Meed

For well ſhe wiſt,as true it was indeed / That her liues Lord and patrone of her health / Right well deſerued as his duefull meed, / Her loue,her ſeruice,and her vtmoſt wealth.

Brought up in darkness, and the child of sin, Yet, as the meed of spotless innocence, Just Heaven permitted her by one good deed To work her own redemption, after death.

Public gratitude, therefore, stamps her seal upon it, and the meed should not be withheld which may here after operate as a stimulus to our gallant tars.

1880, translation by Richard Francis Burton of Os Lusiadas, Canto IX, stanza 93 by Luís de Camões Better to merit and the meed to miss, than, lacking merit, every meed possess.

Nor, save for a circumstance presently to be named, could even the Abbess's sullen curiosity have withheld a meed of admiration as the panorama unfolded itself before her.

[Poirot continued,] "And here a full meed of praise is due to Hastings, who made a simple and obvious remark to which no attention was paid."

The shed staff deserve their meed of praise for the result, but I believe that Driver Willie Bain is largely responsible.

[…]my meed hath got me fame:[…]

In any case, his life would be in ignominy and would be brief, and he would have lost irretrievably the meed of valour.