BEAUTY dishonoured written UNDER THE TITLE OF SHORE'S WIFE.  
Chascun se plaist ou il se trouue mieux.  
LONDON Imprinted by john Wolf. 1593.   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR EDWARD Winckfield Knight.  
SIR since such is the industrious nature of our own poets, as though Italy sleeps in the charm of a sweet Hierusaleme, and France waxes proud in the week labours of her toyling-mused Bartas (the first as conceiptively Allegorical, as the other is labour some significant) yet our own clime, challendging unto herself hardly a second esteem, to the first: and having produced such witty, & so happy conceits, as wandering in the secrecy of some passionate Elegies, blush at their own appearance: How might I be esteemed guilty of mine own disgrace, that daring to make myself privy to the knowledge thereof, should not stick, to argue myself improvident, in not bequeathing to silence the first invention of my beginning Muse? not first to the last, nor better to the worst, of many, that conceiving lower opinion of their own merit, than the merit might think worthily due unto herself, remain content with that praise, which in her gift invieth the pure excellency of the deserver: But young conceits, as they are young: are withal seeking increase of themselves, and therefore choose what they hold most answerable to such desires: And will less stand on desiring pardon after offence, then be careful at all not to have offended: Wherein if I note mine own fault, I crave that pardon, which those will not deny, that respect the nature of confession. And therefore humbly desiring yourself would be pleased, to hold excuse, to be as great an Argument of your own honourable disposition as it might be esteemed a passing stain to mine infant labours: I wish as many worthy applauses may attend your own sweet inventions, as the worthiness of themselves deserve, and I have ever desired.  
Your worship's most bounden. A. C.   

SHORE'S WIFE.  

SIgh, sad mused accents, of my funeral verse,  
In lamentable groans, (wrought from true piety)  
Sing you the wept song, on her wronged hearse,  
Is grateful obsequy to her mortal deity:  
Sigh: o; sing actually the beauty pained,  
With beauties wonder honourably stained.   

Bleed pen in black tears, dumb, yet pity moving  
The weeping Elegies to the worthiest fair:  
Weep pen in warm blood, to the world approving  
How fair, how good, how dear, old age did way her.  
Bleed tears: weep blood, pen, sing, sigh on her hearse  
Her grateful obsequies in a funeral verse.   

Careless, so sleep our Loethe drinking eyes,  
In present beauties, deemed divinely rare  
Neglecting th' Ancient wonder time did prise  
For such a trophy as had no compare,  
That now she seems as if she had been never,  
Whom even eternity said should live for ever.   

The high-musde period of the story reader,  
(Wondering or war, or matter causing terror)  
Omits her fortune, to her fate's arreader,  
(Precisly censuring beauty by her error)  
So she that even the fairest she surmounted,  
Now of the fairest, is the foulest counted.   

So variably divers in her willing,  
When vulgar rumour feeds on base suspect,  
Impeaching jealousy the best worth ylling  
Augments the matter of the least defect  
And bad suggestions secretly invected  
Give vild dishonour to the thing suspected.   

For whilst not privileged from monster fame,  
The beauty (of the not so fair invyed)  
Lies subject to dishonourable name,  
With hate, and emulous surmises eyed,  
We find it daily true amongst the best  
He's most invyed most exceeds the rest.   

Hence haps her fortune to be yld so much,  
Whom fourth king Edward, excellently prized,  
And hence it haps, because there was none such,  
Shore's wife, most fair, the most fowl is surmised  
And hence it haps, that dead to all disdain her  
Her wronged ghost surviveth to complain her   

Who whilst she lived the subject of impiety,  
Ground of a thousand voices disagreeing,  
The matter of unhollowed fame's variety,  
(Which from her good hap had unworthy being)  
Even on her dying bed divinely sorry,  
Pensive in heart she weeps forth thus her story.   

But when back flying from her paled cheek,  
Bash full Aurora did recall her red:  
And white-lockte Hiems, on her face did seek,  
His ivory mantle, doubting she were dead:  
When red fled white, white red, and both had left her  
And wan appearance of her fair had reft her.   

When sinking down, weakness dissolved her eyes,  
From vital spirits actually moving,  
To waterish heaviness dimmed in drooping wise,  
In slow neglecting looks their end approving,  
And with their often opening toward heaven  
Seemed of their virtue and their power bereaven.   

When through her oft and soft, expiring breath,  
(That still reentring moved her panting breast)  
She seemed with every sigh to draw in death,  
That willing gaps held her eternal rest,  
Then when her head heavy did lean awry  
Seeming even then she could not do but die,   

First tears, divining speech, denouncing passion,  
That meet in greatness of their several motions  
Fall from her eyes in that unwilling fashion,  
Argued her hearts grief, and her griefs commotions,  
Tears, the heart's dumb pleas: (words with grief restrained)  
Like loath departing pearls her eyes down rained.   

Then through transparance of the white was left her,  
Freshly peers secret glory of her blood,  
When even that death, of life that would have reft her  
With fear and reverence amazed stood,  
Doubting, though at the last gasp she did lie,  
A beauty so divine could never die,   

When tears the mother issue of griefs restraint  
(bound in the greatness of their own condition)  
Passive in Action, had performed complaint,  
In seen, not heard plea of her heart's contrition,  
When eyes were dim, when panting she lay wan,  
Tears having played their part, her tongue began.   

Ah whence shall I quoth she, (she wept again  
Opening her eyes, opening her hands to heaven)  
Produce the story of my lives remain:  
My life of hap: I of my life bereaven.  
Or why should I unto the world complain me  
If all the world for my mishap disdain me?   

Then where from silver streamed Isis lying,  
Silent in Swans: and quiet in her brooks,  
Forsaken Thames, into herself back flying,  
With muddy countenance, and unwilling looks,  
As discontent, doth make her sad resort  
As far as now decaying Caesar's fort:   

There records witness of mine education,  
And vulgar Parents, of a mean degree,  
To whom my dying day hath just relation:  
Yet was this mean a happy mean to me:  
That living fairest far above the best,  
Hapless in life, in death I might be blest.   

