highest for so I would grant my reason were but fondly grounded neither do I say that the Lilly deserves the head praise among all flowers because it grows not confusedly but in decent and comely order for there are many flowers that growing disorderly in swéetness of scent surpass divers well ranked flowers and lastly I say not that the Lilly is the excellentest flower because it is so swéet a flower but thus I form my reason That stately stateliness white whiteness gallant gallantness and swéet swéetness all these predominant qualities méeting together in the bravo Lilly make her worthy to be honored as the fairest finest and bravest flower that Nature hath framed By this the Countess Verina being come to her lodging Mistress Aureola was to retire from the garden to her sister and so I was forced to leave her having missed of my purpose and no time to break my mind to her in plain words although amidst our dispute concerning the excellency of flowers I used such passionate looks that she might well perceive whereto my discourse tended but howsoever she thought of it I know not but our parting was so amiable that after I had lost the sight of her I felt that I parted from her without parting For my body might well be contained in some other place than hers but my mind followed her wheresoever she went as trustily as her own shadow CHAP. XXXII How Philorenus the younger was enamoured on Aureola concealing it from his brother and how his brother came to the knowledge thereof IN the mean time excellent Princes and worthy thy shepheards you may note that my brother loved her I mean my golden Aureola as intirely as I my self his love being unknown to me For though he knew that I loved her yet was I not as yet acquainted with the love that he bore Aureola And in truth because he knew she was the onely air by which I lived rather then he would do any thing to procure my disquiet resolved himself to die for love of Aureola rather then he should opportunate Aureola to love him and to deprive me of that without which I could not live Insomuch that although he so loved her that for her he would willingly have yeelded to death and resigned his life yet he no way to offend me did not onely conceal his love from Aureola but also occasion being offered him to talk with her did spend all that time in commendation of me protesting unto her that I was so faithfull constant and loyal that if she would dain to reward my love with love and if she did love me she would have cause to glory of her hap in fancying him and placing her love on him who would prove the faithfullest Amant that was in Italy Besides this he made divers verses in praise of her and together with sundry brave and precious jewels presented them vnto her saying that I had sent them whereas in truth I knew not any thing of them Insomuch that more by his industry then mine own diligence though I neglected no dutifull service required in that case at length I obtained the love of mine Aureola For she loved me so affectionately that I might judge her love to be of as great force as mine though indeed it was of such nature that it was divided between us both I mean my brother and me for we being so like one to other that we seemed to be but one we could not shun reciprocation in love but whosoever loved me could not but love him and whosoever loved him could not but love me And although I had certainly known that Aureola loved my brother equally with me as well as I did but guesse that it was so yet had I been nothing sorrie but rather rejoyced greatly that I had obtained so fair a Lady to be both my love and my brothers friend For in verity such was my affection towards him that I could not wish any thing to my self wholly without wishing part of it unto my brother being most ready always willingly to part from any thing which I knew he wished and with a good heart to cease and leave from desiring or wishing any such thing whatsoever he had a mind unto But my brother marking that Aureola could not tell which of us two she loved best or which of us was most worthy of her love and thereby equally loved us both was very sorry fearing least I might be grieved that I did not my self onely enjoy all the love of Aureola And therefore he began to exhort me to séek means to be joined unto her in marriage thinking that so shee should bee forced to withdraw her love from him and wholly be addicted to me being her wedded husband To effect which matter she continually urged Aureola to make promise of marriage unto me very forcibly perswading her thereto and telling her that I who thought my life no life but in respect of hers should never be able to live perfectly untill such time that I being united and tied unto her in the knot of wedlock might enjoy her as my wife untill which thing were brought to passe I should live a most lamentable life full of dolefull discontent Furthermore he promised her that if she would vouchsafe to condiscend to my honest desire and his earnest request he would move the King and Quéene to deale with her sister the Countesse and her other friends about the contracting this marriage and obtain their good will and consent thereto Aureola although she was very unwilling to do so yet because he should not think that she would not grant my request for that she equally loved him with me séemed to grant our request and to be willing to have the marriage contrived betwéen her and my self Yet she would not have any mention made of it unto any of the Court till thrée moneths were ended for certain respects which moved her to conceal the matter so long Which were none other as afterwards we knew by experience but such as proceeded from her own unwillingness to be tyed to me and so to be deprived of the love of my brother For it afterwards was manifested she so loved us both that she wished in her heart that she might have béen married to us both thinking that she should not perfectly have enjoyed one of us if any other woman had been married to the other judging that we were both but one and ought not to be separated And therefore above all things did she desire that she were beloved of us both séeing we were both engraved in her heart that she might not think of the one without remembring the other But my brother thinking that Aureola had a bonnefoy purposed after the time of three moneths expired to marry with me made me glad with the news which he brought me of her mind although himself therewith was utterly spoiled of his felicity and welfare which I came to know by this means It happened even
and true love that by reason thereof I am fallen into the misery in which I now finde my selfe at this present Now continuing the history of my life you shall know that Lexanders father called Filene sometimes frequented my fathers house by reason of certain businesse that my father and he had betwéen them concerning Oxen and Kyne and séeing me although he was something old yet he fell in love with me and that so greatly that he became foolish mad and frantick He became so importunate unto me and troubling me above a thousand times daily declared me his passions grief but all could not help For I would never give eare to his prattle nor mark what he said and though he had been much younger or lesse aged and by many parts more perfect then he was yet for him could I not have forgotten his son Lexander who had so won my heart that I had wholly given him the possession thereof The old man knew not what friendship was between his son and me for Lexander was so obeysant and dutifull that he behaved himself secretly in wooing me least his father knowing thereof should have rebuked him and have occasion to be angry with him And in like manner was Lexander altogether ignorant of his fathers folly who because he should not give his son example of lightnesse took all the regard he might to his love from him Neverthelesse the foolish cocks-comb ceased not to molest me with importunate requests to take him to my husband He made me wonderful large proffers he promised to give me many cloathes and jewels and he sent me many Letters hoping thereby to change my mind In his time he had been a Shepheard most excellently qualified eloquent in spéech and witty which you may easily gather by a Letter which he wrote me as I yet remember Filene to Ismenia FAir Shepheard love is cause of all such fault as I can commit in writing unto hoping that I have not commited any in loving you And if perhaps my Letter be troublesome unto you believe certainly that I already fear the answer you will make I have a thousand times signified and declared unto you what affection I bear you and in recompence thereof you take pleasure in mocking me You openly laugh at me to see me like to dye for love of you but as for me I am glad to see you laugh though it be to my ruine and destruction For when I remember and think of my evil and see that you take pleasure therein rejoycing at my misery I perceive that you will not remedy my grief insomuch that it were an exceeding folly for me to regard your mocking seeing that my life and death consisteth in you to dispose of me as you please If you ask why I should love you I answer because I am forced and cannot but love you insomuch that though I might live and not love you yet I had rather to dye then so to live for when I remember your graces and perfections I cannot but judge them happier that die for love of you then those that can behold you without admiring your exceeding vertues for I cannot be perswaded that a man may die more happily then he who loseth his life by reason of such heavenly beauty as yours which hath so pierced my breast that I am not mine own but yours for as soon as I saw you I began to love and to pine for grief And if you say that I am to be blamed because I am amourous and yet old in that respect I sue for remedy unto you seeing that I have not so greatly offended in loving you as in knowing you so late For I acknowledge that I am old and I am not a little grieved that this my pain is not as ancient as the course of my age and I am sorry that I might not have loved you from the first day that I was born as well as since the first hour that I saw you certifying you that this love shall dure and continue till death Marvel not sweet to see me grey and wrinkled and though you surpass me in valour yet I think it but small reason that a man should lose his pay and salary under this colour that he is an old Souldier The new built houses are not comparable to the ancient buildings of Rome and commonly all men alwayes say that among all things the old is the best Love would not untill this present time make me feel the pinching pain of amorous passions because he well knew that affection was more firm and fancy less fickle in an old man as I am then in tender age where every look is love and every face a new fancy I am firm and constant to love you for ever and old never to be loved as long as I live Young men that say they love are double and subtle they fain but not fancy their forehead is marked with Venus badge but their heart never felt Cupids shaft And when they plead for mercy alledging that they dye for love then are they less subject to passion most free from fancy Their changeable affection is assured liberty their passion pastime their love a custome and not a pain Think not sweet that I am like the amourous youth who having received a favour of his mistress vaunteth and boasteth thereof to all the world for though I had received ten thousand I should be as constant and firme in keeping them secret But as I see you disposed and bent to work my death I fear that I shall endure much torment and have occasion to say little and brag less yet the chiefest favour whereof I may boast is to die for the love of Ismenia With what great reason may I find fault with the time considering that I who love you most am least esteemed But alas I loved you too late and seeing I was not born at the same time that you were it is reason that I should dye for love of you Ah fair Shepheardess had my Fortune been such that I might have been of your time I had had that which had been sufficient to win your love and to deserve favour of you for though it becommeth no man to blaze his owne praises yet affection forceth me to say that among all the young men of our time none might compare with me at dancing leaping foot-ball hand-ball bowle bow cithren pipe flute and all such kinds of exercise wherewith our Countrey youths recreate themselves and win the hearts of their mistresses But ah cruell chance what serveth either that which is or that which hath been unto him poor wretch that is buried in the bowels of forgetfulness because he is neer unto his death In the mean time may it please you to consider by that which I have said that the glory of your perfection which at this present maketh you famous to all the countrey shall finally fade as the pride of the sweet violet decaieth with the
scoff or mock with you but as I came from Cinqueni being over-burthened with the sorrow which I conceive for the losse of my child which was killed at the said village by the barbarous souldiers I entred into this grove was forced by the muliitude of my miseries and greatnesse of my grief to rail at that most cruel Goddesse Fortune who taketh delight to glut her self with the overthrow of mortal men And was your son quoth my father called Philorenus Yea that he was quoth he And was your wife quoth my father called Delbia She was answered he again Why then quoth my father if thou be Coreandro thy wife Delbia and thy son Philorenus what shall I be with my Delbia and my Philorenus For if I am not Coreandro that had to wife Delbia on whom I begot Philorenus now massacred at Ginqueni heaven plague me The good Knight hearing my father so solemnly protest that he was Coreandro desired him to make him some copious and true relation of his life what he was where he was born in what place he was married and by what fortune he was brought into Italy and how that then he would satisfie him in all points and so content and certifie him that he should not only know that he did not jest nor mock with him but also cōfesse and acknowledge that he had very great reason to think himself mocked of him Whereupon my father very largely rehearsed unto him the whole discourse and history of his life whereby the good Knight knew that hee was that Coreandro whom hee thought had been dead and therefore had married his wife Delbia by whom he had his son Philorenus And presently he told my father all whatsoever had hapned and chanced between my mother Delbia and him how he saved her from the villany which the King of Castile intended to use against my mother how he brought her to her village house to look for him and not finding him there they went to the city Targonna to seek him and how they afterwards understood of certainty that he was dead as he could verifie and prove by divers of his wives friends at the City Targonna Besides he told my father in like manner that coming out of the Castle to escape the better he called himself Coreandro And when he was come forth he being credibly informed of his death married Delbia and that he had within a year after a son by her whom she would have also named Philorenus in remembrance of her first Philorenus whom she supposed to be dead In a word he left nothing untold but let him know the cause of his wife my mothers death with his voyage to Cinqueni and all other things that hapned even till their meeting My father greatly rejoyced at this discourse partly for that he heard such particularities of his wife of whom what was become he never had heard any certainty and partly also because he was disburthened of that heavie load of false suspicion bred in his breast by reason of the King of Castiles odious proclamation made against my mother Delbia For until the very hour that the good Knight the other Coreandro my brother Philorenus his father had informed him of the true verity of all matters concerning my mother Delbia did he verily think and perswade himself that my mother of wantonnesse got secretly away from the King of Castile not to seek him her husband but to run away with the Knight and lewdly to live with him setting aside and quite giving over her kind love and amiable kindnesse which she was wont to professe to her quondam dear husband And therefore now knowing the contrary although he made excéeding sorrow for her death yet the perswasion which reason by means of the good Knights true and not dissembled relation had ingrafted in his heart of her loyalty did not a little comfort him in this his singular perplexity both for the losse of so good a wife and so dear a son And besides all this the company of so valiant and worthy a Knight and vertuous a person in all points as little beholding to fortune for prosperity as himself séeing they both lamented the death of one woman and especially the pitifull mishap of us their sons thinking that we were massacred at Cinqueni which were unto each of them most pleasant objects to remember their Delbia our mother and most sure pawns and tokens of her chast and loyal love towards them our fathers did breed him such solace that he thanked the Gods for bestowing so much comfort upon him in this his latter and greatest extremity In like manner the good Knight Don Alvares de Bazora of late Coreandro pouring out tears incessantly for joy of his good hap in méeting so luckily with my father thought himself in ample manner beholding to the Gods for that singular benefit profesting that he could not being in that case have wished for a more blessed day then that wherein he so happily met with my father Thus joyning in company they marched together towards the City of Targonna in Aragon intending there to live and die together enjoying each others presence glad of each others company having each of them lost his son Where I will leave them in this their journey and return to the rest of mine own fortunes and my brothers who now both of us were lifted up to high estate and so prosperously lived in all kind of soveraign pleasurs that we thought it as possible for fortune to abase the greatnesse of our weal as for us to impair the divine estate of the heavenly powers CHAP. XXXI How Mistresse Cerasilla died for sorrow that she could not discern the elder Philorenus from his brother How he became enamoured on Aureola and the conference that passed between them in the Garden TO the end that I may let you understand how soon we were forced to recall our minds from that heresie it may please you most excellent Princesse and noble shepheards to know that we I mean my brother and I living in this most happy estate began by reason of our great leasure which the peaceable quitnesse of the Neapolitan Estate yéelded us so to give our selves to all kind of sports and pleasures that we thought that day ill spent wherein we had not invented some new delight to pleasure our Mistresses withal Now we invented new kinds of dances now strange manners of Vaulting now rare Masques now new devised Enterludes and in one word all kind of toys that Italian wits had bred in times past we either altered or augmented wherein we used such dexterity that we séemed to have been born to that purpose But howsoever we behaved our selves therein we were so liked of all the Courtiers of both sexes that our company was gratefull to all men and shunned by no man The King the Queen and Hyppolito the young Prince so loved and favoured us that they would not denie us any thing that we could ask And
reach to the one or by falling come to the other So that his mind being thus suspended he perpended the reasons for both parts which were most forcible to perswade him to the one or the other yet in such order that neglecting fully his own case as one altogether careless of his own welfare he referred all matters to the effecting of that which seemed most expedient and necessary to make me happy and to work my felicity Insomuch that he began to consider that if chance he should have left Aureola and commit himself to the laboursome seeking and uncertain finding of me the loving Gentlewoman might have taken the absence of us both so heavily that she might have thereby fallen into some desperate sickness and perchance remediless Well quoth he put the case should die were it not better that she should die then that I should suffer my brother to live in despair to run round about the world to carry hell with him wheresoever he goeth having his affections like furies and fiends teaxing rending his brotherlike heart to irrisate the barren ground with millions of tears to disturb the guiltless air with lamentable shrieks cries accompanied with sighs and sobs and in a word to be always dying and yet never die Death is the lock that shutteth up misery and endeth all calamity and trouble If Aureola then die O happy she but unhappy I Nay my swéet brother thrice unhappy thou For no doubt if Aureola should die the pain which thou wouldest sustain the grief which would molest thy soul and the torment which would ravish thee in the very gulph of all vexation would so far in extremity pass the anguish wherein thou now doest pine that it would be greater then the pain which causeth the soul to depart from the body Why then I will rather remain by Aureola and so both save her life thine and mine own though scarce mine own seeing that I shall scarce be able to live he being absent And what will he think nay what will all the world say but that I forsooth for love of my brother entertain his love and that I so love him that to shew my love towards him I must needs love his Lady and so defraud him of that wherein his chiefest felicity consisteth the jewel of his heart the treasure of his desires the object of his delight the subject of his conceits the hold of his hope the onely and chief pillar of his life and cause of his being swéet Aureola worthy to be all this unto him he deserving to be as much unto her none of them both owing less one to the other As he was thus quite turning from that mind to the other and resolving to leave all to follow me the beams of Aureolaes beauty reverberating the window wherein he lay musing what he might best do warned him that that Sun was in the garden whose light was able to strive with the Rays of Phoebus for force séeing that his beams may well shine upon men not in them whereas the bright lines that glister from the golden forehead of Aureola did penetrate mens bodies and shine not upon them onely but also within them and through them He therefore espying Aureola walking in the garden alone wept that he saw not me with her saying O sacred powers of heaven séeing that your Deities have been divinely worshipped by me since my Cradle why hate ye poor Philorenus your Servant so that the sight which ought to be unto his eys as gold to the covetous man is unto him as poyson to them that wish to live long Not for that I take any disgrace by the gracious presence of Aureola but that my joy is eclipsed when I behold her without him by her who seemed born to be inseparably joyned with her as white unto snow cold to ice and to use a more familiar comparison as beauty to Aureola Having so said as carried away with a sudden strong gale of wind he hasted to the garden and having passed the courtesies used in salutation and gréeting being asked for me for she knew him by reason of a secret token which we had given to her onely to discern him from me and me from him he up and told her all the matter concerning my sudden departure yet so colouring the cause thereof that she thought that I was gone because I despaired that she should love him better then me For he thought that so she might be moved to pity and by pity to sharpen her affection which should have encreased her love towards me Whereas if he had let her know the true cause of my absence that I was gone to leave her to be his she might have been moved to disdain me which disdain should have nourished the fire which was kindled in his brest by the affection which she bore him and so might she have allured him to to leave me in my pilgrimage and enjoy her to displease whom he did count it a sacriledge But she construing of the matter as my most carefull brother and his brotherlike carefulness enformed and being subject to that custome which by nature is an unseparable companion to the desires of all women I mean to wish and covet that which seems most impossible and to long for such things as cannot be gotten or very hardly had now she heard that I was gone no man knew where whereas before her love inclined rather to my brother then to me she was so ravished with desire to be with me that she presently concluded to her self in heart to take the pains to seek me and although she did conceal the same unto him and dissembled the passion which she felt by reason of my absence by words whilest he was by her yet by deed she sufficiently afterwards shewed it unto all the world For after shee was separated from him by the hastiness of her resolution to execute that which she had purposed she went to her chamber where after she had made her handkerchief drunk with sipping up and drinking in the tears which abundantly issued from out her eys most fertilly yielding fruit of the séeds of sorrow sown in them and having astonished the stones and walls with the admirable shrieks and moved the lifeless pictures that hung in her chamber to pity she impoverished her rich apparel by laying it off and enriched her sisters Cooks wives poor cloaths putting them on her ivory body and so making provision of nothing but a knife to conquer Fortunes envy if chance she would go about to make her miserable in the highest degrée by prolonging her life when as she could not live but discontented she committed her self to her journey and her journy to the Gods calling upon their Deities to be directed in her way O ye sacred powers called she that in heaven take care of us poor mortals who wholly depend upon your favour or disfavor if ever my vows have béen acceptable unto you and my offerings
some other time whensoever it shall please your worthinesse to hear the rest opportunity being thereto offered The Dutchesse Brisil with the other Ladies Gentlemen and shepheards thanking Philorenus assured him that he had done them a pleasure more then mean in that he had taken so much pain as to delight them with that rehearsal of his own fortunes promising that he should find them as ready to pleasure him But the Dutchesse above the rest told him that she hoped as he had begun to delight her with the beginning of his history so he would work the perfection of her delight so begun with the end of the same occasion presenting time and place fit for the purpose as he had promised And therewith they went altogether into the palace where the Lady Felicia meeting them at the garden dore most courteously saluting them being by them saluted first the Dutchess Brisil old Eugerio next then Marcelio and his Alcida with her brother Polydor and his sister Clenarde and so Lexander with his Ismenia and then Philorenus with his Petulca and the rest of the company which courteously finished she led them all into a fair stateÌ„ly hall most sumptuously and gorgeously furnished where the cloth was laid for that the evening bringing something too cold an air with it she thought it better to sup there then in the bower in the garden where they had dined While supper continued the Nymph Arethea sung this sonnet to the sound of her Lute Arethea MY song is love yet strange love not mine own And though I love not yet my tongue will spend In praise of love though many that alone Which theirs is will vouchsafe for to commend But now my thoughts from passions being free My words as true as truth it self shall be Love is the thing through which all men have being Love is the thing which mankind doth preserve Love is the cause of heavens and earths agreeing Love is the Lord whom Gods and men do serve Love is the knot wich sexes doth unite Love in estate maintaineth every wight Love is the tool which finest wits doth file Love unto worthy things mens hearts doth bind Love frames the tongue to use a flowing stile Love is the touchstone of a verâ—tuous mind Love is the spur to valorous exploits Love doth exalt thy mind to heavenly thoughts Love is the joy wherein Lordings delight In Love do Ladies think the time well spent In all is love a comely courteous sight In men a grace in maids an ornament All this of Love and more if more may be I know though nothing Love doth know of me Arethea having ended her Sonnet the Lady Felicia asked Perierio how he liked it and whether he thought not that lovers were beholding unto her for so extolling the Saint that ruleth their affection But he framed her this answer Divine Lady your Nymphs Encomion of love hath so swéetly toucht mine ears that they most willingly and readily carried the meaning of her spéeches to my mind who receiving them with no lesse delight was moved to think so well of them that it now comandeth my tongue to let you understand And in truth Madam as I am glad that I now love not in respect of divers circumstances so I should be singularly sorry if I thought I should never love again And more directly to answer your question I think my self not a little beholding to Arethea for esteeming so much of Love onely for that I have once loved much more think I will such as now féel the fire of fancy glowing in their hearts make account of her for making such account of that wherein they have placed their chief felicity CHAP. XXXVII The dispute which happened between Perierio and the Dutchesse Brisil occasioned by the Song of the Nymph Arethea in commendation of Love ALL the company hearing Periecrio speak in this manner marvelled at the same for they knew nothing how the Lady Felicia had used him in her study by giving him the drink of oblivion And therefore they were amazed to see Perierio a man before so full of melancholy and so pathetical now so freely speak of Love as one not now in Love whereunto he was before so earnestly addicted that he seemed to be bound apprentice unto it for ever But among the rest the Lady Brisil spake unto him in this manner But I pray you sir you that ere while so furiously loved are the hot flees wherein you so madly flamed already quenched yet they seemed unextinguishâ—ble I think they be fair Princesse answered Perierio for they are not quenched but allayed and in this degree it is that I commend love and no doubt but Arethea so thought of it when she so effectually describe it Yet am not I of the opinion answered the Dutchess for that were neither hot nor cold whereas if love should do and cause all those worthy things which Arethea attributeth unto it no doubt it must be extended to some extream point or else how should it be able to work so many excellent matters as she speaketh of nay rather as truth it self averreth even by the mouth of all such as know the excellency of love You say well quoth Perierio but yet I hope you will likewise grant that as in all other vertues so in love also there may be an extremity in excesse which is a vice and not to be defended An extremity quoth Brisil I grant in this that one may love too coldly but too hotly one cannot in my mind For seeing love is commendable as none here gain-say it the more one doth love the more doth he that which is worthy of commendation how shal we then blame him as doing that which is vicious For love is not to be considered as liberallity or other vertues for being too easie in giving and bestowing as more then one is able he falleth from liberallity and cannot be accounted to be liberall but prodigall in that he lavishly maketh havock of more then his ability well can allow or reason perswade him But love the more it possesseth man the more he loveth and the more he loveth the more he possesseth For though by being liberal without measurs that ability waineth and riches decay yet by loving how extraordinarily soever love never waxeth lesse nay increaseth For the more one loveth the more still doth his power to love grow and the more able doth he become to love And so long cannot he fall from love and be accounted no lover as they that by too much spending fall from â—eing too liberall to become prodigall Nay but quoth Peâ—â—â—â—o by loving without reason do we fall from love to madnesse for frantick I account that love which is not guided by reason By reason quoth the Dutchess why love is too noble a thing to be â—iâ—d to any respect either of reason or any other thing 〈…〉 For love being considered in it self is a certain kind of moâ—iâ—â—â—f the mind which moveth of it self and
with a pain the like never heard of before The dart penetrated into the very inmost part of my heart and forced me to yéeld to love Séeing then I love and am inroled in the scrowl of those that follow thy bands as a true and valerous Captain lead me to the knowledge of that which I love For I doubt nut but that thou which hast had the puissance to make me love and that so strangely art likewise able to make me know whom I love Thus Perierio after that he had with many sighs and tears bewailed the losse of his former fréedome began at length to consider that the accustomed hour of his returning to dinner was past and therfore least his father should marvell at his long absence and by reason thereof fall into suspition least some mischance had befallen him for old men are always carefull of their children and as often as they be out of sight so often do they déem them to be lost he more like a shadow then a man crossed the nearest way homewards Where he found his aged father sléeping for the heavinesse he was in by reason of Perierios absence rocked him a sleep but as soon as he heard Perierio he awaked and then they fell closely to their chear though Perierios mind ran more on his unknown mistresse then his present meat Whilest that these two were at dinner Euphilia and Perina to shunne the extream heat of Phoebus mounted in his Meridian pride went with their sheep towards the Wood side to take the advantage of the high trees which yeelded a most pleasant shadow Where they sitting together began to take their Oaten Pipes and sing Euphilia began in this manner Whilest Thaetons sage fire his scorching beams On th' earth doth cast and move the sacred crue Of Nymphs most chaste to seek the silver streams Therein to bath their hands of Christall hue My Pipe shall move the air with her sound To send down drops and wet the scorched ground Perina Whilest bright Apollo in his highest seat With fiery lines doth burn the tender grasse My notes shall pierce the skies and Iove intreat To bid the winds represse their furious blasts That sweetly breathing on us in the field The glittering leaves a pleasant noise may yeeld Euphilia The chirping birds now do moiest the air And to the clouds complain of summers heat The hunter ceaseth to pursue the hare And fowls do leave their prey for fainting sweat Now therefore shall my voice the skies ascend To move the Gods this harmfull heat to mend Perina Now do the simple sheep to shadow flie The Traveller by Cinthia's light is lead To shun the rays which sparkling down the skie Proceed from fiery Phoebus golden head My Pipe shall therefore to the clouds complain Resolving them in showers of wished rain What an excellent matter is it said Euphilia sister Perina that we here leading this Country life and being separated from the noise and tempestuous uproars and broyls which commonly are raised in the proud Courts of Princes should injoy such extream pleasure as we do in these pleasant groves sometimes being in the shadow sometimes sitting on the banks of the delectable River and sometimes walking in the dark groves where we both fence our faces from Phoebus injury and delight our ears with the naturall Musick of the singing birds I promise you truly quoth Perina I am of opinion that the noise which the wind maketh among the trées doth delight and recreate the hearts of men more then the fond noise of some people when there is a great assembly For there the greatest pleasure is meer grief proud Majesty and highnesse nothing else but vanity feasts and games nothing but troubles and tempests honour and renown nothing but blind errours and most commonly we find that among them that delight in that kind of life words and thoughts are different the tongue pronouncing otherwise then the heart meaneth But here said Euphilia ambition layeth not her bait neither hath avarice or covetousnesse any place here The people doth not here aspire to honours nor sue for dignities but men live free from passions and perturbations in al virtue and simplicity Here reigneth little or no malice but all things are ruled by justice Neither doth the simple shepheard quoth Perina séek out new parts of the world nor adventure into strange Countries committing himself neither to the cruell furious winds nor unmercifull waves to enlarge his treasure or augment his riches And yet he liveth as contentedly with that little which he hath as he that doth abound in rich possessions and great revenues CHAP. III. How Marcelio came to the house of Camillo and of the strange advenutres that befell him in his love ro Alcida AS Euphilia and her sister were thus discoursing they séemed to hear the voice of some distressed person and Euphilia arising espied a shepheard resting his back against the trunk of a trée but she hoping to gather the sum of his grief by the sense of his complaint steeped immediately applying her ear to the shepheards words which were not unlike to these Ah love thou canst not invent any worse torment then I feel nor thou fortune canst be more variable and inconstant then thou art unto me And it is impossible to find a heart so bereft of all hope and yet so content in suffering pain as mine whereof love is the onely cause which upholdeth my languishing breath to the end that I may indure the grief which continually vexeth me But when shall my tears and life take end when shall my torment cease when shall my sighs bring forth my heart with them And therewith he took his way straight towards the place where Euphilia and Perina sate Whither he arrived so sorrowfull so weary and so grieved that it seemed that fortune pittying his case had purposely sent him to that place to comfort him and asswage his dolours nâ—t onely vp means of the clear water which did spring out of the founâ— in whither the shepheards accustomed to lead their sheep to drink but also by reason of the pleasantnesse of the place the shadow of the trees and exceeding beauty of these two noble shepheards In so much that all these things caused him to think that he had received some solace though the importance of that which he sought and the desire he had to find the same gave him no leisure to rest in that place Yet was he being a stranger so curtuously entertained by the two sisters that he deemed himself not a little happy to have lighted on such company Wherefore he being intreated by them to go with them to their lodging to eat something and to refresh himself with such dainties as their country manner afforded could not but grant their request and so followed them unto their fathers house Where he was received of aged Camillo and his son not as a stranger but as one that had been of their near kindred and affinity
taken the advantage of the Pine to shrowd his weary body from the injury of Apollos heat but they entring in the midst of the thicket to draw as near him as they might hear the sound of his instrument rebound against the bushes wherof they were passing glad hoping that he would bewray his thoughts to the dumb trees and sencelesse bushes They therefore listening heard him sing in this manner Floribusnt plenum ver sic mea vita periclis Piscibus ut que fretum sic ego mille malis Adversis cumnâ—or cumulat ut hortus arenis Gaudia me fugiunt sorte petitque dolor My mind is void of mirth no joy my humor doth possesse No pastime doth avail nor sport my grief for to redresse No muse may move no song delight no no nor pleasure please No tune can touch no fancy like no toy can work my case No game no play no dance no shew no company at all No exercise no use of bow nor yet of boul or ball Ne Bacchus cups ne Ceres chear ne Venus looks unsure From wo to wantonnesse can now my pensive thoughts allure Care care doth waste my years though young and vex my youthful age And therefore since no worldly thing my dolour can asswage I am content because compeld where others laugh to weep At night a thousand thoughts resolve where others take their sleep After he had ended this Sonnet Perina his youngest sister séeing that he arose to depart thence whistled and so staied him For he marvelled who it should be but at length espied both his sisters coming towards him which wonderfully astonished him because they had never done the like before and curteously greeting them asked what the cause was of their coming thither Euphilia answered your self brother Perierio For though we have great regard of our own welfare quoth Perina yet we do not regard our selves onely but are as carefull of your fortune as of our own And therefore we quoth Euphilia marking and perceiving by your solitary walks that you were troubled with some grief or other and that some misfortune had happened unto you we were as sorry as if it had béen our own case This brother Perierio is the cause of our coming to see if we might come in knowledge of the evill which tormenteth your youth that it being known unto us might by our diligence and industry be remedied and amended Therefore brother conceal it not from us whatsoever it be and you shall find in us more then sister-like readinesse if more may be Ah loving sisters quoth Perierio I cannot enough thank you both for the love you bear me and in truth the onely cause that I have smothered my pain with silence not detecting it unto any of you hath been for that I was loath that you should be grieved for my sake and I wished nothing so much as that al the discontent and anguish of my evil should redound to no bodies grief but mine own And therefore sweet sisters if you love your selves and me also wish not to be acquainted with my sore least you suffer part of the pain But content your selves and look to the tranquility of your own hearts not tormenting your selves in my behalf But you be deceived herein brother Perierio quoth Euphilia For in thinking to free us from grief by concealing your evil you do amisse Know you not that they which are carefull of any mans welfare and so tenderly love him that they think themselves hurt if any ill light on him are continually compassed with fear if he be grieved thinking the cause thereof oftentimes to be far greater or worse then it is Quando ego non in tui graviora pericula veris And therefore brother you afflict our hearts with divers torments in concealing your evill from us whereas we can but feel one pain if we knew it For now the torment of suspition in suspecting divers things doth assail us of one side fearing sometimes one mischief sometimes another every one whereof woundeth our hearts with passing sorrow And fear maketh the assault of the other side causing us to imagine that the matter is far worse then it is Lastly hope troubleth us as much as suspicion or fear For though it be a motion of the mind of future luck or good to come and not of evill yet is it but a perturbation of the mind troubling and vexing it continually and he that hopeth enjoyeth not his hearts ease nor quietnesse of mind Why then sister quoth Perierio to rid you of all suspicion fear and hope know that I love and suspect no worse nor hope any better and ask we no more for I should not be able to answer you if you should be too inquisitive The reason is because I know not whom I love nor where she is whom I love And is it love quoth Perina that troubleth you Why then left you not this verse out of the Sonnet which you sung to the Cytharen but even now Ne Bacchus cups ne Ceres chear ne Venus looks unsure From wo to wantonnesse can now my pensive thoughts allure Well remembred sister Perina quoth Euphilia for if he be in love he must needs offer sacrifice to Venus and what but the unsure looks of Venus hath caused him to give over all pasture and mirth and live in passionate grief And yet he saith That Venus looks unsure could no way him allure How then can you love Perierio if you be not allured by be â—â—ty Very well sister quoth Perierio For though Venus be accounted the Goddesse of love in being mother to Cupid yet doth she comand no further then beauty stretcheth which is not the onely object that moveth men to love What think you not that vertue nobility excellency or wealth may move us to love Then you must confesse that I may love and yet not allured by Venus colours Neverthelesse know that beauty is the onely cause and motive of my love and yet do I not think that the verse which my sister Perina so well remembred was unfitly inserted among the other verses of my Sonnet For séeing that I loved and yet was bereft of all hope ever to injoy her whom I loved because I neither knew what she was nor where she was as I have already told you by reason whereof I wished no greater pleasure then grief nor better companion then wo and therefore might very well say that the unsure looks of Venus should not provoke my pensive thoughts from we to wantonnesse meaning not by Venus looks sincere and true love but wanton and voluptuous love CHAP. VII How Maffeo arrived at the place where Perierio and his sisters were how he was enamoured on the Lady Eleonora and departed with her into Spain AS Perina thought to reply she was interpelled by a certain Knight that came galloping towards the place where she Perierio and Euphilia sate being sorely wounded in divers places of his body his sword being drawn and holding a scarf
of silk almost in pieces in his left hand This Knight séeing Perierio and his sisters could not enough marvell that he had found shepheards so far surpassing in beauty And drawing near them he was so curteously saluted by them that he was amazed to have such an unlooked for Salve And requiting them with like curtesie asked them whether they had not seen any men riding that morning through the same wood Perierio answered no. And as the knight thought to take his leave of them Euphilia desiring to know what he was found occasion to stay him and therefore spake unto him in this manner Sir Knight it seemeth that you are sorely wounded by the abundance of bloud which hath issued out of sundry parts of your body and therefore I think it were not amisse if you should alight from your horse and tie up your wounds ere you travel on any further And for as much as we are far from any town or village if it will please you to take in good part such homely fare as my fathers country cottage can afford you shall find us ready to lead you thither and to welcome you to such chear as may content nature though it be not comparable to courtly dainties The Knight being very weary and fearing least he might incur extream danger if it should happen to be long are he might reach to some town though he was ashamed necessity forcing him thereto accepted of Euphilias offer thinking that God had sent him in that wood to méet with those curteous shepheards who beyond all expectation proffered him such friendship and succour he being a meer stranger unto them Therefore thanking them for their excéeding curtesie he did bear them company to their fathers house Where the old man rejoycing to see so comely a person by his son Perierio and his two daughters feasted the Knight in such manner that he easily might perceive that he was welcome After they had ended dinner Euphilia asked the Knight how he had gotten all those wounds and what ill fortune had brought him into such danger Whereupon the Knight began to make this discourse of his tragedy Gentle shepheards to the end that you may know that you have the miserablest man in the world before your eyes here present with you I will as briefly declare you the history of all my life as I may so I be not troublesome unto you to hear the tragicall events happened unto me since my cradle I am loath to give you any cause of grief But séeing that it pleaseth you to know the cause of this my mishap I hold my self bounden to pleasure you and do according to your desire And to be as little tedious as I possible may I will use as much brevity as the greatnesse of the matter will permit me Know therefore gentle shepheards that fortune threatening me bad luck began to lower on me before I came into the world for she conspired my death before I was born You must note how that my father before I was born had no children but his brothers son was his adopted heir and should have inherited all his lands had he died without issue So that this adopted heir having intelligence that my mother was big with child very carefulâ—y wâ—ited for the time that she should fall in travell which hour being approached he corrupted the midwife with a great sum of money to smother me at my first entry into this world and to spoil me of my life before I perfectly lived But no fortune would reserve me to worser events and I was not so happy to be dealt withall as my unkind cousin had appointed For the midwife being pricked with remorse of conscience and overcome with pity could not find in her heart to stifle me in her hands when as I was committed to her to be tenderly handled and looked to with all the care and diligence that might be but she invented another manner to content Silvestro for so was my cousin named which was secretly to steal me from my parents and to convey me into the house of a poor labouring man whose wife was wont to serve for nurse unto such poor mens wives as for weaknesse or sicknesse could not bring up their own children about twenty miles from the place where my parents dwelled which was the renowned City of Constantinople my father at that time being generall governour over the same City The Midwife made the same poor labouring man and his wife believe that I was son unto one of her cousins that she had in the abovenamed City being called Bradasso and therefore willed them to take all the care and diligence that might be in fostring me as a child ought to be and that she would accordingly reward them as ste did for she payed them duly wéek by wéek as long as she lived Thinking her fault more excusable seeing she caused me to be brought up with part of the money which she took of my cousin to spoil me of my life I omit for brevities sake what grief my parents suffered for the loue of their long desired sonne especially becauâ—e they knâ—w not what was become of me but they thought nothing so â—uâ—e as that I was dead and that the midwife would not let them know of it least they should have been too suddenly oppressed with such sorrowfull news When I was thrée years old or thereabout the midwife died such a sudden kind of death that she could not take order with my nurse for me The nurse therefore having intelligence of her death fearing least she should kéep me for nothing which she was not able to do being a very poor woman borrowed her neighbours horse and rode with me to the City of Constantinople where at the midwifes she inquired for the same Bradasso whose child she thought it was this Bradasso being a young man of some four or five and twenty years of age and unmarried swore by all that he might that he never had to do with woman in his life time so far as to gâ—t her with child Whereof the woman wonderfully amazed wist not what she should do with me And so poor Maffeo for that is my unfortunate name was become a bastard that had neither rathâ—r or mother that would know him or receive him as their child and yet had both father and mother who would have thought themselves to be the happiest parents that lived under the vâ—â—l of heâ—â—en if they had found their own beloved infant whom they thought to be dead long since But my cousin being informed by the rumor spread through the City that a child nourished thrée or four years by the industry of such a midwife could find neither father nor mother after the same midwife was dead began to calculate the time of my birth and finding it to be full just at the time that the nurse avouched that I was brought unto her remembred that the midwife had told him that she had dispatched the
beséech you to tell me whether it will please you to command me any service for I must hast homeward None other quoth she but that thou thank him for his present and give him this from me which is no lesse worth then his and so I do owe him nothing Wherewith she reached me a Hat that was sent her father from a Spanish Duke being a most costly Iewel I therefore taking my leave she bid me farewell adding this clause to shut up her Vale Molest me no more for thy master do for thy self what thou wilt Maffeo To be short I returned unto my master with such answer as Eleonora commanded me But I began to be so love-sick that I knew not how it was possible that a man might be so greatly altered and so wonderfully changed in so short a time Within a few days after my master had prepared a letter to be sent to Elconora which I put in my pocket and walked up and down the streets not far from the place where she dwelled and when I thought good I returned home with such answer as my brains could invent and so I served my master obeying the command of Eleonora Who was so fixed in my heart that I could not be separated from the thought of her beauty and excellency one minute of an hour And though I sought by all means possible to extinguish the fire that consumed me least at length it might grow to an unquenchable flame al helped not I strove against the stream and to go about to root out the sparkles of love was as hard a matter for me as it were to any man to pluck the stars out of the christaline orb wherein they be sixed Therefore at length not able to endure any longer I wrote Eleonora a Letter to this effect Maffeo to Elonora LAdy the extream pain which my overburthened heart doth fuffer causeth me to let you understand the greatness thereof I was in liberty but you have brought me into bondage I mean of the mind I was free from those butchers the affections which torture the hearts of men but now by you am delivered into the hands of those cruell vexations which so poster my passionate heart that I am forced to flie unto your mercy Pity therefore your poor Maffeo least he die who if he hath been too bold in bewraying his grief and torment unto you hopeth himself to be excused in that your self are the cause thereof Farewell Lady and think on poor Maffeo She had no sooner received my Letter but she sent me this bitter answer which she did but to try my constancy as afterwards it very well appeared The contents were such Eleonora to base Maffeo I Perceive Maffeo that baseness and fondness strive in thy heart for superiority of which foolish strife I mean not to be an arbitress Could you find no fitter person then my self to part the fray Poor â—wad could thy tongue pronounce in my presence which thy heart cannot perceive in mine absencee and cannot you with deep study having had all this time attain to the knowledge of my humour whereas notwithstanding extempore you gave so right a censure of my vein When Eleonora mocketh thou must not imagine that she meaneth and when she jesteth thou must not think that she is in earnest As for the loss of thy liberty not I but thy base ignorance and dul wit is the cause thereof But grant I were do always they that imprison set at liberty No many are taken by one and delivered by another Leave thy fondness Maffeo least I have cause to hate thee for I may not love thee I bid the farewell for I wish thee no evill And therefore take heed thou offer me no occasion thereto Ye may suppose gentle shepheards how coldly that letter comforted distressed Maffeo when he expected the sentence of life or death But then I perceived that she had but mocked with me when she used her merry prittle prattle unto me in her chamber at her own house yet ceased not to burn and fry in the furious flames of my burning passions and so remained as long as I could striving against love like a valiant champion and passed over two moneths in continual skirmishes against Cupid but alasse who was compelled to yéeld at length but I that fought against a God of such force and puissance insomuch that I chose rather to die then to live without the love of Eleonora and in all hast dispatched another letter which I secretly conveyed unto her the meaning where of was much to this purpose Maffeo to Eleonora LAdy I am loath to molest you and yet cannot chuse but trouble you Love hath so conquered the bulwark of my heart that I have determined to offer my life for your service I know that Eleonora did mock and doth now disdain but I am forced to suffer and am ready to die because both mocked and disdained by her in whom my life consisteth And therefore though by fortune I am base as you urged yet by nature I find the contrary in that noble Eleonora is the subject of my restless thoughts You willed me to take heed lest I should give you occasion to hate me if I do though it grieve me yet I cannot help it Nevertheless so you give me leave to love you I shall be content though you hate me Farewell Vnto this Letter she sent me no answer but it happened within two or three days after that she had read it that I had occasion to passe through the stréet where she dwelled she séeing me and sitting in the dore alone called me unto her and brake forth into these bitter words Why Maffeo thinkest thou not that thou doest me displeasure enough to trouble me with thy odious letters but must you also fret me with the sight of thy ignominious person I have wished these two days that I might sée thee to cast out all the anger and spight unto which thou hast moved me upon thée But séeing thou hast vowed thy life to my service I mean to try thy faithfulnesse and obedience and yet desire not to have thy life I command thee therefore to carry this letter unto thy master Sylvestro but I will allow thee to read it before I seal it With that she felt in her pocket and with her hand in colour like to Juno when she braved the Quéen of love for the golden apple before the Troyan youth drew forth the letter and bid me read it The meaning I remember to be such Eleonora to Sylvestro THe knavery of your Maffeo hath given me occasion to use your service Sylvestro Therefore if I may be so bold with you I would intreat you to punish his knavish sawciness for because he seeth I make little account of his masters feigned love he offereth me letters wherein he painteth his own passions I have admonished and warned him to leave his peevishnesse but seeing he despiseth my warning let him fear your threatening
question Now I am to request you to give me leave to follow on my journey for until I find Eleonora I cannot rest And so Maffeo thanking them for their courteous entertainment took his leave and departed Now therefore leaving him to séek Eleonora we will proceed in rehearsing the successe of Perierio his strange love CHAP. IX How Perierio resolved to travel in search of the Lady on whom he was enamoured and how he obtained leave of his father under pretence of becomming a Scholler PErierio being intreated by his sisters to tell them whom he loved though he could not name her for that he knew her not yet he let them know as much as he could tell and declared the whole matter unto them how he met with that Lady by chance how that she asked him his name and country and how therewith she conveyed her self out of sight on the sudden Euphilia and Perina were very sorry that their brothers love was of such a kind that it might not be remedied but by giving over love For it was altogether casual and accidentary neither might they hope that ever he might enjoy his love for that there was nothing lesse like yea it séemed rather impossible For they considered first that he had never séen the Lady before that time nor after by reason whereof though he chanced to sée her perchance should not know her Secondly they marked that he knew not her name her parents or Country to enquire after her so that the nearest place he knew where he might find her was the world and the properest individium to denominate her was a certain woman And lastly they perpended that she sought for some other Knight who had her heart in hold and therefore a very hard matter though Perierio should find her to obtain her love All this considered and weighed they sought to root love out of Perierio his brest which Cupid had so pierced with his dart that all the perswasions of the world could not serve to extinguish the fire which was kindled in his heart and increased more and more dayly In so much that the fire being enflamed and beginning to torment him with insupportable pain he determined to commit himself and his case to Fortune hoping that as the cause of his grief was accidentary so the effect might by chance be redressed and remedied Perierio thus resolved asked and obtained leave though with much adde of his aged father to travel into far countries to sée and learn such things as a young Gentleman ought to know alledging that there was nothing more peremptory to youth then to passe over those years which are apt to comprehend and learn in foul obscurity of ignorance In so much that a young man that will live in credit and reputation ought to travel into strange countries to be acquainted with forreign manners and governments to learn tongues to haunt Vniversities and insinuate himself into the company of learned men All this Father quoth Perierio is necessary for them that will have their lives famous and death honourable Old Camillo replied with Horace Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mane currunt Men change not their manners but the aire that run from country to country Perierio And therefore I am not of their opinion that believe that men by far travelling from home can attain to wisdome and humane prudence For I think that that is not gotten by running into far Countries or by living in exile farre from home but rather by communication and conversation of wise men Yet Perierio séeing that here in this multitude of shepheards little wisdome is to be learned or little profit to experience and prudence to be reaped I and content that thou go to the Vniversity of Salamanca which is within this kingdom and there to repeat such rudiments as thou hast begun at Rome that thou mayst afterward be apt to greater studies and to exorn and beautifie thy mind with the brightness of the liberal Sciences which are the lights of humane understanding Lastly also to fense thy mind with wise and sage precepts of Phylosophy that after thou hast attained to the knowledge of natural things thou maist use moral Philosophy to moderate thy affections and to follow that which thou knowest to be honourable and profitable shunning the contrary Then art thou fully armed to passe forward to travel into other countries to be acquainted with strange customes or to learn diverse tongues otherwise what profiteth it to have coursed through sundry and strange regions and to have séen many kingdomes and manners of divers Nations if he that travelleth wanteth the ripeness of wit and judgement to reap profit by his being abroad Therefore Perierio think not that I disallow of travelling but would have them that take that course not to have their stomacks empty but first guard themselves with the knowledge of Philosophy and humanity and furnish themselves with provision necessary to such journeying For I remember that Homer and Virgil to describe and form an heroical man adorned with all vertues fained that Ulysses and Aeneas had travelled through all the world and not thinking this sufficient they fained that they descended into hell and went into the Elizian Fields and knew those that were in them Perierio hearing his father alledge such points as made for his purpose was excéeding glad at length obtained his Fathers good will to leave the countrey and rustick company of Shepheards to haunt the comely and seemly conversation of Schollers though his mind was more moved to his Lady then to the Vniversity whither old Camilla determined to send him And although Euphilia and Perina knew the colour wherwith he painted the occasion of his travelling yet they reserved the whole sorrow to themselves without declaring it to their father fearing lest he should be discouraged and discomforted thereby that he might hinder his health and for grief fall into sickness considering that old age is so subject to diseases that the least cause in the world of discontent is sufficient to subvert the estate of health in an aged person CHAP. X. How Perierio in his journey met with the fair Shepherdess Ismenia with whom he departed towards the Temple of Diana PErierio lifted up with the wings of hope in a manner doubted not but his fortune would be more favourable then she had been taking his leave of his father and his sisters he betook himself to his journy intending to go to the Vniversity of Salamanea as his father wished but in such order that he would take the néerest way about to sée if Fortune would once again favour him with that sight which made such an impression in his heart that neither continuance of time nor contrariety of thought was able to rase out the print thereof Thus Perierio having travelled six dayes through Woods dales bushes gréens medows hills valies and other solitary place and yet had not met with that which he sought nor séen any likelihood
fall of the Sommer Now you are hard as a rock and cruel but when you shall be overtaken with age then shall you want the liberty and force wherewith now you disdain me For this is the revenge which love taketh of you that he then bringeth you into deadly pain and torments when hope beginneth to fail you Filene sent me this Letter and many more with other Songs and Sonnets wherewith if I had bin as greatly moved as contented and delighted he had Iudged himself happy and had been ill wedded but it was impossible to finde any where means whereby the picture and image of my beloved Lexander might be rased out of my heart For he so pleased me and was so constant and perfect in love that his wil and mine was but one will his word and mine one word and his heart and mine one heart Never did he perform less in deed then in word he promised His doings were alwaies correspondent to his sayings And as for me what Lexander liked I could not mislike and whatsoever displeased him was horrible to Ismenia In this pleasant life and sweet concord having passed certain years we purposed to confirm and establish our content and to signe our wished desire with the seale of honest and chaste marriage And although Lexander before he would take me to his wife intended to speak unto his father first and to ask his consent as it beséemed an obedient son to do yet when I had advertised him how that his father would not be willing to agrée unto that match by reason of the foolish desire he had himself to take me in marriage he estéeming more of his own content and the estate of his own life then of his due obeysance towards his father concealed the matter So that this unfortunate marriage was made with the consent and good will of my father at whose house the wedding was kept where there was such feasts games sports and pastimes held in respect of our marriage that it was spoken of in all the Boroughs and Villages thereabout When the amorous old man knew that his own son had deprived him of his love he became so furious against Lexander and me that he hated us both and abhorred us worse then death it self in such manner that he would never after sée us or come néer us On the other side a certain shepheardess of the same vilage called Felisarde who so fancied Lexander that she almost fell mad for love of him who made no account of her by reason that he loved me so well and because she was an elderly Maid and nothing well complexioned séeing that he whom she so dearly loved had wedded me almost fell into dispair In so much that our marriage bred us two deadly enemies The angry old man to have occasion to disinherit his son determined to marry some fair young woman by whom he might have children but though he was excéeding rich yet all the shepheards of our country disdained to be married unto him except Felisarde onely who to have opportunity to allure my husband to her unlawfull and dishonest lust for she had not as yet forgotten the love of Lexander willingly took old Filene to her husband She had not long time béen married but she began to practise meanes to gain the love of my husband and for that intent she sent a Maid that served her called Sylveria unto Lexander to tell him that if he would grant her her will she would obtain pardon for him from his father and besides she would do him much pleasure and shew him great favour but she could never corrupt him with all her large proffers and fair promises to consent to her wicked wil wherefore she considering that she was so despised and so little regarded of Lexander began mortally to hate him and endevoured continually to move her husband more and more to indignation against his son Neither was she content with that but determined also to practise a strange and villanous treason against us both for she had in such a maner won the heart of Sylveria her maid by reason of her flattering promises and other favours which she had done her that she was ready to do whatsoever she would have her although it had been against Lexander whom she respected for the time that she had served in his fathers house So that they secretly consulted among themselves how they might be revenged of me and at the hour appointed for the execution thereof Sylveria went forth of the Village and comming to a certain Gréen néere the River where Lexander used to féed his shéep she stepped unto him and with a troubled countenance as if she had some matter of great importance to tell him spake unto him in this maner Ah Lexander how well and prudently have you done in eschuing the love of your wicked mother in law unto which although I sometimes encited you yet know that I did so by reason of her importunate requests but now I know how the matter standeth she shall not be able any more to make me the messenger of her dishonesties I am acquainted with some of her secrets that concern her nearly and are such that if you knew them although your father be so cruell unto you yet would you not leave to hazard your life for his honour I will not say any more because I know you to be so wise and indued with such discretion that it shall not be necessary for me to use many words and reasons in your behalf Lexander being astonished to hear her talk in this order misdoubted some dishonesty of his step-mother But to know the truth and to be throughly informed he desired Sylveria openly to shew him all the matter and to let him hear what it was that she knew of Fehsarde her mistresse At first she would be prayed séeming to be unwilling to disclose a matter so secret but at length she declaring that unto Lexander which he demanded of her and which she so greatly desired to tell him stuffed him with a lie most notably well forged and contrived Saying and considering that it is a matter of great weight both unto your self and your father Filene in like manner to know that which I know I will most plainly declare it unto you assuring my self that you will not let any man know how that I have discovered this secret unto you You shall understand that your mother in law Felisarde hath purposed to defile your fathers bed with a certain shepheard whose name I will not tell you séeing it lyeth in you to know him if you please for if you will come this evening and enter into that place where I will lead you you shall finde the Traitress with the Adulterer in your fathers house for they have so appointed it because that Filene your father doth this night lye abroad and doth not returne till to morrow about midday by reason of certain affaires moving him thereto Therefore prepare your self
