From JOHN LYLY'S
Bombie, 1594.

Mother

IO, BACCHUS !

Omnes.

I.

O, Bacchus! To thy table

Thou call'st every drunken rabble;

We already are stiff drinkers,

Then seal us for thy jolly skinkers.1

Wine, O wine,

O juice divine,

How dost thou the nowle3 refine!

2. Plump thou mak'st men's ruby faces,

And from girls canst fetch embraces.
3. By thee our noses swell

With sparkling carbuncle.
4. O the dear blood of grapes
Turns us to antic shapes,
Now to show tricks like apes,

1. Now lion-like to roar,
2. Now goatishly to whore,
3. Now hoggishly i' th' mire,
4. Now flinging hats i' th' fire.
Omnes. Io, Bacchus at thy table,
Make us of thy reeling rabble.

1 Drawers, tapsters.

2 Head, wits.

LOVE'S COLLEGE.

CUPID! monarch over kings,
Wherefore hast thou feet and wings?

It is to show how swift thou art,

When thou woundest a tender heart!
Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still,
Thy bow so many could not kill.

It is all one in Venus' wanton school,
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool.
Fools in love's college

Have far more knowledge

To read a woman over,

Than a neat prating lover :

Nay, 'tis confessed,

That fools please women best,

From GEORGE PEELE'S The
Arraignment of Paris, 1584.

FAIR AND FAIR, AND TWICE SO FAIR.

Enone.

Paris.

En.

AIR and fair, and twice so fair,

FAIR

As fair as any may be ;

The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

Fair and fair and twice so fair,

As fair as any may be ;

Thy love is fair for thee alone,

And for no other lady.

My love is fair, my love is gay,
As fresh as bin the flowers in May,
And of my love my roundelay,

My merry, merry, merry roundelay,
Concludes with Cupid's curse,—

They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods they change for worse!

Ambo simul. They that do change, &c.

En.

My love can pipe, my love can sing,
My love can many a pretty thing,
And of his lovely praises ring
My merry, merry roundelays,

Amen to Cupid's curse,

They that do change, &c.

Par.

They that do change, &c.

Ambo.

Fair and fair, &c.

THE SAD SHEPHERD'S PASSION OF love.

GENTLE Love, ungentle for thy deed,
Thou makest my heart

A bloody mark

With piercing shot to bleed.

Shoot soft, sweet Love, for fear thou shoot amiss, For fear too keen

Thy arrows been,

And hit the heart where my beloved is.
Too fair that fortune were, nor never I

Shall be so blest,
Among the rest,

That Love shall seize on her by sympathy. Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot, This doth remain

To cease my pain,

I take the wound, and die at Venus' foot.

CENONE'S COMPLAINT.

MELPOMENE, the muse of tragic songs,

With mournful tunes, in stole of dismal hue,

Assist a silly nymph to wail her woe,

And leave thy lusty company behind.

Thou luckless wreath! becomes not me to wear

The poplar tree for triumph of my love :
Then as my joy, my pride of love, is left,
Be thou unclothed of thy lovely green;

And in thy leaves my fortune written be,
And them some gentle wind let blow abroad,
That all the world may see how false of love
False Paris hath to his Enone been.

THE SHEPHERDS' DIRGE FOR POOR COLIN.

WELLAI

ELLADAY, welladay, poor Colin, thou art going to the ground,

The love whom Thestylis hath slain,

Hard heart, fair face, fraught with disdain,

Disdain in love a deadly wound.

Wound her, sweet Love, so deep again,
That she may feel the dying pain

Of this unhappy shepherd's swain,

And die for love as Colin died, as Colin died.