him and in this maner began to perswade Above all things my good childe quoth he studie and endevour to imitate the humanitie and sociable nature of your noble father unlesse haply you have me in jealousie and suspition as if I went about to compasse your death The youth was abashed to heare him say so and went with him well supper was no sooner ended but they made an end of the yoong gentleman also and strangled him outright so that it is no ridiculous and foolish advertisement as some let not to say but a wise and sage advise of Hesiodus when he saith Thy friend and lover to supper do invite Thy foe leave out for he will thee requite Be not in any wise bashfull and ashamed to refuse his offer whom thou knowest to hate thee but never leave out and reject him once who seemeth to put his trust and confidence in thee for if thou do invite thou shalt be invited againe and if thou be bidden to a supper and go thou canst not choose but bid againe if thou abandon once thy distrust and diffidence which is the guard of thy safty and so marre that good tincture and temperature by a foolish shame that thou hast when thou darest not refuse Seeing then that this infirmitie and maladie of the minde is the cause of many inconveniences assay we must to chase it away with all the might we have by exercise beginning at the first like as men do in other exercises with things that are not very difficult nor such as a man may boldly have the face to denie as for example if at a dinner one chance to drinke unto thee when thou hast drunke sufficiently already be not abashed to refuse for to pledge him neither force thy selfe but take the cup at his hand and set it downe againe on the boord againe there is another perchance that amids his cups chalengeth thee to hazzard or to play at dice be not ashamed to say him nay neither feare thou although thou receive a flout and scoffe at his hands for deniall but rather do as xenophanes did when one Lasus the sonne of Hermiones called him coward because he would not play at dice with him I confesse quoth he I am a very dastard in those things that be lewd and naught and I dare do nothing at all moreover say thou fall into the hands of a pratling talkative busie bodie who catcheth hold on thee hangeth upon thee and will not let thee go be not sheepish and bashfull but interrupt and cut his tale short shake him off I say but go thou forward and make an end of thy businesse whereabout thou wentest for such refusals such repulses shifts and evasions in small matters for which men cannot greatly complaine of us exercising us not to blush and be ashamed when there is no cause do inure and frame us well before-hand unto other occasions of greater importance And heere in this place it were not amisse to call unto remembrance a speech of Demosthenes for when the Athenians being sollicited and mooved to send aid unto Harpalus were so forward in the action that they had put themselves in armes against king Alexander all on a sodaine they discovered upon their owne coasts Philoxenus the lieutenant generall of the kings forces and chiefe admirall of his Armada at sea now when the people were so astonied upon this unexpected occurrent that they had not a word to say for very feare What wil these men do quoth Demosthenes when they shall see the sunne who are so afraid that they dare not looke against a little lampe even so I say to thee that art given much to blush and be abashed What wilt thou be able to do in weightie affaires namely when thou shalt be encountred by a king or if the bodie of some people or state be earnest with thee to obtaine ought at thy hand that is unreasonable when thou hast not the heart to refuse for to pledge a familiar friend if he chance to drinke unto thee offer thee a cup of wine or if thou canst not find meanes to escape and wind thy selfe out of the company of a babling busie bodie that hath fastened and taken hold of thee but suffer such a vaine prating fellow as this to walke and leade thee at his pleasure up and downe having not so much power as to say thus unto him I will see you againe hereafter at some other time now I have no leasure to talke with you Over and besides the exercise and use of breaking your selves of this bashfulnesse in praising others for small and light matters will not be unprofitable unto you as for example Say that when you are at a feast of your friends the harper or minstrell do either play or sing out of tune or haply an actour of a Comedie dearely hired for a good piece of money by his ill grace in acting marre the play and disgrace the authour himselfe Menander and yet neverthelesse the vulgar sort doe applaud clap their hands and highly commend and admire him for his deed in mine advice it would be no great paine or difficulty for thee to give him the hearing with patience and silence without praising him after a servile and flattering maner otherwise than you thinke it meet and reason for if in such things as these you be not master of your selfe how will you be able to hold when some deare friend of yours shall reade unto you either some foolish rime or bad poësie that himselfe hath composed if he shal shew unto you some oration of his owne foolish and ridiculous penning you will fall a praising of him will you you will keepe a clapping of your hands with other flattering jacks I would not els And if you doe so how can you reprove him when he shall commit some grosse fault in greater matters how shall you be able to admonish him if he chance to forget himselfe in the administration of some magistracie or in his carriage in wedlocke or in politike government And verily for mine owne part I do not greatly allow and like of that answere of Pericles who being requested by a friend to beare false witnesse in his behalfe and to binde the same with an oath whereby he should be forsworne I am your friend quoth he as far as the altar as if he should have said Saving my conscience and duety to the gods for surely he was come too neere already unto him But he who hath accustomed himselfe long before neither to praise against his owne minde one who hath made an oration nor to applaud unto him who hath sung nor to laugh heartily at him who came out with some stale or poore jest which had no grace hee will I trow never suffer his friend and familiar to proceed so farre as to demand such a request of him or once be so bolde as to move him who before had refused in smaller trifles to satisfie his desire in
true and assuredremedies and in stead of leaving the heart afflicted amid humane thoughts and considerations raiseth and lifteth it up unto the justice wisedome and bountie of the true God and heavenly father it causeth it to see the estate of eternall life it assureth it of the soules immortalitie of the resurrection of the bodie points of learning wherein the Pagans were altogether ignorant and of the permanent and everlasting joies above in the kingdome of heaven Now albeit as this trueth of God revealed unto us in his sacred word hath instructed and resolved us sufficiently it will not be amisse and impertinent to learne of our authour and such others those things which themselves did not well and thorowly understand neither in life nor yet in death for that the foundation failed them and they missed the ground-worke indeed and in cleaving and leaning to I wot not what fortune and fatall destinie they caused man to rest and stay himselfe upon a vaine shadow of vertue and willed him in one word to seeke for consolation where there was nothing but desolation for happinesse in misery and for life in death As touching the argument and contents of this treatise adorned it is with notable reasons similitudes examples and testimonies the substance whereof is this That Apollonius unto whom it is addressed ought not to be over-pensive and heavie for the death of his sonne deceased in the flower of his age To move and perswade him thereto Plutarch after he had excused himselfe in that he wrote no sooner unto him and shewed that space of time comming betweene doth better prepare mens hearts which sorow and be in anguish to receive comfort he condemneth aswell blockish and senselesse folke as also those that be weaklings and over-tender in adversitie Which done he entreth into a generall review of the remedies which be appropriate to cure the miseries and afflictions of man namely that hee ought to holde a meane and to continue alwaies like himselfe to cast his eie and have regard upon the divers accidents of our life and in enjoying the blessings thereof to thinke upon future crosses and calamities to be armed with reason for to beare all changes to remember and carefully to thinke upon the estate of this mortall and transitorie life to consider the evils and miseries of the same to endure patiently that which can not be avoided and prevented with all the cares and lamentations that be and to compare our owne adversities with other mens Then he proceedeth unto the particular consolations of those who are heavie and sorowfull for the death of their children kinsfolke or friends to wit That there is no harme nor evill at all in death but rather that it is a good thing that the houre of it being uncertaine it is a comfort unto those whom it summoneth who no doubt would be cast downe and overthrowen with the apprehension of miseries to come in case they had any foresight thereof After this he proveth at large by three inductions and arguments of Socrates that there is not any evill in death which he confirmeth by divers examples and then returning into his consolations he mainteineth and holdeth That whosoever die yoong are most happie that the consideration of Gods providence ought to reteine and stay us that we are not to mourne and lament for the dead neither in regard of them nor of our selves that since over-long heavinesse and sorow maketh a man miserable it were very good for him to be rid and dispatched of that paine quickly Having finished this point he resolveth and assoileth certeine difficulties which are presented in these maters and then taking in hand his purpose againe he ruleth and reformeth the affections of the living toward them that are departed he reclaimeth them from persisting and continuing obstinately in bewailing their absence willing them rather to bewaile the case of those who are living and by many reasons doth prove and conclude that they who die betimes have one marvellous advantage over those that remaine alive in the world Then he teacheth a man to mainteine and cary himselfe as he ought in all affaires refuteth those who can abide no paine and trouble and knitting up all the premisses in few words he adjoineth certaine necessarie and profitable counsels in such accidents and before that he concludeth the whole treatise he describeth the felicity of those whom death cutteth off in the prime of their yeeres having a speciall regard herein to Apollonius the 〈◊〉 unto whom he writeth and assuring him by the recitall of the good parts and vertues which were in his sonne lately departed that he was without all question in that place of repose and rest which the Poets do imagine Upon which occasion he treateth of the immortalitie of the soule according to the doctrine of Plato and his followers which is the very end and closing up of all that had bene delivered before A CONSOLATORIE ORAtion sent unto Apollonius upon the death of his sonne IT is not newly come upon me now at this present and not before to pitie your case and lament in your behalfe ô Apollonius having heard long since as I did the heavy newes concerning the untimely death of your sonne a yoong gentleman singularly well beloved of us all as who in that youth and tender yeeres of his shewed rare examples of wise carriage staied and modest behaviour together with precise observance of those devout dueties and just offices which either perteined to the religious service of the gods or were respective to his parents and friends for even from that time have I condoled with you and had a fellow-feeling of your sorrow but for me to have come then and visited you immediatly upon his decease departure out of this world to present you with an exhortation to beare patiently and as becommeth a man that unfortunate accident had bene an unseemly part of mine and unconvenient considering how in that verie instant your minde and bodie both overcharged with the insupportable burden of so strange and unexpected a calamitie were brought low and much infeebled and my selfe besides must needs have moaned you felt part of your griefe and sorrowed with you for companie for even the best and most skilfull Physicians when they meet with violent rhewmes and catarrhes which suddenly surprise any part of the body doe not proceed at the first to a rough cure by purgative medicines but permit this rage and hot impression of inflamed humours to grow of it selfe to maturitie by application onely of supple oiles mild liniments and gentle fomentations But now that since your said misfortune some time which useth to ripen all things is passed betweene and given good opportunitie considering also that the present disposition and state of your person seemeth to require the helpe and comfort of your friends I thought it meet and requisit to impart unto you certeine reasons and discourses consolatorie if happily by that meanes I may ease
his death they will evermore have the same in their mouthes to kindle anew and refresh their sorow went he suddenly and never bad his friends farewell when he departed they lament and say That he was ravished away and forcibly taken from them if he languished and was long in dying then they fal a complaining and give out that he consumed and pined away enduring much paine before hee died to be short every occasion circumstance whatsoever is enough to stirre up their griefe and minister matter to mainteine sorowfull plaints And who be they who have mooved and brought in all these outcries and lamentations but Poets and even Homer himselfe most of all other who is the chiefe and prince of the rest who in this maner writeth Like as a father in the fire of wofull funerals Burning the bones of his yoong sonne sonne after his espousals Sheds many teares for griefe of minde and weepeth bitterly The mother likewise tender heart bewailes him piteously Thus he by his untimely death both parents miserable Afflicts with sorrowes manifold and woes inexplicable But all this while it is not certeine whether it be wel and rightly done to make this sorrow for see what followeth afterwards He was their onely sonne and borne to them in their olde age Sole heire of all and to enjoy a goodly heritage And who knoweth or is able to say whether God in his heavenly providence and fatherly care of mankinde hath taken some out of the world by untimely death foreseeing the calamities and miseries which otherwise would have hapned unto them and therefore we ought to thinke that nothing is befallen them which may be supposed odious or abominable For nothing grievous thought may be Which commeth by necesitie Nothing I say that hapneth to man either by primitive cause immediatly or by consequence aswell in this regard that often times most kinds of death preserve men from more grievous aduersities and excuse them for greater miseries as also for that it is expedient for some never to have bene borne and for others to die in their very birth for some a little after they be entred into this life and for others againe when they are in their flower and growen to the verie hight and vigor of their age all which sorts of death in what maner soever they come men are to take in good part knowing that whatsoever proceedeth from fatall destinie can not possiblie be avoided and besides reason would that being well taught and instructed they should consider and premeditate with themselves how those whom we thinke to have bene deprived of their life before their full maturitie go before us but a little while for even the longest life that is can be esteemed but short and no more than the very minute and point of time in comparison of infinit eternitie also that many of them who mourned and lamented most within a while have gone after those whom they bewailed and gained nothing by their long sorow onely they have in vaine afflicted and tormented themselves whereas seeing the time of our pilgrimage here in this life is so exceeding short we should not consume our selves with heavinesse and sadnesse nor in most unhappie sorrow and miserable paines even to the punishing of our poore bodies with injurious misusage but endevour and strive to take a better and more humane course of life in conversing civilly with those persons who are not ready to be pensive with us and fit to stirre up our sorrow and griefe after a flattering sort but rather with such as are willing meet to take away or diminish our heavinesse with some generous and grave kinde of consolation and we ought to have ever in minde these verses in Homer which Hector by way of comfort delivered unto his wife Andromache in this wise Unhappy wight do not my heart vexe and sollicit still For no man shorten shall my daies before the heavenly will And this I say Andromache that fatall destinie No person good or bad once borne avoid can possibly And of this fatall destinie the same Poet speaketh thus in another place No sooner out of mothers wombe are bades brought forth to light But destinie hath spun the thread for every mortall wight These and such like reasons if we would conceive and imprint before-hand in our mindes we should be free from this foolish heavinesse and delivered from all melancholy and namely considering how short is the terme of our life betweene birth and death which we ought therefore to spare and make much of that we may passe the same in tranquillitie and not interrupt it with carking cares and dolefull dumps but laying aside the marks and habits of heavinesse have a regard both to cheerish our owne bodies and also to procure and promote the welfare and good of those who live with us Moreover it will not be amisse to call to minde and remember those arguments and reasons which by great likelihood wee have sometime used to our kinsefolke and friends when they were afflicted with like calamities when as by way of consolation we exhorted and perswaded them to beare the common accidents of this life with a common course of patience and humane cases humanely Neither must we shew our selves so far short and faultie as to have bene sufficiently furnished for to appease the sorrow of others and not be able by the remembrance of such comforts to do our selves good we ought therefore presently to cure the anguish of our heart with the sovereigne remedies and medicinable drogues as it were of reason and so much the sooner by how much better we may admit dealy in any thing els than in discharging the heart of griefe and melancholie for whereas the common proverbe and by-word in every mans mouth pronounceth thus much Who loves delaies and his time for to slacke Lives by the losse and shall no sorrows lacke Much more dammage I supose he shall receive who deferreth and putteth off from day to day to be discharged of the grievous and adverse passions of the minde A man therefore is to turne his eies toward those worthy personages who have shewed themselves magnanimous and of great generositie in bearing the death of their children as for example Anaxagor as the Clazomenian Pericles and Demosthenes of Athens Dion the Syracusian and king Antigonus besides many others both in these daies and also in times past of whom Anaxagor as as we reade in historie having heard of his sonnes death by one who brought him newes thereof even at what time as he was disputing in naturall philosophie and discoursing among his scholers and disciples paused a while and staied the course of his speech and said no more but thus unto those who were about him Well I wist that I begat my sonne to be a mortall man And Pericles who for his passing eloquence and excellent wisedome was surnamed Olympius that is to say divine and heavenly when tidings came to him that his
