Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/36

 And as the waters did decrease the ground did seeme to grow. And after long and tedious time the trees did shew their tops All bare, save that upon the boughes the mud did hang in knops. The worlde restored was againe, which though Deucalion joyde Then to beholde: yet forbicause he saw the earth was voyde And silent like a wildernesse, with sad and weeping eyes And ruthfull voyce he then did speake to Pyrrha in this wise: O sister, O my loving spouse, O sielie woman left, As onely remnant of thy sexe that water hath bereft, Whome Nature first by right of birth hath linked to me fast In that we brothers children bene: and secondly the chast And stedfast bond of lawfull bed: and lastly now of all, The present perils of the time that latelye did befall. On all the Earth from East to West where Phebus shewes his face There is no moe but thou and I of all the mortall race. The Sea hath swallowed all the rest: and scarsly are we sure, That our two lives from dreadfull death in safetie shall endure. For even as yet the duskie cloudes doe make my heart adrad. Alas poore wretched sielie soule, what heart wouldst thou have had To beare these heavie happes, if chaunce had let thee scape alone? Who should have bene thy consort then: who should have rewd thy mone? Now trust me truly, loving wife, had thou as now bene drownde, I would have followde after thee and in the sea bene fownde. Would God I could my fathers Arte, of claye to facion men And give them life that people might frequent the world agen. Mankinde (alas) doth onely now wythin us two consist, As mouldes whereby to facion men. For so the Gods doe lyst. And with these words the bitter teares did trickle down their cheeke, Untill at length betweene themselves they did agree to seeke To God by prayer for his grace, and to demaund his ayde By aunswere of his Oracle. Wherein they nothing stayde, But to Cephisus sadly went, whose streame as at that time Began to run within his bankes though thicke with muddie slime, Whose sacred liquor straight they tooke and sprinkled with the same Their heads and clothes: and afterward to Themis chappell came, The roofe whereof with cindrie mosse was almost overgrowne. For since the time the raging floud the worlde had overflowne,