poyson'd the gates were strictlier kept and no man was any more permitted to enter into the house whereat Demetrius much perplext and troubled and having no other way to relieve his friend went to the Magistrate and accused himselfe for one of those who broke into Anubis Temple Upon which confession he was presently carryed to the prison and brought to Antiphilus and with much petition obtained of the Keeper that he might be chained next to him in the same â—ives Here then was a rare expression of friendship to dispise his owne miseries and though he were himselfe sicke yet he tooke care that the other might sleep quietly and undisturbed Thus lessen'd they their misfortunes by communion Till not long after an Accident happen'd which did almost put a period to their sufferings For one of the prisoners having I know not from whence got a file and made most of the other prisoners of the conspiracy filed asunder a chain to which they were fasten'd by a row of shackles and let them all loose They having easily slaine their Keepers being but few issued forth in Tumults and presently dispersed themselves severall wayes as they safeliest might though many of them were afterwards taken Demetrius and Antiphilus remain'd and stay'd Syrus ready to follow the rest Next morning the Prefect of Aegypt knowing what had happen'd sent pursuers after them and sending for those who were with Demetrius releast them of their shackles much praysing them that they onely refused to make an escape They were not at all pleased with their manner of dismission Demetrius therefore proclam'd both himselfe friend much injured if being taken for malefactors they should be thought worthy of pitty or praise or releasement because they did not breake prison To conclude therefore they compelld the Judge more exactly to reexamini the business who finding them innocent with great praises of both and admiration of Demetrius acquitted them And as a recompence for the punishment and shackles which they unjustly suffer'd he gave them large gifts ten thousand drachmes to Antiphilus and twice so many to Demetrius Antiphilus is now in Aegypt But Demetrius bestowing his twenty thousand Drachmes on his friend went into India to the Brachmans saying onely thus much to Antiphilus at his departure that he hop't he was excusable if he then left him and that he needed not mony as long as he was of a composition to be content with a little nor that hee any farther wanted a friend whose affaires were so well accomplish't These were Graecian Friends Toxaris And here had you not in the beginning noted us for high talkers I could repeat to you the many excellent Orations spoken by Demetrius at his Arraignment where he made no defence for himselfe but spent teares and supplications for Antiphilus and tooke the whole offence upon himself till Syrus urged by scourging acquitted both These few examples of many famous and constant friends as they first offer'd themselves to my remembrance have I reported to you 'T is now time that finishing my Narration you should begin yours whom it will concerne to produce Scythians not of inferiour but of much more eminent example if you intend your right hand shall not be cut off Be constant to your selfe therefore For 't will show most ridiculous in you having so like a Sophister extoll'd Orestes and Pylades to show your selfe a bad Oratour for your Country Toxaris You do well Mnesippus to invite me to speake and not to show your selfe afraid that vanquisht by my narrations your tongue shall be cut out I begin then not like you with Trappings of speech a thing unusuall to Scythians since the realities of my stories shall be more eloquent then the Historian Nor are you to expect from me stories like yours who have magnified a man for wedding a deformed woman without a portion Another for giving two Talents in Marriage with his friends daughter a third for casting himselfe voluntarily into shackles knowing he was shortly after to be releast All which are slight passages and have nothing high or manly in them I will recount to you slaughters warres and deaths undergone for Friends whereby you shall perceive how childish your undertakings are compared to ours Yet it is not without cause that you admire your own small adventures since living in a firme establisht peace you want those Heroick opportunities by which friendships are to be tryed As you cannot judge in a calme of the Abilities of a Pilot which are best discovered in a storme Whereas we have continuall warres and do either invade others or are invaded our selves or joyning battle do fight for pastures or prey Hence stand we most in need of good friends whose Armes become unconquer'd and impregnable from the strictnesse of our friendships First then let mee tell you that the Ceremonies by which wee initiate friends are not like yours perform'd in Bowles and Potations or with our equals or neighbours but when we see a man valiant and able for great Actions wee all presently affect him and the same course which you take to win your wives do we take to beget friends We court them much and omit no application which may defeat us of their friendship or render us despised And when choice is made of a friend articles are next entred into and a solemne oath taken that they shall mutually live and if need be die for one another Next having open'd a veine in our hand we receive the blood in a cup in which wee dippe the points of our swords then both drinke nor can any thing afterwards divide us These leagues at most consist of three wee account of him who is a friend to more as we do of common adulterate wives and never thinke his a firme lasting friendship which is divided among many I will begin then with the late Deeds of Dandamis This Dandamis seeing his friend Amizocas taken prisoner in a skirmish with the Sarmatians But first I will take my oath as we agreed in the beginning By this Ayre and Sagar I will report no untruths Mnesippus of our Scythian friendships Mnesipp I might very well spare your oath Toxaris if you sweare by none of the Gods Toxaris Why Do not you take the Winde and Sagar for Gods or know you not that to Mortalls nothing is greater then life and death wee sweare by those two as often as we sweare by the Winde the cause of Life and a Sagar the cause of Death Mnesipp If this be a good reason you may have many such Gods as your Sagar as a Dart Speare and Poyson and a Rope for death is a various and numerous Deity and is by endlesse wayes attained Toxaris See what a caviller and wrangler you are thus to trouble and divert my discourse who all the while you spoke kept silence Mnesipp You deservedly chide mee Toxaris Hereafter therefore I will not interrupt you Proceed therefore in your story you shall have mee as silent as if
call you her I never heard her before and therefore to me she seemed some outlandish fowle Truely she sings in a very mournfull tune pray Socrates what manner of Bird is it Socrates Not great Chaerephon unlesse it be for the great honour she hath received from the Gods for her love to her husband For all the while she sits though in the middest of winter the world enjoyes Halcyon daies of a different calmenesse from other times whereof this day is one See you not how clear the Heavens are and how the Sea without wave or billow resembles for smoothnesse a mirrour or Glasse Chaerephon True This is indeed a Halcyon day and yesterday was such another But for Gods sake tell me Socrates may I give credit to what you said in the beginning that women have been raised out of Birds or that Birds have been transform'd into women It sounds to me altogether impossible Socrates O my friend Chaerephon we are but purblind Judges of what is possible and impossible For we pronounce according to the ignorant faithlesse dull abilities of men And therefore many things in themselves easie seem to us difficult and many things in themselves attainable seem to us not to be attained And this befalls us sometimes through unexperience sometimes through the infancy of our mindes For compared to the first cause every man though never so old is but a child And compared to Aeternity our whole life is but a childhood and spanne How then can they who know not the power of the Gods discourse of them or precisely tell what is possible and what is not you saw the storme Chaerephon about three daies since what lightnings and Thunders and tempestuous winds were there some man would tremble at the thought of them fearing least the whole world would have fallen to ruine yet you see it ended in a wonderfull Calme which lasts yet Which then think you is the harder and more unlikely to raise a stillnesse out of a blustring tempest and to cast faire weather over the world or to change the shape of a Woman into the forme of a Bird we see children every day raise severall figures and shapes from wax or clay Then certainly to God who is too great and excellent to be brought into Comparison with our performances all these things are most familiar and easy How much bigger is the Heaven then you can you tell Chaerephon No Socrates nor any man els such comparisons are not to be known or taken measure of Socrates Well then do we not see the vast disproportions of some men compared with others and how they differ in their impotencies or strength what wondrous difference is there between a man of mature age and a child five or ten dayes old both for their infirmity and might as also for all the Actions of life whither they be the defence of those our walls so often assaulted or any other performances either of body or mind which things cannot possibly enter into the apprehension of a child Then for greatnesse of strength a grown man carries no proportion or measure to a child vvho vvith one hand can easily overcome millions of them For naturally men are born of an age at first altogether unexpert and unfit for action If then one man so much excell another hovv much the Gods excell us they may consider vvho have abilities for such contemplations It vvill therefore I doubt not seem credible to most that as much as the whole world exceeds Socrates and Chaerephon in magnitude and space so much doe they exceed us in power and providence and wisdom Many things therefore to you and me and such as we are seem impossible which to others are easie For to winde a Cornet well to those who cannot play and to read or write to those who are ignorant of Grammar showes more impossible then to make women of Birds or Birds of women Nature we see finding in a Comb of Wax a shapelesse worme without Legges or Feathers gives it Winges and feet and enamelling it with great diversity of fair coloures produceth a Bee the wise Architect of Divine honey out of dumb senselesse egges she formes severall sortes of flying walking swimming Creatures assisted as 't is thought by the Sacred influence of the skie We therefore poor mortalls and infants who can neither comprehend great matters nor understand small but doubt of most things even of those which concern our selves can say little concerning the power of the immortall Gods or of their transformations of Kings-Fishers or