Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/357

Of al that have theyr dwelling place uppon the golden skye
The lowest (for through all the world the feawest shrynes have I)
But yit a Goddesse, I doo come, not that thou shouldst decree
That Altars, shrynes, and holydayes bee made to honour mee.
Yit if thou marke how much that I a woman doo for thee,
In keeping nyght within her boundes, by bringing in the light,
Thou well mayst thinke mee worthy sum reward to clayme of ryght.
But neyther now is that the thing the Morning cares to have,
Ne yit her state is such as now dew honour for to crave.
Bereft of my deere Memnon who in fyghting valeantly
To help his uncle, (so it was your will, O Goddes) did dye
Of stout Achilles sturdye speare even in his flowring pryme,
I sue to thee, O king of Goddes, to doo him at this tyme
Sum honour as a comfort of his death, and ease this hart
Of myne which greatly greeved is with wound of percing smart.
No sooner Jove hadgraunted dame Aurora her desyre
But that the flame of Memnons corce that burned in the fyre
Did fall: and flaky rolles of smoke did dark the day, as when
A foggy mist steames upward from a River or a fen,
And suffreth not the Sonne to shyne within it. Blacke as cole
The cinder rose: and into one round lump assembling whole
Grew grosse, and tooke bothe shape and hew. The fyre did lyfe it send,
The lyghtnesse of the substance self did wings unto it lend.
And at the first it flittred like a bird: and by and by
It flew a fethered bird in deede. And with that one gan fly
Innumerable mo of selfsame brood: whoo once or twyce
Did sore about the fyre, and made a piteous shreeking thryce.
The fowrth tyme in theyr flying round, themselves they all withdrew
In battells twayne, and feercely foorth of eyther syde one flew
To fyght a combate. With theyr billes and hooked talants keene
And with theyr wings couragiously they wreakt theyr wrathfull teene.
And myndfull of the valeant man of whom they issued beene,
They never ceased jobbing eche uppon the others brest,
Untill they falling both downe dead with fyghting overprest,
Had offred up theyr bodyes as a woorthy sacrifyse
Unto theyr cousin Memnon who to Asshes burned lyes.
Theis soodeine birds were named of the founder of theyr stocke: