cast him down into the horrid abyss of sorrow and misery Who cannot but admire at the audacious confidence of Man in the resistance of his Lord to whom all other creatures Heaven Earth Sea Stars Planets all the Elements Beasts Angels Devils obey The end of the First Book Heraclitus Christianus OR THE MAN OF SORROW THE SECOND BOOK CHAP I. Of Man's misery in his conception in the Womb. WE have compared Man in this our first Book with those creatures whom we call irrational and therein shewed That he ought to be so far from glorying in and exalting himself in respect of his excellency and dignity that he hath the greatest arguments imaginable every thing considered to the contrary Having therefore laid this slight foundation and drawn some rude lines of human misery it remains now to go on forward in the continuation of our tragical discourse of Mans life First Insisting on his generation and production and so proceeding till we have at last brought him to his Grave which is the end and period of all things In the first place considering the matter of his generation which what is it but corruption and putrefaction as also the place of his birth which is nothing else but a vile and loathsom Prison How long is he in the womb of his Mother without form or resemblance to any thing save an insensible mass of flesh For when the Matrix hath taken in and retained the two seeds and warmed them by its natural heat there is concreted a little thin skin like unto that which we see is on the top of an Egg and after some days the spirit and blood mingling together they begin to boil so that there riseth up Three little Bladders as the bubbles which rise up in a troubled water which are the places where are formed the three most noble parts of thiâ— lofty Animal the Liver the Heart and the Brain which is the most excellent part of the work it being the seat of all the functions the true fountain of sence and magnificent palace of understanding and memory the true arch and support as it were of Reason Most wonderful also will it appear to us if we consider likewise particularly the creation of all the other parts the manner and fashion of their formation and how the Infant being in the womb of its Mother beginneth to Urine through the passage of the Navel the Urine running in a little membrance separate from the Child ordained by nature to this office having not as yet the ejections by the fundament by reason that it receiveth not its nourishment by the mouth the ventricle or stomach also not as yet performing its office so that not any thing is transported to the entrails being for Six days as Milk the Nine following Blood the other Twelve Flesh and the Eighteen following the spirit of Life and Motion is infused There 's scarce any heart though never so hard and stony which is not moved and ravished as it were with great admiration and astonishment considering a thing so strange and wonderful But what we have now said is but little in comparison of those things which follow For who marvelleth not considering the manner of the Infants being nourished in the womb seeing he receiveth nothing by his mouth his nature is also so frail and tender that if the Mother hath but the least shock or disaster or scenteth but the snuff of a Candle her fruit dieth immediately CHAP. II. Of Mans miserable birth and entrance into the World AFter having been long nourished as before mentioned and being now formed and grown bigger and having need of greater sustenance he setteth himself with great impetuosity to search for more which is the cause he so moveth himself that he breaketh the Fibers wherewith he hath been all this while retained so that the Matrix feeling it self concerned will no longer sustain him but forceth it self to put him out wherefore it openeth and by that opening the Child feeling the Air enter pursueth it and draweth more and more to the Orifice of the Matrix and entreth into the light of this World not without great and violent dolours and hurt to his tender body but during the Nine months time how much pain and sorrow doth he cause to his Mother that bears him not to take notice of some who whilst they are big with Child lose their appetite and are desirous to eat of human flesh so that we read in History That their poor Husbands have been constrained to fly and absent themselves others have desired to eat Ashes burning Coals or other things like thereunto according to the corrupt and depraved humours abounding in their bodies moreover what anguish and sorrow have their Mothers to bring them into the World in what danger are they when they are in Travel Some their Arms come out first of all some the Feet others the Knees some double but that which is most cruel and which we cannot apprehend without horror They are forced sometimes instead of the Midwives to call the Surgeon to dismember the infant and tear it in pieces sometimes the Mother must be cut open alive and anatomiz'd that they may come at the Child Some Children are born so prodigious and deformed that they resemble not Men but Monsters some are born with Two Heads some with Four Leggs as hath been known in Paris and at the time when I was making this Book Polydorus writeth That before Marcellus was chased by Hannibal that a Woman brought forth a Child having the Head of an Elephant another having four feet as a Beast The modern Histories make mention of a Roman Courtizan that