ril flowers and leaf and tree,
Before I false my faith to thee.

First shall the tops of highest hills
By humble plains be overpried,
And poets scorn the Muses' quills,
And fish forsake the water glide,
And Iris loose her colored weed,[1]
Before I fail thee at thy need.

First direful hate shall turn to peace,
And love relent in deep disdain,
And death his fatal stroke shall cease,
And envy pity every pain,
And pleasure mourn and sorrow smile,
Before I talk of any guile.

First time shall stay his stayless race,
And winter bless his brows with corn,
And snow bemoisten July's face,
And winter spring, and summer mourn,
Before my pen, by help of fame,
Cease to recite thy sacred name.

MONTANUS

[Footnote 1: garment. In what modern expression is this meaning of the
word retained?]

"No doubt," quoth Ganymede, "this protestation grew from one full of
passions."

"I am of that mind too," quoth Aliena, "but see, I pray, when poor
women seek to keep themselves chaste, how men woo them with many
feigned promises; alluring with sweet words as the Sirens, and after
proving as trothless as Aeneas. Thus promised Demophoon to his
Phyllis, but who at last grew more false?"

"The reason was," quoth Ganymede, "that they were women's sons, and
took that fault of their mother, for if man had grown from man, as
Adam did from the earth, men had never been troubled with
inconstancy."

"Leave off," quoth Aliena, "to taunt thus bitterly, or else I'll pull
off your page's apparel, and whip you, as Venus doth her wantons, with
nettles."

"So you will," quoth Ganymede, "persuade me to flattery, and that
needs not: but come, seeing we have found here by this fount the tract
of shepherds by their madrigals and roundelays, let us forward; for
either we shall find some folds, sheepcotes, or else some cottages
wherein for a day or two to rest."

"Content," quoth Aliena, and with that they rose up, and marched
forward till towards the even, and then coming into a fair valley,
compassed with mountains, whereon grew many pleasant shrubs, they
might descry where two flocks of sheep did feed. Then, looking about,
they might perceive where an old shepherd sat, and with him a young
swaine, under a covert most pleasantly situated. The ground where they
sat was diapered with Flora's riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus
in the glory of her vestme