But madding thoughts, ambitious of promotions,  
Nursed in suspect of age's alteration,  
As swollen with fury of the minds commotions,  
deems all things doubtful, breeds not contentation,  
And this did discontent their minds did guide me,  
That being young, there were too many eyed me   

For look how matter, admirably rare,  
Draws musing thoughts, to studying contemplation:  
And time not able to produce compare,  
Confermes the wonder with more admiration:  
So, and such was my beauties acquaint compare  
Wonder itself did make me more than rare:   

Yet humble, honourable, chaste, and divine,  
True looking, pure, and bashfully reflecting,  
Were all the honours of my maiden eyen:  
In perfect Act true modesty affecting:  
And this Decorum I did ever seek  
To grace my beauty with a blushing cheek.   

Mine eye no look, no wanton wink affected,  
(The false fair notes of Siren incantations)  
No rash gaze of immodesty detected,  
My chaste mind, bend to wandering alterations,  
And yet, nor quoy, nor proud my looks were weighed  
But purely such, as might befit a maid.   

Strange gestures used not I, nor acquaint behaving:  
Such as the seeming loath-to-looke, do practice  
With faint denial absolutely craving:  
(The outward fault wherein dishonest lack lies)  
To these I left the light behaviours leaning  
As modern subtleties of immodest meaning.   

But in my looks, civility, and cheer,  
Bashful, and decent, did import a pureness:  
And where my beauty brightest did appear,  
A low regard argued a perfect sureness:  
That even the graces seemed to say with me,  
If I were not, themselves could never be.   

Angel aspects, of gazing window wonders,  
Angling at eyes, with beauty in the air:  
Beauties that nature from appearance sunders,  
With stolen shame of imaginary fair:  
These like to monsters ever I esteemed,  
Worship their own selves, for a beauty deemed.   

I looked: and in my decency precise:  
(Yet women look, one, to envy an other)  
I found that even the ancient wholly wise,  
Their young conceits yet in their age did smother  
And even the crooked old should now despair  
At least do hold themselves pure aged fair.   

And infant younglings, sucking from their mother,  
Selfe-like-dregs, of unwomanly surmises,  
Add boldness to the malice envies other,  
For even the young gins as beauty rises:  
And this peculiar to their sex did see.  
Both old, and young and all would fairest be:   

Which when myself in more judicial measure,  
(Grown to conceit upon mine own perfection:)  
Saw held of all men, yearthes' eternal treasure,  
And of the most ne'er worse then sweet subjection:  
Disposed to virtue, chastity did will me,  
Leave self conceit, for self conceit did ill me:   

When entertaining to my beauties honour,  
The true instructions chastity did teach me:  
Noting what hap, what heaven did wait upon her,  
Whilst no dishonouring blemish did impeach me,  
By nature and desire to this disposed  
Soon had my will my thoughts thereto imposed.   

I saw myself was absolutely fair,  
Yet altered not that virtue to a sin,  
I knew a small fault quickly would impair  
The purest beauty that should fall therein.  
I saw the sin, and saw that most had done it,  
And yet I had the grace to know and shun it.   

My thoughts that then were bashful, pure, and true  
Clean from impiety: from ill: from stain:  
Of nature wise, had reason to eschew  
The thing my nature did so much disdain:  
I saw both beauty and the good that blessed it.  
Yet by seducing error I have missed it:   

For lo, those eyes, whom jealousy had framed,  
To false suggestions of mine unstained youth:  
What they misdeemed, deuiningly they blamed,  
Fearing suspect might after turn to truth:  
When seeing myself (clean in thought and deed)  
Unworthy blamed: my heart begun to bleed:   

Then waxed I wanton as I grew to see,  
Doting suspect dishonour me so much,  
Myself, yet chaste, and pure, defamed to be,  
And to be deemed false, though I were not such.  
And this was even the first cause that I wrought false  
That though I were yet true, yet I was thought false.   

Such hap they have, have such attending eyes,  
Needlessly careful of the not transgressing:  
But careful parents do the worst surmise  
In doubted error secretly redressing:  
Yet oft we see, so careful some do prove  
They kill their car'de for with their too much love.   

Which proof confirmed in me was loved too much:  
Whose beauty then, when in her April grace,  
It stood unequaled, followed with none such,  
As might the excellency of my fair abase:  
Lo than began my beauty first to weame  
When first my beauty 'gan to be extreme.   

My father's house obscure, and I not known,  
But cloistered up to secrecy, and sadness,  
My friends misdoubting that as I was grown,  
Tempting desire might win my will to badness  
Wise-indiscrete, perforce they me constrained  
To wed myself to one that I disdained.   

Then holy rites of matrimony vowed,  
I sold my beauty, and myself unwilling,  
To him, to whom I, and my beauty bowed,  
Not for his love, but for his minds fulfilling.  
For though in birth my match did equal me  
My beauty was unfit for such as he.   

And I that scorning tributary love:  
Should have enjoined me to an after duty,  
Fearing his unrespect of me might prove,  
Th'incapable tyrant of my subject beauty.  
Before our contract came unto conclusion:  
I knew his love would be my lives confusion.   

Yet miser avarice: (doting aim of promotions)  
Gaping at rich showers of a golden age,  
As feed proud vultors by the winds commotions,  
Act monster wonders in a wealth rage  
Careless to what account the fair be wed  
Nor forcing discord of a loathed bed:   

Who sees the secrets of that widow thought  
The silent muse, and the discontent  
Moving impatience in her mind hath wrought.  
Whose bewties subject to enforced content?  
Or how may we think she her passion brooks  
That dares not speak but plead her grief in looks.   

Discenting unity of a discord bed,  
Burning in vapours of suggestious quiet,  
Strained concord of th'infortunately wed,  
Dissembling love; and framing wonders by it  
Who seethe this, may quickly judge the ill  
That mind endures is wed against her will.   

In her reins jealousy full of a self suspect,  
Deeming all eyes as doubling as her own,  
Fearing herself, her own self might detect  
(For she think, what to her to all is known)  
And this is still peculiar to her vain  
To hate the thing she fears may doubt again.   

Which haps from hence, that she suspecteth ever,  
That adverse jealousy will come and see,  
The close wrought Act her secrecies endeavour,  
And Act again, 'gainst her as close as she,  
And though no fault nor any deed detectes her  
Yet will she hate the thing she fears suspects her.   

Thus waking to herself and watching all:  
Discentious union in herself discording:  
Fearing the fortune worthy may be fall.  
Onel' in a divers Sympathy according:  
By fear and doubt unto her worst hap led  
Thus doth she work still in th'unwilling bed.   

