in the hall abovesaid when all the waies and passages were shut up she brought a great deale of wood which was provided for the sacrifice and plled the same against the doores and so set it on fire But when their husbands came running for to helpe from all parts Democrita killed her two daughters and herselfe upon them The Lacedaemonians not knowing upon whom to discharge their anger caused the dead bodies of Democrita and her two daughters to be throwen without the confines and liberties of their territorie for which act of theirs God being highly displeased sent as the Chronicles do record a great earthquake among the Lacedaemonians WHETHER CREATVRES BE MORE WISE THEY OF THE LAND OR THOSE OF THE WATER The Summarie IN this treatise and discourse affoording among other things much pleasure in the reading Plutarch bringeth in two yoong gentlemen Aristotimus and Phoedimus who in the presence of a frequent companie plead the cause of living creatures Aristotimus in the first place for them of the land and Phoedimus in the second for those of the water the drift and conclusion of whose pleas commeth to this point that without resolving unto whom the prize ought to be adjudged one of the companie inferreth that the examples alledged both of the one side and of the other do prove that those creatures have some use of reason Moreover we may distinctly divide this booke into three principall parts the first conteineth a conference betweene Soclarus and Autobulus who gave eare afterwards unto the others for Soclarus taking occasion to speake of a written discourse recited in the praise of hunting commendeth this exercise and preferreth it before combats of sword plaiers and fencers which Autobulus will in no wise approove but holdeth that this warre against beasts schooleth as it were and traineth men to learne for to kill one another afterwards And for that some entrance and accesse there was to be given unto the principall disputation of the intelligence and knowledge which is in brute beasts they doe examine the opinion of the Stoicks who bereave them of all understanding passion and pleasure which opinion of theirs being at large debated is afterward refuted with this resolution that man out-goeth beasts in all subtiltie and quicknesse of wit injustice and equitie meet for civill societie and yet beasts although they be more dull and heavie than men are not therefore void of all discourse and naturall reason Then Autobulus confirmeth this by the consideration of horses and dogges enraged a sufficient testimonie that such creatures before-time had reason and understanding Soclarus opposeth himselfe against such a confirmation in the behalfe of the Stoicks and Peripateticks whereupon Autobulus distinguisheth of the arguments and inclining partly to the side of the Pythagoreans sheweth what maner of justice or injustice we ought to consider in the carriage of men toward beasts And then come the two yoong gentlemen abovenamed in place where Aristotimus taking in hand the cause of land-beasts discourseth at large thereupon which is the second part of this present treatise True it is that all the beginning of his plea is defective and wanting howbeit that which remaineth and is extant sheweth sufficiently the carefull industry of our author in searching into the history of nature and examples drawen out thereof as also out of an infinit number of books to passing good purpose Well then Aristotimus sheweth in the first place that the hunting of land-beasts is a far nobler and more commendable exercise than that of the water and comming then to the point namely to the use of reason which consisteth in the election and preference of one thing before another in provisions forecasts and prerogatives in affections aswell those which be milde and gentle as the other which are violent in diligence and industry in arts and sciences in hardinesse equitie temperance courage and magnanimitie he prooveth all this to be without comparison farre more in land-creatures than in other for the proofe and verifying whereof he produceth bulles elephants lions mice swallowes spiders ravens dogs bees geese cranes herons pismires wolves foxes mules partridges hares beares urchins and divers sorts besides of foure footed beasts of fowles likewise insects wormes and serpents all which are specified in particular afterwards In the last part Phoedimus making some excuse that be was not well prepared taketh in hand neverthelesse the cause of fishes and in the very entrance declareth that notwithstanding it be an hard matter to shew the sufficiencie of such creatures which are so divided and severed from us yet notwithstanding produce he will his proofs and arguments drawen from certeine and notable things recommending fishes in this respect that they are so wise and considerate as he sheweth by examples being not taught nor monished unto any waies framed and trained by man like as most part of land beasts be and yet by the way he prooveth by eeles lampreis and crocodiles that fishes may be made tame with men and how our auncients esteemed highly the institution of such mute creatures after this he describeth their naturall prudence both in defending themselves and also in offending and assailing others alledging infinit examples to this purpose as the skill and knowledge they have in the Mathematicks their amity their fellowship their love their kinde affection to their yoong ones alledging in the end divers histories of dolphins love unto men whereupon Soclarus taking occasion to speake inferreth that these two pleaders agree in one point and if a man would joine and lay together their arguments proofes and reasons they would make head passing well and strongly against those who would take from beasts both of land and water all discourse of reason WHETHER CREATURES BE more wise they of the land or they of the water AUTOBULUS LEonidas a king of Lacedaemon being demaunded upon a time what he thought of Tyrtaeus I take him to bee quoth he a good poet to whet and polish the courages of yoong men for that by his verses he doth imprint in the hearts of yoong gentlemen an ardent affection with a magnanimous desire to winne honour and glorie in regard whereof they will not spare themselves in battels and fights but expose their lives to all perils whatsoever Semblably am I greatly affraid my very good friends left the discourse as touching the praise of hunting which was read yesterday in this company hath so stirred up and excited beyond all measure our yoong men who love that game so well that from hencefoorth they will thinke all other things but accessaries and by-matters or rather make no account at all of other exercises but will runne altogether unto this sport and minde none other besides considering that I finde my selfe now a fresh more hotly given and youthfully affectionate thereunto than mine age would require insomuch as according to the words of dame Phaedra in Euripides All my desire is now to call And cry unto my hounds in chase The dapple stagge
children be growen to that age wherin they are to be committed unto the charge of Tutors Schoolemasters and governors then parents ought to have an especial care of their state namely under whom they set them to be trained up least for want of good providence and foresight they betray them into the hands of some vile slaves base barbarians vaine and light-headed persons For most absurd and ridiculous is the practise of many men in this point who if they have any servants more vertuous or better disposed than others some of them they appoint to husbandry and tillage of their ground others they make Masters of their ships They employ them I say either in merchandise to be their factours or as stewards of their house to receive and pay all or else to be banquers and so they trust them with the exchaunging and turning of their monies But if they meete with one slave among the rest that useth to be cupshotten given to gluttony belly cheere or otherwise is untoward for any good service him they set over their children to bring them up Whereas indeed a governour over youth should be wel given of a right good nature himselfe such an one as Phoenix was who had the breeding and education of Achilles The principal point therfore and most important of all that hitherto hath bene alledged is this That choise men be sought out for to be teachers masters of our children who live in good name and without challenge whose cariage and behaviour is blameles who for their knowledge experience of the world are the best that may be found For surely the source roote of all goodnes and honesty is the good education and training up of our children in their tender age And like as good husbandmen and gardeners are woont to pitch props stakes close unto their yong plants to stay them up and keepe them streight even so discreete and wise teachers plant good precepts and holesome instructions round about their yoong schollers to the end that thereby their manners may bud foorth commendably and be framed to the rule of vertue But contrariwise you shall have some fathers now adaies that deserve no better than to be spit at in their very faces who either upon ignorance or for want of experience before any triall made of those masters who are to have the conduct and charge of their children commit them hand over head to the tuition of lewd persons and such as beare shew and make profession of that which they are not Neither were this absurditie altogether so grosse and ridiculous if so be they faulted herein of meere simplicitie default of foreknowledge But here is the heights of their folly and errour that themselves knowing otherwhiles the insufficiencie yea and the naughtines of some such Masters better than they doe who advertise them thereof yet for all that they commit their children unto them partly being overcome by the slatterie of claw-backes and partly willing to gratifie some friends upon their kinde and earnest entreatie Wherein they do much like for all the world to him who lying verie sicke in bodie for to content and satisfie a friend leaveth an expert and learned physition who was able to cure him and entertaineth another blind leech who for want of skill and experience quickly killeth him or else unto one who being at sea forgoeth an excellent pilot whom he knoweth to be very skilfull and for the love of a friend maketh choise of another that is most insufficient O Iupiter and all the gods in Heaven Is it possible that a man bearing the name of a father should make more account of a friends request than of the good education of his owne children Which considered had not that ancient Philosopher Crates 〈◊〉 you just occasion to say oftentimes that if possibly he might he would willingly mount to the highest place of the citie and there crie out aloud in this manner What meane you my Masters and whether runne you headlong carking and caring all that ever you can to gather goods and rake riches together as you do whiles in the mean time you make little or no reckoning at all of your children unto whom you are to leave all your wealth To which exclamation of his I may adde thus much moreover and say That such fathers are like unto him that hath great regard of his shoe but taketh no heed unto his foor And verily a man shall see many of these fathers who upon a covetous minde and a cold affection toward their owne children are growen to this passe that for to spare their purse and ease themselves of charge chuse men of no woorth to teach them which is as much as to seeke a good market where they may buy ignorance cheapest Certes Aristippus said verie well to this purpose when upon a time he pretily mocked such a father who had neither wit nor understanding and jibed pleasantly with him in this maner For when he demaunded of him how much he would take for the training up and teaching of his sonne He answered An hundred crownes A hundred crownes quoth the father by Hercules I sweare you aske too much out of the way For with a hundred crownes I could buy a good slave True quoth Aristippus againe Lay out this hundred crownes so you may have twaine your sonne for one and him whom you buy for the other And is not this a follie of all foliies that nourses should use their yoong infants to take meate and feed themselves with the right hand yea and rebuke them if haply they put foorth their left and not to forecast and give order that they may learne civility and heare sage holesom instructions But what befalleth afterward to these good fathers when they have first noursed their children badly then taught them as lewdly Mary I will tell you When these children of theirs are growne to mans estate and will not abide to heare of living orderly and as it becommeth honest men but contrariwise fall headlong into outragious courses and give themselves wholy to sensuality and servile pleasures Then such fathers all repent for their negligence past in taking no better order for their education but all too late considering no good ensueth thereupon but contrariwise the lewd prancks which they commit daily augment their griefe of heart and cause them to languish in sorrow For some of them they see to keepe companie with flatterers parasites and smell feasts the lewdest basest and most cursed wretches of all other who serve for nothing but to corrupt spoile and marre youth Others to captivate and spend themselves upon harlots queanes and common strumpets proud and sumptuous in expence the entertainment of whom is infinitly costly Many of them consume all in delicate fare and feeding a daintie and fine tooth Many of them fall to dice and with mumming and masking hazard all they have And divers of them againe entangle themselves
argument and to charge my discourse over and above therewith that I might prosecute other precepts remayning behinde which concerne the education of yoong men Thus much therefore I say moreover that children must be trained and brought to their duety in all lenity by faire words gentle exhortations and milde remonstrance and in no wise pardie by stripes and blowes For this course of swinging and beating seemeth meete for bondslaves rather than persons of free condition And to say a truth by this meanes they become dull and senselesse nay they have all studie and labour afterwards in hatred and horrour partly for the smart and paine which they abide by such correction and in part by the contumely and reproch that they sustaine thereby Praise and dispraise be farre better and more profitable to children free borne than all the whips rods and boxes in the world the one for to drive them forward to well doing the other to draw them backe from doing ill but both the one and the other are to be used in alternative course One while they would be commended another while blamed and rebuked and namelie if at any time they be too jocund and insolent they ought to be snibbed a little and taken downe yea and put to some light shame but soone after raised up againe by giving them their due praises And herein we must imitate good nourses who when they have set their infants a crying give them the breast for to still them againe Howbeit a measure would be kept and great heed taken that they be not too highly commended for feare least they grow proude and presume overmuch of themselves For when they be praised exceedingly they waxe carelesse dissolute and enervate neither will they be willing afterwards to take more paines Moreover I have knowen certaine fathers who through excessive love of their children have hated them afterwards But what is my meaning by this speech Surely I will declare my minde and make my words plaine anon by an evident example and demonstration Some fathers I say there be who upon a hot and hastie desire to have their children come soone forward and to be the formost in every thing put them to immoderate travell and excessive paines in such sort that they either sincke under the waight of the burden and so fall into greevous maladies or else finding themselves thus surcharged and overladen they are not willing to learne that which is taught them And it fareth with them as it doth with yoong herbes and plants in a garden which so long as they be watered moderately are nourished and thrive very well but if they be overmuch drenched with water they take harme thereby and are drowned Even so we must allow unto children a breathing time betweene their continuall labours considering and making this account That all the life of man is divided into labor rest and for this cause Nature hath so this account That all the life of man is divided into labor rest and for this cause Nature hath so ordained that as there is a time to be awake so we finde a time also to sleepe One while there is warre and another while peace It is not alwaies winter and foule weather but sommer likewise and a faire season There be appointed not onely worke daies to toyle in but also feastivall holidaies to solace and disport our selves In sunne rest and appose is as it were the sance unto our travaile And this we may observe as well in senselesse and livelesse things as in living and sensible creature For we unbend our bowes and let slacke the strings of Lutes Harpes and such musicall instruments to the end that we may bend and stretch the same againe And in one word as the bodie is preserved and maintained by repletion and evacuation successively so the minde likewise by repose and travell in their turnes Furthermore there be other fathers also woorthy of rebuke and blame who after they have once betaken their children to Masters Tutors and Governors never deigne afterwards themselves either to see or heare them whereby they might know how they learne wherein they do faile verie much in their dutie For they ought in proper person to make triall how they profit they should ever and anon after some few daies passed betweene see into their progresse and proceeding and not to repose their hope and rest altogether upon the discretion and disposition of a mercenarie master And verily this carefull regard of the fathers will worke also greater diligence in the master themselves seeing that by this meanes they are called estsoones as it were to account and examine how much they plie their schollers and how they profit under their hands To this purpose may be well applied a prety woord spoken sometimes by a wise estugry of a stable Nothing quoth he feedeth the steede so fat as doth the masters eie But above all things the memorie of children ought daily to be exercised for that it is as a man would say the Treasury Storehouse of all learning Which was the cause that the ancient Poëts have feigned That Lady Mnemosyne that is to say Memorie was the mother of the Muses Whereby they would seeme under an aenigmaticall and darke speech to give us to understand that nothing availeth so much either to breed or to feed and nourish learning as Memorie And therefore great diligence would be used in the exercise thereof everie way whether the children be by nature good of remembrance and retentive or otherwise of a fickle memorie and given to oblivion For the gift of nature in the one by exercise we shall confirme and augment and the imperfection or default in the other by diligence supplie and correct in such sort that as they shall become better than others so these shall proove better then themselves For verie wisely to this purpose said the Poët Hesiodus If little still to little thou do ad a heape at length and mickle will be had Over and besides I would not have fathers to be ignorant of another point also as touching this memorative part faculty of the mind namely that it serveth much not onely to get learning and literature but also is a meanes that carieth not the least stroke in wordly affaires For the remembrance of matters past furnisheth men with examples sufficient to guide and direct them in their consultatious of future things Furthermore this care would be had of yoong children that they be kept from filthie and unseemely speeches For words as Democritus saith are the shadowes of deeds Trained also they must be to be courteous affable faire spoken aswell in intertainment of talke with every one as in saluting and greeting whomsoever they meete for there is nothing in the world so odious as to be coy and surly of speech to make it strange and to disdaine for to speake with men Againe yoong students shall make themselves more lovely and amiable to those with whom
sober countenance better conceiveth and reteineth the good things uttered and withall hath more leasure to marke observe and discerne that which is either unprofitable or false He sheweth himselfe besides to be a lover of the trueth and is not taken for a litigious quareller a rash wrangler or abitterbrawler And therefore some there be who not unaptly say That we ought no lesse but rather more to void out of the minds of yoong men that presumption and foolish opinion which they have of their owne selves than to rid and exclude the winde and aire out of leather bagges or bladders wherewith they are puft and blowen up if we meane to infuse and put any good thing into them for otherwise if they be still full of that swelling winde of arrogancie and overweening of themselves they will never receive and admit any goodnesse Moreover envie accompanied with a maligne eie and ill will is good in no action whatsoever where it is present but as it is an impediment and hinderance to all honest causes so it is the woorst counsellor and assistant that he can have who would be an auditor making all those things that be profitable and for his benefit to seeme odious unpleasant harsh to the eare and hardly admitted for that the nature of envious persons is to take more pleasure in any thing else than in that which is well spoken And verily whosoever repineth and is vexed at the heart to see others rich beautifull or in authoritie is onely envious for greeved he is at the welfare of others but he that taketh discontentment in hearing a wise and sententious speech is offended with the good of his owne selfe for like as the light is a benefit to them that see even so is speech unto the hearers if they will embrace and entertaine the same As for those kinds of envie which arise in regard of other things there be some naughtie passions and vitious conditions of the minde besides that breed and ingender them but that maner of envie which is conceived against them that speake excellently well springeth from a certeine important desire of vaine glorie and unjust ambition which will not suffer him that is so indisposed to give eare and attend unto the words spoken but troubleth disquieteth and distracteth the minde and understanding both to consider at one instant his owne state and sufficiencie whether it be inferior to the conceit and eloquence of the speaker and also to regard and looke upon the countenance of other hearers whether they take contentment and are in admiration of him that maketh the speech yea and withall is happly he be praifed the same minde is woonderfully galled and amazed angrie and ready to fall out with all that be present in case they approove his speech with applanse Herewith it letteth slip also and rejecteth the matter and good sayings that were delivered already for that the remembrance thereof is unsaverie and unpleasant and still he is disquieted and wotteth not what to do hearing out the rest with feare and trembling list haply they should be better than the former never so desirous that the speakers should hasten to an end and have done as when they discourse and speake best Now when the Sermon is ended and the auditorie dissolved what doth this envious spirit then not ruminate be you sure nor consider of the reason and matter delivered but he stirreth the affections and opinions striaghtwaies and gathereth voice as it were in a scrutinie of the audience If he meet with any that give out good words to the praise of the Preacher them hee avoideth and fleeth from as if he were in a furious fit of madnesse hapneth he upon such as finde fault and be ready to misconstrue and prevert the words that were spoken to the woorst sense these are they whom hee loveth a life to them he runneth and with them hee sorteth and keepeth companie But say that he finde none of that disposition so as he can not wrest any words to a wrong construction then he falleth to make comparisons and to set against him others yoonger than he who of the same theame have discoursed better with more plausible utterance and greater sorce of eloquence he never ceaseth nor giveth over corrupting misinterpreting and disgracing the whole speech untill he have made the same altogether unprofitable and without any edificat at all to his owne selfe It behooveth therefore that he who desireth to heare take truce for the time with ambition to the end that hee may give eare with patience and mildnesse unto him that maketh an oration or sermon and cary himselfe no otherwise than if he were admitted to some sacred and festival banket or an invited guest to the first frmits of a solemne sacrifice praising his eloquence when he hath spoken well and sufficiently to the piint in any matter accepting favourably and in best part his good will to deliver and communicate to others such things as he knew and to perswade his hearers with those reasons and motives which had induced and perswade himselfe Neither must our auditours make this reckoning and conclusion That whatsoever hath beene singularly well delivered by the speaker ought to be ascribed to chance and fortune as if he hada let fall his words at aventuer but impute the same to his diligence labour and art yea and he ought to imitate the same with a kinde of zeale and admiration But whereas he hath faulted and done amisse it is the part of an hearer to bend his minde and consider well and circumspectly what might the cause and occision be of such errour For like as accoding to Xenophon good houshoulders know how to make profit and use aswell of their enemies as their friends even so they that be vigilant and attentive hearers take good not onely by them that speake well but by those also that misse and faile of their purpose for barren triviall and stale invention improper vaine and unsignificant words forced and follish figures abrupt fond and unseemly breakings foorth with joy to some praise and such like impertinences or defects which often times besall unto them that speake in publike place are sooner espied by us that are hearers than observed by themselves who are the speakers And therefore we are to transferre the inquisition and correction of any such fault from them to our selves by examining whether we also may not fault like wise before we be aware For there is nothing in the world more easie than for a man to blame and reprehend his neighbour but such a reprehension verily is vaine and unprofitable unlesse it have a reference to correct and amend the like errours in himselfe In which regard every one ought to be ready in this case according to the advertisement of Plato to say into himselfe Am not I also such an one or doe not I the semblable otherwhiles For even as we see our owne eies shining within the ball or apple or
every thing appeereth greater than it is through anger And therefore at these and such like faults we should winke for the time and make as though we sawthem not and yet thinke upon them neverthelesse and beare them in minde But afterwards when the storme is well overblowen we are with out passion do not suspect our selves then we may do well to consider thereof and then if upon mature deliberation when our mind is staied and our senses setled the thing appeere to be naught we are to hate and abhor it and in no wise either to for-let and put of or altogether to omit and forbeare correction like as they refuse meats who have no stomacke nor appetite to eat For certeinly it is not a thing so much to be blamed for to punish one in anger as not to punish when anger is past and alaied and so to be retchlesse and desolute doing as idle mariners who so long as the sea is calme and the weather faire loiter within the harbor or haven but afterwards when a tempest is up spread sailes and put themselves into danger For even so we condemning and neglecting the remissenesse and calmnesse of reason in case of punishment make haste to execute the same during the heat of choler which no doubt is a blustring and turbulent winde As for meat he calleth for it in deed and taketh it naturally who is a hungrie but surely he executeth punishment best who neither hungreth nor thirsteth after it neither hath he need to use choler as a sauce or deintie dish for to get him a stomacke and appetite to correct but even when he is farthest off from desire of revenge then of necessitie he is to make use of reason and wisdome to direct him for we ought not to do as Aristotle writeth in his time the maner was in Tuskane To whip servants with sound of flutes and hautboies namely to make a sport and pastime of punishing men and to solace our selves with their punishment for pleasures sake and then afterwards when we have done repent us of it for as the one is brutish and beastlike so the other is as womanish and unmanly but without griefe and pleasure both at what time as reason and judgement is in force we ought to let justice take punishment and leave none occasion at all for choler to get advantage But peradvenure some one will say that this is not properly the way to remedie or cure anger but rather a putting by or precaution that we should not commit any of those faults which ordinarily follow that passion Unto whom I answere thus That the swelling of the Spleene is not the cause but a symptome or accident of a fever howbeit if the said humour be fallen and the paine mitigated the feaver also will be much eased according as Hieronymus saith Also when I consider by what meanes choler is engendred I see that one falleth into it upon this cause another upon that but in all of them it seemeth this generall opinion there is that they thinke themselves to be despised and naught set by And therefore we ought to meet with such as seeme to defend and mainteine themselves as being angry for just cause and to cure them after this maner namely by diverting and remooving from them as far as ever we can all suspicion of contempt and contumacie in those that have offended them and mooved their anger in laying the fault upon inconsiderate follie necessitie sicknesse infirmitie and miserie as Sophocles did in these verses For those my Lords whose state is in destresse Have not their spirits and wits as heretofore As fortune frownes they waxen ever lesse Nay gone are quite though fresh they were before And Agamemnon albeit he laid the taking away of Briseis from Achilles upon Ate that is to say some fatall infortunitie yet He willing was and prest him to content And unto him rich gifts for to present For to beseech and intreat are signes of a man that despiseth not and when the partie who hath given offence becometh humble and lowly he remooveth all the opinion that might be conceived of contempt But he that is in a fit of choler must not attend and waite until he see that but rather helpe himselfe with the answer of Diogenes These fellowes here said one unto him do deride thee Diogenes but I quoth he againe do not finde that I am derided even so ought a man who is angry not to be perswaded that he is contemned of another but rather that himselfe hath just cause to contemne him and to thinke that the fault committed did proced of infirmitie error heady-rashnesse sloth and idlenesse a base and illiberall minde age or youth And as for our servants and friends we must by all meanes quit them hereof or pardon them at leastwise For surely they cannot be thought to contemne us in regard that they thinke us unable to be revenged or men of no execution if we went about it but it is either by reason of our remissenes and mildnesse or else of our love and affection that we seeme to be smally regarded by them whiles our servants presume of our tractable nature easie to be pacified and our friends of our exceeding love that cannot be soone shaken off But now we are provoked to anger not onely against our wives or servitors and friends as being contemned by them but also many times in our choler we fall upon In-keepers Mariners and Muliters when they be drunke supposing that they despise us And that which more is we are offended with dogs when they bay or barke at us and with asses if they chance to fling out and kicke us Like unto him who lifted up his hand to strike and beat him that did drive an asse and when the man cried that he was an Athenian But thou I am sure art no Athenian quoth he to the asse and laid upon the poore beast as hard as he could and gave him many a blow with his cudgell But that which chiefly causeth us to be angrie and breedeth a continuall disposition thereto in our minds causing us so often to breake out into fits of choler which by little and little was ingendred and gathered there before is the love of our owne selves and a kinde of froward surlinesse hardly to be pleased together with a certaine daintinesse and delicacie which all concurring in one breed and bring foorth a swarme as it were of bees or rather a waspes neast in us And therefore there cannot be a better meanes for to carrie our selves mildly and kindly towards our wives our servants familiars and friends than a contented minde and a singlenesse or simplicitie of heart when a man resteth satisfied with whatsoever is present at hand and requireth neither things superfluous nor exquisite But he that never is content With rost or sod but cooke is shent How ever he be serv d I meane With more with lesse or in a meane He is not
