• The lusty earth of own accord soon after forth did bring,
• According to their sundry shapes each other living thing.
• As soon as that the moisture once caught heat against the sun,
• And that the fat and slimy mud in moorish [spongy or damp] grounds begun
• To swell through warmth of Phoebus’ beams, and that the fruitful seed
• Of things well cherished in the fat and lively soil indeed,
• As in their mother’s womb, began in length of time to grow,
• To one or other kind of shape wherein themselves to show.
• So likewise when the seven-mouthed Nile the watery fields forsook,
• And to his ancient channel oft his bridled streams betook,
• So that the sun did heat the mud the which he left behind,
• The husbandmen that till the ground among the clods did find
• Of sundry creatures sundry shapes, of which they spied some
• Even in the instant of their birth but newly then begun,
• And some unperfect, wanting breast or shoulder in such wise,
• That in one body oftentimes appeared to their eyes
• One half thereof alive to be, and all the rest beside
• Both void of life and seemly shape, stark earth to still abide.
• For when that moisture with the heat is tempered equally,
• They straight conceive; and of them twain engender by and by
• All kind of thing. For though that fire with water ay [always] debateth,
• Yet moisture mixed with equal heat all living things createth.
• And so those discords in their kind, one striving with the other,
• In generation do agree and make one perfect mother.
• And therefore when the miry earth bespread with slimy mud,
• Brought over all but late before by violence of the flood,
• Caught heat by warmness of the sun and calmness of the sky,
• Things out of number in the world, forthwith it did supply,
• Whereof in part the like before in former times had been,
• And some so strange and ugly shapes as never erst were seen.
• In that she did such monsters breed was greatly to her woe,
• But yet, thou, ugly python, was engendered by her, though,
• A terror to the newmade folk, which never erst had known,
• So foul a dragon in their life, so monstrously forgrown [overgrown].

• All other creatures took their numerous birth
• And figures, from the voluntary earth.
• When that old humor with the sun did sweat,
• And slimy marshes grew big with heat,
• The pregnant seeds, as from their mother’s womb,
• From quickening earth both growth and form assume.
• So when seven channeled Nile forsakes the plain,
• When ancient bounds retiring streams contain,
• And late-left slime ethereal fervors [pulses of heat] burn,
• Men various creatures with the glebe [plow] up-turn:
• Of those, some in their very time of birth;
• Some lame, and others half alive, half earth.
• For heat and moisture, when they temperate grow,
• Forthwith conceive, and life on things bestow.
• From striving fire and water all proceed,
• Discording concord ever apt to breed
• So earth by that late deluge muddy grown,
• When on her lap reflecting Titan shone,
• Produced a world of forms; restored the late,
• And other unknown monsters did create.
• Huge python, thee, against her will, she bred,
• A serpent, whom the newborn people dread.

The earth follows next: unto which alone, of all parts of the world, for her singular benefits we have given the reverent and worshipful name of “mother.” For like as the heaven is the mother of God, even so is she of men. She it is that takes us when we are coming into the world, nourishes us when we are newborn, and, once being come abroad, ever sustains and bears us up. And at the last when we are rejected and forlorn of all the world besides, she embraces us. Then, most of all other times, like a kind mother she covers us all over in her bosom, by no merit more sacred than by it wherewith she makes us holy and sacred, even bearing our tombs, monuments, and titles, continuing our name, and extending our memory, thereby to make recompense and weigh against the shortness of our age. Whose last power we in our anger wish to be heavy unto our enemy, and yet she is heavy to none, as if we were ignorant that she alone is never angry with any man. Waters ascend up, and turn into clouds; they congeal and harden into hail. Swell they do into waves and billows, and down they hasten headlong into brooks and land floods. The air is thickened with clouds, and rages with winds and storms. But she is bountiful, mild, tender over us and indulgent, ready at all times to attend and wait upon the good of mortal men. See what she breeds being forced–nay, what she yields of her own accord! What odoriferous smells, and pleasant savors! What wholesome juices and liquors; what soft things to content our feeling; what lovely colors doth she give to please our eye! How faithfully and justly doth she repay with usury that which was lent and credited out unto her! Finally, what store of all things does she seed and nourish for our sake!

