XXXI.
After the most gentle lady had departed from this world, all the above-mentioned city remained as if a widow, despoiled of every dignity, wherefore I, still weeping in this desolate city, wrote to the chief personages of the land somewhat of its condition, taking that beginning of Jeremiah the prophet, Quomodo sedet sola civitas! [How doth the city sit solitary!] And this I tell in order that others may not wonder why I have cited it above, as if for an entrance to the new theme that comes after. And if any one should choose to blame me because I do not write here the words which follow those cited, my excuse is, that from the first it was my design to write nothing except in the vulgar tongue; wherefore, since the words which follow those which have been cited are all Latin, it would be contrary to my design if I should write them; and I know that he, my first friend, for whom I write this, had a similar understanding, namely, that I should write to him only in the vulgar tongue.