d breake so wilfully?
But now (alas) without all iust desart,
My lot is for my troth and much goodwill,
To reape disdaine, hatred and rude refuse,
Or if ye would worke me some greater ill:
And of myne earned ioyes to feele no part,
What els is this (o cruell) but to vse,
Thy murdring knife to guiltlesse bloud to spill._

Where ye see how she is charged first with a fault, then with a secret
sinne, afterward with a foule forfet, last of all with a most cruel &
bloudy deede. And thus againe in a certaine lovers complaint made to the
like effect.
_They say it is a ruth to see thy lover neede,
But you can see me weepe, but you can see me bleede:
And neuer shrinke nor shame, ne shed no teare at all,
You make my wounds your selfe, and fill them up with gall:
Yea you can see me sound, and faint for want of breath,
And gaspe and grone for life, and struggle still with death,
What can you now do more, sweare by your maydenhead,
The for to flea me quicke, or strip me being dead._

In these verses you see how one crueltie surmounts another by degrees till
it come to very slaughter and beyond, for it is thought a despite done to
a dead carkas to be an euidence of greater crueltie then to haue killed
him.

[Sidenote: _Meiosis_, or the Disabler.]
After the Auancer followeth the abbaser working by wordes and sentences of
extenuation or diminution. Whereupon we call him the _Disabler_ or figure
of _Extenuation_: and this extenuation is vsed to diuers purposes,
sometimes for modesties sake, and to auoide the opinion of arrogancie,
speaking of our selues or of ours, as he that disabled himselfe to his
mistresse thus.
_Not all the skill I haue to speake or do,
Which litle is God wot (set loue apart:)
Liueload nor life, and put them both thereto,
Can counterpeise the due of your desart._

It may be also be done for despite to bring our aduersaries in contempt,
as he that sayd by one (commended for a very braue souldier) disabling him
scornefully, thus.
_A iollie man (forsooth) and fit for the warre,
Good at hand grippes, better to fight a farre:
Whom bright weapon in shew as is said,
Yea his owne shade; hath often made afraide._

The subtilitie of the scoffe lieth in these Latin wordes [_eminus &
cominus pugnare_.] Also we vse this kind of Extenuation when we take in
hand to comfort or cheare any perillous enterprise, making a great matter
seeme small, and of litle difficultie, &