She shrines her grief up in a secret fashion,  
(Which musing silence Agonies increase,)  
And ever dumb, in discontented passion,  
She shakes her head, and sighs, and holds her peace:  
Her grief and fear is such she cannot say it  
Till her complaining eyes in tears bewray it.   

Look how discountnanst in her eyes slow moving  
(The wakeful residence of a discontent,)  
heavily sighted, sad quiet sits approving,  
The awd condition of enforced content  
And how her drooping, notes her minds disquiet  
To be so great she seems down weighed by it.   

Mark how the down cast looks her eyes reflect,  
Argues her life, sequestered from her minds ease:  
And every gesture, secretly detect,  
The note of silent passion never finds ease:  
And though she seems unwilling to bewray it,  
Yet in that seeming so she seems to say it.   

She sits and hears, even passionately attentive,  
How better fortunes joy the happy wed,  
When in a sudden thought heartily pensive  
She casts her eyes up, and she shakes her head  
Whilst many thoughts concurring all in one  
Makes her grieved soul yield forth a deadly groan.   

Lo so united to a discontent,  
Departed from myself, to live t'vnkindnesse,  
Too soon my ill-bestowed youth did repent,  
My parent's avarice, and disaster blindness,  
That could not see the loathing that is bred,  
In discordiarring of an unkind bed:   

And what is worse: o this is interdicting,  
The fellow joy of a true met love,  
More than her own ill, this is still inflicting,  
Which never did the willing bridegroom prove,  
That loves but one, and gains such good thereby  
He's loved again and so doth live and die.   

But soon had Suitor eyes, with privy look,  
Noted the loathing that I bore unto him,  
And moved by this, they quickly undertook,  
Or shame, or some dishonourable Act to do him:  
And that this might better performed be,  
They seemed to malice him, and pity me.   

As song the Sirens to the wandering knight,  
Th'illusive stanzas of their charming song:  
Pleasing th'attentive ear with sweet delight,  
But hateful Actors of intended wrong:  
So sweetly song they songs of love to me,  
They seemed, or Sirens, or more sweet to be.   

For look how in a solitary guise  
The virgin chorister of the listening night,  
Chant her sweet descant, in a flattering wise,  
Togayne her little freedom if she might:  
And sings the sweeter by how much the more  
She minds the liberty she had before.   

So when imprisoned in precise constraint,  
Mine eye kept watch and my brow tyrannized:  
Those that their free enlargement did await,  
In arguing prattle sweetly subtelised:  
And as their passion did increase in fear,  
It pleased so much the more my stranger ear.   

And so much more as doth the churlish rich,  
Keep gold the safer, as the culler's pure  
So much the more my beauty did bewich,  
Them to continuance as they were more sure:  
And these I knew so well to entertain.  
They would not leave love, to be free again.   

For liveth that Philosophy precise  
Whom documents have quite strained from this?  
liveth that ancient old, and aged wise,  
Whom years have known to make to hate their bliss?  
Then blame not yeouth if want only he woos:  
Since doting old and bookewise cannot choese.   

Nor let my beauty be impeached with this,  
That I was woman like, though Angel fair,  
For him doth purity fortunately bliss,  
That is not blemished with some black impair:  
For this we see almost in things divine  
'tis quickly stained is the purest fine.   

Never did flock to old Ulysses Queen,  
In weary absence of her straying knight,  
Never more wooers in her court were seen,  
(Although perhaps more worthy persons might)  
Then there were Suitors still importuned me  
For I presume I was as fair as she   

Nor could my seeming true to him I chose,  
Give answer to their often suits renewing  
My feigned love to this, feigned hate to those,  
Can be no obstacle to their ever suing:  
And I not knowing quaintly to disdain them  
Through want of Art was forced to entertain them.   

When oft entreaties breeding emulation  
In the corrival thoughts of fellow lovers,  
Wrought quite changed being, and strange alteration,  
As oftener vows their constancy discovers:  
For that will issue to her full perfection  
Hath grounded being by the minds affection.   

Then equal in my thoughts making compare,  
T'wixte old forlorn, and personally young:  
I quickly saw th' Abuse my beauty bare,  
And my heart's grief sat fresh upon my tongue:  
When noting this, my heart began to cry:  
And I exclaimed against a doting eye:   

What Sympathy of love (quoth I) can be  
betwixt crooked old, and excellently fair  
Discording years will ever disagree,  
As different age to grave doth make repair:  
And this to old men proper still doth prove,  
To sigh they are so old they cannot love.   

Such one was he rest my youth of her bliss,  
He could no more of love, his days were done:  
Crooked old, and cold, his years denied him this,  
And therefore grieved he had so soon begun  
ôist not grief that age should so defame  
The reverent title of so grave a name.   

But how can I, how can all women brook this,  
Decrepit years from pleasure should restrain them?  
Ne'er lived they happy day that undertook this  
But of their fortune after did complain them:  
For what is dotage that we should affect it  
Or moody age that women should respect it.   

Old quite for lost and overworn with years,  
He makes an infant humour of his age,  
And in his lined brows dotage appears,  
A witless baby in a loving rage:  
And such a humour in his senses rain,  
And being old he's made a child again,   

He calls his Kate, and she must come and kiss him,  
Doting his madded love upon her face:  
He thinks her smile hath where withal to bliss him,  
Thus franticques his love to the fairs disgrace  
Which not withstood she dares not say him no  
o is't not pity bewties used so.   

But do not therefore blame the tripping fair  
For even the fairest hath her imperfection:  
Let not precise respect the lighter way her,  
For even the maiden seeming hath affection:  
And now a days the chaste devout will show love,  
That having learned they may the better know love.   

Let th' ancient doting therefore be precise  
The quick eyed young will have a time to wink it,  
Outward appearance can deceive his eyes,  
And she play wanton when he doth not think it,  
For this as sure as self truth shall ensue  
If age be jealous youth must be untrue.   

Suggesting fear shall make the newly wed,  
Be false, because she fears she is suspected,  
And fear by Art, to feigning shallbe led,  
To double closely with the false affected:  
For what is their arm'de fortune better noting  
Then double Act t'express their privy doting?   

So may his marriage bed a love bewray,  
Is feigning true and fearfully rebellious,  
Whom after age in time to come shall say,  
Is doting old, and cold, and foolish jealous:  
And let this title from his name ne'er sunder  
He's loves head monster and his armed wonder.   

