Diana, that the golden spindle moves,
And lofty sounds as well as Bacchus loves,
A bashful virgin, and of fearful hearts
The death-affecter with delighted darts,
By sire and mother Phœbus’ sister born,
Whose thigh the golden falchion doth adorn,
I sing; who likewise over hills of shade
And promontories that vast winds invade,
Amorous of hunting, bends her all-gold bow,
And sigh-begetting arrows doth bestow
In fates so dreadful that the hill-tops quake,
And bristled woods their leafy foreheads shake,
Horrors invade earth, and [the] fishy seas
Impassion’d furies; nothing can appease
The dying brays of beasts. And her delight
In so much death affects so with affright
Even all inanimate natures; for, while she
Her sports applies, their general progeny
She all ways turns upon to all their banes.
Yet when her fiery pleasures find their wanes,
Her yielding bow unbent, to th’ ample house,
Seated in Delphos, rich and populous,
Of her dear brother, her retreats advance.
Where th’ instauration of delightsome dance
Amongst the Muses and the Graces she
Gives form; in which herself the regency
(Her unbent bow hung up, and casting on
A gracious robe) assumes, and first sets gone
The dances’ entry; to which all send forth
Their heavenly voices, and advance the worth
Of her fair-ankled mother, since to light
She children brought the far most exquisite
In counsels and performances of all
The Goddesses that grace the heavenly hall.
Hail then, Latona’s fair-hair’d Seed, and Jove’s!
My song shall ever call to mind your loves.