Ovid's Banquet of SENSE.  
A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy, and his amorous Zodiac.  
With a translation of a Latin copy, written by a Friar, Anno Dom. 1400.  
Quis leget haec? Nemo Hercule Nemo, vel duo vel nemo: Persius.  
AT LONDON, Printed by I. R. for Richard Smith. Anno Dom▪ 1595.   

TO THE TRULY Learned, and my worthy Friend, Ma. Matthew Royden.  
Such is the wilful poverty of judgements (sweet Ma:) wandering like pasportles men, in contempt of the divine discipline of Poesy, that a man may well fear to frequent their walks: The profane multitude I hate, & only consecrated my strange Poems to these searching spirits, whom learning hath made noble, and nobility sacred; endeavouring that material Oration, which y●● call Schema; varying in som● rare fiction, from popular custom, even for the p●re sakes of ornament and utility; This of Euripides ●xceeding sweetly relishing with ●ee; Lentem coquens ne quicquam dentis addito.  
But that Poesy should be as perviall as Oratory, and plainness her special orna●rnt, were the plain way to barbarism: and to make the Ass run proud of his ears; to take away strength from Lions, and give Camels horns.  
That, Enargia, or clearness of representation, required in absolute Poems is not the perspicuous delivery of a low invention; but high, and hearty invention expressed in most significant, and unaffected phrase; it serves not a skilful Painters turn, to draw the figure of a face only to make known who it represents; but he must lymn, give lustre, shadow, and heightening; which though ignorants will esteem spiced, and too curious, yet such as have the judicial perspective, will see it hath, motion, spirit and life.  
There is no confection made to last, but it is admitted more cost and skill then presently to be used simples; and in my opinion, that which being with a little endeavour searched, adds a kind of majesty to Poesy; is better t●en that which every Cobbler may sing to his patch.  
Obscurity in affection of words, & indigested concets, is pedantical and childish; but where it shroudeth itself in the heart of his subject, uttered with fitness of figure, and expressive Epithets; with that darkness will I still labour to be shadowed; rich Minerals are digged out of the bowels of the earth, not found in the superficies and dust of it; charms made of unlearned characters are not consecrate by the Muses which are divine artists, but by Euippe's daughters, that challengd them with mere nature, whose breasts I doubt not had been well worthy commendation, if their comparison had not turned them into Pies.  
Thus (not affecting glory for mine own sleight labours, but desirous other should be more worthily glorious, nor professing sacred Poesy in any degree,) I thought good to submit to your apt judgement: acquainted long since with the true habit of Po●sie, and now since your labouring wi●s endeavour heaven-high thoughts of Nature▪ you have actual means to sound the philosophical conceits, that my new pen so seriously courteth. I know, that empty, and dark spirits, will complain of palpable night: but those that beforehand, have a radiant, and light-bearing intellect, will s●y they can pass through Corynnas' Garden without the help of a Lantern.  
Your own most worthily and sincerely affected, George Chapman.   

Richard Stapleton to the Author.  
PHoebus hath given thee both his bow, and Muse;  
With one thou slayst the Artisans of thunder,  
And to thy lose dost such a sound in●use,  
That gathered storms therewith are blown in sunder:  
The other decks her with her golden wings  
Spread beyond measure, in thy ample verse,  
Where she (as in her bowers of Laurel) sings  
Sweet philosophic strains tha● Fiends might pierce,  
The soul of brightness in thy darkness shines  
Most new, and dear: vnstaind● with foreign graces,  
And when aspiring sprights shall reach thy lines,  
They will not hear our trebble-termed bases.  
With boldness then thy able Poems use  
Phoebus hath given thee both his bow and Muse.   

Tho: William's of the inner Temple.  
ISsue of 〈◊〉 that will embrace  
With fleshly arms the three-wingd wife of thunder:  
Let her sad ruin, such proud thoughts abase  
And view aloof, this verse in silent wonder,  
If nearer your unhallowed eyes will pierce,  
Then (with the Satire) kiss this sacred fire,  
To scorch your lips, that dearly taught thereby  
Your one●y souls fit objects may aspire,  
But you high spirits in this cloud of gold  
〈◊〉 ●like jove) this bright Satur●an Muse,  
Your eyes can well the dazzling beams behold  
〈◊〉 pythian lightner freshly doth ●ffuse  
To daunt the baseness of that bastard train  
Whose twice borne judgements, formless still remain.   

Another.  
Ungrateful Farmers of the Muse's land  
That (wanting thrift and judgement to employ it)  
Let it manureles and unfenced stand,  
Till barbarous cattle enter and destroy it:  
Now the true heir is happily found out  
Who (framing it t'inritch posterities)  
Walls it with spright-fild darkness round about,  
Grafs, plants, and sows; and makes it Paradise.  
To which without the Parca●s golden bow,  
None can aspire but stick in errors hell;  
A Garland to engird a Monarch's brow,  
Then take some pains to joy so rich a jewel  
Most prize is grasped in labours hardest hand,  
And idle sonles can nothing rich command.   

I. D. of the middle Temple.  
Only that eye which for true love doth weep,  
Only that heart which tender love doth pierce,  
May read and understand this sacred vierse  
For other wits too mystical and deep:  
Between these hallowed leaves Cupid doth keep  
The golden lesson of his second Artist,  
For love, till now, hath still a Master missed  
Since Ovid's eyes were closed with iron sleep;  
But now his waking soul in Chapman lives,  
Which shows so well the passions of his soul,  
And yet this Muse more cause of wonder gives,  
And doth more Prophet-like loves art enroll:  
For Ovid's soul, now grown more old and wise,  
Pours forth itself in deeper mysteries.   

Another.  
SInce Ovid (loves first gentle Master) died  
he hath a most notorious trueant been,  
And hath not once in thrice five ages seen  
That same sweet Muse that was his ●irst sweet guide;  
But since Apollo who was gratified  
Once with a kiss, hunting on Cynthus green,  
By loves fair Mother tender Beauty's Queen,  
This favour unto her hath not envied,  
That into whom she will, she may infuse  
For the instruction of her tender son,  
The gentle Ovid's easy supple Muse,  
Which unto thee (sweet Chapman) she hath done:  
She makes (in thee) the spirit of Ovid move,  
And calls thee second Master of her love  
Futurum invisibile.   

Ovid's Banquet of SENSE.  

The Argument.  
OVID, newly enamoured of julia, (daughter to Octavius Augustus Caesar, af●er by him called Corynna,) secretly con●aid himself into a Garden of the Emperor's Court: in an Arbour whereof, Corynna was bathing; playing upon her Lute, and singing: which Ovid overhearing, was exceedingly pleased with the sweetness of her voice, 
Auditus.  & to himself uttered the comfort he conceived in his sense of Hearing.  
Then the odours she used in her bath, 
Olfactus.  breathing a rich savour, he expresseth the joy he felt in his sense of S●elling.  
Thus growing more deeply enamoured▪ 〈◊〉 great contentation with himself, he venter's to see her in the pride of her nakedness: which doing by stealth, he discovered the comfort he conceived in Seeing, 
Visus.  and the glory of her beauty.  
Not yet satisfied, he useth all his Art to make known his being there, 
Gustus.  without her offence: or (being necessarily offended) to appease her: which done, he entreats a kiss a serve for satisfaction of his Taste, which he obtains.  
Then proce●des he to entreaty for the fift sense and there is interrupted. 
Tactus.    

NARRATIO.  

THE Earth, from heavenly light conceived heat,  
Which mixed all her moist parts with her dry,  
When with right beams the Sun her bosom beat,  
And with fit food her Plants did nutrifie;  
They (which to Earth, as to their Mother cling  
In forked roots) now sprinkled plenteously  
With her warm breath; did hasten to the spring,  
Gather their proper forces, and extrude  
All power but that, with which they stood endued.   

Then did 
* Cyrrhus is a surname of the Sun, from a town called Cyrrha, where he was honoured.  Cyrrhus fill his eyes with fire,  
Whose ardour curled the foreheads of the trees,  
And made his greene-love burn in his desire,  
When youth, and ease, (Collectors of loves fees)  
Enticed Corynna to a silver spring,  
Enchasing a round Brow; which with it sees, 
* By Prosopopaeia, he makes the fountain the eye of the round Arbour, as a Diam●nt seems to be the eye of a Ring: and therefore says, the Arbour sees with the Fountain.   
(As with a Diamant doth an ameld Ring▪)  
Into which eye, most pitifully stood  
Niobe, shedding tears, that were her blood.   

Stone Niobe, whose statue to this Fountain,  
In great Augustus Caesar's grace was brought  
From Sypilus, the steep Mygdonian Mountain:  
That statue 〈◊〉, still weeps for former thought,  
Into this spring Corynnas' bathing place;  
So cunningly to optic reason wrought,  
That a far of, it showed a woman's face,  
Heavy, and weeping; but more nearly viewed,  
Nor weeping, heavy, nor a woman showed.   

In Summer only wrought her ecstasy;  
And that her story might be still observed,  
Octavius caused in curious imagery,  
H●r fourteen children should at large be carved,  
Their fourteen breasts, with ●ourteene arrows gored  
And ●et by her, that for her seed so starved  
To a stone Sepulchre herself deplored,  
In ivory were they cut, and on each breast,  
In golden Elements their names impressed.   

H●r sons, were Sypilus, Agenor, Phaedimus,  
〈◊〉, Argus, and Damasicthen,  
T●e seventh called like his Grandsire, Tantalus.  
Her Daughters, were the fair Astiochen,  
〈◊〉, N●●ra, and Pelopie,  
〈◊〉, pound Ph●hia, and Eugigen,  
All these apposde to violent Niobe  
●ad looks so deadly sad, so lively done,  
As if Death liu●d in their confusion.   

Behind their Mother two Pyramids  
Of freckled Marble, through the Arbour viewed,  
On whose sharp brows, S●l, and Tytanides  
In purple and transparent glass were hewed,  
Through which the Sunbeams on the statues staying,  
Made their pale bosoms seem with blood embrewed,  
Those two stern Planets rigours still bewraying  
To these dead forms, came living beauties essence  
Able to make them startle with her presence.   

In a lose rob of Tynsell forth she came,  
Nothing but it betwixt her nakedness  
And envious light. The downward burning flame,  
Of her rich hair did threaten new access,  
Of venturous Phaeton to scorch the fields:  
And thus to bathing came our Poet's Goddess,  
Her handmaids bearing all things pleasure yields  
To such a service; Odours most delighted,  
And purest linen which her looks had whited.   

Then cast she off her rob, and stood upright,  
As lightning breaks out of a labouring cloud;  
Or as the Morning heaven casts off the Night▪  
Or as that heaven cast off if self, and showed  
Heavens upper light, to which the brightest day  
Is but a black and melancholy shroud:  
Or as when Venus strived for sovereign sway  
Of charmfull beauty, in young Troy's desire,  
So stood Corynna vanishing her tire.   

A soft enflowred bank embraced the fount;  
Of Chloris ensigns, an abstracted field;  
Where grew Melanthy, great in Bees account,  
Amareus, that precious Balm doth yield,  
enameled Pansies, used at Nuptials still,  
Diana's arrow, Cupid's crimson shield,  
Ope-morne, nightshade, and Venus' navel,  
Solemn Violets, hanging head as shamed,  
And verdant calamint, for odor famed.   

Sacred Nepenthe, purgative of care,  
And sovereign Rumex that doth rancour kill,  
Sya, and Hyacinth, that Furies wear,  
W●ite and red jessamines, Merry, Melliphill:  
Fair Crowne-imperiall, Emperor of Flowers,  
Immortal Amaranth, white Aphrodill,  
And cup-like Twillpants, stroude in Bacchus' Bowers,  
These cling about this Nature's naked gem,  
To taste her sweets, as Bees do swarm on them.   

And now she used the Fount, where Niobe,  
Toombed in herself, poured her lost soul in tears,  
Upon the bosom of this Roman Phoebe;  
Who; bathed and Odord; her bright limbs she rears,  
And drying her on that disparent round;  
Her Lute she takes t'enamoure heavenly ears,  
And try if with her voices vital sound,  
She could warm life through those cold statues spread,  
And cheer the Dame that wept when she was dead.   

And thus she sung, all naked as she sat,  
Laying the happy Lute upon her thigh,  
Not thinking and near to wonder at  
The bliss of her sweet breasts divinity,   

The Song of CORYNNA.  
'tis better to contemn then love,  
And to be fair then wise;  
For souls are ruled by eyes:  
And Ioues Bird, ceased by Cypris Dove,  
It is ●ur grace and sport to see,  
Our beauty's sorcery,  
That makes (like destiny)  
Men follow us the more we flee;  
That s●ts wise Glosses on the fools,  
And turns her checks to books,  
Where wisdom sees in looks  
Derision, laughing as his school,  
Who (loving) proves, profaneness, holy;  
Nature, our fate, our wisdom, folly.   

While this was singing, Ovid young in love  
With her perfections, never proving yet  
How merciful a Mistress she would prove,  
Bodily embraced the power he could not let  
And like a fiery exhalation  
Followed the sun, he wished might never set;  
Trusting herein his constellation  
Ruled by loves beams, which Julia's eyes erected,  
Whose beauty was the star his life directed.   

And having drenched his ankles in those seas,  
He needs would swim, and cared not if he drowned:  
Loves feet are in his eyes; for if he please  
The depth of beauties gulfye floodd to sound,  
He goes upon his eyes, and up to them▪  
At the first steap he is; no shader ground  
Could Ovid find; but in loves holy stream  
Was past his eyes, and now did wet his ears,  
For his high Sovereign's silver voice he hears.   

Whereat his wit, assumed fiery wings,  
Soaring above the temper of his soul,  
And he the purifying rapture sings  
Of his ears sense, takes full the Thespian bowl  
And it carrouseth to his Mistress health,  
Whose sprightful verdure did dull flesh control,  
And his conceit he crowneth with the wealth  
Of all the Muses in his pleased senses,  
When with the ears delight he thus commences:   

Now Muses come, repair your broken wings,  
(Plucked, and profaned by rustic Ignorance,)  
With feathers of these notes my Mistress sings;  
And let qui●k verse her drooping head advance  
From dungeons of contempt to smite the starr●;  
In Julia's tunes, led forth by furious trance  
A thousand Muses come to bid you wars,  
Dive to your Spring▪ and hide you from the stroke,  
All Poet's furies will her tunes invoke.   

Never was any sense so set on fire  
With an immortal ardour, as mine ears;  
Her fingers to the strings doth speech inspire  
And numbered laughter; that the descant bears  
To her sweet voice▪ whose species through my sense  
My spirits to their highest function rears;  
To which impressed with ceaseless confluence  
It useth them, as proper to her power  
Marries my soul, and makes itself her dower;   

Methinks her tunes fly guilt, like Attic Bees  
To my ears hi●es, with honey tried to air;  
My brain is but the comb, the wax, the lees,  
My soul the Drone, that lives by their affair.  
O so it sweets, refines, and ravisheth,  
And with what sport they sting in their repair?  
Rise then in swarms, and sting me thus to death  
Or turn me into swounde; possess me whole,  
Soul to my life, and essence to my soul.   

Say gentle Air, o does it not thee good  
Thus to be smit with her correcting voice?  
Why dance ye not, ye daughters of the wood?  
W●ther for ever, if not now rejoice.  
Rise stones, and build a City with her notes,  
And notes infuse with your most Cynthian noise,  
To all th● Trees, sweet flowers, and crystal Floats,  
That crown, and make this cheerful Garden quick, ●  
Virtue, that every ●uch may make such Music.   

O that as man is called a little world  
The world might shrink into a little man,  
To hear the notes about this Garden hurled,  
That skill dispersed in tunes so Orphean  
Might not be lost in smiting stocks and trees  
That have no ears; but grown as it began  
Spread their renowns, as far as Phoebus sees  
Through earth's dull veins; that she like heaven might move,  
In ceaseless Music, and be filled with love.   

In precious incense of her holy breath,  
My love doth offer Hecatombs of notes  
To all the Gods; who now despise the death  
Of Oxen, Heifers, Weathers, Swine, and Goats.  
A Sonnet in her breathing sacrificed,  
Delights them more than all beasts bellowing throats,  
As much with heaven, as with my hearing prized.  
And as guilt Atoms in the sun appear,  
So greet these sounds the grissels of mine ear.   

Whose pores do open wide to their regreet,  
And my implanted air, that air embraceth  
Which they impress; I feel their nimble feet  
Tread my ears Labyrinth; their sport amazeth  
They keep such measure; play themselves and dance.  
And now my soul in Cupid's Furnace blazeth,  
Wrought into fury with their dalliance:  
And as the fire the parched stubble burns,  
So fades my flesh, and into spirit turns.   

Sweet tunes, brave issue, that from julia come;  
shook from her brain, armed like the Queen of Ire;  
For first 
* In this allusion to the birth of Pallas; he shows the conceit of her Sonnet; both for matter and not●, and by Metaphor he exprasseth how she delivered her words, & tunes, which was by commission of the order, Philosophers set down in apprehension of our knowledge, and effection of our senses, for first they affirm, the species of every object propagates itself by our spirits to our common sense, that delivers it to the imaginative part▪ that to the Cogitative: the Cogitative to the Passive intellect▪ the Passive intellect, to that which is called Diano●s, or Di●c●rsus; and that delivers it ●p to the mind, which order he observe▪ in her utterance.  conceived in her mental womb,  
And nourished with her souls discursive fire,  
They grew into the power of her thought;  
She gave them dounye plumes from her attire,  
And them to strong imagination brought:  
That, to her voice; wherein most movinglye  
She (blessing them with kisses) lets them fly.   

Who fly rejoicing; but (like noblest minds)  
In giving others life themselves do die,  
Not able to endure earths rude unkindes'  
Bred in my sovereigns parts too tenderly;  
O that as 
* The Philosopher saith, Intellectus in ipsa intellegibilia transit, upon whi●h is grounded this invention, tha● in the same manner his life might pass into his Mistress con●eite, intending his intellectual life, or soul: which by this Analogy, should be Intellectus, & her conceit, Intel●igibilis.  Intellects themselves transite  
To each intellegible quality,  
My life might pass into my loves conceit,  
Thus to be formed in words, her tunes, and breath,  
And with her kisses, sing itself to death.   

This life were wholly sweet, this only bliss,  
Thus would I live to die; Thus sense were feasted,  
My life that in my flesh a Chaos is  
Should to a Golden world be thus digested;  
Thus should I rule her faces Monarchy,  
Whose looks in several Empires are invested  
Crowned now with smiles, and then with modesty,  
Thus in her tunes division I should reign,  
For her conceit does all, in every vain.   

My life then turned to that, t'each note, and word  
Should I consort her look; which sweeter sings,  
Where songs of solid harmony accord,  
Ruled with loves ●ule; and pricked with all his stings;  
Thus should I be her notes, before 
* This hath reference to the order of her utterance, expressed before.  they be;  
While in her blood they sit with fiery wings  
Not vapord in her voices stillerie,  
Nought are these notes her breast so sweetly frames,  
But motions, fled out of her spirits flames.   

For as when steel and flint together smit,  
With violent action spit forth sparks of fire,  
And make the tender tinder burn with it;  
So my loves soul doth lighten her desire  
Upon her spirits in her notes 
* So is this lykew●●e ●eferd to the 〈◊〉 above said, 〈◊〉 the more 〈◊〉.  pretence;  
And they convey them (for distinckt attire)  
To use the Wardrobe of the common sense:  
From whence in veils of her rich breath they fly,  
And feast the ear with this felicity.   

Me thinks they raise me from the heavy ground  
And move me swimming in the yielding air:  
As Zephirs flowery blasts do toss a sound;  
Upon their wings will I to Heaven repair,  
And sing them so, Gods shall descend and hear  
Ladies must be adored that are but fair,  
But apt beside with art to tempt the ear  
In notes of Nature, is a Goddess part,  
Though oft, men's natures notes, please more then Art.   

But here are Art and Nature both confined,  
Art casting Nature in so deep a trance  
That both seem dead, because they be divined,  
Buried is Hea●en in earthly ignorance,  
Why breaks not men than strumpet Follies bounds,  
To learn at this pure virgin utterance?  
No; none but Ovid's ears can sound these sounds,  
Where sing the hearts of Love and Poesy,  
Which make my M●se so strong she works too high.   

Now in his glowing ears her tunes did sleep,  
And as a silver Bell, with violent blow  
Of Steel or Iron, when his sounds most deep,  
Do from his sides and airs soft bosom flow,  
A great while after murmurs at the stroke,  
Letting the hearer's ears his hardness know,  
So chid the Air to be no longer broke:  
And left the accents panting in his ear  
Which in this Banquet his first service were.   

Herewith, 
Olfactus.  as Ovid something nearer drawn,  
Her Odours, odord with her breath and breast,  
Into the sensor of his savour flew,  
As if the Phoenix hasting to her rest  
Had gathered all th'Arabian Spice●e  
T'enbalme her body in her Tomb, her nest,  
And there lay burning 'gainst Apollo's eye,  
Whose fiery air strait piercing Ovid's brain  
Inflame his Muse with a more odorous vain.   

And thus he sung, come sovereign Odours, come  
Restore my spirits now in love consuming,  
Wax hotter air, make them more savorsome,  
My fainting life with fresh-breathed soul perfuming,  
The flames of my disease are violent,  
And many perish on late helps presuming,  
With which hard fate must I yet stand content,  
As Odours put in fire most richly smell,  
So men must burn in love that will excel.   

