THE Silkworms, and their Flies: Lively described in verse, by T. M. a Country Farmar, and an apprentice in Physic. For the great benefit and enriching of England.  
Printed at London by V S. for Nicholas Ling, and are to be sold at his shop at the West end of Paul's. 1599   

To the most renowned Patroness, and noble Nurse of Learning MARIE Countess of Pembroke.  

GReat envies Object, Worth & Wisdoms pride,  
Nature's delight, Arcadia's heir most fit,  
Vouchsafe a while to lay thy task aside,  
Let Petrarke sleep, give rest to Sacred writ,  
Or bow, or string will break, if ever tied,  
Some little pause aideth the quickest wit:  
Nay, heavens themselves (though keeping still their way)  
Retrogradate, and make a kind of stay.   

I neither sing Achilles baneful ire,  
Nor Man, nor Arms, nor Belly-brothers wars,  
Nor Britain broils, nor cities drowned in fire,  
Nor Hector's wounds, nor Diomedes scars,  
Cease country Muse so highly to aspire:  
Our Plain beholds but cannot hold such stars:  
jove-loved wits may write of what they will,  
But meaner Themes beseem a Farmer's quill.   

I sing of little Worms and tender Flies,  
Creeping along, or basking on the ground,  
Graced once with those thy heau'nly-humane eyes,  
Which never yet on meanest scholar frowned:  
And able are this work to aeternise,  
From East to West about this lower Round,  
Deign thou but breath a spark or little flame  
Of liking, to enlife for aye the same.   
Your H. ever most bounden. T. M.   

The Table.  

1 WHen garments were first used. Fol. 2  
2 Whereof garments were first made. 3  
3 divers opinions how and when silk was first invented and worn. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20.  
4 Whether the silk-worm or the Silk Fly were first created. 21 22 23.  
5 Whether the egg or the hen be first in nature. 24 25 26 27.  
6 Why the silk flies are only of a white colour. 28.  
7 What day of the week they were first created. 29 30 31.  
8 The rare virtues and chastity of Silk Flies. 27 28 33 38  
9 That they are not to be scorned as being little and therefore contemned creatures. 34 35 36 37.  
10 Their wonderful increase and propagation. 39 and 65 66.  
11 Their manner of dying. 40 66.  
12 That their eggs are more worth than the eggs of any Flier: yea than the Philosopher's egg, if there were any such. 41 42 43 44 45 46 47.  
13 Their eggs must be kept in a temperate place. 48.  
14 They are not to be hatched till the Mulberry tree buds. 50.  
15 Why the Silkworms being crept out of the she'll feed only upon Mulberry leaves. 51 52 53.  
16 How long they feed: When their meat is to be gathered: In what quantity they are to be dieted. 55.  
17 That variety of meats is nought for them. 56.  
18 Their table is to be kept clean. ibid.  
How the sick are discerned. 59  
19 Of their sleep: ibid.  
20 How they must be distributed when they grow great. 57  
21 The causes of their sickness. 59  
22 Signs of their readiness to work, and how then they must be used. 60.  
23 How long they work. 61.  
24 When the worms are metamorphosed into Flies. 61.  
25 When and how their silk is to be wound up. 61.  
26 The sorts and use of their silken thread. 63 64.  
27 How their eggs are to be preserved. 67.  
28 That the silk of Silkworms is the best of all other. 68  
29 What profit and pleasure ariseth in keeping of them. 71 72 73 74.  
30 Keeping of Silkworms hindereth neither Shepherds, Spinsters, Weavers, nor Clothiers. 75.   
FINIS.   

Faults escaped in Printing.  
page line fault correction 5 11 for the read thy 7 3 ever never 7 14 courser Coursers 9 19 private Privy 17 3 his this 17 13 lays lay 19 2 h harses hearses 27 4 through through 29 10 through through 48 2 Enicthean Erycthean 56 1 us as 59 1 I any If any 66 15 dropped drop   

❧ Of the Silk worms and their Flies.  

SYdneian Muse: if so thou yet remain,  
In brother's bowels, or in daughter's breast,  
Or art bequeathed the Lady of the plain,  
Because for her thou art the fittest guest:  
Whose worth to show, no mortal can attain,  
Which with like worth is not himself possessed:  
Come help me sing these flocks as white as milk,  
That make, and spin, and die, and windle silk.   

For sure I know thy knowledge doth perceive,  
What breath embreathed these almost thingles things:  
What Artist taught their feet to spin and weave:  
What workman made their slime a rob for kings,  
How flies breed worms, how worms do flies conceive:  
From natures womb, how such a nature springs,  
Whereof none can directly tell or reed,  
Whether were first, the fly, the worm, or seed.   

A time there was (sweet heavens restore that time,)  
When bodies pure to spotless souls first knit,  
Devoid of guilt, and ignorant of crime,  
Upright in conscience, and of harmless wit,  
Disdained to wear a garment near so fine,  
As deeming coats and covers most unfit,  
Where nothing eye could see, or finger touch,  
Which God himself did not for good avouch. 
Gen. 1. verse 31.    

Yea, when all other creatures looked base,  
As mindful only of their earthly food:  
Or else as trembling to behold the place,  
Where judge eternal sat, and Angels stood:  
Then human eyes beheld him face to face,  
And cheeks unstained with fumes of guilty blood,  
Desired no mask to hide their blushing balls,  
But boldly gazed and pried on heavenly walls.   

The breast which yet had hatched no bad conceit,  
Nor harboured aught in heart that God displeazed,  
Did it for silken waistcoats then entreat?  
Sought it with Tyrian silks to be appeased?  
No, no, there was no need of such a feat,  
Where all was sound, and members none diseased:  
Nay more, The basest parts and seats of shame,  
Were seemly then, and had a comely name.   

But when self-will and subtle creepers guile, 
Gen. 3.   
Made man to lust, and taste what God forbade,  
Then seemed we to ourselves so foul and vile,  
That strait we wished our bodies to be clad,  
Seeing without, and in such great defile,  
As reft our wits, and made us all so mad:  
That we resembled melancholic hares,  
Or startling stags, whom every shadow scares.   

Then Bedlam-like to woods we ran apace,  
Praying each tree to lend us shade or leaves,  
Wherewith to hide (if aught might hide) our face  
From his all-seeing eyes, who all perceives,  
And with ful-brandisht sword pursues the chase,  
Traitors of rest, of shade, and all bereaves:  
Permitting men with nothing to be clad,  
But shame, despair, guilt, fear, and horror sad.   

These robes our parents first were decked withal,  
Then fig tree fans upon their shame they wore:  
Next, skins of beasts, (to show their beastly fall)  
Then, hairy clothes, and wool from Baa-lambs tore,  
Last, 
Plin. lib. 12. ca 10. & lib. 24. cap. 12.  Eastern wits, from mane of Camels tall,  
Made water-waved stuff unseen before,  
But till the flood had sinners swept away,  
Nor Flax, nor Silk, did sinful man array.   

For so it seemed just to justice eyen,  
Defiled men to wear polluted things:  
And Rebels not to cloth in Flax or line,  
Which from the sacred loins of Vesta spring,  
Clean, knotlesse, strait, spotless, upright, and fine,  
Whose flower is like five heau'nly-azurd wings,  
Whose slime is salve, whose seed is wholesome food,  
whose rind is cloth, 
Plut. lib. de Isido & Osir.  whose stubble serves for wood   

Or if 
1 A most famous spinner in Lydia, of whom Ovid 6 metam.  Arachne erst made sister's thread,  
Was it think you, for every man to wear?  
Or only for the sacrificers weed,  
Who of th'immortal priest a type did bear?  
Wearing not aught that sprang from brutish seed,  
But what from out itself the earth did rear:  
So that till holy priesthood first began, 
Exodus 28.   
We never read that linen clothed man.   

Yet some conceive when 
2 Orpheus a most famous Poet. Ovid 11. met.  Theban singer wan,  
Wood-wandring wights to good and civil life,  
(Which erst with bears and wolves in deserts ran,  
Knowing no name of God, law, house, or wife)  
That then his brother Linus first began  
The Flaxmans' craft (a secret then unrife)  
Devising beetles, hackels, wheels, and frame,  
Wherewith to bruise, touse, spin & weave the same.   

But Silk (whereon my loving Muse now stands)  
Was it the offspring of our shallow brain?  
Spun with these fingers foul? these filthy hands,  
Tainted with blood, revenge, and wrongful gain?  
Ah no, who made and numbereth all the sands,  
Will teach us soon that fancy to be vain:  
far be it from our thoughts, that sinful sense,  
Should make a thing of so great excellence.   

Ne need we yet with 
1 Hironimus vidas, Bishop of Alba. lib. 1. de Bombyce  Tuscan Prelate fly,  
To fictions strange, or wanton Venus' eyen:  
Who seeing Pallas taught from Saturn hie,  
To cloth herself and hers with woven line,  
Yea all the Nymphs and Goddesses in sky,  
To wear long stoles of Lawn and Cambric fine:  
Fretted to see herself and boy new borne,  
Left both to heaven and earth an open scorn.   

Revenge she cried unto the sire of jove,  
As she lay hid under th'Idalian tree:  
Afford some raiment from the house above,  
If but to hide the shame of mine and me.  
So may thou learn from us The art of Love,  
Whereby to win each Lady's heart to thee.  
But grumbling Chuff rejected still her prayer,  
Whereat lamented heavens and weeping air.   

Then Cyprian Queen perceiving that no cries  
Can pierce the leaden ears of sullen Sire,  
Strait lodged her son in fair 
2 Oceanus' his daughter, a most brave virgin. Ovid 6 met.  phillyra's eyes,  
And caused him thence to dart up such a fire,  
As had consumed the very stars and skies,  
Yea melted Saturn's wheels with hot desire:  
Unless that very hour he had come down,  
And begged her aid, on whom he late did frown.   

How often, as his love on Pelion hill  
Stooped down to gather herbs for wounds and sores,  
Strewed he before her Tutsan, Balm, and Dill,  
Long Plantain, Hyssop, Sage, and Comfrey moares?  
Offering beside, the art and perfect skill,  
Of healing bloody wounds and festered cores:  
How oft (I say) did he each day descend,  
And bootless all his vows and woo spend?   

He loved, she loathed, he liked, she disdained:  
He came, she turned, he priest, she ran away,  
Neither by words, nor gifts she could be gained,  
(For only in her eyes the Archer lay)  
Regarding nought but (wherein she was trained)  
Wounds how to cure, and smartings to allay:  
As for the wound of Love, she felt it none,  
And therefore little heeded Satur's moan.   

Thus thus perplexed the chief and gravest God,  
(Or rather God supposed of highest place)  
Touched now, nay thoroughly scourged with Cupid's rod,  
Sent from the eyes but of a mortal face,  
Flew down forthwith where Venus made abode,  
And prostrate lying at her feet for grace:  
Promised the richest clothing for her Art,  
That now she did, or could desire in heart.   

Who earelesse of revenge, and innely grieved,  
(True beauty aye is full of rueful moan)  
Was ever well till Saturn was relieved,  
His inward griefs assuaged, & sorrows gone.  
And finding him, of hope, and help, bereaved,  
(For still Phillira was more hard than stone)  
Sith that, quoth she, the virgin scorns thy love,  
Try whether craft and force will make her move.   

Transform thyself into a Courser brave,  
(What cannot love transform itself into?)  
Feed in her walks: and in a moment have  
What thou hast wooed to have with much ado:  
Whereto, consent the ancient Suitor gave,  
In courser clothes, learning a maid to woo,  
Filling each wood with neighs and wihyes shrill,  
Whilst he possessed his love against her will.   

