Kitap 9
Ist I that downe at syght thereof theyr greazy Maungers threw,
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And bothe the fatted Jades themselves and eke their mayster slew?
The Nemean Lyon by theis armes lyes dead uppon the ground.
Theis armes the monstruous Giant Cake by Tyber did confound.
Uppon theis shoulders have I borne the weyght of all the skie.
Joves cruell wyfe is weerye of commaunding mee. Yit I
Unweerie am of dooing still. But now on mee is lyght
An uncoth plage, which neyther force of hand, nor vertues myght,
Nor Arte is able to resist. Like wasting fyre it spreedes
Among myne inwards, and through out on all my body feedes.
But all this whyle Eurysthye lives in health. And sum men may
Beeleve there bee sum Goddes in deede. Thus much did Hercule say.
And wounded over Oeta hygh, he stalking gan to stray,
As when a Bull in maymed bulk a deadly dart dooth beare,
And that the dooer of the deede is shrunke asyde for feare.
Oft syghing myght you him have seene, oft trembling, oft about
To teare the garment with his hands from top to toe throughout,
And throwing downe the myghtye trees, and chaufing with the hilles,
Or casting up his handes to heaven where Jove his father dwelles.
Behold as Lychas trembling in a hollow rock did lurk,
He spyed him. And as his greef did all in furie woork,
He sayd: Art thou, syr Lychas, he that broughtest unto mee
This plagye present? of my death must thou the woorker bee?
Hee quaakt and shaakt, and looked pale, and fearfully gan make
Excuse. But as with humbled hands hee kneeling to him spake,
The furious Hercule caught him up, and swindging him about
His head a halfe a doozen tymes or more, he floong him out
Into th'Euboyan sea with force surmounting any sling.
He hardened into peble stone as in the ayre he hing.
And even as rayne conjeald by wynd is sayd to turne to snowe,
And of the snow round rolled up a thicker masse to growe,
Which falleth downe in hayle: so men in auncient tyme report,
That Lychas beeing swindgd about by violence in that sort,
(His blood then beeing drayned out, and having left at all
No moysture,) into peble stone was turned in his fall.
Now also in th'Euboyan sea appeeres a hygh short rocke
In shape of man ageinst the which the shipmen shun to knocke,
As though it could them feele, and they doo call it by the name
Of Lychas still. But thou Joves imp of great renowme and fame,
Didst fell the trees of Oeta high, and making of the same
