Here you may read Cophetua,
Through fancie long time fed,
Compelled by the blinded boy
The beggar for to wed:100
He that did lovers lookes disdaine,
To do the same was glad and fain,
Or else he would himself have slaine,
In stories as we read.
Disdaine no whit, O lady deere,105
But pitty now thy servant heere,
Lest that it hap to thee this yeare,
As to the king it did.
And thus they lead a quiet life
During their princely raigne,110
And in a tombe were buried both,
As writers shew us plaine.
The lords they tooke it grievously,
The ladies tooke it heavily,
The commons cryed pittiously,115
Their death to them was pain.
Their fame did sound so passingly,
That it did pierce the starry sky,
And throughout all the world did flye
To every princes realme.120
[48], espied.
THE SPANISH LADY'S LOVE.
From The Garland of Good-Will, as reprinted by the Percy Society, xxx. 125. Other copies, slightly different, in A Collection of Old Ballads, ii. 191, and in Percy's Reliques, ii. 246.
Percy conjectures that this ballad "took its rise from one of those descents made on the Spanish coasts in the time of Queen Elizabeth." The weight of tradition is decidedly, perhaps entirely, in favor of the hero's having been one of Essex's comrades in the Cadiz expedition, but which of his gallant captains achieved the double conquest of the Spanish Lady is by no means satisfactorily determined. Among the candidates put forth are Sir Richard Levison of Trentham, Staffordshire, Sir John Popham of Littlecot, Wilts, Sir Urias Legh of Adlington, Cheshire, and Sir John Bolle of Thorpe Hall, Lincolnshire. The right of the last to this distinction has been recently warmly contended for, and, as is usual in similar cases, strong circumstantial evidence is urged in his favor. The reader will judge for himself of its probable authenticity.
"On Sir John Bolle's departure from Cadiz," it is said, "the Spanish Lady sent as presents to his