Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/13

Provoked him from day to day to strike them with his rod.
Prowd Gyants also did aryse that with presumptuous wills
Heapt wrong on wrong, and sin on sin lyke huge and lofty hilles.
Whereby they strove to clymb to heaven and God from thence to draw,
In scorning of his holy woord and breaking natures law.
For which anon ensewd the flood which overflowed all
The whole round earth and drowned quyght all creatures great and smal,
Excepting feaw that God did save as seede wherof should grow
Another ofspring. All these things the Poet heere dooth show
In colour, altring both the names of persons, tyme and place.
For where according to the truth of scripture in this cace,
The universall flood did fall but sixteene hundred yeeres
And six and fifty after the creation (as appeeres
By reckening of the ages of the fathers) under Noy,
With whom seven other persons mo like saufgard did enjoy
Within the arke, which at the end of one whole yeere did stay
Uppon the hilles of Armenie: the Poet following ay
The fables of the glorying Greekes (who shamelessely did take
The prayse of all things to themselves) in fablying wyse dooth mak
It happen in Deucalions tyme, who reignd inThessaly
Eyght hundred winters since Noyes flood or thereupon well nye,
Bicause that in the reigne of him a myghty flood did fall,
That drownde the greater part of Greece, townes, cattell, folk, and all,
Save feaw that by the help of boats atteyned unto him
And to the highest of the forkt Parnasos top did swim.
And forbycause that hee and his were driven a whyle to dwell
Among the stonny hilles and rocks until the water fell,
The Poets hereupon did take occasion for to feyne,
That he and Pyrrha did repayre mankynd of stones ageyne.
So in the sixth booke afterward Amphions harp is sayd
The first foundation of the walles of Thebee to have layd,
Bycause that by his eloquence and justice (which are ment
By true accord of harmonie and musicall consent)
He gathered into Thebee towne, and in due order knit
The people that disperst and rude in hilles and rocks did sit.
So Orphey in the tenth booke is reported to delyght
The savage beasts, and for to hold the fleeting birds from flyght,
To move the senselesse stones, and stay swift rivers, and to make
The trees to follow after him and for his musick sake
To yeeld him shadow where he went. By which is signifyde
That in his doctrine such a force and sweetnesse was implyde,
That such as were most wyld, stowre, feerce, hard, witlesse, rude, and bent
Ageinst good order, were by him perswaded to relent,
And for to bee conformable to live in reverent awe
Like neybours in a common weale by justyce under law.
Considring then of things before reherst the whole effect,
I trust there is already shewd sufficient to detect
That Poets tooke the ground of all their cheefest fables out
Of scripture: which they shadowing with their gloses went about