Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/373

For ever as a Goddesse take, and will acknowledge mee
Thy servant, for saufguyding mee the place of death to see,
And for thou from the place of death hast brought me sauf and free.
For which desert, what tyme I shall atteyne to open ayre,
I will a temple to thee buyld ryght sumptuous, large, and fayre,
And honour thee with frankincence. The prophetisse did cast
Her eye uppon Aenaeas backe, and syghing sayd at last:
I am no Goddesse. Neyther think thou canst with conscience ryght,
With holy incence honour give to any mortall wyght.
But to th'entent through ignorance thou erre not, I had beene
Eternall and of worldly lyfe I should none end have seene,
If that I would my maydenhod on Phebus have bestowde.
Howbeeit whyle he stood in hope to have the same, and trowde
To overcome mee with his gifts: Thou mayd of Cumes (quoth he)
Choose what thou wilt, and of thy wish the owner thou shalt bee.
I taking full my hand of dust, and shewing it him there,
Desyred like a foole to live as many yeeres as were
Small graynes of cinder in that heape. I quight forgot to crave
Immediately, the race of all those yeeres in youth to have.
Yit did he graunt mee also that, uppon condicion I
Would let him have my maydenhod, which thing I did denye.
And so rejecting Phebus gift a single lyfe I led.
But now the blessefull tyme of youth is altogither fled,
And irksome age with trembling pace is stolne uppon my head,
Which long I must endure. For now already as you see
Seven hundred yeares are come and gone and that the number bee
Full matched of the granes of dust, three hundred harvestes mo,
I must three hundred vintages see more before I go.
The day will come that length of tyme shall make my body small,
And little of my withered limbes shall leave or naught at all.
And none shall think that ever God was tane in love with mee.
Even out of Phebus knowledge then perchaunce I growen shall bee,
Or at the least that ever he mee lovde he shall denye,
So sore I shall be altered. And then shall no mannes eye
Discerne mee. Only by my voyce I shall bee knowen. For why
The fates shall leave mee still my voyce for folke to know mee by.
As Sybill in the vaulted way such talk as this did frame,