O be you present in this present hour,
And help your servant and your true liege-man,
End that persuasion which I erst began:
For who in praise of dancing can persuade
With such sweet force as Love, which dancing made?"
Love heard his pray'r, and swifter than the wind,
Like to a page, in habit, face, and speech,
He came, and stood Antinous behind,*
And many secrets to his thoughts did teach:
At last a crystal mirror he did reach
Unto his hands, that he with one rash view,
All forms therein by Love's revealing knew.
And humbly honouring, gave it to the queen
With this fair speech: "See fairest queen," quoth
"The fairest sight that ever shall be seen, [he,
And th' only wonder of posterity,
The richest work in Nature's treasury;
Which she disdains to show on this world's stage, And thinks it far too good for our rude age.
"But in another world divided far,
In the great, fortunate, triangled isle,
Thrice twelve degrees remov'd from the north star,
She will this glorious workmanship compile,
Which she hath been conceiving all this while
Since the world's birth, and will bring forth at last,
When six and twenty hundred years are past."
Penelope, the queen, when she had view'd
The strange eye-dazzling admirable sight,
* A passage to the description of dancing in that age.
Fain would have prais'd the state and pulchritude,
But she was stricken dumb with wonder quite,
Yet her sweet mind retain'd her thinking might:
Her ravish'd mind in heavenly thoughts did dwell,
But what she thought, no mortal tongue can tell.
You, lady Muse, whom Jove the counsellor
Begot of Memory, Wisdom's treasuress,
To your divining tongue is given a power
of uttering secrets large and limitless:
You can Penelope's strange thoughts express
Which she conceiv'd, and then would fain have told,
When she the wond'rous crystal did behold.
Her winged thoughts bore up her mind so high,
As that she ween'd she saw the glorious throne
Where the bright Moon doth sit in majesty,
A thousand sparkling stars about her shone;
But she herself did sparkle more alone
Than all those thousand beauties would have done
If they had been confounded all in one.
And yet she thought those stars mov'd in such mea-
To do their sovereign honour and delight, [sure,
As sooth'd her mind with sweet enchanting pleasure,
Although the various change amaz'd her sight,
And her weak judgment did entangle quite :
Beside, their moving made them shine more clear,
As diamonds mov'd, more sparkling do appear.
This was the picture of her wondrous thought;
But who can wonder that her thought was so,
Sith Vulcan, king of fire, that mirror wrought,
(Who things to come, present, and past, doth know,)
As there did represent in lively show
Our glorious English court's divine image,
As it should be in this our golden age?
Here are wanting some stanzas describing queen EliThen follow these :
Her brighter dazzling beams of majesty
Were laid aside, for she vouchsaf'd awhile
With gracious, cheerful, and familiar eye
Upon the revels of her court to smile;
For so time's journies she doth oft beguile :
Like sight no mortal eye might elsewhere see
So full of state, art, and variety.
For of her barons brave, and ladies fair,
(Who had they been elsewhere most fair had been,)
Many an incomparable lovely pair,
With hand in hand were interlinked seen,
Making fair honour to their sovereign queen;
Forward they pac'd, and did their pace apply
To a most sweet and solemn melody.
So subtle and so curious was the measure,
With so unlook'd for change in ev'ry strain;
As that Penelope wrapp'd with sweet pleasure,
When she beheld the true proportion plain
Of her own web, weav'd and unweav'd again;
But that her art was somewhat less she thought,
And on a mere ignoble subject wrought.
For here, like to the silk-worm's industry,
Beauty itself out of itself did weave
So rare a work, and of such subtlety,
As did all eyes entangle and deceive,
And in all minds a strange impression leave:
In this sweet labyrinth did Cupid stray,
And never had the power to pass away.
As when the Indians, neighbours of the morning, In honour of the cheerful rising Sun,
With pearl and painted plumes themselves adorning, A solemn stately measure have begun;
The god, well pleas'd with that fair honour done, Sheds forth his beams, and doth their faces kiss With that immortal glorious face of his.
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