III

Now, at the time that was before agreed,
The gods assembled all on Arlo hill;
As well those that are sprung of heavenly seed,
As those that all the other world doe fill,
And rule both sea and land unto their will:
Onely th' infernall powers might not appeare;
Aswell for horror of their count'naunce ill,
As for th' unruly fiends which they did feare;
Yet Pluto and Proserpina were present there
IV

And thither also came all other creatures,
What-ever life or motion doe retaine,
According to their sundry kinds of features;
That Arlo scarsly could them all containe;
So full they filled every hill and plaine:
And had not Natures sergeant (that is Order)
Them well disposed by his busie paine,
And raunged farre abroad in every border,
They would have caused much confusion and disorder.
V

Then forth issewed (great goddesse) great Dame Nature,
With goodly port and gracious majesty,
Being far greater and more tall of stature
Then any of the gods or powers on hie:
Yet certes by her face and physnomy,
Whether she man or woman inly were,
That could not any creature well descry:
For, with a veile that wimpled every where,
Her head and face was hid, that mote to none appeare.
VI

That, some doe say, was so by skill devized,
To hide the terror of her uncouth hew
From mortall eyes, that should be sore agrized;
For that her face did like a lion shew,
That eye of wight could not indure to view:
But others tell that it so beautious was,
And round about such beames of splendor threw,
That it the sunne a thousand times did pass,
Ne could be seene, but like an image in a glass.
VII

That well may seemen true: for well I weene
That this same day, when she on Arlo sat,
Her garment was so bright and wondrous sheene,
That my fraile wit cannot devize to what
It to compare, nor finde like stuffe to that:
As those three sacred saints, though else most wise,
Yet on Mount Thabor quite their wits forgat,
When they their glorious Lord in strange disguise
Transfigur'd sawe; his garments so did daze their eyes.
VIII

In a fayre plaine upon an equall hill
She placed was in a pavilion;
Not such as craftes-men by their idle skill
Are wont for princes states to fashion:
But th' Earth her self, of her owne motion,
Out of her fruitfull bosome made to growe
Most dainty trees, that, shooting up anon,
Did seeme to bow their bloosming heads full lowe,
For homage unto her, and like a throne did shew.
IX

So hard it is for any living wight
All her array and vestiments to tell,
That old Dan Geffrey (in whose gentle spright,
The pure well head of poesie did dwell)
In his Foules Parley durst not with it mel,
But it transferd to Alane, who he thought
Had in his Plaint of Kinde describ'd it well:
Which who will read set forth so as it ought,
Go seek he out that Alane where he may be sought
X

And all the earth far underneath her feete
Was dight with flowres, that voluntary grew
Out of the ground, and sent forth odours sweet;
Tenne thousand mores of sundry sent and hew,
That might delight the smell, or please the view;
The which the nymphes from all the brooks thereby
Had gathered, which they at her foot-stoole threw;
That richer seem'd then any tapestry,
That princes bowres adorne with painted imagery.
XI

And Mole himselfe, to honour her the more,
Did deck himself in freshest faire attire,
And his high head, that seemeth alwaies hore
With hardned frosts of former winters ire,
He with an oaken girlond now did tire,
As if the love of some new nymph late seene
Had in him kindled youthfull fresh desire,
And made him change his gray attire to greene:
Ah, gentle Mole! such joyance hath thee well beseene.
XII

Was never so great joyance since the day
That all the gods whylome assembled were
On Hæmus hill in their divine array,
To celebrate the solemne bridall cheare
Twixt Peleus and Dame Thetis pointed there;
Where Phœbus self, that god of poets hight,
They say did sing the spousall hymne full cleere,
That all the gods were ravisht with delight
Of his celestiall song, and musicks wondrous might.
XIII

This great grandmother of all creatures bred,
Great Nature, ever young yet full of eld,
Still mooving, yet unmoved from her sted,
Unseene of any, yet of all beheld,
Thus sitting in her throne, as I have teld,
Before her came Dame Mutabilitie;
And being lowe before her presence feld,
With meek obaysance and humilitie,
Thus gan her plaintif plea, with words to amplifie:
XIV

‘To thee, O greatest goddesse, onely great,
An humble suppliant loe! I lowely fly,
Seeking for right, which I of thee entreat,
Who right to all dost deale indifferently,
Damning all wrong and tortious injurie,
Which any of thy creatures doe to other
(Oppressing them with power, unequally)
Sith of them all thou art the equall mother,
And knittest each to each, as brother unto brother.
XV

‘To thee therefore of this same Jove I plaine,
And of his fellow gods that faine to be,
That challenge to themselves the whole worlds raign;
Of which the greatest part is due to me,
And heaven it selfe by heritage in fee:
For heaven and earth I both alike do deeme,
Sith heaven and earth are both alike to thee;
And gods no more then men thou doest esteeme:
For even the gods to thee, as men to gods, do seeme
XVI

