Pleasant dialogues and dramma's :: :: University of Virginia Library

After many a louing greeting,
Mars and Venus point a meeting;
And that Vulcan might not haue
Least note thereof, they chuse a Cave
Obscure and darke, to which they trust,
Intending there to sate their lust.
But when themselues most safe they thinke,
The rising Sun pries through a chinke,
Sees all, and what hee sees discovers
To Vulcan, touching these two Lovers.

Th' inraged Smith taking foule scorne
To be affronted with the horne,
Provides for them a subtill ginne,
In hope to take them both therein.
His plot prevail'd, and now being fiery
In iust reuenge, by strict inquiry,
To finde where these by custome met,
He by his art contrives a Net,
More fine than is the Spiders thred,
And yet of wire; which he so spred
About the place, all things compact
So well, he tooke them in the act:
And then doth all the gods invite,
Who came at once to view that sight.

178

Some jeer'd, some pitty'd their disgrace,
One wisht himselfe in Mars his place.
Tet for all this, the churlish Sir
So kept them that they could not stir.
Mars chafes and threats, and strugling keeps:
But Venus blushes first, then weeps.
And when the gods could laugh no more,
Then Vulcan freed them, not before.

Now Venus knowing all this done
Was first discover'd by the Sun;
Against him open war proclaimes,
And at him her revenge she aimes:

Cupid she vseth as her instrument.
And that's of our Scæne the sole argument.