JUPITER

COme gentle Ganymede and play with me, I love thee well, say Juno what she will. What? dares she strike the darling of my thoughts? By Saturn's soul, and this earth threatening air, That shaken thrice, makes Nature's buildings quake, I vow, if she but once frown on thee more, To hang her meteor Like betwixt heaven and earth, And bind her hand and foot with golden cords, As once I did for harming Hercules. What is't sweet wag I should deny thy youth? Whose face reflects such pleasure to mine eyes, As I exhaled with thy fire darting beams, Have oft driven back the horses of the night, When as they would have haled thee from my sighed: Fit on my knee, and call for thy content, Control proud Fate, and cut the thread of time, Why are not all the Gods at thy command, And heaven and earth the bounds of thy delight? Vulcan shall dance to make thee laughing sport, And my nine Daughters sing when thou art sad, From Juno's bird I'll pluck her spotted pride, To make thee fans wherewith to cool thy face, And Venus Swans shall shed their silver down, To sweeten out the slumbets of thy bed: Hermes no more shall show the world his wings, If that thy fancy in his feathers dwell, But as this one I'll tear them all from him, Do thou but say their colour pleases me: Hold here my little love these linked gems, My Juno beware upon her marriage day, Put thou about thy neck my own sweet heart, And trick thy arms and shoulders with my theft. And shall have Ganymede, if thou wilt be my love. Content thee Cytherea in thy care, Since thy Aeneas wandering fate is firm, Whose weary limbs shall shortly make repose, In those fair walls I promised him of yore: But first in blood must his good fortune bud, Before he be the Lord of Turnus town, Or force her smile that hitherto hath frowned: Three winter's shall he with the Rutiles war, And in the end subdue them with his sword, And full three Summers likewise shall he waste, In managing those fierce barbarian minds: Which once performed, poor Troy so long suppressed, From forth her ashes shall advance her head, And flourish once again that erst was dead: But bright Ascanius beauty's better work, Who with the Sun divides one radiant shape, Shall built his throne amid those starry towers, That earthborn Atlas groaning underprops: No bounds but heaven shall bound his Empery, Whose azured gates enchased with his name, Shall make the morning hast her grey uprise, To feed her eyes with his engraved fame. Thus in stout Hector's raze three hundred years, The Roman Sceptre royal shall remain, Till that a Princess priest conceived by Mars, Shall yield to dignity a double birth, Who will eternish Troy in their attempts. I will take order for that presently: Hermes awake, and haste to Neptune's realm, Whereas the Wind-god warring now with Fate, Besiege the offspring of our kingly loins, Charge him from me to turn his stormy powers, And fetter them in Vulcan's sturdy brass, That durst thus proudly wrong our kinsmans peace. Venus farewell, thy son shall be our care: Come Ganymede, we must about this gear.