Microsoft Word - percypdf.docx

I wyll you take, and lady make,
As shortely as I can:
Thus have you won an erlys son,
And not a banyshed man."

AUTHOR

Here may ye se, that women be
In love, meke, kynde, and stable:
Late never man reprove them than,
Or call them variable;
But, rather, pray God, that we may
To them be comfortable;
Which sometyme proveth such as he loveth,
Yf they be charytable.
For syth men wolde that women sholde
Be meke to them each one;
Moche more ought they to God obey,
And serve but hym alone.

NOTES

1. This (which my friend Mr. Farmer supposes to be the first edition) is in folio; the
   folios are numbered at the bottom of the leaf: the song begins at folio 75. The poem
   has since been collated with a very fine copy that was in the collection of the late
   James West, Esq.


2. My friend, Mr. Farmer, proposes to read the first lines thus as a Latinism:

Be it right or wrong, 'tis men among,

On women to complayne.

3.i.e.for this cause; though I were to die for having loved you..