thee, I had spread a thousand snares about thy feet, and it
would not have been long, had this not chanced, ere thou must of
necessity have fallen into one of them, nor couldst thou have fallen
into any but it had caused thee greater torment and shame than this
present, the which I took, not to ease thee, but to be the quicklier
satisfied. And though all else should have failed me, the pen had
still been left me, wherewithal I would have written such and so many
things of thee and after such a fashion that, whenas thou camest (as
thou wouldst have come) to know of them, thou wouldst a thousand times
a day have wished thyself never born. The power of the pen is far
greater than they imagine who have not proved it with experience. I
swear to God (so may He gladden me to the end of this vengeance that I
take of thee, even as He hath made me glad thereof in the beginning!)
that I would have written such things of thee, that, being ashamed,
not to say before other folk, but before thine own self, thou shouldst
have put out thine own eyes, not to see thyself in the glass;
wherefore let not the little rivulet twit the sea with having caused
it wax. Of thy love or that thou be mine, I reck not, as I have
already said, a jot; be thou e'en his, an thou may, whose thou wast
erst and whom, as I once hated, so at this present I love, having
regard unto that which he hath wrought towards thee of late. You women
go falling enamoured of young springalds and covet their love, for
that you see them somewhat fresher of colour and blacker of beard and
they go erect and jaunty and dance and joust, all which things they
have had who are somewhat more in years, ay, and these know that which
those have yet to learn. Moreover, you hold them better cavaliers and
deem that they fare more miles in a day than men of riper age. Certes,
I confess that they jumble a wench's furbelows more briskly; but those
more in years, being men of experience, know better where the fleas
stick, and little meat and savoury is far and away rather to be chosen
than much and insipid, more by token that hard trotting undoth and
wearieth folk, how young soever they be, whereas easy going, though
belike it bring one somewhat later to the inn, at the least carrieth
him thither unfatigued. You women perceive not, animals without
understanding that you are, how much ill lieth hid under this
scantling of fair seeming. Young fellows are not content with one
woman; nay, as many