But leaving this an ordinary shame,  
To that grave being of a reverent age,  
Whose aged grave decency it doth defame,  
With madding matter of an idle rage:  
As made her monster by her childish folly  
Is reverent old, and honourable wholly,   

Of oft entreating suitors I will say,  
Whose often vows tempt me to further sin,  
And hoping time my frailty might bewray,  
They use all art to teach me to begin:  
Yet though I loved not him that I had chose,  
I knew not how to candescend to those:   

But hence grew hate, for now I grew admired,  
And by degrees begun to learn to sin,  
Then when I saw I was so much desired,  
I seemed transformed as I had never been.  
And self opinion wrought so strong effect  
As now I grew to leave all chaste respect.   

For chastity by wiles grew to be cold,  
My modest beauty 'gan to alter wanton,  
I that from me, myself, myself had sold,  
Found this hard fortune for my heart to panton  
I now began to exercise mine eye  
And gaze on all would gaze aswell as I.   

My speech from humble, decent, pure, and true,  
That hide no secrecy in a plainly meaning,  
To Courtlike, wanton, pleasant did ensue:  
I left my nature to my follies wearing:  
And I by practice learned the worst so well  
In wanton art the best I could excel:   

Thus I both wild and absolutely fair,  
Charmed with my beauty, with my wiles alured;  
My want of shame, mine honour did impair,  
As long as I myself to sin enured,  
Which if I sinned or did with sin dispense,  
My life must say, (to whom I was offence:)   

Yet not defamed for other fault than those,  
The wanton Cittie-dwelling count their grace,  
But every tongue upon suspect did gloze,  
And being apt new made reports t'embrace  
I now was famed the fairest she was ever,  
(Which fame in that age was extinguished never.)   

For sooner had no motives of desire,  
Taught me to exercise my wit, and beauty;  
But my conceit could set delight on fire  
And wanton looks impriviledge all duty  
And I grew fairer and the oftener named  
As quaint conceit me for delightful famed.   

When lo: (for who lives so hid so obscure  
So secret from the world, remote from eyeing,  
As holds himself of doubtful talk so sure,  
But fame into his fortunes will be prying?)  
Even then when we of obscure life do boast  
It proves at last that then we're known the most.   

For then pronouncing from incertain thought,  
Th'ungrounded story of a liar muse:  
What secrecy from subtle eyes had wrought,  
Incertain fame with falsehood will abuse:  
Fame secret witness to the guilt concealed  
Mads all infurie till it be revealed.   

Mindful remembrer of a secret will,  
(If secret may import worthy dishonour)  
The perjured counsellor of the close wrought ill,  
False testimony of a hope, relying on her,  
Both truth, and falsehood, in one period bounding,  
Contrary to herself, herself confounding:   

False glozing tongue, credulities rely,  
Error of nature, bad seed of base sedition,  
Suspectes false daughter, never borne to die,  
Nursed of Erinys, and of false suspicion:  
Proved all the worlds plague and enured to sin:  
Happy had I lived, hadst thou never been:   

For till thou first with thine unhappy story,  
Echoing relations of my worth and me:  
Intitul'dst my name to my beauties glory,  
Unworthy known, of such a worth to be  
Though not performed in so royal measure  
Yet then I joyed a life of quiet pleasure:   

So fares th'infortunate whom monster fame,  
Glozing, ambitious, false mused, makes her subject,  
Enjoined by praise, to bide eternal shame  
And rest the worlds dishonourable object  
Such fate had I, that was so highly famed  
First to be held fair, after ever shamed.   

For now ambitious in her fabling humour,  
Unto my king, my beauty she dispenses,  
To whom sh'impartes a wonder working rumour,  
In speech Authentical, to charm his senses:  
With Act his eyes his ears, with words she won,  
His heart, his love, his soul, ere she had done.   

She seemed sober hearty and precise,  
Framing her false looks to a pleading fitness:  
T'vnthought-on truth sh'adaps her humbled eyes  
And every Act seemed her tales truth to witness:  
And what she thought could win the king she wrought-on  
In Act, and speech she let not pass unthought-on.   

So as when at his oracles disclosing,  
divining Proteus, prophesying small things  
His self from colour from his shape disposing,  
Deludes the suitor hold by seeming all things  
Making himself a monster to the view  
Before deceit can bring him to tell true:   

Monster fame so, divining on supposes:  
Suspicious of herself, (her self a liar:)  
In altering tales her flattery discloses  
Wrought to report ill by her own desire  
Whilst that the king credits her tale for truth  
Which after turned a shame unto his youth.   

For had she been more ready to report-it  
His apt belief had sooner given it credit:  
His willing hearkening ear did well import-it,  
Was so attentive to the tale that spread it:  
For this fault even is incident to kings  
Too much to credit over pleasing things   

She told him now my beauties Aprill bud,  
Fresh bloomed in honour of my flowering prime:  
In high degrees of excellency stood,  
Ages admire, and wonderment of time,  
Amongst the best, so far exceeding many:  
As it was never seconded by any:   

(Quoth she) behold how in her wanton fair,  
Rosy Pallantias (new stolen from her bed)  
Blusheth her glory on the morning air,  
In bashful decency of vermilion red:  
And from his stand the Northern watchman frays  
With brighter coming of her summer rays:   

Or as: whilst Thetis in her cu'ning greeting,  
Smileth her purple on the suns decline,  
And with her Titan in the West seas meeting,  
Appears a wonder, bashfully divine,  
Such is her face (quoth she) herself so fair,  
She seems as beauteous as the evening air.   

Hast thou not seen how in her hemisphere  
The mornings henchman, and the star of love  
Vales in her beauty at the suns appear  
And seemeth dimmed his glory to approve?  
Even so her eyes (quoth she) exceeds so far  
As doth the son the sitting morning star.   

More beauty, more divine doth her adorn,  
Then all Diana's, mesken virgins graces  
Those froes that in the dewy of the morn  
Trip on the flowers in those silent places,  
To which the feathered quiristers resort  
And chant them many a musical report.   

Oft have I seen, when to the strand of Po,  
The floating swans did make their last repair,  
And silver plumed, as white as any snow  
Blemished Indimions Scynthia in her fair:  
Yet ne'er did she, never did they excel:  
The ivory white upon her brow doth dwell.   

As when before old sleepy Tithon dawns  
(Dewed in the wept tears of Aurora's eyes,)  
Sweet savouring flowers of the meadow lawns,  
With sweet perfumes, up into heaven arise  
So breathes her breathes perfume, so sweetly smelling  
It seems her breath the flowers are excelling.   

