First Chapter of the Third Book

AS OUR SOULS are almost always in continuous movement and cannot stop nor rest but in their centre, which is God, for whom they were created, it is no wonder that our thoughts evolve: for one thought is adopted, another dropped, one is pursued, another is forgotten; and the one that comes closest to its resting place, that will be the best one when it does not become snarled in an error in judgment. This has been said by way of excusing the thoughtlessness with which Arnaldo suddenly dropped the desire he had shown for such a long time to serve Auristela; it cannot be said that he dropped it but rather that he postponed it while the desire for honour, which eclipses all human actions, took possession of his soul. One night before their departure from the Island of the Hermitages, Arnaldo took Periandro aside to express this desire to him. There he begged him (for whoever asks for what he needs does not request but begs) to look after his sister Auristela and to save her to be queen of Denmark; and, although fortune might not favour him in recovering his kingdom and in such a just quest he might lose his life, he asked Periandro to count Auristela as a widow of a prince, and, as such, to endeavour to choose a husband for her, since he already knew and often had said so to himself alone, that by herself and without having any other title, she merited being the queen of the greatest kingdom on earth, and not only of Denmark. Periandro replied by thanking him for his good wishes and that he would take care to watch out for her as the thing that mattered so much to him and that suited him so well.

Periandro told none of this to Auristela because the praises that are directed at the beloved person must be said by the lover himself and not as things said by a third party.