Book 14
I taking full my hand of dust, and shewing it him there,
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Desyred like a foole to live as many yeeres as were
Small graynes of cinder in that heape. I quight forgot to crave
Immediately, the race of all those yeeres in youth to have.
Yit did he graunt mee also that, uppon condicion I
Would let him have my maydenhod, which thing I did denye.
And so rejecting Phebus gift a single lyfe I led.
But now the blessefull tyme of youth is altogither fled,
And irksome age with trembling pace is stolne uppon my head,
Which long I must endure. For now already as you see
Seven hundred yeares are come and gone and that the number bee
Full matched of the granes of dust, three hundred harvestes mo,
I must three hundred vintages see more before I go.
The day will come that length of tyme shall make my body small,
And little of my withered limbes shall leave or naught at all.
And none shall think that ever God was tane in love with mee.
Even out of Phebus knowledge then perchaunce I growen shall bee,
Or at the least that ever he mee lovde he shall denye,
So sore I shall be altered. And then shall no mannes eye
Discerne mee. Only by my voyce I shall bee knowen. For why
The fates shall leave mee still my voyce for folke to know mee by.
As Sybill in the vaulted way such talk as this did frame,
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The Trojane knyght Aenaeas up at Cumes fro Limbo came.
And having doone the sacrifyse accustomd for the same,
He tooke his journey to the coast which had not yit the name
Receyved of his nurce. In this same place he found a mate
Of wyse Ulysses, Macare of Neritus, whoo late
Before, had after all his long and tediouse toyles, there stayd.
He spying Achemenides (whom late ago afrayd
They had among mount Aetnas Cliffs abandond when they fled
From Polypheme): and woondring for to see he was not dead,
Sayd thus: O Achemenides, what chaunce, or rather what
Good God hathe savde the lyfe of thee? What is the reason that
A barbrous shippe beares thee a Greeke? Or whither saylest thou?
To him thus, Achemenides, his owne man freely now
And not forgrowen as one forlorne, nor clad in bristled hyde,
Made answer: Yit ageine I would I should in perrill byde
Of Polypheme, and that I myght those chappes of his behold
Beesmeared with the blood of men, but if that I doo hold
This shippe more deere than all the Realme of wyse Ulysses, or
