THE
SHEPHEARDS CALENDER:
CONTEYNING
TWELVE AEGLOGUES,
PROPORTIONABLE TO THE TWELVE MONETHES,
Entitled to the noble and vertuous Gentleman, most worthie of all titles both of learning and chivalry,
MAISTER PHILIP SIDNEY.
TO HIS BOOKE.
Goe, little Booke! thy selfe present,
As childe whose parent is unkent,
To him that is the president
Of noblenesse and chevalree:
And if that Envie barke at thee,
As sure it will, for succour flee
Under the shadow of his wing,
And, asked who thee forth did bring,
A shepheards swaine, say, did thee sing,
All as his straying flocke he fedde:
And, when his honour has thee redde,
Crave pardon for thy hardy-hedde.
But, if that any aske thy name,
Say, thou wert base-begot with blame:
Forthy thereof thou takest shame.
And, when thou art past ieopardee,
Come tell me what was said of mee,
And I will send more after thee.
TO THE MOST EXCELLENT AND LEARNED
BOTH ORATOR AND POET,
MAISTER GABRIEL HARVEY,
His verie speciall and singular good friend E. K. commendeth the good lyking of this his
labour, and the patronage of the new Poet.
Uncouth, unkist, said the old famous poet Chaucer: whom for his excellencie and wonderfull skill in making, his scholler Lidgate, a worthie scholler of so excellent a master, calleth the load-starre of our language: and whom our Colin Clout in his Eglogue calleth Tityrus the god of shepheards, comparing him to the worthinesse of the Roman Tityrus, Virgil. Which proverb, mine owne good friend M. Harvey, as in that good old poet it served well Pandares purpose for the bolstering of his bawdie brocage, so very well taketh place in this our new poet, who for that hee is uncouth as (sayde Chaucer) is unkist, and unknowne to most men, is regarded but of a fewe. But I doubt not, so soone as his name shall come into the knowledge of men, and his woorthinesse bee sounded in the trumpe of fame, but that hee shall be not only kist, but also beloved of all, imbraced of the most, and wondred at of the best, No iesse, I thinke, deserveth his wittinesse in devising, his pithinesse in uttering, his complaints of love so lovely, his discourses of pleasure so pleasantly, his pastoral rudenes, his morall wisenesse, his due observing of decorum everie where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speech; and generallie, in all seemely simplicitie of handling his matters, and framing his wordes: the which of many things which in him be straunge, I know will seeme the strangest, and wordes themselves being so auncient, the knitting of them so short and intricate, and the whole period and compasse of speech so delightsom for the roundnesse, and so grave for the strangeness. And first of the wordes to speake, I graunt they bee something hard, and of most men unused, yet both English, and also used of most excellent authours, and most famous poets. In whom, when as this our poet hath bin much travailed and throughly read, how could it be, (as that worthie oratour
