And thinke of that fayre visage written in her hart.
One night, when she was tost with such unrest,
Her aged Nourse, whose name was Glaucè hight,
Feelmg her leape out or her loathed nest,
Betwixt her feeble armes her quickly keight,
And downe againe her in her warme bed dight:
“Ah! my deare daughter, ah! my dearest dread,
What uncouth fit,” (sayd she) “what evill plight
Hath thee opprest, and with sad drearyhead
Chaunged thy lively cheare, and living made thee dead?
“For not of nought these suddein ghastly feares
All night afflict thy naturall repose;
And all the day, when as thine equall peares
Their fit disports with faire delight doe chose,
Thou in dull corners doest thy selfe inclose;
Ne tastest Princes pleasures, ne doest spred
Abroad thy fresh youths fayrest flowre, but lose
Both leafe and fruite, both too untimely shed,
As one in wilfull bale for ever buried.
“The time that mortall men their weary cares
Do lay away, and all wilde beastes do rest,
And every river eke his course forbeares,
Then doth this wicked evill thee infest,
And rive with thousand throbs thy thrilled brest:
Like an huge Aetn’ of deepe engulfed gryefe,
Sorrow is heaped in thy hollow chest,
Whence foorth it breakes in sighes and anguish ryfe,
As smoke and sulphure mingled with confused stryfe.
“Ay me! how much I feare least love it bee!
But if that love it be, as sure I read
By knowen signes and passions which I see,
Be it worthy of thy race and royall sead,
Then I avow, by this most sacred head
Of my deare foster childe, to ease thy griefe
And win thy will: Therefore away doe dread;
For death nor daunger from thy dew reliefe
Shall me debarre: tell me therefore, my liefest liefe!”
So having sayd, her twixt her armes twaine
Shee streightly straynd, and colled tenderly;
And every trembling joynt and every vaine
Shee softly felt, and rubbed busily,
To doe the frosen cold away to fly;
And her faire deawy eies with kisses deare
Shee ofte did bathe, and ofte againe did dry;
And ever her importund not to feare
To let the secret of her hart to her appeare.
The Damzell pauzd; and then thus fearfully:
“Ah! Nurse, what needeth thee to eke my payne?
Is not enough that I alone doe dye,
But it must doubled bee with death of twaine?
For nought for me but death there doth remaine.”
“O daughter deare!” (said she) “despeire no whit;
For never sore but might a salve obtaine:
That blinded God, which hath ye blindly smit,
Another arrow hath your lovers hart to hit.”
“But mine is not” (quoth she) “like other wownd;
For which no reason can finde remedy.”
“Was never such, but mote the like be fownd,”
(Said she) “and though no reason may apply
Salve to your sore, yet love can higher stye
Then reasons reach, and oft hath wonders donne.”
“But neither God of love nor God of skye
Can doe” (said she) “that which cannot be donne.”
“Things ofte impossible” (quoth she) “seeme, ere begonne.”
“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 faithful 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.
“Nor man it is, nor other living wight,
For then some hope I might unto me draw;
But th’only shade and semblant of a knight,
Whose shape or person yet I never saw,
Hath me subjected to loves cruell law:
The same one day, as me misfortune led,
I in my fathers wondrous mirrhour saw,
And, pleased with that seeming goodlyhed,
Unwares the hidden hooke with baite I swallowed.
“Sithens it hath infixed faster hold
Within my bleeding bowells, and so sore
Now ranckleth in this same fraile fleshly mould,
That all my entrailes flow with poisnous gore,
And th’ulcer groweth daily more and more;
Ne can my ronning sore finde remedee,
Other then my hard fortune to deplore,
And languish, as the leafe faln from the tree,
Till death make one end of my daies and miseree!”
“Daughter,” (said she) “what need ye be dismayd?
Or why make ye such Monster of your minde?
Of much more uncouth thing I was affrayd,
Of filthy lust, contrary unto kinde;
But this affection nothing straunge I finde;
For who with reason can you aye reprove
To love the semblaunt pleasing most your minde,
And yield your heart whence ye cannot remove?
No guilt in you, but in the tyranny of love.
“Not so th’Arabian Myrrhe did set 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 Bul, and learnd a beast to bee.
Such shamefull lustes who loaths not, which depart
From course of nature and of modestee?
Sweete 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:
Joy 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 Earthquake 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, how ever shamefull and unkinde,
Yet did possesse their horrible intent;
Short end of sorrowes they therby did finde;
So was their fortune