two sonnes Paralus and Xantippus had both changed this life behaved himselfe in this manner as Protagoras reporteth of him in these words When his two sonnes quoth he both yoong and beautifull died within eight daies one after the other he never shewed any sad countenance or heavie cheere but tooke their death most patiently for in truth he was a man at all times furnished with tranquillitie of spirit whereby he daily received great frute and commoditie not onely in respect of this happinesse that he never tasted of hearts griefe but also in that he was better reputed among the people for every man seeing him thus stoutly to take this losse and other the like crosses esteemed him valiant magnanimous and of better courage than himselfe the one being privie to his owne heart how he was woont to be troubled and afflicted in such accidents As for Pericles I say immediately after the report of both his sons departure out of this world he ware a chaplet of floures neverthelesse upon his head after the maner of his country put on a white robe made a solemne oration to the people propounded good and sage counsels to the Athenians incited them to war Semblaby Xenophon one of the followers familiars of Socrates when he offred sacrifice one day unto the gods being advertised by certaine messengers returned from the battel that his sonne Gryllus was slaine in fight presently put off the garland which was upon his head and demaunded of them the manner of his death and when they related unto him that he bare himselfe valiantly in the field and fighting manfully lost his life after he had the killing of many enemies he tooke no longer pause for to represse the passion of his mind by the discourse of reason but after a little while set the coronet of flowers againe upon his head and performed the solemnitie of sacrifice saying unto those who had brought those tidings I never praied unto the gods that my sonne should be either immortall or long lived for who knoweth whether this might be expedient or no but this rather was my praier that they would vouchsafe him the grace to be a good man and to love and serve his countrey well the which is now come to passe accordingly Dion likewise the Syracusian when he was set one day in consultation and devising with his friends hearing a great noise within his house and a loud outcry demaunded what it was and when he heard the mischaunce that hapned to wit that a sonne of his was fallen from the top of the house and dead with the fall without anie shew or signe at all of astonishment or trouble of mind he commanded that the breathlesse corps should be delivered unto women for to be interred according to the maner of the countrey and as for himselfe he held on and continued the speech that hee had begun unto his friends Demosthenes also the oratour is reported to have folowed his steps after he had buried his onely and entirely beloved daughter concerning whom Aeschines thinking in reprochfull wise to chalenger her father said thus This man within a seven-night after his daughter was depauted before that he had mourned or performed the due obsequies according to the accustomed manner being crowned with a chaplet of flowers and putting on white robes sacrificed an oxe unto the gods and thus unnaturally he made no reckoning of her that was dead his onely daughter and she that first called him father wicked wretch that he is this Rhetorician thus intending to accuse and reproch Demosthenes used this manner of speech never thinking that in blaming him after this manner he praised him namely in that hee rejected and cast behind him all mourning and shewed that he regarded the love unto his native countrey more than the naturall affection and compassion to those of his owne bloud As for king Antigonus when he heard of the death of his sonne Alcyoneus who was slaine in a battell he beheld the messengers of these wofull tidings with a constant and undaunted countenaunce but after he had mufed a while with silence and held downe his head he uttered these words O Alcyoneus thou hast lost thy life later than I looked for ventring thy selfe so resolutely as thou hast done among thine enemies without any care of thine owne safetie or respect of my admonitions These noble personages there is no man but doth admire and highly regard for their constance magnanimitie but when it commeth to the point and triall indeed they cannot imitate them through the weakenesse and imbecillitie of mind which proceedeth of ignorance and want of good instructions howbeit there be many examples of those who have right nobly and vertuously caried themselves in the death and losse of their friends and neere kinsmen which we may reade in histories as well Greeke as Latin but those that I have rehearsed already may suffice I suppose to moove you for to lay away this most irksome mourning and vaine sorrow that you take which booteth not nor can serve to any good for that yoong men of excellent vertue who die in their youth are in the grace and favour of the gods for being taken away in their best time I have already shewed heeretofore and now also will I addresse my selfe in this place as briefly as possibly I can to discourse giving testimonie of the truth to this notable wise sentence of Menander To whom the gods vouchsafe their love and grace He lives not long but soone hath runne his race But peradventure my most loving and right deere friend you may reply in this maner upon me Namely that yoong Apollonius your sonne enjoied the world at will and had all things to his hearts desire yea and more befitting it was that you should have departed out of this life and beene enterred by him who was now in the flower of his age which had beene more answerable to our nature and according to the course of humanitie True it is I confesse but haply not agreeable to that heavenly providence and government of this universall world and verily in regard of him who is now in a blessed estate it was not naturall for him to remaine in this life longer than the terme prefixed and limited unto him but after he had honestly performed the course of his time it was 〈◊〉 and requisit for him to take the way for to returne unto his destinie that called for him to come unto her but you will say that he died an untimely death true and so much the happier he is in that he hath felt no more miseries of this life for as Euripides said very well That which by name of life we call Indeed is travell continuall Certes this sonne of yours I must needs say is soone gone and in the very best of his yeeres and flower of his age a yoong man in all points entire and perfect a fresh bacheler affected esteemed and well reputed of all those
their wilde and untamed affections with great care and vigilance For this floure of age having no forecast of thrift but set altogither upon spending and given to delights and pleasures winseth and flingeth out like a skittish and frampold horse in such sort that it had need of a sharpe bit and short curb And therefore they that endeuor not by all good meanes forcibly to hold in and restraine this age but give yoong men libertie and suffer them to do after their own mind plunge them ere they be aware into a licentious course of life and all maner of wickednesse Wherefore good and wise fathers ought in this age especially to be vigilant and watchfull over their sonnes they ought I say to keepe them downe and inute them to wisedome and vertue by teaching by threatning by intreatie and praiers by advise and remonstrances by perswasion and counsell by faire promises by setting before their eies the examples of some who being abandoned to their pleasures and all sensualitie have fallen headlong into great calamities and wofull miseries and contrariwise of others who by mastering their lusts and conquering their delights have wonne honor and glorious renowne For surely these be the two Elements and foundations of vertue Hope of reward and Feare of punishment For as hope inciteth and setteth them forward to enterprise the best and most commendable acts so feare plucketh them backe that they dare not enter upon lewd and wicked pranks In summe Fathers ought with great care to divert their children from frequenting ill companie for otherwise they shall be sure to catch infection and carie away the contagion of their leandnes This is that Pythagoras expresly forbiddeth in his Aenigmaticall precepts under covert and dark words which because they are of no small efficacie to the attaining of vertue I will briefly set downe by the way and open their meaning Taste not quoth he of the black tailed fishes Melanuri which is as much to say as Keepe not company with infamons persons such as for their naughtie life are noted as it were with a blacke coale Passe not over a balance That is we ought to make the greatest account of equitie and justice and in no case to transgresse the same Sit not upon the measure Choenix That is to say we are to flie sloth and idlenes that we may forecast to make provision of things necessarie to this life Give not every man thy right hand which is all one with this Make no contracts and bargaines indifferently with all persons Weare not a ring streight upon thy finger i. Live in freedome and at libertie neither intangle and clog thy life with troubles as with gives Dig not nor rake into the fire with a sword whereby he giveth us a caveat not to provoke farther a man that is angrie for that is not meete and expedient but rather to give place unto those that are in heat of choller Ear not thy heart that is to say offend not thine owne soule nor hurt and consume it with pensive cares Abstaine from beanes i. Intermeddle not in the affaires of State and government for that in olde time men were woont to passe their voices by beanes so proceeded to the election of Magistrates Put not viands in a chamber-pot whereby he signifieth that we should not commit good and civill words to a wicked minde because speech is the nutriment of the understanding which becommeth polluted by the leudnesse of men Returne not backe from the limits and confines when thou commest unto them that is to say If wee perceive death approching and that wee are come to the uttermost bounds of our life we ought to beare our death patiently and not be discouraged thereat But now is it time to retume againe to my matter which I proposed before in the beginning namely as I have alreadie said we are to withdraw our children from the societie and companie of leud persons and flatterers especiallie for that which many a time and often I have said to divers and sundrie fathers I will now repeat once againe namely That there is not a more mischievous and pestilent kinde of men or who doe greater hurt to youth and sooner overthrow them then these flatterers who are the undoing both of fathers and sonnes causing the olde age of the one and the youth of the other wretched and miserable presenting with their leud and wicked counsels an inevitable bait to wit Pleasure wherewith they are sure to be caught Fathers exhort their sonnes that be wealthie to sobrietie and these incite them to drunkenesse Fathers give them counsell to live chaste and continent these provoke them to lust and loosenesse of life Fathers bid them to save spare and be thriftie these will them to spend scatter and be wasters Fathers advise their children to labour and travell these flatterers give them counsell to play or sit still and doe nothing What all our life say they is no more but a moment and minute of time to speake of we must live therefore and enjoy our owne whiles wee have it we must not live beside our selves and languish What need you regard and care for the menaces of a father an olde doting foole carying death in his face and having one foot in the grave we shall see him one of these dayes turne up his heeles and then will we soone have him forth and cary him aloft bravely to his grave You shall have one of these come and bring unto a youth some common harlot out of the stinking stewes having bome him in hand before that she is some brave dame and citizens wife for to furnish whom he must robbe his father there is no remedie Thus fathers goodmen in one houre are bereaved and spoiled of that which they had saved many a yeere for the maintenance of their olde age To be short a wretched and cursed generation they be hypocrites pretending friendship but they can not skill of plaine dealing and franke speech Rich men they claw sooth up and flatter the poore they contemne and despise It seemeth they have learned the Art of singing to the Harpe for to seduce yoong men for when their yoong masters who mainteine and feed them begin to laugh then they set up by and by a loud laughter then they yawne shew all their teeth counterfeit cranks fained and supposed men bastard members of mankinde and this life who compose themselves and live to the will and pleasure of rich men and notwithstanding their fortune is to be free borne and of franke condition yet they chuse voluntarily to be slaves who thinke they have great injurie done unto them if they may not live in all fulnesse and superfluitie to be kept delicately and doe nothing that good is And therefore all futhers that have any care of their childrens good education and wel doing ought of necessitie to chase and drive away from them these gracelesse imps and shamelesse beasts they shall doe
friends againe For like as if there be a feaver occasioned by a botch or rising in the share there is no danger thereof but if when the said botch is gone the feaver still continue then it seemeth to be a maladie proceeding from some more inward secret and deeper cause even so the variance betweene two brethren when it ceaseth together with the deciding of a businesse we must thinke dependeth upon the same businesse upon nothing els but if the difference remaine still when the controversie is ended surely then it was but a colourable pretence thereof and there was within some root of secret malice which caused it And here in this place it would serve our purpose very well to heare the maner of proceeding in the decision of a controversie betweene two brethren of a barbarous nation and the same not for some little parcell of land nor about poore slaves or silly sheepe but for no lesse than the kingdome of Persia for after the death of Darius some of the Persians would have had Ariamenes to succeed and we are the crowne as being the eldest sonne of the King late deceased others againe stood earnestly for Xerxes aswell for that he had to his mother Atossa the daughter of that great Cyrus as because hee was begotten by Darius when hee was a crowned king Ariamenes then came downe out of Media to claime his right not in armes as one that minded to make warre but simply and peaceably attended onely with his ordinary traine retinue minding to enter upon the kingdome by justice order of law Xerxes in the meane while before his brother came being present in place ruled as king exercised all those functiōs that apperteined therto his brother was no sooner arrived but he tooke willingly the diademe or roiall frontlet from his head the princely chaplet or coronet which the Persian kings are wont to weare upright he laid downe went toward his brother to meet him upon the way with kind greeting embraced him he sent also certeine presents unto him with commandement unto those that carried them to say thus Xerxes thy brother honoreth thee now with these presents here but if by the sentence and judgement of the peeres and lords of Persia he shall be declared king his will and pleasure is that thou shalt be the second person in the realme and next unto him Ariamenes answered the message in this wise These presents I receive kindly from my brother but I am perswaded that the kingdome of Persia by right belongeth unto me as for my brethren I will reserve that honour which is meet and due unto them next after my selfe and Xerxes shal be the first and chiefe of them all Now when the great day of judgement was at hand when this weightie matter should be determined the Persians by one generall and common consent declared Artabanus the brother of Darius late departed to be the umpire and competent judge for to decide and end this cause Xerxes was unwilling to stand unto his award being but one man as who reposed more trust and confidence in the number of the princes and nobles of the realme but his mother Atossa reproving him for it Tell me quoth she my sonne wherefore refusest thou Artabanus to be thy judge who is your uncle and besides the best man of all the Persians and why doest thou feare so much the issue of his judgement considering that if thou misse yet the second place is most honourable namely to be called the kings brother of Persia Then Xerxes perswaded by his mother yeelded and after many allegations brought and pleaded on both sides judicially Artabanus at length pronounced definitively that the kingdome of Persia apperteined unto Xerxes with that Artamenes incontinently leapt from his seat went and did homage unto his brother and taking him by the right hand enthronised and enstalled him king from which time forward he was alwaies the greatest person next unto his brother and shewed himselfe so loving and affectionate unto him that in his quarrell he fought most valiantly in the navall battel before Salaminas where in his service and for his honour he lost his life This example may serve for an original patterne of true benevolence and magnanimitie so pure and uncorrupt as it cannot in any one point be blamed or steined As for Antiochus as a man may reprehend in him his ambitious minde and excessive desire of rule so he may aswell woonder that considering his vaine-glorious spirit all brotherly love was not in him utterly extinct for being himselfe the yoonger he waged war with Seleucus for the crowne and kept his mother sure enough for to side with him and take his part now it hapned that during this warre and when it was at the hotest Seleucus strucke a battell with the Galatians lost the field and was himselfe not to be found but supposed certeinly to have beene slaine and cut in peeces together with his whole armie which by the Barbarians were put to the sword and massacred when newes came unto Antiochus of this defeature hee laide away his purple robes put on blacke caused the court gates to be shut and mourned heavily for his brother as if he had beene dead but being afterwards advertised that he was alive safe sound and that he went about to gather new forces and make head againe hee came abroad sacrificed with thankesgiving unto the gods commaunded al those cities states which were under his dominion to keepe holiday to sacrifice weare chapplets of flowers upon their heads in token of publike joy The Athenians when they had devised an absurd and ridiculous fable as touching the quarrell betweene Neptune and Minerva intermedled withall another invention which soundeth to some reason tending to the correction of the same and as it were to make amends for that absurditie for they suppresse alwaies the second of August upon which day hapned by their saying that debate aforesaid betweene Neptune and Minerva What should let and hinder us likewise if it chance that we enter into any quarrell or debate with our allies and kinsfolke in blood to condemne that day to perpetuall oblivion and to repute and reckon it among the cursed and dismal daies but in no wise by occasion of one such unhappie day to forget so many other good and joyfull daies wherein we have lived and beene brought up together for either it is for nothing and in vaine that nature hath endued us with meekenesse and harmelesse long sufferance or patience the daughter of modestie and mediocritie or else surely wee ought to use these vertues and good gifts of her principally to our allies and kinsfolke and verily to crave and receive pardon of them when we our selves have offended and done amisse declareth no lesse love and naturall affection than to forgive them if they have trespassed against us And therefore wee ought not to neglect them if they be angrie and
flocked round about and hemmed him in and on everie side each one had a saying unto him And what art thou quoth one From whence art thou saith another Here comes one and asketh who knew him there sets upon him another saying And how commest thou by the light of all this that thou hast delivered to be short they handeled the matter so well that they forced him to bewray himselfe in the end and to confesse that he was one of them that committed the sacriledge Were not they also who murdered the Poët Ibycus discovered and taken after the same manner It hapned that the said murderers were set at a Theatre to behold the plaies and pastimes which were exhibited and seeing a flight of Cranes over their heads they whispered one to another Loe these be they that will revenge the death of Ibycus Now had not Ibycus beene a long time before seene and much search was made after him because he was out of the way and missed whereupon they that sate next unto these men over-hearing those words of theirs and well noting the speech went directly to the Magistrastes and Iustices to give intelligence and information of their words Then were they attached and examined and thus being convicted suffered punishment in the end not by the meanes of those Cranes that they talked of but surely by their owne blab-tongues as if some hellish furie had forced them to disclose that murder which they had committed For like as in our bodies the members diseased and in paine draw humours continually unto them and all the corruption of the parts neere unto them flow thither even so the tongue of a babling fellow being never without an Inflammtion and a seaverous pulse draweth alwaies and gathereth to it one secret and hidden thing or other In which regard it ought to be well fensed with a rampar and the bulwarke of reason should evermore be set against it which like unto a barre may stay and stop that overflowing and inconstant lubricitie which it hath that we be not more undiscreet and foolish beasts than geese are who when they be to take a flight into Cilicia over the mountaine Taurus which is full of eagels take up everie one in their bill a good big stone which serveth them in stead of a locke or bridle to restraine their gagling by which devise they may passe all night long without any noise and not be heard at all or descried by the said eagles Now if one should demaund and aske of me what person of all others is most mischievous and dangerous I beleeve very well there is no man would name any other but a traitour And yet Euthycrates as saith Demosthenes for his treason covered his owne house with a rouse made of timber that he had out of Macedonie Philocrates also lived richly and gallant of that great masse of gold and silver which he had of King Philip for betraying his countrey and therewith furnished himselfe with brave harlots gallant concubines and daintie fishes Euphor bius also and Philagrus who betraied Eretria were endowed by the King with faire lands and possessions but a pratler is a trasitor voluntarie and for nothing he demaundeth no hire at all neither looketh he to be solicited but offereth himselfe and his service nor betraieth unto the enemies either horses or walles but revealeth hidden secrets and 〈◊〉 speeches which are to bee concealed whether it be in ju iciall matters of law or in seditious discords or in managing of State affaires it makes no matter and no man conneth him thankes nay he will thinke himselfe beholden to others if they will vouchsafe to give him audience And therefore that which is commonly said to a prodigal person who foolishly mis-spendeth and vainely wasteth his substance he cares not how to gratifie every man Thou art not liberal this is no courtesie a vice it is rather that thou art disposed unto thus to take pleasure in nothing but giving and giving still The same rebuke and reprehension serveth verie fitly for a babler Thou art no friend nor well-willer of mine thus to come and discover these things unto me this is thy fault and a disease which thou art sicke of that lovest to be clattering and hast no mind but of chatting Now would I have the Reader to thinke that I write not all this so much to accuse and blame the vice and maladie of garrulitie as to cure and heale the same For by judgement and exercise we surmount and overcome the vices and passions of the minde but judgement that is to say knowledge must go before for no man accustometh himselfe to void and as it were to weed them out of the soule unlesse he hate and detest them first Now then and never before begin we to take an hatred to vices when by the light of reason we consider and weigh the shame and losse that commeth unto us by them as for example we know and see that these great praters whiles they desire to win love gaine hatred thinking to do a pleasure they displease looking to be well esteemed are mocked and derided they lay for lucre and get nothing they hurt their friends aide their enemies and undoe themselves So then let this be the first receit and medicine for to cure this maladie even the consideration and reckoning up of the shamefull infamies and painfull inconveniences that proceed and ensue thereof The second remedy is to take a survey of the contrary that is to say to heare alwaies to remember and have ready at hand the praises and commendations of silence the majestie I say the mysticall gravitie and holinesse of taciturnitie to represent alwaies unto our minde and understanding how much more admired how much more loved and how farre wiser they are reputed who speake roundly at once and in few words their minde pithily who in a short and compendious speech comprehend more good matter and substance a great deale than these great talkers whose tongues are unbrideled and run at randon Those I say be they whom Plato so highly esteemeth comparing them to skilfull and well practised Archers and Darters who have the feat of shooting arrowes and launcing darts for they know how and when to speake graciously and bitterly soundly pithily and compactly And verily wise Lycurgus framed and exercised his citizens immedialy from their child-hood by keeping them downe at the first with silence to this short and sententious kinde of speech whereby they spake alwaies compendiously and knit up much in a little For like as they of Biskay or Celtiberia do make their steele of yron by enterring it and letting it lie first within the ground and then by purging and refining it from the grosse terrene and earthly substance that it hath even so the Laconians speech hath no outward barke as a man would say or crust upon it but when all the superfluitie there of is taken away it is steeled as it were and tempered yea and
