BOREAS

WHich, among these, is ALBION, NEPTUNE'S son? WHat Power art thou, that thus informest me? TO thee then, thus, and by thee, to that King, That does thee present honours, do I bring Present remembrance of twelve Aethiope Dams: Who, guided hither by the Moons bright flames, To see his brighter light, were to the Sea Enjoined again, and (thence assigned a day For their return) were in the waves to leave Their blackness , and true beauty to receive. IT was nor Will, nor Sloth, that caused their stay; For they were all prepared by their day, And, with religion, forward on their way: When PROTEUS, Read his description, with Virg. Geor. 4. Est in Carpathi Neptuni gurgite vates, Caeruleus Proteus. the grey Prophet of the Sea, Met them, and made report, how other four Of their black kind (whereof their Sire had store) Faithful to that great wonder, so late done Upon their Sisters, by bright Albion , Had followed them to seek BRITANIA forth, And there to hope Like favour, as Like worth. Which NIGHT envied, as done Because they were before of her complexion. in her despite, And (mad to see and Aethiope washed white) Thought to prevent in these; lest men should deem Her colour, if thus changed, of small esteem. And so, by malice, and her magic, tossed The Nymphs at sea, as they were almost lost, Till, on and Island, they by chance arrived, That To give authority to this partly of our fiction, Pliny hath a chap. 95. of his 2. book. Nat. Hist. de Insulis sluctuantibus. & Carded. lib. 1. de rerum vari. & cap. 7. reports one to be in his time known, in the Lake of Loumond , in Scotland. To let pass that of Delos, &c. floated in the main; where, yet, she'had gived Them so, in charms of darkness, as no might Should lose them thence, but their changed Sisters sighed. Whereat the Twelve (in piety moved, and kind) Straight put themselves in act, the place to find; Which was the NIGHTS sole trust they so will do, That she, with labour, might confound them too. For ever since with error hath she held Them wandering in the Ocean , and so quelled Their Hope's beneath their toil, as (desperate now Of any least success unto their vow; Nor knowing to return to express the grace, Wherewith they labour to this Prince, and place) One of them, meeting me at sea, did pray, That for the love of my The daugh ter of Erecthe us , King of A them , whom Boreas ravished away, into TO raze , as she was playing with other vir begins by the flood ssus: or (as some will) by the fountain Ce phisus. ORYTHYIA, (Whose very name did heat my frosty breast, And make me shake my snow-filled wings and crest) To bear this sad report I would be won, And frame their joust excuse; which here I have done.