‘O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still.

Beauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends.

Come not within his danger by thy will.

They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.

When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,

I feared thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

‘Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white?

Sawest thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?

Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?

Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,

But like an earthquake shakes thee on my breast.

‘For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy

Doth call himself affection’s sentinel,

Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,

And in a peaceful hour doth cry, “Kill, kill”,

Distemp’ring gentle love in his desire,

As air and water do abate the fire.

‘This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,

This canker that eats up love’s tender spring,

This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear

That if I love thee, I thy death should fear;

‘And, more than so, presenteth to mine eye

The picture of an angry chafing boar,

Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie

An image like thyself, all stained with gore,

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed

Doth make them droop with grief, and hang the

head.

‘What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

That tremble at th’imagination?

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,

And fear doth teach it divination.

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,

If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.

‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me:

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,

Or at the roe which no encounter dare.

Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,

And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy

hounds.

‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,

How he outruns the wind, and with what care

He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles.

The many musits through the which he goes

Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

‘Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep

To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,

And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,

To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer.

Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear.

‘For there his smell with others being mingled,

The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,

Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled,

With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out.

Then do they spend their mouths. Echo replies,

As if another chase were in the skies.

‘By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

Stands on his hinder legs with list’ning ear,

To hearken if his foes pursue him still.

Anon their loud alarums he doth hear,

And now his grief may be compared well

To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

‘Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

Turn, and return, indenting with the way.

Each envious brier his weary legs do scratch;

Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay;

For misery is trodden on by many,

And, being low, never relieved by any.

‘Lie quietly, and hear a little more;

Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise.

To make thee hate the hunting of the boar

Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,

Applying this to that, and so to so,

For love can comment upon every woe.

‘Where did I leave?’ ‘No matter where,’ quoth he;

‘Leave me, and then the story aptly ends.

The night is spent.’ ‘Why what of that?’ quoth she.

‘I am,’ quoth he, ‘expected of my friends,

And now ‘tis dark, and going I shall fall.’

‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.

‘But if thou fall, O, then imagine this:

The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,

And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.

Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips

Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn

Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason.

Cynthia, for shame, obscures her silver shine

Till forging nature be condemned of treason

For stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine,

Wherein she framed thee, in high heaven’s despite,

To shame the sun by day and her by night.

‘And therefore hath she bribed the destinies

To cross the curious workmanship of nature,

To mingle beauty with infirmities,

And pure perfection with impure defeature,

Making it subject to the tyranny

Of mad mischances and much misery;

‘As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,

Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,

The marrow-eating sickness whose attaint

Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;

Surfeits, impostumes, grief, and damned despair

Swear nature’s death for framing thee so fair.

‘And not the least of all these maladies

But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under.