The Project Gutenberg E-Book of "The Shepheard's Calender", by Edmund Spenser

ENTITLED TO THE NOBLE AND VERTUOUS GENTLEMAN MOST WORTHY OF ALL TITLES BOTH OF LEARNING & CHIVALRY, MAISTER PHILIP SIDNEY.

BY EDMUND SPENSER:
NEWLY ADORNED
WITH TWELVE PICTURES AND OTHER DEVICES
BY
WALTER CRANE.

TO HIS BOOK.

Go, little Book! thyself present,

As child whose parent is unkent,

To him that is the President

Of Nobleness and Chivalry:

And if that Envy bark at thee,

As sure it will, for succour flee

Under the shadow of his wing.

And, asked who thee forth did bring,

A shepheard's swain, say, did thee sing,

All as his straying flock he fed:

And, when his Honour has thee read,

Crave pardon for thy hardyhed.

But, if that any ask thy name,

Say, thou wert base-begot with blame;

Forthy thereof thou takest shame.

And, when thou art past jeopardy,

Come tell me what was said of me,

And I will send more after thee.

IMMERITO.

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT AND LEARNED
BOTH ORATOR AND POET,
MAISTER GABRIEL HARVEY,

His very special and singular good friend E. K.
commendeth the good liking of this his good
labour, and the patronage of the new Poet.

Uncouth, unkiss'd, said the old famous poet Chaucer: whom for his excellency and wonderful skill in making, his scholar Lidgate, a worthy scholar of so excellent a maister, calleth the loadstar of our language: and whom our Colin Clout in his Æglogue, calleth Tityrus the god of shepheards, comparing him to the worthiness of the Roman Tityrus, Virgil. Which proverb, mine own good friend M. Harvey, as in that good old poet it served well Pandar's purpose for the bolstering of his bawdy brocage, so very well taketh place in this our new Poet, who for that he is uncouth (as said Chaucer) is unkiss'd, and unknown to most men, is regarded but of a few. But I doubt not, so soon as his name shall come into the knowledge of men, and his worthiness be sounded in the trump of Fame, but that he shall be not only kiss'd, but also beloved of all, embraced of the most, and wonder'd at of the best. No less, I think, deserveth his wittiness in devising, his pithiness in uttering, his complaints of love so lovely, his discourses of pleasure so pleasantly, his pastoral rudeness, his moral wiseness, his due observing of decorum every where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speech; and generally, in all seemly simplicity of handling his matters, and framing his words: the which of many things which in him be strange, I know will seem the strangest, and words themselves being so ancient, the knitting of them so short and intricate, and the whole period and compass of speech so delightsome for the roundness, and so grave for the strangeness. And first of the words to speak, I grant they be something hard, and of most men unused, yet both English, and also used of most excellent authors, and most famous poets. In whom, when as this our Poet hath been much travailed and throughly read, how could it be, (as that worthy orator said) but that walking in the sun, although for other cause he walked, yet needs he must be sunburnt; and, having the sound of those ancient poets still ringing in his ears, he must needs, in singing, hit out some of their tunes. But whether he useth them by such casualty and custom, or of set purpose and choice, as thinking them fittest for such rustical rudeness of shepheards, either for that their rough sound would make his rhymes more ragged and rustical; or else because such old and obsolete words are most used of country folk, sure I think, and think I think not amiss, that they bring great grace, and, as one would say, authority to the verse. For albe, amongst many other faults, it specially be objected of Valla against Livy, and of other against Sallust, that with over much study they affect antiquity, as covering thereby credence and honour of elder years; yet I am of opinion, and eke the best learned are of the like, that those ancient solemn words are a great ornament, both in the one, and in the other: the one labouring to set forth in his work an eternal image of antiquity, and the other carefully discoursing matters of gravity and importance. For, if my memory fail not, Tully in that book, wherein he endeavoureth to set forth the pattern of a perfect orator, saith that ofttimes an ancient word maketh the style seem grave, and as it were reverend, no otherwise than we honour and reverence gray hairs for a certain religious regard, which we have of old age. Yet neither every where must old words be stuffed in, nor the common dialect and manner of speaking so corrupted thereby, that, as in old buildings, it seem disorderly and ruinous. But all as in most exquisite pictures they us?e to blaze and pourtray not only the dainty lineaments of beauty, but also round about it to shadow the rude thickets and craggy clifts, that, by the baseness of such parts, more excellency may accrue to the principal: for oftentimes we find ourselves, I know not how, singularly delighted with the shew of such natural rudeness, and take great pleasure in that disorderly order. Even so do those rough and harsh terms enlumine, and make more clearly to appear, the brightness of brave and glorious words. So oftentimes a discord in music maketh a comely concordance: so great delight took the worthy poet Alceus to behold a blemish in the joint of a well-shaped body. But, if any will rashly blame such his purpose in choice of old and unwonted words, him may I more justly blame and condemn, or of witless headiness in judging, or of heedless hardiness in condemning: for, not marking the compass of his bent, he will judge of the length of his cast: for in my opinion it is one especial praise of many, which are due to this Poet, that he hath laboured to restore, as to their rightful heritage, such good and natural English words, as have been long time out of use, and almost clean disherited. Which is the only cause, that our mother tongue, which truly of itself is both full enough for prose, and stately enough for verse, hath long time been counted most bare and barren of both. Which default when as some endeavoured to salve and recure, they patched up the holes with pieces and rags of other languages, borrowing here of the French, there of the Italian, every where of the Latin; not weighing how ill those tongues accord with themselves, but much worse with ours: So now they have made our English tongue a gallimaufrey, or hodgepodge of all other speeches. Other some not so well seen in the English tongue, as perhaps in other languages, if they happen to hear an old word, albeit very natural and significant, cry out straightway, that we speak no English, but gibberish, or rather such as in old time Evander's mother spake: whose first shame is, that they are not ashamed, in their own mother tongue, to be counted strangers and aliens. The second shame no less than the first, that what so they understand not, they straightway deem to be senseless, and not at all to be understood. Much like to the mole in Æsop's fable, that, being blind herself, would in no wise be persuaded that any beast could see. The last, more shameful than both, that of their own country and natural speech, which together with their nurse's milk they sucked, they have so base regard and bastard judgment, that they will not only themselves not labour to garnish and beautify it, but also repine, that of other it should be embellished. Like to the dog in the manger, that himself can eat no hay, and yet barketh at the hungry bullock, that so fain would feed: whose currish kind, though it cannot be kept from barking, yet I conne them thank that they refrain from biting.

Now, for the knitting of sentences, which they call the joints and members thereof, and for all the compass of the speech, it is round without roughness, and learned without hardness, such indeed as may be perceived of the least, understood of the most, but judged only of the learned. For what in most English writers useth to be loose, and as it were unright, in this Author is well grounded, finely framed, and strongly trussed up together. In regard whereof, I scorn and spue out the rakehelly rout of our ragged rhymers (for so themselves use to hunt the letter) which without learning boast, without judgment jangle, without reason rage and foam, as if some instinct of poetical spirit had newly ravished them above the meanness of common capacity. And being, in the midst of all their bravery, suddenly, either for want of matter, or rhyme; or having forgotten their former conceit; they seem to be so pained and travailed in their remembrance, as it were a woman in childbirth, or as that same Pythia, when the trance came upon her. "Os rabidum fera corda domans," etc.

Nathless, let them a God's name feed on their own folly, so they seek not to darken the beams of others' glory. As for Colin, under whose person the Author's self is shadowed, how far he is from such vaunted titles and glorious shews, both himself sheweth, where he saith:

"Of Muses, Hobbin, I conne no skill."

And,

"Enough is me to paint out my unrest," etc.

And also appeareth by the baseness of the name, wherein it seemeth he chose rather to unfold great matter of argument covertly than, professing it, not suffice thereto accordingly. Which moved him rather in Æglogues than otherwise to write, doubting perhaps his ability, which he little needed, or minding to furnish our tongue with this kind, wherein it faulteth; or following the example of the best and most ancient poets, which devised this kind of writing, being both so base for the matter, and homely for the manner, at the first to try their abilities; and as young birds, that be newly crept out of the nest, by little first prove their tender wings, before they make a greater flight. So flew Theocritus, as you may perceive he was already full fledged. So flew Virgil, as not yet well feeling his wings. So flew Mantuane, as not being full somm'd. So Petrarch. So Boccace. So Marot, Sanazarius, and also divers other excellent both Italian and French poets, whose footing this author every where followeth: yet so as few, but they be well scented, can trace him out. So finally flieth this our new Poet as a bird whose principals be scarce grown out, but yet as one that in time shall be able to keep wing with the best. Now, as touching the general drift and purpose of his Æglogues, I mind not to say much, himself labouring to conceal it. Only this appeareth, that his unstayed youth had long wander'd in the common labyrinth of love, in which time to mitigate and allay the heat of his passion, or else to warn (as he saith) the young shepheards, his equals and companions, of his unfortunate folly, he compiled these twelve Æglogues, which, for that they be proportioned to the state of the twelve monethes, he termeth it the Shepheard's Calender, applying an old name to a new work. Hereunto have I added a certain gloss, or scholion, for the exposition of old words and harder phrases; which manner of glossing and commenting, well I wot, will seem strange and rare in our tongue: yet, for so much as I knew many excellent and proper devices, both in words and matter, would pass in the speedy course of reading either as unknown, or as not marked; and that in this kind, as in other, we might be equal to the learned of other nations; I thought good to take the pains upon me, the rather for that by means of some familiar acquaintance I was made privy to his counsel and secret meaning in them, as also in sundry other works of his. Which albeit I know he nothing so much hateth, as to promulgate, yet thus much have I adventured upon his friendship, himself being for long time far estranged; hoping that this will the rather occasion him to put forth divers other excellent works of his, which sleep in silence; as his Dreams, his Legends, his Court of Cupid, and sundry others, whose commendation to set out were very vain, the things though worthy of many, yet being known to few. These my present pains, if to any they be pleasurable or profitable, be you judge, mine own Maister Harvey, to whom I have both in respect of your worthiness generally, and otherwise upon some particular and special considerations, vowed this my labour, and the maidenhead of this our common friend's poetry; himself having already in the beginning dedicated it to the noble and worthy gentleman, the right worshipful Maister Philip Sidney, a special favourer and maintainer of all kind of learning. Whose cause, I pray you, sir, if envy shall stir up any wrongful accusation, defend with your mighty rhetoric and other your rathe gifts of learning, as you can, and shield with your good will, as you ought, against the malice and outrage of so many enemies, as I know will be set on fire with the sparks of his kindled glory. And thus recommending the Author unto you, as unto his most special good friend, and myself unto you both, as one making singular account of two so very good and so choice friends, I bid you both most heartily farewell, and commit you and your commendable studies to the tuition of the Greatest.

Your own assuredly to be commanded,

E. K. 1

P.S.—Now I trust, M. Harvey, that upon sight of your special friend's and fellow poet's doings, or else for envy of so many unworthy Quidams, which catch at the garland which to you alone is due, you will be persuaded to pluck out of the hateful darkness those so many excellent English poems of yours which lie hid, and bring them forth to eternal light. Trust me, you do both them great wrong, in depriving them of the desired sun; and also yourself, in smothering your deserved praises; and all men generally, in withholding from them so divine pleasures, which they might conceive of your gallant English verses, as they have already done of your Latin poems, which, in my opinion, both for invention and elocution are very delicate and super-excellent. And thus again I take my leave of my good M. Harvey. From my lodging at London this tenth of April 1579.

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT OF THE WHOLE BOOK.

Little, I hope, needeth me at large to discourse the first original of Æglogues, having already touched the same. But, for the word Æglogues I know is unknown to most, and also mistaken of some of the best learned, (as they think,) I will say somewhat thereof, being not at all impertinent to my present purpose.

They were first of the Greeks, the inventors of them, called Aeglogai, as it were Aegon, or Aeginomon logi, that is, Goatherds' tales. For although in Virgil and others the speakers be more shepheards than goatherds, yet Theocritus, in whom is more ground of authority than in Virgil, this specially from that deriving, as from the first head and wellspring, the whole invention of these Æglogues maketh goatherds the persons and authors of his tales. This being, who seeth not the grossness of such as by colour of learning would make us believe, that they are more rightly termed Eclogai, as they would say, extraordinary discourses of unnecessary matter: which definition albe in substance and meaning it agree with the nature of the thing, yet no whit answereth with the analysis and interpretation of the word. For they be not termed Eclogues, but Æglogues; which sentence this Author very well observing, upon good judgment, though indeed few goatherds have to do herein, nevertheless doubteth not to call them by the used and best known name. Other curious discourses hereof I reserve to greater occasion.

These twelve Æglogues, every where answering to the seasons of the twelve monethes, may be well divided into three forms or ranks. For either they be plaintive, as the first, the sixth, the eleventh, and the twelfth; or recreative, such as all those be, which contain matter of love, or commendation of special personages; or moral, which for the most part be mixed with some satyrical bitterness; namely, the second, of reverence due to old age; the fifth, of coloured deceit; the seventh and ninth, of dissolute shepheards and pastors; the tenth, of contempt of Poetry and pleasant Wits. And to this division may every thing herein be reasonably applied; a few only except, whose special purpose and meaning I am not privy to. And thus much generally of these twelve Æglogues. Now will we speak particularly of all, and first of the first, which he calleth by the first moneth's name, Januarie: wherein to some he may seem foully to have faulted, in that he erroneously beginneth with that moneth, which beginneth not the year. For it is well known, and stoutly maintained with strong reasons of the learned, that the year beginneth in March; for then the sun reneweth his finished course, and the seasonable spring refresheth the earth, and the pleasance thereof, being buried in the sadness of the dead winter now worn away, reliveth.

This opinion maintain the old Astrologers and Philosophers, namely, the reverend Andalo, and Macrobius in his Holy Days of Saturn; which account also was generally observed both of Grecians and Romans. But, saving the leave of such learned heads, we maintain a custom of counting the seasons from the moneth Januarie, upon a more special cause than the heathen Philosophers ever could conceive, that is, for the Incarnation of our mighty Saviour, and Eternal Redeemer the Lord Christ, who as then renewing the state of the decayed world, and returning the compass of expired years to their former date and first commencement, left to us his heirs a memorial of his birth in the end of the last year and beginning of the next. Which reckoning, beside that eternal monument of our salvation, leaneth also upon good proof of special judgment.

For albeit that in elder times, when as yet the count of the year was not perfected, as afterward it was by Julius Cæsar, they began to tell the monethes from March's beginning, and according to the same, God (as is said in Scripture) commanded the people of the Jews, to count the moneth Abib, that which we call March, for the first moneth, in remembrance that in that moneth he brought them out of the land of Egypt: yet, according to tradition of latter times it hath been otherwise observed, both in government of the Church and rule of mightiest realms. For from Julius Cæsar who first observed the leap year, which he called Bissextilem Annum, and brought into a more certain course the odd wand'ring days which of the Greeks were called Hyperbainontes, of the Romans Intercalares, (for in such matter of learning I am forced to use the terms of the learned,) the monethes have been numbered twelve, which in the first ordinance of Romulus were but ten, counting but 304 days in every year, and beginning with March. But Numa Pompilius, who was the father of all the Roman ceremonies and religion, seeing that reckoning to agree neither with the course of the sun nor the moon, thereunto added two monethes, Januarie and Februarie; wherein it seemeth, that wise king minded upon good reason to begin the year at Januarie, of him therefore so called tanquam janua anni, the gate and entrance of the year; or of the name of the god Janus, to which god for that the old Paynims attributed the birth and beginning of all creatures new coming into the world, it seemeth that he therefore to him assigned the beginning and first entrance of the year. Which account for the most part hath hitherto continued: notwithstanding that the Egyptians begin their year at September; for that, according to the opinion of the best Rabbins and very purpose of the Scripture itself, God made the world in that moneth, that is called of them Tisri. And therefore he commanded them to keep the feast of Pavilions in the end of the year, in the xv. day of the seventh moneth, which before that time was the first.

But our author, respecting neither the subtilty of the one part, nor the antiquity of the other, thinketh it fittest, according to the simplicity of common understanding, to begin with Januarie; weening it perhaps no decorum that shepheards should be seen in matter of so deep insight, or canvass a case of so doubtful judgment. So therefore beginneth he, and so continueth he throughout.

JANUARIE · AEGLOGA PRIMA

In this first Æglogue Colin Clout, a shepheard's boy, complaineth himself of his unfortunate love, being but newly (as seemeth) enamoured of a country lass called Rosalind: with which strong affection being very sore travailed, he compareth his careful case to the sad season of the year, to the frosty ground, to the frozen trees, and to his own winter-beaten flock. And lastly, finding himself robbed of all former pleasance and delight, he breaketh his pipe in pieces, and casteth himself to the ground.

COLIN CLOUT.

A shepheard's boy, (no better do him call,)

When winter's wasteful spite was almost spent,

All in a sunshine day, as did befall,

Led forth his flock, that had been long ypent:

So faint they wox, and feeble in the fold,

That now unnethes their feet could them uphold.

All as the sheep, such was the shepheard's look,

For pale and wan he was, (alas the while!)

May seem he lov'd, or else some care he took;

Well couth he tune his pipe and frame his style:

Then to a hill his fainting flock he led,

And thus him plain'd, the while his sheep there fed:

"Ye gods of love! that pity lovers' pain,

(If any gods the pain of lovers pity,)

Look from above, where you in joys remain,

And bow your ears unto my doleful ditty.

And, Pan! thou shepheards' god, that once didst love,

Pity the pains that thou thyself didst prove.

"Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted,

Art made a mirror to behold my plight:

Whilome thy fresh spring flower'd, and after hasted

Thy summer proud, with daffodillies dight;

And now is come thy winter's stormy state,

Thy mantle marr'd wherein thou maskedst late.

"Such rage as winter's reigneth in my heart,

My life-blood freezing with unkindly cold;

Such stormy stoures do breed my baleful smart,

As if my year were waste and waxen old;

And yet, alas! but now my spring begun,

And yet, alas! it is already done.

"You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost,

Wherein the birds were wont to build their bower,

And now are cloth'd with moss and hoary frost,

Instead of blossoms, wherewith your buds did flower;

I see your tears that from your boughs do rain,

Whose drops in dreary icicles remain.

"All so my lustful leaf is dry and sere,

My timely buds with wailing all are wasted;

The blossom which my branch of youth did bear,

With breathed sighs is blown away and blasted;

And from mine eyes the drizzling tears descend,

As on your boughs the icicles depend.

"Thou feeble flock! whose fleece is rough and rent,

Whose knees are weak through fast and evil fare,

Mayst witness well, by thy ill government,

Thy master's mind is overcome with care:

Thou weak, I wan; thou lean, I quite forlorn:

With mourning pine I; you with pining mourn.

"A thousand siths I curse that careful hour

Wherein I long'd the neighbour town to see,

And eke ten thousand siths I bless the stoure

Wherein I saw so fair a sight as she:

Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane.

Ah, God! that love should breed both joy and pain!

"It is not Hobbinol 2 wherefore I plain,

Albe my love he seek with daily suit;

His clownish gifts and court'sies I disdain,

His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit.

Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gifts be vain;

Colin them gives to Rosalind again.

"I love thilk lass, (alas! why do I love?)

And am forlorn, (alas! why am I lorn?)

She deigns not my good will, but doth reprove,

And of my rural music holdeth scorn.

Shepheard's device she hateth as the snake,

And laughs the songs that Colin Clout doth make.

"Wherefore, my pipe, albe rude Pan thou please,

Yet for thou pleasest not where most I would;

And thou, unlucky Muse, that wont'st to ease

My musing mind, yet canst not when thou should;

Both Pipe and Muse shall sore the while abye."

So broke his oaten pipe, and down did lie.

By that, the welked Phœbus gan availe

His weary wain; and now the frosty Night

Her mantle black through heaven gan overhale:

Which seen, the pensive boy, half in despite,

Arose, and homeward drove his sunned sheep,

Whose hanging heads did seem his careful case to weep.

COLIN'S EMBLEME.
Anchora speme.
(Hope is my anchor.)

FEBRUARIE · AEGLOGA SECUNDA

This Æglogue is rather moral and general than bent to any secret or particular purpose. It specially containeth a discourse of old age, in the person of Thenot, an old shepheard, who, for his crookedness and unlustiness, is scorned of Cuddie, an unhappy herdman's boy. The matter very well accordeth with the season of the moneth, the year now drooping, and as it were drawing to his last age. For as in this time of year, so then in our bodies, there is a dry and withering cold, which congealeth the curdled blood, and freezeth the weather-beaten flesh, with storms of Fortune and hoar-frosts of Care. To which purpose the old man telleth a tale of the Oak and the Brier, so lively, and so feelingly, as, if the thing were set forth in some picture before our eyes, more plainly could not appear.

CUDDIE. THENOT.

CUDDIE.

Ah for pity! will rank winter's rage

These bitter blasts never gin t'assuage?

The keen cold blows through my beaten hide,

All as I were through the body gride:

My ragged ronts all shiver and shake,

As doen high towers in an earthquake:

They wont in the wind wag their wriggle tails

Perk as a peacock; but now it availes.

THE. Lewdly complainest, thou lazy lad,

Of winter's wrack for making thee sad.

Must not the world wend in his common course,

From good to bad, and from bad to worse,

From worse unto that is worst of all,

And then return to his former fall?

Who will not suffer the stormy time,

Where will he live till the lusty prime?

Self have I worn out thrice thirty years,

Some in much joy, many in many tears,

Yet never complained of cold nor heat,

Of summer's flame, nor of winter's threat,

Ne ever was to Fortune foeman,

But gently took that ungently came;

And ever my flock was my chief care;

Winter or summer they might well fare.

CUD. No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear

Cheerfully the winter's wrathful cheer;

For age and winter accord full nigh,

This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry;

And as the louring weather looks down,

So seemest thou like Good Friday 3 to frown:

But my flow'ring youth is foe to frost,

My ship unwont in storms to be tost.

THE. The sovereign of seas he blames in vain,

That, once sea-beat, will to sea again:

So loit'ring live you little herdgrooms,

Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms;

And, when the shining sun laugheth once,

You deemen, the spring is come at once;

Then gin you, fond flies! the cold to scorn,

And, crowing in pipes made of green corn,

You thinken to be lords of the year;

But eft, when ye count you freed from fear,

Comes the breme Winter with chamfred brows,

Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows,

Drearily shooting his stormy dart,

Which curdles the blood and pricks the heart:

Then is your careless courage accoyed,

Your careful herds with cold be annoyed:

Then pay you the price of your surquedry,

With weeping, and wailing, and misery.

CUD. Ah! foolish old man! I scorn thy skill,

That wouldst me my springing youth to spill:

I deem thy brain emperished be

Through rusty eld, that hath rotted thee;

Or sicker thy head very totty is,

So on thy corb shoulder it leans amiss.

Now thyself hath lost both lop and top,

Als my budding branch thou wouldest crop;

But were thy years green, as now be mine,

To other delights they would incline:

Then wouldest thou learn to carol of love,

And hery with hymns thy lass's glove;

Then wouldest thou pipe of Phillis' praise;

But Phillis is mine for many days;

I won her with a girdle of gelt,

Embost with bugle about the belt:

Such an one shepheards would make full fain;

Such an one would make thee young again.

THE. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boast;

All that is lent to love will be lost.

CUD. Seest how brag yond bullock bears,

So smirk, so smooth, his pricked ears?

His horns be as broad as rainbow bent,

His dewlap as lithe as lass of Kent:

See how he venteth into the wind;

Weenest of love is not his mind?

Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can,

So lustless be they, so weak, so wan;

Clothed with cold, and hoary with frost,

Thy flock's father his courage hath lost.

Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags,

Like wailful widows hangen their crags;

The rather lambs be starved with cold,

All for their master is lustless and old.

THE. Cuddie, I wot thou kenst little good,

So vainly to advance thy heedlesshood;

For youth is a bubble blown up with breath,

Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,

Whose way is wilderness, whose inn penance,

And stoop-gallant Age, the host of Grievance.

But shall I tell thee a tale of truth,

Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth,

Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent?

CUD. To nought more, Thenot, my mind is bent

Than to hear novels of his devise;

They be so well thewed, and so wise,

Whatever that good old man bespake.

THE. Many meet tales of youth did he make,

And some of love, and some of chivalry;

But none fitter than this to apply.

Now listen a while and hearken the end.

"There grew an aged tree on the green,

A goodly Oak sometime had it been,

With arms full strong and largely display'd,

But of their leaves they were disarray'd:

The body big, and mightily pight,

Throughly rooted, and of wondrous height;

Whilome had been the king of the field,

And mochell mast to the husband did yield,

And with his nuts larded many swine:

But now the gray moss marred his rine;

His bared boughs were beaten with storms,

His top was bald, and wasted with worms,

His honour decayed, his branches sere.

"Hard by his side grew a bragging Brere,

Which proudly thrust into th' element,

And seemed to threat the firmament:

It was embellish'd with blossoms fair,

And thereto aye wonted to repair

The shepheards' daughters to gather flowers,

To paint their garlands with his colours;

And in his small bushes used to shroud

The sweet nightingale singing so loud;

Which made this foolish Brere wax so bold,

That on a time he cast him to scold

And snebbe the good Oak, for he was old.

"'Why standst there (quoth he) thou brutish block?

Nor for fruit nor for shadow serves thy stock;

Seest how fresh my flowers be spread,

Dyed in lily white and crimson red,

With leaves engrained in lusty green;

Colours meet to clothe a maiden queen?

Thy waste bigness but cumbers the ground,

And dirks the beauty of my blossoms round:

The mouldy moss, which thee accloyeth,

My cinnamon smell too much annoyeth:

Wherefore soon I rede thee hence remove,

Lest thou the price of my displeasure prove.'

So spake this bold Brere with great disdain:

Little him answered the Oak again,

But yielded, with shame and grief adawed,

That of a weed he was overcrawed.

"It chanced after upon a day,

The husbandman self to come that way,

Of custom for to surview his ground,

And his trees of state in compass round:

Him when the spiteful Brere had espied,

Causeless complained, and loudly cried

Unto his lord, stirring up stern strife:

"'O my liege lord! the god of my life,

Pleaseth you ponder your suppliant's plaint,

Caused of wrong and cruel constraint,

Which I your poor vassal daily endure;

And, but your goodness the same recure,

Am like for desperate dool to die,

Through felonous force of mine enemy.'

"Greatly aghast with this piteous plea,

Him rested the goodman on the lea,

And bade the Brere in his plaint proceed.

With painted words then gan this proud weed

(As most usen ambitious folk)

His coloured crime with craft to cloak.

"'Ah, my sovereign! lord of creatures all,

Thou placer of plants both humble and tall,

Was not I planted of thine own hand,

To be the primrose of all thy land;

With flow'ring blossoms to furnish the prime,

And scarlet berries in summer time?

How falls it then that this faded Oak,

Whose body is sere, whose branches broke,

Whose naked arms stretch unto the fire,

Unto such tyranny doth aspire;

Hindering with his shade my lovely light,

And robbing me of the sweet sun's sight?

So beat his old boughs my tender side,

That oft the blood springeth from woundës wide;

Untimely my flowers forced to fall,

That be the honour of your coronal:

And oft he lets his canker-worms light

Upon my branches, to work me more spite;

And oft his hoary locks down doth cast,

Wherewith my fresh flow'rets be defast:

For this, and many more such outrage,

Craving your goodlyhead to assuage

The rancorous rigour of his might;

Nought ask I, but only to hold my right;

Submitting me to your good sufferance,

And praying to be guarded from grievance.'

"To this this Oak cast him to reply

Well as he couth; but his enemy

Had kindled such coals of displeasure,

That the goodman nould stay his leisure,

But home him hasted with furious heat,

Increasing his wrath with many a threat:

His harmful hatchet he hent in hand,

(Alas! that it so ready should stand!)

And to the field alone he speedeth,

(Aye little help to harm there needeth!)

Anger nould let him speak to the tree,

Enaunter his rage might cooled be;

But to the root bent his sturdy stroke,

And made many wounds in the waste Oak.

The axe's edge did oft turn again,

As half unwilling to cut the grain;

Seemed, the senseless iron did fear,

Or to wrong holy eld did forbear;

For it had been an ancient tree,

Sacred with many a mystery,

And often cross'd with the priests' crew,

And often hallowed with holy-water dew:

But sike fancies weren foolery,

And broughten this Oak to this misery;

For nought might they quitten him from decay,

For fiercely the goodman at him did lay.

The block oft groaned under the blow,

And sighed to see his near overthrow.

In fine, the steel had pierced his pith,

Then down to the earth he fell forthwith.

His wondrous weight made the ground to quake,

Th' earth shrunk under him, and seemed to shake:—

There lieth the Oak, pitied of none!

"Now stands the Brere like a lord alone,

Puffed up with pride and vain pleasance;

But all this glee had no continuance:

For eftsoons winter gan to approach;

The blust'ring Boreas did encroach,

And beat upon the solitary Brere;

For now no succour was seen him near.

Now gan he repent his pride too late;

For, naked left and disconsolate,

The biting frost nipt his stalk dead,

The watry wet weighed down his head,

And heaped snow burden'd him so sore,

That now upright he can stand no more;

And, being down, is trod in the durt

Of cattle, and broused, and sorely hurt.

Such was th' end of this ambitious Brere,

For scorning eld—"

CUD. Now I pray thee, shepheard, tell it not forth:

Here is a long tale, and little worth.

So long have I listened to thy speech,

That graffed to the ground is my breech;

My heartblood is well nigh frorne I feel,

And my galage grown fast to my heel;

But little ease of thy lewd tale I tasted:

Hie thee home, shepheard, the day is nigh wasted.

THENOT'S EMBLEME. 4
Iddio, perche É vecchio,
Fa suoi al suo essempio.

CUDDIE'S EMBLEME.4
Niuno vecchio
Spaventa Iddio.

MARCH · AEGLOGA TERTIA

In this Æglogue two Shepheards' Boys, taking occasion of the season, begin to make purpose of love, and other pleasance which to springtime is most agreeable. The special meaning hereof is, to give certain marks and tokens, to know Cupid the poets' god of Love. But more particularly, I think, in the person of Thomalin, is meant some secret friend, who scorned Love and his knights so long, till at length himself was entangled, and unwares wounded with the dart of some beautiful regard, which is Cupid's arrow.

WILLY. THOMALIN.

WILLY.

Thomalin, why sitten we so,

As weren overwent with woe,

Upon so fair a morrow?

The joyous time now nigheth fast,

That shall alegge this bitter blast,

And slake the winter sorrow.

THO. Sicker, Willy, thou warnest well;

For winter's wrath begins to quell,

And pleasant spring appeareth:

The grass now gins to be refresht,

The swallow peeps out of her nest,

And cloudy welkin cleareth.

WIL. Seest not thilk same hawthorn stud,

How bragly it begins to bud,

And utter his tender head?

Flora now calleth forth each flower,

And bids make ready Maia's bower

That new is uprist from bed:

Then shall we sporten in delight,

And learn with Lettice to wax light,

That scornfully looks askance;

Then will we little Love awake,

That now sleepeth in Lethe lake,

And pray him leaden our dance.

THO. Willy, I ween thou be assot;

For lusty Love still sleepeth not,

But is abroad at his game.

WIL. How kenst thou that he is awoke?

Or hast thyself his slumber broke?

Or made privy to the same?

THO. No; but happily I him spied,

Where in a bush he did him hide,

With wings of purple and blue;

And, were not that my sheep would stray,

The privy marks I would bewray,

Whereby by chance I him knew.

WIL. Thomalin, have no care forthy;

Myself will have a double eye,

Alike to my flock and thine;

For, alas! at home I have a sire,

A stepdame eke, as hot as fire,

That duly adays counts mine.

THO. Nay, but thy seeing will not serve,

My sheep for that may chance to swerve,

And fall into some mischief:

For sithens is but the third morrow

That I chanc'd to fall asleep with sorrow,

And waked again with grief;

The while thilk same unhappy ewe,

Whose clouted leg her hurt doth shew,

Fell headlong into a dell,

And there unjointed both her bones:

Might her neck been jointed attones,

She should have need no more spell;

Th' elf was so wanton and so wood,

(But now I trow can better good,)

She might ne gang on the green.

WIL. Let be, as may be, that is past;

That is to come, let be forecast:

Now tell us what thou hast seen.

THO. It was upon a holiday,

When shepheards' grooms have leave to play,

I cast to go a shooting;

Long wand'ring up and down the land,

With bow and bolts in either hand,

For birds in bushes tooting,

At length within the ivy tod,

(There shrouded was the little god,)

I heard a busy bustling;

I bent my bolt against the bush,

List'ning if any thing did rush,

But then heard no more rustling.

Then, peeping close into the thick,

Might see the moving of some quick,

Whose shape appeared not;

But were it faery, fiend, or snake,

My courage yearn'd it to awake,

And manfully thereat shot:

With that sprang forth a naked swain;

With spotted wings like peacock's train,

And laughing lope to a tree;

His gilden quiver at his back,

And silver bow, which was but slack,

Which lightly he bent at me:

That seeing, I levell'd again,

And shot at him with might and main,

As thick as it had hailed.

So long I shot, that all was spent;

Then pumie stones I hast'ly hent,

And threw; but nought availed:

He was so wimble and so wight,

From bough to bough he leaped light,

And oft the pumies latched:

Therewith afraid I ran away;

But he, that erst seem'd but to play,

A shaft in earnest snatched,

And hit me running in the heel:

For then I little smart did feel,

But soon it sore increased;

And now it rankleth more and more,

And inwardly it fest'reth sore,

Ne wote I how to cease it.

WIL. Thomalin, I pity thy plight,

Perdie with Love thou didest fight;

I know him by a token:

For once I heard my father say,

How he him caught upon a day,

(Whereof he will be wroken,)

Entangled in a fowling net,

Which he for carrion crows had set

That in our pear-tree haunted:

Then said, he was a winged lad,

But bow and shafts as then none had,

Else had he sore been daunted.

But see, the welkin thicks apace,

And stooping Phœbus steeps his face;

It's time to haste us homeward.

WILLY'S EMBLEME.
To be wise and eke to love,
Is granted scarce to gods above.

THOMALIN'S EMBLEME.
Of honey and of gall in love there is store;
The honey is much, but the gall is more.

APRIL · AEGLOGA QUARTA

This Æglogue is purposely intended to the honour and praise of our most gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. The speakers hereof be Hobbinol and Thenot, two shepheards: the which Hobbinol, being beforementioned greatly to have loved Colin, is here set forth more largely, complaining him of that boy's great misadventure in love; whereby his mind was alienated and withdrawn not only from him, who most loved him, but also from all former delights and studies, as well in pleasant piping, as cunning rhyming and singing, and other his laudable exercises. Whereby he taketh occasion, for proof of his more excellency and skill in poetry, to record a song, which the said Colin sometime made in honour of her Majesty, whom abruptly he termeth Elisa.

THENOT. HOBBINOL.

THENOT.

Tell me, good Hobbinol, what gars thee greet?

What! hath some wolf thy tender lambs ytorn?

Or is thy bagpipe broke, that sounds so sweet?

Or art thou of thy loved lass forlorn?

Or be thine eyes attemper'd to the year,

Quenching the gasping furrows' thirst with rain?

Like April shower, so stream the trickling tears

Adown thy cheek, to quench thy thirsty pain.

HOB. Nor this, nor that, so much doth make me mourn,

But for the lad, whom long I lov'd so dear,

Now loves a lass that all his love doth scorn:

He, plunged in pain, his tressed locks doth tear;

Shepheard's delights he doth them all forswear;

His pleasant pipe, which made us merriment,

He wilfully hath broke, and doth forbear

His wonted songs wherein he all outwent.

THE. What is he for a lad you so lament?

Is love such pinching pain to them that prove?

And hath he skill to make so excellent,

Yet hath so little skill to bridle love?

HOB. Colin thou kenst, the southern shepheard's boy;

Him Love hath wounded with a deadly dart:

Whilome on him was all my care and joy,

Forcing with gifts to win his wanton heart.

But now from me his madding mind is start,

And wooes the widow's daughter of the glen;

So now fair Rosalind hath bred his smart;

So now his friend is changed for a frenne.

THE. But if his ditties be so trimly dight,

I pray thee, Hobbinol, record some one,

The whiles our flocks do graze about in sight,

And we close shrouded in this shade alone.

HOB. Contented I: then will I sing his lay

Of fair Elisa, queen of shepheards all,

Which once he made as by a spring he lay,

And tuned it unto the waters' fall.

"Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook

Do bathe your breast,

Forsake your watry bowers, and hither look,

At my request.

And eke you virgins, that on Parnass dwell,

Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well,

Help me to blaze

Her worthy praise,

Which in her sex doth all excel.

"Of fair Elisa be your silver song,

That blessed wight,

The flower of virgins; may she flourish long

In princely plight!

For she is Syrinx' daughter without spot,

Which Pan, the shepheards' god, of her begot:

So sprung her grace

Of heavenly race,

No mortal blemish may her blot.

"See, where she sits upon the grassy green,

(O seemly sight!)

Yclad in scarlet, like a maiden queen,

And ermines white:

Upon her head a crimson coronet,

With damask roses and daffadillies set;

Bay leaves between,

And primroses green,

Embellish the sweet violet.

"Tell me, have ye seen her angelic face,

Like Phœbe fair?

Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,

Can you well compare?

The red rose medled with the white yfere,

In either cheek depeincten lively cheer:

Her modest eye,

Her majesty,

Where have you seen the like but there?

"I saw Phœbus; thrust out his golden head,

Upon her to gaze;

But, when he saw how broad her beams did spread,

It did him amaze.

He blush'd to see another sun below,

Ne durst again his fiery face out show.

Let him, if he dare,

His brightness compare

With hers, to have the overthrow.

"Shew thyself, Cynthia, with thy silver rays,

And be not abash'd:

When she the beams of her beauty displays,

O how art thou dash'd!

But I will not match her with Latona's seed;

Such folly great sorrow to Niobe did breed.

And she is a stone,

And makes daily moan,

Warning all other to take heed.

"Pan may be proud that ever he begot

Such a bellibone;

And Syrinx rejoice, that ever was her lot

To bear such an one.

Soon as my younglings crying for the dam,

To her will I offer a milkwhite lamb;

She is my goddess plain,

And I her shepheard's swain,

Albe forswonk and forswat I am.

"I see Calliope speed her to the place,

Where my goddess shines;

And after her the other Muses trace,

With their violins.

Be they not bay-branches which they do bear,

All for Elisa in her hand to wear?

So sweetly they play,

And sing all the way,

That it a heaven is to hear.

"Lo, how finely the Graces can it foot

To the instrument:

They dancen deftly, and singen soote,

In their merriment.

Wants not a fourth Grace, to make the dance even?

Let that room to my Lady be yeven

She shall be a Grace,

To fill the fourth place,

And reign with the rest in heaven.

"And whither runs this bevy of ladies bright,

Ranged in a row?

They be all Ladies of the Lake behight,

That unto her go.

Chloris, that is the chiefest nymph of all,

Of olive branches bears a coronal:

Olives be for peace

When wars do surcease:

Such for a princess be principal.

"Ye shepheards' daughters, that dwell on the green,

Hie you there apace:

Let none come there but that virgins bene,

To adorn her grace:

And, when you come whereas she is in place,

See that your rudeness do not you disgrace:

Bind your fillets fast,

And gird in your waist,

For more fineness, with a tawdry 5 lace.

"Bring hither the pink and purple columbine,

With gelliflowers;

Bring coronations, and sops-in-wine,

Worn of paramours:

Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies,

And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lillies:

The pretty paunce,

And the chevisance,

Shall match with the fair flower delice.

"Now rise up, Elisa, decked as thou art

In royal array;

And now ye dainty damsels may depart

Each one her way.

I fear I have troubled your troops too long;

Let Dame Elisa thank you for her song:

And, if you come hither

When damsines I gather,

I will part them all you among."

THE. And was thilk same song of Colin's own making?

Ah! foolish boy! that is with love yblent;

Great pity is, he be in such taking,

For naught caren that be so lewdly bent.

HOB. Sicker I hold him for a greater fon,

That loves the thing he cannot purchase.

But let us homeward, for night draweth on,

And twinkling stars the daylight hence chase.

THENOT'S EMBLEME. 6
O quam et memorem virgo!

HOBBINOL'S EMBLEME.
O Dea certe!

MAY · AEGLOGA QUINTA

In this fifth Æglogue, under the person of two shepheards, Piers and Palinode, be represented two forms of Pastors or Ministers, or the Protestant and the Catholic; whose chief talk standeth in reasoning, whether the life of the one must be like the other; with whom having shewed, that it is dangerous to maintain any fellowship, or give too much credit to their colourable and feigned good-will, he telleth him a tale of the Fox, that, by such a counterpoint of craftiness, deceived and devoured the credulous Kid.

PALINODE. PIERS.

PALINODE.

Is not thilk the merry month of May,

When love-lads masken in fresh array?

How falls it, then, we no merrier bene,

Alike as others, girt in gaudy green?

Our bloncket liveries be all too sad

For thilk same season, when all is yclad

With pleasance; the ground with grass, the woods

With green leaves, the bushes with blooming buds.

Youth's folk now flocken in every where,

To gather May-buskets and smelling brere;

And home they hasten the posts to dight,

And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light,

With hawthorn buds, and sweet eglantine,

And garlands of roses, and sops-in-wine.

Such merrimake holy saints doth queme,

But we here sitten as drown'd in dream.

PIERS. For younkers, Palinode, such follies fit,

But we tway be men of elder wit.

PAL. Sicker this morrow, no longer ago,

I saw a shoal of shepheards outgo

With singing, and shouting, and jolly cheer:

Before them yode a lusty tabrere,

That to the many a horn-pipe play'd,

Whereto they dancen each one with his maid.

To see those folks make such jovisance,

Made my heart after the pipe to dance:

Then to the green wood they speeden them all,

To fetchen home May with their musical;

And home they bringen in a royal throne,

Crowned as king; and his queen attone

Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend

A fair flock of faeries, and a fresh bend

Of lovely nymphs. (O that I were there,

To helpen the ladies their Maybush bear!)

Ah! Piers, be not thy teeth on edge, to think

How great sport they gainen with little swink?

PIERS. Perdie, so far am I from envy,

That their fondness inly I pity:

Those faitours little regarden their charge,

While they, letting their sheep run at large,

Passen their time, that should be sparely spent,

In lustihed and wanton merriment.

Thilk same be shepheards for the devil's stead,

That playen while their flocks be unfed:

Well it is seen their sheep be not their own,

That letten them run at random alone:

But they be hired for little pay

Of other, that caren as little as they,

What fallen the flock, so they have the fleece,

And get all the gain, paying but a piece.

I muse, what account both these will make;

The one for the hire, which he doth take,

And th' other for leaving his Lord's task,

When great Pan account of shepheards shall ask.

PAL. Sicker, now I see thou speakest of spite,

All for thou lackest somdele their delight.

I (as I am) had rather be envied,

All were it of my foe, than fonly pitied;

And yet, if need were, pitied would be,

Rather than other should scorn at me;

For pitied is mishap that n'as remedy,

But scorned be deeds of fond foolery.

What shoulden shepheards other things tend,

Than, sith their God his good does them send,

Reapen the fruit thereof, that is pleasure,

The while they here liven at ease and leisure?

For, when they be dead, their good is ygoe,

They sleepen in rest, well as other moe:

Then with them wends what they spent in cost,

But what they left behind them is lost.

Good is no good, but if it be spend;

God giveth good for none other end.

PIERS. Ah! Palinode, thou art a world's child:

Who touches pitch, must needs be defil'd;

But shepheards (as Algrind 7 used to say)

Must not live alike as men of the lay.

With them it sits to care for their heir,

Enaunter their heritage do impair:

They must provide for means of maintenance,

And to continue their wont countenance:

But shepheard must walk another way,

Sike worldly sovenance he must for-say.

The son of his loins why should he regard

To leave enriched with that he hath spar'd?

Should not thilk God, that gave him that good,

Eke cherish his child, if in his ways he stood?

For if he mislive in lewdness and lust,

Little boots all the wealth, and the trust,

That his father left by inheritance;

All will be soon wasted with misgovernance:

But through this, and other their miscreance,

They maken many a wrong chevisance,

Heaping up waves of wealth and woe,

The floods whereof shall them overflow.

Sike men's folly I cannot compare

Better than to the ape's foolish care,

That is so enamoured of her young one,

(And yet, God wot, such cause had she none,)

That with her hard hold, and strait embracing,

She stoppeth the breath of her youngling.

So oftentimes, whenas good is meant,

Evil ensueth of wrong intent.

The time was once, and may again retorn,

(For ought may happen, that hath been beforn,)

When shepheards had none inheritance,

Ne of land nor fee in sufferance,

But what might arise of the bare sheep,

(Were it more or less) which they did keep.

Well ywis was it with shepheards then:

Nought having, nought feared they to forego;

For Pan himself was their inheritance,

And little them served for their maintenance.

