Sonnet [Whoso Wil Seeke, By Right Deserts, T’attaine]
by
II*
Whoso wil seeke, by right deserts, t’attaine
Unto the type of true nobility,
And not by painted shewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous auncestrie,
Behold them both in their right visnomy**
Here truly pourtray’d as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.
And when thou doost with equall insight see
The ods twist both, of both then deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee;
But thanks to him that it deserves behight@:
To Nenna first, that first this worke created,
And next to Iones, that truely it translated.
ED. SPENSER.
[* Prefixed to “Nennio, or A Treatise of Nobility, etc. Written in Italian by that famous Doctor and worthy Knight, Sir John Baptista Nenna of Bari. Done into English by William Iones, Gent.” 1595. TODD.]
[** Visnomy, features.]
[@ Behight, accord.]