otherwise than the hasty and cholericke fits of our neighbors the peevish and froward dispositions of our familiar acquaintance and some shrewd demeanors of our servants in that they go about with which me thinks you also troubling and disquieting your selfe as much as with any thing else like unto those Physicians of whom Sophocles thus writeth Who bitter choler clense and scoure With Drugs as bitter and as soure do unseemely and not iwis for the credite of your person thus to chafe and fret at their passions and imperfections beyond all reason and shew your selfe as passionate as they For surely the affaires and negotiations wherewith you are put in trust and which be managed by your direction are not executed ordinarily by the ministerie of such persons whose dealings be plaine simple and direct as instruments most meet and fit for such a purpose but for the most part by crooked rough and crabbed pieces To reforme and amend these enormities I would not have you thinke that it is either your worke and dutie or an enterprise otherwise easily performed But if you making use of these being such by nature as the Chirurgians do of tooth-drawing pincers and those instruments wherewith they doe bring the edges of a wound together will shew you selfe milde moderate and tractable in every respect according as the present occasion will give leave surely you shall not receive so much discontentment and displeasure at the untoward and unhappie dealings of others as joy in the conscience of your owne good disposition as making this account that such ministers of yours do but their kind like as dogs when they barke But if you feed and cherish this pusillanimitie and weaknesse of yours as other follies you shall be sure to heape up many troubles and follies of other men ere you be aware which will be ready to fall and run as into some low ground and hollow trench unto that weakenesse of yours For what should I say that some Philosophers reproove the pittie and commiseration which we have for them that are in distresse miserie acknowledging that it is a good and charitable deed to helpe and succour such as be in calamitie but not commending that condolence and fellow-feeling with our neighbours as if we yeelded with them unto Fortune And more than so the same Philosophers will not permit and give us leave in case we be subject to some vice and ill disposed for to be seene and knowen for to grieve and sorrow therefore but rather to correct and amend what is amisse without any shew at all of sad cheere and heavinesse which being so consider then how little reason and small cause we have nay how absurd it were that we should suffer our selves to be troubled vexed and angry in case all those who commerce and converse with us deale not so well and kindly as they should But above all things my good friend Paccius let us see to this that our selfe love deceive and seduce us not let us beware I say that we do not so much shew an hatred and detestation of wickednesse and sinne in generall as bewray some private and particular regard of our owne in that we seeme so to abhorre and dread the naughtinesse of those that have to do with us For to be exceeding much mooved and beyond all measure affectionate at some time to such and such affaires to covet I say and pursue the same over-hotly and otherwise than is meete and beseeming or contrariwise to loth despise and abhor the same must needs breed discontentments suspitions and offences in those persons by whom we seeme either to have beene prevented disappointed of some things or to have runne and fallen too soone upon other But he that is used to carie himselfe cheerefully and with moderation in his affaires fall out as they will and can frame to their events he will soone learne to negotiate and converse with any man in all dexteritie and gentle behaviour Well then let us set in hand againe to discourse of those matters which we have intermitted for a while for like as in a feaver all things that we taste seeme at the first bitter and unsavorie but when we see others take without any shew and signification of dislike the same which we spit out then we blame no more either meats or drinks but lay the fault upon our disease even so when we perceive that other men have entred upon and gone through the same affaires with great alacritie and without any paine at all whereof we complained and made much adoe let us for shame cease to find fault and bee offended so much at the things And therefore if at any time there shall befall unto us some adverse and crooked accident against our wils it will be very good for the working of our contentment in minde not to passe over but to regard such things as at other times have hapned to our minds and as we could wish them but to conferre them together and by a good medly of them both to darken and dor the worst with laying the better to But now whereas we are wont when our eies be dazzeled and offended with beholding that which is too bright glittering we refresh comfort our sight againe with looking upon pleasant colours of flowers and greene grasse herein contrariwise wee direct our mindes and cogitations upon heavie and dolorous objects and violently force our thoughts to be amuzed upon the remembrance of calamities and adverse fortunes plucking them perforce as it were from the consideration of better And heere in this place me thinks I may very fitly applie that sentence to our present purpose which was said to a busie and curious person Ah spitefull minde and most envious hart Why others faults do'st thou so quickly spie With eagles sight but in thine owne thou art Starke blinde or else do'st winke with howlets eie Even so good sir How is it that you regard and advise so wistly your owne miserie and calamitie making it alwaies apparent and fresh in remembrance but upon your present prosperitie you set not minde And like as ventoses cupping glasses or boxes draw the must corrupt humors to them out of the flesh even so you gather against your selfe the worst things you have being no better than the merchant of Chios who when he sold to others a great quantity of the best wine sought up and downe tasting every vessell untill he met with that for his owne dinner which began to sowre and was little better than starke naught This man had a servant who ranne away and being demaunded what his man had done unto him for which hee should shew him a paire of heeles Because quoth hee when hee had plentie of that which was good he would needes secke for naught And most men verily are of the same nature who passing by good and desireable things which be as a man would say the pleasant and potable liquors that they have betake
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
and readie to be spoken withall whosoever comes having his house open alwaies as it were an haven or harbour of refuge to as many as have occasion to use him Neither is this debonairity and care of his seene onely in the businesse and affaires of such as employ him but also in this that he will as well rejoice with them who have had any fortunate and happie successe as condole greeve with those unto whom there is befallen any calamitie or misfortune never will he be knowen to be troublesome and looke for double diligence of a number of servitors and verlets to waite upon him to the baines or stouphes nor to keepe a stir for taking up and keeping of places for him and his traine at the theaters where plaies and pastimes are to bee seene ne yet desire to be conspicuous and of great marke above others in any outward signes of excessive delights and sumptuous superfluities but shew himselfe to be equall like and sutable to others in apparell in his fare and furniture at the table in the education and nouriture of his children in the keeping of his wife for her state and array and in one word be willing to carrie and demeane himselfe in all things as an ordinary and plaine citizen bearing no greater port and shew than others of the common multitude moreover at hand to give advise and counsell friendly to every man in his affaires ready to enterteine defend follow their causes as an advocate freely and without taking fee or any consideration whatsoever to reconcile man and wife when they be at ods to make love-daies and peace betweene friends not spending one little peece of the day for a shew at the tribunall seat or in the hall of audience for the common-wealth and then afterwards all the day the rest of his life drawing unto himselfe al dealings all negotiations and affaires from everie side for his owne particular behoofe and profit like unto the north-east winde Caecias which evermore gathereth the clouds unto it but continually bending his minde and occupying his head in carefull studie for the weale publike and in effect making it appeere unto the world that the life of a State-man and a governor is not as the common sort thinke it easie and idle but a continuall action and publike function by which fashions and semblable courses that he taketh he gaineth and winneth unto him the hearts of the people who in the end come to know that all the flattering devises and entisements of others be nothing else but false baits and bastard allurements in comparison of his prudence and carefull diligence The flatterers about Demetrius vouchsafed not to call any other princes and potentates of his time Kings but would have Seleucus to be named the Commander of the elephants Lysimachus the keeper of the treasurie Ptolomeus the admirall of the sea and Agathocles the governour of the islands But the people although peradventure at the first they reject a good wise and sage person among them yet in the end after they have seene his truth and knowen his disposition and kinde nature they will repute him onely to bee popular politike and woorthie to be a magistrate indeed and as for the rest they wil both repute and call one the warden and setter out of the plaies another the great feaster and a third the president of games combats and publike exercises Moreover like as at the feasts and bankets that Callias or Alcibiades were at the cost to make none but Socrates was heard to speake and all mens eies were cast upon Socrates even so in cities and States governed aright well may Ismenias deale largesses Lichas make feasts and Niceratus defray the charges of plaies but Epaminondas Aristides Lysander and such as they are those which beare the magistracie they governe at home they command and conduct armies abroad Which being well and duly considered there is no cause why you should be discouraged or dismaid at the reputation and credit that they win among the people who have for them builded theaters and erected shew-places founded halles of great receit and purchased for them common places of sepulture for to burie their dead all which glorie lasteth but a while neither hath it any great matter or venerable substance in it but vanisheth away like smoke and is gone even assoone as either the plaies in such theaters or games in shew-places are done and ended They that have skill and experience of keeping and feeding bees doe hold opinion and saie that those hives wherein the bees yeeld the biggest sound make most humming and greatest stir within like best are most sound healthfull and yeeld most store of home but he upon whom God hath laid the charge and care of the reasonable swarme as I may say and civill societie of men will judge the happinesse and blessed state thereof most of all by the quietnesse and peace therein and in all other things he will approove the ordinances and statutes of Solon endevoring to follow and observe the same to his full power but doubt hee will and marvell what hee should meane by this when he writeth that he who in a civill sedition would not range himselfe to a side and take part with one or other faction was to bee noted with infamie for in a naturall bodie that is sicke the beginning of change toward the recoverie of health commeth not from the diseased parts but rather when the temperature of the sound and healthie members is so puissant that it chaseth and expelleth that which in the rest of the bodie was unkind contrary to nature even so in a citie or State where the people are up in a tumult sedition so it be not dangerous and mortall but such as is like to be appeased and ended there had need to be a farre greater part of those who are sound and not infected for to remaine and cohabit still for to it there commeth and hath recourse that which is natural and familiar from the wise and discreet within and the same entreth into the other infected part and cureth it but such cities as be in an universall uprore and hurly-burly utterly perish and come to confusion if they have not some constreint from without and a chastisement which may force them to be wise and agree among themselves Neither is my meaning that I would have you a politike person and States-man in such a sedition and civill discord to sit still insensible and without any passion or feeling of the publike calamitie to sing and chaunt your owne repose and tranquillitie of blessed and happie life and whiles others be together by the eares rejoice at their follie for at such a time especially you are to put on the buskin of Theramenes which served as well the one legge as the other then are you to parley and common with both parties without joyning your selfe to one more than to the other by which meanes neither you
upon the land which had remained a long time among them and had passed by descent from father to sonne and by their forefathers had beene first brought unto them from Brauron unto the isle Lemnos and which they caried with them from thence into all places wheresoever they came after this sudden fright and tumult was passed as they sailed in the open sea they missed the said image and withall Pollis also was advertised that a flouke of an anker was wanting and lost for that when they came to weigh anker by great force as commonly it hapneth in such places where it taketh hold of the ground among rocks it brake and was left behinde in the bottome of the sea whereupon he said that the oracles were now fulfilled which foretold them of these signes and therewith gave signall to the whole fleete for to retire backe and so he entred upon that region to his owne use and after he had in many skirmishes vanquished those who were up in armes against him he lodged at length in the citie Lyctus and wan many more to it Thus you see how at this day they call themselves the kinsfolke of the Athenians by the mothers side but indeed by the father they are a colonie drawne from Lacedaemon THE LYCIAN WOMEN THat which is reported to have beene done in Lycia as a meere fable and tale devised of pleasure yet neverthelesse testified by a constant same that runneth verie currant For Amisodarus as they say whom the Lycians name Isarus came from about the marches of Zelea a colonie of the Lycians with a great fleet of rovers and men of warre whose captaine or admirall was one Chimaerus a famous arch-pirate a warlike man but exceeding cruell savage and inhumane who had for the badges and ensignes of his owne ship in the prow a lion and at the poope a dragon much hurt hee did upon all the coasts of Lycia insomuch as it was not possible either to saile upon the sea or to inhabit the maritime cities and townes neere unto the sea side for him This man of warre or arch-rover Bellerophontes had slaine who followed him hard in chase with his swift pinnace Pegasus as he fled untill he had overtaken him and withall had chased the Amazones out of Lycia yet for all this he not onely received no worthy recompence for his good service at the hands of Iobates king of Lycia but also which was woorse sustained much wrong by him by occasion whereof Bellerophontes taking it as a great indignitie went to sea againe where he praied against him unto Neptune that he would cause his land to be barraine and unfruitfull which done hee returned backe againe but behold a strange and fearfull spectacle for the sea swelled overflowed all the countrey following him everie where as he went and covering after him the face of the earth and for that the men of those parts who did what possibly they could to entreat him for to stay this inundation of the sea could not obtaine so much at his hands the women tooke up their petticots before went to meet him shewed their nakednes wherupon for very shame he returned back the sea likewise by report retired with him into the former place But some there be who more civilly avciding the fabulosity of this tale say That it was not by praiers imprecations that he drew after him the sea but because that part of Lycia which was most sertill being low and flat lay under the levell of the sea there was a banke raised along the sea side which kept it in and Bellerophon cut a breach thorow it and so it came to passe that the sea with great violence entred that way and drowned the flat part of the countrey whereupon the men did what they could by way of praiers and intrearie with him in hope to appease his mood but could not prevaile howbeit the women environing him round about by great troups companies pressed him so on all sides that he could not for verie shame deny them so in favour of them said downe his anger Others affirme that Chimaera was an high mountaine directly opposite to the sunne at noon-tide which caused great reflections and reverberations of the sunne beames and by consequence ardent heats in manner of a fire in the said mountaine which comming to be spread and dispersed over the champion ground caused all the fruits of the earth to dry fade and wither away whereof Bellerophontes a man of great reach and deepe conceit knowing the cause in nature caused in many places the superfice of the said rocke or mountaine to be cloven and cut in two which before was most smooth even and by that reason consequently did send back the beames of the sun cansed the excessive heat in the countrey adjoining now for that he was not well considered and regarded by the inhabitants according to his demerit in despite he meant to be revenged of the Lycians but the women wrought him so that they allaied his fury But surely that cause which Nymphus alleageth in his fourth booke as touching Heraclea is not fabulous nor devised to delight the Reader for he saith That this Bellerophontes having killed a wilde bore that destroied all the fruits of the earth all other beasts within the Xanthiens countrey had no recompense therefore whereupon when he had powred out grievous imprecations against those unthankfull Xanthiens unto Neptune hee brought salt-water all over the land which marred all and made all become bitter untill such time as he being wonne by the praiers and supplications of the women besought Neptune to let fal his wrath Loe whereupon the custome arose and continueth still in the Xanthiens countrey That men in all their affaires negotiate not in the name of their fathers but of their mothers and called after their names THE WOMEN OF SALMATICA ANnnibal of the house of Barca before that he went into Italic to make warre with the Romaines laid siege unto a great citie in Spaine named Salmatica the besieged were at the first affraid and promised to do whatsoever Annibal would commaund them yea and to pay him three hundred talents of silver for securitie of which capitulation to be performed they put into his hands three hundred hostages but so soone as Anmbal had raised his siege they repented of this agreement which they had concluded with him and would do nothing according to the conditions of the accord whereupon hee returned againe for to besiege them afresh and to encourage his souldiers the better to give the assault he said That hee would give unto them the saccage and pillage of the towne whereupon the citizens within were wonderfully affraid and yeelded themselves to his devotion upon this condition That the Barbarians would permit as many as were of free condition to goe foorth every man in his single garment leaving behind them their armes goods money slaves and the citie Now the dames
Philosophie But I pray you my very good friend quoth I unto him forbeare this vehement and accusatorie humour of yours and be not angry if haply you see that some because they be borne of leud and wicked parents are punished or else doe not rejoice so much nor be ready to praise in case you see nobilitie also of birth to be so highly honored for if we stand upon this point and dare avow that recompence of vertue ought by right and reason to continue in the line and posteritie we are by good consequence to make this account that punishment likewise should not stay and cease together with misdeeds committed but reciprocally fall upon those that are descended of misdoers and malefactors for he who willingly seeth the progenie of Cimon honoured at Athens and contrariwise is offended and displeased in his heart to see the race of Lachares or Ariston banished driven out of the citie he I say seemeth to be too soft tender and passing effeminate or rather to speake more properly over-contentious and quarrelsome even against the gods complaining and murmuring of the one side if the children childrens children of an impious wicked person do prosper in the world and contrariwise is no lesse given to blame and find fault if he doe see the posterity of wicked and ungracious men to be held under plagued or altogether destroied from the face of the earth accusing the gods if the children of a naughtie man be afflicted even as much as if they had honest persons to their parents But as for these reasons alledged make you this reckoning that they be bulwarks and rampars for you opposed against such bitter sharpe accusers as these be But now taking in hand again the end as it were of a clew of thread or a bottom of yearne to direct us as in a darke place and where there be many cranks turnings and windings to and fro I meane the matter of gods secret judgements let us conduct and guide our selves gently and warily according to that which is most likely probable considering that even of those things which we daily manage and doe our selves we are not able to set downe an undoubted certaintie as for example who can yeeld a sound reason wherefore we cause and bid the children of those parents who died either of the phthisick and consumption of the lungs or of the dropsie to sit with their feet drenched in water until the dead corps be fully burned in the funeral fire For an opiniō there is that by this meanes the said maladies shall not passe unto them as hereditarie nor take hold of their bodies as also what the cause should be that if a goat hold in her mouth the herbe called Eryngites that is to say Sea-holly the whole flocke will stand still untill such time as the goat-herd come and take the said herbe out of her mouth Other hidden properties there be which by secret influences and passages from one to another worke strange effects and incredible as well speedily as in longer tract of time and in very truth we woonder more at the intermission and stay of time betweene than we doe of the distance of place and yet there is greater occasion to marvell thereat as namely that a pestilent maladie which began in Aethiopia should raigne in the citie of Athens and fill every street and corner thereof in such sort as Pericles died and Thucydides was sicke thereof than that when the Phocaeans and Sybarits had committed some hainous sins the punishment therefore should fall upon their children go through their posteritie For surely these powers and hidden properties have certaine relations and correspondences from the last to the first the cause whereof although it be unknowen to us yet it ceaseth not secretly to bring foorth her proper effects But there seemeth to be verie apparent reason of justice that publicke vengeance from above should fall upon cities many a yeere after for that a citie is one entire thing and a continued body as it were like unto a living creature which goeth not beside or out of it selfe for any mutations of ages nor in tract and continuance of time changing first into one and then into another by succession but is alwaies uniforme and like it selfe receiving evermore and taking upon it all the thanke for well doing or the blame for misdeeds of whatsoever it doth or hath done in common so long as the societie that linketh holdeth it together maintaineth her unitie for to make many yea innumerable cities of one by dividing it according to space of time were as much as to go about to make of one man many because he is now become old who before was a yong youth in times past also a very stripling or springall or else to speake more properly this resembleth the devises of Epicharmus wherupon was invented that maner of Sophisters arguing which they cal the Croissant argument for thus they reason He that long since borrowed or tooke up mony now oweth it not because he is no more himselfe but become another he that yesterday was invited to a feast cōmeth this day as an unbidden guest cōsidering that he is now another man And verily divers ages make greater difference in ech one of us than they do commonly in cities and States for he that had seene the citie of Athens thirtie yeeres agoe and came to visit it at this day would know it to be altogether the very same that then it was insomuch as the maners customes motions games pastimes serious affaires favours of the people their pleasures displeasures and anger at this present resemble wholly those in ancient time whereas if a man be any long time out of sight hardly his very familiar friend shall be able to know him his countenance will be so much changed and as touching his maners and behaviour which alter and change so soone upon every occasion by reason of all sorts of labour travell accidents and lawes there is such varietie and so great alteration that even he who is ordinarily acquainted and conversant with him would marvell to see the strangenesse and noveltie thereof and yet the man is held and reputed still the same from his nativitie unto his dying day and in like case a citie remaineth alwaies one and the selfe same in which respect we deeme it great reason that it should participate aswell the blame and reproch of ancestours as enjoy their glorie and puissance unlesse we make no care to cast all things in the river of Heraclitus into which by report no one thing entreth twise for that it hath a propertie to alter all things and change their nature Now if it be so that a citie is an united and continued thing in it selfe we are to thinke no lesse of a race and progenie which dependeth upon one and the same stocke producing and bringing foorth a certeine power and communication of qualities and the same doth
to let go the resemblance of an hereditarie vice which beginneth to bud and sprout in a yoong man to stay and suffer it I say to grow on still burgen and spread into all affections untill it appeare in the view of the whole world for as Pindarus saith The foolish heart doth bring forth from within Her hidden fruit corrupt and full of sin And thinke you not that in this point God is wiser than the Poet Hesiodus who admonisheth us and giveth counsell in this wise No children get if thou be newly come From dolefull grave or heavie funerall But spare not when thou art returned home From solemne feast of Gods celestiall as if he would induce men to beget their children when they be jocund fresh and mery for that the generation of them received the impression not of vertue and vice onely but also of joy sadnesse all other qualities howbeit this is not a worke of humane wisdome as Hesiodus supposeth but of God himselfe to discern foreknow perfectly either the conformities or the diversities of mens natures drawen from their progenitors before such time as they breake forth into some great enormities whereby their passions affections be discovered what they are for the yong whelps of beares wolves apes such like creatures shew presently their naturall inclination even whiles they be very yong because it is not disguised or masked with any thing but the nature of man casting it selfe and setling upon maners customes opinions lawes concealeth often times the ill that it hath but doth imitate counterfeit that which is good and honest in such sort as it may be thought either to have done away cleane all the staine blemish imperfection of vices inbred with it or els to have hidden it a long time being covered with the vaile of craft subtiltie so as we are not able or at leastwise have much adoe to perceive their malice by the sting bit pricke of every several vice And to say a truth herein are we mightily deceived that we thinke men are become unjust then only and not before when they do injurie or dissolute when they play some insolent and loose part cowardly minded when they run out of the field as if a man should have the cōceit that the sting in a scorpion was then bred not before when he gave the first pricke or the poison in vipers was ingendred then only when they bit or stung which surely were great simplicitie and meere childishnesse for a wicked person becommeth not then such an one even when he appeareth so and not before but hee hath the rudiments and beginnings of vice and naughtinesse imprinted in himselfe but hee sheweth and useth the same when he hath meanes fit occasion good opportunitie and might answerable to his minde like as the thiefe spieth his time to robbe and the tyrant to violate and breake the lawes But God who is not ignorant of the nature and inclination of every one as who searcheth more into the secrets of the heart and minde than into the body never waiteth and staieth untill violence beperformed by strength of hand impudencie bewraied by malepart speech or intemperance and wantonnesse perpetrated by the naturall members and privie parts ere he punish for he is not revenged of an unrighteous man for any harme and wrong that he hath received by him nor angry with a thiefe or robber for any forcible violence which he hath done unto him ne yet hateth an adulterer because he hath suffered abuse or injurie by his meanes but many times he chastiseth by way of medicine a person that committeth adulterie a covetous wretch and a breaker of the lawes whereby otherwhiles he riddeth them of their vice and preventeth in them as it were the falling sicknesse before the sit surprise them Wee were erewhile offended and displeased that wicked persons were over-late and too slowly punished and now discontented we are complaine for that God doth represse chastise the evill habit and vicious disposition of some before the act committed never considering and knowing that full often a future mischiefe is worse and more to be feared than the present and that which is secret and hidden more dangerous than that which is open and apparent Neither are we able to comprehend and conceive by reason the causes wherefore it is better otherwhiles to tolerate and suffer some persons to be quiet who have offanded and transgressed already and to prevent or stay others before they have executed that which they intend like as in very trueth wee know not the reason why medicines and physicall drogues being not meet for some who are sicke be good and holsome for others though they are not actually diseased yet haply in a more dangerous estate than the former Hereupon it is that the gods turne not upon the children and posterity all the faults of their fathers and ancestours for if it happen that of a bad father there descend a good sonne like as a sickly and crasie man may beget a sound strong and healthfull childe such an one is exempt from the paine and punishment of the whole house and race as being translated out of a vicious familie and adopted into another but that a yoong sonne who shall conforme himselfe to the hereditarie vice of his parents is liable to the punishment of their sinfull life aswell as he his bound to pay their debts by right of succession and inheritance For Antigonus was not punished for the sinnes of his father Demetrius nor to speake of leaud persons Phileus for Augeas ne yet Nestor for Neleus his sake who albeit they were descended from most wicked fathers yet they prooved themselves right honest but all such as whose nature loved embraced and practised that which came unto them by descent and parentage in those I say divine justice is wont to persecute and punish that which resembleth vice and sinne for like as the werts blacke moales spots and freckles of fathers not appearing at all upon their owne childrens skinne begin afterwards to put foorth and shew themselves in their nephews to wit the children of their sonnes and daughters And there was a Grecian woman who having brought foorth a blacke infant and being troubled therefore and judicially accused for adultrie as if shee had beene conceived by a blacke-moore shee pleaded and was found to have beene hereselfe descended from an Aethiopian in the fourth degree remooved As also it is knowen for certaine that of the children of Python the Nisibian who was descended from the race and line of those old Spartans who were the first lords and founders of Thebes the yoongest and he that died not long since had upon his body the print and forme of a speare the very true and naturall marke of that auncient line so long and after the revolution of so many yeeres there sprang and came up againe as it were out of the deepe this resemblance of the stocke
lawes and shame sweet and gracious Bacchus as if these two deities gave you not sufficient whereupon you might live what are you not abashed to mingle at your tables pleasant frutes with bloudie murder You call lions and libards savage beasts meane while your selves are stained with bloudshed giving no place to them in crueltie for where as they doe worie and kill other beasts it is for verie necessitie and need of sood but you doe it sor daintie fare for when wee have slaine either lions or wolves in defence of our selves we eat them not but let them lie But they be the innocent the harmelesse the gentle and tame creatures which have neither teeth to bite nor pricke to sting withall which we take and kill although nature seemeth to have created them onely for beautie and delight Much like as if a man seeing Nilus overflowing his banks and filling all the countrey about with running water which is generative and frutefull would not praise with admiration the propertie of that river causing to spring and grow so many faire and goodly fruits and the same so necessarie for mans life but if he chance to espie a crocodill swimming or an aspick creeping and gliding downe or some venemous flie hurtfull and noisome beasts all blameth the said river upon that occasion and saith that they be causes sufficient that of necessitie he must complaine of the thing Or verily when one seeing this land and champian countrey overspred with good and beautifull frutes charged also and replenished with eares of corne should perceive casting his eie over those pleasant corne sields here there an eare of darnel choke-ervil or some such unhappie weed among should thereupon forbeare to reape and carie in the said corne and forgoe the benefit of a plentifull harvest find fault therewith Semblably standeth the case when one seeth the plea of an oratour in anie cause or action who with a full and forcible streame of eloquence endevoureth to save his client out of the danger of death or otherwise to proove and verisie the charges and imputations of certaine crimes this oration I say or eloquent speech of his running not simplie and nakedly but carrying with it many and sundrie affections of all sorts which he imprinteth in the minds and hearts of the hearers or judges which being many also and those divers and different he is to turne to bend and change or othewise to dulce appease and staie if he I say should anon passe over and not consider the principall issue and maine point of the cause and busie himselfe in gathering out some by-speeches besides the purpose or haply some phrases improper and impertinent which the oration of some advocate with the flowing course thereof hath caried downe with it lighting thereupon and falling with the rest of his speech But we are nothing mooved either with the faire and beautifull colour or the sweet and tunable voice or the quicknesse and subtiltie of spirit or the reat and cleane life or the vivacitie of wit and understanding of these poore seelly creatures and for a little peece of flesh we take away their life we bereave them of the sunne and of light cutting short that race of life which nature had limited and prefixed for them and more than so those lamentable and trembling voice which they utter for feare we suppose to be inarticulate or unsignificant sounds and nothing lesse than pitifull praiers supplications pleas justifications of these poore innocent creatures who in their language everie one of them crie in this manner If thou be forced upon necessitie I beseech thee not to save my life but if disordinate lust moove thee thereto spare me in case thou hast a mind simply to eat on my flesh kill me but if it be for that thou wouldest feed more delicately hold thy hand and let me live O monstrous crueltie It is an horrible sight to see the table of rich men onely stand served and furnished with viands set out by cooks and victuallers that dresse the flesh of dead bodies but most horrible it is to see the same taken up for that the reliques and broken meats remaining be farre more than that which is eaten To what purpose then were those silly beasts slaine Now there be others who making spare of the viands served to the table will in no hand that they should be cut or sliced sparing them when as they be nothing els but bare flesh whereas they spared them not whiles they were living beasts But forasmuch as we have heard that the same men hold and say That nature hath directed them to the eating of flesh it is plaine and evident that this cannot accord with mans nature And first and formost this appeereth by the very fabrick and composition of his bodie for it resembleth none of those creatures whom nature hath made for to feed on flesh considering they have neither hooked bil no hauke-pointed tallans they have no sharpe and rough teeth nor stomack so strong or so hot breath and spirit as to be able to concoct and digest the heany masse of raw flesh And if there were naught else to be alledged nature her-selfe by the broadnesse and united equallity of our teeth by our small mouth our soft toong the imbecillitie of naturall heat and spirits serving for concoction sheweth sufficiently that she approoveth not of mans usage to eat flesh but dissavoreth and disclaimeth the same And if you obstinately maintaine and defend that nature hath made you for to eat such viands then that which you minde to eat first kill your selfe even your owne selfe I say without using any blade knife bat club axe or hatchet And even as beares lions and woolves slay a beast according as they meane to eat it even so kill thou a beefe by the bit of thy teeth slay me a swine with the helpe of thy mouth and iawes teare in peeces a lambe or an hare with thy nailes and when thou hast so done eat it up while it is alive like as beasts doe but if thou staiest untill they be dead ere thou eate them and art abashed to chase with thy teeth the life that presently is in the flesh which thou eatest why doest thou against nature eat that which had life and yet when it is deprived of life and fully dead there is no man hath the heart to eat the same as it is but they cause it to be boiled to be rosted they alter it with fire and many drogues and spices changing disguising and quenching as it were the horror of the murder with a thousand devices of seasoning to the end that the sense of tasting being beguiled and deceived by a number of sweet sauces and pleasant conditure might admit and receive that which it abhorreth and is contrary unto it Certes it was a pretie conceit which was reported by a Laconian who having bought in his Inne or hostelrie a little fish gave it as it
