Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber’s Note: This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) text readers: ẽõũỹ = vowel with “tilde” or overline ȝ = letter yogh If any of these characters do not display properly--in particular, if the diacritic does not appear directly above the letter--or if the quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. A few words such as “with” or “the” were printed as abbreviations: initial “y” or “w” with small “t” or “e” above it. These are shown in brackets as [the]. Two sets of three pages were out of sequence. The sections involved are indicated in the text with [>>] beginning [<>] page break [<<] end Details are at the end of the e-text, along with a list of typographical errors.] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ¶ Here begynneth the boke called the example of vertu. [Illustration] Tabula libri ¶ Fyrste a prologue. ¶ How youth mette with discrecyon in a medowe in his dreme & was reformed by her prouerbes ca.i. ¶ How youth with discrecyon sayled ouer the daungerous passage of vayne glorye and arryued in a fayre Ilonde longynge to foure ladyes named Hardynes / Sapyence / fortune / & nature. ca.ii ¶ Of the meruaylous palays of fortune ca.iii. ¶ Of the triumphaunt estate of hardynes. ca.iiii. ¶ Of the gloryfyed towre of sapyence. ca.v. ¶ Of the stronge operacyons of nature ca.vi ¶ How these foure ladyes pleeded at the barre before Iustyce whiche of theym was moost proufytable vnto mankynde & of the Iugement of Iustyce. ca.vii. ¶ How after the Iugement of Iustyce / Sapyence cõmaunded Discrecõn to lede youth to marye with clennes the kynge of loues doughter. ca.viii. ¶ How youth by the waye mette [with] lechery rydynge on a gote and pryde maned with couetyse on an olyphaũtes backe in a fayre castell / & how by the ayde of dyscrecyon he dyde withstande theyr temptacõn and how he mette with sapience in the mase of wordely besynes. capitulo.ix. ¶ How Sapyence & dyscrecyon ledde youth ouer the narowe brydge of vanyte of the worlde to the palays of [the] kynge of loue & of his meruaylous appareyl. ca.x ¶ How sapyence presented youth to the kynge of loue for to mary Clennes his doughter & how he before [the] maryage dyde fyght and discomfyte the dragon with thre hedys. capitulo.xi. ¶ How after the discomfyture of the sayd dragon he well growen in age was receyued with a farye company of ladyes and was named vertu & with all Ioye brought to the palays of the kynge of loue. ca.xii.