Beauty strikes fancy blind; pied show de

ceives us, Sweet banquets tempt our healths, when temper leaves us, Inchastity is ever prostitute,

Whose trees we loathe, when we have pluck'd their fruit.

Hither this panther fled, now turn'd a boar,

More huge than that th' Ætolians plagued

so sore,

And led the chase through noblest mansions,

Gardens and groves, exempt from paragons,
In all things ruinous, and slaughtersome,
As was that scourge to the Ætolian king-
dom:

After as if a whirlwind drave them on,
Full cry, and close, as if they all were one
The hounds pursue, and fright the earth
with sound,

Making her tremble; as when winds are bound

In her cold bosom, fighting for event: With whose fierce ague all the world is rent.

But Day's arm (tired to hold her torch to them)

Now let it fall within the Ocean stream, The goddess blew retreat, and with her blast,

Her morn's creation did like vapours waste: The winds made wing into the upper light, And blew abroad the sparkles of the night. Then (swift as thought) the bright Titanides, Guide and great sovereign of the marble seas,

With milk-white heifers, mounts into her sphere,

And leaves us miserable creatures here.

Thus nights, fair days, thus griefs do joys supplant:

Thus glories graven in steel and adamant Never supposed to waste, but grow by wasting

(Like snow in rivers fall'n), consume by lasting.

O then thou great elixir of treasures, From whom we multiply our world of pleasures,

Descend again, ah, never leave the earth, But 21 as thy plenteous humours gave us birth,

So let them drown the world in night and death

Before this air, leave breaking with thy breath.

Come, goddess, come; 22 the double father'd son,

Shall dare no more amongst thy train to run, Nor with polluted hands to touch thy veil : His death was darted from the scorpion's tail,

For which her form to endless memory, With other lamps, doth lend the heavens an eye,

And he that show'd such great presumption, Is hidden now, beneath a little stone.

If 23 proud Alpheus offer force again, Because he could not once thy love obtain, Thou and thy nymphs shall stop his mouth with mire,

And mock the fondling, for his mad aspire.
Thy glorious temple, 24great Lucifera,
That was the study of all Asia,
Two hundred twenty summers to erect,
Built by Chersiphrone thy architect,
In which two hundred twenty columns
stood,

Built by two hundred twenty kings of blood,
Of curious beauty, and admired height,
Pictures and statues, of as praiseful sleight,
Convenient for so chaste a goddess' fane
(Burnt by Herostratus), shall now again
Be re-exstruct, and this Ephesia be
Thy country's happy name, come here with
thee,

As it was there so shall it now be framed,
And thy fair virgin-chamber ever named.
And as in reconstruction of it there,
There ladies did no more their jewels wear,
But frankly contribute them all to raise
A work of such a chaste religious praise :
So will our ladies; for in them it lies,
To spare so much as would that work
suffice.

Our dames well set their jewels in their minds,

Insight illustrates; outward bravery blinds,
The mind hath in herself a deity,
And in the stretching circle of her eye
All things are compass'd, all things present
still,

Will framed to power, doth make us what we will.

But keep your jewels, make ye braver yet,
Elysian ladies; and (in riches set,
Upon your foreheads) let us see your hearts;
Build Cynthia's temple in your virtuous
parts,

Let every jewel be a virtue's glass :
And no Herostratus shall ever rase
Those holy monuments: but pillars stand,
Where every Grace and Muse shall hang
her garland.

The mind in that we like, rules every limb, Gives hands to bodies, makes them make them trim;

Why then in that the body doth dislike, Should not his sword as great a veney

strike? The bit and spur that monarch ruleth still, To further good things and to curb the ill, He is the Ganymede, the bird of Jove, Rapt to her sovereign's bosom for his love, His beauty was it, not the body's pride, That made him great Aquarius stellified. And that mind most is beautiful and high, And nearest comes to a Divinity,

That furtherest is from spot of Earth's delight,

Pleasures that lose their substance with their sight,

Such one, Saturnius ravisheth to love,
And fills the cup of all content to Jove.

If wisdom be the mind's true beauty then, And that such beauty shines in virtuous

men,

*

*

*

*

If those sweet Ganymedes shall only find,
† *
Love of Olympus, are those wizards wise,
That nought but gold, and his dejections
prize?

This beauty hath a fire upon her brow,
That dims the sun of base desires in you,
And as the cloudy bosom of the tree,
Whose branches will not let the summer see
His solemn shadows; but do entertain
Eternal winter: so thy sacred train,
Thrice mighty Cynthia, should be frozen
dead,

To all the lawless flames of Cupid's godhead.

To this end let thy beams' divinities

For ever shine upon their sparkling eyes, And be as quench to those pestiferent fires, That through their eyes impoison their desires.

Thou never yet wouldst stoop to base assault,

Therefore those poets did most highly fault, That feign'd thee fifty children by Endymion,

And they that write thou hadst but three alone,

It appears that a line has slipped out here. ED.

Thou never any hadst, but didst affect,
Endymion for his studious intellect.
Thy soul-chaste kisses were for virtue's
sake,

And since his eyes were evermore awake,
To search for knowledge of thy excellence,
And all astrology: no negligence
Or female softness fed his learned trance,
Nor was thy veil once touch'd with dal-
liance.

Wise poets feign thy godhead properly
The thresholds of men's doors did fortify,
And therefore built they thankful altars
there,

Serving thy power in most religious fear.
Dear precedent for us to imitate,
Whose doors thou guard'st against im-
perious fate,

Keeping our peaceful households safe from sack,

And free'st our ships when others suffer wrack.

Thy 27 virgin chamber then that sacred is,
No more let hold an idle Salmacis,
Nor let more sleights Cydippe injury:
Nor let black Jove, possess'd in Sicily,
Ravish more maids, but maids subdue his
might,

With well-steel'd lances of thy watchful sight.

28Then in thy clear and icy pentacle, Now execute a magic miracle: Slip every sort of poison'd herbs and plants,

And bring thy rabid mastiffs to these

haunts.

Look with thy fierce aspect, be terrorstrong,

Assume thy wondrous shape of half a furlong:

Put on thy feet of serpents, viperous hairs, And act the fearfull'st part of thy affairs: Convert the violent courses of thy floods, Remove whole fields of corn, and hugest woods,

Cast hills into the sea, and make the stars Drop out of heaven, and lose thy mariners. So shall the wonders of thy power be

seen,

And thou for ever live the planets' queen.

Explicit Hymnus.

Omnis ut umbra.

1 He gives her that periphrasis--viz., Nature's bright eyesight, because that by her store of humours issue is given to all birth: and thereof is she called Lucina, and Illythia, quia præest parturientibus cum invocaretur, and gives them help: which Orpheus in a Hymn of her praise expresseth and calls her besides Prothyrea, ut sequitur:

Κλύθι μοι, ὦ πολύσεμνε θεα, &c.

Audi me veneranda Dea, cui nomina multa: Prægnantum adjutrix, parientum dulce leva

men,

Sola puellarum servatrix, solaque prudens : Auxilium velox teneris Prothyræa puellis. And a little after, he shows her plainly to be Diana, Ilythia, and Prothyræa, in these verses: Solam animi requiem te clamant parturientes. Sola potes diros partus placare labores Diana, Ilythia gravis, sumus et Prothyræa.

2 He calls her the soul of the Night, since she is the purest part of her according to common conceit.

Orpheus in these verses of Argonauticis, saith she is thrice-headed, as she is Hecate, Luna, and Diana, ut sequitur.

Cumque illis Hecate properans horrenda cu

Cunctorumque simul, quæ cœlum amplectitur altum,

Admittitque preces facilis Dea, prompta, benigna :

Divitias præbet, quid ei concessa potestas, Imperat hæc cunctis, qui sunt è semine nati: Et Terræ et Coeli, cunctorum fata gubernat. 5 In Latmos she is supposed to sleep with Endymion, ut Catullus :

Ut triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans, Dulcis amor Gyro devocet Aerio.

6 Homer, with a marvellous poetical sweetness, in the Atlantic Sea. And then shows her apsaith she washes her before she apparels herself parel, as in these verses in Oceano Lavacri.

