Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Poems of Robert Henryson > Volume 1, 1914

THE KINASTON MANUSCRIPT.
cxxv
p. 492.
39*
Who had bin there & liking for to here
His facond tongue & termes exquisite
Of Rhethoricke the practicke he might leere,
In breife sermon a pregnant sentence write;
Before Cupid vailing his cap a lite,
Speris1 the cause of that conuention.
And he anon shewed his intention.
39-
Quicunq^ ibi coram audiuisset
Facundae suae linguae eloquentiam
Praxin Rhetorices discere potuisset,
Vt paucis magnam scriberet sententiam ;
Cupidini tunc pilei reuerentiam
Dans, causam is conuentus percontatur.
Cui rex Cupido, tandem sic profatur.
40.
‘ Lo,1 (\uod Cupid, ‘ who will blaspheme the name
Of his owne god, either in word or deed,
To all Goddes he doth both losse & shame,
And should haue bitter paines to his meede :
I sey this by yonder wretch Creseid,
The -which, through me was sometime floure of loue,
Me & my mother she stately can reproue.
40.
‘ En is qui proprio numini maledicit
Proteruis factis dictis aut superbis
Iniuria omnes caelites afficit
Et plane poenis dignus est acerbis;
Nempe istam volo Creseidam his verbis,
Quse per me olim erat in delicijs,
Nunc me & matrem lacessit conuitijs.
1 First written ‘spered,’ and corrected to ‘speris.’