Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;
550
Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high
That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry.
And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
555
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,
Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack.
Hot, faint and weary with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling,
560
Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tir’d with chasing,
Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling:
He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.
What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp’ring,
565
And yields at last to very light impression?
Things out of hope are compass’d oft with vent’ring,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:
Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward,
But then woos best when most his choice is froward.
570
When he did frown, O had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d.
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;
What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d.
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,
575
Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.
For pity now she can no more detain him;
The poor fool prays her that he may depart.
She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,
580
The which by Cupid’s bow she doth protest
He carries thence encaged in his breast.
‘Sweet boy,’ she says, ‘this night I’ll waste in sorrow,
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.
Tell me, love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow?
585
Say, shall we, shall we? wilt thou make the match?’
He tells her no, tomorrow he intends
To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.
‘The boar,’ quoth she: whereat a sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,
590
Usurps her cheek; she trembles at his tale,
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.
She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck;
He on her belly falls, she on her back.
Now is she in the very lists of love,
595
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter.
All is imaginary she doth prove;
He will not manage her, although he mount her:
That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,
To clip Elizium and to lack her joy.
600
Even so poor birds deceiv’d with painted grapes
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw:
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.
The warm effects which she in him finds missing
605
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.
But all in vain; good queen, it will not be.
She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d:
Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;
She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.
610
‘Fie, fie,’ he says, ‘you crush me; let me go,
You have no reason to withhold me so.’
‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told’st me, thou wouldst hunt the boar.
Oh be advis’d, thou know’st not what it is,
615
With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,
Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,
Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.
‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes that ever threat his foes;
620
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret,
His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes;
Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way,
And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.
‘His brawny sides with hairy bristles armed
625
Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.
The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.
630
‘Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine,
To which love’s eyes pays tributary gazes;
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips and crystal eyne,
Whose full perfection all the world amazes:
But having thee at vantage – wondrous dread! –
635
Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.
‘Oh let him keep his loathsome cabin still!
Beauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends.
Come not within his danger by thy will:
They that thrive well, take counsel of their friends.
640
When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.
‘Didst thou not mark my face, was it not white?
Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?
Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?
645
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,
My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,
But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.
‘For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy
Doth call himself affection’s sentinel;
650
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill, kill!”
Distemp’ring gentle love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.
‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
655
This canker that eats up love’s tender spring,
This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.
660
‘And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore;
Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed,
665
Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.
‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at th’imagination?
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination:
670
I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.
‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me:
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,
675
Or at the roe which no encounter dare;
Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,
And on thy well-breath’d
horse keep with thy hounds.
‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
680
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles;
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
685
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell;
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;
And sometime sorteth with a heard of deer:
Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.
690
‘For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
Then they do spend their mouths: echo replies,
695
As if another chase were in the skies.
‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder-legs with list’ning ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still.
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
700
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick, that hears the passing bell.
‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way.
Each envious briar his weary legs do scratch,
705
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low, never reliev’d by any.
‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise.
710
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralise,
Applying this to that, and so to so,
For love can comment upon every woe.
‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he;
715
‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:
The night is spent.’ ‘Why, what of that?’ quoth she.
‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends,
And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.’
‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.
720
‘But if thou fall, oh then imagine this:
The earth in love with thee thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,
725
Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.
‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,
Till forging nature be condemn’d of treason,
For stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine;
730
Wherein she fram’d thee, in high heaven’s despite,
To shame the sun by day and her by night.
‘And therefore hath she brib’d the destinies
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities
735
And pure perfection with impure defeature,
Making it subject to the tyranny
Of mad mischances and much misery:
‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,
740
The marrow-eating sickness whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;
Surfeits, imposthumes, grief and damn’d despair,
Swear nature’s death, for framing thee so fair.
‘And not the least of all these maladies
745
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under;
Both favour, savour, hue and qualities,
Whereat th’impartial gazer late did wonder,
Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,
As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.
750
‘Therefore despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
Be prodigal; the lamp that burns by night
755
Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.
‘What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity,
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
760
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.
‘So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 18
