The waves come rolling, and the billows roar,
Outrageously, as they enraged were,
Or wrathful Neptune did them drive before
His whirling chariot, for exceeding fear:
For not one puff of wind did there appear,
That all thereat wax much afraid,
Unwitting what such horror strange did rear.
Eftsoones they saw a hideous host arrayed
Of huge sea monsters, such as living sense dismayed.
Most ugly shapes, and horrible aspects
Such as Dame Nature self might fear to see
Or shame, that ever should so foul defects
From her most cunning hand escaped be;
All dreadful portraits of deformity:
Spring-headed Hydras, and sea-should’ring whales,
Great whirlpools, which all fishes make to flee,
Bright Scolopendras, armed with silver scales,
Mighty Monoceroses, with immeasured tails.
The dreadful fish, that hath deserved the name
Of death, and like him looks in dreadful hue,
The grisly wasserman, that makes his game
The flying ships with swiftness to pursue,
The horrible sea-satyr, that doth show
His fearful face in times of greatest storm,
Huge Ziffius whom mariners eschew,
No less than rocks (as travellers inform,)
And greedy rosmarines with visages deforme.
All these, and thousands thousands many more,
And more deformed monsters thousand fold,
With dreadful noise, and hollow rumbling roar,
Came rushing in the foamy waves enrold,
Which seemed to fly for fear, them to behold:
No wonder, if these did the knight appal,
For all that here on earth we dreadful hold,
Be but as bugs to fearen babes withal,
Compared to the creatures in the sea’s entrall.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)