Kitap 10
Had lookt thereon, he would have thought there had on it beene killd
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Sum sucking calves or lambes. The blood of straungers there was spilld.
Dame Venus sore offended at this wicked sacrifyse,
To leave her Cities and the land of Cyprus did devyse.
But then bethinking her, shee sayd: What hath my pleasant ground,
What have my Cities trespassed? what fault in them is found?
Nay rather let this wicked race by exyle punnisht beene,
Or death, or by sum other thing that is a meane betweene
Both death and exyle. What is that? save only for to chaunge
Theyr shape. In musing with herself what figure were most straunge,
Shee cast her eye uppon a home. And therewithall shee thought
The same to bee a shape ryght meete uppon them to bee brought:
And so shee from theyr myghty limbes theyr native figure tooke,
And turnd them into boystous Bulles with grim and cruell looke.
Yit durst the filthy Propets stand in stiffe opinion that
Dame Venus was no Goddesse till shee beeing wroth thereat,
To make theyr bodies common first compelld them everychone
And after chaungd theyr former kynd. For when that shame was gone,
And that they wexed brazen faast, shee turned them to stone,
In which betweene their former shape was diffrence small or none.
Whom forbycause Pygmalion saw to leade theyr lyfe in sin
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Offended with the vice whereof greate store is packt within
The nature of the womankynd, he led a single lyfe.
And long it was ere he could fynd in hart to take a wyfe.
Now in the whyle by wondrous Art an image he did grave
Of such proportion, shape, and grace as nature never gave
Nor can to any woman give. In this his worke he tooke
A certaine love. The looke of it was ryght a Maydens looke,
And such a one as that yee would beleeve had lyfe, and that
Would moved bee, if womanhod and reverence letted not:
So artificiall was the work. He woondreth at his Art
And of his counterfetted corse conceyveth love in hart.
He often toucht it, feeling if the woork that he had made
Were verie flesh or Ivorye still. Yit could he not perswade
Himself to think it Ivory, for he oftentymes it kist
And thought it kissed him ageine. He hild it by the fist,
And talked to it. He beleeved his fingars made a dint
Uppon her flesh, and feared lest sum blacke or broosed print
Should come by touching over hard. Sumtyme with pleasant boords
And wanton toyes he dalyingly dooth cast foorth amorous woords.
