[6-text p 515]
What for his labour / and his hope of blisse
His woful herte / of penaunce hadde a lisse
¶ Vpon the morwe / whan þat it was day
To Britaigne / tooke they the righte way
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Aurelius / and this Magicien bisyde
And been descended / ther they wolde abyde
And this was / as thise bookes me remembre
The colde / frosty seson of Decembre
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Phebus wax old / and hewed lyk laton
That in his hoote declynacion
Shoon as the burned gold / with stremes brighte
But now in Capricorn / adoun he lighte
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Where as he shoon ful pale / I dar wel seyn
The bittre frostes / with the sleet and reyn
Destroyed hath the grene / in euery yerd
Ianus sit by the fyr / with double berd [¶ Ianus biceps.]
And drynketh / of his bugle horn the wyn
Biforn hym / stant brawen / of the tusked swyn
And Nowel / crieth euery lusty man
¶ Aurelius / in al that euere he kan
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Dooth to his Maister / chiere and reuerence
And preyeth hym / to doon his diligence
To bryngen hym / out of his peynes smerte
Or with a swerd / þat he wolde slitte his herte
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¶ This subtil clerk swich routhe had of this man
That nyght and day / he spedde hym þat he kan
To wayten a tyme / of his conclusion
This is to seye / to maken illusion
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By swich a apparence or Iogelrye
I ne kan no termes / of Astrologye
That she and euery wight sholde wene and seye
That of Britaigne / the Rokkes were aweye
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Or ellis / they were sonken vnder grounde
So atte laste / he hath his tyme yfounde
To maken hise Iapes / and his wrecchednesse
Of swich / a supersticious cursednesse
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