For lesson which, his Mistress to requite,  
Not with vain hopes in am of friendly deeds,  
By Maiae's 
1 Mercury, postmaster to jupiter.  son (before it grew to night)  
He sent a Napkin full of little seeds,  
Ta'en from the tree where Thisbe's soul did light,  
To make herself and boy far braver weeds,  
Than Pallas had, or any of the seven,  
Yea, then proud juno ware the Queen of heaven.   

Withal, by him he sent the mystery  
Of weaving silk, which he himself had found,  
When chased from heaven by sons own treachery,  
He was compelled to wander here on ground,  
Where, in the depth of grief and poverty,  
The height and depth of Arts he first did sound:  
Yet would he this to none but her reveal,  
By whose devise he did Phillyra steal.   

What? shall we think, that silk was a reward.  
Bestowed on crafty dame for aid unjust?  
Would men, nay, ought they have such high regard,  
Of that which was the lone and hire of lust?  
Not so, what ere th'Italian Bishop dared  
To feign for true, and give it out with trust:  
Yet sith silk robes the blessed Highpriest wore,  
They were not sure the first fruits of a whore.   

Vespasians 
1 Plinius Secundus, lib. 11. cap. 2  Scribe affirms in Cean isle,  
Latous 
2 Called Pamphia, a most princely Damsel.  daughter, quick of eye and wit,  
Hunting abroad, times travail to beguile,  
Chanced at the length under a tree to fit,  
Where many silken bottoms hanged in piles,  
One by another placed in order fit.  
She took one down, and with her falcon eye,  
Found out the end that did the rest untie.   

Look how the hungry Lamb doth frisk and play,  
With restless tail, and head, and every limb,  
When it hath met his mother gone astray,  
Who absent bleared and teared as much for him:  
Or as Aurora leaps at break of day,  
Seeing her lovely brother rise so trim,  
No less that Princess triumphed (if not more)  
Finding out that which was not found before.   

loves Schoolmaster 
1 Ovid lib. 4. Metam.  records a tale most sweet,  
Of lovers two that dwelled at Babylon,  
Equal of age, in worth and beauty meet,  
Each of their sex the flower and paragon,  
Next neighbours borne on side of self-same street,  
For twixt their parents houses dwelled none,  
Him Pyramus, her Thisbe men did call,  
Coupled in heart, though severed by a wall.   

As neighbour's children, oft they talk and view,  
That neighbourship was foremost step to love,  
Love, which (like private plants) in short time grew,  
Pales, walls, and eves, yea houses and all above,  
Nay Hymeneus feasts were like t' ensue,  
And sacred hands give ring and wedding glove,  
Had not unhappy parents that forbade,  
Which to forbid, no cause but will, they had.   

If lovers spoke, it was now all by looks,  
None deigned or durst be truchman to their mind,  
Paper was barred, and pen, and ink, and books,  
Not any help these parted prisoners find,  
But of a rift along the wall that crooks,  
(A wall of flint, yet more than parents, kind)  
Which, were it old or new, none it espies,  
But lovers quick, al-corner-searching eyes,   

This rift they used, nor only as a glass,  
Wherein to see daily each others face,  
But eke through it their voices hourly pass,  
In whispering murmurs with a stealing pace:  
Sometimes when they no longer durst (alas)  
Send whisper through, when keepers were in place,  
Yet would they shift to blow through it a breath,  
Which fed & kept their hoping hearts from death.   

Envious wall (said they) what wrong is this?  
Why doth not love or pity make thee fall?  
Or (if that be for us too great a bliss)  
Why is thy rift so narrow and so small,  
As to deny kind love a kindly kiss?  
For which we never prove unthankful shall,  
Although in truth we own enough to thee,  
Giving our eyes and voice a way so free.   

In vain thus having plained in place distinct,  
When night approached, they each bade each adieu,  
Kissing their wall apart where it was chinckt,  
Whence lovely blasts and breathe mainly flew:  
But kisses staid on either's side fast linked,  
Sealed to the wall with lips and Lovers glue:  
For though they were both thick and many eke,  
Yet thicker was the wall that did them break.   

Rose-fingred 
1 The morning, Homer. Iliad. 4.  Dame no sooner had put out  
Night's twinkling fires and candles of the sky,  
Nor Phoebus 
2 The Sun.  brought his trampling steeds about,  
Whose breath dries up the tears of Vesta's 
3 The earth.  eye,  
But swift and soft, without all noise or shout,  
To wont place they hasten secretly,  
Where midst a many words muttered that day,  
Next midnights watch, each vows to steal away.   

And lest when having house and city past,  
They yet might err in fields, and never meet,  
At Ninus 
4 Which was without the gates of Balilon, towards the forest. Sabell. Enneiad. 1. cap. 6.  tomb their Rendezvous is placed,  
Under the Mulb'ry white, and hony-sweete:  
Growing hard by a spring that ran at waste,  
With streams more swift than speedy 
5 The swift river of Donawe.  Ister's feet.  
There they agreed in spite of spite to stand,  
When 
6 The Charles wain.  Monarches team had past 
7 The great star following Vrsa maior.  Boötes' hand.   

Consent they did, and day consented too,  
Whose Coach ran down the seas in greater haste,  
Then ever it was wont before to do,  
Love-loving night approached eke so fast,  
That darkness leapt, ere twilight seemed to go,  
Whereat though some gods frowned, some were aghast,  
Yet Lethe's 
1 Sleep the brother of forgetfulness. Cic. lib. de nat. deorum.  brother did the lovers keep,  
Chaining their guard with long and heavy sleep.   

How featly then unsparred she the door?  
How silent turned it on the charmed cheeks?  
And being 'scaped, how glad was she therefore?  
How soon arrived where she her fellow seeks?  
love made her bold, love gave her swiftness more  
Then usually is found in weaker sex,  
But all in vain: nay rather to her ill,  
For haste made waste, and speed did speeding kill.   

The grisly wife of brutish monarch strong,  
With new slain prey, full paunched to the chin,  
Foaming out blood, came ramping there along,  
To silver spring, her thirst to drown therein,  
Whereat the fearful maid in posting fling,  
(For 
2 The Moonshine.  Lucines eye bewrayed the Empress grim)  
Into a secret cave: and flying, lost  
A scarf (for Pyrams' sake) beloved most.   

When savage Queen had well her thirst delayed,  
In cooling streams, and quenched natures fire,  
Returning to the place where late she prayed,  
To eat the rest when hunger should require,  
In pieces tore the scarf of hapless maid,  
With bloody teeth, and fiery flaming ire,  
Whilst she (poor soul) in cave played least in sight,  
Fearing what should her love befall that night.   

Who coming later than by vow he should,  
Perceived a Lion's footsteps in the sand,  
Whereat with face most pale, and heart as cold,  
With trembling fear tormented he doth stand.  
But when he saw her scarf (well known of old)  
Embrued with blood, and cast on either hand?  
O what a sigh he fetched? how deep he groaned?  
And thus, if thus: yea, thus he inly moaned.   

Shalt thou alone die mateless, Thisbe mine?  
Shall not one beast be butcher to us both?  
What? is my Thisbe reft of life and shine?  
And shall not Pyram life and shining loath?  
Mine is the cursed soul, the blessed is thine,  
Thou keepest thy vow, I falsified mine oath,  
I came too late, thou cam'st (alas) too soon,  
Too dangerous standing, by a doubtful moon.   

O Lions fierce (or if aught fiercer be,  
Amongst the herds of woody outlaws fell)  
Rend, rend in twain this thrise-accursed me:  
From out your paunch convey my soul to hell:  
Whose murdering sloth, and not the sisters three,  
Did Thisbe sweet, sweet Thisbe foully quell:  
But cowards only call & wish for death,  
Whilst valiant hearts in silence banish breath.   

Then stooping, strait he took her scarf from ground,  
And bore it with him to th'appointed place,  
Kissing it oft, watering each rent and wound,  
With thousand tears, that trailing ran apace.  
Salt tears they were, sent from his eyes unsound,  
Yea salter than the sweat of Ocean's face:  
At last (having unsheathed his fatal blade)  
Thus 'gan he cry, as life began to fade.   

Hold earth, receive a draft eke of my blood,  
(And therewith leaned upon his sword amain)  
Then falling backward from the crimson flood,  
Which spouted forth with such a noise and strain,  
As water doth, when pipes of lead or wood,  
Are googed with punch, or cheesill slit in twain,  
Whistling in th'air, & breaking it with blows,  
Whilst heavy moisture upward forced flows.   

The Mulb'ry straight (whose fruit was erst as white  
As whitest Lily in the fruitfullst field)  
Was then and ever since in purple dight,  
Yea even the root no other stain doth yield,  
With blackish gore being watered all that night,  
In mournful sort, which round about it wheeled,  
Only her leaves retained their former hue,  
As nothing touched with death of lover true.   

No sooner was he fallen, and falling, freed  
Of perfect sense: but she scarce rid of fear,  
Returns again to standing fore agreed,  
Not dreaming that her love in kenning were,  
Her feet, her eyes, her heart and tongue made speed,  
To utter all things lately happened there,  
And how she scap't the Lionesses claws,  
By letting fall a scarf to make her pause.   

But when she viewed the newly-purpled face  
Of Berry's white: that changing changed her mind,  
New signs persuade her, that is not the place,  
By either part to meet in fore assigned.  
Thus doubting whilst she stood a little space,  
She heard a flittering carried with the wind,  
And viewed somewhat shake in quiu'ring wise,  
Which strait revoked her feet, but more her eyes.   

Her lips grew then more pale than palest Box,  
Her cheeks resembled Ashwood newly field,  
grayness surprised her yellow amber locks,  
Not any part their lively lustre held:  
Yea even her venturous heart but faintly knocks,  
Now up, now down, now fallen, now vainly swelled,  
Tossed like a ship when 
1 One of the Northwest winds.  Corus rageth most,  
That anchors hath, and masts and master lost.   

But when she knew her faithful fellow slain,  
O how she shrieked and bruised her guiltless arm,  
Tearing her hair, renting her cheeks in vain,  
On outward parts, revenging inward harms,  
Making of tears and blood a mingled rain,  
Wherewith she Pyram drenched, & then thus charms:  
Speak love, O speak, how happened this to thee?  
Part, half, yea all of this my soul and me.   

Sweet love, reply, it is thy Thisbe dear,  
She cries, O hear, she speaks, O answer make:  
Rouse up thy sprights: those heavy looker's cheer,  
At which sweet name he seemed half awake,  
And eyes with death oppressed, again to clear.  
He eyes her once, and eyeing leave doth take,  
Even as fair Bellis 
2 The white Daisy.  winks but once for all,  
When winter's 
3 Harvest.  usher hasteneth summer's fall.   

When afterwards she found her scarf all rent,  
His iu'ory sheath void eke of rapier gilt:  
And hath his hand (quoth she) thy soul hence sent?  
And was this blood by this thy rapier spilled?  
Unhappy I: but I no more lament,  
But follow thee even to the utmost hilt.  
I was the cause of all thy hurt and cross,  
Hold, take me eke a partner of thy loss.   

Whom only death could from me take away,  
Shall death him take from me against my will?  
Not so, his power cannot Thisbe stay:  
Who even in death will follow Pyram still,  
His blade (yet warm) then to her breast she lays,  
And fallen thereon thus cried with crying shrill:  
Parents unjust which us denied one bed,  
Envy us not one tomb when we be dead.   

And all you heavenly hosts allot the same:  
And thou O tree, which coverest now but one  
(One too too hot, for 
1 Pyramus signifieth as much as fiery.  so imports his name)  
But cover shalt two carcases anon:  
Wear signs of blood from both our hearts that came  
In mourning weed our mischiefs ever moan.  
She dead: Tree, Sires, & Gods gave what she prayed,  
Black grows the fruit, and they together laid.   

