A Handful of Pleasant Delights/A fragment of another edition

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A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1878)
Clement Robinson et al., edited by Edward Arber

A Fragment, of one leaf only, of another edition

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This is the only extant extract from A boke of very pleasaunte sonettes and storyes in myter (1566), generally believed to be an earlier edition of the Handfull of pleasant delites.

Clement Robinson et al.2543372A Handful of Pleasant Delights — A Fragment, of one leaf only, of another edition1878Edward Arber

A Fragment, of one leaf only, of another edition, in the Collection of Bagford Ballads in the British Museum.
Press Mark, 643. m. 9/83.
Compare with pp. 47-49.
to sundrie new tunes.

All slayest the heart, whom thou maist help,

¶ A craggie Rock thy cradle was,
And Tygres milke sure was thy food:
Whereby Dame Nature brought to passe,
That like thy Nurse should be thy moode,
Wilde and vnkind, cruell and fell,
To flay the heart that loues thee well.

¶ The Crocodile with fained teares,
The Fisher not so oft beguiles:
As thou haste fild my simple eares,
To heare sweet words, full fraught with wiles
That I may say, as I doo prooue,
Wo worth the time I gan to loue.

¶ Sith thou haste vow'd to worke my wracke,
And haste no will my wealth to way,
Farewell vnkind, I will keep backe
Such toyes as may my health decay:
And still will crie, as I haue cause,
Fie vpon loue and all his lawes.

The Louer being wounded with his Ladies beautie, requireth mercy. To the tune of Apelles.

He liuely sparkes of those two eyes,
My wounded heart hath set on fire:
And since I can no way deuise,
To stay the rage of my desire:
with sighes and trembling teares I craue
My deare, on me some pitty haue,

¶ In viewing thee, I tooke such ioy,
As one that sought his quiet rest:
Vntill I felt the feathered boy,
Ay flickering in my captiue breast:
Since that time loe, in deep dispaire,
All voyd of ioy, my time I weare.

¶ The wofull prisoner Palemon,
And Troylus, eke King Pryamus,
Constrain'd by loue did neuer mone,
As I (my deare) for the haue done,
Let pitie then requite my paines
My life and death in thee remaines.

¶ If constant loue may reape his hire,
And faith vnfained may purchase,
Great hope I haue to my desire,
Your gentle heart will grant me grace,
Till then (my deare) in few words plaine,
In pensiue thoughts I shall remaine.

The lamentation of a woman being wrongfullie defamed. To the tune of Damon and Pythias.

Ou Ladies falselie deem'd
of any fault or crime,
Constraine your pensiue heartes to help
this dolefull tune of mine:
For spitefull men there are,
That faults would faine espie:
Alas, what heart would beare their talke,
but willinglie would die:

¶ I waile oft times in woe,
And curse mine houre of birth:
Such slaunderous pangs doe me oppresse,
when others ioy in mirth.