delights and pleasures as in travels and paines yea and generally in every action enterprising nothing assuredly and with confidence whereas we ought to deale by our body as with the saile of ship that is to say neither to draw it in keepe it down too straight in time of calme faire 〈◊〉 nor to spred and let it out over slacke and negligently when there is presented some 〈◊〉 of a tempest but as occasion shall require to spare it and give some ease and remission that afterwards it may be fresh and lightsome as hath beene said already and not to slacke the time and stay untill we sensibly feele crudities laskes inflamations or contrariwise stupidities and mortifications of members by which signes being as it were messengers and ushers going before a feaver which is hard at the dore hardly wil some be so much moved as to keepe in and restraine themselves no not when the very accesse and fit is readie to surprise them but rather long before to be provident and to prevent a tempest So soone as from some rocke we finde The puffing gales of northern winde For absurd it is and to no purpose to give such carefull heed unto the crying wide throates of crowes or to the craing and cackling of hennes or to swine when in a rage they tosse and fling straw about them as Democritus saith thereby to gather presages prognostications of wind raine and stormes and in the meane time not to observe the motions troubles and fiering indispositions of our bodie nor prevent the same ne yet to gather undoubted signes of a tempest ready to rise and grow even out thereof And therefore we ought not onely to have an eie unto the bodie for meat and drinke and for bodily exercises in observing whether we fall unto them more lazily and unwillingly than our manner was before time or contrariwise whether our hunger and thirst be more than ordinary but also wee are to suspect and feare if our sleeps be not milde and continued but broken interrupted we must besides regard our very dreames namely whether they be strange and unusuall for if there be represented extraordinarie fansies and imaginations they testifie and shew a repletion of grosse viscuous or slimy humours and a great perturbation of the spirits within Otherwhiles also it hapneth that the motions of the soule it selfe doe fore-signifie unto us that the body is in some neere danger of disease for many times men are surprised with timorous fittes of melancholy and heartlesse distrusts without any reason or evident cause the which suddenly extinguish all their hopes you shall have some upon every small occasion apt to fall into cholerick passions of anger they become eager and hastie troubled pensive and offended with a little thing insomuch as they will be ready to weepe and runne all to teares yea and languish for griefe and sorrow And all this commeth when evill vapours sowre and bitter fumes ingendred within doe arise and steeme up and so as Plato saith be intermingled in the waies and passages of the soule Those persons therefore who are subject to such things ought to thinke and consider with themselves that if there be no spirituall cause thereof it cannot chuse but some corporall matter had need either of evacution alteration or suppression Expedient also it is and very profitable for us when we visit our friends that be sicke to enquire diligently the causes of their maladies not upon a cavilling curiosity or vaine ostentation to dispute sophistically and discourse thereof only or to make a shew of our eloquence in talking of the instances the insults the intercidences communities of diseases and all to shew what books we have read that we know the words tearmes of physick but to make search and enquirie in good earnest and not slightly or by the way as touching these slight common and vulgar points namely whether the sicke partie be full or emptie whether he overtravelled himselfe before or no and whether he slept well or ill but principally what diet he kept and what order of life he followed when he fell for examples sake into the ague then according as Plato was woont to say unto himselfe whensoever he returned from hearing and seeing the faults that other men committed Am not I also such an one so you must compose and frame your selfe to learne by the harmes and errours of neighbours about you for to looke well unto your owne health and by calling them to mind to be so wary provident that you fall not into the same inconveniences and forced to keepe your bed and there extol commend health wishing desiring when it is too late for to enjoy so pretious a treasure but rather seeing another to have caught a disease to marke and consider well yea and to enterteine this deepe impression in your heart how deere the said health ought to be unto us how carefull we should be to preserve and chary to spare the same Moreover it would not be amisse for a man afterwards to compare his owne life with that of the foresaid patient for if it fall out so that notwithstanding we have used over-liberall diet both in drinks and meats or laboured extreamly or otherwise committed errour in any excesse and disorder our bodies minister unto nature no suspition nor threaten any signe of sicknesse toward yet ought we neverthelesse to take heed and prevent the harme that may ensue namely if we have committed any disorder in the pleasures of Venus and love-delights or otherwise bene over-travelled to repose our selves and take our quiet rest after drunkennesse or carrowsing wine round for good fellowship to make amends and recompense with drinking as much colde water for a time but especially upon a surfeit taken with eating heavie and grosse meats and namely of flesh or els feeding upon sundry and divers dishes to fast or use a sparie diet so as there be left no superfluitie in the bodie for even these things as of themselves alone if there were no more be enough to breed diseases so unto other causes they adde matter and minister more strength Full wisely therefore was it said by our ancients in old time that for to mainteine our health these three points were most expedient To feed without satietie To labour with alacritie and To preserve and make spare of naturall seed For surely lascivious intemperance in venerie of all things most decaieth and enfeebleth the strength of that naturall heat whereby our meat and food which we receive is concocted and so consequently is the cause of many excrements and superfluities engendred whereupon corrupt humours are engendered and gathered within the body To begin therefore to speake againe of every of these points let us consider first the exercises meet and agreeable to students or men of learning for like as he who first said That he wrot nothing of Teeth to those that inhabited the sea coasts taught them in so
Moreover there be other sorts of pleasant talke besides these and namely to heare and recite fables devised for mirth and pleasure discourses of playing upon the flute harpe or lute which many times give more contentment and delight than to heare the flute harpe or lute it selfe plaied upon Now the very precise time measured as it were and marked out to be most proper and meet for such recreations is when we feele that our meat is gently gone downe and setled quietly in the bottome of the stomacke shewing some signe of concoction and that naturall heat is strong and hath gotten the upper hand Now forasmuch as Aristotle is of opinion that walking after supper doth stirre up and kindle as one would say our naturall heat and to sleepe immediately after a man hath supped doth dull and quench it considering also that others be of a contrary minde and hold that rest and repose is better for concoction that motion so soone after troubleth and impeacheth the digestion and distribution of the meats which is the cause that some use to walke after supper others sit still and take their ease me thinks a man may reconcile and satisfie verie well after a sort these two opinions who cherishing and keeping his bodie close and still after supper setteth his mind a walking awakeneth it suffering it not to be heavie idle at once by and by but sharpneth and quickneth his spirits as is before said by little and little in discoursing or hearing discourses of pleasant matters and delectable such as be not biting in any wise nor offensive and odious Moreover as touching vomits or purgations of the bellie by laxative medicines which are the cursed and detestable easements and remedies of fulnesse and repletion surely they would never be used but upon right great and urgent necessitie a contrary course to many men who fill their gorges and bodies with an intent to void them soone after or otherwise who purge and emptie the same for to fill them againe even against nature who are no lesse troubled nay much more offended ordinarily by being fedde and full than fasting and emptie insomuch as such repletion is an hinderance to the contentment and satisfying of their appetites and lusts by occasion whereof they take order alwaies that their bodie may be evermore emptied as if this voidance were the proper place and seat of their pleasures But the hurt and dammage that may grow upon these ordinary purgations and vomits is very evident for that both the one and the other put the body to exceeding great straines and violent disturbances As for vomiting it bringeth with it one inconvenience by it selfe more than the former in that it procureth augmenteth an unsatiable greedinesse to meat for ingendered there is by that meanes a violent turbulent hunger like as when the course or stream of a river hath bene for a while stopped staid snatching or greedy at meat which is evermore offensive not a kind appetite indeed when as nature hath need of meat but resembling rather the inflammations occasioned by medicines or cataplasmes Hereupon it is that the pleasures proceeding from thence paste and slippe away incontinently as abortive and unperfect accompanied with inordinate pantings and beatings of the pulse great wrings in the enjoying of them and afterwards ensue dolorous tensions violent oppressions or stoppings of the conduits pores the reliques or retensions of ventosities which staie not for naturall ejections and evacuations but runne up and downe all over our bodies like as if they were shippes surcharged having more need to bee eased of their burden than still to be loden with more excrements As for the troublesome motions of the belly and guts occasioned by purgative drougues they corrupt spill and resolve the natural strength of the solide parts so that they engender more superfluties within than they thrust out and expel And this is for al the world like as if a man being discontented to see within his native citie a multitude of naturall Greekes inhabitants should for to drive them out fill the same with Scythians or Arabian strangers For even so some there be who greatly miscounting and deceiving themselves for to send foorth of their bodies the superfluous humors which are in some sort domesticall and familiar unto them put into them I wot not what Guidian graines Scammoni and other strange drougues fet from farre countries such as have no familiar reference to the bodie but are meere wilde and savage and in truth have more need to be purged and chaced out of the body themselves than power and vertue to void away and expell that wherewith nature is choked and overcharged The best way therefore is by sobrietie and regular diet to keepe the bodie alwaies in that moderate measure of evacuation and repletion that it may be able by proportionable temperature to maintaine it selfe without any outward helpe But if it fall out otherwhiles that there be some necessitie of the one or the other vomits would be provoked without the helpe of strange physicall drogues and not with much adoo and curiositie that they disquiet trouble no parts within but onely for to avoid cruditie and indigestion reject and cast up that gentlie which is too much and cannot be prepared and made meet for concoction For like as linnen clothes that bee scoured and made cleane with sopes ashes lees and other abstersive matters weare more and fret out sooner than such as be washed simply in faire water even so vomites provoked by medicines offend the body much more and marre the complexion But say the belly bee bound and costive there is not a drougue that easeth it so mildly or provoketh it to the siege so easily as doe certaine meats whereof the experience is familiar unto us and the use nothing dolorous and offensive Now in case the body be so heard that such kinde viands will not worke and cause it to be sollible then a man ought for many daies together to drinke thinne and cold water or use to fast or else take some clister rather than purgative medicines such as disquiet the body and overthrow the temperature thereof And yet many there be who ever and anon are ready to run unto them much like unto those lewd and light wanton women who use certeine inedicines to cause abortion or to send away the fruit which they have newly conceived to the end that they might conceive soone againe and have more pleasure in that fleshly action Now is it time to say no more but to let them goe that perswade such evacuations As for those on the contrarie side who interject certaine exact precise and criticall fastings observed too straightly according to just periods and circuits of daies surely they teach nature wherin they doe not well to use astriction before it have need and acquaint her with a necessarie abstinence of food which in it selfe is not necessarie even at a prefixed time which
bodies THE THIRD QUESTION What the cause is that women hardly are made drunke but olde men very soone FLorus one day seemed to marvell that Aristotle having in his treatise of drunkennesse set downe this position That olde men are soone surprized and overseene with wine but contrariwise women hardly and very seldome rendred no reason thereof considering that his maner otherwise is not to propose any such difficulties but hee doth decide and cleere the same And when he had made this overture he mooved the companie to inquire into the cause thereof and a supper it was where familiar friends were met together Then Sylla said That the one was declared by the other for if we comprehend the cause aright as touching women it were no hard matter to finde our a reason for old men considering that their natures and constitutions be most opposit and contrary in regard of moisture and drinesse roughnesse and smoothnesse softnesse and hardnesse for first and formost suppose this of women undoubtedly that their naturall temperature is very moist which causeth their flesh to be so tender soft smooth slieke and shining to say nothing of their naturall purgations every moneth when as therefore wine meeteth with so great humiditie being overcome by the predominancy thereof it loseth the edge and tincture as it were together with the force that it had so as it becommeth dull every way discoloured and waterish And verily to this purpose somewhat may be gathered out of the words of Aristotle for he saith That those who make no long draught when they take their wine nor drinke leasurely but powre it downe at once which manner of drinking they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are not so subject to drunkennesse as others for that the wine maketh no long stay within their bodies but being forcibly thrust foorth soone passeth thorow and ordinarilie we may observe that women drinke in this manner and very probable it is that their bodies by reason of continual attraction of humours downward to the nether parts for their monethly termes is full of many conduits and passages as if they were divided into chanels pipes and trenches to draw foorth the said humours into which the wine no sooner falleth but away it passeth apace that it cannot settle nor rest upon the noble and principall parts which if they bee once troubled and possessed drunkennesse doth soone ensue Contrariwise that old men want naturall humiditie their very name in Greeke seemeth to implie sufficiently for called they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not because they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say inclining and stouping downward to the earth but because they are already in their habitude of bodie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say earthly Moreover their stiffenesse and unpliable disposition the roughnesse also of their skinne argueth their dry nature and complexion it standeth therefore to good reason that when they liberally take their wine their bodies which are rare and spungious within by occasion of that drinesse quickly catcheth and sucketh up the same and then by long staying there it worketh up into the head causeth the braine to beat and breedeth heavinesse there like as land-flouds gently glide over those fields which be solide hard washing them onely aloft and making no mire dirt but if the ground be light and hollow they enter and soke farther in even so wine being soone caught and drawne by the drinesse of old mens bodies staieth there the longer time and were not this so yet we may observe that the verie nature of old men admitteth the same symptomes and accidents which drunkennesse maketh Now these accidents occasioned by drunkennesse are very apparent to wit the trembling and shaking of their limbes faltering in their toong and speaking double immoderate and lavish speech pettishnesse and aptnesse to choler forgetfulnesse and alienation of the minde and understanding the most part whereof being incident to old men even when they are best in health and in most sober a little thing God wot will set them cleane out and any small agitation whatsoever will doe the deed so that drunkennesse in an old man engendreth not new accidents but setteth on foot and augmenteth those which be already common and ordinary with them To conclude there is not a more evident argument to proove and consirme the same than this that nothing in the world resembleth an old man more than a yoong man when hee is drunke THE FOURTH QUESTION Whether women by their naturall complexion be colder or hotter than men WHen Sylla had delivered his minde to that effect Apollonides an expert professour and well seene in raunging a battel in array seemed by his words to approove well of that which had bene alledged as touching old men but he thought that in the discourse of women the onely course was left out and overslipt to wit the coldnesse of their constitution by meanes whereof the hottest wine is quenched and forgoeth that fierie flame which flieth up to the head and troubleth the braines and this was received as a very probable and sufficient reason by all the company there in place But Athryilatus the physician a Thasian borne interjected some staie of farther searching into this cause For that quoth hee some are of opinion that women are not cold but hotter than men yea and others there be and that is a greater matter who hold that wine is not hotte at all but cold Florus woondering and amazed heereat This discourse and disputation quoth he as touching wine I reser to him there and with that pointed at me for that not many daies before wee had disputed together about that argument But as for women quoth Athryilatus that they bee rather hot than cold they argue thus First and formost they are smooth and not hairie on their face and bodie which testifieth their heat which spendeth and consumeth the excrement and so erfluitie that engendreth haire Secondly they proove it by their abundance of bloud which seemeth to be the fountaine of heat in the body and of bloud women have such store that they are ready to be inflamed yea to srie and burne withall if they have not many purgations and those quickly returning in their course to discharge and deliver them thereof Thirdly they bring in the experience observed at funerals which sheweth evidently that womens bodies be farre hotter than mens for they that have the charge of burning and enterring of dead corses doe ordinarily put into the funerall fire one dead body of a woman to tenne of men For that one corps say they helpeth to burne and consume the rest by reason that a womans flesh conteineth in it I wot not what unctuositie or oileous matter which quickly taketh fire and will burne as light as a torch so that it serveth in stead of drie sticks to kindle the sire and set all a burning Moreover if this be admitted for a
men for that they fell not upon triviall and common reason but had devised new for these be they that are alledged by every man and ready at hand to wit the heavinesse of Must or new wine as Aristotle saith which maketh the belly soluble and so it breaketh thorow the quantitie of flatilent and muddy spirits that abide therein together with the waterie substance of which the ventosities directly get foorth as expelled by force but the aquositie by the owne nature enfeebleth the strength of the wine like as contrariwise age augmenteth the power thereof for that the watrie substance is now gone by reason whereof as the quantitie of the wine is diminished so the qualitie and vertue is encreased THE EIGHT QUESTION What the reason is that they who be throughly drunke are lesse braine-sicke than those who are but in the way of drunkennesse SEeing then quoth my father that we have begun already to disquiet the ghost of Aristotle it shall not be amisse to trie what we can say of our selves as touching those whom wee call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say who are wel heat with wine but not yet starke drunk for howsoever Aristotle was ordinarily very quicke and subtile in resolving such questions yet in mine opinion he hath not sufficiently and exactly delivered the reason thereof for as farre as I can gather out of his words he saith That the discourse of reason in a man who is sober judgeth aright and according to the truth of things as they be contrariwise his sense and understanding who is cleane gone as they say dead drunke is done and oppressed altogether as for the apprehension and imagination of him who hath taken his wine well and is but halfe drunke is yet sound mary his reason and judgement is troubled already and crackt and therefore such judge indeed but they judge amisse for that they follow their phantasies onely but what thinke you of this For mine owne part quoth I when I consider with my selfe his reason it seemeth sufficiently to have rendred a cause of this effect but if you would have us to search farther into the thing and devise some speciall new matter marke first whether this difference which hee maketh betweene them ought not to be referred to the bodie for in these that have well drunke there is nothing but the discourse of reason onely troubled because the bodie being not yet thorowly drenched and drowned in wine is able to doe service unto the will and appetite but if it be once off the hookes as they say or utterly oppressed it forsaketh and betraieth the appetites and breaketh day with the affections being so farre shaken and out of joint that it can serve no more nor execute the will whereas the other having the bodie still at commaund and ready to exorbitate together with the will and to sinne with it for companie are more seene and discovered not for that they be more foolish and have lesse use of reason but because they have greater meanes to shew their follie But if we should reason from another principle and go another way to worke quoth I he that will consider well the force of wine shall finde no let but that in regard of the quantitie it altereth and becommeth divers much like unto the fire which if it be moderate hardeneth and baketh the tile or pot of claie but in case it bee very strong the heat excessive it meltethe dissolveth the same and on the otherside the spring or summer season at the beginning breedeth fevers and setteth them on fire which in the progresse and middes thereof being growen to their heights decline and cease altogether What should hinder then but the minde and understanding which naturally is disquieted and troubled with wine after it is once off the wheeles and cleane overturned by the excessive quantitie thereof should come into order againe and be setlet as it was before Much like therefore as Ellebore beginneth his operation to purge by overturning the stomacke and disquieting the whole masse of the body and if it be given in a lesse dose or quantitie than it should be well it may trouble but purge it will not also as wee see some who take medicines for to provoke sleepe under the just and full quantitie which is prescribed in stead of sleepe and repose finde themselves more vexed and tormented than before and others againe if they take more sleepe soundly even so it standeth to good reason that the brain-sicknesse of him who is halfe drunk after it is growen once to the highest strength and vigour doth diminish and decay to which purpose now wine serveth very well and helpeth much for being powred into the body with great abundance it burneth and consumeth that spice of madnesse which troubleth the minde and use of reason much after the maner of that dolefull song together with the heavy sound of hautboies in the funerals of dead folke at the first mooveth compassion and setteth the eies a weeping but after it hath drawen the soule so to pittie and compassion it proceedeth farther and by little and little it spendeth and riddeth away all sense of dolour and sorrow semblably a man shal observe that after the wine hath mightily troubled disquieted the vigorous couragious part of the soule men quickly come to themselves their minds be setled in such sort as they become quiet and take their repose when wine and drunkennesse hath passed as farre as it can THE NINTH QUESTION What is the meaning of the common proverbe Drinke either five or three but not fower WHen I had thus said Ariston crying out aloud as his maner was I see well now quoth he that there is opened a reentrance and returne againe of measures into feasts and banquets by vertue of a most just and popular decree which measures by meanes of I wot not what sober season as by a tyrant have beene this long time banished from thence for like as they who professe a canonicall harmonie in sounding of the harpe doe holde and say That the proportion Hemiolios or Sesquialterall produceth the symphonie or musicall accord Diapenta of the duple proportion ariseth that Dia pason but as for the muchlike or accord called Diatessaron which of all others is most obscure and dull it consisteth in the proportion Epitritos even so they that make profession of skill in the harmonies of Bacchus have observed that three symphonies or accords there are betweene wine water namely Diapenta Diatrion Diatessaron singing and saying after this manner Drinke five or three and not fower for the fift standeth upon the proportion Hemiolios or Sesquialterall to wit when three parts or measures of water be mingled with two of wine and the third conteine the duple proportion namely when two parts of water be put to one of wine but the fowrth answereth to the proportion of three parts of water powred into one of wine and verily
did rest or settele upon them Much more probable it is that when these waters and raines together with their ventosities heats occasioned by thunders lightnings come to pierce deepe into the earth it turneth and rolleth round and by that meanes are ingendred therein such like nodosities and knobs soft and apt to crumble which we call Mushromes like as in our bodies there breed and arise certeine flatuous tumors named Kirnels or Glandules formed by occasion of I wot not what bloudy humors and heats withal for a Mushrome seemeth not to be a plant neither without rain moisture doth it breed having no root at all nor any sprout springing from it it is wholly entire of selfe round about and holding upon nothing as having the consistence onely of the earth which hath bene a litle altered changed And if you thinke this reason to be but slender I say unto you more that the most part of those accidents which follow upon thunder and lightning are of the like sort and therefore it is especially that in these effects there is thought to bee a certeine divinitie Then Dorotheus the oratour who was in the companie Truth it is quoth he that you say for not onely the vulgar sort of simple and ignorant people are of that opinion but some also of the philosophers and for mine owne part I know as much by experience that the lightning which of late fell upon our house wrought many strange and woonderfull things for it emptied our sellers of wine and never did hurt unto the earthen vessell wherein it was and whereas there lay a man a sleepe it flew over him yea and flashed upon him without any harme at all to his person or sienging so much as his clothes but having a certeine belt or pouch wherein were certeine pieces of brasse money it melted and defaced them all so confusedly that a man could not know by the forme or impression one from another the man went thereupon to a certeine Pythagorian philosopher who as happe was so journed there and demaunded of him what the reason might bee thereof and what it did presage But the philosopher when hee had cleered and assoiled his minde of scrupulous feare and religion willed him to ponder and consider of the matter apart by himselfe and to pray unto the gods I heare say also that not long since there was a souldiour at Rome who keeping the Centinell upon one of the temples of the citie chaunced to have a flash of lightning to fall very neere unto him which did him no hurt in the world in his body but onely burnt the latchets of his shoes and whereas there were certeine small boxes and cruets of silver within wooden cases the silver within was found all melted into a masse in the bottome and the wood had no injurie at all but continued still entire and sound But these things a man may chuse whether he will beleeve or no. Howbeit this passeth all other miracles which we all I suppose doe know very well namely that the dead bodies of those who have beene killed by lightning continue above ground and putrifie not for many there be who will neither burne nor enterre such corses but cast a trench or banke about and so let them lie as within a rampar so as such dead bodies are to be seene alwaies above ground uncorrupt convincing Clymene in Eurypides of untruth who speaking of Phaethon said thus Beloved mine but see where dead he lies In vale below and there with putrifies And heereupon it is as I take it that brimstone taketh the name in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the resemblance of that smell which those things yeeld that have beene smitten with lightning which no doubt have a fierie and piercing sent and this may bee the reason likewise in my conceit that dogges and fowles of the aire forbeare to touch any dead bodies which in this sort are striken from heaven Thus farre foorth have I laid the first stone for a ground-worke of this cause as also of the Bay-tree Now let us intreat him heere to finish and make out the rest for that he is well acquainted with Mushromes lest haply that befall unto us which sometimes to the painter Androcydes did for whē he painted the gulfe Scylla he portraied more naturally to the life the fishes all about than any thing else besides whereby men judged that hee shewed more affection therein than cunning of his art for that naturally he loved to feed upon good fishes and even so some one might say that we have discoursed so much of Mushromes the breeding and generation whereof is so doubtfull as you see for the pleasure and delight that we take in eating of them Considering now that in these points our discourse seemed to carrie some probabilitie and that everie man was perswaded well enough that the cause and reason thereof was cleere and withall my selfe began to speake and advise that it was now time as the manner was in comedies to set up those engins devised for to counterfet thunder so to inferre a disputation at the table of lightning to which motion all the company condescended but passing over all other points very desirous and earnest they were to heare a discourse as touching this one What the reason might be that men a sleepe be never smitten or blasted with lightning Now albeit I saw well enough that I should gaine no great praise in touching a cause whereof the reason was common yet I beganne to set to it and said That the fire of lightning was fine and subtill as that which tooke the originall and beginning from a most pure liquid and sacred substance which if there had beene in it any moisture or terrestriall grosenesse mingled among the celeritie of motion is such that it would have purged and cast it foorth Nothing is smitten with lightning quoth Democritus that cannot resist the fire from heaven and therefore solide bodies as iron brasle silver and gold be corrupted and melted therewith by reason that they hold out and withstand it contrariwise such as bee rare full of holes spungious soft and lux lightning quickly pierceth through and doth them no harme as for example clothes or garments and drie wood for such as is greene will burne because the moisture within maketh resistance and so catcheth fire withall If then it be true that those who lie a sleepe be never stricken dead with thunder and lightning surely wee must search heere for the cause and never goe farther for the bodies of men awake are stronger more firme and compact yea and able to make more resistance as having all their parts full of spirits by which ruling turning and welding the naturall senses and holding them together as it were with an engine the living creature becommeth strong fast knit and uniforme whereas in sleepe it is slacke loose rare unequall soft and as it were all resolved by reason that the
