But leaving Phoebe to the follies of her new fancy, and Montanus to attend upon her, to Saladyne, who all this last night could not rest for the remembrance of Aliena; insomuch that he framed a sweet conceited sonnet to content his humor, which he put in his bosom, being requested by his brother Rosader to go to Aliena and Ganymede, to signify unto them that his wounds were not dangerous.  A more happy message could not happen to Saladyne, that taking his forest bill on his neck, he trudgeth in all haste towards the plains where Aliena’s flocks did feed, coming just to the place when they returned from Montanus and Phoebe.  Fortune so conducted this jolly forester, that he encountered them and Corydon, whom he presently saluted in this manner: 

“Fair shepherdess, and too fair, unless your beauty be tempered with courtesy, and the lineaments of the face graced with the lowliness of mind, as many good fortunes to you and your page, as yourselves can desire or I imagine.  My brother Rosader, in the grief of his green wounds still mindful of his friends, hath sent me to you with a kind salute, to show that he brooks his pains with the more patience, in that he holds the parties precious in whose defence he received the prejudice.  The report of your welfare will be a great comfort to his distempered body and distressed thoughts, and therefore he sent me with a strict charge to visit you.”

“And you,” quoth Aliena, “are the more welcome in that you are messenger from so kind a gentleman, whose pains we compassionate with as great sorrow as he brooks them with grief; and his wounds breeds in us as many passions as in him extremities, so that what disquiet he feels in body we partake in heart, wishing, if we might, that our mishap might salve his malady.  But seeing our wills yields him little ease, our orisons[1] are never idle to the gods for his recovery.”

[Footnote 1:  prayers.]

“I pray, youth,” quoth Ganymede with tears in his eyes, “when the surgeon searched him, held he his wounds dangerous?”

“Dangerous,” quoth Saladyne, “but, not mortal; and the sooner to be cured, in that his patient is not impatient of any pains:  whereupon my brother hopes within these ten days to walk abroad and visit you himself.”

“In the meantime,” quoth Ganymede, “say his Rosalynde commends her to him, and bids him be of good cheer.”

“I know not,” quoth Saladyne, “who that Rosalynde is, but whatsoever she is, her name is never out of his mouth, but amidst the deepest of his passions he useth Rosalynde as a charm to appease all sorrows with patience.  Insomuch that I conjecture my brother is in love, and she some paragon that holds his heart perplexed, whose name he oft records with sighs, sometimes with tears, straight with joy, then with smiles; as if in one person love had lodged a Chaos of confused passions.  Wherein I have noted the variable disposition of fancy, that like the polype in colors, so it changeth into sundry humors, being, as it should seem, a combat mixed with disquiet and a bitter pleasure wrapped in a sweet prejudice, like to the Sinople tree, whose blossoms delight the smell, and whose fruit infects the taste.”