Tired with deformities of death, I haste
  To the third temple of Diana chaste. 
  A sylvan scene with various greens was drawn,
  Shades on the sides, and in the midst a lawn:  620
  The silver Cynthia, with her nymphs around,
  Pursued the flying deer, the woods with horns resound: 
  Calisto there stood manifest of shame,
  And, turn’d a bear, the northern star became: 
  Her son was next, and, by peculiar grace,
  In the cold circle held the second place: 
  The stag Acteon in the stream had spied
  The naked huntress, and, for seeing, died: 
  His hounds, unknowing of his change pursue
  The chase, and their mistaken master slew. 630
  Peneian Daphne too was there to see,
  Apollo’s love before, and now his tree: 
  The adjoining fane the assembled Greeks express’d,
  And hunting of the Caledonian beast. 
  Oenides’ valour, and his envied prize;
  The fatal power of Atalanta’s eyes;
  Diana’s vengeance on the victor shown,
  The murderess mother; and consuming son;
  The Volscian queen extended on the plain;
  The treason punish’d, and the traitor slain. 640
  The rest were various huntings, well design’d,
  And savage beasts destroy’d, of every kind. 
  The graceful goddess was array’d in green;
  About her feet were little beagles seen,
  That watch’d with upward eyes the motions of their queen. 
  Her legs were buskin’d, and the left before,
  In act to shoot; a silver bow she bore,
  And at her back a painted quiver wore. 
  She trod a waxing moon, that soon would wane,
  And, drinking borrow’d light, be fill’d again:  650
  With downcast eyes, as seeming to survey
  The dark dominions, her alternate sway. 
  Before her stood a women in her throes,
  And call’d Lucina’s aid, her burden to disclose. 
  All these the painter drew with such command,
  That Nature snatch’d the pencil from his hand,
  Ashamed and angry that his art could feign
  And mend the tortures of a mother’s pain. 
  Theseus beheld the fanes of every god,
  And thought his mighty cost was well bestow’d. 660
  So princes now their poets should regard;
  But few can write, and fewer can reward.

    The theatre thus raised, the lists enclosed,
  And all with vast magnificence disposed,
  We leave the monarch pleased, and haste to bring
  The knights to combat, and their arms to sing.

BOOK III.

  The day approach’d when Fortune should decide
  The important enterprise, and give the bride;
  For now, the rivals round the world had sought,
  And each his number, well appointed, brought. 
  The nations, far and near, contend in choice,
  And send the flower of war by public voice;