84.
'So to a fish Venus herselfe did change,[241]
'And swimming through the soft and yeelding waue,
'With gentle motions did so smoothly range,
'As none might see where she the water draue;
'But this plaine truth that falsèd fable gaue,
'That she did daunce with slyding easines,
'Plyant and quick in wandring passages.
85.
'And merry Bacchus practis'd dauncing to[o],
'And to the Lydian numbers,[242] rounds did make:
'The like he did in th' Easterne India doo,
'And taught them all when Phœbus did awake,
'And when at night he did his coach[243] forsake:
'To honor heaun, and heau'ns great roling eye
'With turning daunces, and with melodie.
86.
'Thus they who first did found a Common-weale,
'And they who first Religion did ordaine,
'By dauncing, first the peoples hearts did steale:
'Of whom we now a thousand tales doe faine;
'Yet doe we now their perfect rules retaine
'And vse them stil in such deuises new,
'As in the World, long since their withering, grew.
87.
'For after townes and kingdomes founded were,
'Betweene greate States arose well-ordered War;
'Wherein most perfect measure doth appeare,
'Whether their well-set rankes respected are
'In quadrant forme or semicircular:
'Or else the march, when all the troups aduance,
'And to the drum, in gallant order daunce.
88.