nightingales Onely as the Glory of the Fable hath bin Conveyed to me from my Ancestors so will I to the praise of thy songes O thou bird of mourning convey it to posterity and will often repeat thy vertuous love of thy Husband to my Wives Xantippe and Mirto not forgetting the honour bestowed upon thee by the Gods and doe you Chaerephon doe the like Chaerephon 'T is fit I should Socrates since all your words carry double perswasions and are able to instruct both sexes Socrates Now then 't is time we bid the Kings-fisher farewell and returne into the City Chaerephon 'T is so and therefore let us goe Prometheus or Caucasus The speakers Mercury Vulcan Prometheus Mercury LOok Vulcan yonder 's Caucasus to which wee are to nail this wretched Titan let 's finde out some eminent place uncovered with Snow where we may the firmelier chain him and where he may hang most open to passengers Vulcan You say well Mercury For if we chain him to some low place neer the earth his creatures men will come in to his succour and if we fasten him to the Hilltoppe he will not be seen below wherefore if you think fit let 's crucifiâ— him here in the middle of the hill which hangs over this valley and let him stretch one Arme that way and the other this Mercury 'T is well contrived for here the Rock is craggie and inaccessible and inclining to a precipice and the ascent so narrow that you can hardly stand tiptoe and every way fittest for his Crosse make no delayes therefore Prometheus but mount and suffer your selfe to be fasten'd Prometheus Vulcan Mercury pitty me who without desert am thus unfortunate Mercury Pitty thee Prometheus why is 't not enough for thee to be bound to Caucasus unlesse Jupiter doom both us to the same punishment for disobeying his Decree Stretch forth thy right hand unmanacle him Vulcan and nail him and be sure to give strength to your Hammer Now reach out thy other hand that he may fasten that too well done An Eagle will fly hither presently and will prey upon thy Liver and then thou wilt be fully rewarded for thy rare and most ingenious peece of work-manship Prometheus O Iapetus Saturne and mother Earth what tortures doe I feel who never offended or committed fault Mercury Dids't thou never offend Prometheus Who at a division of sacrifices dids't deale so unequally and deceitfully and stealing the best
shall retaine to them attending upon their Sedans And think nothing conduceth so much to their other bravery and pompe as to be called Learned Philosophers and better makers of verses then Sappho And for the raising of such an opinion they are still accompanied by pensionary Rhetoricians Grammarians and Philosophers who most ridiculously read to them either while they are dressing themselves or curling their haire or at meale time for at other times they are not at leasure Sometimes whilest the Philosopher is in the midst of his Discourse the Chambermayde enters and delivers a letter to her Lady from her Lechour-servant whereupon the learned discourse of chastity breaks off till she have wrote an answer and returne to her Lecture After a long time at the Feast of Saturne perchance or Minerva if some thread-bare Cloak or motheaten garment be sent you you must recieve it as a great present And the servant first privy to his masters intention who runs and acquaints you with his bounty is not to be sent away without a reward for his newes The next morning at least thirteen more bring you the same message every one reporting what he said to his Master how he put him in mind of it and that being intrusted with the businesse he chose the most advantagious who though they all returne fed yet grumble that you gave them no more Next your whole pension comes not to above six Crownes which if you demand you are thought impudent and troublesome and therefore before you can receive it you must insinuate and flatter and court the steward which is one step of servitude more nor is he to be neglected who is your patrons friend and of his Counsells And when you have re-received your salary you are presently to pay it again to your Taylor or Physitian or Shoomaker so that your rewards not only come late unseasonable and to no purpose but great envy is kindled upon you and by degrees the servants begin to hatch complaints against you especially finding their masters eares open to entertaine them who by this time perhapps sees you worne out with businesse and unfit for imployment and troubled with the Gowt And having gotten the most flowry and vigorous part of your age and wasted your bodily strength and worne you out like a torne garment he looks about for some dunghill where to cast you and entertaines another more able to drudg accusing you with the enticements of his page or alleaging that being an old man you defloured his maid or laying some such crime to your charge for which in the night time you are thrust out of doores by the neck forsaken of all poore and carry nothing away with your age but an incomparable Gowt And having by length of time forgotten your first course of life and made your belly as large as a sack it becomes an insatiate and never to be contented mischiefe Your stomach will expect it 's usuall repletions and grow enraged at denials Besides no bodie will afterwards entertaine you being of a spent age and become like an ancient decaied horse whose very skinne is of no use The pretence also for which you were put away carrying some possibility will brand you for an adulterer or a poysoner or the like So that your accuser though he say nothing will be believed against you who are