The Fates consent, (aye me! dissembling Fates)
They show'd their favours to conceal their hates,
And draw Leander on, lest seas too high
Should stay his too obsequious destiny:
Who like a fleering[1] slavish parasite,
In warping profit or a traitorous sleight,
Hoops round his rotten body with devotes,
And pricks his descant face full of false notes;
Praising with open throat, and oaths as foul
As his false heart, the beauty of an owl;
Kissing his skipping hand with charmed skips,
That cannot leave, but leaps upon his lips
Like a cock-sparrow, or a shameless quean
Sharp at a red lipp'd youth, and nought doth mean
Of all his antic shows, but doth repair
More tender fawns, and takes a scatter'd hair
From his tame subject's shoulder; whips and calls
For every thing he lacks; creeps 'gainst the walls
With backward humblesse, to give needless way:
Thus his false fate did with Leander play.
First to black Eurus flies the white Leucote,
(Born 'mongst the negroes in the Levant sea,
- ↑ fleeting, edit. 1637.
