Volume Ii Part 56 (1/2)

NATURE.

What is her name?

WIT.

Reason is her sire, Experience her dame, The lady now is in her flower, and Science is her name.

Lo, where she dwells; lo, where my heart is all possest; Lo, where my body would abide; lo, where my soul doth rest.

Her have I borne good-will these many years tofore, But now she lodgeth in my thought a hundred parts the more, And since I do persuade myself that this is she, Which ought above all earthly wights to be most dear to me; And since I wot not how to compa.s.s my desire, And since for shame I cannot now nor mind not to retire, Help on, I you beseech, and bring this thing about Without your hurt to my great ease, and set all out of doubt.

NATURE.

Thou askest more than is in me to give, More than thy cause, more than thy state, will bear, They are two things to able thee to live, And to live so, that none should be thy peer, The first from me proceedeth everywhere; But this by toil and practice of the mind, Is set full far, G.o.d wot, and bought full dear, By those that seek the fruit thereof to find, To match thee then with Science in degree, To knit that knot that few may reach unto, I tell thee plain, it lieth not in me.

Why should I challenge that I cannot do?

But thou must take another way to woo, And beat thy brain, and bend thy curious head, Both ride and run, and travel to and fro, If thou intend that famous dame to wed.

WIT.

You name yourself the lady of this world.

NATURE.

It is true.

WIT.

And can there be within this world a thing too hard for you?

NATURE.

My power it is not absolute in jurisdiction, For I cognise another lord above, That hath received unto his disposition The soul of man, which he of special love To gifts of grace and learning eke doth move.

A work so far beyond my reach and call, That into part of praise with him myself to show Might soon procure my well-deserved fall: He makes the frame, and [I] receive it so, No jot therein altered for my head; And as I it receive, I let it go, Causing therein such sparkles to be bred, As he commits to me, by whom I must be led: Who guides me first, and in me guides the rest, All which in their due course and kind are spread Of gifts from me such as may serve them best, To thee, son Wit, he will'd me to inspire, The love of knowledge and certain seeds divine, Which ground might be a mean to bring thee here, If thereunto thyself thou wilt incline: The ma.s.sy gold the cunning hand makes fine: Good grounds are till'd, as well as are the worst, The rankest flower will ask a springing time; So is man's wit unperfit at the first.

WIT.

If cunning be the key and well of wordly[382] bliss Me-thinketh G.o.d might at the first as well endue all with this.

NATURE.

As cunning is the key of bliss, so it is worthy praise: The worthiest things are won with pain in tract of time always.

WIT.

And yet right worthy things there are, you will confess, I trow, Which notwithstanding at our birth G.o.d doth on us bestow.

NATURE.

There are; but such as unto you, that have the great to name, I rather that bestow, than win thereby immortal fame.

WIT.

Fain would I learn what harm or detriment ensued, If any man were at his birth with these good gifts endued.

NATURE.

There should be nothing left, wherein men might excel, No blame for sin, no praise to them that had designed well: Virtue should lose her price, and learning would abound; And as man would admire the thing, that each-where might be found.

The great [e]state, that have of me and fortune what they will, Should have no need to look to those, whose heads are fraught with skill.

The meaner sort, that now excels in virtues of the mind, Should not be once accepted there, where now they succour find.

For great men should be sped of all, and would have need of none, And he that were not born to land should lack to live upon.

These and five thousand causes mo, which I forbear to tell, The n.o.ble virtue of the mind have caused there to dwell, Where none may have access, but such as can get in Through many double doors: through heat, through cold, through thick and thin.

WIT.