18 posts tagged “betrayal”

The Aeneid

A little more from the Aeneid today. Aeneas meets Dido on his way through hell to see his father:

"Not far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
Fresh from her wound, her bosom bath'd in blood;
Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
(Doubtful as he who sees, thro' dusky night,
Or thinks he sees, the moon's uncertain light,)
With tears he first approach'd the sullen shade;
And, as his love inspir'd him, thus he said:
"Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
Of rumor true, in your reported death,
And I, alas! the cause? By Heav'n, I vow,
And all the pow'rs that rule the realms below,
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
Commanded by the gods, and forc'd by fate-
Those gods, that fate, whose unresisted might
Have sent me to these regions void of light,
Thro' the vast empire of eternal night.
Nor dar'd I to presume, that, press'd with grief,
My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:
'Tis the last interview that fate allows!"
In vain he thus attempts her mind to move
With tears, and pray'rs, and late-repenting love.
Disdainfully she look'd; then turning round,
But fix'd her eyes unmov'd upon the ground,
And what he says and swears, regards no more
Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
But whirl'd away, to shun his hateful sight,
Hid in the forest and the shades of night;
Then sought Sichaeus thro' the shady grove,
Who answer'd all her cares, and equal'd all her love.
Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,
And follow'd with his eyes the flitting shade,
Then took the forward way, by fate ordain'd,
And, with his guide, the farther fields attain'd,"

The question is of course, should Dido listen to him? Can this man be regarded as sincere? He claims that just as the Gods REQUIRED him, forced him, compelled him to make this trip through hell where he has accidentally come upon her, so was he forced to leave her to travel to Rome and found his city. Well ... what is the actual case? Was Aeneid FORCED to make this trip to hades? Or, to the contrary, had he ASKED to be allowed to come? Indeed, had he not gone out of his way and taken risks IN SPITE OF A CAUTION NOT TO?

My son refers to "free will" as "free won't". I tend to think Dido is right to ignore him. "Better a dead husband in hell that reciprocates something than a lying lover in Carthage" is the moral of that story.

I also enjoyed the part where Juno, seeing that she cannot keep Aeneas from founding Rome determines to make it difficult for him:

"If Jove and Heav'n my just desires deny,
Hell shall the pow'r of Heav'n and Jove supply.
Grant that the Fates have firm'd, by their decree,
The Trojan race to reign in Italy;
At least I can defer the nuptial day,
And with protracted wars the peace delay:"

She plans thus to make Aerneas' marriage to the local king's daughter fraught with complications. She heads off to the underworld to hire a professional sower of discord, Alecta.

"This Fury, fit for her intent, she chose;
One who delights in wars and human woes. . . .
'T is thine to ruin realms, o'erturn a state,
Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate,
And kindle kindred blood to mutual hate.
Thy hand o'er towns the fun'ral torch displays,
And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways.
Now shake, out thy fruitful breast, the seeds
Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds:
Confound the peace establish'd, and prepare
Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war." Smear'd as she was with black Gorgonian blood,
The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood;
And on her wicker wings, sublime thro' night,
She to the Latian palace took her flight:"

She begins to work her "magic on her intended target, the mother of Aeneas' chosen bride:

"Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs;
His baleful breath inspiring, as he glides,
Now like a chain around her neck he rides,
Now like a fillet to her head repairs,
And with his circling volumes folds her hairs.
At first the silent venom slid with ease,
And seiz'd her cooler senses by degrees;
Then, ere th' infected mass was fir'd too far,
In plaintive accents she began the war"

... and so she works up the conflict be various means, beginning with the family and moving on into the community till everyone is killing each other.

Question for Comment: Have you ever been part of a  conflict that seemed to come from outside the circle of the people who were fighting it?

Lets just say Satan came to you and asked you to be the archetect of a brand new Hell. Lets say that Satan is a fan of great works of literature and asks you to give the place nine levels, in honor of Dante's great work The Inferno. Who would you put in each level? Dante puts great men who were not Christians in his first level and people guilty of lust in the second. From there, he works his way down to the ninth. Who does he put in his ninth layer? Its not violent people. They are in the seventh, one level below the heretics. Greedy people go in the fourth level. Angry people in the fifth. All sorts of different kinds of liars are in the eigth level and the ninth and last level is thus completely reserved for betrayers: The following summary comes from Spark Notes:

In Caina, the First Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, those who betrayed their kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake’s ice. In Antenora, the Second Ring, those who betrayed their country and party stand frozen up to their heads; here Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity gnawing on the head of the man who imprisoned him in life. In Ptolomea, the Third Ring, those who betrayed their guests spend eternity lying on their backs in the frozen lake, their tears making blocks of ice over their eyes. Dante next follows Virgil into Judecca, the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell and the lowest depth. Here, those who betrayed their benefactors spend eternity in complete icy submersion.

 

Rodger Jackson references this moral estimation of betrayal in his engaging 2000 Humanitas article,

The Sense and Sensibility of Betrayal:Discovering the Meaning of Treachery through Jane Austen

"An act of betrayal makes us appreciate Dante’s reserving the innermost ring of the Inferno for the betrayers. We can even say there is a characteristic “feel” to betrayal. The betrayed experience powerful sensations of violation; they feel used and damaged. Betrayal, however, elicits more than strong feelings. Psychologists offer clinical evidence attesting to the devastating effects of betrayal.1 Betrayal acts as an assault on the integrity of individuals, affecting the capacity to trust, undermining confidence in judgment, and contracting the possibilities of the world by increasing distrust and scepticism.2 Betrayal changes not only our sense of the world, but our sensibility toward the world.

 

There is yet another significance to the distinction between betrayal and abandonment. Most of us do not see ourselves as betrayers, and in this assessment we are probably correct. For good or bad, it is not everyone who can cultivate the trust of another while plotting to break that trust, or to recognize that someone has our justified, acknowledged trust and then turn that relationship into an instrument. Willoughby certainly did not have this type of deliberate, calculating character.

 

But notice that this allows him to indulge in a familiar form ofdenial. He casts himself more as the victim of unfortunate circumstances than as someone who has committed a great wrong: he sees the way he treats Marianne as necessary, unavoidable.

 

What Austen does so well with Willoughby and Marianne is to present a frighteningly common situation wherein an individual voluntarily enters a relationship of trust and then abandons that relationship, not from some carefully constructed plot to harm the truster, but from a neglect born of self-interest, disinterest, or carelessness. Willoughby illustrates that with abandonment we may find innumerable ways of passing off responsibility for our actions; with betrayal we are at least deliberate and self-aware. But Marianne must remind us that the results of abandonment can be as cruel as the most meticulously plotted act of betrayal.

 

The Sense and Sensibility of Betrayal:Discovering the Meaning of Treachery through Jane Austen by Rodger L. Jackson. Humanitas, Vol. 13, 2000.

 In summary, he draws a distinction with the use of Jane Austen's novel, between someone who knows they are going to betray you WHILE they elicit your trust and those who do not know.

Question for Comment: My question would be "which is worse?" Which of these two villains would you put in the lowest level of the lowest level of your inferno?

The question implies that one does more harm perhaps. That one inflicts more "betrayal trauma" to use a psychological term. You might think that it is the person who KNOWS they are going to decieve you that is worse but I am not entirely sure. In those cases, the betrayer is after something that they probably do not single you out for any intrinsic reason in you. They are like a theif standing on a corner waiting for someone with a pocketbook. It is nothing personal. The one who abandons you AFTER eliciting your trust consciously trades in the relationship that they ACTUALLY had with you for some other bauble that catches their fancy. 

There is no hiding from the pain when that happens. The only smart thing to do when that happens to you is to build a pyre of the betrayers things, make an effigy on top, light it on fire so that the betrayer can see it from his (or her) distant and fleeing ship, and impale yourself on the betrayer sword with a Dido-like prayer to the gods that your decendents might forever hunt down theirs. 

Thats what Dido (The Aeneid) does anyway. She was smart enough to know that this is really the only escape for pain of this sort. But maybe others think otherwise.

The Aeneid

Vergil

"Nullius in Verba" (Latin: "On the words of no one" ) i.e. "don't believe anyone

I have been listening to the Aeneid in my travels today and it has me in a fowl mood. Aeneid has me so angry at him I could burn down Troy myself if the Greeks hadn't done it already. Aeneid whines about the treachery of the Greeks and their underhanded ploy to insert a horse full of warriors into the heart of hiscity. He rages about the way the Greeks talked Troy into accepting the "gift" that eventually barfed its destruction out into the heart of his loved ones. "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" he laments. I say "beware of Aeneas bearing gifts." The wretch. What do the Greeks do to Troy that Aeneas doesn't do to to Dido? Makes me wish I could go back in time and help Carthage's Hannibal salt the plains of the Tiber. Rome deserved to Fall, if for nothing less than for Aeneas' two faced weasel-assed capriciousness.