And as the air is rarefied with heat  
But thick and gross with Summer-killing cold,  
So men in love aspire perfections seat,  
When others, slaves to base desire are sold,  
And if that men near Ganges lived by sent  
Of Flowers, and Trees, more I a thousand fold  
May live by these pure fumes that do present  
My Mistress quickening, and consuming breath  
Where her wish flies with power of life and death.   

Me thinks, as in these liberal fumes I burn  
My Mistress lips be near with kisse-entices,  
And that which way soever I can turn,  
She turns withal, and breaths on me her spices  
As if too pure for search of humane eye  
She flew in air disburdening Indian prizes,  
And made each earthly fume to sacrifice.  
With her choice breath fell Cupid blows his fire,  
And after, burns himself in her desire.   

Gentle, and noble are their tempers framed,  
That can be quickened with perfumes and sounds,  
And they are cripple-minded, Gowt-wit lamed,  
That lie like fire-fit blocks, dead without wounds,  
Stirred up with nought, but hell-descending gain,  
The soul of fools that all their souls confounds,  
The art of Peasants and our Nobles stain,  
The bane of virtue and the bliss of sin.  
Which none but fools and Peasants glory in.   

Sweet sounds and Odours, are the heavens, on earth  
Where virtues live, of virtuous men deceased,  
Which in such like, receive their second birth  
By smell and 
* By this all●sion drawn from the effects of sounds and Odours, he imitates the eternity of Virtue: saying, the ●ertues of good men live in them, because they stir up pure inclinations to the like, as if infused in perfumes & sounds: Besides, he infers, that such as are neither delighted with sounds (intending by sounds all utterance of knowledge, as well as musical affections,) nor with Odours, (which properly dry the brain & delight the instruments of the soul, making them the more capable of her faculties) such saith he, perish without memory.  hearing endlessly increased;  
They were mere flesh were not with them delighted,  
And every such is perished like a beast  
As all they shall that are so foggy sprighted,  
Odours feed love, 〈◊〉 love clear heaven discovers,  
lovers wea●e sweets then; sweetest minds, be lovers.   

Odour in heat and dryness is con●ite  
Love then a fire is much thereto affected;  
And as ill smells do kill his appetite  
With thankful savours it is still protected▪  
Love lives in spirits, and our spirits be  
Nourished with Odours, therefore love refected;  
And air less corpulent in quality  
Then Odours are, doth nourish vital spirits  
Therefore may they be proved of equal merits;   

O sovereign Odours; not of force to give  
Food to a thing that lives nor let it die,  
But to add life to that did never live;  
Nor to add life, but immortality.  
Since they partake her heat that like the fire  
Stolen from the wheels of Phoebus' waggonrie  
To lumps of earth, can manly life inspire;  
Else be these fumes the lives of sweetest dames  
That (dead) attend on her for novel frames;   

Rejoice blest Clime, thy air is so refined  
That while she lives no hungry pestilence  
Can feed her poisoned stomach with thy kind;  
But as the unicorns pregredience  
To venomed Pools, doth purge them with his horn,  
And after him the deserts Residence  
May safely drink, so in the wholesome morn  
After her walk, who there attends her eye,  
Is sure that day to taste no malady.   

Thus was his course of Odours sweet and sleight,  
Because he longed to give his sight assay,  
And as in fervour of the summer's height,  
The sun is so ambitious in his sway  
He will not let the Night an hour be placed,  
So in this Cupids Night (oft seen in day  
Now spread with tender clouds these Odours cast,)  
Her sight, his sun so wrought in his desires,  
His savour vanished in his visual fires.   

So v●lture love on his increasing liver,  
And fruitful entrails eagerly did feed,  
And with the goldnest Arrow in his Quiver,  
Wounds him with long, that like Torrents bleeds,  
To see the Mine of knowledge that enriched  
His mind with poverty, and desperate need  
A sight that with the thought of sight bewitched,  
A sight taught Magic his deep mystery,  
Quicker in danger then 
* Allusion to the transformation of Actaeon with the sight of Diana.  Diana's eye.   

Stay therefore Ovid, venture not, a sight  
May prove thy rudeness, more than show thee loving,  
And make thy Mistress think thou thinkest her light:  
Which thought with lightest Dames is nothing moving.  
The slender hope of favour thou hast yet  
Should make thee fear, such gross conclusions proving:  
Besides, the Thicket Flora's hands hath set  
To hide thy theft, is thin and hollow hearted,  
Not meet to have so high a charge imparted.   

And should it keep thy secrets, thine own eye  
Would fill thy thoughts so full of lightnings,  
That thou must pass through more extremity.  
Or stand content to burn beneath their wings,  
Her honour 'gainst thy love, in wager laid,  
Thou wouldst be pricked with other senses stings,  
To taste, and feel, and yet not there be staid:  
These casts, he cast, and more, his wits more quick  
Than can be cast, by wit's Arithmetic.   

Forward, 
A simile, expressing the manner of his minds contention in the desire of her sight, and fear of her displeasure.  and back, and forward went he thus,  
Like wanton Thamysis, that hastes to greet  
The brackish Court of old Ocea●us;  
And as by London's bosom she doth fleet  
Casts herself proudly through the Bridge's twists,  
Where (as she takes again her Crystal feet:)  
She curls her silver hair like Amorists,  
Smooths her bright cheeks, adorns her brows with ships  
And Empresse-like along th● Coast she trips.   

Till coming near the Sea, she hears him roar,  
Tumbling her churlish billows in her face,  
Then, more dismayed, then insolent before  
Charged to rough battle, for his smooth embrace,  
She crowcheth close within her winding banks,  
And creeps retreat into her peaceful Palace;  
Yet strait high-flowing in her female pranks  
Again she will be wanton, and again,  
By no means stayed, nor able to contain.   

So Ovid with his strong affections striving▪  
Masked in a friendly Thicket near her Bower,  
Rubbing his temples, fainting, and reviving,  
Fitting his garments, praying to the hour,  
Backwards, and forwards went, and durst not venture,  
To tempt the tempest of his Mistress lower,  
Or let his eyes her beauty's ocean enter,  
At last, with prayer he pierceth Iun●s ●are,  
Great Goddess of audacity and fear,   

Great Goddess of audacity, and fear,  
Queen of Olympus, Satur's eldest seed,  
That dost the s●epter over Samos bear,  
And rul'st all Nuptiale rites with power, and meed,  
Since thou in nature art the mean to mix  
Still sulphur humours, and canst therefore speed  
Such as in Cyprian sports their pleasures fix  
Venus herself, and Mars by thee embracing,  
Assist my hopes, me and my purpose gracing.   

With this digression, we will now return  
To Ovid's prospect in his fancy's storm:  
He thought he saw the Arbours bosom burn,  
Blazed with a fire wrought in a ladies form:  
Where silver past the least: and Nature's vaunt  
Did such a precious miracle perform,  
She lay, and seemed a flood of Diamant  
Bounded in flesh: as still as Vespers hair,  
When not an Aspen leaf is styrrd with air.   

She lay 
* The amplification of this simile, is taken from the blissful state of souls in Elision, as ●●rgill fa●es: and expre●●eth a regenerate beauty in all life & perfection, not intimating any r●st of death. But in peace of that eternal spring, he pointeth to that life of life this beauty-clad naked Lady.  at length, like an immortal soul  
At endless rest in blessed Elysium:  
And then did true felicity enroll  
So fair a Lady, figure of her kingdom.  
Now Ovid's Muse as in her tropic shined,  
And he (struck dead) was mere heaven-borne become,  
So his quick verse in equal height was shrined:  
Or else blame me as his submitted debtor,  
That never Mistress had to make me better.   

Now as she lay, attired in nakedness,  
His eye did carve him on that feast of feasts:  
Sweet 
He calls her body (as it were divided with her breasts,) the fields of Paradise, and her arms & legs the famous Rivers in it.  fields of life which Death's foot dare not press,  
Flowrd with th'unbroken waves of my loves breasts,  
Unbroke by depth of those her beauties floods:  
See where with ben● of Gold curled into Nests  
In her heads Grove, the Spring-bird Lampate brood's:  
Her body doth present those fields of peace  
Where souls are feasted with the soul of ease.   

To prove which paradise that nurseth these,  
See see the golden Rivers that renown it:  
Rich Gehon, Tigris, Phis●n, E●phra●●s,  
Two from her bright Pelopian shoulders crown it,  
And two out of her snowy Hills do glide,  
That with a Deluge of delights do drown it:  
The highest two, their precious streams divide  
To ten pure floods, that do the body duty  
Bounding themselves in length, but not in beauty.   

These 
* He intends the office her fingers in attiring her, touching this of their c●●●ses, in their inflection following▪ their playing upon an Instrument.  wind their courses through the painted bowers,  
And raise s●ch sounds in their inflection,  
As ceaseless start from Earth fresh sorts of flowers,  
And bound that book of life with every section.  
In these the Muses dare not swim for drowning,  
Their sweetness poisons with such blessed infection,  
And leaves the only lookers on them swooning,  
These forms so decks, and colour makes so shine,  
That Gods for them would cease to be divine.   

Thus though my love be no Elysium  
That cannot move, from her prefixed place;  
Yet have her feet no power from thence to come,  
For where she is, is all Elysian grace:  
And as those happy men are sure of bliss  
That can perform so excellent a race  
As that Olympiad where her favour is,  
So she can meet them blessing them the rather  
And give her sweets, as well as let men gather.   

Ah how should I be so most happy than  
T'aspire that place, or make it come to me?  
To gather, or be given, the flower of women?  
Elysium must with virtue gotten be,  
With labours of the soul and continence,  
And these can yield no joy with such as she,  
She is a sweet Elysium for the sense  
And Nature doth not sensual gifts infuse  
But that with sense, she still intends their use.   

The sense is given us to excite the mind,  
And that can never be by sense exited  
But first the sense must her contentment mind,  
We therefore must procure the sense delighted,  
That so the soul may use her faculty;  
Mine Eye then to this feast hath her invited▪  
That she might serve the sovereign of mine Eye,  
She shall bid Time, and Time so feasted never  
Shall grow in strength of her renown for ever.   

Betwixt mine Eye and object, certain lines,  
Move in the figure of a Pyramid,  
Whose chapter in mine eyes grey apple shines,  
The base within my sacred object is:  
On this will I inscribe in golden verse  
The marvels reigning in my sovereigns bliss,  
The arcoes of sight, and how her arrows peerse:  
This in the Region of the air shall stand  
In Fame's brass Court, and all her Tr●mps command.   

Rich Beauty, that each Lover labours for,  
Tempting as heaps of new-co●nd-glowing Gold,  
(Racked of some miserable Treasurer)  
Draw his desires, and them in chains enfold  
Urging him still to tell it, and conceal it,  
But Beauty's treasure ne●er can be told  
None can peculiar joy, yet all must steal it,  
O Beauty, this same bloody siege of thine  
Starves me that y●eld, and f●edes me till I pine.   

