Soft musick.
No tongue: all eyes: be silent.
Enter Iris.
Ir. Ceres, most bounteous Lady, thy rich Leas
Of Wheate, Rye, Barley, Fetches, Oates and Pease;
Thy Turphie-Mountaines, where liue nibling Sheepe,
And flat Medes thetchd with Stouer, them to keepe:
Thy bankes with pioned, and twilled brims
Which spungie Aprill, at thy hest betrims;
To make cold Nymphes chast crownes; & thy broomegroues;
Whose shadow the dismissed Batchelor loues,
Being lasse-lorne: thy pole-clipt vineyard,
And thy Sea-marge stirrile, and rockey-hard,
Where thou thy selfe do'st ayre, the Queene o'th Skie,
Whose watry Arch, and messenger, am I.
Bids thee leaue these, & with her soueraigne grace,
Iuno descends.
Here on this grasse-plot, in this very place
To come, and sport: here Peacocks flye amaine:
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertaine.
Enter Ceres.
Cer. Haile, many-coloured Messenger, that nere
Do'st disobey the wife of Iupiter:
Who, with thy saffron wings, vpon my flowres
Diffusest hony drops, refreshing showres,
And with each end of thy blew bowe do'st crowne
My boskie acres, and my vnshrubd downe,
Rich scarph to my proud earth: why hath thy Queene
Summond me hither, to this short gras'd Greene?
Ir. A contract of true Loue, to celebrate,
And some donation freely to estate
On the bles'd Louers
Cer. Tell me heauenly Bowe,
If Venus or her Sonne, as thou do'st know,
Doe now attend the Queene? since they did plot
The meanes, that duskie Dis, my daughter got,
Her, and her blind-Boyes scandald company,
I haue forsworne