any For one day as this fair company were talking together in the Captains Cabbin Leonida having demanded of the French Marquiss laughing what end he propounded to â—â—mself in the affection which he bore to Emilia No other answered â—e but that of loâ—ing her as long as my inclination shall carry me thereunto I am of the sâ—me mind replyed Emilia and I could never without aversion behold a man who of my 〈…〉 become my Master or at leastwise mine Equal O cryed the Marquiss how 〈…〉 for this humor for to speak freely and acquaint you with a secret which I have never told to aâ—y body know that the true cause of my inconstancy hath been the fear of marriage I haâ—e always been so afraid of engaging my self therein as to avoyd the occasions of it I have useâ— to change Mistress often But if I can obtain of Emilia that she will not oblige me to be her â—usband I will be eternally her Slave All the company then burst out a laughing and beleeâ—ing that their discourse was nothing but sport every one feâ—l to pressing of Emilia that sâ—e would make him become constant in not marrying him Whereupon the Marquess and she made a Satyre against marriage wherein on either part they said very pleasant things â—nd for a conclusion that which was beleeved to be but jesting proved to be their true thougâ—ts and they took as much care to promise one another that they would never marry as â—e others took to obtain of their Mistresses that as soon as they should come to Genoua theâ— would render their fortunes inseparable as indeed they did The wind having been extâ—eamly favorable to them they arrived in a few days at Monaco where the Princess was receâ—ved of her Subjects with as much astonishment as joy The brute of their return being presenâ—ly got to Genoua the chief of the Senate came thither to visit them These illustrious persons concealed â—o much of their adventures as they thought was not fit to be spoken of and having been intreated by their friends that they would after so many misâ—ortunes celebrate the ceremony â—f their nuptials at Genoua Isabella yielded thereunto with blushing for which effect they parted away the next day and shortly after the Marriages of Justiniano and Isabella of Horatio and Hipolita of Doria and Sophronia and of Alphonso and Leonida were solemnized with all possible magnificences The French Marquiss and Emilia promised anew an inviolable friendship to one another with an oath that neither of them would ever marry and during certain days there were nothing but Balls running at the Ring and publique Feasts After which Justiniano and Isabella being re-entred into the possession of all that belonged unto them they were conducted with a great deal of state to Monaco where they lived with as much satisfaction they had had mishaps Justiniano esteeming himself more happy in the possession of Iâ— lla then if he had reconquered the Empire of his Fathers But by a revolution which â—monly arrives in all things it is come to pass that the Principality of Monaco is return 〈◊〉 â—nto a branch of the House of the Grimaldies which possesseth it at this day under the protection of Spain nothing remaining of Justiniano but the memory of his glorious actions which certainly are great and famous enough to oblige Posterity never to lose the remembrance of THE ILLUSTRIOUS BASSA
After my Father had shut up my Mother in the Captains Cabbin where with fright she was brought to bed of me by the assistance of her Nurse who had never abandoned her they set upon the Vessell and after two hours fight rendred themselves absolute Masters of her wherein they found extreme riches and abundance of Victuall This victory gave new life to his souldiers who for the valor which my Father had shewed in this occasion grew so devoted unto him as they craved pardon of him for resisting his will and swore never to forsake him he to win them the more divided the booty amongst them reserving nothing for himself but the glory of having vanquished After this my Lord he took a resolution to have no other Countrey but his ship and to pass all the rest of his life upon all the Seas of the world to seek out all occasions of fighting and to take all the Vessells that should carry the Colours of Persia or all that belonged to the Enemies of our Religion which are the Christians He propounds this design to his soudiers who approve it and albeit my Mother withstood it he setled this resolution at last Behold my Lord in what sort my Father hath lived for the space of eighteen years that I have been in the world and that which hath gotten him so much fame under the name of Arsalon the Pirate throughout all the Seas that are known to us I have not for all that been always brought up in so wild an element for whereas he divers times arrived at Hands to sell off the commodities which he had taken he left me from the age of six years untill fourteen at which time he took me to him again under the government of a woman of the Isle of Cyprus who truly had a great deal of care of me Thy Highness may be pleased to dispence with me for the relating to thee all the sad victories which my Father hath obtained in so long a time and withall wilt pardon me if I have extended my self in this discourse more than I ought for to make it appear that the life which my father hath led hath rather been an effect of his great heart and of his despair than of the baseness and viciousness