Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/187

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Our order, and contemn our laws:

Against them make we common cause;

He whom one hates, with hate profound

We all detest, together bound

By equal ties, and if we see

The way by which successfully

Our foe hopes land or rent to gain,

And honourable state maintain,

We strive to know the means and mode

By which he travelleth the road

Thereto, and straightway set about

Scandals, which cause his friends to doubt

His honour and good faith, and thus

The steps whereby he climbs, by us

Are cut away, and he adrift

Is cast, as best he may to shift,

Alone and destitute of friends,

And thus do we attain our ends,

Yet nought our foe perceives by whom

It is that on him falls his doom.

For if he knew to whom he owed

His downfall, surely would it goad

Him on to his revenge and he

Would turn on us ferociously.

If one of us have done some good

We amplify its magnitude,

Although, pardee, ’tis oft but feigned;

Or if that one of us hath deigned

To vaunt some good he ne’er hath done

To this or that, as we were one

With him we cry aloud that we

Helped such good work right royally,