"Soft, Gooddie Sheepe!" then said the Foxe, "not soe:
Unto the King so rash ye may not goe;
He is with greater matter busied 1215
Than a lambe, or the lambes owne mothers hed.
Ne certes may I take it well in part,
That ye my cousin Wolfe so fowly thwart,
And seeke with slaunder his good name to blot:
For there was cause, els doo it he would not: 1220
Therefore surcease, good dame, and hence depart."
So went the Sheepe away with heavie hart;
So manie moe, so everie one was used,
That to give largely to the boxe refused.
Now when high Iove, in whose almightie hand 1225
The care of kings and power of empires stand,
Sitting one day within his turret hye,
From whence he vewes with his black-lidded eye
Whatso the heaven in his wide vawte containes,
And all that in the deepest earth remaines, 1230
And troubled kingdome of wilde beasts behelde,
Whom not their kindly sovereigne did welde,
[_Welde_, govern.]
But an usurping Ape, with guile suborn'd,
Had all subverst, he sdeignfully it scorn'd
In his great heart, and hardly did refraine 1235
But that with thunder bolts he had him slaine,
And driven downe to hell, his dewest meed.
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