even those things that we are not able to cōpasse make good as namely our commendatorie letters for to finde favour in princes courts to be mediators for them unto great rulers and governors and to talke with them about their causes as being neither willing nor so hardie as thus to say The king knoweth not us hee regardeth others more and you were better go to such and such After this manner when Lysander had offended king Agesilaus and incurred his heavy displeasure and yet was thought woorthie to be chiefe in credit above all those that were about him in regard of the great opinion and reputation that men had of him for his noble acts he never bashed to repell and put backe those suters that came unto him making excuse and bidding them to go unto others and assay them who were in greater credit with the king than himselfe For it is no shame not to be able to effect all things but for a man to be driven upon a foolish modestie to enterprise such matters as he is neither able to compasse nor meet to mannage besides that it is shamefull I hold it also a right great corrosive to the heart But now to goe unto another principle we ought willingly and with a ready heart to doe pleasure unto those that request at our hands such things as be meet and reasonable not as forced thereto by a rusticall feare of shame but as yeelding unto reason and equity Contrariwise if their demaunds be hurtfull absurd and without all reason we ought evermore to have the saying of Zeno in readinesse who meeting with a yoong man one of his acquaintance walking close under the towne wall secretly as if he would not be seene asked of him the cause of his being there and understanding by him that it was because he would avoide one of his friends who had beene earnest with him to beare false witnes in his behalfe What saist thou quoth Zeno sot that thou art Was thy friend so bold and shamelesseto require that of thee which is unreasonable unjust and hurtfull unto thee And darest thou not stand against him in that which is just and honest For whosoever he was that said A crooked wedge is fit to cleave a knotted knurry tree It well be seemes against leawd folke with lewdnesse arm'd to be teacheth us an ill lesson to learne to be naught our selves when we would be revenged of naughtinesse But such as repulse those who impudently and with a shamelesse face doe molest and trouble them not suffering themselves to be overcome with shamefacednesse but rather shame to graunt unto shamelesse beggers those things that be shameful are wise men and well advised doing herein that which is right and just Now as touching those importunate and shamelesse persons who otherwise are but obscure base and of no woorth it is of no great matter to resist them when they be troublesome unto us And some there be who make no more ado but shift them off with laughter or a skoffe like as Theocritus served twaine who would seeme to borrow of him his rubber or currying combe in the verie baine of which two the one was a meere stranger unto him the other he knew well enough for a notorious theefe I know not you quoth he to the one and to the other I know what you are well enough and so he sent them both away with a meere frumpe Lysimache the priestresse of Minerva in Athens surnamed Polias that is the patronesse of the citie when certaine Muletters who brought sacrifices unto the temple called unto her for to powre them out drinke freely No quoth she my good friends I may not do so for feare you will make a custome of it Antigonus had under him in his retinue a yoong gentleman whose father in times past had bene a good warriour and lead a band or company of souldiours but himselfe was a very coward and of no service and when he sued unto him in regard of his birth to be advanced unto the place of his father late deceased Yoong man quoth he my maner is to recompense and honour the prowesse and manhood of my souldiours and not their good parentage But if the party who assaileth our modesty be a noble man of might and authority and such kinde of persons of all other will most hardly endure a repulse and be put off with a deniall or excuse and namely in the case of giving sentence or award in a matter of judgement or in a voice at the election of magistrates preadventure it may be thought neither easie nor necessarie to doe that which Cato sometimes did being then but of yoong yeeres unto Catulus now this Catulus was a man of exceeding great authoritie among the Romans and for that time bare the Censureship who came unto Cato then Lord high treasurer of Rome that yeere as a mediatour and intercessour for one who had bene condemned before by Cato in a round fine pressing and importuning him so hard with earnest praier and entreaty that in the end Cato seeing how urgent and unreasonable he was and not able to endure him any longer was forced to say thus unto him You would thinke it a foule disgrace and shame for you Catulus Censour as you are since you will not receive an answere and be gone if my serjeants and officers here should take you by the head and shoulders and send you away with that Catulus being abashed and ashamed departed in great anger and discontentment But consider rather and see whether the answere of Agesilaus and that which Themistocles made were not more modest and savoured of greater humanity for Agesilaus when his own father willed him to give sentence in a certain cause that was brought before him against all right and directly contrary to the lawes Father quoth he your selfe have taught me from my very child-hood to obey the lawes I will be therfore obedient still to your good precepts and passe no judgement against law As for Themistocles when as Simontdes seemed to request of him some what which was unjust and unlawfull Neither were you Simonides quoth he a good Poet if you should not keepe time and number in your song nor I a good Magistrate if I should judge against the law And yet as Plato was woont to say it is not for want of due proportion betweene the necke and body of the lute that one citie is at variance with another citie and friends fall out and be at difference doing what mischiefe they can one to another and suffering the like againe but for this rather that they offend and faile in that which concerneth law and justice Howbeit you shall have some who themselves observing the precise rules most exactly according to art in Musicke in Grammaticall orthographie and in the Poeticall quantitie of syllables and measures of feet can be in hand with others and request them to neglect and forget that which they ought to do in the
to thirst after glory be for the most part envious jealous toward those who are more honored renowmed than they it were very expedient for brethren if they would avoid this inconvenience not to seeke for to atteine either honour or authoritie and credit all by the same meanes but some by one thing and some by another for we see by daily experience it is an ordinarie matter that wilde beasts do fight and warre one with another namely when they feede in one and the same pasture and among champions and such as strive for the masterie in feats of activitie we count those for their adversaries and concurrents onely who professe and practise the fame kinde of game or exercise for those that goe to it with fists and buffers are commonly friends good enough to such sword-fencers as fight at sharpe to the utterance and well-willers to the champions called Pancratiastae likewise the runners in a race agree full-well with wrestlers these I say are ready to aide assist and favor one another which is the reason that of the two sonnes of Tyndarus Pollux wan the prize alwaies at buffets but Castor his brother went away with the victorie in the race And Homer very well in his Poeme feigned that Teucer was an excellent archer and became famous thereby but his brother Ajax was best at close fight and hand-strokes standing to it heavily armed at all peeces And with his shield so bright and wide His brother Teucer he did hide And thus it is with them that governe a State and common weale those that be men of armes and manage martiall affaires never lightly do envie them much who deale in civill causes and use to make speeches unto the people likewise among those that prosesse Rhetoricke and eloquence advocates who plead at barre never fall out with those Sophisters that read lectures of oratorie among professors of Physicke they that cure by diet envie not the chirurgions who worke by hand whereas they who endevour and seeke to win credite and estimation by the same art or by their facultie and sufficiencie in any one thing do as much especially if they be badly minded withall as those rivals who loving one mistresse would be better welcome and finde more grace and favour at her hands one than another True it is I must needes confesse that they who go divers waies doe no good one to another but surely such as choose sundrie courses of life doe not onely avoid the occasions of envie but also by that meanes the rather have mutuall helpe one by the other thus Demosthenes and Chares sorted well together Aeschines likewise and Eubulus accorded Hyperides also and Leosthenes were lovers and friends in every which couple the former imploied themselves in pleading and speaking before the people were writers and pen-men whereas the other conducted armies were warriors and men of action Brethren therefore who cannot communicate in glorie and credit together without envie ought to set their desires and ambitious mindes as farre remote one from another and turne them full as contrarie as they can if they would finde comfort and not receive displeasure by the prosperitie and happy successe one of another but above all a principall care and regard they must have of their kindred and alliance yea and otherwhiles of their verie wives and namely when they be readie with their perillous speeches many times to blow more coales and thereby enkindle their ambitious humour Your brother quoth one doth woonders he carrieth all before him he beareth the sway no talke there is but of him he is admired and every man maketh court to him whereas there is no resort to you no man commeth toward you nothing is there in you that men regard or set by When these suggestions shall be thus whispered a brother that is wise and well minded may well say thus againe I have a brother in deed whose name is up and carrieth a great side and verily the greater part of his credit and authoritie is mine and at my commaundement For Socrates was woont to say that hee would choose rather to have Darius his friend than his Daricks And a brother who is of found and good judgement will thinke that he hath no lesse benefit when his brother is placed in great estate of government blessed with riches or advanced to credit and reputation by his gift of eloquence than if himselfe were a ruler wealthie learned and eloquent Thus you may see the best and readiest meanes that are to qualifie and mitigate this unequalitie betweene brethren Now there be other disagreements besides that grow quickly betweene especially if they want good bringing up and are not well taught and namely in regard of their age For commonly the elder who thinke that by good right they ought to have the command rule and government of their yoonger brethren in everie thing and who held it great reason that they should be honored and have power and authoritie alwaies above them commonly do use them hardly and are nothing kinde and lightsome unto them the yoonger againe being stubborne wilfull and unruly ready also to shake off the bridle are woont to make no reckoning of their elder brethrens prerogative but set them at naught and despise them whereby it commeth to passe that as the yoonger of one side envied are held downe with envie and kept under alwaies by their elder brethren and so shunne their rebukes and skorne their admonitions so these on the other side desirous to hold their owne and maintaine their preeminence and soveraigntie over them stand alwaies in dread lest their yoonger brethren should grow too much as if the rising of them were their fall But like as the case standeth in a benefit or good turne that is done men say it is meet that the receiver should esteeme the thing greater than it is and the giver make the least of it even so he that can perswade the elder that the time whereby he hath the vantage of his other brethren is no great thing and likewise the yoonger that he should reckon the same birth-right for no small matter he shall do a good deed betweene them in delivering the one from disdaine contempt and suspicion and the other from irreverence and negligence Now forasmuch as it is meet that the elder should take care and charge teach and instruct admonish and reproove the yoonger and as fit likewise the yoonger should honor imitate and follow the elder I could wish that the sollicitude and care of the elder savoured rather of a companion and fellow than of a father that himselfe also would seeme not so much to command as to perswade and to be more prompt and ready to joy for his yoonger brothers wel-doing and to praise him for it than in any wise take pleasure in reprehending and blaming him if haply he have forgotten his duetie and in one word to do the one not onely more willingly but also with greater
commeth to a feast or a rude traveller who seeketh for lodging when it is darke night for even so thou wouldest remoove not to a place nor to a region but to a life whereof thou hast no proofe and triall As for this sentence and verse of Simonides The city can instruct a man true it is if it be meant of them who have sufficient time to be taught and to learne any science which is not gotten but hardly and with much ado after great studie long travell continuall exercise and practise provided also that it meet with a nature painfull and laborious patient and able to undergo all adversities of fortune These reasons a man may seeme very well and to the purpose to alledge against those who begin when they be well stricken in yeeres to deale in publike affaires of the State And yet we see the contrary how men of great wisedome and judgement divert children and yoong men from the government of common-weale who also have the testimonie of the lawes on their side by ordinance whereof at Athens the publicke Crier or Bedle calleth and summoneth to the pulpit or place of audience not such as yoong Alcibiades or Pytheas for to stand up first and speake before the assemblie of the people but those that be above fiftie yeeres of age and such they exhort both to make orations and also to deliver their minds and counsell what is most expedient to be done And Cato being accused when he was fourescore yeeres olde and upward in pleading of his own cause thus answered for himselfe It is an harder matter my masters quoth he for a man to render an account of his life and to justifie the same before other men than those with whom he hath lived And no man there is but he will confesse that the acts which Caesar Augustus atchieved a little before his death in defaiting Antonius were much more roiall and profitable to the weale-publicke than any others that ever hee performed all his life-time before and himselfe in restraining and reforming secretly by good customes and ordinances the dissolute riots of yoong men and namely when they mutined said no more but thus unto them Listen yoong men and heare an olde man speake whom olde men gave eare unto when he was but yoong The government also of Pericles was at the height and of greatest power and authoritie in his olde age at what time as he perswaded the Athenians to enter upon the Peloponesiacke warre but when they would needs in all haste and out of season set forward with their power to encounter with threescore thousand men all armed and well appointed who forraied and wasted their territorie he withstood them and hindered their dessigned enterprise and that in maner by holding sure the armour of the people out of their hands and as one would say by keeping the gates of the citie fast locked and sealed up But as touching that which Xenophon hath written of Agesilaus it is worthy to be delivered word for word as he setteth it downe in these tearmes What youth quoth he was ever so gallant but his age surpassed it what man was there ever in the flower and very best of all his time more dread and terrible to his enemies than Agesilaus was in the very latter end of his daies whose death at any time was more joyfull to enemies than that of Agesilaus although he was very olde when he died what was he that emboldened allies and confederates making them assured and confident if Agesilaus did not notwithstanding he was now at the very pits brincke and had in maner one foot already in his grave what yoong man was ever more missed among his friends and lamented more bitterly when he was dead than Agesilaus how olde so ever he was when he departed this life The long time that these noble personages lived was no impediment unto them in atchieving such noble and honourable services but we in these daies play the delicate wantons in government of cities where there is neither tyrannie to suppresse nor warre to conduct nor siege to be raised and being secured from troubles of warre we sit still with one hand in another being roubled onely with civill debates among citizens and some emulations which for the most part are voided and brought to an end by vertue of the lawes and justice onely with words Wee forbeare I say and draw backe from dealing in these publicke affaires for feare confessing our selves herein to be more cowardly and false-hearted I will not say than the ancient captaines and governours of the people in olde time but even worse than Poets Sophisters and Plaiers in Tragedies and Comedies of those daies If it be true as it is that Simonides in his olde age wan the prize for enditing ditties and setting songs in quires and dances according to the epigram made of him which testifieth no lesse in the last verses thereof running in this maner Fourescore yeeres olde was Simonides The Poet and sonne of Treoprepes Whom for his carrols and musicall vaine The prize he won and honour did gaine It is reported also of Sophocles that when he was accused judicially for dotage by his owne children who laied to his charge that he was become a childe againe unfitting for governing his house and had need therefore of a guardian being convented before the judges he rehearsed in open court the entrance of the chorus belonging to the Tragedie of his entituled Oedipus in Colono which beginneth in this wise Wel-come stranger at thy entrie To villages best of this countrie Renowmed for good steeds in fight The tribe of faire Colonus hight Where nightingale doth oft resort Her dolefull moanes for to report Amid greene bowers which she doth haunt Her sundrie notes and laies to chaunt With voice so shrill as in no ground Elswhere her songs so much resound c. And for that this canticle or sonet wonderfully pleased the judges and the rest of the company they all arose from the bench went out of the Court and accompanied him home to his house with great acclamations for joy and clapping of hands in his honour as they would have done in their departure from the Theater where the Tragedie had bene lively acted indeed Also it is confessed for certeine that an epigram also was made of Sophocles to this effect When Sophocles this sonnet wrote To grace and honour Herodote His daies of life by just account To fiftie five yeeres did amount Philemon and Alexis both comicall Poets chanced to be arrested and surprised with death even as they plaied their Comedie upon the stage for the prize and were about to be crowned with garlands for the victorie As for Paulus or Polus the actour of Tragedies Eratosthenes and Philochorus do report That when he was threescore yeeres olde and ten he acted eight Tragedies within the space of foure daies a little before his death Is it not then a right great shame that olde men
presence and so reteined him for one yeere longer saying withall this verse The hire of silence now I see Is out of perill and jeopardie Having heard that King Alexander the Great at the age of two and thirtie yeeres having performed most part of his conquests was in doubt with himselfe and perplexed what to do and how to be employed afterwards I woonder quoth he that Alexander thought it not a more difficult matter to governe and preserve a great empire after it is once gotten than to winne and conquer it at first When he had enacted the law Julia as touching adulterie wherein is set downe determinately the manner of processe against those that be attaint of that crime and how such are to be punished who be convict thereof it hapned that through impatience and heat of choler he fell upon a yoong gentleman who was accused to have committed adulterie with his daughter Julia in so much as he buffetted him well and thorowly with his owne fists the yoong man thereupon cried unto him Your selfe have made a law Caesar which ordaineth the order and forme of proceeding against adulteries whereat he was so dismaied abashed yea and so repented himselfe of this miscariage that he would not that day eat anie supper When he sent his nephew or daughters sonne Caius into Armenia he praied unto the gods to accompanie him with that good will of all men which Pompey had with the valiantnesse of Alexander the Great and with his owne good fortune He said that he left unto the Romans for to succeed him in the empire one who never in his life had consulted twise of one thing meaning Tyberius Minding to appease certaine yoong Romane gentlemen of honour and authoritie who made a great noise and stirre in his presence when he saw that for all his first admonitions he could do no good he said unto them Yoong gentlemen give 〈◊〉 unto me an old man whom when I was yoong as you are auncient men would give 〈◊〉 unto The people of Athens had offended and done him some displeasure unto whom hee 〈◊〉 in this wise You are not ignorant I suppose that I am displeased with you for otherwise I would not have wintered in this little isse Aegina and more than thus he neither did nor said afterwards unto them When one of Eurycles his accusers had at large with all libertie and 〈◊〉 centiousnesse of speech uttered against him without any respect what he would he let him run on still untill he came to these words And if these matters Caesar seeme not unto you notorious and heinous command him to rehearse unto me the seventh booke of Thucydides Caesar offended now at his audacious impudencie commanded him to be had away and led to prison but being advertised that he was the onely man left of the race and line of captaine Brasidas hee sent for him and after he had given him some sew good admonitious he let him goe 〈◊〉 had built him a most stately and magnisicent house even from the foundation to the roose thereof which when Caesar saw he said It rejoiceth my heart exceedingly to see thee build thus as if Rome should continue world without end LACONICKE APOPHTHEGMES OR THE NOTABLE SAYINGS OF LACEDAEMONIANS The Summarie PLutarch had in the collection precedent among the Apophthegmes of renowmed Greeks mingled certaine notable sayings of King Agesilaus and other Lacedaemonians but now he exhibiteth unto us a treatise by it selfe of the said Lacedaemonians who deserve no doubt to be registred apart by themselves as being a people who of all other nations destitute of the true knowledge of God least abused their tongue 〈◊〉 which regard also he maketh a more ample description of their Apphthegmes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by so many pleasant speeches and lively reencounters that it was no marvell if so 〈◊〉 a 〈◊〉 Sparta was flourished so long being governed and peopled by men of such dexterity and so well 〈◊〉 the parts both of bodie and minde and yet who knew better to do than to say Moreover this Catalogue here is distinguished into foure principall portions whereof the first representeth the 〈◊〉 speeches of Kings Generall captaines Lords and men of name in Lacedaemon the second 〈◊〉 the Apophthegmes of such Lacedaemonians whose names are unknowen the third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the customes ordinances which serve for the maintenance of their estate and the fourth 〈◊〉 certaine sayings of some of their women wherein may be seene so much the more the valour megnanimitie of that nation As touching the profit that a man may draw out of these 〈◊〉 it is verie great in everie respect neither is there any person of what age or condition soever but he may learne herein verie much and namely how to speake little to say well and to 〈◊〉 himselfe vertuously as the reading thereof will make proofe We have noted 〈◊〉 and observed somewhat in the margin not particularising upon everie part but onely to give a taste and appetite unto the Reader for to meditate better thereof and to apply unto his owne use both it and all the rest which he may there comprehend and understand LACONICKE APOPHthegmes or the notable sayings of Lacedaemonians AGESICLES a king of the Lacedaemonians by nature given to heare and desirous to learne when one of his familiar friends said unto him I woonder sir since you take so great pleasure otherwise to heare men speake wel and eloquently that you do not entertaine the famous sophister or rhetorician Philophanes for to teach you made him this answer It is because I desire to be their scholler whose sonne also I am that is among whom I am borne And to another who demaunded of him how a prince could raigne in safetie not having about him his guards for the suretie of his person Marie quoth he if he rule his subjects as a good father governeth his children AGESILAUS the Great being at a certaine feast was by lot chosen the master of the said feast and to him it appertained to set downe a certaine law both in what manner and how much everie one ought to drinke now when the butler or skinker asked him how much he should poure out for everie one he answered If thou be well provided and have good store of wine fill out as much as everie man list to call for but if thou have no great plentie of it let everie guest have alike There was a malefactor who being in prison endured constantly before him all maper of torments which when he saw What a cursed wretch is this and wicked in the highest degree who doth employ this patience and resolute fortitude in the maintenance of so shamefull and mischievous parts as he hath committed One highly praised in his presence a certaine master of Rhetoricke for that he could by his eloquent toong amplifie small matters making them seeme great wherupon he said I take him not to be a good shomaker who putteth on a big
thing that she hath to beare himselfe equall unto her and in no wise subject giving by his good demeanour and carriage a counterpeise to the balance for to hold her firme or a waight rather to make her incline and bend that way which is good for them both Now to returne unto Ismenodora her yeeres are meet for mariage and her person fitte for breeding and bearing children and I heare say the woman is in the very floure and best of her time for elder she is not and with that he smiled upon Pisias than any of her suters and corrivals neither hath she any gray haires as some of those that be affectionate to Bacchon and follow him Now if they thinke themselves of a meet age to converse familiarly with him what should hinder her but she should affect and fancie the yong mans person as well if not better as any yong maiden whatsoever And verily these yong folke are otherwhiles hard to be matched united and concorporated together and much a doe there is but by long continuance of time to cast aside and shake off wantonnesse and wildenesse for at the first there is many a soule day and blustring tempest and 〈◊〉 will they abide the yoke and drawe together but especially if there be any inkling or jelousie of other loves abroad which like unto windes when the pilot is away do trouble and disquiet the wedlocke of such yoong persons as neither be willing to obey nor have the skill to commaund If it be so then that a nourse can rule her little babe sucking at her pap a schoolemaster the boy that is his scholar a master of exercises the yong springall a lover the youth whom he loveth the law and the captaine a man growen and him that is able to beare armes insomuch as there is no person of what age soever without government and at his owne libertie to doe what he list what absurdity is it if a wife that hath wit and discretion and is besides the elder governe and direct the life of a yong man her husband being as she is profitable unto him in regard she is the wiser and besides milde and gentle in her government for that she loveth him Over and besides to conclude we all that are Boeotians quoth he ought both to honour Hercules and also not to be offended with the mariage of those who are in yeeres unequall knowing as we doe that he gave his owne wife Megara being thirty three yeeres olde in mariage to Iolaus being then but sixteene yeeres of age As these words passed to and fro there came as my father made report one of 〈◊〉 companions galloping hard one horsebacke from out of the city bringing newes of a very strange and wonderfull occurrent For Ismenodora perswading her selfe as probable it was that Bacchon misliked not this mariage in his heart but that he held off for the respect and reverence that he carried unto those who seemed to divert him from it resolved not to give over her suit nor to cast off the yong men Whereupon she sent for such of her friends as were lusty yong and adventurous gallants and withall her favourits those that wished well to her love certaine women also who were inward with her and most trusty and when she had assembled them all together in her house and communicated her mind unto them she waited the very houre when as Bacchon was wont ordinarily to passe by her dores going well and orderly appointed forth to the publicke place of wrestling Now when he approched nere unto her house all enhuiled and anointed as he was accompanied only with two or three persons Ismenodora her selfe stepped forth of dores crossed the way upon him and only touched the mandilion that he had about him which signall being given all at once her friends leapt forth faire caught up this faire youth in his mandilion and dublet as he was and gently caried him into her house and immediatly shut the dores fast locked No sooner had they gotten him within dores but the women in the house turning him out of his upper mandilion aforesaid put upon him a faire wedding robe with all the servants of the house ran up and downe and adorned with ivie and olive branches the dores and gates not onely of Ismenodora but also of Bacchons house and with that a minstrill wench also passed along through the street piping and singing a wedding song As for the citizens of Thespiae and the strangers who were there at that time some of them tooke up a laughter others being angry and offended hereat incited the masters and governours of the publicke exercises who indeed have great authority over the youth and carry a vigilent eie unto them for to looke nerely unto all their behaviours whereupon they made no account at all of the present exercises then in hand but leaving the theater to the dore they came of Ismenodora where they fell into hot reasoning and debating of the matter one against another Now when the said friend of Pisias was come in all haste riding upon the spurre with this newes as if he had brought some great tidings out of the campe in time of warre he had no sooner uttered panting for want of winde and in maner breathlesse these words Ismenodora hath ravished Bacchon but Zeuxippus as my father told the tale laughed heartily and out of Euripides as he was one who alwaies loved to reade that Poet pronounced this sentence Well done faire dame you having wealth at will Are worldly wise your minde thus to fulfill But Pisias rising up in great choler cried out O the will of God what will be the end of this licentious libertie which thus overthroweth our citie seeing how all the world is growen already to this passe that through our unbrideled audaciousnesse we doe what we list and passe for no lawes but why say I lawes for haply it is but a ridiculous thing to take indignation for the transgressing of civill law and right for even the very lawe of nature is violated by the insolent rashnesse of women Was there ever the like example seene in the very isle Lemnos Let us be gone quoth he goe we and quit from hence foorth the wrestling schooles and publike place of exercises the common hall of justice and the senate house and commit all to women if the city be so inervate as to put up such an indignitie So Pisias brake company and departed in these termes and Protogenes followed after him partly as angry as he and in part appeasing mitigating his mood a little Then Anthemion To say a trueth quoth he this was an audacious part of hers and savouring somwhat of the enterprise of those Lemnian wives in old time and no marvell for we our selves know that the woman was exceeding amorous Hereat Soclarus Why thinke you quoth he that this was a ravishment indeed and plaine force and not rather a subtile devise and stratageme as