upon a waspes nest of enimies where there is a great ods and difference even in this that the revenging remembrance of an enimie for wrong done over-weigheth much the thankfull memorie of a friend for a benefit received and whether this be true or no confider in what maner Alexander the great entreated the friends of Philotas and parmenio how Dionysius the tyrant used the familiars of Dion after what sort Nero the emperor dealt by the acquaintance of Plautus or Tiberius Caesar by the wel-willers of Sejanus whom they caufed all to be racked tortured and put to death in the end Andlike as the costly jewels of golde and the rich apparell of king Creons daughter served him in no stead at all but the fire that tooke holde thereof flaming light out suddenly burned him when he ran unto her to take her in his armes and so consumed father and daughter together even so you shall have some who having never received any benefit at all by the prosperitie of their friends are entangled notwithstanding in their calamities and perish together with them for companie a thing that ordinarily and most of all they are subject unto who be men of profession great clearks and honourable personages Thus Theseus when Perithous his friend was punifhed and lay bound in prifon With fetters sure to him tied was Farre stronger than of yron or brasse Thucydides alfo writeth That in the great pestilence at Athens the best men and such as made greatest profession of vertue were they who did most with their friends that lay sicke of the plague for that they never spared themselves but went to visit and looke to all thofe whom they loved were familiarly acquainted with And therfore it is not meet to meet to make fo littleregard and reckoning of vertue as to hang and fasten it upon others without respect and as they say hand over head but to reserve the c̄omunication thereof to be who be worthy that is to say unto such who are able to love reciprocally and know how to impart the like againe And verily this is the greatest contrariety and opposition which crosseth pluralitie of friends in that amitie in deed is bred by similitude and conformitie for considering that the very brute beasts not endued with reafon if a man would have to ingender with those that are of divers kinds are brought to it by force and thereto compelled insomuch as they shrinke they couch downe upon their knees and be ready to flee one from another whereas contrariwise they take pleasure and delight to be coupled with their like and of the same kinde receiving willingly and enterteining their companie in the act of generation with gentlenesse and good contentment how is it possible that any found and perfect friendship fhould grow betweene those who are in behaviour quite different in affections divers in conditions opposite and whose course of life tendeth to contrary or sundry ends True it is that the harmonie of musicke whether it be in song or instrument hath symphony by antiphony that is to say the accord ariseth from discord and of contrarie notes is composed a sweet tune so as the treble and the base concurre after a sort I wot not how meet together bringing forth by their agreement that sound which pleaseth the eare but in this consonance and harmonie of friendfhip there ought to be no part unlike or unequall nothing obscure and doubtfull but the same should be compofed of all things agreeable to wit the same will the same opinion the same counsell the same affection as if one soule were parted into many bodies And what man is he so laborious so mutable so variable and apt to take every fashion form who is able to frame unto all patterns and accommodate himselfe to so many natures and will not rather be ready to laugh at the Poet Theognis who giveth this lesson Put on a minde I thee do wish As variable as Polype fish Who ay resemble will the roch To which he neerely doth approch and yet this change and transmutation of the said polype or pourcuttle fish entreth not deeply in but appeareth superficially in the skin which by the closenesse or laxitie thereof as he drawes it in or lets it out receiveth the defluctions of the colours from those bodies that are neere unto it whereas amities do require that the maners natures passions speeches studies desires and inclinations may be comformable for otherwise to doe were the propertie of a Proteus who was neither fortunate nor yet verie good and honest but who by enchantment and sorcerie could eftsoones transforme himselfe from one shape to another in one and the same instant and even so he that enterteineth many friends must of necessitie be conformable to them all namely with the learned and studious to be ever reading with professours of wrestling to bestrew his bodie with dust as they doe for to wrestle with hunters to hunt with drunkards to quaffe and carouse with ambitious citizens to sue and manage for offices without any setled mansion as it were of his owne nature for his conditions to make abode in And like as naturall Philosophers do holde That the substance or matter that hath neither forme nor any colour which they call Materia prima is a subject capable of all formes and of the owne nature so apt to alter and change that sometimes it is ardent and burning otherwhiles it is liquid and moist now rare and of an airie substance and afterwards againe grosse and thicke resembling the nature of earth even so must the minde applied to this multiplicitie of friends bee subject to many passions sundry conditions divers affections pliable variable and apt to change from one fashion to another Contrariwise simple friendship and amitie betweene twaine requireth a staied minde a firme and constant nature permanent and abiding alwaies in one place and reteining stil the same fashions which is the reason that a fast and assured friend is very geason and hard to be found OF FORTVNE The Summarie LOng time hath this Proverbe beene currant That there is nothing in this world but good fortune and misfortune Some have expounded and taken it thus as if all things were carried by meere chance and aventure or mooved and driven by inconstant fortune an idole forged in their braine for that they were ignorant in the providence of the True God who conducteth or dinarily all things in this world by second causes and subalterne meanes yea the verie motion will and workes of men for the execution of his ordinance and purpose Now Plutarch not able to arise and reach up to this divine and heavenly wisedome hidden from his knowledge staieth below and yet poore Pagan and Ethnike though he were he consuteth that dangerous opinion of Fortune shewing that it taketh away all distinction of good and evill quencheth and putteth out the light of mans life blending and confounding vice and vertue together Afterwards he prooveth
at sea a rude companion and uncivil fellow-passenger in the same ship where he is embarked as also in warfare a trouble some mate in the same pavilion for that he is forced of necessitie to saile with the one and encampe with the other but for a man to sort himselfe indifferently and without discretiion with al kinds of men at a banket bewraieth one that is void of all wit and judgement As for the fashion and maners of the Egyptians namely to bring in place ordinarily at their feasts a Scelet that is to say a drie and withered anatomie of a dead man and there to shew it before all the guests at the boord to put them in minde of death and that within a while they all should become such although I must needs say that such a one were an unwelcome guest and came very unseasonably among them yet it cannot be denied but there is some good use thereof for although he cheere not up the guests there to drinke freely and to make merry yet he inviteth and stirreth them up to carie mutuall love and affection one to the other in admonishing them to remember that their life being of it selfe short they should not seeke to make it long and tedious by troublesome businesse and affaires Thus spent we the time by the way until at length we were come to the banquetting house And as for Thales he refused to wash or go into a baine For that quoth he I am annointed alreadie but in the meane time that the rest were bathing he went walking up and downe to see the pleasant races the wrestling places and the faire grove which along the sea was very well planted and kept accordingly not because he woondered at the sight of any of all these delights but for that he would not seeme to despise Periander or disdaine his magnificence in any thing As for the others according as any of them were washed or anointed the servitors were readie to conduct them into the hall or dining place appointed for men and that through a porch or gallerie within which sate Anacharsis and before him stood a damosell plaiting and combing the haire of his head with her hands whom as she ran toward Thales most willingly and courteously he kissed and after a smiling manner Well done quoth he make that stranger who of himselfe is the mildest and gentlest man in the world to have pleasant and faire countenance that he looke not upon us featfull and hideous to see to I enquired then what pretie maiden this was Why quoth Thales know you not that wise damosell so famous and so much renowmed Eumet is for that is the name that her father gave her howsoever the people call her after her fasthers name Cleobuline You praise this virgin quoth Niloxenus doe you not for her quick spirit in propounding and her subtill wit and wisedome in assoiling riddles and darke questions such as be called Aenigmes For by report there be some of her enigmaticall questions which are gone as far as Egypt No marie quoth Thales againe I say not so for she useth them but as dice or coc-kall bones when she list to disport her selfe and passe away the time with those that encounter her and are disposed to enter into contention with her but of a woonderfull courage and haughtie mind she is a politike head she hath of her owne worthy to governe a State of a courteous nature she is beside and of sweet behaviour in regard of which her carriage shee maketh her father to seeme a more milde and popular ruler among his citizens and subjects It may well be so quoth Niloxenus for surely she seemeth no lesse if a man behold her homely apparell and how simply she goes but how commeth this inward affection and kindnesse to Anacharsis that so lovingly she dresseth ands trimmeth him Because quoth Thales he is a temperate and sober man and besides a great schollar and a learned clearke and for that he hath willingly and at large recounted unto her the manner of the Tartarians life and namely how they use to charme the maladies of those that are sicke and I verily beleeve that even now whiles she maketh so much of the man stroking his head plaiting and broiding his haire she learneth somewhat of him or discourseth with him about some point of learning Now when we drew neere to the hall or dining chamber abovesaid who should meet us but Alexidemus the Milesian a bastard sonne of Thrasybulus the Tyrant who was newly come foorth from thence in a great heat distempered and troubled and saying I wot not what to himselfe in a pelting chafe for understād we could not plainly what his words were he spake them so huddle he had no sooner his eie upon Thales but he seemed to reclaime himselfe and so staied a little breaking out into these audible tearmes Periander quoth he hath offered me abuse done me great wrong in that he would not give me leave to depart when I was willing and readie to embarke but by his entreatie hath importuned me to stay supper and now forsooth that I am come he hath set me at the table in a place most dishonorable for my person and hath preferred the Aeolians the Islanders and other base companions and indeed whom not and before Throsybulus for apparant it is that he despiseth my father who sent me and meaneth that the disgrace offered unto me should redound upon him How now quoth Thales is it so indeed and are you afraid that like as the Egyptians hold opinion say That the stars in making their ordinarie revolutions are one while elevated on high another while afterwards falling as low and according to their heights or basenesse of the place become either better or woorse than they were so you in regard of the place that is given you should be advanced or debased more or lesse for by this meanes you are worse more base minded than the Laconian who being by the master of the ceremonies set in the lowest place of the quire or daunce was no more mooved thereat but said Well done of you I see you can skill of the meanes how to make this place more honorable for when wee bee set at a table wee ought not to looke and regard either beneath whom awe sit or after whom we are placed but rather how we may accommodate and frame our selves to sort and agree with those next to whom wee sit shewing presently at the verie first that wee have in our selves the beginning and handle as a man would say of amitie in that we can finde in hearts not to be offended with the place that is given us but to praise our fortune in that wee are matched with so good companie for he that is angrie about a place or seat is more offended with him to whom he sitteth next than with the master of the feast that bad him and hee maketh himselfe odious as well to the
Athenian who said unto him after a boasting and vaunting maner We have driven you oftentimes from the river Cephasus but we quoth he never yet drave you frō the river Eurotas In like sort replied Phocion pleasantly upon Demades when he cried aloud The Athenians will put thee to death if they enter once into their raging fits But they quoth he will doe the same by thee if they were in their right wits and Crassus the oratour whē Domitius demanded this question of him When the lamprey which you kept and fed in your poole was dead did you never weepe for it and say true came upon him quickly againe in this wise And you sir when you had buried three of of your wives one after another did you ever shed teare for the matter tell troth And verilie these rules are not onely to be practised in matters of State-affairs but they have their use also in other parts of mans life Moreover some there be who will intrude and thrust themselves into all sorts of publike affaires as Cato did and these are of opinion that a good citizen should not refuse any charge or publike administration so farre foorth as his power will extend who highly commend Epaminondas for that when his adversaries and evill willers upon envie had caused him to be chosen a bailife and receiver of the citie revenues thereby to doe him a spight and shrewd turne hee did not despise thinke basely of the said office but saying that not onely magistracie sheweth what maner of man one is but also a man sheweth what the magistracie is he brought that office into great dignitie and reputation which before was in no credite and account at all as having the charge of nothing els but of keeping the streetes cleane of gung-farming and carying dung foorth out of the narrow lanes and blinde allies and turning water-courses And even I Plutarch my selfe doubt not but I make good sport and game unto many who passe through our citie when they see me in the open streetes otherwhiles busie and occupied about the like matters but to meete with such I might helpe my selfe with that which I have found written of Antisthenes for when some there were that meruailed much at him for carrying openly in his hands through the market place a peece of salt fish or stock-fish which he had bought It is for mine own selfe quoth he alowd that I carie it but cōtrariwise mine answer is to such as reprove me when they finde me in proper person present at the measuring and counting of bricks and tiles or to see the stones sand and lime laid downe which is brought into the citie it is not for my selfe that I builde but for the city and common-wealth for many other things there be which if a man exercise or manage in his owne person and for himselfe hee may bee thought base minded and mechanical but in case he do it for the common-wealth and the State and for the countrey and place where he liveth it cannot be accounted a vile or ungentleman-like service but a great credite even to bee serviceable ready and diligent to execute the meanest functions that be Others there are who thinke the fashion that Pericles used to be more starely grave and decent and namely Critelaus the peripateticke among the rest who was of this mind that as the two great galiasses to wit Salaminia at Athens and Paralos were not shot or lanched into the sea for every small matter but onely upon urgent and necessarie occasions even so a man of government should be emploied in the chiefe greatest affaires like as the soveraigne and king of the worlde according to the poet Euripides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For God himselfe doth manage and dispence things of most weight by his sole government But matters high and of small consequence he doth referre to fortunes regiment For we cannot commend the excessive ambition the aspiring and contentious spirit of Theagenes who contented not himselfe to have gone through all the ordinary games with victory and to have wonne the prizes in many other extraordinary mastries and feats of activity to wit not onely in that generall exercise Pancratton wherein hand and foote both is put to the uttermost at once but also at buffets at running a course in the long race Finally being one day at a solemne anniversarie feast or yeeres-maund in the memorial of a certaine demi-god as the manner was when he was set the meat served up to the boord he would needs rise from the table for to performe another general Pancratium as if forsooth it had belonged to no man in the world to atchieve the victorie in such feats but himselfe if hee were present in place by which profession he had gotten together as good as twelve hundred coronets as prizes at such combats of which the most part were of small or no valew at all a man would say they had beene chaffe or such refuse and riffe raffe Like unto him for all the world be those who are readie as a man would say at all howers to cast of all their clothes to their verie single wastcot or shirt for to undertake all affaires that shall be presented by which meanes the people have enough and too much of them they become odious and yrkesome unto them in such sort that if they chance to do well and prosper they envie them if they do otherwise than well and miscarrie they rejoice and be glad at heart therefore Againe that which is admired in them at their first entrance into government turneth in the end to a jest and meere mockerie much after this order Metiochus is the Generall captaine Metiochus looketh to the high waies Metiochus bakes our bread Metiochus grinds our meale Metiochus doth everie thing and is all in all finally Metiochus shall pay for this one day and crie woe is me in the end Now was this Metiochus one of Pericles his followers and favorites who making use of his authoritie out of measure and compasse by the countenance thereof would employ himselfe in all publike charges and commissions whatsoever untill at the last he became contemptible and despised For in truth a man of government ought so to carrie himselfe as that the people should evermore have a longing appetite unto him be in love with him and alwaies dosirous to see him againe if he be absent This policie did Scipio Africanus praclife who aboad the most part of the time in the countrey by this meanes both easing himselfe of the heavie loade of envie and also giving those the while good leasure to take breath who seemed to bee kept downe by his glorie Timesias the Clazomenian was otherwise a good man and a sufficient polititian howbeit little wist he how he was envied in the citie because he would seeme to do everie thing by himselfe untill such time as there befell unto him such an accident as this There chanced to
