Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Amoretti and Epithalamion

Sonnet LXXXV. Venomous tongue tipp’d with vile adders’ sting

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

VENOMOUS tongue tipp’d with vile adders’ sting,

Of that self kind with which the Furies fell

Their snaky heads do comb, from which a spring

Of poisoned words and spiteful speeches well;

Let all the plagues, and horrid pains, of hell

Upon thee fall for thine accursed hire

That with false forged lies, which thou didst tell,

In my true love did stir up coals of ire,

The sparks whereof let kindle thine own fire,

And, catching hold on thine own wicked head,

Consume thee quite, that didst with guile conspire

In my sweet peace such breaches to have bred!

Shame be thy meed, and mischief thy reward,

Due to thy self, that it for me prepared!