What virtue is so fitting for a knight,
Or for a lady whom a knight should love,
As courtesy; to bear themselves aright
To all of each degree as doth behove?
For whether they be placÈd high above
Or low beneath, yet ought they well to know
Their good: that none them rightly may reprove
Of rudeness for not yielding what they owe:
Great skill it is such duties timely to bestow.
Thereto great help Dame Nature's self doth lend:
For some so goodly gracious are by kind,
That every action doth them much commend;
And in the eyes of men great liking find,
Which others that have greater skill in mind,
Though they enforce themselves, cannot attain;
For everything to which one is inclined
Doth best become and greatest grace doth gain;
Yet praise likewise deserve good thewes enforced with pain.

SPENSER.

[Notes: Edmund Spenser (born 1552, died 1599), the poet who, in Elizabeth's reign, revived the poetry of England, which since Chaucer's day, two centuries before, had been flagging.

Gracious are by kind, i.e., by nature. Kind properly means nature.

Good thewes = good manners or virtues. As thew passes into the meaning "muscle," so virtue (from vis, strength) originally means manlike valour.]

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