if you will follow my counsaile and about eleven of the clock at night come unto me to our house where I will bring you to the place where you may easily do that which you shall think convenient for the honor and credit of your father and by meanes whereof you may also be reconciled unto him Sylveria said all this dissembling so cunningly that Lexander resolved to put himself in danger to be revenged of him that thought so fouly to dishonour his father And thus the traitress Sylveria glad that she had deceived my husband by the counsel of Felisarde returned home to let Felisarde know the effect of her talk with Lexander and what he appointed to do CHAP. IX How Lexander through the treachery of Felisarde and Sylveria would have slain his father and what ensued thereon THe obscure night had not so soon vayled the aire with the curtain of darkness but Lexander comming to the Village and taking a dagger which he had gotten by the decease of his Vncle Palemon went just at eleven of the clock at night to his fathers house where Sylveria expected him according as they had ordained Where was ever such treason seen Or where such malice thought She took him by the innocent hand and ascending the staires as softly as they might she led him to the chamber doore where Filene his father lay with Felisarde asleep when she had brought him there she said Lo Lexander now are you in place where you ought to have your heart and hand required in such a case Enter into this chamber and ther◠you shal finde your step-mother in bed with the adulterer With that she got away and retired as swift as she could Lexander being deceived by that dissembling traitress gave faith to her words and incouraging himself drew his Punyard and having thrust open the doore with his foot entered into the Chamber like a furious man and being inraged with a loud voyce uttered these words Traytor I will presently make thée dye the loves of Felisarde shall but little availe thée nay they shall be the cause of thy death and ruine And so saying altogether enraged and not knowing who was in bed with Felisarde his stepmother lifted up his hand to clap his weapon into his fathers brest but as Fortune would have it old Filene knew his son by reason of the light which was in the chamber and thinking that Lexander purposely came to kill him because he had so ill used him both in word and déed sate upright in his bed and crossing his arms spake thus unto Lexander Ah my son what cruelty moveth thee to become the butcher of thy natural father Call your judgement and enter into your wits again and seek not to shed my blood or tearm my life with so tragical an end For if I have been something rigorous unto you and unnaturally dealt with you being my son I crave pardon intending to become most favourable unto you ever hereafter When Lexander perceived the treason of Sylveria which had almost been cause that he had slain his own father he fell into such an extasie that his force failed him and his dagger fell out of his hand without his knowledge for he was so amazed of the treason which he had committed against his father had not God provided the contrary that he could not feel his weapon drop out of his hand but altogether troubled and confounded like a man that was bereft of all his sences went presently out of the chamber and out of his house Felisarde knowing what should chance that night watched for the comming of Lexander who was no sooner entred in the chamber but she leaping out of her bed fled into a more inward and back room where barring up the door she fréed and exempted her self from the fury and anger of Lexander But when she saw that he was departed and by reason thereof she out of danger returning to her bed where Filene lay trembling at the peril which he had so wonderfully escaped she began to stir up her husband against Lexander his son exclaiming in this manner O Filene now may you sée what a son you have and know that to be most true which I so often have admonished you concerning his evil nature and inclination O cruel Lexander O traytor Lexander how commeth it to passe that Heaven doth not confound thée why doth not the earth open and swallow thée up into her bowels why do not the brute beasts tear thée to pieces and why do not all men persecute thee and punish thee according to thy heinous actions Accursed be thy mariage accursed be thy disobeisance accursed be thy loves and accursed be thy Ismenia séeing that she hath inticed thée to execute such a cruel act and abhominable déed Ah Traitor thou hast not chastised the shepheard Alanio who unto thy great dishonour and shame hath dishonestly haunted and entertained thy wife Ismenia whom she loveth better then thy self and yet thou wouldest kill massacre thy owne father who alwayes hath made great account of thy life honor and credit Ah unhappy father Ah unfortunate old man what fault hast thou committed so great as to be slain and murthered by thy son by him whom thou hast engendred whom thou hast brought up and nourished And for whom thou hast suffered a thousand troubles Now therfore take heart cease henceforth to bear him any more love or affection commit him to the rigor of the law that he may be punished as he hath deserved for if he that hath committed so execrable an offence escape due punishment every disobedient child will be emboldened and unfearful and thine at length will in good earnest lay hands on thée to shorten the course of thy odious life Sorrowful and troubled Filene altogether amazed and fearful hearing his wives voyce and weighing the horrible treason which his son had thought to commit upon his person became so angry that taking up the dagger which Lexander as I told you had let fall out of his hand went forth as soon as the day appeared to assemble the Iustices of peace and chiefest of the Village together in the criminal Court where he with aboundance of teares flowing out of his eyes spake unto them in this manner I call God to witnesse most excellent shepheards that I am so grieved with that which I am to declare unto you that I greatly fear lest my spirit and breath faile me before I have opened the matter unto you Especially séeing it is such that I may be estéemed most cruel in that I publikely complain of my son expounding his misdeeds and wickednes unto you which being so strange that I know not how it may be accordingly punished and chastised I beseech you to see what is convenient to be done in this case to prescribe him such and so just a punishment that other children may thereby take a manifest example how to behave themselvs towards their parents Ye know very well that
which otherwise I should suffer for the absence of Periander How far do you run beyond reason for I will have you know that such love as you talk of yea the very memory thereof onely should be a whetstone to sharpen my grief seeing there is nothing more painful or odious unto me than that which draweth my mind from thinking on Periander and encumbereth my thoughts with matters taking away the remembrance of Periander thinking no time il spent but that wherein I shed not tears for Periander Therefore cease to molest me seeing the sum of your delight consisteth in pleasing me After Massicourt had received this Letter he durst not so often molest me Northelesse of purpose he came divers times to the Court preasing near the privy chamber to have occasion to speak with me but I could watch him as well to shun him as he could watch me to talk with me In so much that since I wrâ—te him that Letter I spake with him but once at which time I so sharply rebuked his importunity seeing that no mild or courteous spéeches could serve that a long time he absented himself from the Court. At length when I thought surely that I had been altogether rid of such a troublesome sutor on the sudden he greeted me upon a certain morning being but newly risen And although I was alone yet I was so angry that I turned my face from him and would not speak unto him This happened to my remembrance twice or thrice after which time I saw him no more But about thrée weeks after a little casket covered with a cloth of gold was brought me whereon there was written this inscription in golden letters My Supreme will and pleasure is that this be given to Dutchesse Brisil I marvelling what that meant asked the messenger who sent it or to what end To which he answered that he that sent it is not now but living was called Sir Massicourt Who being in his chamber quoth the messenger this morning willed me to go into the next room till he called me and that I should presently carry the casket which I should find upon the table to Duâ—hesse Brisil when I had stayed there three or four hours I marvelled what my master did there so long alone and péeping through the crease of the chamber door I saw him lie breathless on the ground and so amazed I stepped in and found this casket what is in it I know not and so the messenger being Sir Massicourts chamberlain departed I opening the casket found a dagger all bloudy on the blade whereof was this message ingraven in such small letters that I could scarce read it Go tell the Queen that in my heart inthron'd Doth sway the scepter of my haughty mind That thou hast pierct the seat whereon she sate And overcome the Kingdome which she rul'd That thou hast massacred that Massicourt Whereover she so proudly tyranniz'd That thou hast drowned all his thoughts in bloud Who loved her as never wight was lov'd That thou hast rid him from her cruell face Who prais'd her beauty to the sovereign skies That thou hast sent him to the groves of hell That deem'd his heaven consisted in her grace That thou hast ended his exceeding pain Whose grief her mercy would not mittigate And that thou hast his torment finished Whom she for cruel caused to dispair This do and let the colour of thy coat Give to the butcher of my death a note In what case I was loving shepheards after I had read that message and béen informed of that rufull tragedy I will not now declare For the sorrow which I conceived for the end of Massicourt was incredible Besides what a suddain rumor was spread through the Court of his death you may consider insomuch that I need not to stand upon that point But I will passe on to the rest of my misery For within thrée or four moneths after the decease of sir Massicourt I got a stronger enemy to my content then Massicourt for the King himself though he was above fifty years of age solicited me to give over all remembrance of his son and yéeld to his request which was to become his wife and be crowned with the diadem of Albion Yet could not that precious object alter the mind of Brisil or any whit in her diminish the memory of Periander But the King knowing that he might command when he perceived that I could not be induced by prayers fair words lofty promises and other allurements to grant his sute soon used the tyranous sentence of all those that may do what they will Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas And thought to try whether he could by threatnings and menaces obtain that which by fair means I would not consent unto but all could not help for except death onely nothing could take from me that faith and promise which I made to Periander And whilest the King I thus strove he in loving I in hating a letter was brought to the Court from the King of Spain wherein he informed the King that his son Periander was with him intending to be in Albion with his father and loving Brisil very shortly But that he had sent a messenger before his coming that they should be informed of his health and fortune could scarce believe it but that they saw it was manifest séeing the Prince Periander had written that Massicourt was by the Pylot Barsalis cast over-board and yet notwithstanding he complained not of Barsalis but agréed with him in the report of the tempest which was none Besides that love which he bore me was sufficient proof of his treason For he sent us the whole declaration of the treason practised by Barsalis against him He also informed us how he had heard of the Quéen his mothers death whereof he was very sorry The King having received these Letters at the first was glad that his son was living and caused Barsalis to be apprehended who with a little racking confessed the whole matter and appeached the Admirals son that was dead as the Author and cause of all that he had executed Whereat the whole world so marvelled that they could scarce beleeve it And whereas many had pitied the Knights lamentable and tragical end now they judged him rewarded according to his deserts And I for my part was so inraged against him that if he had yet lived I beleeve I had with my owne hands wrung his head from his shoulders for he was the cause of all my calamities The King caused Barsalis to be hanged and quartered and in the place where Massicourt that politick traytor was buried did he command a gibbet to be set up reaching over his Tombe and this written on the top of it in great letters Here lieth entomb'd a Knight of ancient fame An Earls son Sir Massicourt by name This Knight for love an heinous treason tri'd Yet could not help he pierc'd his heart and di'd He was
no traitor known till clad in clay This Gibbet here was set it to bewray For the King was terribly enraged when he had heard this strange kind of treason which was the cause that now he loved her whom he had wedded to his son and hated him whom he was by Nature bound to love For lest Periander should return into Albion and marry with me whom he would have to be his wife the King forgetting both the law of Nature and Honesty wrote unto the King of Spain that his Son Periander was guilty of treason against his own person being his Father and therefore desired him upon all friendship and the alliance that had a long time béen between the Kingdomes of Spain and Albion to keep his son close prisoner and to let him be used as hardly as any of all the other Captives which were in his Kingdome or Domions When I had heard what answer the King had returned by the Embassadors of Spain my heart was ready to burst And I was minded divers times to dispatch my self with one of my garters thinking that by my death I should deliver Periander from imprisonment and move the Kings mind to use his son as he ought to do But I know not how I was always so falsly allured with hope that I continually abstained from shortening my life and thereby prolonged my misery You shall therefore understand that I got one of the Embassadors Pages to carry a Letter from me unto Periander and to deliver it secretly into his own hands which the youth promised that he would accomplish though it should cost him his life and to reward his readinesse and to make him the willinger and carefuller to discharge his duty I gave him twentie crowns to drink The Letter was written to this effect Brisilla to the Prince Periander SWeet Periander the joy which poor Brisil conceived when she heard of her Periander was too great to be of long continuance and even as the herb that groweth and fadeth in one hour so the mirth that possessed my soul was in a moment expelled and banished You accused the Pylot Barsalis but you might rather have cursed the traytor Massicourt as the chief cause and first beginning of all our sorrows for the furious love hypocriticaf friendship and malitious policie of that unhappie Knight hath wrought first his own ruine and therewith our adversitie How miserable and unhappy art thou Periander that thy own natural father hateth thee How unfortunate that thy parent conspireth against thee And how unluckie that he who ought to be thy chief friend is become thy enemy Nay rather how wretched is distressed Brisil that unhappie Periander must be thus miserable unfortunate and unluckie for her sake Ah Periander could my captivity set thee at liberty how pleasantly and how willingly should the world see me run to the Prison and yeeld my leg to the Stocks or Iron Gyves Nay might the dearest bloud that succoureth my faithful heart purchase thy ransome from imprisonment and obtain thee thy souls desire how soon should my breast offer it self to my knife to be set a broach and to have a passage made into the inmost part thereof But no the Gods and fortune envy at me too greatly to suffer me to injoy so great happinesse If no man can or dare tel you the cause of your fathers suddain wrath against you know that I have found means to rid you of that doubt and to let you understand that accursed Brisil is the occasion thereof though she had rather die then live to see thee wronged The King thy father will be married to Brisil and therefore must Periander be banished which is more imprisoned among strangers far from home But assure thy self Periander that I will rather die then undo that which is knitted with my faith and bound with my honor If you can patiently endure your imprisonment perswade your self that I will couragiously abide my martyrdome Which for that as it cannot but be the crown of mine honour so also is like to be the cause of my releasement I wish that it may happen with all speed That Brisil being lifeless and forgotten Periander may be reconciled to his father return to his country and injoy his pleasure untill the decease of the King then to be crowned with the glorious title of King of Albion And thus faithfull Brisil biddeth thee farewell lamenting nothing so much as that she was not in the galley by you to row for you and bear all the travel that you by reason of her were constrained to suffer among them unnaturall Moors and galley slaves Adieu Thine and therefore thy self miserable Brisilla This Letter I had no sooner delivered to the Page but Embassadours departed from the Court having taken their leave of the King and embarked themselves the next day after to return into Spain When they were gone the King sent for me and asked me whether I was not yet resolved to love him séeing he hated his own son for love of me Whereunto I answered that if his Majesty loved me indéed he would likewise love his son séeing that I loved none but his son nor could not love any other as long as I lived But to be short and as little tedious loving shepheards as I possibly may after we had reasoned and argued together the space of a full hour he in protesting how intirely he loved me and that he could not live unless he enjoyed Brisil as his Quéen and I in defending that I might not love him nor live if I break my promise made to his son in his presence and by his consent at length he burst out into these raging words Proud Brisil and ungrateful Duches thou despisest the high offers of a King and contemnest the love of a Monarch that governeth a whole Kingdome And thinkest thou not that I cannot command thée séeing an huge people is ruled by me I promise thee that I will teach thee not to say nay when I demand and to be ready to grant when I request Therefore know that thou shalt be married unto me wilt thou or wilt thou not and the Marriage day shall be the ninth day after to morrow See then that thou prepare thy self against that day to condescend to my pleasure lest thou wilt rue thy stubborn hardneckedness And with that he turned from me into the next chamber and left me poor distressed wight ready to yield up the ghost at the sound of his conclusion But snatching hope by the subject I thought either the Kings minde might before the appointed day be altered or fit opportunity offered me to escape his tyranny by flight But neither I could in time get away nor the King had forgotten his intent But the day which he had appointed for the Wedding being come and all things in a readinesse sent for me I although I did not well know what to do yet râ—sting upon this point rather to die then to forsake Periander and
Pilot that he should not resist their pleasure for they would do it and were forced to do it by the straight command of their King Whereupon I told our Pilot this tale that they were the King of Albions searchers that scoured up and down the Seas to see if they could meet with any Ship that carried such wares out of the countrey as were not granted or licenced by the king and that because they suspected that the Merchants that were in that Ship had unpriviledged wares they would for that purpose make search for them and if they found none they would not any longer hinder them of their undertaken voyage The Pilot willingly let them come aboord the Bark though the Merchants thought verily that they had been Pyrates and used that colour to obtaine their prey the easier But they found themselves deceived for after the Albion Lords had throughly searched the Ship they returned into their Pinace again without offering the least injury in the world to the Spaniards whereof they were glad and I gladder having escaped the danger which Fortune seemed to threaten me And in few dayes after being speedily arrived at the wished Haven my Master took post horse for himself and me and we rode to Sivil in which City my Periander lay imprisoned And now I began to wish my self released from the subjection of my Master for he imployed me in so many matters that I could not perform my duty towards him accordingly and withall have time and occasion to obtain my desire concerning Periander wherefore I sought all means possible to be rid of my Master who was loth to part from me At length I feined my self to be sick that I could neither eat nor drink nor stand on my feet but kept my bed and being asked by him what I ailed or what sickness I had I made as if I durst not tell him at length seeing he was so importunate to know I told him it was the plague whereof he was so affraid that he would put me into an Hospital among the diseased but I intreated him that he would rather leave me to mine own shift then to place me among the diseased promising that if I escaped death I would returne into his service before any other And though he was loth to let me go where I should want looking unto yet séeing that I had rather have died then be carried to an Hospital he gave me thrée or four pieces of gold and sent me packing wishing that I might fare well I thanked him for his kindness and the Gods for my liberty And now I began marvellously to long for the sight of my onely comfort Periander who little knew that I was so neer him But I could scarce imagine how I might come to him and avoid all suspition For I feared lest the King should have misdoubted of my intent and therefore have written unto the King of Spain to make search whether I were in his countrâ—y but especially to watch whether any came unto Periander knowing that if I were in Spain it was to come to him The consideration whereof made me so carefull and so wary that I looked before I leaped and did nothing but being forethought So that I passed by the prison where Periander lay every day once or twice and sometimes more often to see what likelihood there was that I might come néer him I espied the manner of the prison the condition of the Gaolor the estate of those that frequented his company At length I became so impatient that I could not abide any longer delay and therefore began to invent some deceit or other to beguile the kéepers and come to the spéech of Periander First I purposed to apparel my self like some Italian Gentleman and so to have asked the Gaolor leave to speak unto the Albion Prince but that séemed not the safest way Afterwards I thought to go like a Brittish beggar thinking that they would have brought me to talk with the Brittish Prince to take pleasure at our strange parley And this liked me worse for so I might have easily béen entrapped At last I found no better meanes then to counterfeit my self to be an Egyptian Prophet and Fortune-teller So that I went into the stréet where the prison stood and a good way off as I had not thought to come néer the prison I began to sing an Egyptian enchantment and I did so counterfet the â—une thereof though knew not my self what sence my Sonnet inferred that the Spaniards thought me an upright Egyptian and having ended my Song a number of Youths Maids women and men also came flocking about me holding up their hands to know their fortune I as cunningly as I could held the devill a candle and told them many good morrowes and evil evenings as I often have heard that the Egyptian figure Castres used to do to deceive the world yet nevertheles I used the matter so that they were content of their fortune and liked me the better But I was so haled and pulled from one place to another that I knew not how I might content them all At length I was fetched by the Maids that dwelt with the Gaolor and his daughters to come thither whither I went willingly for that was my cause of my practised sorcery and there was the man whose fortune made me become a fortune-teller To be short the Maids of the house led me into a yard where they might secretly talk with me and ask me questions concerning their fortunes But it chanced that my good hap was such that I espied Periander out of a window reaching unto the yard where we were but alack I spied that renowned mirrour of beauty fair Florina the daughter of the King of Spain standing by him who entangled in the snare of fancy and fettered in the pleasant contemplation of Perianders beauty so loved him that she corrupted the Gaolor with sums of money to use her Love not as a strange prisoner but rather as a worthy guest whom she also in proper person sometimes visited to asswage his sorrow which sight so amazed me that I could not tel what I said to the Maids desirous to know their fortune I felt a kind of soothing pleasure créep into the veins of my heart for the presence of my friend on the other side a fearful kind of grief possessed my soul for thâ—t I was acquainted with his company mistrusting whether poor Brisil was committed to the winds raised out of the heart of Periander by the matchless curtesies which he received of fair Florina but not suspend you with my long and endlesse discourse loving shepheards know that fair Florina espying what dealings I had with the Iaylors daughter as new sick as the rest willed the Iaylor to bring me into the chamber where she was with Periander to learn what cunning I had Therefore I being led by the Iaylor before her saluted her and her company with all the humility I could
