Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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[In response to the prayers of despairing Thetis,
Venus, goddess of love, intervenes on Glaucus’s
behalf, getting her son Cupid to shoot a restorative
arrow into the wound he has earlier made in
Glaucus’s breast, freeing him from his hopeless,
obsessive love for Scylla.]
No more of love, no more of hate he spoke;
No more he forced the sighs from out his breast;
His sudden joy his pleasing smiles provoke,
And all aloft he shakes his bushy crest,
Greeting the gods and goddesses beside,
And every nymph upon that happy tide.
Cupid and he together, hand in hand,
Approach the place of this renowned train.
“Ladies,” said he, “released from amorous band,
Receive my prisoner to your grace again.”
Glaucus gave thanks when Thetis, glad with bliss,
Embraced his neck and his kind cheeks did kiss.
[...]
[While everyone is rejoicing over Glaucus’s liberation
from the bondage of unrequited love, the
lovely Scylla appears. Thetis, set on revenge, begs
Cupid to grant the following request.]
“Oh, if there dwell within thy breast, my boy,
Or grace or pity or remorse,” said she,
“Now bend thy bow, abate yon wanton’s joy,
And let these nymphs thy rightful justice see.”
The god, soon won, gan shoot, and cleft her heart
With such a shaft as caused her endless smart.
The tender nymph, attainted unawares,
Fares like the Libyan lioness that flies
The hunter’s lance that wounds her in his snares;
Now gins 1 she love, and straight on Glaucus cries,
Whilst on the shore the goddesses rejoice,
And all the nymphs afflict the air with noise.
1 gins i.e., begins.
T HOMAS L ODGE
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To shore she flits, and swift as Afric wind
Her footing glides upon the yielding grass,
And, wounded by affect, recure to find
She suddenly with sighs approached the place
Where Glaucus sat, and, weary with her harms,
Gan clasp the sea-god in her amorous arms.
“Glaucus, my love,” quoth she, “look on thy lover.
Smile, gentle Glaucus, on the nymph that likes
thee.”
But stark as stone sat he, and list not prove her. 2
(Ah, silly nymph, the selfsame god that strikes
thee
With fancy’s dart, and hath thy freedom slain,
Wounds Glaucus with the arrow of disdain.)
Oh, kiss no more, kind nymph. He likes no
kindness;
Love sleeps in him to flame within thy breast;
Cleared are his eyes, where thine are clad with
blindness;
Freed be his thoughts, where thine must taste
unrest.
Yet nill she leave, for never love will leave her,
But fruitless hopes and fatal haps 3 deceive her.
Lord, how her lips do dwell upon his cheeks,
And how she looks for babies in his eyes, 4
And how she sighs and swears she loves and
leeks, 5
And how she vows, and he her vows envies.
Trust me, the envious nymphs in looking on
Were forced with tears for to assist her moan.
2 list not prove her i.e., chose not to approve her.
3 haps chances, occurrences.
4 “Baby” refers to a small image of oneself reflected in the pupil of
another’s eye; hence, “to look babies.”
5 leeks i.e., likes.