[Footnote 1:  wild.]

“Trust me, swain,” quoth Rosader, “but my canzon was written in no such humor; for mine eye and my heart are relatives, the one drawing fancy by sight, the other entertaining her by sorrow.  If thou sawest my Rosalynde, with what beauties nature hath favored her, with what perfection the heavens hath graced her, with what qualities the gods have endued her, then wouldst thou say, there is none so fickle that could be fleeting unto her.  If she had been Aeneas’ Dido, had Venus and Juno both scolded him from Carthage, yet her excellence, despite of them, would have detained him at Tyre.  If Phyllis had been as beauteous, or Ariadne as virtuous, or both as honorable and excellent as she, neither had the filbert tree sorrowed in the death of despairing Phyllis, nor the stars been graced with Ariadne, but Demophoon and Theseus had been trusty to their paragons.  I will tell thee, swain, if with a deep insight thou couldst pierce into the secret of my loves, and see what deep impressions of her idea affection hath made in my heart, then wouldst thou confess I were passing passionate, and no less endued with admirable patience.”

“Why,” quoth Aliena, “needs there patience in love?”

“Or else in nothing,” quoth Rosader; “for it is a restless sore that hath no ease, a canker that still frets, a disease that taketh away all hope of sleep.  If then so many sorrows, sudden joys, momentary pleasures, continual fears, daily griefs, and nightly woes be found in love, then is not he to be accounted patient that smothers all these passions with silence?”

“Thou speakest by experience,” quoth Ganymede, “and therefore we hold all thy words for axioms.  But is love such a lingering malady?”

“It is,” quoth he, “either extreme or mean, according to the mind of the party that entertains it; for, as the weeds grow longer untouched than the pretty flowers, and the flint lies safe in the quarry when the emerald is suffering the lapidary’s tool, so mean men are freed from Venus’ injuries, when kings are environed with a labyrinth of her cares.  The whiter the lawn is, the deeper is the mole[1]; the more purer the chrysolite, the sooner stained; and such as have their hearts full of honor, have their loves full of the greatest sorrows.  But in whomsoever,” quoth Rosader, “he fixeth his dart, he never leaveth to assault him, till either he hath won him to folly or fancy; for as the moon never goes without the star Lunisequa, so a lover never goeth without the unrest of his thoughts.  For proof you shall hear another fancy of my making.”

[Footnote 1:  stain.]

“Now do, gentle forester,” quoth Ganymede; and with that he read over this sonetto: 

Rosader’s second Sonetto