The Faerie Queene · Book IV · Canto 4 9 (2/2)

“And yet” (quoth she) “a greater wrong remaines:

For I thereby my former love have lost;

Whom seeking ever since with endlesse paines

Hath me much sorrow and much travell cost:

Aye me, to see that gentle maide so tost!”

But Scudamour, then sighing deepe, thus saide:

“Certes, her losse ought me to sorrow most,

Whose right she is, where ever she be straide,

Through many perils wonne, and many fortunes waide.

“For from the first that her I love profest,

Unto this houre, this present lucklesse howre,

I never joyed happinesse nor rest;

But thus turmoild from one to other stowre

I wast my life, and doe my daies devowre

In wretched anguishe and incessant woe,

Passing the measure of my feeble powre;

That living thus a wretch, and loving so,

I neither can my love ne yet my life forgo.”

Then good Sir Claribell him thus bespake:

“Now were it not, sir Scudamour, to you

Dislikefull paine so sad a taske to take,

Mote we entreat you, sith this gentle crew

Is now so well accorded all anew,

That as we ride together on our way,

Ye will recount to us in order dew

All that adventure which ye did assay

For that faire Ladies love: past perils well apay.”

So gan the rest him likewise to require,

But Britomart did him importune hard

To take on him that paine: whose great desire

He glad to satisfie, him selfe prepar’d

To tell through what misfortune he had far’d

In that atchievement, as to him befell,

And all those daungers unto them declar’d;

Which sith they cannot in this Canto well

Comprised be, I will them in another tell.