that authour is of such are all one in effect with the opinions and discourses of Plato in his dialogue Gorgias and in his books of Common weale to wit that more dangerous it is to doe wrong that to suffer injurie and more damage commeth by giving than by receiving an abuse Also to this verse of Aeschylus Be of good cheere Excessive paine Can not endure nor long remaine When wofull bale is at the highest Then blessed boot be sure is nighest we must say that they be the very same with that divulged sentence so often repeated by Epicurus and so highly admired by his followers namely That as great paines are not durable so long griefs are tolerable And as the former member of this sentence was evidently expressed by Acschylus so the other is a consequent thereof and implied therein For if a griefe that is fore and vehement endureth not surely that which continueth can not be violent or intolerable Semblably this sentence of Thespis the Poet in verse Thou seest how Iove all other gods for this doth farre excell Because that lies he doth abhorre and pride of heart expell He is not wont to laugh and scorne to frumpe he doth disdaine He onely can not skill of lusts and pleasures which be vaine is varied by Plato in prose when he saith that the divine power is seated farre from pleasure and paine As for these verses of Barchylides We holde it true and ever will maintaine That glory sound and vertue doth endure Great wealth and store we take to be but vaine And may befall to vile men and impure As also these of Euripides to the like sense Sage temperance I holde we ought to honour most in heart For with good men it doth remaine and never will depart As also these When honour and worldly wealth you have To furnish your selves with vertue take care Without her if riches you get and save Though blessed you seeme unhappy you are Containe they not an evident proofe and demonstration of that which the Philosophers teach as touching riches and externall goods which without vertue profit not those at all who are possessed of them And verily thus to reduce and fitly to accommodate the sentences of Poets unto the precepts and principles delivered by Philosophers will soone dissever Poetrie from fables and plucke from it the masque wherewith it is disguised it will give I say unto them an esfectuall power that being profitably spoken they may be thought serious and perswasive yea and besides will make an overture and way unto the minde of a yoong ladde that it may encline the rather to Philosophicall reasons and discourses namely when he having gotten some smatch and taste alreadie thereof and being not voide altogether of hearing good things he shall not come altogether without judgement replenished onely with foolish conceits and opinions which he hath evermore heard from his mothers and nurses mouth yea and otherwhiles beleeve me from his father tutour and schoole-master who will not sticke in his hearing to repute for blessed and happie yea and with great reverence to give the worship to those who are rich but as for death paine and labour to stand in feare and horror thereof and contrariwise to make no reckoning and account of vertue but to despise the same and thinke it as good as nothing without earthly riches and authoritie Certes when yoong men shal come thus rawly and untrained to heare the divisions reasons arguments of Philosophers flat contrary to such opinions they will at first be much astonied troubled disquieted in their minds and no more able to admit of the same and to reduce such doctrine than they who having a long time bene pent in and kept in darke can abide the glittering raies of the Sun shine unlesse they were acquainted before by little little with some false and bastard light not altogether so lively and cleere as it And even so I say yoong men must be accustomed beforehand yea and from the very first day to the light of the trueth entermingled somewhat with fables among that they may the better endure the full light and sight of the cleere trueth without any paine and offence at all For when they have either heard or read before in Poemes these sentences Lament we ought for infants at their birth Entring a world of eares that they shall have Whereas the dead we should with joy and mirth Accompanie and bring them so to grave Also Of worldly thing we need no more but twaine For bread to eat the earth doth yeeld us graine And for to quench our thirst the river cleere Affords us drinke the water faire and sheere Likewise O tyrannie so lov'd and in request With barbarous but hatefull to therest Lastly The highest pitchos mans felicitie To feele the least part of adversitie Lesse troubled they are grieved in spirit when they shall heare in the Philosophers schooles That we are to make no account of death as a thing touching us That the Riches of nature are definite limited That felicitie and soveraigne happines of man lieth not in great summes of money ne yet in the pride of managing State affaires nor in dignities and great authority but in a quiet life free from paine and sorrow in moderating all passions and in a disposition of the minde kept within the compasse of Nature To conclude in regard hereof as also for other reasons before alleaged A yoong man had neede to be well guided and directed in reading of Poets to the end that he may be sent to the studie of Philosophie not forestalled with sinister surmises but rather sufficiently instructed before and prepared yea and made friendly and familiar thereto by the meanes of Poetrie OF HEARING The Summarie BY good right this present discourse was ranged next unto the former twaine For seeing we are not borne into this world learned but before we can speake our selves sensibly or any thing to reason we ought to have heard men who are able to deliver their minds with judgement to the ende that by thier aide and helpe we may be better framed and fitted to the way of vertue requisite it is that after the imbibition of good nourture in childhood and some libertie and license given to travelin the the writings of Poets according to the rules above declared Yoong men that are students should advance forward and mount up into higher schooles Now for that in the time when this Author Plutarch lived be sides many good bookes there were a great number of professours in the liberall sciences and namely in those rites into which Barbarisme crept afterwards he proposeth and setteth downe those precepts now which they are to follow and observe that goe to heare publike lectures orations and disputations thereby to know how to behave themselves there which traning haply may reach to al that which we shal heare spoken elsewhere and is materiall to make us more learned and better mannered
tame beast whatsoever certes it is much more grave and decent that in quarrels debates and contentions among men an enemie that is of a generous minde just true and nothing treacherous should represse keepe downe and hold underfoot the wicked malicious cautelous 〈◊〉 and ungentleman-like passions to the end that afterwards in all contracts and dealings with his friend they breake not out but that his heart being cleere of them he may absteine from all mischievous practises Scaurus was a professed enemie and an accuser of Domitius judicially now there was a domesticall servant belonging to the said Domitius who before the day of triall and judgement came unto Scaurus saying That he would discover unto him a thing that he knew not of the which might serve him in good steed when he should plead against his master but Scaurus would not so much as give him the hearing nay he laid hold on the party and sent him away bound unto his lord and master Cato the younger charged Muraena and indited him in open court for popularitie and ambition and declaring against him that he sought indirectly to gaine the peoples favour and their voices to be chosen Consull now as he went up and downe to collect arguments and proofes thereof and according to the maner and custome of the Romanes was attended upon by certeine persons who followed him in the behalfe of the defendant to observe what was done for his better instruction in the processe suit commenced these fellowes would oftentimes be in hand with him and aske whether he would to day search for ought or negotiate any thing in the matter and cause concerning Muraena If he said No such credite and trust they reposed in the man that they would rest in that answere and go their waies a singular argument this was of all other to proove his reputation and what opinion men conceived of him for his justice but sure a farre greater testimonie is this and that passeth al the rest to proove that if we be accustomed to deale justly by our very enemies we shal never shew our selves unjust cautelous and deceitfull with our friends But forasmuch as every larke as Simonides was wont to say must needs have a cop or crest growing upon her head and so likewise all men by nature do carie in their head I wot not what jealousie emulation and envie which is if I may use the words of Pindarus A mate and fellow to be plaine Of brain sicke fooles and persons vaine A man should not reape a small benefit commoditie by discharging these passions upon his enemies to purge clense himselfe quite thereof as it were by certeine gutters or chanels to derive and drein them as farre as possibly he can from his friends and familiar acquaintance whereof I suppose Onomademus a great politician wise States-man in the Isle Chios was well advised who in a civile dissention being sided to that faction which was superior had gotten the head of the other coūselled the rest of his part not to chase banish out of the city al their adversaries but to leave some of them still behind For feare quoth he least having no enemies to quarrel withall we our selves begin to fall out and go together by the eares semblably if we spend these vitious passiōs of ours upon our enemies the lesse are they like to trouble molest our friends for it ought not thus to be as Hesiodus saith That the potter should envy the potter or one minstrell or musician spite another neither is it necessarie that one neighbor should be in jealousie of another or cousens and brethren be concurrents have emulation one at another either striving to be rich or speeding better in their affaires for if there be no other way or meanes to be delivered wholy from contentions envies jealousies emulations acquaint thy selfe at leastwise to be stung and bitten at the good successe of thine enemies whet the edge sharpen the point as it were of thy quarrellous contentious humour turne it upon them and spare not for like as the most skilfull and best gardiners are of this opinion that they shall have the sweeter roses and more pleasant violets if they set garlicke or sow onions neere unto them for that all the strong and stinking savour in the juice that feedeth and nourish the saide flowers is purged away and goeth to the said garlick and onions even so an enimie drawing unto himselfe and receiving all our envie and malice will cause us to be better affected to our friends in their prosperitie and lesse offended if they out go us in their estate and therefore in this regard we must contend and strive with our enimies about honour dignities government and lawfull meanes of advancing our owne estates and not onely to be greeved and vexed to see them have the better and the vantage of us but also to marke and observe everie thing whereby they become our superiors and so to straine and endevour by carefull diligence by labour and travell by parsimonie temperance and looking neerely to our selves to surpasse and go beyond them like as Themistocles was wont to say That the victorie which Miltiades atchieved in the plaine of Marathon brake his sleepes and would not let him take his nights rest for he who thinketh that his enemie surmounteth him in dignities in patronage of high matters and pleading of great causes in management of state affaires or in credit and authoritie with mightie men and grand Segniors and in stead of striving to enterprise and do some great matter by way of emulation betaketh himselfe to envie onely and so sits still doing nothing and looseth all his courage surely he bewraieth that he is possessed with naught else but an idle vaine enervat kind of envy But he that is not blinded with the regard sight of him whom he hateth but with a right just eie doth behold consider al his life his maners deseigns words and deeds shall soone perceive find that the most part of those things which he envieth were atchieved and gotten by such as have them which their diligence wisedom forecast vertuous deeds he thereupon bending all his spirits whole mind therto wil exercise I trow sharpen his own desire of honor glory honesty yea cut off contrariwise that yawning drowsines idle sloth that is in his hart Set case moreover that our enemies by flattery by cautelous shifts cunning practises by pleading of cases at the bar or by their mercenarie and illiberall service in unhonest foule matters seem to have gotten some power ether with princes in courts or with the people in States cities let the same never trouble us but contrariwise cheere up our harts and make us glad in regard of our owne libertie the purenesse of our life and innocencie unreprochable which we may oppose against those indirect courses and unlawfull meanes For
have not libertie IOCASTA A spight it is no doubt and that of servile kind For men to be debard to speake their mind POLYNICES Besides they must endure the foolishnesse And ignorance of rulers more or lesse But herein I cannot allow of his sentence and opinion as well and truely delivered For first and formost not to speake what a man thinketh is not the point of a slavish and base person but rather he is to be counted a wise and prudent man who can hold his tongue at those times and in such occasions as require taciturnitie and silence which the same Poet hath taught us in another place more wisely when he saith Silence is good when that it doth availe Likewise to speake in time and not to faile And as for the folly and ignorance of great and mightie persons we must abide no lesse when we tarrie at home than in exile nay it falleth out many times that men at home feare much more the calumniations and violence of those who injustly are in high places of authoritie within cities than if they were abroad and out of their owne countries Againe this also is most false and absurd that the said Poet depriveth banished persons of their libertie and franke speech Certes this were a woonderfull matter that Theodorus wanted his freedome of tongue considering that when King Lysimachus said unto him And hath thy countrey chased and cast thee out being so great a person among them Yea quoth he againe for that it was no more able to beare me than Semele to beare Bacchus neither was he daunted and afraid notwithstanding that the King shewed unto him Telesphorus enclosed within an iron cage whose eies he had caused before to be pulled out of his head his nose and eares to be cropt and his tongue to be cut adding withal these words See how I handle those that displease and abuse my person And what shall we say of Diogenes Wanted he thinke you his libertie of speech who being come into the campe of King Philip at what time time as he made an expedition against the Grecians invaded their countrey and was ready to give them battell was apprehended and brought before the king as a spie and charged therewith I am indeed quoth he come hither to spie your infariable avarice ambition and folly who are about now to hazard in one houre as it were with the cast of a die not onely your crowne and dignitie but also your life and person semblably what thinke you of Annthall the Carthaginian was he tongue-tied before Antiochus banished though himselfe were and the other a mightie monarch For when he advised Antiochus to take the opportunitie presented unto him and to give battell unto the Romans his enemies and the king having sacrificed unto the gods answered againe that the entrails of the beast killed for sacrifice would not permit but forbad him so to do Why then quoth he by way of reproofe and rebuke you will doe that belike which a peece of dead flesh biddeth you and not that which a man of wisedome and understanding counselleth you unto But neither Geometricians nor those that use linearie demonstrations if haply they be banished are deprived of their libertie but that they may discourse speake frankly of their art and science of such things as they have learned and knowen how then should good honest and honorable persons be debarred of that freedome in case they be exiled But in trueth it is cowardise and basenes of minde which alwaies stoppeth the voice tieth the tongue stifleth the wind-pipe and causeth men to be speechlesse But proceed we to that which followed afterwards in Eurpides IOCASTA But thus we say those that are banished With hopes alwaies of better dates be fed POLYNICES Good eies they have a farre off they doe see Staying for things that most uncertaine be Certainely these words implie rather a blame and reprehension of folly than of exile For they be not those who have learned and doe know how to apply themselves unto things present and to use their estate such as it is but such as continually depend upon the expectance of future fortunes and covet evermore that which is absent and wanting who are tossed to and fro with hope as in a little punt or bote floting upon the water yea although they were never in their life time without the wals of the citie wherein they were borne moreover whereas we reade in the same Euripides IOCASTA Thy fathers friends and allies have not they Beene kind and helpfull to thee as they may POLYNICES Looke to thy selfe from troubles God thee blesse Friends helpe is naught if one be in distresse IOCASTA Thy noble blood from whence thou art descended Hath it not thee advanc'd and much amended POLYNICES I hold it ill to be in want and need For parentage and birth doth not men feed These speeches of Polynices are not onely untrue but also bewray his unthankfulnesse when he seemeth thus to blame his want of honor and due regard for his nobility and to complaine that hee was destitute of friends by occasion of his exile considering that in respect of his noble birth banished though he were yet so highly honoured he was that he was thought woorthie to be matched in marriage with a kings daughter and as for friends allies and confederates hee was able to gather a puissant armie of them by whose aide and power he returned into his owne countrey by force of armes as himselfe testifieth a little after in these words Many a lord and captaine brave here stands With me in field both from Mycenae bright And cities more of Greece whose helping hands Though loth I must needes use in claime of right Much like also be the speeches of his mother lamenting in this wise No nuptiall torch at all I lighted have To thee as doth a wedding feast besceme No mariage song was sung nor thee to lave Was water brought from faire Ismenus streame whom it had become and behooved rather to rejoice and be glad in heart when she heard that her sonne was so highly advaunced and married into so roiall an house but in taking griefe and sorrow her-selfe that there was no wedding torch lighted that the river Ismenus affoorded no water to bathe in at his wedding as if new maried bridegroomes could not be furnished either with fire or water in the city Argos she attributeth unto exile the inconveniences which more truly proceed from vanitie and follie But some man will say unto me That to be banished is a note of ignominie and reproch true it is indeed but among fooles onely who thinke likewise that it is a shame to be poore to be bald to be small of stature yea and to be a stranger forsooth a tenant in-mate or alien inhabitant For certes such as will not suffer themselves to be caried away with these vaine perswasions nor do subscribe thereto esteeme have in admiration good and
with other to people possesse a new colonie in Stcilie and having befallen to his lot a goodly house and living to it enioying I say for his part a good portion wherewith he might have lived in fulnesse and plentie when he sawe once that delights pleasures and idlenesse without any exercise at all of good letters reigned in those parts Par die quoth he these goods heere shall never spoile and undoe me but I will rather I trow make a hand and havocke of them leaving therefore unto others his portion that fell unto him by lot he tooke sea againe sailed away to Athens Contrariwise those that be in debt are evermore sued in the law become tributaries very slaves bearing and induring all indignities like unto those varlets that digge in silver mines nourishing and mainteining as Phineus did the ravenous winged harpies for surely these usurers alwaies flie upon them and be ready to snatch and carie away their very foode and sustenance neither have they patience to stay and attend times and seasons for they buie up their debtors corne before it be ripe for the harvest they make their markets of oile before the olives fall from the tree and likewise of wine For I wil have it at this price quoth the usurer withal the debter giveth him presently a bill of his hand for such a bargaine meane while the grapes hang still upon the vine waiting for the moneth of September when the star Arcturus riseth and sheweth the time of vintage THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT TO CONVERSE ESPECIALLY WITH PRINCES AND GREAT RVLERS AND WITH THEM TO DISCOVRSE The Summarie IF there be any in the world who have need of good companie they are Princes and great Lords for that their affaires being of such consequence as everie man knoweth the feeblenes of bodie and insufficiencie of spirit not able to furnish them throughly great reason they have to see by the eies and to worke with the hands of others Now in this case three sorts of men there be who fault verie much In the first place Princes and Rulers themselves who in stead of drawing and training neere unto their persons such as can aide and assist them give accesser rather unto flatterers and other like pestilent members who are ready to corrupt and ruinate their estates Secondly those whose number at all times hath beene verie small Whom we call Philosophers that is to say men of authoritie wise sage learned friends to vertue lovers of the good of Princes and their subjects who being of great power and able to doe much yet notwithstanding recule and draw backe or being advanced to high place have not alwaies that respect and consideration nor such courage as appertaineth suffering themselves otherwhiles to be carried away to the entertainment and maintenance of the greatest opinion and mingling a little too much of worldly wisedome with the apprehension of their true duty whereof their conscience being lightned in sundry sorts advertiseth thē sufficiently The last and those as pernicious execrable as the thought of man is not able to devise and comprehend be the enemies of vertue to wit ignorant teachers and profane schoolemasters professors mockers scorners jesters slatterers in sum all the ministers of vanities and filthie pleasures who do insinuate and intrude themselves by most leawd and wicked means into the service of Princes and in recompence of the honor and rich gifts which they receive at their hands doe deceive and undoe their simple lords and masters according as an infinite number of examples in Histories doe verifie and give evidence unto us Plutarch therefore in consideration of these inconvenicnes is desirous in this treatise to encourage those who wish that all things were well and in good order and exhorteth them to approch neere unto Princes But forasmuch as ignorance and leawdnes causeth men to become shamelesse whereas wisedome and honestie maketh us modest and considerate in all our actions he sheweth in the first place that it is no point of ambition for a wise and learned man to joine himselfe unto Grand segniories to sort with them but that it is their duety so to do considering that such receive honor pleasure and profit by him And this he prooveth by reasons similitudes examples al singular and notable Afterwards he condemneth those who enter into Princes courts onely because they would be great and powerfull shewing that wise men indeed do aime cleane at another marke And for the last point of all he treateth of the contentment which they receive who by their service to one alone helpe by that meanes an infinite number of others who remaine bound and obliged unto them for so great a benefit THAT A PHILOSOPHER OUGHT to converse especially with Princes and great Rulers and with them to discourse TO embrace a common love to finde out accept intertaine and maintaine that amitie which may be profitable and commodious to many in particular and yet to more in generall is the part of honest men politike wise and affectionate to the publike good and not as some thinke of those that be ambitious and vaine-glorious But contrariwise he is to be reputed vaine-glorious or rather timorous and wanting courage who doth shunne and is afraid to heare himselfe called a follower waiter and servitor to those that are in highest place For what saith one of these personages who having need to be cured is desirous to learne and to bee acquainted with some Philosopher O that I were Simon the Souter or Dionysius the Pedante in stead of Pericles or Cato that a Philosopher might discourse and dispute with me that he might sit by my side as Socrates did sometime by those And verily Ariston of Chios being reprooved and blamed by the Sophisters in his time for that he used to devise and discourse with all those that were disposed to heare him I could wish quoth he in my heart that the verie beasts themselves were able to give eare and understand those discourses that do excite and moove unto vertue Doe we then avoide the meanes and occasions to converse and conferre familiarly with great personages and mightie men as if they were wilde and savage persons The doctrine of Philosophy is not like unto an imager who casteth dumbe and deafe idole statues without any sense onely for to stand upon a base as Pindarus was woont to say but is willing to make whatsoever it toucheth active operative and lively it imprinteth therein affections and motions judgements also inciting and leading to things unprofitable intentions desirous of all honestie haughtie courage also and magnanimitie joined with meeknesse resolution and assurance by meanes of which good parts men of State policie are more readie and forward to converse and devise with persons of great puissance and authoritie and not without good cause for an honest and gentle physician will take alwaies more pleasure to heale an eie that seeth for many and which doth guard and
looke to many and even so a Philosopher wil be more affectionate to take care for that soule and spirit which he seeth to be vigilant for many and which ought to be wise prudent and just for many for such an one if he were skilfull and cunning in the art of finding gathering and conducting of waters as we read in Histories that Hercules and many other in old time were would not take delight to goe into some desert corner farre remote from the frequencie of men and to dig or sinke pits there nere to the Ravens rocke as the Poet saith and to open that Swine-heards marish Arethusa but would studie rather to discover the lively sources and overruning springs of a river to serve some great citie or campe or to water the orchards gardens and groves of kings According as we heare that Homer called Minos Jupiters Oaristes which is as much to say as Plato himselfe doth interpret the word his Familiar Disciple for he never meant that the disciples of the gods were private persons home-keepers and such as meddle in nothing but house matters keeping in and living idlely without any action but Princes and Kings who being wise just debonaire and magnanimous as many as be under their government and command shall live in blisse and happines An herbe there is called Eryngium or Sea-holly which hath this propertie that no sooner one goat taketh it in his mouth but she herselfe first and afterwards all the rest of the flocke will stand still untill such time as the goat-heard come and take away out of the flocke which he will in like maner the defluxions which proceed from persons of great power and authoritie have the same swiftnesse and celeritie which doth dilate and spread it selfe in one moment and in maner of fire seiseth upon whatsoever is neere thereto on every side And verily the speech and remonstrance of a Philosopher if it be addressed and directed unto a private man and that loveth to live in repose and who doth limit and circumscribe himselfe as within a center and circumference geometricall with the necessities of his owne bodie the same speech is not distributed and divided unto others but after it hath in that one man alone composed and wrought a great tranquillitie and calme of all perturbations it fadeth vanisheth away and so doth end incontinently but on the contrarie side if the said remonstrance meet with a man of State and government a magistrate a polititian and one that dealeth in great affaires and by the effectuall vertue thereof replenish him with goodnesse and honestie by the meanes of that one person the benefit will be imparted unto many In this wise Anaxagoras kept companie with Pericles Plato conversed with Dion and Pythagoras did associate himselfe to the princes and lords of Italie and as for Cato he departed alone from the campe and sailed to Athenodorus Scipio likewise laid for Panaetius and sought after him at what time as the Senate sent him forth with commission for to goe in visitation as it were and survey to see what right and wrong what justice and injustice reigned in the world according as Posidonius maketh report What then ought Panaetius for to say If you were either Castor or Pollux or some other private person desirous to flie and avoid the frequency of great cities and retire your selfe into some corner of a schoole apart there at your leasure and full repose to folde and unfolde to resolue and compound the syllogismes of Phylosophers I would willingly accept your offer and be desirous to converse and stay with you but seeing you are the sonne of Paulus Aemilius who had beene twise Consull and the nephew of Scipio Africanus who defeated Anniball the captaine of the Carthaginians I will not reason and dispute with you Moreover to say that speech is two folde the one interior or inward the gift of Mercurie surnamed Hegemon that is Guide the other pronounced and uttered foorth which is instrumentall and a very interpreter to give notice of our conceptions a meere vaine and stale position and may wel be comprised under this old proverbe Thus much I knew before Theognis was borne But let not this distinction trouble or impeach us in that which wee are about to say for aswell of that which is conteined within the secret minde as of the other which is pronounced and uttered the end is all one to wit Love or amitie of this in respect of a mans owne selfe and of that in regard of others for that speech which by the precepts of Philosophie bendeth unto vertue and there doth end maketh a man in tune and accordant with himselfe never repining and complaining of ought full of peace full of love and contentment In all his limmes is no sedition No strife no warre no strange dissention no passion rebellious and disobedient to reason no combat of will or appetite against will and appetite no repugnancie and contrarietie of reason against reason there is no impleasant bitternesse or turbulent disorder mixed with joies and pleasures as it falleth out in the confines of desire repentance and sorow but all things there be uniforme delightsome and amiable which causeth each one to content himselfe and joy as in abundance of all goods As for the other kind of speech that is pronounced Pindarus saith That the Muse thereof was never in old time covetous greedie of gaine or meere mercenarie neither beleeve I that it is so at this day but rather through the ignorance and negligence of men who be carelesse of their owne good and honour Mercurie who before was free and common is now become an occupier and merchant willing to doe nothing without a fee and reward For it is not likely or probable that Venus in times past was so deadly offended and angry with the daughters of Prospolus because they devised first to sow hatred and enmity among yong folke and that Urania Clio and Calliope take pleasure in them who debase the dignitie of speech and literature by taking silver but in mine opinion the workes and gifts of the Muses ought to be more amiable than those of Venus for same and honour which some propose for the end of their speech and learning hath bene held deare and highly beloved for that it is the very beginning and seminarie of friendship and that which more is the common sort of people measure honour by good-will and benevolence esteeming that we ought to praise those onely whom we affect and love but certeinly these men fare like unto Ixion who in love following after the goddesse Juno fell upon a cloud for even so they in stead of amitie embrace a vaine image of popularitie deceitfull pompous wandering and uncertaine howbeit a man of good conceit and judgement if he manage State affaires or intermeddle in government of the common-weale will seeke for honour and reputation so far forth onely as to mainteine his authoritie and credit in all his
