(Love-Letters Part One pages 262–64).

To the Lady—

Madam,

’TIS not always the divine

graces wherewith Heaven

has adorn’d your resplendent beauties,

that can maintain the innumerable

conquests they gain, without

a noble goodness, which may

make you sensibly compassionate

the poor and forlorn captives you

have undone: But, most fair of

your Sex, ‘tis I alone that have a

destiny more cruel and severe, and

find my self wounded from your

very frowns, and secur’d a slave

as well as made one; the very

scorn from those triumphant stars,

your eyes, have the same effects

as if they shin’d with the continual

splendour of ravishing smiles,

and I can no more shun their killing

influence, than their all-saving

aspects, and I shall expire contented,

since I fall by so glorious a

Fate; if you will vouchsafe to pronounce

my doom from that storehouse

of perfection, your mouth,

from lips that open like the blushing

rose, strow’d o’re with morning

dew, and from a breath sweeter

than holy incense; in order to

which, I approach you; most excellent

beauty with this most humble

petition, that you will deign

to permit me to throw my unworthy

self before the Throne of

your mercy, there to receive the

sentence of my life or death, a

happiness though incomparably

too great for so mean a Vassal,

yet with that reverence and awe

I shall receive it, as I wou’d the

sentence of the Gods, and which

I will no more resist than I wou’d

the Thunderbolts of Jove, or the

revenge of angry Juno: For, Madam,

my immense passion knows

no medium between life and death,

and as I never had the presumption

to aspire to the glory of the

first, I am not so abject as to fear

I am wholly depriv’d of the glory

of the last; I have too long lain

convicted, extend your mercy,

and put me now out of pain: You

have often wreck’d me to confess

my Promethian fire; spare the cruel

Vulture of despair, take him

from my heart in pity, and either

by killing word, or blasting

Lightning from those refulgent

eyes, Pronounce the death of

Madam, Your admiring slave Foscario.