making a solemne speech in the assembly of the people grew to these tearmes with him before them all And what are you sir if we may be so bold as to know that you beare your selfe so bigge and thinke so well of your selfe are you a man at armes are you an archer a pike man or a footman or what are you I am not indeed quoth he any of these but he I am who knowes how to command and direct all these TIMOTHEUS had the name to be a fortunate captaine rather than otherwise a speciall warriour and some who envied his good estate shewed him a picture wherein certaine cities were entrapped and of themselves fallen into the compasse of net and toile whiles hee lay asleepe whereupon he said unto them Consider now if I can catch and take such cities lying asleepe what shall I be able to doe when I am awake When one of these venturous and too forward captaines shewed upon a glorious braverie unto the Athenians what a wound he had received upon his bodie But I quoth he my selfe was greatly abashed and ashamed one day being your captaine generall before the citie of Samos that a shot discharged from the walles light but neere unto me When the oratours highly praised and recommended captaine Chares saying Lo what a brave man is here to make the generall of the Athenians shewing his goodly personage Timotheus answered againe with a loud voice Never say Generall but rather a good stout groome to carrie the truste of a captaines bedding after him CHABRIAS was woont to say that they were the best captaines who had most intelligences of their enemies desseignes proceedings Being accused together with Iphicrates of treason he gave not over for all that to frequent the publicke place of exercises and to take his dinner at his accustomed howers and when Iphicrates rebuked him for being so rechlesse standing in such danger as he did hee answered him in this manner In case the Athenians proceede against us otherwise than well they shall put you to death all foule and fasting but me full and faire cleane washed anointed and having well dined This was his ordinarie speech That an armie of stags and hindes having a lion for their leader was better than an armie of lions led by a stag HEGESIPPUS surnamed Crobylus solicited and incited the Athenians to take armes against King Philip and when one spake unto him alowd from out of the assembly What Sir will you that we draw upon us war Yea verily quoth he and bring in among us blacke mourning roabes solemne and publicke obsequies yea and funerall orations too if we desire to live free still and not to be servile and subject to the Athenians PYTHEAS being but yet verie yoong presented himselfe one day in open place to crosse and contradict the publike decrees which had passed by the peoples voices in the honour of King Alexander what saith one unto him Dare you presume so yoong as you are to speake of these so weightie matters And why not quoth he seeing that Alexander whom you will needs make a god by your suffrages is yoonger than my selfe PHOCION the Athenian was a man of so staied and constant behaviour that he was never seene of any person either to laugh or weepe Upon a time in a great assembly of the citie one said unto him You are verie sad and pensive Phocion it seemeth you are in a deepe studie Guesse againe quoth he and guesse not so for I am indeed studying and devising with my selfe how I may cut-off somewhat of that which I have to speake unto the Athenians The Athenians understood by an oracle that they had one man among them in the citie who was thwart contrary to the opinion advice of all others Now when they caused diligent search enquirie to be made for this fellow and cried out upon him in great furie whosoever he was Phocion stood up and with a loud voice I am the very man quoth he seeke no further for I am he alone who am nothing at al pleased with whatsoever the people either doth or faith One day when he had delivered his advice in a frequent assembly of the people he pleased the whole au dience very well and seeing that they all with one accord approoved his speech he was abashed thereat and turning toward his friends What quoth hee have I let fall and escaped some words that are not good and otherwise than I meant The Athenians were minded upon a time to solemnize a great and festivall sacrifice and for the better furnishing of this solemnitie they demanded of every man a contribution of money toward it all other gave liberally only Phocion after he had bene called upon by name sundry times to do the like in the end said thus unto them I would be abashed to give any thing I trow unto you and not be able to pay him there pointing with his finger to an usurer unto whom he was indebted When Demades said unto him The Athenians will one of these daies kill thee if they fall once into their furious fits True indeed quoth he they will kill me in their mad mood but thee they will put to death when they be come againe into their right wits Aristogiton the sycophant or false promotor being condemned to death for troubling men with wrongfull imputations and at the point to be executed within the prison sent unto Phocion requesting him to come and speake with him but Phocions friends would not let him goe to talke with such a leaud and wicked wretch Why quoth he unto them in what place may honest men more willingly and better speake with Aristogiton When the Athenians were highly offended and angrie with the Bizantines for that they would not receive into their citie captaine Chares whom they had sent with a power for to aid them against king Philip Phocion came among them and said That they were not to be displeased with their confederates for being mistrustfull but rather with such captaines as they mistrusted upon which remonstrance of his hee was immediatly himselfe chosen captaine who being admitted and well trusted by the Bizantines defended them so valiantly against king Philip that he forced him to raise his siege and retire from thence without effect King Alexander the great sent unto him a present of one hundred talents but he demanded of the messengers that brought it why the king their master sent unto him alone cōsidering there were so many Athenians besides himselfe they answered It was because he esteemed him to be the onely honest and vertuous man among them all Why then quoth he could not hee let me both to seeme and also to be a good man still Alexander upon a time demanded of the Athenians certeine gallies whereupon the people called unto Phocion by name for to give his advice and to counsell them what was best to be done in this case then he stood up
quoth he be throwen for all as if he would say This cast for it there is but one chance to lose all When Pompey was fled from Rome to the sea side and Metellus the superintendent of the publike treasurie would have hindred him for taking foorth any money from thence keeping the treasure house fast shut he threatned to kill him whereat Metellus seeming to be amazed at his adacious words Tush tush quoth he good yoong man I would thou shouldest know that it is harder for me to speake the word than to doe the deed And for that his soldiors staid long ere they were transported over unto him from Brundusuim to Dyrrhachium he embarked himselfe alone into a small vessell without the knowledge of any man who he was purposing to passe the seas alone without his companie but it hapned so that he was like to have beene cast away in a gust and drowned with the waves of the sea whereupon he made himselfe knowne unto the pilot and spake unto him aloud Assure thy selfe and rest confident in fortune for wot well thou hast Caesar a ship boord howbeit for that time he was empeached that he could not crosse the seas as well in regard of the tempest which grew more violent as also of his souldiers who ran unto him from all sides and complained unto him for griefe of heart saying That he offred them great wrong to attend upon other forces as if he distrusted them Not long after this he fought a great battell wherein Pompeius hand the upper had for a time but for that he followed not the train of his good fortune he retired into his campe which when Caesar saw he said The victorie was once this day our enemies but their head and captaine knew not so much upon the plaines of 〈◊〉 the very day of the battell Pompey having arranged his army in array commanded his soldiers to stand their ground and not to advaunce forward but to expect their enimies and receive the charge wherin Caesar afterwards said He did amisse and grossely failed for that therby he let slack as it were the vigor vehemencie of his soldiors which is ministred unto thē by the violence of the first onset abated that heat also of courage which the said charge would have brought with it When he had defaited at his very first encounter Pharnaces king of Pontus he wrote thus unto his friends I came I saw I vanquished After that Scipio and those under his conduct were discomfited and put to flight in Africke when he heard that Cato had killed himselfe he said I envie thy death ô Cato for that thou hast envied me the honour of saving thy life Some there were who had Antonie and Dolabella in jealousie and suspicion and when they came unto him and said That he was to looke unto himselfe and stand upon his good guard he made them this answer That he had no distrust nor feare of them who ledde an idle life be well coloured and in so good liking as they But I feare quoth he these pale and leane fellowes pointing unto Brutus and Cassius One day as he sat at the table when speech was mooved and the question asked what kind of death was best Even that quoth he which is sudden and least looked for CAESAR him I meane who first was surnamed Augustus being as yet in his youth required and claimed of Antonie as much money as amounted to two thousand and five hundred Myriades which he had transported out of Julius Caesars house after he was murdred and gotten into his owne hands for that he entended to pay the Romans that which the said Caesar had bequeathed unto them by his last will and testament for he had left by legacie unto every citizen of Rome 75. drams of silver but Antonie deteined the said summe of money to himselfe and answered yoong Caesar that if he were wife he should desist from demanding any such monies of him which when the other heard he proclaimed open port sale of all the goods that came to him by his patrimonie in deed sold the same and with the money raised thereof he satisfied the foresaid legacies unto the Romanes in which doing he wan all the hearts of the citizens of Rome to himselfe brought their evill wil and hatred upon Antonie Afterwards Rymetalces king of Thracia left the part of Antonius and turned to his side but he overshot himselfe so much at the table being in his cups and namely in that he could talke of nothing else but of this great good service and casting in his teeth this worthy alliance and confederacie of his so as he became odious therefore insomuch as one time at supper Caesar taking the cup dranke to one of the other kings who sat at the boord saying with a loud voice Treason I love well but traitors I hate The Alexandrians after their citie was woonne looked for no better than to suffer all the extremities and calamities that might follow upon the forcing of a city by assault but this Caesar mounting up into the publike place to make a speech unto the citizens having neere by unto him a familiar friend of his to wit Arius an Alexandrian borne pronounced openly a generall pardon saying that he forgave the citie first in regard of the greatnesse and beautie thereof secondly in respect of king Alexander the great their first founder and thirdly for Arius his sake who was his loving friend Understanding that one of his Procuratours named Eros who did negotiate for him in Aegypt had bought a quaile of the game which in fight would beat all other quailes and was never conquered himselfe but continued still invincible which quaile notwithstanding the said slave had caused to be rosted and so eaten it he sent for him and examined him thereupon whether it was true or no and when he confessed Yea he commanded him presently to be crucified and nailed to the mast of his ship He placed Arius in Sicilie for his agent and procuratour in stead of one Theodorus and when one presented unto him a little booke or bill wherein were written these words Theodorus of Tharsis the bauld is a theefe how thinke you is he not when he had read this bill he did nothing else but subscribe underneath I thinke no lesse He received yeerely upon his birth day from Mecaenas one of his familiar friends who conversed daily with him a cup for a present Athenodorus the Philosopher being of great yeeres craved licence with his good favour to retire unto his owne house from the court by reason of his old age and leave he gave him but at his farewell Athenodorus said unto him Sir when you perceive your selfe to be mooved with choler neither say do nor ought before you have repeated to your selfe all the 24. letters in the Alphabet Caesar hearing this advertisement tooke him by the hand I have need still quoth he of your company and
and made all the images of their gods as well female as male with launces and javelins in their hands as if they all had militar and martiall vertue in them Also they used this saying as a common proverbe Call upon fortune in each enterprise With hand stretcht foorth wot otherwise As if they would say that we ought when we invocate the gods to enterprise somewhat our selves and lay our hands to worke or else not to call upon them They used to let their children see the Ilotes when they were drunk to keepe them by their example from drinking much wine They neverknocked and rapped at their neighbours doores but stood without and called aloud to to those within The curry-combes that they occupied were not of iron but of canes and reeds They never heard any comedies or tragedies acted because neither in earnest nor in game they would not heare those that any wise contradicted the lawes When Archilochus the poet was come to Sparta they drave him out the very same houre that he came for that they knew he had made these verses wherein he delivered That it was better to fling away weapons than to die in the field A foole he is who trusting in his shield Doth venture life and limme in bloody field As for mine owne I have it flung me fro And left behind in bushes thick that gro Others translate it thus Some Saïan now in that my doubtie shield Doth take great joy which flying out of field Though full against my mind I flang me fro And left behind in bushes thicke that grow Although it were right good yet would not I Presume to fight with it and so to dy Farewell my shield though thou be lost and gone Another day as good I shall buy one All their sacred and holy ceremonies were common as well for their daughters as their sonnes The Ephori condemned one Siraphidas to pay a summe of money for that he suffred himselfe to take wrong and abuse at many mens hands They caused one to be put to death for playing the hypocrite and wearing sackcloth like a publike penitent for that the saide sackcloth was purfled with a border of purple They rebuked and checked a yoong man as hee came from the ordinary place of exercise for that hee frequented it still knowing as he did the way to Pytaea where was held the assembly of the States of Greece They chased out of the citie a Rhetorician named Cephisophon because he made his boast That he could speak if it were a whole day of any theame proposed unto him for they said That speech ought to be proportionable to the subject matter Their children would endure to be lashed whipped all the day long yea and many times even to death upon the altar of Diana surnamed Orthia taking joy and pleasure therein striving a vie for the victorie who could hold out longest and looke who was able to abide most beating he was best esteemed and caried away the greatest praise this strife emulation among them was called the Whippado and once every yeere they observed such an exercise But one of the best most commendable and blessed things that Lycurgus provided for his citizens was the plentie abundance that they had of rest leisure for they were not allowed at all to meddle with any mechanicall arte and to trafficke and negotiate painfully for to gather and heape up goods was in no wise permitted for he had so wrought that riches among them was neither honored nor desired The Ilotes were they that ploughed and tilled their ground for them yeelding them as much as in old time was downe and ordeined and execrable they esteemed it to exact more of any of them to the end that those Ilotes for the sweetnesseof gaine which they found thereby might serve them more willingly and themselves covet to have no more than the old rate Forbidden likewise were the Lacedaemonians to he mariners or to fight at sea yet afterwards for all that they fought navall battels and became lords of the sea howbeit they soone gave that over when they once saw that the maners and behavior of their citizens were thereby corrupted and depraved but they changed afterwards againe and were mutable as well in this as in all other things for the first that gathered and hoarded up money for the Lacedaemonians were condemned to death by reason that there was an auncient oracle which delivered this answer unto Alcamenes and Theopompus two of their kings Avarice one day who ever lives to see Of Sparta citie will the ruine bee And yet Lysander after he had wonne the citie of Athens brought into Sparta a great masse of gold and silver which the citizens received willingly and did great honour unto the man himselfe for his good service True it is that so long as the citie of Sparta observed the lawes of Lycurgus and kept the othes which it was sworne by she was a paragon yea and the soveraigne of all Greece in good government and glorie for the space of 300. yeeres but when they came once to transgresse the said lawes and breake their oathes avarice and covetousnesse crept in among them by little and little and they with all their puislance authoritie decreased yea and their allies and confederates heereupon began to be ill affected unto them and yet being as they were in this declining estate after that king Philip of Macedonia had woon the battell at Chaeronea when all other cities and states of Greece by a generall consent and with one accord had chosen him the generall captaine of all the Greeks as well for land as sea yea and after him his sonne Alexander the Great upon the destruction of the citie Thebes onely the Lacedaemonians notwithstanding their citie lay all open without any wall about it and themselves were brought to a very small number by occasion of their continuall warres which had wasted and consumed them whereby they were become very feeble and by consequence more easie to be defeated than ever before yet for that they had retained still some little reliques of the government established by Lycurgus they would never yeeld to serve under those two mightie monarches no nor other kings of Macedonia their successors neither would they be present at the generall diets and common assemblies of other states nor contribute any money with the rest untill they having utterly cast aside and rejected the lawes of Lycurgus they were held under and yoked with the tyranny of their owne citizens namely when they reteined no part of the ancient discipline whereby they grew like unto other nations and utterly lost their old reputation glory and libertie of franke speech so as in the end they were brought into servitude and even at this day be subject unto the Romane empire aswell as other cities and states of Greece THE APOPHTHEGMES THAT IS TO SAY THE NOBLE SAYINGS AND ANSWERS OF LACEDAEMONIAN DAMES ARGILEONIS the mother of Brasidas
