The Shepheard's Calender (Crane)/March

by Edmund Spenser

	·MARCH· ·AEGLOGA· ·TERTIA·
·EMBLEM·S·

In this Æglogue two Shepheards’ Boys, taking occasion of the season, begin to make purpose of love, and other pleasance which to springtime is most agreeable. The special meaning hereof is, to give certain marks and tokens, to know Cupid the poets’ god of Love. But more particularly, I think, in the person of Thomalin, is meant some secret friend, who scorned Love and his knights so long, till at length himself was entangled, and unwares wounded with the dart of some beautiful regard, which is Cupid’s arrow.

WILLY.THOMALIN.

WILLY. Thomalin, why sitten we so,
As weren overwent with woe,
Upon so fair a morrow?
The joyous time now nigheth fast,
That shall alegge this bitter blast,
And slake the winter sorrow.
THO. Sicker, Willy, thou warnest well;
For winter’s wrath begins to quell,
And pleasant spring appeareth:
The grass now gins to be refresht,
The swallow peeps out of her nest,
And cloudy welkin cleareth.
WIL. Seest not thilk same hawthorn stud,
How bragly it begins to bud,
And utter his tender head?
Flora now calleth forth each flower,
And bids make ready Maia’s bower
That new is uprist from bed:
Then shall we sporten in delight,
And learn with Lettice to wax light,
That scornfully looks askance;
Then will we little Love awake,
That now sleepeth in Lethe lake,
And pray him leaden our dance.
THO. Willy, I ween thou be assot;
For lusty Love still sleepeth not,
But is abroad at his game.
WIL. How kenst thou that he is awoke?
Or hast thyself his slumber broke?
Or made privy to the same?
THO. No; but happily I him spied,
Where in a bush he did him hide,
With wings of purple and blue;
And, were not that my sheep would stray,
The privy marks I would bewray,
Whereby by chance I him knew.
WIL. Thomalin, have no care forthy;
Myself will have a double eye,
Alike to my flock and thine;
For, alas! at home I have a sire,
A stepdame eke, as hot as fire,
That duly adays counts mine.
THO. Nay, but thy seeing will not serve,
My sheep for that may chance to swerve,
And fall into some mischief:
For sithens is but the third morrow
That I chanc’d to fall asleep with sorrow,
And waked again with grief;
The while thilk same unhappy ewe,
Whose clouted leg her hurt doth shew,
Fell headlong into a dell,
And there unjointed both her bones:
Might her neck been jointed attones,
She should have need no more spell;
Th’ elf was so wanton and so wood,
(But now I trow can better good,)
She might ne gang on the green.
WIL. Let be, as may be, that is past;
That is to come, let be forecast:
Now tell us what thou hast seen.
THO. It was upon a holiday,
When shepheards’ grooms have leave to play,
I cast to go a shooting;
Long wand’ring up and down the land,
With bow and bolts in either hand,
For birds in bushes tooting,
At length within the ivy tod,
(There shrouded was the little god,)
I heard a busy bustling;
I bent my bolt against the bush,
List’ning if any thing did rush,
But then heard no more rustling.
Then, peeping close into the thick,
Might see the moving of some quick,
Whose shape appeared not;
But were it faery, fiend, or snake,
My courage yearn’d it to awake,
And manfully thereat shot:
With that sprang forth a naked swain;
With spotted wings like peacock’s train,
And laughing lope to a tree;
His gilden quiver at his back,
And silver bow, which was but slack,
Which lightly he bent at me:
That seeing, I levell’d again,
And shot at him with might and main,
As thick as it had hailed.
So long I shot, that all was spent;
Then pumie stones I hast’ly hent,
And threw; but nought availed:
He was so wimble and so wight,
From bough to bough he leaped light,
And oft the pumies latched:
Therewith afraid I ran away;
But he, that erst seem’d but to play,
A shaft in earnest snatched,
And hit me running in the heel:
For then I little smart did feel,
But soon it sore increased;
And now it rankleth more and more,
And inwardly it fest’reth sore,
Ne wote I how to cease it.
WIL. Thomalin, I pity thy plight,
Perdie with Love thou didest fight;
I know him by a token:
For once I heard my father say,
How he him caught upon a day,
(Whereof he will be wroken,)
Entangled in a fowling net,
Which he for carrion crows had set
That in our pear-tree haunted:
Then said, he was a winged lad,
But bow and shafts as then none had,
Else had he sore been daunted.
But see, the welkin thicks apace,
And stooping Phœbus steeps his face;
It’s time to haste us homeward.

WILLY’S EMBLEME.
To be wise and eke to love,
Is granted scarce to gods above.

THOMALIN’S EMBLEME.
Of honey and of gall in love there is stove;
The honey is much, but the gall is more.