habit and called her selfe Pelagius proceeding in that sanctity of life that where before of Pelagia she was called Pelagus Vitiorum i. A sea of Vices she was after stiled Pelagus Vertutum amarissimus Marath aquas in dulces convertens i. An Ocean of Vertues turning the most bitter Waters of Marath into sweet And thus I conclude with these Wantons wishing all such whose lives have been us ill and infamous that their ends might prove as good and glorious Explicit lib. Sextus Inscriptus Erato THE SEVENTH BOOK inscribed POLYHIMNIA or MEMORY Intreating of the Piety of Daughters towards their Parents Women to their children Sisters to their Brothers Wives to their Husbands c. THere is no gift according to Reason bestowed upon man more sacred more profitable or availing towards the attaining of the best Arts and Disciplines which include all generall Learning then Memory which may fitly be called the Treasure-house or faithful Custos of Knowledge and Unstanding Therefore with great wisdome did the Poets call her the mother of the Muses and with no lesse elegancy did they place Oblivion below in Hell in regard of their opposition and antipathy Our Memory as Sahellicus saith is a benefit lent us from above that hath her existence in Nature but her ornament and beauty from Art Alexand. ab Alex. Lib. 2. cap. 19. That the Aegyptians in their Hieroglyphicks when they would figure any man of an excellent memory they would do it by a Fox or a Hare with upright and erected ears But when they would represent one dull and blockish they did by a Crocodile That Nation of all others hath been remarkable for their admirall retention who before they knew the true use of Letters had all the passages of former ages by heart and still the elder delivered them to the younger keeping no other Records then their own remembrances Themistocles in this was eminent insomuch that Sâ—monides the Poet promising by Art to add something unto that which he had already perfect by Nature he told him he had rather he could teach him the Art of Forgetfulnesse because he was prone to remember such things as he desired to forget but could not forget such things as he gladly would not remember Cic. lib. 2. de Finibus It proceedeth from a moderate temperature of the brain and therefore may be numbred amongst the necessary good things which belong unto mankind Many men have in this been famous but few women unlesse for remembring an injury Most necessary to a good Memory is Meditation for as Ausonius saith in Ludo septem sapientâ—um Is quippe solus rei gerendae est efficax Meditatur omne qui prius negotium He only squares his deeds by measure true That meditates before what shall ensue And again Nâ—hil est quod Ampliorem Curam postulat c. Nothing there is that greater care should ask Then to sore-think ere we begin our task All humane actions justly are derided That are by Chance and not by Counsel guided There is a Proverb frequent amongst us Oportet mendacem esse memorem It behoves a Lyar to have a good memory Neither is the sentence more common then the practise is in these corrupt daies insomuch that one speaking of the generally of it thus said or to the like effect Young men have learnt to lie by practise and old men claim it by authority Gallants lie oftner to their mistresses then with them nay even womens aprons are stringed with excuses Most of our Trades-men use it in bargaining and some of our Lawyers in their pleading The Souldiers can agree with the thing it selfe but quarrels at the name of the word It hath been admitted into Aldermens Closets and sometimes into States-mens studies The Traveller makes the modestest use of it for it hath been his admittance to many a good meal At a meeting of Gentlemen about this Town whether in a Tavern or an Ordinary I am not perfect but amongst other discourse at the Table one amongst the rest began thus It is recorded saith he by a Spanish Nobleman who had been Embassador in Russia that in the time of his residence there a strange accident befel which was after this manner A poor man of the Country whose greatest means to live was by gathering stricks and rotten wood in the forrest and after to make merchandize thereof amongst the neighbour Villages he climbing a hollow tree much spent with age and that Country above many others being full of Bees as appears by their traffick of Wax and Hony of which in the bulk and concavity of the Tree there was such a quantity that treading upon a broken branch and his fâ—ot-hold failing he sell into the trunk thereof where presently he was up to the arm-pits deep in Honey besides the emptinesse above his head not being able to reach to any thing by which he might use the help of his hands In this sweet pickle he continued the space of three daies feeding upon the reliefe the place affoorded but altogether despairing ever to be released thence as not daring to cry or call out for help fearing the danger of wild beasts of which in those wildernesses there are infinite plenty But it so fell out that a mighty great Bear coming that way and by reason of the poor mans moving and stirring himselfe up and down the Tree smelling the Honey which they say Bears have appetite unto above all other things whatsoever he mounts the Tree and as their custome is not daring to thrust in their heads first as fearing to fall headlong provident Nature hath allowed them that foresight as catching fast hold upon the top with their fore-feet with one of their hinder legs as with a plummet they sound the depth of the place and how far it is to the commodity for which they come to search All this the Bear did at such time as the miserable poor man was casting his arms abroad to catch hold of any thing by which he might raise himselfe out of that pittiful Purgatory who meeting with such an unexpected Pulley or Crane catch fast hold upon the Bears leg at which the beast being suddenly affrighted fearing to leave one of his limbs behind him drew it up with such a mighty strength that he pluckt out the man withall to the top where he first fell in by which means the poor wretches life was preserved and the affrighted Bear as if the Devil had been at his tail never looked back till he had got into the thickest part of the wildernesse His discourse being ended and every one admiring the strangenesse of the accident a Traveller that sat next affirmed it for truth as being then in the Country at the same time and thereupon took occasion to discourse of the Cities the Rivers the Manners and Dispositions of the people and withall the coldnesse of the Clime which in some places saith he I protest is so extream that one of my Country men and I talking
together one morning in the fields our words still as we spoke them froze before us in the air and that so hard that such as the next day past that way might read them as perfectly and distinctly as if they had been texted in Capitall Letters to which one of the Gentlemen with great modesty replied Truly Sir methinks that should be a dangerous Country to speak treason in especially in the depth of winter Something before this discourse was fully ended came up the Gentlewoman of the house to bid her guests welcome and taking her chair at the upper end of the table It seems Gentlemen saith she your discourse is of Russia my first husband God rest his soule was a great Traveller and I have heard him in his life time speak much of that Country but one thing amongst the rest which I shall never forget whilst I have an hour to live That riding from Mosco the great City to a place in the Countrie some five miles off in a mighty great Snow and the high way being covered and he mistaking the path he hapned to tumble horse and man into a deep pit from which he could not find any possible way out either for himselfe or for his beast and lying there some two hours and ready to starve with cold as necessity will still put men to their wits so he bethought himselfe and presently stepping to a Village some half a mile off borrowed or bought a spade with which comming back he fell to work and first digged out himselfe and after his horse when mourning he without more 〈◊〉 came to the end of his journey And this saith she 〈◊〉 told to a hundred and a hundred Gentlemen 〈…〉 own hearing To end this discourse in a word which by examples might be exemplified into an infinite one of the guests sitting by said I can tel you a stranger thing then all these being demanded what he answered I beleeve all these things related to be true Plutarch in his book De educandis liberis saith Praeter haec omnia adsuefaciendi sunt pueri ut vera dicant c. Above all things children ought to be accustomed to speak the truth in which consisteth the chiefe sanctimony but to lie is a most servile thing worthy the hate of all men and not to be pardoned in servants Homer Iliad 1. to shew the difference betwixt Truth and Falshood hath these words Poene mihi est orci portis invisior ipsis Cujus verba sonant aliud quam mente recondit He 's to me hatefull as the doors of hell That when he ill doth mean doth promise well Juvenal in his third Satyr gives it a more ful and ample expression after this manner Quid Romae feciam mentiri nescio librum Si malus est nequeo laudare c. What should I do at Rome I cannot lye If a bad Book be laid before me I Nor praise it nor desire it I have no skill In the Stars motions neither can nor will I make deep search into my fathers fate To know when he shall die nor calculate From the Frogs entrails by inspection never Was it my study how by base endeavour To panderize or close conveiance hide Betwixt th' Adulterer and anothers Bride These practises seek they that list t' attain Such as I have been I will still remain This Muse Polyhimnia under whom I patronize this seventh Book as she is the Mistresse and Lady of Memory and consequently of the multiplicity both of Hymns and Histories so from her I assume a kind of liberty to continue my variety of discourse and from Mendacia come to Sales or Dicteria i. From Lies to Jeasts or ingenious witty answers For which Athenaeus in his Dypnos lib. 13. remembers these women famous Lamia Gnathena Lais Glicera Hyppo Nico Phrine Thais Leontium and others Yet lest women should not be content to equall men only but to antecede them I wil here commemorare some things wittily and facetiously spoken by Princes and others Auton in Melissa Part. 1. Serm. 56. speaks of an unskilfull Physitian comming to visit an old friend of his or at least an acquaintance saluting him in this manner Sir God be thanked you have lived to a fair age and are grown an old man Yes Sir said he and you have my health too for I never made use of any Physitian Cicero thus plaid upon Vatinius who was but a few daies Consul A great prodigy saith he there hapned in the year of his Consul-ship That there was neither Spring Summer Autum nor Winter one asking him Why he had neglected to visit the Consul in his honour he answered He had purposed it but the night prevented him He sported in the like kind upon Caninius of him saith he we had a most vigilant Consul who never so much as slept in his Consulship Lucilius Manilius an excellent Painter had drawn wondrous beautiful faces but his children were exceedingly deformed A friend of his supping with him one night taunted him in these words Non similiter â—ingis pingis as much to say Thou dost not get thine own children as thou dost paint others No wonder answered he For I get those faces in the dark but when I paint others I do them by the light of the Sun The Christian Princes having united their forces to redeem the Holy Land from the oppression of the Infidels Santius brother to the King of Spain was made Generall of the Christian forces a man of great sanctity and of an austere life and withall a noble souldier he amongst other Princes sitting in Council with the Pope but not understanding the Roman Tongue in which the businesse was then debated only having his interpreter placed at his feet upon the sudden after their Decree there was a great acclamation and clamour with flinging up their caps c. At which Santius demanded of his interpreter what that sudden joy meant he told him It was because the Pope and Colledge of Cardinals had by their publick sustrage created him King of Aegypt for the Saladine then usurped in the Holy City Is it so saith he then arise and proclaim the Pope Caliph of Baildacha Thus with a Princely liberty modestly taxing their forwardness who as they gave him a Kingdome without a Country he to requite the Popes gratitude gave him a Bishoprick without a Diocesse Pacuvius Taurus having for his former service sued to Augustus Caesar for some great and grosse sum of money and the rather to induce the Emperor to bounty told him That it was voiced in the City and was frequent in every mans mouth how he had already received a large donative from Caesar to whom he answered Let them say what they will but donot thou Pacuvius beleeve it To another that was removed from his command and sued for a pension yet insinuating with the Emperor that it was for no covetous intent or any hope of gain but because it should be
The Queen of women and the best of Queens whose magnanimity in war and gentlenesse in peace resolution in the one and generous affability in the other have so sweet a correspondence that when the Canon roared loud at the gates and the bullet forced a passage even through the Palace where she lodged was no more danted in courage nor dismaied in countenance then when the gentle and soft musick melodiously sounded at the celebration of her espousâ—ls Sacred Oh Princely Lady for ever be your memory and fortunate and happy your hopefull posterity may your womb prove a bed of souldiers and your breasts the nursery of Kings may the sons victories redeem the losses or the father and the daughters surmount the fertility of their mother may your future fortunes be answerable to your former vertues that as you have the earnest praiers of all good men so you may have the successe of their wishes which millions that never yet saw you desire but all that understand you know you worthily deserve And to conclude that as you are the last of these in this my Catalogue by order posterity may reckon you the first amongst the Illustrious by merit Of divers Ladies famous for their Modesty OH thou chastity and purity of life thou that art the ornament as well of man as woman from whence shall I invoke thee thou diddest first help to kindle the sacred fires of Vesta where virginity was made Religion Thou that was wont to frequent the chambers of great Ladies with sinlesse and undefiled hands make the beds of the City Matrons and to be obsequious about the Pallats strowed in the Countrie Cottages where I shall find thee now to direct this my pen in her large and unbounded progresse or to tutor me so far that I may know what on this argument thou thy selfe wouldest have done Livy Florus Plutarch and others speaking of the wonder of the Roman chastity Lucretia accuse fortune or nature of error for placing such a manly heart in the breast of a woman who being adulterated by Sextua Tarquinius after she had sent to her friends and to them complained her injuries because she would not live a by-word to Rome nor preserve a despoiled body for so noble a husbands embraces with a knife which she had hid under her garment for the same purpose in presence of them all slew her selfe which was after the cause that the tyrannicall Monarchy of Rome was transferr'd into a Consular dignity Armenia the wife of Tygranes having been with her husband at a sumptuous banquet made by King Cyrus in his Palace Roiall when every one extoll'd the majestie and applauded the goodlinesse of the Kings person at length Tygranes askt his Queen what her opinion was of his magnitude and person She answered I can say nothing Sir for all the time of the Feast mine eies were stedfastly fixt upon you my dear husband for what other mens beauties are it becomes not a married wife to enquire Cornelia the wife of Aemilius Paulus when a great Lady of Campania came to her house and opening a rich casket as the custome of women is to be friendly one with another she shewed her gold rings rich stones and jewels and causing her chests to be opened exposed to her view great variety of costly and pretious garments which done she intreated Cornelia to do her the like curlesie and to shew her what jewels and ornaments she had stored to beautifie her selfe which hearing she protracted the time with discourse till her children came from school and causing them to be brought before her turned unto the Lady and thus said These be my jewels my riches and delights nor with any gayer ornaments desire I to be beautified Fâ—â—i bonae indolis parentum lauta supellex Viz. No domestick necessaries better grace a house then children witty and well disposed Many have been of that continence they have imitated the Turtle who having once lost her mate will ever mourn but never enter into the fellowship of another Therefore Ania Romana a woman of a Noble family having buried her first husband in her youth when her friends and kinred continually laid open the solitude of widdowhood the comfort of society and all things that might perswade her to a second marriage she answered It was a motion to which she would by no means assent For saith she should I happen upon a good man such as my first husband was I would not live in that perpetuall feare I should be in lest I should lose him but if otherwise Why should I hazard my selfe upon one so had that am so late punisht with the losse of one so good It is reported of Portia Minor the daughter of Cato That when a woman who had married a second husband was for many vertues much commended in her presence Peace saith she That woman can neither be happy well manner'd nor truly modest that will a second time time marry But I hold her in this too censorious yet the most ancient Romans only conferred on her the Crown of modesty and continence that was contented with one matrimony as making expression of their uncorrupted sincerity in their continued widdowhood Especially such were most discommended to make choice of a second husband who had children left them by the first resembling their father To which Virgil in the fourth book of his Aeneid seems elegantly to allude Dido thus complaining of the absence of Aeneas Siqua mihi de te suscepta fuisset Ante fugam soboles c. Had I by thee any issue had Before thy slight some pretty wanton lad That I might call Aeneas and to play And prate to me to drive these thoughts away And from whose smiling countenance I might gather A true presentment of the absent father I should not then my wretched selfe esteem So altogether lost as I now seem Plutarch much commends the widdowhood of Cornelia the illustrious mother of the Gracchi whose care having nobly provided for her children and family after the death of her husband she exprest her selfe every way so absolute a matron that Tiberius Gracchus of whom we spake before was not ill counselled by the gods by preserving her life to prostrate his own for she denied to marry with King Ptolomeus and when he would have imparted to her a diadem and a Scepter she refused to be stiled a Queen to keep the honour of a chast widdow Or the like purity was Valeria the sister of Mssâ—lar who being demanded by her kinred and deerest friends why her first husband dead she made not choice of a second answered that she found her first husband Servius to live with her still accounting him alive to her whom she had ever in remembrance A singular and remarkable sentence proceeding from a most excellent matron intimating how the sacred unity in wedlock ought to be dignified namely with the affections of the mind not the vain pleasures