voice that he was now at the very bottom she herselfe threw downe a number of stones upon him her women also tumbled downe many others those very big ones and heavy after him untill they had brained him overwhelmed him and in manner filled the pit up which when the Macedonians heard of they made meanes to draw up his dead bodie and for that there was a proclamation published before by sound of trumpet throughout the city that they should not massacre one Theban more they apprehended Timoclia brought her before king Alexander whom they had already acquainted from point to point in particular with that audacious act which she had committed the king judging by her setled confident countenance by her staied gate also and portly pace that she could not chuse but be of some great and noble house demanded of her first what she was and she with rare boldnesse and resolution without shewing any signe that she was daunted and astonied I had quoth she a brother named Theagines who being captaine generall of the Thebans against you in the battell of Chaeronea lost his life fighting manfully in the defence of the libertie of Greece to the end that we might not fall into that wofull misery into which we are at this present fallen but seeing it is so that we have suffred those outrages indignities which be unworthy the place from whence we are descended for my selfe I refuse not to die and peradventure it were not expedient for me to live any longer and trie such another night as the last was unlesse your selfe impeach and debarre such demeanors at these words the noblest and most honorable persons who were present could not forbeare but weepe as for Alexander he thought that the hautie mind and courage of this dame was greater than to moove pitty and compassion and therefore highly praising her vertue and commending her speech which he marked and pondered well enough gave straight charge and commaundement unto his captaines to have a good eie and carefull regard yea and to take order presently that there should no more such abuses be offred in any house of honor and nobilitie and as touching Timoclia he ordeined immediately that she should be set at full libertie both herselfe and also all those who were knowne and found any way to be of her bloud and kinred ERYXO BAttus who was surnamed Daemon that is to say Happie had a sonne whose name was Arcesilaus in nothing at all resembling the maners and conditions of his father for even during his fathers life for raising of battlements and pinnacles round about the walles of his owne house hee was condemned by his father himselfe in a fine of one whole talent and after his death being of a crooked rough and troublesome spirit according as his very name Calepos implied and for that he was governed altogether by the counsell of a minion and favourite of his owne named Laarchus a man of no worth nor respect he proved a tyrant in stead of a king And this Laarchus aspiring likewise to be tyrant either chased and banished out of the citie or els caused to be put to death the best and principall citizens of all Cyrene but when he had so done he derived from himselfe all the blame and imputation upon Arcesilaus and in the end gave him to drinke a cup of poison to wit a sea-hare whereupon he fell into a lingering and languishing disease whereby he pined away and died at the last by which meanes himselfe usurped the seignorie and rule of the citie under a colour of keeping it as Tutour and Lord Protectour for the behoofe and use of Battus the sonne of Arcesilaus for a very childe he was and lame withall so that in regard aswell of his nonage and minoritie as the defect and imperfection of his body he was despised of the people but many there were who drew and ranged themselves unto his mother and were willing to obey and honour her for that she was a wise ladie and of a milde and courteous nature besides most of the mightiest men in those parts were knit to her either in bloud and kindred or els by bond of friendship by meanes whereof Laarchus made court to her yea and sued unto her for her good will by way of marriage offering unto her if she would be affianced and wedded unto him to adopt Battus for his owne sonne and make him partaker of his seigniorie and dominion but Eryxo for that was the name of this noble ladie being advised and counselled thereto before-hand by her brethren willed Laarchus to impart the matter unto them for that upon conference with them if they thought well of this marriage she would be content and condescend thereto Laarchus failed not so to do but went and brake the thing unto her brethren accordingly and they as it was complotted before drew the matter out in length and drave him off from day to day but Eryxo sent unto him secretly one of her waiting maidens to give him notice from her that her brethren in deed for the present did contradict her minde and crossed her will but were the knot once knit and consummate in bed together they would contest and haste no longer but be willing enough to like and approove thereof as a convenient match and therefore she advised him if he thought so good to repaire by night unto her for if the thing were once wel begun the rest no doubt wuld speed accordingly this message pleased Laarchus and fitted his humour passing well being therefore transported wholly besides himselfe with these lovely and sugred words of this dame he promised to attend her at what houre soever she would appoint Now was this device complotted and laid by the counsell of her eldest brother Polyarchus and after that she had set downe the just time when they should meet and company together against that very instant she tooke order that the said brother should secretly be conueied into her chamber who brought with him two lustie tall yoong men well appointed with good swords and who desired nothing more than to revenge their fathers bloud whom lately Laarchus had caused to be put to death when all things were now in readinesse she sent for Laarchus willing him to come alone without any of his guard about him no sooner was he entred into the chamber but these two yoong men charged upon him with their swords wounded him in many parts of his bodie that he died in the place his dead corps they cast over the walles of the house which done they brought the yong prince Battus abroad into the publicke place declared and proclamed him king after the maner and custome of the citie Thus Polyarchus rendered unto the Cyrenians their ancient government which they had from the beginning Now there happened to be at the same time in Cyrene many souldiers of Amasis the king of Aegypt in whom Laarchus reposed his confidence and found
be we get with much paines great travell and many cares whereas calamities and evils come easily unto us insomuch as some men say they be round and united close and following aptly one upon another whereas good things be separate and disjoined insomuch as hardly they meet together at the very end of mans life and therefore it seemeth that we forget our selves for as Euripides saith Not onely worldly goods are not Preper to 〈◊〉 when they are got but not any thoug els whatsoever and therefore of all such things we are thus to say The gods have all in right full propertie And under them at will we tenants be To bold and use the same some more somelesse Untill they please as quite to dispossesse We ought not therefore to be grieved and discontented if they redemand of us that which they have lent and put into our hands onely for a little while for even the banquers themselves as we were wont oftentimes to say are not displeased or offended when they be called unto or constrained to render and give up those stocks of money that have beene committed unto them if they be honest men and well minded for a man may by good right say unto those who are unwilling to redeliver the same Hast thou forgotten that thou didst receive these monies to repay againe And the very same may be applied unto all mortall men for we have our life at Gods hands who upon a fatall necessitie have lent and left the same unto us neither is there any time fore-set or presixed within which we ought to yeeld the same no more than the foresaid banquers are limited to some appointed day on which they are bound to deliver up those stocks of money which be put into their hands but unknowen and uncerteine it is when they shall be called unto for to render the same to the owners He therefore who is exceeding much displeased angrie when he perceiveth himselfe readie to die or when his children have changed this life is it not evident that he hath forgotten both that himselfe is a man and also that he be got children mortall for surely it is no part of a man whose understanding is cleere and entire to be ignorant in this point namely that man is a mortall creature or that he is borne upon this condition once to die and therefore if dame Ntobe according as fables recount unto us had beene alwaies furnished with this opinion and setled resolution That The sloure of age she should not aie Enjoy nor children see alway About her fresh in number many To keepe her ever company Nor sweet sun-shine continuallie Behold untill that she must die she would never have fared so and fallen into such despaire as to desire to be out of the world for the unsupportable burden of her calamitie and even to conjure the gods for to fetch her away and plunge her into most horrible destructions Two rules and precepts there are written in the temple of Apollo at Delphos which of all others be most necessarie for mans life the one is Know thy selfe and the other Too much of nothing for of these twaine depend all other lessons and these two accord and sound very well together for it seemeth that the one doth declare the other and containe the force and efficacie one of the other for in this rule know thy selfe is comprised Nothing too much likewise in this a man doth comprehend the knowledge of himselfe and therefore Ion the poet speaking of these sentences saith thus Know thy selfe a word but short Implies a worke not quickly done Of all the gods and heavenly sort None skils thereof but heavenly Jove alone And Pindar us writeth in this wise This sentence briefe Nothing exccssively Wise men have prais'd alwaies exceedingly Whosoever therefore setteth alwaies before the eies of his minde these two precepts and holdeth them in such reverence as the oracles of Apollo deserve he shall be able to apply them easily unto all the affaires and occurrents of humane life and to beare all things modestly as it becommeth both having a regard to his owne nature and also endevouring neither to mount up too high with pride and vain-glorie for any happie fortune that may befall nor yet be dejected and cast downe beyond measure to mourning and lamentation upon infirmitie of fortune or rather of the minde or by reason of that inbred feare of death imprinted deepely in our hearts for want of knowledge and good consideration of that which is ordinary and customably hapneth in mans life either through necessitie or according to the decree of fatall destinie Notable is that precept of the Pythagoreans What part thou hast of griefe and woe which unto man is sent By hand of God take well in woorth and shew no discontent And the tragicall poet Aeschylus said very well Wise men and vertuous in all woe and distresse Against God will not murmure more or lesse As also Euripides The man who yeelds unto necessitie Well skilled is in true divinitie And such we count and not unwoorthily To beare themselves among men most wisely And in another place Who knows the way what ever doth befall With patience meekely to suffer all In my conceit he may be thought right well In vertue and wisedome all men to excell But contrariwise most men in the world complaine and grumble at every thing and whatsoever falleth out crosse and contrary to their hope and expectation they imagine the same to proceed alwaies from the malignitie of fortune and the gods which is the reason that in all accidents they weepe waile and lament yea and they blame their owne froward and adverse fortune unto whom we may very well and with great reason reply in this maner No God it is nor heavenly wight That works thy woe and all this spight but even thine owne selfe thy folly and errour proceeding from ignoraunce and upon this false perswasion and erronious opinion it is that these men complaine of all sorts of death for if any of their friends chaunce to die in a forreine countrey they fetch a deepe sigh in his behalfe and cry out saying Alas poore wretch wo's me for thee that neither father thine Nor mother deere shall present be to close thy sight-lesse eien Dieth he in his owne native soile and in the presence of father and mother they mourne and lament for that being taken out of their hands he hath left unto them nothing else behind but a deepe impression of griefe in seeing him die before their eies Is it his hap to depart out of this world in silence and without given any charge of ought concerning him or them then they cry out amaine and breake foorth into these words as he did in Homer Alas the while that no wise speech end lesson thou me gave Which while my breath and life doth last I should remembred have Againe if he delivered any words unto them at the houre of
before you were acquainted therewith have ordained mine owne sonnes to be judges namely for Asia two Minos and Rhadamanthus and one for Europe to wit Aeacus These therefore after they be dead shall sit in judgement within a meddow at a quarrefour or crosse-way whereof the one leadeth to the fortunate isles the other to hell Rhadamanthus shall determine of them in Asia Aeacus of those in Europe and as for Minos I wil grant unto him a preeminence in judgement above the rest in case there happen some matter unknowen to one of the other two and escape their censure he may upon weighing and examining their opinions give his definitive sentence and so it shall be determined by a most sincere and just doome whether way each one shall goe This is that O Callicles which I have heard and beleeve to be most true whereout I gather this conclusion in the end that death is no other thing than the separation of the soule from the body Thus you see ô Apollonius my most deere friend what I have collected with great care and diligence to compose for you sake a consolatorie oration or discourse which I take to be most necessarie for you as well to asswage and rid away your present griefe to appease likewise and cause to cease this heavinesse and mourning that you make which of all things is most unpleasant and troublesome as also to comprise within it that praise and honour which me thought I owed as due unto the memoriall of your sonne Apollonius of all others exceedingly beloved of the gods which honour in my conceit is a thing most convenient and acceptable unto those who by happie memorie and everlasting glorie are consecrated to immortalitie You shall doe your part therefore and verie wisely if you obey those reasons which are therein conteined you shall gratifie your sonne likewise and doe him a great pleasure in case you take up in time and returne from this vaine affliction wherewith you punish and undoe both bodie and mind unto your accustomed ordinarie and naturall course of life for like as whiles he lived with us he was nothing well appaied and tooke no contentment to see either father or mother sadde and desolate even so now when he converseth and so laceth himselfe in all joy with the gods doubtlesse he cannot like well of this state wherein you are Therefore plucke up your heart and take courage like a man of woorth of magnanimitie and one that loveth his children well release your selfe first and then the mother of the yoong gentleman together with his kinsfolke and friends from this kind of miserie and take to a more quiet peaceable maner of life which will be both to your sonne departed and to all of us who have regard of your person as it becommeth us more agreeable A CONSOLOTARIE LETTER OR DISCOURSE SENT UNTO HIS OWNE WIFE AS TOUCHING THE DEATH OF HER AND HIS DAUGHTER The Summarie PLutarch being from home and farre absent received newes concerning the death of a little daughter of his a girle about two yeeres old named Timoxene a childe of a gentle nature and of great hope but fearing that his wife would apprehend such a lesse too neere unto her heart he comforteth her in this letter and by giving testimonie unto her of vertue and constancie 〈◊〉 at the death of other children of hers more forward in age than she was he exhorteth her likewise to patience and moderation in this newe occurrence and triall of hers condemning by sundry reasons the excessive sorrow and unwoorthy fashion of many fond mothers 〈◊〉 withall the inconveniences that such excessive heavinesse draweth after it Then continuing his consolation of her he declareth with what eie we ought to regard infants and children aswell before as during and after life how happie they be who can content themselves and rest in the will and pleasure of God that the blessings past ought to dulce and mitigate the calamities present to stay us also that we proceed not to that degree and height of infortunitie as to make account onely of the misadventures and discommodities hapning in this our life Which done he answereth to certeine objections which his wife might propose and set on foot and therewith delivereth his owne advice as touching the incorruption and immortalitie of mans soule after he had made a medly of divers opinions which the ancient Philosophers held as touching that point and in the end concludeth That it is better and more expedient to die betimes than late which position of his he confirmeth by an ordinance precisely observed in his owne countrey which expresly for bad to mourne and lament for those who departed this life in their childhood A CONSOLATORIE LETTER or Discourse sent unto his owne wife as touching the death of her and his daughter PLUTARCH unto his wife Greeting THe messenger whom you sent of purpose to bring me word as touching the death of our little daughter went out of his way as I suppose and so missed of me as he journeyed toward Athens howbeit when I was arrived at Tanagra I heard that she had changed this life Now as concerning the funerals and enterring of her I am verily perswaded that you have already taken sufficient order so as that the thing is not to doe and I pray God that you have performed that duetie in such sort that neither for the present not the time to come it worke you any grievance displeasure but if haply you have put off any such complements which you were willing enough of your selfe to accomplish untill you knew my minde and pleasure thinking that in so doing you should with better will and more patiently beare this adverse accident then I pray you let the same be performed without all curiositie and superstition and yet I must needs say you are as little given that way as any woman that I know this onely I would admonish you deare heart that in this case you shew both in regard of your selfe and also of me a constancie and tranquillitie of minde for mine owne part I conceive and measure in mine owne heart this losse according to the nature and greatnesse thereof and so I esteeme of it accordingly but if I should finde that you tooke it impatiently this would be much more grievous unto me and wound my heart more than the 〈◊〉 it selfe that causeth it and yet am not I begotten and borne either of an oake or a rocke whereof you can beare me good witnesse knowing that wee both together have reard many of our children at home in house even with our owne hands and how I loved this girle most tenderly both for that you were very desirous after foure sonnes one after another in a row to beare a daughter as also for that in regard of that fancie I tooke occasion to give her your name now besides that naturall fatherly affection which men cōmonly have toward little babes there was one
