Sche gaspeth with a drecchinge onde,
And tho sche tok hir speche on honde.’ (v. 3962 ff.),
and again later, when the charms are set in action, 4059 ff., a passage of extraordinary picturesqueness, but too long to be quoted here. We do not forget the debt to Ovid, but these descriptions are far more detailed and forcible than the original.
For a picture of a different kind, also based upon Ovid, we may take the description of the tears of Lucrece for her husband, and the reviving beauty in her face when he appears,
‘With that the water in hire yhe
Aros, that sche ne myhte it stoppe,
And as men sen the dew bedroppe
The leves and the floures eke,
Riht so upon hire whyte cheke
The wofull salte teres felle.