The Book of Scottish Poems: Ancient and Modern

LXXVII.

Thy love, thy lawty,' and thy gentleness,
I counted small in my prosperity,
So elevate I was in wantonness,

And clamb upon the fickle wheel so high,
All faith and love I promised to thee
Was in the self fickle and frivolous:
O false Cresseid, and true knight Troilus!

LXXVIII.

"For love of me thou kept thy continence
Honest and chaste in conversation;
Of all women protector and defence
Thou was, and helped their opinion:
My mind on fleshly foul affection
Was inclined to lustis lecherous;

LXXXIII.

Fie, false Cresseid! O true knight Troilus! "O Diomede! thou has both brooch and

belt Which Troilus gave me in tokening "Lovers beware, and take good heed Of his true love." And with that word she

about

LXXIX.

swelt.2

And soon a leperman took off the ring,
Then buried her withouten tarrying :
To Troilus forthwith the ring he bare,
And of Cresseid the death he gan declare.

LXXXIV.

When he had heard her great infirmity,
Her legacy and lamentation,
And how she ended in sic poverty,
He swelt for woe, and fell down in a swoon,
For sorrow his heart to burst was boun,3
Sighing full sadly, said "I can no more,
She was untrue, and woe is me therefore."

LXXXV.

Some said he made ane tomb of marble
gray,

And wrote her name and superscription,
And laid it on her grave where that she lay,
In golden letters, containing this reason:
"Lo! fair ladies, Cresseid of Troyis town,
Sometime counted the flower of woman-

head,

Under this stone, late leper, lyis dead!"

Sorrowful, sad. 2 Fainted. 3 Ready.

5 Curled.

6 Pen case.

7 Grave, austere (?) 8 Kindly, known.

III.

With girnand teeth, and awful angry look, Said to the lamb, "Thou cative wretched thing,

How durst thou be so bold to file this brook, Where I should drink, with thy foul

slavering?

"Well," quoth the wolf, "thy language

outrageous,

Commis thee of kind; sae thy father before Held me at bait, als' with both boast and schore.2

VII.

It were almous' thee for to draw and hing, "He wraithed 3 me; and then I couth 4 him That should presume, with thy foul lippis vile,

To glaur3 my drink, and this fair water file."

IV.

The silly lamb, quakand for very dread, On kneeis fell, and said, "Sir, with your leave,

Suppose I dare not say thereof ye leid ;4
But, by my soul, I wait 5 ye cannot preive,
That I did any thing that should you
grieve:

Ye wait also that your accusation
Failis frae truth, and contrar is to reason.

"Though I cannot, nature will me defend,
And of the deed perfect experience:
All heavy thing maun of the self descend,
But gif something on force make resist-

ence;

warn,

Within a year, and I brukit5 my head, So I should be wrokin on him, or his bairn ;6

For his exorbitant and thrawart plead ;7 Thou shall doubtless, for his deedis, be dead."

"Sir, it is wrong, that for the father's guilt,

The saikless son should punisht be, or spilt.

VIII.

"Have ye not heard what holy Scripture says,

Indited with the mouth of God Almight: Of his own deed ilk man shall bear the praise,

As pyne 9 for sin, reward for workis right; For my trespass why should my son have plight?

Who did the miss1olet him sustain the pain." Then may the stream in no way make "Ya," quoth the wolf, "yet pleyis thou:

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