Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/249

What if that I (Meleager) remembring mee to bee
Thy suster, to attempt sum act notorious did agree?
And in a harlots death did shew (that all the world myght see)
What greef can cause the womankynd to enterpryse among?
And specially when thereunto they forced are by wrong.
With wavering thoughts ryght violently her mynd was tossed long.
At last shee did preferre before all others, for to send
The shirt bestayned with the blood of Nessus to the end
To quicken up the quayling love. And so not knowing what
She gave, she gave her owne remorse and greef to Lychas that
Did know as little as herself: and wretched woman, shee
Desyrd him gently to her Lord presented it to see.
The noble Prince receyving it without mistrust therein,
Did weare the poyson of the Snake of Lerna next his skin.
To offer incense and to pray to Jove he did begin,
And on the Marble Altar he full boawles of wyne did shed,
When as the poyson with the heate resolving, largely spred
Through all the limbes of Hercules. As long as ere he could,
The stoutnesse of his hart was such, that sygh no whit he would.
But when the mischeef grew so great all pacience to surmount,
He thrust the altar from him streight, and filled all the mount
Of Oeta with his roring out. He went about to teare
The deathfull garment from his backe, but where he pulled, there
He pulld away the skin: and (which is lothsum to report)
It eyther cleaved to his limbes and members in such sort
As that he could not pull it off, or else it tare away
The flesh, that bare his myghty bones and grisly sinewes lay.
The scalding venim boyling in his blood, did make it hisse,
As when a gad of steel red hot in water quenched is.
There was no measure of his paine. The frying venim hent
His inwards, and a purple swet from all his body went.
His sindged sinewes shrinking crakt, and with a secret strength
The povson even within his bones the Maree melts at length.
And holding up his hands to heaven, he sayd, with hideous reere:
O Saturnes daughter, feede thy selfe on my distresses heere.
Yea feede, and, cruell wyght, this plage behold thou from above
And glut thy savage hart therewith. Or if thy fo may move