Deliver hence out of this dungeon strong,
In which I daily dying am too long:
And if ye deeme me death for loving one
That loves not me, then doe it not prolong,
But let me die and end my dales attone,
And let him live unlov’d, or love him selfe alone.
“But if that life ye unto me decree,
Then let mee live as lovers ought to do,
And of my lifes deare love beloved be:
And if he should through pride your doome undo,
Do you by duresse him compell thereto,
And in this prison put him here with me;
One prison fittest is to hold us two.
So had I rather to be thrall then free;
Such thraldome or such freedome let it surely be.
“But O vaine judgement, and conditions vaine,
The which the prisoner points unto the free!
The whiles I him condemne, and deeme his paine,
He where he list goes loose, and laughes at me.
So ever loose, so ever happy be!
But where so loose or happy that thou art,
Know, Marinell, that all this is for thee.”
With that she wept and wail’d, as if her hart
Would quite have burst through great abundance of her smart.
All which complaint when Marinell had heard,
And understood the cause of all her care
To come of him for using her so hard,
His stubborne heart, that never felt misfare,
Was toucht with soft remorse and pitty rare;
That even for griefe of minde he oft did grone,
And inly wish that in his powre it weare
Her to redresse: but since he meanes found none,
He could no more but her great misery bemone.
Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruth
Was toucht, and mighty courage mollifide,
Dame Venus sonne, that tameth stubborne youth
With iron bit, and maketh him abide
Till like a victor on his backe he ride,
Into his mouth his maystring bridle threw,
That made him stoupe, till he did him bestride:
Then gan he make him tread his steps anew,
And learne to love by learning lovers paines to rew.
Now gan he in his grieved minde devise,
How from that dungeon he might her enlarge.
Some while he thought, by faire and humble wise
To Proteus selfe to sue for her discharge:
But then he fear’d his mothers former charge
Gainst womens love, long given him in vaine:
Then gan he thinke, perforce with sword and targe
Her forth to fetch, and Proteus to constraine;
But soone he gan such folly to forthinke againe.
Then did he cast to steale her thence away,
And with him beare where none of her might know:
But all in vaine, for-why he found no way
To enter in, or issue forth below;
For all about that rocke the sea did flow:
And though unto his will she given were,
Yet without ship or bote her thence to row,
He wist not how her thence away to bere,
And daunger well he wist long to continue there.
As last, when as no meanes he could invent,
Backe to him selfe he gan returne the blame,
That was the author of her punishment;
And with vile curses and reprochfull shame
To damne him selfe by every evil name,
And deeme unworthy or of love or life,
That had despisde so chast and faire a dame,
Which him had sought through trouble and long strife,
Yet had refusde a God that her had sought to wife.
In this sad plight he walked here and there,
And romed round about the rocke in vaine,
As he had lost him selfe he wist not where;
Oft listening if he mote her heare againe,
And still bemoning her unworthy paine.
Like as an Hynde, whose calfe is falne unwares
Into some pit, where she him heares complaine,
An hundred times about the pit side fares
Right sorrowfully mourning her bereaved cares.
And now by this the feast was throughly ended,
And every one gan homeward to resort:
Which seeing, Marinell was sore offended
That his departure thence should be so short,
And leave his love in that sea-walled fort.
Yet durst he not his mother disobay,
But her attending in full seemly sort,
Did march amongst the many all the way,
And all the way did inly mourne, like one astray.
Being returned to his mothers bowre,
In solitary silence, far from wight,
He gan record the lamentable stowre,
In which his wretched love lay day and night
For his deare sake, that ill deserv’d that plight:
The thought whereof empierst his hart so deepe,
That of no worldly thing he tooke delight;
Ne dayly food did take, ne nightly sleepe,
But pyn’d, and mourn’d, and languisht, and alone did weepe.
That in short space his wonted chearefull hew
Gan fade, and lively spirits deaded quight:
His cheeke-bones raw, and eie-pits hollow grew,
And brawney armes had lost their knowen might,
That nothing like himselfe he seem’d in sight.
Ere long so weake of limbe, and sicke of love
He woxe, that lenger he note stand upright,
But to his bed was brought, and layd above,
Like ruefull ghost, unable once to stirre or move.
Which when his mother saw, she in her mind
Was troubled sore, ne wist well what to weene;
Ne could by search nor any meanes out find
The secret cause and nature of his teene,
Whereby she might apply some medicine;
But weeping day and night did him attend,
And mourn’d to see her losse before her eyne,
Which griev’d her more that she it could not mend:
To see an helplesse evill double griefe doth lend.
Nought could she read the roote of his disease,
Ne weene what mister maladie it is,
Whereby to seeke some meanes it to appease.
Most did she thinke, but most she thought amis,
That that same former fatall wound of his
Whyleare by Tryphon was not throughly healed,
But closely rankled under th’orifis:
Least did she thinke, that which he most concealed,
That love it was, which in his hart lay unrevealed.
Therefore to Tryphon she againe doth hast,
