Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	die_v	know_v	6,084	5	3.8545	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54647	The epistles of Phalaris translated into English from the original Greek by S. Whately ... ; to which is added Sir W. Temple's Character of the epistles of Phalaris ; together with an appendix of some other epistles lately discovered in a French ms.	Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, 6th cent. B.C.; Whately, Stephen.; Temple, William, Sir, 1628-1699.	1699 (1699)	Wing P1961; ESTC R36673	106,737	246

those whom he had reason to suspect and who were ever hatching Treason against him In the mean while the People who only mind the effects without enquiring after the Cause call his Justice Cruelty as if the punishment of Malefactors was not rather an Action of Clemency since it preserves the Innocent and secures the Lives of Honest men But the aversion people have to ill Princes makes 'em even often hate the Good such as Greece has seen several that have governed with all manner of Equity and Justice Thus it is not by his severity that a man ought to judge of a good or a bad Governor but by the reason he has to be severe otherwise you your selves would be unjust in punishing the Impious and Sacrilegious You see how much time Legislators employ in speaking of Penalties and Punishments as if the rest were nothing without this Now if they are necessary to any 't is without doubt to them who have none about them but treacherous Friends or private Enemies and command people which only obey by force For Rebellion is like a Hydra one of whose Heads are no sooner cut off than that there arises several in its place unless you put fire to 't after the example of Iolas for the gaining the Victory In a word when you have once begun to exercise severity you must continue it if you mean not to be undone But nought but necessity can drive a man to that extremity and I do not believe there 's any Prince so barbarous as to take delight in hearing Clamours Bawlings and Invectives rather than Blessings and Praises How often have we seen ours weep and groan in the punishment of Offenders and deplore his condition because he was constrained to suffer every day what he made them suffer once and to be all his life long under continual apprehensions of Death For otherwise he is so far from desiring to destroy the Innocent that he would rather be his own destruction by suffering Criminals to live Besides it 's no less painful to a Noble Spirit to do ill than to suffer it and I know not whether it be better to dye tho unjustly than to be every day in pain for our own defence and security however I believe every man would rather preserve his own life than those of his Enemies especially when he cannot preserve them but to his own ruine and against himself Yet Phalaris has preserved several after having manifestly convicted them I call to witness Acanthus Timocrates and Leogoras whom he loved when he might have destroyed them But if you would know our Prince you must not enquire about him of those whom he is constrained to be harsh withal but of others that he uses with all manner of humaniy For there are people all along the Coast who give him notice of those who arrive that he may receive them according to their merit and the Sages of Greece have not disdained to come and see him and Court his Friendship Witness Pythagoras who now abides with him having as much esteem for his Virtue as he had heard Blame and Clamours of his Cruelty and he is fill'd with compassion to see him constrain'd to exercise justice so severely Do ye think a man that uses Strangers so well takes delight in oppressing his own Citizens without any reason This is what we had to represent to you for his justification As to what concerns his Offering you are to know how Perillus like you only knowing him by hear-sayes imagining he could not render him a more acceptable piece of service than by inventing some new sort of punishment and as he was an excellent Artisan he made a Copper Bull of admirable contrivance so as that the Prince cryed out as soon as he saw it that it was an Offering worthy of Apollo But Perillus in reply said if you knew for what purpose I made it you would talk at another rate Shut up a Malefactor in it and put fire to it and thou wilt hear him Bellow like a Bull which is the only thing it wants to imitate Nature to perfection Upon these words the Prince having in abhorrence so detestable an Invention made Perillus himself to be put into the Bull to make a tryal of the truth and causing him again to be taken out alive that so he might not pollute by his Death an Offering which he meant to Consecrate to the Gods he destin'd it to Apollo and caused this History to be engraven thereupon Wherefore receive this Present Sacred Sirs and set it in the most conspicuous Place of the Temple for a Monument of the Piety and Justice of our Prince He will make still more presents if Apollo preserves him long and delivers