all just and honest actions when it hath chased and removed out of the way ire and wrath and therefore men are mollified appeased and become gentle by examples of men when they heare it reported how Plato when hee lifted up his staffe against his page stood so a good while and forbare to strike which hee did as he said for to represse his choler And Architas when he found some great negligence and disorder at his ferme-house in the countrey in his houshold servants perceiving himselfe moved and disquieted therewith insomuch as he was exceeding angrie and readie to flie upon them proceeded to no act but onely turning away and going from them said thus It is happie for you that I am thus angrie with you If then it be so that such memorable speeches of ancient men and woorthy acts reported by them are effectuall to represse the bitternesse and violence of choler much more probable it is that we seeing how God himselfe although he standeth not in feare of any person nor repenteth of any thing that he doth yet putteth off his chastisements and laieth them up a long time should be more wary and considerate in such things and esteeme that clemencie long sufferance and patience is a divine part of vertue that God doth shew and teach us which by punishment doth chastise and correct a few but by proceeding thereto slowly doth instruct admonish and profit many In the second place let us consider that judiciall and exemplarie processe of justice practised by men intendeth and aimeth onely at a counter change of paine and griefe resting in this point That he who hath done evill might suffer likewise proceeding no farther at all and therefore baying and barking as it were like dogges at mens faults and trespasses they follow upon them and pursue after all action by tract and footing but God as it should seeme by all likelihood when hee setteth in hand in justice to correct a sinfull diseased soule regardeth principally the vicious passions thereof if haply they may be bent wrought so as they will incline turne to repentance in which respect he staieth long before that he inflict any punishment upon delinquents who are not altogether past grace incorrigible for considering withall and knowing as he doth what portion of vertue soules have drawen from him in their creation at what time as they were produced first and came into the world as also how powerfull and forcible is the generositie thereof and nothing weake and feeble in it selfe but that it is cleane contrary to their proper nature to bring forth vices which are engendered either by ill education or els by the contagious haunt of leaud company and how afterward when they be well cured and medicined as it falleth out in some persons they soone returne unto their owne naturall habitude and become good againe by reason heereof God doth not make haste to punish all men alike but looke what he knoweth to be incurable that he quickly riddeth away out of this life and cutteth it off as a very hurtfull member to others but yet most harmefull to it selfe if it should evermore converse with wickednesse but to such persons in whom by all likelihood vice is bred and ingendred rather through ignorance of goodnesse than upon any purpose and will to chuse naughtinesse hee giveth time and respit for to change and amend how beit if they persist still and continue in their leaud waies hee paieth them home likewise in the end and never feareth that they shall escape his hands one time or other but suffer condigne punishment for their deserts That this is true consider what great alterations there happen in the life and behaviour of men and how many have beene reclaimed and turned from their leaudnesse which is the reason that in Greeke our behaviour and conversation is called partly 〈◊〉 that is to say A conversion and in part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the one because mens maners be subject to change and mutation the other for that they be ingendered by use or custome and the impression thereof being once taken they remaine firme and sure which is the cause also as I suppose that our ancients in olde time attributed unto king Cecrops a double nature and forme calling him Double not for that as some said of a good element and gracious prince he became a rigourous fell and cruell tyrant like a dragon but contrariwise because having bene at the first perverse crooked and terrible he proved afterward a milde and gentle lord and if we make any doubt hereof in him yet we may be sure at leastwise that Gelon and Hiero in Sicilie yea and Pisistratus the sonne of Hipocrates all usurpers who atteined to their tyrannicall dominion by violent and indirect meanes used the same vertuously and howsoever they came unto their sovereigne rule by unlawfull and unjust meanes yet they grew in time to be good governours loving and profitable to the common weale and likewise beloved and deare unto their subjects for some of them having brought in and established most excellent lawes in the countrey and caused their citizens and subjects to be industruous and painfull in tilling the ground made them to be civill sober and discreet whereas before they were given to be ridiculous as noted for their laughter and lavish tongues to be true labourers also and painfull who had bene idle and playfull And as for Gelon after he had most valiantly warred against the Carthaginians and defaited them in a great battell when they craved peace would never grant it unto them unlesse this might be comprised among the articles and capitulations That they should no more sacrifice their children unto Saturne In the citie also of Megalopolis there was a tyrant named Lydiades who in the mids of his usurped dominion repented of his tyrannie and made a conscience thereof detesting that wrongfull oppression wherein he held his subjects in such sort ' as he restored his citizens to their ancient lawes and liberties yea and afterwards died manfully in the field fighting against his enemies in the defence of his countrey Now if any one had killed Miltiades at the first whiles he exercised tyrannie in Chersonesus or if another had called judicially into question Cimon enditing him for keeping his owne sister and so being condemned of incest had caused him to be put to death or disfranchised and banished Themistocles out of the citie for his loose wantonnesse and licentious insolencie shewed publickly in the Common place as Alcibiades afterwards was served and proscribed for the like excesse and riot committed in his youth Where had bene then that famous victorie At chieved on the plaines of Marathon Where had bene that renowmed chivalrie Performed neere the streame Eurymedon Or at the mount faire Artemision Where Athens youth as poet Pindare said Freedome first the glorious ground-worke laid For so it is great natures and high minds can bring foorth no meane matters nor the
should seeme they shewed some discontentment when they were enlarged and hudled close together but well appaied and much pleased when they were enlarged and severed at their liberty Among these by his owne saying he had a sight of a soule belonging to a kinsman and familiar friend of his yet he knew him not certeinly for that he died whiles himselfe was a very childe howbeit the said soule comming toward him saluted him in these tearmes God save you Thespesius whereat he marvelled much and said unto him I am not Thespesius but my name is Aridaeus True in deed quoth the other before-time you were so called but from hencefoorth Thespesius shall be your name for dead you are not yet but by the providence of God and permission of Destinie you are hither come with the intellectuall part of the soule and as for all the rest you have left it behinde sticking fast as an anchor to your bodie and that you may now know this and evermore heereafter take this for a certeine rule and token That the spirits of those who are departed and dead indeed yeeld no shadow from them they neither wincke nor yet open their eies Thespesius hearing these words began to plucke up his spirits so much the more for to consider and discourse with himselfe looking therefore every way about him he might perceive that there accompanied him a certeine shadowy and darke lineature whereas the other soules shone round about and were cleere and transparent within forth howbeit not all alike for some yeelded from them pure colour uniforme and equall as doth the full moone when she is at the cleerest others had as it were scales or cicatrices dispersed here and there by certeine distant spaces betweene some againe were wonderfull hideous and strange to see unto all to be specked with blacke spots like to serpents skinnes and others had light scarifications and obscure risings upon their visage Now this kinsman of Thespesius for there is no danger at all to tearme soules by the names which men had whiles they were living discoursed severally of ech thing saying That Adrastia the daughter of Jupiter and Necessitie was placed highest and above the rest to punish and to be revenged of all sorts of crimes and hainous sinnes and that of wicked and sinfull wretches there was not one great or small who either by force or cunning could ever save himselfe and escape punishment but one kinde of paine and punishment for three sorts there be in all belonged to this gaoler or executioner and another to that for there is one which is quicke and speedie called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Penaltie and this taketh in hand the execution and chastisement of those who immediatly in this life whiles they are in their bodies be punished by the bodie after a milde and gentle maner leaving unpunihsed many light faults which require onely some petie purgation but such as require more ado to have their vices and sinnes cured God committeth them to be punished after death to a second tormentresse named Dice that is to say Revenge mary those who are so laden with sinnes that they be altogether incurable when Dice hath given over and thrust them from her the third ministresse of Adrastia which of all other is most cruell and named Erinnys runneth after chasing and pursuing them as they wander and runne up and downe these I say she courseth and hunteth with great miserie and much dolor untill such time as she have overtaken them all and plunged them into a bottomlesse pit of darkenesse inenarrable and invisible Now of these three sorts of punishments the first which is executed by Paene in this life resembleth that which is used in some barbarous nations for in Persis when any are by order of law and judicially to be punished they take from them their copped caps or high pointed turbants and other robes which they plucke and pull haire by haire yea and whip them before their faces and they themselves shedding teares and weeping crie out piteously and beseech the officers to cease and give over semblably the punishments inflicted in this life in bodie or goods are not exceeding sharpe nor come very nere to the quick neither do they pierce reach unto the vice and sinne it selfe but the most part of them are imposed according to a bare opinion onely and the judgement of outward naturall sense But if it chance quoth he that any one escape hither unpunished and who hath not bene well purged there before him Dice taketh in hand all bare and naked as he is with his soule discovered and open as having nothing to hide palliate and maske his wickednesse but lying bare and exposed to the view thorowout and on every side she presenteth and sheweth him first to his parents good and honest persons if haply they were such declaring how abominable he is how dextenerate and unwoorthy of his parentage but if they also were wicked both he and they susteine so much more grievous punishment whiles he is tormented in seeing them and they likewise in beholding him how he is punished a long time even untill every one of his crimes and sinnes be dispatched and rid away with most dolourous and painfull torments surpassing in sharpnesse and greatnesse all corporall griefs by how much a true vision indeed is more powerfull and effectuall than a vaine dreame or fantasticall illusion whereupon the wales marks scarres and cicatrices of sinne and vice remaine to be seene in some more in others lesse But observe well quoth he and consider the divers colours of these soules of all sorts for this blackish and foule duskish hew is properly the tincture of avarice and niggardise that which is deepe red and fierie betokeneth cruelty and malice whereas if it stand much upon blew it is a signe that there intemperance and loosenesse in the use of pleasures hath remained a long time and will be hardly scowred off for that it is a vile vice but the violet colour and sweetish withall proceedeth from envie a venimous and poisoned colour resembling the inke that commeth from the cuttle fish for in life vice when the saile is altered and changed by passions and withall doth turne the body putteth foorth sundry colours but heere it is a signe that the purification of the soule is fully finished when as all these tincttures are done away quite whereby the soule may appeare in her native hew all fresh neat cleare and lightsome for so long as any one of these colours remaineth there will be evermore some recidivation and returne of passions and affections bringing certaine tremblings beatings as it were of the pulse and a panting in some but weake and feeble which quickly staieth and is soone extinguished and in other more strong quicke and vehement Now of these soules some there be which after they have beene well and throughly chastised and that sundry times recover in the end a decent habitude and
still bee somewhere and continue though they indured otherwise all maner of paines and calamities than wholy to bee taken out of the universall world and brought to nothing yea and willing they are and take pleasure to heare this spoken of one that is dead How he is departed out of this world into another or gone to God with other such like manner of speeches importing that death is no more but onely a change or alteration but not a totall and entire abolition of the soule And thus they use to speake Then shall I call even there to mind The sweet acquaintance of my friend Also What shall I say from you to Hector bold Or husband yours right deere who liv'd so old And herof proceeded and prevailed this errour that men supposed they are well eased of their sorrow and better appaied when they have interred with the dead the armes weapons instrustruments and garments which they were wont to use ordinarily in their life time like as Minos buried together with Glaucus His Candiot pipes made of the long-shanke bones Of dapple doe or hinde that lived once And if they be perswaded that the dead either desire or demand any thing glad they are and willing to send or bestow the same upon them And thus did Periander who burnt in the funerall fire together with his wife her apparell habilliments and jewels for that he thought she called for them and complained that she lay a cold And such as these are not greatly affraid of any judge Aeacus of Ascalaphus or of the river Acheron considering that they attribute unto them daunces theatricall plaies and all kinde of musicke as if they tooke delight and pleasure therein and yet there is not one of them all but is readie to quake for feare to see that face of death so terrible so unpleasant so glum and grizly deprived of all sense and growen to oblivion and ignorance of all things they tremble for very horrour when they heare any of these words He is dead he is perished he is gone and no more to be seene grievously displeased and offended they be when these and such like speeches are given out Within the earth as deepe as trees do stand His hap shall be to rot and turne to sand No feasts he shall frequent nor heare the lute And harpe ne yet the sound of pleasant flute Againe When once the ghost of man from corps is fled And pass'd the ranks of teeth set thicke in head All meanes to catch and fetch her are but vaine No hope there is of her returne againe But they kill them stone dead who say thus unto them We mortall men have bene once borne for all No second birth we are for to expect We must not looke for life that is eternall Such thoughts as dreames we ought for to reject For casting and considering with themselves that this present life is a smal matter or rather indeed a thing of nought in comparison of eternitie they regard it not nor make any account to enjoy the benefit thereof whereupon they neglect all vertue and the honourable exploits of action as being utterly discouraged and discontented in themselves for the shortnesse of their life so uncerteine and without assurance and in one word because they take themselves unfit and unworthy to performe any great thing For to say that a dead man is deprived of all sense because having bene before compounded that composition is now broken and dissolved to give out also that a thing once dossolved hath no Being at all and in that regard toucheth us not howsoever they seeme to be goodly reasons yet they rid us not from the feare of death but contrariwise they doe more confirme and enforce the same for this is it in deed which nature abhorreth when it shal be said according to the Poet Homers words But as for you both all and some Soone may you earth and water become meaning thereby the resolution of the soule into a thing that hath neither intelligence nor any sense at all which Epicurus holding to be a dissipation thereof into I wot not what emptinesse or voidnesse small indivisible bodies which he termeth Atomi by that meanes cutteth off so much the rather all hope of immortalitie for which I dare well say that all folke living men and women both would willingly be bitten quite thorow and gnawen by the hel-dog Cerberus or cary water away in vessels full of holes in the bottome like as the Danaides did so they might onely have a Being and not perish utterly for ever and be reduced to nothing And yet verily there be not many men who feare these matters taking them to be poeticall fictions and tales devised for pleasure or rather bug beares that mothers and nourses use to fright their children with and even they also who stand in feare of them are provided of certeine ceremonies and expiatorie purgations to helpe themselves withall by which if they be once cleansed and purified they are of opinion that they shall goe into another world to places of pleasure where there is nothing but playing and dauncing continually among those who have the aire cleere the winde milde and pure the light gracious and their voice intelligible whereas the privation of life troubleth both yoong and old for we all even every one of us are sicke for love and exceeding desirous To see the beautie of sunnes light Which on the earth doth shine so bright as Euripides saith neither willing are we but much displeased to heare this And as he spake that great immortall eie Which giveth light thorowout the fabricke wide Of this round world made haste and fast did hie With chariot swift cleane out of sight to ride Thus together with the perswasion and opinion of immortallity they bereave the common people of the greatest and sweetest hopes they have What thinke wee then of those men who are of the better sort and such as have lived justly and devoutly in this life Surely they looke for no evill at all in another world but hope and expect there the greatest and most heavenly blessings that be for first and formost champions or runners in a race are never crowned so long as they be in combat or in their course but after the combat ended and the victory atchieved even so when these persons are perswaded that the proofe of the victorie in this world is due unto them after the course of this life wonderfull it is and it can not be spoken how great contentment they finde in their hearts for the privitie and conscience of their vertue and for those hopes which assure them that they one day shall see those who now abuse their good gifts insolently who commit outrage by the meanes of their might riches and authoritie and who scorne and foolishly mocke such as are better than themselves paie for their deferts and suffer woorthily for their pride and insolencie And forasmuch as never any of them who
which happened afterward and cary more light and perspicuitie with them declare and testifie sufficiently the love and indulgence of Fortune For mine owne part I count this for one singular favor of hers to wit the death of Alexander the Great a prince of incomparable courage and spirit invincible who being lifted up by many great prosperities glorious conquests and happy victories lanced himselfe in maner of a starre volant in the aire leaping out of the East into the West and beginning not to shoot the flaming beames and flashing raies of his armour as farre as into Italie having for a pretense and colourable cause of this enterprise and expedition of his the death of his kinsman Alexander the Milossian who together with his army was by the Brutians and Lucanians neere unto the citie Pandaesia put to the sword and cut in pieces although in trueth that which caried him thus against all nations was nothing els but a desire of glory and sovereignty having proposed this unto himselfe upon a spirit of zeale and emulation to surpasse the acts of Bacchus and Hercules and to go with his armie beyond the bounds of their voiages and expeditions Moreover he had heard say that he should find the force and valour of the Romans to be as it were a gad of steele to give edge unto the sword of Italie and he knew well enough by the generall voice and report abroad in the world which was brought unto him that famous warriours they were and of greatest renowme as being exercised and hardened like stout champions in warres and combats innumerable And verily as I do weene A bloudy fight there would have beene if the undanted and unconquered hearts of the Romans had encountred in the field with the invincible armies of the Macedonians for surely the citizens of Rome were no fewer at that time in number by just computation than a hundred and thirty thousand fighting men able all to beare armes and hardy withall Who expert were on horsebacke for to fight And when they saw their time on foot to light The rest of this discourse is lost wherein we misse the reasons and arguments that Vertue alledgeth for herselfe in her plea. THE MORALS OR MISCELLANE WORKS OF PLUTARCH The second Tome THE SYMPOSIAQVES OR TABLE-QUESTIONS The first Booke The Summarie 1 WHether we may discourse of learning or philosophie at the table 2 Whether the master of the feast ought himselfe to place his guests or suffer them to sit and take their places at their owne discretion 3 What is the cause that the place at the boord called Consular is held to be most honourable 4 What maner of person the Symposiarchor master of the feast ought to be 5 What is meant by this usuall speech Love teacheth us poetrie or musicke 6 Whether Alexander the Great were a great drinker 7 How it is that old folke commonly love to drinke meere wine undelaied 8 What is the cause that elder persons reade better afarre-off than hard-by 9 What might the reason be that clothes are washed better in fresh potable water than in sea water 10 Why at Athens the dance of the tribe or linage Aeantis is never adjudged to the last place THE SYMPOSIAQUES OR Table-questions THE FIRST QUESTION Whether we may discourse of learning and philosophie at the table SOme there be sir Sossius Senerio who say that this ancient proverbe in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 At banquet wine or any fest I hate a well remembring guest was meant of hosteliers or rulers at feasts who ordinarily are odious troublesome uncivill saucy and imperious at the table For the Dorians who in old time inhabited Italie as it should seeme were wont to call such an one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Others againe be of opinion that this proverbe admonisheth and teacheth us to forget all that hath beene done and said at the boord and among our cuppes when we have beene mery together Heereupon it is that in our countrey men commonly say That both oblivion and also the palmar or the plant Ferula that is to say Fenel-giant be consecrated unto Bacchus which giveth us to understand that the errours and faults which passe at the table are either not to be remembred at all or els deserve to be chasticed gently as children are But seeing you also are of the same minde that Euripides was namely That howsoever Bad things and filthie to forget Indeed is counted wisdome great yet the oblivion generally of all that is spoken at the boord and when we drinke wine is not only repugnant to this vulgar saying That the table makes many a friend but also hath divers of the most renowmed and excellent philosophers to beare witnesse to the contrary to wit Plato Xenophon Aristotle Speusippus Epicurus Prytanis Hieronymus and Dion the Academique who all have thought and reputed it a thing woorth their travell to put downe in writing the talke that had bene held at meat drinke in their presence And for that you have thought it meet that I also should collect and gather together the principall and most memorable points of learned discourses which have passed sundry times and in divers places both here and there I meane aswell at Rome among you as also with us in Greece when we were eating and drinking together among our friends I setled my selfe unto it willingly and having sent unto you three books heretofore conteining every one of them ten questions I will shortly send you the rest if I may perceive that these which you have already were not altogether thought unlearned impertinent and without good grace The first question then which I have set abroad is this Whether it be a seemly and decent thing to philosophize that is to say To speake and treat of matters of learning at the table for you may remember very well that this question being moved upon a time at Athens after supper Whether it were befitting those who are come to make good cheere for to enter into speech or mainteine discourse as touching philosophicall matters or no and if it were How far-forth it might be allowed and within what bounds it ought to be limited Ariston one of the company there present What quoth he and are there any persons indeed tell me for the love of God who denie philosophers and learned men a roome at the boord Yea mary are there my good friend quoth I againe who not onely doe so but also in good earnest and great gravitie after their ironicall maner give out and say That philosophie which is as it were the mistresse of the house ought not to be heard speaking at the boord where men are met to make merry who commend also the maner of the Persians for good and wise who never would seeme to drinke wine merily and untill they were drunke nor yet to daunce with their wedded wives but in the company of their concubines for semblably they would have us at our feasts
