LXII
Learn how False-Seeming, traitor vile,
Men’s hearts doth readily beguile.
When grey and black he clothes him in,
With saintly visage pale and thin.11690
False-Seeming’s diguises
Disguises well I know to don,
Now this one off, now that one on,
Now knight am I, and now a monk,
A prelate, then to canon shrunk
Or simple clerk, or priest at mass,
And next as master do I pass,
Disciple, captain, forester,
In short, whatever I prefer;
Sometimes a prince, sometimes a page,
And every language I engage11700
To patter; sometimes old and grey.
At others sprightly, young and gay.
And now Robert and now Robin,
Now friar, now a jacobin.
I show me, company to keep
With her from whom I joyance reap,
(She hight Constrained-Abstinence)
’Neath many a guilement and pretence,
Her fickle fancies to fulfil,
And work her every wish and will.11710
Sometimes a woman’s robe I wear,
As matron staid or damsel fair,
And oft assume religious dress,
As anchorite or prioress,
