O, No, I dare not!  O, I may not speak! 
      Yes, yes, I dare, I can, I must, I will! 
      Then heart, pour forth thy plaints and do not break;
      Let never fancy manly courage kill;
    Intreat her mildly, words have pleasing charms
      Of force to move the most obdurate heart,
      To take relenting pity of my harms,
      And with unfeigned tears to wail my smart. 
    Is she a stock, a block, a stone, a flint? 
      Hath she nor ears to hear nor eyes to see? 
      If so my cries, my prayers, my tears shall stint! 
      Lord! how can lovers so bewitched be! 
    I took her to be beauty’s queen alone;
    But now I see she is a senseless stone.

    LVI

    Is trust betrayed?  Doth kindness grow unkind? 
      Can beauty both at once give life and kill? 
      Shall fortune alter the most constant mind? 
      Will reason yield unto rebelling will? 
    Doth fancy purchase praise, and virtue shame? 
      May show of goodness lurk in treachery? 
      Hath truth unto herself procured blame? 
      Must sacred muses suffer misery? 
    Are women woe to men, traps for their falls? 
      Differ their words, their deeds, their looks, their lives? 
      Have lovers ever been their tennis balls? 
      Be husbands fearful of the chastest wives? 
    All men do these affirm, and so must I,
    Unless Fidessa give to me the lie.

    LVII

    Three playfellows—­such three were never seen
      In Venus’ court—­upon a summer’s day,
      Met altogether on a pleasant green,
      Intending at some pretty game to play. 
    They Dian, Cupid, and Fidessa were. 
      Their wager, beauty, bow, and cruelty;
      The conqueress the stakes away did bear. 
      Whose fortune then was it to win all three? 
    Fidessa, which doth these as weapons use,
      To make the greatest heart her will obey;
      And yet the most obedient to refuse
      As having power poor lovers to betray. 
    With these she wounds, she heals, gives life and death;
    More power hath none that lives by mortal breath.

    LVIII

    O beauty, siren! kept with Circe’s rod;
      The fairest good in seem but foulest ill;
      The sweetest plague ordained for man by God,
      The pleasing subject of presumptuous will;
    Th’ alluring object of unstayed eyes;
      Friended of all, but unto all a foe;
      The dearest thing that any creature buys,
      And vainest too, it serves but for a show;
    In seem a heaven, and yet from bliss exiling;
      Paying for truest service nought but pain;
      Young men’s undoing, young and old beguiling;
      Man’s greatest loss though thought his greatest gain! 
    True, that all this with pain enough I prove;
    And yet most true, I will Fidessa love.