'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 prance with pride, Ply like a plant and like a river glide." Now hear Lucian:-- δοκεῖ γάρ μοι ὁ παλαιὸς μῆθος καὶ Πρωτέα τὸν Αἰγύπτιον οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ὀρχηστήν τινα γενέσθαι λέγειν, μιμητικὸν ἄνθρωπον καὶ πρὸς πάντα σχηματίζεσθαι καὶ μεταβάλλεσθαι δυνάμενον, ὡς καὶ ὕδατος ὑγρότητα μιμεῖσθαι καὶ πυρὸς ὀξύτητα ἐν τᾖ τῆς κινήσεως σφοδρότητι καὶ λέοντος ἀγριότητα καὶ παρδάλεως θυμὸν καὶ δένδρου δόνημα, καὶ ὅλως ὅ τι καὶ θελήσειεν.[2] Here is another example (Stanza 17):-- 'Dancing, bright Lady, then began to be When the first seeds whereof the world did spring, The Fire, Air, Earth, and Water did agree By Love's persuasion (Nature's mighty King) To leave their first disordered combating, And in a dance such measures to observe As all the world their motion should preserve.' With this compare Lucian (as Englished by Jasper Mayne): 'First, then, you plainly seem to me not to know that dancing is no new invention or of yesterday's or the other day's growth, or born among our forefathers or their ancestors. But they who most truly derive dancing, say it sprung with the first beginning of the universe, and had a birth equally as ancient as love.' It would be easy to multiply instances. Of course Davies' borrowings from Lucian do not for a moment detract from his poem's merit: indeed they give an added zest. In the 1596 edition _Orchestra_ ends with a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, and stanzas in praise of Spenser, Daniel, and others. Davies had evidently intended to write a sequel; for, when _Orchestra_ was republished in the collective edition of his poems (1622), it was described on the title-page as 'not finished,' some new stanzas were added, and it ended abruptly in the middle of a simile. The poem is quite long enough as we have it in the 1596 edition, and we need not lament that Davies failed to carry out his intention of continuing it: μηδὲν ἄγαν. To his youthful days belong the _Epigrams_, which were bound up with Marlowe's translation of Ovid's _Amores_ (with a Middleburgh imprint): occasionally indecorous, they are seldom wanting in wit and pleasantry.