Hercules Furens, Thyestes, Troas

O faythfull fellowe of our bloud, with chaste true faythfulnes
The [illeg.]ed keeping, and the sonne of haughty Hercules,
Conceiue in mynde some better thinges, and take good heart to thee:
He will come home, as after all his labours woonteth hee,
Of more renowned

ME.
What wretches doe most chiefly wishe of all,
They soone beleue.

AM.
Nay what they feare to much lest it may fall,
They thinke it, neuer may bee shoon'de, nor rid by remedy.

ME.
Beleefe is ready still to dreade the woorser mysery.
Deepe drown'de, & whellm'de, & farthermore with all ye world full lowe
Oppressed downe, what way hath he to light agayne to goe?

AM.
What way I pray you had he then whē through the burning coste,
And tumbling after maner of the troubled Sea vp toste
He went by sands: and freate that twyse with ebbe away doth slip,
And twyse vpflowe: and when alone with his forsaken ship,
Fast caught he stucke in shallowe foordes of shelfye Syrtes sande,
And (nowe his ship on grounde) did passe through seas a foote to land?

ME.
Iniurious fortune vertue most of men most stout and strong
Doth seldome spare: no man alyue himselfe in safety long
To perills great and daungers may so often times out cast,
Whom chaunce doth often ouerslip, the same it findes at last.
But cruell loe, and greeuous threats euen bearing in his face,
And such as he of stomacke is, doth come euen such of pace,
Proude Lycus who the sceptors shakes in hande of other king,
The plentuous places of the towne of Thebes gouerning,
And euery thinge about the whych with fertile soyle doth goe
Sloape Phocis, and what euer doth Ismenus ouerfloe,
What euer thing Cithæron seeth with haughty top and hye,
And slender Isthmos Ile, the which betweene two seas doth lye.

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