of his mind But my Lord to come unto that which directly regards me it was not full six dayes after my Father had taken me away from the Isle of Cyprus whenas my Mother fell sick and died in my arms this loss no doubt was very sensible unto me and Arsalon was so afflicted with it as no man could be more howbeit this grief produced very different effects in us I shed tears and he spilt blood for melancholy being joyned to his violent humour he sought no other remedy for his affliction than to make others miserable like him self We ran then over all the Archipelago and all the Sea of Tuscany and during that voyage he made many fights and took many prizes amongst the rest a little Barque where a man of a good aspect and that was an Italian defended himself so couragiously that Arsalon vexâ— at his resistance had peradventure caused him to be slain if I had not obtained his life When he was in the hands of my Father he was chained amongst those whom he judged were handsome enough to be sold in places where he had accustomed to traffique but he soon changed this design for this new Slave having given him to understand by an Interpreter which my Father had who spoke most languages for the commodity of his Commerces that he was a man of quality he agreed with him on a price for his ransom and gave him his word that if the sum which he had promised were paid him at the Isle of Cyprus he would set him at liberty This Slave having confirmed this promise unto him my Father permitted him to write unto the place whence he said he was of and so going to the Isle of Cyprus he gave this Letter to Merchants with whom he held correspondence that undertook to cause it to be delivered my Father promising this Slave that within three moneths he would return thither for an answer of it but in the mean time that he must for his security go along with him This man not knowing what to do but to follow the Law of the Vanquisher resolved to submit to that which he could not avoid Not long after we encountred a great man of War in whose Flag my Father observed half Moons and whereas all his prizes were seldom or never made of any save of Persians or Christians he purposed not to meddle with her but contrarily commanded his Pilot to quit his course that so he might decline her but whereas Arsalon was taken for a Pirate and this change of course seemed to be a flight unto him who commanded that Vessell he made up with full sayls unto us the better to discern ours and having well discerned her he came presently and grapled himself fast unto us I cannot say my Lord what this fight was because the fright I was in kept me from marking it howbeit I know that at the very first they of that Vessell leaped into ours and whereas there were many of my Fathers souldiers sick they might peradventure have rendred themselves Masters of her without the valor of the Italian Slave who seeing that they which attacqued us were not Christians demanded leave of Arsalon to fight who having given him arms gave him wherewithall to gain us the victory for he performed such marvellous things in this fight as after he had repulsed the enemy he leaped into their Vessell followed by my Father and some of his put very neer all that he met with there to the sword rendred himselfe Master of her and with his own hand after a long resistance took Osman who commanded her and who by his Fathers order was going to Alexandria After this brave exploit this Slave was the favourite of Arsalon of which grace notwithstanding he was not much sensible for though my Father caressed him extremely yet left he not to be exceedingly afflicted when as he knew that the reward of his victories should be a perpetuall slavery for albeit my Father had promised to give him his liberty when as he should have received his ransom he had resolved nevertheless to break his word with him for that he might not said he part with a man which could make him invincible by his wonderfull valor In the mean time my Lord Osman finding himself wounded and my inclination having always carried me to the comforting of others miseries I visited him whilst he was ill and more for the care that I had of his person as long as he was so than for any beauty vvas in my face he bare an affection to me and if I dare say it the knovvledge vvhich I had thereof together with his merit and the compassion I had of his misfortune very much disposed me
to accept of it the constancy which he shewed was partly the cause of my weakness if at leastwise one may call an affection so which hath no other object but vertue As soon as Osman was taken he told Arsalon what he was who gave him the means to let the Bassa of the Sea understand what ransom he was set at and how he might deliver him in the mean time his hurts being cured he contracted a great friendship with that generous Slave speaking a certain corrupted Italian unto him which they say is very much in use here in Constantinople As for me after I parted from the Isle of Cyprus my chiefest entertainmens was to talk with the Interpreter whom my Father carried always along with him and by the continuall conference which we had together touching the diversities of Languages I had almost learned two or three if not for to speak them well at leastwise to understand them perfectly and whereas the Turkish and Italian were of that number I did also many times converse with those two infortunate ones