No More Learning

And said, The terme of life is limited,
Ne may a man prolong, nor shorten it;
The souldier may not move from watchfull sted,
Nor leave his stand, untill his Captaine bed. 365
Who life did limit by almightie doome
(Quoth he)? knowes best the termes established;
And he, that points the Centonell his roome,
Doth license him depart at sound of morning droome.

XLII

Is not his deed, what ever thing is donne 370
In heaven and earth? did not he all create
To die againe? all ends that was begonne.
Their times in his eternall booke of fate
Are written sure, and have their certaine date.
Who then can strive with strong necessitie, 375
That holds the world in his still chaunging state,
Or shunne the death ordaynd by destinie?
When houre of death is come, let none aske whence, nor why.

XLIII

The lenger life, I wote the greater sin,
The greater sin, the greater punishment: 380
All those great battels, which thou boasts to win,
Through strife, and blood-shed, and avengement,
Now praysd, hereafter deare thou shalt repent:
For life must life, and blood must blood repay.
Is not enough thy evill life forespent? 385
For he that once hath missed the right way,
The further he doth goe, the further he doth stray.

XLIV

Then do no further goe, no further stray,
But here lie downe, and to thy rest betake,
Th' ill to prevent, that life ensewen may. 390
For what hath life, that may it loved make,
And gives not rather cause it to forsake?
Feare, sicknesse, age, losse, labour, sorrow, strife,
Paine, hunger, cold, that makes the hart to quake;
And ever fickle fortune rageth rife, 395
All which, and thousands mo do make a loathsome life.
XLV

Thou wretched man, of death hast greatest need,
If in true ballance thou wilt weigh thy state:
For never knight, that dared warlike deede,
More lucklesse disaventures did amate: 400
Witnesse the dungeon deepe, wherein of late
Thy life shut up, for death so oft did call;
And though good lucke prolonged hath thy date,?
Yet death then would the like mishaps forestall,
Into the which hereafter thou maiest happen fall. 405

XLVI

Why then doest thou, O man of sin, desire
To draw thy dayes forth to their last degree?
Is not the measure of thy sinfull hire?
High heaped up with huge iniquitie,
Against the day of wrath, to burden thee? 410
Is not enough, that to this Ladie milde
Thou falsed hast thy faith with perjurie,
And sold thy selfe to serve Duessa vilde,
With whom in all abuse thou hast thy selfe defilde?

XLVII

Is not he just, that all this doth behold 415
From highest heaven, and beares an equall eye?
Shall he thy sins up in his knowledge fold,
And guilty be of thine impietie?
Is not his law, Let every sinner die:
Die shall all flesh? what then must needs be donne, 420
Is it not better to doe willinglie,
Then linger, till the glasse be all out ronne?
Death is the end of woes: die soone, O faeries sonne.

XLVIII

The knight was much enmoved with his speach,
That as a swords point through his hart did perse, 425
And in his conscience made a secret breach,
Well knowing true all that he did reherse,
And to his fresh remembraunce did reverse
The ugly vew of his deformed crimes,
That all his manly powres it did disperse, 430
As he were charmed? with inchaunted rimes,
That oftentimes he quakt, and fainted oftentimes.

XLIX

In which amazement, when the Miscreant
Perceived him to waver weake and fraile,
Whiles trembling horror did his conscience dant, 435
And hellish anguish did his soule assaile,
To drive him to despaire, and quite to quaile,
He shew'd him painted in a table? plaine,
The damned ghosts, that doe in torments waile,
And thousand feends that doe them endlesse paine 440
With fire and brimstone, which for ever shall remaine.

L

The sight whereof so throughly him dismaid,
That nought but death before his eyes he saw,
And ever burning wrath before him laid,
By righteous sentence of th' Almighties law.