Februarie / Edmund Spenser (1)

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

Februarie. Ægloga Secunda.

ARGUMENT. This Æglogue is rather morall and generall then bent to any secrete or particular purpose. It specially conteyneth a discourse of old age, in the persone of Thenot, an olde shepheard, who, for his crookednesse and unlustinesse, is scorned of Cuddie, an unhappy heardmans boye. The matter very well accordeth with the season of the moneth, the yeare now drouping, and as it were, drawing to his last age. For as in this time of yeare, so then in our bodies, there is a dry and withering cold, which congealeth the crudled blood, and frieseth the wether-beaten flesh, with stormes of fortune and hoare frosts of care. To which purpose the olde man telleth a tale of the Oake and the Bryer, so lively and so feelingly, as, if the thing were set forth in some picture before our eyes, more plainly could not appeare.

CUDDIE. THENOT.

    Cud. Ah for pittie! wil rancke winters rage
These bitter blasts never ginne tasswage?
The kene cold blowes through my beaten hyde,
All as I were through the body gryde.
My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,
As doen high towers in an earthquake:
They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,
Perke as peacock: but nowe it avales.

 
     The. Lewdly complainest thou, laesie ladde,
Of winters wracke, for making thee sadde.
Must not the world wend in his commun course,
From good to badd, and from badde to worse,
From worse unto that is worst of all,
And then returne to his former fall?
Who will not suffer the stormy time,
Where will he live tyll the lusty prime?
Selfe have I worne out thrise threttie yeares,
Some in much joy, many in many teares;
Yet never complained of cold nor heate,
Of sommers flame, nor of winters threat;
Ne ever was to fortune foeman,
But gently tooke that ungently came:
And ever my flocke was my chiefe care;
Winter or sommer they mought well fare.

    Cud. No marveile, Thenot, if thou can beare
Cherefully the winters wrathfull cheare:
For age and winter accord full nie,
This chill, that cold, this crooked, that wrye;
And as the lowring wether lookes downe,
So semest thou like Good Fryday to frowne.
But my flowring youth is foe to frost,
My shippe unwont in stormes to be tost.

    The. The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine,
That, once seabeate, will to sea againe.
So loytring live you little heardgroomes,
Keeping your beastes in the budded broomes:
And when the shining sunne laugheth once,
You deemen the spring is come attonce.
Tho gynne you, fond flyes, the cold to scorne,
And, crowing in pypes made of greene corne,
You thinken to be lords of the yeare.
But eft, when ye count you freed from feare,
Comes the breme winter with chamfred browes,
Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes,
Drerily shooting his stormy darte,
Which cruddles the blood, and pricks the harte.
Then is your carelesse corage accoied,
Your carefull heards with cold bene annoied:
Then paye you the price of your surquedrie,
With weeping, and wayling, and misery.

    Cud. Ah, foolish old man! I scorne thy skill,
That wouldest me my springing youngth to spil.
I deeme thy braine emperished bee
Through rusty elde, that hath rotted thee:
Or sicker thy head veray tottie is,
So on thy corbe shoulder it leanes amisse.
Now thy selfe hast lost both lopp and topp,
Als my budding braunch thou wouldest cropp:
But were thy yeares greene, as now bene myne,
To other delights they would encline.
Tho wouldest thou learne to caroll of love,
And hery with hymnes thy lasses glove:
Tho wouldest thou pype of Phyllis prayse:
But Phyllis is myne for many dayes:
I wonne her with a gyrdle of gelt,
Embost with buegle about the belt:
Such an one shepeheards woulde make full faine,
Such an one would make thee younge againe.

    The. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boste;
All that is lent to love wyll be lost.

    Cud. Seest howe brag yond bullocke beares,
So smirke, so smoothe, his pricked eares?
His hornes bene as broade as rainebowe bent,
His dewelap as lythe as lasse of Kent.
See howe he venteth into the wynd.
Weenest of love is not his mynd?
Seemeth thy flocke thy counsell can,
So lustlesse bene they, so weake, so wan,
Clothed with cold, and hoary wyth frost.
Thy flocks father his corage hath lost:
Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags,
Like wailefull widdowes hangen their crags:
The rather lambes bene starved with cold,
All for their maister is lustlesse and old.

    The. Cuddie, I wote thou kenst little good,
So vainely tadvaunce thy headlessehood.
For youngth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose witt is weakenesse, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne penaunce,
And stoopegallaunt age, the hoste of greevaunce.
But shall I tel thee a tale of truth,
Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth,
Keeping his sheepe on the hils of Kent?

 
    Cud. To nought more, Thenot, my mind is bent,
Then to heare novells of his devise:
They bene so well thewed, and so wise,
What ever that good old man bespake.

    The. Many meete tales of youth did he make,
And some of love, and some of chevalrie:
But none fitter then this to applie.
Now listen a while, and hearken the end.

[continued in part 2 . . .]