Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Heptameron of the Tales of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, Vol. 2: Newly Translated From the Authentic d104, With an Essay Upon the Heptameron
The queen, whether it was that she might appear other than she really was, or that she might put his love for her to a longer proof, or that she loved another whom she would not forsake for him, or, lastly, that she was glad to have this lover in re serve in case her heart should became vacant through any fault which might possibly be committed by him whom she loved already, said to him, in a tone which expressed neither anger nor satisfaction, I will not ask you, Elisor, although I know not the power of love, how you can have been so presumptuous and so extravagant as to love me for I know that the heart of man is so little at his own command, that one cannot love or hate as one chooses. But since you have so well concealed your feelings, I desire to know how long you have entertained them?
Elisor, looking in her beautiful face, and hearing her inquire about his malady, was not without hopes that she would afford him some relief but, on the other hand, seeing the self-com mand and the gravity with which she questioned him, he feared he had to do with a judge who was about to pronounce sentence against him. Notwithstanding this fluctuation be tween hope and fear, he protested that he had loved her since her early youth; but that it was only within the last seven years he had been conscious of his pain, or rather of a malady so agreeable that he would rather die than be cured.
Since you have been constant for seven years, said the queen, I must be no more precipitate in believing you than you have been in declaring your love to me. Therefore, ifyou speak the truth, I wish to convince myself of it in a manner that shall leave no room for doubt and if I am satisfied with the result of the trial, I will believe you to be such towards me as you swear that you are and then, when I find you to be indeed what you say, you shall find me to be what you wish.
Elisor besought her to put him to any proof she pleased, there being nothing so hard that would not appear to him very easy, in the hope that he might be happy enough to convince her of the perfect love he bore her. He only waited, he said, to be honored with her commands.
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