The Lover here essays to draw,
The wondrous counterfeits he saw
Painted along the garden wall.
Before our eyes doth he recall,
Lifelike, the semblance, form and fame
Of cach, and tells thereof the name.
And first, with lively pen, portrays
Of Hate the direful works and ways.
Herein the Dreamer's pen doth draw
The semblance of the dance he saw
And joined in, and relates how she,
Hight Courtesy, essays to be
His guide, and gently tells him who
Dance there, and all they say and do.
Here tells the Dreamer of Richesse,
Who counteth her of high noblesse,
But so consumed is she with pride,
That all poor men she casts aside,
And therefore less beloved by far
Than those who sweet and courteous are.
The author here of fair Narcisse
Doth tell the tale, who was, ywis,
Drawn on to love his proper shade,
Seen in a well, and thereby made
His life so wretched, that at last
He pined and wasted till he passed
To nothingness. His soul doth sit
Beside the fount and dream of it.
Herein the Dreamer telleth how
He felt the shaft of Cupid’s bow,
E’en as he sought his hand to close
Around the stem, and snatch the rose,
Whose fragrance though his soul had sent
Such madness and bewilderment.
But this, his fondest hope, denied
The God of Love, who him espied.
This tells how Jealousy, by spite
Urged on, a towering prison dight
Amidst the precinct, wherein she
Immured Fair-Welcome, for that he
Had let the Lover’s lips once press
The Rose, through courteous kindliness.
Dan William Lorris when he died,
Had written nothing more beside
The verses thou hast read. But when
A forty years had flitted, then
John Clopinel the end did speed—
Behold his work, which all may read.
This telleth how—the judgment given—
Virginius unto madness driven,
Strake off his well-loved daughter’s head,
Though to her life his life was wed,
Preferring rather that his child
Should die unstained than live defiled;
Then the sad head to Appius sent,
Who met his well-earned chastisement.
How Emperor Nero, in his mad
And cruel unchecked fury, bade
In daylight clear, before his eyes,
His minions to anatomise
His mother living, and the spot
Disclose where he was erst begot.
