📔 Metamorphoses

A terror to the new made folke, which never erst had knowne / So foule a Dragon in their life, so monstrously foregrowne, / So great a ground thy poyson paunch did underneath thée hide.

And lest the chaunted weedes the which she had him given before / Should faile at neede, a helping charme she whispred overmore

And men themselves contented well with plaine and simple foode, That on the earth by natures gift without their travell stoode, Did live by raspis ...

King Atlas called straight to minde an auncient prophesie Made by Parnassian Themys, which this sentence did implie: The time shall one day, Atlas, come in which thy golden tree Shall of hir fayre and precious fruite dispoyld and robbed bee.

...Sure (he said) my wife shall never know / Of this escape, and if she do, I know the worst I trow / She can but chide, shall feare of chiding make me to forslow?