The Decameron, vol. 2 | Page 9

again knowing happiness.
However, it so befell that, Pasimondas accelerating his nuptials to the
best of his power, Fortune, as if repenting her that in her haste she had
done Cimon so evil a turn, did now by a fresh disposition of events
compass his deliverance. Pasimondas had a brother, by name
Hormisdas, his equal in all respects save in years, who had long been
contract to marry Cassandra, a fair and noble damsel of Rhodes, of
whom Lysimachus was in the last degree enamoured; but owing to
divers accidents the marriage had been from time to time put off. Now
Pasimondas, being about to celebrate his nuptials with exceeding great
pomp, bethought him that he could not do better than, to avoid a
repetition of the pomp and expense, arrange, if so he might, that his
brother should be wedded on the same day with himself. So, having
consulted anew with Cassandra's kinsfolk, and come to an
understanding with them, he and his brother and they conferred
together, and agreed that on the same day that Pasimondas married

Iphigenia, Hormisdas should marry Cassandra. Lysimachus, getting
wind of this arrangement, was mortified beyond measure, seeing
himself thereby deprived of the hope which he cherished of marrying
Cassandra himself, if Hormisdas should not forestall him. But like a
wise man he concealed his chagrin, and cast about how he might
frustrate the arrangement: to which end he saw no other possible means
but to carry Cassandra off. It did not escape him that the office which
he held would render this easily feasible, but he deemed it all the more
dishonourable than if he had not held the office; but, in short, after
much pondering, honour yielded place to love, and he made up his
mind that, come what might, he would carry Cassandra off. Then, as he
took thought what company he should take with him, and how he
should go about the affair, he remembered Cimon, whom he had in
prison with his men, and it occurred to him that he could not possibly
have a better or more trusty associate in such an enterprise than Cimon.
Wherefore the same night he caused Cimon to be brought privily to
him in his own room, and thus addressed him:--"Cimon, as the gods are
most generous and liberal to bestow their gifts on men, so are they also
most sagacious to try their virtue; and those whom they find to be firm
and steadfast in all circumstances they honour, as the most worthy,
with the highest rewards. They have been minded to be certified of thy
worth by better proofs than thou couldst afford them, as long as thy life
was bounded by thy father's house amid the superabundant wealth
which I know him to possess: wherefore in the first place they so
wrought upon thee with the shrewd incitements of Love that from an
insensate brute, as I have heard, thou grewest to be a man; since when,
it has been and is their intent to try whether evil fortune and harsh
imprisonment may avail to change thee from the temper that was thine
when for a short while thou hadst joyance of the prize thou hadst won.
And so thou prove the same that thou wast then, they have in store for
thee a boon incomparably greater than aught that they vouchsafed thee
before: what that boon is, to the end thou mayst recover heart and thy
wonted energies, I will now explain to thee. Pasimondas, exultant in
thy misfortune and eager to compass thy death, hastens to the best of
his power his nuptials with thy Iphigenia; that so he may enjoy the
prize that Fortune, erstwhile smiling, gave thee, and forthwith,
frowning, reft from thee. Whereat how sore must be thy grief, if rightly

I gauge thy love, I know by my own case, seeing that his brother
Hormisdas addresses himself to do me on the same day a like wrong in
regard of Cassandra, whom I love more than aught else in the world.
Nor see I that Fortune has left us any way of escape from this her unjust
and cruel spite, save what we may make for ourselves by a resolved
spirit and the might of our right hands: take we then the sword, and
therewith make we, each, prize of his lady, thou for the second, I for
the first time: for so thou value the recovery, I say not of thy liberty, for
without thy lady I doubt thou wouldst hold it cheap, but of thy lady, the
gods have placed it in thine own hands, if thou art but minded to join
me in my enterprise."
These words restored to Cimon all that he had lost of heart and hope,
nor pondered he