but yet in such order that my besmouged chéeks were died with a vermilion red at the sight of Periander But Florina imputing the change of my hue to shamefastnesse and thinking I being a simple swad was abashed to sée my self in their presence bid me come néer her boldly saying she meant to be my patient to sée whether I knew by the lineaments of her hâ—nd what Fortune she had and was like to have Imagine gentle shepheards what mind I had either to tell her fortune or to give her an answer being in that case yet taking all the courage that in such extremity could cleave to my heart I said My skill is too small to conjecture of so high constellations for I hold opinion that the destinies of those that are of such noble descent as your self are more intricate then the constellation of base persons and therefore if my divinations prove false or little agréeing to the truth I leave your Grace to be burdened with the blame séeing it is your pleasure that I should conjecture of your luck and not my own presumption And therefore thus much I wil say of your fortune I wil not touch your Parentage wealth honor and likelihood of great renown for that is known to all the world but I wil tel you of that which is most doubtful and more delightful unto you as my simple knowledge teacheth me for unless I am deceived you love Lady and that most loyally but I sée one doubt which is like to redound to your sorrow that you shall have a shrewd enemy to your desire and a terrible foe to your wished love And to yield you reason of my divination mark the line of affection in your hand it is streight a token of pure love and faithful affection accompanied with loyalty and these two short wrinkles which you see of each side of the forsaid line are token of the cross you are like to indure in obtaining you hearts ease Neither would I have your grace to think that the clause of this ill success dependeth onely on the person who hath your heart in hold for there be many events and chances that we cannot foreknow or forethink which may breed your sorrow But hoping that your Grace is minded as the Astrologian that said Inclinationes non sunt edicta praetorum that inclinations be not ordinances and decrees of Maiors shall be able to command the stars and rule over them according to that old saying Sapiens hominabiter astris I am glad thou takest me to be so wise Egyptian replied Florina But I pray thee canst thou not tell me more particularly of some adventure to come No truly Madam quoth I may it please your Grace to bear with my rudeness and ignorance which is not able to content your pleasure and satisfie your mind concerning this point Why then quoth she let me know what you can say to this Gentleman for I hope as I admitted him to hear my luck so he will not be angry if I hear his fortune But Periander as I well perceived knew me for I saw his face receive such divers colors and his countenance altered so suddenly that Florina marvelled what had befallen unto him that he stood so perplexed for he conceived infinite pleasure in séeking his onely joy so néer him and contrarily he was grieved that I found him with Florina fearing lest I should suspect him less constant and so my self less faithful Florina beholding Periander wist not what to say and although I was sorry to see him in that taking yet because I knew the occasion and reason thereof I was the better contented hoping that it was no more then I thought it to be and that he was led in a trance by my unexpected presence Yet I was commanded by Florina to depart she thinking it now no time to tell any more fortunes And so I was forced to leave poor Periander before he was come to himself although I feared that as my presence had strucken him so my departure would kill him Neverthelesse séeing there was no remedy I took it as patiently as I could and away I went though I was not permitted to go far for the Maids of the house so flung about me and kept such adoe with me to know the sequel of their fortunes and to have me fully resolve them in all points which they desired to know séeing I was so hastily called from them by Florina that I had not half satisfied them before that I could scarce get from them And my luck was such that while I was busie with answering to their questions the Gaolor had heard that Florina was missed in the Court and looked for to come to the Queen her mother which when he had signified unto her she stayed not but incontinently hied to the Court Periander therefore by this time being restored to his wits and séeing both time and place serve to talk with me in secret to the end that I should not be discried willed the Gaolor to bid me to come unto him for that he earnestly desired to confer with me about the nature of certain hearbs that grow in Aegypt and other peculiar matters To be short the Gaolor sent me in to Periander and there left me with him alone where he came and embraced me his eyes distilling and gushing forth whole streames of teares saying Brisil Brisil pardon mee that you were not by mee welcommed and entertained at your arrivall according to your deserts and my duty For where necessity nippeth all must obey And doubt not that Leander had béene more welcome to loving Ero if the swelling waves had not hindred his journey by glutting themselves with his carkasse and so stayed him from the wished Tower unto which he was swimming then thou most worthy Brisil to thy faithfull Periander It were too long for me worthy Shepheards to declare what other cherishments and loving congratulations that hee made To be short we talked of many matters as you may well think of Sir Massicourts Conspiration and treason especially which was the first step to all our troubles of the Quéenes death of the Kings unnaturall tyranny of my secret flight of our Fortune on the Sea of my Master to be short there was nothing raked up in silence that concerned our fortune At length the chiefest matter and hardest point of all our conference was offered when as we having informed each other of all our adventures since that time that we were by the policy of traiterous Massicourt separated entred into consultation what we might do to shun the eminent danger which was like to fall upon us by reason of the Kings wrathfulnesse And after we had long deliberated now intending to use this means now that at length we concluded to take the vantage of the time séeing that by means of Florina Periander was not kept so straightly but that he might go secretly out of the prison and walk whither he would to take the air
Therefore least if his father the King of Albion should upon my flight send new Embassadors to the King of Spain to have his son put to death for he divers times swore unto me that Periander should die if he any way hindered his marriage with me or brought Albion to be dealt withall not according to fatherly affection but his mercilesse rage we thought best not to expect the worst but to play safe as long as time and occasion was offered us To make few words Periander the next morning by break of day got out of the prison telling the Iaylor that he went to a place where Florina had appointed him to méet her and coming to the hous where I waited for him she presently departed from Sivil intending to trabel towards some solitary place where we might live untill we heard of the death of the King of Albion And because we should not be known if search were made after us we cloathed our selves both alike in the habite of country maids as if we had been two sisters CHAP. XVII How the Prince Periander and Brisilla became shepheards and how by the means of Malorena and Bergama the Prince departed from Brisill AT length travelling thus together we arrived to a certain village which is called Ezla where we purposed to keep our residence And although we had sufficient wherewithto maintain our selves yet the better to avoid suspition and to have wherein to imploy our leisure and to take our delight and pastimes we bought a flock of sheep and learned to play the shepheards as wel as we could none of al the inhabitants knowing but that we were two sisters For Periander was yet but young and had no beard and besides he was so fair of complexion that it had been impossible for one to suspect that he was no woman After we had passed over one moneth in that haven of content and passing pleasant kind of life I enjoying the presence of my Periander and he of his Brisil in spight of the world fortunâ— began to envy at our felicity and to evert the happy estate wherein we lived For it chanced that we being both at the feast which was celebrated in honour of the Goddesse Ceres there was a young shepheard being son unto one of the richest farmers in our village who casting his eys on Sybilla for so I named Periander who was thought to be my sister was fetttered in the snare of his beauty that we were so troubled with importunate requests and sutes of this youth that we wist not how to dehort him from folly or how to quench the burning flames which consumed the poor shepheards hearâ— For the crueller Sybilla my supposed sister seemed to be the more he was provoked to hope for mercy the colder she shewed her self to be the hotter he was the more she disdained the more earnest he sued the more she crossed him for his fondnes the more he hoped for kindnesse Insomuch that poor Petulca for so was that wretched shepheard called so miserably loved that all the Countrey knew by his colour what Captain he honoured and served His joy and welfare which was wont to recreate the whole company of the Inhabitants was changed into Melancholy His young face which was a fashion of Modesty Grace Mirth Beauty and Comliness waxed wrinkled his limbes weakened and all his body decayed So that as he was generally pittied of all men so were we most wofully grieved at his hard Fortune though wée could not help or remedy the same Nevertheless séeing that Petulca ceased not from his suit but so hotly followed his cause pleading for mercy to save his life I counselled Periander to fain as if he loved him hoping that we might by that devise and meane escape the ill will and anger which we were like to gain of all our Neighbours if the youth had died For his passion was such that nothing but death only could move him to leave his love Thus Petulca loving a young Prince in the habit of a lovely shepheard and perceiving that he had won the Fort which he had so fiercly assaulted revived again and in short time became as pert as trim as ever he had been He came twice or thrice in the week unto us and so pleasantly discoursed of divers matters as occasion offered that we could not have changed the recreation which he had by his honest company and merry conversation for the richest jewell of India As he had lived in this contented and pleasant manner one month it happened that the daughter of a shepheard called Petrueco dwelling in the next Farm to our cotage was fo intricated in the net of affection and so intangled in the beauty of Petulca that she allured him by continuall favours loving glaunces curteous gréetings pleasant spéeches and all means she could invent to gain his good will and to move him to love her but all the world was not able to alter his minde though we wished that he might have béen inticed by her deserts to repent of his first bargain At length when Malorena so was this unhappy shepheard named espied that Petulca was so ungratefull that he would not any way requite her curtesies with favour she began most deadly to hate my sister I mean Periander supposing her to be the cause of all her wo For as she knew Petulca was in love of my said sister so she thought that he was as well liked of her which induced her to be perswaded that we of purpose entertaind him the more kindly to hinder her matter whereas contrarily when we knew that she so dearly affectioned him we made less account of him hoping that he wearied with our coynesse might have lent his eare to his new Mistresse that honoured him so highly Yet howsoever we wisht her well and longed that she might enjoy her hearts desire she nevertheless being of contrary opinion became our mortall foe If she chanced to passe by us she did cast such a lowring look upon us as if she would have eaten us if she had lighted at unawares in the company where we were she thought her self the worse if she spake of us to others she belyed us and invented tales to defame and discredit us Yet all this served not but intending fully to revenge her self of the injury which she dreamed that we offered her she excogitated this stratagem There was in the same Village a beautiful young Mâ—id Neece to this Malorena who by reason that she kept her sheep in the next pasture to ours kept great company with us and became very familiar and friendly unto us Which her Neece Malorena espying thought to use her as the instrument of her supposed practises Therefore on a certain morning she sent for her made such a sugred spéech unto her declaring the occasion why she sent for her the estate of her love towards Petulca the love of Petulca towards Sybilla alias Periander and briefly all that concerned this matter
desiring her not to deny her friendly aide and holy herein So that to be short Bergama for that was this other Shepheards name promised her neece that what she could do she would be ready to performe Whereupon she told her what she would have her to do instructing her in all points concerning the same Which tended to no other end then to work our woe and by expelling us by their treachery out of those quarters to enjoy the love of Petulca Insomuch that these two Neeces having agreed and concluded upon the premises thus began Bergama to play her part But you must note that when Petulca the amorons shepheard used to come to our field his way lay hy the place where Bergama kept her sheep So that she espying him on a certain morning betimes marching over her ground to come to pass the time with us in merry chat according to his maner she stepped unto him and knowing with what kind of talk she might stay his journey she cunningly held him prattle until such time as she espied that I was alone For commonly my sister Sybil alias Periander towards noone used to go to our lodging not so well able to suffer the heat of midday as I. Bergama therefore espying me alone called me unto her and asked me where my sister was as if she had not known it when I had answered that she was gone home why then quoth she séeing thou art alone I pray kéep company with me a little and this shepheard who although he had rather be in company with Sybil yet for that maugre his will he must this noone be my guest will not be displeased with your presence sith he loveth yâ—u the better for your sisters sake With that she did lead us both into a delectable Arbor whence I might sée my sheep as well as if I had been in mine owne field and therefore was the sooner intreated to stay with her In the midst of this Arbour was a table of Marble stone on which she laid a fair napkin and set before us such chear as was most wished for in the Countrey at that time of the year praying us to sit downe and take such fare as she had in good part sith she envited us not for the excellency of her delicates but for good will and pleasure of our company So she placed the shepheard Petulca and me together on one side of the Table and she her self sate on the other While we were thus merrily banqueting and talking together thinking or dreaming of no harme Malorena by whose counsaile and instinct all this was practised having notice of our being together by means of a little wench sent under by Bergama her neece in post-haste went to our Cottage and entring into the house spake unto Periander in this manner Fair Sybil I doubt not but you have heard of the love and affection which I have borne towards the shepheard Petulca and that therefore I seemed to be displeased with you because he so dearly loved you and for your sake despised and disdained me But now seeing I know the contrary and being enformed of one of his speciall friends how the matter standeth I perceive that I have greater occasion to be angry with your sister then with you and therefore I thought good to come unto you and to crave pardon of you for that I was offended with you without câ—use In respect whereof for acquittance I will now shew you as great friendship as before I wished you evill You shall therefore understand that your sister Brisilla doth most unnaturally deal with you in loving Petulca whereas she seemeth not to esteem of him and Petulca himselfe doth most shamefully abuse your courtesie in that you give such trust and credit to his feined speeches and dissembling perswasions For he therewith bringeth you in a fooles paradice causing you to beleeve that you are the saint whom he honoureth whereas he like a treacherous caitiffe loveth your sister Brisil so affectionately that he never espieth her out of your company but he hieth unto his Lady passing the time with passionate spéeches swearing each other love and loyalty and therewith conspiring together how they may best deceive you and feed you with this false opinion that Petulca loveth you because you should not perceive that he and your sister could play concord in your absence though they were alwayes at discord in your presence And for because you shall finde my words to be true and acknowledge me to be your perfect friend whom you suspected to be your foe as in truth for a time I could not well disgest you I will lead you in a place where you shall see your unnaturall sister and dissembling sutor banquetting together You know my néece Bergama very well I doubt not which is as shrewd a wench as any in the world if you knew her qualities And I think also that you perceive what great acquaintance there is between her and your sister This Bergama my cunning Néece hath granted them her house for their secret meeting place where Petulca after he hath been with you and sometimes without comming unto you stayeth till he come home and then is sure to enjoy the company of his loving Brisil For as soon as you are gone from her thither she trippeth And if you will follow my counsaile and go with me you shall see how lovingly she at this present sitteth on Petulca's side and maketh good chear with him in Bergama's Arbor I would have you to go with me because if we go to your field we are like to misse of our purpose the reason is for that my shrewd Neece Bergamas standeth on her hold and watcheth for your comming and as soon as she can espy you the convert breaketh up the Shepheard marcheth on forward and your sister returneth to her sheep But where I will lead you we shall not be seen and yet see all And then take Malorena to be your friend when your owne eyes shall force you to confesse the same Periander giving faith to this Syrens sweet Song went with her and according to her saying saw us together though we poor souls most innocent and thought of no such supposed villany Yet Fortune to marre our matter the more and to give the greater colour to Malorena's tale would have it so that while Periander stood with that traitress and looked upon us the shepheard Petulca being of custom merry and pleasant smacked his lips on my cheek as I sat by him which I knowing his humour that he did it of wantonness and not of love made not strange of it seemed not to take it in ill part sith the shepheard meant no evil by it But alas loving shepheards Periander took it so heavily and so ingraved both that which he had heard of Malorena and seen with his own eyes in the ground of his tender heart that now I am compelled to detest that traitres Malorena to hate that deceitful Pergama
and to curse Fortune yet at this hour For when Periander had séen us in the Arbor he returned home presently and thanking Malorena that she had so faithfully bewrayed our treachery unto him desired her to return home with him where he wrote a Letter unto me and sealing it up gave it to Malorena and not doubting of her fidelity prayed her to deliver it unto me which he promised to do and departed from Periander who incontinently went his way I know not whither for since that time that he went home and I was called by Bergama I never saw him nor heard of him nor could know what is become of him The traitress séeing how cunningly she had deluded her neighbour unripped the seales of the Letter thinking she might be her secretary séeing she had done her so good a turn but by chance looking on the subscription before she had read the contents and seeing Periander written instead of Sybilla was strucken in a maze on the sudden not knowing what it meant but to be the better enformed she read the Letter which was thus penned To Brisil health and pleasure BRisil to the end that thou maist enjoy thy Petulca at thy will and pleasure without any hindrance I have left thee and my self meanes to live solitary in some wilderness seeing the society wherein I onely delighted is taken from me Love Petulca and love him so that thou hate me if thou wilt for I cannot but love love thee and so love thee that for fear lest I be troublesome unto thee I have separated my self from thee wishing thee all the pleasure and delight thou canst desire and praying the Gods to save Petulca from all mischance for thy sake Farewell Ever thine though thou weary to be his PERIANDER When Malorena had read that Letter she could not but marvel at the strangenesse of the case for she perceived thereby what kind of sisters we were and though she was sorrée that she had offered such true Lovers that injury yet glad for that she hoped to enjoy the love of Petulca she stayed till he came home and then she shewed him Perianders Letter telling him from point to point how she had served us For she thought when Petulca should know how he was by us deceived in that he loved a man for a woman a youth for a maid yea Periander for Sybilla that then he would be sorry that he so unwisely had disdained her self and set so little by her love But yet she was deceived for Petulca having attentively listned to her tale and well perpended the Letter was so angry at her and enraged that she had committed such villany against us that he swore he would himself revenge the injury by her offered to us And therewith flung from her and presently declared all the matter unto me with tears trickling down his eys and shewed me the Letter which Periander had written unto me whereat I was both so ashamed and amazed that I fell in a swound But being by the industry of Petulca come to my self again I conceived that grief for the departure of Periander and the false opinion which he holdeth of me which now so tormenteth and vexeth me that I wish I had fared as wicked Malorena did who understanding that Petulca had opened all her treachery and divelish practises unto me falling into desparation for that she had attempted so much villany in vain cast her self into the River and so was drâ—wned By means whereof the whole village yea and the neighbour towns were filled with the rumour of this tragedy and I the next morning making no man of my counsel deparâ—ed from thence to seek my sorrowfull Periander Thus loving shepheards have you heard the discourse of my miserable life which now is so much the more miserable by how much the more pleasure and joy I have had therein For the grief which I suffer because Periander the thought of whom and remembrance of whose love is the onely thing wherby I live departed from me with such an opinion is so extream that the greatest pleasure which ever I enjoyed in al my life is no way equivalent or comparable unto it Iudge then your selvs worthy shepheards whether I have not cause to curse Fortune and blame even the Gods of cruelty Wherewith Brisilla having ended her history began newly to wéep and lament most pittifully But Ismenio and Perierio who had so attentively given eare to her discourse that they had not interrupted any part thereof comforted her as much as they might And séeing that by this they were come to the place where Iâ—menia had appointed to rest that night they made provision for supper as merrily as their passions would suffer them falling to their meat refreshed their weary bodies and afterward took their rest As soon as Apollo had lighted on his fiery steeds to run his wonted course Perierio Ismenia and Brisil rising from their bed be took them to their journy towards the Temple of Diana every one of them hoping that they should have their grief if not remedied yet at least something mitigated for the wisdom and divine power of the Lady president of that Temple was so blazed by the Trump of Fame through all the Countries about her that no man in her time which had heard of her celestiall knowledge doubted but that his evill might by that Lady be redressed though it were nere so marvelous so it passed not the bounds of possibility This Lady was called Felicia of whose wisdome knowledge beauty excellency courtesie gracious favour towards all true Lovers and vertuous piety towards all distressed persons Monte Mayor largely describeth in his Diana and forasmuch as the same Monte Mayor copiously setteth forth the sumptuousnesse and magnificence of the Palace wherein this Lady Felicia kept her Court in the fourth Book of the first part of his said Diana I think it superfluous for me to retain the Readers eare with unnecessary relations of those things that by others have so exactly been performed Wherefore turning the gentle Reader desirous to know the curiosity of the sumptuous building both of the Temple and Pallace before mentioned with the situation of the place to the fourth book of Monte Mayors Diana I will prosecute the matter of my history CHAP. XV. How Perierio Ismenia and Brisil in their travell found Marcelio and Maffeo asleep who departed with them towards the Temple of Diana PErierio with his company had not gone above the space of an hour or thereabout they came into a fair green where they saw a shepheard and a Knight lying on the tender grasse asléep both together Ismenia and the Lady Brisil marvelling at that sight séeing two persons of such different calling so fellow likely sléeping one by the other wist not what it meant for they saw neither flock of shéep by them nor yet any other company But Perierio told them that he knew both the shepheard and the Knight also for he had both séen
