e witness Crete (nor Crete doth all things feign)
Crete proud that Jove her nursery maintain. 20
There, he who rules the world's star-spangled towers,
A little boy drunk teat-distilling showers.
Faith to the witness Jove's praise doth apply;
Ceres, I think, no known fault will deny.
The goddess saw Iasion on Candian Ide,
With strong hand striking wild beasts' bristled hide.
She saw, and as her marrow took the flame,
Was divers ways distract with love and shame.
Love conquered shame, the furrows dry were burned,
And corn with least part of itself returned. 30
When well-tossed mattocks did the ground prepare,
Being fit-broken with the crooked share,
And seeds were equally in large fields cast,
The ploughman's hopes were frustrate at the last.
The grain-rich goddess in high woods did stray,
Her long hair's ear-wrought garland fell away.
Only was Crete fruitful that plenteous year;
Where Ceres went, each place was harvest there.
Ida, the seat of groves, did sing[417] with corn,
Which by the wild boar in the woods was shorn. 40
Law-giving Minos did such years desire,
And wished the goddess long might feel love's fire.
Ceres, what sports[418] to thee so grievous were,
As in thy sacrifice we them forbear?
Why am I sad, when Proserpine is found,
And Juno-like with Dis reigns under ground?
Festival days ask Venus, songs, and wine,
These gifts are meet to please the powers divine.

FOOTNOTES:

[415] Not in Isham copy or ed. A.

[416] Threshing-floor ("area").

[417] Marlowe has made the school-boy's mistake of confusing "caneo" and
"cano."

[418] The original has

"Quod tibi secubitus tristes, dea flava, fuissent,
Hoc cogor sacris nunc ego ferre tuis."

Marlowe appears to have read "Qui tibi concubitus," &c.

ELEGIA XI.[419]

Ad amicam a cujus amore discedere non potest.

Long have I borne much, mad thy faults me make;
Dishonest love, my wearied breast forsake!
Now have I freed myself, and fled the chain,
And what I have borne, shame to bear again.
We vanquish, and tread tamed love under feet,
Victorious wreaths[420] at length my temples greet.
Suffer, and harden: good grows by this grief,
Oft bitter juice brings to the sick relief.
I have sustained, so oft thrust from the door,