False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one,
    To range and change old loves for new; but now those days be gone.

She is less happy in a set lament, beginning: 

    Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs,

in which we may perhaps catch a distant echo of Spenser’s: 

    Melpomene, the mournfull’st Muse of nine.

As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris to appear at Juno’s suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of partiality in judgement.  A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the unsuspecting nymph—­it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the lover’s duet.

    Mercury. Is love to blame?

Oenone. The queen of love hath made him false his troth.

Mer. Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love?

Oen. Even wanton Cupid’s dame.

Mer. Why, was thy love so lovely, then?

Oen. His beauty height his shame;
The fairest shepherd on our green.

Mer. Is he a shepherd, than?

Oen. And sometime kept a bleating flock.

Mer. Enough, this is the man.

In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together.  First the goddess directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, ’The love whom Thestylis hath slain,’ as the epitaph of the now dead Colin.  When these have left the stage she turns to Paris: 

    Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love?

    Paris. Lady, a little once.

She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which is a good example of Peele’s use of the old rimed versification, and as such deserves quotation.

      My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry,
      That haply erst thou hast not heard:  in hell there is a tree,
      Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers,
      With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers
      Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat
      Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat. 
      This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell
      T’impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well: 
      And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee,
      Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee;
      For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start,
      Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart.

    Paris. Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity?

    Venus. Pity it were that love should not be linked with indifferency.[209]