Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/121

 Strive, struggle, wrest and writhe (she said) thou froward boy thy fill: Doe what thou canst thou shalt not scape. Ye Goddes of Heaven agree That this same wilfull boy and I may never parted bee. The Gods were pliant to hir boone. The bodies of them twaine Were mixt and joyned both in one. To both them did remaine One countnance: like as if a man should in one barke beholde Two twigges both growing into one and still togither holde. Even so when through hir hugging and hir grasping of the tother The members of them mingled were and fastned both togither, They were not any lenger two: but (as it were) a toy Of double shape. Ye could not say it was a perfect boy Nor perfect wench: it seemed both and none of both to beene. Now when Hermaphroditus saw how in the water sheene To which he entred in a man, his limmes were weakened so That out fro thence but halfe a man he was compelde to go, He lifteth up his hands and said (but not with manly reere): O noble father Mercurie, and Venus mother deere, This one petition graunt your son which both your names doth beare, That whoso commes within this Well may so be weakened there, That of a man but halfe a man he may fro thence retire. Both Parentes moved with the chaunce did stablish this desire The which their doubleshaped sonne had made: and thereupon Infected with an unknowne strength the sacred spring anon. Their tales did ende and Mineus daughters still their businesse plie In spight of Bacchus whose high feast they breake contemptuously. When on the sodaine (seeing nought) they heard about them round Of tubbish Timbrels perfectly a hoarse and jarring sound, With shraming shalmes and gingling belles, and furthermore they felt A cent of Saffron and of Myrrhe that verie hotly smelt. And (which a man would ill beleve) the web they had begun Immediatly waxt fresh and greene, the flaxe the which they spun Did flourish full of Ivie leaves. And part thereof did run Abrode in Vines. The threede it selfe in braunches forth did spring. Yong burgeons full of clustred grapes their Distaves forth did bring. And as the web they wrought was dide a deepe darke purple hew, Even so upon the painted grapes the selfesame colour grew. The day was spent, and now was come the time which neyther night