Who, when they heard that pitious ftrained voice,
In hafte forfook their rural meriment,
And ran towards the far rebounded noise,
To weet what wight fo loudly did lament.
Unto the place they come incontinent:
Whom when the raging Sarazin efpide,
A rude mishapen, monitrous rablement,
Whose like he never faw, he durft not bide,
But
got his ready fteed, and fast away 'gan ride.
IX.
The wild Wood-gods, arrived in the place,
There find the virgin doleful defolate,
With ruffled rayments, and fair blubbred face,
As her outragious foe had left her late,
And trembling yet through fear of former hate.
All stand amazed at fo uncouth fight,
And 'gin to pity her unhappy ftate:
All ftand aftonied at her beauty bright,
In their rude eyes unworthy of fo woeful plight.
She more amaz'd in double dread doth dwell;
And every tender part for fear does fhake:
As when a greedy Wolf through hunger fell
A filly Lamb far from the flock does take,
Of whom he means his bloody feast to make,
A Lyon spyes faft running towards him,
The innocent prey in hafte he does forsake,
Which quit from death, yet quakes in every lim.
With change of fear, to fee the Lyon look fo grim.
XI.
Such fearful fit affaid her trembling heart,
Ne word to speak, ne joynt to move she had:
The falvage nation feel her fecret fmart,
And read her forrow in her count'nance fad ;
Their frowning foreheads with rough horns yclad,
And ruftick horror all afide do lay,
And gently grinning, fhew a femblance glad
To comfort her, and fear to put away,
Their backward bent knees teach, her humbly to obey.
The doubtful damzel dare not yet commit
Her fingle perfon to their barbarous truth;
But ftill twixt fear and hope amaz'd does fit,
Late learn'd what harm to hafty truft enfuth:
They, in compaffion of her tender youth,
And wonder of her beauty foveraine,
Are won with pity and unwonted ruth,
And all proftrate upon the lowly plain,
Do kifs her feet, and fawn on her with count'nance fain.
XIII.
Their hearts the gueffeth by their humble guife,
And yields her to extremity of time ;
So from the ground fhe fearless doth arise,
And walketh forth without fufpect of crime.
They all, as glad as birds of joyous prime,
Thence lead her forth, about her dancing round,
Shouting, and finging all a Shepherds rime,
And with green branches ftrowing all the ground.
Do worship her as Queen, with olive girlond cround.
XIV.
And all the way their merry pipes they found,
That all the woods with doubled Eccho ring
And with their horned feet do wear the ground,
Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant spring.
So towards old Sylvanus they her bring:
Who with the noife awaked, cometh out,
To weet the caufe, his weak fteps governing,
And aged limbs on cypress stadle ftout,
And with an ivy twine his wafte is girt about.
XV.
Far off he wonders, what them makes fo glad;
Or Bacchus merry fruit they did invent,
Or Cybels frantick rites have made them mad.
They drawing nigh, unto their God present
That flowre of faith and beauty excellent.
The God himself, viewing that mirror rare,
Stood long amaz'd, and burnt in his intent;
His own fair Driope now he thinks not fair,
And Pholoe foul, when her to this he doth compare.
XVI.
The wood-born people fall before her flat,
And worship her as Goddess of the wood;
And old Sylvanus felf bethinks not, what
To think of wight fo fair, but gazing stood,
In doubt to deem her born of earthly brood;
Sometimes Dame Venus felf he feems to fee:
But Venus never had fo fober mood;
Sometimes Diana he her takes to be,
But miffeth bow, and fhafts, and buskins to her knee,
XVII.
By view of her he 'ginneth to revive
His ancient love, and deareft Cypariffe,
And calls to mind his pourtraiture alive,
How fair he was, and yet not fair to this,
And how he flew with glancing dart amifs
A gentle hind, the which the lovely boy
Did love as life, above all worldly blifs;
For grief whereof the lad n'ould after joy,
But pyn'd away in anguish and self-will'd annoy.
XVIII.
The woody Nymphs, fair Hamadryades,
Her to behold do thither run apace,
And all the troupe of light-foot Naiades
Flock all about to fee her lovely face:
But when they viewed have her heavenly grace,
They envy her in their malicious mind,
And fly away for fear of foul disgrace:
But all the Satyres fcorn their woody kind,
And henceforth nothing fair, but her on earth they find.
XIX.
Glad of fuch luck, the lucklefs lucky maid,
Did her content to please their feeble eyes,
And long time with that falvage people staid,
To gather breath in many miferies,
During which time, her gentle wit fhe plyes
To teach them truth, which worshipt her in vain,
And made her th' Image of Idolatries;
But when their bootlefs zeal fhe did reftrain
From her own worship, they her Affe would worship fain,
It fortuned a noble warlike Knight
By juft occafion to that foreft came,
To feek his kindred, and the linage right,
From whence he took his well deferved name:
He had in arms abroad won muchell fame:
And fill'd far lands with glory of his might,
Plain faithful, true, and enemy of shame,
And ever lov'd to fight for Ladies right,
But in vain glorious frays he little did delight.
XXI.
A Satyres fon, yborn in foreft wild,
By strange adventure as it did betide,
And there begotten of a Lady mild,
Fair Thyamis, the daughter of Labryde,
That was in facred bands of wedlock tide
To Therion, a loose unruly fwain;
Who had more joy to range the foreft wide, And chase the salvage beast with busie pain, Than ferve his Ladies love, and wafte in pleasures vain.
The forlorne maid did with loves longing burn,
And could not lack her lovers company;
But to the wood fhe goes, to ferve her turn,
And feek her spouse, that from her still does fly,
And follows other game and venery :
A Satyr chanct her wandring for to find;
And kindling coals of luft in brutish eye,
The loyal links of wedlock did unbind,
And made her person thrall unto his beastly kind.
XXIII.
So long in fecret cabin there he held
Her captive to his fenfual defire,
Till that with timely fruit her belly fwell'd,
And bore a boy unto that falvage fire:
Then home he fuffred her for to retire,
For ransom leaving him the late born child;
Whom till to riper years he 'gan aspire,
He nourfled up in life and manners wild,
Emongst wild beafts and woods, from laws of men exil'd,
XXIV.
For all he taught the tender Imp, was but
To banish cowardize and daftard fear;
His trembling hand he would him force to put
Upon the Lyon, and the rugged Bear.
And from the fhe Bears teats her whelps to tear;
And eke wild roaring Bulls he would him make
To tame, and ride their backs not made to bear,
And the Roebucks in flight to overtake,
That every beaft for fear of him did fly and quake.
XXV.
Thereby fo fearless and fo fell he grew,
That his own fire and master of his guise,
Did often tremble at his horrid view,
And oft for dread of hurt would him advise,
The angry beafts not rafhy to despise,
Nor too much to provoke; for he would learn
The Lyon stoop to him in lowly wife
(A leffon hard) and made the Libbard ftearn Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did yearn. XXVI.
And for to make his powre approved more,
Wild beafts in iron yokes he would compell;
The spotted Panther, and the tusked Bore,
The Pardale fwift, and the Tygre cruel,
The Antelope and Wolfe, both fierce and fell;
And them constrain in equal team to draw..
Such joy he had, their stubborn hearts to quell,
And sturdy courage tame with dreadful aw,
That his beheaft they feared, as a tyrants law.
XXVII.
His loving mother came upon a day
Unto the woods, to fee her little fon;
And chanct unwares to meet him in the way,
After his sports and cruel paftime done,
When after him a Lyonefs did run,
That roaring all with rage, did loud requere
Her children dear, whom he away had won;
The Lyon whelps the faw how he did bear,
And lull in rugged arms, withouten childish fear,
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