CONTENTS.

VOL. III.

BOOK III.

THE LEGEND Of Britomartis, OR OF CHASTITY :—

Canto IX.

Page

1

THE LEGEND OF CAMBEL AND Triamond, or of Friendship

OF CHASTITY.

a

CANTO IX.

Malbecco will no ftraunge knights host,

For peevish gealofy.
Paridell giufts with Britomart:

both fhew their auncestry.

I.

EDOUBTED knights, and honorable
Dames,

To whom I levell all my labours end,
Right fore I feare, leaft with un-

worthy blames

This odious argument my rymes fhould fhend,"

Or ought your goodly patience offend,

Whiles of a wanton Lady I doe write,

Which with her loose incontinence doth blend

my rymes fhould fhend.] One of the moft, ordinary fenfes of to "fhend" is to marre, or injure: it alfo means to rebuke, or reprove: fee vol. i. pp. 97, &c. C.

The fhyning glory of your foveraine light;

And knighthood fowle defaced by a faithlesse knight.

2.

But never let th' enfample of the bad

Offend the good; for good, by paragone

Of evill, may more notably be rad,

As white feemes fayrer matcht with blacke attone;"
Ne all are shamed by the fault of one:
For lo! in heven, whereas all goodnes is,
Emongst the Angels, a whole legione

Of wicked Sprightes did fall from happy blis
What wonder then if one, of women all, did mis?

3.

Then liften, Lordings, if ye lift to weet
The cause why Satyrane and Paridell
Mote not be entertaynd, as feemed meet,
Into that Castle, (as that Squyre does tell.)
"Therein a cancred crabbed Carle does dwell,
That has no skill of Court nor courtefie,
Ne cares what men fay of him, ill or well;
For all his dayes he drownes in privitie,
Yet has full large to live and spend at libertie.

4.

"But all his mind is fet on mucky pelfe,

To hoord up heapes of evill gotten masse,
For which he others wrongs, and wreckes himselfe:
Yet is he lincked to a lovely laffe,

Whose beauty doth her bounty far surpasse;
The which to him both far unequall yeares,
And alfo far unlike conditions has;

For fhe does joy to play emongst her peares,

And to be free from hard restraynt and gealous feares.

with blacke attone.] The first edition reads attonce; but the fecond, and folios, more agreeable to the rhyme, "attone," that is, together, at once, at one [time]. UPTON.