earth, he could not eat at the table of the immortals. So while they sat at the feast, he wandered away and seated himself beside an overhanging rock near the dwelling of Proteus. While he thus sat musing, he heard a voice com- plaining thus:—
“Gods of the sea, if ye have any pity for a maid who suffers without cause, deliver me from this sad abode, where I lie nearing my death. Or if you have no power to help me hence, at least let me die, who living am naught but unhappy. Is this the punishment of my too great love for Marinell, who loved me not at all? If it be so, carry my last sigh to him, where he dwells among the immortals, and tell him that for love of him Florimel was glad to die.”
When Marinell heard these lamentings, his heart, before so hard, was touched with tender pity; and as he listened to her sobs and moans, which would have moved a heart of flinty stone, he began to devise how he might set free the maiden who languished in such a vile prison.
Straightway he went to his mother, Cymoent, and told her what captive was held by Proteus in his watery dungeon. With moving pity he besought her aid for Florimel. Cymoent, who could refuse him nothing, went at once to Nep-