him as has done from the ambushes of his Enemies but the greatest kindness he can do him is to exempt him henceforward from seeing so many executions and punishments This Right Reverend we had to tell you on his behalf and on our own which we assert for truth Now if Subjects be allowed to intercede for their Prince we conjure you most Holy Fathers by virtue of an Alliance for we as well as you are originally of the Dorians not to displease a Soveraign who Courts your Friendship since he has given you diverse testimonies thereof as well in publick as in particular wherefore receive this Offering and Consecrating it to Apollo make Vows for Him and for Us since you cannot refuse it without doing an injury to Phalaris and your God A Continuation Of the former DISCOURSE In an Oration of one of Apollo's Priests to the rest to perswade them not to refuse Phalaris his Present THough I have neither Friendship nor Alliance with Phalaris and with the Agrigentines nor any private reason to embrace their Interests I do not think my Brethren we can refuse their oblation which is a Master-piece of Art and the pledge of a Princes Piety and Justice as well in its Consecration as in the punishment of the Delinquent Wherefore I fancy on this occasion a longer deliberation would be Criminal and that it 's no less a Crime to refuse the offerings which are made to the Gods than to take away those they hold already in possession For my own part who in the Quality of a Priest and Citizen of Delphos partake in the Glory of Apollo and his Temple I hold we neither ought nor can hinder the token of zeal and acknowledgment of any Person without exposing our selves to Calumny and making it blurr'd about that we mean to render our selves Arbiters of the Consciences of Men. In a word if we reject this offering no body will ever make any more For who would expose himself to a refusal or run the risque of passing for Impious in giving testimonies of his Piety Ye will wholly Condemn Phalaris of the Crimes whereof he is accused if you send back his Present Never theless ye know we are yet altogether unacquainted with them and there 's

the Gnat. Ep. 87. To Aristenetus ' T' Is no Troublesome thing to me to think that I am an Old man I am not yet nor ever shall I be too Old to hold the Reins of Government and make my Enemies tremble but those Frights you are in upon my account are very Troublesome to me Fate will take its Course nor can all Aristenetus his fears put a stop to it And therefore to give you my sense in the words of the Poet Since Fear doth not prevent our Fate But double every ●ll I 'd rather Feel before I Fear Than Fear before I Feel Ep. 88. To the Himaereans V. Ep. 93 108 121. YOu have sufficiently declared your Inclinations and fairly given me to Understand that you look upon it as a matter Indifferent to you whether Phalaris be your Enemy or your Friend Heaven be praised that put it into your mind to make so plain a discovery of your selves Having received this Assurance of its favour I doubt not of my after Successes Conon as I wrote to you in my Last I ordered to be forthwith put to death as knowing him to be a very Villain and a Ringleader of all mischief among you and withal that he had neither Parent nor Relation in your City So that t is purely upon his own Account and Yours that he suffered nor in his Death do I punish any Innocent person To Drepid●s I have paid the Regard he deserved and remitted him safe to your hands an Honest man and one that hath neither Done you nor Designed me any Hurt How to dispose of Stesichorus I shall take time to consider Ep. 89. To Neolaidas I Do not design you any hurt for I find that your Good Actions are more than your Bad. To the number of your Good farther add the not forcing me upon Harsher thoughts concerning you than I would willingly admit Ep. 90. To Mnesicles I Heartily congratulated your happiness when I heard that you had a Daughter born to you though I knew how desirous you were of a Son And I believe you yourself will be well pleased with what you have when you shall find what a Gainer you are by the Loss of your Wish in having a Girl instead of a Boy For Daughters are Naturally more tenderly affected toward their Parents than Sons I shall think my Presents meet with a kind Reception at your hands when you shall not only readily entertain what I send but let me know what you want And now I am sure you will every day find yourself in a wanting condition For Daughters are Chargeable Ep. 91. To Alcander I imagine that without my telling you so neither you nor any man else supposes me a man that can be Frightned with Words only and as little let me tell you by more than Words only I can with the same Indifference hear that men Act against me as I can that they Talk against me I very well know what a thing War is and therefore never undertake one without both a Cause to Justifie it and Strength to go through with it The Difference of Times the Doubtfulness of Events the Suddenness of Change