Oh but wasn't it a blessing to those ancient Trojans and Greeks to be able to blame their fickleness in love on the Gods!

"He longed to flee away and leave the sweet land, amazed at such a stern warning and command from the gods. Alas, what was he to do? With what words now might he dare to win over the furious queen? What should he take as his place to begin? He cast his mind rapidly now this way now that; he snatched at one idea after another, and turned everything over. As he hesitated , this decision seemed the better: he summoned Mnestheus and Sergestus and brave Serestus. They were to make the fleet ready silently . .. "

All of the elements of a classic breakup follow.

Dido accuses him of treachery and starts to call him names ("you savage). Then she cries and asks for pity ("I beg you, by these tears, and by your right hand - since I have left myself with nothing else"). Then she begins to list the sacrifices she has made  ("It is because of you that the nations of Africa and the Numidian rulers hate me, and my own people are hostile; It is because of you again that my honour and my former reputation - my only route to heaven - have been destroyed.") Then she bargains for more time ("At least if I could have conceived a child for you before your desertion, if I had a baby Aeneas to play in the palace, whose expression could remind me of you, I should not seem so utterly lost and abandoned.”)

So then Aeneas responds, hoping to inject the novicane of flattery into her pain long enough to get out of Dodge: ("I shall never, my queen, deny that you did with kindness all the many things you were able to list, nor shall I be ashamed to remember Dido, as long as my memory lasts, while there is breath in my body." Then he does a little denial move ("I shall speak briefly and to the point. I did not intend to hide my escape with secrecy - don't imagine I did") Of course, that is EXACTLY what he was up to! Then he claims that there never really was an official commitment (". . . and I never held out the wedding-torch or entered into this contract. ") Then he starts asserting his own powerlessness ("If the fates allowed me to lead my life according to my own choice and to settle my worries to my own liking ..."). Then he starts blaming her for being selfish and demanding that he go without something that she isn't willing to go without ("If it is the citadels of Carthage and the sight of an African city that captivate you, a Phoenician, what is your objection, tell me, to Trojans settling in an Italian land?") Then he makes the leap to the conclusion that dumping her is a moral NECESSITY and an honorable and virtuous thing indeed ("It is right for us to to seek kingdoms abroad.") Then he insinuates that Dido's wish for him to stay amounts to elder abuse and husband abuse and child abuse ("Whenever night hides the earth with its damp shadows, whenever the fiery stars come out, the troubled ghost of my father Anchises rebukes me in my dreams and terrifies me; so to does my boy Ascanius, and the wrong I do to one so dear, whom I am robbing of the kingship of Italy and the lands ordained by destiny.") Then he goes all spiritual ("Now indeed the messenger of the gods sent by Jupiter himself - I swear on both our lives - has brought orders through the racing winds . . . ") Then it is back to pleading powerlessness. How can he be held accountable for some decision that he is not making ("Stop inflaming us both with your complaints; I do not seek Italy of my free will.")

And Virgil, that bastard TAKES HIS SIDE in the matter!

"In just the same way the hero was pounded with continual appeals from this side and that, and felt the full force of her troubles in his mighty heart; His mind held fast, the tears poured down in vain."

Hero? Hero? The slime! I wish Hannibal had nuked the miserable wretch's Italian ancestors' whole capital city. Aeneas himself had lost his wife in the sack of Troy. He had gone searching for her in the dark streets, weeping at his loss and had seen her wraith (ghost) and had felt the agony of separation himself.

"So saying, she left me. I was in tears, and still had much I wanted to say. But she faded from my sight, and vanished into the air. Three times I tried to put my arms round her: three times as I unsuccessfully tried to hold her did her substance slip through my fingers, just like a soft breeze or an evanescent dream."

Human attachment bonds were such a mistake. There is nothing but pain to be had from them. Nothing but pain. The stoics were right to say that the only way to live is to teach yourself not to care. As Epictetus puts it,

"If you love an earthen vessel, say it is an earthen vessel which you love; for when it has been broken, you will not be disturbed. If you are kissing your child or wife, say that it is a human being whom you are kissing, for when the wife or child dies, you will not be disturbed. . . . Never say about anything, I have lost it, but say I have restored it. Is your child dead? It has been restored. Is your wife dead? She has been restored. Has your estate been taken from you? Has not then this also been restored?"