Since which time eke some other 
1 Natal. Com. lib. vlt. Mytho.  Authors feign,  
Their humming souls about these hapless trees,  
To be transported from th'Elysian plain,  
Into the snowy milk-white Butterflies:  
Whose seeds when life and moving they obtain,  
How e'er they spare the fruit of Mulberries,  
Leave yet no leaves untorne that may be seen,  
Because they only still continued green.   

Yet that there might remain some Pyramid,  
And everlasting shrine of Pyrams' love,  
When leaves are gone, and summer waning is,  
The little creepers never cease to move,  
But day and night (placing in toil their bliss)  
Spin silk this tree beneath and eke above:  
Leaving their oval 
2 egg-like  bottoms there behind,  
To show the state of every lovers mind.   

For as in form they are not wholly round,  
As is the perfect figure of the sky,  
So perfect love in mortals is not found,  
Some little warts or wants in all we spy,  
Nay even as fine and course silk there abound,  
The best beneath, the worst rolled up more high,  
So sometimes lust o're-lieth honest love,  
Happy the hand that keeps it from above.   

Again, as these fine troops themselves devour,  
Spinning but silken hharses for their death:  
Which done, they die therein, (by Nature's power  
Transformed to flies that scarce draw one months' breath)  
So lovers sweet is mingled still with sour,  
Such hap above proceeds or underneath,  
That still we make our love our winding sheet,  
Whilst more we love, or hotter then is meet.   

Others 
1 Plin. lib. 6. cap. 17.  report, there was and doth remain  
A neighbour 
2 Called Seres.  people to the Scythian tall,  
Twixt Taurus' mount and Tabis fruitful plain,  
Most just of life, of fare and diet, small,  
Lovers of peace, haters of strife and gain,  
Graye eyed, red cheeked, and amber-headed all,  
Resembling rather Gods then human race,  
Such grace appeared in words, in deeds, and face.   

Whose righteous life and justice to requite,  
(Whether with wind or rain, no man doth know)  
God sent unto them silkworms infinite,  
In April's wane when buds the mulb'ry slow,  
Which here and there in every corner light,  
With six white feet and body like to snow:  
Eating each leaf of that renowned tree,  
The matter of these silken webs we see.   

These webs for wares they on their coast exchange:  
For alien none must come into the Land,  
T'infect their people with religions strange,  
And file their temples with polluted hand:  
Neither do they to other nations range,  
New fashions, rites or manners t'understand:  
Better they have at home, where every slave  
Wears silks as rich as here our Princes brave.   

These be the tales that Poetizers sing,  
Of Silken-worme, and of their seed and meat:  
Sweet, I confess, and drawn from 
1 Whereof only the muses drank, as Poets imagine.  Helique spring,  
Full of delighting change, and learning great.  
Yet, yet, my Muse dreams of another thing,  
And listeth not of fictions to entreat.  
say then (my joy) say then, and shortly reed,  
when silk was made, & how these silkworms breed.   

Was it thinkest thou found out by industry?  
Inspired by vision or some angels word,  
When first the name of sacred Majesty,  
Was given from heaven to 
2 Melchisedec.  salem's priest and Lord?  
Did not before ten thousand Silkworms lie,  
And hang on every tree their little cord?  
Yes, but (like Hebrues harps on Babel's plain)  
Untouched and useless there it hanged in vain.   

Before, most men lived, either naked quite,  
Or coarsely clad in some beasts skin or hide:  
The best were but in linen garments dight,  
Wherein themselves the greatest men did pride:  
Yea afterward in time of greatest light, 
Mat. 13.   
When chief Baptizer preached in desert wide,  
Where said he, silken robes were to be sought,  
But in kings courts? for whom they first were wrought.   

Though whether worm or fly were form first,  
No man so right can tell as wrong presume:  
Yet this I hold. Till all things were accursed,  
Nothing was borne itself for to consume.  
No Caterpillars then which venture durst,  
To ravish leaves, or tender buds to plume:  
For only life and beauty lived in trees,  
Till falling man caused them their leaves to lose.   

The earthly herds and winged posts of sky,  
And every thing that moved on Eden ground,  
Fed first on herbs (as Duke of 
1 Moses.  Horeb hie,  
Author of Nature's story most profound,  
Sets down to us for perfect verity,  
(gaineth aid of none but fools and wits unsound)  
When for man's food trees eke allotted were, 
Gen. 2. verse 29   
Which from themselves did fruit or berries bear.   

Durst then the finest worm but touch the meat,  
Or dish which for his sovereign was ordained?  
Durst they figs, nuts, pears, plums or mulb'ries eat  
Before their lord with treason foul was stained?  
No certs no, but when ambitious heat,  
Revoked the bliss which sinless Sire had gained:  
Then worms in common fed with us, and tore  
Our trees, our fruits, yea even ourselves therefore.   

Say Romans heau'nly-humane 
1 Herod. Act. 12.  Orator,  
Whose words dropped sweeter than Hymettus' dew:  
Say 
2 Antiochus Epiphanes.  salem's scourge and juda's tormentor,  
Whose very name doth pomp and glory show:  
Say 
3 Plato, who died eaten of louse, as Diogenes Laertius writeth.  thou whose writs men as divine adore,  
Inspired from heaven with knowledge given to few:  
What are you now? what living were you then  
But worms repast, though wise and mighty men?   

Foule-footed bird, that never sleepest well  
Nor fully, but on highest perch dost breath:  
Whose outward shrieks bewray an inward hell,  
Whose glistering plumes are but a painted sheath:  
Whose tail, though it with pride so lofty swell,  
Yet hides it not thy blackness underneath.  
Tell me: what hast thou got by climbing thus,  
But to thyself a shame, and loss to us?   

To us alone? nay stoutest Okes likewise,  
Hard-hearted willows by the water side,  
Sweet Cedar wood which some think never dies,  
And 
1 The Bay.  Daphne's tree though green in winter's tide,  
Yea stone, and steel, and things of highest prize,  
From nature's womb that flow in greatest pride:  
What are they all but meat for worms and rust?  
Two due revengers of ambitious lust.   

Before thou wast, 
2 Called Cossi, which being fat, were counted a most dainty dish in Rome. Cal. Sec. lib. 28. An. lect.  were Timber-worms in price,  
And sold for equal weight of purest gold?  
Fed 
3 Titmise.  creeping birds one barke-devouring lice?  
Were silkworms from 
4 The first and principal place whence they were brought into Europe. Polyd. virg. lib. 11. de invent. etc.  Serinda brought and sold?  
Devoured they the leaves of tree most 
5 The Mulberry is called the wisest tree, because it never buddeth till all danger of cold be gone.  wise,  
With fury such as now we do behold?  
Rather believe as yet they were not borne,  
Or only fed on grass, on herbs, or corn.   

For sith their chiefest use is to array  
This little breathing dust when time requires,  
With gallant guards and broidered garments gay,  
With scarves, vales, hoods, and other soft attires:  
Whose sense from sense is fled so far away?  
Whose mind to bear so wrong a thought conspires,  
As once to deem these Silken-mercers sent,  
When nakedness was man's chief ornament?   

But sith they are, and therefore framed were,  
Which first was framed? the egg? the worm? or fly?  
No doubt the fly, as plainly shall appear,  
To all that have but an indifferent eye,  
Though two 
1 Euangelus in Macrobius lib. 4. sat. cap. 3. & Firmus in Plutarch. lib. 2. symp. quest. 3.  great Clarks contrary thoughts did bear,  
And sentence gave, without just reason why,  
That eggs were made before the hardy Cock  
Began to tread, or brooding hen to clock.   

Pretend they did, that least and simplest things,  
(Which none trained up in reason's school gainsay)  
Of things compounded are the foremost springs,  
Even as a lump of rude and shapeless clay,  
Into the mould a Moulder cunning brings,  
And by degrees compels it to obey.  
Forming by art what he in mind forethought,  
Out of a mass that just resembled nought.   

So eke though eggs seem things confused quite,  
And far unlike what afterwards they prove:  
Yet foremost place they challenge by their right,  
For who e'er saw a cock or hen to move,  
Till first they came from out the yolk and white,  
And time, and heat, and place, and sitters love,  
Had form out a nature from the same,  
Deserving well another's nature's name?   

Springs not from eggs that huge 
1 The Whale  Leviathan,  
The Tortoise eke, and bloody Crocodile?  
Fish, lizards, Snakes, and 
2 Locusts or grasshoppers.  Skippers African,  
Whose hurtful armies waste the coasts of Nile?  
Nay if with one fit word the world we scan,  
May it obtain a fit name or style,  
Then that we should a common egg it call,  
Which giveth life and form and stuff to all?   

Nay, did not once that cheerful brooding sprite,  
Before the earth received form or place, 
Gen. 1. verse 2.   
Sit closely like a hen both warm and light,  
Upon the waving nest of mingled mass,  
Whilst yet night's torches had obtained no light  
Nor Sun as yet in circled rounds did pass?  
Yes, yes: the words are so apparent plain,  
That to deny them, were but labour vain.   

These some do use with other arguments,  
To prove that seed and eggs were first in time.  
Wrested from quires of sacred Testaments,  
And those of heathen wits the chief and prime:  
Which for authentic held by long descents,  
If I gainsay, perhaps may seem a crime:  
Yet rather would I carry crime and scorn,  
Then falsely think, imperfect things first borne.   

For reason saith, and sense doth almost swear,  
Nature's entire to be created furst:  
Body's t'have been before the members were,  
The sound before the sick, the whole, the burst,  
That confidence had time when lacked fear,  
That blessed state forwent the state accursed:  
Briefly, all bodies that begotten been,  
Were not before created bodies seen.   

Now what are seeds and eggs of worms or foul,  
But recrements of preexisting things,  
The body's burden void of life and soul?  
Yea, from themselves corruption only springs,  
Unless by brooders' heat (as from the whole)  
They changed be to belly, feet, or wings:  
Resembling them now metamorphosed,  
In, by, and from whose essence they were bred.   

Yea, 
Diphilus and Senecio, their arguments against Firmus and Euangelus, of whom at large in Macrobius and Plutarch.  usual phrase such dreams confuteth quite,  
For never man, this is an eggs hen said,  
But this a hens egg is, showing aright,  
That eggs are things by former natures laid,  
begot of mingled seed by day or night,  
Neither with skin, nor shell, nor form arrayed,  
Till long they have abode in nature's nest,  
And wearied womb be with their weight oppressed   

Again, to think that seed was made before,  
The substance whence it is engendered,  
(Namely from out much nutrimental store,  
Through excess of humours perfected)  
Or else to guess it form was of yore,  
Ere pipes were laid through which it should be shed,  
What is it but to dream of day or night,  
ere darkness were, or any show of light?   

Sith eke all winged creatures by one day, 
Gen. 1. verse 20 & 24.   
Are elder than the herds that crawl and creep,  
Conclude with truth and confidence we may,  
All fly's were made ere worms began to peep,  
Both they which all day long at base do play,  
And night once come, do nothing else but sleep,  
And these which only live to leave a seed,  
From whence the never-idle spinsters breed.   

Silkeflies I mean, which not one breast alone,  
But all throughout, on head, wings, sides, and feet,  
Besides pure white, else colour carry none,  
For creatures pure, a colour thought most meet,  
Martial'd the first of all in glorious throne,  
Whereon shall sit the Lord and Saviour sweet,  
Who with ten thousand Angels all in white,  
Shall one day judge the world with doom upright   

No spot on them, as else on every fly,  
Because in them no follies ever grew,  
No crimson red doth for revengement cry,  
No wavering watchet, where all hearts be true:  
No yellow, where there is no jealousy:  
No labour lost, and therefore void of blue:  
No peachy mark to signify disdain,  
No green to show a wanton mind and vain.   

