BATTUS.
Poor kine! they've found their master a sorry knave indeed.

CORYDON.
They're poor enough, I grant you: they have not heart to feed.

BATTUS.
Look at that heifer! sure there's naught, save bare bones, left of her.
Pray, does she browse on dewdrops, as doth the grasshopper?

CORYDON.
Not she, by heaven! She pastures now by Æsarus' glades,
And handfuls fair I pluck her there of young and green grass-blades;
Now bounds about Latymnus, that gathering-place of shades.

BATTUS.
That bull again, the red one, my word but he is lean!
I wish the Sybarite burghers aye may offer to the queen
Of heaven as pitiful a beast: those burghers are so mean!

CORYDON.
Yet to the Salt Lake's edges I drive him, I can swear;
Up Physcus, up Neæthus' side--he lacks not victual there,
With dittany and endive and foxglove for his fare.

BATTUS.
Well, well! I pity Ægon. His cattle, go they must
To rack and ruin, all because vain-glory was his lust.
The pipe that erst he fashioned is doubtless scored with rust?