Chaucer's ghoast, or, A piece of antiquity containing twelve pleasant fables of Ovid penn'd after the ancient manner of writing in England, which makes them prove mock-poems to the present poetry : with the history of Prince Corniger and his champion Sir Crucifrag, that run a tilt likewise at the present historiographers
Lover of antiquity., Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687., Ovid, 43 B. C.-17 or 18 A. D. Metamorphoses., Gower, John, 1325?-1408. Confessio amantis.
Page 27
Ovid. l. iv.
Arg. 9.
Victa nitore dei positâ vim passa querela
est.
Ovid. l. iv.
VEnus which hath the Law in
hand,
of that which we cannot withstand,
as she who doth the treasure guard
of Love, and hath it in her ward;
Phaebus to Love hath so constrained,
that without rest he's sorely pained,
with all his watchfulness to wait
to find the Damsels guards less strait,
who was in chamber kept so close,
that she ne're did her self disclose,
but with her mother for to play,
Leucothea (so as men say)
this Maid was fair, and Orchamus
her Fader was; but it fell thus
Page 28to's Daughter, that was kept so dear,
and had been so from year to year,
under her Mothers Discipline
a clean Maid and a fair Virgin:
Upon the whose Nativity
of comeliness and of beauty,
Nature had set all that she may;
that like unto the Moneth of May,
which all the other Moneths o'th' year
surmounteth: So without her peer,
was of this Maiden the feature;
whereof Phoebus without measure
her loved, and on every side
awaited, if so may betide,
that he through any slight might
her lusty Maidenhead unright,
esteem'd above all the worlds wealth.
And thus lurking upon stealth,
in his await so long he lay;
till it befell upon a day,
Page 29that he throughout the Chamber wall
came in all suddenly, and stall
that thing that was to him so chief,
But wo the while he was a thief.
And Venus who was Enemy
of such Love-treachery,
discovered all the plain case
to Clymene, who then was
towards Phaebus his Concubine;
and whan she found the cause in fine
of all the case, then she was wroth,
and for to plague the Maid she goeth,
and told her Father how it stood,
who was for sorrow well nigh wood.
And to her Mother thus he said,
Lo what it is to keep a Maid.
To Phaebus dare I nothing speak,
but unto her it shall be wreke.
So that all Maidens after this
now take ensample, what it is
Page 30
to suffer Maidenhead be lost,
for fear it should their death them
cost,
and bad with that to make a pit,
wherein he hath his Daughter set,
as he that would no pity have,
so that she was all quick in Grave,
and died anon in his presence.
But Phoebus who had reverence
to her that died for his Love,
hath wrought through his power a∣bove,
that she spring up out of the mold,
into a flower as bright as Gold.
