_He curses the tablets which he has sent, because his mistress has
written an answer on them, in which she refuses to grant his request._
|Lament my misfortune; my tablets have returned to me with sad
intelligence. Her unlucky letter announces that she cannot _be seen_
to-day. There is something in omens; just now, when she was preparing
to go, Napè stopped short, having struck her foot [178] against the
threshold. When sent out of doors another time, remember to pass the
threshold more carefully, and _like_ a sober woman lift your foot high
_enough._
Away with you; obdurate tablets, fatal bits of board; and you wax, as
well, crammed with the lines of denial. I doubt the Corsican bee [180]
has sent you collected from the blossom of the tall hemlock, beneath its
abominable honey.
Besides, you were red, as though you had been thoroughly dyed in
vermilion; [181] such a colour is exactly that of blood. Useless bits of
board, thrown out in the street, _there_ may you lie; and may the weight
of the wheel crush you, as it passes along. I could even prove that he
who formed you to shape from the tree, had not the hands of innocence.
That tree surely has afforded a gibbet for some wretched neck, _and_ has
supplied the dreadful crosses [182] for the executioner. It has given a
disgusting shelter to the screeching owls; in its branches it has borne
the eggs of the vulture and of the screech-owl. [183] In my madness,
have I entrusted my courtship to these, and have I given soft words to
be _thus_ carried to my mistress?
These tablets would more becomingly hold the prosy summons, [184] which
some judge [185] pronounces, with his sour face.