"Alas for me, that a beautiful nymph, noble in form, in the flower of youth, dressed in a more angelic costume than one could describe and outstanding for sincerity should present itself with good will before my eyes! This visitation surpassed the most exquisite and delicious contentment possible to man, and I was beside her! She was filled with everything that might joyously arouse love and desire, drawing the mind away from every other thought and concentrating it solely on herself, yet she did not satisfy my panting and voluptuous desire.
Since she did nothing to extinguish my ardent concupiscence, I did my best to calm my languishing and overheated heart, steadying it with comforting hope, telling it that there is no coal so extingushed that it will not readily flare up again when brought to the fire. But since my eyes were ubridled, at every moment her extraordinary and divine beauties inflamed my heart, impotent as it was to resist, with ever more insolent desire. My sweet pleasure increased marvellously as she seemed to become ever more beautiful, elegant, charming, desirable, and extremely ripe and ready for love.
Then I thought sincerly to myself: 'If perchance the high gods notice my desire, my wicked appetite and longing for forbidden pleasures, which are very likely prohibited in this holy place and towards this person, might it not easily happen to me as it did to many other profanators who impudently offended them, as when their cold and unbending anger descended on bold and confident Ixion?'"
- Francesco Colonna