Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A18243
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Marcus Ausonius his foure bookes of morall precepts, intituled Cato concerning the precepts of common life / translated out of Latin hexamiters into English meter by Walter Gosnold gentleman ...; Catonis disticha.
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Gosnold, Walter.
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1638
(1638)
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STC 4863.5; ESTC S280
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51,283
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144
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shade and comfort in the day and solace in the night To good ends both of them were made and so they both are still But oftentimes they are abus'd unto most dangerous ill And then we finde it so fall out that these two weaker things Doe overcome the strong and wise yea Emperours and Kings W. G. A loving exhortation to all young married women that they discover not that in the day which their husbands acquaint them withall in the night YOu whose resplendent beauty sets on fire Your Husbands love and whose modest attire Suits their estates making the world admire Your comely personage and sectes desire Let not your tongues be as a piercing dart Or two-edg'd sword to cut in twaine their heart With words of horrour to their gentle eare Which no mild Husband can endure to heare Or fondly tattle to your friends abroad The secrets of your best beloved Lord. This is a thing befits not your estate Let Beldames scould and idle Gossips prate More modest carriage should be in your yeares What age so ere you are as well appeares For marry with a Virgin old or young She scarcely can offend but with her tongue Then strive to tame that little member stout Though set on fire of hell or plucke it out To live at peace else it will be a wonder When in the house wives maketh such a thunder Or privatly doth whisper to their friends Their Husbands secret counsels to vile ends Babling what commeth next unto their tongues With heavy sighes as if they 'd spit their longues This full out is as ill as all the rest For both are bad I know not which is best But some will scould at home and prate abroad That 's worst of all and most to be abhord Such wives there be I 'd wish man no worse evill Then to be plagu'd with such a shrewish devill Abandon therefore all you that are wives Such double wrongs and quickly mend your lives T is not your beauties will your husbands please If you be guilty of such crimes as these Nor yet your smiles and flattering lookes availe When you are given so much to scold and raile Without any just cause at girds and fits As if you were distract out of your wits Disgracing quite your hansome comely parts Having faire faces but false wicked hearts Then in a word be as your Emblem shewes Loving unto your husbands and not shrews For to have wives it is the worst of evils To looke like Saints and yet be worse than devils So leave I you each woman in her place Desiring God assist you with his grace W. G. Three Lessons that old Cato as he did lie in his bed gave unto his sonne Cato to be observed and kept above all other Precepts and Commandements formerly left him in writing CAto being wise and of an understanding wit Roms government he had in judgment seat did sit And came to such high honor so great estate That none in all the City were so fortunate Great offices he had who did them well supply Performing worthy deeds deserving memory This Cato had a son who was of his owne name As Authors manifold do witnes still the same When he was very old long time had been sick Nature being spent not finding helpe by phisicke Perceiving i◠himselfe the day of death drew neere He called to him his sonne whom he loved deare And in most decent wise to him he did declare His mind and full intent as after you shall heare Saying my deare and loving sonne its long that I Have lived here my time draws neer that I must die And leave this wretched world which is ful of misery Deaths stroke uncertain is yet may one it descry Wherfore I gladly would thee teach while I have breath how to behave thy self my son after my death That thou unto the Common-wealth maist ever be A member sound good from wicked vices free And so alwaies to live without reproach or shame To the joy of friends increase of thy good name Remember many precepts I have left behind Writ heretofore of me for to instruct thy mind Which to thy profit may redownd if thou hast wit Those documents to follow as becomes thee fit Yet notwithstanding all those rules lessons good I formerly have given thee to be understood There be three more which I wil charge thee to observ And keep'bove all the rest not frō thē to swarve The first Precept THe first precept that I of thee require And charge thee keep is never to aspire To any Office of high dignity For to advance thy selfe and pedigree By the Emperour who is free to give So long as thou sufficient hast to live Or any other Prince thy state to raise To a more higher pitch of greater praise For he that is content lives most at rest The meane estate is ever counted best Most sure it is and most comfort doth bring And he that hath it hath asmuch as King Or Emperour may have no man therefore Ought to demand or aske of God no more Wherefore great folly t is I say for such As have enough and yet repine and grutch At that they have yea very dangerous That of preferment art so covetous And through desire of honour too greedy To put themselves so much in jeopardy To lose both their estates there lives and lands Their goods and all they have within their hands For he that doth presume above his state Instead of love incurres but deadly hate As daly we may see where greatnesse is Their envie doth not want nor malice misse Gainst those that seeke to be promoted high Through false reports are faint in prison lie And lose all that they have such is their fall That have enough yet would have more than all Honour is that the mind doth covet most And no dishonour like that honour lost And truly my beloved sonne be wise Great Princes are of divers qualities And sometimes overcome through false report And flattery of rich and greater sort Gainst those subjects who are most faithfull true I then advise thee keepe my precepts few The second Precept I charge thee not prolong whilst thou hast breath The life of him that hath deserved death Especially whose evill wicked fame Hath beene a common scandall to his name For all those evils which he after doth Or moveth others for to doe insooth Thou guilty art as is himselfe therein And art partaker with him of the sinne And as the old and common proverbe have He that a thiefe doth from the gallows save He for himselfe a hangman doth provide Or keepeth one in store as oft betide To doe him an ill turne in time to come Of this beware my deare and loving sonne The third Precept THe last precept I le give thee in my life For so observe is first to prove thy wife To know if she can secret keepe those things Which touch thy honest name discredit brings
