Here also playing on the grassie green,
Wood-gods, and Satires, and swift Dryades,
With many Fairies, oft were dancing seen.
Not so much did Dan Orpheus repress
The streams of Hebrus with his songs,
As that fair troop of woody goddesses
Stay'd thee (O Peneus!) pouring forth to thee, From chearfull looks, great mirth and gladsom glee.
The very nature of the place resounding:
With gentle murmur of the breathing air,
A pleasing bowre, with all delight abounding,
In the fresh shadow did for them prepare,
To rest their limbs with weariness redounding:
For first the high palm-trees, with branches fair,
Out of the lowly vallies did arise,
And high shoot up their heads into the skyes.
And them amongst the wicked lotos grew,
Wicked for holding guilefully away
Ulysses' men, whom rapt with sweetness new
Taking to host it quite from him did stay ;
And eke those trees, in whose transformed hue
The Sun's sad daughters wail'd the rash decay
Of Phaton, whose limbs, with lightning rent,
They gathering up with sweet tears did lament.
And that same tree, in which Demophoon
By his disloyalty lamented sore,
Eternal hurt left unto many one,
Whom als accompanied the oak of yore,
Through fatal charms transform'd to such an one;
The oak, whose acorns were our food before
That Ceres' seed of mortal men was known,
Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.
Here also grew the rougher-rinded pine,
The great Argoan ships brave ornament,
Whom Golden Fleece did make an heavenly sign,
Which coveting, with his high top's extent
To make the mountains touch the stars divine,
Decks all the forest with embellishment,
And the black holm, that loves the watry vale,
And the sweet cypress, sign of deadly bale.
Emongst the rest the clambring yvie grew,
Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold,
Lest that the poplar happily should rew
Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew,
And paint with pallid green her buds of gold;
Next did the myrtle tree to her approach,
Nor yet unmindfull of her old reproach.
But the small birds, in their wide boughs embowring,
Chaunted their sundry tunes with sweet consent,
And under them a silver spring forth pouring
His trickling streams, a gentle murmure sent;
Thereto the frogs, bred in the slimie scowring
Of the moist moores, their jarring voyces bent,
And shrill grashoppers chirped them around,
All which the airy eccho did resound.
In this so pleasant place this shepherd's flock
Lay every where, their weary limbs to rest
On every bush and every hollow rock,
Where breathe on them the whistling wind mote best,
The whiles the shepherd self tending his flock,
Sate by the fountain side, in shade to rest,
Where gentle slumbring sleep oppressed him,
Display'd on ground, and seized every lim.
Of trechery or trains nought took he keep,
But, loosly on the grassy green dispred,
His dearest life did trust to careless sleep,
Which weighing down his drouping drowsie hed,
In quiet rest his molten heart did steep,
Devoid of care, and fear of all falshed,
Had not inconstant Fortune, bent to ill,
Bid strange mischance his quietness to spill.
For at his wonted time in that same place,
An huge great serpent, all with speckles pide,
To drench himself in morish slime did trace,
There from the boyling heat himself to hide ;
He passing by with rolling wreathed pace,
With brandish'd tongue the empty air did gride,
And wrapt his scaly boughts with fell despight,
That all things seem'd appalled at his sight.
Now more and more having himself enroll'd,
His glittering brest he lifteth up on hie,
And with proud vaunt his head aloft doth hold;
His crest above, spotted with purple dye,
On every side did shine like scaly gold,
And his bright eyes glauncing full dreadfully,
Did seem to flame out flakes of flashing fire,
And with stern looks to threaten kindled yre.
Thus wise long time he did himself dispace
There round about, when as at last he spide,
Lying along before him in that place,
That flock's grand captain and most trusty guide;
Eftsoons more fierce in visage and in
Throwing his firy eyes on every side,
He cometh on, and all things in his way
Full sternly rends, that might his passage stay.
Much he disdains that any one should dare
To come unto his haunt, for which intent
He inly burns, and gins straight to prepare
The weapons which to him Nature had lent;
Felly he hisseth, and doth fiercely stare,
And hath his jaws with angry spirits rent,
That all his track with bloodie drops is stain'd,
And all his folds are now in length out-strain’d.
Whom thus at point prepared to prevent,
A little noursling of the humid air,
A Gnat unto the sleepy shepherd went,
And marking where his eye-lids, twinkling rare,
Shew'd the two pearls which sight unto him lent,
Through their thin coverings appearing fair,
His little needle there infixing deep,
Warn'd him awake, from death himself to keep.
Wherewith enrag'd, he fiercely gan upstart,
And with his hand him rashly bruising slew,
As in avengement of his heedless smart,
That straight the spirit out of his senses flew,
And life out of his members did depart;
When suddenly casting aside his view,
He spide his foe with felonous intent
And fervent eyes to his destruction bent.
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