Sung never at Euridices redeeming  
The Thracian Harper to the god of hell  
A song more honour worth, worth more esteeming  
Yet Orpheus touch pleased devinly well  
Nor yet Arion ever so behaved him  
Although he sung so sweet the Dolphin saved him.   

Nor that old man, whose musical records  
The following walls of ancient Thebes did rear:  
Nor Poean, pleasing in her sweet accords  
The curious judgement of the nicest ear  
Did ever sound were ever song so well  
But her sweet words, her voice doth far excel.   

Ne'er did her Nymphs, at bold Actaeon's gaze,  
Nor combly Phoebe: (seen with privy eye)  
Man's sense, man's thought, with sweeter smiles amaze  
With richer glory, of a wealthier dye,  
Then would this beauty naked as was she,  
Were you yourself but privy to't as he:   

To this she adds (o strange impiety)  
Vicious intycements of alluring sin,  
And with licentious words, altering variety,  
She drowns his senses, and himself therein:  
So well the Siren knew her song to sing,  
She soon had lulled a sleep the willing king:   

And that she might the better bring to pass,  
Shame to my Lord, herself, and shame to me,  
She adds how wanton, buxom, young I was  
Fit consort with his younger years to be  
And when at length she had discoursed her fill,  
Away she flies: abominable ill.   

But he that stands enchanted with the wonders,  
By secret stealth dishonourable sin,  
Him from his sense, his sense from virtue sunders  
And now in madding love lust doth begin,  
And that fowl stain his fury is incensed with  
By majesty (saith he) shall be dispensed with:   

Then to mine ears (divining my misfortune,)  
Secret reports came whispering stranger wonders,  
And with their oratory pleas mine ears importune.  
Whilst blind conceit me from my good hap sunders:  
With charming proffers still my king salutes me  
As one for absolutest fair reputes me.   

And those, to whom he secretly commended,  
The inquisition of my beauties being:  
Those my attract, my change of fortune tended  
My beauties worth and excellency seeing:  
Report my beauty to be so divine;  
As now he prized none so much as mine:   

And soon had gifts, soon had my lords desire,  
My soul from chastity, myself from me,  
With often presents taught how to retire  
Tasting the proffers of a high degree:  
And then me thought though I ner proved before  
A king's embrace was even a heaven or more:   

Lo then to Court, unto my king I came,  
Monarch aspect of my recusant eye:  
Mine eye, the matter of my body's shame,  
As long as shame, or sin were nursed thereby,  
With niggard favour, at the first did seem,  
As one that held his crown scarce worth esteem.   

For now my scholar eyes had learned to fashion  
Their looks authentical, and quaint precise:  
My quoynesse argued a stranger passion,  
To make him so, more pliant to mine eyes:  
And I, whom he esteemed easy won  
Made him my subject, ere mine eyes had done:   

For now I saw: when equally precise,  
He saw the honour was due worth my beauty:  
My brows recusancy 'gan tyrannize,  
And of my king exact a tribute duty  
And if he proffered love, I would forsake it  
For women first say no, and then they take it.   

I wrought so well, my face did seem to say,  
I prized chastity, but even too much:  
My apt framed countenance seemed to bewray,  
A purposed fermnesse to my seeming such:  
And my pretext by working so before:  
Was but to make him love me so much more:   

For now in me variety of love,  
Had wrought such knowledge, by my seeming prone  
As whom I knew quickly sedu'st did prove,  
I knew was quickly got, and quickly gone:  
And therefore now opposed I seemed the stronger,  
That late ere won, I might be loved the longer.   

For when I saw, him fawningly respect me,  
I played upon him with a stranger No:  
And so much more I saw he did affect me,  
As I seemed further of in saying so,  
Yet than I knew my quoynesse so might prove  
A king would hardly bow too low to love.   

In equal mean, therefore did I contain  
Th'impatience of my seeming loath to sin,  
No beggar humbleness my face did stain,  
With apt desire to throw myself therein:  
And if my quoynesse made him loath to woo  
Then would I lend him smiles, and kisses too,   

Nor did I in denying faintly so  
But secretly seem to desire again,  
The hoped proffers my consenting No,  
In secret wish already did contain:  
But long alas could not persist therein  
For ere I left I sold myself to sin.   

Who sees the chaste lived Turtle on a tree,  
In unfrequented groves sit and complain her?  
Whether alone all desolate poor she,  
And for her lost love seemeth to restrain her?  
And there sad thoughted howleth to the air  
The excellency of her lost-mates fair?   

So I when sin had drowned my soul in badness,  
To solitary muse myself retired:  
Where wrought by grief to discontented sadness,  
Repentant thoughts, my new won shame admired,  
And I the monster of mine own misfortune  
My heart with groans, and sorrow did importune.   

Behold (quoth I) how in her ivy hidden  
The eu'nings' shame, Pallas adulterate fowl,  
The sitting sons sight, and the day forbidden,  
With a sherle screech her former sin doth howl:  
And peering in the day but from her tree  
Is wondered at of all the birds she see:   

So haps to thee, whom so thy sin hath shamed  
And made the night-eyes wonder of thy time:  
So haps to thee, that hath thyself defamed,  
In tender springing of thine April prime  
But now too late t'have sinned thou dost repent thee,  
When thou hast lost the good that nature lent thee.   

A wonderment, and monster of her age,  
Following posterity will account thy fall;  
And this which even no passion can assuage,  
Nor mitigate thy pained soul with all:  
When death in grave shall low have lain thy head  
Thou shalt be yet desamed when thou art dead.   

Thus in thy life, thus in thy death, and both,  
Dishonoured by thy fact, what mayst thou do?  
Though now thy soul the touch of sin doth loath,  
And thou abhorst thy life, and thyself too:  
Yet cannot this redeem thy spotted name,  
Nor interdict thy body of her shame:   

But he that could command thee, made thee sin:  
Yet that is no privilege, no shield to thee:  
Now thou thyself, hast drowned thyself therein.  
Thou art defamed thyself, and so is he:  
And though that king's commands have wonders wrough▪  
Yet king's commands could never hinder thought.   

Say that a Monarch may dispense with sin,  
The vulgar tongue proveth impartial still,  
And when mislike all froward shall begin,  
The worst of bad, and best of worst to ill,  
A secret shame in every thought will smother  
For sin is sin in kings, as well as other:   

And yet again, when to suspicion wrought,  
I saw the holy sin, and sullen game,  
Whilst secret act disclosed no hidden thought,  
To prejudice an honourable name:  
And those to be such saints that best could seem such  
As one would think suspicion would not deem such.   

