XI. Two purple streams here raise their boiling heads; Topping the hill, breaks forth in fierce evasion, Yet these from other streams much different; Much like a tree, which all his roots so guides, Which straight, his stem to thousand branches subdivides. XIII. Yet lest these +streams might hap to be infected, Before their flowing channels are detected; Some lesser delfts, the fountain's bottom sounding, Draw out the baser streams, the springs annoying, A hundred pipes unto that end employing; Thence run to fitter place, their noisome load convoying. * Hence rise the two great rivers of blood, of which all the rest are lesser streams. The chyle, or juice of meats, concocted in the stomach, could not all be turned into sweet blood, by reason of the divers kinds of humours in it; therefore there are three kinds of excremental liquors drawn away by little vessels, and carried to their appointed places. XIV. Such is fair Hepar, *which with great dissension But sure the Hepar was the elder bore; For that small river call'd the nurse, of yore, Three pois'nous liquors from this purple well, The spring of dire debate, and civil ire; Which, wer't not surely held with strong retention, Would stir domestic strife and fierce contention, And waste the weary Isle with never ceas'd dissension. XVI. Therefore close by, a little conduit stands, Thence gently drains it through a narrow fence; That watches in the straits, all closely barr'd, *Famous is the controversy between the peripateticks and physicians; one holding the heart, the other the liver to be first. That the liver is the first in time and making, is manifest; because the nurse (the vein that feeds the infant yet in the womb) empties itself upon the liver. The first excrement drawn from the liver to the gall, is choleric, bitter, like flame in colour; which, were it not removed, and kept in due place, would fill the body with bitterness and gnawing. Choledochus, the Gall, is of a membraneous substance, having but one, yet that a strong tunicle. It hath two passages, one drawing the humour XVII. The next ill stream the wholesome fount offending, The Splenion o'er against the Hepar laid, Built long and square some say that laughter here Keeps residence; but laughter fits not there, Where darkness ever dwells, and melancholy fear. XVIII. And should these + ways, stopt by ill accident, To th' Hepar's streams turn back their muddy humours, The cloudy Isle, with hellish dreariment Would soon be fill'd, and thousand fearful rumours: Fear hides him here, lock'd deep in earthy cell; Dark, doleful, deadly, dull, a little hell; Where with him fright, despair, and thousand horrours dwell. XIX. If this black town in over-growth increases, With too much strength his neighbours overbearing, The Hepar daily and whole Isle decreases, Like ghastly shade or ashie ghost appearing : But when it pines, th'Isle thrives; its curse, his blessing: His gaining is their loss, his treasure their distressing. from the liver, another conveying the overplus into the first gut, and so emptying the gall; and this fence hath a double gate, to keep the liquor from returning. The second ill humour is earthy and heavy, which is drawn from the liver, by little vessels, unto the spleeu; the native seat of melancholy. † If the spleen should fail in this office, the whole body would be filled with melancholy fancies and vain terrors. Where the spleen flourishes, all the body decays and withers; bnt where the spleen is kept down, the body flourishes. § Trajan compared the spleen to his exchequer, because, as his coffers being full, drained his subjects' purse; so the full spleen makes the body sapless XX. The third bad *water, bubbling from this fountain, To divers pipes, the pale cold humour swilling, These mountains differ but in situation, In form and manner like: the left is higher, Lest even height might slack their operation : Both like the Moon (which now wants half her fire) Yet into two obtuser angles bended, Both strongly with a double wall defended; And both have walls of earth, before those walls extended. XXII. The sixth and last town in this region, With large stretch'd precincts and with compass wide, Is that where Venus and her wanton son Her wanton Cupid will in youth reside : For though his arrows and his golden bow, On other hills he frankly doth bestow, Yet here he hides the fire, with which each heart doth glow. XXIII. For that great Providence, their course foreseeing Too easily led into the sea of death; After this first, gave them a second being, Which in their offspring newly flourisheth : The watery humour with some good blood (which is spent for the nonFishment of these parts) is drawn by the kidneys. The Ureters receive the water separated from the blood, as distilled from little fleshy substances in the kidneys, like to teats. The kidneys are both alike; the left somewhat higher. He, therefore, made the fire of generation, For from the first a fellow Isle he fram'd, Alike in all the rest, here disagreeing, XXV. But though some few in these hid parts would see Yet for the most would turn to luxury, And what they should lament, would make their game; Fly then those parts, which best are undescried; Forbear, my maiden song, to blazon wide, What th' Isle and nature's self, doth ever strive to hide! XXVI. These two fair Isles, distinct in their creation, Yet one extracted from the other's side, Are oft made one, by love's firm combination ; And from this unity are multiplied : Strange it may seem, such their condition, For from these two in love's delight agreeing, At first of unlike frame and matter being, In Venus' temple takes its form and breeding; |