Miserable, but not cast down, by the many refusals he met with, Vertumnus
took a thousand shapes to influence the success of his suit.
"To gain access, a thousand ways he tries
Oft in the hind, the lover would disguise,
The heedless lout comes shambling on, and seems
Just sweating from the labour of his teams.
Then from the harvest, oft the mimic swain
Seems bending with a load of bearded grain.
Sometimes a dresser of the vine he feigns,
And lawless tendrils to their boughs restrains.
Sometimes his sword a soldier shews; his rod
An angler; still so various is the God.
Now, in a forehead cloth some crone he seems,
A staff supplying the defect of limbs:
Admittance thus he gains; admires the store
Of fairest fruit; the fair possessor more;
Then greets her with a kiss; th' unpractised dame
Admired, a grandame kissed with such a flame.
Now seated by her, he beholds a vine,
Around an elm in amorous foldings twine,
"If that fair elm," he cried, "alone should stand,
No grapes would glow with gold, and tempt the hand;
Or if that vine without her elm should grow,
'Twould creep a poor neglected shrub below.
Be then, fair nymph, by these examples led,
Nor shun for fancied fears, the nuptial bed."