And as a Taper burning in the dark  
(As if it threatn●d every watchful eye  
That viewing b●●ns it,) ma●es that eye his mark,  
And hurls guilt Darts at it continually,  
Or as it envied, any eye but it  
Should see in darkness, ●o my Mistress beauty  
From forth her secret stand my heart doth hit:  
And like the D●rt of Caph●lus doth kill  
Her perfect Lo●e●, though she mean no ill.   

Thus, as the innocence's of one betrayed  
Carries an Argus with it, though unknown,  
And Fat● to wreak the treachery bewrayed;  
Such vengeance hath my M●●●res Beauty shown  
On me the 〈◊〉 to her modesty,  
So unassailde, I quite am overthrown,  
And in my triumph bound in slavery,  
O Beauty, still thy Empire swims in blood,  
And in thy peace, War stores himself with food.   

O Beauty, how attractive is thy power?  
For as the lives heat clings about the heart,  
So all men's hungry eyes do haunt thy Bower,  
Reigning in Greece, Troy swum to thee in A●t;  
Removed to Troy, Greece followed thee in fears;  
Thou drewest each Syreles sword, each childless Dar●  
And pulld'st the towers of Troy about thine ears:  
Shall I then muse ●hat thus thou drawest me?  
No, but admire, I stand thus far from thee.   

Herewith she rose like the Au●umnale Star  
Fresh burnished in the lofty Ocean flood,  
That darts his glorious influence more far  
Than any Lamp of bright Oly●pus brood;  
She lifts her lightning arms above her head,  
And stretcheth a Meridian from her blood,  
That slept awake in her Elysian bed:  
Then knit she up, lest lose, her glowing hair  
Should scorch the Centre and incense the air.   

Thus when her fair hart-binding hands had tied  
Those liberal Tresses, her high frontier part,  
She shrunk in curls, and curiously plied  
Into the figure of a swelling heart:  
And then with jewels of devise, it graced:  
One was a Sun graven at his E●uens departed,  
And under that a Man's huge shadow 
* At the Sun going down, shadows grow longest, whereupon this Emblem is devised.  placed,  
Wherein was writ, in ●able Charectry,  
Decrescente nobility, crescent o●●curi.   

An other was an Eye in sapphire set,  
And close upon it a fresh Laurel spray.  
The skilful Posy was, Medio 
* Sight is one of the three senses that hath his medium extrinsically, which now (supposed wanting,) lets the sight by the close apposition of the Laurel: the application whereof hath many constructions.  c●ret,  
To show not eyes, but means must truth display.  
The third was an Apollo 
* The Sun hath as much time to campasse a Dial as the world, & therefore the world is placed in the Dial, expressing the conceit of the Emprese morally which hath a far higher intention.  with his Teme  
About a Dial and a world in way,  
The Motto was, Te●psi●●●t ●rbem,  
graven in the Dial; these exceeding rare  
And other like accomplem●nts she ware.   

Not Tigris, Nilus, nor swift Euphrates,  
Quoth Ovid now, can more subdue my flame,  
I must through hell adventure to displease,  
To ●ast and touch, one kiss may work the same:  
If more will come, more than much more I will;  
Each natural agent doth his action frame,  
To render that he works on like him still:  
The fire on water working doth induce  
Like quality unto his own in use.   

But Heaven in her a sparkling temper blewe  
(As love in me) and so will soon be wrought,  
Good wits will bite at baits most strange and new,  
And words well placed, move things were never thought;  
What Goddess is it Ovid's wits shall dare  
And he disgrace them with attempting nought?  
My words shall carry spirits to ensnare  
The subtelst hearts affecting ●utes importune,  
" Best loves are lost for wit when men blame Fortune."   

WIth this, 
Narratio.  as she was looking in her Glass,  
She saw therein 
* Ovid standing behind her▪ his face was seen in the Glass.  a man's face looking on her:  
Whereat she started from the frighted Grass,  
As if some monstrous Serpent had been shown her:  
Rising as when (the sun in Leos sign)  
Auriga with the heavenly Goat upon her,  
Shows her horned forehead with her Kids divine,  
Whose rise, kills Vines, heavens face with storms disguising▪  
No man is safe at sea, the Haedy rising.   

So strait wrapped she her body in a Cloud,  
And threatened tempests for her high disgrace,  
Shame from a Bower of Roses did unshrowde  
And spread her crimson wings upon her face;  
When run●●ng out, poor Ovid humbly kneeling  
Full in the Arbours mouth, did stay her race  
And said; fair N●●ph, great Goddess have some feeling  
Of Ovid's pains; but hear: and your dishonour  
Vainly surmised, shall vanish with my horror.   

Traitor to Lady's modesties (said she)  
What savage boldness hardened thee to this?  
Or what base reckoning of my modesty?  
What should I think thy facts proud reason is?  
Love (sacred Madam) love exhaling me  
(Wrapped in his Sulphur,) to this cloud of his  
Made my affections his artillery,  
Shot me at you his proper Citadel,  
And losing all my forces, here I fell.   

This Gloss is common, as thy rudeness strange  
Not to forbear these private times, (quoth she)  
Whose fixed Rites, none should presume to change  
Not where there is adjudged inchastity;  
Our nakedness should be as much concealed  
As our accomplishments desire the eye:  
It is a secret not to be revealed,  
But as Virginity, and Nuptials clothed,  
And to our honour all to be betrothed.   

It is a want, where our abundance lies,  
Given a sole dower t'enrich chaste▪ Hymen's Bed,  
A perfect Image of our purities,  
And glass by which our actions should be dressed.  
That tells us honour is as soon defiled  
And should be kept as pure, and incompressed,  
But sight attainteth it: for Thought Sights child  
Begetteth sin; and Nature bides defame,  
When light and lawless eyes bewray our shame.   

Dear Mistress (answered Ovid,) to direct  
Our actions, by the straightest rule that is,  
We must in matters Moral, quite reject  
Vulgar Opinion, ever led amiss  
And let authentic Reason ●e our guide,  
The wife of Truth, and Wisdoms Governisse:  
The nature of all actions must be weighed,  
And as they then appear, breed love or loathing,  
Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing.   

As in your sight, how can sight simply being  
A Sense receiving essence to his flame  
Sent from his object, give it harm by seeing  
Whose action 
* Actio cernendi in homine vel a●●mali, ●idente collocanda est. Ari●to●.  in the Seer hath his frame?  
All excellence of shape is made for fight,  
Else, to be like a Beast were no defame;  
Hid Beauties lose their ends, and wrong their right:  
And can kind love, (where no harms kind can be)  
Disgrace with seeing that is gi●en to see?   

'tis I (alas) and my hart-bu●●ing Eye  
Do all the harm, and feel the harm we do:  
I am no 〈◊〉, y●● harmless I  
Poison with sight, and mine own bosom● too;  
So am I to myself a Sorceress  
Bewitched with my conceives in her I woe:  
But you unwronged▪ and all ●●shon●●lesse  
No ill dares touch, affliction, sorcery,  
One kiss of yours can quickly remedy.   

I could not times observe, as others might  
Of cold affects, and watery ●empers framed,  
Yet well assured the wonder of your ●ight  
Was so far of from seeing you defamed,  
That ever in the Ph●●e of Memory  
Your love shall shine by it, in me inflame.  
Then let your power be clad in lenity,  
Do not (as others would) of custom storm▪  
But prove your wit as pregnant as your form.   

Nor is my love so sudden, since my heart  
Was long loves Vulcan, with his pants unrest  
Ham'ring the shafts bred th●● delightsome smart:  
And as when jove at once from East and W●st  
Cast off two Eagles, to 〈◊〉 the sight  
Of this world Centre, b●th his Birds ●oynd breast  
In Cynthian D●lp●o●, since Earth's navel hight:  
So casting off my ce●seles thought to see  
My hearts true C●●●er, all do 〈◊〉 in thee.   

Cupid that acts in you, suffers in me  
To make himself one tryumph-place of twain,  
Into your tunes and odours turned he,  
And through my senses flew into my brain  

* In Cerebro est principium sentiend●, et inde nerui, qui instrumenta sunt motus voluntarij oriuntur.  Where rules the Prince of sense, whose Throne he takes,  
And of my Motions engines fra●d a chain  
To lead me where he list; and here he makes  
Nature (my 
* Natura est uniuscuiusque Fatum, 〈◊〉 Theophr.  fate) enforce me: and resigns  
The rains of all, to you, in whom he shines.   

For yielding love then, do● not have impart,  
Nor let mine Eye, your careful Harbengere  
That hath purveyed your Chamber in my heart,  
Be blamed for seeing who it lodged there;  
The freer service merits greater meed,  
Princes are served with unexpected cheer,  
And must have things in store before they need:  
Thus should fair Dames be wise and confident,  
Not blushing to be noted excellent.   

Now, as when Heaven is muffled with the vapours  
His long since just divorced wife the Earth,  
In envy breath's, to mask his spulzie Tapers  
From the unrich abundance of her binth▪  
When strait the western issue of the Air  
Beats with his flowery wings those Brats of dearth,  
And gives Oly●pus leave to show his fair,  
So fled th'offended shadows of her cheer,  
And showed her pleased countenance full as clear.   

Which for his fourth course made our Poet court her, etc.   

THis motion of my soul, 
Gustus.  my fantasy  
Created by three senses put in act,  
Let justice nourish with the sympathy,  
Putting my other senses into fact,  
If now thou gr●nt not, 
Alterationem pati est sentire.  now changed that offence;  
To suffer change, doth perfect sense compact:  
Change then, and suffer for the use of sense,  
We live not for ourselves, the Ear, and Eye,  
And every sense, must serve society.   

To furnish then▪ this Banquet where the taste  
Is never used, and yet the cheer divine,  
The nearest mean dear Mistress that thou hast  
To bless me with it, is a kiss of thine,  
Which grace shall borrow organs of my touch  
T'advance it to that inward 
* He intends the common sense which is centrum sensibus et speciebus, & calls it last because it doth, sapare in effectione sensuum.  taste of mine  
Which makes all sense, and shall delight as much  
Then with a kiss (dear life) adorn thy feast  
And let (as Benquets should) the last be best.   

I see unbidden Guest's are boldest still, 
Corynna.   
And well you show how weak in soul you are  
That let rude sense, subdue your reason's skill  
And feed so spoilefully on sacred fare;  
In temper of such needle's feasts as this  
We show more bounty still the more we spare,  
Chief where birth and state so different is:  
Air too much rarefied breaks forth in fire,  
And favours too far urged do end in ire.   