pores be open for that the spirit hath forsaken and abandoned them which is the cause likewise that voices odors and savours passe through them unheard and unsmelled for why that which should resist and in resistance suffer and take impression meeteth not with those objects that are presented unto it and least of all when they pierce with such swiftnesse and subtilitie as the fire of lightning doth for that which of it selfe is lesse firme strong for to resist offensive things nature doth desend fortifie and furnish with remedies against that which offendeth by putting before them hard and solide munitions but looke what things bee of incomparable force and invincible they lesse offend and hurt that which yeeldeth than that which maketh head and resistance adde moreover heereunto that they who lie a sleepe are lesse affraid affrighted or astonied by occasion whereof and of nothing else many have died onely I say for feare of death without any harme at all done unto them and this is the very cause that shepheards teach their sheepe to runne and gather round together into a troupe when it thundreth for that they which are dispersed and scattered a sunder for very feare take harme and cast their yoong ones in time of thunder yea and an infinit number have beene knowen to lie dead on the ground by reason of thunder without any marke or stroke wound scorch or burne seene upon them whose life and soule for very feare hath flowen out of their bodies like a birde out of a cage for according as Euripides saith The very blast of some great thunder-clap Hath many a one strucke stone-dead with a flap And forasmuch as otherwise the sense of hearing is of all others most subject to suffer violent passions and the fearefull frights occasioned by sounds and noises worke greatest troubles in the minde against it the privation of sense is a sure bulwarke and rampar to a man that lieth asleepe where as they who are awake be many times killed with feare of the thing before it commeth for a fright to say a trueth knitting closing and compressing the body fast giveth more strength a great deale to the stroake when it comes for that it findeth more resistance THE THIRD QUESTION Why at a wedding or bride-supper men use to invite more guests than at other times AT the wedding of my sonne Autobulus ô Sossius Senecio one who came frō Chaeronea was with us to solemnize the feast a great nūber there were besides of other honorable personages which gave unto him occasion for to demand this question What the cause might be that ordinarily we invite more guests to such a marriage supper than to any other feast considering that even those law-givers who impugned most the superfluitie and riot of feasts have precisely expresly set downe the number of those persons whom they would have to be bidden guests to a wedding For of the ancient philosophers quoth he the man that treated of this argument and the cause thereof to wit Hecataeus of Abdera hath written nothing in my judgement worth ought not to the purpose for thus he saith That they who marry wives bid many persons to their wedding to the end that many may take knowledge and beare witnesse that being free borne and of free condition they take wives likewise of like free birth and condition For the comicall poets cleane contrary mocke and laugh at those who make proud and sumptuous feasts at their marriage setting out the same with great pompe and magnificence as if that were no sure bond nor linke to be trusted unto wherewith they would seeme to knit wedlocke like as Menander said to one who willed the bridegrome to make a strong rempar all about of pots pannes and platters When that is done on every side What is all this to your new bride But lest we might not seeme to finde fault with others at our pleasure for that we have nothing of our owne to say which is the easiest matter in the world I shewed first and formost that there was no occasion of feasting so publike nor so much divulged and celebrated as marriage for say that we sacrifice unto the gods or feast a friend for his farewell when he is to goe a long voiage or enterteine a traveller and stranger that passeth by our house or commeth of purpose to visit us we may do all without the privitie of kinsefolke friends but a nuptiall feast where the wedding-song and caroll of 〈◊〉 is chanted aloud where the torches are to be seene lightburning where the hautboies and pipes play merrily and resound where as Homer saith the very women and maidens stand woondering at their doores to see and heare is notoriously knowen and proclaimed to the whole world in regard whereof because there is none ignorant of these espousals and festivall solemnities men being ashamed to leave out any invite generally all their kinsefolke familiar friends and acquaintance as whom in some sort it doth concerne and who have an interest in the thing When we all had approoved this Theon taking in hand the question Surely all this quoth he may goe for currant for it carrieth great probabilitie therewith but you may adde moreover if you please thus much That these marriage feasts are not onely for friends but also for kinsefolke and allies for that a whole kindred race and generation come to have another new alliance to be incorporated into them and that which more is when two houses in this wise be joined together both he who receiveth the woman thinketh that hee ought to enterteine and feast the kindred and friends of him that giveth her and he who giveth her likewise taketh himselfe bound to doe as much reciprocally by the knisefolke and friends of the receiver whereby the feast and number of them who are bidden groweth double Now forasmuch as many marriage complements and to say a trueth the most part in maner all are performed at weddings by women surely where the goodwives be great reason there is that of necessitie their husbands also should be welcome for their sakes and so thereby the companie still doth increase THE FOURTH QUESTION Whether the viands which the sea affoordeth be more delicate than those of the land GAlepsus a town in Euboea where there be baths naturally of hot waters is a proper seat and place fitted by nature for sundry honest pleasures beautified with many faire houses and lodgings in such sort as it is reputed the publike hostelrie of all Greece and albeit there be great game there of hunting and hawking and woonderfull plentie aswell of fowle as other venison yet is the market no lesse served from the sea nor their tables lesse furnished 〈◊〉 daintie fish for that indeed along the coast the sea is very deepe and the water faire nourishing an infinit number of excellent fishes This towne flourisheth more in the mids of Spring than at any other season of the yeere for much concourse
excesse in unmeasurable curtesie and humanitie when it cannot omit nor leave out any of those with whom a man heeretofore hath feasted or made merrie but draweth all of them as if the case were to goe for to see a plaie behold solemne sights or to heare musicke and for mine owne part I thinke that the good man of the house or master of a feast is not so much woorthy to be blamed or laughed at for being at a fault of bread or drinke for his guests as when hee hath not roome enough to place them of which he ought to make provision with the largest not onely for those who are formally invited but also for commers in and such as bid themselves for strangers also that passe by moreover if there chaunce to be some want of bread or wine the fault may be laid upon the servants as if they had made it away or plaied the theeves but if there be no roome left it cannot chuse but be imputed to the negligence and indiscretion of him who invited the guests Hesiodus is woonderfully much commended for writing thus At first no doubt it was so cast That there might be a Chaos vast For in the beginning of the world requisit is was that there should bee a void place for to receive and comprehend all those things that were to be created Not quoth hee as my sonne yesterday made a supper according to that which Anaxagaras said All things were hudled and jumbled together pell-mell confusedly and admit that there bee place and roome enough yea and provision of meat sufficient yet neverthelesse a multitude would be avoided as a thing that bringeth confusion and which maketh a societie unsociable and a meeting unmeet and not affable certes lesse harme it were and more tolerable a great deale to take from them who are bidden to our table their wine than their communication and felowship of talk and therefore Theophrastus called merrily barbars shops dry banquets without wine for the good talke that is betweene a number of persons sitting there one by another but they who bring a sort together into one place thrumbling them one upon another deprive them of all conference and discoursing reciprocally or rather indeed they bring it so to passe that but verie few can commune converse together for by that meanes they sort themselves apart two by two or three by three for to have some talke as for those who are set farder of hardly they can not discerne no nor know them being distant and remooved a sunder as a man would say the length of an horse race Some where Achilles tents are pight close for to make their stay And some where Ajax quarter is as farre another way Thus you shall see how some rich men heereby otherwhiles shew their foolish magnificence to no purpose in building halles and dyning chambers conteining thirtie tables a piece in them yea and some of greater capacitie than so and verily this manner of preparation for to make suppers and dinners is for folke that have no amitie nor societie one with another when there is more need of some provost of a field to marshal thē than an vsher of an hall to see good order among them but these men may in some sort well bee pardoned for doing so because they thinke their riches no riches but that it is blinde deafe lame also or shut up that it cannot get forth unlesse it have a number of witnesses like as a tragedie many spectators but as for us this remedie we have of not assembling so many at once together namely to bidde often and to make divers suppers to invite I say our friends and well-willers at sundrie times by few at once and so by this meanes wee may make amends for all and bring both ends together for they that feast but seldome and as they say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say by the cart loades are forced to put in the roll all those that any way belong unto them either by kinred friendship or acquaintance whatsoever whereas they who ordinarily picke out three or sower at a time and doe so oft make their feasts as it were little barks to discharge their great hulkes and the same to goe light and nimble moreover when a man considereth continually with himselfe the cause why he inviteth his friends it maketh him to observe a difference and choise in that great multitude of them for like as for every occasion businesse that we have we assemble not all sorts of people but such onely as be meet for ech purpose for if we should have need of good counsell we call for those who be wise if we would have a matter pleaded we send for eloquent oratours if a voiage or journey performed wee seeke for such as will take up with short meales and who have little else to doe and be best at leisure even so in our invitations and feasts we must have regard ever and anon to chuse those who are meet and will sort well together meet men I call these for example sake if he be a prince or great potentate whō we invite to supper the fittest persons to beare him company be the head officers the magistrates and principall men of the citie especially if they be friends or already acquainted if we make a marriage supper or a feast for the birth of a childe those would be bidden who are of kindred and affinitie and in one word as many as are linked together by the bond of Jupiter Homoginos that is to say the protectour of consanguinitie and in all these feasts and solemnities we ought evermore to have a carefull eie to bring them together who are friends or well willers one to another for when we sacrifice unto some one god we make not our praiers to all others although they be worshipped in the same temples upon the same altars but if there be three cups or boules brought full unto us we powre libations out of the first to some the second we offer to others and the last we bestow likewise upon a third sort for there is no envie abideth in the quire ordaunce of the gods semblably the daunce and quire of friends is divine in some sort if so be a man know how to distribute and deale his courtesie and kindnesse decently among them and as it were to goe round about with them all THE SIXTH QUESTION What is the cause that guests at the beginning of a supper sit close together at the table but afterwards more at libertie THese words thus passed and then immediately a new question was mooved namely What the cause might be that men commonly at the beginning of dinner or supper sit at the table very streight and close but toward the end more at large whereas it should seeme by all reason that they should doe cleane contrary for that then their bellies be full Some of the company attributed this unto the forme and positure
of the proper and native qualitie that it hath whereas colde by restreining seemeth to conteine and keepe each thing in the owne kinde or nature and water especially Now for the trueth of this that the coldnesse of water hath vertue to preserve the snowe is a sufficient testimonie which keepeth flesh a long time sweet and without corruption but contrariwise heat causeth all things to goe out of their owne nature yea even honie it selfe for being once boiled marred it is but if it continue raw it not onely keepeth it selfe well enough but helpeth to preserve other things and for a further proofe of this matter the water of lakes and pooles is a principall thing to confirme the same for as potable it is and as good to drinke in Winter as any other waters but in Summer the same is starke naught and breedeth diseases and therefore since the night answereth to Winter and the day to Summer those water-men of Nilus abovesaid are of this opinion That water wil continue longer before it turen and corrupt if it be drawen in the night season To these allegations which of themselves seemed to carry probabilitie enough reason also includeth as an evident inartificiall proofe to strengthen and confirme the experience and beleefe of these water-men for they said that they drew water whiles the river was yet still and quiet for in the day time many men either saile upon it or otherwise fetch water from it many beasts also passe to and fro in it whereby it is troubled thicke and muddie and such water will soone putrifie for whatsoever is mixed more easily taketh corruprion than that which is pure and simple considering that mixture maketh a fight and fight causeth change and alteration Now who knoweth not that putrifaction is a kinde of mutation which is the cause that painters call the mixtures of their colours by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say corruptions and the poet Homer when he speaketh of dying saith they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say staine and infect the common use also of our speech carrieth it to call that which is unmixed and meere of it selfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say incorrupt and sincere but principally if earth be mingled with water it changeth the qualitie and marreth the nature of it quite for ever for being potable and good to drinke and therefore it is that dormant and dead waters which stand in hollow holes are more subject to corruption than others as being full of earthie substance whereas running streames escape this mixture and repell the earth which is brought into them good cause therefore had Hesiodus to commend The water of some lively spring that alwaies runnes his course And which no muddie earth among doth trouble and make woorse For holsome we holde that which is uncorrupt and uncorrupt we take that to be which is all simple pure and unmixed and hereto may be adjoined for to confirme this opinion of theirs the sundrie kinds and differences of earth for those waters which run thorow hillie and stonie grounds because they carrie not with them much of the earth or soile are stronger and more firme than such as passe along marishes plaines and flats Now the river Nilus keeping his course within a levell and soft countrey and to speake more truely being as it were bloud tempered and mingled with flesh is sweet doubtlesse and full of juices that have a strong and nutritive vertue but ordinarily the same runneth mixed and troubled and so much the rather if it be stirred and disquieted for the moving and agitation thereof mixeth the terrestriall substance with the liquid humour but when it is quiet and at repose the same setleth downe to the bottome by reason of the weight Thus you see why they draw up their water in the night-season and withall by that meanes they prevent the sun-rising which alwaies doth catch up and corrupt that which is in all waters most subtile and light THE SIXTH QUESTION Of those who come late to supper where discoursed it is from whence be derived these names of refections in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MY yonger sonnes upon a time had staid longer at the theater than they should to see the sights and heare the eare-sports which there were exhibited by occasion whereof they came too late to supper whereupon Therus sonnes called them in mirth sport 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say supper-letting and night-supping-lads with other such like names but they to be meet quit with them againe gave them the tearme of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say runners to supper Heerewith one of the elder sort there present said That hee who came late to his supper ought rather to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he maketh more haste with an extraordinary pace for that he hath seemed to staie too long to which purpose he related a pretie tearme of Battus the buffon or pleasant jester to Caesar who was wont to call those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say desirous of suppers who at any time came tardie For quoth he although they have businesse to call and keepe them away yet for the love of good cheere and sweet morcels they refuse not to come late though it be whensoever they are invited Heere came I in with the testimonie of Polycharmus one of the great oratours who managed the State of Athens in an oration of his where making an apologie of his life unto the people in a frequent assembly he spake in this wise Loe my masters of Athens how I have lived but besides manie other things which I have already alledged take this moreover that whensoever I was bidden to any supper I never came last for this seemed to be very popular and plausible whereas contrariwise men are wont to hate them as odious persons and surly lords who come late and for whom the rest of the companie are forced to staie Then Soclarus willing to defend the yoong boies But Alcaeus quoth he called not Pittacus Zophodorpidas because he supped late in the night but for that it was ordinary with him to delight in none other guests and table companions but base vile and obscure persons for to eat early or betimes was in old time counted a reproch and it is said that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a breakefast was derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say intemperance Then Theon interrupting his speech Not so quoth he but we must give credit rather unto those who report the auncient manner of life in old time for they say that men in those daies being laborious painfull and temperate in their living withal tooke for their repast early in the morning a piece of bread dipped in wine and no other thing and therefore they called this breakfast
ancient interpreters gave the solution and exposition onely as if covertly it implied thus much that we should avoid the companie of secret whisperers backbiters and slanderers Lucius himselfe approoved not thereof for the swallow whispereth not at all it chattereth in deed and talketh as one would say loud enough and yet not more than pies partridges and hennes But what thinke you by this quoth Sylla that in regard of the tale that goes of Progne who killed-her yoong soone Itys they hate swallowes for that abominable act and therefore would seeme to cause us for to detest a farre off such infamous cases for which they say both Tereus and the women partly did perpetrate in part suffered horrible and unlawfull things whereupon to this very day these birds be called Daulides But Gorgtas the sophisier by occasion that a swallow mewted over his head and squirted her dung upon him looking up unto her These be no faire casts quoth he Philomela or is this also common to the rest for the Pythagoreans doe not exclude or banish out of house the nightingale which bearetha part in the same tragedies and is faultie with the rest Peradventure quoth I then there is as much reason in the one as the other ô Sylla but consider and see whether the swallow be not odious and infamous with them for the same cause that they reject and wil not enterteine those creatures which have hooked tallons for she likewise feedeth upon flesh and besides killeth and devoureth especially grashoppers which are sacred and musicall moreover she flieth close by the ground hunting and catching little sillie creatures as Aristotle saith furthermore she is the onely creature of all the other that be under the same roufe with us which lodgeth there of free cost living without contributing ought or paying any rent yet the storke which hath no covert by our house nor warmth by our fire ne yet enjoieth any benefit pleasure or helpe at all by our meanes giveth us otherwhiles some tribute and custome as it were for marching onely upon the ground for up and downe she goes killing toades and serpents mortall enemies to mankind and lying in wait for our lives whereas the swallow having all those commodities at our hands no sooner hath nourished her yoong ones and brought them to some perfection but away she goes and is no more to beseene so disloial and unthankfull she is and that which of all others is worst the flie and the swallow bee the onely creatures haunting our houses as they doe that never will be tamed nor suffer a man to touch and handle them nay they will not admit any fellowship societie or communion with him either in worke or play the flie indeed hath some reason to be afraid of us for that she sustaineth harme by us and is chased and driven away so often but the swallow hateth man naturally she will not trust him but remaineth alwaies suspicious and untamed now if wee are to take these and such like speeches not directly according to the litterall sense and as the words onely doe implie but rather by way of an oblique reflexion as the resemblances of things appearing in others certes Pythagoras proposeth unto us heerein the very pattern of an unthankfull and faithlesse person admonishing us not to receive unto our familiar acquaintance and amitie those who for the time and to serve their owne turne draw neere unto us and retire themselves under the roufe of our house and that we ought not to make them inward with us communicating with them our house our domesticall altar and those things which are in stead of most sacred obligations When I had thus said it seemed that I had given the companie encouragement and assurance to speake for they began boldly to apply unto the other symbolicall precepts their morall expositions And Philinus for his part said that in commaunding to confound the forme of the pot or cauldron imprinted in the ashes they taught us this lesson not to leave any marke or apparent impression of anger but after it hath once done boiling what it will and is setled and cooled againe to ridde away all ranckor and malice yea and to burie all in perpetuall oblivion As for the shuffling of the bed clothes together when we are newly risen some thought there was no hidden matter meant thereby but signified onely that it was not seemely or honest that the marke or print in the bed should remaine as an expresse image to be seene of the place wherein man and wife had lien together But Sylla guessed otherwise and conjectured that heerein was conteined a dehortation to divert us from sleeping on bed in the day time when as even in the very morning the preparation and meanes to sleepe was so immediately taken away for that we ought to take our rest and repose in the night but in the day time to be stirring and about our businesse not suffring to remaine in our beds so much as the tract of our bodie for a man lying asleepe is good for nothing no more than when he is dead and heereto seemeth to allude and accord another precept of the Pythagoreans which they give unto their friends forbidding them not to ease any man of his burden but rather to lay on more and seeme to surcharge him still as not approoving any sloth or idlenesse whatsoever now for that during these discourses Lucius neither approoved nor disprooved ought that was said but sat still heard all said nothing and pondered every thing in himselfe Empedocles calling unto Sylla by name said as followeth THE EIGHTH QUESTION Why the Pythagoreans among all other living creatures absteine most from eating fish IF Lucius our friend quoth he be offended or take no pleasure in our sayings it is high time that we should give over and make an end but if these things fall within the compasse of their precept for silence yet this I thinke ought not to be concealed but may well be revealed and communicated unto others namely What the reason is that the Pythagoreans absteined principally from eating fish for so much we finde written of the auncient Pythagoreans and I my selfe have fallen into the company and conference of certeine disciples of Alexicrates a man of our time who fedde a little sometimes of other living creatures yea and sacrificed them unto the gods but for no good in the world would they so much as taste of a fish not as I take u for that cause which Tyndares the Lacedaemonian alledged who thought that this was done for the honour they had to silence in regard whereof the philosopher Empedocles whose name I beare who was the first that ceased to teach Pythagorically that is to say to give rules and precepts of hidden wisedome calleth fishes Ellopas as having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say their voice tied and shut up within but for they thought taciturnitie to be a singular and divine thing and
and daintie feeding which without any just or lawfull cause troubleth disquieteth the seas and descendeth into the very bottome of the deepe for we have no reason at any time to call the red sea-barbell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say corne devourer nor the guilt-head 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say vine waster or grape eater nor yet any mullets lubins or sea-pikes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say seed gatherers as we name divers land beasts noting them thereby for the harme and annoiance they doe unto us neither can we impute unto the greatest fish in the sea the least wrong or shrewd turne wherewith wee charge in our exceeding neerenesse and parsimonie some cat or wezill a mouse or rat which haunt our houses in which regard they precisely contemning themselves not for feare of law onely to doe wrong unto men but also by the very instinct of nature to offer no injurie unto any thing in the world that doth them no harme nor displeasure used to feed on fish lesse than on any other meat admit there were no injustice in the thing all busie curiositie of men in this point being so needlesse as it is bewraieth great intemperance and wastfull gluttony and therefore Homer in his poeme deviseth this that not onely the Greeks encamping upon the streight of Hellespont absteined wholy from eating fish but also that the delicate and daintie toothed Phaeacians the wanton and licorous woers likewise of lady Penelope dissolute though they were otherwise and all islanders were never served at their tables with any viands or cates from the sea no nor the companions of Ulysses in that grear and long voiage of theirs which they had at sea ever laid hooke leape or wee le or cast net into the sea for fish so long as they had a bit of bread or handfull of meale left But when their ship had vittailes none But all therein was spent and gone even a little before that they laid hands upon the kowes of the sunne then began they to fish not iwis for any deintie dishes but even for necessary food With bended hookes for now their maw Great hunger bit and guts did gnaw So that for extreme need they were forced to eat fish and to kill the sunnes kine whereby wee may perceive that it was a point of sanctimonie and chastitie not onely among the Aegyptians and Syrians but the Greeks also to forbeare feeding upon fish for that beside the injustice of the thing they abhorred as I thinke the superfluous curiositie of such food Heereupon Nestor tooke occasion to speake And why quoth he is there no reckoning made of my countrey-men and fellow-citizens no more than of the Megarians and yet you have heard me to say often times that the priests of Neptune whom we call Hieromnemones never eat fish for this god is surnamed Phytalmios that is to say the President of breeding and generation in the sea and the race descending from that ancient Hellen sacrificed unto Neptune by the name and addition of Patrogeneios that is to say the stock-father and principall Progenitour being of opinion that man came of a moist and liquid substance as also be the Syrians which is the very cause that they worship and adore a fish as being of the same kinde generation and nouriture with themselves philosophizing and arguing in this point with more apparence and shew of reason than Anaximander did who affirmed not that men and fishes were bred both in the same places but avouched that men were first engendred within fishes themselves and there nourished like their yoong frie but afterward when they became sufficient and able to shift and helpe them they were cast foorth and so tooke land like as therefore the fire eateth the wood whereby it was kindled and set a burning though it were father and mother both unto it according as he said who inserted the marriage of Ceyx among the works of Hesiodus even so Anaximander in pronouncing that fish was both father and mother unto men taxeth and condemneth the feeding thereupon THE NINTH QUESTION Whether it be possible that new diseases may be engendred by our meats PHilo the physician constantly affirmed that the leprosie called Elephantiasis was a disease not knowen long since for that none of the ancient physicians made any mention of this maladie whereas they travelled and busied their braines to treat of other small trifling matters I wot not what and yet such subtilties as the common sort could hardly comprehend But I produced and alledged unto him for a witnesse out of philosophie Athenodorus who in the first booke of his Epidemiall or popular diseases writeth that not onely the said leprosie but also Hydrophobie that is to say the feare of water occasioned by the biting of a mad dogge were first discovered in the daies of Asclepiades now as the companie there present marvelled that these maladies should newly then begin and take their consistence in nature so they wondered as much on the other side how so great and grievous diseases could be hidden so long and unknowen to men howbeit the greater part inclined rather to this second later opinion as being more respective and favourable to man for that they could not be perswaded that nature in such cases should in mans bodie as it were in some citie studie novelties and be evermore inventing and working new matters As for Diogenianus he said that the passions and maladies of the soule held on their common course and went the accustomed way still of their predecessours And yet quoth he wickednesse is very manifold in sundry sorts and exceeding audacious to enterprise any thing and the mind is a mistresse of herselfe and at her owne command having puissance to turne and change easily as she thinketh good and yet that disordinate confusion of hers hath some order in it keeping a measure in her passions and conteining herselfe within certeine bounds like as the sea in the flowings and tides in such sort as that she bringeth forth no new kinde of vice such as hath not bene knowen unto those in olde time and of which they have not written for there being many different sorts of lusts and desires infinite motions of feare as many kinds of paine and no fewer formes of pleasure which would require great labour to reckon up and not to give over These neither now nor yesterday Began but all have liveday And no man knowes nor can say well Since when they first to men befell nor yet whereupon any new maladie or moderne passion hath arisen in our body considering it hath not of it selfe the beginning of motion properly as the soule hath but is knit and conjoined with nature by common causes and composed with a certeine temperature the infinite varietie whereof wandereth notwithstanding within the pourprise of set bounds and limits like unto a vessell which lying at anchor in the sea neverthelesse doth wave and