Alas poor wretch, pestiferous and hurtful creatures, when the vital breath of the air was to blame to give them life, she could not otherwise choose but receive them. But in that they proved afterwards bad and venomous, the fault was to be laid upon the parents that engendered them, and not to be imputed unto her. For she entertains no more a venomous serpent after it hath stung a man. Nay, more than that, she requires punishment for them that are slow and negligent of themselves to seek it. She it is that brings forth medicinal herbs, and evermore is in travail [labor] to be delivered of something or other good for man. Over and besides, it may be thought and believed that for very pity of us she ordained and appointed some poisons, that when we were weary of our life, cursed famine (most adverse and cross of all other to the merits of the earth) should not consume and waste us with languishing and pining consumption, and so procure our death; that high and steep rocks should not dash and crush our bodies in pieces; nor the overthwart and preposterous punishment by the halter wreath our necks and stop that vital breath which we seek to let out and be rid of; last of all, that we might not work our own death in the deep sea, and being drowned, feed fishes, and be buried in their bellies, nor yet the edge and point of the sword cut and pierce our body, and so put us to dolorous pain. So that it is no doubt, but in a pitiful regard and compassion of us, she has engendered that poison by one gentle draught whereof, going most easily down, we might forgo our life, and die without any hurt and skin broken of our body, yea, and diminish not one drop of blood–without grievous pain, I say, and like only to them who be athirst, that being in that manner dead, neither foul of the air, nor wild beast prey upon or touch our bodies, but that he should be reserved for the earth, who perished by himself and for himself.

And, to confess and say the truth, the earth has bred the remedy of all miseries, howsoever we have made it a venom and poison to our life. For after the like sort, we employ iron and steel, which we cannot possibly be without. And yet we should not do well and justly to complain, in case she had brought it forth for to do hurt and mischief. Now surely to this only part of nature and the world we are unthankful, as though she served not man’s turn for all dainties, not for contumely and reproach to be misused. Cast she is into the sea, or else to let in peers and friths [trickles and estuaries], eaten away with water. With iron tools, with wood, fire, stone, burdens of corn tormented she is every hour. And all this much more to content our pleasures and wanton delights than to serve us with natural food and necessary nourishment. And yet, these misusages which she abides above and in her outward skin may seem in some sort tolerable. But we, not satisfied therewith, pierce deeper and enter into her very bowels. We search into the veins of gold and silver; we mine and dig for copper and lead metals. And for to seek out gems and some little stones, we sink pits deep within the ground. Thus, we pluck the very heart-strings out of her, and all to wear on our finger one gem or precious stone, to fulfill our pleasure and desire. How many hands are worn with digging and delving, that one joint of our finger might shine again. Surely, if there were any devils or infernal spirits beneath, ere this time verily these mines (for to seed covetousness and riot) would have brought them up above ground. Marvel we then, if she had brought forth some things hurtful and noisome? But savage beasts (I well think) ward and save her; they keep sacrilegious hands from doing her injury. Nay iwis [truly] it is nothing so. Dig we not among dragons and serpents? And together with veins of gold, handle we not the roots of poisonous and venomous herbs? Howbeit, this goddess we find the better apayed [satisfied] and less discontented for all this misusage, for that the end and issue of all this wealth tends to wickedness, to murder and wars, and her whom we drench with our blood, we cover also with unburied bones. Which nevertheless, as if she did reprove and reproach us for this rage and fury of ours, she herself covers in the end, and hides close even the wicked parts of mortal men. Among other imputations of an unthankful mind, I may well count this also, that we be ignorant of her nature.

