dames that are like Danae, that like love in no shape but in a shower of gold, I wish them husbands with much wealth and little wit, that the want of the one may blemish the abundance of the other.  It should, my Aliena, stain the honor of a shepherd’s life to set the end of passions upon pelf.  Love’s eyes looks not so low as gold; there is no fees to be paid in Cupid’s courts; and in elder time, as Corydon hath told me, the shepherds’ love-gifts were apples and chestnuts, and then their desires were loyal, and their thoughts constant.  But now

Quaerenda pecunia primum, post nummos virtus.

And the time is grown to that which Horace in his Satires wrote on: 

                             omnis enim res
    Virtus fama decus divina humanaque pulchris
    Divitiis parent:  quas qui construxerit ille
    Clarus erit, fortis, justus.  Sapiensne?  Etiam et rex
    Et quicquid volet—­

But, Aliena, let it not be so with thee in thy fancies, but respect his faith and there an end.”

Aliena, hearing Ganymede thus forward to further Saladyne in his affections, thought she kissed the child for the nurse’s sake, and wooed for him that she might please Rosader, made this reply: 

“Why, Ganymede, whereof grows this persuasion?  Hast thou seen love in my looks, or are mine eyes grown so amorous, that they discover some new-entertained fancies?  If thou measurest my thoughts by my countenance, thou mayest prove as ill a physiognomer, as the lapidary that aims at the secret virtues of the topaz by the exterior shadow of the stone.  The operation of the agate is not known by the strakes, nor the diamond prized by his brightness, but by his hardness.  The carbuncle that shineth most is not ever the most precious; and the apothecaries choose not flowers for their colors, but for their virtues.  Women’s faces are not always calendars of fancy, nor do their thoughts and their looks ever agree; for when their eyes are fullest of favors, then are they oft most empty of desire; and when they seem to frown at disdain, then are they most forward to affection.  If I be melancholy, then, Ganymede, ’tis not a consequence that I am entangled with the perfection of Saladyne.  But seeing fire cannot be hid in the straw, nor love kept so covert but it will be spied, what[1] should friends conceal fancies?  Know, my Ganymede, the beauty and valor, the wit and prowess of Saladyne hath fettered Aliena so far, as there is no object pleasing to her eyes but the sight of Saladyne; and if Love have done me justice to wrap his thoughts in the folds of my face, and that he be as deeply enamored as I am passionate, I tell thee, Ganymede, there shall not be much wooing, for she is already won, and what needs a longer battery.”

[Footnote 1:  why.]

“I am glad,” quoth Ganymede, “that it shall be thus proportioned, you to match with Saladyne, and I with Rosader:  thus have the Destinies favored us with some pleasing aspect, that have made us as private in our loves, as familiar in our fortunes.”