There was a marvel of a woman, wild and orgulous, who scorned the sovereignty of Love. She recognized no other law than that of her caprice. She danced upon the greenswards, frolicked in the meadows, and cavorted through the woods. She equaled the most beautiful, surpassed the cruelest of her sex. Her frowns and harshest glowers gave the men she frowned and glowered at delight; imagine their exquisite joy if she had smiled! Alcimadura was her name.
Young, handsome Daphnis loved her—to his pain. She offered no encouragement: no glance, no word; yet he could not expunge her from his mind. Fed up, at last, with vain pursuit of her, he yearned for death, and by despair was driven to her door.
Alas! his plaints were carried by the wind, and, like the wind, ignored. (Inside, Alcimadura’s friends were fêteing her: it was her birthday.)
“I had hoped,” he cried, “to die before your eyes. But as I’m odious to you, I’m not surprised that you again refuse me a—however baneful—pleasure. When I’m dead, my father will, as my executor, bequeath to you my pastures, flocks, and dog. My friends, with what remains of my estate, will build a temple consecrated to the worship of your image, and, nearby, erect a monument inscribed:
Here pause and weep, you passersby.
Here, dead of love, does Daphnis lie.
Alcimadura let him die.”
So overwrought was Daphnis that, as he declaimed these words, he felt the Fates extinguishing his light. He died outright.
Triumphant, unperturbed, the murderer emerged. Her friends awaited tears or sighs—but none forthcame. Indeed, she so disdained the laws of Love that, that same night, she led a dance around a statue of that very god.
It fell and crushed her.
From the clouds there thundered out a voice: “Let all now love; the heartless one is dead!”
The ghost of Daphnis trembled with astonishment to see Alcimadura’s ghost approach; and all the underworld, astonished, heard her beg, too late, his pardon.
Daphnis, though, deigned not to hear. Contemptuously brisk, he strode straight past her.
Spurning love is risky.