a Greek of a light behaviour and prepared for any mischief For such they account us all and not without good cause For if I be not deceived the reason why they hold such an Opinion of us is because most of us who are taken into Families for want of better knowledg profess Magick and Charms and the Art to provoke Love and to reconcile Enemies which we call Learning and set it off with a grave Gown and a venerable Beard Hence it comes to passe that they have the like esteem of all as they have of those whom they judg to be the best especially when they observe our Flattery both at Feasts and in our Carriage at other times and our extream basenesse to submit our selves to waies of gain And therefore not without cause when they have turned them off they mortally hate them and seek all the waies they can to destroy them as men who are able to divulge all the secrets of their life having inwardly known them and seen them naked a point which pricks them to the quick For as you have seen some fair Books whose Covers are enamell'd and guilt without but contain within Thyestes eating his children at a Banquet or Oedipus lying with his mother or Tereus deflowring two Sisters so these men are very glorious and sightly without but within hide many a Tragedy under their purple whom if you rip open and unwrap you will find them lined with much Tragicall stuffe not unlike that of Euripides or Sophocles However without they shew guilt and enamell'd Their Consciousnesse therefore breeds their hatred and makes them seek the ruine of those who fall from them as men who are able to represent them on the Stage and give their true description For a Conclusion then like Cebes I will draw you the picture of this kind of life in a small Table that by looking towards it you may know whither it be to be entred into or no. I could wish some Apelles or Parrhasius or Aâ—tion or Euphranor would limme it but because such excellent and exact Painters are not now to be found I will as well as I can give you a slender Image and Draught of it Let there then be drawn a high guilded house not situated on any low place but aloft on a hill and let the ascent to it be so steep inaccessible and slippery that those who many times hope to aspire to the top tumble down and break their necks Within let Riches dwell of a bright and amiable aspect Let their Lover having with much adoe climbed up and attained the door at first sight grow amazed And let Hope whom you may also imagine to be well favoured and diversly drest take him in this astonishment by the hand and lead him in and from his first entrance go before him then let other women receive him namely Deceit and Servitude and deliver him over to labour And let Labour after long exercise deliver the Wretch over to Old age diseased and wittherd in his face and colour Lastly let Contempt hurry him to Despaire from that time let Hope vanish and forsake him fly away Then let him be cast out not at the Golden Porch at which he entred but at some Back-door or dark Out-let naked hungry pale aged with one hand covering his shame with the other choking himself At his ejection let helplesse Weeping and Repentance meet him and double his misery And let the Picture here end Now do you Timocles having well weighed my discourse consider whither you be content to enter at the Golden Door and be dishonourably thrust out at the Postern
dependances I should see them releas'd from their necessities I would not so earnestly dispute with them about Liberty But as the Orator said being of Sick mens diet how can they possibly clear themselves from having given themselves ill counsel the reason of their course still remaining For they still suffer want and need supplies unable to lay up or keep any thing over but when they are paid their wages if yet they be paid 't is spent presently and hardly defrayes their ordinary charges 'T were good therefore not to invent such refuges as cherish and assist poverty but such as take it away which perchance was the meaning of Theognis when he said Poverty was to be cast headlong from a steep Cliff into the Sea But if any man who serves for wages and is still needy and poor think this the way to avoid Poverty he deceives himself Others say they would not at all fear Poverty if like other men they could sustain themselves by their labours but having bodies weakned either by age or sicknesse they are fain to betake themselves to the easie life of Serving-men Let us see then whither they say truth and whither their wages come to them easily and not through harder tasks then other labourers 'T were indeed to be wisht that without toil or sweat Silver would flow upon them But this is so far from Truth that no imployments are fuller of labour and sweat and require more vigour strength of body which is every day wasted by a thousand businesses and tired to the utmost But of this I will treat in due place when I come to speak of other grievances For the present it shall be enough to have shown that their pretences are false I come next to speak of the true cause but unacknowledged which makes men enter themselves into great families that is that they may enjoy pleasure cherish large and ample Hopes admire the abundance of Gold and Silver fare deliciously and partake the other happinesses of life and without controule drink Gold These are the things which entice men and make them of freemen slaves not the want of necessaries as they pretend but the thirst of superfluities and itch of abundance much like slie and cheating mistresses who entertaine their wretched and