‘Then weigh, O soveraigne goddesse, by what right
These gods do claime the worlds whole soverainty,
And that is onely dew unto thy might
Arrogate to themselves ambitiously:
As for the gods owne principality,
Which Jove usurpes unjustly, that to be
My heritage, Jove's self cannot deny,
From my great grandsire Titan unto mee
Deriv'd by dew descent; as is well knowen to thee
XVII

‘Yet mauger Jove, and all his gods beside,
I doe possesse the worlds most regiment;
As, if ye please it into parts divide,
And every parts inholders to convent,
Shall to your eyes appeare incontinent
And first, the Earth (great mother of us all)
That only seems unmov'd and permanent,
And unto Mutability not thrall,
Yet is she chang'd in part, and eeke in generall.
XVIII

‘For all that from her springs, and is ybredde,
How-ever fayre it flourish for a time,
Yet see we soone decay; and, being dead,
To turne again unto their earthly slime:
Yet, out of their decay and mortall crime,
We daily see new creatures to arize,
And of their winter spring another prime,
Unlike in forme, and chang'd by strange disguise;
So turne they still about, and change in restlesse wise.
XIX

‘As for her tenants, that is, man and beasts,
The beasts we daily see massacred dy,
As thralls and vassals unto mens beheasts:
And men themselves doe change continually,
From youth to eld, from wealth to poverty,
From good to bad, from bad to worst of all:
Ne doe their bodies only flit and fly;
But eeke their minds (which they immortall call)
Still change and vary thoughts, as new occasions fall.
XX

‘Ne is the water in more constant case;
Whether those same on high, or these belowe
Forth' ocean moveth stil from place to place;
And every river still doth ebbe and flowe:
Ne any lake, that seems most still and slowe,
Ne poole so small, that can his smoothnesse holde,
When any winde doth under heaven blowe;
With which the clouds are also tost and roll'd;
Now like great hills; and streight, like sluces, them unfold.
XXI

‘So likewise are all watry living wights
Still tost and turned with continuall change,
Never abyding in their stedfast plights
The fish, still floting, doe at randon range,
And never rest, but evermore exchange
Their dwelling places, as the streames them carrie:
Ne have the watry foules a certaine grange
Wherein to rest, ne in one stead do tarry;
But flitting still doe flie, and still their places vary.
XXII

‘Next is the ayre: which who feeles not by sense
(For of all sense it is the middle meane)
To flit still? and, with subtill influence
Of his thin spirit, all creatures to maintaine
In state of life? O weake life! that does leane
On thing so tickle as th' unsteady ayre;
Which every howre is chang'd, and altred cleane
With every blast that bloweth fowle or faire:
The faire doth it prolong; the fowle doth it impaire.
XXIII

‘Therein the changes infinite beholde,
Which to her creatures every minute chaunce:
Now, boyling hot: streight, friezing deadly cold:
Now; faire sun-shine, that makes all skip and daunce:
Streight, bitter storms and balefull countenance,
That makes them all to shiver and to shake:
Rayne, hayle, and snowe do pay them sad penance,
And dreadfull thunder-claps (that make them quake)
With flames and flashing lights that thousand changes make.
XXIV

‘Last is the fire: which, though it live for ever,
Ne can be quenched quite, yet, every day,
Wee see his parts, so soone as they do sever,
To lose their heat, and shortly to decay;
So makes himself his owne consuming pray.
Ne any living creatures doth he breed:
But all that are of others bredd doth stay,
And with their death his cruell life dooth feed;
Nought leaving, but their barren ashes, without seed.
XXV

‘Thus all these fower (the which the ground-work bee
Of all the world, and of all living wights)
To thousand sorts of change we subject see:
Yet are they chang'd (by other wondrous slights)
Into themselves, and lose their native mights:
The fire to aire, and th' ayre to water sheere,
And water into earth: yet water fights
With fire, and aire with earth, approaching neere:
Yet all are in one body, and as one appeare.
XXVI

‘So in them all raignes Mutabilitie;
How-ever these, that gods themselves do call,
Of them doe claime the rule and soverainty:
As Vesta, of the fire æthereall;
Vulcan, of this, with us so usuall;
Ops, of the earth; and Juno, of the ayre;
Neptune, of seas; and nymphes, of rivers all:
For all those rivers to me subject are;
And all the rest, which they usurp, be all my share.
XXVII

‘Which to approven true, as I have told,
Vouchsafe, O goddesse, to thy presence call
The rest which doe the world in being hold:
As times and seasons of the yeare that fall:
Of all the which demand in generall,
Or judge thy selfe, by verdit of thine eye,
Whether to me they are not subject all.’
Nature did yeeld thereto; and by-and-by,
Bade Order call them all before her majesty.