Tyrants wife to prevent their fury made fast her dore and in her private chamber strangled her selfe Aristotemus had two beautifull young virgins to his daughters both marriageable these they were about to drag into the streets with purpose to destroy them but first to excruciate them with all disgraces and contumacies Which Megisto seeing with her best oratory appeased their present fury proposing to them how shamefull a thing it were for a noble and free state to imitate the insolencies of a bloody and inhumane tyranny liberty therefore was granted the young Damosels at her intercession to retire themselves into their chambers and to make choice of what death best suited with their present fears Myro the elder sister unloosing from her wast a silken girdle fastned it about her own neck and with a smiling and chearfull look thus comforted the younger My sweet and dear sister I more commiserate thy fate then lament mine own yet imitate I intreat thee my constancy in death lest any abject thing or unworthy may be objected against us unagreeable with our blood and quality To whom the younger replied That nothing could appeare more terrible to her then to behold her die therefore besought her by the affinity of sisterhood to be the first that should make use of that girdle and dying before her to leave to her an example of resolution and patience Myro to her made answer I never denied thee any thing sweet soule in life neither will I oppose thee in this thy last request at thy death and for thy sake will I indure that which is more grievous to me then mine own death namely to see thee die When accommodating all things for the present execution she no sooner saw her dead but she gently laid her out and with great modesty covered her Then she besought Megisto on her knees to have a care of them in their deaths that nothing immodest or uncomely might be done to their bodies which granted she not only with courage but seeming joy underwent her fate till she expired nor was there any spectator there present to whom the memory of the tyrant was never so hatefull from whose eies and hearts this object did not extract tears and pity In Megisto is exprest the Magnanimity of spirit but in these following I will illustrate Fortitude in action The Turks busied in the siege of some Towns in Catharo Vluzales and Carocossa two of no mean place and eminence among them wrought so far with the great Admirall that he delivered into their charge the managing of threescore Gallies with munition and men in number competent to make incursions into the bordering Islands then under the State of Venice These two Turkish Captains land their forces before Curzala a City that gives name to the Countrie with purpose invest themselves before it which Antonius Contarinus then Governour of the City understanding like a timeâ—ous and fearfull coward taking the advantage of the night fled with his souldiers thence not leaving the Town any way deâ—ensible which the Citizens understanding all or the most followed after The Town thus left to the weak guard of some twenty men and about fourescore women the Turks give them a bold and fierce assault when these brave viragoes chusing rather to die like souldiers then like their husbands run like cowards some maintaine the Ports others defend the wals and with that noble resolution that what with fire stones scâ—lding water and such like muniments then readiest at hand so opposed the assailants that many of the Turks in that conflict were slain and all repulst retiring themselves with purpose some rest given to the souldiers to salute them with a fresh alarum But fortune was so favourable to these Amazonian spirits that a mighty tempest from the North so cost and distrest the Turks Gallies that they were forced to abandon the Island to dishonour leaving to the besieged a memory worthy to outlive all posterity Of Dido Cesara Gumilda and Ethelburga OF Dido Queen of Carthage all Authors agree to have falne by the sword and to have died by her own bold resolute hand but about the cause that moved her thereto divers differ Ausonius is of opinion That her husband Sychaeus being dead she did it to preserve her viduall chestity and so free her selfe from the importunities of Hyarbus King of Getulia of his mind is Marullus and of these Remnius or as some will have it Priscianus in the Geography of Dionysius writing De scitu orbis i. the Scituation of the world Contrary to these is the Prince of Poets he whom Scaâ—ger cals Poeta noster Pub Virgilius who ascribes her death to an impatience of grief conceived at the unkind departure of Aeneas which though it carry no great probability of truth yet all the Latine Poets for the most part in honour of the author have justified his opinion as Ovid in his third book De fâ—stis his Epistles Metamorph. and others works so likewise Angelus Politianus in his Mâ—nto with divers others Just ne in his eighteenth book of Histor speaking of the first erecting of Carthage saith That where they began to dig with purpose to lay the first foundation they found the head of an Oxe by which it was predicted that the City should be futurely fertill and commodious but withall full of labour and subject to perpetuall servitude therefore they made choice of another peece of earth where in turning up the mould they chanced upon the head of a horse by which it was presaged their Collony should in time grow to be a warlike nation fortunate and victorious In what manner she died I refer you to Virgil and will speak a word or two of her sister Anna the daughter of Belus She after the death of her sister forsaking of the City of Carthage then invested with siege by Hyarbus fled to Battus King of the Island Mâ—lita but making no long sojourn there she put again to sea and fell upon the coast of Laurentum where being well known by Aeneas she was nobly received but not without suspition of too much familiarity betwixt them insomuch that jealousie possessing Lavâ—nia the wife of Aenea she conceived an iâ—reconcilable hatâ—ed against Aâ—na insomuch that fearing her threatned displeasure she cast her selfe headlong into the river Numicus and was there drowned for so Ovid reports to his book De fastâ—s But touching the illustrious Queen Didâ— under her statue were these verses or the like engraven in a Greek character interpreted into Latiâ—e by Ausoâ—us and by me in the sacred memory of so eminent a Queen thus Englished I am that Dido look upon me well And what my life was let mâ— viâ—age tell 〈◊〉 farre and smooth what wrinckle can you find In this plain Table to expresse a mind So sordid and corrupt Why then so uneven And black a soule should to a face be given That promiseth all vertue 〈◊〉 where Begott'st thou those all thoughts that
the very name hath been so terrible amongst them as they had rather encertein into their dark and sad dominions ten thousand of their wives then any one man who hears the least character of a Cuckold But having done with this sporting I proceed to what is more serious Of Women remarkable for their love to their Husbands IT is reported of the wives of Wynbergen a free place in Germany that the Town being taken in an assault by the Emperor and by reason the Citizens in so valiantly defending their lives and honours had been the overthrow of the greatest part of his army the Emperour grew so inplacable that the purposed though mercy to the women yet upon the men a bloody revenge Composition being granted and articles drawn for the surrender of the Town it was lawfull for the matrons and virgins by the Emperours edict to carry out of their own necessaries a burden of what they best liked The Emperour not dreaming but that they would load themselves with their jewels and coin rich garments and such like might perceive them issuing from the Ports with every wife her husband upon her back and every virgin and demosel her father or brother to expresse as much love in preserving their lives then as the men had before valour in defending their liberties This noble example of conjugall love and piety took such impression in the heart of Caesar that in recompence of their noble charity he not only suffered them to depart peaceably with their first burdens but granted every one a second to make choice of what best pleased them amongst all the treasure and wealth of the City Michael Lord Montaigne in his Essaies speaks only of three women for the like vertue memorable the first perceiving her husband to labour of a disease incurable and every day more and more to languish perswaded him resolutely to kill himselfe and with one blow to be rid of a lingring torment but finding him to be somewhat faint-hearted she thus put courage into him by her own noble example I quoth she whose sorrow for thee in thy sicknesse hath in some sort paralleld thy torment am willing by one death both to give date unto that which hath for thy love afflicted me and thy violent and unmedicinable torture So after many perswasive motives to encourage his fainting resolution she intended to die with him in her arms and to that purpose lest her hold by accident or affright should unloose she with a cord bound fast their bodies together and taking him in her loving embraces from an high window which overlooked part of the sea cast themselves both headlong into the water As pious affection shewed that renowned matron Arria vulgarly called Arria mater because she had a daughter of the name she seeing her husband Poetus condemned and willing that he should expire by his own hand rather then the stroke of a common hangman perswaded him to a Roman resolution but finding him somewhat danted with the present fight of death she snatcht up a sword with which she transpierc'd her selfe and then plucking it from her bosome presented it unto her husband only with these few and last words Poete non dolet Hold Poetus it hath done me no harm and so fell down and died of whom Martial in his first book of Epigrams hath left this memory Casta suo gladium cum traderet Aria Poeto Quem dedit visceribus traxerat illa suis Si qua fides vulnus quod seci non dolet inquit Sed quod tu facies hoc mihi Poete dolet When Aria did to Poetus give that steel Which she before from her own brest had tane Trust me quoth she no smart at all I feel My only wound 's to think upon thy pain The third was Pompeia Paulina the wife of Seneca who when by the tyrannous command of Nero she saw the sentence of death denounced against her husband though she was then young and in the best of her years and he aged and stooping notwithstanding so pure was her affectionat zeale towards him that as soon as she perceived him to bleed caused her own vein to be opened so to accompany him in death few such presidents this our age affordeth Yet I have lately seen a discourse intituled A true Narration of Rathean Herpin who about the time that Spinola with the Bavarians first entred the Pallatinate finding her husband Christopher Thaeon Appoplext in all his limbs and members with an invincible constancy at severall journies bore him upon her back the space of 1300 English miles to a Bath for his recovery These and the like presidents of nuptiall piety make me wonder why so many Satyrists assume to themselves such an unbridled liberty to inveigh without all limitation against their Sex I hapned not long since to steale upon one of these censorious fellowes and found him writing after this manner I wonder our fore-fathers durst their lives Hazard in daies past with such choice of wives And as we read to venture on so many Methinks he hath enow that hath not any Sure either women were more perfect then Or greater patience doth possesse us men Or it belongs to them since Eve's first curse That as the world their Sex growes worse and worse But who can teach me Why the fairer still They are more false good Oedipus thy skill Or Sphinx thine toresolve me lay some ground For my instruction good the like is found ' Mongst birds and serpents did you never see A milk white Swan in colour like to thee That wast my mistresse once as white as faire Her downie breasts to touch as soft as rare Yet these deep waters that in torments meet Can never wash the blacknesse from her feet Who ever saw a Dragon richly clad In golden scales but that within he had His goâ—ge stufe full of venome I behold The woman and methinks a cup of gold Stands brim'd before me whence should I but sip I should my fate and death tast from thy lip But henceforth I 'll beware thee since I know That under the more spreading Misceltow The greater Mandrake thrives whose shrieke presages Or ruine or disaster Who ingages Himselfe to beauty he shall find dependants Contempt Disdain and Scorn with their attendants Inconstancy and Falshood in their train Wait loosnesse and intemperance But in vain Before the blind we glorious objects bring Lend armour to the lame or counsell sing To them will find no ears be 't then approv'd None ever fair that hath sincerely lov'd If beautifull she 's proud if rich then scorn She thinks becomes her best But ' ware the horn Thou man if she be crost once bright or black Well shap'd or ugly doth she fortunes lack Or be she great in means haunts she the Court City or Countrie They all love the sport Further he was proceeding when I staied his pen and so stopped the torrent of his poeticall raptureo and so laid before him
the women of the City with the Virgins houshold servants and intent 〈◊〉 meeting but the matrons and wives of the nobility 〈…〉 night-festivall in a conclave or parlor by themselves 〈◊〉 she 〈◊〉 her selfe with a sword and with her two daughters secretly conveied her selfe into the Temple 〈◊〉 the time when all the matrons were most busie about the ceremonies and mysteries in the conclave then having made fast the doors and shut up the passages and heaped together a great quantity of billets with other things combustible provided for the purpose but especially all that sweet wood that was ready for the sacrifice of that solemnity she set all on fire which the men hastning to quench in multitudes she before them all with a constancy undaunted first slew her daughters and after her selfe making the ruins of this Temple their last funerall fire The Lacedemonians having now nothing left of Alcippus against which to rage they caused the bodies of Democrita and her daughters to be cast out of the confines of Sparta For this ingratitude it is said by some that great earthquake hapned which had almost overturned the City of Lacedemon from Democrita I come to Phillus Demophron the son of Theseus and Phaedra the halfe brother to Hippolitus returning from the wars of Troy towards his Country by tempests and contrary winds being driven upon the coast of Thrace was gently received and affectionately enterteined by Phillis daughter to Lyâ—urgus and Crustumena then King and Queen of that Country and not only to the freedome of all generous hospitality but to the liberty and accesse unto her bed He had not long sojourned there but he had certain tidings of the death of Muesthaeus who after his father Thesâ—us was expulsed Athens had usurped the principility pleased therefore with the newes of innovation and surprized with the ambition of succession he pretending much domestick businesse with other negotiations pertaining to the publike government after his faith pawned to Phillis that his return should be within a month he got leave for his Countrie therefore having calked and moored his ship making them serviceable for the sea he set saile towards Athens where arrived he grew altogether unmindfull of his promised faith or indented return Four months being past and not hearing from him by word or writing she sent him an Epistle in which she complains of his absence then perswads him to cal to mind her more then common courtesies to keep his faith ingaged to her and their former contract to make good by marriage the least of which if he refused to accomplish her violated honour she would recompence with some cruel and violent death which she accordingly did for knowing her selfe to the despised and utterly cast off she in her fathers Palace hanged her selfe From Phillis I proceed to Deianeira Jupiter begat Hercules of Alâ—mena in the shape of her husband Amphitrio joining three nights in one whom Euristius King of Micena at the urgence of his stepmother Juno imploid in all hazardous and fearfull adventures not that thereby he might gaine the greater honour but by such means sooner perish but his spirit was so great and his strength so eminent that from forth all these swallowing dangers he still plunged a victor amongst these difficulties was that combat against Achelous a Flood in Aetolia who transhaped himself into sundry figures for the love of Deianeira daughter to Oeneus and Althaea King and Queen of Calidon and sister to Meleager he whom no monsters nor earthly powers could came by the conquest of Achilous won Deianeira for his bride But he whom all tyrants and terrours were subject to submitted himselfe to effeminacy and the too much dotage upon women for when Euritus King of Oechalia had denied him his daughter Iole before promised him the City taken and the King slaine he took her freely into his embraces with whose love he was so blinded that her imperious command he laid by his club and Lions skin the trophies of his former victories and which was most unseemly for so great a conquerour parâ—on a womanish habit and blusht not with a distasse in his hand to spin amongst her damosels In briefe what slavery and servitude soever he had before suffered under the tyranny of Omphale Queen of Lydia of whom he begot Lamus he endured from her which Deianeira hearing in a letter she â—aies open to him all his former noble act and victories that by comparing them with his present 〈◊〉 it the better might encourage him to 〈◊〉 the first and deter him from the last But having receved newes of Hercules calamity by reason of the poisoned shire sent him by her servant Lychas dipt in the blood of the Centaur Nessus in which she thought there had been the vertue to revoke him from all new loves and establish him in his first for so Nessus had perswaded her when in her transwafcage over the flood Evenus he was slain by the arrow of Hercules dipt in the poison of Lerna when the I say heard of the death of her husband and that though unwilling it hapned by her means she died by a voluntary wound given by her own hand Nor such as that which followes The Ionians through all their Province being punisht with a most fearfull and horrible pest insomuch that it almost swept the City and Country and had it longer continued would have left their places and habitations desolate they therefore demanded of the Oracle a remedy for so great a mischiefe which returned them this answer That the plague should never cease till the young man Menalippus and the faire Cometho were slain and offered in sacrifice to Diana Tryclaria and the reason was because he had strumpeted her in the Temple And notwithstanding their deaths unlesse every yeare at the same season a perfectly featured youth and a virgin of exquisite beauty to expiate their transgression were likewise offered upon the same Altar the plague should still continue which was accordingly done and Menalippus and the faire Cometho were the first dish that was served up to this bloody feast The same author speaks of the daughter of Aristodemus in this manner The Messenians and the Lacedemonians have continued a long and tedious war to the great depopulation of both their Nations those of Missenâ— sent to know of the event of the Oracle at Delphos and to which party the victory would at length incline Answered is returned That they shal be conquerors and the Lacedemonians have the worst but upon this condition To chuse out of the family of the Aepitidarians a virgin pure and unblemisht and this damosel to sacrifice to Jupiter This Aristodemus hearing a Prince and one of the noblest of the family of the Aepitidarians willing to gratifie his Countrie chused out his only daughter for immolation and sacrifice which a noble youth of that Nation hearing surprized both with love and pity love in hope to enjoy her and
Theophrasius the Princes of the Philosophers in their age most constantly affirm the transmigration of Witches into Wolves Gasper Peucerus an approved learned man and the Cousen german to Philip Melancthon held these things to be meer fables till by Merchants of worthy reputation and credit he was better informed from certain proofes brought him from Livonia of such that for the same fault were upon their own confessions adjudged to death These and greater are confirmed by Languetus Burgundus Agent for the Duke of Saxonie with the King of France as also by Herodotus Neurios who affirms these conversions and 〈◊〉 shapes to be most frequent in Livonia In the History of 〈◊〉 Tritemius you may read Anno 970. of a Jew called Baranus the son of Simeon who could transform himself into Wolfe at his own pleasure Of the like to these Herodotus Homer Pomponius Mela Solinus Strabo Dionysius Afer 〈◊〉 Virgil Ovid and many others have written long before these times as likewise Epanthes remembred by Pliny and Agrippas in his Olympionicis who speaks of one Demaenetius Parrhasius translated into a Wolfe Or who so would be better confirmed let him read Olaus Magnus of the Nations of Pilapia Narbonia Fincladia and Augermania or else Saxo Grammatius Fincelius and Gulielmus Brabantius And therefore those things are not altogether incredible which Ovid speaks of Lyâ—aâ—n who included much truth in many 〈◊〉 who in his Metamorphosis thus saies Territus ipse fugit noctuque silentia runis Exululat 〈◊〉 que loqui conatur c. Frighted he fliâ—s and having got The silence of the shades Thinking to speak he â—owls and then The neighbour floâ—ks invades So much for monstrous Wolves I come now to meer Witches Saint Augustine in his book de Civitate Dei lib. 18. capâ— 17. and 18. tels of divers hostesses or Inkâ—epers practised in these diabolicall Arts who put such coâ—â—ections into a kind of Cheese they made that all such travellers as guested with them and eat thereof we â—â—presently metamorphosed into labouring beasts as Horses Asses Oxen all which they imploied either in drawing or bearing of burdens or else let them out for Hacknies to gain profit by their hire and when their work was done and they had made of them what benefit they could they restored them to their pristine shape Ranulphus and Gulielmus de Regib lib. 20. relates a History of two such Witches that lived in the road way to Rome A Minstrel or Piper travelling that way tasted of this cheese and was presently changed into an Asse who notwithstanding he had lost his shape still retained his naturall reason and as one Banks here about this City taught his horse to shew tricks by which he got much monie so this Asse being capable of what was taught him and understanding what he was bid to do shewed a thousand severall pleasures almost impossible to be apprehended by any unreasonable creature to all such as came to see him and paid for the sight insomuch that he was sold by these Witches to a neighbour of theirs for a great sum of monie but at the delivery of him saith one of the Witches Take heed neighbor if you mean to have good of your beast that in any case you lead him not through the water The poor transhaped Piper this hearing apprehends that water might be the means to restore him to his former humane figure purposing in himselfe to make proof thereof at his next best opportunity Carefull was the new Merchant of the charge given and watered him still in a pail but would never let him drink from the river but the Master travelling by the way and to ease his beast alighting and leading him in his hand the Asse on the sudden broke his bridle ran out of sight and leaped into the next river he came neer where leaving his saddle and furniture behind he waded out in his own shape the man pursues him with all the speed he can and followes him the way he took the first he meets is the Piper and asks him if he saw not such a kind a beast and describes him to a hair The fellow acknowledgeth himselfe to have been the same Asse he bought of the Witch the Master wondreth and relates this to his Lord his Lord acquaints this novell to Petrus Damianus a man of approved knowledge and wisdome and numbred amongst the greatest scholers of his age he examines the Master the Piper the Witches and such as saw him leap into the river a Beast and return a man and informs Pope Leo the seventh thereof All their examinations and confessions were taken and a disputation of the possibility thereof held in the presence of the Pope before whom the truth thereof was acknowledged and recorded The same History is told by Viacentius in Speculo lib. 3. cap. 109. and Fulgentius lib. 8. cap. 11. We read in Gulielmus Archbishop of Tyrus whom Sprangerus the great Inquisitor cities to the same purpose An English souldier being in Cyprus was by a Witch transformed into an Asse and when all his mates went on Ship-board he following them as loath to lose their fellowship was by his own friends and Country men that gave him lost beaten back with clubs and staves They put to Sea without him he having no other owner returned back to the Witches house that had transhaped him who imploied him in all her drugeries till at length he came into the Church when the Bishop was at divine service and fel on his knees before the Altar and began to use such devout gestures as could not be imagined to proceed from a bruit beast this first bred admiration and then suspition The Witch was called before the Judges examined and convicted after condemned to the stake having before restored him to his former shape after three years transformation Answerable to this we read of Ammonius the Philosopher of the Sect of the Peripatericks who hath left recorded That an Asse came usually into his school at the time of reading and with great attention listned to his Lecture Merchants have delivered that nothing is more frequent in Aegypt then such transhapes insomuch that Bellonius in his observations printed at Lutetia saith That he himselfe in the suburbs of Cair a great City in Aegypt saw a Comedian that desired conference with the Asse that he himselfe rode on who wondering what he then intended gave him liberty of free discourse where they seemed to talke with great familiarity as having been before acquainted where the Asse by his actions and signs seemed to apprehend whatsoever was spoken to him when the one protested with the hand upon his breast the other would strike the ground with his foot and when the man had spoke as if he had told some jeast the Asse would bray aloud as if he had laughed heartily at the conceit appearing to him not only to apprehend and understand whatsoever was spoken but to make answer to such
woman young with child A Dragon in Albâ— a grove just opposite against Juno's Temple was honoured by the Spaâ—â—ane virgins to which at certain times they went and fed him from their hands The Aegyptians had Asps likewise in great worship which they fostered and brought up together with their children The Thebans honoured a Sea Lâ—mprey There were gods called Medioxum dei or middle gods or which Plautus in his Cistellaria makes mention Isa me dei deaeque superi inferi mediorum as the gods and goddesses supernall or infernall or those betwixt them both c. He speaks likewise of Dii potellarii such as had power over the dishes that were used in Sacrifices to which Ovid hath reference in this verse 〈◊〉 Missos Vestae pura paâ—ella cibos The clean platter presents those cates sent to Vesta And Plautus in another place Dii me omnes magni minuti patellarii c. There be others called Semones who have domination over as much as lies open from the middle Region of the air to the earth and they are called by us semi-dei or halfe-gods Fulgenâ—â—â—â— cals those Semones that for the poverty of their desert are not worthy a place in the heavens Amongst whom he reckons Priapus Hippo and Vertumnus In Italy there were divers others called Dii municipales as belonging to private men in Cities not called into any publike office as amongst the Crustuminians Delventâ—nus amongst the Narnienses Viridiarius amongst the Astrulanians Ancharia amongst the Volcinienses Nortia But now of the Goddesses in order Of the Goddesses Coelestiall and first of JUNO IVNO is the daughter of Saturn the Queen of the gâ—ds and chiefe of those that are called Coelestiall The wife and sister of Jupiter goddesse of Power and Riches and soveraignesse of marriage and all conjugall contracts The Festivals kept in her honour were called Herea which was a name appropriated to her own person so Enneus saith as Cicero cites him in his first book of offices Vos ne velit an me regnarâ— Hera Will the Mistresse have you to raign or me where some take Herae for Fortune One of her Priests as Virgil testates was Calibe of whom he thus speaks Fit Calibe Junonis anus templique sacerdos The old woman Calibe was Priest in Juno's Temple Ovid in his second book Metamorph. nominates Alcinoe Ante tamen cunctos Junonis Templa colebat Proque viro qui nullus erat veniebat ad Aras Alcinoe before the rest did Juno's Temple grace And for a man for men were none had at her Altar place She was honoured most in the City of Carthage the chiefe City of Affrica of which Virgil in his first book AeneiÌ„ad thus speaks Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam Posthabita Coluisse Samo Which only saith he Juno is reported to prefer before all other Countries even Samos it selfe Statius in his first book Theb. saith that she was much honoured in the City called Prosimna but in Samos an Island compast in with the Icarian sea she was chiefly celebrated as said to be there noursed in her infancy In Argos and Mâ—cene two chiefe Cities of Achâ—ia she was likewise much honoured as their Queen and Patronesse for so Horace affirms lib. 1 Carmin Ovid in his 6. book De fastis saith that the people called Phalisci have her in great adoration calling them Junonicoli as those that honour Juno Of ther chastity majesty her brawling and chiding with Iupiter her revenge upon his strumpets and bastards divers things have been diversely commented of which I will insist upon some few Iuno having in suspition Semele the daughter of Cadmus and Hermione to have been often prostituted by Iupiter she changed her selfe into the shape of her Nurse Beroe perswading her that she should beg of him That he would grace her so much as to lie with her in the same state and majesty with which he bedded Iuno that as his power and potency was great above all so her 〈…〉 wantonnings might be remarkable above others which he unwillingly granting and she as unfortunately obtaining was the occasion that she with her Pallace were both consumed in 〈…〉 and thunders It is related of Iuno further that when she and her husband being reconciled and pleasantly discoursing held argument betwixt themselves Whether in the act of generation men or women took the greatest delight and that by joint consent their controversie was to be determined by Tyâ—esias one that had been of both Sects Tyâ—esias giving up his censure That women were by nature the most wanton her sport turned into spleen and her mirth into such madnesse that she instantly bereâ—vâ—d him of his sight and strook him blind to recompence which losse Iupiter inspired him with the spirit of Divination and Prophesie to which her continued anger further added That howsoever he truly prophesied yet his presages should never be beleeved Alomena too growing great of Hercules and ready to be delivered she taking on her the shape of a Beldame sate her down before her own Altar with her knees crossed and her hands clutched by which charme she stopped the passage of her child-birth which Gallantis espying and apprehending as it was indeed that to be the occasion why her Lady could not be delivered she bethought her of a craft to prevent the others cunning for leaving Alomena in the middest of her throwes she assumes a counterfet joy and with a glad countenance approcheth the Altar to thank the gods for her Ladies safe delivery Which Iuno â—o sooner heard but up she riseth and casts her armes abroad her knees were no sooner uncrost and her fingers open but Alomena was cased and Hercules found free passage into the world Gallantis at this laughing and Iuno chasing to be thus deluded she afflicted her with an unheard of punishment by transhaping her into a Weesill whose natiue is to kindle at the mouth that from the same jawes with which she had lied to the gods about Alomena's child be 〈◊〉 she should ever after bring forth her young No lesse was her hatred to all the posterity of Cadmus for when Agave had lost Penthaeus and Antinoe Actaeon and Sâ—mele had been consumed by Ioves thunders and there remained onely two Athames and Ino she possest them both with such madnesse that he being on hunting transpierc'd his sonne Lâ—â—â—chus mistaking him for the game he chased and Ino snatcht up young Melicertes and with him cast her selâ—e down headlong into the Sea from the top of an high promontory But at the intercession of Venus who was born of the waves Neptune was pleased to rank them in the number of the Sea-gods so that Melicertes is called Palaemon and Ino Iaeucothoe I could further relate of many other poeticall Fables as of Ixion who enterteined and feasted by Iupiter attempted to strumpet Iuno and adulterate the bed of Iupiter which to prevent and shun the violence of a rape she fashioned a Cloud into her own