to the saide harpe and by sweet exhortations as sometimes Thales did semblably the carpenter or ship-wright who maketh the helme to a ship or gally wil joy more when he shal know that the said helme shal serve to guide rule the admirals ship within which Themistocles shal fight against the Persians in the defence of the libertie and freedome of Greece or that of Pompeius with which in a navall battell at sea he defaited and vanquished the armie of the pirats What suppose you then will a philosopher thinke of his owne speech and doctrine when he shall come to discourse with himselfe that he who shall receive the same being a man of authoritie a prince or great lord shall thereby doe good unto the common-weale in ministring right and justice indifferently to everie man shall punish the wicked and advaunce those that bee good and vertuous I am verily perswaded for my part that a good and gentle ship-wright will more willingly make an helme when hee shall know that it must serve to rule the great shippe Argo renowmed throughout the world likewise a carpenter or wheele-wright will not with so good a will lay his hand to make a plough or a chariot as he would to frame those tables or boords in which he wist that Solon was to engrave his lawes And I assure you the discourses and reasons delivered by Philosophers if once they be well and surely imprinted in the hearts of great personages who have in their hands the government of States if they once get sure footing and take good root in them they become as forcible and effectuall as positive lawes Hereupon it was that Plato sailed into Sicilie in hope that the grave sentences and principles of his Philosophy would be as good as lawes and worke holesome and profitable effects in the affaires of Dionysius But hee found that Dionysius was like writing tables all rased and full of blurs and blots and that he could not leave off the tincture and deepe die of tyrannie being so surely set on and having by continuance of time entred and peareed deepe so that it could not be washed out whereas it behooved that those who are to make their profit by good advertisements and sage lessons should still be in motion and so continue AS TOVCHING A PRINCE OR RULER UNLEARNED The Summarie AS in the former discourse he sollicited Sages and Philosophers to joine themselves in acquaintance with Princes so in this he desireth one point whereof hee dareth not assure himselfe to compasse the same by reason of some difficulties therein observed For requiring in Princes thus much that they should be wel instructed for to be capable of good counsell he sheweth withall that it is a verie hard thing to bring them thereto and to range them in that order for certaine materiall and pertinent reasons which he setteth downe Neverthelesse he passeth on still and proceedeth farther prooving that the law and lively reason ought to command Kings and Princes and for to cause them to condescend thereto he declareth unto them that the thing which they wish for and desire so ar dently to procure namely to maintaine themselves in happie estate and to make their name immortall lieth in vertue then he pointeth out with his finger foure impeachments and hinderances that divert and turne away Princes from so just and necessarie a consideration Which done for to enrich this speech and treatise of his and the better yet to draw great personages to give eare unto reason he letteth them see and understand the difference betweene a good Prince and a tyrant also how dangerous a wicked Prince is concluding by the benefit which commeth by equitie and the hurt by injustice that right and justice ought to serve as a counterpoise against the greatnes and puissance of Princes AS TOVCHING A PRINCE or Ruler unlearned THE inhabitants of the citie Cyrene requested Plato on a time to leave unto them by writing certaine good lawes and withall to set them downe an order in the government of their State which he refused to do saying That it was a verie hard matter to give lawes unto the Cyrenians being so rich and wealthie as they were for there is nothing so proude and insolent so rough and intractable so savage and hard to be tamed as a man perswaded well of his fortunate estate This is the cause that it is no easie enterprise to give counsell unto princes and rulers and to advise them as touching their government For they be affraid to receive and admit reason as a master to commaund them for feare it should take away and abridge them of that which they esteeme to be the onely good of their grandence and puissance in case they were subjected once to their duety Which is the cause also that they cannot skill to heare the discourses of Theopompus King of Sparta who was the first that brought into that citie the Ephori and mingled their authoritie with the government of the Kings For when his wise reproched him for leaving unto his children the royall power dignitie lesse than he received it of his predecessors Nay mary quoth he but rather farre greater in that it shall be more firme and assured for in remitting and letting downe a little that which in absolute royaltie was over stiffe strait and rigorous hee avoided by that verie meanes all envie and perill And verily Theopompus deriving unto others from his owne authoritie as from a great river a little rill or riveret looke how much he gave unto the Ephort so much he cut off from himselfe but the reason and remonstrance of Philosophie being lodged as it were with the Prince himselfe for to assist him and preserve his person taking from his puissance as in a full plight and plethoricke constitution of the bodie that which is excessive and overmuch leaveth that behind which is sound and healthfull But the most part of Kings Princes and Soveraigne rulers who are not wise and of good understanding resemble unskilfull cutters in stone and imagers who are of opinion that the enormous and huge statues called Colosses which they cut will seeme more vast and mightie if they frame them stradling with their legs with their armes spread abroad and stretched foorth as also with their mouthes gaping wide open for even so these princes and rulers by their big commanding voice their grim and sterne visage fierce lookes and regard of their eie their odious behaviour and living apart without society of any other person weene and suppose to counterfeit a kinde of gravitie greatnes and majestie that is required in a mightie potentate but they differ nothing from the foresaid Colosses which without do represent the forme of some god or demi-god but all within are stuffed full of earth stone rubbish and lead this onely is the difference that the waight and heavines of those monstrous statues counterpoiseth and keepeth them standing in some sort upright stedfast and not
be applied outwardly to avoide envie if a man be forced to speake of himselfe other meanes there are besides inhaerent after a sort even in them who be in this wise praised and such Cato made use of when he said that he was envied because he neglected his owne affairs and sat up watching whole nights for the good and safetie of his countrey Like to which is this speech What wisedome thinke you was in me who cleane exempt from care From charge and travell like some one who in the armie were A plaine and common souldiour might enjoy within the host My fortune with the wisest of them all that meddle most as also this other I doubt and feare that of my labours past The thanke is gone end caried with a blast And yet those paines that now presented be A fresh reject unneth I will from me For men ordinarily beare envie unto those who seeme to acquire glory gratis without any cost and to come by vertue easily like as if they purchased house or land for a little or nothing whereas seldome or never they envie such as have bought the same very deare with many travels and great dangers And forasmuch as we ought in praising of our selves to effect not only this that we offend not the hearers thereby nor procure their envie but endevour also to profit them and doe them good as if we seemed not to aime at our selfe-praise but to shoot at some other thing in so doing consider first and formost when a man is in a veine of praising himselfe whether he may do it by way of exhortation to kindle a zeale and exercise a kinde of emulation and strive for glory in the hearers after the example of Nestor who in recounting his owne prowesse and valiant service encouraged Patroclus and the other nine gallants and brave knights to enter combat and single fight with Hector for an exhortation which hath word and deed to meet together carrying with it example with a familiar zeale and imitation is wonderfull quicke and lively it pricketh provoketh and stirreth exceedingly and together with a resolute courage and ardent affection it carieth with it the hope of compassing things very accessible and in no wise impossible and therefore of the three renowmed daunces and quites in Lacedaemon one which consisted of olde men chaunted thus The ume was when we gallants were Youthfull and hardie void of feare another of children sung in this wise And we one day shall be both tall and strong And farre surpasse if that we live so long the third namely of yong men had this dittie But we are come to proofe and now at best Trie who that will to fight we are now prest wherein the law-giver who instituted these dances did wisely and politikely to propose unto yong men such familiar examples and at hand even by those things that were done and executed Yet neverthelesse it were not amisse otherwhiles to vaunt and to speake highly and magnifically of ones selfe for to daunt beat downe represse and keepe as it were under hand a bragging and audacious fellow like as Nestor himselfe did againe in another place Conversed have I in my daies with men of better deed Than you iwis and yet'disdaine they never would my reed Semblably said Aristotle unto king Alexander That lawfull it was and beseeming not onely for those to have an haughtie minde who had many subjects under them at their commaund but such also as held true opinions as touching the gods And verily these points are commodious for us otherwhiles even in regard of our enemies foes and evill willers according to that verse in Homer Children they are of wretched sires and borne to misadventure Whose lucke it is my force of armes in battell to encounter Agesilaus also having speech upon a time as touching the King of Persia who usually was called the Great Monarch And wherein quoth he is that king greater than my selfe if he bee not more just and righteous Epaminondas likewise replied upon the Lacedaemonians who had framed a long accusation against the Thebans Well it is quoth he and a good turne that we yet have made you give over your accustomed short speech Thus much of those rules which concerne either our private and particular evill willers or our publike enemies As for our friends and fellow-citizens we may likewise by using fitly in time and place and as the case requireth haughty language not onely take downe and cause those to vaile bonet who are over-proude and audacious but also on the other side raise up and encourage such as be dismaied astonied and beyond measure timorous For Cyrus also in the mids of battell and dangers of warre was woont to speake bravely but else-where not And Antigonus the yoonger or second of that name who otherwise was in words sober modest and nothing proude yet in a battell at sea which he fought neere the isle Cos when one of his friends about him said a little before the medley began See you not sir how many more ships our enemies have than wee Why quoth he for how many ships doest thou reckon me And it should seeme that Homer was of the same minde and meant so much when he feigneth that Ulysses seeing his people affrighted with the hideous noise and fearfull tempest that issued out of the gulfe Charybdis called to their remembrance his subtill engine and singular valour in saying thus unto them My friends and mates this accident is not so dangerous As when that monstrous Cyclops he a giant furious Us turn'd and courst with mightie force about his hollow cave Yet thence we chac'd him by my wit advice and prowesse brave For this manner of praising proceedeth not from a glozing vaine-glorious oratour not a vanting Sophister nor from one that seeketh applause and clapping of hands but beseemeth a personage who pawneth unto his friends as a gage of assurance and confidence his owne vertue and sufficiency For a matter this is of great importance consequence tending to safetie in dangerous times to wit the opinion reputation and affiance that we may have of a man in authoritie and the experienced prowesse of a captaine Now albeit I have sufficiently shewed before that it is neither convenient nor seemely for a man of State and honour to oppose himselfe against the glorie and praise of another yet neverthelesse when the case so standeth that a false and perverse commendation doth bring hurt and damage and by example inferreth a dangerous imitation of evill things together with a wicked purpose and leawd intention in matters of great moment it were not amisse to repulse the same backe or rather to divert and turne away the hearer unto better things and open unto him the difference for in mine advice a man may well take content and delight to see that men abstaine willingly from vice when they perceive it to be blamed and reprooved but in lieu of condemning it if they heare it
whereunto common-wealths be subject and holdeth this That if there doe arise any mischiefe it ought to be repressed ketp downe and cured at home Consequently he sheweth unto a magistrate the maner of conversing with his collegues or companions in office and after he had commended those who walke singly goroundly and plainly to worke hee entreth very pretily into a discourse arising from the precedents namely as touching policte and good government declaring wherein it doth consist and so toucheth in a word the duetie of good subjects in a statewell ruled Which done he returneth to his former purpose and maketh mention of certeine cases wherin a magistrate may accommodate and frame himselfe to his owne people also what persons he ought to use employ for assistance in the execution of important affaires and from what vices he is to keepe himselfe pure and cleane how he ought to esteeme and regard true honour standing upon two points the one that he do trust and relie upon himselfe the other that he be well beloved of the people unto whom he ought to shew himselfe liberall To this abovesaid there is joined a certeine discretion to be used in the largesses of magistrates to their subjects a thing much practised in olde time and in these dates turned cleane against the haire proposing all in one traine the true and most expedite way how to gaine the hearts of men to which no prince nor governour shall ever attaine unlesse he be such an one as our authour doth describe and representing on the other side the ridiculous and unhappie condition of ambitious persons and other such as thirst after shamefull glorie whose name serveth for nought els but to play with the least peties in a common-wealth And for a finall conclusion he treateth of seditions and civill warres namely how a good magistrate ought to cary himselfe therein what a care he should have to quench with all speed such fire and keepe his subjects in good unitie and concord and how he should easily come thereto which is the very closing up of the booke inriched with notable arguments sentences similitudes and examples for those especially who have the command of others and yet are besides to appeare before the throne of their sovereigne the examination triall and fearefull judgement of whom they can not avoid INSTRVCTIONS FOR THEM that manage affaires of State IF there be any speech in the world sir Menemachus unto which a man may properly apply these verses of the Poet Homer Of all the Greekes there is no man Who blame these words or gainesay can But yet forsooth you say not all Nor come are to the finiall certes it is in the case of those Philosophers who exhort sufficiently in generall tearmes to undertake the affaires of State and publike government but they teach us not how nor give us precepts and directions thereto who me thinks may wel be resembled to those who snuffe and draw out the wicke of a lampe but they powre no oyle into it Seeing then that you have upon verie good reason deliberated and resolved to meddle in the State affaires of your countrey and desire according to the nobilitie of your house and native countrey from whence you are descended To frame your speech with seemely grace And deeds performe meet for your place and considering that you are not yet come to that maturitie of yeeres as to have seene evidently the life of a wise man and true Philosopher in matters of government or viewed his carriage and demeanor in State affaires ne yet to bee a spectator of worthie and goodly examples practised in deed and effect and not discoursed upon in word onely in which regards you have requested me earnestly to give unto you certaine rules precepts and advertisements for your better knowledge instruction how you ought to behave your selfe in this behalfe me thought I I could not with any honestie denie your request but my desire wish rather is that whatsoever I have collected to this purpose may be answerable both to the ardent zeale of your intention and also to the willing forwardnes of mine affection and verily to gratifie your minde I have accompanied these precepts with many faire and beautifull examples First and formost therefore let this be laid for a sure ground strong foundation That whosoever mindeth to be a States man and to mannage affaires of policie bring with him a good intent mooved by reason and judgement and in no wise arising upon any blind passion or desire of vaine-glorie or jealousie and emulation of another or finally upon default of other occupations for like as there be some who spend most of their time in the common-hall or market place although they have nothing there to do because they have no good thing at home to be emploied about even so you shall have diverse men that thrust themselves into civill and publike affaires for that they have no private busines of their owne worth tending and so they use policie as a course of life or rather a pastime and recreation Others there be againe who being by some fortune or chance arrived or rather cast upon the management of common-weale and having thereof enough as it were their bellies full can not with any ease withdraw and retire themselves when they are once in resembling those for all the world who being embarked in some vessel take the sea only for to be rocked shaken therin a little for their exercise but after they be caried by a gale of winde into the deepe when their heads once begin to turne and their stomacks sicke and readie to cast they looke out backe toward the land but for all that forced they be to tarrie still on ship-boord and to frame themselves to their present fortune Their lovely joies and pleasures are then gon To walke upon the hatches gaily dight With rowers seats in foist or gallion Whiles sea is calme and weather faire and light Which yeelds prospect most pleasant to their sight And hearts content to cut the waves aright And these are they who as much as any or rather most of all discredit the thing in that they repent and be much discontented with their choise namely when in stead of glorie which they promised themselves they fall into infamie and whereas they looked to be feared of others by the meanes of their great credit and authoritie they bee carried into a world of affaires full of troubles and dangers But he who commeth to the government of weale publike and beginneth to enter upon it by sound judgement and true discourse of reason as a most honest vocation in it selfe and most agreeable to his estate and qualitie will no whit be discouraged or dismaied at any of these accidents nor ever change his resolution For a man is not to take upon him the managent of State affaires with intent to negotiate and trafficke there or to make a gainefull trade and occupation
thereof to himselfe like as in times past at Athens Stratocles and Dromoclidas with those about them for to go unto their golden harvest for so by way of jest and merrie speech they called the Tribunall seat and publike pulpit where orations were made unto the people no nor upon any fit of a sudden passion that commeth upon him as Cajus Gracchus did at Rome sometime who at the verie time when his brothers troubles were hot and his death fresh and new retired for a while out of the way and betooke himselfe to a private course of life farre remote from the common-wealth affaires but afterwardes being suddenly enkindled and inflamed againe with choler upon certaine outragious dealings and opprobrious wordes given him by some would needes in all the haste upon a spleene rush into the government of State and quickly had his handes full of businesses and his ambitious humour was soone fed and satisfied but then when as he would with all his heart have withdrawen himselfe changed his life and taken his repose he could not by any meanes lay downe his authoritie and puissance to such greatnes it was growen but was killed before he could bring that about As for these who compasse and dresse themselves as plaiers for to act upon the scaffold in some great Theater and champions to contend with other concurrents or else aime at vaine-glorie it can not be but they must needs repent of that which they have done especially when they once see that they must serve those whom they thought they were woorthie to rule or that they can not chuse but displease them whom they were desirous to gratifie and content And verily this is my conceit of such that they runne headlong upon policie and State matters like unto those who by some misadventure and sooner than they looked for be fallen into a pit for it can not otherwise be but they be woonderously disquieted seeing the depth thereof and wish they had never come there but were out againe whereas they who considerately and upon good deliberation goe downe into the said pit carrie themselves soberly with quietnes and contentment of spirit they are vexed offended and dismaied at nothing as who at their first entrie put on a resolute minde proposing unto themselves vertue and their dutie onely and intending no other thing for to be the scope and end of all their actions Thus when as men have well grounded their choise in themselves untill it be so surely setled confirmed that unneth or hardly it can be altered or changed then they ought to bend all their wits to the consideration and knowledge of the nature of their citizens and subjects whose charge they have undertaken or at leastwise of that disposition which being compounded as it were of them all appeereth most and carrieth greatest sway among them For at the verie first and all at once to goe about a change and to order and to reforme the nature of a whole comminaltie were an enterprise neither easie to be effected nor safe to bee practised as being a thing that requireth long time and great authoritie and power But doe they must as wine doth in our bodies which at the beginning is moistned as it were and overcome by the nature of him who drunke it but afterwards by gentle warming his stomacke and by little and little entring into his veines it becommeth of strength to affect the drinker and make a change and alteration in him semblably a wise politician and governor untill such time as he hath wonne by the confidence reposed in him and the good reputation that he hath gotten so much authority among the people that he is not able to rule and lead them at his pleasure will accommodate and apply himselfe to their manners and fashions such as he findeth them and thereby conjecture and consider their humors untill he know wherein they take pleasure whereto they are inclined and what it is wherewith they will soonest be lead and carried away As for example the Athenians as they are given to be hastie and cholericke so they be as soone turned to pitie and mercy more willing to entertaine a suspition quickly than to have patience and at leasure to be enformed and take certaine knowledge of a thing and as they be more enclined and readie to succour base persons and of low condition so they love embrace and esteeme merrie words and pleasant conceits delivered in game and laughter more than sage and serious sentences they are best pleased when they heare themselves praised and least offended againe with those that flout and mocke them terrible they are and dread to their verie rulers and magistrates and yet courteous and milde enough even to the pardoning of their professed enemies The nature of the Carthaginian people is farre otherwise bitter fell fierce sterne and full of revenge obsequious to their betters and superiours churlish and imperious over their inferiours and underlings in feare most base and cowardly in anger most cruell firme and constant in their resolution and where they have taken a pitch hard to be mooved with any sports pastimes and jolitie and in one word rough untractable You should not have seene these fellowes if Cleon had requested them sitting in counsell forasmuch as he had sacrificed unto the gods and was minded to feast some strangers that were his friends and come to visit him to put off their assembly to another day to arise laughing and clapping their hands for joy nor if whiles Alcibiades was a making unto them a solemne oration a quaile should have escaped from under his gowne and gotten away would they have runne after her away to catch her and given her to him againe nay they would have fallen all upon him they would have killed them both in the place as if they had contemned them and made fooles of them considering that the banished captaine Hanno because in the campe and armie when he marched he used a lion as a sumpter horse to carrie some of his baggage saying that this savoured strongly of a man that affected tyrannie Neither do I thinke that the Thebanes could ever have contained themselves but have opened the letters of their enemies if they had come into their hands like as the Athenians did who having surprized king Philips posts and curriers would never suffer one of their letters missive to be broke open which had the superscription to Queene Olympias my wife nor discover the love-secrets and merrie conceits passing from an husband being absent in another countrey and writing to his wife Neither doe I thinke that the Athenians on the other side would have endured and borne with patience the proude spirit and scornefull contempt of Epaminondas who would not make answere to an imputation charged against him before the bodie of the people of Thebes but arose out of the Theater where the people was assembled and thorow them all went his way and departed into the place of
you are so yoong a man And why not quoth he for Alexander whom you make a god among you by your decrees is yoonger than my selfe Furthermore over and besides a ready tongue and well exercised he ought to bring with him a strong voice a good breast and a long breath to this combat of State government which I assure you is not lightly to be accounted of but wherein the champion is to be provided for all feats of masteries or fight for feare lest if it chance that his voice faile or be wearie and faint he be overcome and supplanted by some one Catchpoll Crier and of that ranke Wide-mouth'd Jugler or mount-banke And yet Cato the yoonger when he suspected that either the Senate or the people were forestalled by graces laboring for voices and such like prevention so as he had no hope to perswade and compasse such matters as he went about would rise up and holde them all a day long with an oration which he did to drive away the time that at least-wise upon such a day there should be nothing done or passe against his mind But as touching the speech of a governor how powerfull and effectuall it is and how it ought to be prepared we have this already sufficiently treated especially for such an one as is able of himselfe to devise all the rest which consequently followeth hereupon Moreover two avennes as it were or waies there be to come unto the credit of government the one short and compendious yeelding an honourable course to win glory and reputation but it is not without some danger the other longer and more base and obscure howbeit alwaies safe and sure For some there be who making saile and setting their course as a man would say from some high rocke situate in the maine sea have ventured at the first upon some great and worthy enterprise which required valour and hardinesse and so at the very beginning entred into the middes of State-affaires supposing that the Poet Pindarus said true in these his verses A worthy worke who will begin Must when he enters first therein Set out a gay fore front to view Which may farre off the lustre shew For certeinly the multitude and common sort being satisfied and full already of those governours whom they have bene used to a long time receive more willingly all beginners and new-commers much-like as the spectatours and beholders of plaies or games have better affection a great deale to see a new champion entring fresh into the lists And verily all those honours dignities and powerfull authorities which have a sudden beginning and glorious encrease doe ordinarily astonish and daunt all envie for neither doth the fire as Ariston saith make a smoke which is quickly kindled and made to burne out of a light flame nor glorie breed envie when it is gotten at once and speedily but such as grow up by little and little at leisure those be they that are caught therewith some one way and some another And this is the cause that before they come to flower as it were and grow to any credit of government fade and become dead and withered about the publike place of audience But whereas it falleth out according to the Epigram of the courrier or runner Ladas No sooner came the sound of whip to eare But he was at the end of his carreare And then withall in one and selfe-same trice He crowned was with laurell for his price that some one hath at first performed an ambassage honourably rode in triumph gloriously or conducted an armie valiantly neither envious persons nor spightfull ill-willers have like power against such as against others Thus came Aratus into credit the very first day for that he had defaited and overthrowen the tyrant Nicocles Thus Alcibiades woon the spurres when he practised and wrought the alliance betweene the Mantimeans and the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians And when Pompey the great would have entred the citie of Rome in triumph before he had shewed himselfe unto the Senate and was withstood by Sylla who meant to impeach him he stucke not to say unto him More men there be sir who worship the Sun rising than the Sun setting which when Sylla heard he gave place and yeelded unto him without one word replying to the contrary And when as the people of Rome chose and declared Cornelius Scipio Consull all on a sudden and that against the ordinary course of law when as himselfe stood onely to be Aedile it was not upon some vulgar beginning and ordinary entrance into affaires of State but for the great admiration they had of his rare and singular prowesse in that being but a very youth he had mainteined single fight and combat hand to hand with his enemy in Spaine and vanquished him yea and within a while after in the necke of it had atchieved many worthy exploits against the Carthaginians being but a militarie Tribune or Colonel of a thousand foot for which brave acts and services of his Cato the elder as he returned out of the campe cried out with a loud voice of him Right wise and sage indeed alone is he The rest to him but flitting shadowes be But now sir seeing that the cities States of Greece are brought to such tearmes that they have no more armies to conduct nor tyrants to be put downe nor yet alliances to be treated and made what noble and brave enterprise would you have a yoong gentleman performe at his beginning and entrance into government Mary there are left for him publike causes to plead ambassages to negotiate unto the Emperour or some sovereigne potentate which occasions do ordinarily require a man of action hardy and ardent at the first enterprise wise and warie in the finall execution Besides there be many good and honest customes of ancient time either for-let or growen out of kinde by negligence which may be set on foot renewed and reformed againe many abuses also by ill custome are crept into cities where they have taken deepe root and beene setled to the great dishonour and damage of the common-wealth which may be redressed by his meanes It falleth out many times that a great controversie judged and decided aright the triall likewise and proofe of faithfull trust and diligence in a poore mans cause mainteined and defended frankly and boldly against the oppression of some great and mightie adversarie also a plaine and stout speech delivered in the behalfe of right and justice against some grand Signiour who is unjust and injurious have affoorded honorable entries unto the management of State affaires And many there be who have put foorth themselves made their parts knowen and come up by enterteining quarrels and enmities with those personages whose authoritie was odious envied and terrible to the people for we alwaies see that presently the puissance and power of him that is put downe and overthrowen doth accrue unto him who had the upper hand with greater reputation which I speake not
