Virtues History, Title page – To the reader
THVLE, Or Vertues Historie.
To the Honorable and vertuous Mistris AMY AVDELY. By F. R.
At London Printed by Felix Kingston, for Humfrey Lownes. 1598.
To the Reader.
NOr lift I craue the gentle Readers prayse,
Nor make base prayers to the Critick eares,
Nor humbly beg for vndeserued bayes,
My bolder Muse no cruell censure feares:
Let starueling Poets and that baser sort,
To wrested fauour witles heads exhort.
Nor doe I feare those Scyllaes dogged heades,
Which still are barking at the passingers;
And sate their thirstie iawes on worthier deedes,
Scorning the bones of threedbare carrion verse:
My Muse shall flie those Basilisks aspect,
VVhichWhich with their poysned rayes all things infect.
The sixteenth spring had with her flowrie vaile
VVrapt all the earth, warm'd with th'approching Sunne,
And did gainst winters ragged force preuaile;
Who streight to cold Cocitus streames did runne:
Where in congealed frost for deepe disgrace,
He wilfull hides his blushing hoary face.
VVhen I too yong doe driue this chariot,
Plowd vp the furrowes of my fruitles wit,
And in this spring this timely child begot,
And to mens fauours now aduenture it:
VVhere let it hazard for more lucky chance,
And with his worth his humble name aduance.
Where infant flie the lowring browes of age,
Auoyd the wrinkles of his furrowed face,
Thy state fits not their grauer carriage,
But to the yonger sort direct thy pace:
VVhere while thou sitst thy loued peeres among,
Bid them or not correct or mend thy song.
And fly the earthly poets seruile soule,
That sels the Muses for each peasants brasse;
Those mercenaries faults thou maist controule,
VVhose deeds fayre Helicons sweet streames debase:
And thou more glorying in immunitie,
Fly farre the name of prentise-poetrie.
Next scorne the scorner of a Poets pen,
That counts it base in tuned lines to sing,
And leaues it for the poore and needy men,
That hope to gaine by rimed flattering:
Tell him not all Parnassus yet is sold,
But yet one head the louely Muses hold.
VVhichWhich heau'nly Sydney liuing did adorne,
And Scottish Iames bedeckt with princely writ,
VVhose names black enuy and deaths force doe scorne,
Eterniz'd with the glorie of their wit:
Whose hallowed steps not to be troden more,
Following a farre full humbly I adore.
The Prologue vntounto the first Booke.
THese hauehave I carelesse writ with running hand,
VVhom art not shadoweth, but as clearest light,
VVanting none Oedipus all open stand,
Fit for the dimmer eyes and weaker sight.
But they whose Eagle-eyes can dare the Sunne,
And louelove high soaring from the lowly ground,
Let them not blame what I hauehave wilfull done,
Some better like the Oaten rurall sound.
And let those curious eyes a while await,
Vntill the second seruice shall begin,
VVhere we will seeke for some more dainty meate,
And stranger fruites then on this table been:
VVhere if they list they may their thirst appease,
VVhichWhich songs my Muse to higher tunes shall raise.
The Argument.
OF that same Ile which darknes long hath chaind
In gloomy prison of obscurity;
Islandia I meane, so long retaind
From humane view by times impiety;
Olde stories newly shall be intertaind.
Freed from the silent graues impurity,
To tell the vertuous though their dayes doe end,
Yet on their fall their glory doth ascend.
Ariost. cant. 32.Islandia that Artick-seated Ile,
Of which th'Italian swan sung long agoe,
Whose Queene the lothed wcoers did beguile,
And causde them for a shield to Paris goe,
And for her sake to suffer Loues exile,
Exagitate by dangers to and fro:
From thence my pen must fetch her forraine tasks,
And thence transport my hidden stories masks.
OnelyOnly (sweete you) to whom this shew shall come,
Harken attentiue to the strangers tale
Summond thus lately from Obliuions tombe,
Expecting for your fauours gentle gale:
Else shall he wish that he had still beene dombe,
Nor raysde his pitch from out that lowly vale:
Where louelove enioynd him for a while to dwell,
To paint the torments of that burning hell.