neerenesse. And the same againe which was hardlie to bee seene, to offer
it selfe more and more, to the iudgement of the eye, with exquisite
parergie and shadowing Waters, Fountaines, Mountaines, Hilles, woodes,
and beasts, in theyr naturall coulours, and distante one from an other,
with opposite light. And in apparrell the plyghts and fouldes so
cunninglye perfected and shaddowed that as well in that, as in all the
rest, the arte did seeme to enuye nature it selfe, and that not a little
whereat I greatly woondered.

After this manner I came to the further ende, where the beautifull
hystories finished, and beyond the same more inward the darknes was such
as I durst not enter, & comming back againe I heard among the ruines a
continuing noise like the cracking of bones or their ratling together,
whereat I stood still forgetting my fore conceiued delight being
interrupted therewith from the sweetnes of the obiects. At length I
might heare a rustling as if a dead Oxe had been dragged vpon the
ground, the noyse still approaching and comming neerer and neerer the
poarch that I was to passe out at, where I heard a great hissing of a
huge Serpent: the sodaine feare I was in, made mee past crying out for
helpe, neither did I see how to escape, but by running into the darke
and obscure vastnes whiche before I was afraide to enter into.

Oh vnhappie wretch oppressed with aduers and sad fortune, I saw in the
entrie of the doore comming towardes mee, no hurtfull _L_yon crowching
to _Androdus_, but a fearefull and horrible Dragon[A] shaking her
trisulked and three parted tongue against mee, grating her teeth, and
making a skritching or critching noyse, her squamy and scaly hide
trailing vpon the flowerd pauement, clapping her winges vpon her
wrimpled backe, with a long taile folding and crinckling like and Eele
and neuer resting. _Ohi me_, the sight was sufficient to haue affrighted