that Cassander reedified Thebes and how when intelligence came of the cruell execution and bloody massacre committed in Argos wherein the Argives caused to be put to death 1500. of their owne citizens they caused in a solemne procession and generall assembly of the whole citie an expiatorie sacrifice to be carried about that it might please the gods to avert and turne away such cruell thoughts from the harts of the Athenians semblaby how at what time as there was a generall search made throughout the citie in everie house for those who banded with Harpalus they passed by one house onely of a man newly married and would not suffer it to be searched For in these precedents such like they might well enough in these daies imitate and resemble their ancient forefathers But as for the battell of Marathon the field fought neere the river Eurynedon and the noble fight at Plateae with other such examples which doe nothing else but blow and puffe up a multitude with vanitie they should leave such stories for the schooles of Sophisters and masters of Rhetorike Well we ought not in our severall governments to have a due regard onely to mainteine our selves and our cities so wisely that our sovereignes have no occasion to complaine but we must take order also to have one great Seigniour or other who hath most authoritie at Rome and in the court of the emperour to be our fast and speciall frend who may serve us in steed of a rampier to backe us and to defend all our actions and proceedings in the government of our countries for such lords and great men of Rome stand ordinarily passing well affected to those affaires which their dependants and favorits doe follow and the fruit which may be reaped by the amitie and favour of such grand-Seigniours it were not good and honest to convert into the advancement and enriching of our selves and our particular private frends but to imploy the same as Polybius did sometime and Panaetius who by the meanes of the good grace of Scipio wherein they stood did benefit and advantage their countrey exceeding much in which number may be ranged Arius for when Caesar Augustus had forced the citie Alexandria he entred into it holding Arius by the hand and devising with him alone of all his other friends what was to be done more afterwards when the Alexandrians looked for no other but sackage and all extremities and yet besought him to pardon them I pardon you quoth he and receive you into my grace and favour first in regard of the nobilitie and beautie of your city secondly for Alexander the great his sake the founder thereof and thirdly for the love of this my friend Arius your citizen May a man with any reason compare with this gracious favour the most large and gainfull commissions of ruling and governing provinces which many make so great suit for at the court and that with such abject servitude and base subjection that some of them have even waxen old in giving attendance thereabout at other mens gates leaving in the meane while their owne home affaires at sixe and seven were it not well to correct and amend a little the sentence in Euripides singing and saying it thus If it bee honest and lawfull to watch and make court at the gates of another and to be subject to the sute of some great Seigniour surely most commendable and behoovefull it were so to doe for the love and benefit of a mans country in all other cases to seeke and embrace amities under just and equall conditions Moreover a governour in yeelding and reducing his country unto the obedience of mightie sovereignes abroad ought to take good heed that he bring it not into servile subjection lest when it is once tied by the legge he suffer it to be bound also by the necke for some there be who reporting all things both little and great unto these potentates make this their servitude reprochable or to speake more truely they deprive their country of all policie and forme of government making it so fearefull timorous and fit for no authoritie and command at all and like as they who use themselves to live so physically that they can neither dine nor suppe nor yet bath without their physitian have not so much benefit of health as nature it selfe doth affoord them even so those cities and States which for every decree and resolution of their counsell for all grace and favour yea and for the smallest administration of publike affaires must needs adjoigne the consent judgement and good liking of those Seigniours and good masters of theirs they even compell the said great lords to be more powerfull and absolute over them than they would themselves The causes hereof commonly be these to wit the avarice jealousie and emulation of the chiefe and principall citizens in a State for that being desirous otherwhiles to oppresse and keepe under those who be their inferiors they constraine them to abandon their owne cities or else being at some debate and difference with other citizens their equals and unwilling to take the foile one at anothers hand in their owne citie they have recourse unto other superior lords and so bring in forreiners who are their betters Heereupon it commeth to passe that Senate people judiciall courts and all that little authoritie and power which they had is utterly lost A good governour therefore ought to remedy this mischiefe by appeasing such burgesses as be private and meane citizens by equalitie and those who are great and mightie by reciprocall yeelding one to another and so by this course to keepe all affaires within the compasse of the citie to compose all quarrels and determine all controversies at home curing and healing such inconveniences as secret maladies of a common-wealth with a civill and politicke medicine that is to say to chuse rather for his owne part for to be vanquished and overthrowen among fellow-citizens than to vanquish win the victorie by forren power not to offer wrong unto his natural country and be a cause to overthrow the rights and priviledges thereof as for all others he is to beseech them yea and to perswade with them particularly one by another by good reasons and demonslrances of how manie calamities peevish obstinacie is the cause and now because they would not ech one in his turne course frame and accommodate themselves at home to their fellow-citizens who manie times be of one minde and linage to their neighbours and companions in charges and offices and that with honour and good favour they are come to this passe as to detect and lay open the secret dissentions and debates of their owne citie at the gates of their advocates and to put their causes into the hands of pragmaticall lawyers at Rome with no lesse shame and ignominie than losse and damage Physicians are wont when they cannot expell and fully exclude out of the bodie inwardlie some kinde of maladies to turne and
drive the same without forth to the superficiall parts but contrariwise a man of government if he be not able to keepe a citie altogether in peace concord but that some troubles will arise yet at leastwise he must endevour to conteine that within the citie which is the cause thereof and nurceth the sedition and in keeping it close to labour for to heale and remedie it to this end that if it be possible he have no need either of physician or physicke from forren parts for the intentions of a man of State and government ought to be these namely to proceed in his affaires surely and to flie the violent and furious motions of vaine-glorie as hath beene said alreadie howbeit in his resolution A courage bold and full of confidence Undaunted heart and fearlesse be must have Which will not quatle for any consequence But see the end much like to sculdiors brave In field themselves who manly do behave And hazard lims and life for to defend Their countrey deere and enemies to off end and not onely to oppose himselfe against enemies but also to be armed against perilous troubles and dangerous tumults that he may be readie to resist and make head for he ought not in any case himselfe to moove tempests and raise commotions no nor when he seeth boisterous stormes comming forsake and leave his countrey in time of need He must nor I say drive his citie under his charge upon apparent danger but so soone as ever it once begin to be tossed and to float in jeopardie than is it his part to come to succor by casting out from himselfe as it were a sacred Anchor that is to say to use his boldnesse and libertie of speech considering that now the maine point of all lieth a bleeding even the safetie of his countrey Such were the dangers that hapned unto Pergamus in Neroes time and of late daies to the Rhodians during the Empire of Domitian as also before unto the Thessalians while Augustus was Emperour by occasion that they had burned Petraeus quick In these and such like occurrences a man of State and government especially if he be woorthie of that name Never shall you see Sleepie for to bee nor drawing his foote backe for feare no nor to blame and lay the fault of others ne yet to make shift for one and put himselfe out of the medley of danger but either going in embassage or embarked in some ship at sea or else readie to speake first and to say not onely thus We we Apollo have this murder don From these our coasts avert this plague anon but although himselfe be not culpable at all with the multitude yet will he put his person into danger for them For surely this is an act right honest and besides the honestie in it selfe it hapneth divers times that the vertue and noble courage of such a man hath beene so highly admired that it hath daunted the anger conceived against a whole multitude and dispatched all the fiercenesse and furie of a bitter menace like as it befell unto a King of Persia in regard of Bulis and Sperthis two gentlemen of Sparta and as it was seene in Pompey to his host and friend Sthenon for when he was fully determined to chastice the Mamertines sharpely and to proceede against them in all rigor for that they had rebelled the said Sthenon stept unto him and thus frankly spake That he should do neither well nor justly in case he did to death a number of innocents for one man who alone was faultie for it is I my selfe quoth he who caused the whole citie to revolt and take armes inducing my friends for love and forcing mine enemies for feare These words of his went so neere unto the heart of Pompey that he pardoned the citie and most courteously entreated Sthenon semblaby the host of Sylla having shewed the like valour and vertue although it were not to the like person died a noble death for when Sylla had woon the citie Praenesle by assault he meant to put all the inhabitants thereof to the sword excepting onely one host of his whom in regard of old hospitalite he spared and pardoned but this host friend said flatly unto him that he would never remaine alive to see that bloudy massacre not hold his life by the murtherer of his countrey and so cast himselfe into the troupe of his fellow-citizens in the heate of execution and was killed with them Well pray unto the gods we ought to preserve and keepe us that we fall not into such calamities and troublesome times to hope also and looke for better daies Moreover we are to esteeme of everie publike magistracie and of him who exerciseth it as of a great and sacred thing and in that regard to honour the same above all Now the honour which is due unto authoritie is the mutuall accord and love of those who are set in place to exercise the same together and verily this honor is much more worth than either all those crownes and diademes which they beare upon their heads or their stately mantles and roabes of purple wherewith they be arraied Howbeit they that laid the first ground and beginning of amitie their service in warres when they were fellow-souldiors or the passing of their youthfull yeeres together and contrariwise take this a cause now of enmitie that they either are joined captaines in commission for the conduct of an armie or have the charge of the Common-weale together it can not be avoided but that they must incur one of these three mischiefes For either if they esteem their fellowes and companions in government to be their equals they begin themselves first to grow into tearmes of dissention or if they take them to be their betters they fall to be envious or else in case they hold them to be inferiour unto them in good parts they despise contemne them Whereas they should indeed make court unto the greater honor and adorne their equals and advance their inferiors and in one word to love and embrace all as having an amitie and love engendred among themselves not because they have eaten at one table drunke of the same cup or met together at one feast but by a certaine common band and publike obligation as having in some sort a certaine fatherly benevolence contracted and growen upon the common affection unto their countrey Certes one reason why Scipio was not so well thought of at Rome was this that having invited all his friends to a solemne feast at the dedication of his temple to Hercules he left out Mummius his colleague or fellow in office for say that otherwise they tooke not one another for so good friends yet so it is that at such a time and upon such occasions they ought to have honored and made much one of the other by reason of their common magistracie If then Scipio a noble personage otherwise and a man of woonderfull regard incurred the imputation and
good and fit a time appeased the tumult and repressed the sedition and insurrection that was like to grow For like as a learned and expert physician after hee hath taken away a great quantitie of corrupt blood from his patient giveth him anon some little nourishment that is good and holsome even so a discreet and well advised ruler of a popular State when he hath put the people by some great matter which tended to their shame and losse will againe by some light gratuitie and pleasure which he is content to graunt cheere and recomfort them yea and allay their moode when they bee readie to whine and complaine And otherwhiles good pollicie it is of purpose to withdraw them from some foolerie unto which without all sense and reason their minde and affection standeth to draw and leade them unto other things that be good and profitable like as Demades his practise was at what time as he had the receit of all the revenues of the citie under his hands for when the people of Athens were fully bent to send foorth certeing gallies for to succour those who had taken armes and rebelled against Alexander the great and to that effect commaunded him to disburse money for the charges hee made this speech unto them My masters there is money ready for you for I have provided so that I purpose to deale among you at this feast of Bacchanales that everie one of you may have halfe a Mua of silver now if you list to employ the fame money to the setting out of a fleet you may doe what pleaseth you with your owne use it or abuse it at your pleasure it is all one to mee by this cunning device having turned them from the rigging and manning of the armado which they purposed to set out and all for feare they should lose the benefit of the foresaid dole or largesse which hee promised and pretended he staied them from offending king Alexander that he had no cause to finde himselfe greeved with them Many such fits and humors are the people given unto both hurtfull and dammageable unto them which it were impossible to breake them of going directly to worke but a man must go about with them by turnings windings compasse them to his mind like as Phocion did upon a time when the Athenians would have had him in al haste to make a road invade the countrey of Boeotia for he caused incontinently proclamation to be made by sound of trumpet That all citizens from fourteene yeeres of age upward unto threescore should shew themselves in armes and follow him upon which proclamation when there arose a great noise and stirre among the elder sort who began to mutine for that he woulde force them at those yeeres to the warres What a strange matter sirs is this quoth he I my selfe am fourescore yeeres of age and you shall have me with you for your captaine By this meanes a politicke governour may put by and breake the ranke of many unseasonable and needlesse embassages namely by joining many of them in commission together and those whom he seeth to be unfit altogether for such voiages thus may he stay the enterprises of going in hand with many great buildings unnecessary and to no purpose in commanding them at such times to contribute money thereto out of their owne purses also hinder the processe of many uncivill and undecent sures namely by assigning one and the same time for apparance in court and for to be emploied in solliciting causes abroad in forren parts for to bring these things about he must draw and associate unto him those principall authors who have drawne out in writing any such bils to be proposed or have incited the people and put those matters in their heads and to them he shall intimate those crosse courses abovesaid for either if they start backe and keepe out of the way they shall seeme themselves to breake that which they proposed or if they accept thereof and be present they shall be sure to take part of the trouble and paines that is imposed upon them Now when there shall be question of any exploit to be done of great consequence and tending much to the good of the State which requireth no small travell industrie and diligence then have a speciall regard and endevour I advise you to chuse those friends of yours who are of most sufficiencie and of greatest authoritie and those among the rest which are of the mildest and best nature for such you may be sure will crosse you least and assist you most so long as they have wit at will and be withall voide of jealousie and contention And heerein it behooveth a man to know wel his owne nature and finding that whereunto he is lesse apt than an other to chuse for his adjuncts those rather whō he perceiveth to be better able to go through with the businesse in hand than such as otherwise be like unto himselfe for so Diomedes being deputed to go in espiall for to view the campe of the enimies chose for his cōpanion the wariest best advised person of all the Greeks let passe the most valiant souldiours By this meanes all actions shall be counterpoised best lesse jealousie and emulation will grow betweene them who are desirous to have their good parts valor seeme indifferent in vertues qualities If you have a cause to plead or be to go in embassage chuse for your companion assistant if you find your selfe not meet to speak some man that is eloquent like as Pelopidas in the like case chose Epaminondas If you thinke your selfe unmeet to enterteine the common people with courtesie affability and of too high and loftie a minde for to debase your selfe and make court unto them as Callicratidas the captaine of the Lacedemonians was take one unto you who is gracious and can skill to court it and give enterteinment If your bodie be weake or feeble and not able to endure much paines have one with you who hath a stronger bodie and who can away with travell as Nicias did Lamachus For this is the reason that Geryones was so woonderfull because that having many legs many armes and many eies yet hee with all them was ruled and governed by one soule But wise governors if they accord and agree well may conferre and lay together not onely their bodies and goods but also their fortunes their credits and their vertues and make use of them all in one affaire in such sort that they shall compasse and execute fully whatsoever they enterprise much better than any other whatsoever and not as the Argonautes did who after they had left Hercules were constrained to have recourse unto the charmes sorceries and enchantments of women for to save themselves and to steale away the golden fleece Certeine temples there be into which whosoever did enter must leave without doores all the gold that they had about them and as for iron they
conceive and imagine in our selves what great pleasures vertues do yeeld unto those who effect any commendable action tending to the good of their countrey turning to the profit of the common-weale they tickle not they itch not neither do they after a stroking manner give contentment as do these sweete motions and gentle prickes of the flesh for such bring with them a certaine impatient itch an unconstant tickling mingled with a furious hear and inflammation but those pleasures which come from notable and praise-woorthie deeds such as they be whereof the ordinarie workman and author is he who governeth a common-weale aright and as it appertaineth unto him for to doe lift up and raise the soule to a greatnesse and haughtinesse of courage accompained with joy not with gilded plumes as Euripides saith but with celestiall wings as Plato was woont to say And that the truth hereof may the better appeere call to remembrance your selfe that which oftentimes you have heard concerning Epaminondas who being asked upon a time what was the greatest pleasure that ever he felt in all his life answered thus Marie even this quoth he that it was my fortune to win the field at the battell of Leuctres my father and mother both being yet living And Sylla the first time that he came to Rome after he had cleered Italy from civill and domesticall warres could not sleepe one winke nor lay his eies together a whole night for exceeding great joy and contentment wherewith his spirit was ravished as if it had beene with a mightie and violent wind and thus much he wrote of himselfe in his owne Commentaries I can therefore hold well with Xenophon in that hee saith That there is no sound or speech more delectable to a mans eare than the hearing of his owne praises and even so it must bee confessed That there is no spectacle no sight no report and memoriall no cogitation nor thought in the world that bringeth so great pleasure delectation to the mind as doth the contemplation and beholding of those good and laudable deeds which a man hath performed whiles he was employed in the administration of State and in bearing offices as being conspicuous eminent and publike places to be seene afarre off True it is moreover that the amiable grace and favour thereby gotten accompanying alwaies vertuous acts and bearing witnesse therto the commendation also of the people who strive a vie and contend who can give out greatest praise and speake most good the verie guide which leadeth the way of just and due benevolence doth adde a glosse and lustre as it were unto the joy proceeding from vertue for to polish and beautifie the same Neither ought a man by negligence to suffer for to fade and wither in old age the glorie of his good deeds like unto a cornet or garland of greene leaves which was woon at some games of prize but evermore to bring foorth some fresh and new demerites to stir up and awaken as a man would say the grace of the old deeds precedent and thereby to make the same both greater and also more permanent and durable For like as the carpenters and shipwrights who had the charge to maintaine the ship called the Gallion of Delos evermore made supply of new pieces of timber as anie of the olde began to decaie keeping it in continuall reparation by putting in one ribbe and planke for another and so preserved it alwaies entire and whole as it was the verie first daie when it was built even so a man is to doe by his reputation and credit And no harder matter is it for to maintaine glorie once up and on foote than to keepe a fire continually flaming which is once kindled by putting eftsoones fresh fewell under bee it never so little for to feede the same but if they bee once out and throughly quenched indeede then it is no small matter to set either the one or the other a burning againe And like as Lampas the rich merchant and shipmaster being demaunded how he got his goods Marie quoth he my greatest wealth I gained soone and with ease but my smaller estate with exceeding much paine and slowly even so it is no easie matter at the beginning to acquire reputation or to win credit and authoritie in the managing of civill affaires but to augment it after the foundation is laid or to preserve and uphold the same when it is once come to greatnes is not so hard for every litle thing the smallest meanes wil do it And so we see that a friend when he is onece had requireth not many great pleasures offices of kindnesse friendship for to be kept and continued a friend stil but petie tokens smal signes of curtesie passing continually from time to time betweene are sufficient to preserve mutuall love and amity Semblablie the good will and affection of the people their trust confidence which they have conceived towards a man although he be not able evermore to give largesses among them although he doe not alwaies defend and mainteine their causes nor sit continually in place of magistracie and office yet neverthelesse it holdeth still if he doe but shew himselfe onely to carie a good heart unto them not to cease for to take paines care for the common good nor refuse any service in that behalfe for even the very expeditions and voiages in warre have not alwaies battailes araunged nor fields fought and bloudie skirmishes ne yet besieging and beleaguing of cities but they afford betweene whiles festivall sacrifices parlies enterviewes some leasure also and time of rest to follow games disports and pastimes How then commeth it that an old man should be afraid to meddle in State affaires as if it were a charge unsupportable full of infinite and innumerable travels without any comfort and consolation at all considering that there be allowed at times varietie of plaies and games goodly sights and shewes solemne precessions and stately pompes publike doles and largesses daunces musicke and seasts and ever and anon the honorable service and worship of one god or other which are able to unknit the frownes and unbend the browes to dispatch and dissipate the cloudy cares and austeritie of the judges in court hall and of senatours also in counsell chamber yeelding unto them much more pleasure contentment in proportion to their travels and paines belonging to their place As for the greatest mischief which is most to be feared in such administrations of the common-weale to wit envy it setleth taketh least hold upon old age of any other for like as Heraclitus was wont to say That dogs do baie barke at those whom they know not even so envie assaileth him who beginneth to governe just at the dore as it were and the entrie of the tribunall and throne of estate seeking to impeach his accesse and passage thither but after it is accustomed and acquainted once with the glorie of a man and
which is full of ripe understanding of considerate wisedome and of good directions and plots well and surely laied In which persons the white head and gray beard which some laugh and make good game at the crow-foot about the eies the furrowes in the forehead the rivels and wrinckles in the face besides appearing beare witnesse of long experience and adde unto them a reputation and authoritie which helpe much to perswade and to draw the minds of the hearers unto their will and purpose For to speake truely youth is made as it were to follow and obey but age to guide and command and that citie or State is preserved wherein the sage counsels of the elders and the martiall prowesse of the yonger beare sway together And for this cause highly and woonderfully are these verses following praised in Homer and namely in the first place Then to begin a goodly sort of ancient captaines bold Assembled he in Nestors ship a counsell there to hold upon the same reason also that counsel of the wisest and principall men assistant unto the kings of Lacedaemon for the better government of the State the oracle of Apollo Pythius first called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Elders and Lycurgus afterwards directly and plainly tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Old men and even at this very day the counsell of Estate in Rome is named a Senate that is to say an assembly of ancient persons And like as the law and custome time out of minde hath allowed unto Kings and Princes the diademe that is to say a roiall band or frontlet the crowne also to stand upon their heads as honourable mots ensignes of their regall dignitie and sovereigne authoritie even so hath nature given unto olde men the white head and hoarie beard as honourable tokens of their right to command and of their preeminence above others And for mine owne part I verily thinke that this nowne in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a prize or reward of honour as also the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much to say as to honour continue still in use as respective to the honour due unto olde men who in Greeke are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not for that they bathe in hot waters or sleepe in softer beds but because in cities well and wisely governed they be ranged with kings for their prudence the proper and perfect goodnesse whereof as of some tree which yeeldeth winter fruit which is not ripe before the latter end of the yeere nature bringeth forth late and hardly in olde age and therefore there was not one of those martiall and brave couragious captaines of the Greeks who found fault with that great king of kings Agamemnon for making such a praier as this unto the gods That of the Grecian host which stood of many woorthie men Such counsellers as Nestor was they would vouchsafe him ten but they all agreed with him and by their silence confessed That not onely in policie and civill government but also in warre olde age carrieth a mightie great stroke for according as the ancient proverbe beareth witnesse One head that knowes full wisely for to reed Out goesten hands and maketh better speed One advice likewise and sentence grounded upon reason and delivered with perswasive grace effecteth the greatest and bravest exploits in a whole State Well say that olde age hath many difficulties and discommodities attending upon it yet is not the same therefore to be rejected for the absolute rule of a king being the greatest and most perfect estate of all governments in the world hath exceeding many cares travels and troubles insomuch as it is written of king Seleucus that he would often-times say if the people wist how laborious and painfull it were to reade and write onely so many letters as he did they would not deine to take up his diademe if they found it throwen in their very way as they goe And Philip being at the point to pitch his campe in a faire ground when he was advertised that the place would not affoord forage for his labouring beasts O Hercules quoth he what a life is this of ours that we must live forsooth and care to serve the necessitie of our asses Why then belike it were high time to perswade a king when he is aged for to lay downe his diademe to cast off his robes of purple to clad himselfe in simple array to take a crooked staffe in hand and so to go and live in the countrey for feare lest if he with his gray haires raigned stil he should seeme to do many superfluous and impertinent things and to direct matters out of season Now if it were unseemely and a meere indignitie to deale with Agesilaus with Numa and Darius all kings and monarchs after this sort unmeet likewise it is that we should remove and displace Solon out of the counsell of Areopagus or depose Cato from his place in the Romane Senate because of their olde age Why should we then goe about to perswade such an one as Pericles to give over and resigne his government in a popular State for over besides there were no sense at all that if one have leapt and mounted into the tribunall seat or chaire of estate in his yoong yeeres and afterwards discharged upon the people common-wealth those his violent passions of ambition and other furious fits when ripe age is now come which is woont to bring with it discretion and much wisdome gathered by experience to abandon and put away as it were his lawfull wife the government which hee hath so long time abused The foxe in Aesops fables would not suffer the urchin to take off the tiques that were setled upon her bodie For if quoth she thou take away these that be already full there will come other hungry ones in their place and even so if a State rejected evermore from administration of the common-wealth those governours that begin once to be olde it must needs be quickly full of a sort of yoong rulers that be hungrie and thirstie both after glory but altogether void of politike wit and reason to governe for how can it otherwise be and where should they get knowledge if they have not bene disciples to learne nor spectatours to follow and imitate some ancient magistrate that manageth state affaires The Cards at sea which shew the feat of sailing and ruling ships can not make good sea-men or skilfull pilots if they have not beene themselves many times at the stearne in the poope to see the maner of it and the conflicts against the waves the winds the blacke stormes and darke tempests What time in great perplexitie The mariner doth wish to see Castor and Pollux twins full bright Presaging safetie with their light How then possibly can a yoong man governe and direct a citie well perswade the people aright deliver wise counsel in the Senate having but read one little booke treating of pollicy or haply
