I am a crippled thrall, unworthy of friendship with one of noble blood. Other servants say to me, ’Tis his tender years, he knows no better. One day he will forsake you.’ But I pity his tender years, so solemn a child and so stern and cold a mother. His sister would have made him merry, but she was taken too soon.

Yet his heart is large, and it breaks my own to see his sorrow. His father’s duty, his mother’s hardness, that is what noble blood has brought him. Were he a peasant’s child, his lot would be happier.