Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/154

 To have deserved punishment. But what should men esteeme To be the verie cause why you, Acheloes daughters, weare Both feete and feathers like to Birdes, considering that you beare The upper partes of Maidens still? And commes it so to passe Bicause when Ladie Proserpine a gathering flowers was, Ye Meremaides kept hir companie? Whome after you had sought Through all the Earth in vaine, anon of purpose that your thought Might also to the Seas be knowen, ye wished that ye might Upon the waves with hovering wings at pleasure rule your flight, And had the Goddes to your request so pliant, that ye found With yellow feathers out of hand your bodies clothed round: Yet lest that pleasant tune of yours ordeyned to delight The hearing, and so high a gift of Musicke perish might For want of uttrance, humaine voyce to utter things at will And countnance of virginitie remained to you still. But meane betweene his brother and his heavie sister goth God Jove, and parteth equally the yeare betweene them both. And now the Goddesse Proserpine indifferently doth reigne Above and underneath the Earth, and so doth she remaine One halfe yeare with hir mother and the resdue with hir Feere. Immediatly she altred is as well in outwarde cheere As inwarde minde. For where hir looke might late before appeere Sad even to Dis, hir countnance now is full of mirth and grace Even like as Phebus having put the watrie cloudes to chace, Doth shew himselfe a Conqueror with bright and shining face. Then fruitfull Ceres voide of care in that she did recover Hir daughter, prayde thee, Arethuse, the storie to discover, What caused thee to fleete so farre and wherefore thou became A sacred spring? The waters whist. The Goddesse of the same Did from the bottome of the Well hir goodly head up reare. And having dried with hir hand hir faire greene hanging heare, The River Alpheys auncient loves she thus began to tell. I was (quoth she) a Nymph of them that in Achaia dwell. There was not one that earnester the Lawndes and forests sought Or pitcht hir toyles more handsomly. And though that of my thought It was no part, to seeke the fame of beautie: though I were All courage: yet the pricke and prise of beautie I did beare.