[♦] Best fitteth my degree or your condition:

[♦] If not to answer, you might haply think

145 Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded

To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,

Which fondly you would here impose on me;

If to reprove you for this suit of yours

So season’d with your faithful love to me,

150 Then, on the other side, I check’d my friends.

Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,

[♦] And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,