full power and vertue therefore Dante the famous Italian Poet thus writes Come la neve al sole se distilla Cosi al vento nelle soglie leve Si perdea la sententia de Sybille I cannot here pretermit Ovids expression of this Sybill who when Aeneas having received from her that great curtesie to enter Hell and to come safe thence and for that would have sacrificed to her and done her divine adoration she thus answered him Nec dea sum dixit nec sacri thuris honore c. I am no goddesse goddesse sonne 't is true Nor are these divine honours to me due I had been such and darknesse not have seen Had I a prostitute to Phoebus been For whilst he courts my love and day by day Hopes with large gifts mine honour to betray Ask what thou wilt oh bright Cumaean maid It shall be granted thee Apollo said Iâ— willing that my daies should ever last Prostrate upon the earth my selfe I cast And graspt as much dust as my hand could hold Let me then live said I till I have told So many years as there are bodies small Lockt in this hand The god could not recall Nor I unsay I had forgot in truth To insert in my rash boon All years of youth Even that too to have yielded to his will I might have had but I a virgin still Have to this houre remain'd my happier daies Are all forespent Decrepit age now laies His weak hand on me which I must endure Long time to come seven ages I am sure Are past nor shall my thread of life be spun Vntill the number of these sands be run The houre shall be when this my body here Shall small or nothing to the sight appear This time and age have power to doe and when I shall not lovely seem as I did then Nay doubtlesse Phoebus will himselfe deny That e'r he cast on me an amorous eie Save by my voice I shall no more be known But that the fates have left me as mine own Ovid hath fabulated that she was changed into a Voice the word Sybilla importing Vox She prophesied much of the Roman wars and the successe of their Empire Sybilla Hellespontica SHe hath the denomination of Marrinensis and as most Authors affirme derives her selfe Ex agro Trojano from Troy in Asia She sung of the wars betwixt the Trojans and the Greeks I will be briefe with her because I fear I have been too tedious in the former her Prophesie of Christ I have included in these few lines When Atlas shoulders shall support a star Whose ponderous weight he never felt before The splendour of it shall direct from far Kings and Wise men a new light to adore Peace in those daies shall flourish and stern war Be banisht earth lost mankind to restore Then shall the Eastern Monarchs presents bring To one a Priest a Prophet and a King And so much for Sybilla Hellespontica Sybilla Phrygia SHe was called Vates Ancirrae and as most will have it this was Cassandra the daughter of King Priamus and Hecuba their female issue are thus numbred Creusa Cassandra Ilione Laodice Lycaste Medesicastis Polixena Climene Aristomache Xenodice Deimone Metioche Pisis Cleodice and Medusa Amongst which she only attained to the spirit of Prophesie and predicted of the destruction of Troy but her Augurie was never credited Apollodorus as also Higinus gives this reason Apollo inflamed with her beauty promised if she would prostitute her selfe to his pleasure he would inspire her with the spirit of Divination which he accordingly performed but she failing in her promise to him he in revenge of that injury caused that her Prophesies howsoever true should never have credit which makes her in her divination thus complain The world to Troy I sitly may compare Erected first by Neptune and the Sunne These two the aptest Hieroglyphicks are For water and for fire The buildings done Laomedon their right the gods denies For which by water Troy was first destroi'd So was the world for mans false perjuries In the great Deluge where but eight enjoi'd The benefit of life Troy happy were If it by water could forewarned be So were the world but oh too much I feare In their like fatall ruin they agree Troy must be burnt to ashes woe the while My mother in her womb conceiv'd a brand To give it flame he that shall many a mile Travell by water to bring fire to land Lust is the fuell Lust and other sinnes Are the combustible stuffe will bring to naught The worlds great fabrick since from them begins All desolation first to mankind brought The world like Troy must burn they both before Suffered by water so they must by fire We Prophesie these things what can we more But after our predictions none inquire Vnlesse in scorn This doth Cassandra grieve To speak all truth when none will truth beleeve The better to illustrate this Oracle know that Laomedon about to build the wals of Troy borrowed much coine of the Priests of Neptune and Phoebus to accomplish the work upon promise of due paiment when the wals were finished But breaking his faith and denying â—estitution of those sums lent the gods inraged at his perjury Neptune brought up his wave so high that he in a deluge utterly destroi'd the City whilst Apollo by the scorching of his beams made the upper Countries barren For the burning of Troy it hapned after the ten years siege elaborately described by Virgil in his Aenâ—idos when Aeneas discourses the whole desolation of the City to Dido in which he speaks of the Prince Chorebus to be much inamoured of Cassandra who rescued her when she was dragg'd by the haire from Apollo's Altar and was slain in the attempt The death of Cassardia is thus reported by Higinus in Fabulus when the spoiles and prisoners of Troy were divided amongst the Princes of of Greece Cassandra fell by lot to the Arch-Duke and Generall Agamemnon with whom he safely arrived in Mycene of which place he was King and governour But Clitemnestra the daughter of Tindarus sister to Hellen and wife to Agamemnon being before their landing possest by Oâ—aces or as some call him Cethus the brother of Palamedes that Cassandra was the prostitute of Agamemnon and had supplanted her from his love which lie he had forged to be revenged of the Generall for his brothers death before Troy Clitemnestra therefore surprized with jealousie complotted with Aegistus the son of Thiestas to murder them both the first might they lodged in the Pallace which was accordingly performed but Electra the daughter of Agamemnon stole thence her brother Orâ—stes then but an infant who else had perished with his father and conveied him to be safe kept to one Sthophius of Phocis who had before been married to Astichaa the sister of Agamemnon he brought him up to manhood till Orestes found fit opportunity to revenge himself on the two Regicides his mother and Aegistus Sybilla Europaea SHe
of women when their differences could be no waies decided Messalina sent to Vbidia one of the most reverent amongst the Vestals by whose mediation attonement was made betwixt her and the Emperor The Vestall fire upon a time going out and it being imputed to their inchastity Aemilia with these words besought the goddesse Oh Vesta thou that art the protectour of this famous City Rome as I have truly and chastly almost for thirty yeares space celebrated thy sacrifices so either at this present crown my purity with fame or before this multitude brand my lust with infamy These words were no sooner spoken but casting her mantle upon the Altar the fire instantly brake forth where before there was nothing in place save cold embers by which prodigie her innocent life was protected Claudia the Vestall was of no lesse remarkable chastity who when a bark laden with the sacreds of the goddesse stuck fast in the river Tyber and by no humane strength could be loosed from the sand she thus openly protested before the people If quoth she O goddesse I have hitherto kept my chastity undefiled vouchsafe thesie may follow me when fasting a cord to the stearn of the ship she without any difficulty drew it along the river Tuscia likewise suspected of incontinence by the like wonder gave testimony of her innocence who invocating Vesta in these words If saith she O mother of the gods I have offered thy sacrifices with chast and undefiled hands grant that with this sieve I may take up water from the river Tyber and without shedding the least drop bear it unto thy altar which when she had obtained and accordingly performed with loud acclamations of the multitude she was absolved and her austere life ever after held in reverence The attributes of Modesty and Temperance are greater ornaments to a woman than gold or jewels and because all perfections cannot be in one woman at one time this Modesty is that which supplies all things that are wanting It is a dower to her that hath no portion not only an ornament to deformity but in blacknesse it impresses a kind of beauty it illustrates the ignobility of birth supplying all those defects wherein fortune hath been scanting And so much shall suffice for the Vestals Of the Prophetesses COncerning these Prophetesses I will onely make a briefe catalogue of some few whom the ancient writers have made most eminent We read of Hyrcia the daughter of Sesostris King of Aegypt most skilfull in divination who to her father foretold his amplitude and Monarchy Volatteranus in Georg. writes of one Labissa a divining woman that was eminent for many predictions in Bohemia whom succeeded her daughter Craco as well in skill as in fame Plutarch in Mario speaks of one Martha whom Marcius most honourably circumducted in a horse-litter and â—t her appointment celebrated many sacrifices her the Senate with a generall suffrage for her approved skill in augury rewarded with liberty making her a free woman of the City Polyxo is the name of one of the Phebaiedes of whom Val. Flaccus in his Argonauts thus writes Tunc etiam vates Phoebo delecta Polyxo Where he cals her a Prophetesse beloved of Phoebus Sâ—sipatra a woman by nation a Lydian and the wife of Aedesius the Sophist was possest with that divining spirit and true conjecture of future things that in their times accordingly hapned that she was said to be educated and instructed by the gods themselves Of the like approbation was Spurina who as Tranquillus testates forewarned Caesar to beware of the Ides of March who in the same day was murdered in the Capitoll of which he bid him beware Martianus Capella speaks of one Symachia and cals her one of the Sybils and often by all authors granted will allow but two namely Herophile Trojana the daughter of Marmensis and Symachia the issue of Hippotensis who was born in Erythraea and prophefied in Cuma Theano and Eucyppa the daughters of one Scedasus sung many oraculous cautions to the people of Sparta yet could they not predict their own disaster for after they were forcibly defloured by the young men of the same City and slain and their bodies cast into a well their father after long search finding them confounded with the sight of so sad a spectacle upon the sight thereof slew himselfe Caelius writes of a woman born in his Countrie called Jacoba out of whose belly unclean spirits made acclamations of future things to come of which one of them called himselfe Cincinnatulus who gave marvellous answers to such as demanded of him but spake as oft falsely as truly Of better knowledge as it seems was Apollonius of Tyana a City in Greece who told one Cylix a man given to all volu ptuousnesse That before three daies were expired he should be slain which accordingly hapned He used to protest that he spake nothing without the counsell of the gods and direction of the spirit that attended him he professed the knowledge of all languages and tongues to have insight into the thoughts of men to discourse any thing punctually that had past and divine as truly of any thing to come he was moreover an exact interpreter of dreams his life is compendiously set down by Vollatterranus Parialla lived in the age of Cleomines and was called the championesse of all the Delphian Prophetesses Now how the Devill should come to the foreknowledge of things to come it shall be held no unnecessary digression briefly to inquire These spirits being of a thin substance by their tenuity subtilty and incredible celerity moreover by the quicknesse of their apprehensions in which they far excell the slownesse and dulnesse of all earthly bodies by the divine permission understand and deliver many things which appear to us miraculous Therefore S. Augustine in book De Spiritu Anima saith That by reason of their antiquity and benefit of the length of time as having continued from the beginning of the world they have gathered to themselves that absolute and unmatchable experience of which man by reason of the brevity of his age is no way capable by which means some of their actions seem the more admirable some things they fashion out of the holy Scriptures themselves as having them all at their fingers ends and oft times predict such things as they themselves have purpose to act by this means tempting and seducing mankind Therefore Plato in Epinomide attributes unto them acutenesse of wit retentive memory and admirable knowledge Clemens in Recog saith That these spirits therefore know more and much more perfectly as not being burdened or dulied with the grosse weight of the body Tertullian in his Apology against the nations thus argues All spirits are winged and therefore are every where in an instant the spatious earth and all the corners thereof are to them but as one place and whatsoever is therein done they can as easily know as suddenly declare by this means they
stripping his body and joining it to the corse of his wife and adding more combustible matter to the fire burnt them both together Over the urn that covered their ashes the Tarentines erected a famous sepulcher which they called The two lovers By Plantius and Horestilla it may appeare that where the greatest and most honest love is setled betwixt man and wife it is oft times more happy to be joined in death then to be separated in life Artimesia Queen of Caria so much honoured the remembrance of her husband Mausolus being dead that after meditation and deliberate counsell which way she might best decorate his hearse and withall to expresse to perperuity her unmatchable love she caused to be erected over him a tombe so magnificent that for the cost and state it was not doubted to be worthily reckoned amongst the nine wonders But what do I speak of so rich a structure when she her selfe became the living sepulcher of her dead husband by their testimonies who have recorded that she preserved his bones and having beaten them to pouder mingled their dust with her wine in remembrance of him every morning and evening Cicer. Tusc lib. 3. and Plin. lib. 36. cap. 5. Of womans fortitude and magnanimity I will add one admirable president in two virgins of Syracusa equally resolute when by the intestine sedition and civill wars in Syracusa the stock and family of Gelo in these combustions was quite extirpt and rooted out even to his only daughter Harmonia and all the seditious weapons of the enemy now drawn and aim'd at her bosome her nurse piâ—ying her threatned ruin made choice of a young virgin like to her in favour and of equall stature and attiring her in the habit and ornaments of a Princesse offered her to the points of their yet bloody weapons this damsel was of that constancy and noble resolution that notwithstanding she saw eminent death before her was not affrighted with the terror thereof nor would reveal her name or tell of what condition she was Which Harmonia seeing and admiring at her loialty and faith she call'd out to the murdereâ—s and discovering her selfe to preserve her handmaid offered her own naked breast to the slaughter telling them she was present whom they sâ—ught for so that a covered â—allacy to the one and open troth the other in both an admirable and undanted constancy was the cause of their deaths This Hormisda was a great and mighty man amongst the Persians and of one of the most noblest families amongst them as Zozimus Mercellinus and others commemorate He being confin'd unto a certain 〈◊〉 and fettered was there kept with a strict guard of 〈◊〉 who against the lawes of the Kingdom had purpose 〈◊〉 invest his younger brother in the state imperiall 〈◊〉 that in the time of his 〈◊〉 his 〈◊〉 the remembrance of whose name it is pity time hath abolisht and not left it to posterity thus devised for his enlargement she sent to him a fish as a present of an extraordinary bignesse in whose belly she had hid an iron file and other like engines fit for his purpose committing it to the charge of one of her most faithfull Ennuchs desiring her husband by his mouth not to have the fish cut up in the presence of any only to make happy use of such things as he found enclosed therein To his keepers the better to hide her stratagem she sent Camels laden with sundry kind of meats and severall wines Hormisdâ— apprehending the plot gave it a bold and resolute performance for having first filed off his irons he changed his habit with that of his Eunuchs and taking the advantage of their feasting and healthing past safe through them all and by study and policy of his wife came after to the possession of his right which his younger brother had usurped Alexander the Great amongst his many other conquests having besieged the great City Halicarnassus and by reason of opposition made against him leveld it with the ground He entred Caâ—ia where Ada then reigned Queen who being before opprest by Orontobas imploied by Darius was almost quite beaten out of her Kingdome having at that time no more of all her large dominions left her saving Alynda the most defenced City into which she had retired her selfe for safety She hearing of Alexanders approach gave him a roiall meeting and submitted her selfe her subjects and her City into his power withall adopting him by the name of son The King neither despising her liberality nor the name gave her back the City entire as it was and made her keeper and governesse thereof who soon after recovering all those Cities Darius by invasion had usurped from her in gratitude of her former curtesie reduced her Country and people to their pristine estate and stablisht her in her former Empire This Zenocrita was born in Cuma whose father was at that time amongst many other oppressed Citizens in exile Her the bloody Tyrant Aristodemus was much enamoured of but not daining so much as to court her or to perswade her to his love he imagined in the pride of his heart that the damosell would think it grace and honour sufferent to her to be seen in his company and only for that cause to be held blest and fortunate of all such as should behold her But far other cogitations troubled her more noble mind being tormented in soule to lead such an unchast life though with a Prince who never had motioned contract or promised her marriage her apprehensions were rather how to purchase her Countries freedome and rid the earth of a Tyrant About the same time that she was busied in these and the like imaginations it hapned Aristodemus would needs compasse in a certaine spatious peece of ground with a broad and deep ditch not that it was any way necessary or profitable but only to vex and weary the Citizens with extraordinary pains and insufferable labours for to every man was so much ground limited as a daily task which whosoever in the least kind neglected he was fined in a great mulct either of purse or person It hapned she being abroad to take the aire neer to the place where the Citizens were hard at work that Aristodemus with his traine came thither also to over-look his laborers who after some faults found and other directions given left the place and in his return past by where Zenocrita was then standing she spying him come towards her made him a low obeisance and withall covered her face with her apron The Tyrant being gone the young men in the way of jesting and sport and seeming a little to touch her inchastity demanded the reason why to all other men her face was bare and free only to him vailed intimating that something had past betwixt them which might discover her blushes to whom she made this plain and serious answer I did it to him as an honour because amongst all the
bestowing on every woman one piece and upon all such as were with child two pieces to shew himselfe as roially bountifull as the other was penuriously sparing Celtae THese be a people of France between the rivers Graumna and Sequana who dissenting amongst themselves fell into an intestine and implacable civill war After many bloody conflicts being ready once more to joine battell the women presented to themselves betwixt their armies and with such smooth Oratory and perswasive arguments laid open the miseries of warre with the abundant commodity arising from peace and amity that they not only reconciled all hostility for the present but betwixt all the Cities and chiefe families confirmed an indissoluble league of friendship which continued many years after Since which time either in forrein differences or domestick quarrels as well in war as peace their counsell is ever demanded and for the most part followed Therefore in the league which this people made with â—annibal it is thus written If the Celtae have any thing worthy taxation to object against the Carthaginians let it be disputed by the Generals and Praefects in Spain If the Carthaginians find any thing justly to reprove the Celtae the matter shall be discust and arbitrated by their women Melitae THis people growing to that multitude that the Cities in which they inhabited could neither conveniently contain the number nor supply them with victuall sufficient sought the plantation of a colony elsewhere under the comband of a beautifull young man called Nymphaeus These falling upon the Coast of Caria were no sooner landed to discover the Countrie but by a mighty tempest their ships were either swallowed in the sea or scattered and disperst The Carians who then inhabited the City Cryassa either commiserating their distresse or fearing that boldnesse their necessities might inforce them too were pleased to allot them of their land and suffer them peaceably to dwell amongst them But finding them in a short space to increase both in wealth and power they consulted amongst themselves by what means to destroy them and utterly extirp their memory this stratagem was agreed upon to be performed at a banquet It hapned that one of the Carian damosels call'd Caphaena a Lady of a noble family grew much enamoured of this Nymphaeus and loath that the least detriment should happen to her best respected friend especially loath to see him perish she opened to him the full purpose of the City wishing him to use all means of prevention When therefore the Cryassences came to invite them to the feast Nymphaeus answered them that it was not the custome of the Graecians to assemble unto any such feasts without the company of their women which the Carians hearing intreated them likewise to grace the solemnity with their presence This done Nymphaeus relates the whole circumstance to the Melians his countrimen intreating them to beare him company to the feast all civilly habited and without weapons only that every woman should weare a sword beneath her kirtle and sit close by her husband About the midst of the banquet when the Carians were ready to give the watchword the Graecians perceiving that the instant for the pretended execution drew on all the women opening their garments at once shewed their concealed weapons which their husbands snatching from their sides assaulted the barbarous Carians and slew them all to one man by which prevention they possest themselves both of the Countrie and City But relinquishing that they built another which they called the new Cryassa and in which they planted themselves Caphaena was married to Nymphaeus having honours done to her worthy her noble fidelity One thing in this history is worthy especiall admiration namely Secresie to be kept amongst so many women Tyrrhenae THE Tyrrhenians were by the Spartans opprest and cast into Prison where they were providently kept and guarded purposing to question them for their lives The wives of the captives this hearing came to the prison doors and with humble praiers and infinite teares besought those that had the charge of them that by their visitation they might administer some small comfort to their husbands which after much importunity granted they were admitted where suddenly they caused their husbands to change habits with them which they did and so were let forth instead of the women they arming themselves against all the spight and fury of the Spartans The men that had escaped repaired to â—aygeta entering league with the Heilotes by which confederacy the Spartans somewhat affrighted by intercessors concluded a peace with them conditionally that taking back their imprisoned women they should be furnished with ships and coin to seek new fortunes elsewhere they therefore made a brotherhood betwixt them and the Lacedemonians Of which Collony two brothers Pollis and Crataida of the City of Lacedemon were made governours Part of them made residence in Melo the rest with Pollis sailed into Creet and having asked counsell of the Oracle answer was returned them That part in the place where they should leave their goddesse and lose of their anchor they should find a period of their travels and upon that continent make their aboad plant their Collony and erect a City In processe arriving in a part of Creet called Cheronesus a place halfe invironed with water or almost an island a sudden fear surprized them insomuch that hasting to get back to the Navy they left behind them the image of Diana which they had received from their ancestors by Brauron first brought into Lemons and borne by them a ship-board in all their navigation The feare being past over and the tumult appeased they weighed anchor to make from shoare but Pollis perceiving a great part of his anchor missing and left in the rocks he remembred the Oracle and causing his people to land again he made his plantation in that Countrie and after many battels in which he prevailed against the inhabitants he subdued Lictium with divers other Cities of which he had prosperous and peaceable possession Examples of Modesty and Magnanimity THE Phocenses opprest by the Tyrants of Delphoâ— in that commenced warre which was called Bellum sacrum in which the Thebans were ingaged it hapned that the Bacchanals who were women that were usually drunk in the celebrations of the feasts of Bacchus and were called Thyades extasied in their divine furor for so they termed it in their nightly wandring lost their way and erred so far that unwittingly they hapned upon the City of Amphissa and wearied as they were cast themselves dispersedly abroad in the market place there to repose themselves till they came to their better sences The Amphissesian matrons fearing lest any outrage or offence might be done unto them by reason there were at that time many forrein souldiers who were in league with the Phocences themselves in person watched these Bacchides till morning guarding and girting them round lest any thing unseemly might be spied amongst them and only with a reverend silence
a presumptuous security They shew it to the chiefe Commanders of Naxos who uniting themselves give the affrightned and unweaponed Miletians a sudden and unexpected aâ—laule and having slaughter'd many possesse themselves of the Castle But by Polycritas intercessive intreaties surprised Diognetus scapes with life And for this noble exploit of hers the glad Citizens running to meet her with shouts and acclamations every one bearing in his hand a Garland to receive her with those wreaths of honour Polycrita was so far extafi'd that her sudden joy asheâ—ed a sudden death for as she stood amased at the gate she instantly tell down exanimated in which gate she was buried and her sepulchre called The Tomb of Envy because it is supposed that Fortune grew so envious of her merits that thus she robb'd her of her life that so she might 〈…〉 of her deserved honours And thus much speaks the history of the Naxians Aristotle affirms Polycrita was no captive but only that Diognetus having seen her he grew so far enamoured of her that to enjoy her he pâ—oâ—eâ—ed her any thing that was in his power to give She promises to yield to his desire if he will grant her the fruition of one boon which when he had confirmed to her by oath she demanded Delium to be surrendered up for the Castle was so called Diognetus being so much inchanted with her beauty and â—oreover bound by the religion of his vow delivered up to her and the Citizens the Castle Delium Of Queens and other Ladies for divers vertues memorable VVE read of other women for divers noble actions Illustrious Dominica the wife of the Emperor Valens when the Goths had threatned the utter subversion of Constantinople by her wisedome and discretion mediated with the enemy and was the sole means of the safety both of the people and City Sâ—x Aurelius reports of Pompeia Plantina when her husband Julian the Emperor had with intollerable exactions oppressed the people insomuch that their discontents were ready to break out into rebellion this vertuous Princesse so far temporised with the Emperour that by her means they were released from all exactions and tributes Diaconus makes mention of Placidia the sister and wife of Honorius who in the yeare 412. when Ataulphus King of the Goths presented himselfe with an invincible army before the wals of Rome threatning utterly to subvert the City and after rebuild it again and instead of Rome to call it Gothia so wrought with the barbarous King by perswasions and promises that she turned his pride to pity and his immanity to mercy so that he departed thence without any assault made against the City or the least spoile doâ—e unto the Countrie Vollateranus speaks of Inguldis the sister of Childebert who being married to Hermagellus son to Lemigildus King of the Goths perswaded her husband then an infidell to be a true and constant professor of the Christian faith The like we read of Cleotilda Q of France who did the like good work upon her husband Clodoneus the son of Childerick Nor hath our own Nation been barren of good examples since Helena the mother of Constantine may in that kind claim equality if not precedâ—â—cy before any As Rome afforded a Volumnia moâ—her to Martius Corinlanus so England yeelded as eminent a Lady in all points the mother to Brennus and Belinus The first whâ—n her son had worthily deserved of his Country even to the attaining of all military honours and as an addition to the rest for his 〈◊〉 service against the City of Coriolorus had the denomination of Coriolanus bestowed upon him by the publick suffrage of the Senate yet notwithstanding for all his merits and unmatchable exploits by which he purchased to himselfe the honour to be called Pater Patriae yet after by the ingratefull multitude who were ever emulous of any mans deserved greatnesse he was not only degraded from all his titles of dignity but had the doom of everlasting banishment denounced against him in revenge of which ingratitude having raised an army and invaded the Towns of the Roman Empire ready to invest himselfe before the quaking and affrighted City when they had first sent to him to make their attonement their Priests who by reason of their sacred offices were held in much reverence next their Augurers and South-sayers then the Aeditiae which were the Keepers of their Temples and last their Prophets but none of these prevailing as their last refuge the Roman matrons presented themselves before Volumnia the mother of Martius humbly intreating her to make intercession betwixt her sons rage and the imminent calamity This reverend Lady mov'd with their tears and acclamations accompanied with Virgilia the wife of Coriolanus and many other Noble matrons and damosels having before promised to plead in their behalfs as far as a miserable mother could claim interest in an injured son repaired to his Tent and casting themselves down at his feet humbly besought him of compassion the rear exprest in their faces and the sorrow in their habits cast upon the enemy a sudden reverence and silence when Volumnia with such feeling accents and moving Oratory mixed with tears besought the peace of the City that they made a reverent impression in the heart of Coriolanus who supporting his mother and advancing his wife from the earth brake out into this extasie Vicistis you have overcome me Thus by these excellent women all combustions of war were appeased a threatned misery prevented and a generall and safe peace setled in the commonweale Of no lesse remark was the wife of Mulmutius Dunwallo the son to Cloten Duke of Cornwall who as Fabian remembers of him having in great peace and tranquillity governed the Kingdom for the space of forty years and was after buried in a place by him before erected called the Temple of peace leaving the land equally divided betwixt his two sons Belinus and Berennus to Belinus the elder was allotted England Wales and Cornwall unto Brennus all the North parts beyond Humber who being a young man and desirous of honour not content with the Principality appointed him commenced against Belinus a fearfull war But as the two brothers were ready to joine battell the mother presented her selfe betwixt the armies exposing her bodie to their opposite weapons shewing the breasts that gave them suck and with noble admonitions and motherly perswasions so mollified the hearts of the incensed Princes that all civill and seditious war laid aside they entered a friendly and brotherly league which was so established in the reverend vertues of the mother that it was never after violated in all their life times after With what condign honours is Queen Marcias memory worthy to be celebrated who being the wife to Guinthetinus King of Britain the son of Gurgunscius was in those daies of that excellent learning and knowledge that she devised many profitable and wholsome lawes to the benefit of the Common-wealth which
as also by Vitruvius This Quâ—en being making her selfe ready in her Palace roiall when the one part of her hair was bound up and the other halfe hung loose upon her shoulders suddenly newes was brought her That the Citizens of Babylon were revolted and all or most of them in mutiny and uprore She presently posted into the City and what with her presence and perswasion atton'd the discord and before she had leasure to put her disordered curls in form reconciled the hearts of that innumerable people to her obedience for which her statue was erected in the City being pourtraied half ready halfe unready in memory of that noble and magnananous adventure Something of the best that was in her though not all you have heard the worst is to come Juba apud Pli. relates that she imitated the fashions of men neglecting the habit of her own Sex and in her latter years grew to that debauch'd effeminacy and sordid lust that she did not only admit but allure and compell into her goatâ—sh embraces many of her souldiers without respect of their degrees or places so they were well featured able and lusty of performance whom when they had wasted their bodies upon her she caused to be most cruelly murthered She was slain by her own sonne because most incestuously sought his bed but which of all the rest is most prodigious and abominable she is reported to have company with a horse on whom she unnaturally doted But these things whether related for truth or recorded of malice I am altogether ignorant and therefore leave it to censure Herodotus Plutarch and others wrâ—t that she caused these words to be inscribed upon her Tomb. Quicunque Rex pecunâ—â— indiget apâ—â—to monumento quod voluerit accipiat that is What 〈…〉 hath need of coin search this monument and 〈…〉 find what 〈◊〉 desires This when King Darius 〈…〉 thinking some magazine of treasure had been therein included he caused the Tomb stone to be removed where he found upon the other side thereof these words engraven Nisi Rex avarus esses pecuniae insatiabilâ—s morâ—uorum monâ—menta non violassis i. Hadst thou not been an avaritioas King and insatiable of coâ—n thou wouldst not have ransacked the grave of the dead Thus as Franciscus Patricius Pontifex saith the excellent Lady in her death â—â—unted the 〈◊〉 avarice of the living That the monuments of the deâ—d are no way to be violated or detaced Sertorâ—us hath taught us who having subdued the City Tigenna scituate in the Countrie of Maurusia in which a noble sepulchre was which the inhabitants said belonged to Antaeus which was the gyant slain by Hercules when the greatnesse of the grave exceeded all beliefe Sertorius caused it to be ruined and there digged up a body as Plutarch witnesâ—eâ—h of seventy cubits in length which beholding and wondering at he caused it to be repaired with greater beauty then before lest by diminishing that he might have ruined a great part of his own honour Some think it was the body of Tagenna the wife of Antaeus whom Hercules prostituted after the death of her husband of her he begot Siphax who after erected that City and in memory of his mother called it by her name Pasiphae THis Lady though I cannot fitly introduce her within the number of the incestuous yet for that horrid act which the Poets have reported of her I shal not impertinently place her next to Semiramis Apollodorus Grammaticus in his book de Deorum origine as Benedictus Aeginus Spoletinus interprets him thus sets down her history Ninus King of Creet espoused Pasiphae daughter of the Sun and Perseis or as Asclepiades cals her Creta the daughter of Aterius she had by him foure sons Cretaeus Deucalion Glaucus and Androgeus and as many daughters Hecate Xenodice Ariadne and Phaedra This Minos peaceably to enjoy his Kingdome had promised to offer such a bull to Neptune but having obtained his desires he sent that Bull before markt out back to the herd and caused another of lesse value to be sacrificed at which Neptune inraged knew not with what greater punishment to afflict him for the breach of his faith then to make his wife most preposterously and against nature to dote on that beast which he had so carefully preserved She therefore confederated with Dedalus a great Artsmaster one that for murder had fled from Athens and with his son Icarus there secured himselfe he devised by his mischievous skill a woodden Cow hollowed within with such artificiall conveyance that the Queen enclosed had satisfaction of her desires to the glutting of her libidinous appetite Of this congression she conceived and brought forth a son called Asterion or as the most will have it Minotaurus shaped with a buls head and a mans body About this monstrous issue Minos consulted with the Oracle which advised him to shut him in a Labyrinth and there see him safely brought up and kept This Labyrinth the first that ever was was built by Dedalus being a house so intricated with windings and turnings this way and that way now forward then backward that it was scarce possible for any that entred therein to find the direct way back thus far Apollodorus But Palephatus in his fabulous Narrations reduceth all these commented circumstances within the compasse of meer impossibility and thus delivers the truth concerning Pasiphae Minos being afflicted with a disease in his secret parts with which he had been long grieved was at length by Crides who belonged to Pandion cured In the interim of this his defect and weaknesse the Queen cast an adulterate eie upon a fair young man called Taurus whom Servius saith was the scribe or secretary to the King she prostituting her selfe to his embraces when the full time was expired she produced her issue which Minos seeing and taking a true supputation of the time comparing the birth with his discontinuance from her bed by reason of his disease apprehended the adultery notwithstanding he was unwilling to kill the bastard because it had a resemblance to the rest of his children though an impression of the fathers face by which the adulterer might easily be known Minos therefore to conceal his own discontents and as much as in him lay to hide his wives shame whom no endearedly affected caused the infant to be carried into a remote mountain and there by the Kings herds men to be fostered But growing towards manhood he likewise grew intractable and disobedient to those whose charge he was committed The King therefore confin'd him into a deep cave digg'd in a rock of purpose not to curb his fierce and cruell disposition but rather encourage it for whosoever at any time he feared or whatsoever he was that had offended him he sent him to this Minotaur on some impertinent or other by whom he was cruelly butchered The cave was called Labyrinthus and therefore described with so many intricate blind Meanders in regard of the difficulty of his return
undertakes without disclosing to any the secrets of his message and comming to the place where the damosell with her father then sojourned he was nobly enterteined as a fellow peer and an especiall favourit to the King No sooner came the Lady in presence but Ethelwold began to conceive that report had been too niggardly in her praise for he had not in his life time seen a Lady of so incomparable a feature to whom all the Court-beauties appeared scarce good Christall to that unmatchable Diamond What cannot love work in the heart of man when such a beauty is his object it makes the son forger his father and the father not remember that he hath a son but either hath made the others bed incestuous It hath subjected Cities and depopulated Countries made the subject forget his allegeance to his soveraign and the soveraign most unnaturall and inhumane to his subject as may appear by this history This Earl surprised with the love of this Lady hath either quite forgot the message he was sent about or else is not pleased to remember it Not speaking of the King at all but counterfeting some occasions into that Country and as if he had hapned upon that place by accident or come to give him visitation in noble courtesy at supper finds discourse concerning the Lady and at length prevailed so far with the old Earl that they were contracted that night and the next morning married After some few daies journie there the Kings impositions inforced him to take an unwilling farewel of his new married bride only at parting he earnestly intreated them for divers reasons which much imported him to keep the marriage as secret as possibly might be and so posted back to the Court He was no sooner arrived but the King inquisitive concerning the beauty of the Lady how tall how strait of what haire what complection whether her looks were cheerfull or sad her behaviour sober or suspitious To all which he answered in few she was indeed a Lady and that was her best an Earls daughter and therefore flattered for what in a private woman is commendable is in such excellent and what in the former praise worthy in the latter 〈◊〉 and admirable but for this Lady Elfritha she was a course home spun peece of flesh whose nobility and dower might make her capable of being wife to some honest Justice of peace or Sheriffe of the Shire but not becomming the bed of any of the nobility unlesse some one whose estate was decaid indeed a meer Rook and most unworthy the eie of the Princely Eagle With this answer the King was satisfi'd and for the present dispos'd his affection elsewhere imagining these praises might be divulg'd abroad as wel in scorn of her person as otherwise so for some few weeks it rested in which interim Ethelwold was oft mist in the Court and discontinued his wonted service no man could scant tell or inform the King how he disposed himselfe and still when he came to present his service he would excuse his absence with some infirmity or other which was the reason of his inforced retirement besides he was often observed to intreat leave to recreate himselfe in the Country and take the benefit of the fresh aire as commodious for his health in all which liberty he past his limits This bred some jealousie in the King and the rather because the fame of this Ladies unmatched beauty more and more increased Therefore to be more punctually informed of the truth he sent another private messenger who brought him intelligence how all things stood with the certeinty of every accident how it befell The King not knowing how to disgest such an injury from a subject smothered his grievance for a space and at length caused the gests to be drawn for he purposed a progresse into the West Ethelwold yet nothing suspecting was the formost man to attend the King upon his journie but when they came almost to Excester he began to mistrust the Kings purpose the rather because he sent to the Earl Orgarus that at such a time he meant to feast with him Now must Ethelwold bestir himself or instantly hazard the Kings high displeasure he therefore posts in the night to his wife and to his father in law reports the truth of every circumstance from the beginning how he was sent by the King and to what purpose how her beauty had so enflamed him that he was compelled by violence of affection to deceive the Kings trust and lastly to secure his own life which for the love of her he had hazarded he was forced to disparage her feature dissemble her worth and disgrace her beauty and therefore besought her as she tendred his safety being her husband either not to appear before the King at all or if she were called for and so compelled to be seen in that fashion as he had described her to his soveraign namely with a smodged face counterfeit haire uncomely habit and in her behaviour to put on such a garb of folly as might rather breed loathing then liking in his majesty The first of his speech she heard with patience but when he came to deliver to her how he had disparaged her beauty and to the King too nay more would have her derogate from her own worth and be accessary to the blasting of that beauty which nature had made so admirable this her womanish spleen could hardly disgest yet she soothed him up with fair and promising language and told him she would better consider of it and so dismissed him in part satisfied In the morning he presented himselfe early to attend the King who was that day to be enterteined by the Earle his father in law All things were nobly provided and Edgar roially received and set to dinner some write that Ethelwold had caused a kitchin maid to put on his wives habit and sit at the Kings table but I find no such matter remembred in my author the truth is the King about the middest of dinner called for the Earle Orgarus and demanded of him whether he had a wife or no if he had why he might not have her company knowing it was a general observation in England that without the wives entertainment there could be no true and hearty welcome The Earl replied that at that time he was an unhappy widdower he then demanded whether he had any children to continue his posteritie to which he answered Heaven had only blest him with one daughter a plain damosell yet the sole hope of his future memory The King was then importunate to see her and commanded her to be instantly brought unto his presence which put Ethelwold into a strange agony yet still hoping she had done as he had lately enjoined her when she contrary to his expectation came in apparalled like a bride in rich and costly vestures her golden haire fairely kembed and part hanging down in artificiall curls her 〈◊〉 stuck with jewels and about her neck
master kept great store of pullen about the house and that was all Hens dung Hens dung saith the Gentleman I have a peece of land at home I would it were all there if thou canst help me to any quantity of it being sure that is such I will give thee twenty shillings a load for as much as thou canst provide and fetch it away with my own carriage The fellow hearing this promised within a month to furnish him with twenty load at least at the same price The match was made and the Gentleman after breakfast took horse and departed The hostler bespeaks all such soile as the Town could affoard or the next Villages by and made such a huge heap as annoied the whole yard knowing the Gentleman to have been ever a man of his word who came according to the time appointed The hostler is glad to see him and tels him he hath provided him of his commodity and withall brings him to the place where it lay like a laystall The Gentleman seems wondrous glad of this new merchandise and drawer out certain peeces out of his pocket as if he meant to give him present paiment but withall asked him Art thou sure all this is hens dung upon my life it is saith the hostler expecting still to finger the gold But replied the Gentleman art thou sure there is no cocks dung amongst it O lord yes saith the hostler how can it be else why then quoth the Gentleman I pray thee make thy best of it good friend for iâ— there be the least â—â—cks dung amongst it it will do me no pleasure I will not give thee three farthings for it all Thus was the bostler notwithstanding his former cost forced to â—â—move all that muckhill and make the yard clean at his own charge with much addition of mockery and laughter Iâ— for a little quantity of cocks dung you 〈◊〉 at all the rest here included the better judgement I hope will imputâ— it as to my simplicity so to your over 〈◊〉 Another main thing is to be feared wherein I must of force 〈◊〉 the censure of some or other namely Why amongst 〈◊〉 histories I have inserted Mortyrs and to confirm their truth have brought Authors that have been held superstitious I answer to all in generall I have only specified such things as I have read and for my own opinion I keep it reserved But because I now come to a conclusion I will end this book thus briefly in regard that women die and so do many die and that they die at all I will give you a womans reason why it is so Because they can live no longer Explicit lib. quartus Inscriptus Melpomene THE FIFTH BOOK inscribed TERPSICHORE Intreating of Amazons and other Women famous either for Valour or for Beauty A Question may be demanded Why under the Muse 〈◊〉 I personate the Bold and the Beautifull the War-like and the Faire she being the Muse to whom measureâ— and dances are solely peculiar as being of them the only and first inventresse I 〈◊〉 and I hope not impertinently that considering every circumstance I know not how to commâ—nd them to a more fit Mecaenâ—â— or Patron for what doth all your martial discipline consist but upon 〈◊〉 number measure distance and order and all these in Choâ—eis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 danceâ— especially we obseâ—ved In dances we keep time to the musick so in marching or drâ—lling our ears are attentive to the voice of the Captaine or Generall In the figures of the one and files of the other number is necessarily observed so is measure distance and order for in these they have an equall correspondence Now concerning fair women whom in all masks at the Court City or elsewhere do your gallants pick out but the Virgins or Ladies most beautifull nay even at Wakes or Weddings in the Country the fairest lasse is continually called out to dance be it but to the harp taber or bag pipe Amongst the souldiers were celebrated the Pyrrhick dance in armour first instituted by King Pyrrhus of Epire so likewise the Matachine or sword dance what measures have been devised for the exercise of faire Ladies Custome derived from all Antiquity still makes frequent amongst us It was used amongst the Jewes witnesse Herodias and is still continued in Spain France and England A second doubt is whether the magnanimous or the exquisitely featured whether Fortitude or Pulchritude ought to have precedence and first place It is a maxime amongst the Physitians Plus necat gula quam gladius i. surfets have been the destruction of more then the sword so I am of opinion That beauty hath been the ruine of more Cities the depopulation of more Kingdoms and destruction of more men then the sword But in this place since the courage of the mind and excellence of form contend for the upper hand I take it from Feature to bestow it on Magnanimity and spirit since the deeds of the one live to all posterity but the frailty of the other is subject to every small infirmity Therefore Ovid in his book de arte amandi thus writes Forma bonum fragile est quantumque accedit ad annos Fit minor Gradu carpitur ipse suo c. Form's a frail good as time runs on it wasts And the more spends it selfe the more it hasts Nor alwaies can the purple violet smell Or Lillies bloom in whitenesse that excell The fragrant rose whose beauty we desire The leaves once falne shewes but a naked brier O thou most faire white haires come on a pace And wrinckled furrowes which shall plow thy face So likewise Petronius Arbiter in one of his Satyrs Quod solum formae decus est cecidere Capillae The only beauty of her shape her haire Fell from her head her beauty to impaire Summer succeeds the Spring her Autumn chaceth And them sad Winter with his snow disgraceth Deceitfull Nature all these youthfull joies Thou gav'st us first thou art the first destroies Now the fruits and effects of this frail beauty especially where a faire face meeteth with a corrupted mind I will next shew you by history Ahab by the perswasion of his faire wife Jesabel was the death of many of the Prophets of the Lord. Dalila was the confusion of Sampson the strong Strange women brought Solomon the Wise to idolatry and to forget God Joram a King of Israel at the instigation of Athalia committed many horrible outrages Helena's beauty was the occasion oâ— that infinitâ— slaughter betwixt the Greeks and Trojans Pâ—lops succeeding in the Kingdome of Phâ—ygia made warre upon Oâ—nomaus thâ— fatâ—er of Hyprodamia because being surprized with her beauty she was denied him in 〈◊〉 Another Hyppodamia 〈◊〉 wife of Perithous was the occasion of that great 〈◊〉 or battel betwixt the 〈◊〉 and the Lâ—pithes for which Pâ—â—pertius cals her Ischomache of the 〈…〉 Isco which signifieth Habeo and Mache Pâ—gna his words are these Qualis Iscomache