The shepheards' God so well them guided,

That of nought they were unprovided;

Butter enough, honey, milk, and whey,

And their flocks' fleeces them to array:

But tract of time, and long prosperity,

(That nurse of vice, this of insolency,)

Lulled the shepheards in such security,

That, not content with loyal obeisance,

Some gan to gape for greedy governance,

And match them self with mighty potentates,

Lovers of lordship, and troublers of states:

Then gan shepheards' swains to look aloft,

And leave to live hard, and learn to ligg soft:

Then, under colour of shepheards, somewhile

There crept in wolves, full of fraud and guile,

That often devoured their own sheep,

And often the shepheards that did them keep:

This was the first source of shepheards' sorrow,

That now nill be quit with bail nor borrow.

PAL. Three things to bear be very burdenous,

But the fourth to forbear is outrageous:

Women, that of love's longing once lust,

Hardly forbearen, but have it they must:

So when choler is inflamed with rage,

Wanting revenge, is hard to assuage:

And who can counsel a thirsty soul,

With patience to forbear the offer'd bowl?

But of all burdens, that a man can bear,

Most is, a fool's talk to bear and to hear.

I ween the giant has not such a weight,

That bears on his shoulders the heaven's height.

Thou findest fault where n'is to be found,

And buildest strong work upon a weak ground:

Thou railest on right withouten reason,

And blamest them much for small encheason.

How shoulden shepheards live, if not so?

What? should they pinen in pain and woe?

Nay, say I thereto, by my dear borrow,

If I may rest, I nill live in sorrow.

Sorrow ne need be hastened on,

For he will come, without calling, anon,

While times enduren of tranquillity,

Usen we freely our felicity;

For, when approachen the stormy stowres,

We must with our shoulders bear off the sharp showers;

And, sooth to sayn, nought seemeth sike strife,

That shepheards so witen each other's life,

And layen their faults the worlds beforn,

The while their foes do each of them scorn.

Let none mislike of that may not be mended;

So contest soon by concord might be ended.

PIERS. Shepheard, I list no accordance make

With shepheard, that does the right way forsake;

And of the twain, if choice were to me,

Had lever my foe than my friend he be;

For what concord have light and dark sam?

Or what peace has the lion with the lamb?

Such faitours, when their false hearts be hid,

Will do as did the Fox by the Kid. 8

PAL. Now, Piers, of fellowship, tell us that saying;

For the lad can keep both our flocks from straying.

PIERS. Thilk same Kid (as I can well devise)

Was too very foolish and unwise;

For on a time, in summer season,

The Goat her dam, that had good reason,

Yode forth abroad unto the green wood,

To brouze, or play, or what she thought good:

But, for she had a motherly care

Of her young son, and wit to beware,

She set her youngling before her knee,

That was both fresh and lovely to see,

And full of favour as kid might be.

His velvet head began to shoot out,

And his wreathed horns gan newly sprout;

The blossoms of lust to bud did begin,

And spring forth rankly under his chin.

"My son," (quoth she, and with that gan weep;

For careful thoughts in her heart did creep;)

"God bless thee, poor orphan! as he might me,

And send thee joy of thy jollity.

Thy father," (that word she spake with pain,

For a sigh had nigh rent her heart in twain,)

"Thy father, had he lived this day,

To see the branch of his body display,

How would he have joyed at this sweet sight?

But ah! false Fortune such joy did him spite,

And cut off his days with untimely woe,

Betraying him into the trains of his foe.

Now I, a wailful widow behight,

Of my old age have this one delight,

To see thee succeed in thy father's stead,

And flourish in flowers of lustihead;

For even so thy father his head upheld,

And so his haughty horns did he weld."

Then marking him with melting eyes,

A thrilling throb from her heart did arise,

And interrupted all her other speech

With some old sorrow that made a new breach;

Seemed she saw in her youngling's face

The old lineaments of his father's grace.

At last her sullen silence she broke,

And gan his new-budded beard to stroke.

"Kiddie," (quoth she,) "thou kenst the great care

I have of thy health and thy welfare,

Which many wild beasts liggen in wait

For to entrap in thy tender state:

But most the Fox, master of collusion;

For he has vowed thy last confusion.

Forthy, my Kiddie, be rul'd by me,

And never give trust to his treachery;

And, if he chance come when I am abroad,

Sperr the gate fast, for fear of fraud;

Ne for all his worst, nor for his best,

Open the door at his request."

So schooled the Goat her wanton son,

That answer'd his mother, all should be done.

Then went the pensive dam out of door,

And chanc'd to stumble at the threshold floor;

Her stumbling step somewhat her amazed,

(For such, as signs of ill luck, be dispraised;)

Yet forth she yode, thereat half aghast;

And Kiddie the door sperred after her fast.

It was not long, after she was gone,

But the false Fox came to the door anone;

Not as a fox, for then he had be kend,

But all as a poor pedlar he did wend,

Bearing a truss of trifles at his back,

As bells, and babes, and glasses, in his pack:

A biggen he had got about his brain,

For in his headpiece he felt a sore pain:

His hinder heel was wrapt in a clout,

For with great cold he had got the gout:

There at the door he cast me down his pack,

And laid him down, and groaned, "Alack! alack!

Ah! dear Lord! and sweet Saint Charity!

That some good body would once pity me!"

Well heard Kiddie all this sore constraint,

And long'd to know the cause of his complaint;

Then, creeping close behind the wicket's clink,

Privily he peeped out through a chink,

Yet not so privily but the Fox him spied;

For deceitful meaning is double-eyed.

"Ah! good young master," (then gan he cry,)

"Jesus bless that sweet face I espy,

And keep your corpse from the careful stounds

That in my carrion carcase abounds."

The Kid, pitying his heaviness,

Asked the cause of his great distress,

And also who, and whence that he were.

Then he, that had well yconn'd his lere,

Thus medled his talk with many a tear:

"Sick, sick, alas! and little lack of dead,

But I be relieved by your beastlyhead.

I am a poor sheep, albe my colour dun,

For with long travel I am brent in the sun;

And if that, my grandsire me said, be true,

Sicker, I am very sib to you;

So be your goodlihead do not disdain

The base kindred of so simple swain.

Of mercy and favour then I you pray,

With your aid to forestall my near decay."

Then out of his pack a glass he took,

Wherein while Kiddie unwares did look,

He was so enamoured with the newell,

That nought he deemed dear for the jewel:

Then opened he the door, and in came

The false Fox, as he were stark lame:

His tail he clapt betwixt his legs twain,

Lest he should be descried by his train.

Being within, the Kid made him good glee,

All for the love of the glass he did see.

After his cheer, the pedlar gan chat,

And tell many leasings of this and that,

And how he could shew many a fine knack;

Then shewed his ware and opened his pack,

All save a bell, which he left behind

In the basket for the Kid to find;

Which when the Kid stooped down to catch,

He popt him in, and his basket did latch;

Ne stayed he once the door to make fast,

But ran away with him in all hast.

Home when the doubtful dame had her hied,

She might see the door stand open wide;

All aghast, loudly she gan to call

Her Kid; but he nould answer at all:

Then on the floor she saw the merchandice

Of which her son had set too dear a price.

What help! her Kid she knew well was gone:

She weeped, and wailed, and made great moan.

Such end had the Kid, for he nould warned be

Of craft, coloured with simplicity;

And such end, perdie, does all them remain,

That of such falsers' friendship be fain.

PAL. Truly, Piers, thou art beside thy wit,

Furthest fro the mark, weening it to hit.

Now, I pray thee, let me thy tale borrow

For our Sir John, 9 to say to-morrow

At the kirk when it is holiday;

For well he means, but little can say.

But, and if foxes be so crafty as so,

Much needeth all shepheards them to know.

PIERS. Of their falsehood more could I recount,

But now the bright sun ginneth to dismount;

And, for the dewy night now doth nigh,

I hold it best for us home to hie.

PALINODE'S EMBLEME.
Πασ μεν απιστοσ απιστει
(Every one without faith is suspicious.)

PIERS, HIS EMBLEME.
Τισ δ' αρα πιστισ απιστò
What faith, then, in the faithless?)

JUNE · AEGLOGA SEXTA

This Æglogue is wholly vowed to the complaining of Colin's ill success in his love. For being (as is aforesaid) enamoured of a country lass Rosalind, and having (as seemeth) found place in her heart, he lamenteth to his dear friend Hobbinol, that he is now forsaken unfaithfully, and in his stead Menalcas, another shepheard, received disloyally. And this is the whole Argument of this Æglogue.

HOBBINOL. COLIN CLOUT.

HOBBINOL.

Lo! Colin, here the place whose pleasant site

From other shades hath wean'd my wand'ring mind,

Tell me, what wants me here to work delight?

The simple air, the gentle warbling wind,

So calm, so cool, as nowhere else I find;

The grassy ground with dainty daisies dight,

The bramble bush, where birds of every kind

To the waters' fall their tunes attemper right.

COL. O happy Hobbinol, I bless thy state,

That Paradise hast found which Adam lost:

Here wander may thy flock early or late,

Withouten dread of wolves to be ytost;

Thy lovely lays here mayst thou freely boast:

But I, unhappy man! whom cruel Fate

And angry gods pursue from coast to coast,

Can nowhere find to shroud my luckless pate.

HOB. Then, if by me thou list advised be,

Forsake the soil that so doth thee bewitch;

Leave me those hills were harbrough n'is to see,

Nor holly-bush, nor briar, nor winding ditch;

And to the dales resort, where shepheards rich,

And fruitful flocks, be every where to see:

Here no night-ravens lodge, more black than pitch,

Nor elvish ghosts, nor ghastly owls do flee;

But friendly Faeries, met with many Graces,

And lightfoot Nymphs, can chase the ling'ring Night

With heydeguys, and trimly trodden traces,

Whilst Sisters Nine, which dwell on Parnass height,

Do make them music for their more delight;

And Pan himself to kiss their crystal faces

Will pipe and dance, when Phœbe shineth bright:

Such peerless pleasures have we in these places.

COL. And I, whilst youth, and course of careless years,

Did let me walk withouten links of love,

In such delights did joy amongst my peers;

But riper age such pleasures doth reprove:

My fancy eke from former follies move

To stayed steps; for time in passing wears,

(As garments do, which waxen old above,)

And draweth new delights with hoary hairs.

Then couth I sing of love, and tune my pipe

Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made;

Then would I seek for queen-apples unripe;

To give my Rosalind, and in summer shade

Dight gaudy garlands was my common trade,

To crown her golden locks; but years more ripe,

And loss of her, whose love as life I weigh'd,

Those weary wanton toys away did wipe.

HOB. Colin, to hear thy rhymes and roundelays,

Which thou wert wont on wasteful hills to sing,

I more delight than lark in summer days,

Whose echo made the neighbour groves to ring,

And taught the birds, which in the lower spring

Did shroud in shady leaves from sunny rays,

Frame to thy song their cheerful chirruping,

Or hold their peace, for shame of thy sweet lays.

I saw Calliope with Muses moe,

Soon as thy oaten pipe began to sound,

Their ivory lutes and tambourins forgo,

And from the fountain, where they sat around,

Run after hastily thy silver sound;

But, when they came where thou thy skill didst shew,

They drew aback, as half with shame confound

Shepheard to see, them in their art outgo.

COL. Of Muses, Hobbinol, I con no skill,

For they be daughters of the highest Jove,

And holden scorn of homely shepheard's quill;

For sith I heard that Pan with Phœbus strove,

Which him to much rebuke and danger drove,

I never list presume to Parnass hill,

But, piping low in shade of lowly grove,

I play to please myself, all be it ill.

Nought weigh I, who my song doth praise or blame,

Ne strive to win renown, or pass the rest:

With shepheard sits not follow flying Fame,

But feed his flock in fields where falls them best.

I wot my rhymes be rough, and rudely drest;

The fitter they my careful case to frame:

Enough is me to paint out my unrest,

And pour my piteous plaints out in the same.

The god of shepheards, Tityrus, 10 is dead,

Who taught me homely, as I can, to make:

He, whilst he lived, was the sovereign head

Of shepheards all that be with love ytake;

Well couth he wail his woes, and lightly slake

The flames which love within his heart had bred,

And tell us merry tales to keep us wake,

The while our sheep about us safely fed.

Now dead he is, and lieth wrapt in lead,

(O why should Death on him such outrage shew!)

And all his passing skill with him is fled,

The fame whereof doth daily greater grow.

But, if on me some little drops would flow

Of that the spring was in his learned head,

I soon would learn these woods to wail my woe,

And teach the trees their trickling tears to shed.

Then should my plaints, caus'd of discourtesy,

As messengers of this my painful plight,

Fly to my love where ever that she be,

And pierce her heart with point of worthy wite,

As she deserves, that wrought so deadly spite.

And thou, Menalcas! that by treachery

Didst underfong my lass to wax so light,

Shouldst well be known for such thy villany.

But since I am not as I wish I were,

Ye gentle shepheards! which your flocks do feed,

Whether on hills, or dales, or other where,

Bear witness all of this so wicked deed;

And tell the lass, whose flower is wox a weed,

And faultless faith is turn'd to faithless fear,

That she the truest shepheard's heart made bleed

That lives on earth, and loved her most dear.

HOB. O! careful Colin, I lament thy case;

Thy tears would make the hardest flint to flow!

Ah! faithless Rosalind, and void of grace,

That art the root of all this ruthful woe!

But now is time, I guess, homeward to go:

Then rise, ye blessed flocks! and home apace,

Lest night with stealing steps do you foreslow,

And wet your tender lambs that by you trace.

COLIN'S EMBLEME.
Gia speme spenta.
(Already hope is lost.)

JULY · AEGLOGA SEPTIMA

This Æglogue is made in the honour and commendation of good shepheards, and to the shame and dispraise of proud and ambitious pastors: such as Morrell is here imagined to be.

THOMALIN. MORRELL. 11

THOMALIN.

Is not thilk same a goatherd proud,

That sits on yonder bank,

Whose straying herd them self doth shroud

Among the bushes rank?

MOR. What, ho, thou jolly shepheard's swain,

Come up the hill to me;

Better is than the lowly plain,

Als for thy flock and thee.

THOM. Ah! God shield, man, that I should climb,

And learn to look aloft;

This rede is rife, that oftentime

Great climbers fall unsoft.

In humble dales is footing fast,

The trode is not so tickle,

And though one fall through heedless hast,

Yet is his miss not mickle.

And now the Sun 12 hath reared up

His fiery-footed team,

Making his way between the Cup

And golden Diademe;

The rampant Lion hunts he fast,

With dogs of noisome breath,

Whose baleful barking brings in hast

Pine, plagues, and dreary death.

Against his cruel scorching heat,

Where thou hast coverture,

The wasteful hills unto his threat

Is a plain overture:

But, if thee list to holden chat

With seely shepheard's swain,

Come down, and learn the little what,

That Thomalin can sayn.

MOR. Siker thou's but a lazy loord,

And recks much of thy swink,

That with fond terms, and witless words,

To blear mine eyes dost think.

In evil hour thou hentst in hand

Thus holy hills to blame,

For sacred unto saints they stand,

And of them have their name.

St. Michel's Mount who does not know,

That wards the Western coast?

And of St. Bridget's Bower I trow

All Kent can rightly boast:

And they that con of Muses' skill

Sayn most-what, that they dwell

(As goatherds wont) upon a hill,

Beside a learned well.

And wonned not the great good Pan

Upon Mount Olivet,

Feeding the blessed flock of Dan,

Which did himself beget?

THOM. O blessed Sheep! O Shepheard great!

