Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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love, and but pretending it at first, at last was
enforced to practice it, and thus it fell out.
An honest and well-disposed merchant of
London had by his wife a fair and amiable young
maiden to his daughter, being the only hope of his
age and the fruit of his corage. 1 This lovely Maudeline
(as the lesser stars are in respect of the sun, or
Mercury in regard of the orb of Venus) amongst
our London damsels was the A perse 2 for beauty,
and the paragon of perfections; her looks, full of
quickening purity, were able to animate love in
marble; nature could do no more but wonder at her
own handiwork; and art had nought but shadows in
respect of such a substance. All eyes that beheld her
wondered, all pens that praised her were quickened
by her excellence. To be short, her least worth was
so great consequence, as the best writer might be
abashed to conceit 3 or imagine them. With this fair
damsel William Longbeard trafficked 4 his fancies,
summoning her yielding affections with so many
earnest suits and services, that he at last conquered
that fort, wherein Fancy himself took delight to tyrannize.
And as the jet draweth amber, the loadstone
the steel of the compass, 5 so her beauty assaulted
his senses, that all of them had no power of their
offices, but were fatally assigned to subscribe to her
sorceries. And whereas authority and countenance
are wrested, [the] bulwark of chastity (though otherwise
impregnable) is oftentimes impugned, and
not only assaulted, but at last subdued. William by
his friends and followers so wrought, that what by
his friends and fair words, he won her for his
leman, 6 sparing no cost to trick her out in bravery, 7
to the end he might by that means give a foil and
1 corage virility, vital force or energy.
2 A perse first, most excellent.
3 conceit conceive, think.
4 trafficked related (likening his dealings with Maudeline to a sort of
commercial negotiation).
5 jet … compass Jet is a substance better known as lignite, and it has
magnetic properties; when rubbed, it can attract lighter substances,
such as amber (soldified tree resin); a loadstone is a type of stone that
also has magnetic properties.
6 leman lover.
7 trick her out in bravery dress her in elaborate and costly clothing and
adornments.
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glass to beauty. This Maudeline, thus compassed, 8
her paramour began to prank it 9 in the bravest
fashion, wresting his wits make an idol of her
worth, whose amorous passions, since they are of
some regard, I have here set down for the courtliest
ear to censure of:
Amidst the maze of discontented mind,
The royal trophy of joy-breeding love,
A happy hold resting place did find,
Within that breast which earst earth’s hell did
prove.
Since when my long-enfeebled eyes have reared
Their drooping sight to gaze upon the sun,
Since when my thoughts in written lines
appeared,
Rejoicing at that palm my faith had won.
Ennobled thus by that that thrice-nobled passion,
Which hath the power all worldly cares to banish,
I fly sweet-seeming lures of false occasion,
And let all thoughts but love-sweet vade and
vanish.
The fruits I reap in spite of Fortune forward,
Makes me suppose no torment too untoward.
[...]
Another in respect of the occasion I could not
find in my heart to forget, for being at supper
once in her company, where were many that discoursed
of love, showing all the idolatry of their
pens in exemplifying that unchaste deity, he at last
when the table was taken up, remembering him of
a sonnet in an ancient French poet, on sudden
wrote this imitation:
As soon as thou dost see the winter clad in cold
Within September on the eaves in sundry forms
to fold,
8 compassed conquered; possessed (by William).
9 prank it dress fashionably and with costly ostentation.