was brought to Bed of a Child who was half a Dog They who have writ the Histories of the Indies do assure us That even at this present there are found them there who are half men and half Beasts occasioned by the execrable bruitishness of their Parents others are born blind others deaf others mute others more infirm and defective in their members for which their Friends are sorry their Mothers infamous and their Fathers shamed so that if we consider attentively all the misery of our Nativity we shall find the ancient saying true That we are conceived in uncleanness born and brought into the World with pain and sorrow and nourished and brought up with anguish and labour CHAP. III. Mans misery considered in the nurture of his Infancy HEre then is the first Act of the Tragedy of human Life during the time of his imprisonment in his Mothers Womb and being now got out of his maternal dungeon let us contemplate a little what he is being on the Earth And what is he else but like to a poor worm creeping thereon With what Garment is he covered making his magnificent entrance into the Palace of this World but Blood wherewith he is all over besmeared which is no other than the representation of sin which in the Scripture is signified unto us by Blood O
prickles God having driven man out of Paradice he sent him as an exile or banished man and declared to him that the earth should be accursed for his sake and that in the sweat of his brows he should eat of the Fruits of it for it should produce thorns and thistles until he returned to the earth from whence he came And indeed who is it that has had fuller experience of this malediction than the poor Husbandman who many times after he hath laboured sowed and dunged the earth and all the day long spent himself with pain and trouble and endured the parching heat of the Sun and the rigorous severity of the cold and sometimes the biting of Serpents and sweated and tired themselves all the year round in expectation of the Fruits of their labour and straight there cometh tempestuous and unseasonable weather and cuts him off from all his longing expectations and he receives the unwelcome news of the death of his Cattel another the Souldiers whilest he has been occupied in the fields have pillaged his house and carried away whatsoever he has there so that when he returns from his labour instead of being comforted and receiving rest and consolation is met by his Wife and Children with lamentable relations of the spoil of his substance in short the rustick occupation cannot be more fitly compared than to a continual running-sore or ulcer having a perpetual cause of sorrow sometimes of one thing sometimes of another sometimes of too much Rain some times of too much Drought CHAP. VIII The Miserable life of Merchants considered BUT leaving the poor Husbandmen making their complaints Let us seek farther and inquire into the business of Merchants which at first view seemeth exempt and void of Miseries promising some repose upon the account of the Riches wherewith it aboundeth which employment many wise men as Solon Thales Hippocrates and others have exercised which is a great cause of the Amity and Friendship which we have with Forreign Princes transporting to one City what aboundeth in another but we cannot so well disguise the matter but that at first sight almost we may discern with how great disquiet the lives of Merchants are accompanied to how many dangers are they subject and that continually as well by Sea as Land without reckoning that for the most part of time they are as Fugitives and Vagabonds out of their Towns and Countries and are unlike in nothing to banished men but only that their banishment is voluntary because that they would steal ransack and ravish burn and spoil every thing as well by Sea as Land and all for that they might satisfie their covetous desire of gain and are contented to be deprived of the rest and comfort that they might receive from their Wives and Children Lands and Possessions and be every minute in hazard of their lives and all for an unsatiable avarice which torments them without taking notice that the first Sanctuary of their Confraternity is no other thing than to swear forswear cheat and deceive their Neighbour so that scarce any one Trafficking can enrich himself but by fraud and cousenage and they have a common Proverb amongst them That there needs but only turning their backs towards God for two or three years and a little straining their Consciences for to enrich themselves and make up their Fortunes With which also we may reckon many evils and vexations which belong thereunto when they bring Merchandize from other Countries which are not any ways necessary to the life of man hut only for the amusement of women and children as if our nature of it self was not enough infirm and inclinable to dote on fopperies but we must by such fooleries as these whet and stir it up whilest that there is neither Kingdom nor Province which they cheat not by these novelties and the worst is having received an impression of strange manners they communicate them to us with their Merchandize and that 's not all neither for under pretence and colour of Traffick they hold Intelligence and Correspondency with Forreign Princes discover our secrets lend them Money and in the end sell and betray their Country which hath been experienced in France to the great detriment and desolation of