And with the bee doth rejoice For the humour of love he shameth, Then it burns that erst but heat him, SONNET. ON women nature did bestow two eyes, [shining, Like heaven's bright lamps, in matchless beauty Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise, And wary heads, made rare by art's refining. But why did nature, in her choice combining, Plant two fair eyes within a beauteous face, NA ANSWER. ATURE foreseeing how men would devise Both these await upon one simple heart, [him, One heart, one friend, though that two eyes do choose No more but one, and heart will never lose him. AN ODE. HAT is love once disgraced, WHAT But a wanton thought ill placed? Which doth blemish whom it paineth, That whoso is high of kin Jove could not hide Io's scape, Nor conceal Calisto's rape: Both did fault, and both were framed They can flatter now and then, And greater sin, 'cause great of 'gree: If he be high that doth the deed. Could not Venus dignify, But Vulcan trapped her, and her blame Shame awaiteth on her face, Than lead a wanton life with shame.* * This piece is, in a great measure, a repetition of Philomela's Second Ode, ante, p. 107. Some of the lines are nearly identical, and the subject, differently treated, is pretty much the same throughout. They are both homilies on the theme laid down in the previous ode: Highly thus is love disgraced, FROM MAMILLIA. SECOND PART.* VERSES AGAINST THE GENTLEWOMEN OF SICILIA. SINCE lady mild, too base in array, hath lived as an exile, None of account but stout: if plain, stale slut, not a courtress. Dames now a days, fie none, if not new guised in all points. Fancies fine, sauced with conceits, quick wits very wily, Words of a saint, but deeds guess how, feigned faith to deceive men, Courtsies coy, no vail, but a vaunt, tricked up like a Tuscan, Paced in print, brave lofty looks, not used with the vestals, In hearts too glorious, not a glance but fit for an empress, As minds most valorous, so strange in array, marry, stately. Up fro the waist like a man, new guise to be cased in a doublet, Down to the foot perhaps like a maid, but hosed to the kneestead, Some close breeched to the crotch for cold, tush, peace 'tis a shame, sir. Hairs by birth as black as jet; what? art can amend them; * Mamillia. The Second Part of the Triumph of Pallas; wherein with perpetual fame the constancy of gentlewomen is canonized, and the unjust blasphemies of women's supposed fickleness, breathed out by divers injurious persons, by manifest examples clearly infringed. By Robert Greene, Master of Arts in Cambridge. 1593.-The first part of Mamillia was published in 1583, and was the earliest of Greene's printed works. A perriwig frounced* fast to the front, or curled with a bodkin, Hats fro France, thick purledt for pride and plumed like a peacock, Ruffs of a size, stiff-starched to the neck, of lawn, marry, lawless, Gowns of silk; why those be too bad, side wide with a witness, Small and gent i' the waist, but backs as broad as a burgess, Needless noughts, as crisps and scarfs, worn a la morisco, Fumed with sweets, as sweet as chaste, no want but abundance. FROM THE ORPHARION.‡ ORPHEUS' SONG. HE that did sing the motions of the stars, Pale-coloured Phoebe's borrowing of her light, Aspects of planets oft opposed in jars, Of Hesper, henchman to the day and night; Sings now of love, as taught by proof to sing, Women are false, and love a bitter thing. * Puckered or gathered; also, flounced, wrinkled. Fringed, or ornamented with a rich border. Greene's Orpharion. Wherein is discovered a musical concord of pleasant histories, many sweet moods graced with such harmonious discords as agreeing in a delightful close, they sound both pleasure and profit to the ear. Herein also as in a Diateheron, the branches of virtue ascending and descending by degrees, are co-united in the glorious praise of woman-kind. With divers tragical and comical histories presented by Orpheus and Arion, being as full of profit as of pleasure. Omne tulit punctum, qui misquit utile dulci. Robertus Greene, in Artibus Magister. 1599. I |