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About her neck a flow’r of fresh device
With rubies set, that lusty were to see’n;
And she in gown was, light and summer-wise,
Shapen full well, the colour was of green,
With *aureate seint* about her sides clean, *golden cincture*
With divers stones, precious and rich:
Thus was she ray’d,* yet saw I ne’er her lich,** *arrayed **like

If Jove had but seen this lady, Calisto and Alcmena had never lain in his arms, nor had he loved the fair Europa, nor Danae, nor Antiope; “for all their beauty stood in Rosial; she seemed like a thing celestial.” By and by, Philogenet presented to her his petition for love, which she heard with some haughtiness; she was not, she said, well acquainted with him, she did not know where he dwelt, nor his name and condition. He informed her that “in art of love he writes,” and makes songs that may be sung in honour of the King and Queen of Love. As for his name —

 

 "My name? alas, my heart, why mak'st thou strange?* *why so cold
 

 Philogenet I call'd am far and near, or distant?*
 

 Of Cambridge clerk, that never think to change
 

 From you, that with your heav'nly streames* clear  *beams, glances
 

 Ravish my heart; and ghost, and all in fere:*    *all together
 

 Since at the first I writ my bill* for grace,    *petition
 

 Me thinks I see some mercy in your face;"
 

 

 

And again he humbly pressed his suit. But the lady disdained the idea that, “for a word of sugar’d eloquence,” she should have compassion in so little space; “there come but few who speede here so soon.” If, as he says, the beams of her eyes pierce and fret him, then let him withdraw from her presence:

 

 "Hurt not yourself, through folly, with a look;
 

 I would be sorry so to make you sick!
 

 A woman should beware eke whom she took:
 

 Ye be a clerk: go searche well my book,
 

 If any women be so light* to win: *easy
 

 Nay, bide a while, though ye were *all my kin."* *my only kindred*
 

 

He might sue and serve, and wax pale, and green, and dead, without murmuring in any wise; but whereas he desired her hastily to lean to love, he was unwise, and must cease that language. For some had been at Court for twenty years, and might not obtain their mistresses’ favour; therefore she marvelled that he was so bold as to treat of love with her. Philogenet, on this, broke into pitiful lamentation; bewailing the hour in which he was born, and assuring the unyielding lady that the frosty grave and cold must be his bed, unless she relented.

 

 With that I fell in swoon, and dead as stone,
 

 With colour slain,* and wan as ashes pale; *deathlike
 

 And by the hand she caught me up anon:
 

 "Arise," quoth she; "what? have ye drunken dwale?* *sleeping
 

 Why sleepe ye? It is no nightertale."* *night-time  potion <31>
 

 "Now mercy! sweet," quoth I, y-wis afraid;
 

 "What thing," quoth she, "hath made you so dismay'd?"
 

 

She said that by his hue she knew well that he was a lover; and if he were secret, courteous, and kind, he might know how all this could be allayed. She would amend all that she had missaid, and set his heart at ease; but he must faithfully keep the statutes, “and break them not for sloth nor ignorance.” The lover requests, however, that the sixteenth may be released or modified, for it “doth him great grievance;” and she complies.