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Rh

To me were far more rich reward

Than earth and heaven besides afford.

Then Evil-Tongue, who loves to spoil

The joys for which fond lovers toil,

(For no more reason than that he

Delights in strife and enmity),

Beheld the kind and friendly deed

Fair-Welcome wrought.

A hateful weed

Is he, foul Scolding’s base-born son,

Than whom in all the world is none

Of speech more bitter and severe,

And who his mother was is clear

By his discourse.

He, enviously,

At once began to watch and spy

Fair-Welcome and myself, and said,

The eye he’d give from out his head,

If we betwixt us had not laid

Some cunning plot.

Such noise he made

’Gainst Courtesy’s fair son and me,

That lastly waked he Jealousy,

Who from her couch in wild alarm

Sprang up, foreboding grievous harm,

And like a maniac ran to seize

Fair-Welcome, who such sore misease

Felt, that he wished himself, I trow,

Far off as Etampes, Toul, or Meaux.