XLI.

Is it her nature, or is it her will,

To be so cruell to an humbled foe?

If nature, then she may it mend with skill;

If will, then she at will may will forgoe.

But if her nature and her will be so,

That she will plague the man that loves her most,

And take delight t’encrease a wretches woe,

Then all her natures goodly guifts are lost;

And that same glorious beauties ydle boast

Is but a bayt such wretches to beguile,

As, being long in her loves tempest tost,

She meanes at last to make her pitious spoyle.

O fayrest fayre! let never it be named,

That so fayre beauty was so fowly shamed.

The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 · 第 228 / 327 题