The gods forgeue thee, father deare! farewell: thy blow do bend—
Yet stay a whyle, O father deare, for fleash to death is fraile.
Let first my wimple bind my eyes, and then thy blow assaile,
Nowe, father, worke thy will on me, that life I may injoy.
But the most ambitious and perhaps the most successful delineation is that of Appius. At the outset he is represented as overwhelmed by his sudden yearning. Apelles, he thinks, was a “prattling fool” to boast of his statue; Pygmalion was fond “with raving fits” to run mad for the beauty of his work, for he could make none like Virginia. Will not the Gods treat him as they treated Salmacis, when Hermophroditus, bathing in the Carian fountain near the Lycian Marches, denied her suit?
Oh Gods aboue, bend downe to heare my crie
As once ye[7] did to Salmasis, in Pond hard Lyzia by:
Oh that Virginia were in case as somtime Salmasis,
And in Hermofroditus stede my selfe might seeke my blisse!
Ah Gods! would I unfold her armes complecting of my necke?