Cant. I.
the Faery Queene.
9
As when old father Nilus gins to swellWith timely pride aboue the Aegyptian vale,His fattie waues doe fertile slime outwell,And ouerflow each plaine and lowly dale:But when his later ebbe gins t'auale,Huge heapes of mudd he leaues, wherin there breedTen thousand kindes of creatures partly maleAnd partly femall of his fruitful seed;Such vgly monstrous shapes elswher may no man reed.
The same so sore annoyed has the knight,That welnigh choked with the deadly stinke,His forces faile, ne can no lenger fight.Whose corage when the feend pereeiud to shrinke,She poured forth out of her hellish sinkeHer fruitfull cursed spawne of serpents small,Deformed monsters, fowle, and blacke as inke,Which swarming all about his legs did crall,And him encombred sore, but could not hurt at all.
As gentle Shepheard in sweete euentide,When ruddy Phebus gins to welke in west,High on an hill, his flocke to vewen wide,Markes which doe byte their hasty supper best,A cloud of cumbrous gnattes doe him molest,All striuing to infixe their feeble stinges,That from their noyance he no where can rest,But with his clownish hands their tender wings,He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.
Thus ill bestedd, and fearefull more of shame,Then of the certeine perill he stood in,Halfe furious vnto his foe he came,Resolud in minde all suddenly to win,
Or