a little troubled at this chalenge but after he had paused and thought upon the matter a while in the end he spake to this effect It is an ordinary thing quoth he with Plato to play with us many times merrily by certeine devised names that hee useth but whensoever hee inserteth some fable in any treatise of the soule he doth it right soberly and hath a deepe meaning and profound sense therein for the intelligent nature of heaven he calleth a Chariot volant to wit the harmonicall motion and revolution of the world and heere in this place whereof we are now in question to wit in the end of the tenth booke of his Common-wealth he bringeth in a messenger from hell to relate newes of that which he had there himselfe seene and calleth him by the name of Era a Pamphylian borne and the sonne of Armonius giving us covertly by an aenigmaticall conveiance thus much to understand That our soules are engendred by harmonie and so joined to our bodies but when they be disjoined and separate from them they runne together all into aire from every side and so returne againe from thence unto second generations what should hinder then but this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was put downe by him not to shew a truth whereof he spake but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a probable speech and conjecturall fiction or else a thing spoken as it should seeme to a dead bodie and so uttered vainly and at a venture in the aire for Plato alwaies toucheth three causes as being the philosopher who either first knew or principally understood how fatall destiny is mingled with fortune and againe how our freewill is woont to bee joined with either of them or is complicate with both and now in this place before cited hee sheweth excellently well what power each of these causes hath in our humane affaires attributing the choice and election of our life unto free will for vertue and vice be free and at the commaund of no lord and tying to the necessitie of fatall destinie a religious life to God-ward in them who have made a good choise and contrariwise in those who have made a choise of the woorst but the cadences or chaunces of lots which being cast at a venture and lighting heere and there without order befall to every one of us bring in fortune and preoccupate or prevent much of that which is ours by the sundry educations or governments of common-weale wherein it hapneth each of us to live for this I would have every one of you to consider whether it bee not meere folly and without all reason to seeke for a cause of that which is done by fortune and casually for if lot should seeme to come by reason there were to be imputed no more to fortune or adventure but all to some fatall destinie or providence Whiles Lamprias delivered this speech Marcus the Grammarian seemed to count and number I wot not what upon his fingers to himselfe apart but when he had made an end the said Marcus named aloud all those soules or spirits which are called out in Homers Necya Among which quoth he the ghost onely of Elpenor wandering still in the middle confines is not reckoned with those beneath in another world for that his bodie as yet is not interred and committed to the earth as for the soule of Tiresias also it seemeth not to bee numbred with the rest To whom now dead Proserpina above the rest did give This gift alone right wise to be although he did not live as also the power to speake with the living and to understand their state and affaires even before he had drunke the bloud of sacrificed beasts If then quoth hee ô Lamprias you subtract these two and count the rest you shall finde that the soule of Ajax was just the twentieth of those which presented themselves to Ulysses and heereto alluded Plato as it should seeme by way of mirth joining his fable together with that evocation of spirits otherwise called Necyra in Homers Odyssea THE SIXTH QUESTION What is covertly meant by the fable wherein Neptune is feigned to have beene vanquished as also why the Athenians take out the second day of the moneth August NOw when the whole company were growen to a certeine uprore Menephyllus a Peripateticke philosopher calling unto Hylas by name You see quoth he now that this question was not propounded by way of mockerie and contumelious flouting but you my good friend leaving this froward and mal-contented Ajax whose name as Sophocles saith is ominous and of ill presage betake your selfe unto Neptune and side with him a while who is wont to recount unto us himselfe how he hath beene oftentimes overcome to wit in this city by Minerva at Delphi by Apollo in Argos by Juno in Aegina by Jupiter and in Naxus by Bacchus and yet in all his repulses disfavors and infortunities he bare himselfe alwaies mild and gentle carying no ranckor or malice in his heart for proofe heereof there is even in this city a temple common to him and Minerva in which there standeth also an altar dedicated to Oblivion Then Hylas who seemed by this time more pleasantly disposed But you have forgotten quoth he ô Menephyllus that we have abolished the second day of the moneth August not in regard of the moone but because it was thought to be the day upon which Neptune and Minerva pleaded for the scignorie of this territorie of Attica Now I assure you quoth Lamprias Neptune was every way much more civill and reasonable than Thrasibulus in case being not a winner as the other but a loser he could forget all grudge and malice A great breach and defect there is in the Greeke originall wherein wanteth the farther handling of this question as also 5. questions entier following and a part of the 6. to wit 7 Why the accords in musicke are devided into three 8 Wherein differ the intervals or spaces melodious from those that be accordant 9 What cause is it that maketh accord and what is the reason that when one toucheth two strings accordant together the melody is ascribed to the base 10 What is the cause that the eclipticke revolutions of sunne and moone being in number equall yet we see the moone oftner ecclipsed than the sunne 11 That we continue not alwaies one and the same in regard of the daily deflux of our substance 12 Whether of the twaine is more probable that the number of starres is even or odde Of this twelfth question thus much remaineth as followeth Lysander was wont to say That children are to be deceived with cockall bones but men with othes Then Glaucias I have heard quoth he that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant but it may be that it was spoken also to others But whereby do you demaund this of me Because verily quoth Sospis I see that children snatch at such bones the Academiques catch at words for it
calling one Atropos another Lachesis and a third Clotho for as touching the motions and revolutions of the eight heavenly Sphaeres hee hath attributed as presidents unto them so many Syrenes in number and not Muses Then Menephylus the Peripateticke comming in with his speech There is quoth hee some reason and probabilitie in the Delphians saying but surely the opinion of Plato is absurd in that unto those divine and eternall revolutions of the heavens he hath assigned in stead of Muses the Syrenes which are daemons or powers not verie kinde and good nor beneficiall either leaving out as he doth the Muses altogether or els calling them by the names of the Destinies and saying they be the daughters of Necessitie for surely Necessitie is a rude thing and violent whereas Perswasion is gentle and gracious by the meanes of Muses amiable taming what it will and in my minde Detesteth more the duritie And force of hard necessitie than doth that grace and Venus of Empedocles That is true indeed quoth Ammonius it abhorreth that violent and involuntarie cause which is in our selves enforcing us to doe against our evils but the necessitie which is among the gods is nothing intollerable nor violent nor hard to be obeied or perswaded but to the wicked no more than the law of a citie that unto good men is the best thing that is which they cannot pervert or transgresse not because it is impossible for them so to do but for that they are not willing to change the same Moreover as touching those Syrenes of Homer there is no reason that the fable of them should affright us for after an aenigmaticall and covert sort even he signifieth very well unto us that the power of their song and musicke is neither inhumane nor pernicious or mortall but such as imprinteth in the soules which depart from hence thither as also to such as wander in that other world after death a vehement affection to divine and celestiall things together with a certeine forgetfulnesse of those that be mortall and earthly deteining and enchanting them as it were with a pleasure that they give unto them in such sort as by reason of the joy which they receive from them they follow after and turne about with them now of this harmonie there is a little echo or obscure resonance commeth hither unto us by the meanes of certeine discourses which calleth unto our soule and putteth into her minde such things as then and there are whereof the greatest part is enclosed and stopped up with the abstructions of the flesh and passions that are not sincere howbeit our soule by reason of the generositie wherewith it is endued doth understand yea and remember the same being ravished with so vehement an affection thereof that her passion may be compared properly unto most ardent and furious fits of love whiles she still affecteth and desireth to enjoy but is not able for all that to loosen and free her-selfe from the bodie howbeit I doe not accord and hold with him altogether in these matters but it seemeth unto me that Plato as he hath somewhat strangely in this place called the axes and poles of the world and heavens by the names of spindels rocks and distaves yea tearmed the starres wherves so to the Muses also he hath given an extraordinarie denomination of Syrens as if they related and expounded unto the soules and ghosts beneath divine and celestiall things like as Ulysses in Sophocles saith that the Syrenes were come The daughters who of Phorcis were That doth of hell the lawes declare As for the Muses they be assigned unto the eight heavenly sphaeres and one hath for her portion the place and region next to the earth those then which have the presidences charge of the revolution of those eight sphaeres do keepe preserve and mainteine the harmony and consonance aswell betweene the wandering planets and fixed starres as also of themselves one to another and that one which hath the superintendence of that space betweene the moone and the earth and converseth with mortall and temporall thinges bringeth in and infuseth among them by the meanes of her speech and song so farre forth as they be capable by nature and apt to receive the same the perswasive facultie of the Graces of musicall measures and harmonie which facultie is very cooperative with civile policie and humane societie in dulsing and apeasing that which is turbulent extravagant and wandering in us reducing it gently into the right way from blind by-pathes and errors and there setleth it but according to Pyndarus Whom Iupiter from heaven above Vouchsafeth not his gracious love Amaz'd they be and flie for feare When they the voice of Muses heare Whereto when Ammonius had given acclamation alluding as his maner was unto the verse of Xenophanes in this wise These things doe cary good credence And to the trueth have reference and withall mooved us every one to opine and deliver his advice I my selfe after some little pause and silence began thus to say That as Plato himselfe by the etymologie of names as it were by traces thought to finde out the properties and powers of the gods even so let us likewise place in heaven over celestial things one of the Muses which seemeth of the heaven to to be called Urania Certes it standeth to great reason that these heavenly bodies require not much variety of governmēt for that they have but one simple cause which is nature but whereas there be many errors many enormities trespasses thither we must transfer those eight one for to correct one sort of faults and disorders and another for to amende reforme another and for that of our life one part is bestowed in serious grave affaires and another in sport game throughout the whole course thereof it hath need of a moderate temperature musicall consent that which in us is grave serious shall be ruled and conducted by Calliope Clio and Thalia being our guides in the skill and speculation as touching gods and goddesses as for the other Muses their office and charge is to support and hold up that which is inclined and prone to pleasure plaie and disport not to suffer it through weaknesse and imbecillity to runne headlong into loosnesse and bestiality but to keepe in represse and hold it in good and decent order with dauncing singing and playing such as hath their measures and is tempered with harmonie reason and proportion For mine owne part considering that Plato admitteth and setteth downe in every one two principles and causes of all our actions the one inbred and naturall to wit a desire and inclination to pleasures the other comming from without foorth to wit an opinion which covereth the best insomuch as the one he calleth sometime Reason and the other Passion and seeing that either of these againe admitteth distinct differences I see certainly that both of them require a great government and in verie
maner of Gods service and worship declare the same unto us after three sorts the first naturall the second fabulous and the third civill that is to say restified by the statutes and ordinances of every city and State the naturall is taught by philosophers the fabulous by poets the civill and legall by the customes of ech citie but all this doctrine and maner of teaching is divided into seven sorts the first consisteth in the celestiall bodies appearing aloft in heaven for men had an apprehension of God by starres that shew above seeing how they are the causes of great symphonie and accord and that they keepe a certeine constant order of day and night of Winter and Summer of rising and setting yea and among those living creatures and fruits which the earth beneath bringeth forth whereupon it hath bene thought that heaven was the father and earth the mother to these for that the powring downe of showers and raine seemed in stead of naturall seeds and the earth as a mother to conceive and bring the same forth Men also seeing and considering the starres alwaies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say holding on their course and that they were the cause that we did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say beholde and contemplate therefore they called the sunne and moone c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say gods of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say to run and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say to behold Now they range the gods into a second and third degree namely by dividing them into those that be prositable and such as are hurtfull calling the good and profitable Jupiter Juno Mercurie and Ceres but the noisome and hurtfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say maligne spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say furies and Ares that is to say Mars whom they detested as badde and violent yea and devised meanes to appease and qualifie their wrath Moreover the fourth and fifth place and degree they attributed unto affaires passions and affections namely love Venus lust or desire and as for affaires they had hope justice good policie and equitie In the sixth place be those whom the poets have fained for 〈◊〉 being minded to set downe a father for the gods begotten and engendred devised and brought in such progenitors as these To wit 〈◊〉 Ceus and Crius Hyperion and Iapetus whereupon all this kind is named Fabulous But in the seventh place are those who were adorned with divine honors in regard of the great benefits and good deeds done unto the common life of mankind although they were begotten and borne after the maner of men and such were Hercules Castor Pollux and 〈◊〉 and these they said had an humane forme for that as the most noble and excellent nature of all is that of gods so of living creatures the most beautiful is man as adorned with sundry vertues above the rest and simply the best considering the constitution of his minde and soule they thought it therefore meet and reasonable that those who had done best and performed most noble acts resembled that which was the most beautifull and excellent of all other CHAP. VII What is God SOme of the philosophers and namely Diagor as of the isle of Melos Theodorus the Cyrenaean and Euemerus of Tegea held resolutely that there were no gods And verily as touching Euemerus the poet Callimachus of Cyrene writeth covertly in Iambique verses after this maner All in a troupe into that chapell go Without the walles the city not farre fro Whereas sometime that old vain-glorious asse When as he had the image cast in brasse Of Jupiter proceeded for to write Those wicked books which shame was to indite And what books were they even those wherein he discoursed that there were no gods at all And Euripides the tragaedian poet although he durst not discover set abroad in open 〈◊〉 the same for feare of that high court and councell of Areopagus yet he signified as much in this maner for he brought in Sisyphus as the principall author of this opinion and afterwards favourizeth even that sentence of his himselfe for thus he saith The time was when the life of man was rude And as wilde beasts with reason not endu'd Disordinate when wrong was done alway As might and force in ech one bare the sway But afterwards these enormities were laied away and put downe by the bringing in of lawes howbeit for that the law was able to represse injuries and wicked deeds which were notorious and evidently seene and yet many men notwithstanding offended and sinned secretly then some wise man there was who considered and thought with himselfe that needfull it was alwaies to blindfold the trueth with some devised and forged lies yea and to perswade men that A God there is who lives immortally Who heares who sees and knowes all woondrously For away quoth he with vaine dreames and poeticall fictions together with Callimachus who saith If God thou knowest wot well his power divine All things can well performe and bring to fine For God is not able to effect all things for say there be a God let him make snow blacke fire cold him that sitteth or lieth to stand upright or the contrary at one instant and even Plato himselfe that speaketh so bigge when he saith That God created and formed the world to his owne pattern and likenesse smelleth heerein very strongly of some old dotards foolerie to speake according to the poets of the old comedie For how could hee looke upon himselfe quoth he to frame the world according to his owne similitude of how hath he made it round in manner of a globe being himselfe lower than a man ANAXAGORAS is of opinion that the first bodies in the beginning stood still and stirred not but then the minde and understanding of God digested and aranged them in order yea and effected the generations of all things in the universall world PLATO is of a contrary mind saying That those first bodies were not in repose but that they moved confusedly and without order whereupon God quoth he knowing that order was much better than disorder and confusion disposed all these things but as well the one as the other have heerein faulted in common for that they imagined and devised that God was entangled and encumbred with humane affaires as also that he framed the world in regard of man and for the care that he had of him for surely living as he doth happy immortal acomplished with all sorts of good things and wholly exempt from all evill as being altogether implored and given to prefer and mainteine his owne beatitude and immortallity he intermedleth not in the affaires and occasions of men for so he should be as unhappy and 〈◊〉 as some 〈◊〉 mason or labouring workman bearing heavie burdens travelling and sweting about the 〈◊〉 of the world Againe this god of who they
side it lieth lowest of all things in the world and by occasion thereof resteth unmooveable hauing no cause why it should encline more to one part than to another but yet some places of her because of their raritie do jogge and shake EPICURUS keepeth his old tune saying it may well be that the earth being shogged and as it were rocked and beaten by the aire underneath which is grosse and of the nature of water therefore mooveth and quaketh As also it may be quoth he that being holow and full of holes in the parts below it is forced to tremble and shake by the aire that is gotten within the caves and concavities and there enclosed CHAP. XVI Of the Sea how it was made and commeth to be bitter ANAXIMANDER affirmeth that the Sea is a residue remaining of the primitive humidity whereof the Sunne hauing burnt up and consumed a great part the rest behind he altered and turned from the naturall kind by his excessive ardent heat ANAXAGORAS is of opinion that the said first humiditie being diffused and spred abroad in manner of a poole or great meere was burnt by the motion of the sunne about it and when the oileous substance thereof was exhaled and consumed the rest setled below and turned into a brackish and bitter-saltnesse which is the Sea EMPEDOCLES saith that the Sea is the sweat of the earth enchafed by the sunne being bathed and washed all over aloft ANTISTON thinketh it to be the sweat of heat the moisture whereof which was within being by much seething and boiling sent out becommeth salt a thing ordinary in all sweats METRODORUS supposeth the Sea to be that moisture which running thorough the earth reteined some part of the densitie thereof like as that which passeth through ashes The disciples of PLATO imagine that so much of the elementarie water which is congealed of the aire by refrigeration is sweet and fresh but whatsoever did evaporate by burning and inflammation became salt CHAP. XVII Of the Tides to wit the ebbing and flowing of the sea what is the cause thereof ARISTOTLE and HERACLITUS affirme that it is the sunne which doth it as who stirreth raiseth and carieth about with him the most part of the windes which comming to blow upon the Ocean cause the Atlanticke sea to swell and so make the flux or high water but when the same are allaied and cleane downe the sea falleth low and so causeth a reflux and ebbe or low water PYTHEAS of Marseils referreth the cause of Flowing to the full moone and of Ebbing to the moone in the wane PLATO attributeth all to a certeine rising of the waters saying There is such an elevation that through the mouth of a cave carieth the Ebbe and Flow to and fro by the meanes whereof the seas doe rise and flow contrarily TIMAEUS alledgeth the cause hereof to be the rivers which falling from the mountaines in Gaule enter into the Atlantique sea which by their violent corruptions driving before them the water of the sea cause the Flow and by their ceasing and returne backe by times the Ebbe SELEUCUS the Mathematician who affirmed also that the earth mooved saith that the motion thereof is opposit and contrary to that of the moone also that the winde being driven to and fro by these two contrary revolutions bloweth and beateth upon the Atlanticke ocean troubleth the sea also and no marvell according as it is disquieted it selfe CHAP. XVIII Of the round circle called Halo THis Halo is made after this manner betweene the body of the moone or any other starre and our eie-sight there gathereth a grosse and mistie aire by which aire anon our sight commeth to be reflected and diffused and afterwards the same incurreth upon the said starre according to the exterior circumference thereof and thereupon appeereth a circle round about the starre which being there seene is called Halo for that it seemeth that the apparent impression is close unto that upon which our sight so enlarged as is before said doth fall THE FOURTH BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme HAving runne through the generall parts of the world I will now passe unto the particulars CHAP. I. Of the rising and inundation of Nilus THALES thinketh that the anniversarie windes called Etcsiae blowing directly against Aegypt cause the water of Nilus to swell for that the sea being driven by these windes entreth within the mouth of the said river and hindereth it that it cannot discharge it selfe freely into the sea but is repulsed backward EUTHYMENES of Marseils supposeth that this river is filled with the water of the ocean and the great sea lying without the continent which he imagineth to be fresh and sweet ANAXAGORAS saith that this hapneth by the snowe in Aethiopia which melteth in summer and is congealed and frozen in winter DEMOCRITUS is of opinion that it is long of the snowe in the north parts which about the aestival solstice and returne of the sunne being dissolved and dilated breedeth vapors and of them be engendred clouds which being driven by the Etesian windes into Aethiopia and Aegypt toward the south cause great and violent raines wherewith both lakes and the river also Nilus be filled HERODOTUS the Historian writeth that this river hath as much water from his sources and springs in winter as in summer but to us it seemeth lesse in winter because the sunne being then neerer unto Aegypt causeth the said water to evaporate EPHORUS the Historiographer reporteth that all Aegypt doth resolve and runne at it were wholly into swet in summer time whereunto Arabia and Libya doe conferre and contribute also their waters for that the earth there is light and sandy EUDOXUS saith that the priests of Aegypt assigne the cause hereof to the great raines and the Antiperistasis or contrarie occurse of seasons for that when it is Summer with us who inhabit within the Zone toward the Summer Tropicke it is Winter with those who dwell in the opposit Zone under the Winter Tropicke whereupon saith he proceedeth this great inundation of waters breaking downe unto the river Nilus CHAP. II. Of the Soule THALES was the first that defined the Soule to be a nature moving alwaies or having motion of it selfe PYTHAGORAS saith it is a certeine number moving it selfe and this number he taketh for intelligence or understanding PLATO supposeth it to be an intellectuall substance mooving it selfe and that according to harmonicall number ARISTOTLE is of opinion that it is the first Entelechia or primitive act of a naturall and organicall bodie having life potentially DICEARCHUS thinketh it to be the harmonie and concordance of the foure elements ASCLEPIADES the Physician defineth it to be an exercise in common of all the senses together CHAP. III. Whether the Soule be a body and what is the substance of it ALl these Philsosophers before rehearsed suppose that the Soule is incorporall that of the owne nature it mooveth and is a spirituall substance and the action of a
apart and by it selfe unlesse some aire or fire be tempered with it whereas every sense findeth benefit of fire as of a vivificant power and quickening vertue and principally our sight above the rest which is the quickest of all the senses in the bodie as being the very flame of fire a thing that conformeth us in our faith and beliefe of the gods and as Plato saith by the meanes of our sight we are able to conforme our soule to the motions of celestiall bodies OF THE PRIMITIVE OR FIRST COLD The Summarie WE have heere another declaration of Plutarch wherein he examineth and discusseth after the maner of the Academicke philosophers without deciding or determining any thing a naturall question as touching Primitive colde And in the very first entrie thereof refuteth those who are of opinion that this first colde is the privation of heat shewing on the contrary side that it is meere opposite unto heat as one substance to another and not as privation unto habitude Then proceedeth he to dispute of the essence nature and fountaine of this colde for the cleering of which point he examineth at large three opinions the first of the Stoicks who attribute the primitive colde unto aire the second of Empedocles and Chrysippus who ascribe the cause thereof unto water Unto all their reasons and arguments he maketh answer and inclineth to a third opinion namely that earth is that primitive colde Which position he confirmeth by divers arguments yet resolveth he not but leaveth it to the discretion of Phavorinus unto whom he writeth for to conferre all the reasons of the one part and the other without resting in any particular opinion supposing that to suspend and hold his judgement in matters obscure and uncertaine is the wiser part of a philosopher than to yeeld and grant his consent either to one part or the other Wherein we may see that in regard of naturall philosophie our authour was of the Academicks sect but as touching the morall part we have seene before and specially in divers treatises of the former 〈◊〉 that he followeth of all the ancient philosophers those who were least impure and corrupt such I meane as in all their discourses had no other light to direct them but Nature OF THE PRIMITIVE OR first colde IS there then Ô Phavorinus a certaine primitive power and substance of cold like as fire is of heat by the presence and participation whereof ech one of the other things is said to be cold or rather are we to hold and say that cold is the privation of heat like as darknes of light and station of mooving and namely considering that cold is stationarie and heat motive and the cooling of things which were hot is not done by the entrance of any cold power but by the departure of heat for as soone as it is once gone that which remaineth is altogether cooled and the verie vapour and steim which seething waters doe yeeld passeth away together with the heat which is the reason that refrigeration diminisheth the quantitie therof in as much as it chaseth that heat which was without the entrance of any other thing into the place Or rather may not this opinion be suspected first and formost for that it overthroweth and taketh away many powers and puissances as if they were not qualities and habitudes really subsisting but onely the privations and extinctions of qualities and habitudes as for example heavinesse of lightnesse hardnesse of softnesse blacke of white bitter of sweete and so of other semblable things according as ech one is in puissance contrarie unto an other and not as privation is opposite unto habit Moreover for as much as everie privation is idle and wholy without action as blindnesse deafnesse silence and death for that these bee the departures of formes and the abolitions of substances and not certaine natures nor reall substances apart by themselves We see that cold after it be entred and imprinted as it were within the bodie breedeth no fewer nor lesse accidents alterations than doth heat considering that many things become stiffe and congealed by cold many things I say are staied retained and thickened by the meanes thereof which consistence and stabilitie unapt to stirre and hard to bee moved is not therefore idle but it is weightie and firme having a force and power to arrest and to hold in And therefore privation is a defect and departure of a contrarie power whereas many things be cooled although they have plentie of heat within and some things there be which cold doth constraine and constipate so much the more as it findeth them hotter like as we may observe in iron red hot when by quenching it becommeth the harder And the stoicke philosophers doe hold that the naturall spirits enclosed within the bodies of yoong infants lying in the wombe by the cold of the ambient aire environing them about is hardened as it were and refined and so changing the nature becommeth a soule But this is a nice point and verie disputable yet considering that we see cold to be the efficient cause of many other effects there is no reason to thinke that it is a privation Furthermore privation is not capable of more or lesse for so of twaine that see not at all the one is not more blind than the other and of two who cannot speake one is not more dombe than another neither of twaine who live not is one more dead than the other but among cold things we may well admit more lesse overmuch and not overmuch and generally intensions and remissions like as in those things that are hot and therefore ech matter according as it suffreth more or lesse by contrarie 〈◊〉 produceth of it selfe some substances cold and hot more or lesse than others for mixture and composition there can be none of habitude with privation neither is there any power which receiveth or admitteth the contrary unto it to bring a privation nor ever maketh it her companion but yeeldeth and giveth place unto it But contrariwise cold continueth very well as it is mixed with heat unto a certeine degree like as blacke with white colours base notes with small and shrill sweet savours with tart austere and by this association mixture accord of colours sounds drogues savours and tasts there are produced many compositions exceeding pleasant and delectable for the opposition which is betweene habitude and privation is alwaies a oddes and enmity without any meanes of reconciliation considering that the essence and 〈◊〉 of the one is the destruction of the other whereas that fight which is occasioned by contrary powers if it meet with fit time and season serveth oftentimes in good stead unto arts and to nature much more as well in other productions and procreations as in changes and alterations of the aire for in the orderly governance and rule whereof God who dispenseth and disposeth them is called Harmonicall and Musicall not in regard that he maketh a