wicked men 46. Morte repentina noli gandere malorum Foelices obeunt quorum sine crimine vita est Rejoyce not at the sudden death of lewd and wicked men They 're counted happy in their death whose life faultlesse hath beene Pauper simulatum vitet amicum A poore man let him shun a dissembled friend or let a poore man beware of a counterfeit friend 47. Cum conjux tibi sit nec res fama laboret Vitandum ducas inimicum nomen amici When thou 'st a wife of substance small whose fame her selfe convince Beware of those that haunt thy house under friendships pretence Junge studium Joyne study to study or study still 48. Cum tibi contingat studio cognoscere multa Fac discat multa vites nescire docer When it doth chance with learning much by study thou art fraught See thou eschew blinde ignorance unwilling to be taught Brevitas memoriae amica Brevity or shortnesse is a friend or a helpe to memory 49. Miraris verbis nudis me scribere versus Hos brevitas sensus fecit conjungere binos That I meanly to verses write dost wonder thus I doe The shortnesse of the sense hath made me joyne them two and two The living speeches of CATO a Dying man C Heere up my panting feeble heart feare not to die A ll must die once some twice such is mans destiny T i me finish that which God allots welcome sweet death O Lord to thee I yeeld my soule who gave me breath A Post-script to the Reader NOw I this worke performed have and sent it to the Presse I know that some will call me foole and sure I am no lesse For printing that which long agoe by others was set out Which is untruth as I can prove if any thereof doubt For though it hath translated beene as I doe not deny Grammatically into prose yet not in poetry As I haved one therefore I say who blames my enterprise If they can finde no other fault I say they are not wise Farewell To I. B. that Grammatically translated CATO HAd I but seen thy worke before I finish'd up had mine I would have mended every line by that bright lamp of thine Who taken hath such paines therein to give each word his due That no translator I have knowne hath done the like but you And hadst thou set those lines on feet that thou hast done in prose Thy friends alone would not thee praise but even thy very foes But thou didst it for schollers good that they may profit finde Not for thy owne glory and praise which shewes a noble mind Wherefore for this thy love thou bearst to infants yet unborne Thy name thy fame and memory shall never be outworne Walter Gosnold Three Lessons thaâ— old CATO as he did lie oâ— his death-bed gave unto his young sonnâ— CATO to be observed and kept translated first out of Dutch into English prose by oâ— Laurence Singleton and now metamorphosed into English metre with the rest of his most worthy Precepts by W. G. O happy is that man which seeth others fall And can avoid the snare that they were caught withaâ— THy wife being wise make her the closet Of thy breast else not for she 'le disclose it For never yet was man so well aware But first or last was caught in womans snare Then triall make before thou dost her trust In any thing thou fearst she 'le be unjust As here old Cato's sonne did wisely try Whether his wife could keepe his secrecy To the Reader GEntle Reader having already presented thee with many good Lessons and morall Instruction of Cato which daily and hourely he taught unto his young sonne I likewise have thought fit to present unto thy view three precepts more which he left unto him upon his death-bed to be observed and kept above all other Precepts and Commaudements formerly left him in writing which rust had almost consumed and time buried in oblivion had I not by chancc lighted upon them in an old Antiquaries library and put upon their backes new liveries their old ones being quite out of fashion and therefore altogether out of request with those which otherwise might be their sociates and fellow-companions being almost an hundred thirty yeers since they were last printed and translated out of Dutch into our mother tongue Wherefore having taken such paines in the metamorphosing of them to the same habite or stile of the rest of his most worthy Precepts I trust they will not be unwelcome unto thee being no lesse worthy of acceptation than the former for as my Authour wished good in translating them into English prose so likewise doe I in metamorphosing them into English metre following my copy in the phrase of our speech without adding or diminishing either in substance or circumstance as neere as possibly I could If any then be so curious as to distaste these my poore indeavours for the plainnesse of the verse or the dislike of the Authour being a heathen I le make no other apologie for my selfe and him but this For the first it is the height of my ambition to adorne every action with the most plainest proper object especially where I have a patterne laid before me for my imitation as for the latter it is no shame for us to learne wit of Heathens neither is it materiall in whose schoole wee take out a good lesson Howsoever therefore my unpolished worke shall be accepted at thy hands yet shall I not have cause to repent me of my labonr for the benefit that may come thereby and so I conclude Yours assured though there be no assurance amongst men WALTER GOSNOLD A caveat to all young married men to beware how they lay open themselves or trust too farre at first to their wives secresie in any waighty matter tending either to the losse of their lives goods or good name before they be well grounded in their wives honesty and fidelity IF thou 'st a wife in any case shew not thy selfe so kinde As to relate each waighty cause unto her of thy minde Untill that thou hast tryall made of her that is but young And dost perceive whether that she be mistris of her tongue Or else too late you will repent that hastily you told In secrecy such things to her which bluntly shee 'l unfold Before her Gossips when she meets with other pratling wives Bringing their husbands many times in perill of their lives As here you may right well behold in this ensuing story The falshood of young Cato's wife that should have been his glory W. G. How a wife is sympathis'd to a vine being both very usefull and yet very hurtfull HOw Wives compared are to vines I shall not need recite For Poets many in this straine endeavoured have to write And set it forth with best of skill I then shall doe amisse To tautologies yet briefly in few words thus it is The fruitfull Vine and vertuous Wife are both for Mans delight For