of the Parthians sent unto him certeine ambassadors to request him that he would not passe over the river Euphrates but to make it the middle frontier bound betweene them both Nay rather quoth Pompeius let justice be the indifferent limit betweene the Parthians and the Romans L. Lucullus after he was returned from his warres and conquests gave himselfe over excessively to all pleasures and to live most sumptuously reprooving Pompeius for this That hee desired alwaies from time to time more and more great charges and emploiments even above his age and unfitting those yeeres of his unto whom Pompeius made this answere That it was a thing more unbeseeming olde yeeres for a man to abandon himselfe to delights and pleasures than to attend the weightie affaires of the common weale Upon a time when he was sicke the Physicians prescribed that he should eat of a blacke-bird great laying there was in many places for that bird but none could be found for that it was not their season nor the time of the yeere but one there was who said that if he would send to Lucullus he might have of them for he kept them in mue all the yeere long And what needs that quoth he can not Pompey recover and live if Lucullus were not a waster and a delicate given to belly-cheere and so leaving the Physicians prescript diet hee composed and framed himselfe to eat that which was ordinary and might be found in every place In regard of a great famine and scarsitie of corne and victuals at Rome he was ordeined in outward shew of words the grand purveiour or generall superintendent and over-seer for victuals but in effect and authoritie lord indeed both of sea and land by which occasion he made voiages into Africke Sardinia and Sicilie where after he had provided a mightie deale of corne he intended presently to have returned with all speed to Rome but there arose a terrible tempest insomuch as the pilots and mariners themselves made no haste to goe to sea and set saile but he in his owne person embarked first and when he was on ship-boord he commanded to weigh anker saying with a loud voice Saile we needs must there is no remedie but to live there is not such necessitie When the quarrell betweene him and Caesar was broken out and fully discovered there was one Marcellinus a man that before-time had bene advanced by him yet afterwards turned to the adverse part and faction of Caesar who in a frequent assembly of the Senate charged and challenged him to his face for many things and spake spightfull words against him Pompeius could not holde but answered him thus Bashest not thou Marcellinus in this open place to miscall and raile upon me who have made thee eloquent whereas before thou couldst not speake at all who have fed thee full even untill thou be readie to cast up thy stomacke where before thou wert hungry and ready to pine for famine Unto Cato who chidde and reprooved him sharply for that he would never beleeve his words when he fore-tolde him many times that the purssance and increase of Caesars State unto whom he lent his hand would one day greatly prejudice and hurt the weale-publicke he answered Your counsell indeed was wiser but mine more loving and friendly In speaking of himselfe freely he said That all offices of State he both entred sooner upon than he looked himselfe and also forwent them before it was expected that he would After the battel of Pharsalia when he fled into Aegypt and was to passe out of his gally into a little barke or fisher boat which the king had sent unto him for to bring him to land he turning unto his wife and sonne said no more but this verse out of Euripides Who once in court of Tyrant serve become His siaves anon though free they thither come Being passed over in this barke after he had received one blow with a sword he gave onely a sigh and groane and without saying one word he covered his owne face with his garment and yeelded himselfe to be killed CICERO the great oratour was mocked of some for that surname of his which alludeth unto a Cich-pease in so much as his friends gave him counsell to change his name but hee contrariwise said that he would make the name of the Ciceroes more noble and renowmed than the Catoes the Catuli or the Scauri He offered unto the gods a goodly faire vessell of silver in which he caused to be engraven his two fore-names Marcus and Tullius in letters but for the third to wit Cicero his surname hee commaunded to bee embossed or chaced the forme of a Cich-pease He said that those oratours who used to straine their voices and crie aloud in the pulpit were privie to their owne weakenesse and insufficience otherwise and had recourse to this one helpe like as creples and lame-folke to their horses for to mount upon Verres had a sonne diffamed for the abuse of his bodie in the sloure of his youth and yet the said Verres stucke not to slaunder Cicero and raile upon him even to these broad and foule tearmes as to call him a filthie wanton and a buggeror whereto Cicero answered thus Thou doest not know that it were more seemely to rebuke thy children for this within doores in some secret part of thy house close shut Marcellus one day in debating and contesting with him said Thou hast brought more to their death by thy testimonies and depositions than thou hast saved with all thy good pleading I confesse as much quoth Cicero againe for I have more truth and fidelitie in me by farre than eloquence The same Metellus demaunded of him who was his father reproching him as it were thereby that he was a new upstart and a gentleman of the first head Unto whom readily thy mother hath made this question more hard on thy part to be answered now was Metellus his mother thought to be an unchast woman and naught of her bodie and Metellus himselfe was counted a vaine braine-sicke and slipperie fellow given over to his wanton lusts and desires This Metellus had caused to be set upon the sepulchre of one Diodorus who had beene his master sometime to teach him Rhetoricke the portraiture of a crow in stone whereupon Cicero tooke occasion to come upon him in this wise A just recompence in deed and fit for him because he hath taught this man to slie and not to speake Vatinius was a lewd man and his adversarie now a rumour ran abroad that he was dead but afterwards when he found it to be a false brute A mischiefe take him for me quoth Cicero that made this lie first There was one supposed to be an Africane borne who said unto him That he heard him not when he spake I marvell at that quoth Cicero considering thine eares be bored as they are and have holes in them C. Popilius would have bene taken and reputed for a great
square and when he answered No but they grew round How then quoth he if they had growen naturally foure cornered would you have made them round He was asked the question upon a time how farre forth the marches and confines of Lacedaemon did extend then he shaking a javelin which he held in his hand Even as farre quoth he as this is able to goe One demaunded of him why the citie of Sparta was not walled about See you not quoth he the walles of the Lacedaemonians and therewith shewed him the citizens armed Another asked him the like question and he made him this answer That cities ought not to be fortified with stones with wood and timber but with the prowesse and valiance of the inhabitants He used ordinarily to admonish his friends not to seeke for to be rich in money but in valour and vertue And whensoever he would have a worke to be finished or service to be performed speedily by his soldiers his maner was to begin himselfe first to lay hand unto it in the face of all He stood upon this and would glorie in it that he travelled as much as any man in his company but he vaunted of this that he could rule and command himselfe more than in being a king Unto one who woondering to see a Lacedaemonian maimed and lame go to war said unto the partie Thou shouldest yet at leastwise have called for an horse to serve upon Knowest not thou quoth he that in warre we have no need of those that will flie away but of such as will make good and keepe their ground It was demaunded of him how he wonne so great honour and reputation In despising death quoth hee And being likewise asked why the Spattanes used the sound of flutes when they fought To the end said he that when in battell they march according to the measures it may be knowen who be valiant and who be cowards One there was who reputed the King of Persia happie for that he attained verie yoong to so high and puissant a State Why so quoth he for Priamus at his age was not unhappie nor infortunate Having conquered the greater part of Asia he purposed with himselfe to make warre upon the king himselfe as well for to breake his long repose as also to hinder him otherwise and stop his course who minded with money to bribe and corrupt the governors of the Greeke-cities and the oratours that lead the people but amid this deseigne and deliberation of his he was called home by the Ephori by reason of a dangerous warre raised by the Greeke-States against the citie of Sparta and that by meanes of great summes of money which the king of Persia had sent thither by occasion whereof forced he was to depart out of Asia saying That a good prince ought to suffer himselfe to be commaunded by the lawes and he left behinde him much sorrow and a longing desire after him among the Greek-inhabitants in Asia after his departure and for that on the Persian pieces of coine there was stamped or imprinted the image of an archer he said when he brake up his campe that the king of Persia had chased him out of Asia with thirtie thousand archers for so many golden Dariques had beene carried by one Timocrates unto Thebes and Athens which were divided among the oratours and governors of those two cities by meanes whereof they were sollicited and stirred to begin warre upon the Spartanes so hee wrote a letter missive unto the Ephori the tenor whereof was this Agesilaus unto the Ephori greeting We have subdued the greatest part of Asia and driven the Barbarians from thence also in Ionîa we have made many armours but since you commaund me to repaire home by a day appointed Know yee that I will follow hard after this letter or peradventure prevent it for the authority of command which I have I hold not for my selfe but for my native countrey and cōfederates and then in truth doth a magistrate rule according to right justice when he obeieth the lawes of his countrey the Ephori or such like as be in place of government within the city Having crossed the straights of Hellespont he entred into the countrey of Thrace where he requested of no prince nor State of the Barbarians passage but sent unto every one of them demāding whether he should passe as through the land of friends or enemies And verily all others received him friendly and accompained him honorably as he journeyed through their countries onely those whom they call Troadians unto them as the report goeth Xerxes himselfe gave presents to have leave for to passe demaunded of him for licence of quiet passage a hundred talents of silver and as many women but Agesilaus after a scoffing manner asked those who brought this message And why doe not they themselves come with you for to receive the money and women so he led his armie forward but in the way he encountred them well appointed gave them battell overthrew them and put many of them to the sword which done he marched farther And of the Macedonian king he demaunded the same question as before who made him this answer That he would consult thereupon Let him consult quoth he what he will meane while we will march on the king wondring at his hardinesse stood in great feare of him and sent him word to passe in peaceable and friendly maner The Thessalians at the same time were confederate with his enemies whereupon he forraied and spoiled their countries as he went and sent to the citie of Larissa two friends of his Xenocles and Scytha to sound them see if they could practise effectually for to draw them to the league and amity of the Lacedaemonians but those of Larissa arrested those agents and kept them in prison whereupon all the rest taking great indignation were of this minde that Agesilaus could doe no lesse but presently encampe himselfe and beleaguer the citie Larissa round about but hee saide that for to conquer all Thessalie he would not leese one of those twaine so upon composition and agreement he recovered and got them againe Being given to understand that there was a battell fought neere to Corinth in which very few Lacedaemonians were slaine but of Athenians Argives Corinthians and their allies a great number he was not once seene to have taken any joy or contentment at the newes of the victorie but sighed deepely from the bottome of his heart saying Alas for unhappie Greece who hath herselfe destroied so many men of her owne as had beene sufficient in one battell to have defeated all the Barbarians at once But when the Pharsalians came to set upon the taile of his armie in his march and to doe them mischiefe and damage with a force of five hundred horse he charged and overthrew them for which luckie hand he caused a Trophe to be erected under the mountaines called Narthacii and this victorie of all others pleased
the ground and not interred the sight heereof and the words withall were so patheticall that there was not one present so hard hearted or so spightfully and malicously bent against the tyrant but deplored their wofull estate and pitied the generositie and magnanimitie of these two yoong ladies Now albeit there be infinit presidents of noble deeds that in old time women have done in companies together yet me thinkes these few examples which I have already delivered may suffice from hencefoorth therefore I will rehearse the particular vertuous acts of severall women by themselves as they come scattering into my remembrance for I suppose that such narrations and histories as these doe not require of necessitie the precise order and consequence of the times PIERIA OF those Ionians who were come to dwell in the citie of Miletum some chaunced to be at variance and debate with the children of Neleus by occasion whereof in the end they thought the city too hot for them and constreined they were to remoove and retire themselves into the citie Myus where they made their abode habitation and yet even there also much molested they were and troubled by the Milesians who warred upon them for their revolt and apostasie howbeit this warre was not so bloudie and mortall but that they used to send one unto another yea and to communicate and negotiate reciprocally in divers things for even upon certaine solemne and festivall daies the wives and women of Myus would repaire boldly unto Miletum now among these Myuntines there was a noble man and of great name one Pythes who had to wife a ladie called Japygia by whom he was father of a faire daughter cleped Pieria when as therefore the great feast unto Diana and a solemne sacrifice called Neleus was celebrated by the Milesians Pythes sent thither unto this solemnitie his wife and daughter aforesaid for they had requested leave of him to be partakers of the feast It fortuned whiles they were there that one of the sonnes of Neleus a man of most credit and greatest authoritie in the citie named Phrygius cast a fancie to Pieria and in courting her after the manner of lovers desired to know of her what it might be wherein he might gratifie her most and best content her unto whom she answered If Sir you will so bring about that I my selfe with many more may oftentimes resort hither you shall doe me the greatest pleasure that you can devise Phrygius conceiving presently what her meaning was namely that there might bee continuall peace and amitie betweene those two cities wrought so that he composed the warre on both sides in regard hereof Pieria was highly esteemed and honoured in both cities in such wise that unto this day the Milesian dames do wish ordinarily and pray unto the gods that they may be as well beloved as Pieria was of Phrygius POLYCRITE THere was in times past warre betweene the Naxians and the Milesians about Neaera the wife of Hypsicreon and the same arose upon this occasion This Neaera was enamoured upon Promedon a Naxian insomuch as she would embarke take the sea and saile with him for why an ordinarie guest he was of Hypsicreons and used to lodge in his house whensoever hee came to Miletum yea and secretly she had him to lie with her she loved him so well but in processe of time when shee feared that her husband perceived it he faire tooke her cleane away with him to Naxos where he ordained that she should be a suppliant of Vesta Hypsicreon sent for her againe but when the Naxians in favour of Promedon refused to render her alleaging for a colourable pretense of their excuse the priviledge and franchises of suppliants hereupon the warre began between them in which quarrell the Erythraeans favoured the Milesians verie assectionatly and sided with them insomuch as it grew to a long and lingering warre and many miseries and calamities that follow warres it drew withall as well to the one part as the other until at last the quarrel was finally ended by the vertue of one woman like as it began first by the vice and wickednesse of another For Diognetus the captaine generall of the Erythraeans unto whom was cōmitted the charge of keeping a fort seated upon a very commodious place to annoy endamage the Naxians made rodes and incursions into their territorie where with many other huge booties that he drave and carried away he took and led as his prisoners many maidens and wives of good houses and parentage among whom there was one named Polycrite whom himselfe fancied and fell in love with her he kept and entertained not like a captive or prisoner but as if she had beene his espoused wife now it fortuned that the day was come when the Milesians lying in campe were to solemnize a great feast by reason where of they fel to drinking freely and making good cheere inviting one another as the maner was thon Polycrite asked captaine Diognetus whether hee would be offended if she should send certaine tarts pies and cakes provided for that feast unto her brethren who answered that he not onely permitted but also willed her so to doe she taking the opportunitie of good occasion put within one of these tarts a little thinne plate of lead which was written upon charging him expressely who had the carriage thereof to say unto her brethren that in any case none but they should taste of the said cakes or tarts this message was done accordingly and when they came to eate the tarts they found within one a writing of their sisters whereby shee advertised and advised them not to faile but that very night to come and assaile their enemies for that they should finde them in great disorder without sentinell and corps-de-guard without any watch and ward at all for that they were all drunke by occasion of the good cheere that they had made at that feast having this intelligence they presently acquainted the captaines generall of the Naxians armie therewith praying them to enterprise this service by their direction and with them thus were the Erythraeans deseized of their strong hold and a great number of them within put to the sword but Polycrite craved Diognetus of her fellow-citizens and by that meanes saved his life now when she approched neere unto the gates of Naxos seeing all the inhabitants comming foorth to meet her with exceeding great joy and mirth putting garlands of flowers upon her head and chanting songs of her praises her heart was not able to endure so great joy for she died at the very gate of the citie where afterwards she was enterred and entombed and her monument was called the Sepulcher of Envie as if there had beene some envious fortune which had grudged unto Polycrite the fruition of so great glorie and honour Thus the Historiographers of Naxos have delivered this narration howbeit Aristotle saith that Polycrite was never taken prisoner but Diognetus having had a sight of her by some
other meanes became enamoured upon her so farre that he was ready to give unto her and to do for the love of her whatsoever she would also that she promised to go with him in case he would agree and graunt one thing and as the said philosopher telleth the tale thereupon she required of him an obligation of his oth and after he had faithfully sworne unto her she demaunded that hee should deliver unto her the castle Delio for that was the name of the fort or piece whereof hee had the charge otherwise she said that she would never come in bed with him whereupon he aswell for the great desire that he had to enjoy her love as in regard of his foresaid oath by which he was bound and obliged quit the place and rendred it into the hands of Polycrite who presently delivered it up unto her countrey-men and fellow-citizens by which meanes they being now able once againe to make their parts good with the Milesians made an accord and concluded peace under what conditions they desired themselves LAMPSACE IN the citie Phocaea there were sometimes two brethren twinnes of the house and family of the Codridae the one named Phobus the other Blepsus of which twaine Phobus was the first that according as Charon the Chronicler of Lampsacum doth record cast himselfe from the high rocks and cliffes of Leucas into the sea This Phobus being of great puissance and royall authoritie in his countrey hapned to have some private affaire and negotiation of his owne in theisle of Paros and thither he went where he contracted amitie alliance and hospitalitie with Mandron king of the Bebrycians surnamed Pityoessenes and by vertue of this new league he aided them and in their behalfe made warre with them against other barbarous people their neighbours who did them wrong and wrought them much damage afterwards when he was upon his departure and returne home Mandron among many other courtesies and tokens of kindnesse which he bestowed upon him now ready to embarke and take the sea offered him the one moitie of his country and city if he would come dwel in the citie Pityoessa with some part of the Phocaeans for to people the place whereupon Phobus after he was come home againe to Phocaea proposed this matter unto the Phocaeans his citizens having perswaded them to accept of the offer he sent his owne brother as leader and captaine to conduct this colonie of new inhabitants who upon their first arrivall and comming thither found themselves as well entreated as courteously entertained as they could wish or looke for at Mandron his hands but in tract of time after that they had gotten many advantages at the Barbarians hands their neighbours borderers wan divers booties from them and gained much pillage spoile they began to be envied first and afterwards to be dread and feared of the Bebrycians who being desirous for to be rid and delivered of such guests durst not addresse themselves unto Mandron whom they knew to be an honest and just man for to perswade him to practise any disloyaltie or treacherie against men of the Greek nation but espying a time when he was absent and out of the countrey they complotted and prepared to surprize the Phocaeans by a wile and so to dispatch them al to once out of the way but Lampsace the daughter of Mandron a maiden yet unmarried having some fore-inkling and intelligence of this forelaied ambush laboured dealt first with her familiar friends to divert them from so wicked an enterprise shewing and prooving unto them that it was a damnable act before God and abominable among men to proceed so treacherously against their allies and confederates who had beene ready at all times to aid and assist them in their need against their enemies and besides were now incorporate with them and their fellow-citizens but when she saw that there would no good be done and that she could not disswade them from it she acquainted the Greeks under-hand with this treason which was a warping against them advised them to look unto themselves stand upon their own guard so the Phocaeans made a solemn sacrifice a publick feast invited the Pityoessenes to come out of the citie into the suburbes to take part therof themselves they divided into two troupes whereof the one seised the wals of the citie whiles the inhabitants were at the feast meane time the other were busie in massacring the guests that were bidden to it and by this meanes they became masters of the whole citie and sent for Mandron whom they desired to participate with them in their counsels and affaires as for Lampsace his daughter who fortuned to die of sicknesse they interred magnificently and in memoriall of that good which she did unto them called the citie after her name Lampsacum howbeit Mandron because he would not be suspected to have beene a traitour unto his owne people would not consent to dwell among them but required to have of them the wives and children of them who were dead whom they sent unto him with all speed and diligence without dooing any harme or displeasure at all unto them as for Lamsaca unto whom before they had ordeined heroick honors they decreed for ever to sacrifice unto her as unto a goddesse and even to this day they doe continue and observe the same divine worship unto her ARETAPHILA ARetaphila of Cyrene was none of them that lived in ancient time but lately in the daies of king Mithridates but she shewed vertue performed an act comparable to the magnanimous counsels and desseignes of the most autike demi-goddesses that ever were daughter she was to Aeglator and wife to Phaedimus both noble men and great personages faire beautifull of visage of deepe conceit and high reach and namely in matters of estate affaires of government well experienced the publike calamities of her countrey did illustrate her name and caused her to be well knowne and voiced in the world for Nicocrates having usurped the tyrannie of Cyrene put to death many of the chiefe and principall men of the citie and among the rest one Melanippus the high priest of Apollo whom he slew with his owne hands for to enjoy his priesthood he did to death also Phaedimus the husband of Aretaphila and not content therewith married her perforce and against her will this tyrant over above an infinit number of other cruelties which he daily committed set certaine warders at every gate of the city who when there was caried foorth any dead corps to buriall out of the citie abused the same with digging into the soles of their feet with the points of their daggers and poinards or else with searing them with red hot irons for feare that any of the inhabitants should be conveied alive out of the citie under colour of being borne to the grave as dead private and particular crosses had Aretaphila no doubt which were greevous unto her
and hardly to be endured although the tyrant was otherwise kinde enough unto her and led her a faire life letting her have her owne will for the love he bare unto her insomuch as the tyrant suffied her to enjoy a great part of his puissance and regall power for love had enthralled and subdued him unto her and not one there was but she alone who knew how to use and handle him for to all the others he was untractable inflexible and savage beyond all measure but it grieved her most of all to see her native countrey so miserably abused and so unwoorthily intreated by this tyrant for there was not one day went over his head but he caused to be executed one citizen or other neither was there to be seene any hope of revenge or deliverance out of these calamities on any side for that the exiled persons and such as fled being weake and feeble every way and altogether heartlesse and fearefull were scattered some in this place others in that Aretaphila therefore building upon her-selfe alone the onely hope of recovering and raising the State of the common-weale and proposing the magnanimous and renowmed acts of Theba the wife of the tyrant Pheres as examples to imitate but wanting and destitute altogether of faithfull friends and trustie kinsfolke for to helpe and second her in any enterprise such as the present times and affaires did affoord unto the other assaied to make away the tyrant by some poison but as she was about the provision heereof and assaied to make proofe of the forces of many strong poisons she could not carrie her desseigne so secretly but it came foorth and was discovered now when the thing was averred evidently proved by strong presumptions Calbia the mother of Nicocrates a bloudy woman and of nature implacable thought to have her put to many exquisite torments and then to bring her soone after to her death but the affection that Nicocrates bare unto her wrought some delay in revenge and dulled the edge of his anger and withall Aretaphila who constantly and resolutely offered her-selfe to answer all imputations that were laid unto her charge gave some colourable excuse unto the passionate affection of the tyrant but in the end seeing that she was convinced by certaine proofes and evidences which she knew not how to answer neither could she denie that she had some drugs in her closet did temper certaine medicines but confessed that indeed she had prepared certaine drugs yet such as were neither deadly nor dangerous But my good lord quoth she unto her husband the tyrant I am much perplexed and troubled with many things of great consequence and namely how to preserve the good opinion which you have of me the kinde affection also which of your gracious favour you beare unto me by meanes wherof I have this honour as to enjoy a good part of your power and authoritie jointly with you this maketh me to be envied of wicked women at whose hands I fearing sorceries charmes enchantments and other cunning divellish casts by which they would goe about to withdraw and distract you from the love that you beare me resolved at the length with my selfe for to seeke meanes how to meet encounter and prevent their devices foolish peradventure they may be as indeed the very inventions of a woman but in no wise worthy of death unlesse haply sir in your judgement it be just and reasonable to put your wife to death for that she mindeth to give you some love drinks and amatorious cups or deviseth some charmes as desirous to be more loved of you than haply it is your pleasure for to love her Nicocrates having heard these excuses alledged by Aretaphila thought good and resolved to put her to torture whereat Calbia her mother was present who never relented nor seemed to be touched with her dolorous torments but remained inexorable now when she was laid upon the racke and asked sundrie questions she yeelded not unto the paines that she sustained but continued invincible and confessed no fault in the height of all extemities untill at lenght Calbia herselfe even against her will was forced to give over tormenting her any longer and Nicocrates let her goe being not fully perswaded that the excuses alledged by her were true to be credited repenting that he had put her to such paine as he did and it was not long after so deepely was the passion of love imprinted in his heart but he returned to her and affaied to win her grace and good will againe by all honours favours courtesies and kindnesse that possibly he could shew unto her but she who had the power and strength to resist all torments and yeeld unto no paines would not be overcome with all his flatteries but joining now unto her former desire of doing some vertuous deed the animositie for to be revenged and to effect her purpose assaied other meanes One daughter she had mariageable and beautifull she was besides her she suborned and set as an alluring bait to entrap and catch the tyrants brother a yong gentleman easie to be caught with the pleasures delight of youth and many are of opinion that she used certeine charmes and amatorious potions aswell as the object of her daughters beautie whereby she enchanted and bewitched the wits and senses of this yong man whom they called Lander when he was once enamoured with the love of this yoong damofell hee prevailed so much by praiers and entreatie with his brother that he permitted him to wed her no sooner was he married but his fresh spouse having instructions before-hand from her mother began to be in hand with him and to perswade him for to enterprise the recoverie of freedome unto the citie shewing by good remonstrance that himselfe enjoied not libertie so long as he lived under tyrannie neither had he power of himselfe either to wed a wife or to keepe her when he had her if it pleased not the tyrant on the other side his friends and other of his familiar acquaintance for to gratific Aretaphila and to doe her pleasure repaired unto him continually forging some new matter of quarrels and suspitions against his brother the tyrant when he perceived that Aretaphila was also of the same minde and had her hand therein he resolved to execute the enterprise and thereupon he set one Daphnis a servant of his owne in hand with the businesse by whose meanes he killed Nicocrates but after he was thus murdered Leander would no more be advised by Aretaphila nor follow her counsell in the rest but shewed incontinently by his deportments and carriage in all action that a brother indeed hee had murdered but not-killed a tyrant for in his owne government he bare himselfe like a foole and ruled insolently and furiously howbeit unto Aretaphila he shewed alwaies some honour and reverence conferring upon her some part of his authoritie in management of State affaires for that she made no semblant at all
and yet consideratly waiting the time and opportunitie of revenge on the other side Synorix followed his sute verie earnestly soliciting and intreating 〈◊〉 nately neither seemed he to alledge vaine and frivolous reasons but such as carried some colourable pretense of honestie namely that he had alwaies shewed himselfe a man of more valor worth than Sinatus and whereas he took away his life induced he was thereto for the 〈◊〉 love that hee bare to Camma and not mooved thereto by any malice otherwise This yoong dame at the first seemed to denie him but yet her denials were not verie churlish and such as he might take for his finall answer for daily by little and little she made semblant that she relented and inclined unto him for that divers kinsfolk and friends also of hers joined with him to second his sute who for to gratifie and doe pleasure unto Synorix a man of the greatest credit and authoritie in his countrey perswaded yea forced her to yeeld unto this match To be short in the end she gave her consent Synorix was sent for to come unto her where she kept her resiance that in the presence of the said goddesse the contract of marriage might passe the espousals be solemnized when he was come she received and welcomed him with an amiable and gracious countenance lead him unto the very altar of Diana where rehgiously with great ceremonie she powred forth before the goddesse a little of a potion which shee had prepared out of a boule the one part thereof she drunke herselfe the other she gave unto Synorix for to drinke now this potion was mead mingled with ranke poison when she saw that he had taken his draught she fetching a loud and evident groane doing reverence also unto the goddesse I protest and call thee to witnesse quoth she most powerfull and honourable goddesse that I have not survived Sinatus for any other cause in the world but onely to see this day neither have I had any joie of my life all this while that I have lived since but onely in regard of hope that one day I might be revenged of his death which seeing that now I have effected I go most gladly and joifully unto that sweet husband of mine and as for thee most accursed wicked wretch in the world give order to thy kinsfolke and friends in stead of a nuptiall bed to provide a grave for thy burial the Galatian hearing these words and beginning withal to feele the operation of the poison and how it wrought troubled him within his bowels and all parts of his body mounted presently his chariot hoping that by the jogging and agitation thereof he might vomit and cast up the poison but immediately he alighted againe and put himselfe into an easie litter but did he what he could dead he was that very evening as for Camma she continued all the night languishing and when she heard for certaintie that he was deceased she also with joy and mirth departed out of this world STRATONICE THe selfesame province of Galatia affoorded two other dames woorthy of eternall memorie to wit Stratonice the wife of king Deiotarus and Chiomara the wife of Ortiagon as for Stratonice she knowing that the king her husband was desirous to have children lawfully begotten for to leave to be his successors inheritors of the crowne and yet could have none by her praied and intreated him to trie another woman and beget a childe of her body yea and permitted that it should be put unto her and she would take it upon her as her owne Deiotarus woondered much at this resolution of hers and was content to doe all things according to her mind wherupon she chose among other captives taken prisoner in the warres a proper faire maiden named Electra whom she brought into Deiotarus bed chamber shut them in both together and all the children which this concubine bare unto him his wife reared and brought up with as kinde an affection and as princelike as if she had borne them herselfe CHIOMARA AT what time as the Romans under the conduct of Cn. Scipio defaited the Galatians that inhabit in Asia it befell that Chiomara the wife of Ortiagon was taken prisoner with other Galatian women the captaine whose captive she was made use of his fortune did like a soldier and abused her bodie who as he was a man given unto his fleshly pleasure so he looked also as much or rather more unto his profit and filthie lucre but so it fell out that overtaken he was and entrapped by his owne avarice for being promised by the woman a good round quantitie of gold for to deliver her out of thraldome and set her at libertie he brought her to the place which she had appointed for to render her and set her free which was at a certeine banke by the river side where the Galatians should passe over tender him the said monie and receive Chiomara but she winked with her eie thereby gave a signall to one of her own companie for to kill the said Romane captaine at what time as he should take his leave of her with a kisse and friendly farewell which the partie did with his sword at one stroke fetched off his head the head she herselfe tooke up and wrapped it in the lap of her gowne before and so gat her away apace homeward when she was come to her husbands house downe she cast his head at his feet whereat he being astonied Ah my sweet wife quoth he it is a good thing to keepe faithfull promise True quoth she but it is better that but one man alive should have my companie Polybius writeth of the same woman that himselfe talked with her afterwards in the citie of Sardis and that he found her then to be a woman of an high minde and of woonderfull deepe wit But since I am fallen to the mention of the Galatians I will rehearse yet one story more of them A WOMAN OF PERGAMUS KIng Mithridates sent upon a time for threescore of the principall lords of Galatia to repaire unto him upon trust and safe-conduct as friends into the citie Pergamus whom being come at his request he enterteined with proud imperious speeches whereat they al took great scorn and indignation insomuch as one of them named Toredorix a strong tal man of his hands besides woonderfull couragious Tetrarch of the Tossepians country undertooke this one day enterprise to set upon Mithridates at what time as he sat in judgement gave audience from the tribunal seat in the publike place of exercise and both him and seat together to tumble downe headlong into the pit underneath but it fortuned that the king that day came not abroad as his maner was up into that place of open exercise but commanded al those Galatian lords to come and speake with him at his house Toredorix exhorted them to be bold and confident and when they were
