‘When last the young Orlando parted from you, He left a promise to return again Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest, Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy, Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside, And, mark, what object did present itself! Under an oak, whose boughs were moss’d with age, And high top bald with dry antiquity, A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair, Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck A green and gilded snake had wreath’d itself, Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach’d The opening of his mouth; but suddenly Seeing Orlando, it unlink’d itself, And with indented glides did slip away Into a bush: under which bush’s shade A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, Lay crouching, head on ground, with cat-like watch, When that the sleeping man should stir; for ’tis The royal disposition of that beast, To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead: This seen,’ &c. &c. Or the more celebrated description of the hunt:— ‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles, How he outruns the wind, and with what care He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles: The many musits through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. ‘Sometimes he runs among a flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, And sometime where earth-delving conies keep, To stop the loud pursuers in their yell; And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer; Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear: ‘For there his smell with others being mingled, The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt, Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled, With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out; Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies. ‘By this, poor Wat, far off, upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still; Anon their loud alarums he doth hear; And now his grief may be compared well To one sore sick that hears the passing bell. ‘Then thou shalt see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn and return, indenting with the way; Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch, Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay: For misery is trodden on by many, And being low, never relieved by any.’