none should be wasted vainly But Eustrophus the Athenian being upon a time a time at supper with us hearing Florus making this relation And what good gat they by this quoth he unlesse they had learned the cunning cast of Epicharmus our fellow-citizen who as he said himselfe having studied long time how he might keepe his boies and servants about him from silching and stealing away his oile hardly and with much adoe at the last found this meanes for presently after that the lampes were put out he filled them full againe with oile and then the next morning he would come and see whether they were still full This speech made Florus to laugh But seeing quoth he this question is so well solved let us search I pray you into the reason Why in old time as it should seeme our auncients were so religious and precise as touching their tables and lampes first therefore they began with lampes and lights And Caesernius his sonne in law said That those auncients as he thought tooke it to be an ominous matter and a very abomination indeed that any fire whatsoever should be put out for the likenesse and kinred that it had with that sacred fire which is alwaies kept inextinguible for two waies there be as I take it whereby fire like as we men may die the one violent when it is quenched and put out by force the other natural when it goeth out dieth of it selfe as for that sacred fire they remedied both the one the other in mainteining and looking to it continually with great care and diligence the other which is common they neglected and suffred to goe out of it selfe without any more adoe for so they themselves quenched it not perforce nor caused it to die grudging and envying that it should live as a beast that doth no good they passed for it no more nor made any further reckoning Then Lucius the sonne of Florus said That he liked well of all the rest which was said but as concerning the sacred fire he supposed that our 〈◊〉 chose it not to reverence and adore because they thought it more holy or better than other but like as among the Aegyptians some worshipped the whole kind of dogs others woolves likewise or crocodiles but they nourished with any especiall respect but one of every kinde to wit some one dogge others one woolfe and others agine one crocodile for that impossible it was to keepe them all even so heere in this case the vigilant care and devotion which they emploied in saving and keeping the sacred fire was a signe and solemne testimoniall of the religious observance which they caried respectively to the whole element of fire the reason was because there is nothing in the world that more resembleth a living creature cōsidering that it mooveth stirreth and feedeth it selfe yea and by the shining light that it giveth in maner of the soule laieth all things open and maketh them to bee seeme but most of all it sheweth and prooveth the power that it hath not to be without some vitall seed or principle in the extinguishing and violent death thereof for when it is either quenched suffocated or killed by force it seemeth to give a cry or scricke strugling as it were with death like unto a living creature when the life is taken away by violence And in uttring these words casting his eies upon me What say you quoth hee unto me can you alledge any thing better of your owne I cannot said I finde any fault with you in all that you have delivered but I would willingly adde thus much moreover that this fashion and custome of mainteining fire is a very exercise and discipline training us togreat humanitie for surely I hold it not lawfull to spoile our meats and viands after we have eaten thereof sufficiently no more than I doe for to stop or choke up a spring or fountaine after we have drunke our fill of the pure water thereof or to take downe and dimolish the markes that guid men in navigation or waifaring upon the land when we have once served our owne turne with them but these and such like things we ought to leave behinde us unto posteritie as meanes to do them good that shall come after us have need of them when we are gone and therefore I hold it neither seemely nor honest to put out a lampe for mechanicall miserie so soone as a man himselfe hath done withall but he ought to mainteine keepe it burning stil that what need soever there should be of fire it may be found there ready and shining light out for a blessed thing it were in us if possibly we so could to impart the use of our owne eie-sight our hearing yea and of our wisedome strength and valour unto others for the while when we are to sleepe or otherwise to take our repose consider moreover whether our forefathers have not permitted excessive ceremonies and observations in these cases even for an exercise and studious meditation of thankfulnesse as namely when they reverenced so highly the oakes bearing acornes as they did Certes the Athenians had one fig-tree which they honored by the name of the holy and sacred Fig-tree and expresly forbad to cut downe the mulberie tree for these ceremonies I assure you doe not make men inclined to superstition as some thinke but frame traine us to gratitude sociable humanitie one toward another when as we are thus reverently affected to such things as these that have no soule nor sense And therefore Hesiodus did very well when he would not permit any flesh or meats to be taken out of the pots or cauldrons for to be set upon the table unlesse some thing before had gone out of them for an assay to the gods but gave order that some portion thereof should be offred as first fruits unto the fire as it were a reward and satisfaction for the ministery and good service that it hath done The Romans also did as well who would not when they had done with their lampes take from them that nourishment which they had once allowed but suffred them to enjoy the same still burning and living by the meanes thereof After I had thus said Now I assureyou quoth Eustrophus hath not this speech of yours made the overture and given way to passe forward to a discourse of the table for that our auncients thought there should be alwaies somewhat left standing upon it after dinner and supper for their hoshold servants and children for surely glad they be not so much to get wherewith to eat as to have it in this order communicated from us and our table unto them and therefore the Persian kings by report were wont alwaies to send from their owne boord certeine dishes as a liuraison not onely to their friends and minions to their great captaines and lieutenants under them to their chiefe pensioners also and squires of the body but they would have their slaves
and DEMOCRITUS were of opinion that all things were made by Necessitie and that destinie justice providence and the Creatour of the world were all one CHAP. XXVI Of the Essence of Necessitie PLATO referreth some events to providence and others he attributeth to Necessitie EMPEDOCLES saith that the Essence of Necessitie is a cause apt to make use of the principles and elements DEMOCRITUS affirmeth it to be the resistance the lation motion and permission of the matter PLATO holdeth it to be one while matter it selfe and another while the habitude of that which is agent to the matter CHAP. XXVII Of Destinie HERACLITUS affirmeth that all things were done by fatall Destinie and that it and Necessitie be both one PLATO admitteth willingly this Destinie in the soules lives and actions of men but hee inferreth withall a cause proceeding from our selves The STOICKES likewise according with the opinion of Plato do hold that Necessitie is a cause invincible most violent and inforcing all things also that Destinie is a connexion of causes interlaced linked orderly in which concatenation or chaine is therein comprised also that cause which proceedeth from us in such sort as some events are destined and others not CHAP. XXVIII Of the substance of 〈◊〉 HERACLITUS saith that the substance of Destinie is the reason that pierceth throughout the substance of the universall world PLATO affirmeth it to be an eternall reason and a perpetuall law of the nature of the whole world CHRYSIPPUS holdeth it to be a certaine puissance spirituall which by order governeth and administreth all things And againe in his booke of definitions hee writeth thus Destinie is the reason of the world or rather the law of all things in the world administred and governed by providence or else the reason whereby things past have beene things present are and future things shall be The STOICKES are of opinion that it is the chaine of causes that is to say an order and connexion which cannot be surmounted and transgressed POSIDONIUS supposeth it to be the third after Jupiter for that Jupiter is in the first degree Nature in the second and fatall Destinie in the third CHAP. XXIX Of Fortune PLATO defineth Fortune to be in things proceeding from mans counsell and election a cause by accident and a verie casuall consequence ARISTOTLE holdeth it to be an accidentall cause in those things which from some deliberate purpose and impulsion tend to a certaine end which cause is not apparent but hidden and uncertaine And he putteth a difference between Fortune and rash adventure for that all Fortune in the affaires and actions of this world is adventurous but everie adventure is not by and by Fortune for that it consisteth in things without action againe Fortune is properly in actions of reasonable creatures but adventure indifferently in creatures as well unreasonable as reasonable yea and in those bodies which have neither life nor soule EPICURUS saith that Fortune is a cause which will not stand and accord with persons times and manners ANAXAGORAS and the STOICKS affirme it to be a cause unknowne and hidden to humane reason for that some things come by necessitie others by fatall destinie some by deliberate counsell others by Fortune and some againe by casualitie or adventure CHAP. XXX Of Nature 〈◊〉 holdeth that Nature is nothing only that there is a mixture and divulsion or separation of Elements for in this manner writeth he in the first booke of his Phisicks This one thing more I will yet say of things that be humane And Mortall mature none there is and deaths end is but vaine Amixture and divulsion of Elements and of all Onely there is and this is that which men do Nature call Semblably ANAXAGORAS saith that Nature is nothing else but a concretion and dissipation that is to say generation and corruption THE SECOND BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme HAving now finished the Treatise of PRINCIPLES ELEMENTS and such other matters linked and concurring with them I will turne my pen unto the discourse as touching their effects and works composed of them beginning first at that which is most spatious and capable of all things CHAP. I. Of the World PYTHAGORAS was the first who called the Roundle that containeth and comprehendeth all to wit the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the orderly digestion observed therein THALES and his disciples held that there is but one World DEMOCRITUS EPICURUS and their scholler METRODORUS affirme that there be innumerable Worlds in an infinite space according to all dimensions and circumstances EMPEDOCLES saith that the course and race of the Sunne is the verie circumscription of the bounds and limits of the World and that it is the verie confinement thereof SELEUCUS held the World to be infinite DIOGENES affirmed the universalitie to be infinite but the world finite and determinate The STOICKS put a difference betweene universall and whole for they say that the universall together with voidnesse is infinite and that the whole without voidnes is the World so as these termes the Whole and the World be not both one CHAP. II. Of the figure and forme of the World THe STOICKS affirme the World to be round some say it is pointed or pyramidal others that it is fashioned in manner of an egge but EPICURUS holdeth that his Worlds may be round and it may be that they are apt besides to receive other formes CHAP. III. Whether the World be animate or endued with a soule ALL other Philosophers agree that the World is animate governed by providence but DEMOCRITUS EPICURUS and as many as maintaine ATOMES and with all bring in VACUITY that it is neither animate nor governed by providence but by a certaine nature void of reason ARISTOTLE holdeth that it is not animate wholy and throughout all parts nor sensitive nor reasonable nor yet intellectuall or directed by providence True it is quoth he that celestiall bodies be capable of all these qualities as being compassed about with sphaeres both animate and vitall whereas bodies terrestriall and approching neere unto the earth are endued with none of them and as for the order and decent composition therein it came by accident and not by prepensed reason and counsell CHAP. IIII. Whether the World be incorruptible and eternall PYTHAGORAS and PLATO affirme that the world was ingendred and made by God and of the owne nature being corruptible shall perish for sensible it is and therefore corporall howbeit in regard of the divine providence which preserveth and mainteineth it perish it shall never EPICURUS saith that it is corruptible for that it is engendred like as a living creature or a plant XENOPHANES holdeth the world to be eternall ingenerable uncreated and incorruptible ARISTOTLE is of opinion that the part of the world under the moone is passible wherein the bodies also adjacent to the earth be subject to corruption CHAP. V. Whereof the World is nourished ARISTOTLE saith that if the World be nourished it is
those places where the aire toucheth them the bones of water and earth within and of these fower medled and contempered together sweat and teares proceed CHAP. XXIII When and how doth man begin to come to his perfection HERACLITUS and the STOICKS suppose that men doe enter into their perfection about the second septimane of their age at what time as their naturall seed doth moove and runne for even the very trees begin then to grow unto their perfection namely when as they begin to engender their 〈◊〉 for before then unperfect they are namely so long as they be unripe and fruitlesse and therefore a man likewise about that time is perfect and at this septenarie of yeeres he beginneth to conceive and understand what is good and evill yea and to learne the same Some thinke that a man is consummate at the end of the third septimane of yeeres what time as he maketh use of his full strength CHAP. XXIIII In what manner Sleepe is occasioned or death ALCMEON is of this mind that Sleepe is caused by the returne of blood into the confluent veines and Waking is the diffusion and spreading of the said blood abroad but Death the utter departure thereof EMPEDOCLES holdeth that Sleepe is occasioned by a moderate cooling of the naturall heat of blood within us and Death by an extreme coldnesse of the said blood DIOGENES is of opinion that if blood being diffused and spred throughout fill the veines and withall drive backe the aire setled 〈◊〉 into the breast and the interior belly under it then ensueth Sleepe and the breast with the precordiall parts are 〈◊〉 thereby but if that aereous substance in the 〈◊〉 exspire altogether and exhale forth presently 〈◊〉 Death PLATO and the 〈◊〉 affirme that the 〈◊〉 of Sleep is the 〈◊〉 of the spirit sensitive not by way of 〈◊〉 and to the earth 〈◊〉 by elevation aloft namely when it is carried to the 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 between the 〈◊〉 the very 〈◊〉 of reason but when there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 sensitive 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 Death doth ensue CHAP. XXV Whether of the twaine it is that 〈◊〉 or dieth the Soule or the Bodie ARISTOTLE vorely 〈◊〉 that Sleepe is common to Bodie and Soule both and the cause thereof is a certaine humiditie which doth steeme and arise in manner of a vapour out of the stomack and the food therein up into the region of the head and the naturall heat about the heart cooled thereby But death he deemeth to be an entire and totall refrigeration and the same of the Bodie onely and in no wise of the Soule for it is immortall ANAXAGORAS saith that Sleepe belongeth to corporall action as being a passion of the Bodie and not of the Soule also that there is 〈◊〉 wife a certaine death of the Bodie to wit the separation of it and the Bodie 〈◊〉 LEUCIPPUS is of opinion that Sleepe pertaineth to the Bodie onely by concretion of that which was of subtile parts but the excessive excretion of the animall heat is Death which both saith he be passions of the Bodie and not of the Soule EMPEDOCLES saith that Death is a separation of those elements whereof mans Bodie is compounded according to which position Death is common to Soule and Bodie and Sleep a certaine dissipation of that which is of the nature of fire CHAP. XXVI How Plants come to grow and whether they be animate PLATO and EMPEDOCLES hold that Plants have life yea and be animall creatures which appeareth say they by this that they wag to and fro and stretch forth their boughs like armes also that when they be violently strained and bent they yeeld but if they be let loose they returne againe yea in their growth are able to overcome waight laid upon them ARISTOTLE granteth that they be living creatures but not animall for that animal creatures have motions and appetites are sensitive and endued with reason The STOICKS and the EPIGUREANS hold that they have no soule or life at all for of animallcreatures some have the appetitive concupsicible soule others the reasonable but Plants grow after a sort casually of their owne accord and not by the meanes of any soule EMPEDOCLES saith that Trees sprang and grew out of the ground before animall creatures to wit ere the Sunne desplaied his beames and before that day and night were distinct Also that according to the proportion of temperature one came to be named Male another Female that they 〈◊〉 up and grow by the power of heat within the earth in such sort as they be parts of the earth like as unborne fruits in the wombe be parts of the matrice As for the fruits of trees they are the superfluous excrements of water and fire but such as have defect of that humiditie when it is dried up by the heat of the Summer lose their leaves whereas they that have plentie thereof keepe their leaves on still as for example the Laurell Olive and Date tree Now as touching the difference of their juices and sapors it proceedeth from the diversitie of that which nourisheth them as appeareth in Vines for the difference of Vine trees maketh not the goodnesse of Vines for to be drunke but the nutriment that the territorie and soile doth affoord CHAP. XXVII Of 〈◊〉 and Growth EMPEDOCLES is of opinion that animall creatures are nourished by the substance of that which is proper and familiar unto them that they grow by the presence of naturall heat that they diminish 〈◊〉 and perish through the default both of the one and the other And as for men now a daies living in comparison of their auncestos they be but babes new borne CHAP. XXVIII How 〈◊〉 creatures came to have appetite and pleasure EMPEDOCLES supposeth that Lust and Appetites are incident to animall creatures through the defect of those elements which went unto the framing of ech one that pleasures arise from humiditie as for the motions of perils and such like as also troubles and hinderances c. **** CHAP. XXIX After what sort a Fever is engendred and whether it is an accessary to another malady ERASISTRATUS defineth a Fever thus A Fever quoth he is the motion of bloud which is entred into the veines or vessels proper unto the spirits to wit the arteries and that against the will of the patient for like as the sea when nothing troubleth it lieth still and quiet but if a boisterous and violent winde be up and bloweth upon it contrary unto nature it surgeth and riseth up into billowes even from the very bottom so in the body of man when the bloud is mooved it invadeth the vitall and spirituall vessels and being set on fire it enchafeth the whole body And according to the same physicians opinion a Fever is an accessary or consequent comming upon another disease But DIOCLES affirmeth that Symptones apparent without foorth doe shew that which lieth hidden within Now we see that an Ague followeth upon those accidents