Asia minor is called Phrygia and took name of Phrygia daughter to Europa the daughter of Aeâ—â—nor that Phygia was likewise called Dardania of Dardanus the son of Iupiter It hath on the East side Lydia and on the West the sea Hâ—lleâ—ponâ—us so called of Helles the sister of Phrixus who was â—â—ere drowned Lydia is on the East side of East Phrygia there sometimes reigned the rien King Croesus There were two brethren Kings of that Country the one call'd Liddus the other Tyrrhenus but the land being too little for both they cast lots which should abide there and which should seek abroad to plant a Colony else-where which lot â—ell to the younger Tyrrhenus He toucht upon a land then called Gallia which after he caused to be named Tyrrhia of him also the sea Tyrrhenus took denomination as the Land of Lydia of his brother Lyddus Of Lydia the chiefe City in Smyrna to which City St. Iohn the Evangelist writeth in his Apocal. The chiefe river of that Country is Pâ—ctolus which as the Poets Fable hath golden lands The fifth part of Asia minor is called 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 the chiefe City is Seleucia built by 〈…〉 Antiochus 〈◊〉 to that is Cilicia and 〈◊〉 Lycia which is called likewise Licaonia in which are the two noble Cities Lystris and Derbe spoken of in Actib Apostol By these Cities they saile out of Syria into Italy but the chief of all these Cities is Tharsis downwards towards the Amazonian sea and that land is part in Asia and part scituate in Europe Now touching the originall of the Amazons and why they were first so called divers authors have diversly writ Palaephatus in his fabulous narrations saith The Amazons were not women but certaine barbarous men who used to weare long garments and loose reaching below their ancles after the manner of the Thracian women who shaved their chins and wore the hairs of their head long but covered with miters These Amazons were a warlike people and did many brave and remarkable deeds of arms But there is no likelihood saith he that such should be women because of that nation there is at this day no memory but this was but his opinion Trogus Pompeius from whom Iustine extracts his history thus speaks of their originall Scythia towards the East is of one side embraced by the sea on the other part hemm'd in by the Ryphaean mountains the longitude and latitude thereof lies open to Asia and the river Tanâ—is These Scythians have no portions of land amongst them which any man can call his own they manner no fields they build no houses ignorant both of Agriculture and Architecture their riches are their herds and their cattle they delight in unfrequented solitudes and inhabitable desarts when they remove from one place to another they carry their wives along with them in Chariots and Waggons these are covered with leather and skins of beasts to â—hâ—ound them from summers showers and defend themselves from winters tempests they know no houses else and for no others care Justice is mainteined by the modesty of their manners nor by the severity of their lawes There is no offence so grievous to them as their because their flocks lie open without folds or sheep-coats Gold and silver they despise as much as other Nations covet it esteeming it rather an unusefull burden then a profitable merchandise Their food is for the most part milk and honie the benefit of wool or cloath is to them altogether unknown though the climate oppresse them with continuall cold their habit is fuâ—s and 〈◊〉 of beasts their conâ—inence teacheth them that justice That they covet nothing but what is their own for where there is desire of riches there must necessarily be usury and oppression Were the like moderation and abstinence used amongst all nations warre and surâ—et would not as they do now destroy more then age or nature Admirable it is that custome in them should attain to as much true morall humanity as the wise men of Greece have reached to by the learning of arts or study of Philosophy and that untaught Barbarians should excell them that professe to 〈◊〉 others in manners more eminent far in their ignorance of vice then the others in their knowledge of Vertue Three times these Scythians attempted the Empire of Asia in all their expeditions remaining unfoil'd at least unconquered Daâ—ius King of Persia they put to shamefull â—light Cyrus with a supposed invincible army they slew in the field Zâ—â—pyrus the great Captain of Alexander they victoriously defeated Of the Romans they only heard their power but never felt their strength The Parthian and Bactrian Empire they establisht A nation in labours unwearied in dangers undismaied not seeking to get what they cared not to lose in all their victories preferring the glorie before the spoile The first that made war against this Nation was Vexores King of Aegypt who by his Embassadours sent them word to prepare themselves for defence by whom they returned to the King this answer We wonder that the Captain of so rich a people will wage warre against us that are known so poor considering the successe of war is doubtfull and howsoever the event prove the reward of the victory is nothing but the damage arising from the sight manifest Their answer went before which their resolution as suddeâ—ly and swiftly pursued after for their army and their answer almost arrived together whose celerity in match and resolution in purpose when Vexores understood he forsook his tents and all provision for war and betook himselfe to a base and dishonourable flight They pursued him to the Aegyptian sens but by reason of the marishes and uncertain ground their further passage was prohibited Retyâ—â—ng tuâ—nce they overran Asia and subdued it under their predâ—minance imposing on the Nations a small tribaâ—e rather in acknowledgement of the title then to be gainers by the victory the enemy rather suffering disgrace then oppresâ—â—n fifteen yeares they continued in Asia rather to settle the 〈◊〉 then to extort from the inhabitants From thence they we 〈◊〉 by the wickednesse of their wives from whom they â—eceived word That unlesse they 〈◊〉 repaired home they would seek issue from the neighbour nations for they would not suffer the posterity of the ancient Scythians to be in the women extinct Asia was for many years tributary to the Scythians Trogus and Justine say for a thousand and five hundred years which ended in Ninus King of Assyria In this interim two Princely youths among the Scythians Plinos and Scolopitus being by the optimates and chiefe of the people expulsed from their families drew to their society a mighty confluence and invaded Cappadocia planting themselves neer to the river Theâ—medon and being by conquest possessed of Themisciria there having for many years made spoile of the neighbour nations by the conspiracy of the multitude who were opprest with their insolencies they were betraid and slain Their
Hetâ—urian Damosell taken by a Souldier who to preserve her Virginity leapt off from the bridge Ancisa into the Arnus of whom Benedictus Varchius hath left this memory in one of his Epigrams Perderet intactum ne Virgo Etrusca pudorem In rapidas sese praecipitavit aquos c. The Hetrurian Girl her honour still to keep Precipitates her selfe into the deep And from the bottom three times being cast Vp into th' air as loth that one so chast Should there be swallow'd she as oft sinks down Her modest face her martyrdome to crown And shame the lustfull world What shall we say Of the chast Lucrece famous to this day She for one death is call'd the Romans pride To save her Fame this Tuscan three times di'd Bernardus Scandeonus lib. 3. Classe 34. Histor Patavinae writes that when Maximilian the Emperor made spoil of the Paduan territories divers of the Country people leaving the villages empty fled into the City amongst whom was one Isabella a Damosell of Ravenna who being seized on by some of the Venetian souldiers that then had the charge of the City and surprized with her beauty drew her aside with purpose to have dishonoured her but finding no other means to shun the violence of their lust she from the bridge cast her selfe headlong into the river Medoacus where she was drowned and afterwards her body being drawn out of the river was buried under a bank without any other ceremony belonging to a Funerall Martia the daughter of Varro was of that admirable continence and chastity that being most excellent in the Art of Painting she not only alienated and restrained her Pencill from limning any thing that might appear obscene or shew the least immodesty but she was never known to delineate or draw the face of a man Ravis in Officin The like is reported of 〈…〉 alike excellent in Painting and as remarkable for her Virgin Chastiâ—y Britonia a beautifull maid of Creet giving her selfe wholly to Hâ—nting and the Chase to shun the importunities of King Minos who laid trains to vitiate her threw her selfe into a river and was drowned Daphne the daughter of Amicla retired her selfe both from walled Cities and all publick society and was at length enterteined into the fellowship of Diana frequenting the Laconian fields and Peloponnesian mountains Of her Leucippus the son of Oenemaus was enamoured who having attempted divers waies to compasse his will but not prevailing in any he bethought himselfe what course Jupiter took to stuprate Calisto the daughter of Lycaon and attiring himselfe in the habit of a female Huntresse was entertained by Diana and admitted into their number where he grew familiar with all and especially endeared to Daphne insomuch that she thought no hour well spent without him Of which acquaintance Apollo being jealous in regard they had such convenience of time place and opportunity he put his own dearly beloved Daphne in mind to entice Leucippus to a river where Diana with all their nymphs intended to both themselves Whither when they came the Virgins disrobed themselves even to nakednesse and being all stript to their skins but finding Leucippus only to move delaies they pluckt off his garment by force and so discovered him to be one of the contrary Sex at which Diana enraged commanded all her Virgins to take up their Bowes and Quivers and so they shot him to death with their arrowes This is recorded by Parthen de Amator Theodor. Flaietes in Eleg. and Philarchus lib. 15. Of Chast Wives AN excellent president of Chastity was that in Rhodogune the daughter of Darius who caused her Nurse to be slain because her husband being dead she perswaded her to a second marriage A more admirable remark of Nuptiall Chastity it was of the wives of the Theutonicks remembred Hieron in his Epistle to Gerontia whose husbands being slain and they taken captive by Marius humbly besought him on their knees that they might be sent to the Vestals in Rome as a present protesting they would be equally with them still from the society of men and professe perpetuall chastity but their request being denied by the Consul Marius the next night following all of them with an unite consent strangled themselves Theoxena was famous for her Chastity who being environed at Sea by the Navy of Philip King of Macedon seeing her husband thrown over-booâ—'d leapt after him to follow him in death not only to express her love to her husband but her scorn to stand to the mercy of the conqueror Baptista Pius lib. 2. Elegiar speaks of Tyro a woman of Thessalia who her husband being dead could by no counsell of friends or perswasion of kindred be won to survive him Plutarch in Pompeio speaking of Hypsicrataea saith she was so endearedly affected to her husband King Mithridates that for his love she made a voluntary change of her most becoming womanish shape and habit into a mans for cutting her hair she accustomed her selfe to the practise of Horse and Arms that she might with the more facilitie endure the labours and dangers of the wars Her husband being subdued by Câ— Pompeius and his Army quite dissipate and overcome she followed him flying through many barbarous Nations where her life and safety were in hourly hazard and these she enterprized with a mind undaunted and a body unwearied her faith and loialty in all his extremities being to him no small solace and comfort for though an Exile being still in the society of his Queen and bed fellow he imagined himsâ—lfe in what place soever he reposed to have been in his own palace and amongst his houshold gods Of Penelope THE beauty of Penelope attracted a number of suitors who from divers Countries came to adulterate the bed of Vlysses From Dâ—lichim came two and fifty from Samos four and twenty from Xacynthus twenty from Ithaca two and twenty of which these are nominated by Homer Antinous Eurinous Eurimachus Leocritus Neso Pysander Hesippus Agatus Leocles Ampinomus Demotholomaeus Medon a common Crier Euphemus a Minstrel and Irus a Beggar all which Vlysses at his return from his years travels slew in his own house Some of these Ovids Penelope reckons up in these verse Dulichii Samiique quos tulit alta Xacinthus c. Dulichium Samos and Xacinthus Hill Throng me with troops of wanton suitors still What should I speak to thee of Medon fell Of Polibus or of Pysander tell What of Antinous giddy head deplore Covetous Eurimachus and others more These in thine absence cannot be withstood But still thou feed'st them with thy wealth and blood The Begger Irus and Melanthius too The Herdsman c. And since we are in the history of Penelope It shall not be amisse to dilate it a little further out of Homer who in his first book intituled Odyssaea of Phaemius the Harper speaks to this purpose Phaemius the Harper to the boord invited Where the bold suitors
