being gone, "you are mightily
beloved; men make ditties in your praise, spend sighs for your sake,
make an idol of your beauty. Believe me, it grieves me not a little to
see the poor man so pensive, and you so pitiless."

"Ah, Aliena," quoth she, "be not peremptory in your judgments. I hear
Rosalynde praised as I am Ganymede, but were I Rosalynde, I could
answer the forester: if he mourn for love, there are medicines for
love: Rosalynde cannot be fair and unkind. And so, madam, you see it
is time to fold our flocks, or else Corydon will frown and say you
will never prove good housewife."

With that they put their sheep into the cotes, and went home to her
friend Corydon's cottage, Aliena as merry as might be that she was
thus in the company of her Rosalynde; but she, poor soul, that had
love her lodestar, and her thoughts set on fire with the flame of
fancy, could take no rest, but being alone began to consider what
passionate penance poor Rosader was enjoined to by love and fortune,
that at last she fell into this humor with herself:

ROSALYNDE PASSIONATE ALONE

"Ah, Rosalynde, how the Fates have set down in their synod to make
thee unhappy: for when Fortune hath done her worst, then Love comes in
to begin a new tragedy: she seeks to lodge her son in thine eyes, and
to kindle her fires in thy bosom. Beware, fond girl, he is an unruly
guest to harbor; for cutting in by entreats, he will not be thrust out
by force, and her fires are fed with such fuel, as no water is able to
quench. Seest thou not how Venus seeks to wrap thee in her labyrinth,
wherein is pleasure at the entrance, but within, sorrows, cares, and
discontent? She is a Siren, stop thine ears to her melody; she is a
basilisk, shut thy eyes and gaze not at her lest thou perish. Thou art
now placed in the country content, where are heavenly thoughts and
mean desires: in those lawns where thy flocks feed, Diana haunts: be
as her nymphs chaste, and enemy to love, for there is no greater honor
to a maid, than to account of fancy as a mortal foe to their sex.
Daphne, that bonny wench, was not turned into a bay tree, as the
poets feign: but for her chastity her fame was immortal, resembling
the laurel that is ever green. Follow thou her steps, Rosalynde, and
the rather, for that thou art an exile, and banished from the court;
whose distress, and it is appeased with patience, so it would be
renewed with amorous passions. Have mind on thy forepassed fortunes;
fea