"Mercy! deare Lord," said he, "what grace is this
That thou hast shewed to me sinfull wight,
To send thine angell from her bowre of blis
To comfort me in my distressed plight!
Angell, or goddesse doe I call thee right?
What service may I doe unto thee meete,
That hast from darkenes me returnd to light,
And with thy hevenly salves and med'cines sweete
Hast drest my sinfull wounds! I kisse thy blessed
feete."

Thereat she blushing said; "Ah! gentle squire,
Nor goddesse I, nor angell; but the mayd
And daughter of a woody nymphe, desire
No service but thy safety and ayd;
Which if thou gaine, I shal be well apayd.
Wee mortall wights, whose lives and fortunes bee
To commun accidents stil open layd,

Are bownd with commun bond of fraïltee,

To succor wretched wights whom we captived see."

By this her damzells, which the former chace
Had undertaken after her, arryv'd,
As did Belphoebe, in the bloody place,
And thereby deemd the beast had bene depriv'd
Of life, whom late their ladies arow ryv'd:
Forthy the bloody tract they followd fast,
And every one to ronne the swiftest stryv'd;
But two of them the rest far overpast,

And where their lady was arrived at the last.

Where when they saw that goodly boy with blood
Defowled, and their lady dresse his wownd,
They wondred much; and shortly understood
How him in deadly cace their lady fownd,
And reskewed out of the heavy stownd.
Eftsoones his warlike courser, which was strayd
Farre in the woodes whiles that he lay in swownd,
She made those damzels search; which being stayd,
They did him set thereon, and forth with them con-
vayd.

Into that forest farre they thence him led
Where was their dwelling; in a pleasant glade
With mountaines rownd about environed
And mightie woodes, which did the valley shade,
And like a stately theatre it made
Spreading itselfe into a spatious plaine;
And in the midst a little river plaide
Emongst the pumy stones, which seemd to plaine
With gentle murmure that his course they did re-
straine.

Beside the same a dainty place there lay,
Planted with mirtle trees and laurells greene,
In which the birds song many a lovely lay
Of Gods high praise, and of their sweet loves teene,
As it an earthly paradize had beene :
In whose enclosed shadow there was pight
A faire pavilion, scarcely to be seene,
The which was al within most richly dight,
That greatest princes living it mote well delight.
Thether they brought that wounded squire, and layd
In easie couch his feeble limbes to rest.
He rested him awhile; and then the mayd
His readie wound with better salves new drest:
Daily she dressed him, and did the best,
His grievous hurt to guarish, that she might;
That shortly she his dolour hath redrest,
And his foule sore reduced to faire plight:
It she reduced, but himselfe destroyed quight.

O foolish physick, and unfruitfull paine,
That heales up one, and makes another wound!
She his hurt thigh to him recurd againe,
But hurt his hart, the which before was sound,
Through an unwary dart which did rebownd
From her faire eyes and gratious countenaunce.
What bootes it him from death to be unbownd,
To be captived in endlesse duraúnce
Of sorrow and despeyre without aleggeaunce!

Still as his wound did gather, and grow hole,
So still his hart woxe sore, and health decayd:
Madnesse to save a part, and lose the whole!
Still whenas he beheld the heavenly mayd,
Whiles daily playsters to his wownd she layd,
So still his malady the more increast,
The whiles her matchlesse beautie him dismayd.
Ah, God! what other could he do at least,
But love so fayre a lady that his life releast!

Long while he strove in his corageous brest
With reason dew the passion to subdew,
And love for to dislodge out of his nest:
Still when her excellencies he did vew,
Her soveraine bountie and celestiall hew,
The same to love he strongly was constraynd:
But, when his meane estate he did revew,
He from such hardy boldnesse was restraynd,
And of his lucklesse lott and cruell love thus
playnd:

"Unthankfull wretch," said he, "is this the meed,
With which her soverain mercy thou doest quight?
Thy life she saved by her gratious deed;
But thou doest weene with villeinous despight
To blott her honour and her heavenly light:
Dye; rather dye then so disloyally
Deeme of her high desert, or seeme so light:
Fayre death it is, to shonne more shame, to dy:
Dye; rather dye then ever love disloyally.

"But if to love disloyalty it bee,

Shall I then hate her that from deathës dore 1
Me brought? ah! farre be such reproch fro mee!
What can I lesse doe then her love therefore,
Sith I her dew reward cannot restore ?
Dye; rather dye, and dying doe her serve;
Dying her serve, and living her adore;
Thy life she gave, thy life she doth deserve:
Dye; rather dye then ever from her service swerve.

"But, foolish boy, what bootes thy service bace
To her, to whom the Hevens doe serve and sew?
Thou, a meane squyre of meeke and lowly place;
She, hevenly borne and of celestiall hew.
How then? of all love taketh equall vew;
And doth not highest God vouchsafe to take
The love and service of the basest crew?
If she will not; dye meekly for her sake:
Dye; rather dye then ever so faire love forsake!"

Thus warreid he long time against his will;
Till that through weaknesse he was forst at last
To yield himselfe unto the mightie ill,
Which, as a victour proud, gan ransack fast
His inward partes, and all his entrayles wast,
That neither blood in face nor life in hart
It left, but both did quite dry up and blast;
As percing levin, which the inner part
Of every thing consumes and calcineth by art.

Which seeing, fayre Belphœbe gan to feare
Least that his wound were inly well not heald,
Or that the wicked steele empoysned were:
Litle shee weend that love be close conceald.
Yet still he wasted, as the snow congeald

When the bright Sunne his beams thereon doth beat:

Yet never he his hart to her reveald;
But rather chose to dye for sorow great
Then with dishonorable termes her to entreat.

She, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare
To doe him ease, or doe him remedy:
Many restoratives of vertues rare,
And costly cordialles she did apply,
To mitigate his stubborne malady:
But that sweet cordiall, which can restore
A love-sick hart, she did to him envy;
To him, and to all th' unworthy world forlore,
She did envy that soveraine salve in secret store.

That daintie rose, the daughter of her morne,
More deare then life she tendered, whose flowre
The girlond of her honour did adorne:
Ne suffred she the middayes scorching powre,
Ne the sharp northerne wind thereon to showre;
But lapped up her silken leaves most chayre,
Whenso the froward skye began to lowre;
But, soone as calmed was the cristall ayre,
She did it fayre dispred and let to florish fayre.

Eternall God, in his almightie powre,
To make ensample of his heavenly grace,
In Paradize whylome did plant this flowre;
Whence he it fetcht out of her native place,
And did in stocke of earthly flesh enrace,
That mortall men her glory should admyre.
Ju gentle ladies breste and bounteons race
Of woman-kind it fayrest flowre doth spyre,
And beareth fruit of honour and all chast desyre.

Fayre ympes of beautie, whose bright shining beames
Adorne the world with like to heavenly light,
And to your willes both royalties and reames
Subdew, through conquest of your wondrous might;
With this fayre flowre your goodly girlonds dight
Of chastity and vertue virginall,

That shall embellish more your beautie bright,
And crowne your heades with heavenly coronall,
Such as the angels weare before God's tribunall!

To youre faire selves a fayre ensample frame
Of this faire virgin, this Belphoebe fayre;
To whom, in perfect love and spotlesse fame
Of chastitie, none living may compayre:
Ne poysnous envy justly can empayre
The prayse of her fresh-flowring maydenhead;
Forthy she standeth on the highest stay re
Of th' honorable stage of womanhead,
That ladies all may follow her ensample dead.

In so great prayse of stedfast chastity
Nathlesse she was so courteous and kynde,
Tempred with grace and goodly modesty,
That seemed those two vertues strove to fynd
The higher place in her heroick mynd:
So striving each did other more augment,
And both encreast the prayse of woman-kynde,
And both encreast her beautie excellent:
So all did make in her a perfect complement.

CANTO VI.

The birth of fayre Belphœbe and
Of Amorett is told:

The Gardins of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold,

WELL may I weene, faire ladies, all this while
Ye wonder how this noble damozell
So great perfections did in her compile,
Sith that in salvage forests she did dwell,
So farre from court and royall citadell,
The great schoolmaistresse of all courtesy:
Seemeth that such wilde woodes should far expell
All civile usage and gentility,

And gentle sprite deforme with rude rusticity.

But to this faire Belphœbe in her berth
The Hevens so favorable were and free,
Looking with myld aspéct upon the Earth
In th' horoscope of her nativitee,

That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous borne:
Iove laught on Venus from his soverayne see,
And Phoebus with faire beames did her adorne,
And all the Graces rockt her cradle being borne.

Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew,
And her conception of the ioyous prime;
And all her whole creation did her shew
Pure and unspotted from all loathly crime
That is ingenerate in fleshly slime.
So was this virgin borne, so was she bred;
So was she trayned up from time to time
In all chaste vertue and true bountihed,
Till to her dew perfection she were ripened.

Her mother was the faire Chrysogonee,
The daughter of Amphisa, who by race
A Faerie was, yborne of high degree:
She bore Belphœbe; she bore in like cace
Fayre Amoretta in the second place:
These two were twinnes, and twixt them two did share
The heritage of all celestiall grace;

That all the rest it seemd they robbed bare
Of bounty, and of beautie, and all vertues rare.

It were a goodly storie to declare
By what straunge accident faire Chrysogone
Conceiv'd these infants, and how them she bare
In this wilde forrest wandring all alone,
After she had niue moneths fulfild and gone:
For not as other wemens commune brood
They were enwombed in the sacred throne
Of her chaste bodie; nor with commune food,
As other wemens babes, they sucked vitall blood:

But wondrously they were begot and bred
Through influence of th' Hevens fruitfull ray,
As it in antique bookes is mentioned.
It was upon a sommers shinie day,
When Titan faire his beamës did display,
In a fresh fountaine, far from all mens vew,
She bath'd her brest the boyling heat t' allay;
She bath'd with roses red and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowers that in the forrest grew :

Up they them tooke, each one a babe uptooke,
And with them carried to be fostered:
Dame Phoebe to a nymphe her babe betooke
To be upbrought in perfect maydenhed,
And, of herselfe, her name Belphœbe red:
But Venus hers thence far away convayd,
To be upbrought in goodly womanhed;
And, in her litle Loves stead which was strayd,

"As you in woods and wanton wildernesse
Your glory sett to chace the salvage beasts;
So my delight is all in ioyfulnesse,

In beds, in bowres, in banckets, and in feasts:
And ill becomes you, with your lofty creasts,
To scorne the ioye that love is glad to seeke:
We both are bownd to follow Heavens beheasts,
And tend our charges with obeisaunce meeke:
Spare, gentle sister, with reproch my paine to eeke;

"And tell me if that ye my sonne have heard
To lurke emongst your nimphes in secret wize,
Or keepe their cabins: much I am affeard
Least he like one of them himselfe disguize,
And turne his arrowes to their exercize:
So may he long himselfe full easie hide;
For he is faire, and fresh in face and guize
As any nimphe; let not it be envide."

So saying every nimph full narrowly shee eide.

She brought her to her ioyous paradize
Wher most she wonnes, when she on Earth does dwell,
So faire a place as Nature can devize:
Whether in Paphos, or Cytheron hill,
Or it in Gnidus bee, I wote not well;
But well I wote by triall, that this same
All other pleasȧunt places doth excell,
And called is, by her lost lovers name,
The Gardin of Adonis, far renowmd by fame.

In that same gardin all the goodly flowres,
Wherewith dame Nature doth her beautify
And decks the girlonds of her paramoures,
Are fetcht: there is the first seminary

Of all things that are borne to live and dye,
According to their kynds. Long worke it were
Here to account the endlesse progeny

Of all the weeds that bud and blossome there;
But so much as doth need must needs be counted
here.

It sited was in fruitfull soyle of old,
And girt in with two walls on either side;
The one of yron, the other of bright gold,
That none might thorough breake, nor overstride:
And double gates it had which opened wide,
By which both in and out men moten pas;
Th' one faire and fresh, the other old and dride:
Old Genius the porter of them was,

Old Genius, the which a double nature has.

He letteth in, he letteth out to wend
All that to come into the world desire:
A thousand thousand naked babes attend
About him day and night, which doe require
That he with fleshly weeds would them attire:
Such as him list, such as eternall fate

| Ordained hath, he clothes with sinfull mire,
And sendeth forth to live in mortall state,
Till they agayn returne backe by the hinder gate.

After that they againe retourned beene,
They in that gardin planted bee agayne,
And grow afresh, as they had never seene
Fleshly corruption nor mortall payne:
Some thousand yeares so doen they there remayne,
And then of him are clad with other hew,
Or sent into the chaungefull world agayne,
Till thether they retourne where first they grew:
So, like a wheele, arownd they ronne from old to new.

Ne needs there gardiner to sett or sow,
To plant or prune; for of their owne accord
All things, as they created were, doe grow,
And yet remember well the mighty word
Which first was spoken by th' Almighty Lord,
That bad them to increase and multiply:
Ne doe they need, with water of the ford
Or of the clouds, to moysten their roots dry;
For in themselves eternall moisture they imply,

Infinite shapes of creatures there are bred,
And uncouth formes, which none yet ever knew:
And every sort is in a sondry bed

Sett by itselfe, and ranckt in comely rew;
Some fitt for reasonable sowles t' indew;

Some made for beasts, some made for birds to weare;
And all the fruitfull spawne of fishes hew
In endlesse rancks along enraunged were,

There is continuall spring, and harvest there Continuall, both meeting at one tyme:

For both the boughes doe laughing blossoms beare, And with fresh colours decke the wanton pryme, And eke attonce the heavy trees they clyme, Which seeme to labour under their fruites lode : The whiles the ioyous birdes make their pastyme Emongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode,

Daily they grow, and daily forth are sent

Into the world, it to replenish more;
Yet is the stocke not lessened nor spent,
But still remaines in everlasting store
As it at first created was of yore:

For in the wide wombe of the world there lyes,
In hatefull darknes and in deepe horrore,
An huge eternall Chaos, which supplyes
The substaunces of Natures fruitfull progenyes.

All things from thence doe their first being fetch,
And borrow matter whereof they are made;
Which, whenas forme and feature it does ketch,
Becomes a body, and doth then invade
The state of life out of the griesly shade.
That substaunce is eterne, and bideth so;
Ne, when the life decayes and forme does fade,
Doth it consume and into nothing goe,
But chaunged is and often altred to and froe.

The substaunce is not chaungd nor altered,
But th' only forme and outward fashion;
For every substaunce is conditioned

To chaunge her hew, and sondry formes to don,
Meet for her temper and complexion:
For formes are variable, and decay
By course of kinde and by occasion;
And that faire flowre of beautie fades away,
As doth the lilly fresh before the sunny ray.

Great enimy to it, and to' all the rest
That in the Gardin of Adonis springs,
Is wicked Time; who with his scyth addrest
Does mow the flowring herbes and goodly things,
And all their glory to the ground downe flings,
• Where they do wither and are fowly mard:
He flyes about, and with his flaggy wings
Beates downe both leaves and buds without regard,
Ne ever pitty may relent his malice hard.

Yet pitty often did the gods relent,
To see so faire thinges mard and spoiled quight:
And their great mother Venus did lament
The losse of her deare brood, her deare delight:
Her hart was pierst with pitty at the sight,
When walking through the gardin them she spyde,
Yet no'te she find redresse for such despight:
For all that lives is subiect to that law:

Right in the middest of that paradise

There stood a stately mount, on whose round top
A gloomy grove of mirtle trees did rise,
Whose shady boughes sharp steele did never lop,
Nor wicked beastes their tender buds did crop,
But like a girlond compassed the hight,

And from their fruitfull sydes sweet gum did drop,
That all the ground, with pretious deaw bedight,
Threw forth most dainty odours and most sweet
delight.

And in the thickest covert of that shade
There was a pleasaunt arber, not by art
But of the trees owne inclination made,
Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,
With wanton yvie-twine entrayld athwart,
And eglantine and caprifole emong,
Fashiond above within their inmost part, [throng,
That nether Phoebus beams could through them
Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

And all about grew every sort of flowre,

To which sad lovers were transformde of yore;
Fresh Hyacinthus, Phœbus paramoure
And dearest love;

Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore;
Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,

Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore

Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,

To whom sweet poets verse hath given endlesse date.

There wont fayre Venus often to enjoy
Her deare Adonis ioyous company,
And reap sweet pleasure of the wanton boy:
There yet, some say, in secret he does ly,
Lapped in flowres and pretious spycery,
By her hid from the world, and from the skill
Of Stygian gods, which doe her love envy;
But she herselfe, whenever that she will,
Possesseth him, and of his sweetnesse takes her fill:

And sooth, it seemes, they say; for he may not
For ever dye, and ever buried bee
In balefull night where all thinges are forgot;
All be he subiect to mortalitie,
Yet is eterne in mutabilitie,

And by succession made perpetuall,
Transformed oft, and chaunged diverslie:

But were it not that Time their troubler is,
All that in this delightfull gardin growes
Should happy bee, and have immortall blis :
For here all plenty and all pleasure flowes;
And sweete Love gentle fitts emongst them throwes,
Without fell rancor or fond gealosy:
Franckly each paramour his leman knowes;
Each bird his mate; ne any does envy
Their goodly meriment and gay felicity,

Therfore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.

There now he liveth in eternal blis,

loying his goddesse, and of her enioyd;
Ne feareth he henceforth that foe of his,
Which with his cruell tuske him deadly cloyd:
For that wilde bore, the which him once annoyd,
She firmely hath emprisoned for ay,

(That her sweet love his malice mote avoyd)
In a strong rocky cave, which is, they say, [may.
Hewen underneath that mount, that none him losen