them fast trustie unto him by whose meanes he became dread and terrible to the Cyrenians these sent in post with all speed unto king Amasis messengers of purpose to charge accuse Eryxo Polyarchus for this murder whereat the king was wroth and in great indignation intended out of hand to make sharpe war upon the Cyrenians but as he prepared to set forward this expedition it fortuned that his mother departed this life whiles therfore he was busie about her funerals newes came to Cyrene how this king was highly displeased and resolved to levie warre against them whereupon Polyarchus thought good to addresse himselfe in person to the said king and to render a reason unto him of this late fact committed upon the bodie of Laarchus neither would his sister Eryxo tary behinde but follow him and expose her owne person to the same perill that he entred into yea and the mother of them both named Critola very aged though she was was right willing to goe and accompanied her sonne and daughter in this journey now was she a great ladie and most highly esteemed in this regard especially that shee was the sister in the whole bloud to Battus the first of that name surnamed the Happie When they were arrived in Aegypt all other lords and noble men of the court approved well of that which they had done in this case and Amasis himselfe infinitely commended the pudicitie and magnanimitie of dame Eryxo and after he had honoured them with rich presents and roially enterteined them he sent them all backe Polyarchus I meane and the two ladies with his good grace and favour to Cyrene XENOCRITE XEnocrite a ladie of the citie Cumes deserveth no lesse to be praised and admired for that which she practised against Aristodemus the tyrant whom some thinke to have bene surnamed Malacos that is to say Soft and effeminate in regard of his loose and dissolute carriage but they are deceived and ignorant in the true originall and occasion of his name for the Barbarians gave him this addition Malacos which in their language signifieth a Yonker because being a very youth with other companions of equall age as yet wearing their haire long whom in olde time they tearmed Coronistae of their blacke locks as it should seeme he above the rest in the warres against the Barbarians bare himselfe so bravely for he was not only hardy couragious in spirit stout also and tall of his hands but withall full of wit discretion and forecast and so farre excelled all others in singularitie that hee became right famous and renowmed whereupon he grew into such credit and admiration among his countreymen and fellow-citizens that incontinently promoted he was and advanced by them to the greatest offices of State and highest dignities in common-weale insomuch as when the Tuskans made warre upon the Romans in the right and quarrell of Tarquinius Superbus and namely to restore him againe to his crowne and kingdome from which he was deposed the Cumans made him captaine generall of those forces which they sent to aide the Romans in which expedition and warfare that continued long he carried himselfe so remisly among his citizens which were in the campe under his charge and gave them so much the head to do what they would winning their hearts by courtesies and flatterie rather than commanding them as their generall that he put into their heads and perswaded them upon their returne home to run upon the Senate and to joine with him in expelling and banishing the mightiest persons and best men of the citie By which practice he set up himselfe as an absolute tyrant and as he seemed wicked and violent otherwise in all kinde of oppression and extortion so most of all he was outragious and went beyond himselfe in villanie toward wives and maidens to yoong boies also of good houses and free borne for among other enormities this is recorded of him That he forced yoong lads to weare their haire long like lasses to have also upon their heads borders cawles and attires with spangles of golde contrariwise hee compelled yoong maidens to be rounded polled and notted and to weare short jackets coats mandilians without sleeves after the fashion of springalds howbeit being exceedingly enamored upon Xenocrita the daughter of one of those principall citizens who by him were exiled her he kept not having espoused her lawfully nor woon her good will by faire perswasions supposing that the maiden might thinke her selfe well appaied and her fortune verie happie to be enterteined in any sort whatsoever by him being by that meanes so highly reputed of and esteemed fortunate among all the citizens but as for her all these favors did not ravish and transport her sound judgement and understanding for besides that she was mightily discontented to converse and keepe companie with him not espoused nor affianced and given in marriage by her friends she had no lesse desire to recover the liberty of her countrey than those who were openly hated of the tyrant Now it fortuned about the same time that Aristodemus caused a trench to be cast a bank to be raised round about his territory a piece of worke neither necessarie nor profitable which he did onely upon a policie because he would thereby vexe out-toile consume waste his poore subjects for he tasked every man to cast up cary forth by the day a certaine number of measures full of earth Xenocrita when she saw him at any time comming toward her would turne aside and cover her face with the lappet of her gown but when Aristodemus was passed by gone yong men her play-feres by way of mirth and pastime would aske her why she muffled and masked her-selfe as ashamed to see him onely and was not abashed to see and be seene of other men as well unto whom she would answer demurely that in right good earnest say Iwis I do it of purpose because there is not one man among all the Cumans but Aristodemus this word touched them all very neere but such as were of any noble spirit and courage it galled and pricked for very shame yea and gave them an edge to set in hand and enterprise some manly act for to recover their freedome which when Xenocrita heard she said by report that she would rather herselfe carie earth in a basket upon her owne shoulders as other did for her father if he were there present than participate in all delights and pleasures yea and enjoy great power and authoritie with Aristodemus These and such like speeches cast out by her confirmed those who were conspired and ready to rise against the tyrant of whom the chiefetaine and principall leader was one Themotecles unto these conspiratours Xenocrita gave free accesse and ready entrie unto Aristodemus who finding him alone unarmed and unguarded fell many at once upon him and so quickly dispatched him out of the way Lo how the citie of Cumes was delivered from tyrannie by
hanging which must strangle them for other wise we might aswell say that 〈◊〉 condemned to die suffer no punishment all the whiles they lie in hard and colde yrons nor untill the executioner come and strike the head from the shoulders or that he who by sentence of the judges hath drunke the deadly potion of hemlocke is not punished because he walketh stil and goeth up and downe alive waiting untill his legs become heavie before the generall colde and congelation surprise him and extinguish both sense and vitall spirits in case it were so that we esteeme and call by the name of punishment nothing but the last point and extremity thereof letting passe and making no reckoning at all of the passions feares painfull pangues expectance of death pricks and sorrowes of a penitent conscience wherewith every wicked person is troubled and tormented for this were as much as to say that the fish which hath swallowed downe the hooke is not caught untill we see the said fish cut in pieces or broiled roasted and sodden by the cooke Certes every naughty person is presently become prisoner unto justice so soone as he hath once committed a sinfull act and swallowed the hooke together with the bait of sweetnesse and pleasure which he taketh in leaudnesse and wrongfull doing but when the remorse of conscience imprinted in him doth pricke he feeleth the very torments of hell and can not rest But as in sea the Tuny fish doth swiftly crosse the waves And travers still while tempest lasts so he with anguish raves For this audacious rashnesse and violent insolence proper unto vice is verie puissant forward and readie at hand to the effecting and execution of sinfull acts but afterwards when the passion like unto a winde is laied and beginnes to faile it becommeth weake base and feeble subject to an infinite number of feares and superstitions in such sort as that Stesichorus the Poet seemeth to have devised the dreame of queene Clytemnestra very conformable to the trueth and answerable to our daily experience when he bringeth her in speaking in this maner Me thought I saw a dragon come apace Whose crest aloft on head with bloud was stein'd With that anon there did appeare in place Plisthenides the king who that time reign'd For the visions by night in dreames the fantasticall apparitions in the day time the answers of oracles the prodigious signes from heaven and in one word whatsoever men think to be done immediately by the will and finger of God are woont to strike great troubles and horrors into such persons so affected and whose consciences are burdened with the guilt and privitie of sinne Thus the report goeth of Apollodorus that he dreamed upon a time how he saw himselfe first flaied by the Scythians then cut as small as flesh to the pot and so boiled he thought also that his heart spake softly frō out of the cauldron and uttered these words I am the cause of all these thy evils and againe he imagined in his sleepe that his own daughters all burning on a light flaming fire ran round about him in a circle Semblably Hipparchus the sonne of Pisistratus a little before his death dreamed that Venus out of a certaine viall sprinkled bloud upon his face The familiar friends likewise of king Ptolomaeus surnamed Ceraunos that is to say Lightning thought verily in a dreame that they saw Seleucus accuse and indite him judicially before wilde wolves and greedie geires that were his judges where he dealt and distribued a great quantitie of flesh among his enemies Pausanias also at Bizantium sent for Cleonice a virgin and gentlewoman free borne of a worshipfull house intending perforce to lie with her all night and abuse her body but being halfe a sleepe when she came to his bed he awakened in a fright and suspecting that some enemies were about to surprise him killed her outright whereupon ever after he dreamt ordinarily that he saw her and heard her pronounce this speech To judgement seat approch thou neere I say Wrong dealing is to men most hurtfull ay Now when this vision as it should seeme ceased not to appeere unto him night by night he embarked and sailed into Heraclea to a place where the spirits and ghosts of those that are departed be raised and called up where after he had offered certaine propitiatorie sacrifices and powred foorth funerall effusions which they use to cast upon the tombes of the dead he wrought so effectually that the ghost of Cleonice appeared and then she said unto him that so soone as he was arrived at Lacedaemon he should have repose and an end of all his troubles and so in very truth no sooner was he thither come but he ended his life and died If therefore the soule had no sense after it is departed out of the bodie but commeth to nothing and that death were the finall end and expiration aswell of thankefull recompenses as of painfull punishments a man might say of wicked persons who are quickly punished and die soone after that they have committed any misdeeds that God dealeth very gently and mildly with them For if continuance of time and long life bringeth to wicked persons no other harme yet a man may at leastwise say thus much of them that having knowne by proofe and found by experience that injustice is an unfrutefull barren and thanklesse thing bringing foorth no good thing at all nor ought that deserveth to be esteemed after many travels and much paines taken with it yet the verie feeling and remorse of conscience for their sinnes disquieteth and troubleth the mind and turneth it upside downe Thus we reade of king Lysmachus that being forced through extreame thirst he delivered his owne person and his whole armie into the hands of the Getes and when being their prisoner hee had drunke and quenched his thirst he said thus O what a miseric is this and wretched case of mine that for so short and transitorie a pleasure I have deprived my selfe of so great a kingdome and all my roiall estate True it is that of all things it is an exceeding hard matter to resist the necessitie of a naturall passion but when as a man for covetousnesse of money or desire of glorie authoritie credit among his countrimen and fellow-citizens or for fleshly pleasures falleth to commit a foule wicked and execrable fact and then afterwards in time when as the ardent thirst and furious heat of his passion is past seeing that there abide and continue with him the filthy shamefull and perilous perturbations onely of injustice and sinfulnesse but nothing at all that is profitable necessarie or delightsome is it not very likely and probable that he shall eftsoones and oftentimes recall into this thought and consideration how being seduced and caried away by the meanes of vain-glory or dishonest pleasures things base vile and illiberall he hath perverted and overthrowen the most beautifull and excellent gifts that men have to wit right
still bee somewhere and continue though they indured otherwise all maner of paines and calamities than wholy to bee taken out of the universall world and brought to nothing yea and willing they are and take pleasure to heare this spoken of one that is dead How he is departed out of this world into another or gone to God with other such like manner of speeches importing that death is no more but onely a change or alteration but not a totall and entire abolition of the soule And thus they use to speake Then shall I call even there to mind The sweet acquaintance of my friend Also What shall I say from you to Hector bold Or husband yours right deere who liv'd so old And herof proceeded and prevailed this errour that men supposed they are well eased of their sorrow and better appaied when they have interred with the dead the armes weapons instrustruments and garments which they were wont to use ordinarily in their life time like as Minos buried together with Glaucus His Candiot pipes made of the long-shanke bones Of dapple doe or hinde that lived once And if they be perswaded that the dead either desire or demand any thing glad they are and willing to send or bestow the same upon them And thus did Periander who burnt in the funerall fire together with his wife her apparell habilliments and jewels for that he thought she called for them and complained that she lay a cold And such as these are not greatly affraid of any judge Aeacus of Ascalaphus or of the river Acheron considering that they attribute unto them daunces theatricall plaies and all kinde of musicke as if they tooke delight and pleasure therein and yet there is not one of them all but is readie to quake for feare to see that face of death so terrible so unpleasant so glum and grizly deprived of all sense and growen to oblivion and ignorance of all things they tremble for very horrour when they heare any of these words He is dead he is perished he is gone and no more to be seene grievously displeased and offended they be when these and such like speeches are given out Within the earth as deepe as trees do stand His hap shall be to rot and turne to sand No feasts he shall frequent nor heare the lute And harpe ne yet the sound of pleasant flute Againe When once the ghost of man from corps is fled And pass'd the ranks of teeth set thicke in head All meanes to catch and fetch her are but vaine No hope there is of her returne againe But they kill them stone dead who say thus unto them We mortall men have bene once borne for all No second birth we are for to expect We must not looke for life that is eternall Such thoughts as dreames we ought for to reject For casting and considering with themselves that this present life is a smal matter or rather indeed a thing of nought in comparison of eternitie they regard it not nor make any account to enjoy the benefit thereof whereupon they neglect all vertue and the honourable exploits of action as being utterly discouraged and discontented in themselves for the shortnesse of their life so uncerteine and without assurance and in one word because they take themselves unfit and unworthy to performe any great thing For to say that a dead man is deprived of all sense because having bene before compounded that composition is now broken and dissolved to give out also that a thing once dossolved hath no Being at all and in that regard toucheth us not howsoever they seeme to be goodly reasons yet they rid us not from the feare of death but contrariwise they doe more confirme and enforce the same for this is it in deed which nature abhorreth when it shal be said according to the Poet Homers words But as for you both all and some Soone may you earth and water become meaning thereby the resolution of the soule into a thing that hath neither intelligence nor any sense at all which Epicurus holding to be a dissipation thereof into I wot not what emptinesse or voidnesse small indivisible bodies which he termeth Atomi by that meanes cutteth off so much the rather all hope of immortalitie for which I dare well say that all folke living men and women both would willingly be bitten quite thorow and gnawen by the hel-dog Cerberus or cary water away in vessels full of holes in the bottome like as the Danaides did so they might onely have a Being and not perish utterly for ever and be reduced to nothing And yet verily there be not many men who feare these matters taking them to be poeticall fictions and tales devised for pleasure or rather bug beares that mothers and nourses use to fright their children with and even they also who stand in feare of them are provided of certeine ceremonies and expiatorie purgations to helpe themselves withall by which if they be once cleansed and purified they are of opinion that they shall goe into another world to places of pleasure where there is nothing but playing and dauncing continually among those who have the aire cleere the winde milde and pure the light gracious and their voice intelligible whereas the privation of life troubleth both yoong and old for we all even every one of us are sicke for love and exceeding desirous To see the beautie of sunnes light Which on the earth doth shine so bright as Euripides saith neither willing are we but much displeased to heare this And as he spake that great immortall eie Which giveth light thorowout the fabricke wide Of this round world made haste and fast did hie With chariot swift cleane out of sight to ride Thus together with the perswasion and opinion of immortallity they bereave the common people of the greatest and sweetest hopes they have What thinke wee then of those men who are of the better sort and such as have lived justly and devoutly in this life Surely they looke for no evill at all in another world but hope and expect there the greatest and most heavenly blessings that be for first and formost champions or runners in a race are never crowned so long as they be in combat or in their course but after the combat ended and the victory atchieved even so when these persons are perswaded that the proofe of the victorie in this world is due unto them after the course of this life wonderfull it is and it can not be spoken how great contentment they finde in their hearts for the privitie and conscience of their vertue and for those hopes which assure them that they one day shall see those who now abuse their good gifts insolently who commit outrage by the meanes of their might riches and authoritie and who scorne and foolishly mocke such as are better than themselves paie for their deferts and suffer woorthily for their pride and insolencie And forasmuch as never any of them who
studie and in the end is driven to languish and lie sicke in bed together with it for company And therfore Plato wisely admonisheth us not to move and exercise the body without the soule not the soule without the body but to drive them both together equally as if they were two steeds drawing at one spire of a chariot and especially at such a time when as the body is busied with the soule and laboureth together with her we ought to have the most care of it and to allow it that attendance cherishment which is meet and requisit to the end that thereby we may requite it with good and desireable health esteeming this to be the greatest benefit and most singular gift that proceedeth thereupon in that neither the one nor the other for default of good disposition is impeached or hindered in the knowledge of vertue and the practise thereof aswell in literature as in the actions of mans life OF THE ROMANS FORTUNE The Summarie IF ever there were any State politike in the rising growth and declination whereof we are to see acknowledge the admirable providēce of God together with the strength and wisdome of man certes the Romane empire ought to be set in the formost range The causes of the foundation and advancement of this great Monarchie are otherwise considered by those whom the heavenly trueth revealed in the holy Scripture doth illuminate than by the Pagans and Sages of this world guidedonely by the discourse of their reason corrupted with sinne and ignorance of the true God For when the question is as touching the government of the universall world although the sovereigne Lord thereof use often times the spirituall and corpor al vigor both of mortall men for to execute his will yet we may behold above it and before any exploit of visible instruments this great and incomprehensible wisdome of his who having decreed in himselfe all things executeth every moment his deliberations so that in regard of him there is nothing casuall but all keepe a course according to his determinate and resolute will but in respect of us many things be accident all for that the counsels of that eternall and immutable wisedome are hidden from us and appeare not but by little and little Infidels and miscreants who are not able to comprehend this secret have imagined and set downe for governesses of mans life Fortune and Vertue meaning by Fortune that which the common saying compriseth in these few words In this world there is nothing els but good lucke and bad but so as if any man could skill how to manage his owne fortune he might make it of bad good and commodious and this they meant by the word Vertue which is an habitude or disposition of the mind and body by the meanes whereof he that is indued therewith might prevent and overthrow quite all the assaults of Fortune Some there be who abuse the word Fortune for to abolish the providence of God and others have attributed so much unto Vertue that they have set man out of those limits in which his owne proper nature and above all the divine trueth placed him Others againe have ascribed some thing unto Fortune and yet they neither understand nor declare what it importeth but have given out although very irresolutely that Fortune cannot give the check to a vertuous man If we had this treatise following entire and perfect all the ancient philosophie and learning as touching this question had bene manifestly discovered unto us But the principall part of this discourse is lost in such sort as Plutarch having brought in Fortune and Vertue disputing upon this point Whether of them should have the honour of the foundation and maintenance of the Romane empire hath left unto us nothing but the plea of Fortune who by divers reasons and proofs holdeth that the wisdome valour of the people of Rome was not the cause of their grandence but Fortune that is to say as he expresly sheweth in one place the guidance and helpe of God who hath so raised this estate for many others and for to hold one good part of the world jointly in one body under such a chiefe and sovereigne As concerning the reasons alledged in the favor and maintenance of Fortune they be marked in order and drawen out well at large whereas those of Vertue are omitted or peradventure reserved to the judgement and discretion of the reader for to invent devise and apply them by himselfe and of them all to collect and gather one conclusion tending to this for to shew the great wonders of Gods providence in susteining the Romane empire and the notable aid of an infinit number of instruments which the said divine providence emploied in planting raising up and pulling downe so mighty and renowmed a dominion OF THE ROMANS FORTUNE VErtue and Fortune have fought many great combats and those oftentimes one against the other but that which presenteth it selfe unto us at this time is the greatest of all the rest to wit the debate plea which they had together as touching the empire of Rome namely whether of them twaine wrought that worke and which of them brought foorth so mightie a puissance For this wil be no small testimonie on her side who shall gaine the victorie or rather a great apologie against the imputation charged upon the one and the other For Vertue is accused in that she is honest but unprofitable and fortune that she is uncerteine but yet good and it is commonly said that as the former is fruitlesse for all her paines so the other is faithlesse and untrustie in all her gifts For who will not say if the greatnesse of Rome be adjudged and awarded to one of them that either Vertue is most profitable in case she could doe so much for good and honest men or Fortune most firme and constant if she have preserved and kept so long that which she once hath given Iön the poet in those works of his which he composed without verse and in prose saith That Fortune and Wisedome two most different things and farre unlike one to the other produce neverthelesse most like and semblable effects both the one and the other indifferently make men great and honorable they advance them in dignitie puissance estate and authoritie And what need I for to draw out this matter at length rehearse and reckon up a number of those whom they have preferred considering that even nature herselfe who hath borne us and brought foorth all things some take to be Fortune and others Wisedome This present discourse therefore addeth unto the citie of Rome a great and admirable dignitie in case we dispute of her as our manner is of the earth the sea the heaven and the starres namely whether it were by Fortune or by providence that she was first founded and had her being For mine owne part I am of this opinion that howsoever Fortune and Vertue have alwaies had many quarrels and debates
Macellus who after he had committed many outrages and robberies was with much ado in the end taken and punished and of his goods which were forfeit to the State there was built a publike shambles or market place to sell flesh-meats in which of his name was called Macellum 55 Why upon the Ides of Januarie the minstrels at Rome who plaied upon the haut boies were permitted to goe up and downe the city disguised in womens apparell A Rose this fashion upon that occasion which is reported namely that king Numa had granted unto them many immunities and honorable priviledges in his time for the great devotion that hee had in the service of the gods and for that afterwards the Tribunes militarie who governed the citie in Consular authority tooke the same from them they went their way discontented and departed quite from the citie of Rome but soone after the people had a misse of them and besides the priests made it a matter of conscience for that in all the sacrifices thorowout the citie there was no sound of flute or hautboies Now when they would not returne againe being sent for but made their abode in the citie Tibur there was a certeine afranchised bondslave who secretly undertooke unto the magistrates to finde some meanes for to fetch them home So he caused a sumptuous feast to be made as if he meant to celebrate some solemne sacrifice and invited to it the pipers and plaiers of the hautboies aforesaid and at this feast he tooke order there should be divers women also and all night long there was nothing but piping playing singing and dancing but all of a sudden this master of the feast caused a rumor to be raised that his lord and master was come to take him in the maner whereupon making semblant that he was much troubled and affrighted he perswaded the minstrels to mount with all speed into close coatches covered all over with skinnes and so to be carried to Tibur But this was a deceitfull practise of his for he caused the coatches to be turned about another way and unawares to them who partly for the darkenesse of the night and in part because they were drowsie and the wine in their heads tooke no heed of the way he brought all to Rome betimes in the morning by the breake of day disguised as they were many of them in light coloured gownes like women which for that they had over-watched and over-drunke themselves they had put on and knew not therof Then being by the magistrates overcome with faire words and reconciled againe to the citie they held ever after this custome every yeere upon such a day To go up and downe the citie thus foolishly disguised 56 What is the reason that it is commonly received that certein matrons of the city at the first founded and built the temple of Carmenta and to this day honour it highly with great reverence FOr it is said that upon a time the Senat had forbidden the dames and wives of the city to ride in coatches whereupon they tooke such a stomacke and were so despighteous that to be revenged of their husbands they conspired altogether not to conceive or be with child by them nor to bring them any more babes and in this minde they persisted still untill their husbands began to bethinke them selves better of the matter and let them have their will to ride in their coatches againe as before time and then they began to breed and beare children a fresh and those who soonest conceived and bare most and with greatest ease founded then the temple of Carmenta And as I suppose this Carmenta was the mother of Evander who came with him into Italy whose right name indeed was Themis or as some say Nicostrata now for that she rendred propheticall answeres and oracles in verse the Latins surnamed her Carmenta for verses in their tongue they call Carmina Others are of opinion that Carmenta was one of the Destinies which is the cause that such matrons and mothers sacrifice unto her And the Etymologic of this name Carmenta is as much as Carens mente that is to say beside her right wits or bestraught by reason that her senses were so ravished and transported so that her verses gave her not the name Carmenta but contrariwise her verses were called Carmina of her because when she was thus ravished and caried beside herselfe she chanted certeine oracles and prophesies in verse 57 What is the cause that the women who sacrifice unto the goddesse Rumina doe powre and cast store of milke upon their sacrifice but no wine at all do they bring thither for to be drunke IS it for that the Latins in their tongue call a pap Ruma And well it may so be for that the wilde figge tree neere unto which the she wolfe gave sucke with her teats unto Romulus was in that respect called Ficus Rumtnalis Like as therefore we name in our Greeke language those milch nourses that suckle yoong infants at their brests Thelona being a word derived of 〈◊〉 which signifieth a pap even so this goddesse Rumina which is as much to say as Nurse and one that taketh the care and charge of nourishing and rearing up of infants admitteth not in her sacrifices any wine for that it is hurtfull to the nouriture of little babes and sucklings 58 What is the reason that of the Romane Senatours some are called simply Patres others with an addition Patres conscripti IS it for that they first who were instituted and ordeined by Romulus were named Patres 〈◊〉 that is to say Gentlemen or Nobly borne such as we in Greece tearme Eupatrides Or rather they were so called because they could avouch and shew their fathers but such as were adjoined afterwards by way of supply and enrolled out of the Commoners houses were Patres conscripti thereupon 59 Wherefore was there one altar common to Hercules and the Muses MAy it not be for that Hercules taught Evander the letters according as Juba writeth Certes in those daies it was accounted an honourable office for men to teach their kinsefolke and friends to spell letters and to reade For a long time after it and but of late daies it was that they began to teach for hire and for money and the first that ever was knowen to keepe a publicke schoole for reading was one named Spurius Carbilius the freed servant of that Carbilius who first put away his wife 60 What is the reason that there being two altars dedicated unto Hercules women are not partakers of the greater nor tast one whit of that which is offered or sacrificed thereupon IS it because as the report goes Carmenta came not soone enough to be assistant unto the sacrifice no more did the family of the Pinarij whereupon they tooke that name for in regard that they came tardie admitted they were not to the feast with others who made good cheere and therefore got the name Pinarij as if one