many people But letting pass thousands of their frauds which they use as Sophisticating and disguising their Drugs though mens lives are concerned in them yet nevertheless their art depends so much upon 't that they instruct their Factors and Servants in their Minority and to them who can with most cunning falsify forswear lye aequivocate counterfeit the Genuoise Florentine Venetian they will give greater wages And the matter is brought now to that pass that you durst scarcely go out of a Shop after having bid money for a Commodity but returning presently you shall find it changed and another offered to you as the same by these youngsters who make it no matter to engage their souls to the Devil that they may enrich their Masters There is another sort also of Merchants whom we have not as yet taken notice of who set forth their Shops with other mens estates and borrow of one and the other and after that they have by such artifices as these amassed great sums of money turn Bankrupts and fly far enough from their Creditors finding them where they live at their ease on that which they have cheated and defrauded leaving their Creditors oftentimes in such poverty that there has been them so desperate as to hang themselves seeing that they are frustrated of that which they thought as sure as in their own possession Which things being seriously considered by the Athenians they would not permit that Merchants should dwell with other Citizens but ordered them certain places a-part where they exercised their Merchandize There hath been many Ancient Common-Wealths where the Merchants were not received into Dignities and publick Offices nor admitted to the Councel of the Citizens CHAP. IX Of the Miserable life of the Soldier NEXT let us consider the Tragical Life of them which serve in the Wars which is so severe and rigorous that even the brute beasts would have it in horror who lie close and hid in the night in their Holes and Caves but the Soldier he watches always and lodgeth himself at the Sign of the Moon indureth the Rain Wind Hail Snow suffers hunger heat and cold and when he heareth the sorrowful sign of Battel he must resolve with himself either to receive present Death or else to Murder his Neighbour and offereth himself to be killed for five-pence a day But wouldest thou know how piteous and deplorable a Spectacle War is Have you ever seen the Conflict of the Bear with the Lyon or other like furious Beasts what roaring what rage what cruelty they use in tearing and dismembring one another But how much greater cruelty is it when we see Man against Man transformed as it were into brute Beasts exercising their passionate humours against their fellow Creature
life is exposed for the common good they watch alone whilest others sleep being as it were the Sentinels of the people without relief or repose all the minutes of their lives being employed for the publick safety lest any of their Flock be seduced and led away by Satan For if it be so as St. Chrisostome observes treating on the First of the Hebrews that he that is regent of one Church only may hardly be saved so great a charge hath he In what danger then shall we say are the Popes who are Guardians and Protectors of so many Churches which Pope Adrian being a man of a good life was accustomed to say with tears to his private Friends That amongst all the States in the world there seemed none to him more miserable than that of the Papacy and Prelacy For although the Throne where he sits be richly adorned yet was it beset with Thorns and Prickles the costly Robes with which they were covered being so weighty that it wearied the shoulders of the most strong and vigorous and as for the Diaper'd Mitre which they wore on their heads it was a real flame which burned to the inmost recesses of their souls And certainly so great is their charge so great and strict is their account which they must render to the Great Shepherd of the Fold that it would make a man tremble with horror to think of it and yet notwithstanding all this and the particular and positive Prohibition of the Church to the contrary yet how many are there that heap up Parsonage upon Parsonage and ioyn Living to Living and are more solicitous for the encrease of their Benefices than they are for the Souls of their people committing them to their Curates and to them oftentimes that will be hired the cheapest who as they serve God by their Procurator will if the Lord prevent not be damn'd in their own proper Persons I know and am fully perswaded that there are some who as they are called to greater Offices and Dignities in the Church than others so likewise they have need of greater Revenues than others to support them I mean our Reverend and Sacred Hierarchy but with the others it is not so the case being quite otherwise CHAP. XIII Of the Miseries which attend them who Administer in Publick Affairs BUT leaving the Popes and Prelates Let us come to consider the Lives of those who Administer in Publick Affairs as the Judges and Statesmen and we shall find them too as little free from misery as the others and if there seem to arise any pleasantness from the honour of the Imploy yet is it transitory and inconstant their actions also passing before the eyes of the vulgar who although they cannot perfectly understand the reasons of things yet will they censure and defame them whose doings are ahove their capacities And therefore