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Upon a day,
when the Dog-star
Unto the world proclaim'd a war,
And poyson bark'd from black throat,
And from his
jaws infection shot,
Under a deadly hen-bane shade
With slime infernal mists are made,
Met the two
dreaded enemies,
Having their weapons in their eyes.
First from his den rolls forth that load
Of spite
and hate, the speckl'd toad,
And from his chaps a
foam doth spawn,
Such as the loathed three heads
yawn;
Defies his foe with a fell spit,
To wade
through death to meet with it;
Then in his self the
lymbeck turns,
And his elixir'd poyson urns.
Arachne, once the fear oth' maid
Coelestial, thus
unto her pray'd:
Heaven's blew-ey'd daughter, thine
own mother!
The Python-killing Sun's thy brother.
Oh! thou, from gods that didst descend,
With a poor
virgin to contend,
Shall seed of earth and hell ere
be
A rival in thy victorie?
Pallas assents: for
now long time
And pity had clean rins'd her crime;
When straight she doth with active fire
Her many
legged foe inspire.
Have you not seen a charact lie
A great cathedral in the sea,
Under whose Babylonian
walls
A small thin frigot almshouse stalls?
So in
his slime the toad doth float
And th' spyder by, but
seems his boat.
And now the naumachie begins;
Close to the surface her self spins:
Arachne, when
her foe lets flye
A broad-side of his breath too
high,
That's over-shot, the wisely-stout,
Advised
maid doth tack about;
And now her pitchy barque doth
sweat,
Chaf'd in her own black fury wet;
Lasie and
cold before, she brings
New fires to her contracted
stings,
And with discolour'd spumes doth blast
The
herbs that to their center hast.
Now to the
neighb'ring henbane top
Arachne hath her self wound
up,
And thence, from its dilated leaves,
By her
own cordage downwards weaves,
And doth her town of
foe attack,
And storms the rampiers of his back;
Which taken in her colours spread,
March to th'
citadel of's head.
Now as in witty torturing Spain,
The brain is vext to vex the brain,
Where hereticks
bare heads are arm'd
In a close helm, and in it
charm'd
An overgrown and meagre rat,
That peece-meal
nibbles himself fat;
So on the toads blew-checquer'd
scull
The spider gluttons her self full.
And
vomiting her Stygian seeds,
Her poyson on his poyson
feeds.
Thus the invenom'd toad, now grown
Big with
more poyson than his own,
Doth gather all his pow'rs,
and shakes
His stormer in's disgorged lakes;
And
wounded now, apace crawls on
To his next plantane
surgeon,
With whose rich balm no sooner drest,
But
purged is his sick swoln breast;
And as a glorious
combatant,
That only rests awhile to pant,
Then
with repeated strength and scars,
That smarting fire
him new to wars,
Deals blows that thick themselves
prevent,
As they would gain the time he spent.
So the disdaining angry toad,
That calls but a
thin useless load,
His fatal feared self comes back
With unknown venome fill'd to crack.
Th' amased
spider, now untwin'd,
Hath crept up, and her self new
lin'd
With fresh salt foams and mists, that blast
The ambient air as they past.
And now me thinks a
Sphynx's wing
I pluck, and do not write, but sting;
With their black blood my pale inks blent,
Gall's but
a faint ingredient.
The pol'tick toad doth now
withdraw,
Warn'd, higher in CAMPANIA.
There wisely
doth, intrenched deep,
His body in a body keep,
And leaves a wide and open pass
T' invite the foe up
to his jaws,
Which there within a foggy blind
With
fourscore fire-arms were lin'd.
The gen'rous active
spider doubts
More ambuscadoes than redoubts;
So
within shot she doth pickear,
Now gall's the flank,
and now the rear;
As that the toad in's own dispite
Must change the manner of his fight,
Who, like a
glorious general,
With one home-charge lets fly at
all.
Chaf'd with a fourfold ven'mous foam
Of
scorn, revenge, his foes and 's own,
He seats him in
his loathed chair,
New-made him by each mornings air,
With glowing eyes he doth survey
Th' undaunted hoast
he calls his prey;
Then his dark spume he gred'ly
laps,
And shows the foe his grave, his chaps.
Whilst the quick wary Amazon
Of 'vantage takes
occasion,
And with her troop of leggs carreers
In
a full speed with all her speers.
Down (as some
mountain on a mouse)
On her small cot he flings his
house;
Without the poyson of the elf,
The toad had
like t' have burst himself:
For sage Arachne with
good heed
Had stopt herself upon full speed,
And,
's body now disorder'd, on
She falls to execution.
The passive toad now only can
Contemn and suffer.
Here began
The wronged maids ingenious rage,
Which
his heart venome must asswage.
One eye she hath spet
out, strange smother,
When one flame doth put out
another,
And one eye wittily spar'd, that he
Might
but behold his miserie.
She on each spot a wound doth
print,
And each speck hath a sting within't;
Till
he but one new blister is,
And swells his own
periphrasis.
Then fainting, sick, and yellow-pale,
She baths him with her sulph'rous stale;
Thus slacked
is her Stygian fire,
And she vouchsafes now to
retire.
Anon the toad begins to pant,
Bethinks him
of th' almighty plant,
And lest he peece-meal should
be sped,
Wisely doth finish himself dead.
Whilst
the gay girl, as was her fate,
Doth wanton and
luxuriate,
And crowns her conqu'ring head all or
With fatal leaves of hellebore.
Not guessing at the
pretious aid
Was lent her by the heavenly maid.
The neer expiring toad now rowls
Himself in lazy
bloody scrowls,
To th' sov'raign salve of all his
ills,
That only life and health distills.
But loe!
a terror above all,
That ever yet did him befall!
Pallas, still mindful of her foe,
(Whilst they
did with each fires glow)
Had to the place the
spiders lar
Dispath'd before the ev'nings star.
He
learned was in Natures laws,
Of all her foliage knew
the cause,
And 'mongst the rest in his choice want
Unplanted had this plantane plant.
The
all-confounded toad doth see
His life fled with his
remedie,
And in a glorious despair
First burst
himself, and next the air;
Then with a dismal horred
yell
Beats down his loathsome breath to hell.
But what inestimable bliss
This to the sated virgin
is,
Who, as before of her fiend foe,
Now full is
of her goddess too!
She from her fertile womb hath
spun
Her stateliest pavillion,
Whilst all her
silken flags display,
And her triumphant banners
play;
Where Pallas she ith' midst doth praise,
And
counterfeits her brothers rayes,
Nor will she her
dear lar forget,
Victorious by his benefit,
Whose
roof inchanted she doth free
From haunting gnat and
goblin bee,
Who, trapp'd in her prepared toyle,
To
their destruction keep a coyle.
Then she unlocks
the toad's dire head,
Within whose cell is treasured
That pretious stone, which she doth call
A noble
recompence for all,
And to her lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.
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