Whom the kind waves so licorously cleapt,[122] Thickening for haste, one in another, so, To kiss his skin, that he might almost go To Hero's tower, had that kind minute lasted. But now the cruel Fates with AtÈ hasted To all the winds, and made them battle fight Upon the Hellespont, for either's right 180 Pretended to the windy monarchy; And forth they brake, the seas mixed with the sky, And tossed distressed Leander, being in hell, As high as heaven: bliss not in height doth dwell. The Destinies sate dancing on the waves, To see the glorious Winds with mutual braves Consume each other: O, true glass, to see How ruinous ambitious statists be To their own glories! Poor Leander cried For help to sea-born Venus she denied; 190 To Boreas, that, for his AtthÊa's[123] sake He would some pity on his Hero take, And for his own love's sake, on his desires; But Glory never blows cold Pity's fires. Then call'd he Neptune, who, through all the noise, Knew with affright his wreck'd Leander's voice, And up he rose; for haste his forehead hit 'Gainst heaven's hard crystal; his proud waves he smit With his forked sceptre, that could not obey; Much greater powers than Neptune's gave them sway. 200 They loved Leander so, in groans they brake When they came near him; and such space did take 'Twixt one another, loath to issue on, That in their shallow furrows earth was shown, And the poor lover took a little breath: But the curst Fates sate spinning of his death On every wave, and with the servile Winds Tumbled them on him. And now Hero finds, By that she felt, her dear Leander's state: She wept, and prayed for him to every Fate; 210 And every Wind that whipped her with her hair About the face, she kissed and spake it fair, Kneeled to it, gave it drink out of her eyes To quench his thirst: but still their cruelties Even her poor torch envied, and rudely beat The baiting[124] flame from that dear food it eat; Dear, for it nourish'd her Leander's life; Which with her robe she rescued from their strife; But silk too soft was such hard hearts to break; And she, dear soul, even as her silk, faint, weak, 220 Could not preserve it; out, O, out it went! Leander still call'd Neptune, that now rent His brackish curls, and tore his wrinkled face, Where tears in billows did each other chase; And, burst with ruth, he hurl'd his marble mace At the stern Fates: it wounded Lachesis That drew Leander's thread, and could not miss The thread itself, as it her hand did hit, But smote it full, and quite did sunder it. The more kind Neptune raged, the more he razed 230 His love's life's fort, and kill'd as he embraced: