Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/201

 At that the King did sigh, and thus with plaintfull voice did say: A sad beginning afterward in better lucke did stay. I would I plainly could the same before your faces lay. Howbeit I will disorderly repeate it as I may. And lest I seeme to wearie you with overlong delay, The men that you so mindefully enquire for lie in ground And nought of them save bones and dust remayneth to be found. But as it hapt what losse thereby did unto me redound? A cruell plague through Junos wrath who dreadfully did hate This Land that of hir husbands Love did take the name alate, Upon my people fell: as long as that the maladie None other seemde than such as haunts mans nature usually, And of so great mortalitie the hurtfull cause was hid, We strove by Phisicke of the same the Pacients for to rid. The mischief overmaistred Art: yea Phisick was to seeke To doe it selfe good. First the Aire with foggie stinking reeke Did daily overdreepe the earth: and close culme Clouds did make The wether faint: and while the Moone foure times hir light did take And fillde hir emptie homes therewith, and did as often slake: The warme South windes with deadly heate continually did blow. Infected were the Springs, and Ponds, and streames that ebbe and flow. And swarmes of Serpents crawld about the fieldes that lay untillde Which with their poison even the brookes and running water fillde. In sodaine dropping downe of Dogs, of Horses, Sheepe and Kine, Of Birds and Beasts both wild and tame as Oxen, Wolves, and Swine, The mischiefe of this secret sore first outwardly appeeres. The wretched Plowman was amazde to see his sturdie Steeres Amid the furrow sinking downe ere halfe his worke was donne. Whole flocks of sheepe did faintly bleate, and therewithall begonne Their fleeces for to fall away and leave the naked skin, And all their bodies with the rot attainted were within. The lustie Horse that erst was fierce in field renowne to win Against his kinde grew cowardly: and now forgetting quight The auncient honor which he preast so oft to get in fight, Stoode sighing sadly at the Racke as wayting for to yeelde His wearie life without renowne of combat in the fielde. The Boare to chafe, the Hinde to runne, the cruell Beare to fall