University of Virginia Library

CIV
Jopas' Song

When Dido festid first the wandryng Troian knyght,
Whom Junos wrath with stormes did force in Lybyke sandes to lyght,
That myghty' Atlas did teche, the souper lastyng long,
With cryspid lokkes, on golden harpe, Jopas sang in his song.
That same, quod he, that we the world do call and name,
Off hevin and yerth with all contentes it is the very frame.
Or thus: off hevinly powrs, by more powre kept in one
Repugnant kyndes, in myddes of whome the yerth hath place alone;
Firme, round, off liuing thynges the moder place and nourse,
Withowt the wych in egall whaight this hevin doth hold his course;
And it is calld by name the first moving hevin,
The firmament is next containing othr sevyn.
Off hevinly powrs that same is plantid full and thikk,
As shyning lyghtes wych we call steres that therin cleve and stikk;
With gret swifft sway the first and with his restles sours
Caryth it sellff and all those eight in evin continuall cours.
And off this world so rownd within that rollyng case
There be two pointes that neuer move, but fermely kepe ther place:
The t'one we se alway, the t'othr stondes obiect
Against the same deviding just the round by line direct;
Wich by' ymagination draune from t'on to t'othr
Towchith the centre of the yerth, way there is no nothr;
And thes bene calld the poles, discribd by sterres not bryght
Artyke the t'one northward we se, Antartyke t'othr hight.
The lyne that we devise from t'on to t'othr so
As Axell is, apon the wich th'evins abowt doth go;
Wych off water nor yerth, of Ayre nor fyre have kynd:
Therfore the substance of those same were herd for man to fynd.
But thei ben vncorrupt, symple and pure, vnmixt;
And so we say bene all those sterrys that in those same bene fixt;
And eke those errying sevin in cyrcles as thei stray
So calld by cawse against that first thei have repugnant way.
And smaller by ways to, skant sensible to man
To busy work for my pore harp, let sing them he that can!
The widest, saff the first, off all these nyne above
On hundred yere doth aske of space for on degre to move:
Off wich degres we make In the first moving hevin
Thre hunderd and thre skore in partes, justly devidid evin.
And yet there is an othr by twene those hevins tow,
Whose moving is so sli, so slake, I name it not for now.
The sevent hevyn, or the shell next to the starry skye,
All those degres that gaderth vp with agid pas so slye,
And doth performe the same, as elders compt hath bene,
In nyne and twenty yeres complete and days almost sixtene,
Doth cary in his bowght the sterr off Saturne old,
A thretner of all lyving thinges with drowfft and with his cold.
The sixt whom this containes doth staulk with yonger pase,
And in twelff yere doth sum what more then t'othrs viage wase.
And this in it doth bere the sterre of Jove benigne,
Twene Saturns malice and vs men frendly deffendyng signe.
The fift berth blody Mars that in three hundred days
And twise elefn with on full yere hath finisht all those ways.
A yere doth aske the fourt, and houres thereto six,
And in the same the day his yie the sonner therein he stix.
The third that governd is by that that governth me,
And love for love and for no love provokes as offt we se.
In like space doth performe that cours that did the t'othr,
So doth the next to the same that second is in order,
But it doth bere the sterr that calld is Mercury,
That mayni' a craffty secret stepp doth tred as calcars try.
That skye is last and first, next vs those ways hath gone
In sevin and twenty comon days, and eke the third of one;
And beryth with his sway the diuerse mone abowt,
Now bryght, now browne, now bent, now full, and now her light is owt.
Thus have thei of thire owne two movinges all those sevin:
One, wherin they be carid still eche in his sevrall hevin;
An othr, of hym sellffes where theire bodis ben layd
In by ways and in lesser rowndes, as I afore have sayd.
Saff of them all, the sonne doth stray lest from the straight,
The sterry sky hath but on cowrse that we have calld the eight;
And all these movinges eight ar ment from west to th'est,
Altho thei seme to clymb alofft, I say, from est to west.
But that is but by force of the first moving skye,
In twise twellff howres from est to th'est that caryth them bye and bye.
But mark we well also thes movinges of these sevin
Be not about that axell tre of the first moving hevin;
For thei have theire two poles directly t'one to t'other [OMITTED]