Book 4
And therewithall in all post hast she having lightly throwne
271
Hir garments off, flew to the Poole and cast hir thereinto
And caught him fast between hir armes, for ought that he could doe:
Yea maugre all his wrestling and his struggling to and fro,
She held him still, and kissed him a hundred times and mo.
And willde he nillde he with hir handes she toucht his naked brest:
And now on this side now on that (for all he did resist
And strive to wrest him from hir gripes) she clung unto him fast:
And wound about him like a Snake which snatched up in hast
And being by the Prince of Birdes borne lightly up aloft,
Doth writhe hir selfe about his necke and griping talants oft:
And cast hir taile about his wings displayed in the winde:
Or like as Ivie runnes on trees about the utter rinde:
Or as the Crabfish having caught his enmy in the Seas,
Doth claspe him in on every side with all his crooked cleas.
But Atlas Nephew still persistes, and utterly denies
The Nymph to have hir hoped sport: she urges him likewise.
And pressing him with all hir weight, fast cleaving to him still,
Strive, struggle, wrest and writhe (she said) thou froward boy thy fill:
Doe what thou canst thou shalt not scape. Ye Goddes of Heaven agree
That this same wilfull boy and I may never parted bee.
The Gods were pliant to hir boone. The bodies of them twaine
373
Were mixt and joyned both in one. To both them did remaine
One countnance: like as if a man should in one barke beholde
Two twigges both growing into one and still togither holde.
Even so when through hir hugging and hir grasping of the tother
The members of them mingled were and fastned both togither,
They were not any lenger two: but (as it were) a toy
Of double shape. Ye could not say it was a perfect boy
Nor perfect wench: it seemed both and none of both to beene.
Now when Hermaphroditus saw how in the water sheene
To which he entred in a man, his limmes were weakened so
That out fro thence but halfe a man he was compelde to go,
He lifteth up his hands and said (but not with manly reere):
O noble father Mercurie, and Venus mother deere,
This one petition graunt your son which both your names doth beare,
That whoso commes within this Well may so be weakened there,
That of a man but halfe a man he may fro thence retire.
Both Parentes moved with the chaunce did stablish this desire
The which their doubleshaped sonne had made: and thereupon