No orange colour, where there wants despite,  
No tawny sad, where none forsaken be:  
No murry, where they covet nought but light,  
No mourning black, where all rejoice with glee:  
In brief, within, without, they are all white,  
Wearing alone the badge of chastity:  
Because they only keep themselves to one,  
Who being dead, another choose they none.   

True Turtles mine, begotten with the breath,  
Not of a lewd lascivious mortal jove:  
Whose law was lust, whose life was worse than death,  
Whose incests did defile both wood and grove,  
But with the breath of him who underneath  
Rules Stygian king, and heavenly hosts above,  
Assist me if I err in setting forth  
Your birth days story; and surpassing worth.   

Assoon as light obtained a fixed seat,  
(which equally was first spread over all,  
Giving alike, both glistering, shine, and heat, 
Genesis 1.   
To every place of this inferior ball)  
Two master-lamps appeared in welkin great,  
Th'one king of day, whom Poets Phoebus call,  
And th'other Phoebe, sovereign of the night,  
Twins at one instant bred and borne of light.   

Him heavenly Martial high, in Palace placed,  
Built all of clear and through-shining gold,  
With columns chrysolite most bravely graced,  
And flaming rubies, glorious to behold,  
Wearing about his yellow-amber waste,  
A sloping belt, with studs twice six times told,  
Wherein were graven most artificially,  
Twelve stately 
1 The twelve signs in the zodiac.  Peers of curious imagery.   

About him, as in royal Coach he sat,  
Attended Hour, Day, Minute, Month, and year,  
Spring, Summer, Harvest, Winter, Morning, Fate,  
With Instancy, who then was driver there,  
Whipping his fiery steeds from 
2 For it was then full harvest and not spring-time, as the vulgar sort do hold.  Libraes gate,  
Not suffering them to stand still any where,  
Save once in Gibeon when five kings were slain,  
By first-made 
3 josua cap. 10.  Champion with their faithless train.   

His sister's court built all of silver tried,  
And Iu'ory charet set with Diamonds,  
Embossed with Orient pearls on either side,  
Wheeled all with sapphires, shod with Onyx stones,  
Declared in what great pomp she first did ride  
Amongst the other twinkling Paragons,  
Before her honour suffered an eclipse,  
Through serpent's guile, and woman's greedy lips.   

Her handmaids than were perpetuity,  
Constant proceeding, and continuance:  
No show of change or mutability  
Can justly then themselves in her advance:  
Her face was full and fair continually  
Not altering once her shape or countenance,  
Till those lights changed for whom all lights were made,  
And with whose fall the heavens began to fade.   

Yet still on her wait 
1 Oceanus is the king, & his wife Thetis is counted the Queen of the seas.  Ocean and his wife,  
Nais 
2 The Lady of the rivers.  the fair, and all the watery crew,  
Nights, Rivers, Floods, Springs, having else no strife,  
Then who may foremost proffer service due:  
Blood, choler, phlegm, (the roots and sap of life)  
Are at her beck, waning or springing new,  
According as from throne celestial,  
She deigns to shine in measure great or small.   

When they were crowned now in royal thrones,  
And entered in their first and happiest race,  
Amongst those glistering pointed Diamonds,  
Which cut out times proportion, lot, and space:  
Behold the earth with heavy burden groans,  
And prays them both to eye and rue her case:  
And with their friendly hands and meeding art,  
To hasten that which ready was to part.   

For even next morn the All-creating Sire  
Had sent abroad, 
Gen. 1.  I know not I, what word:  
Much like to this, Let Sea and earth conspire  
All winged troops the world for to afford:  
Wherewith the air: even to the desert fire, 
1 So called by Pyndarus, because nothing lives in it.   
Was so with great and little flyers stored.  
That none but winged people saw the eyes,  
Of any star or planet in the skies.   

O how it joys my heart and soul to think  
Upon the blessed state of that same day?  
When at a word, a nod, yea at a wink,  
At once flew out these winged gallants gay,  
Tide each to each in such a friendly link,  
That even the least did with the greatest play:  
The dove with hawks, the chickens with the kite.  
Fearless of wrong, rage, cruelty, or spite.   

Pert marlins than no grudge to larks did bear,  
Fierce goshawks with the Pheasants had no war,  
Rau'ns did not then the eagle's talens fear,  
Twixt Cuckoos and the Titlings was no jar,  
But coasted one another every where  
In friendly sort, as lovers wonted were:  
For love alone ruled all in every kind,  
As though all were of one and self same mind.   

How safely then did these my Turtle-soules  
Disport themselves in Phoebus' cheerful shine?  
How boldly flew they by the jays and owls,  
Dreadless of crooked beaks or fiery eyen?  
Nay, who in all the flocks of winged fowls  
Said once in heart, This pris'oner shall be mine?  
When none as yet made other war or strife,  
Then such as 
1 A Poetical God, and supposed instructor of brides and bridegrooms.  Hymen makes twixt man & wife.   

But since the fall of parents puffed with pride,  
Not only men were stained in viciousness,  
But birds, and beasts, and worms, and flies beside,  
Declining from their former perfitness,  
Did by degrees to imperfections slide,  
Tainted with pride, wrath, envy, and excess:  
Yea, than the husband of one only hen,  
Was afterwards contented scarce with ten.   

Hence, gouts in cocks, and swelling pains appear,  
Hence, Partridge loins so feeble we do view,  
Hence, sparrow treaders live out scarce a year,  
Hence, leprosy the Cuckoos overgrew:  
Briefly, none did in true love persevere:  
But these white Butterflies and Turtles true,  
Who both in life and death do ne'er forsake  
Her, whom they once espoused for their make.   

They choose not (like to other birds and beasts)  
This year one wife, another wife the next,  
Their choice is certain, and still certain rests,  
With former loves their minds are not perplexed,  
He yields to her, she yields to his requests,  
Neither with fear nor jealousy is vexed:  
She clippeth him, he clippeth her again,  
Equal their joy, and equal is their pain.   

Remember this you fickle hearted Sires,  
Whom lust transporteth from your peerless Dames,  
To scorch yourselves at foul and foreign fires,  
Wasting your health and wealth in filthy games,  
Learn hence (I say) to bridle bad desires,  
Quenching in time your hot and furious flames,  
Let little flies teach great men to be just,  
And not to yield brave minds a prey to lust.   

When thus they were created the first day,  
Alike in bigness, feature, form and age,  
Clad both alike in soft and white array,  
And set upon this universal stage,  
Their several parts and feats thereon to play,  
Amidst the rest of nature's equipage:  
Who then supposed (as since some fools have thought)  
That little things were made & served for nought.   

Diswitted dolts that huge things wonder at,  
And to your cost coast daily i'll from isle,  
To see a Norway whale, or Libyan cat,  
A Carry-castle or a Crocodile,  
If lean Ephesian 
1 Heraclitus, that ever wept.  or 
2 Democritus that ever laughed at the world's folly.  th'Abderian fat  
Lived now, and saw your madness but a while,  
What streaming floods would gush out of their eyes,  
To see great wittols little things despise?   

When look, as costliest spice is in small bags,  
And little springs do send forth clearest floods,  
And sweetest 
3 Called Onis in English.  Iris beareth shortest flags,  
And weakest Ofiers bind up mighty woods,  
And greatest hearts make ever smallest brags,  
And little caskets hold our richest goods:  
So both in Art and Nature 'tis most clear,  
That greatest worths in smallest things appear.   

What wise man ever did so much admire  
Nero's 
1 Made by Zenodorus: of which, and also of Theodorus image, more in Plin. lib., 4. cap. 7. & 8.  Colossus five score cubits high,  
As Theodorus Image cast with fire,  
Holding his file in right hand handsomely,  
In left his pair of compasses and squire,  
With horses, Coach, and footmen running by  
So lively made, that one might see them all?  
Yet was the whole work than a fly more small.   

Nay, for to speak of things more late and rife,  
Who will not more admire those famous Fleas,  
Made so by art, that art imparted life,  
Making them skip, and on men's hands to seize,  
And let out blood with taper-poynted knife,  
Which from a secret sheet he ran out with ease:  
Then those great coaches which themselves did drive, 
2 Made by Gawen Smith. Anno. 1586.   
With bended screws, like things that were alive?   

Ingenious 
3 joannes Regiomontanus: of whom Ramus at large in Proem, lib 2. Math.  German, how didst thou convey  
Thy Springs, thy Scrues, thy rowels, and thy fly?  
Thy clogs, thy wards, thy laths, how didst thou lay?  
How did thy hand each piece to other tie?  
O that this age enjoyed thee but one day,  
To show thy Fleas to faithless gazer's eye!  
That great admirers might both say and see,  
In smallest things that greatest wonders be.   

Great was that proud and feared Philistine,  
Whose lances shaft was like a weavers beam,  
Whose helmet, target, boots, and brigandine,  
Wear weight 
1 For they weighed 6000 shekels of brass.  sufficient for a sturdy team,  
Whose frowning looks and hart-dismaying eyen,  
Daunted the tallest king of Israel's realm:  
Yet little shepherd with a pebble stone,  
Confounded soon that huge and mighty one.   

Huge fiery Dragons, Lion's fierce and strong  
Did they such fear on cruel 
2 Pharaoh.  Tyrant bring,  
With bloody teeth or tails and talens long,  
With gaping jaws or double forked sting,  
As when the smallest creepers gan to throng,  
And seize on every quick and living thing?  
No, no. The Egyptians never 
3 Yet for fear of them they honoured their Gods in the form of cats. Plaut. lib. de Is. & osi.  feared mice,  
As than they feared little crawling louse.   

Did ever 
4 A most famous trumpeter. Plin. lib. cap. 56.  Piseus sound his trumpet shrill  
So long and clear, as doth the summer Gnat,  
Her little cornet which our ears doth fill,  
Awaking even the drowziest drone thereat?  
Did ever thing do Cupid so much ill,  
As once a 
5 Anacreon in one of his latter Odes.  Bee which on his hand did squat?  
Confess we then in small things virtue most,  
Gaining in worth what they in greatness lost.   

But holla, Muse, extol not so the vale,  
That it contemn great hills, and greater sky,  
Think that in goodness nothing can be small,  
For smallness is but an infirmity,  
Nature's defect, and offspring of some fall,  
The scorn of men, and badge of infamy?  
For still had men continued tall and great,  
If they in goodness still had kept their seat.   

A little dismal fire whole towns hath burnt,  
A little wind doth spread that dismal fire,  
A little stone a cart hath overturnde,  
A little weed hath learn'ed to aspire,  
The little Aunts (in scorn so often spurned)  
Have galls: and flies have seats of fixed ire.  
Small Indian gnats have sharp and cruel stings,  
Which good to none, but hurt to many brings,   

And truly for my part I list not praise  
These silke-worme-parents for their little size,  
But for those lovely great resplendent rays,  
Which from their works and worthy actions rise,  
Each deed deserving well a Crown of bays,  
Yea, to be graven in wood that never dies:  
For let us now recount their actions all,  
And truth will prove their virtues are not small.   

First, though five Males be brought to Females ten,  
Yet of them all they never choose but five,  
Each takes and treads his first embraced hen,  
With her he keeps, and never parts alive:  
And when he is enclosed in Stygian pen,  
Desireth she one moment to survive?  
No, no, but straight (like a most loving bride)  
Flies, lies, and dies, hard by her husband's side.   

