And there, amongst the rest, the mother was
Of luckless Marinel, Cymodoce;

Which, for my muse herself now tired has,
Unto another Canto I will overpass.

Canto XII. (35 stanzas).-Still dwelling on the thought with which he had concluded the preceding Canto, the poet resumes :

O what an endless work have I in hand,
To count the sea's abundant progeny,

Whose fruitful seed far passeth those in land,
And also those which won in the azure sky!
For much more eath to tell the stars on high
All be they endless seem in estimation,
Than to recount the sea's posterity:

So fertile be the floods in generation,

So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation.
Therefore the antique wizards well invented
That Venus of the foamy sea was bred;
For that the seas by her are most augmented.
Witness the exceeding fry which there are fed,
And wondrous shoals which may of none be read.
Then blame me not if I have erred in count

Of gods, of nymphs, of rivers, yet unread :

For, though their numbers do much more surmount,
Yet all those same were there which erst I did recount.

All those were there, and many others, filling the house of Proteus even to the door. And among the rest, as already mentioned, was the mother of Marinel, now, as we have seen, called Cymodoce (instead of Cymoent, as before). With her, too, had come Marinel himself, to learn and see

The manner of the gods when they at banquet be. But, being half mortal, he could not sit down and partake with them; so after a little while he walked abroad to take a view of a dwelling-place so unlike anything he had ever seen on earth; and, while so engaged,

Under the hanging of an hideous cliff
He heard the lamentable voice of one
That piteously complained her careful grief,
Which never she before disclosed to none,

But to herself her sorrow did bemoan:

So feelingly her case she did complain,
That ruth it moved in the rocky stone,
And made it seem to feel her grievous pain,

And oft to groan with billows beating from the main :

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Though vain I see my sorrows to unfold

And count my cares, when none is nigh to hear;
Yet, hoping grief may lessen being told,
I will them tell, though unto no man near:
For heaven, that unto all lends equal ear,
Is far from hearing of my heavy plight;
And lowest hell, to which I lie most near,
Cares not what evils hap to wretched wight;
And greedy seas do in the spoil of life delight."

He, she went on, who kept her in bondage was only hardened the more by her complaints and tears; yet would she never repent of her constancy to her own love, but rather rejoice at all she suffered for his sake. And, when she should be at rest in death at last, all she asked was that the lament she now made might then be borne to his ears, and he might know how hard she thought it that he, a knight professing arms, should let her die without attempting her deliverance. Then, after a pause, she began afresh :

"Ye gods of seas, if any gods at all

Have care of right or ruth of wretches' wrong,
By one or other way me, woeful thrall,
Deliver hence out of this dungeon strong,
In which I daily dying am too long:
And, if ye deem me death for loving one
That loves not me, then do it not prolong,
But let me die and end my days atone, y
And let him live unloved, or love himself alone.

But, if that life ye unto me decree,

Then let me live, as lovers ought to do,
And of my life's dear love beloved be:

And, if he should through pride your doom undo,
Do you by duress him compel thereto,

And in this prison put him here with me;
One prison fittest is to hold us two:

So had I rather to be thrall than free;
Such thraldom or such freedom let it surely be.
But O vain judgment, and conditions vain,
The which the prisoner points unto the free!
The whiles I him condemn, and deem his pain,
He where he list goes loose, and laughs at me:
So ever loose, so ever happy be!

But whereso loose or happy that thou art,
Know, Marinel, that all this is for thee!"

With that she wept and wailed, as if her heart

Would quite have burst through great abundance of her

smart.

Hearing his own name thus pronounced in passion and agony, Marinel is for the first time touched with remorse and pity; he wishes that he could release poor Florimel, but knows no means by which to make the attempt :

Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruth,
Was touched, and mighty courage mollified,
Dame Venus' son that tameth stubborn youth
With iron bit, and maketh him abide
Till like a victor on his back he ride,
Into his mouth his maistering bridle threw,
That made him stoop, till he did him bestride:
Then gan he make him tread his steps anew,
And learn to love by learning lover's pains to rue.

