Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/170

She comming hither kneeled downe the water up to take
To coole hir thirst. The churlish cloynes forfended hir the Lake.
Then gently said the Goddesse: Sirs, why doe you me forfend
The water? Nature doth to all in common water send.
For neither Sunne, nor Ayre, nor yet the Water private bee,
I seeke but that which natures gift hath made to all things free.
And yet I humbly crave of you to graunt it unto mee.
I did not go about to wash my werie limmes and skin,
I would but only quench my thirst. My throte is scalt within
For want of moysture: and my chappes and lippes are parching drie:
And scarsly is there way for wordes to issue out thereby.
A draught of water will to me be heavenly Nectar now.
And sure I will confesse I have received life of you.
Yea in your giving of a drop of water unto mee,
The case so standeth as you shall preserve the lives of three.
Alas let these same sillie soules that in my bosome stretch
Their little armes (by chaunce hir babes their pretie dolles did retch)
To pitie move you. What is he so hard that would not yeeld
To this the gentle Goddesses entreatance meeke and meeld?
Yet they for all the humble wordes she could devise to say,
Continued in their willfull moode of churlish saying nay,
And threatned for to sende hir thence onlesse she went away,
Reviling hir most spightfully. And not contented so,
With handes and feete the standing Poole they troubled to and fro,
Until with trampling up and downe maliciously, the soft
And slimie mud that lay beneath was raised up aloft.
With that the Goddesse was so wroth that thirst was quight forgot.
And unto such unworthie Carles hirselfe she humbleth not:
Ne speaketh meaner wordes than might beseeme a Goddesse well.
But holding up hir handes to heaven: For ever mought you dwell
In this same Pond, she said: hir wish did take effect with speede.
For underneath the water they delight to be in deede.
Now dive they to the bottome downe, now up their heades they pop,
Another while with sprawling legs they swim upon the top.
And oftentimes upon the bankes they have a minde to stond,
And oftentimes from thence againe to leape into the Pond.
And there they now doe practise still their filthy tongues to scold