Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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How so it be, it mought[1448] haue warned me,
But, what I could not, that in me see ye,
Who runne in race, the honour like to win,
Whose fairest forme nought may deforme but sin:
Alas, when most I did defye all dread,
By single heare death’s word hong ouer my head,
For herke the end and listen now my fall:
This is the last, and this the fruit of all.
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So hath the ryser fowle no stay from[1459] fal,
No not of those that raisde him first of al:
His suretie stands in mainteining the cause
That heaued him first, which reft by reason’s sawes,
Not onely falth he to his former state,
But liueth for euer in his prince’s hate:
And marke, my lordes, God for adultery sleath,
Though ye it thinke too sweete a sinne for death.
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Maister D.[1483]
[When I had read this, one sayd: “It was very darke, and hard to
bee vnderstoode: except it were diligently and very leasurely
considered.” “I like it the better,” sayd[1484] another, “for that shall
cause it to bee oftner read, and the better remembred. Considering
also that it is written for the learned (for such all magistrates are, or
should bee) it cannot be to hard, so long as it is sound and learnedly
written.” Then sayd the reader: “The next here whome I finde
miserable are king Edward’s two sonnes, cruelly murdered in the
tower of London: haue you their tragedy?” “No, surely,” sayd[1484] I,
“The lord Vaulx vndertoke to pen it, but what hee hath done therein I
am not certayne, and therefore I let it passe till I knowe farder. I haue
here the duke of Buckingham, king Richard’s chiefe instrument,
written by maister Thomas Sackuille.” “Read it we pray you,” sayd
they. “With a good will,” quoth[1484] I, “but first you shall heare his
Preface or Induction.” “Hath hee made a preface,” sayd[1484] one,
“what meaneth hee thereby, seeing none other hath vsed the like
order?” “I will tell you the cause thereof,” sayd[1484] I, “which is this:
after that hee vnderstoode that some of the counsayl would not
suffer the booke to bee printed in such order as wee had agreede
and determined, hee purposed to[1485] haue gotten at my handes all
the tragedies that were before the duke of Buckingham’s, which hee
would haue preserued in one volume. And from that time backward,
euen to the time of William the Conquerour, he determined to
continue and perfect all the story him selfe, in such order as Lydgate
(following Bochas) had already vsed. And therefore to make a meete
induction into the matter, hee deuised this poesie: which (in my
iudgement) is so well penned, that I would not haue any verse
thereof left out of our volume. Now that you knowe the cause and
meaning of his doing, you shall also heare what hee hath done. His
induction beginneth thus.”][1486]
THE INDVCTION.[1487]
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“Unwrap thy woes, what euer wight thou bee,
And stint in tyme[1502] to spill thy self with playnt,
Tell what thou art, and whence, for well I see
Thou canst not dure, with sorrow thus attaynt:”
And, with that word of sorrow, all forfaynt
Shee looked vp, and, prostrate, as shee lay,
With piteous sound, lo, thus shee gan to say:
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18.[1506]