But that by quick command from sovran Jove
I was despatched for their defence and guard :
And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,

After the Tuscan mariners transformed,

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,

On Circe's island fell (who knows not Circe,

The daughter of the sun,

whose charméd cup

Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a grovelling swine?):
This nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks

With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,

Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son

Much like his father, but his mother more,

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named ; Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,

Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,4

At last betakes him to this ominous wood;

And, in thick shelter of black shades embowered,

Excels his mother at her mighty art,

Offering to every weary traveller

(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst), Soon as the potion works, their human countenance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed

Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before;
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.

Therefore when any, favoured of high Jove,
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star

I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do; but first I must put off

These

my sky robes spun out of Iris' woof,5

And take the weeds and likeness of a swain,
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,

And in this office of his mountain watch,

Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid

Of this occasion. But I hear the tread

Of hateful steps! I must be viewless now.

[COMUS enters with a charming rod in one hand, his glass in the other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of wild beasts, but other