and the Fickleness of Fortune I am fitter to Teach than to be Taught Nor can any man in the World have greater Reason to Depend upon himself than I have But I depend more upon the Blessings of Heaven the Assurances of whose favour my constant Successes have given me and to the same Goodness I still Trust that no man shall begin with me without being himself a Loser by the Adventure For if I may judge of what 's to come by what 's past I have reason to expect to see all my Enemies under my Feet Ep. 92. To Stesichorus I Hear that you have been at Aluntium and at Alaesa going and sending about from City to City to collect Moneys and raise Souldiers and that all these preparations are against me Fye Stesichorus an Old a man as you are never have done with Politicks Is it not time for you to give over busying your head with State Affairs Have you no Regard to those Sacred Deities whose peculiar Adorer you Profess yourself No more Wit than to pick Quarrels with them that are above your Match and make the Muses the tools to your follies Have you no Compassion on your Sons now almost men on your Native Country while like a Rash man or rather Doting Old Fool by Raising Moneys and Levying an Army against Phalaris you draw upon them an Enemy that will in the end most certainly Root and Branch confound them And I hear you are at this very time writing the Returns of the Greeks and therein shewing very pertinently the Mistakes of which some of the Heroes were guilty But how you yourself shall Return from Alaesa to Himera That you think not of But assure yourself you will meet with Cepharidan Rocks Floating Islands a Devouring Charibdis and a Nauplian Fleet in your way Nor shall you escape me no not though as you Poets have it a God should descend to wrap you up in a Cloud and snatch you out of my hands Ep. 93. To the Himeraeans V. Ep. 88 92 108 109. I Have dismissed Stesichorus O ye Himeraeans and forgiven him all his Practices against me Not upon your Petitioning for his Life that should have procured him more Deaths than one but out of the Veneration I bear both to those Sacred Deities in particular whose Inspired Prophet he is and to all the rest of your Himeraean Gods and Heroes For I have no cause of Quarrel against them though much against you How studiously he pursued my Ruin you yourselves know But I durst not joyn a person so Sacred by his Profession so Venerable for his Wisdom in the same Fate with that Execrable Villain that Infamous Debauchee Conon nor suffer the Devoted Client of the Muses to dye by my Hands How much rather do I wish that it lay in my power to rescue such persons from the stroak of Fate So should they never dye And let me Conjure you ye Himeraeans no more to twist Stesichorus into your Broken Interests nor push him upon those desperate Attempts so disagreeable to his Spirit and Unbecoming his Profession For what have Poets to do with Politicks Nor did he as I am inform'd by those that have been at Alaesa voluntarily intrude himself but unable to withstand your Imporunities was forced to comply with your Follies Put not the like violence upon him for the future but making choice of more proper Tools for the work you have to employ them upon let Stesichorus alone and leave him to his Muse and Lyre Create not to me any more Enemies like him or if you do they are not sure of meeting with the like ●reatment But if you must of necessity have some or other to Head the Cause against me chuse out from among your selves some such persons whom when they fall into my hands

not once nor twice but many and many a time How and when you know as well as I and therefore I may spare the Labour of telling you But herein neither have I imitated you neither will I. No! bloody Monster as I am Abominable and Accursed Wretch or whatever else the world may call me yet it shall never be said of me that I am like you And therefore though I might either have forced you to have redeemed Sameas and Nicarchus by sending to me Stesichorus Conon and Hermocrates or else have executed upon those I had in my hands the vengeance due to the others yet I scorned to take my Advantage against you and have suffered your Ambassadors to return in Safety Though such are the Circumstances of my Fortune and the necessity I am brought under of Trespassing upon the ordinary Rules of Justice that should I have put your Embassadors to death I should not have been thought much the Worse for it than what I am thought already nor much the Better for my having spared them For as to Fame I am long since lost My Name is already too deeply Sullyed to receive a fresh Stain Be what I do Right or Wrong Just or Unjust it returns to much the same Account with me I cannot be one either side either much less Loved or much more Hated than I am And 't is You ye Himeraeans and those Demagogues of yours to whom I am chiefly obliged for the Character I bear All the other mischiefs they have done me I could forgive and bury in Forgetfulness But for their having forced me