_Hence is it, that these Graces painted are With hand in hand, dancing an endless round; And with regarding eyes, that still beware That there be no disgrace amongst them found: With equal foot they beat the flowery ground, Laughing, or singing, as their Passions will; Yet nothing that they do, becomes them ill._ 76. _Thus LOVE taught men! and men thus learned of LOVE Sweet Music's sound with feet to counterfeit: Which was long time before high-thundering JOVE Was lifted up to Heaven's imperial seat. For though by birth he were the Prince of Crete, Nor Crete nor Heaven should that young Prince have seen, If dancers with their timbrels had not been._ 77. _Since when all ceremonious mysteries, All sacred orgies and religious rites, All pomps, and triumphs, and solemnities, All funerals, nuptials, and like public sights, All parliaments of peace, and warlike fights, All learned arts, and every great affair, A lively shape of Dancing seems to bear._ 78. _For what did he, who, with his ten-tongued Lute, Gave beasts and blocks an understanding ear; Or rather into bestial minds and brutes Shed and infused the beams of Reason clear? Doubtless, for men that rude and savage were, A civil form of Dancing he devised, Wherewith unto their gods they sacrificed._ 79. _So did MUSÆUS, so AMPHION did, And LINUS with his sweet enchanting Song, And he whose hand the earth of monsters rid, And had men's ears fast chainèd to his tongue, And THESEUS to his wood-born slaves among, Used Dancing, as the finest policy To plant Religion and Society._ 80. _And therefore, now, the Thracian ORPHEUS' lyre And HERCULES himself are stellified, And in high heaven, amidst the starry quire Dancing their parts, continually do slide. So, on the Zodiac, GANYMEDE doth ride, And so is HEBE with the Muses nine, For pleasing JOVE with dancing, made divine._ 81. _Wherefore was PROTEUS said himself to change Into a stream, a lion, and a tree, And many other forms fantastic strange, As, in his fickle thought, he wished to be? But that he danced with such facility, As, like a lion, he could pace with pride, Ply like a plant, and like a river slide._ 82. _And how was CŒNEUS made, at first, a man, And then a woman, then a man again, But in a Dance? which when he first began He the man's part in measure did sustain: But when he changed into a second strain, He danced the woman's part another space; And then returned unto his former place._ 83.