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About this text

  • Title: Rosalind: Euphues' Golden Legacy
  • Editor: David Bevington

    Author: Thomas Lodge
    Editor: David Bevington
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Rosalind: Euphues' Golden Legacy



    A turtle sat upon a leafless tree,
    Mourning her absent fere
    With sad and sorry cheer.
    About her wondering stood
    The citizens of wood,
    And, whilst her plumes she rents
    And for her love laments,
    The stately trees complain them,
    The birds with sorrow pain them.
    Each one that doth her view
    Her pain and sorrows rue;
    But were the sorrows known
    That me hath overthrown,
    Oh, how would Phoebe sigh if she did look on me!The lovesick Polypheme, that could not see,
    Who on the barren shore
    His fortunes doth deplore,
    And melteth all in moan
    For Galatea gone,
    And with his piteous cries
    Afflicts both earth and skies,
    And to his woe betook
    Doth break both pipe and hook,
    For whom complains the morn,
    For whom the sea-nymphs mourn,
    Alas, his pain is naught;
    For were my woe but thought,
    Oh, how would Phoebe sigh if she did look on me!Beyond compare, my pain;
    Yet glad am I
    If gentle Phoebe deign
    To see her Montan die.

    After this, Montanus felt his passions so extreme that he fell into this exclamation against the injustice of Love:

    Helas, tyran, plein de rigueur,
    Modere un peu ta violence.
    Que te sert si grande depense?
    C'est trop de flammes pour un coeur.
    Epargnez en une etincelle,
    Puis fais ton effort d'emouvoir,
    La fiere qui ne veut point voir,
    En quel feu je brule pour elle.
    Execute, Amour, ce dessein,
    Et rabaisse un peu son audace.
    Son coeur ne doit etre de glace,
    Bien qu'elle ait de neige le sein.

    Montanus ended his sonnet with such a volley of sighs and such a stream of tears as might have moved any but Phoebe to have granted him favor. But she, measuring all his passions with a coy disdain and triumphing in the poor shepherd's pathetical humors, smiling at his martyrdom as though love had been no malady, scornfully warbled out this sonnet: