The Admonition by the Author to all Young Gentlewomen: And to all other Maids being in Love
The Admonition by the Author to all Young Gentlewomen: And to all other Maids being in Love
Original Text
Isabella Whitney, The Copy of a Letter, lately Written in Meeter, by a Yonge Gentilwoman to her Unconstant Lover (London: Richard Jones, 1567): a5v-a8v.
3Whose hearts as yet with raging love
4 most painfully do boil.
5To you I speak: for you be they
6 that good advice do lack:
8 my tongue should not be slack.
9But such as I can give, I will
10 here in few words express,
11Which, if you do observe, it will
12 some of your care redress.
14 beware of flattering tongues:
15The Mermaids do pretend no good
16 for all their pleasant songs.
17Some use the tears of crocodiles,
18 contrary to their heart:
19And if they cannot always weep,
20 they wet their cheeks by art.
22 doth teach them this same knack
23To wet their hand and touch their eyes,
24 so oft as tears they lack.
25Why have ye such deceit in store?
26 have you such crafty wile?
27Less craft than this, God knows, would soon
28 us simple souls beguile.
29And will ye not leave off? but still
30 delude us in this wise?
31Sith it is so, we trust we shall
32 take heed to fained lies.
33Trust not a man at the first sight
34 but try him well before:
35I wish all maids within their breasts
36 to keep this thing in store.
37For trial shall declare his truth
38 and show what he doth think,
39Whether he be a lover true,
42 before that she did try,
43She could not have been clean forsake
44 when she for help did cry.
45Or if she had had good advice,
46 Nisus had lived long:
47How durst she trust a stranger and
48 do her dear father wrong.
49King Nisus had a hair by fate,
50 which hair, while he did kepe,
51He never should be overcome,
52 neither on land nor deep.
53The stranger that the daughter lou'd
54 did war against the King
55And always sought how that he might
56 them in subjection bring.
57This Scylla stole away the hair,
58 for to obtain her will,
59And gave it to the stranger that
60 did straight her father kill.
61Then she, who thought her self most sure
62 to have her whole desire,
63Was clean reject and left behind
65Or if such falsehood had been once
67About the fields of Ida wood,
68 Paris had walkt alone.
70 to Phillis had been told,
71She had not been transformed so,
72 as Poets tell of old.
74 before that she did trust:
75Therefore she found him unto her
76 both constant, true, and just.
77For he always did swim the sea
78 when stars in sky did glide
79Till he was drowned by the way
80 near hand unto the side.
81She scrat her face, she tare her hair
82 (it grieveth me to tell)
83When she did know the end of him
84 that she did love so well.
85But like Leander there be few,
86 therefore in time take heed
87And always try before ye trust,
88 so shall you better speed.
89The little fish that careless is
90 within the water clear,
91How glad is he, when he doth see,
92 a bait for to appear.
93He thinks his hap right good to be,
94 that he the same could spy,
95And so the simple fool doth trust
96 too much before he try.
97O little fish, what hap hadst thou?
98 to have such spiteful fate,
99To come into one's cruel hands
100 out of so happy state?
101Thou didst suspect no harm when thou
102 upon the bait didst look:
104 for to have seen the hook.
105Then hadst thou with thy pretty mates
106 been playing in the streams
108 shew forth his golden beams.
109But sith thy fortune is so ill
110 to end thy life on shore,
111Of this thy most unhappy end
112 I mind to speak no more.
113But of thy fellow's chance that late
114 such pretty shift did make,
115That he from fishers' hook did sprit
116 before he could him take,
117And now he pries on euery bait,
118 suspecting still that prick
119(for to lie hid in every thing)
120 wherewith the fishers strick,
121And since the fish that reason lacks
122 once warnèd doth beware,
123Why should not we take heed to that
124 that turneth us to care?
125And I who was deceived late
126 by one's unfaithful tears
127Trust now for to beware, if that
128 I live this hundreth years.
Notes
1] Cupid: Roman god of love, and son of Venus, whose bow and arrows make for the sharp pains of love. tents: probes that keep wounds open. Back to Line
2] foil: small-sword, fencing weapon (OED "foil" 5). Back to Line
7] get: produce. Back to Line
13] painted: flattering. Back to Line
21] Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C.-A.D. 18), Roman poet. "Tears too are useful; with tears you can move iron; let her see, if possible, your moistened cheeks. If tears fail (for they do not always come at need), touch your eyes with a wet hand." See Ovid, The Art of Love, and Other Poems, trans. J. H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heineman, 1969): 59 [I.659-662]. Back to Line
40] shrink: leave off. Back to Line
41] Scilla: daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, whose purple locks safeguarded his kingdom against defeat. Falling in love with Minos, who was invading her father's lands, she cut off his magic hair and offered it to Minos. When he refused, in contempt, she leapt into the sea to follow his ships and, after her father was changed into a sea-eagle, she became a ciris bird. See Ovid's Metamorphoses, VIII. Back to Line
64] home: "whom" in the original text. Back to Line
66] Oenone: a Greek nymph who lived on Mount Ida and fell in love and lived with Paris, Priam's son. Rejected by him for Helen, she in the end denied him knowledge of how to heal himself from a mortal wound. After he died, she committed suicide. Back to Line
69] Demophoon: the son of Theseus and the lover of Phyllis, daughter of the king of Thrace, Sithon. When Demophoon went away for a long time, she committed suicide and was transformed into a tree. See Ovid's Heroides, II. Back to Line
73] Hero did try Leander: Hero of Sestos, loved by Leander of Abydos, who would swim nightly across the Hellespont to her. When he drowned, she committed suicide, joining him in the sea. See Ovid's Heroides, XIX. Back to Line
103] Linceus: also known as Argus, a monster with a hundred eyes. Back to Line
107] Phoebus: Apollo, the sun god. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1567
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme
Form