The difference of our births (imperial Dame)  
Is herein noted with too trivial eyes  
For your rare wits; 
ovid.  that should your choices frame  
To state of parts, that most doth royalize,  
Not to commend mine own; but that in yours  
Beyond your birth, are perils sovereignties  
Which (urged) your words had struck with sharper powers;  
'tis for mere looke-like Ladies, and for men  
To boast of birth that still be children.   

Running to Father strait to help their needs,  
True dignities and rites of reverence,  
Are sown in minds, an● reaped in lively deeds,  
And only policy makes difference  
Twixt States, since virtue want● du● imperance  
Virtue makes honour, as the soul doth sense,  
And merit far exceeds inheritance,  
The Grace's fill loves cup, his feasts adorning,  
Who seeks your service now, the Graces scorning.   

Pure love (said she) the purest grace pursues,  
And there is contact, not by application  
Of lips or bodies, but of bodies virtues,  
As in our ele●entale Nation  
Stars by their powers, which are their heat and light  
Do heavenly works, and that which hath probation  
By virtual contact hath the noblest plight,  
Both for the lasting and affinity  
It hath with natural divinity.   

Ovid replied; in this thy virtual presence  
(Most fair Corynna) thou canst not effuse  
The true and solid parts of thy pure essence  
But dost thy superficial beams produce  
Of thy rich substance; which because they flow  
Rather from form then from the matters use  
Resemblance only of thy body show  
Whereof they are thy wondrous species,  
And 'tis thy substance must my long ease.   

Speak then sweet air, that giv'st our speech event  
And teach my Mistress tractability,  
That art to motion most obedient,  
And though thy nature, swelling be and high  
And occupiest so infinite a space,  
Yet yield'st to words, and art cond●ust thereby  
Past nature priest into a little place  
Dear sovereign then, make air thy rule in this,  
And me thy worthy servant with a kiss.   

Ovid (said she) I am well pleased to yield:  
Bounty by virtue cannot be abused:  
Nor will I coily life Minerva's shield  
Against Mineru●, honour i● not bruised  
With such a tender pressure as a kiss,  
Nor yielding soon to words, though seldom used,  
Niceness in civil favours, folly is:  
Long su●es make never good a bad detection,  
Nor yielding soon, makes bad, a good affection.   

To some I know, (and know it for a faule)  
Order and reverence, are repulsed in scaling,  
When pride and rudeness, enter with assault,  
Consents to fall, are worse to get then falling▪  
Willing resistance, takes away the will,  
And too much weakness 'tis to come with calling:  
Force in these frays, is better man than skill,  
Yet I like skill, and Ovid if a kiss  
May do thee so much pleasure, here it is.   

Her moving towards him, made Ovid's eye  
Believe the Firmament was coming down  
To take him quick to immortality,  
And that th' Ambrosian kiss set on the Crown:  
She spoke in kissing, and her breath infused  
Restoring syrup to his taste, in swoon:  
And he imagined Hebe's hands had bruised  
A banquet of the Gods into his sense,  
Which filled him with this furious influence.   

The motion of the Heavens that did beget  
The golden age, and by whose harmony  
Heaven is preserved, in me on work is set,  
All instruments of deepest melody  
Set sweet in my desires to my loves liking  
With this sweet kiss in me their tunes apply,  
As if the best Musicians hands were striking▪  
This kiss in me● hath endless Music closed,  
Like Phoebus' Lute, on Nisus Towers imposed.   

And as a Bible cast into a Spring,  
We see a sort of trembling cirkles rise,  
One forming other in their issuing  
Till over all the Fount they circulize,  
So this perpetuall-motion-making kiss,  
Is propagate through all my faculties,  
And makes my breast and endless Fount of bliss,  
Of which, if Gods could drink, their matchless fare  
Would make them much more blessed than they are.   

But 
* Qua ratione fiat Echo.  as when sounds do hollow bodies beat,  
Air gathered there, compressed, and thickened,  
The self same way she came doth make retreat,  
And so effects the sound reecchoed  
Only in part, because she weaker is  
Is that redition, then when first she fled:  
So I alas, faint echo of this kiss,  
Only reiterate a slender part  
Of that high joy it worketh in my heart.   

And thus with feasting, love is famished more,  
Without my touch are all things turned to gold,  
And till I touch, I canno● joy my store:  
To purchase others, I myself have sold,  
Love is a wanton famine, rich in food,  
But with a richer appetite controlled,  
An argument in figure and in Mood,  
Yet hate all arguments: disputing still  
For Sense, 'gainst Reason, with a senseless will.   

THen sacred Madam, 
Tactus.  since my other senses  
Have in your graces ●asted such content,  
Let wealth not to be spent, fear no expenses,  
But give thy bounty true eternizement:  
Making my senses groundwork, which is, Feeling,  
Effect the other, endless excellent,  
Their substance with flint-softning softness steeling:  
Then let me feel, for know sweet beauty's Queen,  
Dames may be felt, as well as heard or seen.   

For if we be allowed to serve the Ear  
With pleasing tunes, and to delight the Eye  
With gracious shows, the Taste with dainty cheer,  
The Smell with Odours, is't immodesty  
To serve the senses Emperor, sweet Feeling  
With those delights that fit his Empery?  
Shall Subjects free themselves, and bind their King?  
Minds taint no more with bodies touch or tire,  
Then bodies nourish with the minds desire.   

The mind then clear, the body may be used,  
Which perfectly your touch can spritualize;  
As by the great elixir is trans-fusde  
Copper to Gold, then grant that deed of prize:  
Such as transform into corrupt effects  
What they receive from Nature's purities,  
Should not wrong them that hold her due respects:  
To touch your quickening side then give me leave,  
Th' abuse of things, must not the use bereave.   

herewith, even glad his arguments to hear,  
Worthily willing to have lawful grounds  
To make the wondrous power of Heaven appear,  
In nothing more than her perfections found,  
Close to her navel she her Mantle wrists,  
Slacking it upwards, and the folds unwound,  
Showing Latona's Twins, her plenteous breasts  
The Sun and Cynthia in their tryumph-robes  
Of Lady-skin; more rich than both their Globes   

Whereto she bade, blessed Ovid put his hand:  
He, well acknowledging it much too base  
For Such an action, did a little stand,  
Enobling it with titles full of grace,  
and conjures it with charge of reverend verse,  
To use with piety that sacred place,  
And through his Feelings organ to disperse  
Worth to his spirits, amply to supply  
The porenes of his flesh's faculty.   

And thus he said: King of the King of Senses,  
Engines of all the engines under heaven,  
To health, and life, defence of all defences,  
Bounty by which our nourishment is given,  
Beauty's bewtifier, kind acquaintance maker,  
Proportions odnes that makes all things even,  
Wealth of the labourer, wrongs revengement taker,  
Pattern of concord, Lord of exercise,  
And figure of that power the world did guise:   

Dear Hand, most duly honoured in this  
And therefore worthy to be we●l employed:  
Yet know, that all that honour nothing is,  
Compared with that which ●●w must be enjoyed:  
So think in all the pleasures these have shown  
(Likened to this) tho● wert but mere annoyed,  
That all hands merits in thyself alone  
With this one touch, have more than recompense,  
And therefore feel, with fear and reverence.   

See Cupid's Alps which now thou must go over,  
Where snow that thaws the Sun doth ever lie:  
Where thou mayst plain and feelingly discover  
The world's forepast, that flowed with Milk and Honey:  
Where, (like an Empress seeing nothing wanting  
That may her glorious childbed beautify)  
Pleasure herself lies big with issue panting:  
Ever delivered, yet with child still growing,  
Full of all blessings, yet all bliss bestowing.   

This said, he laid his hand upon her side,  
Which made her start like sparkles from a fire,  
Or like Saturnia from th' Ambrosian pride  
Of her morn's slumber, frighted with admire  
When jove laid young Alcides to her breast,  
So startled she, not with a coy retire,  
But with the tender temper she was blest,  
Proving her sharp, unduld with handling yet,  
Which keener edge on Ovid's long set.   

And feeling still, he ●igh'd out this effect;  
Alas why lent not heaven the soul a tongue?  
Nor language, nor peculiar dialect,  
To make her high conceits as highly sung,  
But that a fleshly engine must unfold  
A spiritual notion; birth from Princes sprung  
Peasants must nurse, free virtue wait on gold  
And a professed though flattering enemy,  
Must plead my honour, and my liberty.   

O nature how dost thou defame in this  
Our human honours? yoking men with beasts  
And noblest minds with slaves? thus beauty's bliss,  
Love and all virtues that quick spirit feasts  
Surfeit on flesh; and thou that banquests minds  
Most bounteous Mistress, of thy dull-tongued guests  
Reap'st not due thanks; thus rude frailty binds  
What thou giv'st wings; thus joys I feel in thee  
Hang on my lips and will not uttered be.   

Sweet touch the engine that loves bow doth bend,  
The sense wherewith he feels him deified,  
The object whereto all his actions tend,  
In all his blindness his most pleasing guide,  
For thy sake will I write the Art of love,  
Since thou dost blow his fire and feed his pride  
Since in thy sphere his health and life doth move,  
For thee I hate who hate society  
And such as self-love makes his slavery.   

In these dogdays how this contagion smoothers  
The purest bloods with virtues diet fined  
Nothing their own, unless they be some others  
Spite of themselves, are in themselves confined  
And live so poor they are of all despised,  
Their gifts, held down with scorn should be divined,  
And they like Mummers mask, unknown, unprised:  
A thousand marvels mourn in some such breast  
Would make a kind and worthy Patron blest.   

To me (dear Sovereign) thou art Patroness,  
And I, with that thy graces have infused,  
Will make all fat and foggy brains confess,  
Riches my from a poor verse be deduced:  
And that gold's love shall leave them groveling here,  
When thy perfections shall to heaven be Mused,  
Decked in bright verse, where Angels shall appear  
The praise of virtue, love, and beauty singi●g,  
Honour to Noblesse, shame to Avarice bringing.   

Here Ovid interrupted with the view  
Of other Dames, who then the Garden painted,  
Shrouded himself, and did as death eschew  
All note by which his loves fame might be tainted:  
And as when mighty Macedon had won  
The Monarchy of Earth, yet when he fainted,  
Grieved that no greater action could be done,  
And that there were no more worlds to subdue,  
So loves defects, loves Conqueror did rue.   

But as when expert Painters have displayed,  
To quickest life a Monarches royal hand  
Holding a Sceptre, there is yet bewrayed  
But half his fingers; when we understand  
The rest not to be seen; and never blame  
The Painter's Art, in nicest censures skand:  
So in the compass of this curious frame,  
Ovid well knew there was much more intended,  
With whose omition none must be offended.  
Intentio, animi actio. Explicit conuivium.     

❧ A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy.  

Muses that sing loves sensual Empery,  
And Lovers kindling your enraged fires  
At Cupid's bonfires burning in the eye,  
Blown with the empty breath of vain desires,  
You that prefer the painted Cabinet  
Before the wealthy jewels it doth store ye,  
That all your joys in dying figures set,  
And stain the living substance of your glory,  
Abjure those joys, abhor their memory.  
And let my love the honoured subject be  
Of love, and honours complete history;  
Your eyes were never yet, let in to see  
The majesty and riches of the mind,  
But dwell in darkness; for your God is blind.   

BUT dwell in darkness, for your God is blind,  
Humour pours down ●uch torrents on his eyes,  
Which (as from Mountains) fall on his base kind,  
And eat your entrails o●t with exstasies.  
Colour, (whose hands for faintness are not felt)  
Can bind your waxed thoughts in Adamant,  
And with her painted fires your hearts doth melt  
Which beat your souls in peecs with a pant,  
But my love is the cordial of ●oules  
Teaching by passion what perfection is,  
In whose fix● beauties shine the sacred scroll,  
And long-lost records of your human bliss  
Spirit of flesh, and soul to spirit giving,  
Love flows not from my liver, but her living.    

A Coronet.  

Love flows not from my liver b●● her living,  
From whence all stings to perfect love are darted  
All power, and thought of pridefull lust depriving,  
Her life so pure and she so spo●les hearted,  
In whom ●its beauty with so firm a brow  
That age, nor care, nor torment can contract it;  
Heavens glories shining there, do stuff allow,  
And virtues constant graces do compact it.  
Her mind (the beam of God) draws in the fires  
Of her chaste eyes, from all earth's tempting fuel;  
Which upward lifts the looks of her desires  
And makes each precious thought in her a jewel,  
And as huge fires compressed more proudly f●ame  
So her close beauties further blaze her fame.   

SO her close beauties further blaze her ●a●●e;  
When from the world, into herself reflected  
She lets her (shameless) glory in her shame  
Content for heaven to be of earth rejected,  
She thus depressed, knocks at Oly●pus gate,  
And in 〈◊〉 Temple of her har●  
Doth the diuorcele● nuptials celebrate  
Twixt God and her; where loves profaned dart  
Feeds the chaste flames of Hym●● firmament,  
Wherein sh● 〈◊〉, for her part;  
The Robes, looke●, 〈…〉  
Of female natures, 〈…〉  
Virtue is both 〈…〉  
Of her removed and soule-infusde regard.   

OF her removed, and soule-infusde regard,  
With whose firm species (as with golden Lances)  
She points her lives field, (for all wars prepared)  
And bears one chanceles mind, in all mischances;  
Th'inversed world that goes upon her head  
And with her wanton heels doth kick the sky,  
My love disdains, though she be honoured  
And without envy sees her empery,  
Loathes all her ●oyes, and thoughts cupidinine,  
Arandging in the army of her face  
All virtues forces, to dismay lose ●yne  
That hold no quarter with renown, or grace,  
War to all frailty▪ peace of all things pure  
Her look doth promise and her life assure.   

HEr look doth promise and her life assure;  
A right line, forcing a reba●eles point,  
In her high deeds, through every thing obscure  
To full perfection; not the weak disjoint  
Of female humours; nor the Protean rages  
Of pied faced fashion, that doth shrink and swell,  
Working poor m●n like waxed images  
And makes them apish strangers where they dwell  
Can alter her, titles of primacy  
Courtship of antic gestures; brainless jests  
Blood without soul● of false nobility  
Nor any folly that the world infests  
Can alter her who with her constant guises  
To living virtues turns the deadly vices.   

TO living virtues turns the deadly vices,  
For covetous she is, of all good parts,  
Incontinent for still she shows entices  
To consort with them sucking out their hearts,  
Proud, for the scorns prostrate humility,  
And gluttonous in store of abstinence,  
Drunk with extractions stilled in fervency  
From contemplation, and true continence,  
Burning in wrath, against impatience▪  
And sloth itself, for she will never rise  
From that all-seeing trance (the band of sense)  
Wherein in view of all souls skills she lies.  
No constancy to that her mind doth move  
Nor riches to the virtues of my love.   

NOr riches, to the virtues of my love,  
Nor Empire to her mighty government:  
Which fair analisde in her beauty's grove,  
Shows Laws for care, and Canons for content:  
And as a purple tincture given to Glass  
By clear transmission of the Sun doth taint  
Opposed subjects: so my Mistress face  
Doth reverence in her viewers brows depaint,  
And like the Pansye, with a little vail  
She gives her inward work the greater grace;  
Which my lines imitate, though much they fail  
Her gifts so high, and times conceits so base:  
Her virtues then above my verse must raise her,  
For words want Art, and Art want● words to praise her.   

FOR words want Art, & Art wants words to praise her,  
Yet shall my actium and industrious pen,  
Wind his sharp forehead through those parts that ●aise her,  
And register ●er worth past rarest women▪  
Herself shall be my Muse; that well will know  
Her proper inspirations: an●d assuage  
(With her dear love) the wrongs my fortunes show,  
Which to my youth, bind hardiesse grief in age,)  
Herself shall be my comfort and my r●ches,  
And all my thought I will on her con●ert,  
Honour, and Error, which the world bewitches,  
Shall still crown fools, and ●read upon desert,  
And never shall my friendless verse envy  
Muses that Fame's lose feathers beautify.   

Muses that Fame's lose feathers beautify,  
And such as scorn to tread the Theatre,  
As ignorant the ●●●de of memory  
Have most inspired, and show●e their glories there  
To noblest wits, and men of highest doom,  
That for the kingly Laurel bend affair,  
The theatres of Athens and of R●m●  
Have been the Crowns, and not the base empayre▪  
far then be this foul clowdy-browd contempt  
From like-plu●de Birds: and let your sacred rhymes  
From honours Court their servile feet exempt  
That live by soothing moods, and se●●ing times:  
And let my love, adorn with modest eyes,  
Muses that sing loves sensual Empery●●.  
Lucidius olim.    

The amorous Zodiac.  

1  
I Never see the Sun, but suddenly  
My soul is moved, with spite and jealousy  
Of his high bliss in his sweet co●rse discerned:  
And am displeased to see so many signs  
As the bright S●ye unworthily divines,  
Enjoy an honour they have never earned.   

2  
To think heaven decks with such a beauteous show  
A Harp, a Ship, a Serpent, and ● Crow,  
And such a crew of creatures of no prizes,  
But to excite in us th'unshamefast flames,  
With which (long since) jove wronged so many Dames,  
reviving in his rule, their names and vices.   

3  
Dear Mistress, whom the Gods bred here below  
T'express their wondrous power and let us know  
That before thee they nought did perfect make  
Why may not I (as in those signs the Sun)  
Shine in thy beauties, and as roundly r●●ne,  
To frame (like him) an endless Zodiac.   

4  
With thee I'll furnish both the year and Sky,  
Running in thee my course of destiny:  
And thou shalt be the rest of all my moving,  
But of thy numberless and perfect graces  
(To give my Moons their full in twelve months' spaces)  
I choose but twelve in guerdon of my loving.   

5  
Keeping even way through every excellence,  
I'll make in all, an equal residence  
Of a new Zodiac: a new Phoebus guising,  
When (without altering the course of nature)  
I'll make the seasons good, and every creature  
Shall henceforth reckon day, from my first rising.   

6  
To open then the Spring-times golden gate,  
And flower my race with ardour temperate,  
I'll e●ter by thy head, and have for house  
In my first month, this heaven-ram-curled tress:  
Of which, Love all his charme-chaines doth address:  
A Sign fit for a Spring so beauteous.   

7  
Lodged in that fleece of hair, yellow, and curled,  
I'll take high pleasure to enlight the world,  
And fetter me in gold, thy crisps implies,  
Earth (at this Spring spongy and langorsome  
With envy of our joys in love become)  
Shall swarm with flowers, & air with painted flie●▪   

8  
Thy smooth embowd brow, where all grace I see,  
My second month, and second house shall be:  
Which brow, with her clear beauties shall delight  
The Earth (yet sad) and overture confer  
To herbs, buds, flowers, and verdure gracing Ver,  
Rendering her more than Summer exquisite.   

9  
All this fresh April, this sweet month of Venus,  
I will admire this brow so bounteous:  
This brow, brave Court for love, and virtue builded,  
This brow where Chastity holds garrison,  
This brow that (blushless) none can look upon,  
This brow with every grace and honour guilded.   

10  
Resigning that, to perfect this my year  
I'll come to see thine eyes: that now I fear:  
Thine eyes, that sparkling like two Twin-born fires,  
(Whose looks benign, and shining sweets do grace  
Mays youthful mo●th with a more pleasing face)  
justly the Twins sign▪ hold in my desires,   

11  
Scorched with the beams these sister-flames eject,  
The living sparcks thereof Earth shall effect  
The shock of our joind-fires the Summer starting:  
The season by degrees shall change again  
The days, their longest durance shall retain,  
The stars their amplest light, and ardour dar●ing.   

12  
But now I fear that throned in such a shine,  
Playing with objects, pleasant and divine,  
I should be moved to dwell there thirty days:  
O no, I could not in so little space,  
With joy admire enough their plenteous grace,  
But ever live in sunshine of their rays:   

13  
Yet this should be in vain, my forced will  
My course designed (begun) shall follow still;  
So forth I must, when forth this month is wore,  
And of the neighbour Signs be borne anew,  
Which Sign perhaps may stay me with the view  
More to conceive, and so desire the more.   

14  
It is thy nose (stern to thy Bark of love)  
Or which Pyne-like doth crown a flowery Grove,  
Which Nature strived to fashion with her best,  
That she might never turn to show more skill:  
And that the envious fool, (used to speak ill)  
Might feel pretended fault choked in his breast.   

15  
The violent season in a Sign so bright,  
Still more and more, become more proud of light,  
Should still incense me in the following Sign:  
A sign, whose sight desires a gracious kiss,  
And the red confines of thy tongue it is,  
Where, hotter than before, mine eyes would shine.   

16  
So glow those Corrals, nought but fire respiring  
With smiles, or words, or sighs her thoughts attiring  
Or, be it she a kiss divinely frameth;  
Or that her tongue, shookes forward, and retires,  
Doubling like fervent Syrius, summer's fires  
In L●os mouth, which all the world inflameth.   

17  
And now to bid the boreal signs adieu  
I come to give thy virgin-cheekes the view  
To temper all my fire, and tame my heat,  
Which soon will feel itself extinct and dead,  
In those fair courts with modesty dispred  
With holy, humble, and chaste thoughts replete.   

18  
The purple tinct, thy Marble cheeks retain,  
The Marble tinct, thy purple cheeks doth stain  
The Lilies duly equalled with thine eyes,  
The tinct that dies the Morn with deeper red,  
Shall hold my course a Month, if (as I dread)  
My fires to issue want not faculties.   

19  
To balance now thy more obscured graces  
'Gainst them the circle of thy head encha●es  
(Twice three Months used, to run through twice three houses  
To render in this heaven my labour lasting,  
I hast to see the rest, and with one hasting,  
The dripping time shall fill the Earth carouses.   

20  
Then by the neck, my Autumn I'll commence,  
Thy neck, that merits place of excellence  
Such as this is, where with a certain Sphere  
In balancing the darkness with the light,  
It so might weigh, with skoles of equal weight  
Thy be●uties seen with those do not appear.   

21  
Now past my month t'admire for built most pure  
This Marble pillar and her ly●eature,  
I come t'inhabit thy most gracious teats,  
Teats that ●eede love upon the white riphees,  
Teats where he hangs his glory and his trophies  
When victor from the God's war he retreats.   

22  
Hid in the vale twixt these two hills confined  
This vale the nest of loves, and joys divined  
Shall I enjoy mine ease; and fair be passed  
Beneath these parching Alpss; and this sweet cold  
Is first, this month, heaven doth to us unfold  
But there shall I still grieve to be displaced.   

23  
To sort from this most brave and pompous sign  
(Leaving a little my ecliptic line  
Less superstitious than the other S●nne)  
The rest of my Autumnal race I'll end  
To see thy hand, (whence I the crown attend,)  
Since in thy past parts I have slightly run.   

24  
Thy hand, a Lily gendered of a Rose  
That wakes the morning, hid in night's repose:  
And from Apollo's bed the vail doth twine,  
That each where doth th'Idalian Minion guide;  
That bends his bow; that ties, and leaves untied  
The silver ribbons of his little Ensign.   

25  
In fine, (still drawing to th'antarctic Pole)  
The Tropic sign, I'll run at for my Goal,  
Which I can scarce express with chastity,  
I know in heaven 'tis called C●pricorne  
And with the sudden thought, my case takes horn,  
So (heavenlike,) Capricorn the name shall be.   

26  
This (wondrous fit) the wintry Solstice seizeth,  
Where darkness greater grows and day decreseth,  
Where rather I would be in night then day,  
But when I see my journeys do increase  
I'll strait dispatch me thence, and go in peace  
To my next house, where I may safer stay.   

27  
This house alongst thy naked thighs is found,  
Naked of spot; made fleshy, firm and round,  
To entertain loves friends with feeling sport▪  
These, Cupid's secret mysteries enfold,  
And pillars are that Venus' Fane uphold,  
Of her dear joys the glory, and support.   

28  
Sliding on thy smooth thighs to this month's end;  
To thy well fashioned Calves I will descend  
That soon the last house I may apprehend,  
Thy slender feet, fine slender feet that shame  
Thetis sheen feet, which Poets so much fame,  
And here my latest season I will end.    

LENVOY.  

29  
Dear Mistress, if poor wishes heaven would hear,  
I would not choose the empire of the water;  
The empire of the air, nor of the earth,  
But endlessly my course of life confining  
In this fair Zodiac for ever shining,  
And with thy beauties make me endless mirth.   

30  
But gracious Love, if jealous heaven deny  
My life this truely-blest variet●e,  
Yet will I thee through all the world disperse,  
If not in heaven, amongst those braving fires  
Yet here thy beauties (which the World admires)  
Bright as those flames shall glister in my verse.    

The amorous contention of Phillis and Flora, translated out of a Latin copy, written by a Friar, Anno. 1400.  

1  
IN flowery season of the year,  
And when the Firmament was clear,  
When T●llus Herbals painted were  
With issue of disparant cheer▪   

2  
When th'usher to the Morn did rise,  
And drive the darkness from the skies,  
Sleep gave their visual liberties,  
To Phillis and to Flora's eyes.   

3  
To walk these Ladies liked best,  
(For sleep rejects the wounded breast,)  
Who jointly to a Mead addressed  
Their sportance with the place to feast.   

4  
Thus made they amorous excess,  
Both Virgins, and both Princesses:  
Fair Phillis wore a liberal tress,  
But Flora, hers in curls did dress.   

5  
Nor in their ornamental grace,  
Nor in behaviour were they base,  
Their years and minds in equal place,  
Did youth and his effects embrace.   

6  
A little yet unlike they prove,  
And somewhat hostilely they strove,  
A Clerk did Flora's humour move,  
But Phillis liked a Soldiers love.   

7  
For stature and fresh beauties flowers,  
There grew no difference in their dowrs:  
All things were free to both their powers  
Without, and in, their courtly Bow●s.   

8  
One vow thy made religiously▪  
And were of one society:  
And only was their imparie  
The form of either's fantasy.   

9  
Now did a gentle timely gale,  
A little whisper through the Dale,  
Where was a place of festival,  
With verdant grass adorned all:   

10  
And in that Meade-proude-making grass,  
A River like to liquid glass  
Did with such soundfull murmur pass,  
That with the same it wanton was.   

11  
Hard by this Bro●ke, a Pi●e had sea●e,  
With goodly furniture complete,  
To make the place in state more great,  
And lessen the inflaming hea●e.   

12  
Which was with leaves so beautified  
And spread his breast so thick and wide,  
That all the suns estranged prid●  
Sustained repulse on every side.   

13  
Queen Phillis by the Foord● did ●it,  
But Fl●ra far removed from it,  
The place in all things sweet was fi●,  
Where th'herbabe did their se●●●s admit.   

14  
Thus while they opposite were set  
And could not their effects forget,  
loves arrows and their bosoms me●,  
And both their hart● did passion-●●●t.   

15  
Love, close and inward s●●o●ds his fires,  
And in faint word●, firm sighs expires,  
Pale tinctures change their cheeks attires,  
But modest shame entombs their ●res.   

16  
Phillis did Flora ●ighing take,  
And Flora did requital make:  
So both together part the st●ke,  
Till forth the wound and sickness broke.   

17  
In this changed speech they long time stayed,  
The process all 〈◊〉 love they laid,  
Love in their har●● their looks bewrayed:  
At last, in laughter, Phillis said:   

18  
Brave Soldier, Paris, my heart's seizure  
In fight, or in his peaceful leisure:  
The soldiers life, is life's chief treasure,  
Most worth the Love-queenes' household pleasure.   

19  
While she her war-friend did prefer,  
Flora looked coy, and laughed at her,  
And did this adverse speech aver;  
Thou mightst have said, I love a Beggar.   

20  
But what doth Alcibiades  
My Love: past all in worth's excess:  
Whom Nature doth with all gifts bless?  
O only Clarks lives, happiness.   

21  
This hard speech, Phillis hardly takes,  
And thus she Flora● patience cracks:  
Thou lov'st a Man, pure love forsakes,  
That God, his godless belly makes.   

22  
Rise wretch from this gross ecstasy,  
A Clerk sole Epicure think I:  
No elegance can beautify  
A shapeless lump of gluttony.   

23  
His heart, sweet Cupid's Tents rejects  
That only m●ate and drink affects:  
O Flora, all men's intellects  
Know Soldiers vowe● shun those respects.   

24  
Mere helps for need his mind sufficeth,  
Dull sleep and surfeits he despiseth:  
loves Trump his temples exerciseth,  
Courage and love, his life compriseth.   

25  
Who with like band our loves combineth?  
Even nature's law thereat repineth,  
My Love, in conquest's Palm wreaths shineth,  
Thine feast deforms, mine fight refineth.   

26  
Flora her modest face enrosed,  
Whose second s●ile, more fair disclosed:  
At length, with moving voice she loosed  
What Art in her stored breast reposed.   

27  
Phillis, thy fill of speech thou hast▪  
Thy wit with pointed wings is graced▪  
Yet urgest not a truth so vast  
That Hemlocks, Lilies have surpassed.   

28  
Ease-loving Clarks thou hold'st for dear,  
Servants to sleep and belly cheer:  
So Envy, honour would enphere  
But give me care, I'll give thee answer.   

29  
So much enjoys this love of mine,  
He near envies, or hers, or thine,  
Householdstuff, honey, oil, corn, wine,  
Coin, jewels, plate, serve his design.   

42  
Sharp is the wasting bane of war,  
The lot is hard, and straineth far,  
The life in stooping doubts doth jar  
To get such things as needful are.   

43  
Knewst thou the guise, thou wouldst not say  
Shau'n hair shamed Clarks, or black array,  
Wor●e higher honours to display,  
And that all st●tes they oversway.   

44  
All things should to my Clerk incline,  
Whose crown sustains th'imperial sign,  
He r●les, and pays such friends as thine,  
And Say, must stoop to men divine.   

45  
Thou sayest, that sloth a Clerk disguiseth,  
Who (I confess) base works despiseth▪  
But when from cares his free mind riseth,  
heavens course and Natures he compriseth.   

46  
Mine Purple decks, thine Mail be digh●eth,  
Thine lives in war, mine peace delighteth,  
Old acts of Princes he reciteth,  
All of his friend, thinks, seeks, and writeth.   

47  
What Venus can, or Loves-wingd Lord,  
First knows my Clerk, and brings me word,  
Music in ca●es doth mine afford,  
Thine lives by rapine and the sword.   

48  
Hear speech and strife had both their ending,  
Phillis asked judgement, all suspending,  
Much stir they made, yet ceased contending,  
And sought a judge in homewards we●ding.   

49  
With countnances that equal been,  
With equal majesty beseen,  
With equal voice, and equal spleen  
These Ladies warred upon the green.   

50  
Phillis, a white rob beautified,  
Flora, wore one of two hews died,  
Phillis upon a Mule did ride,  
And Flora back● a horse of pride.   

51  
The Mule was that which being created,  
Neptun● did feed and subjugate:  
Which after fair Adonis' fa●e,  
He● Venus sent to cheer her st●●e.   

52  
This, she, the Queen of Iberine,  
(Phillis fair Mother did resign  
Since she wa● given to works divine,  
Whence Phillis had the Mule in fine.   

53  
Who of the trappings asks and Bitten  
The Mule, (though silver) champing it,  
Know, all things were so richly fit,  
As Nept●nes honour might admit.   

56  
Then Phillis, no decorum wanted,  
But rich and beauteous, all eyes daunted,  
Nor Flora's virtue less enchanted,  
Who on a wealthy Palfrey vaunted.   

57  
Tamed with his rains, won heaven for lightness,  
Exceeding fair, and full of witenes:  
His breast Art decked with divers brightness  
For lea● black mixed, with Swan● pure whiteness.   

58  
Young and in dainty shape digested,  
His looks with pride, not rage invested:  
His main thin hayrd, his neck high-crested,  
Small ear, shor● head, and burly breasted.   

59  
His broad back stooped to this Cla●ks-loued,  
Which with his pressure nought was moved,  
strait leggd, large thighd, and hollow hoved,  
All Nature's skill in him was proveed.   

60  
An ivory seat on him had place,  
A hoop of gold did it embrace  
graven: and the poi●trell did 〈◊〉  
A stone, that starlike gave it grace.   

