WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth, II Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, 5 10 5 i. and ii. are Shakespeare's Sonnets cxxxviii. and cxliv. with certain verbal alterations. And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend, For being both to me, both to each friend, The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt, III Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, If broken, then it is no fault of mine. If by me broke, what fool is not so wise IV Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green, 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; To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there; iii. This is Longaville's sonnet to Maria, Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 60 f., also with verbal alterations. 11. Exhale, draw up (as the sun draws vapour from the earth). ΙΟ 5 10 iv. Possibly a sonnet of Shakespeare upon Venus and Adonis, as also vi. and ix. 1. Cytherea, Venus. But whether unripe years did want conceit, Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward! V If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd: prove; Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd. Study his bias leaves, and make his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art can com prehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend ; ΤΟ 5 All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire: 10 Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong, To sing heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue. VI Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn, v. Biron's sonnet to Rosaline, Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 109 f. When Cytherea, all in love forlorn, A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen : brim : He, spying her, bounced in, whereas he stood: 'O Jove,' quoth she, 'why was not I a flood!' 5 10 VII Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle, A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her, Her lips to mine how often hath she joined, 5 10 She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth; Was this a lover, or a lecher whether? Bad in the best, though excellent in neither. vi. 12. wistly, attentively. vii. Possibly Shakespeare's. VIII If music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound One god is god of both, as poets feign; One knight loves both, and both in thee remain. IX Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love, Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove, viii. Probably by Richard Barnfield. It had already appeared in his Poems in Divers Humors, 1598. 5. Dowland; John Dowland, lutenist to the King of Denmark, who set many Elizabethan songs to music, and with Alfonso Ferrabosco furnished the music for several of Ben Jonson's Masques. His Song Books, issued in 1597, 1600, and 1603, 5 10 5 furnished much material to Mr. Bullen's well-known selections (Lyrics from Elizabethan SongBooks). 8. conceit, imagination. 14. One knight loves both. Probably Sir George Carey, K.G., to whom Dowland dedicated his first book of airs (1597). His wife, daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, was a great friend of Spenser. L. |