Page:The Golden Ass of Apuleius.djvu/51



THAT I to thee some joyous jests
 * may show in gentle gloze,

And frankly feed thy bended eares
 * with passing pleasant prose:

So that thou daine in seemly sort
 * this wanton booke to view,

That is set out and garnisht fine,
 * with written phrases new.

I will declare how one by hap
 * his humane figure lost,

And how in brutish formed shape,
 * his loathed life he tost.

And how he was in course of time
 * from such a state unfold,

Who eftsoone turn'd to pristine shape
 * his lot unlucky told.

HAT and who he was attend a while, and you shall understand that it was even I, the writer of mine own Metamorphosie and strange alteration of figure. Hymettus, Athens, Isthmia, Ephire Tenaros, and Sparta, being fat and fertile soiles (as I pray you give credit to the bookes of more everlasting fame) be places where myne antient progeny and linage did sometime flourish: there I say, in Athens, when I was yong, I went first to schoole.