| |
| WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth, | |
| I do believe her, though I know she lies, | |
| That she might think me some untutor’d youth, | |
| Unskilful in the world’s false forgeries. | |
| Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, | 5 |
| Although I know my years be past the best, | |
| I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue, | |
| Outfacing faults in love with love’s ill rest. | |
| But wherefore says my love that she is young? | |
| And wherefore say not I that I am old? | 10 |
| O, love’s best habit is a soothing tongue, | |
| And age, in love, loves not to have years told. | |
| Therefore I’ll lie with love, and love with me, | |
| Since that our faults in love thus smother’d be. | |
| |
| Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook | 15 |
| With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green, | |
| Did court the lad with many a lovely look, | |
| Such looks as none could look but beauty’s queen. | |
| She told him stories to delight his ear, | |
| She show’d him favours to allure his eye; | 20 |
| To win his heart, she touch’d him here and there; | |
| Touches so soft still conquer chastity. | |
| But whether unripe years did want conceit, | |
| Or he refused to take her figured proffer, | |
| The tender nibbler would not touch the bait, | 25 |
| But smile and jest at every gentle offer: | |
| Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward: | |
| He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward. | |
| |
| Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn, | |
| And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade, | 30 |
| When Cytherea, all in love forlorn, | |
| A longing tarriance for Adonis made | |
| Under an osier growing by a brook, | |
| A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen; | |
| Hot was the day; she hotter that did look | 35 |
| For his approach, that often there had been. | |
| Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by, | |
| And stood stark naked on the brook’s green brim: | |
| The sun look’d on the world with glorious eye, | |
| Yet not so wistly as this queen on him. | 40 |
| He spying her, bounced in, whereas he stood: | |
| O Jove, quoth she, why was not I a flood! | |
| |
| Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle, | |
| Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty, | |
| Brighter than glass and yet, as glass is, brittle, | 45 |
| Softer than wax and yet as iron rusty: | |
| A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her, | |
| None fairer, nor none falser to deface her. | |
| |
| Her lips to mine how often hath she joined, | |
| Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing! | 50 |
| How many tales to please me hath she coined, | |
| Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing! | |
| Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings, | |
| Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings. | |
| |
| She burn’d with love, as straw with fire flameth; | 55 |
| She burn’d out love, as soon as straw out-burneth; | |
| She framed the love, and yet she foil’d the framing; | |
| She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning. | |
| Was this a lover, or a lecher whether? | |
| Bad in the best, though excellent in neither. | 60 |
| |
| Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love, * * * * * | |
| Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove, | |
| Adon’s sake, a youngster proud and wild; | |
| Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill: | |
| Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds; | 65 |
| She, silly queen, with more than love’s good will, | |
| Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds: | |
| Once, quoth she, did I see a fair sweet youth | |
| Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar, | |
| Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth! | 70 |
| See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore. | |
| She showed hers: he saw more wound than one, | |
| And blushing fled, and left her all alone. | |
| |
| Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her | |
| Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him: | 75 |
| She told the youngling how god Mars did try her, | |
| And as he fell to her, so fell she to him. | |
| ‘Even thus,’ quoth she, ‘the warlike god embraced me,’ | |
| And then she clipp’d Adonis in her arms; | |
| ‘Even thus,’ quoth she, ‘he seized on my lips,’ | 80 |
| And with her lips on his did act the seizure: | |
| And as she fetched breath, away he skips, | |
| And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure. | |
| Ah, that I had my lady at this bay, | |
| To kiss and clip me till I run away! | 85 |
| |
| Whenas thine eye hath chose the dame, | |
| And stall’d the deer that thou shouldst strike, | |
| Let reason rule things worthy blame, | |
| As well as fancy, partial wight: | |
| Take counsel of some wiser head, | 90 |
| Neither too young nor yet unwed. | |
| |
| And when thou comest thy tale to tell, | |
| Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk, | |
| Lest she some subtle practice smell,— | |
| A cripple soon can find a halt;— | 95 |
| But plainly say thou lovest her well, | |
| And set thy person forth to sell. | |
| |
| What though her frowning brows be bent, | |
| Her cloudy looks will calm ere night: | |
| And then too late she will repent | 100 |
| That thus dissembled her delight; | |
| And twice desire, ere it be day, | |
| That which with scorn she put away. | |
| |
| What though she strive to try her strength, | |
| And ban and brawl, and say thee nay, | 105 |
| Her feeble force will yield at length, | |
| When craft hath taught her thus to say; | |
| Had women been so strong as men, | |
| In faith, you had not had it then. | |
| |
| And to her will frame all thy ways; | 110 |
| Spare not to spend, and chiefly there | |
| Where thy desert may merit praise, | |
| By ringing in thy lady’s ear: | |
| The strongest castle, tower and town, | |
| The golden bullet beats it down. | 115 |
| |
| Serve always with assured trust, | |
| And in thy suit be humble true; | |
| Unless thy lady prove unjust, | |
| Press never thou to choose anew: | |
| When time shall serve, be thou not slack | 120 |
| To proffer, though she put thee back. | |
| |
| The wiles and guiles that women work, | |
| Dissembled with an outward show, | |
| The tricks and toys that in them lurk, | |
| The cock that treads them shall not know. | 125 |
| Have you not heard it said full oft, | |
| A woman’s nay doth stand for nought? | |
| |
| Think women still to strive with men, | |
| To sin and never for to saint: | |
| There is no heaven, by holy then, | 130 |
| When time with age shall them attaint. | |
| Were kisses all the joys in bed, | |
| One woman would another wed. | |
| |
| But, soft! enough—too much, I fear— | |
| Lest that my mistress hear my song: | 135 |
| She will not stick to round me on the ear, | |
| To teach my tongue to be so long: | |
| Yet will she blush, here be it said, | |
| To hear her secrets so bewray’d. | |
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