• Lastly, from a celestial seed all spring;
• One father is the author of each thing.
• He on the fertile earth his moist dew pours,
• Who, pregnant with those all engend’ring showers,
• Brings forth her happy offspring, shining corn
• And smiling plants, thence are all mankind born,
• Thence generations of wild beasts renewed,
• Nor only bears she them, but all their food.
• Thus they in pleasure wearing out their lives,
• Restore their broods, whence justly earth derives
• The name of mother; she doth reintomb
• Whatever springs out of her fruitful womb,
• And all that heaven to earthly births imparts
• Back to its first ethereal place reverts.
• (2.1010-1023)

• I now return to that young age when earth,
• Impregnated with her first various birth,
• Exposed her offspring to th’uncertain air,
• Green herbs and grass her firstborn issue were;
• These clothed the mountains, graced the lower field,
• Where mixed flowers did a various luster yield.
• The several kinds of trees advanced their heads,
• While each in strife-full growth large branches spreads,
• As the first downy plumes, bristles, and hair
• Which on young beasts and new hatched birds appear,
• So these fresh plants upon the new earth showed.
• Next she produced the various multitude
• Of living creatures, whose original
• Did neither from the upper heaven fall,
• Nor from th’inferior briny ocean came,
• But from earth’s fruitful womb, who hence the name
• Of the great mother gained, since whatsoe’er
• Enjoys a life received it first from her.
• For moist rains and sun’s digesting heat
• Even now do many animals create;
• Whence ’tis not strange more and more great were made,
• When heaven and earth their youthful vigors had.
• All sorts of birds disclosed in that first spring,
• Leaving their shells, betook them to their wing,
• And sought food to sustain their ranging lives,
• As grasshoppers whom the hot summer drives
• Out of their winter coats. Then in the ground
• Moisture and heat did very much abound,
• Which, wheresoever earth yielded them fit place,
• Impregnanted her womb with human race.
• When the ripe infant births disclosed were,
• Leaving the moisture, now they sucked in air
• For whom nature, through th’earth’s disclosed veins, sent
• A pleasant, juicy, milk-like nourishment,
• As new delivered women’s breasts, being filled
• With sweet milk, food for their young infants yield.
• The warm air clothed, the earth these children fed,
• The downy moss and soft grass was their bed.
• (5.818-854)

• O Nature, Nature, hearken to my cry:
• Each minute wounded am, but cannot die.
• My children, which I from my womb did bear,
• Do dig my sides, and all my bowels tear;
• Do plow deep furrows in my very face.
• From torment, I have neither time nor place.
• No other element is so abused,
• Nor by mankind so cruelly is used.
• Man cannot reach the skies to plow, and sow,
• Nor can they set or mark the stars to grow.
• But they are still as nature first did plant;
• Neither maturity, nor growth they want.
• They never die, nor do they yield their place
• To younger stars, but still run their own race.
• The sun doth never groan young suns to bear,
• For he himself is his own son and heir.
• The sun just in the center sits, as king;
• The planets round about incircle him.
• The slowest orbs over his head turn slow,
• And underneath, the swiftest planets go.
• Each several planet, several measures take,
• And with their motions they sweet music make.
• Thus all the planets round about him move,
• And he returns them light for their kind love.

• Book 7, lines 276-284
• The earth was formed, but in the womb as yet
• Of waters, embryon immature involved,
• Appeared not: over all the face of earth
• Main ocean flowed, not idle, but with warm
• Prolific humour soft’ning all her globe.
• Fermented the great Mother to conceive,
• Satiate with genial moisture, when God said:
• “Be gathered now ye waters under heav’n
• Into one place, and let dry land appear.”

• Book 7, lines 450-56
• when God said,
• Let th’earth bring forth fowl living in her kind,
• Cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth,
• Each in their kind. The earth obeyed, and straight
• Op’ning her fertile womb teemed at a birth
• Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
• Limbed and full grown.

• Book One, lines 678-692
• Mammon led them on,
• Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
• From heav’n, for ev’n in heav’n his looks and thoughts
• Were always downward bent, admiring more
• The riches of heaven’s pavement, trod’n gold,
• Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
• In vision beatific. By him first
• Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
• Ransacked the center, and with impious hands
• Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
• For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
• Op’n’d into the hill a spacious wound
• And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire
• That riches grow in Hell: that soil may best
• Deserve the precious bane.