Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/290

And for his love unwoorthely wvith death rewarded bee?
All men of such a victory will speake too foule a shame.
But all the world can testifye that I am not to blame.
Would God thou wouldst desist. Or else bycause thou are so mad,
I would to God a little more thy feete of swiftnesse had.
Ah what a maydens countenance is in this chyldish face.
Ah, foolish boy Hippomenes, how wretched is thy cace.
I would thou never hadst mee seene. Thou woorthy art of lyfe.
And if so bee I happy were, and that to bee a wyfe
The cruell destnyes had not mee forbidden, sure thou art
The onely wyght with whom I would bee matcht with all my hart.
This spoken: shee yit rawe and but new striken with the dart
Of Cupid, beeing ignorant, did love and knew it nat.
Anon her father and the folk assembled, willed that
They should begin theyr woonted race. Then Neptunes issue prayd
With carefull hart and voyce to mee, and thus devoutly sayd:
O Venus, favour myne attempt, and send mee downe thyne ayd
To compasse my desyred love which thou hast on mee layd.
His prayer movd mee (I confesse,) and long I not delayd
Before I helpt him. Now there is a certaine feeld the which
The Cyprian folk call Damasene, most fertile and most rich
Of all the Cyprian feelds: the same was consecrate to mee
In auncient tyme, and of my Church the glebland woont to bee.
Amid this feeld, with golden leaves there growes a goodly tree
The crackling boughes whereof are all of yellew gold. I came
And gathered golden Apples three: and bearing thence the same
Within my hand, immediatly to Hippomen I gat
Invisible to all wyghts else save him and taught him what
To doo with them.
The Trumpets blew: and girding forward, both
Set foorth, and on the hovering dust with nimble feete eche goth.
A man would think they able were uppon the Sea to go
And never wet theyr feete, and on the ayles of come also
That still is growing in the feeld, and never downe them tread.
The man tooke courage at the showt and woordes of them that sed:
Now, now is tyme, Hippomenes, to ply it, hye apace:
Enforce thyself with all thy strength: lag not in any cace:
Thou shalt obteine. It is a thing ryght dowtfull whither hee