So the disdaining angry toad, That, calls but a thin useless load; His fatal feared self comes back With unknown venom fill'd to crack. Th' amazed spider now untwin'd, Hath crept up, and herself new lin'd With fresh salt foams, and mists that blast The ambient air as they past.
And now methinks a sphynx's wing
I pluck, and do not write, but sting;
With their black blood, my pale ink's blent,
Gall's but a faint ingredient.
The pol'tic 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 galls the flank, and now the rear;
As that the toad in's own despite
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 foe's and's own;
He seats him in his loathed chair,
New-made him by each morning's air,
With glowing eyes, he doth survey
Th' undaunted host, he calls his prey;
Then his dark spume he greed'ly laps,
And shows the foe his grave, his chaps.
Whilst the quick wary amazon
Of 'vantage takes occasion,
And with her troop of legs careers,
In a full speed with all her spears;
Down (as some mountain on a mouse)
On her small cot he flings his house,
Without the poison of the elf,
The toad had like t' have burst himself,
For sage Arachne with good heed,
Had stopp'd 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 maid's ingenious rage,
Which his heart venom must assuage;
One eye she hath spit out, strange smother!
When one flame doth put out another,
And one eye wittily spar'd, that he
Might but behold his misery;
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 bathes 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 piecemeal 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 o'er
With fatal leaves of hellebore;
Not guessing at the precious aid
Was lent her by the heavenly maid.
The near expiring toad now rolls
Himself in lazy bloody scrolls,
To th' sov'reign salve of all his ills,
That only life and health distils.
But lo! a terror above all
That ever yet did him befall!
Pallas, still mindful of her foe,
(Whilst they did with each fire's glow)
Had to the place the spider's Lar,
Dispatch'd before the ev'ning's star;
He learned was in Nature's laws,
Of all her foliage knew the cause,
And 'mongst the rest in his choice want
Unplanted had this plantain plant.
The all-confounded toad doth see His life fled with his remedy,
And in a glorious despair
First burst himself, and next the air;
Then with a dismal horrid 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 pavilion,
Whilst all her silken flags display,
And her triumphant banners play;
Where Pallas she i'th' midst doth praise,
And counterfeits her brother's rays,
Nor will she her dear Lar forget;
Victorious by his benefit;
Whose roof enchanted she doth free,
From haunting gnat, and goblin bee,
Who trapp'd in her prepared toil,
To their destruction keep a coil.
Then she unlocks the toad's dire head,
Within whose cell is treasured
That precious stone, which she doth call
A noble recompense for all,
And to her Lar doth it present,
Of his fair aid a monument.
Triumphs of Philamore and Amoret.
TO THE NOBLEST OF OUR YOUTH AND BEST OF FRIENDS,
BEING AT BERESFORD, AT HIS HOUSE IN STAFFORDSHIRE. FROM LONDON.
SIR, your sad absence I complain, as Earth
Her long hid Spring, that gave her verdures birth,
Who now her cheerful aromatic head
Shrinks in her cold and dismal widow'd bed;
Whilst the false Sun her lover doth him move
Below, and to th' antipodes make love.
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