because the aire is not able to pierce and enter so low but as much as it can take holde of with the colde either in touching or approching neere unto it so much it frizeth and congealeth And this is the reason that Barbarians when they are to passe great rivers frozen over with ice send out foxes before the for if the ice be not thicke but superficiall the foxes hearing the noise of the water running underneath returne backe againe Some also that are disposed to fish do thaw and open the ice with casting hot water upon it and so let downe their lines at the hole for then will the fishes come to the bait and bite Thus it appeareth that the bottome of the river is not frozen although the upper face thereof stand all over with an ice and that so strong that the water thereby drawen and driven in so hard is able to crush and breake the boats and vessels within it according as they make credible relation unto us who now doe winter upon the river Donow with the emperour And yet without all these farre-fet examples the very experiments that we finde in our owne bodies doe testifie no lesse for after much bathing or sweating alwaies we are more colde and chill for that our bodies being then open and resolved we receive at the pores cold together with aire in more abundance The same befalleth unto water it selfe which both sooner cooleth and groweth also colder after it hath beene once made hot for then more subject it is to the injurie of the aire considering also that even they who fling and cast up scalding water into the aire do it for no other purpose but to mingle it with much aire The opinion then of him ô Phavorinus who assigneth the first cause of cold unto aire is founded upon such reasons and probabilities as these As for him who ascribeth it unto water he laieth his ground likewise upon such principles for in this maner writeth Empedocles Beholde the Sunne how bright alwaies and hot he is beside But 〈◊〉 is ever blacke and darke and colde on every side For in opposing cold to heat as blacknesse unto brightnesse he giveth us occasion to collect and inferre that as heat and brightnesse belong to one and the same substance even so cold and blacknesse to another Now that the blacke hew proceedeth not from aire but from water the very experience of our outward senses is able to proove for nothing waxeth blacke in the aire but every thing in the water Do but cast into the water and drench therein a locke of wooll or peece of cloth be it never so white you shal when you take it foorth againe see it looke blackish and so will it continue untill by heat the moisture be fully sucked up and dried or that by the presse or some waights it be squeized out Marke the earth when there falleth a showre of raine how every place whereupon the drops fall seemes blacke and all the rest beside retaineth the same colour that it had before And even water it selfe the deeper that it is the blacker hew it hath because there is morequantity of it but contrariwise what part soever thereof is neere unto aire the same by and by is lightsome and cheerefull to the eie Consider among other liquid substances how oile is most transparent as wherein there is most aire for proofe wherof see how light it is and this is it which causeth it to swim above all other liquors as being carried aloft by the meanes of aire And that which more is it maketh a calme in the sea when it is flung and sprinkled upon the waves not in regard of the slipery smoothnesse whereby the windes do glide over it and will take no hold according as Aristotle saith but for that the waves being beaten with any humor whatsoever will spred themselves and ly even and principally by the meanes of oile which hath this speciall and peculiar property above all other liquors that it maketh clere and giveth meanes to see in the bottome of the waters for that humidity openeth and cleaveth when aire comes in place and not onely yeeldeth a cleere light within the sea to Divers who fish-ebb in the night for spunges and plucke them from the rocks whereto they cleave but also in the deepest holes thereof when they spurt it out of their mouths the aire then is no blacker than the water but lesse colde for triall heerof looke but upon oile which of all liquors having most aire in it is nothing cold at all and if it frize at all it is but gently by reason that the aire incorporate within it will not suffer it to gather and congeale hard marke worke-men also and artisanes how they doe not dippe and keepe their needles buckles and claspes or other such things made of iron in water but in oile for feare left the excessive colde of the water would marre and spoile them quite I stand the more heereupon because I thinke it more meet to debate this disputation by such proofes rather than by the colours considering that snowe haile and ice are exceeding white and cleere and withall most colde contrariwise pitch is hotter than hony and yet you see it is more darke and duskish And heere I cannot chuse but woonder at those who would needs have the aire to be colde because forsooth it is darke as also that they consider not how others take and judge it hot because it is light for tenebrositie and darknesse be not so familiar and neere cousens unto colde as ponderositie and unweldinesse be proper thereto for many things there be altogether void of heat which notwithstanding are bright and cleere but there is no colde thing light and nimble or mounting upward for clouds the more they stand upon the nature of the aire the higher they are caried and flie aloft but no sooner resolve they into a liquid nature and substance but incontinently they fall and loose their lightnesse and agilitie no lesse than their heat when colde is engendred in them contrariwise when heat commeth in place they change their motion againe to the contrary and their substance mounteth upward so soone as it is converted into aire Neither is that supposition true as touching corruption for every thing that perisheth is not transmuted into the contrary but the trueth is all things are killed and die by their contrary for so fire being quenched by fire turneth into aire And to this purpose Aeschylus the poet said truely although tragically when hee called water the punishment of fire for these be his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The water stay which fire doth stay And Homer in a certaine battell opposed Vulcane to the river and with Neptune matched Apollo not so much by way of fabulous fiction as by physicall and naturall reason and as for 〈◊〉 a wicked woman who meant cleane contrary to that which she said and shewed wrote elegantly in this wise The
wit the skill of measures then afterwards to Astrologie which is the knowledge of the stars in the highest place above all the rest setteth Harmonicae which is the skill of sounds and accords for the subject of Geometrie is this when as to quantity in generall there is adjoined magnitude in length bredth of Stereometrie when to the magnitude of length and bredth there is added depth or profunditie Likewise the proper subject of Astrology is this when to the solid magnitude there cōmeth motion The subject of harmony or musick when to a bodie moving there is adjoined sound or voice If we subtract then and take away from moving bodies voice from solid bodies motion from superficies depth and profundity and from quantities magnitude we shall come by this time to the intelligible Ideae which have no difference among them in regard of one and sole thing for unitie maketh no number unlesse it come once to touch binarie or two which is infinite but in this wise having produced a number it proceedeth to points and pricks from pricks to lines and so forth from lines to superficies from superficies to profundities from thence to bodies and so forward to the qualities of bodies subject to passions and alrerations Moreover of intellectuall things there is no other judge but the understanding or the mind for cogitation or intelligence is no other thing but the understanding so long as it is applied unto Mathematicals wherein things intellectuall appeare as within mirrours whereas for the knowledge of bodies by reason of their great number nature hath given unto us five powers and faculties of severall and different senses for to judge withall and yet sufficient they are not to discover all objects for many there be of them so small that they can not be perceived by the senses And like as although every one of us being composed of soule and bodie yet that principall part which is our spirit and understanding is a very small thing hidden and inclosed within a great masse of flesh even so very like it is that there is the same proportion within the universall world betweene things sensible and intellectuall for the intellectuall are the beginning of corporall now that which proceedeth from a beginning is alwaies in number more and in magnitude greater than the said beginning But on the contrary a man may reason thus and say First and formost that in comparing sensible and corporall things with intellectuall we doe in some sort make mortall things equall with devine for God is to be reckened among intellectuals Now this is to be granted that the content is alwaies lesse then the continent but the nature of the universall world within the intellectuall comprehendeth the sensible For God having set the soule in the midst hath spred and stretched it through all within and yet without forth hath covered all bodies with it As for the soule it is invisible yea and inperceptible to all the naturall senses according as he hath written in his booke of lawes and therefore every one of us is corruptible but the world shall never perish for that in each of us that which is mortall and subject to dissolution containeth within it the power which is vitall but in the world it is cleane contrary for the principall puissance and nature which is ever after one sort immutable and doth alwaies preserve the corporall part which it containeth and imbraceth within it selfe Besides in a bodily nature and corporall a thing is called individuall and importible for the smallnesse therof to wit when it is so little that it cannot be devided but in the spirituall and incorporall it is so called for the simplicity sincerity purity thereof as being exempt from all multiplicity diversity for otherwise folly it were to cast a guesse at spirituall things by corporal Furthermore the very present time which we call Now is said to be inpartible and indivisible howbeit instant together it is every where neither is their any part of this habitable world without it but all passions all actions all corruptions generations throughout the world are comprised in this very present Now. Now the onely instrument to judge of things intellectuall is the understanding like as the eie of light which for simplicity is uniforme every way like unto it selfe but bodies having many diversities differences are comprehended by divers instruments judged some by this and others by that And yet some there be who unwoorthily disesteeme and contemne the intellectuall puissance and spirituall which is in us for in truth being goodly and great it surmounteth every sensible thing and reacheth up as farre as to the gods But that which of all others is most himselfe in his booke entituled Symposium teaching how to use love and love matters in withdrawing the soule from the affection of beauties corporall and applying the same to those which are intellectuall exhorteth us not to subject and inthrall our selves into the lovely beauty of any body nor of one study and science but by erecting and lifting up our mindes aloft from such base objects to turne unto that vast ocean indeed of pulcritude and beauty which is vertue 3 How commeth it to passe that considering he affirmeth evermore the soule to be more ancient than the body as the very cause of the generation of it and the beginning likewise thereof yea contrariwise he saith that the soule was never without the bodie nor the understanding without the soule and that of necessitie the soule must be within the bodie and the understanding in the soule for it seemeth that heere in there is some contradiction namely that the body both is and is not in case it be true that it is together with the soule and yet neverthelesse ingendred by the soule IS it because that is true which we oftentimes doe say namely that the soule without understanding and the body without forme have alwaies beene together neither the one nor the other had ever commensment of being nor beginning of generation but when the soule came to have participation of understanding and of harmonie and became to be wise by the meanes of consonance and accord then caused she mutation in matter and being more powerfull and strong in her owne motions drew and turned into her the motions of the other and even so the bodies of the world had the first generation from the soule whereby it was shaped and made uniforme For the soule of her selfe brought not foorth the nature of a body nor created it of nothing but of a body without all order and forme whatsoever he made it orderly and very obeisant as if one said that the force of a seed or kernell is alwaies with the bodie but yet neverthelesse the body of the sig tree or olive tree is engendred of the seed or kernell he should not speake contrarieties for the very body it selfe being mooved and altered by the seed
like as what is done by nature must needs succeed and come after nature Semblably what is done by fatall destiny is after fatall destiny of necessity must be more new moderne and therfore the supreme providence is the ancientest of all excepting him alone whose intelligence it is or wil or both twaine together to wit the sovereigne authour creatour maker and father of all things And for what cause is it saith Timaeus that he hath made framed this fabricke of the world for that he is all good and in him being all good there can not be imprinted or engendred any envie but seeing he is altogether void and free from it his will was that as much as possibly might be all things should resemble himselfe He then who shall receive and admit this for the most principall and and proper originall of the generation and creation of the world such as wise men have delivered unto us by writing is in the right way and doeth very well For God willing that all things should be good and nothing at all to his power evill tooke all that was visible restlesse as it was and mooving still rashly confusedly irregularly and without order which he brought out of confusion and ranged into order judging this to be every way farre better than the other for neither it was nor is convenient and meet for him who is himselfe right good to make any thing that should not be most excellent and beautifull Thus therefore we are to esteeme that providence I meane that which is principall and soveraigne hath constituted and ordeined these things first and then in order such as ensue and depend thereof even as farre as to the soules of men Afterwards having thus created the universall world hee ordeined eight sphaeres answering in number to so many principall starres and distributed to every one of them a severall soule all which he set ech one as it were within a chariot over the nature of the whole shewing unto them the lawes and ordinances of Fatall destiny *** What is he then who will not beleeve that by these words he plainly sheweth and declareth Fatall destiny and the same to be as one would say a tribunall yea a politicke constitution of civill lawes meet and agreeable to the soules of men whereof afterwards he rendreth a reason And as touching the second providence he doeth after a sort expresly signifie the same in these words saying Having therefore prescribed all these lawes unto them to the end that if afterwards there should be any default he might be exempted from all cause of evill he spred and sowed some upon the earth others about the moone and some againe upon other organs and instruments of time after which distribution he gave commandement and charge to the yoong gods for to frame and create mortall bodies as also to make up and finish that which remained and was wanting in mans soule and when they had made perfect all that was adhaerent and consequent thereto then to rule and governe after the best and wisest maner possible this mortall creature to the end that it selfe should not be the cause of the owne evils and miseries for in these words where it is said That he might be exempt and not the cause of any evill ensuing afterwards he sheweth cleerely and evidently to every one the cause of Fatall destiny The order also and office of these petie-gods declareth unto us the second providence yea and it seemeth that in some sort it toucheth by the way the third providence in case it be so that for this purpose these lawes and ordinances were established because he might not be blamed or accused as the author of any evill in any one afterwards for God himselfe being cleere exempt from all evill neither hath need of lawes nor requireth any Fatall destiny but ech one of these petie-gods led and haled by the providence of him who hath engendred them doth their owne devoir and office belonging unto them That this is true and the very minde and opinion of Plato appeereth manifestly in my conceit by the testimonie of those words which are reported by the law-giver in his books of lawes in this maner If there were any man quoth he so by nature sufficient or by divine fortune so happily borne that he could be able to comprehend this he should require no lawes to command him for no law there is nor ordinance of more woorth and puissance than is knowledge and science neither can he possibly be a servile slave or subject to any who is truely and indeed free by nature but he ought to command all For mine owne part thus I understand and interpret the sentence of Plato For whereas there is a triple providence the first as that which hath engendred Fatall destiny in some sort comprehendeth it the second being engendred with it is likewise wholly comprised in it the third engendred after Fatal destiny is comprised under it in that maner as That which is in us and fortune as we have already said for those whom the assistance of the power of our Daemon doth aid according as Socrates saith expoūding unto Theages what is the inevitable ordinance of Adrastia these I say are those whom you understand well enough for they grow and come forward quickly with speed so as where it is said that a Daemon or angell doth favour any it must be referred to the third providence but that suddenly they grow and come to proofe it is by the power of Fatall destiny And to be short it is very plaine and evident that even this also is a kinde of destiny And peradventure it may seeme much more probable that even the second providence is comprehended under destiny yea and in summe all things whatsoever be made or done considering that destiny according to the substance thereof hath bene rightly divided by us into three parts And verily that speech as touching the chaine and concatenation comprehendeth the revolutions of the heavens in the number and raunge of those things which happen by supposition but verily of these points I will not debate much to wit whether we are to call them Hapning by supposition or rather conjunct unto destiny considering that the precedent cause and commander of destiny it selfe is also fatall And thus to speake summarily and by way of abridgement is our opinion but the contrary sentence unto this ordeineth all things to be not onely under destiny but also according to destiny and by it Now all things accord unto the other and that which accordeth to another the same must be gran-to be the other according then to this opinion contingent is said to be the first that which is in us the second fortune the third accident or casuall chance and adventure the fourth together with all that dependeth thereupon to wit praise blame and those of the same kinde the fifth and last of all may bee said to be the praiers unto the
the world whereby all things are governed How is it possible then that these two positions should subsist together namely that God is in no wise the cause of any dishonest thing and that there is nothing in the world be it never so little that is done but by common nature and according to the reason thereof For surely among all those things that are done necessarily there must be things dishonest and yet Epicurus turneth and windeth himselfe on every side imagining and devising all the subtill shifts that he can to unloose set free and deliver our voluntary free will from this motion eternall because he would not leave vice excuseable without just reprehension whereas in the meane while he openeth a wide window unto it and giveth it libertie to plead That committed it is not onely by the necessitie of destiny but also by the reason of God and according to the best nature that is And thus much also moreover is to be seene written word forword For considering that common nature reacheth unto al causes it cannot otherwise be but all that is done howsoever and in what part soever of the world must be according to this common nature and the reason thereof by a certeine stint of consequence without impeachment for that there is nothing without that can impeach the administration thereof neither mooveth any part or is disposed in habitude otherwise than according to that common nature But what habitudes and motions of the parts are these Certeine it is that the habitudes be the vices and maladies of the minds as covetousnesse lecherie ambition cowardise and injustice as for the motions they be the acts proceeding from thence as adulteries thefts treasons manslaughters murders and parricides Chrysippus now is of opinion That none of all these be they little or great is done without the reason of Jupiter or against law justice and providence insomuch as to breake law is not against law to wrong another is not against justice nor to commit sinne against providence And yet he affirmeth that God punisheth vice and doth many things for the punishment of the wicked As for example in the second booke of the gods Otherwhiles there happen quoth he unto good men grievous calamities not by way of punishment as to the wicked but by another kinde of oeconomy and disposition like as it falleth out usually unto cities Againe in these words First we are to understand evill things and calamities as we have said heeretofore then to thinke that distributed they are according to the reason and dispose of Jupiter either by way of punishment or else by some other oeconomie of the whole world Now surely this is a doctrine hard to bee digested namely that vice being wrought by the disposition and reason of God is also punished thereby howbeit this contradiction he doeth still aggravate and extend in the second booke of Nature writing thus But vice in regard of grievous accidents hath a certeine peculiar reason by it selfe for after a sort it is committed by the common reason of nature and as I may so say not unprofitably in respect of the universall world for otherwise than so there were no good things at all and then proceeding to reproove those who dispute pro contra and discourse indifferently on both parts he I meane who upon an ardent desire tobroch alwaies and in every matter some novelties exquisite singularities above all other saith It is not unprofitable to cut purses to play the sycophants or commit loose dissolute and mad parts no more than it is incommodious that there should be unprofitable members hurtfull and wretched persons which if it be so what maner of god is Jupiter I meane him of whom Chrysippus speaketh in case I say he punish a thing which neither commeth of it selfe nor unprofitably for vice according to the reason of Chrysippus were altogether irreprehensible and Jupiter to be blamed if either he caused vice as a thing unprofitable or punished it when he had made it not unprofitably Moreover in the first booke of Justice speaking of the gods that they oppose themselves against the iniquities of some But wholly quoth he to cut off all vice is neither possible nor expedient is it if it were possible to take away all injustice all transgression of lawes and all folly But how true this is it perteineth not to this present treatise for to enquire and discourse But himselfe taking away and rooting up all vice as much as lay in him by the meanes of philosophy which to extirpe was neither good nor expedient doeth heerein that which is repugnant both to reason and also to God Furthermore in saying that there be certeine sinnes and iniquities against which the gods doe oppose themselves he giveth covertly to understand that there is some oddes and inequality in sinnes Over and besides having written in many places that there is nothing in the world to be blamed nor that can be complained of for that all things are made and finished by a most singular and excellent nature there be contrariwise sundry places wherein hee leaveth and alloweth unto us certeine negligences reprooveable and those not in small and trifling matters That this is true it may appeere in his third book of Substance where having made mention that such like negligences might befal unto good honest men Commeth this to passe quoth he because there be some things where of there is no reckoning made like as in great houses there must needs be scattered and lost by the way some bran yea and some few graines of wheat although in generality the whole besides is well enough ruled and governed or is it because there be some evill and malignant spirits as superintendents over such things wherein certeinly such negligences are committted the same reprehensible and he saith moreover that there is much necessitie intermingled among But I meane not hereupon to stand nor to discourse at large but to let passe what vanity there was in him to compare the accidents which befell to some good and vertuous persons as for example the condemnation of Socrates the burning of Pythagoras quicke by the Cylonians the dolorous torments that Zeno endured under the tyrant Demylus or those which Antiphon suffred at the hands of Dionysius when they were by them put to death unto the brans that be spilt and lost in great mens houses But that there should bee such wicked spirits deputed by the divine providence to have the charge of such things must needs redound to the great reproach of God as if he were some unwise king who committed the government of his provinces unto evill captaines and rash headed lieutenants suffering them to abuse and wrong his best affected subjects and winking at their rechlesse negligence having no care or regard at all of them Againe if it be so that there is much necessity and constraint mingled among the affaires of this world then is not God the
〈◊〉 that is to say the protectour of plants another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the president of physicke and divination meane while neither is health simply good nor generation ne yet fertilitie of the ground and abundance of fruits but indifferent yea and unprofitable to those who have them The third point of the comon conception of the gods is that they differ in nothing so much from men as in felicity and vertue but according to Chrysippus they are in this respect nothing superior to men for he holdeth that for vertue Jupiter is no better than Dion also that Jupiter Dion being both of them wise doe equally and reciprocally helpe one another for this is the good that the gods doe unto men and men likewise unto the gods namely when they proove wise and prudent and not otherwise So that if a man be no lesse vertuous he is not lesse happy insomuch as he is equall unto Jupiter the saviour in felicitie though otherwise infortunate and who for grievous maladies and dolorous dismembring of his body is forced to make himselfe away and leave his life provided alwaies that he be a wise man Howbeit such an one there neither is nor ever hath bene living upon the earth whereas contrariwise infinit thousands and millions there are and have beene of miserable men and extreme infortunate under the rule and dominion of Jupiter the government administration wherof is most excellent And what can there be more against common sense than to say that Jupiter governing and dispensing all things passing well yet we should be exceeding miserable If therefore which unlawfull is once to speake Jupiter would no longer be a saviour nor a deliverer nor a protectour and surnamed thereupon Soter Lysius and Alexicacos but cleane contrary unto these goodly and beautifull denominations there can not possibly be added any more goodnesse to things that be either in number or magnitude as they say whereas all men live in the extremitie of miserie and wickednesse considering that neither vice can admit no augmentation nor misery addition and yet this is not the woorst nor greatest absurdity but mightily angry and offended they are with Menander for speaking as he did thus bravely in open theater I hold good things exceeding meane degree The greatest cause of humane miserie For this say they is against the common conception of men meane while themselves make God who is good and goodnesse it selfe to be the author of evils for matter could not verily produce any evill of it selfe being as it is without all qualities and all those differences and varieties which it hath it received of that which moved and formed it to wit reason within which giveth it a forme and shape for that it is not made to moove and shape it selfe And therefore it cannot otherwise be but that evill if it come by nothing should proceed and have being from that which is not or if it come by some mooving cause the same must be God For if they thinke that Jupiter hath no power of his owne parts nor useth ech one according to his owne proper reason they speake against common sense and doe imagine a certeine animall whereof many parts are not obeisant to his will but use their owne private actions and operations whereunto the whole never gave incitation nor began in them any motion For among those creatures which have life and soule there is none so ill framed and composed as that against the will thereof either the feet should goe forward or the tongue speake or the horne push and strike or the teeth bite whereof God of necessity must endure abide the most part if against his will evill men being parts of himselfe doe lie doe circumvent and beguile others commit burglary breake open houses to rob their neighbors or kill one another And if according as Chrysippus saith it is not possible that the least part should be have it selfe otherwise than it pleaseth Jupiter and that every living thing doeth rest stay and moove according as he leadeth manageth turneth staieth and disposeth it Now well I wot this voice of his Sounds worse and more mischcivous is For more tolerable it were by a great deale to say that ten thousand parts through the impotencie and feeblenesse of Jupiter committed many absurdities perforce even against his nature and will than to avouch that there is no intemperance no deceit and wickednesse where of Jupiter is not the cause Moreover seeing that the world by their saying is a city and the Sarres citizens if it be so there must be also tribes and magistracies yea and plaine it is that the Sunne must be a Senatour yea the evenning starre some provost major or governor of the city And I wot not wel whether he who taketh in hand to confute such things can broch and set abroad other greater absurdities in naturall matters than those doe who deliver and pronounce these doctrines Is not this a position against common sense to affirme that the seed should be greater and more than that which is engendred of it For we see verily that nature in all living creatures and plants even those that be of a wilde and savage kinde taketh very small and slender matters such as hardly can be seene for the beginning the generation of most great and huge bodies For not onely of a graine or corne of wheat it produceth a stalke with an eare and of a little grape stone it bringeth forth a vine tree but also of a pepin kernill akorne or bery escaped and fallen by chance from a bird as if of some sparkle it kindled and set on fire generation it sendeth forth the stocke of some bush or thorne or else a tall and mighty body of an oake a date or pine tree And hereupon it is that genetall seed is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke as one would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the enfolding and wrapping together of a great masse into a small quantity also nature taketh the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the inflation and defusion of proportions and numbers which are opened loosened under it And againe the fire which they say is the seed of the world after that generall conflagration shall change into the owne seed the world which from a smaller body and little masse is extended into a great inflation and defusion yea and moreover occupieth an infinite space of voidnesse which it filleth by his augmentation but as it is engendered that huge greatnesse retireth and setleth anon by reason that the matter is contracted and gathered into it selfe upon the generation We may heare them dispute and reade many of their books and discourses wherein they argue and crie out aloud against the Academicks for confounding all things with their Aparalaxies that is to say indistinguible identities