Lo, too secure of variable rumour  
I gave myself to pleasing disposition:  
Love charming wantonness and delightful humour,  
Forced now no longer peevish eyed suspicion,  
And I thought none could testify my fault  
Because I thought there was not any saw't.   

And though my life had stain, yet this did mend it,  
That I was sorry such an one to be,  
My pity my respect did still commend it,  
And this was commendably praised in me,  
That Suitor wrongs myself to right would bring  
If right might be procured from the king.   

And now so deemed so highly was I prised,  
No honour was too good, too great for me,  
I could command what ever thought devised,  
Delight to sense, or joys to mind to be:  
And whilst I sat seated alone so high,  
The king could but command and so could I.   

But long my fortune had not traded so,  
In doubt full highness of prosperity:  
Ere murder death had framed a worse woe,  
A true example unto all posterity:  
That those that mount so high so far and fast,  
In tract of time come headlong down at last.   

For now, the dooms day of my fortune's near,  
The day, the doom, peculiar unto all,  
Now in a death unthought-on doth appear,  
My beauties ruin and mine honours fall  
Such sights are these unto the pleased eye  
As are not sooner seen than they do die.   

So as when for his drowned son pensiuly sorry,  
Three times in black, three times his golden urn,  
The sadder eye of heavens restrained glory,  
In black, and heavy secrecy did burn;  
And moody, by restraining so his light,  
In three days absence brought a triple night.   

Or as, when from some high cleft sadly looking,  
A misty tempest from the South ariseth,  
And disagreeing blasts no sails stop brooking,  
The merry seaman's wandering bark surpriseth  
We sorrow at the sight upon the shore  
But in the bark would sorrow ten times more.   

So now, eternal night, now desolation,  
divining horror to the nighted land:  
Ensues to all by sudden alteration,  
That of a tyrant ill suspected stand:  
But I whom this imported most of any  
Where all had but one fear: I one, had many.   

Ah death old father of our common end,  
Nursed of the mother night, and discontent  
Inuying hatreds never pleased friend,  
Incertain accident, and unknown event,  
In what so much have I offensed thee,  
That by my kings death thou shouldst murder me?   

Thou art the father cause I am forlorn,  
It was thy too much pity that procured this,  
Why didst not make me die ere I was borne?  
That being dead I might not have endured this?  
Cruel in what may harm in what may ill me  
But thrice more cruel that thou wouldst not kill me.   

Did my face fear thee from thy murdering will  
That being young, thou lettest me live so long?  
Or having such a beauty at thy will,  
Thoughtst thou the rape would be esteemed a wrong?  
O if thou didst, withal thou wild'st that I,  
Should live so long that I should shame to die:   

It was the avarice of thy list to kill,  
Founded my downfall on my kings decease:  
Such is thy nature, and so much so ill:  
One murder with a second to increase:  
But thus we see who on a king relies  
Finds death a live whilst living yet he dies.   

See how my end brought me to my confusion  
The common wonder of the wisest eye  
My end the period and my lives conclusion  
Turns to my deaths shame, that I grieve to die:  
And that whereof dying I am ashamed,  
I grieve to live because I live defamed,   

Dead unto life, living unto my death,  
The end of shame, and yet my shames beginning:  
Thus do I araw the self disdaining breath,  
Hath worthy shame by mine unworthy sinning  
And whilst at once I would both live and die  
I do them both yet am not cured thereby.   

For when true penitency doth begin,  
With contrite sorrow, and repentant zeal,  
To mind the greatness of displeasing sin:  
That shame in hidden silence doth conceal.  
When these faults in ourselves our selves do see  
We think that all know them aswell as we.   

But stay thee here, and plaintiu'ly rehearse,  
The funeral tenor of thine after fortunes;  
O wash his tomb with tears weep on his hearse,  
Whose death gave life, to grief that thee importunes:  
For now behold unhappily he dies,  
On whom the essence of my good relies.   

Even as the gloomy sighted night, with clouds,  
Obscures the sunbright beauty of the air,  
And in her deadly look frowningly shrouds,  
Black desolation and forlorn despair,  
Threatening with sad aspect some future woe,  
By black divining looks presaging so:   

So seemed the black air, that with fowl aspect,  
Feeds lowering heaviness through a dusky light,  
That ugly looking darkness doth reflect,  
From caved bowels of the fearful night,  
So at his death, darkness seemed to bewray,  
Eternal blackness to the heavy day:   

That so dissolved to everlasting fears,  
That sun-reft-ages after posterity,  
Might weep his funerals in complaining tears,  
As rights belonging to a dead prosperity,  
And sing his obsequies in consorting woe,  
Sorrowing their light should be bereft them so:   

For now their son gone to his home for ever,  
Pronounces from declining of his rays,  
A worse night with tyrannous endeavour,  
Would dark the beauty of their after days  
And proud ambition aiming at a crown  
Would pull the dead kings trueborn issue down.   

When lo, dissentious in her own proceeding  
Suspicious in her thoughts, styled in her musing,  
Carefully thoughted, on her own self feeding,  
With jealous doubt her proper wits abusing  
Sighes-and-greefe-breeding fear to heaven doth cry  
And wished with him posterity might die   

For th'infant live of his blood left a prey,  
To vultar greediness of an easy crown,  
In tyrant practices did soon bewray,  
Cruel protection would the land confound,  
And then as doubtful minded as before,  
Fear would increase her sorrow ten times more.   

Thus stood suspected of incertain fate  
And drawn by oft fears to a dead despair  
The neuter subject, that did know too late,  
What hell it is to have a different heir.  
And that which all their discontent had sown  
To have a king to come not to be known.   

Now 'gan the trembling rich, and fearefull-wanting,  
Bequeath their fortunes to their hap of war,  
And trembling women-hearts, with sorrow panting  
Grieve that their fate should be unknown so far  
As whilst they yet thought no ill could assay them,  
Vnthought-on death should sudden come and slay them:   

And those, whom diversly-affecting humour,  
Drew to the adverse part an other would not,  
When running motions of deceiving rumour,  
Make them affect the matter that they should not  
At last exclaim as on a heavy thing  
That none should know the man should be their king.   