would say pined or famished Or rather it may allude unto the tale that goeth of the shirt empoisoned with the blood of Nessus the Centaure which ladie Deianira gave unto Hercules 61 How commeth it to passe that it is expresly for bidden at Rome either to name or to demaund ought as touching the Tutelar god who hath in particular recommendation and patronage the safetie and preservation of the citie of Rome nor so much as to enquire whether the said deitie be male or female And verely this prohibition proceedeth from a superstitious feare that they have for that they say that Valerius Soranus died an ill death because he presumed to utter and publish so much IS it in regard of a certaine reason that some latin historians do alledge namely that there be certaine evocations and enchantings of the gods by spels and charmes through the power wherof they are of opinion that they might be able to call forth and draw away the Tutelar gods of their enemies and to cause them to come and dwell with them and therefore the Romans be afraid left they may do as much for them For like as in times past the Tyrians as we find upon record when their citie was besieged enchained the images of their gods to their shrines for feare they would abandon their citieand be gone and as others demanded pledges and fureties that they should come againe to their place whensoever they sent them to any bath to be washed or let them go to any expiation to be clensed even so the Romans thought that to be altogether unknowen and not once named was the best meanes and surest way to keepe with their Tutelar god Or rather as Homer verie well wrote The earth to men all is common great and small That thereby men should worship all the gods and honour the earth seeing she is common to them all even so the ancient Romans have concealed and suppresse the god or angell which hath the particular gard of their citie to the end that their citizens should adore not him alone but all others likewise 62 What is the cause that among those priests whom they name Faeciales signifying as much as in geeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Officers going between to make treatre of peace or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Agents for truce and leagues he whom they call Pater Patratus is esteemed the chiefest Now Pater Patratus is he whose father is yet living who hath children of his owne and in truth this chiefe Faecial or Herault hath still at this day a certain prerogative speciall credit above the rest For the emperours themselves and generall captains if they have any persons about them who in regard of the prime of youth or of their beautifull bodies had need of a faithfull diligent and trustie guard commit them ordinarily into the hands of such as these for safe custodie IS it not for that these Patres Patrati for reverent feare of their fathers of one side and for modest shames to scandalize or offend their children on the other side are enforced to be wise and discreet Or may it not be in regard of that cause which their verie denomination doth minister and declare for this word PATRATUS signifieth as much as compleat entire and accomplished as if he were one more perfect and absolute every way than the rest as being so happie as to have his owne father living and be a father also himselfe Or is it not for that the man who hath the superintendance of treaties of peace and of othes ought to see as Homer saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say before and behind And in all reason such an one is he like to be who hath a child for whom and a father with whom he may consult 63 What is the reason that the officer at Rome called Rex sacrorum that is to say the king of sacrifices is debarred both from exercising any magistracie and also to make a speech unto the people in publike place IS it for that in old time the kings themselves in person performed the most part of sacred rites and those that were greater yea and together with the priests offered sacrifices but by reason that they grew insolent proud and arrogant so as they became intollcrable most of the Greeke nations deprived them of this authoritie and left unto them the preheminence onely to offer publike sacrifice unto the gods but the Romans having cleane chased and expelled their kings established in their stead another under officer whom they called King unto whom they granted the oversight and charge of sacrifices onely but permitted him not to exercise or execute any office of State nor to intermedle in publick affaires to the end it should be knowen to the whole world that they would not suffer any person to raigne at Rome but onely over the ceremonies of sacrifices nor endure the verie name of Roialtie but in respect of the gods And to this purpose upon the verie common place neere unto 〈◊〉 they use to have a solemn sacrifice for the good estate of the citie which so soone as ever this king hath performed he taketh his legs and runnes out of the place as fast as ever he can 64 Why suffer not they the table to be taken cleane away and voided quite but will have somewhat alwaies remaining upon it GIve they not heereby covertly to understand that wee ought of that which is present to reserve evermore something for the time to come and on this day to remember the morrow Or thought they it not a point of civill honesty and elegance to represse and keepe downe their appetite when they have before them enough still to content and satisfie it to the full for lesse will they desire that which they have not when they accustome themselves to absteine from that which they have Or is not this a custome of courtesie and humanitie to their domesticall servants who are not so well pleased to take their victuals simply as to partake the same supposing that by this meanes in some sort they doe participate with their masters at the table Or rather is it not because we ought to suffer no sacred thing to be emptie and the boord you wot well is held sacred 65 What is the reason that the Bridegrome commeth the first time to lie with his new wedded bride not with any light but in the darke IS it because he is yet abashed as taking her to be a stranger and not his owne before he hath companied carnally with her Or for that he would then acquaint himselfe to come even unto his owne espoused wife with shamefacednesse and modestie Or rather like as Solon in his Statutes ordeined that the new maried wife should eat of a quince before she enter into the bride bed-chamber to the end that this first encounter and embracing should not be odious or unpleasant to her husband
they lacke Or many times the bottome of the sea and great rivers being full of mud doth by the reflexion of the Sunne-beames represent the like colour that the said mud hath Or is not more probable that the water toward the bottome is not pure and sincere but corrupted with an earthly qualitie as continually carying with it somewhat of that by which it runneth and wherewith it is stirred and the same setling once to the bottome causeth it to be more troubled and lesse transparent PLATONIQVE QVESTIONS The Summarie IN these gatherings Plutarch expoundeth the sense of divers hard places which are found in the disputations of Socrates conteined in the Dialogues of Plato his disciple but especially in Timaeus which may serve to allure yoong students to the reading of that great Philosopher who under the barke of words hath delivered grave and pleasant matters PLATONIQUE QUESTIONS 1 What is the reason that God other-whiles commanded Socrates to do the part of a Midwife in helping others to be delivered of child-birth but for had himselfe in any wise to procreate children according as it is written in a treatise entituled Theaetetus For we ought not to thinke that if he had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to cavill to 〈◊〉 or to speake ironically in this place he would have abused the name of God Besides in this selfe same treatise he attributeth many other high and magnificall speeches unto Socrates namely this among many others Certes quoth he there be many men right good sir who cary this minde to me-ward that they are disposed plainly to carpe and bite me in case at any time I seeme to rid them of any foolish opinion that they have neither thinke they that I do it of good will and meaning well unto them shewing themselves herein far short of this doctrine That no God beareth evill will to men no more verily do I this unto them upon any malice but surely I can not otherwise chuse neither doe I thinke it lawfull for me either to smoother up and pardon a lie or to dissemble and suppresse a trueth IS it for that he tearmeth his owne nature as being more judicious and inventive by the name of God like as Menander doth saying This minde this our intelligence In trueth is of divine essence And Heraclitus Mans nature we must needs confesse Is heavenly and a god doubtlesse Or rather in very trueth there was some divine and celestiall cause which suggested and inspired into Socrates this maner of philosophy whereby sifting as hee did continually and examining others he cured them of all swelling pride of vaine errour of presumptuous arrogancy likewise of being odious first to themselves and afterwards to those about them of their company for it fortuned about his time that a number of these sophisters swarmed over all Greece unto whom yong gentlemen resorting paying good summes of money for their salary were filled with a great weening and opinion of themselves with a vaine perswasion of their owne learning and zelous love to good letters spending their time in idle disputations and frivolous contentions without doing any thing in the world that was either good honest or profitable Socrates therefore who had a speciall gift by his maner of speech and discourse as it were by some purgative medicine to argue and convince was of greater authority and credit when he confuted others in that he never affirmed nor pronounced resolutely any thing of his owne yea and he pierced deeper into the soules and hearts of his hearers by how much he seemed to seeke out the trueth in common and never to favorize and mainteine any opinion of his owne for this begetting of a mans owne fansies mightily empeacheth the facultie and power to judge another for evermore the lover is blinded in the behalfe of that which he loveth and verily there is nothing in the world that loveth so much the owne as a man doth the opinions and reason whereof himselfe was the father for surely that distribution and partition among children which is commonly said to be most and equall is in this case of opinions and reasons most unjust for in the former every one must take his owne but in this hee ought to chuse the better yea though it were another mans and therefore once againe he that fathereth somewhat of his owne becommeth the worse judge of other mens And like as there was sometime a sophister or great learned man who said That the Elians would be the better umpires and judges of the sacred Olympick games in case there were never any Elian came in place to performe his prizes even so he that would be a good president to sit and determine of divers sentences and opinions no reason there is in the world that he should desire to have his owne sentence crowned no nor to be one of the parties contending and who in truth are to be judged by him The Grecian captaines after they had defaited the Barbarians being assembled in counsell to give their voices unto those whom they deemed woorthy of reward and honour for their prowesse judged themselves all to have done the best service and to be the most valorous warriours And of philosophers I assure you there is not one but he would doe as much unlesse it were Socrates and such as he who confesse that they neither have nor know ought of their owne for these in truth be they who onely shew themselves to be uncorrupt and competent judges of the truth and such as cannot be chalenged for like as the aire within our eares if it be not firme and steady nor cleere without any voice of the owne but full of singing sounds and ringing noises cannot exactly comprehend that which is said unto us even so that which is to judge of reasons in philosophie if it meet with any thing that resoundeth and keepeth an hammering within hardly will it be able to understand that which shall be delivered without foorth for the owne particular opinion which is domesticall and dwelleth at home of what matter soever it be that is treated of will alwaies be the philosopher that hitteth the marke and toucheth the truth best whereas all the rest shall be thought but to opine probably the trueth Moreover if it be true that a man is not able perfectly to comprise or know any thing by good right and reason then did God forbid him to cast forth these false conceptions as it were of untrue and unconstant opinions and forced him to reproove and detect those who ever had such for no small profit but right great commoditie comes by such a speech as is able to deliver men from the greatest evill that is even the spirit of error of illusion and vanitie in opinion So great a gift as God of spectall grace Gave never to Asclepius his race For the physicke of Socrates was not to heale the body but to clense and purifie the soule festestered inwardly and corrupt Contrariwise if it
love of Lysandra have made you to forget your olde sports and delights wherewith you were wont to passe the time away call to minde I beseech you and rehearse unto us those sweet verses of faire Sappho wherein she saith that when her love came in her sight she lost her voice presently and was speechlesse her bodie ran all over into colde sweats she became pale and wan she fell a trembling and quaking her braines turned round surprised she was with dizzinesse and fell into a fainting fit of swowning Thrice happy do I holde that wight Who may est soones enjoy thy sight Of thy sweet voice to reape delight And pleasant smiles Which kindle in me such a fire That as I them do much admire My heart they ravish and desire Transport the whiles Thy face no sooner doe I see But sudden silence comes on me My tongue strings all dissolved bee And speech quite gone Then underneath my skin is spred A firy flush of colour red With that mine eyes be darkened And sight yeeld none Mine eares also do buzze and ring And yet distinctly heare nothing Cold drops of swet run down trickling Or stand as dew My joints anon and sinewes shake My heart-root pants my flesh doth quake And palenesse soone doth overtake My former hew And thus full wan I do remaine As flower in house that long hath laine Or grasse in field which wanting raine Doth quickly fade Untill at length in extasie Withouten sense and breath I lie As if death of me suddenly Surprize had made When Daphnaeus had recited this sonet Is not this quoth my father in the name of Jupiter I beseech you a plaine possession of the minde by some heavenly power is not this I say an evident motion and a very celestiall ravishment of the spirit What furious passion was there ever so great and strong that came upon the prophetesse Pythia when she mounted that three-footed fabricke from whence she delivered oracles Who ever was there so farre transported and caried beside himselfe by the pipes and flutes of fanaticall persons supposed to be surprized by some divine spirit of furie by the tabour and other strange ceremonies in the service of Cybele the mother of the gods Many there be that holde the same body and looke upon the same beautie but the amourous person onely is caught and ravished therewith What should be the reason of it Certes there is some cause thereof Verily when Menander sheweth it unto us yet we learne it not nor understand his meaning by these verses There is a maladie of the minde That it surpriseth fatally Who smitten is therewith doth finde Himselfe sore wounded inwardly And heereof is god Love the cause who toucheth one and spareth another But that which ought indeed to have been spoken rather at the first Since now it comes into my minde And way out of my mouth would finde as Aeschilus saith I thinke not good to overpasse in silence being a matter of so great importance For of all things els my good friend in a maner whereof we take knowledge not by the ministerie of the five naturall senses some there be that came into credit at the beginning and authority by fables other by lawes and the rest by doctrine and discourse of reason Now the constant beleese and full perswasion of the gods the first masters teachers and authors altother thereof were Poets Law givers and in a third ranke Philosophers who all with one accord jointly did set this downe as a verity that Gods there be howbeit they are at great discord and variance touching the number order nature essence and power of them For those whom the Philosophers acknowledge to be gods are not subject to diseases nor to age neither know they what it is to fele paine or endure trauell Escape they doe the passage of the firth Of roaring Acheron and live in joy and mirth And in that regard Philosophers admit not at all the Poeticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say contentions and reconsiliations they will not allow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be gods nor confesse them to be the sonnes of Mars and in many points doe they differ also and dissent from law givers as Xenophanes did who said unto the Egyptians as touching Osiris if you take him for a mortall man adore him not if you account him an immortall god lament not for him Againe the the Poets and law givers on the other side deigne not nor will abide so much as to heare those Philosophers who of certeine Idees numbers unities and spirits make gods neither can they possibly conceive and understand such doctrine In summe much variety there is dissonance in their opinions about this one point but like as in old time there were three sects or factions in Athens al adverse opposite malicious one unto the other to wit of the Paralli the Epacrii and Paediaei yet notwithstanding when they were assembled and met together in a generall councell they gave all their voices and suffrages to Solon and elected him with one common assent their peace-maker their governour and law giver as one woorthy without any question or doubt at all to have conferred upon him the principality and highest degree of vertue and honour even so those three sects differing in opinion about the gods and giving their voices some on this side and others on that and not willing to subscribe one unto another nor easily receiving that which is otherwise delivered than by themselves be all of one and the same minde as touching this one god Love and him the most excellent Poets the best Law givers and the principall Philosophers admit with one voice into the register and kalender of the gods praising and extolling him highly in all their writings and like as Alcaeus saith That all the Mitylenaeans with one accord and generall consent chose Pittacus for their soveraigne prince and tyrant even so Hesiodus Plato and Solon bring and conduct Love out of Helicon into the Academie unto us for our king prince and president crowned and adorned gaily with garlands and chaplets of flowers honored also and accompanied with many shackles and couples professing amitie and mutuall societie not such as Euripides saith With fetters bound and tied was Farre stronger than of iron and brasse Linking them by a cold heavy and massie chaine of need and necessitie as a colourable vaile and pretence to shame and turpitude but such as are caried by winged chariots unto the most goodly and beautifull things in the world whereof others have treated better and more at large When my father had thus said See you not quoth Soclarus how being fallen now againe the second time into one and the same matter you forced your selfe to turne away from it I wot not how avoiding to enter into this holy discourse and if I may be so bold to say what I thinke shifting
as require a short simple and plaine answere were the part of an ambitious and vainglorious Sophister who tooke a pride in the elegant composing of oracles Over and besides Pythia of her selfe is of a gentle and generous nature and when she descendeth thither and converseth with the god she hath more regard of trueth than of glory neither paseth she whether men praise or dispraise her And better iwis it were for us if we also were likewise affected But we now in a great agony as it were fearefull perplexity lest the place should leese the reputation which it hath had for the space of three thousand yeeres and doubting that some would abandon it and cease to frequent it as if it were the schoole of a Sophister who feared to lose his credit and to be despised devise apologies in defence thereof faining causes and reasons of things which we neither know nor is beseeming us for to learne and all to appease and perswade him who complaineth and seemeth to finde fault whereas we should rather shake him off and let him goe For with him first It will be worst who hath such an opinion of this our God as that he approved and esteemed these ancient sentences of the Sages written at the entrance of the temple Know thy selfe Too much of nothing principally for their brevity as containing under few words a pithy sentence well and closely couched and as a man would say beaten soundly togehter with the hammer but reproved and blamed moderne oracles for delivering most part of their answeres briefely succinctly simply and directly And verily such notable Apophthegmes and sayings of the ancient Sages resemble rivers that runne through a narrow streight where the water is pent and kept in so close that a man cannot see through it and even so unneth or hardly may the bottom of their sense be sounded But if you consider what is written or said by them who endevour to search unto the very bottom what every one of these sentences doth comprehend you shall finde that hardly a man shall meet with orations longer then they Now the dialect or speech of Pythia is such as the Mathematicians define a straight and direct line namely the shortest that may be betweene two points and even so it bendeth not it crookeneth not it maketh no circle it carieth no double sense and ambiguity but goeth straight to the trueth and say it be subject to censure and examination and dangerous to be misconstured and beleeved amisse yet to this day it hath never given advantage whereby it might be convinced of untrueth but in the meane time it hath furnished all this temple full of rich gifts presents and oblations not onely of Greeke nations but also of barbarous people as also adorned it with the beautiful buildings and magnificent fabricks of the amphictyons For you see in some sort many buildings adjoined which were not before and as many repaired and restored to their ancient perfection which were either fallen to decay and ruined by continuance of time or else lay confusedly out of order And like as we see that neere unto great trees that spred much and prosper well other smaller plants and shrubs grow and thrive even so together with the city of Delphos Pylaea flourisheth as being fed and maintained by the abundance and affluenee which ariseth from hence in such sort as it beginneth to have the forme and shew of solemne sacrifices of stately meetings and sacred waters such as in a thousand yeeres before it could never get the like As for those that inhabited about Galaxion in Baeotia they found and felt the gracious presence and favour of our God by the great plenty and store of milke For From all their ewes thicke milke did spin As water fresh from lively spring Their tubs and tunnes with milke therein Brim full they all home fast did bring No barrels bottels pailes of wood But full of milke in houses stood But to us he giveth better markes and more evident tokens and apparent signes of his presence and favour than these be having brought our countrey as it were from drinesse and penurie from desert waste wildernesse wherein it was before to be now rich and plentiful frequented and peopled yea and to be in that honor and reputation wherein we see it at this day to flourish Certes I love my selfe much better for that I was so well affected as to put to my helping hand in this businesse together with Polycrates and Petraeus Yea and him also I love in my heart who was the first author unto us of this government and policy and who tooke the paines and endevoured to set on foot and establish most part of these things But impossible it was that in so small a time there should be seene so great and so evident a mutation by any industry of man whatsoever if God himselfe had not bene assistant to sanctifie and honour this oracle But like as in those times past some men there were who found fault with the ambiguity obliquity and obscurity of oracles so there be in these daies others who like sycophants cavill at the overmuch simplicitie of them whose humorous passion is injurious and exceeding foolish For even as little children take more joy and pleasure to see rainbowes haloes or garlands about the Sunne Moone c. yea and comets or blasing starres than they do to behold the Sunne himselfe or the Moone so these persons desire to have aenigmaticall and darke speeches obscure allegories and wrested metaphors which are all reflexions of divination upon the fansie and apprehension of our mortall conceit And if they understand not sufficiently the cause of this change and alteration they go their waies and are ready to condemne the God and not either us or themselves who are not able by discourse of reason to reach unto the counsell and intention of the said gods OF THE DAEMON OR FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF SOCRATES A Treatise in maner of a Dialogue The Summarie THe The bans having lost their freedome and liberty by the violent proceedings of Archias Leontidas and other tyrants who banished a great number of good citizens and men of woorth in which roll and catalogue Pelopidas was one as appeareth in the storie of his life wherein Plutarch writeth of all this matter at large it fell out at last that the exiled persons tooke heart drew to an head and wrought so as they reentred the city of Thebes slew the tyrants and displaced the garrison of the Spartans Which done they dispatched their ambassages to other States and Common wealths of Greece for to justifie this their action and namely among the rest they sent Caphisias to Athens who being there at the request of Archidamus a personage of great authoritie related and reported the returne of the banished men the surprising of the tyrants and the restoring of the citie to their ancient franchises and that with discourses woonderfull patheticall and such as
quoth he to the number of thirty at the least If there be so many quoth he how commeth it to passe that you onely crosse and gainsay yea and hinder that which hath beene concluded and agreed upon by us all and to this purpose have dispatched a light-horseman to ride in poste unto the banished persons who had put themselves in their journey hitherward charging them to returne backe and that in no wise they should goe forward this day considering that the most part of those things which went to this journey fortuneit selfe had procured prepared fit for their hands upon these words of Phyllidas we were all much troubled and perplexed but Charon aboue the rest fastning his eie upon Hipposthenidas and that with a sowre and sterne countenance Most wicked wretch that thou art quoth he what hast thou done unto us No harme said Hipposthenidas in case leaving this curst angrie voice of yours you can be content and have patience to heare and understand the reasons of a man as aged as your selfe and having as many gray haires as you have for if this be the point to shew unto our fellow citizens how hardy and couragious we are that we make no reckoning of our lives and care not for any perill of death seeing we have day enough Phyllidas let us never stay for the darke evening but presently and immediately from this place run upon the tyrants with our swords drawen let us kill and slay let us die upon them and make no spare of our selves for it is no hard matter to do and suffer all this mary to deliver the citie of Thebes out of the hands of so many armed men as hold it to disseize and expell the garrison of the Spartanes with the murder of two or three men is not so easie a thing for Phyllidas hath not provided so much wine for his feast and banquet as will be sufficient to make fifteene hundred souldiers of Archius guard drunken and say we had killed him yet Crippidas and Arcesus are ready at night both of them sober enough to keepe the corps du guard why make wee such haste then to draw our friends into an evident and certeine danger of present death especially seeing withall that our enemies be in some sort advertised of their comming and approch for if it were not so why was there commandement given by them to those of Thespiae for to be in their armes upon the third day which is this and readie to goe with the Lacedaemonian captaines whensoever they gave commandement And as for Amphitheus this very day as I understand after their judiciall proceeding against him they minded to put to death upon the comming of Archias And are not these pregnant presumptions that the plot and enterprise is to them discovered Were it not better then to deferre the execution of our designments a while longer untill such time as the gods be reconciled and appeased for our divinors and wisards having sacrificed a beese unto Ceres pronounce that the fire of the sacrifice denounceth some great sedition and danger to the common weale and that which you Charon particularly ought to take good heed of is this Yesterday and no longer since Hippathodorus the sonne of Erianthes a man otherwise of good sort and one who knoweth nothing at all of our enterprise had this speech with me Charon is your familiar friend Hippathodorus but with me not greatly acquainted advertise him therefore if you thinke so good that he beware and looke to himselfe in regard of some great danger strange accident that is toward him for the last night as I dreamed me thought I saw that his house was in travell as it were of childe that he and his friends being themselves in distresse praied unto the gods for her delivery standing round about her during her labour and painfull travell but she seemed to loow and rore yea and to cast out certeine inarticulate voices untill at the last there issued out of it a mightie fire wherewith a great part of the citie was immediately burnt and the castle Cadmea covered all over with smoke onely but no part of the sire ascended thereto Loe what the vision was which this honest man related unto me Charon which I assure you for the present set me in a great quaking and trembling but much more when I once heard say that this day the exiled persons were to returne and be lodged here within an house of the citie In great anguish therefore I am and in a wonderfull agonie for feare least we engage our selves within a world of calamities and miseries without being able to execute any exploit of importance upon our enemies unlesse it be to make a garboile and set all on a light fire for I suppose that the citie when all is done will be ours but Cadmea the castle as it is already will be for them Then Theocritus taking upon him to speake and staying Charon who was about to reply somewhat against this Hipposthenidas I interpret all this quoth he cleane contrary for there is not a signe that confirmeth me mor ein following of this enterprise although I have had alwaies good presages in t eh behalfe of the banished in all the sacrifices that I have offred than this vision which you have rehearsed if it be so as you say that a great and light fire shone over all the citie and the same arising out of a friends house and that the habitation of our enemeis and the place of their retreat was darkned and made blacke againe with the smoke which never brings with it any thing better than teares and troublesome confusion and whereas from amogn us there arose in articulate vocies in case a man should construe it in evill part and take exception thereat in regard of the voice the same will be when our enterprise which now is enfolded in obscure doubtfull and uncerteine suspicion shall at once both appeere and also prevaile as for the ill signes of the sacrifices they touch not the publike estate but those who now are most powerfull and in greatest authoritie As Theocritus thus was speaking yet still I said unto Hipposthenidas And whom I pray you have you sent unto the men for if he be not too farre onward on his way we will send after to overtake him I am not able to say of a trueth Caphisias whether it be possible to reach him quoth Hipposthenidas for he hath one of the best horses in all Thebes under him and a man he is whom yee all know very well for he is the master of Melons chariots and his chariot men one unto whom Melon himselfe from the very first discovered this plot and made privie unto it With that I considering and thinking with my selfe what man he should speake of It is not Chlidon quoth I ô Hipposthenidas he who no longer since than the last yeere wanne the prise in the horse running at the solemne feast of