unfortunate lovers and inflame them with a pretty disdaine to Court and observe them and yet after their long service scarce allow them a short kisse well knowing that Love is dissolved by fruition which they therefore keep lock't up and impart sparingly cherishing in their lovers some faint hopes least despaire should lessen their flame or unedge their desires They therefore are alwaies affable make faire promises that they will performe and be thankfull and acknowledge their costly presents 'Till at length both grow old ere they be aware and become unfit the one to Court the other to be Courted so that their whole life hath vapoured away in hopes But to undergoe any course for the love of pleasure is not altogether blame-worthy but someway pardonable in him who is inclined to it and pursues all waies to compasse it Though I must needs say 't is both base and unmanly to give himselfe for it For the pleasure which arises from libertie is much greater Yet as I say before They deserve pardon if they attaine the pleasure they aime at But for the bare expectation of pleasure to undergoe so many incumbrances is in my judgement ridiculous especially seeing how certaine manifest and unavoydable their pains are and how the thing they expect which is pleasure after a long attendance flies from them And if they shut not their eyes to truth is never likely to approach them Ulysses companions having tasted of the inchanted bowle neglected all things els and preferd their present delight before vertue having some little reason to forget what was decent their soules being possest by pleasure But should some thirsty man stand by when another drinks of such a bowle out of meere hope to get a tast and yet get none and fo forget what is fit and decent He were most ridiculous and worthy Homers whipping-post These or the like are the Causes which carry men into dependances and suffer rich men to put them to what imployment they list To which we may adde that some think it a glory to retaine to illustrious persons and persons of Honour as being thereby advanced above the condition of the Vulgar For my part I would not belong to the greatest prince or be seen in his retinue if no other preferment accompanied my neernesse to him This then being the foundation of servitude let us consider next what they feele and endure before they compasse their ends and what are the calamities of their life and lastly what is the Catastrophe of their Tragedie First they cannot say that though their imployments be burdensome they are made easy by custome and require no great trouble or that to a willing minde businesse doth it selfe many wearisome walks are to be made their doores every morning to be visited you the saluter to attend though you are lock't out or thrust from the doore sometimes if you grow bold or pressing by the Porter who speaks broken Syriack and are faine to bribe a Lybian Nomenclator to remember your name Then you must weare Cloathes above your Abilitie for the credit of him you serve and make choice of such colours as he delights in and which differ not in Lyverie from his Lastly you must alwaies follow or goe before thrust and justled by the other servants and as it were make one in a show or Triumph Whilest your Patron for many daies not once lookes upon you or if it be your good fortune to be seene or call'd by him and that he by chance speak to you then you beginne to sweat your eyes dazell your joynts shake the standers by laugh at your confusion especially when he shall aske you who was king of Achaia and you make answere he had a Thousand ships which good natures will call modesty bold men cowardlinesse unbred men ignorance whereupon you having made a dangerous encounter of his Familiarity depart much accusing your bashfulnesse And when you have lost many nights sleep and past over many bloudy daies not to recover a Helen or to Conquer a Priamus or Troye but for the hopes of five groats if by chance you light upon some assistant God in a Tragedy you are examined whither you be skill'd in the Mathematicks a question frequent in the mouthes of rich men who are therefore much praised and celebrated whilest you out of astonishment think he gives sentence upon you and calls your life in question This thought comming crosse your minde that no man will receive you if you be disallowed or rejected by him you must needs be cast into a thousand distractions out of envy to those who are examined with you and who stand in competition with you for your place imagining you have
seemes brutish By the same reason the Gods are in worse condition then beastes for they lack nothing But that you may know how much better 't is to need few thinges then many consider that children lacke more things then grown youthes and women more then men and the diseased more then the healthy Briefly the worse estate wants more then the better Thus the Gods want nothing and therefore they neerest approach them who want least Can you imagine Hercules the most valiant of men and deservedly reckond among the Gods was miserable when hee travell'd up and downe naked clothed only with a skinne and lackt none of those things certainly hee could not be miserable who deliver'd others from calamity nor poor who ruled over land and sea For wherever hee made his assault hee vanquisht nor did hee ever meet with his equall or â—uperiour till hee left the conversation of men Can you thinke then that such a one who thus traverst the world did want a rugge or shooes you cannot But he was temperate and stout desired to live frugally and to avoid