That bought his flock so dear,

And them did save with bloody sweat

From wolves that would them tear.

MOR. Beside, as holy Fathers sayn,

There is a holy place

Where Titan riseth from the main

To run his daily race,

Upon whose top the stars be stay'd,

And all the sky doth lean;

There is the cave where Phœbe laid

The shepheard long to dream.

Whilome there used shepheards all

To feed their flocks at will,

Till by his folly one did fall,

That all the rest did spill.

And, sithens shepheards be foresaid

From places of delight,

Forthy I ween thou be afraid

To climb this hillës height.

Of Sinai can I tell thee more,

And of our Lady's Bower;

But little needs to strow my store,

Suffice this hill of our.

Here have the holy Fauns recourse,

And Sylvans haunten rathe;

Here has the salt Medway his source,

Wherein the Nymphs do bathe;

The salt Medway, that trickling streams

Adown the dales of Kent,

Till with his elder brother Themes

His brackish waves be ment.

Here grows melampode every where,

And terebinth, good for goats;

The one my madding kids to smear,

The next to heal their throats.

Hereto, the hills be nigher heaven,

And then the passage eath;

As well can prove the piercing levin,

That seldom falls beneath.

THOM. Siker thou speaks like a lewd lorrell,

Of heaven to deemen so;

How be I am but rude and borrell,

Yet nearer ways I know.

To kirk the narre, from God more far,

Has been an old-said saw;

And he, that strives to touch a star,

Oft stumbles at a straw.

As soon may shepheard climb to sky

That leads in lowly dales,

As goatherd proud, that, sitting high,

Upon the mountain sails.

My seely sheep like well below,

They need not melampode,

For they be hale enough, I trow,

And liken their abode;

But, if they with thy goats should yede,

They soon might be corrupted,

Or like not of the frowy feed,

Or with the weeds be glutted.

The hills, where dwelled holy saints,

I reverence and adore,

Not for themself, but for the saints

Which have been dead of yore.

And now they be to heaven forewent,

Their good is with them go;

Their sample only to us lent,

That als we might do so.

Shepheards they weren of the best,

And lived in lowly leas;

And, sith they souls be now at rest,

Why do we them disease?

Such one he was (as I have heard

Old Algrind often sayn)

That whilome was the first shepheard,

And lived with little gain:

And meek he was, as meek might be,

Simple as simple sheep;

Humble, and like in each degree

The flock which he did keep.

Often he used of his keep

A sacrifice to bring,

Now with a kid, now with a sheep,

The altars hallowing.

So louted he unto his Lord,

Such favour couth he find,

That never sithens was abhorr'd

The simple shepheards' kind.

And such, I ween, the brethren were

That came from Canaän,

The brethren Twelve, that kept yfere

The flocks of mighty Pan.

But nothing such thilk shepheard was

Whom Ida hill did bear,

That left his flock to fetch a lass,

Whose love he bought too dear.

For he was proud, that ill was paid,

(No such must shepheards be!)

And with lewd lust was overlaid;

Two things doen ill agree.

But shepheard must be meek and mild,

Well-eyed, as Argus was,

With fleshly follies undefiled,

And stout as steed of brass.

Such one (said Algrind) Moses was,

That saw his Maker's face,

His face, more clear then crystal glass,

And spake to him in place.

This had a brother, (his name I knew,)

The first of all his cote,

A shepheard true, yet not so true

As he that erst I hote.

Whilome all these were low and lief,

And loved their flocks to feed;

They never stroven to be chief,

And simple was their weed:

But now (thanked be God therefore!)

The world is well amend,

Their weeds be not so nighly wore;

Such simplesse might them shend!

They be yclad in purple and pall,

So hath their God them blist;

They reign and rulen over all,

And lord it as they list;

Ygirt with belts of glittering gold,

(Might they good shepheards been!)

Their Pan their sheep to them has sold,

I say as some have seen.

For Palinode (if thou him ken)

Yode late on pilgrimage

To Rome, (if such be Rome,) and then

He saw thilk misusage;

For shepheards (said he) there doen lead,

As lords done other where;

Their sheep have crusts, and they the bread;

The chips, and they the cheer:

They have the fleece, and eke the flesh,

(O seely sheep the while!)

The corn is theirs, let others thresh,

Their hands they may not file.

They have great store and thrifty stocks,

Great friends and feeble foes;

What need them caren for their flocks,

Their boys can look to those.

These wisards welter in wealth's waves,

Pamper'd in pleasures deep;

They have fat kerns, and leany knaves,

Their fasting flocks to keep.

Sike mister men be all misgone,

They heapen hills of wrath;

Such surly shepheards have we none,

They keepen all the path.

MOR. Here is a great deal of good matter

Lost for lack of telling;

Now sicker I see thou dost but clatter,

Harm may come of melling.

Thou meddlest more than shall have thank,

To witen shepheards' wealth;

When folk be fat, and riches rank,

It is a sign of health.

But say me, what is Algrind, he

That is so oft benempt?

THOM. He is a shepheard great in gree,

But hath been long ypent:

One day he sat upon a hill,

As now thou wouldest me;

But I am taught, by Algrind's ill,

To love the low degree;

For sitting so with bared scalp,

An eagle 13 soared high,

That, weening his white head was chalk,

A shell-fish down let fly;

She ween'd the shell-fish to have broke,

But therewith bruis'd his brain;

So now, astonied with the stroke,

He lies in lingering pain.

MOR. Ah! good Algrind! his hap was ill,

But shall be better in time.

Now farewell, shepheard, sith this hill

Thou hast such doubt to climb.

PALINODE'S EMBLEME.
In medio virtus.
(Virtue dwells in the middle place.)

MORRELL'S EMBLEME.
In summo felicitas.
(Happiness in the highest.)

AUGUST · AEGLOGA OCTAVA

In this Æglogue is set forth a delectable controversy, made in imitation of that in Theocritus: whereto also Virgil fashioned his third and seventh Æglogue. They chose for umpire of their strife, Cuddy, a neat-herd's boy; who, having ended their cause, reciteth also himself a proper song, whereof Colin he saith was author.

WILLIE. PERIGOT. CUDDIE.

WILLIE.

Tell me, Perigot, what shall be the game,

Wherefore with mine thou dare thy music match?

Or be thy bagpipes run far out of frame?

Or hath the cramp thy joints benumb'd with ache?

PER. Ah! Willie, when the heart is ill assay'd,

How can bagpipe or joints be well apaid?

WIL. What the foul evil hath thee so bestad?

Whilome thou was peregall to the best,

And wont to make the jolly shepheards glad,

With piping and dancing didst pass the rest.

PER. Ah! Willie, now I have learn'd a new dance;

My old music marr'd by a new mischance.

WIL. Mischief might to that mischance befall,

That so hath reft us of our merriment;

But rede me what pain doth thee so appal;

Or lovest thou, or be thy younglings miswent?

PER. Love hath misled both my younglings and me;

I pine for pain, and they my pain to see.

WIL. Perdie, and wellaway! ill may they thrive;

Never knew I lover's sheep in good plight:

But and if in rhymes with me thou dare strive,

Such fond fantasies shall soon be put to flight.

PER. That shall I do, though mochell worse I fared:

Never shall be said that Perigot was dared.

WIL. Then lo, Perigot, the pledge which I plight,

A mazer ywrought of the maple warre,

Wherein is enchased many a fair sight

Of bears and tigers, that maken fierce war;

And over them spread a goodly wild vine,

Entrailed with a wanton ivy twine.

Thereby is a lamb in the wolvës jaws;

But see, how fast runneth the shepheard swain

To save the innocent from the beast's paws,

And here with his sheephook hath him slain.

Tell me, such a cup hast thou ever seen?

Well might it beseem any harvest queen.

PER. Thereto will I pawn yonder spotted lamb;

Of all my flock there n'is such another,

For I brought him up without the dam;

But Colin Clout reft me of his brother,

That he purchas'd of me in the plain field;

Sore against my will was I forc'd to yield.

WIL. Sicker, make like account of his brother;

But who shall judge the wager won or lost?

PER. That shall yonder herdgroom and none other,

Which over the pease hitherward doth post.

WIL. But, for the sunbeam so sore doth us beat,

Were not better to shun the scorching heat?

PER. Well agreed, Willie; then set thee down, swain;

Such a song never heardest thou but Colin sing.

CUD. 'Gin, when ye list, ye jolly shepheards twain;

Such a judge, as Cuddie, were for a king.

PER. It fell upon a holy eve,

WIL. Hey, ho, holiday!

PER. When holy Fathers wont to shrieve;

WIL. Now ginneth this roundelay.

PER. Sitting upon a hill so high,

WIL. Hey, ho, the high hill!

PER. The while my flock did feed thereby;

WIL. The while the shepheard self did spill;

PER. I saw the bouncing Bellibone,

WIL. Hey, ho, Bonnibell!

PER. Tripping over the dale alone;

WIL. She can trip it very well.

PER. Well decked in a frock of gray,

WIL. Hey, ho, gray is greet!

PER. And in a kirtle of green saye,

WIL. The green is for maidens meet.

PER. A chapelet on her head she wore,

WIL. Hey, ho, chapelet!

PER. Of sweet violets therein was store,

WIL. She sweeter than the violet.

PER. My sheep did leave their wonted food,

WIL. Hey, ho, seely sheep!

PER. And gaz'd on her as they were wood,

WIL. Wood as he that did them keep.

PER. As the bonilass passed by,

WIL. Hey, ho, bonilass!

PER. She rov'd at me with glancing eye,

WIL. As clear as the crystal glass:

PER. All as the sunny beam so bright,

WIL. Hey, ho, the sun-beam!

PER. Glanceth from Phœbus' face forthright,

WIL. So love into thy heart did stream:

PER. Or as the thunder cleaves the clouds,

WIL. Hey, ho, the thunder!

PER. Wherein the lightsome levin shrouds,

WIL. So cleaves thy soul asunder:

PER. Or as Dame Cynthia's silver ray,

WIL. Hey, ho, the moonlight!

PER. Upon the glittering wave doth play,

WIL. Such play is a piteous plight.

PER. The glance into my heart did glide,

WIL. Hey, ho, the glider!

PER. Therewith my soul was sharply gryde,

WIL. Such wounds soon waxen wider.

PER. Hasting to wrench the arrow out,

WIL. Hey, ho, Perigot!

PER. I left the head in my heart-root,

WIL. It was a desperate shot.

PER. There it rankleth aye more and more,

WIL. Hey, ho, the arrow!

PER. Ne can I find salve for my sore,

WIL. Love is a careless sorrow.

PER. And though my bale with death I bought,

WIL. Hey, ho, heavy cheer!

PER. Yet should thilk lass not from my thought,

WIL. So you may buy gold too dear.

PER. But whether in painful love I pine,

WIL. Hey, ho, pinching pain!

PER. Or thrive in wealth, she shall be mine,

WIL. But if thou can her obtain.

PER. And if for graceless grief I die,

WIL. Hey, ho, graceless grief!

PER. Witness she slew me with her eye,

WIL. Let thy folly be the prief.

PER. And you, that saw it, simple sheep,

WIL. Hey, ho, the fair flock!

PER. For prief thereof, my death shall weep,

WIL. And moan with many a mock.

PER. So learn'd I love on a holy eve,

WIL. Hey, ho, holy-day!

PER. That ever since my heart did grieve,

WIL. Now endeth our roundelay."

CUD. Sicker, such a roundel never heard I none;

Little lacketh Perigot of the best,

And Willie is not greatly overgone,

So weren his under-songs well addrest.

WIL. Herdgroom, I fear me thou have a squint eye;

Arede uprightly, who has the victory.

CUD. Faith of my soul, I deem each have gained;

Forthy let the lamb be Willie his own;

And for Perigot, so well hath him pained,

To him be the wroughten mazer alone.

PER. Perigot is well pleased with the doom,

Ne can Willie wite the witeless herdgroom.

WIL. Never dempt more right of beauty, I ween,

The shepheard of Ida that judged Beauty's queen.

CUD. But tell me, shepheards, should it not yshend

Your roundels fresh, to hear a doleful verse

Of Rosalind (who knows not Rosalind?)

That Colin made? ilk can I you rehearse.

PER. Now say it, Cuddie, as thou art a lad;

With merry thing it's good to medle sad.

WIL. Faith of my soul, thou shalt ycrowned be

In Colin's stead, if thou this song arede;

For never thing on earth so pleaseth me

As him to hear, or matter of his deed.

CUD. Then listen each unto my heavy lay,

And tune your pipes as ruthful as ye may.

"Ye wasteful Woods! bear witness of my woe,

Wherein my plaints did oftentimes resound;

Ye careless Birds are privy to my cries,

Which in your songs were wont to make a part:

Thou, pleasant Spring, hast lull'd me oft asleep,

Whose streams my trickling tears did oft augment!

"Resort of people doth my griefs augment,

The walled towns do work my greater woe;

The forest wide is fitter to resound

The hollow echo of my careful cries.

I hate the house, since thence my love did part,

Whose wailful want debars mine eyes of sleep.

"Let streams of tears supply the place of sleep;

Let all, that sweet is, void; and all, that may augment

My dole, draw near! More meet to wail my woe

Be the wild woods, my sorrows to resound,

Than bed, nor bower, both which I fill with cries,

When I them see so waste, and find no part

"Of pleasure past. Here will I dwell apart

In gastful grove therefore, till my last sleep

Do close mine eyes; so shall I not augment

With sight of such as change my restless woe.

Help me, ye baneful Birds! whose shrieking sound

Is sign of dreary death, my deadly cries

"Most ruthfully to tune: and as my cries

(Which of my woe cannot bewray least part)

You hear all night, when Nature craveth sleep,

Increase, so let your irksome yells augment.

Thus all the nights in plaints, the day in woe,

I vowed have to waste, till safe and sound

"She home return, whose voice's silver sound

To cheerful songs can change my cheerless cries.

Hence with the nightingale will I take part,

That blessed bird, that spends her time of sleep

In songs and plaintive pleas, the more t' augment

The memory of his misdeed that bred her woe.

"And you that feel no woe, when as the sound

Of these my nightly cries ye hear apart,

Let break your sounder sleep, and pity augment."

PER. O Colin, Colin! the shepheards' joy,

How I admire each turning of thy verse;

And Cuddie, fresh Cuddie, the liefest boy,

How dolefully his dole thou didst rehearse!

CUD. Then blow your pipes, shepheards, till you be at home;

The night hieth fast, it's time to be gone.

PERIGOT HIS EMBLEME. 14
Vincenti gloria victi.
(To the conqueror belongs the glory of the conquered.)

WILLIE'S EMBLEME.14
Vinto non vitto.
(Conquered, not overcome.)

CUDDIE'S EMBLEME.14
Felice chi puo.
(He is happy who can.)

SEPTEMBER · AEGLOGA NONA

Herein Diggon Davie is devised to be a shepheard that, in hope of more gain, drove his sheep into a far country. The abuses whereof, and loose living of Popish prelates, by occasion of Hobbinol's demand, he discourseth at large.

HOBBINOL. DIGGON DAVIE.

HOBBINOL.

Diggon Davie! I bid her good-day;

Or Diggon her is, or I missay.

