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Neither I am a Shepherd, nor doe keepe
Cattell, or sheepe, but vvhat loue doth commend
To me to tend. In Delphos for mine honour,
Of vvhich the ovvnour I am, incense burnes.
Claros by turnes, and Tenedos likevvise
Burne sacrifice to me: The lands vvhich great
Xanthus doth vveat, vvherevvith such sudden voice
I doe reioice the harts of them, that craue
Ansvvers to haue by Oracle diuine.
Delphos is mine, and famous there I am.
Of birth I came more noble then the rest:
For (at the lest) the Gods are kinne to mee.
First in degree great Ioue my father is,
And she ywish that raignes in heauenly seate,
A Goddesse great (Latona) fairer then
Faire Titan, when in all his chiefest pride
Vnto his bride Aurora he doth hast:
By me things past, and those that present be
I know, and see, and things to come can tell:
I do excell in verse, and sweetest song:
With arme most strong I draw my bow and flight:
Where it doth light, it hits with sure wound:
Yet haue I found, that Cupids certaine arrow
Doth hit more narrow in my wounded breast,
Where all my rest and pleasures it hath spent.
I did inuent the art of medicine.
My wit diuine found out the secret power
Of euerie flower, and herbs whose vertues still
Vnto my skill, and practise subiect bee.
But woe is me, that neither herbe nor pill,
Nor phisickes skill to loue no ease imparts.
Nor that those arts, that profit euery one,
Cannot helpe me their master all alone.

Now running fast away betweene them both,
Daphne to flie Apollos wanton vvill,
Apollo follovving chaste Daphnes loue,
Loue helpe Apollo vvith his speedy vvings,
And vnto Daphnes feete feare tyed her vvings.
And both sufficient fauours haue of both,
But loue in fine doth ouercome pale feare,
Bicause he is more forvvard, light and hot.
But vvhen the Nymph did see herselfe surpris’d,
And that the God embrac’d her in his armes:
Lifting her hands and eies vnto the heauens,
Succour she crau’d of all th’immortall Gods,
Forgetting not her father demy God.
And in this sort besought their fauours all,