"These idle wordes," said she, "doe nought aswage My stubborne smart, but more annoiaunce breed: For no, no usuall fire, no usuall rage
It 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.
"Not so th' Arabian Myrrhe did sett her mynd;
Nor so did Biblis spend her pining hart;
But lov'd their native flesh against al kynd,
And to their purpose used wicked art:
Yet playd Pasiphaë a more monstrous part,
That lov'd a bull, and learnd a beast to bee:
Such shamefull lustes who loaths not, which depart
From course of nature and of modestee?
Swete love such lewdnes bands from his faire companee.
"But thine, my deare, (welfare thy heart, my deare!)
Though straunge beginning had, yet fixed is
On one that worthy may perhaps appeare;
And certes seemes bestowed not amis :
Ioy thereof have thou and eternall blis !"
With that, upleaning on her elbow weake,
Her alablaster brest she soft did kis,
Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake,
As it an earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake;
"Beldame, your words doe worke me litle ease;
For though my love be not so lewdly bent
As those ye blame, yet may it nought appease
My raging smart, ne ought my flame relent,
But rather doth my helpelesse griefe augment.
For they, however shamefull and unkinde,
Yet did possesse their horrible intent:
Short end of sorrowes they therby did finde
So was their fortune good, though wicked were their
minde.
"But wicked fortune mine, though minde be good,
Can have no end nor hope of my desire,
But feed on shadowes whiles I die for food,
And like a shadow wexe, whiles with entire
Affection I doe languish and expire.
I, fonder then Cephisus foolish chyld,
Who, having vewed in a fountaine shere
His face, was with the love thereof beguyld;
I, fonder, love a shade, the body far exyld."
"Nought like," quoth shee; "for that same wretched
Was of himselfe the ydle paramoure,
[boy
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 wholy 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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