Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/196

When for his last reward he askt the Bull, he did refuse
To give it him. The boy displeasde, said: Well: thou wilt anon
Repent thou gave it not: and leapt downe headlong from a stone.
They all supposde he had bene falne: but being made a Swan
With snowie feathers in the Ayre to flacker he began.
His mother Hyrie knowing not he was preserved so,
Resolved into melting teares for pensivenesse and wo,
And made the Poole that beares hir name. Not far from hence doth stand
The Citie Brauron, where sometime by mounting from the land
With waving pinions Ophyes ympe, dame Combe, did eschue
Hir children which with naked swordes to slea hir did pursue.
Anon she kend Calaurie fieldes which did sometime pertaine
To chast Diana where a King and eke his wife both twaine
Were turnde to Birdes. Cyllene hill upon hir right hand stood,
In which Menephron like a beast of wilde and savage moode
To force his mother did attempt. Far thence she spide where sad
Cephisus mourned for his Neece whome Phebus turned had
To ugly shape of swelling Seale: and Eumelles pallace faire
Lamenting for his sonnes mischaunce with whewling in the Aire.
At Corinth with hir winged Snakes at length she did arrive.
Here men (so auncient fathers said that were as then alive)
Did breede of deawie Mushrommes. But after that hir teene
With burning of hir husbands bride by witchcraft wreakt had beene
And that King Creons pallace she on blasing fire had seene,
And in hir owne deare childrens bloud had bathde hir wicked knife
Not like a mother but a beast bereving them of life:
Lest Jason should have punisht hir she tooke hir winged Snakes,
And flying thence againe in haste to Pallas Citie makes,
Which saw the auncient Periphas and rightuous Phiney too
Togither flying, and the Neece of Polypemon who
Was fastened to a paire of wings as well as t'other two.
Aegeus enterteined hir wherein he was to blame
Although he had no further gone but staid upon the same.
He thought it not to be inough to use hir as his guest
Onlesse he tooke hir to his wife.
And now was Thesey prest,
Unknowne unto his father yet, who by his knightly force
Had set from robbers cleare the balke that makes the streight divorce