Rosalynde; or, Euphues' Golden LegacyLodge, Thomas
General
Rosalynde; or, Euphues' Golden Legacy
Lodge, Thomas
Rosalind (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
"I can smile," quoth Ganymede, "at the sonettos, canzones, madrigals,
rounds and roundelays, that these pensive patients pour out when their
eyes are more full of wantonness, than their hearts of passions. Then,
as the fishers put the sweetest bait to the fairest fish, so these
Ovidians, holding _amo_ in their tongues, when their thoughts come at
haphazard, write that they be rapt in an endless labyrinth of sorrow,
when walking in the large lease of liberty, they only have their
humors in their inkpot. If they find women so fond, that they will
with such painted lures come to their lust, then they triumph till
they be full-gorged with pleasures; and then fly they away, like
ramage[1] kites, to their own content, leaving the tame fool, their
mistress, full of fancy, yet without even a feather. If they miss, as
dealing with some wary wanton, that wants not such a one as
themselves, but spies their subtlety, they end their amours with a few
feigned sighs; and so their excuse is, their mistress is cruel, and
they smother passions with patience. Such, gentle forester, we may
deem you to be, that rather pass away the time here in these woods
with writing amorets, than to be deeply enamored (as you say) of your
Rosalynde. If you be such a one, then I pray God, when you think your
fortunes at the highest, and your desires to be most excellent, then
that you may with Ixion embrace Juno in a cloud, and have nothing but
a marble mistress to release your martyrdom; but if you be true and
trusty, eye-pained and heart-sick, then accursed be Rosalynde if she
prove cruel: for, forester (I flatter not) thou art worthy of as fair
as she." Aliena, spying the storm by the wind, smiled to see how
Ganymede flew to the fist without any call; but Rosader, who took him
flat for a shepherd's swain, made him this answer:
[Footnote 1: wild.]
"Trust me, swain," quoth Rosader, "but my canzon was written in no
such humor; for mine eye and my heart are relatives, the one drawing
fancy by sight, the other entertaining her by sorrow. If thou sawest
my Rosalynde, with what beauties nature hath favored her, with what
perfection the heavens hath graced her, with what qualities the gods
have endued her, then wouldst thou say, there is none so fickle that
could be fleeting unto her. If she had been Aeneas' Dido, had Venus
and Juno both scolded him from Carthage, yet her excellence, despite
of them, would have detained him at Tyre. If Phyllis had been as
beauteous, or Ariadne as virtuous, or both as honorable and excellent
as she, neither had the filbert tree sorrowed in the death of
despairing Phyllis, nor the stars been graced with Ariadne, but
Demophoon and Theseus had been trusty to their paragons. I will tell
thee, swain, if with a deep insight thou couldst pierce into the
secret of my loves, and see what deep impressions of her idea
affection hath made in my heart, then wouldst thou confess I were
passing passionate, and no less endued with admirable patience."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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