a Lady as sage Felicia we are ready to go into the Garden with you to know her pleasure Then Arethee took from another Nymph that came with her the costly and rich apparel which the Lady Felicia had sent Marcelio to put on and helped him to cloath himself in that sute which was wrought in pure gold precious pearls most sumptuous and bravely placed As soon as he was apparelled they went forth of the chamber and followed Arethee into the Garden where she led them into an Arbor whence they could not see those that sate at the Fountain and taking the Lady Brisil and Perierio by the hand left Marcelio Maffeo and Ismenia in the Arbor leading Perierio and the Duches to the Palace where she left Perierio in a fair chamber under the bed-chamber of the Felicia willing him there is expect the Ladies coming and so mounting the Marble staires led the Duches up to Felicias chamber where the Lady her self running to the door welcomed her in this sort Most gracious Princess pardon me for that I honoured you not yesterday according to your merit and estate for that I as yet knew not the worthiness and excellency of your person but this morning as I consulted in the Temple of sacred Diana our Soveraign Goddess concerning your case and of your company I was informed of the Nobility of your stock of the antiquity of your house of the perfections of your beauty and vertues of your minde and of your loyalty in the sacred Lawes of sincere Love and Chastiâ—y Know therefore most excellent Princess that the Gods being moved with your incomparable vertue have sent you hither not only to enjoy the love of the beautifull and valorous young Prince Periander but also to be hoysed to the top of perpetual blisse and to live not thy self onely but all the Progeny that shall issue from thy fruitful worthy body in such honour as no time no misfortune or nothing whatsoever shall be able to abate or diminish In the mean time till the gods send us further knowledge concerning this affair encourage your self noble Princess and give over all care and grief let me take thought in your behalf and I promise you that I will not sleep upon the matter But till occasion be offered that it may be put in practise I shall desire you to take patience to lodge in this my simple and solitary house which though it be not comparable to the princely place of your bringing up I mean the famous Court of Albion yet I doubt not but for the recreation pleasure and content which you shall have in my company you will think well of it howsoever you find it farre inferiour to kingly Palaces for the baseness of the building Most heavenly Lady answered the Duches what thanks I may yield you for your high deserts I know not and therefore perswade your self that I wish you as much recompence as a mortal heart may conceive As concerning my abode with you I am ready to stay with you as long as you please neither shall I think ill of the place séeing that in magnificent building it surpasseth the stateliest Palace that I think may be in the world But grant it were as you say inferiour to the mean Court of Albion yet considering the excellency of your person it may be judged the most pleasant and delectable place under the vale of heaven If you like so well of my company already replied the Lady Felicia I hope you will increase your liking when you have made trial of my readiness to pleasure you But in the mean time because I must go unto the rest of your company that is in your Garden if it please you put off your shepheards attire and apparel your self with these Robes which though they be as precious and costly as ever was any that entred in my wardrobe yet are they not so sumptuous as your vertues deserve And for that you have so chastly behaved your self and as yet kept your virginity inviolated contrary to the opinion of all men whereas you have notwithstanding so long kept secret company with your loving Periander reserving your Virginity and consecrating the same to Diana until such time as your Marriage Rights being celebrated you may by the laws of Hymaeneus give an honourable adieu to virginity and enjoy the fruits of your chast love I give you this bunch of Roses which shall not wither in winter or fade in the summer but in token of your chastity reserve their natural vigor and fresh colour as long as you live As Felicio had so said whilst her Nymphs apparelled the Duches she called Perierio by Arethee saluting him very curteously told him that she had not been less mindful of him then of the other of his company that night Therefore quoth she put on the clothes that I wil send thee and stay for my coming as for all the rest disburthen your self of all care and let me alone and so she departed from Perierio who went to the chamber where Arethee had led him and incontinently espied Arethee coming with a fair sute of black velvet as he was wont to wear before his father was exiled from Venice Arethee having helpt him to put on his clothes returned to the Lady Felicia who séeing that Duches Brisil was ready set a most precious Coronet on her head on the top whereof she put the bunch of Roses and taking her by the hand séeing Perierio apparelled bid him follow her into the Garden so she went towards the Fountain where aged Eugerio sate with his daughters Alcida and Clenarde and his son Polydor with other Knights and Shepheards among whom was the shepheard Petulca and Lexander also And you must note that the Lady Felicia had also caused Alcida that morning to leave off her shepheards coat and apparel her self in rich attire according to her estate that when she should meet with Marcelio who now was in like maner most sumptuously appareled she should not be disfigured with base clothes though Alcida her self as yet knew nothing of Marcelios being there As then Eugerio and the rest of those that sate at the Fountain saw the Lady Felicia coming being accompanied with so beautiful a Princess marvelled greatly who the same young Lady should be and every one doing his obeysance to the Lady Felicia and her company saluted her most humbly as she likewise with Brisil and Perierio did them The Duches séeing Alcida wondred at her beauty as likewise Alcida did at her for by reason that she was so sumptuosly and richly apparelled her beauty which surpassed all Gentlewomen of her time séemed rather to be heavenly then mortal And though Polydor and Clenarde had séen her the day before yea and gone two or thrée leagues in her company yet the change of her attire so alter'd her that they as yet knew not that she was the Lady Brisil whose beauty was injured by that base shepheardlike attire But
make us yex Our paine is past our dolour done we sayle with prosperous winde No passion now nor trouble may disturbour quiet minde Cynthia The Sea doth flow as well as ebbe and waves both mount and fall As stormy Tempests doe disturb So calmes do quiet all The Summers Sunne produceth Flowers which fragrant scents do yield Though winter aire in snowie robes doth wrap the barren field The sight of Phoebus Lordly face doth drive away the raine And Titanes as oft is full as she is in the waine Polydora Let Furies fret let Charon curse let brawling Cerberus bawle Let Radamanthus rage let Pluto chafe and Minos brawle Let all the Fiends of Acheron even spet out all their spight They shall not marre the mirth we make by high Diana's might Which all those that doe sojourn in this sacred place exempts From hellish harme from wracking woe and Fortunes shrewd attempts The three Nymphs having ended the Sonnet dinner was ended the cloath taken up and the Lady Felicia rising with all her Guests walked out of the Bower into the other part of the Garden where she called Maffeo under her and spake unto him in this maner Worthy Knight for that I know your chiefest bliss consisteth in the finding of your wife Eleonora I mean by the help of the gods and the especial favour of Diana to help you unto your hearts desire with all the spéed that I may And therefore séeing the same is brought to passe the more happy you shall deem your self I will put my skill in practise out of hand Wherefore incontinently may it please you to depart from me and go to the place where you left your child and taking it thence return to me again with it and let me care for your rest Maffeo yielding the venerable Dame singular thanks for all her favours humbly took his leave of her and all the company and presently departed from the Palace taking his way toward the Village where he left his young Alonso after he lost Eleonora in the high-way while he sléeped where we will leave him pacing in his journey and talk of those that remained in the Palace with the Lady Felicia CHAP. XXI How Perierio drunk the two Potions of Oblivion and Understanding and likewise the Discourse that was between the Lady Brisil and Petulca MAffeo being gone the Lady Felicia taking Perierio apart led him into the Palace and brought him into her study which was so exorned and beautified with sundry volumes that it séemed rather to be the Library of some grave Philosopher then the Counting-house of a Lady for there was no Book no Author no Writer that was in estimation at those times but the Lady Felicia had him in her Bibliothick Now having Perierio there alone she thought it time to execute that which his destinies had appointed and therefore said unto him Couragious Gentleman although you have not as yet told me one word touching the cause of your comming hither yet I know it as well as you can tell me Is it not to enjoy the love of a Lady which you never saw but once I expect no answer for I know it is And I pray you tel me whether you are of that opinion yet or no and whether you are constant in your love ready to undertake any labour to obtain the same But ere you give me an answer quaffe out this goblet in token of your good will towards me that wish your hearts content Perierio taking the Goblet drank out the Liquor that was in it chéerfully which had such vertue that it took away the memory of Love how déep soever it was rooted in the hearts of mortal creatures He therefore having taken his draft answered thus Most prudent Lady I am ashamed that I am come hither unto you having yea knowing no cause why I should trouble your Ladiship and unless I had received such excéeding pleasure in viewing your Ladiships most sumptuous Palace I should be sorry that ever I left my aged father and loving sisters sorrowfull and mourning at home for my absence Well quoth the Lady Felicia I am glad that my Medicine hath taken so good effect But I pray you take one drauth more at my request which shall not be of the same liquor as the other but more fruitful and though it be something more bitter in the taste it shal nevertheles be far more sweeter in operation then the other Perierio taking the cup drank the potion though with some difficulty by reason of the sternnesse thereof which was nothing so gentle as the former potion of oblivion But Felicia séeing that he had couragiously forced himself to leave nothing in the cup well done quoth she for though the root of science knowledge and learning be bitter yet are the Flowers which it produceth most swéet and pleasant And as he thus spake she perceived that her second potion had done no less good then the â—â—rst For it had not only sharpned his wit and grinded his understanding being more apt to receive the impression of learning but ravished him with such desire to attain to the knowledge of Philosophy whereunder I comprehend all kind of learning that his minde was quite changed from Venus to Minerva and from Cupids Court to the Mount Parnassus In so much that he began to unclose the clapses of Felicias Volumes and untye the strings of her Books being spurred thereto with a fervent zeale to know the contents thereof where we will leave him talking with the Lady about the liverall Sciences and such other matters concerning scholasticall parley and speak of those whom we left in the Garden where Marcelio and Alcida walked together in one Alley Ismenia with Lexander in another Eugerio with his son Polydor and his daughter Clenarde walked by the River which closed up one end of the Garden The shepheards Petulca and Philorenus with the rest of the company sate on a bed of cammomile and Duches Brisil walked alone in an Arbor of Roses where the dye that beautified her vermilion cheeks strove with the Roses for superiority in perfection of colour Thus walking alone she espied the shepheard Petulca sitting among other shepheards and desiring to know of him whether he came thither about Periander as she had understood of the Nymph Arethee she stepped by them and saluting them said Gentle shepheards I hope you will not be displeased though I presse into your company being not sent for the rather because Petulca is one of my old acquaintance and therefore I could do no lesse then gréet him as I would have done ere this if occasion had been altered Petulca weo though he had made earnest enquiry what this Princesse was had not yet learned that it was Brisil sister to his dear Sybil marvelling at the Ladies words séeing he knew her not or never had seen her to his knowledge was so amazed that he wist not what to say which Philorenus marking gave her this answer The displeasure Madam
that we conceive by your comming is such that we think our selves honoured with your presence and therefore acknowledge our selves beholding unto you in that you disdain not of the unworthy company of such simple shepheards as we be As for the acquaintance which you say you have had with our friend Petulca as we are altogether ignorant of so doe we not envy at his luck in that so gracious a Princesse as your self beareth a remembrance of him As Petulca thought to ask pardon for his unmindfulnes and to excuse the weakness of his memory in that he could not remember that he had in all his life time séen any Lady comparable to her for her beauty or estate much less to have seene her the Duches staied him saying Well Petulca thy company thinketh thée happy that I beare memory of thée but I pray you unhappy may I be thought to be séeing that thou disdainest to know her whom I thought you would not have forgotten so soone Is this the memory you have of me and my sister Sybil whom you so dearly loved Is this the remembrance you beare of cursed Malorena and dissembling Bergama who for thy sake sought our ruine Petulca amazed to hear her say this and knowing her by her voyce to be the same Brisil that sojourned among the shepheards of his Countrey at length burst out into these words Ah gracious Princesse the Gods know that I have not forgotten neither you nor Periander who under the name of Sybil in the habit of a shepheard bearing title to be your sister hath caused my grief and forced me to undertake this troublesome journey intending never to return home till I have found him and letting him know the Treason and malicious dealing of Malorena and Bergama to exhort him to race out the false surmise and suspition which he hath grounded in the bottome of his heart of your disloyalty For séeing that for my sake he hath been so horribly abused and brought into that errour I will hazard my life to restore him unto his former estate againe to the end that he may enjoy you and your self to him And marvel nor Lady that I knew not your person though I will remember you◠acquaintance for as the Sun is in respect of the least star of the sky the rose in respect of the nettle the juniper trée in respect of the thorn bush and the Lordly Chrystal in respect of the base glasse so is your Ladiship now in respect of the time that we were feasted by the dissembling Traitress Bergama in her Arbor And therefore séeing that I had not as yet understood having enquired of the Lady Felicias Nymphs of your calling any other thing of you but that you were a certain Princesse of Albion and that we should shortly hear of the cause of your comming and more largely know the course of your fortune I hope your Grace will not think the worse of me who have vowed my body and life to do service unto your loving Periander what state or calling soever he be of Thanks kind Petulca quoth the Duches and perswade thy self that I think no otherwise of thée then I did at any time And to the end that thou mayst understand the truth and verity of all my troubles and know what Periander is and also what caused him to fain himself to be my sister being attired in shepheards attire I will briefly and truly rehearse unto thee in this good company of shepheards so I be not troublesome unto them the whole state of my fortune But first I must intreat you to tell me how long you have béen here when you departed from the village and what successe you have had in your journey Then may it please you to understand quoth Petulca that after the malicious traitresse Malorena had cast her self into the river to take penance for her heinous offence by her own appointment the whole Village was made acquainted with her villany detesting her for her malice and marvelling at Periander and your self for your perfect love in marvellous manner mourning for his departure and your mishap Insomuch that the chiefest of the village sent for me to understand the truth of the whole matter which when I had declared they took order with me that I should speak with you and comfort you letting you know what they had appointed to do in your behalf for they intended to make enquiry through all the country after Periander to the end that he might be enformed of all that had hapned in the Village concerning malicious Malorena and so be induced to return again unto you knowing the sayings of Malorena to be false and invented by her pestiferous brain Whereupon I most ready to do any thing that might redownd to your content betimes the next morning went to your lodging but there I found you not nor could learn of any one of your Neighbours what was become of you whereof how sorry I was I leave to the Gods to witness and not I onely but the whole Village most grievously lamented your sodain departure At length I resolved not to rest in any place till I had found Periander and let him know how he had been abused by Malorena and how you were injured by him in that he giving credit to such a malicious maid lest you to passe your life in such discontent and grief for his cause To the end that if Fortune had been so froward as to deprive him of your company for ever by some sinister hap yet he should know how faithfully you loved him séeing that your loyalty was knowne unto the whole Countrey Whereupon I having first caused dissembling Bergama as an instrument and helping cause of this mischief to be banished until such time as Periander and you were together and consented to have her released from exile I betook my self to my journey and having travelled two dayes and two nights at last I arrived in a Country house where I was very courteously used by a certain shepheard who took pleasure to talk with me concerning the cause of my comming for that he had himself not passing eight year since almost coursed over the world to seek his wife which was carried away upon a certain time by a Duke that riding that way caused his men to take her with them he being abroad in the field And that after he had taken so much paines it was his luck at length to come to the Temple of Diana where the Lady Felicia dwelleth who helped him to his wife again Therefore the shepheard having entertained and feasted me very courteously and bountifully set me into a way which directly brought me to this place assuring me that I should of this Lady be enformed of all matters concerning those that I sought for as in truth I have found his words not disagréeing unto verity For being arrived here two dayes since the Lady welcomed me not as a simple Shepheard but rather like some worthy person of
excesse of gladnesse which possessed my soul But I beséech you go not about to undo your self to save me least in seeking my weal you procure your own woe so where but one should suffer death you bring both in danger Mistresse Cerasilla glad of his answer but sorry to see him make no more hast to do that which she desired she spurred him forward saying Sweet Philorenus doubt not but I am perswaded of thy love towards me and that I think of thy silence as thou sayest As for the rest let me alone I hope where you fear we shall both fall in the trap that we shall neither of us be snared in the net and therefore be ruled by me seeing womens wits have sometimes brought that to passe which mens minds hath admired To be short my brother became mistresse Cerasilla in attire and was apparelled in her cloaths whose body was the habitacle of my heart accompanied by the Saint whom I worshipped though absent and in whom my mind dwelled though my body was in subjection to the villaines that kept me in their cels after they had robbed me and slain my men Yet if I had then known of the love and affection of my mistresse towards me and how willingly she would have endeavoured to deliver me from the barbarous entertainment of the Egyptian theeves if she had known that her faithfull Philorenus was so afflicted my misery though it had been greater could not have béen half so troublesome unto me nor my filthy prison so noisome But least I be troublesome unto this worthy company by digressing from the matter know that my brother passed for mistresse Cerasilla and she for her brother and bidding the Gentleman that was charged with him Adieu they departed leaving him so busie at his game that he tended his play more then his prisoner Insomuch that they making all the haste they could marched through the Court and resembling that they went to walk in the fields they spared not their legs but sometimes running sometimes going a round pace they did advantage their journey in such manner that the next morning having travelled all night they reached to the wood where I was there thinking themselves out of danger they rested CHAP. XXIX How Philorenus the younger and Cerasilla lost each other in the wood and how the elder Philorenus was delivered out of the Aegyptians Cell by Cerasilla NOw though they had made sufficient provision of money yet when hunger began to gnaw them having disgested their meat by their walk or rather flight they wist not what shift to make for victuals Insomuch that they went straying up and down the wood to see if they could find any roots or wild fruit growing there intending to feed on them till finding the way to some house they might buy other kind of meat But mistresse Cerasilla being weary of raunging and overtaken with sleep lay down amidst the bushes and prayed my brother also to rest himself a while but he having more mind to eat then to sleep bid her take her rest and he would in the mean time seek for some victuals against she waked Insomuch that he marked the place where he left her and went towards the side of the wood whence he might see a chimney smoaking Whereof glad though he feared lost he should be mett with hee ventured and went to the house where he found a poor old woman sitting by the fire all alone and desired her of all friendship to let him have bread for his mony The woman perceiving that he was some Gentleman of account in mean time may it please you to note that my brother and mistresse Cerasilla had changed apparel in the way each taking that sute which agreed to their sexe told him that she had bread but she feared it was too brown for his eating but he desiring her to let him have it such as it was she brought him four loaves which he took and paying her as much as she asked to the wood he returned as fast as he could where he had espied a fountain and therefore stayed not with the old woman to drink she proffering him a glasse of Cydar being a kind of wine made of apples For he purposed to carry mistresse Cerasilla bread first and then to lead her to the said fountain and there with her to quench his thirst But when he came to the place where he left her mistresse Cerasilla was not there for waking out of her sleep she went to see if she could méet with him for because he had been something long away séeing the place whither he went for bread was about one league from the wood and he had wandred up and down the wood about two or three hours ere he came to the wood side whence he espied the smoak she suspected that he was lost in the wood and could not find the way to come unto her again And so it came to passe that she seeking him lost him and he not finding her lost himself For he was so distracted with sorrow and grief that as a man abandoning all hope in a manner dispairing he sate down and laying his elbow on the ground to support his head began in this manner to exclaim against Fortune for her spighfull entreatment Ah Fortune I perceive my destinies have ordained me to be the subject whereon thou mayest work thy power and shew thy inconstancy and whereon thou dost plant the banner of thy forces and hang up the trophees of thy victories For who is there that is acquainted with the course of my life that dare deny but that every part thereof hath bin guided by Fortune and subject to her accidentary government For after the day of my birth the circumstance whereof may be attributed to no power but to the hidden secrets of dame Nature onely was it not a chance and accidental cause that I should with my cradle by my parents be carried out of my country and live in exile before I knew what exile yea what life was was it not say I a token of the sparkles of anger which began to glister in the heart of Fortune and a manifest sign that she began to menace and threaten me some disastrous hap in time to come For I lived not many weeks after but I saw the fire flame which was kindled of the former sparkles and I tried the force of her menaces For before we could reach to any place where we might sojourn death bereft me of my dear mother before nature allowed me to acknowledg the benefit which by her I had and did receive This done Fortune seemed not not to have wreaked her anger sufficiently and as yet became nothing more méek for after my mother was buried and her funeral rights celebrated we came to the village Cinqueni where I was deprived of my father all the hold of my hope and the pillar of my wellfare Now Fortune thought her selfe prettily well revenged on me that had
