(But to thy selfe) that reason yet did mooue thee
To make away
Thy selfe, and for thy selfe thy death to take,
Sweete life do not my secret loue forsake.
All of them liked well of Taurisus song, but Ismenia especially. For though it tou∣ched Diana most of all, bicause it spake of those women that were ill married; yet the comment vpon it (which were complaints against loue) was common to all those that were tormented with it. And therefore Ismenia, who blamed Cupid for her paines, did not onely like of those reprehensions that Taurisus gaue Loue, but she herselfe to the sound of her Harpe, sung a song to the same effect, which Montanus was woont to sing, when he was a suter vnto her.
A Sonnet.
HAuing no cause, why in the deepest sound
Of amorous seas my fraile barke dost thou swallow?
O Loue! I’le make thy crueltie to sound
Swifter from East to West then flying swallow.
Though gales of windes doe bluster in my sterne,
Yet from the gulfe my ship shall neuer part
Of thy braue might, so furious and so sterne,
Vntill my sighes doe helpe to blowe a part.
If being in a storme, my face I turne,
Then my desire is weakned by thy might:
Thy force controuces my force, that striues in vaine:
I neuer shall arriue with happy turne
Into the port, and therefore, if I might,
I would let out my life in euery vaine.
Marcelius deferred not his answere long after them, with another song made to the same purpose, and of the same forme, sauing that the complaintes that he made, were not onely against Loue, but against Fortune, and himselfe.
A Sonnet.
STep after step I followe death in sight
Through euery field, and hill and troden vale,
For euerie day my spirits he doth cite,
And warnes my selfe, to shrowde me in his vale.
O death, that once thou wouldst consume this light,
That still deducts my life in blisselesse bale:
Now that my hope hath past away so lgiht,
And ioies condemn’d to torments without bale.
That Goddesse, whose continuall frownes I beare,
And loue, that all my ioies asunder teares,
And I my selfe, are foes vnto my hart:
She praying on me like a hungrie beare,
He chasing me like to the wounded Hart,
And I, that doe increase my bootelesse teares.
