TO MY DEARE LADY AND SISTER, THE COVNTESSE OF PEMBROKE.

Here now haue you (most deare, and most worthye to bee most deare Lady) this idle worke of mine: which I feare (like the Spiders webbe) will be thought fitter to be swept away, then worne to any other purpose. For my part, in very trueth (as the cruell fathers among the Greekes, were woont to doe to the babes they would not foster) I could well finde in my heart, to cast out in some desert of forgetfulnesse this childe, which I am loath to father. But you desired me to doe it, and your desire, to my heart is an absolute commaundement. Now, it is done onely for you, only to you: if you keepe it to your selfe, or to such friends, who will weigh errors in the ballance of good will, I hope, for the fathers sake, it will be pardoned, perchaunce made much of, though in it selfe it haue deformities. For indeed, for seuerer eies it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your deare selfe can best witnes the manner, being done in loose sheetes of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest, by sheetes, sent vnto you, as fast as they were done. In summe, a young head, not so wel staied as I would it were, (and shall be when God will) hauing many many fancies begotten in it, if it had not beene in some way deliuered, woulde haue growen a monster, and more sorie might I be that they came in, then that they gat out. But his chiefe safety, shall bee the not walking abroade; and his chiefe protection, the bearing the liuery of your name; which (if much much good will doe not deceiue me) is worthie to be a sanctuarie for a greater offender. This say I, because I know the vertue so; and this say I, because it may be euer so, or to say better, because it will be euer so. Reade it then at your idle times, and the follies your good iudgement will finde in it, blame not, but laugh at. And so, looking for no better stuffe, then, as in a Haberdashers shoppe, glasses, or feathers, you will continue to loue the writer, who doth exceedingly loue you, and moste moste heartilie praies you may long liue, to be a principall ornament to the family of the Sidneis.

Your louing brother,
Philip Sidney.