never offered her any wrong and began to turn her frowns into smiles and her anger into favour For who can deny but that it was an especial good turn of Fortune to snatch men out of the cruel claws of griping death whereas none other might escape the rage and fury of the massacring souldiers that were sent to overthrow the said village being the place of our habitation Vnlesse it be so that I had some brother who though I knew him not received the same favour at Fortunes hands that I had to the end that after wee had been shrined up by Fortune I in the house of the good Sergeant and he in the court we should both of us fall into the gulph of extream misery and that being led into adversity we should féel the effect of Fortunes anger which for a time she dissembled feigning to favour us where she procured means to wrong us But among other calamities what can be more grievous unto me then to be so separated from my brother if I may by Natures consent claim any such title that I never should have séen him yet nor be like to see him hereafter Neither is it a lesse torment for me that by him I should be brought into these miseries and that he should be cause of all my mishap who no doubt if he knew it would if he could redresse my calamitie But séeing he is not in Persia assuredly some mischeif hath befallen him wherewith Fortune hath purposed to work both our destructions The Gods grant that I may prophesie falsly though the apparent shew of all things force me to divine the contrary And lastly this latter pinch of Fortunes spight in that she is absent who is the cause that I am present yea simpliciter that I am for without her I had now not béen at all in rancour doth surpass all the malice that hitherto she hath ever endeavoured laboured or enterprised against me Ah swéet Cerasilla courteous Cerasilla yea most loving Cerasilla how wilt thou blame and accuse me of monstrous ingratefulness if thou suspect that I have puposely left thée of free will and counsel and voluntarily abandoned thee But I hope thou wilt not hold such opinion of me but rather impute this hapless chance to Fortune who hath sworn to make me miserable And alas whither shall I go or what way shall I take since the sweet guide is taken from me in whose cōpany I came hither my coming is not from imprisonment to liberty or thral dom to freedom or from death to life but rather from one kind of captivity bondage death into an other altering the manner of my misery not abating the extremity of my calamity Therewith my brother Philorenus not able speak to any longer for the multitude of sighs which he fetched from his heart and tears which spouted out of his eys he wept most bitterly in which plight I will leave him a while and declare unto you what Fortune mtstresse Cerasiila had who having strayed up and down the wood a long time and calling for Philorenus as loud as she could weeping lamenting his absence in most grievous manner at length she espied the cel where I was penned up by the villains who had that morning shifted me and taking my apparel with them to sell it gave me an old garment of theirs to cover my body withal and so leaving no man but me in the cell barred the door on the out side and went their way and Cerasilla having eyed the cell hoping to find Philorenus my brother there for she had forgotten her hunger made hast to draw near knocking at the door she heard her first Philorenus speak for whose cause she made such account of the other being my brother For when I heard one knock I asked who was there whereupon she answered Ah swéet Philorenus thinking that I was the other whom she had lost for our voices were not more different then our faces what art thou there I must confesse my self beholding to Fortune for this good hap but why dost thou not let me in I having forgotten her voice it being altered by reason of the affection wherewith in a lamentable manner she pronounced her words replied Whatsoever you be whom fortune hath sent to comfort me after my long imprisonment if you wil sée me then must you from the out-side undo the door and remove such bars or stops that hinder or let you from entring séeing I am shut in and cannot come forth Cerasilla marvelling at my spéech with a knife she cut the string wherewith the cell door was fastened and opening the door asked me where I was insomuch that I looking by the light that came in at the door for it was dark within I saw Mistresse Cerasilla stand before the cell the sight of whose presence cast me into such a trance that it might have béen thought I had béen metamorphosed as they that looking on Medusaes head were transformed into stones But when Cerasilla saw that I neither came nor gave her any answer she stepped into the cell where she saw me lye on the ground not onely tongue-tyed without speaking but also leg-tied being bound with a strong cord Which sight although it was sufficient to make her lose her wits become as much altered as I was my self yet the necessity wherein I was requiring aid moved her to overcome her own passions and to ad her helping hand to wake me out of the extasie wherein I lay At length being come to my self I said Ah what fortune hath sent thée to this solitary wood to deliver me from this misery Whose presence is more welcome to me then if some heavenly Godess had come to lose the bands which your most delicate fingers have untwined and therewith twisted the knot of the true and sincere love wherewith I most loyally honoured thée for the time that I lived in the Court Ah Cerasilla had I known that thou hadst béen so mindfull of my service and that thou didst accept of the pains or rather pangs which I suffered for love of thee the calamity which I have béen pestred with in this noisom prison for the space of these ten moneths or more had not been so grievous unto me as it hath been For the sweet thought and pleasant conceit which my brains hath béen occupied with in perpending and remembring your excellent beauty and rare vertues hath taken more force in the pareke of my understanding and so combred my mind with the delightsome memory of your personage that it had quite blotted out all thought of the injury which I have received at fortunes hands and expelled all such grief from my heart which I did take for the pittiful and lamentable entertainment which I have had in this loathsome cell Where ever since the second day that I departed from the Court for I have béen compelled to abide being fallen into the hands of certain Egyptian théeves who haunting these woods violently
we as we found our selves to be brothers having the same Name Parents Countrey Shape fortune so we swore everlasting friendship and allegiance one to another so loving one the other that though I know that it were impossible for any man in the world so to love any one as I loved him yet am I forced by the consideration of his wonderfull deserts towards me and by the tryal which I have had of his loyalty to doubt whether my love or his were the greatest And because we would in all things be alike and deprive the world of all means to know and discern one of us from the other we continually apparelled our selves alike both in the same colour fashion and order Insomuch that it was hard for the best discerning wit that the world could bring forth to know the one from the other or to find any difference between us Which thing as generally it troubled most of all the courtiers so particularly it was cause of Cerasillacs death who as I told you before bearing me good will and taking my brother for me when she conveyed him out of prison and saved his life and having lost him in the wood afterwards also delivered me from the villainous Egyptians and so was cause of all our blisse This poor Gentlewoman loving us both excellently well and deserving likewise to be honoured of us for very sorrow that she could not discern me from my brother pined and falling into a consumption died Whereof though we were passing sorry yet the youthfulnesse of our young hearts receiving the impression of the beauty of a young Gentlewoman sister to the Countesse Verina quickly forgot the funerals of Mistresse Cerasilla Yet because we could not but acknowledge that we were in great sort beholding unto her we bestowed this Epitaph upon her Sweet sweetness lies beneath this marble stone Which prays all loving hearts her death to mourn Her flower is fall'n though were her years but green When Life's most sweet she bitter Death hath seen We that of her this here have written in Had but for her now neither of us bin By Phi lore nus Phi lore nus But leaving her in her sepulcher I will return the sister of Countesse Verina who being a most beautifull Gentlewoman named Mistresse Aureola so inchanted my mind by the commanding force of her swéet face and sugred tongue that I admiring the much decent colour of the one and the well governed volubility of the other was so ravished in the pleasing delight which her perfections caused in my heart that I judged no woman fair none witty and none eloquent but golden Aureola Who as she passed all women in comelinesse of body and pure snow-like whitenesse of skin so none came near her in those hidden qualities which bred in the brain and fostred in the heart are made known by the tongue But to be short such were her graces both inward and outward that they pierced my heart in such manner that I was forced to acknowledge my self her servant and Cupids captive being subdued by his policy in using the imperiall beams of her beauty instead of darts to infringe and break the priviledge of my liberty Well I loved Aureola and so loved Aureola that for the love of Aureola I could have hated my self I then being in this case began to imploy my brains in searching out manner and procuring means to make my affection known to the Saint I so truly honoured And truly in short time not Aureola's self onely but my brother also began to perceive the fire which being kindled in my heart did cast out such a cloud of love-smoak Now I glad that Aureola knew the manner of my sicknesse but gladder that she seemed not male-content of my welcontentednesse and nothing displeased that my brother was acquainted with my passion seeing that he was an Alterego my self in I will not say another body for it was too like mine to be differenced but another place thought my self the happiest man that lived Ye may judge how much more blessed I would have accounted my self to have been if I might have doubled my single life by marriage with her Vnto whom to lay open the pain which punished my heart for the cause of her I sought occasion very diligently Insomuch that opportunity being presented unto me within a few days after and espying her walking by her self and the trées alone in the garden where her sisters lodging was I thought it but a negligent part to omit that fortunate hour and therefore knowing that the Countesse her sister was gone to the Quéen I posted to my mistresse with a sound courage hoping to return victorious or with good hope of victory Into the Garden I stepped and having set on half a dozen paces forwards towards her I might sée her turn being at the end of the walk Whose heavenly face so dazeled mine eys with the glance that she cast from the other end of the garden that I soon acknowledged that no Sun could so have dimmed my eys but the double Titan which like two little worlds of grace are such ornaments to her face that as they are beholding to it for that it hourdeth them so is it bounden unto them because it is by them adorned and beautified At length I came so near her that manners warned me to salute her though I was so astonished at her celestial shape that I could more fixe mine eys to behold her with admiration then fashion my mouth to salute her with civility Yet love taught me to beware of committing so foul and grosse a fault as not to give her a courteous good morrow who was the efficient of my disquiet evenings Therefore gréeting her after the humblest and lovingest manner my passiō forced me she answered me after this manner Good morrow sir Knight you are very maticuous this morning whatsoever the cause be but I pray you what weather drove you towards these quarters so early Truly Madam quoth I my good fortune séeing I have met with no worse company then your swéet self For as I passed by the Garden wall by chance looking over with a long neck I espied you walking by your self alone and so I thought it good manners to step near and give you the buen giorno And if I thought that my boldnesse in pressing so near you perhaps in such time as you had rather give respite to your solitary delight then otherwise be troubled should offend you as I came intending not to displeasure you so I would depart without performing any thing whereby you might have occasion to be discontented No no sir Knight quoth she beshrew me if ever I could be offended with good company neither have I any such melancholy humour as to delight in beeing alone but that sometimes I am compelled to be solitary for lack of good company And then I must of necessity walk alone and recreate my self with viewing natures diligent businesse in beautifying the earth
himself suffered And after we had there walked an half hour or thereabout we returned both of us together to the Court. And as we passed by the Countesse Verina's Garden he espied the Countesse walking all alone whereupon he began to urge me in any case not to let that occasion slip but that I should go unto her and make her acquainted with the love and affection betwéen me and her sister Aureola and that he would go with me to bear me company and to perswade the Countess to consent to the contracting of a marriage betwéen me and Aureola He said furthermore considering the thrée moneths which Aureola appointed to have the matter during that time concealed were expired he had the day before spoken with the King concerning this matter and that his Majesty had promised him to be wholly ours in this point as he had ever before béen in many other and besides told him some things which he should make relation of to the Countesse concerning this match And to tell the truth he grew so importunate to have me go to the Countesse in all hast that I knew not how to shift off this readinesse But because I had purposed to bring that to passe which I will by and by shew unto you I found this excuse to delay our conference with the Countesse that mistresse Aureola for certain causes had urged me to promise her that I would not speak unto her sister concerning any thing touching her before I forewarned her or let her know both that I would do it and the time when I would do it Which promise quoth I being passed I may not break it Whereupon he well contented séemed to take my excuse so well that he rather liked of my unwillingnesse to go to the Countesse then persevered to perswade me thereunto So that we went both to my lodging where we began to read certain chronicles of the ancient estate of Italy things done in times past in the Kingdome of Naples to drive away the rest of the time till dinner were ready that we might have some ancient history or other to delight the King and the Queen withall while they dined For they took such delight in hearing their predecessours déeds and sayings that we could not have done them a greater pleasure then to rehearse either some pretty saying or some other worthy act of such Kings or Quéens as had before them swayed the scepter of Naples But not to be that which I am loath to be I mean tedious unto you noble Princes and shepheards I will hasten to that which I even now promised to let you know concerning that which I had certainly of rips counsell in my heart concluded to do after I knew by my brothers passions that he himself loved Aureola and yet continually furthered my desire to his uttermost part For indeed I was fully resolved to leave Aureola unto him and my self to the hazard of fortune and being so resolved I performed no lesse CHAP. XXXIII How Philorenus the elder secretly left the Court of Naples and how his brother and Aureola went to seek him severally THe next morning I departed very secretly from the Court for Cinqueni thinking to inquire whether I might hear any thing of my father and to be certainly informed whether he were slain among the other unhappy inhabitants or by hap fled and so avoided the furious slaughter which many suffered But before I departed on the cover-lid of a looking-glasse that was in my brothers chamber window I wrote him this farewell I Philo * to * Renus THou which to deck by workman formed art Serve to unfold the cause which made me go And without leave my brother leave and part From Court wherein my onely joy doth grow Love bad me to enjoy my love and stay And love commanded me to go away self-Self-love would have me stay and means procure Loading my self with grief my self to ease considering therefore well the matter sure self-Self-love doth bid me go my self to please For who else is my brother but my self And tendring him right tender I my self Then know my self the cause which made me part Was love which warned me from love to cease For of two loves my heart felt double smart One love gave place that the other might increase Injoy thine Aureola for I am gone And therefore gone that she should be thine own After my brother had missed me marvelling where I should be so long he went to his chamber to drive away the time and to deceive the tedious hours with some kind of reading exercise thinking that I had been somewhere abroad in the fields in my solitary haunt and that I would ere long return to the Court. And leaning on his window he chanced to spie something written on the cover-lid of his looking glasse which he might ealsiy do by reason that I had written with red ink the lid being of white ivory And so taking it in his hand he read the verses which I had left there to yeeld a reason for my sudden departure But he being ravished into admiration and by admiration led into astonishment fell in an extasie Which extasie he being by himself alone and therefore deprived of help in such a case required had almost brought him to his last home Yet after he had a long time lain in a trance he came at last to himself again and then began to curse and rail at fortune for dealing so partially with him in revealing that unto me the revealing of which onely could make him miserable Insomuch that now he knew that which before he not once mistrusted to wit that I the other morning had in the wood heard him lament his ill fortune whereby I knew that which I also never dreamed of concerning his loving of Aureola But so grievously did he take my absence that all his body received the disposition that is caused by a disquiet soul and his face became the very subject of sorrow his countenance being mournfull and his eys being grown to be the very seats of tears Insomuch that whereas no man as yet could suspect or dream that I should be so gone as I was yet seeing him so wofully fashioned straightways judged that he could not be so altered but upon such a cause and whereas they should have known that he was so distempered by reason of my so being gone they contrarily knew of my being gone by reason that he was so distempered To be short he was so tortured by the Butchers of Greece that he was almost deprived of his wits and the use of his understanding and the rather because he was brought in doubtfull resolution whether he should leave Aureola and follow me or leave me and comfort Aureola lest ranging after me through unknown places he should both lose me and himself also He therefore being drawen now to this conclusion now to that hung in the air hovering between heaven and earth not knowing whether he were best by slight
there and on she went although she knew not whither yet whither her féet led with no certainer guide then Love and Fortune did carry her And having coursed through Italy without hearing any thing of me she visited the coasts of Spain for she knew that I was born in those quarters and so began to think that I might be taken with a desire to take a view of my Country which she resolved to go to because it was my Country deploring nothing so much as that she had not the luck to sée it but with séeking but in it and yet would she have counted that séeking but a pleasure if she might have found me the end of her dessrous But no she sought and so sought that she left no place in the Kingdome of Aragon which she had not seen or rather which had not seen her and she could not hear so much of me as whether ever I had been séen or heard of in that countrey before being the place of my birth the reason was that I lived in exile with my father as soon as my féet had learned that they had no néed of a bearer But to be short at length after many a troublesome journey she came to the village where I was born called Yervedra where lodging one night in an old Farmers house after she had made some enquity after me she learned that I was born in the same village for that old Farmer remembred my name very well though I think few others could have kept it in memory but if she had known my fathers name she had by inquiring for him sooner have come to Yervedra Yet what was she the better for when she knew that that was the place of my birth and that she could not hear any thing of me there then began her hope to fail and to yéeld to dispair insomuch that weary not so much of going any lenger as living any longer she wished either that she might find me or death Yet thanking the old man as heartily and courteously as a civil guest may an old and friendly host away she got from Yervedra thinking to go into Castile and so to sée the beautifulness of that Kingdome which she had so much heard spoken of But having paced about a mile from Yervedra she entered into a little Wood which was nothing either long or large or thick but so pleasant a place as that it seemed to be made by nature onely to delight the neighbours that dwelled thereabout Yet could not this place of pleasure any thing at all mitigate Aureola's grief now even bringing her to the gates of despair but rather increased her sorrow And whereas it was went to be a place where many men came to delight and recreate their minds in unto her it yéelded a memorandum of all her misfortunes and adversities for no sooner had she entered into that place but marking the pleasantness of it she began to remember the unpleasantness of her own conceits then began she to be sorry that she was so grieved with sorrow afterwards she became angry with her self in finding such humours next to that she found fault with Nature for making her so unperfect as not able to resist such accidents But at last paufing at that chancing word accidents she fell a railing at Fortune calling her the sole and onely mistress of all mischiefs that happen unto men And leaving her there busie with her bitter invectives against Fortune which she did as well as she could do and could do as well as she would or list to do being provoked thereto with such affections as anger and despight armed her withal I will in brief manner let you know that after he had béen in divers places and countries having made more spéed and hast in his search then Aureola at length in the borders of France it was his luck to meet with Laurea first called Sylva whose history I have shortly rehearsed untill she was brought home to her fathers house by her brother Otto who had among the shepheards so long courted her but the rest of her adventures she her self may declare unto this noble company opportunity being offered she being now in this house with the Lady Felicia Yet thus much I must say of her séeing it concerneth our history that my brother having found her in the frontiers of France in a defart all alone very nigh in the same plight that Aureola was at first when he saw her before he spake to her doubted whether it was Aureola for she was so drowned in fears that indeed the judgement of the eye could little prevail at first sight to discern what or who she was Nevertheless gréeting bréeding parley and parley knowledge he found that she was some other Gentlewoman that was pinched with the same puâ—ishment that tortured Aureola's soul But after long talk they came to like one of anothers company so well that they purposed to travel together into the Castilian region over the bordering mountains betwixt France and Spain Insomuch that they came into Castile before that Aureola had been in Aragon where in the famous City of Civil my brother was constrained to leave Laurea she having béen dangerously sick yet before he departed from her she was so amended that danger of death was past yet by reason of her weaknesse she was not like to be able to go on her journey in six or seven wéeks after So that he took his leave of her promising her that if he might make the course of his journey serve so that he might within a moneth or twain return that way he would come to her again and so to her no small discomfort parted from her travelling towards Aragon where he happened to passe through the wood where Aureola was lamenting her hard luck and rayling at fortune for so hardly using her Insomuch that my brother before he was by her eyed had espied her a far of and thinking certainly it had been some other kind of woman for that she had but base apparel having put on the Countesse her sisters maids cloaths which he knew not he went softly and used the bushes for a curtain to hide his body from her sight that he might come so near that he might learn by her words what she was for at the first sight he streight perceived that whosoever she was she bâ—re the impression of a distressed mind in her face And therefore listening to her cries he heard her utter these or such like speeches with her knife unsheathed in her hands IS this the world in which men strive to live Is this the life which men as pleasant love Is this the pleasure world and love doth give Is this the gift that age to wish doth move Age life world pleasure seek not to please me For I such gifts most poor account to be Life is a pain shall I with thanks buy pain Life breeds my wo shall I for sorrow wish Life is my losse shall I
