If mine eyes can speak to do hearty errand, Or mine eyes’ language she do hap to judge of, So that eyes’ message be of her received, Hope we do live yet. But if eyes fail then, when I most do need them, Or if eyes’ language be not unto her known, So that eyes’ message do return rejected, Hope we do both die. Yet dying, and dead, do we sing her honour; So becomes our tombs monuments of our praise; {104} So becomes our loss the triumph of her gain; Hers be the glory. If the spheres senseless do yet hold a music, If the swan’s sweet voice be not heard, but as death, If the mute timber when it hath the life lost Yieldeth a lute’s tune. Are then human lives privileg’d so meanly, As that hateful death can abridge them of power With the vow of truth to record to all worlds That we be her spoils? Thus not ending, ends the due praise of her praise: Fleshly veil consumes; but a soul hath his life, Which is held in love; love it is, that hath join’d Life to this our soul. But if eyes can speak to hearty errand, Or mine eyes’ language she doth hap to judge of, So that eyes’ message be of her received Hope we do live yet. Great was the pleasure of Basilius, and greater would have been Gynecia’s but that she found too well it was intended to her daughter. As for Philoclea, she was sweetly ravished withal. When Dorus, desiring in a secret manner to speak of their cases, as perchance the parties intended might take some light of it, making low reverence to Zelmane, began this provoking song in Hexameter verse unto her. Whereunto she soon finding whether his words were directed, in like tune and verse, answered as followeth: DORUS ZELMANE DORUS Lady reserved by the heavens to do pastor’s company honour, Joining your sweet voice to the rural muse of a desert, Here you fully do find the strange operation of love, How to the woods love runs as well as rides to the palace, Neither he bears reverence to a prince, nor pity to a beggar, But, like a point in midst of a circle, is still of a nearness, All to a lesson he draws; neither hills nor caves can avoid him.