In short, care for no one for they all, like Aeneas, are self centered and will just leave and compensate you for your pain with some excuse that satisfies their own guilt quite nicely.

Question for Comment: Am I right? Or am I right?  

Uturn

Warning. Do not watch this movie if you like movies with happy endings. Don't watch this movie if you want to see people who make wise choices get rewarded because no one in this movie does. The whole movie is a testament to the truism that the wages of dysfunctionality is death ... or worse. As a matter of fact, you should only watch this movie if you like seeing people with few redeeming moral qualities suffer their just deserts in violent and traitorous double crossing murders. Not one, not one single character, in this movie is worthy of emulation, trust, compassion, or remembrance. I can't imagine recommending it to anyone in spite of the hilarity of Billy Bob Thorton's character. Unless you have some attraction to Jennifer Lopez in a red dress.

What is most interesting I suppose is the last line of the movie. The main character, after having been betrayed and counter betrayed and double and triple crossed by every other character in the story several times, dies a horrible death and blames everything that befalls him on the State of Arizona. As though he had not, like Sampson in the temple of Dagon, brought the whole series of disasters down on his OWN head.  "A man with no ethics is a free man," one of the characters with no ethics says. And, like all the other characters with no ethics, he winds up dead in a ravine in the end. I suppose, in the sense that all the lieing scumbags in the movie get their just deserts, its a good movie.

But I don't think I need to see it again ever.

Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

The boys and I were studying Othello today (Act I) and noting that everyone in the story trusts Iago who is the least trustworthy character in the play ... and how everyone at the beginning suspects Othello of being a savage barbarian warlock when in fact he is about the only character in the play with integrity and moral gravitas. "Why does everyone trust Iago?" was the question of the day. The most interesting case is that of Rodrigo. Iago TELLS hims straight out that he [Iago}  is capable of being a consummate two faced liar and yet Rodrigo never suspects that Iago might be the same two faced liar with HIM. What is interesting is that periodically Iago will turn to the crowd and address THEM and for whatever reason, one suspects that, like Iago, the audience simply believes Iago even though they are watching Iago lie to everyone else.

Iago says of Othello:

"The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are."

“You can love, perhaps for a year, a month, a day, even for an hour . . . and in that hour, I do believe you love as well and deeply as any man. But after that hour, you love not. You love another and then another. Your love is most generous where it is most hurtful.” - Princess Margarette, The Tutors

It is somewhat interesting to note that the famous (or infamous Dr. Kinsey) concluded from his studies that social class has an interesting effect on the faithfulness of human males: "The most striking thing about the occurrence of extramarital intercourse," Dr. Kinsey stated in 1947,

 ". . . is the fact that the highest incidences for the lower social levels occur at the younger ages, and that the number of persons involved steadily decreases with advancing age. Lower-level males who were married in the late teens have given a record of extra-marital intercourse in 45% of the cases, whereas not more than 27% is actively involved by age 40 and not more than 19% by age 50.

"In striking contrast, the lowest incidences of extra-marital intercourse among males of the college level are to be found in the youngest age groups, where not more than 15% to 20% are involved, and the incidence increases
steadily until about 27% is having extramarital relations by age 50."

50% of Men Ignore Vows
The Science News-Letter, Vol. 52, No. 22. (Nov. 29, 1947), p. 342.

The Tudors - The Complete First Season

Henry VIII walks into the apartment of his devoted wife, Katherine and informs her that their marriage is over. Though he has taken a good number of lovers, he is sure that the lack of a male heir is God's doing. Henry says he is conscience stricken about the fact that Katherine had been betrothed, even married to Henry's brother and that the marriage should never have taken place. (Naturally, he has someone else in mind already.)

What is so interesting is that he actually brings the news with what seems like sorrow. But it is delivered as an announcement. There is no discussion. She does not get to plead a counter case. She does not get to work it through. Henry is the initiator and he has worked it all out, theologically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, spiritually, economically, militarily, ... he has had time to work it all out. Difficult as the moment of the announcement may be for him, he has gradually pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall in his head months ago and put the pieces altogether again (or at least mapped out how he will). She is going to get the whole 1000 pound gorilla all at once and the actress who plays Katherine does it exceptionally well. She collapses on the floor ... barely able to breath.

