LOVER NOT LOVED

Masters if your long pain be no stronger Then is your long reason against my short pain you lack no lycklyhod to live much longer Then he that would strike of your head so fain yet lest you would note me your words to disdain I am content to agree for a season To grant and enlarge your latter reason Amytte by her presens half my time pleasant And all your time as painful as in case can be yet your pain to be most, reason will not grant And for ensample I put case that you Stood in cold water all a day to the kne And I half the same day to mid leg in the fire would you change places with me for the drier Forsooth and my pain above yours is as ill As fire above water thus to be endewred Came my pain but at times and yours continue Still yet should mine many weys to whom can skill Show yours, in comparysen between the twain Skantly able for a shadow to my pain Felt you but one pang such as I feel many One pang of despair, or one pang of desire One pang of one dyspleasaunt look of her eye One pang of one word of her mouth as in ire Or in restraint of her love which I require One pang of all these felt ones in all your life Should quail your opinion and quench all our strife which pangs I say admitted short as you list And all my time beside pleasant as you please yet could not the shortness the sharpness so resist The piercing of my heart in the lest of all these Burr much it ouermatheth all your disease For no whyt in effect is your case dyspleasaunt But to deny a thing which you list not to grant Or to here a sewter by daily petition In humble manner as wit can devise Require a thing so standing in condyshyon As no portion of all his enterprise without your consent can speed in any wise This sewt thus attempted never so long Doubt you no death till your pain be more strong Now sins in this mater between us disputed Mine admyttance of your words notwithstanding I have thus fully your partly confuted what can you say now I come to denying your pryncyple, granted in my foresayeng which was this, by the presens of my lady I granted you half my time spent pleasantly Although mine affection ledyth me to consent That her selde presens is my relief only yet as in reason appeareth all my torment Bred by her presens and mark this cause why Before I saw her I felt no malydy And sins I saw her I never was from From twain the greatest pains that in love be Desire is the First upon my First sight And despair the next upon my First sewt For upon her First answer hope was put to flight And never came sins in place to dyspewt How bringeth then her presens to me any frewt For hopeless and helpeles in flames of desire And drops of despair I smolder in fire These twain being endless sins they began And both by the presens of her wholly Begun and continued, I wonder if you can Speak any word more, but yield ymmedyately For had I no more pains but these, yet clearly A thousand times more is my grief in these twain Then yours in all the case by which you complain Agred, For though the knowledge of all my pain Ease my pain no whyt yet shall it declare Great cause of abashement in you to complain In counterfeit pains with my pain to compare But here is no judge meet, we must seek else where Sir you may well doubt how my wit will serve But my will from right shall never swerve I am a lover not loved which plain Is daily not doleful but my deadly pain you forsooth Sir sins it passes your power that partly to play Let pass, and let us partly now assay To bring some part of that purpose to end For which all parties yet in vain attend As these twain us tweyn now grant First to break Sins twain to be harden, at ones can not speak I now desire your grant, that I may open First tale which now is at point to be spoken which I crave no whyt my part to advance But with the pyth to avoid circumstance Sirs other here is a very weyke brain Or she hath if any a very weyke pain For I put case that my love I her gave And that for my love, her love I did crave For which though I daily sew day by day what lose or pain to her if she say nay If you on her part any pain define which is the more painful her pain or mine This tale to purpose purporteth no more But sight and hearing complaint of his soar Is only the grief that you do sustain Alas tender heart sins you die in pain This payue to perceive by sight and hearing How could you live to know our pain by feeling Mark well this question and answer as you can A man that is hanged or that men hangman which man of those twain suffers most pain well said for me, for I am the sufferer And you the hangman understand as it were These cases vary in no manner a thing Saving this serves in this man's hanging Commonly is done against the hangmans will And you of delyghtfull will, your lover kill Nay masters I heartily pray you both Banish contention till you see how this goes I will repet and answer her tale forth with The pyth for your partly whereof pretendyth A proof for your pain to be more then mine In that my will not only did me incline To the same, but in the same by the same will I willingly will to continue Still And as will brought me and keepeth in this bey when I will you say, will will bring me away Concluding thereby that if my pain were As great as yours that I should surely bear As great and good will to flee my love thus meant As do you your sewters presens to absent Then for enter to answer it as well Answer this put case you as deeply now Did love your lover as he does love you Should not that loving suppose you redress That pain which lack of loving does poss Sins love gyuyn to him gyveth your self ease, than Except you love pain, why love you not this man I think you speak truly for will will not be Forced in love wherefore the same to you Sins this is to you such dyffyculte why not a thing as dyffycult to me To will the let of love where will my love hath set As you to will to set love where will is your let This is a medsyn like as you would will me For thing to kewre me the thing that would kill me For presens of her, though I selde when may have Is fool the medsyn that my life does save Her absens can I with as ill will will As I can will to let to love her Still Thus is this will brought in insydently No aid in your purpose worth tail of a fly And as concerning our principal mater All that you lay may be laid even a water I wonder that shame suffers you to compare with my pain, sins you are driven to declare That all your pain is but sight and hearing Of him that as I do dyeth in pain feeling Oh pain upon pain what pains I sustain No craft of the devil can express all my pain In this body no lyam / joint / senow / nor vein / But martreth eke other, and this brain Chief enemy of all by the inventing Mine unsavoury sewte to her dyscontentyng My speaking, my hearing, my looking, my thinking In sitting, in standing, in waking, or winking, what ever I do, or where ever I go My brain and mishap in all these do me woe As for my senses eke one of all five wondereth as it can to feel it self a live And than hath love goten all in one bed Him self and his servants to lodge in this head Vain hope, despair, dread, and audacity, Hast, wast, lust without liking or liberty Diligence, humilyte, trust, and jealousy, Desire, Patient sufferance, and constansy, These with other in this head like swarms of bees Sting in debating their contraryetees The venom whereof from this head dystylleth Down to this breast and this heart it killeth All times in all places of this body By this dystemperaunce thus dystempored am I Sheueryng in cold and yet in hete I die Drowned in moisture parched perchment dry In good sooth to tell truth of these cases twain which case is the wurst is to me uncertain Agreed And I likewise mine with will and good heart Begin then in gods name I hope and desire the same and sins we were First harden, we both humbly beseech you That we in Like wise may have judgement furs Well sins your conscyens driveth you thus to judge I receive this judgement without grief or grudge Now masters may it please you to declare As touching their parts of what mind you are Who hears this tale with in different mind And sees of these twain eke one so full bent To his own part that neither in heart can find To change pleasures with other must needs assent That she in these words hath given right judgement In affirmance whereof I judge and award Both these pleasures of yours as one in regard So should you both likewise be contented Eke other to see content in such degree As on your parts our judgement hath awarded your neighbour in pleasure like your self to be Gladly to wish Christ's precept does byndeye Thus contentation should always prefer One man to joy the pleasure of and other Sins such contention may hardly accord In such kind of love as here hath been meant Let us seek the love of that loving lord who to suffer passion for love was content whereby his lovers that love for love assent Shall have in fine above contentation The feeling pleasure of eternal salvation which lord of lords whose joyful and blessed birth Is now remembered by time presenting This accustomed time of honest mirth That lord we beseech in most humble meaning That it may please him by merciful hearing Thestate of this audyens long to endure In mirth, health, and wealth, to grant his pleasure LO sir, who so that looketh here for courtesy And seth me seem as one pretending none But as unthought upon thus suddenly Approaches the myddys among you every chone And of you all sayeth nought to any one. May think me rewde perceiving of what sort you seem to be, and of what stately port. But I beseech you in most humble wise To omit displeasure and pardon me My manner is to muse and to devise So that some time my self may carry me My self knoweth not where, and I assure you So hath my self done now, for our lord wot where I am, or what you be, I know not. Or whence I cam, or whither I shall All this in manner as unknown to me But even as fortune guideth my foot to fale So wander I, yet where so ever I be And whom oh how many so ever I see As one person to me is every chone So every place to me but as one And for that one person every place seek I which one ones found I find of all the rest Not one messing, and in the contrary That one absent, though that there were here pressed All the creatures living most and lest yet lacking her I should and ever shall Be as alone sins she to me is all And alone is she without comparison Concerning the gyftys gyuyn by nature In favour fayrnes and port as of person No life beareth the like of that creature Nor no tongue can attain to put in use Her to dyscryue, for how can words express That thing the full whereof no thought can ges. And as it is thing inesty mable To make report of her beauty fully So is my love to ward her unable To be reported as who sayeth rightly For my fool service and love to that lady Is given under such haboundant fashion That no tongue thereof can make right relashyon. wherein I suppose this well supposed Unto you all, that sins she perceiving As much of my love as can be disclosed Even of very right in recompensing She ought for my love again to be loving For what more right to grant when love love requires Then love for love, when love nought else desireth But even as far wurs as otherwise then so Stand I in case in manner desperate No time can time my sewt to ease my woe Before none to erely and all times else to late Thus time out of time mystymeth my rate For time to bring time to hope of any grace That time tymyth no time in any time or place. whereby till time have time so far extyncte That death may determine my life thus deadly No time can I rest alas I am so lyncte To greaves both so great and also many That by the same I say and will veryfy Of all pains the most incomparable pain Is to be a lover not loved again. Those words approved lo, might make a change Of mine opinion / but verily The case as you put it I think more strange Then true, for though the beloved party Can not love again, yet possibly Can I not think, nor I think never shall That to be loved can be any pain at all. Masters much part of this proces purposed Is matter of truth truly disclosed My will without her will brought me in love which will without her will does make me hove Upon her grace to see what grace will prove But where you say my will may me remove As well from her love, as will brought me to it That is false my will can not will to do it My will as far therein out weyth my power As a sow of led out weyth a saforne flower Fair lady pleasyth it you to repayrenere And in this cause to show cause reasonable whereby cause of reformation may appear Of reason I must and willbe reformable Somewhat dyspleasaunt it were I not deny