INTRODUCTION

This miscellany appeared in 1599, with the following title :

THE | PASSIONATE | PILGRIME. | By W. Shakespeare. | At LONDON. | Printed for W. Jaggard, and are | to be sold by W. Leake, at the Grey-/hound in Paules Churchyard. | 1599.

A new edition appeared in 1612, with additions derived from Thomas Heywood, and a modified title :

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIME | or | Certaine Amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis, newly corrected and aug-lmented. | By W. Shakespere. / The third Edition. Whereunto is newly ad-ded two Loue-Epistles, the first from Paris to Hellen, and Hellen's answere backe again to Paris.

In the course of the same year, Thomas Heywood complained in the dedicatory epistle prefixed to his Apology for Astus, of the 'manifest injury' done him, as well as to Shakespeare, by this surreptitious publication : whereupon Jaggard printed a new title-page omitting Shakespeare's name.

In Malone's copy (now in the Bodleian) the old title-page, by an inadvertence, was retained when the new was added.

A third edition, still further enlarged from equally unauthentic sources, appeared in 1640. The contents even of the first edition show that

the book was a miscellany, raked together by fair means or foul and floated with the great name,already, as we may judge from Meres' tribute, at the head of English letters,—to which not more than five of the twenty-one pieces (viz. I, II, III, V, XVII) can certainly be ascribed. Three of the other pieces, however, though they had no right to their place, were not unworthy of it,—those by Barnfield (vili, xxi) and by Marlowe (xx).

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

I
WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although I know my years be past the best,
I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,
Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.
But wherefore says my love that she is young ?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,
And age, in love, loves not to have years told.

Therefore I 'll lie with love, and love with me,
Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.

II

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
That like two spirits do suggest me still ;
My better angel is a man right fair,
My worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her fair pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell :
For being both to me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell :

The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,
Till

my bad angel fire my good one out.

III

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury ?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine, so
Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is :
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To break an oath, to win a paradise ?

IV

Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear,
She show'd him favours to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there;
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.

iii. This is Longaville's sonnet draws vapour from the earth). to Maria, Love's Labour's Lost, iv. Possibly a sonnet of Shakeiv. 60 f., also with verbal

speare upon Venus and Adonis, alterations.

3.

But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refused to take her figured proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer :
Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and

toward :
He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward !

V

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to

love ? O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd : Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant

prove; Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers

bow'd. Study his bias leaves, and make his book thine eyes, s Where all those pleasures live that art can com

prehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall

suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee

commend; All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire : Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his

dreadful thunder, Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong, To sing heaven's praise with such an earthly

tongue.

10

VI

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,