To my dear Lady and sister, the countess of Pembroke.

Here now have you, most dear and most worthy to be most dear Lady, this idle work of mine, which I fear, like the spider’s web, will be thought fitter to be swept away than worn to any other purpose. For my part, in very truth, as the cruel fathers among the Greeks were wont to do to the babes they would not foster, I could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulness this child, which I am loath to father. But you desired me to do it and your desire, to my heart, is an absolute commandment. Now, it is done only for you, only to you; if you keep it to yourself, or to such friends, who will weigh errors in the balance of good will, I hope, for the father’s sake, it will be pardoned, perchance made much of, though in itself it have deformities. For indeed, for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your dear self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest, by sheets, sent unto you, as fast as they were done. In sum, a young head, not so well stayed as I would it were, and shall be when God will, having many many fancies begotten in it, if it had not been in some way delivered, would have grown a monster and more sorry might I be that they came in than that they get out. But his chief 1384safety shall be the not walking abroad; and his chief protection, the bearing the livery of your name, which, if much much good will do not deceive me, is worthy to be a sanctuary for a greater offender. This say I, because I know the virtue so; and this say I, because it may be ever so; or to say better, because it will be ever so. Read it then at your idle times and the follies your good judgment will find in it, blame not, but laugh at. And so, looking for no better stuff, then, as in a haberdasher’s shop, glasses, or feathers, you will continue to love the writer, who doth exceedingly love you and most most heartly praises you may long live to be a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneys.

Your loving brother,

Philip Sidney

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