Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/353

 I would desyre no more but that my wretched moother myght Bee ignorant of this my death. My moother hindreth mee, And makes the pleasure of my death much lesser for to bee. Howbeeit not the death of mee should justly greeve her hart: But her owne lyfe. Now to th'entent I freely may depart To Limbo, stand yee men aloof: and sith I aske but ryght Forebeare to touch mee. So my blood unsteyned in his syght Shall farre more acceptable been what ever wyght he bee Whom you prepare to pacifye by sacrifysing mee. Yit (if that these last woordes of myne may purchace any grace), I, daughter of king Priam erst, and now in prisoners cace, Beeseeche you all unraunsomed to render to my moother My bodye: and for buriall of the same to take none other Reward than teares: for whyle shee could shee did redeeme with gold. This sayd: the teares that shee forbare the people could not hold. And even the verry preest himself full sore ageinst his will And weeping, thrust her through the brest which she hild stoutly still. Shee sinking softly to the ground with faynting legges, did beare Even to the verry latter gasp a countnance voyd of feare. And when shee fell, shee had a care such parts of her to hyde, As womanhod and chastitie forbiddeth to be spyde. The Trojane women tooke her up, and moorning reckened King Priams children, and what blood that house alone had shed. They syghde for fayer Polyxeene: they syghed eeke for thee Who late wart Priams wyfe, whoo late wart counted for to bee The flowre of Asia in his flowre, and Queene of moothers all: But now the bootye of the fo as evill lot did fall, And such a bootye as the sly Ulysses did not passe Uppon her, saving that erewhyle shee Hectors moother was. So hardly for his moother could a mayster Hector fynd. Embracing in her aged armes the bodye of the mynd That was so stout, shee powrd theron with sobbing syghes unsoft The teares that for her husband and her children had so oft And for her countrye sheaded beene. Shee weeped in her wound And kist her pretye mouth, and made her brist with shrekes to sound, According to her woonted guyse, and in the jellyed blood Beerayed all her grisild heare, and in a sorrowfull mood