For in your selfe your onely helpe doth lie, vii To heale your selues, and must proceed alone From your owne will, to cure your maladie. Who can him cure, that will be cur’d of none? If therefore health ye seeke, obserue this one. First learne your outward sences to refraine From things, that stirre vp fraile affection; Your eies, your eares, your tongue, your talk restraine From that they most affect, and in due termes containe. For from those outward sences ill affected, viii The seede of all this euill first doth spring, Which at the first before it had infected, Mote easie be supprest with little thing: But being growen strong, it forth doth bring Sorrow, and anguish, and impatient paine In th’inner parts, and lastly scattering Contagious poyson close through euery vaine, It neuer rests, till it haue wrought his finall bane. For that beastes teeth, which wounded you tofore, ix Are so exceeding venemous and keene, Made all of rusty yron, ranckling sore, That where they bite, it booteth not to weene With salue, or antidote, or other mene It euer to amend: ne maruaile ought; For that same beast was bred of hellish strene, And long in darksome _Stygian_ den vpbrought, Begot of foule _Echidna_, as in bookes is taught. _Echidna_ is a Monster direfull dred, x Whom Gods doe hate, and heauens abhor to see; So hideous is her shape, so huge her hed, That euen the hellish fiends affrighted bee At sight thereof, and from her presence flee: Yet did her face and former parts professe A faire young Mayden, full of comely glee; But all her hinder parts did plaine expresse A monstrous Dragon, full of fearefull vglinesse. To her the Gods, for her so dreadfull face, xi In fearefull darkenesse, furthest from the skie, And from the earth, appointed haue her place, Mongst rocks and caues, where she enrold doth lie In hideous horrour and obscurity, Wasting the strength of her immortall age. There did _Typhaon_ with her company, Cruell _Typhaon_, whose tempestuous rage Make th’heauens tremble oft, and him with vowes asswage. Of that commixtion they did then beget xii This hellish Dog, that hight the _Blatant Beast_; A wicked Monster, that his tongue doth whet Gainst all, both good and bad, both most and least, And poures his poysnous gall forth to infest The noblest wights with notable defame: Ne euer Knight, that bore so lofty creast, Ne euer Lady of so honest name, But he them spotted with reproch, or secrete[490] shame.