out of my own Inclinations and constrained me to make use of such violent methods which I myself condemn how can I give them their Just Rewards Who can be more deservedly Sufferers by that Unjustice of which I am accused than they by whose means I have been necessitated to be so unjust Yet all this notwithstanding O ye Himeraeans though Provoked as I am and a Tyrant and having in my hands if not the very persons I desired at least those whose Death would have been no less a punishment to you I have both spared them and dismist them with the Honours due to their Character If therefore you will deal with me as I have done with you and answer my Reasonable Demands you will consult your own Interests And I leave it to yourselves to consider which were better for you to do either to suffer me to discharge the whole weight of my Displeasure upon two or three persons and thereby Avert the Danger which threatens you All or else by resolving still to protect that common Instrument of your Infamous Lusts Conon to Abide the utter Subversion of your whole State and see your City levell'd with the Ground For if you will force me upon extremities I will take care that you shall effectually find me no more merciful than you suppose me Ep. 122. To the Athenians 'T Is some time since O ye Athenians that your Statuary Perilaus came to Agragas and presented me with some of the Performances of his Art which were indeed extraordinary in their kind The Entertainment he received at my hands and the Rewards with which I dismist him were a sufficient Proof of the Regard I had to him both upon the Account of his own Ingenuity and more especially of his Relation to You. Not long after he returns to us again bringing with him a Bull made in Brass and of a Size far exceeding the Natural I were mightily taken both with the Curiosity of the Workmanship and the subject upon which it was bestowed that laborious Animal so serviceable to the Uses of man and so contentedly bearing the Yoke 'T was indeed a noble Spectacle and proper Ornament for the Palace of a Tyrant And as such I received it For as yet he had not discovered to me the Murderous use for which it was designed But when he opened to me the Side of it and exposed to naked view the Hell of Torments lodged within its Bowels I were equally smitten with Admiration at the Artificialness of the Contrivance and Abhorrence of the Cruelty of it and therefore forthwith resolved to have the first Proof of his new Engine made upon himself as not being able to find out a person more Deserving with whom to begin the Experiment of such an Invention than the Inventor of it Into the Belly of his own Bull therefore we force him to go and having disposed the fire about it according to the Directions he himself had before given it answered our expectations and fatally verifyed upon the Artist the exactness of his Art For neither did we see the person tormented nor hear any of his Out-cries but the Shrieks and Groans of the Dying Wretch within were Tuned by the Brass into the Natural Lowings and Bellowings of a Bull so that they came forth rather a Divertisement than Horrour to the Spectators But that you O ye Athenians should be so mightily displeased as I hear you are at my putting the Author of his Invention to this kind of Death is what I am much surprized at and what I cannot yet believe If it be that you think I have given him too Gentle a Punishment my answer is that I could not find out any more Terrible But if it be the thing it self of my having put him to any Death at all that you complain of then do you your selves who Glory so much in your Humanity incur the Censure of the Deepest Cruelty and while you pretend to Vindicate your Citizen Condemn your City For either it was the Fact of that one single person or else the Fact of you All and which of these two we must take it to be your behaviour towards me upon this occasion will declare For if you grant that he dyed Deservedly and hath not left behind him amongst all the Athenians the like Example of a Cruel Nature what should make you Resent my having put him to Death Since the example of his Punishment cannot in the least Affect any of you so Unlike him in his Qualities But if you say he dyed Undeservedly then do you plainly declare your selves to be of the same Stamp with Perilaus and by defending his Act make it your own Or however say you what you will I shall not think my self guilty of Injustice in putting to death such persons only as I my self in the first place know justly to deserve death and so long as I satisfie my own Conscience I little value whom else I dissatisfy For though we Tyrants are commonly supposed very Improper Judges of Right and Wrong making all other Considerations stoop to that of Securing our selves yet I am not so ignorant as not to know that Justice is the Support of Power and that whenever I shall forsake her Laws and shew my self a man that Rewards and Punishes not by Rule but by Humour I shall at the same time forsake my