The following lengthy excerpt from a book entitled Uncoupling by Bücher Vaughan may help to explain:

“Having a partner is socially acceptable. Getting rid of one is not. This value is so ingrained in us that leaving – or considering leaving – someone who is still loving or dependent produces enormous conflict. When the partner has obvious good qualities, ending a relationship is even harder still. In order to violate the imperatives of the dominant social order – that people should come in two’s like animals of Noah’s Ark – initiators [of the divorce] transform partner and relationship, emphasizing the flaws. They justify the leave taking by stating to others the reasons why this case is an exception to the rule of togetherness. By doing so, initiators reduce the negative social consequences of uncoupling. They create the possibility of exiting from the present relationship and at the same time avoid the appearance of condemning the dominant value system. Thus initiators forestall social embarrassment should they later decide to take on a new partner.

Henry has it all figured out. He even has his own personal Cardinal (Wolsey) to agree with him that his marriage should have never happened in the first place (most people only have therapists). But he runs into a problem. Someone objects. Someone says "no". Someone defies his royal will. And that someone is the Pope, a man who, for political reasons, will not relent.

These are heady times. Henry must or must not cross his Rubicon. "Pope be damned" he says. A reminder that nothing stands in the way of a leaver. Might as well forget trying to stop it from happening.

I feel sorry for Katherine actually. She seems to have been a decent person. And to have one's heart just straight up and hacked apart like that ... Better to have your head chopped off first ... but I suspect that will take place in a future episode. The politics of royal families in Europe ... sigh ... its like Jerry Springer with machine guns. It is just a bad idea to have armies attached to family disputes. A bad idea.

Question for Comment: Is there a decent way to end a relationship when the recipient is still in love, still trying, unsuspecting that they are about to get fired?  
,

Ghosts in the Classroom : Stories of College Adjunct Faculty--and the Price We All Pay

The following is an extended quote from the introduction to this anthology of adjunct testimonials.

“During a routine spelling/grammar check of this collection an ironically amusing event occurred.  In several essays, some authors used the phrase “adjuncts who.” The grammar checker consistently announced that one only uses “who” when referring to people.  Adjuncts, according to a computer system, are not people.  That sentiment is apparently shared by many others, as the following essays illustrate; one of the authors even titled her piece accordingly.

Adjunct faculty are the underclass of higher education: a combination of migrant workers, sweatshop staff and slaves.  No one can justify and endorse such treatment without first dehumanizing the person doing the job.  But there are many people behind the job.  People with hopes and dreams, partners and children, problems and pain.  According to statistics gathered by the national education Association, there are 1,100,000 college and university teachers in United States (in 2000).  Over half of them, approximately 560,000 are adjunct. 

The use of adjunct faculty began innocently enough, as bad things often do.  Members of the business community were initially brought in to teach highly specialized classes that academic faculty could not teach.  The remuneration offered for this was minimal.  The business person was successful in his or her field and didn't need the money.  Instead, the primary gain for their efforts was a certain amount of prestige.  The adjunct phenomenon was born.

Over the past three decades, changes in society and in the educational system -- excessive tuition increases, changes in student demographics, budget shortfalls, hiring freezes, cuts and financial aid, a decline in public and private support for academic education, and the growing corporate mindset -- caused an increasing reliance on adjunct faculty.  Some of those adjunct faculty have continued to be careered people who teach on the side for extra money, prestige or both.  Others are those who've retired from education, full-time homemakers or people who, for whatever reason, have some leisure time and are teaching for “fun”. However, the largest group, the growing group, are the career adjuncts -- people who have trained and prepared for careers in higher education and are seeking full employment.  For many college teachers, becoming an adjunct first is now the only way in.

Today, there is a growing awareness of both the damage to educational quality and of the psychological harm done to adjuncts because of the terms of the adjunct job.  Consequently, adjunct faculty are organizing in record numbers to change the system.  The voices you will hear in this book are from those people who have been in the trenches -- in the classroom, in the battle -- as adjuncts.

I am very grateful to this diverse, highly accomplished group of men and women who were willing to share their stories with the world.  You will see how alike, and yet how different each of the stories are.  Many are full of pain and sadness; others full of rage.  But even in the midst of pain or rage, there is still a belief in something bigger than a single person’s situation.  Sometimes, there is even humor.