thinking I had passed away the day exceeding well vvhen I could avoid the company of those men of blood and slaughter that follovved my Father Thus I spent most of my time either in the Captains Cabbin vvith my Mothers Nurse or in their conversation They knevv vvell enough by my sadness that the life vvhich I led vvas grievous unto me yet had they the goodness not to speak to me of it but modestly nor to complain of their own misfortunes in consideration of me This compliance and advisedness of theirs made me to esteem much of them both and the belief I had that I was beloved of Osman possessed me both with joy and with unquietness for I perceived sufficiently that his heart yielded not without resisting and that he was ashamed to wear the fetters of a Pirats daughter This generous disposition of his for all that displeased me not and making great account of him already I interpreted every thing to his advantage I found that he had reason to revolt against himself and not to give way to a passion unworthy of him yet forbore I not to make vowes in secret that he might know how far my disposition was from that of my fathers but yet I durst not bring any care to justifie my self therein because I could not do it without blaming him that gave me life Wee lived in this sort with some delight and a great deale of unquietness the Italian Slave was afflicted to see my father break his word with him and seemed also to be so for that he could have no tydings of a friend of his whom he infinitely regretted as for Osman and my self we knew not what to wish for he was grieved for that he could not hear from his father and yet feared to quit me I likewise made vows for his liberty and yet feared nothing more What said I to my self sometimes shall I pass my whole life with men whose cruelty is all their vertue shall I alwaies be exposed to tempests Shall I never see other than miserable wretches And it may be too after that I shall die the Slave of a Pirate I vow to thee my Lord this thought was a torment unto me and albeit the conversation of Osman gave me some pleasing houres yet could I say that I was most unhappy But I was a great deal more a little after because the term which my father had given the Bassa of the Sea for the redemption of his sonne being past he was treated more harshly than before and kept in the rank of those Slaves which he meant to sell in Christian land This resolution being known to Osman and me wrought a strange effect in us and the love which we bore one to another and which we had both of us concealed as much as we could began then to break forth I could not speak to him of my fathers designs but with tears in mine eys nor could he talk to me of an eloignment which he believed to be inevitable without declaring his affection openly unto me I believed my Lord that it was true thinking it was not a time fitting to dissemble in he assured me that his irons did not seem heavy unto him as long as he was with me but the thought of being separated from me for ever and to be constrained to carry chaines otherwhere was insupportable to to him he sware to me further that he had not desired his liberty but to obtain of his father against whom he had never so much as once murmured the meanes to deliver me out of the hands of mine A discourse so obliging found not an ingratefull soul and I resolved to do what I could to keep my father from executing so ignoble a design I cast my self then at his feet I begged this grace of him with teares but for all the effect of my request I got nothing save an express inhibition never to speak to him more of it After that he alwaies treated me ill I had no longer the libertie to entertain Osman as before and wee were all three for a long time together the most unhappy persons that ever were This constraint for all that kept me not from letting him know at length that if he would promise to mary me I would undeavour to deliver him so as he would be ruled by me Osman answered thereunto very obligingly that loving me so much as to hazard his life for to make me his I was not to doubt but that meeting with two such great benefits together he would do whatsoever I would have him for to obtain them After he had sworn more than once to me that if I would procure him his libertie and would follow him he would receive me for his wife I required some time for the execution of my design but whereas I could not finish it without betraying in some sort my father it is certain that I almost repented me of my ingaging my self therein I was perswaded notwithstanding that vertue and reason were of my side and that regarding Osman as my husband I might be permitted to follow him desiring nothing of all my fathers riches than this only Slave which I robbed him of Being well confirmed then in my design I examin I consider the difficulties of it and find no other way to execute it than to stay till we came to the Isle of Chio whither my father was to goe and there to cast anchor for whereas he had caused the Captains Cabbin to be divided in the midst to the end that I should lie on the one side and he on the other and that Osman also was every night locked up with a key which Arsalon himself alwaies kept by him I resolved to steal it as softly as I could from him but the difficulty was that ever since he purposed to retain the Italian Slave he for to favour him but indeed to assure himself of him made him