Plato well compared them to a Monster with many heads Fraudulent Mutable and Uncertain prone to Anger to Praise Dispraise Esteem Vilifie without Judgment or Discretion Inflexible Unlearned and the Lives forsooth of them who are the Rulers must be conformable to their Opinion for as they Judg in publick so will they judg them in private and not only concerning matters of Importance but of those which are of little consequence and as Plutarch hath well taken notice of they will always have something which will be the matter of their contradiction The Athenians murmured against Symonides because he spoke too loud The Thebans accused Paniculus for his often spitting The Lacedemonians noted their Lycurgus because he went with his head stooping The Romans found great fault in Scipio by reason of his snoring in sleeping The Vticenses defamed good Cato because that in eating he chewed on both sides of his mouth Pompey seemed to them uncivil because he scratched himself only with one finger The Carthaginians blamed Hannibal because he went unbuttoned Others reprehended Julius Caesar because forsooth he wore his girdle carelessly Yet is all this but little in respect of what they have done to other Famous Worthies Banishing and putting them to Death for the good Service which they have done them The great Grecian Orator Demosthenes who was so Loyal a protector of the Athenian Republick was Banished by them as a person guilty of some notable crime Socrates was likewise poysoned Hannibal was so ill treated by his own that he was forced to wander up and down miserably through the world The Romans handled Camillus after the same manner The Grecians served far worse Lycurgus and Solon one of whom was stoned the other having his eyes pull'd out was as a murderer drove into exile And as we have set before us the faults and miseries which arise from the peoples part so likewise must we put in counterpoize the errors and corruptions which abound in wicked Judges some of whom are over-aw'd by fear lest they should displease some great Personage and therefore violate Justice and are as Pilate who condemned Jesus Christ for the fear which he had of displeasing the Emperour Tyberius Other Magistrates are corrupted by affection as Herod the Tetrarch who that he might foolishly comply with the love which he bore to the dancing Girl adjudged to death St. John the Baptist notwithstanding his being sensible of his Vertue and Innocency Some are withheld from the doing of Justice through hatred and particular animosities some by gifts and presents as were the Sons of the Prophet and High-Priest Samuel They love gifts saith the Prophet and seek after retribution they do not justice to the Orphans and Fatherless and hear not the cause of the Widow and in another place Cursed be all ye who are led away by money and intreaties by love or hatred that judg evil good and good evil making light darkness and darkness light Cursed be ye who have respect not to the merit of the Cause but the Person who have not regard to the equity of the matter brought before ye but the Gifts and Presents who mind not what reason suggests but only affection You are diligent in the causes of the rich but put away them of the poor you are to them austere and rigorous but to the rich affable and tractable the poor cryeth out but no one regardeth the rich speaketh and all the world hearkeneth extolling his words to the heavens and yet this is not enough for when they are in the height of honour they have another worm that gnaws them like the Mother of Zebedee that their Children might be placed in their honours and dignities although they be never so ignorant and uncapable They are exalted and enriched saith the Prophet Jeremiah They are become fat they have had no regard to the Father less and have not executed judgment for the poor Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord shall I not take vengeance on such a people you have condemned and put to death the innocent saith St. James you have lived in delights on
and the Earth was so scorched that in five Years there happened no Frost that dured above a day or two that which did was so weak that it could not freeze the water and by this great and unaccustom'd heat was maintained and nourished the Vermin of the Earth as Snails and Caterpillars and them in such quantity that the young and tender bud of the stalk coming out into the blade it was immediately gnawed and devour'd by them which was the cause that the Corn which should have multiplyed and spread withered and shrunk up all into one and the same stalk and produced only one or two blades and they steril and blasted in so much that when they came to thrash it they found only their seed and scarce that And this Famine dured five years without ceasing which was the cause that an Horse-load of Corn was sold in Lyons Foret Auvergne Burgundy Savoy Dauphin and many other Countreys at the value of 14 16 17 18 French Pistols and the poor people who lived competently enough before were then constrain'd to abandon and forske their dwellings going up down begging their bread for Gods sake And the number of the poor Mendicants encreas'd after such a manner that it was dreadful to behold them in such crouds imposible to relieve them there issuing out also of their bodies great stinks and infectious vapours occasioned by their filling their bellies with all sorts of Herbs good