His Lady sad to see his sore constraint, xix Cride out, Now now Sir knight, shew what ye[32] bee, Add faith vnto your force, and be not faint: Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee. That when he heard, in great perplexitie, His gall did grate for griefe and high disdaine, And knitting all his force got one hand free, Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine, That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine. Therewith she spewd out of her filthy maw xx A floud of poyson horrible and blacke, Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw, Which stunck so vildly[33], that it forst him slacke His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe: Her vomit full of bookes and papers was, With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke, And creeping sought way in the weedy gras: Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has. As when old father _Nilus_ gins to swell xxi With timely pride aboue the _Ægyptian_ vale, His fattie waues do fertile slime outwell, And ouerflow each plaine and lowly dale: But when his later spring[34] gins to auale[35], Huge heapes of mudd he leaues, wherein there breed Ten thousand kindes of creatures, partly male And partly female of his fruitfull seed; Such vgly monstrous shapes elswhere may no man reed. The same so sore annoyed has the knight, xxii That welnigh choked with the deadly stinke, His forces fade, ne can no longer[36] fight. Whose corage when the feend perceiu’d to shrinke, She poured forth out of her hellish sinke Her fruitfull cursed spawne of serpents small, Deformed monsters, fowle, and blacke as inke, Which swarming all about his legs did crall, And him encombred sore, but could not hurt at all. As gentle Shepheard in sweete euen-tide, xxiii When ruddy _Phœbus_[37] gins to welke in west, High on an hill, his flocke to vewen wide, Markes which do byte their hasty supper best; A cloud of combrous[38] gnattes do him molest, All striuing to infixe their feeble stings, That from their noyance he no where can rest, But with his clownish hands their tender wings He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings. Thus ill bestedd, and fearefull more of shame, xxiv Then of the certaine perill he stood in, Halfe furious vnto his foe he came, Resolv’d in minde all suddenly to win, Or soone to lose, before he once would lin; And strooke[39] at her with more then manly force, That from her body full of filthie sin He raft[40] her hatefull head without remorse; A streame of cole black bloud forth gushed from her corse.