I READ over your letter in silent fear, nor suffered so much as a murmur to escape me, lest my tongue might rashly swear by some of the gods. I even think you would have ensnared me again, but that, as you own yourself, you knew it was enough I was once promised to you. Nor would I have read it over, but from a fear that my obstinacy might have encreased the anger of the too cruel goddess. Although I forget nothing to appease her, and adore her with the smoke of pious incense, yet the partial Goddess still remains your friend; and, according to your own wish, leaves no room to doubt, that the injury with which you are threatened is the cause of her resentment. Scarcely was she so favorable to her own Hippolytus.
It is surely more proper for a virgin, not to shorten a virgin's years: I am afraid she has only allotted a few to fulfil my fate. For the wasting illness remains; the cause lies hidden; and I languish without hope of relief from the physician. You can scarcely conceive how thin and feeble I am, when I write you this, or with what difficulty I support my wasted limbs in the bed. I am also full of apprehensions, that some beside my faithful nurse may know of our thus conversing with each other. She always sits by the door, and, that I may write to you with the greater security, tells every one who enquires after me, that I am asleep. But when sleep, the best pretence in the world for long privacy, ceases to be a plausible excuse for the tedious retirement, and when she observes persons coming, to whom she can hardly with a good countenance deny admittance, she coughs, and warns me of the danger by some known sign.