thus we see that fortune many times by heaping upon heartlesse cowards and witlesse fooles a great estate of riches and dominion which they know not how to weld and wherewith they discredit themselves doeth honour and grace vertue as upon which onely dependeth all the puissance all the worship glory and reputation of men for if as Epicharmus saith The minde it is that seeth cleare And t' is the minde that eke doeth heare then all the rest are blinde and deafe which be void of reason for the senses seeme verilie to have their proper and peculiar functions Now that the minde is all in all that the minde is availeable in all things that the minde disposeth every thing in good order that it is the minde which conquereth which ruleth reigneth over all whatsoever beside blind deafe without life do hinder depresse and dishonor the possessors thereof if vertue be away may be proved and exemplified by the experience and course of wordly affaires for by the same puissance and command Semiramis being but a woman rigged and manned armadoes at sea leavied and armed maine battels of land forces built Babylon scoured and conquered all the coast of the red sea subdued and brought to her obedience the Arabians and Aethiopians whereas Sardanapalus a man borne sat within house at home carding and spinning purple tumbling and lying along waltting among a sort of concubines and when he was dead they made for him a statue in stone dauncing by himselfe alone after the Barbarian fashion and knacking as it were with his fingers over his head like an antique with this epigram set over it Eat drinke the wanton lecher play For nothing els is ought I say Crates the Philosopher seeing upon a time within the temple of Apollo Pythius at Delphi the image of Phryne the curtisan shrined all in golde cried out Behold heere stands the triumphant Trophaee over the loose and lascivious life of the Greeks But whosoever beholdeth the life or sepulture whether you will for in mine opinion there is no difference of Sardanapalus he may well and truely say to the Trophaee of fortunes goods What then shall we suffer fortune after Sardanapalus to meddle with Alexander and to chalenge unto herselfe any part of his mightinesse and puissance That were no reason at all for what gave she ever unto him more than other kings have received at her hands whether it were armour horses weapons monie soldiers and a guard about their persons Well let her by these meanes make Ariddaeus great if she can let her magnifie I say by these meanes Amasis Ochus Oarses Tigranes the Armenian and Nicomedes the Bithynian of whom the one to wit Tigranes flung downe his crowne and diadem at the feet of Pompeius and shamefully lost his kingdome as a pray or escheat fallen into his enemies hand the other namely Nicomedes having shaven his head and wearing a cap upon it declared himselfe thereby to be an affranchised vassall of the Romans What Say we then that fortune maketh men cowards fearefull and base minded Surely it were no reason to impute cowardise upon infortunitie no more than to attribute valour and wisdome to prosperitie But well and truely may one say that fortune herselfe was great in regard of her lord and master Alexander for in him she was glorious invincible and magnanimous not proud nor insolent but full of clemencie and humanitie no sooner was the breath out of his body but presently her power that is to say his armie and forces as Leosthenes said wandring up and downe stragling and running upon it selfe resembled that same Cyclops Polyphemus who after his eie was out of his head went groping all about putting forth his hands before him but not knowing where to lay them For even the greatnesse of her puissance after he was once dead went to and fro wandring it wist not where and stumbling ever and anon wanting a directour and governour as in time of Anarchie when there is no soveraigne ruler knowen or rather it might be compared unto dead bodies when the life is newly departed out of them For like as the parts are not knit together nor hold one to another any longer but fall away one from the other and loosely withdraw themselves apart even so the armie of Alexander after it had lost and forgone him did no more but sprunt pant struggle and strive for life tosse and tumble to and fro under the Perdiccaies the Meleagers the Seleuci the Antegoni and I wot not whom like unto some small vital spirits yet remaining hot and beating within the arteries heere and there disorderly and now and than like intermittent pulses untill such time as at the last it grew to putrifaction and corruption in maner of a dead carcase and engendred wormes crawling within it I meane such base kings degenerat rulers captaines who had no generosity nor heart in them Certes Alexander himselfe in his life time rebuking Hephaestion when he quarelled with Craterus tanted him tooke him up in this wise What power hast thou of thy selfe what couldest thou do and where wouldest thou be if a man should take Alexander from thee Semblably I will not sticke to say thus unto the fortune of that time What is thy greatnesse what is thy glory where is thy puissance where is thine invincible power if one should bereave thee of Alexander That is as much to say as if one should deprive thine armes weapons of skill and experience to use them thy riches of liberality thy sumptuosity and magnificence of temperance thy fights combats of resolute valor thy victories and superiorities of mildenesse and lenity Make any other great if thou canst who bestoweth not his good bountifully who in the forefrunt of the battell hazzardeth not his owne person first before his armie who honoreth not nor regardeth his friends who taketh no pitie of his enimies captive who is not in his pleasures continent in his occasions affaires vigilant in his victories soone pacified and easie to be compounded with and last of all who in his prosperity and good successe is not kind and courteous How can a man possibly be great what power and authority so ever he have if he be foolish vicious wicked withal for in one word take vertue from a man otherwise fortunate he is every way meane and of base account meane in his gifts donations by reason of nigardise meane in his travels in regard of his cowardise and tendernes meane in the sight of the gods because of his superstition meane among good men for his envie meane with valiant warriors in respect of his timorousnesse and meane in the conceit of honest women considering his dissolute voluptuousnesse For like as unskilfull workemen who set little statues upon great bases and lage piedstals shew thereby the smalnesse of their statues so much the more even so when fortune raiseth up a man of base minde into high place and to
an estate wherein he is to be seene of the whole world she discovereth his wants she discrediteth and dishonoreth him the rather waving and shaking every way through his levitie So that by this we must confesse that greatnesse lieth not in the bare possession but in the well using of good things For many times it falleth out that very infants even from their cradle inherite the realmes and seignories of their fathers like as Charillus did whom Lycurgus his uncle broght in his swadling bands into the common hall Phiditium where the lords of Sparta were wont to dine together set him in the roiall throne and in the stead of himselfe declared and proclaimed him king of Lacedaemon Now was not this babe for all this great but he rather might be accounted a great person who rendring unto the new borne infant his fathers honor due unto him would not intervert and derive it upon himselfe and so defraud his nephew thereof As for Aridaeus who could make him a great man whom differing indeed nothing from a babe Meleager swadled indeed and enwrapped onely within a purple robe and roiall mantell of estate and so enstalled him in the throne of Alexander wherein he did very well to give the world to understand within a few daies after how men reigne by vertue and how by fortune for he subrogated in the place of a true prince that managed the empire indeed a very counterfect plaier and actor of a kings part or to speake more truly he brought a mute and dumbe diademe to walke through the world for a time as it were upon a stage The comicall Poet said A very woman may well a burden beare If first a man upon her doe it reare But a man may contrariwise say that a silly woman or a yong child may take up yea and charge upon the shoulders of another a scignory a realme a great estate and empire as Bagoas the Eunuch tooke and laid upon Oarses and Darius the kingdome of the Persians Mary when as one hath taken upon him a mighty power and dominion to beare to weld manage the same and not under the weight and heavy load of affaires belonging thereto to be overwhelmed brused or wrested awry that is the act of a man endued with vertue understanding and courage such an one as Alexander was howsoever some there be who reproch him that he loved wine to well and would be drunke But this great gift he had that in his important affaires he was sober neither was he drunke and overseene nor ever forgat himselfe and grew to any outrage for all the puissance authority and liberty that he had whereof others when they had some part and little tast could not hold and containe themselves For No sooner are their purses stuft With coine or they to honor brought But they anon with pride are puft And soone bewray that they be naught They kicke they winse they fling and prance None may stand safely in their way If fortune once their house advance Some unexpected power to sway Clytus for having sunke three or foure gallies of the Greeks nere the Isle Amorgus would needs be stiled with the name of Neptune and a three tined mace caried before him Demetrius upon whom fortune had bestowed a little skirt or lappet as it were which he tare from Alexanders dominion was well content to heare himselfe called Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the vawter Cities sent unto him not embassadors but Theores forsooth that is to say especiall persons deputed for to consult with the gods and his answeres to them must be termed I would not else Oracles And Lysimachus who held the coasts of Thracia which was but the border or edge of Alexanders kingdom grew to that heigth of surly pride intollerable arrogancy that he would breake out into these words Now the Bizantines come to doe homage unto me seeing how I reach and touch the skie with my launce At which speech of his Pasiades standing by could not forbeare but say unto the company Let us be gone my masters with all speed lest this man bore an hole in heaven with the point of his launce But what should we speake more of these persons who might be allowed in some sort to cary an hauty minde and beare their heads aloft in regard of Alexander whose souldiers they were seeing that Clearchus the tyrant of Heraclea caried upon his scepter as his device the resemblance of lightning and one of his sonnes he named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a thunderbolt And Denys the yonger called himselfe the sonne of Apollo in a certeine Epigram to this effect Doris the Nymph by Phoebus did conceive And from them both my birth I do derive And in trueth Denys the elder the naturall father of this man who put to death ten thousand of his owne citizens and subjects if not more who for very envie betraied his owne brother into the hands of his enemies who had not the patience to stay for his owne mothers death an aged woman and who by the course of nature would have died within few daies after but smothered and stopped her breath who also himselfe wrote in a tragoedy of his owne making For why know this that lordly tyranny The mother is of wrong and vilany yet forsooth of three daughters which he had named one Arete that is to say Vertue another Sophrosyne that is to say Temperance and a third Dicoesyne that is to say Justice Some there were who needs would be surnamed Euergeta that is to say Benefactors others Soteres that is to say Saviours Some called themselves Callinici that is to say Victorious others Megali that is to say Great And yet as glorious additions as they caried in their stiles who is able to expresse in words their marriages following thicke one in the necke of another spending the long day continually like a sort of stallions among a number of women as if they had beene a stud of so many mares their unkind abusing of faire boies their violent rapes and enforcements of yong damosels their drumming and tabouring with a sort of effeminate womanlike wantons their dice playing in the day time their piping and sounding the flute in open Theaters their nights spent in suppers and whole daies in long dinners But Alexander gat up and sat to his dinner by the breake of day and went not to supper before it was late in the evening he dranke and made good cheere when he had first sacrificed to the gods he plaied at dice with Midias one time whiles he had a fever upon him his pastimes and recreations were to travell and march upon the way and withall to learne how to shoot an arrow how to launce a dart how to mount a chariot nimbly and dismount againe with facility Roxane he espoused and wedded onely for pure love and to content his fancy and affection but Statira the daughter
of the waters that served the city as also to the Arcenall c. Moreover they had power to attach the bodies of great persons and were charged to see unto the provision of corne and victuals At the first none but of noble families or Patricians were advanced to this place but in processe of time Commoners also atteined thereto More of them how in Iulius Casars time there were elected six Aediles whereof two were named Cereals See Alexander at Alexander lib. 4. cap. 4. Genial dieth Aegineticke Mna or Mina Seemeth to be the ancient coine or money of Greece for they were the first that coined money and of them came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caelius Rhodig Aeolius Modus In Musicke a certeine simple plaine and mild tune apt to procure sleepe and bring folke to bed Aequinox That time of the yeere when the daies and nights be of equall length which hapneth twice in the yeere to wit in March and September Aestivall that is to say Of the Summer as the Aestivall Solstice or Tropicke of the Sunne when he is come neerest unto us and returneth Southward from us Aloïdae or Aloïadae were Othus and Ephialtes two giants so named of Aloëus the giant their supposed father for of his wife Iphimedia Neptune begat them It is said that every moneth they grew nine fingers Alphabet The order or rew of Greeke letters as they stand so called of Alpha and Beta the two formost letters and it answereth to our A.B.C. Alternative By course or turnes one after another going and comming c. Amphictyones Were a certein solemne counsell of State in Greece who held twice in the yeere a meeting in the Spring and Autunne at Thermopyle being assembled from the 12 flourithing cities of Greece there to consult of most important affaires Amphitheatre A spacious shew place in forme round and made as it were of two Theaters See Theater Amphora A measure in Rome of liquors only It seemeth to take that name of the two eares it had of either side one it conteined eight Congios which are somewhat under as many of our wine gallons Amnets Preservatives hung about the necke or otherwise worne against witchcraft poison eiebiting sicknesse or any other evils Anarchie The state of a city or countrey without government Andria A societie of men meeting together in some publicke hall for to eat and drinke Instituted first among the Thebans like to the Phiditia in Lacedaemon Annales Histories Records or Chronicles conteining things done from yere to yeere Anniversarie Comming once enery yeere at a certeine time as the Nativity of Christ and Sturbridge faire c. Antarcticke That is to say Opposit unto the Arcticke See 〈◊〉 Antidote A medicine properly taken inwardly against a poison or some pestilent and venimous disease A counterpoison or preservative Antipathie A repugnance in nature by reason of contrarie affections whereby some can not abide the smell of roses others may not endure the sight of a Cat c. Antiparistasis A 〈◊〉 or restraint on every side whereby either colde or heat is made stronger in it selfe by the restraining of the contrary as the naturall heat of our bodies in Winter through the coldnesse of the aire compassing it about likewise the coldnesse of the middle region of the aire in Summer by occasion of the heat on both sides cansing thunder and haile c. Antiphonie A noise of contrarie sounds Antipodes Those people who inhabit under and beneath our Hemisphaere and go with their feet full against ours Apathte Impassibilitie or voidnesse of all affections and passions Apaturia A feast solemnized for the space of foure daies at Athens in the honour of Bacchus So called of Apate that is to say Deceit because Xanthius the Boeotian was in single fight slaine deceitfully by Thimoeles the Athenian For the tale goeth that whiles they were in combat Bacchus appeared behind Xanthius clad in a goats skinne and when Thimoeles charged his concurrent for comming into the field with an assistant as he looked backe he was killed by Thimoeles abovenamed Apologie A plea for the defence or excuse of any person Apothegme A short sententious speech Apoplexie A disease comming suddenly in maner of a stroke with an universall astonishment and deprivation of sense and motion which either causeth death quickely or else endeth in a dead palsey Archontes Were chiefe magistrates at Athens at first every tenth yeere and afterwards yeerely chosen by lot unto whom the rule of the common-welth in their popular state was committed of whom the first was named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say King the second Archon that is to say Ruler the third Polemarchus and the other six Thesmothelae Arctick that is to say Northerly so called of Arctos in Greeke which signifieth the Beare that is to say those conspicuous seaven starres in the North named Charlematns waine neere unto which is that pole or point of the imaginarie axell-tree about which the heavens turne which thereupon is named The pole Arctick and over against it underneath our Hemisphaere is the other pole called Antarctick in the South part of the world Aristocratre A forme of Government or a State wherein the nobles and best men be Rulers To Aromatize that is to say To season or make pleasant by putting thereto some sweete and odoriferous spices Astragalote Mastis A scourge or whip the strings whereof are set and wrought with ankle-bones called Astragali thereby to give a more grievous lash Atomi Indivisible bodies like to motes in the Sunne beames of which Democritus and Epicurus imagined all things to be made Atticke pure that is to say The most fine and eloquent for in Athens they spake the purest Greeke insomuch as Thucydides called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Greece of Greece as one would say the very quintenssence of Greece Averrunct or Averruncani Were gods among the Romans supposed to put by and chace away evils and calamities such as Hercules and Apollo among the Greekes called thereupon Apotropaei Auspices Plutarch seemeth to take for Augures that is to say Certeine priests or soothsaiers who by the inspection and observation of birds did foretell future things Axiomes Were principal propositions in Logicke of as great authoritie and force as Maximes in law and it should seeme that those Maximes be derived corruptly from Axiomes B BAcchanalta named also 〈◊〉 Certein licentious festivall solemnities in the honor of Bacchus performed at the first by day light and afterward in the night season with all maner of filthy wantonnesse instituted first in Athens and other cities of Greece euery three yeeres in Aegypt also at last they were taken vp in Italy and at Rome Bacchiadae A noble familie in Corinth who for the space almost of 200. yeeres there ruled Bachyllion A song or daunce which seemeth to take the name of a famous Tragoedian poet named Bachyllus who devised and practised it like as Pyladion of Pylades as notable a Comoedian
not the hatred and spight but the amitie and good will of the hearers And thus much may serve for interrogatories and demands As touching scoffes and merry jests he that knoweth not how to use and handle them with dexterity good discretion and skill according to time and place convenient I would advise him altogether to forbeare them For like as if men be in a slippery or ticklish ground they that touch them never so little in running by are able to overturne and lay them along even so at the table when we are drinking in danger we be upon every small occasion in the world offered by a word not well placed or untowardly delivered to fall into choler yea and many times more mooved we are with a scoffe or pleasant gibe than with a reprochfull taunt or meere slander for that ordinarily it is seene that a reprochfull word proceedeth from a violent fit and sudden passion of anger even against his will that giveth it but we take more to the heart a mocke or scornfull flout as comming from a prepensed malice and a voluntary minde set upon mischiefe without any necessitie at all enforcing thereto and to be briefe we are in generall more offended with those that can give a drie frumpe in good sadnesse than such as cast foorth words at randon And this we hold for certeine that every one of such frumps biteth sore and seemeth to be an artificiall kinde of reproch devised and thought upon of purpose before-hand as for example if one call another salt-fish-monger by that word he gives him openly a plaine reproch but if he say we remember well that you are woont to wipe or snuffe your nose upon your sleeve he mocks him covertly and calles him as much by craft The like frumpe it was that Cicero used to one Octavius who supposed to be an Affrican borne for when he seemed to excuse himselfe that he heard not what Cicero spake And that is a great woonder quoth Cicero againe considering that you have an hole bored through your eare And Melanthius being flouted and made a mocking stocke by a comedie maker You have quoth he given me a reward that I never deserved and paid me that which you owed me not such gibes therefore and mocks as these doe pricke worse and much like to arrowes with barded heads sticke longer by them who are thus flouted and for their wittinesse more delight those who are present than for any other pleasure else seeme to winne credit unto him that useth them For to speake a truth a scoffe or mocke is nothing else but a covert and dissimuled reproch for some fault according to Theophrastus so as he that standeth by and heareth it can make construction thereof and ghesse how to adde more unto it as knowing and beleeving all the rest behinde to be true For no doubt he that laugheth heartily as if he were tickled when he heareth the answer of Theocritus to one who being named for a common stripper of men out of their garments as they went late in the streets asked him if he went foorth to supper Yes mary doe I quoth hee but I meane to lie there all night such an one I say seemeth to confirme the opinion of the foresaid crime for which the partie was suspected insomuch as hee that mocketh and scoffeth impertinently and without grace possesseth the standers by and hearers with malice as if they insulted over the partie mocked and were abbetters themselves as being glad that hee is thus derided or reproched But in that noble citie Lacedaemon among other good disciplines in times past there taught men learned also to jest at others without biting and not to count themselves nipped when themselves were jested with and if peradventure a man shewed himselfe discontented with some broad jest and could not beare it well the other partie presently gave over and was quiet How then can it chuse but be an hard matter to finde that kinde of scoffe or taunt which may content and please the party mocked considering that it is a point of no smal atte nor meane experience and dexteritie to bee able for to discerne and judge what it is that in the feat of mockerie which is not offensive Howbeit to open a little the meanes thereto First and formost it seemeth that as these jestes touch and sting them most who know themselves to be guilty of those vices for which they be mocked so the same frumps if they note men for such faults of which they be most cleere must needs in some sort be pleasant and acceptable unto them upon whom they be discharged Thus Xenophon jesting pleasantly with that foule and ilfavoured fellow above all others all hairy and as rough as a beare said He was the minion and love of Sambaulas You may call to minde also Quintus a good friend of ours who when he lay sicke in bedde complained that his hands were cold But you brought them warm enough not long since quoth Aufidius Modestus when you returned out of the province which quippe being banded upon him an honest and upright praetor ministred occasion of mirth contentment and laughter the same if it had light upon a proconsull that had used extortion or oppression would have beene a girding and nipping reproch This is the reason that when Socrates chalenged Critobulus the fairest yoong man then living to compare their beauties jested merrily with him but scorned and derided him not And Alcibiades himselfe was pleasantly disposed with Socrates when he said That jealous he was of faire Agathon And even kings and great princes verily otherwhiles joy and take pleasure when they be spoken of as if they were poore or private persons like as one of these pleasants or parasiticall jesters when king Philip seemed to gird and scoffe at him returned upon him againe this word What sir know you not who I am do not I keepe mainteine you For in reproching such persons with vices and defects as which are not in them they doe after an oblique manner give them to understand and doe make knowen the vertues and perfections which they have But heere wee must take heed and be sure in any wise that such good parts they be indued withall indeed and without all doubt otherwise that which is spoken to the contrary buzzeth in their heads and breedeth a doubtfull suspicion in themselves for hee that saith unto a rich and great monied man that he will be his broker and helpe him to some usurers of whom he may take up mony at interest or unto a sober person who drinketh nothing but water that he is a drunkard or hath taken his wine too liberally or he that calleth a liberall man well knowen to spend magnificently and ready to pleasure all men a base mechanicall kumbix and a pinching peni-father or he who threatneth a famous advocate or counsellor at the barre who hath a great name for lawe and eloquence in all courts of plea
and besides for policie and government is in high authoritie that he will bring him to a non-sute or overthrow him judicially he I say ministreth matter of good spirit and laughter unto the partie whom he seemeth so to chalenge or menace After this manner king Cyrus became very lovely and gracious by his singular courtesie in that he would seeme to provoke his familiars for to performe those feats wherein he knew himselfe inferior to them and when Ismenias the famous musician plaid one day upon his flute during the time of sacrifice but so as for all his musicke there appeered no good prognosticks and signes in the beast sacrificed testifying that the gods were propice and well pleased another mercenary minstrell taking the instruments in his hand kept a foolish and ridiculous tooting full untowardly and when all the company there in place reprooved him for it To sound an instrument quoth he to the contentment of the gods is an heavenly gift whereat Ismenias laughed a good and made this answer You take the matter amisse quoth he and cleane contrary for whiles I plaied the gods tooke so great pleasure in my musicke that they intended it onely had no while to accept of the sacrifice but when thou begannest to meddle with the pipes they received it immediately and made haste to be ridde and delivered of thy absurd piping Moreover they who call such things as bee simply good by odious and opprobrious names and that in mirth if they doe the same with a good grace please more than those who directly praise the same like as they doe nippe and bite more shrewdly who give reproches under faire and lovely tearmes as for example such as call wicked persons Aristides or base cowards Achilles after the manner of Oedipus in Sophocles when he said Creon who had beene alwaies kind And even at first her faithfull friend Another kinde there seemes to be of ironicall praise opposite unto the former namely when semblant is made of blame and reproofe which maner of praise Socrates often used as for ex-example when he called the industrious meanes that Antisthenes practised to reconcile men and make them friends as also to gaine good will and favour broakage bauds-craft entisement and allurement as also for that the philosopher Crates had a good grace with him wheresoever he went and because he was ever welcome honourably received and kindly enterteined into what house soever he came he was commonly named Thyrepanoecles as one would say The doore opener Furthermore that mockerie is pleasing which goeth in maner of a complaint and yet carrieth with it a kinde of gratitude and thankefulnesse Thus Diogenes speaking of his master and teacher Antisthenes Who clad me in a cloake thred-bare And made me ragged clothes to weare Who forced me to beg my food And houselesse for to walke abroad For nothing so good a grace it would have had in case he had used these words He who made me wise contented and happy Also a certeine Laconian who making a shew that he blamed the warden of the publicke stouphes and halles of exercises for giving him wood so drie that it would not so much as smoake said thus of him Heere is one by whose meanes we can not be suffered to shed a teare Semblably if a man should call him who kept a bountifull table and feasted him every day a tyrant and taker of men perforce saying withall that he would not suffer him to eat his meales at home nor to see so much as once his owne table in so many yeeres space like as if one should complaine of the king for making him of a poore man rich and wealthy in these tearmes That he had laied wait for him to doe him a shrewd turne in taking from him his repose and leasure and bereaving him of his sleepe and naturall rest or as if some man having gathered plenty of good wine turning againe upon the gods Cabeiri in Aeschilus should accuse them for that they had caused him to have scant of vineger in his house as they themselves in bourd and mirth had menaced to doe For these kinds of covert secret and dissimuled praises enter farther carrying with them a greater grace and more effectuall by farre in such sort as they who in this wise perceive themselves to be commended are nothing offended thereat nor take it in ill part Over and besides it behooveth him who would give a frumpe or scoffe with a grace and dexteritie to know also the difference of a defect and imperfection from studies and recreations whereto men are given as namely to distinguish betweene avarice or a contentious humour and the love of musicke or of hunting for as men can not abide to be twit by those so they are very well contented to be scoffed at for these as Demosthenes the Mitylenaean plaied in this kinde pleasantly upon a time for when he went to visit a familiar friend of his who loved musicke passing well and was much addicted to play upon the harpe after that he had knocked at the doore and the other hearing that it was he willed him to come in But first quoth he I would have you tie up your harpe But the parasiticall bassau of king Lysunachus contrariwise rejoined in this sort as rudely and uncivilly for when the king had throwen a counterfeit scorpion made of wood upon his coat whereat he first started and was afraied but when he perceived once that the king was merrily disposed and did but make sport came upon him againe And I will fright you sir king aswell quoth he come on and give me a talent from you The like regard ought to be had and the same difference made as touching the defects or imperfections of the bodie at least-wise in many of them for if men be jested at for that they be long-nosed and hawked or otherwise have short snut-noses they will but laugh thereat Thus one of the minions of Cassander was nothing offended with Theophrastus when he said I woonder at your eies that they fall not a singing and make good musicke considering your nose is set and hidden within them meaning that he had a nose so flat and sunke 〈◊〉 his head And Cyrus seeing one with a long nose and hawked withall willed him to marrie a wife with a short and flat nose For then quoth he you would match well and make a good medly betweene you But in case we jest and make game at those whose nostrils stincke or who have a strong and unfavory breath they take it not well at our hands but are displeased On the other side if they be plaied upon for their bald-pates they can abide it well enough and put it up but say a man mocke them for having but one eie or being blinde they will not endure it In deed king Antigonus would jest pleasantle with himselfe for the losse of one eie as namely when there was presented unto him a supplication written