she Loves queen in her treasure And could teach the act of pleasure Make Lais in her trade a fool Phâ—ine or Thais set to school To Helen read or could she doe Worth Io and Europa too If these sweets from me she spare I 'll count them toies nor will I care But if my Mistresse constant be And love none alive save me Be chast although but something fair Her least perfection I 'll think rare Her I 'll adore admire prefer Idolatrize to none but her When such an one I find and trie For her I 'll care I 'll live I 'll die Lais. THis Lais as Aristophanes Bizantius relates was a strumpet of Corinth she was called Axine for her ferocity and rudenesse of manners Her all the prime and noblest Heroes of Greece frequented and extasi'd with her beauty came daily in troups to visit her Athenaeus in his Dipsonoph speaks of her Country behaviour and sepulchre reporting her to be so beautifull that the most exquisite Painters of Greece came frequently to her and besought her to bare her neck breasts and other parts of her body before them For when they were to limn any extraordinary Piece wherein was to be expressed Juno Venus Pallas or any wel shaped goddesse or woman her fair feature or lineaments might be their example She had a great emulation with Phrine the Courtizan for they lived both in one age Aristippus the Philosopher sirnamed Cyrenaicus about the season that the Feasts were celebrated to Neptune did yeerly for the space of two months together associate himselfe with this Lais. Diogenes meeting him upon a time O Aristippus saith he thou keepest company with a common Strumpet be rather a Cynick of my Sect then a Philosopher of such loose and dissolute behaviour To whom Aristippus answered Appears it to thee O Diogenes a thing absurd to dwell in an house which others have before inhabited who answered No Or to saile in the same ship saith Aristippus in which divers passengers have before time put to sea Again he answered Neither Nor do I think it replies he O Diogenes worthy thy just taxation to accompany with a woman with whom many others have had commerce Again being by others calumniated for his often repair and publike recourse to her in regard of her common prostitution and therefore the greater blemish to his more austere profession he thus satisfied them This is the difference betwixt me and the rest of her Clients I only enjoy Lais all others are enjoi'd by her When Demâ—sthenes the famous Oâ—ator of Athens desired to have had company with her and she for one nights lodging demanded of him a thousand Drachmes affrighted with the name of so great a sum he thus replied I purpose not to buy repentance so dear A young man much taken with her beauty came to Diogenes the Cinick and asked him this question What if a man should marry with Lais Who presently answered For a young man it is much too soon and for an old man it were far too late Concerning her I have read an elegant Epigram of an old man desirous of company with her at any rate and her witty answer to him Canus rogabat Laidis noctem Myron Tulit repulsam protinus Causamque sensit caput fuligine Fucavit atra Candidum c. White headed Myron did of Lais crave To have one night and be her price would pay Which she deni'd But why he could not have His purpose he perceiv'd his head was gray He knew his age betrai'd him therefore â—e Dies his hair black and did his suit renew She seeing head and face to disagree And them comparing with consideraâ—e view Thus saies Why do'st thou urge me thus the rather Since but ev'n now I did deny thy father Nymphodorus Syracusa in his book De admiraâ—il writes That Lais came into Sicily from Hycaris the most defenced City of that Country but Strattâ— in Macedon or Pausan affirms her to be of Corinth in these words Dic unde sunt ductae puellae Veâ—ere nuper ex Mâ—gaera Corinthiae Decus I ais Ingens Aelian de Varâ—a Histor lib. 10. saith That Lais casting her eies upon a young man of Cyrenaea called Eubatas never left soliciting him by all womanish enticements till she had made him promise her marriage but the solemnization not to be performed till he had returned Victor from the Olympick Games in which having had good successe but fearing to hâ—zard the embraces of a strumpet he took her Picture only and carried it to his City of Cyrena boasting by the way that he had married and borne thence Lais Which she hearing and enraged at the scorn thereof writ to him this or the like Letter O false and perjured man Whose lust hath no satiety Since nothing please thee can Save changes and variety O thou alone Constant to none In nothing setled save impiety Our Sex why dost thou blame Term women sole offenders 'T is you that past all shame Are still your own commenders That care nor fear To whom you swear Cease judging and be now suspenders Phillis was chast and fair Demophoon false and cruell Sapho thought Phaon rare And he term'd her his jewell But Traitors they Their Loves betray Poor we can oft fore-see but not eschew ill Falser then either thou As foulely hast betrai'd me But I 'll beware thee now As Heaven I hope shall aid me All thy procurements And slie allurements Henceforth shall never more perswade me Thy Oaths I hold as Lies As scorn thy crafty smiling Thy shape a meer disguise Thy practice but beguiling All thy protests As scoffs and jeasts And thy fair words no better then reviling Poisons I 'll think thy kisses And from mine keep thee fasting Thy torments count my blisses Thy breathings fear as blastings And thank my fate I now can hate Thee whom I now abandon everlasting It is moreover reported of her That being of purpose conveied into the bed of Xenocrates by the means of his schollers whom he had instructed in all austerity and strictnesse of life but she by no whorish blandishments able to corrupt his temperance his schollers asking her the next morning How she sped she told them They had lodged with her a Statue or an Image but no man Tymaeus in his thirteenth book of histories saith That she was beaten to death with woodden foot-stools by certain women of Thessaly in jealousie and madnesse because she was beloved of a beautifull young man called Pausanias on whom some of them doted This was done at a sacrifice in one of the Chappels of Venus for which cause the place was ever after called The Grove of wicked or unjust Venus Her Sepulcher was neer unto the river Paeneus in Tâ—essaly which runs betwixt the two great mountains of Ossa and Olympus and upon her Tomb-stone this inscription was graven Roboris invicti ac animi sit Graeciae quamvis Victa tamen formae paruit illa suae Laidis ipse parens
to Troy in Asia The Princes of Greece redemanding her answer was returned That since they made no restitution of Europa nor of Medea nor Hesione neither would they of Hellena which was the originall of that memorable siege of Troy and the destruction of that famous City Herodotus lib. 1. Thrasimenes being enamored of the fair daughter of Pisistratus and his affection daily more and more encreasing he gathered himselfe a society of young men and watching the Lady when she came with other young damosels to offer sacrifice according to the custome of the Country by the Sea side with their swords drawn they set upon the company that attended her and having dispersed them snatched her up and hurrying her aboord sailed with her towards Aegina But Hyppias the eldest son of Pisistratus being then at Sea to clear those coasts of Pirats by the swiftnesse of their Oars imagined them to be of the fellowship of the Sea-robbers pursued them boorded them and took them who finding his sister there brought her back with the ravishers Thrasimenes with the rest of his faction being brought before Pisistratus notwithstanding his known austerity would neither do him honor nor use towards him the least submission but with bold and undaunted constancy attended their sentence telling him That when the attempt was first proposed they then armed themselves for death and all disasters Pisistratus admiring their courage and magnanimity which shewed the greater in regard of their youth called his daughter before him and in the presence of his nobility to recompence his celsitude of mind spirit freely bestowed her upon Thrasymenes by which mens he reconciled their opposition and enterteined them into new faith and obedience no more expressing himselfe a Tyrant but a loving and bountiful father and withall a popular Citizen Polin lib. 5. The daughters of King Adrastus were ravished by Acesteneutrix as Statius lib. 1. hath left remembred Buenus the son of Mars and Sterope married Marpissâ— daughter to Oenemaus and Alcippa whom Apharetas espying as she danced amongst other Ladies grew enamoured of and â—orcibly rapt her from her company Plutarch in Paral. Hersilia with the Sabine Virgins were likewise rap'd by Romulus and his souldiers at large described by Ovid. lib. de Arte Amandi 1. Lucrece the chast Roman Matron was stuprated by Sextus Tarquinius of whom Seneca in Octavia thus saith Nata Lucreti stuprum saevi passa Tyranni Eudoxia being left by Valentinianus was basely ravished by the Tyrant Maximus who usurped in the Empire for which she invited Gensericus out of Africk to avenge her of the shame and dishonour done unto her Sigebertus in Chronicu The same Author tels us of Ogdilo Duke of Boiaria who forced the sister of King Pepin for which injury done to her the King oppressed him with a cruell and boody war Of Handmaids Nurses Midwives and Stepdames PEecusa was a Handmaid to Diana whom Martial lib. 1. thus remembers Et â—â—eidit sectis Iâ—la Plâ—cusa Crinis Lagopice is another lib. 7. remembred by the same Author Cibale was the maid-servant to a poor man called Similus remembred by Virgil in Morete Phillis Troiana was the Handmaid to Phoceus as Briseis was to Achilles Pliny lib. 36. cap. 27. makes Ocrisia the damosell to the Queen Tanaquil so Horace makes Cassandra to Agamemnon Gyge as Plutarch relates was such to Parysatis Queen of Persia and mother to Cyrus Thressa was maid-servant to Thales Milesius who as Theodoricus Cyrenensis affirms when she saw her Master come home dirty and miry as being newly crept out of a ditch chid him exceeding for gazing at the Stars to find those hidden things above and had not the foresight to see what lay below at his feet but he must stumble Herodotus in Euterpe cals Rhodope the famous Aegyptian the Handmaid of Iadmon Samius a Philosopher Elos was a damosell to King Athamas from whom a great City in Achaia took denomination and was called Aelos Lardana as Herodotus affirms was at first no better then a servant from whom the noble Family of the Heraclidae derive their first orginall Titula otherwise called Philotis was a Roman Virgin of the like condition and is remembred for such by Plutarch in Camillo as also by Macrob. lib. 1. Saturnalium Proconnesia is remembred by Pliny who in one day brought forth two children the one like her Master and the other like another man with whom she had had company and being born delivered either child to his father Lathris was the handmaid to Cinthia so much spoken of by Propert. as Cypassis was to Cersinna the mistresse of Ovid of whom he thus writes Eleg. lib. 2. Commendis in mille modis praefecta capillis Comere sed solas digna Cipasse Deas She rules her mistresse hair her skill is such A thousand severall waies to her desires O worthy none but goddesses to touch To comb and deck their heads in costly Tires Chionia was Hand-maid to the blessed Anastasia so likewise was Galanthis to Alâ—mena the mother of Hercules of whom the same Author lib. 9. thus saies Vna ministrarium media de plebe Galanthis Flava comas aderat faciendis strenua jussis Amidst them all Galanthis stood With bright and yellow hair A 〈◊〉 that quick and nimble was Things needfull to prepare From Hand-maids I proceed to Nurâ—es Annius upon Berosus and Calderinus upon Statius nominace Caphyrna or Calphurâ—â—a the daughter of Oceanus to have been the Nurse of Neptune as Amalthea and Melissa were to Jupiter who fed him with the milk of a Goat in his infancy when he was concealed from his father Hence it came that the Poets fabled how Jupiter was nursed by a Goat for which courtesie he was translated amongst the stars Others say he was nursed by Adrastea and Ida the two daughters of King Melisaeus for so Erasmus teacheth in the explanation of the Adage Copiae Cornu Ino was the nurse of Bacchus as Ovid witnesseth in Ib. where he likewise cals her the Aunt to Bacchus in this Verse Vt teneri Nutrix eadem Matertera Bacchi Of the same opinion with him is Statius lib. 2. Silv. But Ammonius Grammaticus makes Fesula the woman that gave him such Pliny cals her Nysa saith she was buried neer to the City Scythopolis Polycha was the Nurse of Oedipus who fostered him when his father Laius cast him out in his infancy because the Oracle had foretold he should perish by the hand of his son Barce was the Nurse of Sychaeus the most potent and rich King of the Phoenicians and husband to Dido Her Virgil remembers Aenead lib. 4. Charme was Nurse to the Virgin Scilla of whom the same Author in Syri thus saies Illa autem quid nunc me inquit Nutricula torques i. Why O Nurse dost thou thus torment me Beroe Epidauria was Nurse to Cadmeian Semele the mother of Bacchus as Aceste was to the daughters of Adrastus Stat. lib. 1. Theb. Eupheme is memorated to be the Nurse to
Wisedome and Potency Therefore Johannes Sambucus Tyrnabiensis in his argument to Lucians twentieth Dialogue inscribed Deorum Judicium thus writes Matris Acidaliae javenis deceptus amore Non curat reliquas Caecus habere Deas Pallade quid melius Junone potentius ipsa Preferimus Cipridos munerâ— prava tamen The Phrigian youth with Venus love surpriz'd Took of the other goddesses no care Pallas and potent Juno he despis'd Leaving the good and great to chuse the fair The Beauty of a woman is especially seen in the face by which we may conjecture the excellency of the other hidden lineaments of the body and therein is many times the pulchritude of the mind illustrated as in the bashful eie modest look and shamefaced countenance therefore doth the face deservedly challenge the first seat of Beauty the Head being the noblest part of the body the Will the Mind the Memory the Understanding have their place and residence where they exercise their divers effects and qualities therefore though they be in the other parts of the body excellently featured though they be Wise Learned irreprovable in Life and conversation unblemished in their reputation and every way laudable yet the face is the first thing contemplated as noble above the rest and from which all other excellencies are approved for when all the rest are masked and hidden that only is continually visible and laid open and that may be the reason why most women that are not born fair attempt with artificiall beauty to seem fair Beauty therefore being a Dower of it selfe is a reward in it selfe Of Bounty Charity Piety and other Vertues in Women with their Rewards ONe Berta a Country maid of the Village of Montaguum in Patavia who having spun an excellent fine thread which was so curiously twisted that it was not to be matched by the hands of any and offering it in the City to publique sale when none would reach to the price at which she valued her pain and skil she thinking it a gift worthy an Empresse presented it to Berâ—ba the wife of Henry the fourth Emperor who at that time sojourned in Patavia She both admiring the excellency of the work and willing with her roiall bounty to encourage the plain Wench that wrought it commanded her steward to take the Yearn and go with the maid to Montaguum and out of the best soil there to measure so many acres of ground as that thread stretched out in length would compasse by which her roiall bounty poor Berta grew suddenly rich and from a Dowerlesse Virgin became a Match enquired after by the best men of the Countrie insomuch that from her flowed the illustrious Patritian Family in Padua which derive themselves from Montaguum This the Women of neighbor Villages seeing they all began to strive to equal if not exceed Berta at their Wheels and Spindles and hoping of the like reward troubled and oppressed the Empresse with multiplicity of presents who causing them all to appear before her at once she thus spake to them If not in Art yet Berta was befor you in time I thank you love and commend your skill but she hath prevented you of the blessing Which saying of hers is still remembred as a Proverb in all that Country for when any thing is done unseasonably or not in due time they say Non è pui quel tempo che Berta filava i. You come not in the time when Berta spun or as our English Proverb is You come a day after the Fair Bernard Scardeonus lib. 3. Histor Paiav In which the Empress expressed great wisedome who as she shewed a rare bounty in which men and women come neerest the gods who are the free givers of all good things so she knew how to dispose it namely to her that came to tender her love not such as a varitiously presented their Offerings meerly for lucre and benefit for such come but like fair weather after Harvest And how could the Empresses Vertue be better rewarded then to have her Bounty outlast her Death and her Wisedome survive her Dust Touching Charity Bruson lib. 2. cap. 21. relates That a poor begger desiring an alms of Lacon he thus answered him If I give thee any thing I make thee a greater begger and thou maiest curse him that first gave thee for it was he that made thee one Amongst the Lacedemonians nothing was more shamefull then to beg being an industrious Nation hating sloth and contenting themselves with little Notwithstanding Charity is commendable in all and reckoned amongst the best Theologicall Vertues neither is it any fault in such if their goodnesse and bounty be not a means to encourage idlenesse and sloth in bad people who make a pretence of want and penury therefore commendable it is in any man that is apt to give to know upon whom he doth bestow King Archelaus being at a banquet where such as he vouchsafed to set at his Table were wondrous pleasant about him amongst others one that had great familiarity with him demanded as a gift a great standing bowl which the King had then in his hand which he had no sooner spoken but the King called to one that waited at his elbow to whom he said Hold take this bowl and bear it to the Poet Euripides and tell him I bestow it on him as my free gift The other demanding the reason thereof Archelaus answered Thou indeed art only worthy to ask but not receive but Euripides is worthy to receive without asking In which he nothing abated of his Kingly bounty only he apprehended how most worthily to dispose it Plutarch in Regum Apophtheg But how this charity in Women is rewarded I will only instance Tabitha spoken of in the Acts who being dead was thought worthy for her former Charity in relieving Widowes and Orphans to have Peters knees and praiers to restore her again to life Now of the reward of religious Piety in which many Matrons and godly martyred Virgins amongst such as have suffered strange deaths may be included as some by the Sword some by by Fire others suffocated by Smoak stilled in Jakes shot with Arrowes tortured upon Wheels scourged with Whips scared with Irons boiled in Caldrons c. their Crowns are glory their Rewards neither to be expressed by pen tongue or apprehension of man Loosnesse of Life first converted and the conversion rewarded in a home bred History A Civill Gentleman within memory in the heat of Summer having been walking alone in the fields contemplating with himselfe and returning back not the same way he went out but through another part of the Suburbs to which he was a meer stranger and finding himselfe athirst he stepped into the first house that fairliest offered it selfe to him and called for a cup of Beer seating himself in the first room next to the street He had not well wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchiefe but two or three young wenches came skittishly in