and any one of them would have accounted my love a great blessing. I had but to wave my hand, and the best of them, the handsomest, the very first in beauty and birth, would have become my husband. And to none of them didst thou incline my heart, O my bitter Fate! thou didst turn my heart against the noblest heroes of our land, and towards a stranger, towards our enemy? Why, O most holy Mother of God! for what sins dost thou so pitilessly, so mercilessly persecute me? In abundance and superfluity of luxury my days have been passed; the richest dishes, the sweetest wines have been my food. And to what end was it all? What was it all for? In order that I might, at the last, die a cruel death, such as is not the lot of even the meanest beggar in the kingdom? And was it not enough that I was condemned to so horrible a fate; not enough that, before my own end I should behold my father and mother perish in intolerable torment, when I would willingly have given my own life twenty times over to save them? All this was not enough: before my own death I must see and hear words and love such as I had never known before. It needs must be that he should break my heart in pieces with his utterances; that my bitter lot should be rendered still more bitter; that my young life should be made yet more sad! that my death should seem even more