61  
Inscription there allured the eye  
With many a wondrous mystery  
Of ancient things, made novelty  
That never man did yet descry.   

62  
The God of Rhetorics nuptial Bower  
Adorned with every heavenly power,  
The contract, and the marriage hour  
And all the most unmeasurd dower.   

63  
No place was there that figured nought,  
That could through all the work be sought,  
But more excess of marvels wrought  
Then might inceede a human thought.   

64  
The skill of Mulciber alone  
Engraved that admirable throne,  
Who looking steadfastly thereon,  
Scarce thought his hand such Art had shone.   

65  
The trappings wrought he not with ●ase,  
But all his pain employed to please,  
And left (to go in hand with these)  
The Targe of great A●●acides.   

66  
A stirrup for her feet to press,  
And bridle-bosses he did address,  
And added mines, in worth's excess  
Of his sweet Spouses golden 〈◊〉   

67  
Thus on their famous Cavalry,  
These Princedom Damsels seemed to fly  
Their soft young cheek●●balls to the eye,  
Are of the fresh vermi●on D●e.   

68  
So Lilies out of Scarlet peer,  
So Roses bloomde in Lady Vere,  
So shoot two wanton stars yfere  
In the eternall-burning Sphere.   

69  
The Chyld-gods graceful Paradise  
They jointly purpose to invise,  
And lovely emulations rise  
In note of one another's guise.   

70  
Phillis to Flora laughter led▪  
And Flora Phillis answered:  
Phillis, a Merlin managed,  
A Sparhawke, Flora carried.   

71  
In little time, these Ladies found  
A Grove with every pleasure crowned,  
At whose sweet entry did resound  
A Ford, that flowrd that holy ground.   

72  
From thence the sweet-breathd winds convey  
Odours from every Myrtle spray  
And other flowers▪ to whose a●ay  
A hundred Harps, and Timbrels play.   

73  
All pleasures, study can invent  
The Dames ●ares instantly present,  
Voices in all sorts different  
The four parts, and the Dispent.   

74  
To tunes that from those voices fly  
With admirable harmony,  
The Timbrel, Harp, and psaltery  
Rejoice in rapting symphony.   

75  
There did the Vials voice abound,  
In Music Angelic profound,  
There did the Phi●● dispreden round,  
His voice in many a variant sound.   

76  
All Birds with tuneful bosoms sing,  
The Blackbird makes the woods to ring,  
The Thrush, the lay, and she in Spring,  
Rues the past rape of Thrace's King.   

77  
Their sweet notes to the Music plying▪  
Than all the different flowers descrying.  
The Odours in abundance flying,  
Proved it the Bower of Love soft-lying.   

78  
The Virgins somewhat entered here,  
And sprinkled with a little fear,  
Their hearts before that held Love dear,  
In Cupid's flames increased were.   

79  
And while each winged Forester  
Their proper rumours did prefer,  
Each Virgin's mind made wait on her  
Applauses apt and singular.   

80  
Deathles were he could there repose;  
Each path his spicy Odour stroes  
Of Myrrh, and Cinnamon there grows,  
And of our blessed ladies Rose,   

81  
Each tree hath there his several bliss,  
In fruits that never season miss:  
Men may conceive how sweet Love is,  
By that celestial Court of his.   

82  
The dancing companies they see  
Of young men, and of maidens free,  
Whose bodies were as bright in blee,  
As stars illustrate bodies be.   

83  
In which so marvelous a guise  
Of unexpected novelties,  
These Virgin's bosoms through their eyes,  
Are daunted with a quick surprise.   

84  
Who stay their royal Steeds outright,  
And almost from their seats alight,  
Forgetting their endeavours quit●  
With that proud rumours sweet affright.   

85  
But when sad Phil●men, did strain  
Her rapefull-ruing breast again▪  
These Damz 〈◊〉 hearing her co●plaine,  
Are re●inflamd in every vain.   

86  
About the centre of the spring  
A sacred place is where they ●ing  
And use their supreme worshipping,  
Of loves mere● darting fiery King   

87  
There many a two-shapt company  
Of Fauns, Nymphs, Sarynes, meet and ply  
The Timbrel and the psaltery  
Before loves sacred majesty.   

88  
There bear they Goblets, big with 〈◊〉,  
And Coronets of Flowers combine,  
There Nymphs, and Fauns de●y-diuine,  
Doth Bacchus teach to foot it fin●.   

89  
Who keep true measure with their 〈◊〉  
Th●t to the instruments do 〈◊〉,  
But old Sile●●s plays not swee●e  
In consort, but indents the street.   

90  
The spring sleep did his temple● lod  
As on a long-●ard Ass he rod,  
Laughters excess to s●● him nod  
Dissolved the bosom of the God.   

91  
Fresh cups he ever calls upon  
In sounds of ●●perfection,  
With age and Bacchus overgone,  
They stop his voices Organon.   

92  
Amongst this gamesome Crew is seen,  
The issue of the Cyprian Queen,  
Whose head and shoulders feathered been,  
And as the stars his countenance sheen.   

93  
In his left hand his Bow he bore,  
And by his side his Quiver ware:  
In power he sits passed all compare,  
And with his flames the world doth dare.   

94  
A Sceptre in his hand he held,  
With Chloris native flowers, untilled,  
And Nectar's deathless odours stilled  
From his bright locks the Sun did gild.   

95  
The triple Graces there assist,  
Sustaining with their breasts commist  
And knees that Tellus bosom kissed  
The Chalice of this Amo●ist.   

96  
These Vergins now approached near,  
And worshipped, exempt from fear,  
loves God, who was en●irond there  
With youth, tha● honoured styles did bear.   

97  
Their joy is super excellent  
To see a Court so confluent,  
Whom Cupid seeing; their intent,  
He doth with greeting intervent.   

98  
He asks the cause for which they came:  
They confidently tell the same▪  
And he gives praise to either Dame  
That durst so great a war proclaim.   

99  
To both he spoke to make some pause  
Until their honourable cause  
Profoundly weighed in every clause,  
Might be expland with all applause.   

100  
He was a God, which well they know,  
Rehearsal needs it not bestow,  
They light, and rest, and plainly show  
Where love strives love will master grow   

101  
Love, Laws, and judges hath in fee,  
Nature, and Use his judges be  
To whom his whole Courts censures flee  
Since past, and things to come they see.   

102  
These do the heart of justice try  
And show the Courts severity,  
In judgement, and strong customs eye  
The Clerk is first for venery.   

103  
'Gainst which the Virgins, nothing stro●e  
Since loves high voice did it approve,  
So both to their abodes remove,  
But, as at first, rest firm in love.   
Explicit Rhithmus Phillidis ●t Flor●.   

Certamen inter Phillidem & Floram.  
ANni part florida coelo puriore  
Picta terra graminis vario colore  
Cum fugaret nubila nuncius aurorae  
Liquit sopor oculos Phyllidis & Flora  
Placuit virginibus ire spatiatum  
Nam soporem reiicit pectus sauciatum  
Aequis ergo passibus exeunt in pra●um  
Vt et locus facia● ludum esse gratum  
Eunt ambae virgines & amb● Regin●  
Phyllis coma libera Flora compto crine  
Nec sunt form● virginum sed form● diuin●  
Et respondent facies luci matutinae  
Nec stirpe, nec specie, nec ornatu viles  
Et annos & animos habent iuueniles  
Sed sunt parum impares et parum hostiles  
Nam huic placet Clericus & huic placet Miles  
Non est differentia corporis aut oris  
Sunt unius voti, sunt unius moris  
Omnia communia sunt i●tus et foris▪  
Sola differentia modus est a●●ris.  
Susurrabit modicum ventus tempestiws  
Locus erat viridi gramine festiws  
Et in ipso gramine defluebat riws  
Viws atque garrulo murmur lasciws  
Ad augmentum decoris et caloris min●s  
Fuit juxta riwlum speciosa pi●us  
Venustata folio late pandens sin●s  
Nec intrare poterat calor peregrinus  
Consedere virgines, herba sedem dedit  
Phyllis juxta riwlum, Flora long sedit  
Et dum sedit utraque et ●n s●se redit  
Amor corda vi●nerat et utramque ladit  
Amor est interius latens et occultus  
Et brevi, certissimos elicit singultus  
Pallor genas in●icit, alternantur vultus  
Sed in verecundia fur 〈◊〉 est 〈◊〉  
Phyllis 〈…〉  
Et hanc 〈…〉  
Altera sic alter● 〈…〉  
〈…〉  
Ille sermo mutuus 〈◊〉 hab●t ●ore  
Et est quadam series 〈◊〉 de 〈◊〉  
Amor est 〈…〉 e●t in ore  
Tandem Phillis incip●t et arridi● Florae  
Miles inquit incli●● 〈…〉 Paris,  
Ubim●d● militas et ubi mor●●is  
O vita militiae vita singularis  
Sola digna gaudi● Da●●nai l●ris.  
Dum ●●lla recoli● militem amicum  
Flora (ridens) oculos, i●cet in obliqum  
Et in risu l●quitur verbum 〈◊〉  
Amo inquit poteras dicere mendicu●  
Sed quid Alcibiades facit mea cura  
Res creata digni●● o●●ni creatura  
Quem beavit omnibus gratiis natura  
O sola falicia Clericorum iura  
Floram Phyllis arguit de sermone duro  
Et sermone loquitur Floram commoturo  
Nam ecce virgunculam inquit credo puro  
Cuius pectus mobile seruit Epicuro  
Surge surge misera de furore f●do  
Solum esse Clericum Epicurum credo  
Nihil elegantiae Clerico concedo  
Cuius implet latera moles et pinguedo  
A castris Cupidinis cor habet remotum  
Qui somnum desiderat et cibum & potum  
O puella nobilis omnibus est notum  
Quantum distat militis ab hoc voto votum  
Solis necessariis Miles est contentus  
Somno, cibo, potui▪ non vi●it intentus  
Amor illum prohibet ne sit somnolentus  
Nam est vita Militis amor et i●uentus  
Quis amicos copulit nostros loro pari?  
Lex, Natura prohibent illos copulari  
Meum semper praemium dare tuo dari  
Meus novit ludere, tuus epulari  
Haurit flora sanguinem vulta verecundo  
Et apparet pulchrior in risu s●cundo  
Et tandem eloquio reserat facundo  
Que cord conceperat artibus faecundo  
Satis inqui● libere Phylli● es locuta  
Multum es eloquio v●lox et acuta  
Sed non efficaciter verum prosecuta  
Vt per te praevaleat lilio cicuta  
Dixisti de Clerico qui indulgit sibi  
servum somni nominas & potus & ●ibi  
Sic sole● ab invido probitas describi  
Ecce parem pattere respondebo tibi  
Tota et tanta fat●or▪ etc.  
FINIS.