GERARDO secretly weds his mistress and sets out for Baruti. The girl's father would give her in marriage; she swoons with grief, and is buried for dead. That selfsame day her true husband returns, and, taking her forth from the tomb, discovers that she is not dead; whereupon he tends her, and formally celebrates his nuptials with her.
THIS day we have discoursed at length, most gracious ladies, and you, courteous youths, of the many and various chances which, often beyond all human foresight, are wont to happen in love-matters, and how that often, when a man has lost all hope of achieving that which he most ardently desires, this hope revives, and what was bewailed as lost is on a sudden regained. And, to those who ponder thereon, these accidents are often most marvellous, and very difficult of belief to him who considers not the unstable nature of earthly things. One, may
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