Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide, One to the vine, another to her scrip, That she did negligently overslip; By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare She suffered spoiled to make a childish snare. These ominous fancies did her soul express, And every finger made a prophetess, To show what death was hid in love's disguise, 110 And make her judgment conquer Destinies. O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud, Were they made seen and forcËd through their blood; If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn, They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn, In letting graces from their fingers fly, To still their eyas[74] thoughts with industry; That their plied wits in numbered silks might sing Passion's huge conquest, and their needles[75] leading Affection prisoner through their own-built cities, 120 Pinioned with stones and Arachnean ditties. Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice: She odours burned, and from their smoke did rise Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspired; And then the consecrated sticks she fired. On whose pale flames an angry spirit flew, And beat it down still as it upward grew; The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, When she inflam'd them, burned as red as blood;[76] All sad ostents of that too near success,[77] 130 That made such moving beauties motionless. Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes She quickly wrested from the sacrifice, Shut them, and inwards for Leander looked, Search'd her soft bosom, and from thence she plucked His lovely picture; which when she had viewed, Her beauties were with all love's joys renewed; The odours sweeten'd, and the fires burned clear, Leander's form left no ill object there: Such was his beauty, that the force of light, 140 Whose knowledge teacheth wonders infinite, The strength of number and proportion, Nature had placed in it to make it known, Art was her daughter, and what human wits For study lost, entombed in drossy spirits. After this accident (which for her glory Hero could not but make a history), Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos Did every year, with feasts propitious, To fair Leander's picture sacrifice: 150 And they were persons of especial price That were allowed it, as an ornament T' enrich their houses, for the continent Of the strange virtues all approved it held; For even the very look of it repelled All blastings, witchcrafts, and the strifes of nature In those diseases that no herbs could cure; The wolfy sting of avarice it would pull, And make the rankest miser bountiful; It kill'd the fear of thunder and of death; 160 The discords that conceit engendereth