signified as much when he called the night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the sharpenesse at the point of the said shadow and yet the Moone as it appeareth in her ecclypses being caught and comprehended within the compasse of that shadow hath much adoo to get out of it by going forward in length thrice as much as her owne bignesse comes to Consider then how many times greater must the earth needs be than the Moone if it be so that the shadow which it casteth where it is sharpest and narrowest is thrice as much as the Moone But yee are afraid least the Moone should fall if she were avowed to the earth for it may be haply that Aeschylus hath sealed you a warrant and secured you for the earth when he said thus of Atlas He standeth like a pillar strong and sure From earth to heaven above that reacheth streight To beare on shoulders twaine he doeth endure A massie burden and unweldy weight if under the Moone there runne and be spred a light and thin aire not firme and sufficient for to susteine a solide masse whereas according to Pindarus To beare the earth there standmost putssant Columns and pillars of hard diamant And therefore Pharnaces for himselfe is out of all feare that the earth will fall mary he pittieth those who are directly and plumbe under the course of the Moone and namely the Aethiopians and those of Taprobana least so weightie a masse should tumble downe upon their heads And yet the Moone hath one good meanes and helpe to keepe her from falling to wit her very motion and violent revolution like unto those bullets or stones or whatsoever weights be put within a sling they are sure enough from slipping or falling out so long as they be violently swong and whirled about For every body is caried according to the naturall motion thereof if there be no other cause to empeach or turne it aside out of course which is the reason that the Moone mooveth not according to the motion of her poise considering the inclination thereof downward is staied and hindred by the violence of a circular revolution But peradventure more cause there were to marvel if she should stand altogether as the earth immoveable whereas now the Moone hath this great cause to empeach her for not tending downward hither As for the earth which hath no other motion at all to hinder it great reason there is that according to that onely weight of the owne it should moove downward and there settle for more heavy it is than the Moone not so much in this regard that greater it is but more for that the Moone by reason of heat and adustion of fire is made the lighter In briefe it appeareth by that which you say if it be true that the Moone be fire it hath need of earth or some other marter to rest upon and cleave 〈◊〉 for to mainteine nourish and quicken still the power that it hath for it cannot be conceived or imagined how fire should be preserved without fuell or matter combustible And you your selves affirme doe yee not that the earth abideth firme and sure without any base or piedstall to susteine and hold it up Yes verily quoth Pharnaces being in the proper and naturall place which is the very mids and center For this is it whereto all heavy and weightie things doe 〈◊〉 incline and are caried to from every side and about which they cling and be counterpeized but the upper region throughout if haply there be any terrestriall and heavy matter by violence sent up thither repelleth and casteth it downe againe with force incontinently or to speake more truely letteth it goe and fall according to the owne naturall inclination which is to tend and settle downward For the answer and refutation whereof I willing to give Luctus some reasonable time to summon his wits together and to thinke upon his reasons and calling unto Theon by name Which of the tragicall Poets was it Theon quoth I who said that Physicians Bitter medicines into the body powre When bitter choler they meane to purge and scoure And when he made me answere that it was Sophocles Well quoth I we must permit them so to doc upon necessity but we ought not to give eare unto Philosophers if they would maintaine strange paradoxes by other positions as absurd or to confute admirable opinions devise others much more extravagant and wonderfull like as these here who broch and bring in a motion forsooth tending unto a middle wherein what absurdity is there not Holde not they that the earth is as round as a ball and yet we see how many deepe profundities hautie sublimities manifold inequalities it hath affirme not they that there be antipodes dwelling opposit one unto another and those sticking as it were to the sides of the earth with their heeles upward their heads downward all arse verse like unto these woodwormes or cats which hang by their sharpe clawes Would not they have even us also that are here for to goe upon the ground not plumbe upright but bending or enclining sidelong reeling and staggering like drunken folke Doe they not tell us tales and would make us beleeve that if barres and masses of iron waighing a thousand talents a peece were let fall downe into the bottom of the earth when they came once to the middle centre thereof will stay and rest there albeit nothing els came against them nor sustained them up And if peradventure by some forcible violence they should passe beyond the said midst they would soone rebound backe thither againe of their owne accord Say not they that if a man should saw off the trunks or ends of beams on either side of the earth the same would never settle downeward still throughout but from without forth fall both into the earth and so equally meet one another and cling together about the hart or centre thereof Suppose not they that if a violent streame of water should runne downeward still into the ground when it met once with the very point or centre in the midst which they holde to be incorporall it would then gather together and turne round in maner of a whirlepoole about a pole waving to and fro there continually like one of these pendant buckets and as it hangeth wagge incessantly without end And verily some of these assertions of theirs are so absurd that no man is able to enforce himselfe to imagine in his minde although falsely that they are possible For this indeed is to make high and low all one this is to turne all upside downe that those things which become as farre as to the midst shal be thought below and under and what is under the middle shall be supposed above and aloft in such sort as that if a man by the sufferance and consent of the earth stood with his navell just against the middle and centre of it he should by this meanes have his head and his heeles both
light of the Sunne commeth to wit the Aaire the Moone and the earth we see that one of them is by him illuminate not as the aire but as the earth we must of necessity collect that those two be of one nature considering that of the same cause they suffer the same effects Now when all the companie highly commended Lucius for this disputation Passing well done of you Lucius quoth I you have to a proper discourse annexed as prety a comparison for we must give you your right and not defraud you of that which is your due With that smiled Lucius I have yet quoth he a second proportion which I will adde unto the other to the end that we may prove by demonstration that the Moone wholy resembleth the earth not only by this that she suffreth togtheer with the earth from the same cause the same accidents but also because they both doe worke the like effects upon the same object For this I am sure you will yeeld and grant unto me that of all those things which are observed about the Sunne none doe so much resemble one another as his eclips doth his setting or going downe if you will but call to minde that meeting of Sunne and Moone together which hapned of late daies and beginning immediatly after noonested caused many a starre from sundry parts of the skie to be seene and wrought such a temperature or disposition in the aire as is of the twilight evening and morning But if you will not grant me the said supposition in this our Theon here will cite and bring I trow Mimnermus Cydias Archilochus and besides them Stesichorus and Pindarus lamenting that in eclipses the world is robbed of their greatest light which they bewaile as if it were enterred saying that midnight was come at noone day and that the radiant beames of the Sunne went in the way and path of darkenesse but above all he will alledge Homer saying that in an eclips the faces and visages of men were overcast and seized upon with night and darkenesse also that the Sunne was quite lost and missing out of the heaven being in conjunction with the Moone ************** And this hapneth by a naturall cause according as Homer sheweth in this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What time as Moones their interchange begin As one goes out another commethin As for the rest in mine advise they be as certaine and doe conclude as exactly as the demonstrations of the Mathematicians to wit that as the night is the shadow of the earth so the eclipse of the Sun is the shadow of the Moone when as the sight returneth upon it selfe For the Sunne going downe is hidden from our sight by the earth and being eclipsed is likewise darkened by the Moone and both the one and the otherbe offuscations of darkenesse that of the Sunne setting by the earth and the other of the Sunne eclipsed by the Moone by the reason that the shade 〈◊〉 our sight of which premises the conclusion evidently doth follow For if the effect be like the efficients also be semblable because necessary it is that the same accidents or effects in the 〈◊〉 subject must come from the same efficient Now if the darkenesse occasioned by the eclipses be not so deepe nor affect the aire so forcibly as doth the night we are not to marvell thereat for the substance of that bodie which maketh the night and of it that 〈◊〉 the eclipse may wel be the same although the greatnesse be not equall For the Aegyptians I suppose doe hold that the Moone is in bignesse the 72. part of the earth And Anaxagoras saith it is just as big as Peloponnesus Aristarchus writeth that the overthwart line or Diamiter of the Moone in proportion to that of the earth is lesse than if 60. were compared with nineteene and somewhat more than if a hundred and eight were compared with 43 and thereby the earth bereaveth us of all sight of the Sunne so great it is For it must be a great obstacle and opposition betweene which continueth the time of a night and the Moone albeit otherwhile she hideth all the Sunne yet that ecclipse neither lasteth not so long nor is so universall for there appeareth alwaies about his circumference some light which will not permit the darknesse to be so blacke and deepe and altogether so obscure Aristotle also I meane the ancient Philosopher of that name rendring a reason why there happen ecclipses of the Moone oftener than of the Sunne among other causes brings in this for one that the Sunne is ecclipsed by the obstruction of the Moone and the Moone by that of the earth which is much greater and more spacious and so by consequence is opposed very often And Posidonius defined this accident thus The ecclipse of the Sunne quoth he is the conjunction or meeting of the Sunne and the Moone the shadow whereof doeth darken our eie-sight for there is no defect or ecclipse of the Sunnes light but unto those whose sight the shadow of the Moone hath caught and so hindreth them from seeing the Sunne Now in confessing that the shadow of the Moone reacheth downe unto us I know not what he hath left himselfe for to alledge Certes impossible it is that a starre should cast a shadow for that which is voide altogether of light is called a shadow and light maketh no shadow but contrariwise naturally riddeth it away But what arguments besides were alledged to this purpose quoth he The Moone quoth I then suffereth the same ecclipse Well done quoth he of you to reduce this into my memorie But would you have me to prosecute this disputation as if you had already granted and set downe that the Moone is subject to ecclipses when she is caught within the shadow of the earth or that for a subject and argument of some declamation and demonstration unto you I first rehearse all the arguments one after another Mary do so I pray you quoth Theon bestow your labour in such a discourse I had need verily quoth he of some perswasion having onely heard say that when these three bodies to wit the earth the Sunne and the Moone are directly in one right line then happen ecclipses for that either the earth taketh the Sunne from the Moone or the Moone taketh him from the earth for the Sunne is in defect or ecclipse when the Moone and the Moone likewise when the earth is in the mids of them three whereof the one falleth out in conjunction the other in the opposition or full Moone Then quoth Lucius these be in a maner all the principall points and the very briefe of those that which hath beene delivered but to begin withall if you thinke so good take in hand that firme argument which is drawen from the forme and figure of the shadow which indeed is a Conus or Pyramis resembling a sugar loafe with the sharpe end forward namely when a great fire or great light being round
a singular good grace his pregnant wit and quicke conceit ministreth unto him matter to contradict and to propose doubts howbeit the same is not bitter and odious in his propositions nor leavened with any overthwart frowardnesse and perverse stubburnesse in his answers in such sort as a man having beene but a little acquainted with him would soone say of him Certes a lewd man and a bad He never for his father had For you know well I suppose Diogenianus the best man one of them in the world BASILOCLES I know him not my selfe Philinus howbeit many there be who report as much of this yong man But upon what occasion or cause began your discourse and disputation PHILINUS Those who were our guides conversant and exercised in the reading of histories rehearsed and read from one end to the other all those compositions which they had written without any regard of that which we requested them namely to epitomize and abridge those narrations and most part of the Epigrams As for the stranger he tooke much pleasure to see and view those faire statues so many in number and so artificially wrought But he admired most of all the fresh brightnesse of the brasse being such as shewed no filth nor rust that it had gathered but caried the glosse and resplendent hew of azur so as he seemed to be ravished and astonied when he beheld the statues of the amirals and captaines at sea for at them he began as representing naturally in their tincture and colour as they stood sea men and sailers in the very maine deepe sea Whereupon Had the ancient workmen quoth he a certaine mixture by themselves and a temper of their brasse that might give such a tincture to their works for as touching the Corinthian brasse which is so much renowmed it is thought generally and so given out that it was by meere adventure and chaunce that it tooke this goodly colour and not by any art by occasion that the fire caught an house wherein there was laid up some little gold and silver but a great quantitie of brasse which mettals being melted together so confused one with another the whole masse thereof was stil called brasse because there was more thereof in it than of the other mettals Then Theon We have heard quoth he another reason more subtile than this namely that when a certeine brasse founder or coppersmith in Corinth had met with a casket or coffer wherein was good store of golde fearing lest hee should be discovered and this treasure found in his hands he clipped it by little and little melted and mixed it gently with his brasse which tooke thereupon such an excellent and woonderfull temperature that he solde the pieces of worke thereof made passing deere in regard of their dainty colour and lovely beauty which every man set much by and esteemed But both this and the other is but a lying tale for by all likelihood this Corinthian brasse was a certeine mixture and temperature of mettals so prepared by art like as at this day artisans by tempring gold and silver together make thereof a certeine singular and exquisite pale yellow by it selfe howbeit in mine eie the same is but a wanne and sickly colour and a corrupt hue without any beautie in the world What other cause then might there be quoth Diogenianus as you thinke that this brasse heere hath such a tincture To whom Theon made this answere Considering quoth he that of these primative elements and most naturall bodies that are and ever shall be to wit fire aire water and earth there is not one which approcheth or toucheth these brasse works but aire onely it must of necessitie be that it is the aire which doeth the deed and by reason of this aire lying alwaies close upon them and never parting therefro commeth this difference that they have from all others Or rather this is a thing notoriously knowen of old even before Theognis was borne as said the comicall Poet. But would you know by what speciall propertie and vertue the aire should by touching set such a colour upon brasse Yes very faine answered Diogenianus Certes so would I to my sonne quoth Theon let us therefore search into the thing both together in common and first of all if you please what is the cause that oile filleth it full of rust more than all other liquor whatsoever for surely it cannot be truely said that oile of it selfe setteth the said rust upon it considering it is pure and neat not polluted with any filth when it commeth to it No verily quoth the yoong man and there seemeth to be some other cause else beside the oile for the rust meeting with oile which is subtile pure and transparent appeareth most evidently whereas in all other liquors it maketh no shew nor is seene at all Well said my sonne quoth Theon and like a Philosopher but consider if you thinke so good of that reason which Aristotle alledgeth Mary that I will quoth he againe Why then I will tell it you quoth Theon Aristotle saith that the rust of brasse lighting upon other liquors pierceth insensibly and is dispersed through them being of a rare substance and unequall parts not abiding close together but by reason of the compact and fast soliditie of oile the said rust is kept in and abideth thrust and united together Now then if we also of our selves were able to presuppose such a thing we should not altogether want some meanes to charme as it were and allay somewhat this doubt of ours And when we had allowed very well of his speech and requested him to say on and prosecute the same he said That the aire in the citie of Delphos was thicke fast strong and vehement withall by reason of the reflexion and repercussion of the mountaines round about it and besides mordicative as witnesseth the speedie concoction of meat that it causeth Now this aire by reason of the subtilty and incisive qualitie thereof piercing into the brasse and cutting it forceth out of it a deale of rust and skaleth as it were much terrestrial substance from it the which it restreineth afterwards and keepeth in for that the densitie and thicknesse of the aire giveth it no issue thus this rust being staied remaining still gathering also a substance by occasion of the quantity thereof putteth foorth this floure as it were of colour and there within the superficies contracteth a resplendent and shining hew This reason of his we approoved very well but the stranger said that one of those suppositions alone was sufficient to make good the reason For that subtility quoth he seemeth to be somewhat contrary unto the spissitude and thicknesse supposed in the aire and therefore it is not necessarie to make any supposall thereof for brasse of it selfe as it waxeth old in tract of time exhaleth and putteth foorth this rust which the thicknesse of the aire comming upon keepeth in and doeth so incrassate as that through the
innumerable inclinations as it were with so many cords hath more agility than all the ingins or instruments in the world if a man hath the skill to manage and handle it with reason after it hath taken once a little motion that it may bend to that which conceived it for the beginnings of instincts and passions tend all to this intelligent and conceiving part which being stirred and shaken it draweth pulleth stretcheth and haleth the whole man Wherein we are given to understand what force and power hath the thing that is entred into the conceit and intelligence of the minde For bones are senselesse the sinewes and flesh full of humors and the whole masse of all these parts together heavie and ponderous lying still without some motions but so soone as the soule putteth somewhat into the understanding and that the same moveth the inclinations thereto it starteth up and riseth all at once and being stretched in all parts runneth a maine as if it had wings into action And so the maner of this moving direction and promptitude is not hard and much lesse impossible to comprehend whereby the soule hath no sooner understood any object but it draweth presently with it by instincts and inclinations the whole masse of the body For like as reason conceived and comprised without any voice moveth the understanding even so in mine opinion it is not such an hard matter but that a more divine intelligence and a soule more excellent should draw another inferior to it touching it from without like as one speech or reason may touch another and as light the reflection of light For we in trueth make our conceptions and cogitations knowen one to another as if we touched them in the darke by meanes of voice but the intelligences of Daemons having their light doe shine unto those who are capable thereof standing in need neither of nownes nor verbs which men use in speaking one to the other by which markes they see the images and resemblances of the conceptions and thoughts of the minde but the very intelligences cogitations indeed they know not unlesse they be such as have a singluar and divine light as we have already said and yet that which is performed by the ministery of the voice doth in some sort helpe and satisfie those who otherwise are incredulous For the aire being formed and stamped as it were by the impression of articulate sounds and become throughout all speech and voice carieth conception and intelligence into the minde of the hearer and therefore according to this similitude and reason what marvell is it if that also heater and therefore according to this similitude and reason what marvell is ti if that also which is conceived by these superior natures altereth the aire and if the aire being by reason of that quallity which it hath apt to receive impressions signifieth unto excellent men and such as have a rar and divine nature the speech of him who hath conceived ought in is minde For like as the stroks that light upon targuits or sheelds of brasse be heard a farre off when they proceed from the bottome in the mids within by reason of the resonance and rebound whereas the blowes that fall upon other sheelds are drowned and dispersed so as they be not heard at al even so the words or speeches of Daemous and spirits although they be carried and flie to the eares of all indifferently yet they resound to those onely who are of a settled and staied nature and whose soules are at quiet such as we call divine and celestiall men Now the vulgar sort have an opinion that some Daemon doth communicate a kinde of divinitie unto men in their sleepes but they thinke it strange and a miracle incredible if a man should say unto them that the gods doe move and affect them semblably when the be awake and have the full use of reason As if a man should thinke that a musician may play well upon his harpe or lute when all the strings be slacked and let downe but when the said instruments be set in tune and have their strings set up he cannot make any sound nor play well thereupon For they consider not the cause which is within them to wit their discord trouble and confusion whereof our familiar friend Socrates was exempt according as the oracle prophesied of him before which during his infancie was given unto his father for by it commanded he was to let him doe all that came into his minde and in no wise either to force or divert him but to suffer the instinct and nature of the child to have the reines at large by praying onely unto Jupiter Agoraeus that is to say eloquent and to the Muses for him and farther than so not to busie himselfe nor to take care for Socrates as if he had within him a guide and conductor of his life better than ten thousand masters and paedagogues Thus you see Philolaus what our opinion and judgement is as touching the Daemon or familiar spirit of Socrates both living and dead as who reject these voices sneesings and all such fooleries But what we have hard Timarchus of Chaeronea to discourse of this point I wot not well whether I were best to utter and relate the same for feare some would thinke that I loved to tell vaine tales Not so quoth Theocritus but I pray you be so good as to rehearse the same unto us For albeit fables doe not very well expresse the trueth yet in some sort they reach the same unto us For albeit fables doe not very well expresse the trueth yet in some sort they reach thereto But first tell us who this Timarchus was For I never knew the man And that may well be ô Simmias quoth Theocritus for he died when he was very yong and requested earnestly of Socrates to be buried nere unto Lamprocles Socrates his sonne who departed this life but few daies before being a deere friend of his and of the same age Now this yong gentleman being very desirous as he was of a generous disposition and had newly tasted the sweetnesse of Philosophy to know what was the nature and power of Socrates familiar spirit when he had imparted his mind and purpose unto me only and Cebes went downe into the cave or vault of Trophonius after the usuall sacrifices and accustomed complements due to that oracle performed where having remained two nights and one day insomuch as many men were out of all hope that ever he would come forth againe yea and his kinsfolke and frends bewailes the losse of him one morning betimes he issued forth very glad and jocand And after he had given thanks unto the god and adored him so soone as he was gotten through the presse of the multitude who expected his returne he recounted unto us many wonders strange to be heard and seene for he said that being descended into the place of the oracle he first met with much darknes
and with his dagger gave him such a stabbe as he laied him along and killed him out of hand but see the malice of Fortune there runnes me forth out of a milihouse or backhouse thereby another villaine with a pestle and comming behinde him gave him such a souse upon the very necke bone that he was astonished therewith and there lay along in a swoone having lost his sight and other senses for a time But vertue it was that assisted him which gave both unto himselfe a good heart and also unto his friends strength resolution and diligence to succour him for Limnaeus Ptolemeus and Leonnatus with as many besides as either had clambred over the walles or broken thorow came in and put themselves betweene him and his enemies they with their valour were to him in stead of a wall and rampier they for meere affection and love unto their king exposed their bodies their forces and their lives before him unto all dangers whatsoever For it is not by fortune that there be men who voluntarily present themselves to present death but it is for the love of vertue like as bees having drunke as it were the amatorious potion of naturall love and affection are alwaies about their king and sticke close unto him Now say there had beene one there without the danger of shot to have seene this sight at his pleasure would not he have said that he had beheld a notable combat of fortune against vertue wherein the Barbarians by the helpe of fortune prevailed above their desert and the Greeks by meanes of vertue resisted above their power and if the former get the better hand it would be thought the worke of fortune and of some maligne and envious spirit but if these become superior vertue fortitude faith and friendship should cary away the honour of victory for nothing els accompanied Alexander in this place As for the rest of his forces and provisions his armies his horses and his fleets fortune set the wall of this vile towne betweene him and them Well the Macedonians in the end defaited these Barbarians beat the place downe over their heads and rased it quite and buried them in the ruins and fall thereof But what good did all this to Alexander in this case Caried he might well be and that speedily away out of their hands with the arrow sticking still in his bosome but the war was yet close within his ribbes the arrow was set fast as a spike or great naile to binde as it were the cuirace to his bodie for whosoever went about to plucke it out of the wound as from the root the head would not follow withall considering it was driven so sure into that solid brest bone which is over the heart neither durst any saw off that part of the steile that was without for feare of shaking cleaving cracking the said bone by that means so much the more and by that means cause exceeding and intolerable paines besides the effusion of much bloud out of the bottome of the wound himselfe seeing his people about him a long time uncerteine what to doe set in hand to hacke the shaft a two with his dagger close to the superficies of his cuirace aforesaid and so to cut it off cleane but his hand failed him and had not strength sufficient for to do the deed for it grew heavie and benummed with the inflammation of the wound whereupon he commanded his chirurgians to set to their hands boldly and to feare nought incouraging thus hurt as he was those that were sound and unwounded chiding and rebuking some that kept a weeping about him and bemoned him others he called traitours who durst not helpe him in this distresse he cried also to his minions and familiars Let no man be timorous and cowardly for me no not though my life lie on it I shall never be thought and beleeved not to feare dying if you be affraied of my death ***************** OF ISIS AND OSIRIS The Summarie THe wisdome and learning of the Aegyptians hath bene much recommended unto us by ancient writers and not without good cause considering that Aegypt hath bene the source and fountaine from whence have flowed into the world arts and liberall sciences as a man may gather by the testimony of the first Poets and philosophers that ever were But time which consumeth all things hath bereft us of the knowledge of such wisdome or if there remaine still with us any thing at all it is but in fragments and peeces scattered heere and there whereof many times we must divine or guesse and that is all But in recompence thereof Plutarch a man carefull to preserve all goodly and great things hath by the meanes of this discourse touching Isis and Osiris maintained and kept entier a good part of the Aegyptians doctrine which he is not content to set down literally there an end but hath adjoined thereto also an interpretation thereof according to the mystical sense of the Isiake priests discovering in few words an in finit number of secrets hidden under ridiculous monstrous fables in such sort as we may cal this treatise a cōmentary of the Aegyptians Theologie and Philosophy As for the contents thereof a man may reduce it into three principall parts In the first which may serve insted of a preface he yeeldeth a reason of his enterprise upon the consideration of the rasture vesture continence and ab stinence of Isis priests there is an entrie made to the rehearsall of the fable concerning Isis Osiris But before he toucheth it he sheweth the reason why the Aegyptians have thus darkly enfolded their divinity Which done he commeth to descipher in particular the said fable relating it according to the bare letter which is the second part of this booke In the third he expoundeth the fable it selfe and first discovereth the principles of the said Aegyptian Philosophy by a sort of temples sepulchers and sacrifices Afterwards having refuted certaine contrary opinions he speaketh of Daemons ranging Isis Osiris and Typhon in the number of them After this Theologicall exposition he considereth the fable according to naturall Philosophy meaning by Osiris the river Nilus and all other power of moisture whatsoever by Typhon Drinesse and by Isis that nature which preserveth and governeth the world Where he maketh a comparison betweene Bacchus of Greece and Osiris of Aegypt applying all unto naturall causes Then expoundeth he the fable more exactly and in particular maner conferring this interpretation thereof with that of the Stoicks wherupon he doth accommodate and fit all to the course of the Moone as she groweth and decreaseth to the rising also and inundation of Nilus making of all the former opinions a certaine mixture from whence he draweth the explication of the fable By occasion hereof he entreth into a disputation as touching the principles and beginnings of all things setting downe twaine and alledging for the proofe and confirmation of his speech the testimony of
was in no lesse reputation for both the one and the other was sought unto And in that of Ptous Apollo when the priest or prophet who served in the oracle used the Aeolian language and made answer unto those who were sent thither from the Barbarians insomuch as none of the assistants understood one word this Enthusiasme or divine inspiration covertly gave thereby thus much to understand that these oracles perteined nothing unto the Barbarians neither were they permitted to have the ordinary Greeke language at their command As for that of Amphiaraus the servant who was thither sent falling a sleepe within the sanctuarie thought as he dreamed that he saw and heard the minister of the god as if with his word and voice he seemed at the first to drive him out and command him to depart foorth of the temple saying that his god was not there but afterwards to thrust him away with both his hands but in the end seeing that he staid still tooke up a great stone and therewith smot him upon the head And verily all this answered just to that which afterwards befell and was a very prediction and denunciation of a future accident for Mardonius was vanquished not by the king himselfe but by the Tutour and lieutenant of the king of Lacedaemon who at that time had the conduct and command of the Greeks armie yea and with a stone felled to the ground according as the Lydian servant aforesaid imagined in his sleepe that he was smitten with a stone There flourished likewise about the same time the Oracle of Tegyrae where the report goeth that the god Apollo himselfe was borne and verily two rivers there are that runne neere one to the other whereof the one some at this day call Phoenix that is to say the date tree the other Elaea that is to say the olive tree At this Oracle during the time of the Medes warre when the prophet Echecrates there served god Apollo answered by his mouth that the Greeks should have the honour of the victory in this warre and continue superior Also in the time of the Peloponnesiaque warre when the Delians were driven out of their Island there was brought unto them an answer from the Oracle at Delphi by vertue whereof commanded they were to search and seeke out the place where Apollo was borne and there to performe certeine sacrifices whereat when they marvelled and in great perplexity demaunded againe whether Apollo were borne any where else but among them the prophetesse Pythia added moreover said That a crow should tell them the place Whereupon these deputies who were sent unto the Oracle in their returne homeward chanced to passe through the city Chaeronea where they heard their hostesse in whose house they lodged talking with some passengers and guests who were going to Tegyrae as touching the Oracle and when they departed and tooke their leave they saluted her and bad her farewell in these termes Adieu dame Cornice for that was the womans name which signifieth as much as Crow By this meanes they understood the meaning of the forsesaid Oracle or answer of Pythia and so when they had sacrificed at Tegyrae not long after they were restored and returned into their native countrey Moreover there were other apparitions besides of Oracles more fresh and later than those which we have alledged but now they are altogether ceased so that it were not amisse considering that we are met neere unto Apollo Pythius for to enquire into the cause of this so great change alteration As we thus communed talked together we were now by this time gone out of the temple so farre as to the very gates of the Gnidian hall and when we were entred into it we found those friends of ours sitting there within whom we desired to meet withall and who attended our comming Now when all the rest were at leisure and had nothing else to doe being at such a time of the day but either to anoint their bodies or else looke upon the champions and wrestlers who there exercised themselves Demetrius after a smiling maner began and said What were I best to tell some lie Or make report of truth shall I It seemeth as farre as I can perceive that you have in hand no matter of great consequence for I saw you sitting at your ease and it appeareth by your cheerefull and pleasant looks that you have no busie thoughts hammering in your heads True it is indeed quoth Heracleo the Megarian for we are not in serious argument disputation about the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether in the Future tense it should lose one of the two comparatives neither reason we about these two comparatives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Worse and better of what Positves they should come nor of what Primitives these two Superlatives 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Worst and best be derived For these questions such like are those that make men knit and bend their browes but of all other matters we may reason and Philosophize well enough and quietly without making any furrowes in our forheads and looking with an austere and soure countenance for the matter upon the companie present with us Why then quoth Demetrius admit and receive us into your societie and together with us enterteine the question also which erewhile was moved among us being as it is meet for this place and in regard of god Apollo pertinent unto us all as many as we be but I beseech you of all loves let us have no srowning nor knitting of browes whiles we reason upon the point Now when we were set intermingled one with another and that Demetrius had propounded the foresaid question immediately Didymus the Cynique Philosopher surnamed Planetiades started up and stood upon his feete and after he had stamped with his staffe twise or thrice upon the floore cried out in this maner O God! Come you hether with this question indeed as if it were a matter so hard to be decided and had need of some long and deepe inquisition for a great marvell no doubt it is if seeing so much sinne and wickednesse is spred over the face of the whole world at this day not onely shame and just indignation or Nemesis according as Hesiodus prophesied before have abandoned mans life but also the providence of God being dislodged and carying away with it all the Oracles that be is cleane departed and gone for ever But contrariwise I will put foorth unto you another matter to be debated of namely how it comes to passe that they have not rather already given over every one and why Hercules is not come againe or some other of the gods and hath not long since plucked up and caried away the three-footed table and all being so full ordinarily of shamefull vilanous and impious demands proposed there daily to Apollo whiles some preferre matters unto him