Rursus Atlanteis, in lymphis membra lavata, Vestibus induta, et nitidis Dea Luna mi

cantes:

Curru junxit equos celeres, quibus ardua colla. 7 Cytheron, as Menander saith, was a most fair boy, and beloved of Tisiphone, who, since VOL. II,

she could not obtain his love, she tears from her head a serpent, and threw it at him, which stinging him to death, the gods in pity turned him to a hill of that name first called Asterius, full of woods, where in all poets have affirmed wild beasts live, and use it often to express their haunts, or store of woods, whereupon he invokes Cynthia to rise in such brightness, as if it were all on fire.

8 This is expounded as followeth by Gyraldus Lilius. The application most fitly made by this author.

9 Harpe should be written thus, not with a y, yet here he useth it, lest some not knowing what it means, read it for a harp, having found this It was the sword grossness in some scholars.

of Perseus used to cut off Medusa's head. 10 Fortune is called Tyche, as witnesseth Pausanias in Messeniacis, who affirms her to be one of the daughters likewise of Oceanus, which was playing with Proserpine when Dis ravished her. Una omnes vario per prata comantia flore, Candida Leucippe, Phænoque, Electraque Ianthe.

Melobosisque Tyche, Ocyrhoe præsignis

ocellis.

And Orpheus in a hymn to Fortuna, saith she is the daughter of blood, ut in his, sanguine prognatam, Vi et inexpugnabile numen.

II Plutarch writes thus of the Romans and Macedons in Paulus Æmilius.

12 These are commonly known to be the properties of Cynthia.

13 This Zone is said to be the girdle of Cynthia. And therefore when maids lost their maidenheads, amongst the Athenians, they used to put off their girdles. And after custom made it a phrase zonam solvere, to lose their maidenheads, ut Apolo. lib. 1.

Prima soluta mihi est, postremaque zona quid ipsa

Invidit multos natos Lucina misella.

14 These are the verses of Callimachus translated to effect :

O miseri, quibus ipsa gravem tu concipis iram, &c.

15 This Strabo testifieth Libro duodecimo. 16 Pegasus is called Gorgoneus; since poets feign that when Perseus smote off Medusa's head, Pegasus flew from the wound: and therefore the Muses' fount which he made with his hoof, is called Gorgon.

17 Ortygia is the country where she was

brought up.

18 These are the verses of Hesiodus before.

19 The Wall is a most excellent river in the Low Countries, parting with another river called the Maze, near a town in Holland called Gurckham, and runs up to Guelderland, under the walls of Nimiguen. And these like similes, in my opinion, drawn from the honourable deeds of our noble countrymen, clad in comely

C

habit of poesy, would become a poem as well as further-fetched grounds, if such as be poets nowadays would use them.

20 The Philosopher's Stone, or Philosophica Medicina, is called the great Elixir, to which he here alludes.

21 This of our birth is explained before.

22 The double-fathered son is Orion, so called since he was the son of Jove and Apollo, born of their seed enclosed in a bull's hide, which abhorreth not from philosophy (according to poets' intentions) that one son should have two fathers: for in the generation of elements it is true, since omnia sint in omnibus. He offering violence, was stung of a scorpion to death, for which the scorpion's figure was made a sign in heaven, as Nicander in Theriacis affirms:

Grandine signatum Titanis at inde puella,
Scorpion immisit qui cuspide surgat acuta :
Bæoto ut meditata necem fuit Orioni,
Impuris ausus manibus quia prendere peplum.
Ille Deæ est talum percussit Scorpius illi
Sub parvo lapide occultus vestigia propter.

23 Alpheus taken with the love of Cynthia, not answered with many repulses, pursued her to her company of virgins, who mocking him, cast mire in his face, and drave him away. Some affirm him to be a flood, some the son of Parthenia, some the waggoner of Pelops, &c.

24 Lucifera is her title, and Ignifera: given by Euripides, in Iphigenia in Tauris.

25 The beauty of the mind being signified in Ganymede, he here by prosopopoeia, gives a man's shape unto it.

26 Pausanias in Eliacis, affirms it: others that she had but three-viz., Pæon, which Homer calls the gods' physician, Epeus and tolus, &c. Cicero saith she had none, but only for his love to the study of astrology gave him chaste kisses.

27 Her temple in Ephesus was called ner virgin chamber.

28 All these are proper to her as she is Hecate.

Explicit Comment.