The other it with force doth overthrow
Uppon one side, and from his rootes doth reare:
So did the Championesse those two there strow,
And to their sire their carcasses left to bestow.
Canto VII
Britomart comes to Isis Church,
Where shee strange visions sees:
She fights with Radigund, her slaies,
And Artegall thence frees.
Nought is on earth more sacred or divine,
That Gods and men doe equally adore,
Then this same vertue that doth right define:
For th’hevens themselves, whence mortal men implore
Right in their wrongs, are rul’d by righteous lore
Of highest Jove, who doth true justice deale
To his inferiour Gods, and evermore
Therewith containes his heavenly Common-weale:
The skill whereof to Princes hearts he doth reveale.
Well therefore did the antique world invent
That Justice was a God of soveraine grace,
And altars unto him and temples lent,
And heavenly honours in the highest place;
Calling him great Osyris, of the race
Of th’old Ægyptian Kings that whylome were,
With fayned colours shading a true case;
For that Osyris, whilest he lived here,
The justest man alive and truest did appeare.
His wife was Isis; whom they likewise made
A Goddesse of great powre and soverainty,
And in her person cunningly did shade
That part of Justice which is Equity,
Whereof I have to treat here presently:
Unto whose temple when as Britomart
Arrived, shee with great humility
Did enter in, ne would that night depart;
But Talus mote not be admitted to her part.
There she received was in goodly wize
Of many Priests, which duely did attend
Uppon the rites and daily sacrifize,
All clad in linnen robes with silver hemd;
And on their heads, with long locks comely kemd,
They wore rich Mitres shaped like the Moone,
To shew that Isis doth the Moone portend;
Like as Osyris signifies the Sunne:
For that they both like race in equall justice runne.
The Championesse them greeting, as she could,
Was thence by them into the Temple led;
Whose goodly building when she did behould,
Borne uppon stately pillours, all dispred
With shining gold, and arched over hed,
She wondred at the workemans passing skill,
Whose like before she never saw nor red;
And thereuppon long while stood gazing still,
But thought that she thereon could never gaze her fill.
Thence forth unto the Idoll they her brought;
The which was framed all of silver fine,
So well as could with cunning hand be wrought,
And clothed all in garments made of line,
Hemd all about with fringe of silver twine:
Uppon her head she wore a Crowne of gold;
To shew that she had powre in things divine:
And at her feete a Crocodile was rold,
That with her wreathed taile her middle did enfold.
One foote was set uppon the Crocodile,
And on the ground the other fast did stand;
So meaning to suppresse both forged guile
And open force: and in her other hand
She stretched forth a long white sclender wand.
Such was the Goddesse; whom when Britomart
Had long beheld, her selfe uppon the land
She did prostrate, and with right humble hart
Unto her selfe her silent prayers did impart.
To which the Idoll, as it were inclining,
Her wand did move with amiable looke,
By outward shew her inward sence desining:
Who well perceiving how her wand she shooke,
It as a token of good fortune tooke.
By this the day with dampe was overcast,
And joyous light the house of Jove forsooke;
Which when she saw her helmet she unlaste,
And by the altars side her selfe to slumber plaste.
For other beds the Priests there used none,
But on their mother Earths deare lap did lie,
And bake their sides uppon the cold hard stone,
T’enure them selves to sufferaunce thereby,
And proud rebellious flesh to mortify:
For by the vow of their religion,
They tied were to stedfast chastity
And continence of life, that, all forgon,
They mote the better tend to their devotion.
Therefore they mote not taste of fleshly food,
Ne feed on ought the which doth bloud containe,
Ne drinke of wine; for wine, they say, is blood,
Even the bloud of Gyants, which were slaine
By thundring Jove in the Phlegrean plaine:
For which the earth (as they the story tell)
Wroth with the Gods, which to perpetuall paine
Had damn’d her sonnes which gainst them did rebell,
With inward griefe and malice did against them swell:
And of their vitall bloud, the which was shed
Into her pregnant bosome, forth she brought
The fruitfull vine; whose liquor blouddy red,
Having the mindes of men with fury fraught,
Mote in them stirre up old rebellious thought
To make new warre against the Gods againe.
Such is the powre of that same fruit, that nought
The fell contagion may thereof restraine,
Ne within reasons rule her madding mood containe.
There did the warlike Maide her selfe repose,
Under the wings of Isis all that night;
And with sweete rest her heavy eyes did close,
After that long daies toile and weary plight:
Where whilest her earthly parts with soft delight
Of sencelesse sleepe did deeply drowned lie,
There did appeare unto her heavenly spright
A wondrous vision, which did close implie
The course of all her fortune and posteritie.
Her seem’d, as she was doing sacrifize
To Isis, deckt with Mitre on her hed
And linnen stole after those Priestes guize,
All sodainely she saw transfigured
Her linnen stole to robe of scarlet red,
And Moone-like Mitre to a Crowne of gold;
That even she her selfe much wondered
At such a chaunge, and joyed to behold
Her selfe adorn’d with gems and jewels manifold.
And, in the midst of her felicity,
An hideous tempest seemed from below
To rise through all the Temple sodainely,
That from the Altar all about did blow
The holy fire, and all the embers strow
Uppon the ground; which, kindled privily,
Into outragious flames unwares did grow,
That all the Temple put in jeopardy
Of flaming, and her selfe in great perplexity.
With that