will not be subject unto any part of the mind and I hold opinion thâ—â— reason is governed of love and not love guided by reason For when love hath once taken hold of the heart when it thinketh good it calleth for the counsell and assistance of reason but otherwise it will not wait or attend upon reason to be directed by it Neither do I judge them to be reasonable lovers that in love take counsel of reason or go about to love with reason For they that love indéed unlesse they do many ways surpasse that which reason teacheth them or do more then by reason they are moved to do I think their love to be but of a small account and scarce to be called love And not to fetch any instance a far of but even from your self if you had not left your father and your sisters as I have heard you say to séek the Lady in whose beauty your soul danced and forsaken your country for so I call the place where your dwelling was planted to travel through desart places and unknown regions to find out her who was cause that you lost your self no doubt you would not have thought that you had loved nor any man else would have said that you had done so And yet if you had hearkened to reason undoubtedly you had not left your aged father and comfortlesse sisters deprived of your company to seek the company of the Lady who fled your company for reason would have conducted an whole army of arguments to disswade you from that enterprise which would have been nothing else but to force you to cease from love For certainly had you stayed at home you had either not loved at all or at least but very little béen troubled with passion Insomuch that you sée how that reason and love cannot agrée together for they are opposite enemies one to the other And therefore I cannot see what love it is that thou say thou would have guided by reason That love Madam quoth Perierio which I onely account love and not I onely but all such as will not disgrace the excellency of so worthy a thing as love is For to let you know how I would have love guided with reason I understand the matter so that I would have them that love therein to shuâ— such inconveniences as bréed shame infamy and reproach unto them that love if they be not avoided As to love that which ought not to be loved as Pasiphae loved the Bul by whom she bore Minotaurus many other things which might be considered which onely can be judged by the rule of reason Besides I remember many that describe love whose descriptions I like not for my part say that love is full of dissembling hypocrisie strife debate brawling vice offence quarrelling envy hate jealousie murther prodigality gréedinesse covetousness anger and many other mischievous inconveniences which I think one that loves may very well avoid all I mean by the help and counsel of reason which tells us that they ought to be shunned Why but good sir quoth the Dutchess that love whereof you talk is not love but lust the gulph of all mischief for lust is subject to all such vices and more but not love Why then inferred Perierio must you grant that love not limited by reason is lust Nothing so quoth the Dutchess for love in the very nature and essence therof considered otherwise it is diversly taken is a knot or bond which tieth knitteth and uniteth two hearts inseparably and maketh them one insomuch that love it self so considered to attain to the very purity and singularity thereof is to endeavour and labor by al means whatsoever to the making of them Two hearts One and to that one thing must all actions be directed Insomuch I say that such persons as will claim the right title of lovers must neither be feared with dangers nor driven back by force nor chased with terrour nor removed with reason from endevouring and working to make themselves deserve to be inseparably joyned with that which they love and to become as the same thing it self and one thing with it Wherein I pray you cannot this be the onely and very force of love and not of lust Very well Madam quoth Perierio So sir quoth she I pray you have you forgotten that you even now said that you accounted all love not guided by reason lust which how grossely it was spoken I will thus with one small example make you confess your self Put case the Duke of Florence loveth some Lady either for her beauty grace comliness vertue or other gifts by God and nature bestowed on her which Lady he cannot enjoy as his own I mean have her heart united to his as his is tied to hers and be loved of her as he loveth her for there must be reciprocation in love unless he spend all his Revenues his Dukedome and afterward having obtained his hearts desire of her and hath of her heart and his made but one yet cannot enjâ—y her by reason of her parents that for one reason or other would have her either married to some other or rather not married at all then to him and so lives still in body separated from her though in heart and soul never but by her his Dukedome gone and all his wealth consumed thinking the jewel which he hath thereby gotten of a higher price then all his substance I mean the love of his Lady being onely content with this that she loves him Now let me ask you this question would not reason if the Duke had guided his love by the rational measure of his understanding have counselled him not to lose his credit his wealth his renown and not to have undone himself for that which he might not fully enjoy though he enjoyed as he desired It may be so Madam quoth Perierio but what then Marry this quoth she Then his love was not guided by reason yet there is no man that will nay can say but that it was pure love not spotted with the blot of any lust and therefore against your former principle are you forced to confess that all love not guided by reason is not lust Perierio marking the subtilty of the Dutchess in taking hold of his words and going about to canvas him that way séeing she could not go through with her matter which was to prove that no love could be too extream great and that upright love was not to be guided or governed by reason he unwilling to let her yet so carry it away made answer thus Many things may be spoken which divers ways are to be understood For sometimes things properly taken are improperly applied to sundry purposes And so when I said that love not not guided by reâ—son was lust I understood not lust as it is properly taken for the carnal desire and libidinous cipidity of the flesh â—ut rather for the vice which is committed by desiring that which ones affections urge him to covet and
so harkening to the lure of his passions boweth his will to their beck and draweth his will to will that which his affections wil which may be and is improperly called lust also For as properly it is so called by reason of the filthy desires of the flesh so improperly is it so also called for the desire of ones passions and affections when one setteth aside the sound perswasion of reason and applieth his will to follow that which his affections move him unto And thus did I say that all love not guided by reason was lust in that they that so love do not what reason willeth them but what they lift and what the will of their affections as it were forceth them to do CHAP. XXXVIII How Perierio and Marcelio with the rest of their company taking leave of the Lady Felicia departed THe Lady Felicia hearing Perierio and the Dutchess so earnestly each stand to their own sayings merrily brake up their gentle cavil saying I perceive Gentiles if my Nymph had not ministred occasion of talk we had béen very silent all supper time But yet quoth the Dutchess with our rude discourse it may be we have bred trouble to your ears and this company Not to me truly quoth Felicia Nor to us I dare say for the rest quoth Marcelo As for me said Alcida I have conceived great delight in hearing the well agreeing strife betwéen the two disputants considering that though in words they disagreed yet in sense they both agrée in one as in spéeches the Dutchess hath showed that love néedeth not to respect reason so in very déed hath she by example shewed that she hath vertuously loved therefore her self guidâ—â— her love with reason And no doubt quoth ancient Eugerio where she saith that love must not be tied to reason her meaning is that they which love ought in such manner to pursue their love that they do things which are beyond the common expectation of men and indéed such things as may séem to be against reason so long as they are not contrary to vertue for considering that she would have such as love not to overrun vertue in my opinion she cannot be much discrepant from Perierio in that he would have love guided by reaâ—on meaning thereby that he would not have so excellent a thing as love is disgraced with vice which cannot be committed by the counsel or consent of reason Thus was supper time spent which being ended and the cloth taken up by the Nymphs the Lady Felicia with all the company walked out into the fields to recreate themselves and take the evening air which done the curtain of darkness being spread all over the air they were warned to return to the Palace where they were all accompanied to their lodgings by the Nymphs The next morning Marcelio with his Alcida and her father Eugerio and her brother and sister Polydor and Clenarde took their leave of the Lady Felicia yéelding her as many thanks as they might and departed thence to end their journy which they had taken to Lisbon there to celebrate their marriage as they purposed when they took ship In like manner the beautifull shepheards Lexander and Ismenia departed from the Lady Felicia to return home to their village being glad they had so hapily met in that place Furthermore Perierio now delivered from the furious passion that overturned his understanding before merrily taketh leave of the company and taketh his journey to Salamanca The Dutchess Brisil remained with the Lady Felicia until she heard some certainty of Periander which Felicia said would not be long The rest of whose histoâ—y with the event thereof what hapned to him before he was married to Brisil and crowned King of Albion with the success which Maffeo had after he departed from Felicia to séek his Eleonora and lastly the adveÌ„tures of Perierio with the loves of his beautiful vertuous and noble sisters Euphilia and Perina after the death of their aged father Camillo if almighty God give me life and leisure I wil write hereafter for the pleasure of my loving country-men In the mean time I coÌ„mit my self to their prayers and them to the tuition of God FINIS
thereof began to be wonderfully discomforted and thought his pain vainly bestowed séeing that Fortune was blinde and made no discretion of persons but ever wrought by chance bestowing her favours not where she would but where they fell Perierio thus discomforted climing on the top of a hil heard a most swéet and melodious voyce sounding to a harp within a little wood where the high Oâ—kes made a pleasant shadow And drawing néer to the wood he marked that it was the voice of a shepheard who after she had ended her song began thus to complaine of her misfortune No doubt but all the starrs that from the skies send light on the earth have agréed and consented to my mishap and ill fortune neither is there any thing on earth that may yield me any comfort or consolation but love which is subject to fear turneth and converteth my sorrowfull soule into pure ice Ah Fortune how canst thou be so cruel How canst thou forbear to succour a heart so distressed as mine séeing that I am falsly suspected of disloyalty And therefore I must accuse thée Lexander thou art the man whom I must burthen with the cause of all my grief unto thée do I discover and unfold my plaints hard-hearted and cruell Lexander in whom no pitty taketh place For if thou wer'st of my side I would not care though Heaven Earth Love and Fortune were against me and enemies unto me After that she had ended her complaint she fetched a heavy sigh from her heart and therewith wept so bitterly that Perierio might easily perceive that she was in that pittiful and lamentable taking by reason that her husband falsly suspected her to be disloyal and unfaithful so that he entred into the wood and found her sitting upon the grasse in the shade néere to a delectable Fountain which issuing from the top of the hill ran along a great part of the wood in divers places But when she saw Perierio comming neer her though she was something discontented that she was interpelled amidst her passions yet beholding that he seemed by his behaviour to be some Shepheard of great account being most courteously by him greeted saluted him likewise with such modesty that he began to misdoubt whether she were Alcida the promised spouse of Marcelio For he called to mind how that Marcelio had told him and his sisters that Alcida had cloathed her self in the habit of a Shepheard because she might be the harder to be found by him and therefore spake thus unto her Beautiful Shepheard for so your coat bewrayeth though your singular grace make me suspect that your calling is contrary to your colours I shall desire you not to be discomforted though I have troubled you at this time intruding my self into your company for as I have discourteously offended so shall you find me most ready to make amends for my boldnes Gentle shepheard answered she I am so forsaken of al comfort and solace that good company cannot offend me therefore where no fault is committed there is nothing to be misconstred of And to put you out of suspition know that I am a shepheard as wel in vocation as in habit called Iâ—menia and born néer to the Temple of Minerva in the kingdom of Portugal But I pray you what chance hath brought you hither into these Countries or do you by hap dwell hereabout In truth Ismenia quoth Periorio my ill fortune hath brought me hither for I neither dwell here nor ever was in this place before I was born in Italy but with my father and sisters transported to the fields annexed to the river Epla about four or five dayes journey hence I know the place very well quoth Ismenia it is not far from the pasture where fair Euphilia so renowned in all that quarter doth féed her shéep I hear you name my sister quoth Perierio and am glad to have met with one that is not wholly unacquainted with our Family What say you quoth Ismenia In truth unto a woman so distressed as I am being desolate and forsaken of my loving husband nothing could have hapned more wished for then to have met with such honest and vertuous company as it hath pleased the Gods to comfort me withall in directing your self towards these woods And forasmuch as I am in mind to go to the Temple of Diana if your journey ly that way I shall think my self among so many mishaps to have received no small favour of Fortune As for me quoth Perierio where I am I know not nor whether I may go and therefore am induced to think that Fortune beginneth to repent her self of her shrewdnesse in that she hath favoured me with so worthy a guide as your self to lead me forth of my straying errours to some place where I may enquire for directions in my journey And I am most passing glad that you go towards the Temple of Diana of the sumptuousnesse whereof I have heard such famous relation among the Shepheards in the Village néer my fathers Farme that I have a long time been moved with great desire to see the same And therefore fair Shepheard take which way you will and Perierio will follow you Ismenia glad that this Shepheard was in her company began to march hoping before Phoebus should attain to his Western home that they should reach to a Farme where she thought that they might be lodged that night But to shun tediousnesse in their wearisome journey Perierio desired her to recount and declare the cause of her griefe unto him Ismenia answered that although the memory thereof could not but pierce her heart with the prick of exceeding sorrow yet notwithstanding because he desired whom she could not say nay she was content to make a pastime of her misery And thus in this ensuing Chapter began the History of her Tragedy CHAP. XI How Lexander was enamoured on Ismenia and how he was crost in his love by his father Filene IN our Village dwelled a certain Farmer that had a comely youth to his son in beauty passing all the Shepheards thereabout being called Alanio who féeding his shéep in a pasture ground not far from ours used sometimes to come to me and keep me company sitting in the shadow by me and telling of tales or passing over the time with some other kind of honest recreation whereby at last grew such a familiar acquaintance betwixt us that love joyning our hearts together we were not well while we were separated the one from the others company To be short he loved me and was loved of me There was in the same Village a fair beautiful Shepheardesse called Selvagia who for her beauty might be compared with Venus in the valley before Parys when she won the golden Apple Of which Shepheard my Alanio became enamoured wherupon I to be revenged on him fained to favour Lexander his deadly enemy Which fained love of mine at length by reason of the acquaintance that grew between us changed into such pure
small gift of the King and of me although his newes was so evil because he told us that he saw the Prince fléeting up and downe the waves upon one of the ship-hatches hoping that he was somewhere cast on land though perhaps so far that he could not so soon return home to Albion I will not hear make mention what a living death or dying life I poor wretch led all the while that Periander was absent sometimes perswading my self that he was dead and sometimes hoping to see him and injoy his presence but this I will leave to your discretion loving shepheards and passe on forwards in the declaration of this lamentable history You shall therefore know that after Barsalis had been six moneths at home the Admirals son returned to his fathers house attired like a ship slave and told us such a tale of his wonderfull adventure how he was cast on the shore side with his mast-piece and how he fared on the land that not the Court onely but all the Country also admired at his hard fortune But concerning the Prince he could tell no more then the other traitor had done yet to give a colour of likelihood he agreed to the same report which the Villain Barsalis had made And though my hope was small yet I took the greater courage because sir Massicour◠that Arch-traitor had escaped such dangers and troubles as he made us beleeve And howsoever my young heart strived against sorrow and grief yet the Queen being old and weak of nature consumed for very grief and dyed Who being buried and intombed what mourning what grief and what sorrow was made not in the Court onely but generally over all the Countrey I am not able to expresse And as for my selfe though I was very sorry for her death yet was the grief and pain which I suffered for the absence of Periander so great and excéeding that I could scarce think up-any other thing and therefore the sooner forgate the death of the Quéen CHAP. XV. How the traitor Massicourt slew himself because he could not obtain the love of fair Brisilla also how the King was enamoured on her BY this time began the traitor Massicourt to make love unto me and to cast such passionate looks upon me at all times that he passed by me or came into the place where I was that I could not chuse but perceive that he was becom darling to Venus by the forcing dart of her Son Cupid and that he suffered great pain for my sake I was sorry for his case because he was a most gallant Gentleman excéeding both in perfection of body and readines of wit but yet my hart was so fixed on Periander that although I had certainly known that he was dead yet could I not have forgotten him to love any other Yet howsoever I was affected Massicourt found meanes to enter into the Orchard I being there alone and emboldned himself so far that he came unto me gréeted me and with all humility by word of mouth declared what torment he suffered for love of me desiring me to be merciful unto him Whereunto I answered that I could shew him mercy in pittying his case and exhorting him to change his mind but other mercy I could not shew him and so I flung into the Palace and left him among the trées which might have been witnesses of the teares he shead Yet he gave not over the field for all he had had but ill successe at the first assault and purposed to send me a Letter hoping that ink and paper would do more then his bare words had done Especially because he being passionate was not able in my presence to expresse his mind neither would I hearken unto his speech Insomuch that he thinking that I could not do lesse then read all whatsoever he wrote though I could not give ear to his sayings dispatched a Letter and conveyed it into my hands as secretly as he could which letter was written to such an end Massicourt to the Dutchess Brisil PArdon me gracious Lady if I am troublesome unto your grace for I am forced by that Lord whom I must obey The sum of my desire is to please your grace and my chiefest felicity consisteth in your content therefore think not Lady that I would willingly molest you My humble Petition is that it may please your grace to weigh the torment grief and pain which I suffer which if your gracious mercy do not slacken is like to seal my love with death and to give the world cause to accuse your grace of cruelty Mercy Madam is an ornament to Ladies of high estate I wish not that you should forget the Prince Periander but to admit me as copartner and pertaker of your grief Neither do I crave that your grace should not love Periander whether he be dead or yet live but give me leave to love you and to accept of my love as a comfort to asswage the sorrow you suffer for Periander Farewell When I had read this Letter I could not but be angry for it grieved me that he went about to withdraw me from the love of Periander though he séemed to wish the contrary For how could I have loved him and not forget Periander how could I have been merry with him and mourn for Periander and how could I laugh with him and wéep for Periander wherefore incontinently I wrote him this answer Brisilla to Sir Massicourt YOur conscience urged you Sir Massicourt to crave pardon in the beginning of your letter foreknowing your offence But your excuse is for that you are constrained by him whom you must obey Cupid you mean I am sute but how shamefull it is that a Knight should so bewray his pusilanimity and faintnesse of courage I leave to your own consideration And to let you understand furthermore that if your desire be to please me and therefore far from undertaking any thing that may trouble me you shall obtein your wish and enjoy true felicity which you affirm to consist in my content if you molest me with neither letter nor speech to love you For in so doing you shall bind me to acknowledge that you have done me a singular pleasure You know that I have already told you that I am sorry for your torment and passion though I may not be your Physitian Neither do I think the world so mad as to judge me cruell if your folly cause you to die Though it be a common and usual custom unto all your sex to talk of the mate befor you have the check You can teach me that mercy beseemeth maids but you forget in the mean time that Knights ought not to be unmerciful as to seek the overthrow of our honesty and to spoil us of our honour Have not I given faith to love Periander and shal I not incur foul shame and dishonor if contrary to my promise I love you but would you have me use your love as a pastime to forget the dolor