desires, such unchaste love procure so great loss, and so many perils, revert it, LUTESIO, as a passion most pernicious, as a sin most odious, and a gain full of most deadly sorrows.

66

Though this be much, LUTESIO, yet this is not all: for many love that are never liked, and every one that wooes is not a winner : diverse desire with hope, and yet their wishes are to small effect. Suppose the lady whom thou lovest is honest; then is thy love as unlikely as Ixion's was to Juno, who aiming at the substance, was made a fool with a shadow. I tell thee, it is more easy to cut a diamond with a glass, to pierce steel with a feather, to tie ant elephant with a thread of silk, than to alienate an honest woman's love from her husband; their hearts be harbours of one love1; closets of one contents; cells, whereinto no amorous idea but one can enter; as hard to be pierced with new-fangled affection, as the adamant to be made soft with fire.

"A lady, LUTESIO, that regardeth her honour, will die with Lucretia, before she agree to lust; she will eat coals with Portia, before she prove unchaste; she will think every misery sweet, every mishap content, before she condescend to the allurements of any wanton lecher. Imagine then her whom thou lovest to be such a one; then will-it qualify thy hope, cool thy desires, and quench those unbridled thoughts that lead thee on to such follies. For if she be a wanton, what dost thou win? her that many hath worn, and more than thyself may vanquish: a light housewife and a lewd minion, that after she hath yielded the flower of her love, to Theseus,

will marry with Menelaus, and then run away with Paris: amorous to every one, because she is humorous to all.

“Then, LUTESIO, seeing if thou likest an honest lady, thy love is past hope, and if thou wooest a wanton, thou shalt gain but what others have left; leave both, and become as hitherto thou hast been, an honest gentleman in all men's opinions; so shalt thou live well thought of, and die honourably:" and with that, smiling, she asked him, if she had not played the preacher well.

But LUTESIO Wondering at her virtues, made no answer, he was so amazed, but rested silent; which PHILOMELA perceiving, to waken him out of his dump, she took again her lute in her hand, and began to sing this following ode.

PHILOMELA'S SECOND ODE.

It was frosty winter season,

And fair Flora's wealth was geason:
Meads that erst with green were spread,
With choice flowers diap❜red,

Had tawny vales: cold had scattered,
What the springs and nature planted:
Leafless boughs there might you see,
All except fair Daphne's tree;
On their twigs no birds perched,
Warmer coverts none they searched;
And by nature's secret reason,
Fram'd their voices to the season:
With their feeble tunes bewraying,
How they griev'd the spring's decaying:
Frosty winter thus had gloomed
Each fair thing that summer bloomed ;
Fields were bare, and trees unclad,

Flowers withered, birds were had:

When I saw a shepherd fold
Sheep in cote, to shun the cold;
Himself sitting on the grass,
That with frost withered was;
Sighing deeply, thus 'gan say,
"Love is folly when astray;
Like to love no passion such,
For his madness, if too much;
If too little, then despair;
If too high, he beats the air;
With bootless cries, if too low;
An eagle matcheth with a crow.
Thence grows jars, thus I find,
Love is folly, if unkind;
Yet do men most desire
To be heated with this fire;
Whose flame is so pleasing hot,
That they burn, yet feel it not:
Yet hath love another kind,
Worse than these unto the mind:
That is, when a wanton's eye
Leads desire clean awry,

And with the bee doth rejoice
Every minute to change choice,
Counting he were then in bliss,
If that each fair fall were his;
Highly thus in love disgrac'd,
When the lover is unchaste;
And would taste of fruit forbidden,
'Cause the scape is easily hidden.

Though such love be sweet in brewing,

Bitter is the end ensuing;

For the humour of love he shameth,

And himself with lust defameth;

D

For a minute's pleasure gaining,
Fame and honour ever staining."
Gazing thus so far awry,

Last the chip falls in his eye,

Then it burns that erst but heat him,
And his own rod 'gins to beat him;
His choicest sweets turn to gall,
He finds lust his sin's thrall:
That wanton women in their eyes,
Men's deceivings do comprise.
That homage, done to fair faces,
Doth dishonour other graces.
If lawless love be such a sin,
Curst is he that lives therein;
For the gain of Venus' game,
Is the downfal unto shame.
Here he paused and did stay,

Sigh'd and rose, and went away.

As soon as PHILOMELA had ended her ode, she smiled on LUTESIO and said: "Hoping then that this private conference shall be a conclusion of your passions, and a final resolution to reverse your thoughts from this disordinate folly of love, I will at this time cease to speak any more, because I hope you will rest from your motion:" and so taking him by the hand, she led him into the parlour, where, amongst other company, they passed away the day in pleasant chat, till that LUTESIO found convenient opportunity to discover to PHILIPPO the resolution of his wife, who thought every minute a month till he had heard what answer she had made to LUTESIO.

At last they went both together, walking into a garden that adjoined to the house of PHILIPPO: and there LUTESIO, who revealed from point to point what he had mentioned afar off to

PHILOMELA, and how honourably and honestly she replied, rehearsing what a cooling card of good counsel she gave him, able to have quailed the hottest stomach, or quenched the most eager flame that fancy could fire the mind of man withal; entering into a large and high commendation of the chastity, wisdom, and general virtues of PHILOMELA, averring that he thought there was not a woman of more absolute qualities, nor honourable disposition, in all Italy.

PHILIPPO, the more he drunk the more he thirsted, and the more he was persuaded to trust in her honesty the more he was suspicious, and doubted of her virtue; for he replied, still in his jealous humour', that "women's words were no warrants of their truth; that as the onyx is inwardly most cold when it is outwardly most hot, so women's words are like the cries of lapwings, farthest from their thoughts, as they are from their nests: they proclaim silence with their tongues, modesty with their eyes, chastity with their actions, when in their hearts they are plotting how to grant an amorous pleasure to their lovers."

"Tush," says PHILIPPO, "women's tongues are tipt with deceit; they can sing with the nightingale, though they have a prick at their breasts; they can lend him a cherry lip whom they heartily loathe, and fawn upon their husbands' necks when they give their lovers a wink. Though my wife hath made a fair shew of virtue, it is no authentical proof of her honesty2; either she mistrusted or misdoubted of your sorcery, or else she would seem hard