“Content,” quoth Aliena, and with that they rose up, and marched forward till towards the even, and then coming into a fair valley, compassed with mountains, whereon grew many pleasant shrubs, they might descry where two flocks of sheep did feed.  Then, looking about, they might perceive where an old shepherd sat, and with him a young swaine, under a covert most pleasantly situated.  The ground where they sat was diapered with Flora’s riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus in the glory of her vestments:  round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour.  Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline and clear, that it seemed Diana with her Dryades and Hamadryades had that spring, as the secret of all their bathings.  In this glorious arbor sat these two shepherds, seeing their sheep feed, playing on their pipes many pleasant tunes, and from music and melody falling into much amorous chat.  Drawing more nigh we might descry the countenance of the one to be full of sorrow, his face to be the very portraiture of discontent, and his eyes full of woes, that living he seemed to die:  we, to hear what these were, stole privily behind the thicket, where we overheard this discourse: 

A Pleasant Eclogue between Montanus and Corydon

    CORYDON

    Say, shepherd’s boy, what makes thee greet[1] so sore? 
    Why leaves thy pipe his pleasure and delight? 
    Young are thy years, thy cheeks with roses dight: 
    Then sing for joy, sweet swain, and sigh no more.

    This milk-white poppy, and this climbing pine
    Both promise shade; then sit thee down and sing,
    And make these woods with pleasant notes to ring,
    Till Phoebus deign all westward to decline.

[Footnote 1:  weep.]

    MONTANUS

    Ah, Corydon, unmeet is melody
    To him whom proud contempt hath overborne: 
    Slain are my joys by Phoebe’s bitter scorn;
    Far hence my weal, and near my jeopardy.

    Love’s burning brand is couched in my breast,
    Making a Phoenix of my faintful heart: 
    And though his fury do enforce my smart,
    Ay blithe am I to honor his behest.

    Prepared to woes, since so my Phoebe wills,
    My looks dismayed, since Phoebe will disdain;
    I banish bliss and welcome home my pain: 
    So stream my tears as showers from Alpine hills.

    In error’s mask I blindfold judgment’s eye,
    I fetter reason in the snares of lust,
    I seem secure, yet know not how to trust;
    I live by that which makes me living die.