All Scotland then throughe manly feats
I conquered with my hand.

And the ugly gyant Dynabus

Soe terrible to vewe,

That in Saint Barnards mount did lye,

By force of armes I slew :

And Lucyus the emperour of Rome
I brought to deadly wracke;

45

And a thousand more of noble knightes

For feare did turne their backe:

Five kinges of 'paynims' I did kill

Amidst that bloody strife;

Besides the Grecian emperour

Who alsoe lost his liffe.

50

Ver. 39. Froland field, MS. Froll, according to the Chroni

cles, was a Roman knight governor of Gaul.

Ver. 41. Danibus, MS.

Ver. 49. of Pavye, MS.

Whose

Whose carcasse I did send to Rome

Cladd poorlye on a beere;

And afterward I past Mount-Joye

The next approaching yeere.

Then I came to Rome, where I was mett

Right as a conquerour,

And by all the cardinalls solempnelye

I was crowned an emperour.

One winter there I made abode :

Then word to mee was brought
Howe Mordred had oppressd the crowne:
What treason he had wrought

Att home in Brittaine with my queene;
Therfore I came with speede

To Brittaine backe, with all my power,
To quitt that traiterous deede :

And soone at Sandwiche I arrivde,

Where Mordred me withstoode :

70

But yett at last I landed there,

With effusion of much blood.

For there my nephew sir Gawaine dyed,

Being wounded in that sore,

The whiche sir Lancelot in fight

Had given him before.

75

Thence

VI.

A DYTTIE TO HEY DOWNE.

Copied from an old MS. in the Cotton Library, [Vesp A. 25.] intitled, "Divers things of Hen. viij's time.'

WHO sekes to tame the blustering winde,

Or causse the floods bend to his wyll,

Or els against dame nature's kinde

To change things frame by cunning skyll:

That man I thinke bestoweth paine,

Thoughe that his laboure be in vaine.

Who strives to breake the sturdye steele,
Or goeth about to staye the sunne;
Who thinks to causse an oke to reele,

Which never can by force be done :
That man likewise bestoweth paine,
Thoughe that his laboure be in vaine.

Who thinks to stryve against the streame,

And for to sayle without a maste;
Unlesse he thinks perhapps to faine,

His travell ys forelorne and waste;

And so in cure of all his paine,

5

10

15

His travell ys his cheffest gaine.

Ver. 4. causse, MS.

So

So he lykewise, that goes about
To please eche eye and every eare,

Had nede to have withouten doubt

A golden gyft with hym to beare;
For evyll report shall be his gaine,
Though he bestowe both toyle and paine.

20