Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/240

 A Nymph to Ceres very deere, who now before I dye In comfort of my death doo give thee warning thou shalt bye Thy dooing deere within a whyle. He goeth wilfully Still thorrough with his wickednesse, untill at length the Oke Pulld partly by the force of ropes, and cut with axis stroke, Did fall, and with his weyght bare downe of under wood great store. The Wood nymphes with the losses of the woods and theyrs ryght sore Amazed, gathered on a knot, and all in mourning weede Went sad to Ceres, praying her to wreake that wicked deede Of Erisicthons. Ceres was content it should bee so. And with the moving of her head in nodding to and fro, Shee shooke the feeldes which laden were with frutefull Harvest tho, And therewithall a punishment most piteous shee proceedes To put in practyse: were it not that his most heynous deedes No pitie did deserve to have at any bodies hand. With helpelesse hungar him to pyne, in purpose shee did stand. And forasmuch as shee herself and Famin myght not meete (For fate forbiddeth Famin to abyde within the leete Where plentie is) shee thus bespake a fayrie of the hill: There lyeth in the utmost bounds of Tartarie the chill A Dreerie place, a wretched soyle, a barreine plot: no grayne, No frute, no tree, is growing there: but there dooth ay remayne Unweeldsome cold, with trembling feare, and palenesse white as clowt, And foodlesse Famin. Will thou her immediatly withowt Delay to shed herself into the stomacke of the wretch, And let no plentie staunch her force but let her working stretch Above the powre of mee. And lest the longnesse of the way May make thee wearie, take thou heere my charyot: take I say My draggons for to beare thee through the aire. In saving so She gave hir them. The Nymph mounts up, and flying thence as tho Alyghts in Scythy land, and up the cragged top of hye Mount Caucasus did cause hir Snakes with much adoo to stye. Where seeking long for Famin, shee the gaptoothd elfe did spye Amid a barreine stony feeld a ramping up the grasse With ougly nayles and chanking it. Her face pale colourd was. Hir heare was harsh and shirle, her eyes were sunken in her head. Her lyppes were hore with filth, her teeth were furd and rusty red.