Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/412

The crasshing of my broken bones: and with what passing peyne
I breathed out my weery ghoste. There did not whole remayne
One peece of all my corce by which yee myght discerne as tho
What lump or part it was. For all was wound from toppe to toe.
Now canst thou, nymph, or darest thou compare thy harmes with myne?
Moreover I the lightlesse Realme behild with theis same eyne,
And bathde my tattred bodye in the river Phlegeton,
And had not bright Apollos sonne his cunning shewde uppon
My bodye by his surgery, my lyfe had quyght bee gone.
Which after I by force of herbes and leechecraft had ageine
Receyvd by Aesculapius meanes, though Pluto did disdeine,
Then Cynthia (lest this gift of hers myght woorke mee greater spyght)
Thicke clowds did round about mee cast. And to th'entent I myght
Bee saufe myself, and harmelessely appeere to others syght:
Shee made mee old. And for my face, shee left it in such plyght,
That none can knowe mee by my looke. And long shee dowted whither
To give mee Dele or Crete. At length refusing bothe togither,
Shee plaast mee heere. And therwithall shee bade me give up quyght
The name that of my horses in remembrance put mee myght.
For whereas erst Hippolytus hath beene thy name (quoth shee)
I will that Virbie afterward thy name for ever bee.
From that tyme foorth within this wood I keepe my residence,
As of the meaner Goddes, a God of small magnificence,
And heere I hyde mee underneathe my sovereine Ladyes wing
Obeying humbly to her hest in every kynd of thing.
But yit the harmes of other folk could nothing help nor boote
Aegerias sorrowes to asswage. Downe at a mountaines foote
Shee lying melted into teares, till Phebus sister sheene
For pitie of her greate distresse in which shee had her seene,
Did turne her to a fountaine cleere, and melted quyght away
Her members into water thinne that never should decay.
The straungenesse of the thing did make the nymphes astonyed: and
The Ladye of Amazons sonne amaazd therat did stand,
As when the Tyrrhene Tilman sawe in earing of his land
The fatall clod first stirre alone without the help of hand,
And by and by forgoing quyght the earthly shape of clod,
To take the seemely shape of man, and shortly like a God