"These idle wordes," said she, "doe nought aswage My stubborne smart, but more annoiaunce breed: For no, no usuall fire, no usuall rage
Yt is, O nourse, which on my life doth feed,
And sucks the blood which from my hart doth bleed.
But since thy faithfull zele lets me not hyde
My crime, (if crime it be,) I will it reed.
Nor prince nor pere it is, whose love hath gryde
My feeble brest of late, and launched this wound
wyde.
"Nought like," quoth shee; "for that same wretched
Was of himselfe the ydle paramoure,
Both love and lover, without hope of ioy;
For which he faded to a watry flowre.
But better fortune thine, and better howre,
Which lov'st the shadow of a warlike knight;
No shadow, but a body hath in powre:
That body, wheresoever that it light,
May learned be by cyphers, or by magicke might.
"But if thou may with reason yet represse
The growing evill, ere it strength have gott,
And thee abandond woly do possesse;
Against it strongly strive, and yield thee nott
Til thou in open fielde adowne be smott:
But if the passion mayster thy fraile might,
So that needs love or death must be thy lott,
Then I avow to thee, by wrong or right
To compas thy desire, and find that loved knight."
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