50% of all college teachers are adjunct.  How many adjunct teachers are going into America's college classrooms angry, bitter, depressed, afraid, paranoid, burdened with major financial worries, perhaps seriously ill and uninsured, or just extremely overworked and scattered?  What kind of teaching can such a person do? How does this kind of teacher positively affect his or her students?  If they are able and willing to do the work for inadequate compensation, what then is good teaching worth?"

Betrayed people are just insane. Thats all there is to it. And it doesn't matter how intelligent a person is either. Brains have nothing to do with it. Spirituality has nothing to do with it. Basic goodness ... upbringing ... reading. Betrayed people are just going to be insane. You can count on it.

Mailing Cow's Head to Wife's Lover? No!

Tue Jan 8, 8:45 PM EST

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — A man who mailed a bloody cow's head to his wife's lover has been sentenced to probation and community service. Jason Michael Fife "understands that in a civilized society a person cannot send a severed cow's head to anybody," said his defense lawyer, Henry Hilles.

The victim received a package containing a cow's head with a puncture wound in its skull on June 1, 2006.

Police said Fife, 31, got the cow's head from a butcher's shop, claiming he wanted the dried skull for decoration. Instead, he mailed the head frozen, so as not to alert parcel carriers to the contents, police said. The box became bloody after sitting on the victim's doorstep on a warm day.

Police were able to trace the package and threatening e-mails to Fife, court documents indicate.

"My client did step over the line here, but one can certainly understand his frustration, given that the victim was carrying on an affair with my client's wife," Hilles said.

http://www6.comcast.net/news/articles/odd/2008/01/08/ODD.Mailed.Cow_s.Head/

Question for Comment: Here is someone that has been betrayed. Five years from now, will she wish she had NOT destroyed this guy's laptop? OR will she wish she HAD destroyed his TV?
 

"It is virtually impossible to imagine the court of Henry VIII. In that world, civilized graciousness and pleasant conversation in luxurious circumstances could turn in a moment into a hell of personal and political betrayal, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Henry was a brilliant and generous man in many ways, but he was also an unpredictable and dangerous ruler whose selfish motives could combine with the malice of ascendent courtiers to ruin lives."

http://www2.eou.edu/~deeng205/Wyatt.html

AN EARNEST SUIT TO HIS UNKIND MIS-
TRESS NOT TO FORSAKE HIM..

ND wilt thou leave me thus ?
  Say nay !  say nay !  for shame
  To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame.¹
And wilt thou leave me thus ?

Say nay ! Say nay !
    And wilt thou leave me thus ?
That hath lov'd thee so long ?
In wealth and woe among :
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus ?
Say nay ! Say nay !
    And wilt thou leave me thus ?
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart ;
Neither for pain nor smart :
And wilt thou leave me thus ?
Say nay ! Say nay !
    And wilt thou leave me thus ?
And have no more pity,
Of him that loveth thee ?
Alas !  thy cruelty !
And wilt thou leave me thus ?
Say nay ! Say nay !

¹ Sorrow.

THE LOVER RECOUNTETH THE VARIABLE
FANCY OF HIS FICKLE MISTRESS.

S it possible ?
  That so high debate,
  So sharp, so sore, and of such rate,
Should end so soon, and was begun so late.
Is it possible?
    Is it possible?
So cruel intent,
So hasty heat, and so soon spent,
From love to hate, and thence for to relent ?
Is it possible ?
    Is it possible?
That any may find,
Within one heart so diverse mind,
To change or turn as weather and wind,
Is it possible ?
    Is it possible?
To spy it in an eye
That turns as oft as chance on die,
The truth whereof can any try ;
Is it possible ?
    Is it possible?
For to turn so oft ;
To bring that low'st that was most aloft ;
And to fall highest, yet to light soft ;
It is possible !
    All is possible !
Whoso list believe,
Trust therefore first and after preve ;¹
As men wed ladies by license and leave ;
    All is possible !

¹  Prove.

OF DISSEMBLING WORDS.

HROUGHOUT the world if it were sought,
  Fair words enough a man shall find ;
  They be good cheap, they cost right
                          nought,
        Their substance is but only wind ;
            But well to say and so to mean,
            That sweet accord is seldom seen.