also powre forth our praiers unto them for to have their answere from the Oracles and to what purpose I pray you if it be true that our owne soules bring with them a propheticall facultie and vertue of divination and the cause which doth excite and actuate the same be some temperature of the aire or rather of winde What meanes then the sacred institutions and creations of these religious prophetesses ordained for the pronouncing of answeres And what is the reason that they give no answere at all unlesse the host or sacrifice to be killed tremble all over even from the very feet and shake whiles the libaments effusions of halowed liquors be powred upon it For it is not enough to wag the head as other beasts doe which are slaine for sacrifice but this quaking panting and shivering must be throughout all the parts of the body and that with a trembling noise For if this be wanting they say the Oracle giveth no answere neither doe they so much as bring in the religious priestesse Pythia And yet it were probable that they should both doe and thinke thus who attribute the greatest part of this propheticall inspiration either to God or Daemon But according as you say there is no reason or likelihood therof for the exhalation that ariseth out of the ground whether the beast tremble or no will alwaies if it be present cause a ravishment and transportation of the spirit and evermore dispose the soule alike not onely of Pythia but also of any body else that first commeth or is presented And thereupon it followeth that a meere folly it is to employ one silly woman in the Oracle and to put her to it poore soule to be a votary and live a pure maiden all the daies of her life sequestred from the company of man And as for that Coretas whom the Delphians name to have beene the first that chancing to fall into this chinke or crevasse of the ground gave the hansell of the vertue and property of the place in mine opinion he differed nothing at all from other goteheards or shepheards nor excelled them one whit at least wise if this be a truth that is reported of him and not a meere fable and vaine fiction as I suppose it is no better And verily when I consider and discourse in my selfe how many good things this Oracle hath beene cause of unto the Greeks as well in their warres and martiall affaires as in the foundations of cities in the distresses of famine and pestilence me thinkes it were a very indignity and unworthy part to attribute the invention and originall thereof unto meere fortune and chance and not unto God and divine providence But upon this point I would gladly ô Lamprias quoth he have you to dispute and discourse a little how say you Philippus may it please you to have patience the while Most willingly quoth Philippus for my part and so much I may be bold also to promise in the behalfe of all the company for I see well that the question by you proposed hath moved them all And as for my selfe quoth I ô Philippus it hath not onely moved but also abashed and dismaied me for that in this so notable assembly and conference of so many worthy parsonages I may seeme above mine age in bearing my selfe and taking pride in the probability of my wordes to overthrow or to call into question any of those things which truely have beene delivered or religiously beleeved as touching God and divine matters But satisfie you I will and in the defence of my selfe produce for my witnesse and advocate both Plato For this Philosopher reprooved old Anaxagoras in that being to much addicted to naturall causes and entangled with them following also and pursuing alwaies that which necessarily is effected in the passions and affections of naturall bodies he overpassed the finall and efficient causes for which and by which thinges are done and those are indeed the better causes and principles of greater importance whereas himselfe either before or else most of all other Philosophers hath prosecuted them both attributing unto God the beginning of all things wrought by reason and not depriving in the meane while the matter of those causes which are necessary unto the worke done but acknowledging heerein that the adorning and dispose of all this world sensible dependeth not upon one simple cause alone as being pure and uncompound but was engendred and tooke essence when matter was coupled and conjoined with reason That this is so doe but consider first the workes wrought by the hand of Artisans as for example not to goe farther for the matter that same foot heere and basis so much renowmed of the standing cup among other ornaments and oblations of this temple which Herodotus called Hypocreteridion this hath for the materiall cause verily fire iron the mollefying by the meanes of fire and the tincture or dipping in water without which this peece of worke could not possibly have bene wrought But the more principall cause and mistresse indeed which mooved all this and did worke by all these was art and reason applied unto the worke And verily we see that over such peeces whether they be pictures or other representations of things the name of the artificer and workeman is written as for example This picture Polygnotus drew of Troy won long beforne Who father had Aglaophon and was in Thasos borne And verily he it was indeed as you see who painted the destruction of Troy but without colours ground confused and mingled one with another impossible had it beene for him to have exhibited such a picture so faire and beautifull to the eie as it is If then some one come now and will needs medle with the materiall cause searching into the alterations and mutations thereof particularizing of Sinopre mixed with Ochre or Cerusse with blacke doth he impaire or diminish the glory of the painter 〈◊〉 He also who discourseth how iron is hardned and by what meanes mollified and how being made soft and tender in the fire it yeeldeth and obaieth them who by beating and knocking drive it out in length and bredth and afterwards being dipped and plunged into fresh waters still by the actuall coldnesse of the said water for that the fire heats had softened and rarefied it before it is thrust close together and condensate by meanes whereof it getteth that stiffe compact and hard temper of steele which Homer calleth the very force of iron reserveth he for the workeman any thing lesse heereby in the principall cause and operation of his worke I suppose he doth not For some there be who make proofe and triall of Physicke drogues and yet I trow they condemne not thereby the skill of Physicke like as Plato also himselfe when he saith That we doe see because the light of our eie is mixed with the cleerenesse of the Sunne and heare by the percussion and beating of the aire doth not deny that we have the
But very few there be among many others who dare freely and plainely speake unto their friends but rather sooth them up and seeke to please them in every thing And even in those as few as they be hardly shall you find any that know how to do it well but for the most part they thinke that they speake freely when they do nothing but reproove reproch and raile Howbeit this libertie of speech where of I speake is of the nature of a medicine which if it be not given in time convenient and as it ought to be besides that it doth no good at all it troubleth the body worketh greevance and in stead of a remedie prooveth to be a mischiefe For even so he that doth reprehend and find fault unseasonably bringeth foorth the like effect with paine as flatterer doth with pleasure For men are apt to receive hurt and damage not onely by overmuch praise but also by inordinate blame when it is out of due time for it is the onely thing that of all others maketh them soonest to turne side unto flatterers and to be most easily surprised by them namely when from those things that stand most opposite and highest against them they turne aside like water and run downe those waies that be more low easie and hollow In which regardit behooveth that this libertie in fault finding be tempered with a cettaine amiable affection and accompanied with the judgement of reason which may take away the excessive vehemencie and force of sharpe words like the over-bright shining of some glittering light for feare lest their friends being dazeled as it were and frighted with the flashing beames of their rebukes seeing themselves so reprooved for ech thing and blamed every while may take such a griefe and thought thereupon that for sorrow they be ready to flie unto the shadow of some flatterer and turne toward that which will not trouble them at all For we must avoid all vice ô Philopappus and seeke to correct the same by the meanes of vertue not by another vice contrary unto it as some do who for to shun foolish and rusticall bashfulnesse grow to be overbold and impudent for to eschew rude incivilitie fall to be ridiculous jesters and pleasants and then they thinke to be farthest off from cowardise and effeminate tendernesse when they come neerest to extreme audacitie and boasting braverie Others there be who to proove themselves not to be superstitious become meere Atheists and because they would not be though and reputed idiots and fooles proove artificiall conny-catchers And surely in redressing the enormities of their maners they do as much as those who for want of knowledge and skill to set a peece of wood streight that twineth and lieth crooked one way do curbe and bend it as much another way But the most shamefull means to avoid shun the suspicion of a flatterer is to make a mans selfe odious troublesom without profit and a very rude and rusticall fashion this is of seeking to win favor and that with favour of no learning skill and civilitie to become unpleasant harsh and sowre to a friend for to shunne that other extreame which in friendship seemeth to be base and servile which is as much as if a freed slave newly franchised should in a Comedie thinke that he could not use and enjoy his libertie of speech unlesse he might be allowed licenciously to accuse another without controlment Considering then that it is a foule thing to fall to flatterie in studying to please as also for the avoiding of flatterie by immoderate libertie of speech to corrupt and marre aswell the grace of amitie and winning love as the care of remedying and reforming that which is amisse and seeing that we ought to avoid both the one and the other and as in all things else so free speaking is to have the perfection from a meane and mediocritie reason would and by order it were requisit that toward the end of this Treatise we should adde somewhat in maner of a corollarie and complement as touching that point Forasmuch as therefore we see that this libertie of language and reprehension hath many vices following it which doe much hurt let us assay to take them away one after another and begin first with blinde selfe-love and private regards where we ought especially to take heed that we be not seene to do any thing for our owne interest and in respect of our selves and namely that we seeme not for wrong that we have received our selves or upon any griefe of our owne to reproch upbraid or revile other men for they will never take it as done for any love or good will that we beare unto them but rather upon some discontentment and heart-burning that we have when they see that our speech tendeth unto a matter wherein we are interessed our selves neither will they repute our words spoken by way of admonition unto them but rather interpret them as a complaint of them For surely the libertie of speech whereof we treat as it respecteth the welfare of our friend so it is grave and venerable whereas complaints savour rather of selfe-love and a base minde Hereupon it is that we reverence honour and admire those who for our good deliver their minds frankly unto us contrariwise we are so bolde as to accuse chalenge and charge reciprocally yea and contemne those that make complaints of us Thus we reade in Homer That Agamemnon who could not beare and endure Achilles when he seemed to tell him his minde after a moderate maner but he was well enough content to abide and suffer Ulysses who touched him neere and bitterly rebuked him in this wise Ah wretch would God some abject hoast beside us by your hand Conducted were so that in field you did not us command As sharpe a checke as this was yet being delivered by a wise man proceeding from a carefull minde and tendering the good of the common weale he gave place thereto and kicked not againe for this Ulysses had no private matter nor particular quarell against him but spake frankly for the benefit of all Greece whereas Achilles seemed to be offended and displeased with him principally for some private matter betwene them twaine And even Achilles also himselfe although he was never knowen for to be a man of a gentle nature and of a milde spirit But rather of a stomacke full and one who would accuse A guiltlesse person for no cause and him full soone abuse endured Patroclus patiently and gave him not a word againe notwithstanding he taunted and tooke him up in this wise Thou mercilesse and cruell wretch sir Peleus valiant knight Was never sure thy father true 〈◊〉 yet dame Thetis bright Thy mother kinde but sea so greene or rocks so steepe and hard Thee bare thy heart of pittie hath so small or no regard For like as Hyperides the Oratour required the Athenians who complained that his orations were bitter to consider of
him not onely whether he were sharpe eager simply but whether he were so upon no cause nor taking any fee even so the admonition and reprehension of a friend being syncere and cleansed pure from all priuate affection ought to be reverenced it carieth I say authoritie with it and no exceptions can well be taken nor a man dare lift up an eie against it in such sort as if it appeare that he who chideth freely and blameth his friend doeth let passe and reject all those faults which hee hath committed against him and maketh no mention therof but toucheth those errours misdemeanors only which concerne others and they spare him not but pierce bite to the quicke the vehemency of such free speech is invincible and can not be challenged for the mildnes good will of the chastiser doth fortifie the austeritie bitternes of the chastisement Well therefore it was said in old time That whensoever we are angry or at some jarre variance with our friends then most of all we ought to have an eie unto their good and to study how to do somewhat that is either profitable unto them or honorable for them And no lesse materiall is this also to the maintenance of friendship if they that thinke themselves to be despised and not well regarded of their friends do put them in mind and tell them frankly of others who are neglected by them and not accounted of as they should be Thus dealt Plato with Denys at what time he was in disgrace and saw how he made no reckoning at all of him For he came unto the Tyrant upon a time and requested that he might have a day of audience and leave to conferre with him Denys graunted his request supposing verily that Plato had a purpose to complaine and expostulat with him in his owne behalfe and thereupon to discourse with him at large But Plato reasoned and debated the matter with him in this manner Sir quoth he ô Denys if you were advertised and knew that some enemie or evill willer of yours were arrived and landed in Sicilie with a full intention to do you some displeasure although he had no opportunitie or meanes to execute and effect the same would you let him faile away againe depart from Sicily with impunity and before he were talked withall I tro not ô Plato quoth Denys but I would looke to him well enough for that For we ought to hate punish not the actions onely but the verie purposes and intentions also of enemies But how and if quoth Plato againe on the contrarie side some other being expressely and of purpose come for meere love and affection that he beareth unto you and fully minded to doe you some pleasure or to advice you for your good you will give him neither time nor opportunitie therfore is it meet think you that he should be thus unthankfully dealt withal or hardly entreated at your hands With that Dionysius was somewhat mooved and demanded who that might be Aeschines quoth Plato is he a man faire conditioned and of as honest carriage and behaviour as any one that ever came out of Socrates schoole or daily and familiarly conversed with him sufficient and able by his eloquence and pithie speech to reforme the maners of those with whom he keepeth companie This Aeschines I say having taken a long voyage over sea and arrived here intending for to conferre with you philosophically is nothing regarded nor set by at all These words touched Denys so to the verie quicke that presently he not onely tooke Plato in his armes embracing him most lovingly and yeelding him great thankes for that kindnesse highly admiring his magnanimity but also from that time forward entreated Aeschines right courteously and did him all the honor that he could Secondly this libertie of speech which now is in hand we ought to cleere and purge cleane from all contumelious and injurious words from laughter scoffes and scurrile taunts which are the hurtfull and unholesome sauces as I may say wherewith many use to season their free language For like as a Chirurgian when he maketh incision and cutteth the flesh of his patient had need to use great dexteritie to have a nimble hand and an even yea and every thing neat and fine belonging to this worke and operation of his as for all dauncing gesticulations besides of his singers toyish motions and superfluous agitation thereof to shew the agilitie of his hand he is to forbeare for that time So this libertie of speech unto a friend doth admit well a certaine kind of elegancie and civilitie provided alwaies that the grace thereof retaine still a decent and comely gravitie whereas if it chaunce to have audacious braverie sancie impuritie and insolencie to the hurt or hinderance of credit it is utterly marred and looseth all authoritie And therefore it was not an unproper and unelegant speech wherewith a musitian upon a time stopped King Philips mouth that he had not a word to say againe For when he was about to have disputed and contested against the saide minstrell as touching good fingering and the sound of the severall strings of his instrument Oh sir quoth he God forbid that ever you should fall to so low an estate as to be more cunning in these matters than I. But contrariwise Epicharmus spake not so aptly and to the purpose in this behalfe For when King Hiero who a little before had put to death some of his familiar acquaintance invited him not many daies after to supper Yea marie sir but the other day when you sacrificed you bad not your friends to the feast And as badly answered Antiphon who upon a time when there was some question before Denys the Tyrant what was the best kinde of brasse Marie that quoth he whereof the Athenians made the Statutes of Harmodius and Aristogiton Such speeches as these are tart and biting and no good can come thereof neither hath that scurrilite and scoffing manner any delight but a kinde of intemperance it is of the toong mingled with a certaine maliciousnes of minde implying a will to do hurt and injurie and shewing plaine enmitie which as many as use worke their owne mischiefe and destruction dauncing as the Proverb saith a daunce untowardly about a pits brinke or jesting with edged tooles For surely it cost Antiphon his life who was put to death by the said Denys And Timagenes lost for ever the favour and friendship of Augustus Caesar not for any franke speech and broad language that ever he used against him but onely because he had taken up a foolish fashion at everie feast or banket whereunto the Emperor invited him and whensoever he walked with him eftsoones and to no purpose he would come out with these verses in Homer For naught else but to make some sport Among the Greekes he did resort pretending that the cause of that favour which he had with the Emperor was the grace and gift that
as touching the generation or creation of the world and of the soule thereof as if the same had not bene from all eternity nor had time out of minde their essence whereof we have particularly spoken a part else where and for this present suffice it shall to say by the way that the arguing and contestation which Plato confesseth himselfe to have used with more vehemencie than his age would well beare against Atheists the same I say they confound and shufflle up or to speake more truely abolish altogether For if it be so that the world be eternall and was never created the reason of Plato falleth to the ground namely that the soule being more ancient than the bodie and the cause and principall author of all motion and mutation the chiefe governour also and head Architect as he himselfe hath said is placed and bestowed therein But what and where of the soule is and how it is said and to be understood that it is more ancient than the body and before it in time the progresse of our discourse hereafter shall declare for this point being either unknowen or not well understood brings great difficulty as I thinke in the well conceiving and hinderance in beleeving the opinion of the trueth In the first place therefore I will shew what mine owne conceit is proving and fortifying my sentence and withall mollifying the same because at the first sight it seemeth a strange paradox with as probable reasons as I can devise which done both this interpretation and proofe also of mine I will lay unto the words of the text out of Plato and reconcile the one unto the other For thus in mine opinion stands the case This world quoth Heraclitus there was never any god or man that made as if in so saying he feared that if we disavow God for creatour we must of necessitie confesse that man was the architect and maker thereof But much better it were therefore that we subscribe unto Plato and both say and sing aloud that the world was created by God for as the one is the goodliest piece of worke that ever was made so the other the most excellent workman and greatest cause that is Now the substance and matter whereof it was created was never made or engendred but was for ever time out of minde and from all eternitie subject unto the workman for to dispose and order it yea and to make as like as possible was to himselfe For of nothing and that which had no being there could not possibly be made ought but of that which was notwell made nor as it ought to bee there may be made somewhat that is good to wit an house a garment or an image and statue But before the creation of the world there was nothing but a chaos that is to say all things in confusion and disorder and yet was not the same without a bodie without motion or without soule howbeit that bodie which it had was without forme and consistence and that mooving that it had was altogether rash without reason and understanding which was no other but a disorder of the soule not guided by reason For God created not that bodie which was incorporall nor a soule which was inanimate like as we say that the musician maketh not a voice nor the dancer motion but the one maketh the voice sweet accordant and harmonious and the other the motion to keepe measure time and compasse with a good grace And even so God created not that palpable soliditie of a bodie nor that moving and imaginative puissance of the soule but finding these two principles the one darke and obscure the other turbulent foolish and senselesse both imperfect disordered and indeterminate he so digested and disposed them that he composed of them the most goodly beautifull and absolute living creature that is The substance then of the bodie which is a certeine nature that he calleth susceptible of all things the very seat the nourse also of all things engendred is no other thing than this But as touching the substance of the soule he tearmeth it in his booke entituled Philebus Infinitie that is to say the privation of all number and proportion having in it neither end limit nor measure neither excesse nor defect neither similitude nor dissimilitude And that which hee delivereth in Timaeus namely that it is mingled with the indivisible nature is become divisible in bodies we must not understand this to be either multitude in unities or length and breadth in points or pricks which things agree unto bodies and belong rather to bodies than to soules but that mooving principle disordinate indefinite and mooving of it selfe which hee calleth in manie places Necessitie the same in his books of lawes hee tearmeth directly a disorderly soule wicked and evill doing This is the soule simply and of it selfe it is so called which afterwards was made to participate understanding and discourse of reason yea wife proportion to the end that it might become the soule of the world Semblably this materiall principle capable of all had in it a certeine magnitude distance and place beauty forme proportionate figure and measure it had none but all these it gat afterwards to the end that being thus digested and brought into decent order it might affoord the bodies and organs of the earth the sea the heavens the starres the plants and living creatures of all sorts But as for them who attribute give that which he calleth in Timaeus necessitie and in his treatise Philebus infinity and immensity of excesse defect of too much and too little unto matter and not unto the soule how are they able to maintaine that it is the cause of evill considering that he supposeth alwaies that the said matter is without forme or figure whatsoever destitute of all qualities and faculties proper unto it comparing it unto those oiles which having no smell of their owne perfumers use in the composition of their odors and precious ointments for impossible it is that Plato should suppose the thing which of it selfe is idle without active qualitie without mooving and inclination to any thing to be the cause and beginning of evill or name it an infinity wicked evill doing not likewise a necessitie which in many things repugneth against God as being rebellious and refusing to obey him for as touching that necessitie which overthroweth heaven as he saith in his Politiques and turneth it cleane contrary that inbred concupiscence and confusion of the first and auncient nature wherein there was no order at all before it was ranged to that beautifull disposition of the world as now it is how came it among things if the subject which is matter was without all qualities and void of that efficacie which is in causes and considering that the Creatour himselfe being of his owne nature all good desired as much as might be to make all things like unto himselfe for a third besides these two principles there is
none And if we will bring evill into the world without a precedent cause principle to beget it we shall run and fall into the difficult perplexities of the Stoicks for of those two principles which are it cannot be that either the good or that which is altogether without forme and quality whatsoever should give being or beginning to that which is naught Neither hath Plato done as some that came after him who for want of seeing and understanding a third principle and cause betweene God and matter have runne on end and tumbled into the most absurd and falsest reasons that is devising forsooth I wot not how that the nature of evill should come without forth casually and by accident or rather of the owne accord forasmuch as they will not graunt unto Epicurus that the least atome that is should turne never so little or decline a side saying that he bringeth in a rash and inconsiderate motion without any cause precedent whereas they themselves the meane-while affirme that sin vice wickednesse and ten thousand other deformities and imperfections of the body come by consequence without any cause efficient in the principles But Plato saith not so for he ridding matter from al different quality and remooving farre from God all cause of evill thus hath hee written as touching the world in his Politiques The world quoth he received al good things from the first author who created it but what evill thing soever there is what wickednesse what injustice in heaven the same it selfe hath from the exterior habitude which was before and the same it doth transmit give to the creatures beneath And a little after he proceedeth thus In tract of time quoth he as oblivion tooke holde and set sure footing the passion and imperfection of the old disorder came in place and got the upper hand more and more and great danger there is least growing to dissolution it be plunged againe into the vast gulfe and bottomlesse pit of confused dissimilitude But dissimilitude there can be none in matter by reason that it is without qualitie and void of all difference whereof Eudemus among others being ignorant mocked Plato for not putting that to be the cause source and first originall of evill things which in many places he calleth mother and nurse for Plato indeed tearmeth matter mother and nurse but he saith likewise That the cause of evill is the motive puissance resiant in the said matter which is in bodies become divisible to wit a reasonlesse and disorderly motion howbeit for all that not without soule which plainly and expresly in his books of lawes he tearmeth a soule contrary and repugnant to that which is the cause of all good for that the soule may well be the cause and principle of motion but understanding is the cause of order and harmony in motion for God made not the matter idle but hath kept it from being any any more 〈◊〉 troubled with a foolish and rash cause neither hath he given unto nature the beginnings and principles of mutations and passions but being as it was enwrapped and enfolded with all sorts of passions and inordinate mutations hee cleered it of all enormities disorders and errors whatsoever using as proper instruments to bring about all this numbers measures and proportions the effect whereof is not to give unto things by mooving and mutation the passions and differences of the other and of diversitie but rather to make them infallible firme and stable yea and like unto those things which are alwaies of one sort and evermore resemble themselves This is in my judgement the minde and sentence of Plato whereof my principall proofe and argument is this that by this interpretation is salved that contrariety which men say and seemeth indeed to be in his writings for a man would not attribute unto a drunken sophister much lesse than unto Plato so great unconstance and repugnance of words as to affirme one and the same nature to be created and uncreated and namely in his booke entituled Phaedrus that the soule is eternall and uncreated but in Timaeus that it was created and engendied Now as touching those words of his in the treatise Phaedrus they are well neere in every mans mouth verie rife whereby he prooveth that the soule can not perish because it was never engendred and semblably he prooveth that generation it had none because it mooveth it selfe Againe in the booke entituled Timaeus God quoth he hath not made the soule to be yoonger than the body according as now in this place we purpose to say that it commeth after it for never would he have permitted that the elder being coupled and linked with the yoonger should be commaunded by it But we standing much I wot not how upon inconsiderate rashnesse and vanity use to speake in some sort accordingly for certaine it is that God hath with the bodie joined the soule as precedent both in creation and also in power and vertue like as the dame or mistresse with her subject for to rule and commaund Againe when he had said that the soule being turned upon her selfe began to live a wise and eternall life The body of the heaven quoth he was made visible but the soule invisible participating the discourse of reason and of harmony engendred by the best of things intellectuall and eternall being likewise it selfe the best of things engendred and temporall Where it is to be noted that in this place expresly calling God the best of all eternall things and the soule the best of things created and temporall by this most evident antithesis and contrariety he taketh from the soule that eternity which is without beginning and procreation And what other solution or reconciliation is there of these contradictions but that which himself giveth to those who are willing to receive it for he pronounceth that soule to be ingenerable and not procreated which mooved all things rashly and disorderly before the constitution of the world but contrariwise he calleth that procreated and engendred which Godframed and composed of the first and of a parmanent eternall and perfect good substance namely by creating it wise and well ordered and by putting and conferring even from himselfe unto sense understanding and order unto motion which when he had thus made he ordained and appointed it to be the governor and regent of the whole world And even after the same maner he pronounceth that the body of the world is in one sort eternall to wit not created nor engendred and after another sort both created and engendred For when he saith that whatsoever is visible was never at rest but mooved rashly and without all order and that God tooke the same disposed and ranged it in good order as also when he saith that the fowre generall elements fire water earth and aire before the whole world was of them framed and ordered decently made a woonderfull trouble trembling as it were in the matter and were mightily shaken by