Phoebe all this while gazed on the perfection of Ganymede, as deeply enamored on his perfection as Montanus inveigled with hers; for her eye made survey of his excellent feature, which she found so rare, that she thought the ghost of Adonis had been leaped from Elysium in the shape of a swain. When she blushed at her own folly to look so long on a stranger, she mildly made answer to Ganymede thus:
"I cannot deny, sir, but I have heard of Love, though I never felt love; and have read of such a goddess as Venus, though I never saw any but her picture; and, perhaps"--and with that she waxed red and bashful, and withal silent; which Ganymede perceiving, commended in herself the bashfulness of the maid, and desired her to go forward.
"And perhaps, sir," quoth she, "mine eye hath been more prodigal to-day than ever before"--and with that she stayed again, as one greatly passionate and perplexed.
Aliena seeing the hare through the maze, bade her forward with her prattle, but in vain; for at this abrupt period she broke off, and with her eyes full of tears, and her face covered with a vermilion dye, she sate down and sighed. Whereupon Aliena and Ganymede, seeing the shepherdess in such a strange plight, left Phoebe with her Montanus, wishing her friendly that she would be more pliant to Love, lest in penance Venus joined her to some sharp repentance. Phoebe made no reply, but fetched such a sigh, that Echo made relation of her plaint, giving Ganymede such an adieu with a piercing glance, that the amorous girl-boy perceived Phoebe was pinched by the heel.
But leaving Phoebe to the follies of her new fancy, and Montanus to attend upon her, to Saladyne, who all this last night could not rest for the remembrance of Aliena; insomuch that he framed a sweet conceited sonnet to content his humor, which he put in his bosom, being requested by his brother Rosader to go to Aliena and Ganymede, to signify unto them that his wounds were not dangerous. A more happy message could not happen to Saladyne, that taking his forest bill on his neck, he trudgeth in all haste towards the plains where Aliena's flocks did feed, coming just to the place when they returned from Montanus and Phoebe. Fortune so conducted this jolly forester, that he encountered them and Corydon, whom he presently saluted in this manner: