rother Rosader to go to Aliena and Ganymede,
to signify unto them that his wounds were not dangerous. A more happy
message could not happen to Saladyne, that taking his forest bill on
his neck, he trudgeth in all haste towards the plains where Aliena's
flocks did feed, coming just to the place when they returned from
Montanus and Phoebe. Fortune so conducted this jolly forester, that
he encountered them and Corydon, whom he presently saluted in this
manner:

"Fair shepherdess, and too fair, unless your beauty be tempered with
courtesy, and the lineaments of the face graced with the lowliness of
mind, as many good fortunes to you and your page, as yourselves can
desire or I imagine. My brother Rosader, in the grief of his green
wounds still mindful of his friends, hath sent me to you with a kind
salute, to show that he brooks his pains with the more patience, in
that he holds the parties precious in whose defence he received the
prejudice. The report of your welfare will be a great comfort to his
distempered body and distressed thoughts, and therefore he sent me
with a strict charge to visit you."

"And you," quoth Aliena, "are the more welcome in that you are
messenger from so kind a gentleman, whose pains we compassionate with
as great sorrow as he brooks them with grief; and his wounds breeds in
us as many passions as in him extremities, so that what disquiet he
feels in body we partake in heart, wishing, if we might, that our
mishap might salve his malady. But seeing our wills yields him little
ease, our orisons[1] are never idle to the gods for his recovery."

[Footnote 1: prayers.]

"I pray, youth," quoth Ganymede with tears in his eyes, "when the
surgeon searched him, held he his wounds dangerous?"

"Dangerous," quoth Saladyne, "but, not mortal; and the sooner to be
cured, in that his patient is not impatient of any pains: whereupon my
brother hopes within these ten days to walk abroad and visit you
himself."

"In the meantime," quoth Ganymede, "say his Rosalynde commends her to
him, and bids him be of good cheer."

"I know not," quoth Saladyne, "who that Rosalynde is, but whatsoever
she is, her name is never out of his mouth, but amidst the deepest of
his passions he useth Rosalynde as a charm to appease all sorrows with
patience. Insomuch that I conjecture my brother is in love, and she
some paragon that holds his heart perplexed, whose name he oft records
with sighs, sometimes with tears, straight with