They say, in care of your most royal person,

255 That if your highness should intend to sleep

And charge that no man should disturb your rest

[♦] In pain of your dislike or pain of death,

[♦] Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,

Were there a serpent seen, with forked tongue,

260 That slily glided towards your majesty,

It were but necessary you were waked,

[♦] Lest, being suffer’d in that harmful slumber,

The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal;