“Ah, Saladyne, though I seem simple, yet I am more subtle than to swallow the hook because it hath a painted bait:  as men are wily so women are wary, especially if they have that wit by others’ harms to beware.  Do we not know, Saladyne, men’s tongues are like Mercury’s pipe, that can enchant Argus with an hundred eyes, and their words as prejudicial as the charms of Circes, that transform men into monsters.  If such Sirens sing, we poor women had need stop our ears, lest in hearing we prove so foolish hardy as to believe them, and so perish in trusting much and suspecting little.  Saladyne, piscator ictus sapit, he that hath been once poisoned and afterwards fears not to bowse[1] of every potion, is worthy to suffer double penance.  Give me leave then to mistrust, though I do not condemn.  Saladyne is now in love with Aliena, he a gentleman of great parentage, she a shepherdess of mean parents; he honorable and she poor?  Can love consist of contrarieties?  Will the falcon perch with the kestrel[2], the lion harbor with the wolf?  Will Venus join robes and rags together, or can there be a sympathy between a king and a beggar?  Then, Saladyne, how can I believe thee that love should unite our thoughts, when fortune hath set such a difference between our degrees?  But suppose thou likest Aliena’s beauty:  men in their fancy resemble the wasp, which scorns that flower from which she hath fetched her wax; playing like the inhabitants of the island Tenerifa, who, when they have gathered the sweet spices, use the trees for fuel; so men, when they have glutted themselves with the fair of women’s faces, hold them for necessary evils, and wearied with that which they seemed so much to love, cast away fancy as children do their rattles, and loathing that which so deeply before they liked; especially such as take love in a minute and have their eyes attractive, like jet, apt to entertain any object, are as ready to let it slip again.”

[Footnote 1:  drink.]

[Footnote 2:  hawk.]

Saladyne, hearing how Aliena harped still upon one string, which was the doubt of men’s constancy, he broke off her sharp invective thus: 

“I grant, Aliena,” quoth he, “many men have done amiss in proving soon ripe and soon rotten; but particular instances infer no general conclusions, and therefore I hope what others have faulted in shall not prejudice my favors.  I will not use sophistry to confirm my love, for that is subtlety; nor long discourses lest my words might be thought more than my faith:  but if this will suffice, that by the honor of a gentleman I love Aliena, and woo Aliena, not to crop the blossoms and reject the tree, but to consummate my faithful desires in the honorable end of marriage.”

At the word marriage Aliena stood in a maze what to answer, fearing that if she were too coy, to drive him away with her disdain, and if she were too courteous, to discover the heat of her desires.  In a dilemma thus what to do, at last this she said: