Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/306

And he addrest himself to bee the leader of the band.
His wyfe, Alcyone, by the noyse admonisht of the same,
In dressing of her head, before shee had it brought in frame,
Cast downe her heare, and ronning foorth caught Ceyx fast about
The necke, desyring him with teares to send his folk without
Himself, and in the lyfe of him to save the lyves of twayne.
O Princesse, cease your godly feare (quoth Peleus then agayne).
Your offer dooth deserve great thanks. I mynd not warre to make
Ageinst straunge monsters. I as now another way must take.
The seagods must bee pacifyde. There was a Castle hye,
And in the same a lofty towre whose toppe dooth face the skye,
A joyfull mark for maryners to guyde theyr vessells by.
To this same Turret up they went, and there with syghes behilld
The Oxen lying every where stark dead uppon the feelde
And eeke the cruell stroygood with his bluddy mouth and heare.
Then Peleus stretching foorth his handes to Seaward, prayd in feare
To watrish Psamath that she would her sore displeasure stay,
And help him. She no whit relents to that that he did pray.
But Thetis for hir husband made such earnest sute, that shee
Obteynd his pardon. For anon the woolfe (who would not bee
Revoked from the slaughter for the sweetenesse of the blood)
Persisted sharpe and eager still, untill that as he stood
Fast byghting on a Bullocks necke, shee turnd him intoo stone
As well in substance as in hew, the name of woolf alone
Reserved. For although in shape hee seemed still yit one,
The verry colour of the stone beewrayd him to bee none,
And that he was not to bee feard. How be it froward fate
Permitts not Peleus in that land to have a setled state.
He wandreth like an outlaw to the Magnets. There at last
Acastus the Thessalien purgd him of his murther past.
In this meane tyme the Trachine king sore vexed in his thought
With signes that both before and since his brothers death were wrought,
For counsell at the sacret Spelles (which are but toyes to foode
Fond fancyes, and not counsellers in perill to doo goode)
Did make him reedy to the God of Claros for to go.
For heathenish Phorbas and the folk of Phlegia had as tho
The way to Delphos stopt, that none could travell to or fro.