He has now no rest for thinking how he may deliver her: sometimes he thinks of humbly suing Proteus for her discharge; sometimes of forcing him" with sword and targe to give her up; sometimes of stealing her But these plans are all manifestly vain and hopeless. Then he begins

away.

To damn himself by every evil name,

And deem unworthy or of love or life,

That had despised so chaste and fair a dame,

Which him had sought through trouble and long strife;
Yet had refused a god that her had sought to wife.

At length, however, the feast being over, he is obliged

VOL. II.

I

to take his departure and return with his mother to her bower. Here, in solitude and silence, he remembers the state in which he has left Florimel, suffering day and night" for his dear sake:"

The thought whereof empierced his heart so deep,
That of no worldly thing he took delight;

Ne daily food did take, ne nightly sleep,

But pined and mourned, and languished, and alone did
weep;

That in short space his wonted cheerful hue
Gan fade, and lively spirits deaded quite :
His cheek-bones raw, and eye-pits hollow grew,
And brawny arms had lost their knowen might,
That nothing like himself he seemed in sight.
Ere long so weak of limb, and sick of love
He wox, that lenger he note stand upright,
But to his bed was brought, and laid above,
Like rueful ghost, unable once to stir or move.

His mother, alarmed and unable to discover the cause of
his illness, hastens again to Tryphon, who, revisiting his
patient, assures her that it is not, as she suspected, his
old wound insufficiently cured and rankling under the
orifice, or scar; but some other malady, or hidden grief,
which his skill is unable to detect. Faint and trembling,
she then applies to Marinel himself, beseeching him,
now with fair speeches, now with threatenings stern,'
to tell her if anything lies heavy on his heart;
" who
still her answered there was nought."

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Nathless she rested not so satisfied;

But leaving watery gods, as booting nought,
Unto the shiny heaven in haste she hied,
And thence Apollo, king of leeches, brought.
Apollo came; who, soon as he had sought
Through his disease, did by and by out find
That he did languish of some inward thought,
The which afflicted his engrieved mind;

Which love he read to be, that leads each living kind.

Cymodoce is at first angry and chides her son; but, reassuring herself with the thought that it must be one

of the sea-nymphs he had lately seen for whom he languished, and that love of nymphs could not be included in the "fatal read" which had warned him to beware of the love of women, she afterwards wooes him with fair entreaty to reveal to her who it is that moves his heart so sore. When, however, he tells her that it is Florimel, she begins to chafe afresh, and to "grieve in every vein." Yet, whatever the prophecy of Proteus may mean, or whether it be true or false, it is evident that her son will die at any rate if the only remedy be not instantly procured by the liberation of the lady. She feels that it is useless to make suit to Proteus, or unto any meaner to complain;" but hieing her at once to great King Neptune himself, " and on her knee before him falling low," she humbly implores him to grant her the life of her son, whom his foe, a cruel tyrant, has iniquitously and presumptuously condemned to death. God Neptune, softly smiling, replies that the person of whom she complains has committed wrong against him as well as against her; for to condemn to death appertains to none but to "the sea's sole sovereign." "Read therefore,"

he says,

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"who it is which thus hath wrought,

And for what cause; the truth discover plain :
For never wight so evil did or thought,

But would some rightful cause pretend, though rightly
nought."

She informs him that it is Proteus; and that the pretence he alleges is her son having laid claim to a waift, which had come by chance upon the seas, and which in reality belonged to neither of them, but to Neptune himself, by his prerogative as sovereign: "Therefore," she adds,

"I humbly crave your majesty
It to replevy, and my son reprive : 2
So shall you by one gift save all us three alive."

Her prayer is granted; a warrant is made out forthwith,

y Release, crave to be given up.

z Reprieve.