and bad wholsome and venomous so that there were no Herbs in the Gardens even to the very roots which they devoured not and when there were no more left to take thence they had recourse to those that grew by the high-way side boyling great Chaldrons of Maloes and Thistles mingling therewith sometimes a little Bran and so stuffed themselves like Swine making bread of Acorns and any corrupted root so much were they constrained by eagerness of Appetite and remembring that the Hogs loved Fern-roots they gather'd of them to make bread to feed themselves defrauding the Swine of their proper food whereupon ensued an infinite number of Maladies the richest of the people fell into great fear and trouble seeing such troops of men and women young and old trembling in the streets having their skins swoln as if they had the Dropsie others being half dead on the ground drew their last gasps and with such people were the stables and out-houses filled others were so faint that they could scarce tell their necessities and had hardly breath left in their bodies staggering up and down more like ghosts and shadows than men After all this that which was more to be lamented than the rest was to see great number of poor Mothers surrounded with many little Children who for want of Victuals cried and howled to them and that after such a manner that it would have melted the most obdurate heart into pity The aforesaid Paradin writeth that he himself hath seen in Burgundy a poor woman who by a great purchase and importunity had obtained a morsel of bread the which was suddenly snatch't away by her little child which she suckled in her arms who did eat the hard and dry bread with so strong an appetite that it surpassed imagination and the Mother being willing to gather up the little crumbs which fell from the mouth of the child the said infant set it self as it were to debate and cry out of despite to see its Mother gather up the remainders being afraid of not having enough The same Author reciteth moreover that in a Village thereabout were found two women who finding nothing to asswage their hunger fed on a venemous Herb called Scyla much like the Leek knowing not the property or vertue of the said Herb they therewith poysoned themselves so that their feet and hands became as green as Lizards and there ran such a venom from under their Nails that notwithstanding all the help that was administred to them they died suddenly So much were all creatures animated and busied in the execution of Gods anger finally this misery and calamity of the Season being of long and intollerable duration the Country people whose livings lay all in Lands were constrained to have recourse to rich Merchants some of whom had amassed great quantities of Corn that they might buy of them as long as their money would last and when that was gone the poor people were fain to Mortgage their Lands and Livings some selling them out-right at a very low Rate that they might have wherewithal to satisfie their hunger CHAP. IV. Of divers other Distempers and Phrensies wherewith men have been affected PLiny and very many other Physicians Greeks and Arabians have written That since two thousand years there has been discovered more than three hundred several sorts of Diseases to which men are subject Not to reckon those new ones which appear every day on the stage I leave the common ones wherewith many times those that are troubled are enforced to suffer the burning and Cauterizing of their bodies Sawing their bones the taking out of splinters raking in their sculls drawing out the very bowels out of their bodies as if they were to be Anatomiz'd alive Others have been tied up to so strict a diet and small quantity of food by reason of the violence of their Distempers that they have been constrained to drink their own Urine to quench their thirst and eat their Plaisters that they might moderate their hunger Others there have been who have perswaded themselves that they have swallowed Serpents the cure of whom could not be any ways wrought but by putting in Serpents into the Bason in which they vomited making them believe that they came out of their bodies as Alexander Tralianus relateth of a Damosel whom he healed after this manner who thought she had swallowed a Serpent in her sleep Others have been so strangely affected that they thought themselves transformed into irrational Creatures as he of whom Galen maketh mention who thought himself really transformed into a Cock and conversed ordinarily with them of that kind he imagined himself to be one and when he heard them crow he began to counterfeit and crow with them and as they clapped their wings against their brests so did he his arms Others have thought themselves to be transformed into Wolves and ceased not all night to run up and down on Mountains and Deserts following the howlings and other gestures of the Wolves The Greeks call this kind of Malady Lycanthropia which may seem fabulous to them who are not acquainted with ancient Histories or the holy Writings wherein we have the Story of Nebuchadnezzar who was changed into the shape of an Ox for the space of seven years Others saith Galen have thought themselves transformed into earthen Vessels and stirred not out of the Fields lest they should be dashed in peices Others have been full three years without sleeping or closing their eye lids as it happened to good Maecenas Some have been so