Pagina 570 di 1116

Then they changed that dress and displayed her in a robe of

azure; and she reappeared like the full moon when it riseth over

the horizon, with her coal-black hair and cheeks delicately fair;

and teeth shown in sweet smiling and breasts firm rising and

crowning sides of the softest and waist of the roundest. And in

this second suit she was as a certain master of high conceits

saith of the like of her:-

She came apparelled in an azure vest, * Ultramarine, as skies are

deckt and dight; I view'd th' unparellel'd sight, which show'd my

eyes * A moon of Summer on a Winter-night.

Then they changed that suit for another and, veiling her face in

the luxuriance of her hair, loosed her lovelocks, so dark, so

long that their darkness and length outvied the darkest nights,

and she shot through all hearts with the magical shaft of her

eye-babes. They displayed her in the third dress and she was as

said of her the sayer:-