Then what might I do, where with all to save,  
Me from confusion, that I might not die,  
Now when dead sleeping careless in his grave  
My king was gone, on whom I did rely,  
What rests for me, a poor distressed woman,  
But hold me patiented at my fortunes summon?   

And what is worse, impriviledge from hope,  
Of my reflowring time, of my new being,  
I saw the bands, I saw the narrow scope,  
Wherein my sin must secret sit from seeing:  
And this so narrow, and so strickte to be,  
As all the world might my misfortune see:   

Why have mine eyes wept idle tears till now?  
Why hath my groaning heart sighed to relieve me?  
Or why hath grief eclipsed my sadded brow?  
Since now, I would weep, groan, and sigh, and grieve me,  
And now I need them, now I can do none,  
For grief, and sighs, and groans, and tears, be gone,   

Weep eyes, groan heart, grief sigh and take again  
Your second quintessence from my second woe,  
O never will I wast your wet in vain,  
Nor groan, nor grieve, nor sigh, nor weep you so.  
But with my days, date all your discontent,  
And weep you truly, till myself be spent.   

O you are comfort in your issuing motions,  
Unto the mind with passion is afflicted  
Whom wearying greatness of her own commotions  
Of words and speech, with grief hath interdicted.  
Wert not for you, th'oppressed heart would break  
When grief doth grow so big we cannot speak.   

Wert not for you (and yet I want you too)  
My heart's distress, that makes you her rely,  
Can never know, nor how, nor what to do,  
But live in silence, and in dombnesse die:  
O none can tell, the ease the mind doth gain her  
When eyes can weep, th' heart groan, or grief complain her   

But wanton tears have dried mine idle eyes,  
And waned away the beauty of my fair;  
My heart, for want of groans distressed dies,  
And sighs are vanished to unworthy air:  
Then what remains for me forlorn thereby,  
But know my grief, and hold my peace and die,   

'tis now that I should weep a thousand tears;  
Now, when my stars in fixed opposition,  
Denounces sorrow to my grieving ears,  
And tells me I must change my lives condition:  
And trust to favouring destiny no more,  
For I must beg my bread, from door to door:   

What fortune ere thou art enviest our age,  
A tyrant monster, in a madding vain,  
Return in fury of thy proudest rage,  
And Act the Scene of all thy hate again;  
And if ere any bad like woes as I,  
Yet give me ten times more, but let me die.   

Said ere Philosophy hell was confined  
Below the earth where never any were?  
O if it be so, yet withal I find,  
That hell's above the earth as well as there  
And never could Philosophy approve,  
That there was one below but one above.   

'tis but th'invention of th'high-witted wise,  
Allowed of any there, more than t'express,  
Th'extreme of tortures, that might tyrannize  
Them being dead, that living did transgress:  
Nor have they left us any confirmation,  
But deemed surmises of imagination;   

This 'twas rained on the earth, and prayed on me,  
'Twas this which I esteemed a heaven before,  
And more infernal cannot any he,  
For hell is but extreme, yet this was more:  
And we ner know what 'tis in heaven to dwell,  
Until we know what 'tis to live in hell.   

O could my words express in mourning sound,  
The ready passion, that my mind doth try,  
Then, grief all ears, all senses would confound,  
And some would weep with me, aswell as I:  
Where now because my words cannot reveal it  
I weep alone enforced to conceal it.   

O, and alone, let me weep mine own fortunes.  
Peculiar to myself, am woe begun:  
Me whom it ever secretly importunes  
As willing I should weep my fate alone:  
O therefore weeping let me live and die,  
For none can weep so worthy tears, as I:   

Well may some sorry, greevedly supposing,  
Suggest a passion excellently strange:  
And in true Act pitifully disclosing  
An inward grief, near at my fortunes range:  
But none can Act grief in complaint so right  
As he that is himself aggrieved by't.   

O God what error is in nature's will,  
That nature so unkind, so bad should be,  
The poor improvident should endure such ill,  
As through security not this ill to see,  
For had I seen before what now I try,  
Or I had feared to live, or learned to die.   

But ill brooks th'high aspiring thoughts surmise  
Coward respect of vulgar education:  
And hungering greediness of attempting eyes,  
Deem nor divine their after alteration,  
But mind their minds will, not their own condition  
Thus mads th'aspiring in her minds ambition.   

This was my fault had worthy fortune by it,  
And worthy was it, since I could not see,  
How discontent is ordinary quiet,  
To wakeful minds, that ne'er contented be.  
To joy the sweet mean of a low content,  
But mount so high they after must repent:   

Had I been fair, and not allured so soon,  
To that, at which all thoughts level their sadness  
My sunbright day had not been set ere noon  
Nor I been noted for detected badness  
But this is still peculiar to our state,  
To sin too soon, and then repent too late.   

But even as soared the feathered boy so high,  
(Reaching his infant thoughts unto the son,)  
By hotter rays, in all his height did die,  
And gained his pride's meed ere his pride were done:  
So I unto the low was made the nighest  
Whilst now I thought I overtopped the highest:   

For now reigned tyranny in ambitious throne,  
A true-borne-infant-bloud-spilling murderer:  
Usurping monster, yet controlled of none,  
Fowl guilts Appeal, and mischiefs furtherer,  
Proud Richard Gloster in his pride I saw  
Act all things at his will: for will was law.   

He says (and then he shows a withered arm  
Dried at his birthday lame and useless still)  
Quoth he 'twas thou by charms wroughtst me this harm  
And therefore dooms me to his tyrant will:  
For never is th'offended mighty Armless  
To wreak his fury on the hated harmless.   

Bear hence quoth he (and there withal reflected  
Fire sparkling fury from incensed eyes,  
Whose madding threat his lunacy detected,  
And told me he was taught to tyrannize)  
And then again in more incensedrage  
He cries, bear hence this monster of her age.   

When lo the servant sworn performeth on me,  
Th'unwilling office of a grieved sorry:  
And whilst he yet lays forced hands upon me  
Noting my beauty, and my beauties glory  
He does his duty: yet his looks do shoe,  
He craveth pardon for his doing so.   

For what eye framed to envy and disdain  
Would not enforce the heart to shake the head,  
When that pure maiden blush that did distain  
My purple cheek with faint vermillon red,  
Seemed constant fair not changed for threatening will  
But fearful true and modest comely still:   

I seemed unwilling that the tyrant should  
By force of will have tyrantlike compelled me  
And therefore made the little shift I could  
To burst away out of their arms that held me,  
But as I struggled beauty grew the more,  
Which seen, they held me faster than before.   

And those unwilling hands that prayed upon me  
(Happy they held me to behold my beauty)  
Embraced me faster with still gazing on me,  
To feed their eyes-listes not perform their duty  
For had it been in them I am assured  
Such tyrant laws I should not have endured.   

But he, whom hell nurst-furie hath infected,  
Threats death to them, and me that him offended  
And from his knitted brows horror reflected,  
Th'enraged doom his felon thoughts intended:  
Impatient, moody, mad, and full of ire,  
He swears by heaven that shame shallbe my hire,   

Posterity says he (and then again  
The knit veins of his prowdly-looking brows  
Swelling with malice, and extreme disdain,  
Like to an ireful bore he proudly bows)  
And swears by hell heavy revenge shall date  
Th'incensed displeasure of his falling hate,   

Posterity shall know thine Act (quoth he)  
And then he bids that my attires be rend,  
And terms the habit unbefitting me  
A Sorcer witch full of her fowl intent:  
And that which words for anger could not say  
A furious act in gesture did bewray.   

When I reft of my habit and attire,  
Stood yet as modest, as a maid should be,  
Bashfully feared with the new admire,  
Of this base tyrants ravishing of me.  
Who not content with this commands that I,  
Be turned into the streets and beg or die.   

Even as an angry Bull incensed with ire,  
Bellowing his menaces with a hollow roar,  
Impatient, mad, wanting his lusts dosire,  
Augments his madded fierceness more and more  
And yet no quiet any murder brings  
Although he prays upon a thousand things.   

So unappeased, unquiet, mad, and ireful  
Rages th'insatiate fury of his will:  
And in his look, fierce, wan, and pale, and direful  
He seems impatient, moody, madded, still,  
And not content with this disgrace to grieve me  
He says that all shall die, (that dare relieve me.)   

(Then from the Court, the martyrdom of me,)  
All solitary, alone, forlorn, I went  
Thither where discontentment I did see,  
Threatening my misery ere my days were spent  
And needy want as naked as was I,  
Told me that thus perplexed I should die.   

When I unapt to frame alyer-tale,  
Unapt to crave my bread with beggar prayer,  
My poor discountnanst look all wan and pale  
Through hunger's nature waned from her fair  
I could not: ôshame would not then that I  
Should beg at all but rather choose to die.   

And yet necessity did urdge constraint,  
To brook th'impatience of her proper will,  
Whilst silence breaking out to no complaint,  
In secret passion hid her sorrow still:  
And shame with fearful blush all grieved did cry  
And wished she did but know but how to die.   

Nor could remembrance of my high degree,  
Brook my resorting into public place:  
For I did sigh as oft as I did see,  
Or think that any thought on my disgrace  
And who despairs in such a kind as this  
Thinks that the whole world knoweth all amiss.   

But o, why do I thus weary prolong,  
The woeful Tragedy of my pleasure's wain,  
Suffices that I knew to bide the wrong,  
And brook with patience what I did sustain,  
Idly we grieve when greeuingly we plain us,  
For that must be performed that needs constrain us.   

I can no more delate my further ill,  
'tis sooner judged then told, the grief is such,  
The wise-iuditiall may if so they will,  
Sooner conceive than I can say so much:  
Since so much now would call again the prime,  
And those that tell grief feel it for the tyme.   

I must (quoth she) address myself to death,  
And therewithal, clasping her hands in one,  
And wresting oft sighs with a deep fetched breath,  
She panteth forth a poor complaining groan,  
When closing fast her eyes (first open to heaven)  
She now seems both of speech and life bereaven.   

When coward death, fainting, and fearful slow,  
Looks on her fair face, with a vultar eye,  
And nils himself his force upon her show,  
As doting fearful she could never die,  
And yet he would: and yet he doth despair  
And fears she cannot die she is so fair,   

And yet her tongue now styled could say no more  
She panted, and she sighed, and gave a groan,  
And even that beauty was pure-fayrebefore,  
Waned with her lives expire, and now was none,  
Yet death suspected still, doth still despair,  
And says she cannot die and be so fair.   

For even as looketh at the suns late sitting  
A withered lily, dried, and sapless quite,  
And in her weakened leaves, inwardly knitting,  
Seems dead: and yet, retains a perfect white:  
So seemed her face, when now her fair did fall  
That death still feared she would not die at all.   

He saw't, and sighed, and yet he could not see,  
Cause to induce his hope-perswading eye,  
To think that there was any cause that she,  
Can be so passing fair and yet could die:  
He thinks the beauteous never life should lose  
And yet withal he thinks, she should not choose:   

O what a combat wrought her life and death,  
Both claiming interest in her end, to spill her,  
Life would not that the fair should lose her breath:  
Death would not lose his right, yet would not kill her,  
But looks upon her with a curious eye,  
Doubting (though she were dead) she could not die.   

At last, persuading paleness seems to say,  
O she is dead, her breathless senses failed,  
Her life hath lost her joy, her death his prey,  
And now nor her life, nor her death availed,  
O then did any ever ought else try  
Then life or death that maketh us to die.   

Death took delight in her, until she died,  
Life fed upon her looks, he did so way her,  
Death and his life upon her end relied,  
And grieving life liked her she was so fair  
This lent her living: that prolonged her breath,  
O then there's something else that kills then death.   

For he wished that he were not death, she might not die,  
pitying in this, he grieves he wanteth piety,  
Tyrant in Act, his will doth this deny  
That her death should confirm him in his deity:  
And rather than of life he would bereave her  
He would give leave to all, to live for ever,   

Rather than she should not, he would not be,  
Or to a mortal being he would bow,  
So she might, all should live as well as she,  
(For death did never doubt until 'twas now)  
And yet by death if she might gained be,  
The world should die and none should live but she,   

But as a Crystal with a tender breath  
Receives dim thickness, and doth seem obscure  
So darkt with paleness of a breathed on death  
(If it were death that did this dark procure,)  
She seems alive and yet ah she was gone  
And then life grieved, and death did fetch a groan.   

Yet would they part the remnant of her being  
Her body went to death: her fame to life  
Thus life, and death, in unity agreeing  
Dated the tenor of their sundry strife,  
Death vowed her body should be eyed never,  
Yet life hath vowed her fame should live for ever.   
FINIS.