First Chapter

BELLOWING WAS HEARD from the barbarian Corsicurvo at the narrow mouth of a deep pit, less like a jail than a dungeon-cave in which live bodies were buried. And even though his dreadful and horrific thundering could be heard far and wide, no one could follow his words clearly except for the unhappy Cloelia, whose misfortunes had locked her away in that dark hole.

“Ho! Cloelia,” the barbarian said, “just as he is, with his hands tied behind his back and tied to the rope that I’m lowering, have that young man whom we delivered to you some two days ago hoisted up here. And check carefully if there is, among the women we recently seized, one who merits our company and is worthy to bask in the light of the clear sky covering us and the healthy air surrounding us.”

Thereupon he lowered a heavy hemp rope and in a little while he and four other barbarians hauled it up, and on the rope, tied below his arms, they grabbed firmly onto a young man of about nineteen or twenty years of age, who was, though dressed in coarse sailor’s cloth, handsome beyond compare.

The first thing the barbarians did was check the handcuffs and cords with which his hands were tied behind his back. Then they shook out his long hair, which covered his head, as it were, with infinite rings of pure gold. They wiped off his face that was plastered in dust, which then revealed such a wondrous beauty that it took their breath away and softened the senses of those who, though his executioners, were escorting him.

The fine-looking young man’s mien did not show the least distress; rather, with seemingly cheerful eyes, he raised his head, and, scanning the sky, he glanced around. With a clear and unfaltering voice, he said:

“Thanks I give, O immense and merciful heavens, for having brought me to die where your light can see my death, and not where these dark dungeons, which I am now leaving, would have cloaked it in gloomy darkness. Truly, I should wish not to die from despair, not least because I am a Christian, but because my misfortunes are such that they beckon and nearly force me to want to die.”