In Tuscan towers what armies did I view  
One harvest, 
Anno. Dom. 1579. when I was in Italy.  of these faithful husband's dead?  
bleed, O my heart, whilst I record anew,  
How wives lay by them, beating, now their head,  
Sometimes their feet, and wings, & breast most true,  
Striving no less to be delivered,  
Then Thisbe did from undesired life,  
When she beheld her Pyram slain with knife.   

But whilst they live, what is their chiefest work?  
To spin as spiders do a fruitless thread?  
Or Adderlike in hollow caves to lurk,  
Till they have got a crust and cankered seed?  
(Whose young ones therefore, with dame Nature's fork,  
justly gnaw out the wombs that did them breed:)  
Or strive they Lion-like to seize and pray,  
On neighbour's herds or herdsmen by the way?   

Delight they with strange 
1 Of whom Pliny writeth, lib. 11. cap. 31.  Aunts & Griphins strong,  
To hoard up gold and every gainful thing?  
Live they not beasts, and birds, and men among,  
Committing nought that may them damage bring?  
O had I that five-thousand-versed song,  
Which 
2 Thamyris, who wrote 5000. verses of the world's creation Zetzes, 7. chil:: histor. 108  Poet proud did once with glory sing,  
That whilst I writ of these same creatures blest,  
In proper words their worth might be expressed.   

What will you more? they feed on nought but air,  
As doth that famous bird of Paradise,  
They live not long, lest goodness should impair,  
Or rather through that 
3 Atropos.  Hags envious eyes,  
That sits, and sitting, cuts in fatal chair  
That thread first off, which fairest doth arise:  
Affording crows and kites a longer line,  
Then fliers full of gifts and grace divine.   

When maker said to every bodied soul, 
Gen. 1.   
Increase, increase, and multiply your kind:  
What he or she of all the winged foul  
So much fulfilled their soveraigne-makers' mind,  
As these two flies? who coupled three days whole,  
Left on the fourth more seeds or eggs behind  
Then any bird: yea than the fruitful wren,  
Numbered by tale a 
4 Sometimes, more, seldom fewer.  hundred more than ten.   

Which done, both die, and die with cheerful heart  
Because they had done all they bidden were,  
Might we from hence with conscience like depart,  
How dear were death? how sweet & void of fear?  
How little should we at his arrows start?  
If we in hands a quittance such could bear  
Before that judge, who looks for better deeds,  
From men than flies, that spring of base seeds.   

Go worthy souls (so 
1 Ψύχὴ is all one name in Greek for a soul and a butterfly.  witty Greeks you name)  
Possess for aye the fair Elysian green:  
Sport there yourselves each Lording with his Dame,  
Enjoy the bliss by sinners never seen:  
You lived in honour, and still live in fame,  
More happy there, then here is many a Queen:  
As for your seeds committed to my charge,  
Take you no care: I'll sing their worth at large.   

Weep not fair 
2 The Lady of the plain.  Mira for this funeral.  
Weep not 
3 mira's daughter.  Panclea, mira's chief delight,  
Weep not 
4 Gentlewomen attending upon Mira and her daughter.  Phileta, nor 
5 Gentlewomen attending upon Mira and her daughter.  Erato tall:  
Weep not 
6 Gentlewomen attending upon Mira and her daughter.  Euphemia, nor 
7 Gentlewomen attending upon Mira and her daughter.  Felicia white:  
Weep not sweet 
8 Gentlewomen attending upon Mira and her daughter.  Fausta. I assure you all,  
Your cattle's parents are not dead outright:  
Keep warm their eggs, and you shall see anon,  
From either's loins a hundred rise for one.   
FINIS.   

❧ The second book of the Silkworms and their Flies.  

O Thou whose sweet & heau'nly-tuned Psalms  
The heavens themselves are scarce enough to praise!  
Whose pen divine and consecrated palms,  
From wronging verse did Royal Singer raise,  
Vouchsafe from brother's ghost no niggards alms,  
Now to enrich my high aspiring lays,  
Striving to guess, or rather truly reed,  
What shall become of all this little breed.   

This little breed? nay even the least of all,  
The least? nay greater than the greatest are:  
For though in show their substance be but small,  
Yet with their worth what great ones may compare:  
What eggs as these, are so much spherical  
Of all that ever winged Natures bare? 
A comparison of the Silkeflies eggs with other eggs.   
As though they only had deserved to have,  
The self same form which God to heavens gave.   

From Lybian eggs a mighty 
1 The Ostrich.  bird doth rise,  
Scorning both horse and horsemen in the chase,  
With Roe-bucks feet, throwing in furious wise,  
Dust, gravel, sand and stones at hunter's face,  
Yet dwells there not beneath the vauted skies,  
A greater fool of all the feathered race:  
For if a little bush his head doth hide,  
He thinks his body cannot be espied.   

From eggs of 
1 The Eagle.  her whose mate supporteth jove,  
And dares give combat unto dragons great,  
With whom in vain huge stags and Lion's strove,  
Whose only sight makes every bird to sweat,  
Whom Romans fed in capitol above,  
And placed her Ensign in the highest seat,  
What else springs out but bloody birds of pray,  
Sleeping all night, and murdering all the day?   

From eggs of famous Palamedian fowls,  
And them that hollow Diomedes tomb,  
In bodies strange retaining former souls,  
Wise, wary, warlike, saging things to come,  
Whose inborn skill our want of wit controls,  
Whose timely foresight mates our heedless doom,  
Comes aught but crane's of most unseemly shape,  
And diving Cootes which muddy channels scrape?   

Yea 
2 Peacocks.  you whose eggs Hortentius sometimes sold,  
At higher rate than now we prise your sire.  
Proud though he be, and spotted all with gold,  
Stretching abroad his spangled brave attire,  
Whereby, as in a glass, you do behold,  
His courting love, and longing to aspire:  
What bring ye forth but spectacles of pride,  
Whose pitchy feet mars all the rest beside?   

Thrice blessed eggs of 
1 The Pelicane.  that renowned dame,  
Who bleeds to death, her dead ones to revive,  
Whom envious creepers poison overcame,  
Whilst she fetched meat to keep them still alive,  
How well befits her love that sacred Lamb,  
That healed us all with bleeding issues five?  
Yet hath your fruit this blot, to over-eate,  
And glutton-like to vomit up their meat.   

Winter's 
2 Robbin-red-brest.  Orpheus' bloody breasted 
3 Wrenne.  Queen,  
summers sweet solace, nights 
4 Nightingale.  Amphion brave,  
Linus 
5 Linnet.  delight, Canaries clad in green,  
All 
6 Pies, parrots, stars, etc.  linguists eke that beg what heart would crave,  
Selling your tongues for every trifle seen,  
As almonds, nuts, or what you else would have:  
Offsprings of eggs, what are you but a voice?  
Angering sometimes your friends with too much noise.   

Victorious 
7 The house-cocke.  Monarch, scorning partners all,  
Stout lions terror, love of martial Sire,  
True farmer's clock, night's watchman, servants call,  
Pressing still forward, hating to retire,  
Constant in fight, impatient of thrall,  
Bearing in a little breast a mighty fire:  
Oh that thou wert as faithful to thy wife,  
As thou art free of courage voice and life!   

Chaste is the Turtle, but yet given to hate,  
Storks are officious, yet not void of guiles,  
Hardy are Haggesses, but yet given to prate,  
Faithful are Doves, yet angry otherwhiles,  
The whitest swimmer nature e'er begat,  
Suspicion black and jealousy defiles:  
Briefly, from eggs of every creature good,  
Sprang nought distainted but this little brood.   

As for that 
1 Called by Alchemists Ouum Philosophorum, the Philosopher's egg.  egg conceived in idle brain,  
Whence flows (forsooth) that endless seed of gold,  
The womb of wealth, the 
2 A medicine famous in Homer to extinguish all kind of griefs and pains.  Nepenthes of pain,  
The horn of health, and what we dearest hold:  
I count it but a tale and fable vain,  
By some old wife, or cozening friar told:  
Supposed true, though time and truth descries,  
That all such works are but the works of lies.   

For when the Sire of truth hath truly said,  
That none can make the covering of his head,  
These slender hairs, so vile, so soon decayed,  
Of so small worth though near so finely spread  
Shall any wit by human art and aid,  
Transform base metals to that essence red,  
Which buys, not only pearls and precious stones,  
But kingdoms, states, & Monarches from their thrones?   

Ah! heavens forbidden (nay heavens forbidden it sure,)  
That ever Art should more than Nature breed,  
Curse we his work whose fingers most impure,  
Durst but to dare the drawing of that seed,  
Yet when they have done all they can procure,  
And given their leaden God a golden weed:  
Zeuxis his painted dog shall bark and whine,  
When jove they turn to Sol or Luna fine.   

Sisyphian 
1 Sisyphus was one of king Aeolus sons, delighted in robbing and cozening of his neighbours, wherefore this punishment was enjoined him, to roll a stone continually to the top of a Pyramidal and most steep hill, till it rested there, which was an impossible thing to perform, because he could never pitch it. Ovid 3. met.  souls, bewitched multiplyers,  
Surcease to pitch this never pitched stone,  
Vaunt not of Nature's nest, nor Orcus' fires,  
Hoping to hatch your addle egg thereon:  
Restrain in time such overprowd desires,  
Let creatures leave Creators works alone:  
Melt not the golden Sulphur of your heart,  
In following still this fond and fruitless art.   

Record what once befell great Aeols 
2 Salmoneus, another son to Aeolus, who for counterfeiting thunder, was turned (as Servius conceived) into a Salmon,  son,  
For counterfeiting only but the sound,  
Of heavenly canoneers dreadful gun,  
That shakes the beams and pillars of this round:  
A fiery boult from wrathful hand did run,  
Driving false forger under lowest ground:  
Where still he lives still wishing to be dead,  
Spotted without, within all stained with red.   

Remember eke the Vulture gnawing still,  
That ever-dying everliving 
1 Prometheus, son of Asia & japhet, who enterprising (as Paracelsus doth) to make man, was tied upon mount Caucasus in chains, there to be eaten everlastingly by Vultures, and yet never to die. Ovid 10. Metam.  wretch,  
Who stealingly with an ambitious will,  
From Phoebus' wheels would vital fire reach,  
Thinking to make by human art and skill,  
His man of clay a living breath to fetch:  
Beware in time of like celestial rods,  
And fear to touch the only work of gods.   

But if you still with proud presumptuous legs,  
Will needs climb up the fiery-spotted hill,  
Pilfering from jove his Nectar void of dregs,  
And that immortal meat 
2 Called Ambro sia.  which none doth fill,  
If ye will needs imbecile those fair eggs,  
Which in her childbed did their 
3 Leda, who being gotten with child by jupiter in the form of a swan, brought forth two eggs, out of the one came Castor and Clytaemnestra, out of the other Pollux and Helena. Hesiodus.  mother kill,  
Yet say not, that for gifts and virtues rare,  
They do, or may, with these my eggs compare.   

These, 
4. Cic. 2. de diu.  these, are they, in dream which Roman spied  
Closed in a slender shell of brittle mould,  
Holding within, a white like silver tried,  
Whose inward yolk resembleth 
5 Whence Solomon fetched gold every three years, which wisdom would never have permitted him to have done, if he had known (as some imagine) how to make the Philosopher's stone.  Ophirs gold,  
From out whose centre sprang the chiefest pride,  
That e'er Latinus, or his race did hold,  
Exchanging in all countries for the same,  
Meat, drink, cloth, coin, or what you else can name.   

