To your fair felves a fair enfample frame,
Of this fair Virgin, this Belphabe fair;
To whom, in perfect love and fpotless fame,
Of chastity, none living may compair :
Ne poifnous envy juftly can empair
The praife of her fresh flowring maidenhead;
Forthy fhe ftandeth on the highest stair
Of th❜honourable stage of woman-head,
That Ladies all may follow her ensample dead.
LV.
In fo great praise of stedfast chafstity,
Nath'lefs, fhe was fo courteous and kind, Tempred with grace, and goodly modefty, That feemed those two vertues ftrove to find The higher place in her heroick mind: So ftriving each did other more augment, And both encreast the praise of woman-kind, And both encreaft her beauty excellent; So all did make in her a perfect compliment.
The birth of fair Belphoebe, and
Of Amoret is told.
The Gardens of Adonis fraught
With pleasures manifold.
Well may I ween, fair Ladies, all this while
Ye wonder, how this noble Damozel So great perfections did in her compile; Sith that in falvage forefts fhe did dwell, So far from court and royal citadel, The great school-mistress of all courtefie: Seemeth that fuch wild woods fhould far expel All civil ufage and gentility,
And gentle fprite deform with rude rufticity.
But to this fair Belphabe in her birth
The heavens fo favourable were and free,
Looking with mild aspect upon the earth,
In th'Horoscope of her nativitee,
That all the gifts of grace and chastitee
On her they poured forth of plenteous horn;
Jove laught on Venus from his foveraine fee,
And Phabus with fair beams did her adorn,
And all the Graces rockt her cradle being born.
III.
Her birth was of the womb of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous prime,
And all her whole creation did her fhew
Pure and unfpotted from all loathly crime,
That is ingenerate in flefhly flime.
So was this virgin born, fo was fhe bred,
So was the trained up from time to time,
In all chafte vertue, and true bountihed,
Till to her due perfection fhe was ripened.
IV.
Her mother was the fair Chryfogonee,
The daughter of Amphifa, who by race
A Fairy was, yborn of high degree;
She bore Belphabe, fhe bore in like cafe
Fair Amoretta in the fecond place:
These two were twins, and 'twixt them two did share The heritage of all celeftial grace;
That all the reft it seem'd they robbed bare
Of bounty, and of beauty, and all vertues rare.
It were a goodly story, to declare
By what strange accident fair Chryfogone
Conceiv'd these Infants, and how them the bare,
In this wild foreft wandring all alone,
After she had nine months fulfill'd and gone:
For not as other womens common brood,
They were enwombed in the facred throne
Of her chafte body; nor with common food,
As other womens babes, they fucked vital blood :
But wondrously they were begot, and bred
Through influence of th'heavens fruitful ray,
As it in antique books is mentioned.
It was upon a fummers fhiny day
(When Titan fair his beamës did difplay)
In a fresh fountain, far from all mens view,
She bath'd her breast, the boiling heat t'allay;
She bath'd with rofes red, and violets blue,
And all the sweetest flowres that in the foreft grew;
VII.
Till faint through irksome weariness, adown
Upon the graffie ground her felf fhe laid
To fleep, the whiles a gentle flumbring fwoun
Upon her fell all naked bare difplaid,
The funbeams bright upon her body plaid,
Being through former bathing mollifide,
And pierft into her womb, where they embaid
With so sweet fenfe and fecret powre unfpide,
That in her pregnant flesh they shortly fructifide.
VIII.
Miraculous may feem to him that reads,
So ftrange enfample of conception;
But reafon teacheth that the fruitfull feeds
Of all things living, through impreffion
Of the fun-beams in moift complexion,
Do life conceive, and quickned are by kind:
So after Nilus inundation,
Infinite shapes of creatures men do find,
Informed in the mud, on which the fun hath fhin'd.
IX.
Great father he of generation
Is rightly call'd, th'author of life and light;
And his fair fifter for creation
Miniftreth matter fit, which tempred right
With heat and humour, breeds the living wight.
So fprung these twins in womb of Chryfogone,
Yet wift the nought thereof, but fore affright,
Wondred to fee her belly fo up-blown,
Which still increaft, till the her term had full out-gone.
Whereof conceiving fhame and foul difgrace,
Albe her guiltlefs confcience her clear'd,
She fled into the wilderness a space,
Till that unwieldy burden fhe had rear'd,
And fhun'd difhonour, which as death fhe fear'da
Where weary of long travel, down to rest
Her felf fhe fet, and comfortably chear'd;
There a fad cloud of fleep her overkeft,
And seized every fenfe with forrow fore opprest.
XI.
It fortuned, 'fair Venus having loft
Her little fon, the winged God of love,
Who for fome light difpleasure, which him croft,
Was from her fled, as flit as airy Dove,
And left her blifsful bowre of joy above,
(So from her often he had fled away,
When the for ought him sharply did reprove,
And wandred in the world in ftrange array, [wray.)
Difguis'd in thousand shapes, that none might him be-
XII.
Him for to seek, the left her heavenly house
(The house of goodly forms and fair aspects
Whence all the world derives the glorious
Features of beauties, and all fhapes felect,
With which high God his workmanship hath deckt)
And fearched every way, through which his wings
Had borne him, or his tract the mote detect:
She promist kiffes fweet, and fweeter things
Unto the man, that of him tidings to her brings.
XIII.
First she him fought in court, where moft he us'd
Whylome to haunt, but there fhe found him not;
But many there fhe found, which fore accus'd
His falfehood, and with foul infamous blot
His cruel deeds and wicked wiles did spot :
Ladies and Lords the every where mote hear
Complaining, how with his empoifned fhot
Their woeful hearts he wounded had whylear,
And-fo had left them languishing 'twixt hope and fear.
VOL. I.
She then the cities fought, from gate to gate,
And every one did afk, did he him fee;
And every one her answer'd, that too late
He had him feen, and felt the cruelty
Of his sharp darts, and hot artillery ;
And every one threw forth reproches rife
Of his mifchievous deeds, and faid, that he
Was the disturber of all civil life,
of peace, and author of all ftrife.
Then in the country fhe abroad him fought,
And in the rural cottages enquir'd;
Where alfo, many plaints to her were brought,
How he their heedlefs hearts with love had fir'd,
And his falfe venom through their veins infpir'd;
And eke the gentle fhepherd fwains, which fat
Keeping their fleecy flocks, as they were hir'd,
She fweetly heard complain, both how, and what
Her fon had to them doen; yet fhe did fmile thereat.
XVI.
But when in none of all thefe fhe him got,
She 'gan avife where else he mote him hide : At laft, fhe her be-thought, that she had not Yet fought the falvage woods and forefts wide, In which full many lovely nymphs abide, 'Mongft whom might be, that he did clofely lye, Or that the love of fome of them him tide: Forthy fhe thither caft her courfe t'apply, To fearch the fecret haunts of Dians company. XVII.
Shortly, unto the wafteful woods fhe came, Whereas the found the Goddefs with her crew, After late chace of their embrewed game, Sitting befide a fountain in a rew,
Some of them wathing with the liquid dew From off their dainty limbs the dusty sweat, And foil, which did deform their lively hew; Other lay fhaded from the fcorching heat; The reft, upon her perfon, gave attendance great.
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