Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake,
    Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm’d with a paltery sheephooke? 
    And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines,
    But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: 
    Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing
    His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire
    Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving,
    And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant,
    His three-flak’t lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon.

This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a ’God that gads by the mountaines’ is a pithy enough paraphrase of dio selvaggio, if hardly an accurate translation.  The unsatisfactory nature of the verse, however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas’ resolve to die.

    Phillis. As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee
    Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased.

    Daphne. Phillis alas is alive, but an other’s gone to be dying[229].

    Ph. And what mean’s this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded,
    That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred?

    Da. Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other.

    Ph. Whose death?

    Da. Death of Amyntas.

    Ph. Alas how dyed Amyntas?

    Da. How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe: 
    But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe.

    Ph. What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas?

    Da. Thy death.

    Ph. And I alive?

    Da. Thy death was lately reported,
    And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death.

Ph. Feare of Phillis death prov’d vayne, and feare of Amyntas Death
will proove vayne too:  life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.)

Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are not wholly wanting.  Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks: 

         Oh tardi saggia, e tardi
    Pietosa, quando cio nulla rileva;

a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a homely proverb, and writes: 

When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable.