It is certaine and true, that the daunsers of our tyme would very fayne make themselues equall with them, and be in the selfe same degree of honor: sauing notwithstanding, that they content not them selues to haue a shameles and villanous harte, but they will also discouer and lay open their own shame & villany, by dissolute gestures.

For often under a fayre fayned fable A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.

Your hole desyre was set Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,... To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.

The purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and delight, "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to know a poet by.

Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned to the highest key of passion);" and here he is drawing from Aristotle's Rhetoric.

Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned to the highest key of passion);" and here he is drawing from Aristotle's Rhetoric.

The Metamorphoses of Ovid, for instance, though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and sounde judgment

And if by all these perils and these paynes He may but purchase lyking in her eye, What heavens of ioy then to himselfe he faynes!

And to his fayning fansie represent Sights never seene, and thousand shadowes vaine, 255 To breake his sleepe and waste his ydle braine: Thou that hast never lov'd canst not beleeve Least part of th'evils which poore lovers greeve.

The false reports that flying tales doe beare, The doubts, the daungers, the delayes, the woes, The fayned friends, the unassured foes, With thousands more then any tongue can tell, Doe make a lovers life a wretches hell.

she her selfe, had she remained still, 215 And were as faire as fabling wits do fayne, Could once come neare this Beauty soverayne.

But had those wits, the wonders of their dayes, Or that sweete Teian poet*, which did spend His plenteous vaine in setting forth her praise, 220 Seen but a glims of this which I pretend**, How wondrously would he her face commend, Above that idole of his fayning thought, That all the world should with his rimes be fraught!

Ne from thenceforth doth any fleshly sense, Or idle thought of earthly things, remaine; But all that earst seemd sweet seemes now offence, And all that pleased earst now seemes to paine: 270 Their ioy, their comfort, their desire, their game, Is fixed all on that which now they see; All other sights but fayned shadowes bee.

Then ere he loved her liveinge (yet that love Outwentt all dottage in th'extreamytie): He will not give her buryall, but in's armes Carryes her up & downe, courts, kysses, toys, Mournes when she maks no answere; often faynes To understande her sylence; sweares that deathe Cannot, nay darre not, hurte suche excellence.

I prythee leave me; I am not displeasd, But fayne would vent my sorrowe from my heart.

Tis Fraunce hath done the wrong: you have commenst This deed of death on Pembrook & our son, And now, to cover it, suggest and fayne Our guiltlesse sonne a guilty ravisher.

Henceforth Ile hold thee for a fayned name And no disposer of my Christian hopes.

A Knight, and fayne would know What sacred monument and Tombe this is. Pem.

Call them not sonnes, whom you would fayne destroy.

But if the question be for your owne use and learning, whether it be better to have it set downe as it should be, or as it was, then certainly is more doctrinable the fayned Cyrus of Xenophon than the true Cyrus in Justine, and the fayned Æneas in Virgil than the true Æneas in Dares Phrygius.

But if the question be for your owne use and learning, whether it be better to have it set downe as it should be, or as it was, then certainly is more doctrinable the fayned Cyrus of Xenophon than the true Cyrus in Justine, and the fayned Æneas in Virgil than the true Æneas in Dares Phrygius.

It vertue had to show in perfect sight, Whatever thing was in the world contayned, Betwixt the lowest earth and hevens hight; So that it to the looker appertayned, Whatever foe had wrought, or friend had fayned, Herein discovered was, ne ought mote pas, Ne ought in secret from the same remayned; Forthy it round and hollow shaped was, Like to the world itselfe, and seemed a World of Glas.

Hauing eaten the body of a man, it will weepe ouer the head, but in fine eate the head also: thence came the Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, viz., fayned teares.

I pray you let them not, I was fayne there to geve place to Robyn Hoode.

I thought my rochet should have been regarded thoughe I were not; but it woulde not serve, it was fayne to give place to Robyn Hoode's men.