Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/153

So restitution might be made. And though there were to me
No interest in hir at all, yet forasmuche as she
Is yours, it is unmeete she be bestowde upon a theefe.
Jove aunswerde thus: My daughter is a Jewell deare and leefe:
A collup of mine owne flesh cut as well as out of thine.
But if we in our heartes can finde things rightly to define,
This is not spight but love. And yet Madame in faith I see
No cause of such a sonne in law ashamed for to bee,
So you contented were therewith. For put the case that hee
Were destitute of all things else, how greate a matter ist
Joves brother for to be? but sure in him is nothing mist.
Nor he inferior is to me save only that by lot
The Heavens to me, the Helles to him the destnies did allot.
But if you have so sore desire your daughter to divorce,
Though she againe to Heaven repayre I doe not greatly force.
But yet conditionly that she have tasted there no foode:
For so the destnies have decreed. He ceaste: and Ceres stoode
Full bent to fetch hir daughter out: but destnies hir withstoode,
Bicause the Maide had broke hir fast. For as she hapt one day
In Plutos Ortyard rechlessely from place to place to stray,
She gathering from a bowing tree a ripe Pownegarnet, tooke
Seven kernels out and sucked them. None chaunst hereon to looke,
Save onely one Ascalaphus whome Orphne, erst a Dame
Among the other Elves of Hell not of the basest fame,
Bare to hir husbande Acheron within hir duskie den.
He sawe it, and by blabbing it ungraciously as then,
Did let hir from returning thence. A grievous sigh the Queene
Of Hell did fetch, and of that wight that had a witnesse beene
Against hir made a cursed Birde. Upon his face she shead
The water of the Phlegeton: and by and by his head
Was nothing else but Beake and Downe, and mightie glaring eyes.
Quight altred from himselfe betweene two yellow wings he flies.
He groweth chiefly into head and hooked talants long
And much adoe he hath to flaske his lazie wings among.
The messenger of Morning was he made, a filthie fowle,
A signe of mischiefe unto men, the sluggish skreching Owle.
This person for his lavish tongue and telling tales might seeme