Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/3

 mot noble order of the Garter, &c. Arthur Gol- ding Gent, wiheth continuance of health, with properous etate and felicitie.

T length my chariot wheele about the mark hath found the way, And at their weery races end, my breathlesse horses stay. The woork is brought to end by which the author did account (And rightly) with externall fame above the starres to mount. For whatsoever hath bene writ of auncient tyme in greeke By sundry men dispersedly, and in the latin eeke, Of this same dark Philosophie of turned shapes, the same Hath Ovid into one whole masse in this booke brought in frame. Fowre kynd of things in this his worke the Poet dooth conteyne. That nothing under heaven dooth ay in stedfast state remayne. And next that nothing perisheth: but that eche substance takes Another shape than that it had. Of theis twoo points he makes The proof by shewing through his woorke the wonderfull exchaunge Of Goddes, men, beasts, and elements, to sundry shapes right straunge, Beginning with creation of the world, and man of slyme, And so proceeding with the turnes that happened till his tyme. Then sheweth he the soule of man from dying to be free, By samples of the noblemen, who for their vertues bee Accounted and canonized for Goddes by heathen men, And by the peynes of Lymbo lake, and blysfull state agen Of spirits in th'Elysian feelds. And though that of theis three He make discourse dispersedly: yit specially they bee Discussed in the latter booke in that oration where He bringeth in Pythagoras disswading men from feare Of death, and preaching abstinence from flesh of living things. But as for that opinion which Pythagoras there brings Of soules removing out of beasts to men, and out of men Too birdes and beasts both wyld and tame, both to and fro agen: It is not to be understand of that same soule whereby Wee are endewd with reason and discretion from on hie: But of that soule or lyfe the which brute beasts as well as wee Enjoy. Three sortes of lyfe or soule (for so they termed bee) Are found in things. The first gives powre to thryve, encrease and grow, And this in senselesse herbes and trees and shrubs itself dooth show. The second giveth powre to move and use of senses fyve, And this remaynes in brutish beasts, and keepeth them alyve. Both theis are mortall, as the which receyved of the aire By force of Phebus, after death doo thither eft repayre. The third gives understanding, wit, and reason: and the same Is it alonly which with us of soule dooth beare the name.

And