ABSTRACT
Ameto continues with the venture undertaken; and spurred by ardent desires, he seeks the burning fires of love with a love-wounded breast. But the teary winter, enerry to his pleasures, having divested the woods of their foliage and covered the shoulders of the lofty mountains with white garments, disturbs the pleasant hunts with her long sojourn. And as he comes out of his house on occasion, he looks at the white world and sees the river, once clear and flowing with a soft murmur, now descending turbidly with foamy churning and a swift course, dragging behind huge rocks from the high mountains and deafening listeners with an unpleasant sound; or he sees the waters turned to rock and become sluggish from the biting cold; and the fields, once so beautiful, are now naked, displaying a sad countenance; and the open fields, if any are to be found without snow, are abandoned with widowed furrows. He does not hear the voice of any bird sweetly entreating his ear, nor does he find any slope that holds sheep or shepherd; and the sky, which had been smiling and clear and promising of happiness with its light, is often covered with dark clouds, which, when joined to the earth, are capable of making deepest night out of midday. He is at times frightened by than as they crackle first with flashing light and then with terrible sounds. Furthermore, from the reigning Pleiades, he perceives that all rule has been removed from the winds, as they roll with impetuous gusts, and threaten ruin to the trees, to the high towers, and even to men, often uprooting the sturdy bitter oak from its spot. And the earth, muddy from the rains poured down from the sky, becomes unpleasant for travelers, and thus one willingly keeps to his own house.