pleasure Was not his scholar Theseus also King of the Athenians Neptunes sonne and the bravest man of his time yet he contemned shooes and went barefoote and cherisht a long beard and hayre Nor was it his only but the practice of all the ancients who were your betters and would have brookt the present luxury no more then a Lyon will suffer himselfe to be shorne Tendernesse and sleeknesse of flesh they thought only became women They as they were still chose to appeare men and held hair as much their ornament as a mane a horses or a beard a Lyons To whom as God hath given somethinges for ornament and beauty soe he hath given beardes to men The ancients therefore shall be my example and imitation Nor doe I envy the men of these times for their felicity full tables and rich apparell or because they polish and smooth all parts of their body not content with those secret parts as nature sent them For my part I wish my feet differ'd not from horses hoofes as they report of Chiron Or that I wanted a coverlet no more then Lyons or high fare no more then dogges Or that any earth or floor may suffice mee for a lodging That I may thinke the world my house That my diett may be that which is easiest purchast That neither I nor any friend of mine may covet Silver or Gold the thirst whereof is the root of all evills factions warres treasons and slaughters All which have the desire of more for their fountaine and springe Bee therefore the itch of abundance farre from mee And when I have not sufficient yet may I bee content This is our doctrine utterly different from the common received opinions of the most Nor are you to marvaile that wee differ from others in our manners and course who differ so much from us in their elections and choices Meane time I wonder at you how you can thinke there is a certaine habit and behaviour proper for a fidler trumpeter and player and do not perceive that there is a garbe and dresse proper also for a vertuous man but thinke he is to habitt himselfe like the most though the most be vitious If then good men are to be peculiar in their clothes what attire is seemlier then that which is most disgracefull to the luxurious and which they most eschew 'T is my bravery therefore to wear a slovenly nasty patâ—ht coate neglected hayre and to go barefoote whereas you in your bravery resemble Cinaedo's from whom you are not to be distinguish't either in the colour or delicacy of your garments or the number of your suites clokes or shoos or the curlings and powdrings of your hayre For the most couâ—tly among you smell just like them And what can hee doe like a man who is perfumed like a Pathicke Then you are as impatient of labour as they as easily melted with pleasures you eate sleep and goe like them or rather ye refuse to goe and are carryed like burdens some of you by men others by beasts My own feet carry mee where I list who am patient of cold and heat and repine not at the seasons which the Gods send or because they make mee miserable But you through too much felicity are content with nothing but alwayes complaine You loath the things you have and desire the things you have not In winter you wish summer in summer winter In heat cold and in cold heat like displeased sick folkes who are alwayes whining Onely they have their sicknesse for a cause you your manners Would you then have us change our course and rectifie our life by yours who so frequently erre in your counsels and are so indiscreet in your actions and do nothing with judgment or discourse but by custome and appetite Certainly you differ nothing from men carried by a Torrent For they are hurryed where ever the floud pleaseth and you where your Lusts. Soe that you are in his case who as they say ascended the back of a wild horse The horse ran away with him and hee being in full speed could not alight And when one met him and askt whither he rode so fast hee said whithersoever this horse pleaseth Soe should one aske you whither you are carryed your answer will be if you speake truth wheresoever your affections please Particularly sometimes where your pleasure pleaseth sometimes where your ambition sometimes where your vainglory sometimes where your covetousnesse of gaine sometimes also your rage sometimes your feare still some passion or other transports you You then are mounted on the back not of one but of many wild horses by turnes which hurry you upon steeps and precipices yet till you fall you perceive not your danger Whereas my patcht coat which you deride and my hayre and rude accoutrements have the power to create mee a quiet life to do what I list and to converse with whom I list None of the ignorant or unlearned will approach mee for my habits sake Then effeminate men decline mee afarre off onely the best wits modestest men and lovers of vertue resort to mee in whose company I take delight Their gates who are call'd Great men I regard not but looke upon their guilt chaplets and purple as arguments of their pride and laugh at the wearers But that you may know how agreeable my habit is not onely to good men but to the Gods themselves and then laugh if you can consider their Statues whom do they most resemble you or mee goe over all the Temples also both of the Greekes and Barbarians and consider whether their Gods have long hayre and beards like mee or are like you carved and drawne trimd and shaven You shall see most of them clothlesse and naked like mee How dare you then speake of my accoutrements as reproachfull when they become the Gods Iupiter Confuted or a Discourse of Destiny The Speakers Cyniscus