Full of fair,
        Where a gentle breath,
        Mounting from beneath,
    Tempereth the air. 
    There his flocks
    Drink their fill,
        And with ease repose,
        Whilst sweet sleep doth close
    Eyes from toilsome ill. 
    But I burn
    Without rest,
        No defensive power
        Shields from Phoebe’s lour;
    Sorrow is my best. 
    Gentle Love,
    Lour no more;
        If thou wilt invade
        In the secret shade,
    Labor not so sore. 
    I myself
    And my flocks,
        They their love to please,
        I myself to ease,
    Both leave the shady oaks;
        Content to burn in fire,
        Sith Love doth so desire.

    Et florida pungunt.

[Footnote 1:  Sirius, the dog star.]

Gerismond, seeing the pithy vein of those sonnets, began to make further inquiry what he was.  Whereupon Rosader discoursed unto him the love of Montanus to Phoebe, his great loyalty and her deep cruelty, and how in revenge the gods had made the curious nymph amorous of young Ganymede.  Upon this discourse the king was desirous to see Phoebe, who being brought before Gerismond by Rosader, shadowed the beauty of her face with such a vermilion teinture, that the king’s eyes began to dazzle at the purity of her excellence.  After Gerismond had fed his looks awhile upon her fair, he questioned with her why she rewarded Montanus’ love with so little regard, seeing his deserts were many, and his passions extreme.  Phoebe, to make reply to the king’s demand, answered thus: 

“Love, sir, is charity in his laws, and whatsoever he sets down for justice, be it never so unjust, the sentence cannot be reversed; women’s fancies lend favors not ever by desert, but as they are enforced by their desires; for fancy is tied to the wings of fate, and what the stars decree, stands for an infallible doom.  I know Montanus is wise, and women’s ears are greatly delighted with wit, as hardly escaping the charm of a pleasant tongue, as Ulysses the melody of the Sirens.  Montanus is beautiful, and women’s eyes are snared in the excellence of objects, as desirous to feed their looks with a fair face, as the bee to suck on a sweet flower.  Montanus is wealthy, and an ounce of give me persuades a woman more than a pound of hear me.  Danae was won with a golden shower, when she could not be gotten with all the entreaties of Jupiter:  I tell you, sir, the string of a woman’s heart reacheth to the pulse of her hand; and let a man rub that with gold, and ’t is hard but she will prove his heart’s gold.  Montanus is young, a great clause in fancy’s court; Montanus is virtuous, the richest argument that love yields; and yet knowing all these perfections, I praise them and wonder at them, loving the qualities, but not affecting the person, because the destinies have set down a contrary censure.  Yet Venus, to add revenge, hath given me wine of the same grape, a sip of the same sauce, and firing me with the like passion, hath crossed me with as ill a penance; for I am in love with a shepherd’s swain, as coy to me as I am cruel to Montanus, as peremptory in disdain as I was perverse in desire; and that is,” quoth she, “Aliena’s page, young Ganymede.”