Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/218

Doth neither thee the gift I gave, nor yet my faithfull love,
Nor yet that all my hope on thee alonly rested, move?
For whither shall I now resort forsaken thus of thee?
To Megara the wretched soyle of my nativitie?
Behold it lieth vanquished and troden under foote.
But put the case it flourisht still: yet could it nothing boote.
I have foreclosde it to my selfe through treason when I gave
My fathers head to thee. Whereby my countriefolke I drave
To hate me justly for my crime. And all the Realmes about
My lewde example doe abhorre. Thus have I shet me out
Of all the world that only Crete might take me in, which if
Thou like a Churle denie, and cast me up without relief,
The Ladie Europ surely was not mother unto thee:
But one of Affricke Sirts where none but Serpents fostred bee,
But even some cruell Tiger bred in Armen or in Inde,
Or else the Gulfe Charybdis raisde with rage of Southerne winde.
Thou wert not got by Jove: ne yet thy mother was beguilde
In shape of Bull: of this thy birth the tale is false compilde.
But rather some unwieldie Bull even altogither wilde
That never lowed after Cow was out of doubt thy Sire.
O father Nisus, put thou me to penance for my hire.
Rejoyce thou in my punishment, thou towne by me betrayd.
I have deserved (I confesse) most justly to be payd
With death. But let some one of them that through my lewdnesse smart
Destroy me, why doste thou that by my crime a gainer art,
Commit like crime thy selfe? Admit this wicked act of me
As to my land and Fatherward in deede most hainous be.
Yet oughtest thou to take it as a friendship unto thee.
But she was meete to be thy wife, that in a Cow of tree
Could play the Harlot with a Bull, and in hir wombe could beare
A Barne, in whome the shapes of man and beasts confounded were.
How sayst thou, Carle? compell not these my words thine eares to glow?
Or doe the windes that drive thy shyps, in vaine my sayings blow?
In faith it is no wonder though thy wife Pasiphae
Preferrde a Bull to thee, for thou more cruell wert than he.
Now wo is me. To make more hast it standeth me in hand.
The water sounds with Ores, and hales from me and from my land.