'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 eares fast chaynèd to his tongue 'And _Theseus_ to his wood-borne slaues among, 'Vs'd dauncing as the finest policie 'To plant religion and societie. 80. 'And therefore now the Thracian _Orpheus_ lire 'And _Hercules_ him selfe are stellified;[239] 'And in high heau'n amidst the starry quire, 'Dauncing their parts continually doe slide; 'So on the Zodiake _Ganimed_ doth ride, 'And so is _Hebe_ with the Muses nine 'For pleasing _Ioue_ with dauncing, made diuine. [Footnote 239: Made stellæ=stars or constellations. G.] 81. 'Wherefore was _Proteus_ sayd himselfe to change 'Into a streame, a lyon, and a tree; 'And many other formes fantastique, strange, 'As in his fickle thought he wisht to be? 'But that he daunc'd with such facilitie, 'As like a lyon he could pace with pride, 'Ply like a plant, and like a riuer slide. 82. 'And how was _Cæneus_[240] made at first a man, 'And then a woman, then a man againe, 'But in a daunce? which when he first began 'Hee the man's part in measure did sustaine: 'But when he chang'd into a second straine, 'He daunc'd the woman's part another space, 'And then return'd into his former place. [Footnote 240: Virgil, Æneid VI., 448, calls him Cænis: .... 'et juvenis quondam, nunc femina, Cænis, Rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram.' He is mentioned again in Homer, Iliad I. 264. G.] 83. 'Hence sprang the fable of _Tiresias_, 'That he the pleasure of both sexes tryde; 'For in a daunce he man and woman was 'By often chaunge of place from side to side; 'But for the woman easily did slide 'And smoothly swim with cunning hidden art, 'He tooke more pleasure in a woman's part. 84. 'So to a fish _Venus_ herselfe did change,[241] 'And swimming through the soft and yeelding waue, 'With gentle motions did so smoothly range, 'As none might see where she the water draue; 'But this plaine truth that falsèd fable gaue, 'That she did daunce with slyding easines, 'Plyant and quick in wandring passages. [Footnote 241: _Met._ III., 320, &c., &c. G.] 85. 'And merry _Bacchus_ practis'd dauncing to[o], 'And to the Lydian numbers,[242] rounds did make: 'The like he did in th' Easterne India doo, 'And taught them all when _Ph[oe]bus_ did awake, 'And when at night he did his coach[243] forsake: 'To honor heaun, and heau'ns great roling eye 'With turning daunces, and with melodie. [Footnote 242: Cf. L'Allegro 'Lap me in soft Lydian airs.' (l 136.) G.] [Footnote 243: Qu: couch? G.] 86.