DIG. Her was her, while it was day-light,

But now her is a most wretched wight:

For day, that was, is wightly past,

And now at erst the dark night doth hast.

HOB. Diggon, arede who has thee so dight;

Never I wist thee in so poor a plight.

Where is the fair flock thou wast wont to lead?

Or be they chaffred, or at mischief dead?

DIG. Ah! for love of that is to thee most lief,

Hobbinol, I pray thee gall not my old grief;

Such question rippeth up cause of new woe,

For one, opened, might unfold many moe.

HOB. Nay, but sorrow close shrouded in heart,

I know, to keep is a burdenous smart:

Each thing imparted is more eath to bear:

When the rain is fallen, the clouds waxen clear.

And now, sithence I saw thy head last,

Thrice three moons be fully spent and past;

Since when thou hast measured much ground,

And wandered well about the world round,

So as thou can many things relate;

But tell me first of thy flock's estate.

DIG. My sheep be wasted; (woe is me therefore!)

The jolly shepheard that was of yore,

Is now nor jolly, nor shepheard more.

In foreign coasts men said was plenty;

And so there is, but all of misery:

I deem'd there much to have eked my store,

But such eking hath made my heart sore.

In those countries, whereas I have been,

No being for those that truly mean;

But for such, as of guile maken gain,

No such country as there to remain;

They setten to sale their shops of shame,

And maken a mart of their good name:

The shepheards there robben one another,

And layen baits to beguile their brother;

Or they will buy his sheep out of the cote,

Or they will carven the shepheard's throat.

The shepheard's swain you cannot well ken,

But it be by his pride, from other men;

They looken big as bulls that be bate,

And bearen the crag so stiff and so state,

As cock on his dunghill crowing crank.

HOB. Diggon, I am so stiff and so stank,

that uneath may I stand any more;

And now the western wind bloweth sore,

That now is in his chief sovereignty,

Beating the withered leaf from the tree;

Sit we down here under the hill;

Then may we talk and tellen our fill,

And make a mock at the blustering blast:

Now say on, Diggon, whatever thou hast.

DIG. Hobbin, ah Hobbin! I curse the stound

That ever I cast to have lorn this ground:

Well-away the while I was so fond

To leave the good, that I had in hond,

In hope of better that was uncouth,

So lost the dog the flesh in his mouth.

My silly sheep (ah! silly sheep!)

That here by there I whilome us'd to keep,

All were they lusty as thou didest see,

Be all starved with pine and penury;

Hardly myself escaped thilk pain,

Driven for need to come home again.

HOB. Ah! fon, now by thy loss art taught

That seldom change the better brought:

Content who lives with tried state,

Need fear no change of frowning Fate;

But who will seek for unknown gain,

Oft lives by loss, and leaves with pain.

DIG. I wot ne, Hobbin, how I was bewitch'd

With vain desire and hope to be enrich'd:

But, sicker, so it is, as the bright star

Seemeth aye greater when it is far:

I thought the soil would have made me rich,

But now I wot it is nothing sich;

For either the shepheards be idle and still,

And led of their sheep what way they will,

Or they be false, and full of covetise,

And casten to compass many wrong emprise:

But the more be fraught with fraud and spite,

Ne in good nor goodness taken delight,

But kindle coals of contest and ire,

Wherewith they set all the world on fire;

Which when they thinken again to quench,

With holy water they do them all drench.

They say they con to heaven the highway,

But by my soul I dare undersay

They never set foot in that same troad,

But balk the right way, and strayen abroad.

They boast they have the devil at command,

But ask them therefore what they have pawn'd:

Marry! that great Pan bought with dear borrow,

To quit it from the black bower of sorrow.

But they have sold thilk same long ago,

For they woulden draw with them many moe.

But let them gang alone a God's name;

As they have brewed, so let them bear blame.

HOB. Diggon, I pray thee speak not so dirk;

Such mister saying me seemeth to mirk.

DIG. Then, plainly to speak of shepheards' most what,

Bad is the best; (this English is flat)

Their ill haviour gars men missay

Both of their doctrine, and their fay.

They sayn the world is much war than it wont,

All for her shepheards be beastly and blont.

Other sayn, but how truly I n'ote,

All for they holden shame of their cote:

Some stick not to say, (hot coal on their tongue!)

That such mischief graseth them among,

All for they casten too much of world's care,

To deck their dame, and enrich their heir;

For such encheason, if you go nigh,

Few chimneys reeking you shall espy.

The fat ox, that wont lig in the stall,

Is now fast stalled in their crumenall.

Thus chatten the people in their steads,

Alike as a monster of many heads:

But they, that shooten nearest the prick,

Sayn, other the fat from their beards doen lick:

For big bulls of Bashan brace them about,

That with their horns butten the more stout;

But the lean souls treaden under foot,

And to seek redress might little boot;

For liker be they to pluck away more,

Than ought of the gotten good to restore:

For they be like foul quagmires overgrass'd,

That, if thy galage once sticketh fast,

The more to wind it out thou dost swink,

Thou must aye deeper and deeper sink.

Yet better leave off with a little loss,

Than by much wrestling to lose the gross.

HOB. Now, Diggon, I see thou speakest too plain;

Better it were a little to feign,

And cleanly cover that cannot be cured;

Such ill, as is forced, must needs be endured.

But of such pastors how do the flocks creep?

DIG. Such as the shepheards, such be their sheep,

For they nill listen to the shepheard's voice;

But if he call them, at their good choice

They wander at will and stay at pleasure,

And to their folds yede at their own leisure.

But they had be better come at their call;

For many have unto mischief fall,

And been of ravenous wolves yrent,

All for they nould be buxom and bent.

HOB. Fie on thee, Diggon, and all thy foul leasing;

Well is known that, sith the Saxon king, 15

Never was wolf seen, many nor some,

Nor in all Kent, nor in Christendom;

But the fewer wolves (the sooth to sayn)

The more be the foxes that here remain.

DIG. Yes, but they gang in more secret wise,

And with sheeps' clothing doen them disguise.

They walk not widely as they were wont,

For fear of rangers and the great hunt,

But privily prowling to and fro,

Enaunter they might be inly know.

HOB. Or privy or pert if any bin,

We have great bandogs will tear their skin.

DIG. Indeed thy Ball is a bold big cur,

And could make a jolly hole in their fur:

But not good dogs them needeth to chase,

But heedy shepheards to discern their face;

For all their craft is in their countenance,

They be so grave and full of maintenance.

But shall I tell thee what myself know

Chanced to Roffin not long ago?

HOB. Say it out, Diggon, whatever it hight,

For not but well might him betight:

He is so meek, wise, and merciable,

And with his word his work is convenable.

Colin Clout, I ween, be his self boy,

(Ah, for Colin! he whilome my joy:)

Shepheards such, God might us many send,

That doen so carefully their flocks tend.

DIG. Thilk same shepheard might I well mark,

He has a dog to bite or to bark;

Never had shepheard so keen a cur,

That waketh and if but a leaf stur.

Whilome there wonned a wicked wolf,

That with many a lamb had gutted his gulf,

And ever at night wont to repair

Unto the flock, when the welkin shone fair,

Yclad in clothing of silly sheep,

When the good old man used to sleep;

Then at midnight he would bark and bawl,

(For he had eft learned a currës call,)

As if a wolf were among the sheep:

With that the shepheard would break his sleep,

And send out Lowder (for so his dog hote)

To range the fields with wide open throat.

Then, when as Lowder was far away,

This wolvish sheep would catchen his prey,

A lamb, or a kid, or a weanel wast;

With that to the wood would he speed him fast.

Long time he used this slippery prank,

Ere Roffy could for his labour him thank.

At end, the shepheard his practice spied,

(For Roffy is wise, and as Argus eyed,)

And, when at even he came to the flock,

Fast in their folds he did them lock,

And took out the wolf in his counterfeit coat,

And let out the sheep's blood at his throat.

HOB. Marry, Diggon, what should him affray

To take his own where ever it lay?

For, had his weasand been a little widder,

He would have devoured both hidder and shidder.

DIG. Mischief light on him, and God's great curse,

Too good for him had been a great deal worse;

For it was a perilous beast above all,

And eke had he cond the shepheard's call,

And oft in the night came to the sheep-cote,

And called Lowder, with a hollow throat,

As if the old man self had been:

The dog his master's voice did it ween,

Yet half in doubt he opened the door,

And ran out as he was wont of yore.

No sooner was out, but, swifter than thought,

Fast by the hide the wolf Lowder caught;

And, had not Roffy run to the steven,

Lowder had been slain thilk same even.

HOB. God shield, man, he should so ill have thrive,

All for he did his devoir belive.

If such be wolves, as thou hast told,

How might we, Diggon, them behold?

DIG. How, but, with heed and watchfulness,

Forstallen them of their wiliness:

Forthy with shepheard sits not play,

Or sleep, as some doen, all the long day;

But ever liggen in watch and ward,

From sudden force their flocks for to guard.

HOB. Ah! Diggon, thilk same rule were too strait,

All the cold season to watch and wait:

We be of flesh, men as other be,

Why should we be bound to such misery?

Whatever thing lacketh changeable rest,

Must needs decay, when it is at best.

DIG. Ah! but, Hobbinol, all this long tale

Nought easeth the care that doth me forhaile;

What shall I do? what way shall I wend,

My piteous plight and loss to amend?

Ah! good Hobbinol, might I thee pray

Of aid or counsel in my decay?

HOB. Now by my soul, Diggon, I lament

The hapless mischief that has thee hent;

Natheless thou seest my lowly sail,

That froward Fortune doth ever availe:

But, were Hobbinol as God might please,

Diggon should soon find favour and ease:

But if to my cottage thou wilt resort,

So as I can I will thee comfort;

There mayst thou lig in a vetchy bed,

Till fairer Fortune shew forth his head.

DIG. Ah! Hobbinol, God may it thee requite;

Diggon on few such friends did ever light.

DIGGON'S EMBLEME.
Inopem me copia fecit.
(Plenty has made me poor.)

OCTOBER · AEGLOGA DECIMA

In Cuddie is set out the perfect pattern of a Poet, which, finding no maintenance of his state and studies, complaineth of the contempt of Poetry, and the causes thereof: specially having been in all ages, and even amongst the most barbarous, always of singular account and honour, and being indeed so worthy and commendable an art; or rather no art, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the wit by a certain Enthousiasmos and celestial inspiration, as the Author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his book called The English Poet, which book being lately come to my hands, I mind also by God's grace, upon further advisement, to publish.

PIERS. CUDDIE.

PIERS.

Cuddie, for shame, hold up thy heavy head,

And let us cast with what delight to chase

And weary this long ling'ring Phœbus' race.

Whilome thou wont the shepheards' lads to lead

In rhymes, in riddles, and in bidding base;

Now they in thee, and thou in sleep, art dead.

CUD. Piers, I have piped erst so long with pain,

That all mine oaten reeds be rent and wore,

And my poor Muse hath spent her spared store,

Yet little good hath got, and much less gain.

Such pleasance makes the grasshopper so poor,

And lig so laid, when winter doth her strain.

The dapper ditties, that I wont devise,

To feed youth's fancy, and the flocking fry,

Delighten much; what I the bett forthy?

They have the pleasure, I a slender prise:

I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly:

What good thereof to Cuddie can arise?

PIERS. Cuddie, the praise is better than the price,

The glory eke much greater than the gain:

O what an honour is it, to restrain

The lust of lawless youth with good advice,

Or prick them forth with pleasance of thy vein,

Whereto thou list their trained wills entice!

Soon as thou 'ginn'st to set thy notes in frame,

O how the rural routs to thee do cleave!

Seemeth thou dost their soul of sense bereave,

All as the shepheard that did fetch his dame

From Pluto's baleful bower withouten leave;

His music's might the hellish hound did tame.

CUD. So praisen babes the peacock's spotted train,

And wondren at bright Argus' blazing eye;

But who rewards him e'er the more forthy,

Or feeds him once the fuller by a grain?

Such praise is smoke, that sheddeth in the sky;

Such words be wind, and wasten soon in vain.

PIERS. Abandon then the base and viler clown;

Lift up thyself out of the lowly dust,

And sing of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts;

Turn thee to those that wield the awful crown,

To doubted knights, whose woundless armour rusts,

And helms unbruised waxen daily brown.

There may thy Muse display her flutt'ring wing,

And stretch herself at large from east to west;

Whither thou list in fair Elisa 16 rest,

Or, if thee please in bigger notes to sing,

Advance the Worthy whom she loveth best,

That first the White Bear to the stake did bring.

And, when the stubborn stroke of stronger stounds

Has somewhat slack'd the tenor of thy string,

Of love and lustihead then mayst thou sing,

And carol loud, and lead the Miller's round,

All were Elisa one of thilk same ring;

So might our Cuddie's name to heaven sound.

CUD. Indeed the Romish Tityrus, I hear,

Through his Mecænas left his oaten reed,

Whereon he erst had taught his flocks to feed,

And laboured lands to yield the timely ear,

And eft did sing of wars and deadly dreed

So as the heavens did quake his verse to hear.

But ah! Mecænas is yclad in clay,

And great Augustus long ago is dead,

And all the worthies liggen wrapt in lead,

That matter made for poets on to play:

For ever, who in derring-do were dread,

The lofty verse of them was loved aye.

But after Virtue gan for age to stoop,

And mighty Manhood brought a bed of ease,

The vaunting poets found nought worth a pease

To put in press among the learned troop;

Then gan the streams of flowing wits to cease,

And sunbright honour penn'd in shameful coop.

And if that any buds of Poesy,

Yet of the old stock, gan to shoot again,

Or it men's follies must to-force to feign,

And roll with rest in rhymes of ribaudry;

Or, as it sprung, it wither must again;

Tom Piper makes us better melody.

PIERS. O peerless Po'sy! where is then thy place?

If nor in princes' palace thou dost sit,

(And yet is princes' palace the most fit,)

Ne breast of baser birth doth thee embrace,

Then make thee wings of thine aspiring wit,

And, whence thou cam'st, fly back to heaven apace.

CUD. Ah! Percy, it is all-to weak and wan,

So high to soar and make so large a flight;

Her pieced pinions be not so in plight:

For Colin fits such famous flight to scan;

He, were he not with love so ill bedight,

Would mount as high and sing as sweet as swan.

PIERS. Ah! fon; for Love does teach him climb so high,

And lifts him up out of the loathsome mire;

Such immortal mirror, as he doth admire,

Would raise one's mind above the starry sky,

And cause a caitiff courage to aspire;

For lofty love doth loathe a lowly eye.

CUD. All otherwise the state of Poet stands;

For lordly Love is such a tyrant fell,

That, where he rules, all power he doth expel;

The vaunted verse a vacant head demands,

Ne wont with crabbed care the Muses dwell:

Unwisely weaves, that takes two webs in hand.

Who ever casts to compass weighty prize,

And thinks to throw out thund'ring words of threat,

Let pour in lavish cups and thrifty bits of meat,

For Bacchus' fruit is friend to Phœbus wise;

And, when with wine the brain begins to sweat,

The numbers flow as fast as spring doth rise.

Thou kenst not, Percie, how the rhyme should rage;

O if my temples were distain'd with wine,

And girt in garlands of wild ivy twine,

How I could rear the Muse on stately stage,

And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,

With quaint Bellona in her equipage!

