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FROM FAREWELL TO FOLLY.*

DESCRIPTION OF THE LADY MESIA.†

HER

ER stature and her shape were passing tall,
Diana like, when 'longst the lawns she goes;
A stately pace, like Juno when she braved
The Queen of love, 'fore Paris in the vale;
A front beset with love and majesty;
A face like lovely Venus when she blushed
A seely shepherd should be beauty's judge;
A lip sweet ruby-red graced with delight;
Her eyes two sparkling stars in winter night,
When chilling frost doth clear the azured sky;
Her hairs in tresses twined with threads of silk
Hung waving down like Phoebus in his prime;
Her breasts as white as those two snowy swans
That draw to Paphos Cupid's smiling dame;
A foot like Thetis when she tripped the sands
To steal Neptunus' favour with her steps;
In fine, a piece despite of beauty framed,
To see what Nature's cunning could afford.

SONG.

S

WEET are the thoughts that savour of content;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;

Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent;

The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown: Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.

* Greene's Farewell to Folly. Sent to Courtiers and Scholars as a precedent to wean them from the vain delights that draw youth on to repentance. Sero sed serio. Robert Greene, Utriusque Academiæ in Artibus Magister. 1591.

† A condensed version of the lines on Silvestro's Lady. See ante,

p. 31.

The homely house that harbours quiet rest;
The cottage that affords no pride nor care;
The mean that 'grees with country music best;
The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare;
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss:

A mind content both crown and kingdom is.

LINES TRANSLATED FROM GUAZZO.

HE that appalled with lust would sail in haste to

Corinthum,

There to be taught in Lais' school to seek for a mistress, Is to be trained in Venus' troop and changed to the purpose;

Rage embraced, but reason quite thrust out as an exile; Pleasure a pain, rest turned to be care, and mirth as a madness;

Fiery minds inflamed with a look enraged as Alecto; Quaint in array, sighs fetched from far, and tears, many, feigned;

Pensive, sore deep plunged in pain, not a place but his heart whole;

Days in grief and nights consumed to think on a god

dess;

Broken sleeps, sweet dreams, but short fro the night to the morning;

Venus dashed, his mistress' face as bright as Apollo; Helena stained, the golden ball wrong-given by the shepherd;

Hairs of gold, eyes twinkling stars, her lips to be rubies; Teeth of pearl, her breasts like snow, her cheeks to be

roses;

Sugar candy she is, as I guess, fro the waist to the kneestead;

Nought is amiss, no fault were found if soul were amended;

All were bliss if such fond lust led not to repentance.

FROM DANTE.

MONSTER seated in the midst of men,

A Which, daily fed, is never satiate;

A hollow gulf of vile ingratitude,

Which for his food vouchsafes not pay of thanks,
But still doth claim a debt of due expense;
From hence doth Venus draw the shape of lust;
From hence Mars raiseth blood and stratagems;
The wrack of wealth, the secret foe to life;
The sword that hasteneth on the date of death;
The surest friend to physic by disease;
The pumice that defaceth memory;

The misty vapour that obscures the light,
And brightest beams of science' glittering sun,
And doth eclipse the mind with sluggish thoughts:
The monster that affords this cursed brood,
And makes commixture of those dire mishaps,
Is but a stomach overcharged with meats,
That takes delight in endless gluttony.

FROM THE GROAT'S WORTH OF WIT.*

LAMILIA'S SONG.

FIE, fie, on blind fancy,

It hinders youth's joy;
Fair virgins, learn by me,
To count love a toy.

When Love learned first the A B C of delight,
And knew no figures nor conceited phrase,
He simply gave to due desert her right,

He led not lovers in dark winding ways;

* Greene's Groat's Worth of Wit, bought with a million of repentance Describing the folly of youth, the falsehood of make-shift flatterers. the misery of the negligent, and mischiefs of deceiving courtesans :

He plainly willed to love, or flatly answered no,
But now who lists to prove, shall find it nothing so.
Fie, fie then on fancy,

It hinders youth's joy;

Fair virgins, learn by me

To count love a toy.

For since he learned to use the poet's pen,

He learned likewise with smoothing words to feign,
Witching chaste ears with trothless tongues of men,
And wrongèd faith with falsehood and disdain.
He gives a promise now, anon he sweareth no;
Who listeth for to prove shall find his changing so.
Fie, fie then on fancy,

It hinders youth's joy;

Fair virgins, learn by me
To count love a toy.

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VERSES AGAINST ENTICING COURTESANS.

WHAT meant the poets in invective verse
To sing Medea's shame, and Scylla's pride,
Calypso's charms by which so many died?
Only for this their vices they rehearse:
That curious wits which in the world converse,
May shun the dangers and enticing shows
Of such false Sirens, those home-breeding foes,
That from their eyes their venom do disperse.

So soon kills not the basilisk with sight;

The viper's tooth is not so venomous;

The adder's tongue not half so dangerous,
As they that bear the shadow of delight,

Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair,
Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair.

published at his dying request, and newly corrected, and of many errors purged. Felicem fuisse infaustum. 1592.

H

VERSES.

DECE

ECEIVING world, that with alluring toys Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, And scornest now to lend thy fading joys

T'outlength my life, whom friends have left forlorn;
How well are they that die ere they be born,

And never see thy slights, which few men shun
Till unawares they helpless are undone!

Oft have I sung of love and of his fire;
But now I find that poet was advised,
Which made full feasts increasers of desire,
And proves weak love was with the poor despised;
For when the life with food is not sufficed,

What thoughts of love, what motion of delight,
What pleasance can proceed from such a wight

Witness my want, the murderer of my wit:
My ravished sense, of wonted fury reft,
Wants such conceit as should in poems fit
Set down the sorrow wherein I am left:
But therefore have high heavens their gifts bereft,
Because so long they lent them me to use,
And I so long their bounty did abuse.

O that a year were granted me to live,
And for that year my former wits restored!
What rules of life, what counsel would I give,
How should my sin with sorrow be deplored!
But I must die of every man abhorred:

Time loosely spent will not again be won;
My time is loosely spent, and I undone.*

* These verses derive additional pathos from the circumstance of having been written in Greene's last illness. The preceding piece, and that which follows, also have reference to his own life.

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