Thy hart was neuer changed with my cries,
With which I was importunate alwaies
To wearied earth and skies:
Though thou dost see not onely nights and daies
Spilt and consum’d with many feares,
My greeuous sighes and sorrowfull teares.
In thy conditions strange thou art,
That dost not cease with stranger deathes to kill me:
But strangest is my sorrowfull hart,
That suffring paines wherewith thou dost so fill me,
And huing in so strange and cruell passion,
It dies not in most strange and cruell fashion.
For if an ill a little time relents,
(Although it be the hardest to sustaine)
It openeth yet some vents
To ease, and doth not giue such mortall paine:
But greefe that hath no end nor stint,
In stones doe make their liuely print.
Loue is a daintie milde, and sweet,
A gentle power, a feeling fine and tender,
So that those harmes, and paines vnmeete,
Which I doe passe, thou onely dost engender:
Onely to him his torments loue deuiseth,
That scornes his lawes, his rites, and loue despiseth.
And this is now my mortall paine and death,
That, loue (since first thy beauties I did see)
Like to my proper breath,
Wherewith I liue, hath euer beene in mee:
In me it liues, in me it makes his print,
But not in thee, harder then any flint.
Berardus song pleased Diana well, but perceiuing by it, that he made her hart har∣der then the stones, she would for her credite haue answered him againe, & therfore said. It is a merrie iest (by my life) to call her hard that is modest, and cruell, that is carefull to keepe her honestie, I woulde to God, Shepherd, my soule were no more sorrowfull, then my hart is hard. But O greefe! Fortune hath made me captiue to so iealous a husband, that I was many times constrained to shew discurtesie to gentle Shepherds in these hils, dales, and fieldes, bicause I woulde not haue added more sorrow to my troublesome life with him. And yet for all this, the knot of marriage and reason oblige me to seeke out my rude and ill conditioned husband, although I looke not for any thing else at his hands, then sorrow, care, greefe, and manie more annoies in his frowarde companie. Taurisus taking nowe occasion at Dianas com∣plaints, which she made of her vnfortunate marriage, began to play on his Bagge∣pipe, and to sing, speaking as it were to loue, and descanting vpon this common song that saieth.
