Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/99

Follies of dress Silver and gems, on neck and head,
Whose value might be safely said
Above five hundred pounds, and ask
That I your worthless body mask9720
With silks and satins to your taste,
While I may fret, and pine, and waste
(So much it wears and vexes me)
With angry spleen and jealousy.

What for these orfreys do I care
With which you twist and bind your hair,
Entwined with threads of gold? and why
Must you have set in ivory
Enamelled mirrors, sprinkled o’er
With golden circlets? (Nothing more9730
Enrages me), and why these gems
Befitting kingly diadems,
Rubies and pearls, and sapphires fair,
Which cause you to assume an air
Of mad conceit?
These costly stuffs,
And plaited furbelows and ruffs,
And cinctures to set off your waist,
With pearls bedeckt and richly chased,
And morses and rich fastenings;
What use to me are all such things?9740
And wherefore, say then, do you choose
To fit your feet with gaudy shoes,
Except you have a lust to show
Your shapely legs?
By St. Thibaud,
Ere yet three days are past I’ll sell
This trash, and trample you pell-mell;