That may be matter meet to gain him praise :
For he is fit to use in all assays,1
Whether for arms and warlike amenance,2
Or else for wise and civil governance.
For he is practised well in policy,
And thereto doth his Courting most apply;
To learn the enterdeal3 of Princes strange,
To mark the intent of Councils, and the change
Of States, and eke1 of private men somewhile,
Supplanted by fine falsehood and fair guile;
Of all the which he gathereth what is fit
To enrich the store-house of his powerful wit;
Which, through wise speeches and grave conference,
He daily ekes and brings to excellence :
Such is the rightful Courtier.
THE MISERIES OF A COURT-LIFE.
So pitiful a thing is Suitor's state!
Most miserable man, whom wicked Fate
Hath brought to Court, to sue for "had I wist,"
That few have found and many one hath missed!
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is in sueing long to bide;
To lose good days that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope; to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance' spend !
Whoever leaves sweet home, where mean estate
In safe assurance, without strife or hate,
Finds all things needful for contentment meek,
And will to Court for shadows vain to seek,
Or hope to gain, himself will a daw try :8
That curse God send unto mine enemy
1 Undertakings. 2 Behaviour.
3 Negotiation with foreign princes.
6 Interpreted to mean "patronage," from the customary expression of patrons to their suitors, "Had I wist, I might have done so and so." 7 Waiting. 8 Will prove a jackdaw, a fool.
FROM THE TEARS OF THE MUSES.
TEARS OF EUTERPE (THE LYRIC MUSE).
A stony coldness hath benumbed the sense
And lively spirits of each living wight,
And dimmed with darkness their intelligence;
Darkness more than Cimmerians' daily night :
And monstrous Error, flying in the air,
Hath marred the face of all that seemed fair :
Image of hellish horror, Ignorance;
Born in the bosom of the black Abyss,
And fed with Fury's milk for sustenance
Of his weak infancy; begot amiss
By yawning, Sloth on his own mother, Night;
So he1 his son's both sire and brother hight.2
He, armed with blindness and with boldness stout
(For blind is bold), hath our fair light defaced;
And, gathering unto him a ragged rout
Of Fauns and Satyrs, hath our dwellings rased;
And our chaste bowers, in which all virtue reigned,
With brutishness and beastly filth hath stained.
The sacred springs of horse-foot Helicon,3
So oft bedewed with our learnèd lays,
And speaking streams of pure Castalion,1
The famous witness of our wonted praise,
They trampled have, with their foul footings trade,
And like to troubled puddles have them made.
Our pleasant groves, which planted were with pains,
That with our music wont so oft to ring,
And arbours sweet, in which the shepherd swains
Were wont so oft their pastorals to sing,
They have cut down, and all their pleasaunce marred,
That now no pastoral is to be heard.
Instead of them, foul goblins and shriek-owls
With fearful howling do all places fill;
And feeble Echo now laments and howls
The dreadful accents of their outcries shrill.
3 Helicon, the Muses' mountain in Boeotia, where was the fountain Hippocrene,
made by the dint of the foot of the horse of Pegasus.
4 Castalia, the fountain of Delphi on Mount Parnassus, in Phocis.
So all is turned into wilderness,
Whilst Ignorance the Muses doth oppress.
And I, whose joy was erst with spirit full
To teach the warbling pipe to sound aloft,
My spirits now dismayed with sorrow dull,
Do moan my misery with silence soft:
Therefore I mourn and wail incessantly,
Till please the heavens afford me remedy.
FROM FOUR HYMNS IN HONOUR OF BEAUTY AND LOVE.
Hath white and red in it such wondrous power
That it can pierce through the eyes unto the heart,
And therein stir such rage and restless stour1
As nought but Death can stint his dolour's smart ?2
Or can proportion of the outward part
Move such affection in the inward mind
That it can rob both sense and reason blind?3
Why do not then the blossoms of the field,
Which are arrayed with much more orient hue,
And to the sense most dainty odours yield,
Work like impression in the looker's view?
Or, why do not fair pictures like power show,
In which oft-times we nature see of art
Excelled, in perfect limning every part?
But ah, believe me, there is more than so,
That works such wonders in the minds of men !
I, that have often proved, too well it know,-
And who-so list the like assays to ken
Shall find by trial, and confess it then,—
That Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem,
An outward shew of things that only seem.
For that same goodly hue of white and red,
'With which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay,
And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread
2 Can stay the smart of its (the heart's) sorrow. 3 Both rob the sense and blind the reason.
Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away
To that they were, even to corrupted clay;
That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright,
Shall turn to dust and lose their goodly light:
But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray
That light proceeds which kindleth lovers' fire,
Shall never be extinguished nor decay;
But, when the vital spirits do expire,
Unto her native planet shall retire ;
For it is heavenly born, and cannot die,
Being a parcel1 of the purest sky.
For, when the Soul, the which derived was
At first out of that great immortal Spright2
By whom all live to love, whilom3 did pass
Down from the top of purest heaven's height
To be embodied here, it then took light
And lively spirits from that fairest Star
Which lights the world forth from his fiery car.
Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have
The most resemblance of that heavenly light,
Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave
Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight,
And the gross matter by a soverain might
Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen
A palace fit for such a virgin queen.
So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight1
With cheerful grace and amiable sight;
For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT AND LADY UNA,
A gentle Knight was pricking on the plain,
Y-clad in mighty arms and silver shield,
Wherein old dint of deep wounds did remain,
The cruel marks of many a bloody field;
Yet arms till that time did he never wield.
3 Once on a time, long ago.
His angry steed did chide his foaming bit,
As much disdaining to the curb to yield;
Full jolly knight he seemed, and fair did sit,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fit.
And on his breast a bloody Cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living, ever him adored :
Upon his shield the like was also scored,
For soverain hope which in his help he had.
Right faithful true he was in deed and word,
But of his cheer1 did seem too solemn sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was y-drad."
Upon a great adventure he was bond,3
That greatest Gloriana to him gave
(That greatest glorious Queen of Faery-lond),
To win him worship, and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly things he most did crave:
And ever as he rode his heart did yearn
To prove his puissance in battle brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learn,
Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stern.
A lovely Lady rode him fair beside,
Upon a lowly Ass more white than snow,
Yet she much whiter; but the same did hide
Under a veil, that wimpled was full low;
And over all a black stole 5 she did throw :
As one that inly mourned, so was she sad,
And heavy sat upon her palfrey slow;
Seemed in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her, in a line, a milkwhite lamb she lad."
So pure and innocent, as that same lamb,
She was in life and every virtuous lore;
And by descent from royal linage came
Of ancient Kings and Queens, that had of yore
Their sceptres stretched from East to Western shore,
And all the world in their subjection held;
Till that infernal fiend with foul uproar
Forwasted all their land, and them expelled;
Whom to avenge she had this Knight from far compelled.
1 Countenance. 2 Dreaded. 3 Bound. 4 Folded. 5 A long robe.
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