Here lies the 
1 Of which Calx, water, and oil, you may read more than enough in Libavius: Epist. de ouo Philosophorum, & the troubling Turba Philosophorum, & the reverent, D Dee, in Monad, Hierogl.  Calx of that renowned shell,  
Here floats that water permanent and clear,  
Here doth the oil of Philosophers dwell,  
Styled from the golden Fleece that hath no peer:  
In midst of whose unseen and secret cell  
Dame Nature sits, and every part doth steer,  
Though neither opening shop to every eye,  
Nor telling 
2 As one or two fools have done.  Caesar she can multiply.   

Alworking mother, Foundress of this All,  
Ten-hundred thousand-thousand-breasted nurse,  
Dedalian mouldresse both of great and small,  
As large in wealth, as liberal of purse,  
Still great with child, 
3 A description of Nature.  still letting children fall,  
Good to the good, nor ill unto the worse,  
What made thee show thy multiplying pride,  
More in these eggs, than all the eggs beside?   

Was it, because thou takest most delight,  
To print the greatest worth in smallest things?  
That they, the least of any seed in sight,  
Might clothiers breed to cloth our mightiest kings?  
O wit divine, O admirable sprite!  
Worthy the songs of him that sweetest sings:  
Let it suffice that I adore thy name,  
Whose works I see, and know not yet the same.   

But damsels, ah: who rustleth in the sky?  
Methinks I hear Enithean Ladies 
1 Boreas, who by force ravished Orythyia King Erictheus daughter. Ovid 6 Metam.  foe,  
Blustering in fury from the mountains hie,  
Look how he raiseth clouds from dust below,  
Hark how for fear the trees do crack and cry,  
Each bud recoils, the seas turn too and fro:  
O suffer not his breath-bereaving breath,  
To slay your hopes with over-timely death.   

Therefore assoon as them you gathered have,  
Upon the whitest papers you can find,  
In Boxes clean your eggs full closely save,  
From chilling blast, of deadly nipping wind,  
Let not that hoary 
2 Hiems or winter.  iry-manteld slave  
So much prevail, to kill both stock and kind:  
far be it from a tender Damsels heart,  
On tenderest seeds to show so hard a part.   

Yet keep them not in rooms too hot and close, 
The seeds or eggs of Silkeflies are to be kept neither too cold, nor any thing hot.   
Lest heat by stealth encroach itself too soon,  
And inward matter ripening so dispose,  
That spinsters creep ere winter's course be done,  
Whilst woods stand bare, & naked each thing grows,  
And Thisbe's sap for aid be inward run:  
For as with cold their brooding power is spilled,  
So are they then for want of herbage killed.   

Th'arch-mason of this round and glorious bal,  
Of creatures created Man the last,  
Not that he thought him therefore worst of all,  
(For in his soul part of himself he cast)  
But lest his wisdom might in question fall,  
For having in his house a stranger placed,  
Ere every thing was made to please and feast,  
So great a Monarch and so brave a guest.   

Under whose feet where ere he went abroad  
Vesta 
1 The Earth.  spread forth a carpet void of art,  
Softer than silk, greener than th' Emerode,  
Wrought all with flowers, and every herb apart,  
Over him hanged where ere he made abode,  
An azur'd cloth of state, which overthwart  
Was bias (as it were) and richly purld,  
With twelve brave signs & glistering stars inurld   

Upon him then as vassals every day  
Stout Lions waited, tameles Panthers eke,  
Fierce Eagles, and the wildest birds of prey,  
Huge whales in Seas that mighty carricks wreak,  
Serpents and toads: Yea each thing did obey,  
Fearing his laws and statutes once to break:  
Yet whereto served this pomp and honour great,  
If man had wanted due and daily meat?   

Trace you Gods steps, 
The seeds or eggs of Silkeflies are not to be hatched till the Mulberry three be budded.  and till you can attain  
Wherewith to feed your guests when first they show,  
Haste not their hatching, for 'twill prove a pain,  
Filling your hearts with ruth, your eyes with dew,  
As when th'untimely lamb on Sarums plain,  
Fallen too too soon from winter-starved ewe.  
To pine you see for want of liquid food,  
Which should restore his wants of vital blood.   

Attend therefore, when farmer's 
1 The Mullery  joy renews  
Her lively face, and buddeth all in green,  
For Hiems then, with all his frozen crews,  
Is fully dead, or fled to earth's unseen,  
Corn, cattle, flowers, fear then no heavy news,  
From Northern coasts, or Boreas' region keen:  
Birds sing, flies buzz, bees hum, yea all things skip  
To see the very blush of Morus lip.   

Let swallows come, let storks be seen in sky,  
Let 
2 The Nightingale.  Philomela sing, let 
3 The Wren.  Progne chide,  
Let 
4 Larks.  Tyry-tiry-leerers upward fly,  
Let constant Cuckoos cook on every side,  
Let mountain mice abroad in overt lie,  
Let every tree thrust forth her budding pride,  
Yet none can truly warrant winter's flight,  
Till she be seen with gems and jewels dight.   

O peerless tree, whose wisdom is far more  
Than any else that springs from nature's womb:  
For though pomona's 
1 All kind of round fruit.  daughters bud before,  
And forward 
2 The Almond tree.  Phillis foremost ever come,  
And Persian 
3 Peaches: brought first out of Persia, as Columella, writeth.  fruit yields of her blossoms store,  
And 
4 April's sign.  Taurus hot succeed 
5 March his sign.  Aries room:  
Yet all confess the Mulberry most wise,  
That never breeds till winter wholly dies.   

Such is her wit: but more her inward might,  
For budded new when Phoebus first appears,  
She is full leaved ere it grow to night:  
With wondrous crackling filling both our ears,  
As though one leaf did with another fight,  
Striving who first shall see the heavenly spheres,  
Even as a lively chicken breaks the shell,  
Or blessed Souls do scud and fly from hell.   

Yet wit and strength her pity doth exceed,  
For none she hurts that near or under grow,  
No not the brire, or any little weed,  
That upward shoots, or groveling creeps below,  
Nay more, from heavenly flames each tree is freed  
That nigh her dwells, when fearful lightnings glow:  
For virtue which, 
So writeth Pliny, lib. 10, hist, nat.  the Romans made a law,  
To punish them that should her cut or saw.   

I leave to tell how she doth poison cure, 
Read Pliny. lib. citate.   
From adders gore or gall of Lisards got,  
What burning blains she heals and sores impure,  
In palate, jaws, and all inflamed throat,  
What canckars hard, and wolves be at her lure,  
What Gangrenes stoop that make our toes to rot:  
Briefly, few griefs from Panders box out-flew,  
But here they find a medicine, old or new.   

Her blood returned to sweet Thisbean wine,  
Strengtheneth the lungs and stomach over-weake,  
Her clustered grapes do prove a dish most fine,  
Whose kernels soft do stones in sunder break:  
Her leaves too that converted are in time,  
Which kings themselves in highest prize do reak:  
Thus gives she meat, and drink, medicine, & cloth,  
To every one that is not drowned in sloth.   

brag now no more perle-breeding Taprobane,  
Of Cocos thine, that 
1 So Monardes calleth it. lib. de arb. Ind.  all-supplying food,  
Vaunt not of Dates thou famous 
2 Leo Afer.  African,  
Though sweet in taste, and swift in making blood,  
Blush Syrian grapes, and plums Armenian,  
Ebusian figs, and fruit of Phillis good:  
Bad is your best compared with this tree,  
That most delights my little flock and me.   

But will you know, why this they only eat?  
Why leaves they only choose, the fruit forsake?  
Why they refuse all choice and sorts of meat,  
And hunger's heat with only one dish slake?  
Then list a while, you wonder-seekers great,  
Whilst I an answer plain and easy make:  
Disdain you not to see the mighty odds,  
Twixt virtuous worms and sinful human gods.   

I think that God and nature thought it meet, 
Why Silkworms eat only Mulberry leaves.   
The noblest worms on noblest tree to feed:  
And therefore they else never set their feet  
On any tree that beareth fruit or seed:  
Others divine, that they themselves did were  
No other tree could yield their silken thread.  
judge learned wits: But sure a cause there is,  
Why they else feed upon no tree but this.   

Ne eat they all, as greedy Kafers do,  
But leave the berries to their Sovereign:  
Religiously forbearing once to blow  
Upon the fruit, that may their Lord maintain.  
Nay, if these leaves (though nothing else doth grow  
In Eden rich their nature to sustain)  
Had erst been given for other creatures meat,  
They would have choosed rather to starve then eat.   

In that they only feed upon one tree, 
Why Silkworms feed only upon one meat.   
How justly do they keep dame Nature's lore?  
Who teacheth even the bleare-eyde man to see,  
That change of meats causeth diseases store:  
The gods themselves (if any such there be)  
Have but one 
1 Called Ambrosia.  meat, one drink, and never more,  
Whereby they live in health and never die,  
For how can one against itself reply. 
2 Called Nectas    

duality of meats was sickness spring,  
With whom addition meeting by the way,  
Begat variety of every thing, 
3 Read Plutark   
Who like a whore in changeable array, 
4. Sympos, quaest. 1   
With painted cheeks (as did Philinus sing)  
And coral lips, and breasts that naked lay,  
Made us with unity to be at wars,  
And to delight in discords, change, and jars.   

Wherefore assoon as they begin to creep,  
Like sable-robed Aunts, far smaller though,  
Black at the first, like pitch of Syrian deep,  
Yet made in time as white as Atlas' snow,  
Send servants up to woods and mountains steep,  
When Mulb'ry leaves their maiden lips do show:  
Feed them therewith (no other soul they crave,  
If morn and even fresh lefage they may have.)   

The first three weeks the tenderest leaves are best,  
The next, they crave them of a greater size,  
The last, the hardest ones they can digest,  
As strength with age increasing doth arise:  
After which time all meat they do detest, 
So that they eat not in all above mine weeks.   
Lifting up heads, and feet, and breast to skies,  
Begging as 'twere of God and man some shroud,  
Wherein to work and hang their golden cloud.   

But whilst they feed, 
When their meat is to be gathered.  leral their food be dry  
And pulled when Phoebus' face doth brightly shine,  
For rain, mist, dew, and spittings of the sky,  
Have been full of the bane of cattle mine:  
Stay therefore, stay, till dayes-upholder fly,  
Five stages full from Eastern Thetis line: 
That is to say, till the sun be five hours high   
Then leaves are free from any poisoned seed,  
Which may infect this white and tender breed.   

Keep measure too, 
In what quantity they are to be dieted.  for though the best you get,  
Give not too much nor little of the same,  
Satiety their stomachs will unwhet,  
Famine again will make them lean and lame:  
Lend Witte the knife to quarter out their meat,  
As need requires and reason maketh claim:  
Lest belly break, or meagerness ensue,  
By giving more or less than was their due.   

Ne change their food (us some have thought it meet)  
For Mulb'ries though they are of double kind, 
Variety of meatoes is nought for them.   
The blacker ones are yet to them most sweet,  
From out their leaves most pleasing sap they find,  
But when they fail whilst Scythian krime 
1 Boreas, the Northwest wind  doth fleet,  
(Turn heavenly hosts, O turn that cruel wind)  
White Mulb'ry leaves, yea tender Elming bud,  
May for a shift be given in steed of food.   

Sweep every morn ere they fresh victuals see, 
Their table is to be kept clean.   
Their papred board, whereon they take repast,  
With bundled Time, or slips of Rosemary,  
Leave nought thereon that from their bellies past,  
No not th'alf-eaten leaves of Thisbe's tree,  
And when their seats perfumed thus thou hast,  
Remove them back again with care and heed,  
To former place wherein they erst did feed.   

Oft shalt thou see them careless of their meat, 
The sleep of Silkworms,   
Yea overta'en with deep and heavy sleep,  
Like to that strange and Epidemian sweat,  
When deadly slumbers did on Britons creep:  
Yet fear thou not, it is but nature's feat,  
Who nevertheless hath of peerless spinsters keep,  
And makes them thus as dead to lie apart,  
That they may wake and feed with better heart.   

Thrice thus they sleep, and thrice they cast their skin,  
The latter still far whiter than the rest, 
How oft they change their skins.   
For never are they quiet of mind within,  
Till they be clean of blackness dispossessed,  
Whether because they deem it shame and sin  
To wear the mark of blackish fiend unblessed:  
Or that their parents wearing only white,  
They therefore in that only would be dight.   

As they in body and in greatness grow, 
How they are to be distributed 〈◊〉 when they grow greater.   
Divide them into tribes and colonies,  
For though at first one table and no more  
(Small though it be) a thousand worms suffice,  
Yet afterwards (as proof will truly show)  
When they proceed unto a greater size,  
One takes the room of ten, and seems to crave  
A greater scope and portion for to have.   

The fit wherein their tables placed be, 
What manner of room their table must stand in.   
Must neither be too full, nor void of light,  
Two windows are enough, superfluous three,  
Placed in such sort that one regard the light  
Of Phoebus' steeds uprising as we see:  
And from the other when it draws to night,  
We may behold them tired as it were,  
And limping down the western Hemisphere.   

Glasde let them be, or linnen-coverd both,  
To keep out fell and black 
1 Aunts or Emmets.  Monopolites,  
The Myrmedonian crew, who void of sloth  
Do wholly bend their forces, toil, and wits  
To private gain, and therefore are full wroth  
To see this nation any good besits:  
Working themselves to death both night & day,  
Not for themselves, but others to array.   

The greedy imps of her that slew her son,  
pandion's 
2 Wrens and Robins.  daughter, bloody hearted Queen:  
The winged 
3 Sparrows.  steeds in Venus' coach that run,  
Inflamed with filthy lust and fires unseen,  
Pnrsue this flock, and wish them all undone,  
Because they come from parents chaste and clean:  
O therefore keep the casements close and fast,  
Lest quellers rage's your harmless cattle waste.   

If also carelessness have lest a rift,  
Or chink unstopped in thine aged wall:  
Wherethrough a noisome mist, or rainy drift,  
Or poisoned wind may trouble spinsters small,  
Mix lime and sand, devise some present shift  
How to repel such cruel foe-men all:  
Small is the charge compared with the gain,  
That shall surmount thy greatest cost and pain.   

I any seem to have an amber coat, 
How the sick are known from the whole, & in what sort to be used.   
And swell therewith as much as skin can hold,  
Wholly to sloth and idleness devote,  
Tainting with loathsome gore the common fold,  
Of deadly sickness 'tis a certain note,  
Whose cure, sith none have either writ or told,  
Wisdom commands to part the dead and sick,  
Lest they infect the faultless and the quick.   

Cold sometimes kills them, 
Outward causes of their sickness  sometimes over-heate,  
Rain, oil, salt, old and wet, and musty food,  
The smell of onions, leeks, garlic, and new wheat,  
Shrill sounds of trumpets, drum's, or cleaving wood:  
Yea some of them are of such weakness great,  
That whisper soft of men or falling flood,  
Doth so their hearts and senses over-wheele,  
That often headlong from the board they reel.   

Forbear likewise to touch them more than needs,  
Scar children from them given to wantonness,  
Let not the fruit of these your precious seeds,  
Die in their hands through too much carelessness:  
Who toss and roll and tumble them like weeds  
From leaf to leaf in busy idleness,  
Now squatting them upon the floor or ground,  
Now squashing out their bellies soft and round.   

Thus being kept and fed nine weeks entire, 
Signs of their readiness to work.   
Surprised with age ere one would think them young,  
With what an ardent zeal and hot desire  
To recompense thy travels do they long?  
They neither sleep, nor meat, nor drink require,  
But press and strive, yea fiercely strive and throng,  
Who first may find some happy bough or broom,  
Whereon to spin and leave their amber loom.   

Then virgins then, 
They must scour themselves two days before you set them to work.  with undefiled hand  
Sever the greatest from the smaller crew,  
For all alike in age like ready stand,  
Now to begin their rich and oval clue,  
(Having first paid as Nature doth command,  
To bellies-farmer that which was his due)  
For nothing must remain in body penned,  
Which may defile their sacred monument.   

So being cleansed from all that is impure,  
Put each within a 
1 For that is the best and safest way to lose none of them.  paper-coffin fine,  
Then shall you see what labour they endure,  
How far they pass the weavers craft of line,  
What cordage first they make and tackling sure,  
To tie thereto their bottom most divine,  
Rounding themselves ten thousand times & more,  
Yet spinning still behind and eke before.   

None cease to work: 
How they work not above nine days.  yea rather all contend  
Both night and day who shall obtain the prize  
Of working much, and with most speed to end,  
Whilst rosy 
1 The sun.  Titan nine times doth arise  
From purple bed of his most loving 
2 Aurora. the morning.  friend,  
And eke as oft in 
3 The western sea.  Atlas' valley dies)  
Striving (a strife not easy here to find)  
In working well, who may exceed their kind.   

Yea some (O woeful sight) are often found  
Striving, in work their fellows to excel,  
Lifeless in midway of their traversed round,  
Nay those that longest here do work and dwell,  
Live but a while, to end their thread renowned,  
For I have seen, and you may see it well,  
After that once their bottoms are begun,  
Not one survives to see the tenth days sun.   

Go gallant youths, and die with gallant cheer,  
For other bodies shortly must you have,  
Of higher sort than you enjoyed here,  
Of worthier state, 
How they are turned into flies when Dog days end, or thereabouts.  and of a shape more brave,  
Lie but three weeks within your silken beer,  
Till Syrian dog be drowned in western wave,  
And in a moment then 'mongst flying things,  
Receive not feet alone, but also wings.   

Wings whiter than the snow of 
1 An exceeding high hill in Asia  Taurus hie, 
A description of the Silkeflies.   
Feet fairer than 
2 Venus' Paramour, son to Cinara, king of Cyprus, by his own daughter Myrrah.  Adonis ever had,  
Heads, bodies, breasts, and necks of ivory,  
With perfect favour, and like beauty clad,  
Which to commend with some variety,  
And shadow as it were with colour sad,  
Two little dusky feathers shall arise  
From forehead white, to grace your Eben eyes.   

Then neither shall you see the bottom move,  
Nor any noise perceive with quickest ear, 
Whem the silk is to be wound from the bottom   
Death rules in all, beneath, in midst, above,  
Wherefore make haste you damsels void of fear,  
Shake off delay, as ere you profit love,  
In boxes strait away your bottoms bear,  
Freed from the coffin wherein late they wrought,  
To gain the golden fleece you so much sought.   

First pull away the lose and outmost down,  
As housewives do their ends of knotty tow, 
In what sort the silk is to be wound.   
That which lies upmost is of least renown,  
The finest thread is placed most below:  
Thread fit for kings, unmeet for every clown,  
On Nature's quill so wound up row by row,  
That if thine eye and hand the end can find,  
In water warm thou mayst it all unwind.   

Three sorts there are, 
How many sorts of silk there be.  distinct by colours three,  
The purest like to 
1 Phactusa & Lampetia Phaetons sisters. Ovid 2 Metam.  their resplendent hair,  
Who weeping brothers fall from coursers free,  
Their tears were turned to yellow amber fair.  
The second like 
2 Phillis, Demophoons spouse turned into an Almond tree.  her whom impatiency  
Made of a spouse a tree most solitary:  
The last more white, made by the weaker sort,  
Not of so great a price, nor like report.   

From out all three, but chief from the best,  
Are made, 
The use of all sorts of silk.  not only robes for priests and kings,  
But also many cordial medcius blest,  
Curing the wounds that sullen Saturn brings,  
Which being drunk, how quiet is our rest?  
How leaps out heart? how inwardly it springs?  
Speak you sad spirits that did lately feel,  
The hartbreake crush of melancholies wheel.   

Nay even the down which lies aloft confused,  
Makes Levant stuff for country younkers meet,  
Though it of court and city be refused,  
And is not worn in any civil street,  
But tell me yet, how can 
3 Diogenes that dog, who with his dirty shoes trod down Plato's silken Quilt (as Laertius writeth) in greater pride than Plato ever used it.  he be excused,  
Who trampled even the best with mired feet,  
And in a moment marred all that with pride,  
For making which, ten thousand spinsters died?   

Now if of these your bottoms you require, 
The first made bottoms are best to be reserved for seed.   
Some to reserve for future race and seed,  
Choose out the eldest, for their forward fire  
Makes inward fly the sooner spring and breed:  
Whereas the latter ones have lest desire,  
And lesser might to perfect Venus' deed:  
For why, their pride is dull, and spirits cold,  
Borne in the quarter last of 
1 The waning Moon.  june old.   

Wind none of them, which you for breed allot,  
In watery bath, nor else in wine, or lie,  
Lest outward moisture innly being got,  
Surrounding, drowns the little infant-flye,  
And cause both strings and secundine to rot,  
So that before it lives it learns to die:  
Or if you have them drenched so for gain,  
At sun or fire to dry them take some pain.   

Singled, then lay them on a table neat,  
Covered all o'er with white 
2 That is to say, white paper, for the first writing paper was the inner rind of a certain reed or cane, into which Phillira was transformed. Com. Mat. in Mithol. Within 12 days after the bottoms finished, the silkeflies are disclosed.  phillira's skin,  
Stay then again till Phoebus' chariot great  
In Ocean's bath hath twelve times washed been,  
And you shall see an admirable feat,  
This formed and yet transformed brood within:  
From which new shapes new bodies do arise,  
And tails to heads, and worms are turned to flies.   

Whereat to wonder each man may be bold,  
When silly worms themselves new fliers made,  
Whilst one another's face they do behold:  
Muse how, and when, & where, this form they had,  
How new horns sprang from out their foreheads old,  
Whence issued wings, 
Silk flies feed on nothing but air.  which do them over-lade:  
For they recording what they were of late,  
Dare not yet mount above their former state.   

As studying thus they stand a day or more,  
Offering to feed on nought but only air,  
Loathing the meat so much desired before,  
I mean the leaves of Thisbe's tree most fair:  
Disdaining eke to taste of Nais store, 
A day or a little more after disclosing, they couple together.   
To quench the heat that might their hearts impair:  
At length they know themselves to be alive,  
And fall to that for which our wantoness strive.   

Both long, 
How long they are coupled together.  and longing skud to Venus forts,  
To stir up seed that ever may remain,  
He runs to her, and she to him resorts,  
Each mutually the other entertain,  
joined with fuch links and glue of nature's sports.  
That coupled still they rest a day or twain.  
Yea oftentimes thrice turns the welkin round,  
Ere they are seen unlocked and unbound.   

So having left what e'er he could impart, 
When they die after discoupling.   
Of spirits, humours, seed, and recrement,  
Willing yet further to have thrown his heart  
Into her breast, to whom he all things meant,  
He foremost dies and yields to fatal dart:  
Ne lives she long, but straight with sorrow spent,  
(Having first laid the eggs she did conceive)  
Of love and life she shortly takes her leave.   

Small eggs they be, in bigness, colour, shape,  
Like to the meat of Indian Parrachite, 
Their eggs in colour and bigness, are likest of all things to Millet seed, wherewith Parrachitoes are fed.   
Less far in view then seed of garden rape,  
In number many, yet indefinite:  
For when the females womb gins to gape,  
And render what the male got over night,  
Now more, now fewer seeds dropped from the same,  
As they were short, or longer at their game.   

