chance the husband should wake and feel Ciarlo in bed, he might believe that his wife was still there.
Unless he should consent to do this, they would all run great peril of their honour and of their lives as well; wherefore she besought them to put in practice the timely stratagem which she had provided, or else withdraw from the place forthwith.
As soon as Ciarlo heard this request, what though he would have gone down to hell to serve his comrade, he was conscious that, even if the business should come to a fortunate issue, it would be to him a great loss of good fame were he to be found there stark naked; wherefore he refused altogheter to go on such service in such fashion, declaring, however, that if he might go clad and carrying his sword in his hand he would willingly do what they wanted.
Now Filippo had travelled all the way from France to foregather with his lady-love, and, in considering the difficult parts to which had come, he perceived that his friend was speaking and that the lady was acting with good show of reason; so, after many and divers arguments, for the reason that the lady remained firmly fixed in her purpose and that he himself was more than ever fired with amorous desire, he besought Ciarlo almost with tears that, by the bonds of friendship, he would consent to oblige them, what though the thing itself might be unseemly.
Therefore Ciarlo, seeing how great was the passion which possessed his friend, and to what a pass the affair had come, determined that he would
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