Nimphes. Lofty Vrania then we call to thee,
470To whom the Heauens for euer opened be,
Thou th' Asterismes by name dost call,
And shewst when they doe rise and fall
Each Planets force, and dost diuine
His working, seated in his Signe,
And how the starry Frame still roules
Betwixt the fixed stedfast Poles.
Chorus. Vrania aske of Phœbus to inspire
Vs for his Altars with his holiest fire,
And let his glorious euer-shining Rayes
480Giue life and growth to our Elizian Bayes.
The fourth Nimphall
Cloris and Mertilla.
Chaste Cloris doth disclose the shames
Of the Felician frantique Dames,
Mertilla striues t' apease her woe,
To golden wishes then they goe.
Mertilla. Why how now Cloris, what, thy head
Bound with forsaken Willow?
Is the cold ground become thy bed?
The grasse become thy Pillow?
O let not those life-lightning eyes
In this sad vayle be shrowded,
Which into mourning puts the Skyes,
To see them ouer-clowded.
Cloris. O my Mertilla doe not praise
10These Lampes so dimly burning,
Such sad and sullen lights as these
Were onely made for mourning:
Their obiects are the barren Rocks
With aged Mosse o'r shaded;
Now whilst the Spring layes forth her Locks
With blossomes brauely braded.
Mertilla. O Cloris, Can there be a Spring,
O my deare Nimph, there may not,
Wanting thine eyes it forth to bring,
20Without which Nature cannot:
Say what it is that troubleth thee
Encreast by thy concealing,
Speake; sorrowes many times we see
Are lesned by reuealing.
Cloris. Being of late too vainely bent
And but at too much leisure;
Not with our Groves and Downes content,
But surfetting in pleasure;
Felicia's Fields I would goe see,
30Where fame to me reported,
The choyce Nimphes of the world to be
From meaner beauties sorted;
Hoping that I from them might draw
Some graces to delight me,
But there such monstrous shapes I saw,
That to this houre affright me.
Throw the thick Hayre, that thatch'd their Browes,
Their eyes vpon me stared,
Like to those raging frantique Froes
40For Bacchus Feasts prepared:
Their Bodies, although straight by kinde,
Yet they so monstrous make them,
That for huge Bags blowne vp with wind,
You very well may take them.
Their Bowels in their Elbowes are,
Whereon depend their Panches,
And their deformed Armes by farre
Made larger than their Hanches:
For their behauiour and their grace,
50Which likewise should haue priz'd them,
Their manners were as beastly base
As th' rags that so disguisd them;
All Anticks, all so impudent,
So fashon'd out of fashion,
As blacke Cocytus vp had sent
Her Fry into this nation,
Whose monstrousnesse doth so perplex,
Of Reason and depriues me,
That for their sakes I loath my sex,
60Which to this sadnesse driues me.
Mertilla. O my deare Cloris be not sad,
Nor with these Furies danted,
But let these female fooles be mad,
With Hellish pride inchanted;
Let not thy noble thoughts descend
So low as their affections;
Whom neither counsell can amend,
Nor yet the Gods corrections:
Such mad folks ne'r let vs bemoane,
70But rather scorne their folly,
And since we two are here alone,
To banish melancholly,
Leaue we this lowly creeping vayne
Not worthy admiration,
And in a braue and lofty strayne,
Lets exercise our passion,
With wishes of each others good,
From our abundant treasures,
And in this iocund sprightly mood:
80Thus alter we our measures.