Book 9
The likenesse that thou tookst of Jove. And as the Serpent slye
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In casting of his withered slough, renewes his yeeres thereby,
And wexeth lustyer than before, and looketh crisp and bryght
With scoured scales: so Hercules as soone as that his spryght
Had left his mortall limbes, gan in his better part to thryve,
And for to seeme a greater thing than when he was alyve,
And with a stately majestie ryght reverend to appeere.
His myghty father tooke him up above the cloudy spheere,
And in a charyot placed him among the streaming starres.
Huge Atlas felt the weyght thereof. But nothing this disbarres
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Eurysthyes malice. Cruelly he prosecutes the hate
Uppon the offspring, which he bare ageinst the father late.
But yit to make her mone unto and wayle her miserie
And tell her sonnes great woorkes, which all the world could testifie,
Old Alcmen had Dame Iolee. By Hercules last will
In wedlocke and in hartie love shee joyned was to Hill,
By whome shee then was big with chyld: when thus Alcmena sayd:
The Gods at least bee mercifull and send thee then theyr ayd,
And short thy labor, when the fruite the which thou goste withall
Now beeing rype enforceth thee wyth fearfull voyce to call
Uppon Ilithya, president of chyldbirthes, whom the ire
Of Juno at my travailing made deaf to my desire.
For when the Sun through twyce fyve signes his course had fully run,
And that the paynfull day of birth approched of my sonne,
My burthen strayned out my wombe, and that that I did beare
Became so greate, that of so huge a masse yee well myght sweare
That Jove was father. Neyther was I able to endure
The travail any lenger tyme. Even now I you assure
In telling it a shuddring cold through all my limbes dooth strike,
And partly it renewes my peynes to thinke uppon the like.
I beeing in most cruell throwes nyghts seven and dayes eke seven,
And tyred with continuall pangs, did lift my hands to heaven,
And crying out aloud did call Lucina to myne ayd,
To loose the burthen from my wombe. Shee came as I had prayd:
But so corrupted long before by Juno my most fo,
That for to martir mee to death with peyne she purposde tho.
For when shee heard my piteous plaints and gronings, downe shee sate
On yon same altar which you see there standing at my gate.
Upon her left knee shee had pitcht her right ham, and besyde
Shee stayd the birth with fingars one within another tyde
