The Faerie Queen (extracts)
Edmund Spenser (1590)

... six unequall beasts,
on which her six sage Counsellours did ryde,
Taught to obay their bestiall beheasts,
Of which the first, that all the rest did guyde,
Was slugglish Idlenesse the nourse of sin ...

... And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
His belly was up-blowne with luxury,
And like a Crane his necke was long and fyne,
With which he swallowd up excessive feast,
For want whereof poore people oft did pyne ...

... And next to him rode lustfull Lechery,
with whally eyes (the signe of gelosy),
Who rough, and blacke, and filthy did appeare,
Yet he of Ladies oft was loued deare ...

... And greedy Auarice by him did ride,
Upon a Camell loaden all with gold;
Two iron coffers hong on either side,
With precious mettall full, as they might hold,
And in his lap an heape of coine he told,
For of his wicked pelfe his God he made,
And unto hell him selfe for money sold ...

... And next to him malicious Enuie rode,
Upon a ravenous wolfe, and still did chaw
Betweene his cankred teeth a venemous tode,
That all the poison ran about his chaw;
But inwardly he chawed his owne maw
At neighbours wealth, that made him euer sad;
For death it was, when any good he saw,
And wept, that cause of weeping none he had...

... And him beside rides fierce reuenging Wrath,
unmanly murder, and unthrifty scath,
Bitter despight, with rancours rusty knife,
And fretting griefe the enemy of life ...

... And after all, upon the wagon beam
Rode Sathan, with a smarting whip in hand,
So oft as Slowth still in the mire did stand.
A foggy mist had covered all the land:
And underneath their feet, all scattered lay
Dead sculls and bones of men, whose life had gone astray.