But ah! my courage cools ere it be warm:

Forthy content us in this humble shade,

Where no such troublous tides have us assay'd;

Here we our slender pipes may safely charm.

PIERS. And, when my goats shall have their bellies laid,

Cuddie shall have a kid to store his farm.

CUDDIE'S EMBLEME. 17
Agitante calescimus illo, etc.

NOVEMBER · AEGLOGA UNDECIMA

In this xi. Æglogue he bewaileth the death of some maiden of great blood, whom he calleth Dido. The personage is secret, and to me altogether unknown, albeit of himself I often required the same. This Æglogue is made in imitation of Marot his song, which he made upon the death of Loyes the French Queen; but far passing his reach, and in mine opinion all other the Æglogues of this Book.

THENOT. COLIN.

THENOT.

Colin, my dear, when shall it please thee sing,

As thou wert wont, songs of some jovisance?

Thy Muse too long slumb'reth in sorrowing,

Lulled asleep through Love's misgovernance.

Now somewhat sing, whose endless sovenance

Among the shepheards' swains may aye remain,

Whether thee list thy loved lass advance,

Or honour Pan with hymns of higher vein.

COL. Thenot, now n'is the time of merrimake,

Nor Pan to herie, nor with Love to play;

Such mirth in May is meetest for to make,

Or summer shade, under the cocked hay.

But now sad winter welked hath the day,

And Phœbus, weary of his yearly task,

Ystabled hath his steeds in lowly lay,

And taken up his inn in Fishes' 18 hask:

Thilk sullen season sadder plight doth ask,

And loatheth such delights as thou dost praise:

The mournful Muse in mirth now list ne mask,

As she was wont in youth and summer-days;

But if thou algate lust light virelays,

And looser songs of love to underfong,

Who but thyself deserves such poets' praise?

Relieve thy oaten pipes that sleepen long.

THE. The nightingale is sovereign of song,

Before him sits the titmouse silent be;

And I, unfit to thrust in skilful throng,

Should Colin make judge of my foolery.

Nay, better learn of them that learned be,

And have been watered at the Muses' well;

The kindly dew drops from the higher tree,

And wets the little plants that lowly dwell:

But if sad winter's wrath, and season chill,

Accord not with thy Muse's merriment,

To sadder times thou mayst attune thy quill,

And sing of sorrow and death's dreariment;

For dead is Dido, 19 dead, alas! and drent,

Dido! the great shepheard his daughter sheen:

The fairest may she was that ever went,

Her like she has not left behind, I ween:

And, if thou wilt bewail my woful teen,

I shall thee give yond cosset for thy pain;

And, if thy rhymes as round and rueful been

As those that did thy Rosalind complain,

Much greater gifts for guerdon thou shalt gain.

Than kid or cosset, which I thee benempt:

Then up, I say, thou jolly shepheard swain,

Let not my small demand be so contempt.

COL. Thenot, to that I chose thou dost me tempt;

But ah! too well I wot my humble vein,

And how my rhymes be rugged and unkempt;

Yet, as I con, my conning I will strain.

"Up, then, Melpomene! the mournful'st Muse of Nine,

Such cause of mourning never hadst afore;

Up, grisly ghosts! and up my rueful rhyme!

Matter of mirth now shalt thou have no more;

For dead she is, that mirth thee made of yore.

Dido, my dear, alas! is dead,

Dead, and lieth wrapt in lead.

O heavy herse!

Let streaming tears be poured out in store;

O careful verse!

"Shepheards, that by your flocks of Kentish downs abide,

Wail ye this woful waste of Nature's wark;

Wail we the wight, whose presence was our pride;

Wail we the wight, whose absence is our cark;

The sun of all the world is dim and dark;

The earth now lacks her wonted light,

And all we dwell in deadly night.

O heavy herse!

Break we our pipes, that shrill'd as loud as lark;

O careful verse!

"Why do we longer live, (ah! why live we so long?)

Whose better days Death hath shut up in woe?

The fairest flower our garland all among

Is faded quite, and into dust ygo.

Sing now, ye shepheards' daughters, sing no moe

The songs that Colin made you in her praise,

But into weeping turn your wanton lays.

O heavy herse!

Now is time to die: nay, time was long ago:

O careful verse!

"Whence is it, that the flowret of the field doth fade,

And lieth buried long in Winter's bale;

Yet, soon as Spring his mantle hath display'd,

It flow'reth fresh, as it should never fail?

But thing on earth that is of most avail,

As virtue's branch and beauty's bud,

Reliven not for any good.

O heavy herse!

The branch once dead, the bud eke needs must quail;

O careful verse!

"She, while she was, (that was, a woful word to sayn!)

For beauty's praise and pleasance had no peer;

So well she couth the shepheards entertain

With cakes and cracknels, and such country cheer:

Ne would she scorn the simple shepheard's swain;

For she would call him often heme,

And give him curds and clouted cream.

O heavy herse!

Als Colin Clout she would not once disdain;

O careful verse!

"But now such happy cheer is turn'd to heavy chance,

Such pleasance now displac'd by dolor's dint;

All music sleeps, where Death doth lead the dance,

And shepheards' wonted solace is extinct.

The blue in black, the green in gray, is tinct;

The gaudy garlands deck her grave,

The faded flowers her corse embrave.

O heavy herse!

Mourn now, my Muse, now mourn with tears besprint;

O careful verse!

"O thou great shepheard, Lobbin, how great is thy grief?

Where be the nosegays that she dight for thee?

The coloured chaplets wrought with a chief, 20

The knotted rush-rings, and gilt rosemary?

For she deemed nothing too dear for thee.

Ah! they be all yclad in clay;

One bitter blast blew all away.

O heavy herse!

Thereof nought remains but the memory;

O careful verse!

"Ah me! that dreary death should strike so mortal stroke,

That can undo Dame Nature's kindly course;

The faded locks fall from the lofty oak,

The floods do gasp, for dried is their source,

And floods of tears flow in their stead perforce:

The mantled meadows mourn,

Their sundry colours turn.

O heavy herse!

The heavens do melt in tears without remorse;

O careful verse!

"The feeble flocks in field refuse their former food,

And hang their heads as they would learn to weep;

The beasts in forest wail as they were wood,

Except the wolves, that chase the wand'ring sheep,

Now she is gone that safely did them keep:

The turtle on the bared branch

Laments the wound that Death did launch.

O heavy herse!

And Philomele her song with tears doth steep;

O careful verse!

"The water nymphs, that wont with her to sing and dance,

And for her garland olive branches bear,

Now baleful boughs of cypress do advance;

The Muses, that were wont green bays to wear,

Now bringen bitter elder branches sere;

The Fatal Sisters eke repent

Her vital thread so soon was spent.

O heavy herse!

Mourn now, my Muse, now mourn with heavy cheer;

O careful verse!

"O trustless state of earthly things, and slipper hope

Of mortal men, that swink and sweat for nought,

And, shooting wide, doth miss the marked scope;

Now have I learn'd (a lesson dearly bought)

That n'is on earth assurance to be sought;

For what might be in earthly mould,

That did her buried body hold?

O heavy herse!

Yet saw I on the bier when it was brought;

O careful verse!

"But maugre Death, and dreaded Sisters' deadly spite,

And gates of hell, and fiery Furies' force,

She hath the bonds broke of eternal night,

Her soul unbodied of the burdenous corse.

Why then weeps Lobbin so without remorse?

O Lobb! thy loss no longer lament;

Dido is dead, but into heaven hent.

O happy herse!

Cease now, my Muse, now cease thy sorrows' source,

O joyful verse!

"Why wail we then? why weary we the gods with plaints,

As if some evil were to her betight?

She reigns a goddess now among the saints,

That whilome was the saint of shepheards light,

And is installed now in heavens' height,

I see thee, blessed soul! I see

Walk in Elysian fields so free.

O happy herse!

Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!)

O joyful verse!

"Unwise and wretched men, to weet what's good or ill,

We deem of death as doom of ill desert;

But knew we, fools, what it us brings until,

Die would we daily, once it to expert!

No danger there the shepheard can assert;

air fields and pleasant lays there bene;

The fields aye fresh, the grass aye green.

O happy herse!

Make haste, ye shepheards, thither to revert.

O joyful verse!

"Dido is gone afore; (whose turn shall be the next?)

There lives she with the blessed gods in bliss,

There drinks she nectar with ambrosia mixt,

And joys enjoys that mortal men do miss.

The honour now of highest gods she is,

That whilome was poor shepheards' pride,

While here on earth she did abide.

O happy herse!

Cease now, my song, my woe now wasted is;

O joyful verse!"

THE. Ay, frank shepheard, how be thy verses meint

With doleful pleasance, so as I ne wot

Whether rejoice or weep for great constraint!

Thine be the cosset, well hast thou it got.

Up, Colin, up, enough thou mourned hast;

Now 'gins to mizzle, his we homeward fast.

COLIN'S EMBLEME.
La mort ny mord.
(Death has lost its sting.)

DECEMBER · AEGLOGA DUODECIMA

This Æglogue (even as the first began) is ended with a complaint of Colin to god Pan; wherein, as weary of his former ways, he proportioned his life to the four seasons of the year; comparing his youth to the spring time, when he was fresh and free from love's folly. His manhood to the summer, which, he saith, was consumed with great heat and excessive drouth, caused through a comet or blazing star, by which he meaneth love; which passion is commonly compared to such flames and immoderate heat. His ripest years he resembleth to an unseasonable harvest, wherein the fruits fall ere they be ripe. His latter age to winter's chill and frosty season, now drawing near to his last end.

The gentle shepheard sat beside a spring,

All in the shadow of a bushy brere,

That Colin hight, which well could pipe and sing,

For he of Tityrus his song did lere:

There, as he sat in secret shade alone,

Thus gan he make of love his piteous moan.

"O sovereign Pan! thou god of shepheards all,

Which of our tender lambkins takest keep,

And, when our flocks into mischance might fall,

Dost save from mischief the unwary sheep,

Als of their masters hast no less regard

Than of the flocks, which thou dost watch and ward;

"I thee beseech (so be thou deign to hear

Rude ditties, tun'd to shepheard's oaten reed,

Or if I ever sonnet sung so clear,

As it with pleasance might thy fancy feed,)

Hearken a while, from thy green cabinet,

The rural song of careful Colinet.

"Whilome in youth, when flower'd my joyful spring,

Like swallow swift I wander'd here and there;

For heat of heedless lust me so did sting,

That I of doubted danger had no fear:

I went the wasteful woods and forest wide,

Withouten dread of wolves to be espied.

"I wont to range amid the mazy thicket,

And gather nuts to make my Christmas-game,

And joyed oft to chase the trembling pricket,

Or hunt the heartless hare till she were tame.

What recked I of wintry age's waste?—

Then deemed I my spring would ever last.

"How often have I scaled the craggy oak,

All to dislodge the raven of her nest?

How have I wearied, with many a stroke,

The stately walnut-tree, the while the rest

Under the tree fell all for nuts at strife?

For like to me was liberty and life.

"And for I was in thilk same looser years,

(Whether the Muse so wrought me from my birth,

Or I too much believ'd my shepheard peers,)

Somedele ybent to song and music's mirth,

A good old shepheard, Wrenock was his name,

Made me by art more cunning in the same.

"Fro thence I durst in derring to compare

With shepheard's swain whatever fed in field;

And, if that Hobbinol right judgment bare,

To Pan his own self pipe I need not yield:

For, if the flocking nymphs did follow Pan,

The wiser Muses after Colin ran.

"But, ah! such pride at length was ill repaid;

The shepheard's god (perdie, god was he none)

My hurtless pleasance did me ill upbraid,

My freedom lorn, my life he left to moan.

Love they him called that gave me check-mate,

But better might they have behote him Hate.

"Then gan my lovely spring bid me farewell,

And summer season sped him to display

(For Love then in the Lion's house did dwell,)

The raging fire that kindled at his ray.

A comet stirr'd up that unkindly heat,

That reigned (as men said) in Venus' seat.

"Forth was I led, not as I wont afore,

When choice I had to choose my wand'ring way,

But whether luck and love's unbridled lore

Would lead me forth on Fancy's bit to play:

The bush my bed, the bramble was my bower,

The woods can witness many a woful stowre.

"Where I was wont to seek the honey bee,

Working her formal rooms in waxen frame,

The grisly toadstool grown there might I see,

And loathed paddocks lording on the same:

And, where the chanting birds lull'd me asleep,

The ghastly owl her grievous inn doth keep.

"Then as the spring gives place to elder Time,

And bringeth forth the fruit of summer's pride;

All so my age, now passed youthly prime,

To things of riper season self applied,

And learn'd of lighter timber cotes to frame,

Such as might save my sheep and me fro shame.

"To make fine cages for the nightingale,

And baskets of bulrushes, was my wont:

Who to entrap the fish in winding sale

Was better seen, or hurtful beasts to hont?

I learned als the signs of heaven to ken,

How Phœbus fails, where Venus sets, and when.

"And tried time yet taught me greater things;

The sudden rising of the raging seas,

The sooth of birds by beating of their wings,

The power of herbs, both which can hurt and ease,

And which be wont t' enrage the restless sheep,

And which be wont to work eternal sleep.

"But, ah! unwise and witless Colin Clout,

That kydst the hidden kinds of many a weed,

Yet kydst not one to cure thy sore heart-root,

Whose rankling wound as yet does rifely bleed.

Why livest thou still, and yet hast thy death's wound?

Why diest thou still, and yet alive art found?

"Thus is my summer worn away and wasted,

Thus is my harvest hastened all-to rathe;

The ear that budded fair is burnt and blasted,

And all my hoped gain is turn'd to scathe.

Of all the seed, that in my youth was sown,

Was none but brakes and brambles to be mown.

"My boughs with blooms that crowned were at first,

And promised of timely fruit such store,

Are left both bare and barren now at erst;

The flattering fruit is fallen to ground before,

And rotted ere they were half mellow ripe;

My harvest, waste, my hope away did wipe.

"The fragrant flowers, that in my garden grew,

Be withered, as they had been gathered long:

Their roots be dried up for lack of dew,

Yet dewed with tears they have been ever among.

Ah! who has wrought my Rosalind this spite,

To spoil the flowers that should her garland dight?

"And I, that whilome wont to frame my pipe

Unto the shifting of the shepheard's foot,

Such follies now have gathered as too ripe,

And cast them out as rotten and unsoote.

The looser lass I cast to please no more;

One if I please, enough is me therefore.

"And thus of all my harvest-hope I have

Nought reaped but a weedy crop of care;

Which, when I thought have thresh'd in swelling sheave,

Cockle for corn, and chaff for barley, bare:

Soon as the chaff should in the fan be fin'd,

All was blown away of the wavering wind.

"So now my year draws to his latter term,

My spring is spent, my summer burnt up quite;

My harvest hastes to stir up Winter stern,

And bids him claim with rigorous rage his right:

So now he storms with many a sturdy stour;

So now his blust'ring blast each coast doth scour.

"The careful cold hath nipt my rugged rind,

And in my face deep furrows eld hath pight:

My head besprent with hoary frost I find,

And by mine eye the crow his claw doth write:

Delight is laid abed; and pleasure past;

No sun now shines; clouds have all overcast.

"Now leave, ye shepheards' boys, your merry glee;

My Muse is hoarse and weary of this stound:

Here will I hang my pipe upon this tree,

Was never pipe of reed did better sound:

Winter is come that blows the bitter blast,

And after winter dreary death does hast.

"Gather together, ye my little flock,

My little flock, that was to me so lief;

Let me, ah! let me in your folds ye lock,

Ere the breme winter breed you greater grief.

Winter is come, that blows the baleful breath,

And after winter cometh timely death.

"Adieu, delights, that lulled me asleep;

Adieu, my dear, whose love I bought so dear;

Adieu, my little lambs and loved sheep;

Adieu, ye woods, that oft my witness were:

Adieu, good Hobbinol, that was so true,

Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu."

COLIN'S EMBLEME.
Vivitur ingenio: cætera mortis erunt.
(The creations of genius live; other things shall be the prey of death.)

NOTES

Page xviii, note 1.—The name of the writer of this letter is unknown.

Page 5, note 2.—"Hobbinol:" the author's friend Gabriel Harvey.

Page 10, note 3.—"Good Friday:" Good Friday is said to frown, as being a fast-day.

Page 16, note 4.—Thenot's emblem means, in substance, that God, who is aged Himself, being without beginning of days, makes those whom He loves, to be aged, like Himself; and that it is a mark of His favour to be old. Cuddie's emblem is, "No old man fears God"—a sarcasm against Thenot.

Page 29, note 5.—"Tawdry:" is here used in its primitive sense, denoting something bought at the fair of St. Ethelred, or St. Awdrey.

Page 30, note 6.—"This poesy is taken out of Virgil, and there of him used in the person of Æneas to his mother Venus, appearing to him in likeness of one of Diana's damsels; being there most divinely set forth. To which similitude of divinity Hobbinol comparing the excellency of Elisa, and being through the worthiness of Colin's song, as it were, overcome with the hugeness of his imagination, bursteth out in great admiration, (O quam te memorem virgo!) being otherwise unable, than by sudden silence, to express the worthiness of his conceit. Whom Thenot answereth with another part of the like verse, as confirming by his grant and approvance, that Elisa is no whit inferior to the majesty of her, of whom the poet so boldly pronounced, O dea certe!"—E. K.

Page 35, note 7.—"Algrind:" Archbishop Grindall.

Page 37, note 8.—"Fox," "Kid:" "By the Kid may be understood the simple sort of the faithful and true Christians; by his dam, Christ, that hath already with careful watchwords (as here doth the Goat) warned her little ones to beware of such doubling deceit; by the Fox, the false and faithless Papists, to whom is no credit to be given, nor fellowship to be used."—E. K.

Page 41, note 9.—"Sir John:" a name applied to a Popish priest.

Page 47, note 10.—"Tityrus:" Chaucer is meant.

Page 53, note 11.—"Morrell:" supposed to be Elmer, or Aylmer, Bishop of London.

Page 53, note 12.—"The sun:" the sun enters Leo in July.

Page 59, note 13.—"An eagle:" the same story is told of the death of Eschylus.

Pages 68, 69, note 14.—"The meaning hereof is very ambiguous: for Perigot by his posy claiming the conquest, and Willie not yielding, Cuddie the arbiter of their cause, and patron of his own, seemeth to challenge it, as his due, saying, that he is happy which can; so abruptly ending; but he meaneth either him, that can win the best, or moderate himself being best, and leave off with the best."—E. K.

Page 77, note 15.—"Saxon king:" King Edgar, in whose reign wolves are said to have disappeared in England.

Page 84, note 16.—"Elisa:" Queen Elizabeth; the "Worthy" is the Earl of Leicester.

Page 87, note 17.—This emblem is portion of a Latin verse, expressing the thought of the pastoral, that poetry is a fervid glow of inspiration which animates and kindles.

Page 91, note 18.—"Fishes:" the sun enters the constellation Pisces in November.

Page 92, note 19.—"Dido" and "great shepheard" both refer to real persons unknown.

Page 94, note 20.—"Wrought with a chief:" wrought into a head, like a nosegay.

Page 101, note 21.—Translated freely from the French of Marot.

Page 107, note 22.—"The pilgrim:" perhaps the author of the "Visions of Pierce Ploughman."

GLOSSARY.

Accloyeth, encumbereth.
Accoyed, daunted.
Adawed, daunted.
Adays, every day.
Albe, although.
Alegge, assuage.
Algate, at all events.
All, although.
All be it, although it be.
All-to, entirely.
All-to rathe, too early.
Als, also.
Arede, declare, repeat, explain.
Assayed, affected.
Assert, befall.
Assot, stupid.
As weren overwent, as if we were overcome.
At erst, at last.
Attone, also.
Attones, at same time.
Availe, bring down, lower.
Availes, is lowered.

Babes, dolls.
Bale, ruin.
Balk, miss.
Bate, bated, fed.
Bedight, affected.
Behight, behote, called.
Belive, promptly.
Bellibone (belle et bonne), good and beautiful one.
Bend, band.
Bene, are.
Benempt, named, mentioned.
Bent, obedient.
Besprint, besprent, besprinkled.
Betight, betide, happened.
Bett, better.
Bidding base, game of prison base.
Biggen, cap.
Bin, be.
Black bower, i.e., hell.
Bloncket liveries, gray coats.
Blont, unpolished.
Borrell, rustic.
Borrow, pledge, surety, Saviour.
Brace, compass.
Brag, bragly, proudly.
Breme, sharp.
Brent, burnt.
Brere, brier.
Brocage, pimping.
Bugle, beads.
But, unless.
Buxom, yielding.

Can, knows.
Careful, sorrowful.
Careful case, unhappy condition.
Cark, sorrow.
Chaffred, sold or exchanged.
Chamfred, wrinkled.
Charm, temper, tune.
Chevisance, performance, result, bargain.
Chips, fragments.
Collusion, cunning.
Con, know.
Cond, learned.
Confusion, destruction.
Contempt, contemned.
Convenable, conformable.
Corb, crooked.
Cosset, lamb.
Cote, sheepfold.
Courage, mind.
Couth, knew how, could.
Cracknels, biscuits.
Crag, neck.
Crank, courageous.
Crumenall, purse.

Dapper ditties, pretty songs.
Deed, doing, composing.
Defast, defaced.
Dempt, deemed.
Depeincten, painted.
Derring, manly deeds.
Derring-do, daring deeds.
Devoir, duty.
Dight, adorn, prepare; adorned, prepared, dealt with.
Dint, pang of grief.
Dirk, darkly.
Dirks, darkens.
Disease, disturb.
Dole, dool, sorrow, grief.
Doom, judgment.
Doubted, redoubted.
Drent, drowned, perished.

Eath, easy.
Eft, quickly, soon.
Eftsoons, immediately.
Eked, increased.
Eld, age.
Embrave, adorn.
Emprise, enterprise.
Enaunter, lest, lest that.
Enchased, engraved.
Encheason, occasion.
Entrailed, intwined.
Erst, before, at once.
Expert, experience.

Faitours, villains, vagabonds.
Falsers, deceivers.
Fay, faith.
File, defile.
Fined, sifted.
Fon, fool.
Fond, foolish.
Fondness, folly.
Fonly, foolishly.
Foresaid, banished.
Foreslow, impede, obstruct.
Forestall, prevent.
Forhaile, distress.
For-say, forsake.
Forswat, spent with heat.
Forswonk, overlaboured.
Forthy, therefore, on that account.
Frenne, stranger.
Frorne, frozen.
Frowy, musty.

Galage, wooden shoe.
Gang, go.
Gars, makes.
Gastful, dreary.
Gate, way.
Gelt, a gilded girdle.
Giant, Atlas.
Giusts, tournaments.
Go, gone.
Gree, degree.
Greet, weep; mourning.
Gride, gryde, pierced.
Gross, whole.

Harbrough, habitation.
Hask, basket.
Haveour, demeanour.
Heme, home.
Hent, took, taken.
Hentst, takest.
Herdgrooms, herdsmen.
Herie, hery, honour, praise.
Herse, rehearsal, tale.
Heydeguys, dances.
Hidder and shidder, him and her.
Hight, purports; was named.
Hote, mentioned; was called.

If, unless.
Ilk, the same.
Inly, inwardly.
Inn, abode.

Jovisance, joyousness.

Keep, care, charge.
Ken, know.
Kend, known.
Kenst, knowest.
Kerns, farmers.
Kirk, church.
Knack, trick.
Knaves, servants.
Kydst, knowest.

Laid, faint.
Larded, fattened.
Latched, caught.
Lays, leas, fields.
Leasing, falsehood, lies.
Lere, lore, lesson; learn.
Lever, rather.
Levin, lightning.
Lewd, foolish.
Lewdly, foolishly.
Lief, dear, beloved.
Lig, ligg, liggen, lie.
Loord, fellow.
Lope, leaped.
Lorn, left, lost.
Lorrell, ignorant, worthless fellow.
Louted, did honour.
Lust, wishest.
Lustihed, pleasure.
Lustless, languid.

Maintenance, behaviour.
Make, versify.
Maugre, in spite of.
May, maid.
May-buskets, May-bushes.
Mazer, bowl.
Medle, mingle.
Meint, mingled.
Melling, meddling.
Men of the lay, laymen.
Ment, mingled.
Merciable, merciful.
Mickle, much.
Miller's round, a dance.
Mirk, very obscure.
Miscreance, unbelief.
Misgone, gone astray.
Missay, say evil.
Mister men, kind of men.
Mister saying, kind of speech.
Miswent, gone astray.
Mizzle, to rain a little.
Mochell, much.
Moe, more.
Most what, affairs.
Most-what, for the most part.
Musical, music.

Narre, nearer.
N'as, has not.
Newell, novelty.
Nighly, nearly so much.
Nill, will not.
N'is, is not.
N'ote, know not.
Nought seemeth, is unseemly.
Nould, would not.

Overcrawed, overcrowed.
Overgone, surpassed.
Overhale, draw over.
Overture, open place.

Paddocks, toads.
Pained, exerted himself.
Paramours, lovers.
Paunce, pansy.
Perdie, in truth, truly.
Peregall, equal.
Perk, pert.
Pert, open.
Pieced, imperfect.
Pight, put, placed.
Plainful, lamentable.
Prick, mark.
Pricket, buck.
Prief, proof.
Prime, spring.
Primrose, chief flower.
Pumie, pumice.
Purchase, obtain.
Purpose, conversation.

Quaint, strange.
Quell, abate.
Queme, please.
Quick, alive.
Quit, deliver.

Rathe, early.
Rather, born early.
Record, repeat.
Rede, saying; advise, tell.
Reliven, live again.
Ribaudry, ribaldry.
Rife, frequent.
Rifely, abundantly.
Rine, rind.
Romish Tityrus, Virgil.
Ronts, young bullocks.
Roundel, roundelay.
Routs, companies.
Roved, shot.

Sale, wicker net.
Sam, together.
Sample, example.
Saye, silk.
Scope, mark aimed at.
Seely, simple.
Sheen, bright.
Shend, disgrace.
Shepheard, Abel, p. 56; Endymion, p. 55; Orpheus, p. 84; Paris, p. 57.
Shield, forbid.
Sib, related.
Sich, such.
Sicker, siker, surely, truly.
Sike, such.
Site, situation.
Sithence, sithens, since, since that time.
Siths, times.
Sits, becomes.
Sits not, is not becoming.
Skill in making, in writing poetry.
Slipper, slippery, uncertain.
Smirk, nice.
Snebbe, revile.
Somdele, somewhat, in some degree.
Some quick, something alive.
Sommed, feathered.
Soote, sweetly.
Sooth, soothsaying.
Sops-in-wine, a flower.
Sovenance, remembrance.
So well the wed, of such sound morals.
Sperr, shut.
Spill, spoil, ruin, injure.
Stank, weary.
State, stoutly.
Steven, noise.
Stound, effort; hour.
Stounds, pains; occasions.
Stour, assault.
Stoure, occasion.
Stoures, attacks.
Stowre, affliction, violence.
Strain, imbody in strains.
Strait, strict.
Strow, display.
Stud, trunk.
Sullen, sad.
Surquedry, pride.
Swink, toil.

Tabrere, taborer.
Teen, sorrow.
That, that which.
Thereto, also.
Thick, thicket.
Thilk, this, these, this same, that same.
Tickle, uncertain.
Tinct, coloured.
Tityrus, Chaucer.
Tod, thick bush.
To-force, perforce.
Tooting, looking about.
Totty, wavering.
Trace, go.
Trains, snares.
Trode, troad, tread, path.
Truss, bundle.
Tway, two.

Uncouth, unknown.
Underfong, tamper with, undertake.
Undersay, say in contradiction.
Uneath, scarcely.
Unkempt, unpolished.
Unkent, unknown.
Unlustiness, feebleness.
Unnethes, scarcely.
Unsoot, unsweet.
Uprist, uprisen.
Utter, put forth.

Venteth, snuffeth.
Vetchy, of pease straw.
Virelays, songs.

War, worse.
Warre, ware.
Weanel wast, weaned youngling.
Weed, dress.
Weet, know.
Weighed, esteemed.
Weld, wield, bear.
Welked, decreased, shortened.
Well apaid, in good condition.
Wellaway, alas!
Wend, go.
What, matter, thing.
What is he for a lad? what sort of lad is he?
Whilome, formerly.
Widder, wider.
Wight, active.
Wightly, quickly.
Wimble, nimble.
Wisards, learned men.
Wist, knew.
Witen, blame.
Wonned, dwelt.
Wood, mad, wild.
Worthy wite, deserved blame.
Wot, wote, know.
Wot ne, know not.
Woundless, unwounded.
Wrack, violence.
Wroken, avenged.

Yblent, blinded.
Yconned, conned.
Yede, go, went.
Yeven, given.
Yfere, together.
Ygo, ygoe, gone.
Yode, went.
Yond, yonder.
Ypent, pent, confined.
Yshend, disparage.
Ytake, taken, overcome.
Ytost, be harassed.
Ywis, truly.

	PAGE
THE EPISTLE	ix
THE GENERAL ARGUMENT	xix
JANUARIE. Ægloga Prima	1
FEBRUARIE. Ægloga Secunda	7
MARCH. Ægloga Tertia	17
APRIL. Ægloga Quarta	23
MAY. Ægloga Quinta	31
JUNE. Ægloga Sexta	43
JULY. Ægloga Septima	51
AUGUST. Ægloga Octava	61
SEPTEMBER. Ægloga Nona	71
OCTOBER. Ægloga Decima	81
NOVEMBER. Ægloga Undecima	89
DECEMBER. Ægloga Duodecima	99
EPILOGUE	107
NOTES	109
GLOSSARY	113

THE SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER:

JANUARIE · AEGLOGA PRIMA

FEBRUARIE · AEGLOGA SECUNDA

MARCH · AEGLOGA TERTIA

APRIL · AEGLOGA QUARTA

MAY · AEGLOGA QUINTA

JUNE · AEGLOGA SEXTA

JULY · AEGLOGA SEPTIMA

AUGUST · AEGLOGA OCTAVA

SEPTEMBER · AEGLOGA NONA

OCTOBER · AEGLOGA DECIMA

NOVEMBER · AEGLOGA UNDECIMA

DECEMBER · AEGLOGA DUODECIMA