Yet seldom are they than a hundred less, 
What number of eggs they lay.   
Sometimes two hundred from their loins do fall,  
Round, smooth, hard-shelld, and void of brittleness,  
Whited alike, and yellow yolked all,  
Whose virtues great no man did yet express,  
Much less can I whose knowledge is so small,  
Though sure I am hence may we find a theme,  
Able to drink up 
1 The wateror river whereon all the Muse's drink.  Aganippe's stream.   

O keep them then with most attentive heed, 
Haw, the eggs are to be preserved.   
From Boreas' blast and Aeols insolence,  
From menstruous blasts & breathing keep them freed,  
Avoid likewise the mildews influence,  
Pray heavenly Monarch for to bless your seed,  
Helping their weakness with his providence.  
So may your milk-white spinsters work amain,  
When Morus lips shall bud and blush again.   

And 
1 An exhortation to all Farmers and Husbandmen to plant Mulberries.  thou whose trade is best and oldest too,  
Steward of all that ever Nature gave,  
Without whose help what can our rulers do,  
Though gods on earth apparelled wondrous brave?  
Behold thy helping hand fair virgins woo,  
Yea nature bids, and reason eke doth crave  
Thy cunning, now these little worms to nurse,  
Which shall in time with gold fill full thy purse.   

In steed of fruitless elms and sallows grey,  
Of brittle Ash, and poyson-breathing ugh,  
Plant Mulb'ry trees nigh every path and way,  
Shortly from whence more profit shall ensue,  
Then from 
2 Made and planted by Eagle, Arethusa, & Hyperethusa, King Atlas' daughter.  th'Hesperian wood, or orchards gay,  
On every tree where golden apples grew:  
For what is silk but even a Quintessence,  
Made without hands beyond all human sense?   

A quintessence? 
A commendation of this silk, with that which cometh from the Ossereans, as also with that which is made by the Indian worms.  nay well it may be called,  
A deathless tincture, sent us from the skies,  
Whose colour stands, whose gloss is ne'er appalld,  
Whose Mulbr'y-sent and savour never dies,  
Yea when to time all natures else be thralled,  
And every thing Fate to corruption ties:  
This only scorns within her lists to dwell,  
Bettering with age, in colour, gloss, and smell.   

So doth not yours (you 
1 Ofehese Osserians or Lords of the wood, read Bonfin. lib. 1 Decad 1. Hung Hist.  Lordings of the wood)  
Growing like webs upon the long-haird grass,  
Along the 
2 Aureleanus surnamed the Liberal, living 274. years after Christ, in whose time a pound weight of silk was sold for the like weight in fine gold. Vopiscus.  Osserian banks of Scythian flood,  
Which into Caspian womb doth headlong pass.  
No, no: Although that silk be strong and good  
In outward show, and highly prized was,  
When bounteous Caesar ruled cities prime,  
Yet soon it fades, and yields to rot in time.   

If 
3 Pausanias' books.  books be true, there is an Indian worm,  
As big as 
4 The Dor-beetle.  he that robs the eagle's nest,  
Shaped like 
5 The Spider.  Arachne that doth tinsels form,  
And nets, and lawns, and shadows of the best,  
Fed with 
6 The Reed or cane.  her locks, who yielding stands in storm,  
When 
7 The high oaks.  woods-surueyours lie on earth oppressed)  
From out whose belly, broke with surfeiting,  
Whole clews of silk scarce half concocted, spring.   

Yet that compared with this is nought so fine,  
Ne ought so sweetly fumed with dainty sent,  
Nor of like durance, nor like power divine:  
Mirth to restore, when spirits all are spent,  
If it be steeped in sweet pomana's 
1 The goddess of apples.  wine,  
Till colour fade, and substance do relent:  
Nay, nay, no silk must make that 
2 Called Confectio Alkermes a most singular Electuary against Melancholy, if it be rightly made.  Antidote,  
Save only which from spinsters mine is got.   

Whereof, if thou a pound in weight shalt take  
Unstained at all (as Amiens 
3 Io. Fernelius. lib. 7 qui est de compos. med.  flower doth write)  
And with the juice of Rose and pippins make  
A strong infusion of some day and night,  
Adding some grains of musk and Ambres flake,  
And seething all to hony-substance right:  
O what a Balm is made to cheer the heart,  
If pearl, and gold, and spices bear a part?   

What need I count how many winders live,  
How many twisters eke, and weavers thrive  
Upon this trade? which food doth daily give  
To such as else with famine needs must strive:  
What multitudes of poor doth it relieve,  
That otherwise could scarce be kept alive?  
Say Spaniard proud, & tell Italian youth,  
Whether I feign, or write the words of truth.   

Not ever were your princes clad so brave,  
Not ever were your wives decked as they be,  
Much less was silk then worn of every slave,  
And artists, sprung from base and low degree,  
That 
1 Heliogabalus, for so writeth Lampridius.  rioter whose belly diggd his grave,  
Clothed all in silk, the Romans first did see:  
Before whose time silk woven on linen thread, 
When the seed of silkworms was first brought into Europe.   
Was thought brave stuff for any Prince's weed.   

But afterwards, 
So Polidor virgil writeth out of Procopius, saying that this happened 555. years after Christ, lib. 3 cap. 6. de ret. invent.  when holy Palmers twain  
From out 
2 A city of east India.  Serinda brought these worms of fame,  
And plauted Mulb'ry plants on hill and plain,  
Wherewith to fat and foster up the same:  
How rich waxed Italy? how brave was Spain?  
In Satin fine, how bragged each man of name?  
Yea, every clown, that even as now, so then,  
Habits did scarce discern the states of men.   

Up Britain bloods, rise hearts of English race,  
Why should your clothes be courser then the rest?  
Whose feature tall, and high aspiring face,  
Aim at great things, and challenge even the best.  
Beg country men no more in sackcloth base,  
Being by me of such a trade possessed:  
That shall enrich yourselves and children more,  
Then ere it did Naples or Spain before.   

No man so poor but he may Mulb'ries plant, 
How easy and chargeless a thing it is to keep silkworms.   
No plant so small but will a silk-worm feed,  
No worm so little (unless care do want)  
But from itself will make a clew of thread,  
Each clew weighs down, rather with more than scant,  
A penny weight, 
What overplus there is in profit by keeping them.  from out whose hidden seed,  
(After the winged worms conception)  
A hundred spinsters issue forth of one.   

Divine we hence, or rather reckon right,  
What usury and profit doth arise,  
By keeping well these little creatures white,  
Worthy the care of every nation wise,  
That in their own or public wealth delight.  
And rashly will not things so rare despise:  
Yea sure, in time they will such profit bring,  
As shall enrich both people, priest, and king.   

Concerning pleasure: 
How great pleasure there is in keeping them, both to the eyes, ears, nose, and hands.  who doth not admire,  
And in admiring, smiles not in his heart.  
To see an egg a worm, a worm a flyer,  
Having first showed her rare and peerless art,  
In making that which princes doth attire,  
And is the base of every famous Mart?  
And then to see the fly cast so much seed,  
As doth, or may, an hundred spinsters breed.   

Again to view upon one birchen shred,  
Some hundred Clewes to hang like clustered pears,  
Those green, these pale, and others somewhat red,  
Some like the locks hanging down Phoebus' ears:  
And then, how Nature when each worm is dead,  
To better state in ten days space it rears:  
Who sees all this, and tickleth not in mind?  
To mark the choice and pleasures in each kind.   

Eye but their eggs, (as Grecians term them well)  
And with a penknife keen divide them quite,  
Behold their white, their yolk, their skin, and shell,  
Distinct in colour, substance, form, and sight:  
And if thy body's watchmen do not swell,  
And cause thee both to leap and laugh outright,  
Think God and nature hath that eye denied,  
By which thou shouldst from brutish beasts be tried.   

When they are worms, mark how they colour change,  
From black to brown, from brown to sorrel bay,  
From bay to done, from done to dusky strange,  
Then to an iron, then to a dapple grey,  
And how each morn in habits new they range,  
Till at the length they see that happy day,  
When (like their Sires and heavenly angels blest)  
Of pure and milk-white stoles they are possessed.   

Lay then thine ear and listen but a while,  
Whilst each their food from leafage fresh receives,  
Try if thou canst hold in an outward smile,  
When both thine ear and fantasy conceives,  
Not worms to feed, but showrings to distill.  
In whispering sort upon the tattling leaves:  
For such a kind of muttering have I heard,  
Whilst herbage green with unseen teeth they teard.   

When afterward with needle pointed tongue,  
The Flies have bored a passage through their clews,  
Observe their gate and steerage all along,  
Their salutations, couple, and Adieus:  
Hear eke their hurrying and their churring song,  
When hot Priapus love and lust renews,  
And tell me if thou heardst, or e'er didst eye,  
Like sport amongst all winged troops that fly.   

'tis likewise sport to hear how man and maid,  
Whilst winding, twisting, and in weaving, they  
Now laugh, now chide, now scan what others said,  
Now sing a Carrol, now a lovers lay,  
Now make the trembling beams to cry for aid,  
On clattering treddles whilst they roughly play:  
Resembling in their rising and their falls,  
A music strange of new found Claricalls.   

The smell likewise of silken wool that's new,  
To heart and head what comfort doth it bring,  
Whilst we it wind and tooze from oval clew?  
Resembling much in prime of fragrant spring,  
When wild-rose buds in green and pleasant hue,  
Perfume the air, and upward scents do fling,  
Well pleasing scents, neither too sour nor sweet,  
But rightly mixed, and of a temper meet.   

As for the hand, look how a lover wise  
Delighteth more to touch Astarte slick  
Then Hecuba, whose eyebrows hide her eyes,  
Whose wrinkled lips in kissing seem to prick,  
Upon whose palms such warts and hurtells rise,  
As may in powder grate a nutmeg thick:  
So joy our hands in silk, and seem full loath  
To handle aught but silk and silken cloth.   

Such are the pleasures, and far more than these,  
Which head, and heart, eyes, ears, and nose, and hands,  
Take, or may take, in learning at their ease,  
The dieting of these my spinning bands,  
Whose silken thread shall more than counterpeise,  
Pain, cost, and charge, what ever it us stands,  
So that if gain or pleasure can persuade,  
Go we, let us learn the silken-staplers trade.   

But list, me thinks I hear Amyntas sayne,  
That shepherds skill will soon be quite undone, 
Keeping of silkworms hindereth not the keeping of sheep nor, Shepherds.   
Behold fair Phillis scuddeth from the plain,  
Leaving her flocks at random for to run,  
Lo Lydian clothier breaks his looms in twain,  
And thousand spinsters burn their woollen spun:  
Ah! cease your rage, these spinsters hurt you nought  
But will increase you more then ere you thought.   

For card an ounce of silk with ten of wool,  
How fine, how strong, how strange a yarn doth rise?  
Make trial once, and having seen at full,  
Your new found stuff, chaffred at highest prize,  
Then blame your idle heads and senses dull,  
Trust not conceit, but credit most your eyes:  
Laughing as much, or more, than ere you mourned,  
When fear you see to joy and vantage turned.   

Laugh now (fair Mira) with thy Virginswhite,  
For why your eggs committed to my care,  
Are grown so much in bigness, worth, and sight,  
That Kings and Queens to keep them will not spare,  
Yea Queen of Queens, for virtue, wit, and might,  
Perhaps will hatch them twixt those hillocks rare,  
Where all the Graces feed and Sisters nine,  
Who ever love, and grace both thee and thine.   
FINIS.