Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/409

With great advysement for to lay foundation of her state.
This towne then chaungeth by increase the forme it had alate,
And of the universall world in tyme to comme shall hold
The sovereintye, so prophesies and lotts (men say) have told.
And as (I doo remember mee) what tyme that Troy decayd,
The prophet Helen, Priams sonne, theis woordes ensewing sayd
Before Aenaeas dowting of his lyfe in weeping plyght:
O Goddesse sonne, beleeve mee (if thou think I have foresyght
Of things to comme) Troy shalnot quyght decay whyle thou doost live.
Bothe fyre and swoord shall unto thee thy passage freely give.
Thou must from hence: and Troy with thee convey away in haste,
Untill that bothe thyself and Troy in forreine land bee plaast
More freendly than thy native soyle. Moreover I foresee,
A Citie by the offspring of the Trojans buylt shall bee,
So great as never in the world the lyke was seene before
Nor is this present, neyther shall be seene for evermore.
A number of most noble peeres for manye yeeres afore
Shall make it strong and puyssant: but hee that shall it make
The sovereine Ladye of the world, by ryght descent shall take
His first beginning from thy sonne the little Jule. And when
The earth hathe had her tyme of him, the sky and welkin then
Shall have him up for evermore, and heaven shall bee his end.
Thus farre (I well remember mee) did Helens woordes extend
To good Aenaeas. And it is a pleasure unto mee
The Citie of my countrymen increasing thus to see:
And that the Grecians victorie becommes the Trojans weale.
But lest forgetting quyght themselves our horses happe to steale
Beyond the mark: the heaven and all that under heaven is found,
Dooth alter shape. So dooth the ground and all that is in ground.
And wee that of the world are part (considring how wee bee
Not only flesh, but also sowles, which may with passage free
Remove them into every kynd of beast both tame and wyld)
Let live in saufty honestly with slaughter undefyld,
The bodyes which perchaunce may have the spirits of our brothers,
Our sisters, or our parents, or the spirits of sum others
Alyed to us eyther by sum freendshippe or sum kin,
Or at the least the soules of men abyding them within.