within the ground Then Paulus Aemylius caused an altar to be reared and wan the battell wherein he tooke alive an hundred and threescore elephants carying turrets upon their backs whom he sent to Rome This altar useth to give answer as an oracle about that time that Pyrrhus was defeated according as Critolaus writeth in the third booke of the Epirotick historie 7 Pyraichnes king of the Euboeans whom Hercules being yet but a young man vanquished and tying him betweene two horses caused his bodie to be plucked and torne in pieces which done he cast it forth for to lie unburied now the place where this execution was performed is called at this day Pyratchmes his horses situate upon the rriver Heraclius and whensoever there be any horses wattered there a man shall sensibly heare a noice as if horses neighed thus we find written inthe third booke entituled Of rivers Tullius Hostilius king of the Romans made warre upon the Albanes who had for their king Metius Sufetius and many times he seemed to retire and lie off as loth to incounter and joine battell insomuch as the enemies supposing him to be discomfited betooke themselves to mirth and good cheere but when they had taken their wine well he set upon them with so hot a charge that he defeated them and having taken their king prisoner he set him fast tied betweene two steeds and dismembred him as Alexarchus writeth in the fourth booke of the Italian histories 8 Philip intending to force and sacke the cities of Methone and Olynthus as he laboured with much a doe to passe over the river Sandanus chanced to be shot into the eie with an arrow by an Olynthian whose name was Aster and in it was this verse written Philip beware have at thine eie After this deadly shaft lets slie Whereupon Philip perceiving himselfe to be overmatched swam back againe unto his owne companie and with the losse of one eie escaped with life according as Callisthenes reporteth in the third booke of the Macedonian Annales Porsena king of the Tuskans lying encamped on the other side of Tybris warred upon the Romans and intercepted their victuals which were wont to be conveighed to Rome whereby he put the citie to great distresse in regard of famine but Horatius Cocles being by the common voice of the deople chosen captaine planted himselfe upon the woodden bridge which the Barbarians were desirous to gaine and for a good while made the place good and put backe the whole multitude of them pressing upon him to passe over it in the end finding himselfe overcharged with the enemies he commaunded those who were ranged in battell-ray behind him to cut downe the bridge meane while he received the violent charge of them all and impeached their entrance untill such time as he was wounded in the eie with a dart whereupon he leapt into the river and swam over unto his fellowes thus Theotinus reporteth this narration in the third booke of Italian histories 9 There is a tale told of Icarius by whom Bacchus was lodged and intertained as Eratosthenes in Erigone hath related in this wise Saturne upon a time was lodged by an husbandman of the countrey who had a faire daughter named Entoria her hee deslowred and begat of her foure sonnes Janus Hymnus Faustus and Foelix whom hee having taught the manner of drinking wine and of planting the vine enjoyned them also to empart that knowledge unto their neighbours which they did accordingly but they on the other side having taken upon a time more of this drinke than their usuall manner was fell a sleepe and slept more than ordinarie when they were awake imagining that they had drunke some poyson stoned Icarius the husbandman to death whereat his nephewes or daughters children tooke such a thought and conceit that for verie griefe of heart they knit their neckes in halters and strangled themselves Now when there was a great pestilence that raigned among the Romanes the oracle of Apollo gave answer that the mortality would stay in case they had once appeased the ire of Saturne and likewise pacified their ghosts who unjustly lost their lives Then Lutatius Catulus a noble man of Rome built a temple unto Saturne which standeth neere unto the mount Tarpeius and erected an altar with foure faces either in remembrance of those foure nephewes above said or respective to the foure seasons and quarters of the yeere and withall instituted the moneth Ianuarie But Saturne turned them all foure into starres which be called the foretunners of the Vintage among which that of Janus ariseth before others and appeareth at the feet of Virgo as Critolaus testifieth in his fourth booke of Phaenomena or Apparitions in the heaven 10 At what time as the Persians overranne Greece and wasted all the countrey before them Pausanias generall captaine of the Lacedaemonians having received of Xerxes five hundred talents of gold promised to betray Sparta but his treason being discovered Agesilaus his father pursued him into the temple of Minerva called Chalcioecos whither he fled for sanctuarie where he caused the doors of the temple to be mured up with brick so famished him to death His mother tooke his corps and cast it foorth to dogs not suffering it to be buried according to Chrysermus in the second booke of his storie The Romanes warring against the Latines chose for their captaine Publius Decius Now there was a certaine gentleman of a noble house howbeit poore named Cessius Brutus who for a certaine summe of money which the enemies should pay unto him intended in the night season to set the gates of the citie wide open for them to enter in This treacherie being detected he fled for sanctuarie into the temple of Minerva surnamed Auxiliaria where Cassius his father named also Signifer shut him up and kept him so long that he died for verie famine and when he was dead threw his bodie foorth and would not allow it any sepulture as writeth Clitonymus in his Italian histories 11 Darius king of Persia having fought a field with Alexander the Great and in that conflict lost seven of his great lieutenants governours of Provinces besides five hundred and two war charriots armed with trenchant sithes would notwithstanding bid him battell againe but Ariobarzanes his sonne upon a pitifull affection that he carried to Alexander promised to betray his father into his hands whereat his father tooke such displeasure and indignation that he caused his head to be smitten off Thus reporteth Aretades the Gnidian in his third booke of Macedonian histories Brutus being chosen Consull of Rome by the generall voice of the whole people chased out of the citie Tarquinius Superbus who raigned tyrannically but he retyring himselfe unto the Tuskanes levied warre upon the Romanes The sonnes of the said Brutus conspiring to betray their father were discovered and so he commanded them to be beheaded as Aristides the Milesian writeth in his Annals of Italie 12 Epaminondas captaine of the Thebanes
which begin three tragoedies of Euripides 1 King Danaus who fiftie daughters had 2 Pelops the sonne of Tantalus when he to Pisa came 3 Cadmus whilom the citie Sidon left He lived 98 yeeres or as some say a full hundred could not endure for to see Greece fower times brought into servitude the yeere before he died or as some write fower yeeres before he wrote his Panathenaick oration as for his Panegyrik oration he was in penning it tenne yeeres and by the report of some fifteene which he is thought to have translated and borrowed out of Gorgias the Leontine and Lysias and the oration concerning the counterchange of goods he wrote when he was fourescore yeeres old twaine but his Philippike oration he set downe a little before his death when he was farre stepped in yeeres he adopted for his sonne Aphareus the yoongest of the three children of Plathane his wife the daughter of Hippias the oratour and professed Rhetorician He was of good wealth as well for that he called duely for money of his scholars as also because he received of Nicocles king of Cypres who was the sonne of Euagoras the summe of twenty talents of silver for one oration which hee dedicated unto him by occasion of this riches he became envied and was thrice chosen and enjoined to be the captaine of a galley and to defray the charges thereof for the two first times he feigning himselfe to be sicke was excused by the meanes of his sonne but at the third time he rose up and tooke the charge wherein he spent no small summe of money There was a father who talking with him about his sonne whom he kept at schoole said That he sent with him no other to be his guide and governour but a slave of his owne unto whom Isocrates answered Goe your waies then for one slave you shall have twaine Hee entred into contention for the prize at the solemne games which queene Artemisia exhibited at the funerals and tombe of her husband Mausolus but this enchomiasticall oration of his which he made in the praise of him is not extant another oration he penned in the praise of Helena as also a third in the commendation of the counsell Areopagus Some write that he died by absteining nine daies together from all meat others report but fower even at the time that the publike obsequies were solemnized for them who lost their lives in the battell at Chaeronea His adopted sonne Aphareus composed likewise certeine orations enterred hee was together with all his linage and those of his bloud neere unto a place called Cynosarges upon a banke or knap of a little hill on the left hand where were bestowed the sonne and father Theodorus their mother also and her sister Anaco aunt unto the oratour his adopted sonne likewise Aphareus together with his cousen germain Socrates sonne to the a foresaid aunt Anaco Isocrates mothers sister his brother Theodorus who bare the name of his father his nephewes or children of his adopted sonne Aphareus and his naturall Theodorus moreover his wife Plathane mother to his adopted sonne Aphareus upon all these bodies there were six tables or tombs erected of stone which are not to be seene as this day but there stood upon the tombe of Isocrates himselfe a mightie great ramme engraven to the height of thirtie cubits upon which there was a syren or mere-maid seven cubits high to signifie under a figure his milde nature and eloquent stile there was besides neere unto him a table conteining certaine poets and his owne schole-masters among whom was Gorgias looking upon an astrologicall sphaere and Isocrates himselfe standing close unto him furthermore there is erected a brasen image of his in Eleusin before the entrie of the gallery Stoa which Timotheus the sonne of Caron caused to be made bearing this epi gram or inscription Timotheus upon a loving minde And for to honour mutuall kindnesses This image of Isocrates his friende Erected hath unto the goddesses This statue was the handi-worke of Leochares There goe under his name threescore orations of which five and twentie are his indeed according to the judgement of Dionysius but as Cecilius saith eight and twentie all the rest are falsly attributed unto him So farre was he off from ostentation and so little regard had hee to put foorth himselfe and shew his sufficiencie that when upon a time there came three unto him of purpose to heare him declame and discourse he kept two of them with him and the third he sent away willing him to returne the next morrow For now quoth he I have a full theater in mine auditorie He was wont to say also unto his scholars and familiars That himselfe taught his art for ten pounds of silver but hee would give unto him that could put into him audacity and teach him good utterance ten thousand When one demanded of him it was possible that he should make other men sufficient orators seeing himselfe was nothing eloquent Why not quoth he seeing that whet-stones which can not cut at all make iron and steele sharpe enough and able to cut Some say that he composed certeine books as touching the art of rhetorick but others are of opinion that it was not by any method but exercise onely that he made his scholars good oratours this is certeine that he never demanded any mony of naturall citizens borne for their teaching His maner was to bid his scholars to be present at the great assemblies of the citie and to relate unto him what they heard there spoken and delivered He was wonderfull heavy and sorrowfull out of measure for the death of Socrates so as the morrow after he mourned put on blacke for him Againe unto one who asked him what was Rhetorick he answered It is the art of making great matters of small small things of great Being invited one day to Nicocreon the tyrant of Cypres as he sat at the table those that were present requested him to discourse of some theame but he answered thus For such matters wherein I have skill the time will not now serve and in those things that sit the time I am nothing skilfull Seeing upon a time Sophocles the tragicall poet following wantonly and hunting with his eie a yoong faire boy he said O Sophocles an honest man ought to conteine not his hands onely but his eies also When Ephorus of Cunes went from his schoole non proficiens and able to doe nothing by reason whereof his father Demophilus sent him againe with a second salary or minervall Isocrates smiled thereat and merily called him Diphoros that is to say bringing his money twice so hee tooke great paines with the man and would himselfe prompt him and give him matter and invention for his declamatorie exercise Inclined he was and naturally given unto the pleasures of wanton love in regard whereof he used to lie upon a thinne and hard short mattresse and to have the pillow and bolster under his
As for these things among you they be pleasures shewing withall that it is not the nature of tarts cakes and marchpanes nor of odors nor of love sports that you desire but tarts and marchpanes themselves sweet perfumes and women they be that you would have For the Grammarian who saith the force and strength of Hercules is Hercules denieth not thereby that Hercules is nor those who say that symphonies accords or opinations are bare prolations or pronunciations affirme not therewith all that there be no sounds nor voices nor opinions forasmuch as there be some who abolishing the soule and prudence seeme not to take away either to live or to be prudent And when Epicurus saith The nature of things that have being are the bodies and the void place of them doe we take his words as if he meant that nature were somwhat els than the things that be or that things being do shew their nature and nothing els even as for examples sake the nature of voidnesse he is wont to call voidnesse it selfe yea and I assure you the universall world it selfe the nature of all Now if a man should demaund of him How now Epicurus say you indeed that this is voidnesse that is the nature of voidnesse Yes verily will he answere againe but this communication of names the one for another is taken up and in use And in trueth that the law and custome warranteth this maner of speech I also avouch And what other thing I pray you hath Empedocles done than taught that nature is nought else but that which is bred and engendred nor death any thing but that which dieth But like as Poets otherwhiles by a trope or figurative speech representing as it were the image of things say thus Debate 〈◊〉 uprore and stomacke fell With deadly fude and malice there did dwell Even so the common sort of men doe use the termes of generation and corruption in things that are contracted together and dissolved And so farre was he from stirring or remooving those things that be or opposing himselfe against things of evident appearance that he would not so much as cast one word out of the accustomed use but so far forth as any figurative frawd might hurt or endammage things he rejected and tooke the same away rendring againe the usuall and ordinary signification to words as in these verses And when the light is mixed thus with aire in heavenly sky Some man is made or wilde beasts kinde or birds aloft that flie Or else the shrubs and this rightly is cleap'd their geneture But death when as dissolved is the foresaid fast joincture And yet I say my selfe that Colotes having alledged thus much knew not that Empedocles did not abolish men beasts shrubs or birds in as much as he saith that all these are composed and finished of the elements mixed together But teaching and shewing them how they were deceived who finde fault with naming this composition a certaine nature or life and the dissolution unhappy fortune and death to be avoided he annulled not the ordinary and usuall use of words in that behalfe For mine owne part I thinke verily that Empedocles doth not alter in these places the common maner of pronouncing and using the said words but as before it was related did really as of a different minde as touching the generation of things that had no being which some call nature Which he especially declareth in these verses Fooles as they be of small conceit for farre they cannot see Who hope that things which never were may once engendred be Or feare that those which are shall die and perish utterly For these verses are thundred out and do sound aloud in their hearing who have any eares at all that he doth not abolish generation absolutely but that alone which is of nothing nor yet corruption simply but that which is a totall destruction that is to say a reduction to nothing For unto a man who were not willing after such a savage rude and brutish maner but more gently to cavil the verses following after might give a collourable occasion to charge Empedocles with the contrary when he saith thus No man of sense and judgement sound would once conceive in minde That whiles we living here on earth both good and bad doe finde So long onely we being have yet this men life doe call And birth before or after death we nothing are at all Which words verily are not uttered by a man who denieth them their being who are borne and live but rather by him who thinketh that they who are not yet borne as also those that be alredy dead have their being And even so Colotes doth not altogether reproove him for this but he saith that according to his opinion we shall never be sicke nor wounded And how is it possible that he who saith that men before life and after life are accompanied with good and bad indifferently should not leave for them that be alive the power to suffer What be those then good Colotes who are accompanied with this immunity that they can neither be hurt nor diseased Even your selfe and such as you are who be altogether made of an Atome and voidnesse for by your owne saying neither the one nor the other hath any sense But no force For I here of no harme yet Mary here is the griefe that by this reason you have nothing in you to cause delight and pleasure seeing that an Atome is not capaple of such things as moove pleasure and voidnesse is unapt to be affected by them But for as much as Colotes for his part would needs immediatly after Democritus seeme to interre and bury Permenides for ever and my selfe in putting off a little and passing over the defence of Parmenides have betweene both taken in hand the maintenance of that which was delivered by Empedocles because me thought they did more properly adhere and hang to those first imputations let us now come againe to Parmenides And whereas Colotes chargeth him with setting abroad certaine shamefull sophistries yet hath the man thereby made friendship nothing lesse honourable nor voluptuousnesse and sensuallity more audacious and unbrideled He hath not bereft honesty of that attractive property to draw unto it selfe nor of the gift of being venerable of it selfe neither hath he troubled confounded the opinions as touching the gods And in saying that All is One I see not how he hath hindered our life For when Epicurus himselfe saith that All is infinite ingenerable and incorruptible that it cannot be augmented nor diminished he speaketh and disputeth of All as of some one thing And in the beginning of his treatise concerning this matter having delivered that the nature of All things being consisteth in small indivisible bodies which he termeth Atomes and in voidnesse hee made a division as it were of one thing into two parts whereof the one in trueth is not subsistent but termed by you impalpable void and bodilesse whereby it
friend can not chuse but proceed from a foolish vanitie and presumptuous ostentation and not of truth and franke simplicitie for which we esteeme this personage to be very great and excellent above others in case for some voice comming without foorth or by reason of sneesing he should be troubled and empeached in the continuance of an action which he had commenced already and so relinquish his dessigne and deliberation whereas it seemeth cleane contrary that the motions and inclinations of Socrates caried with them a firmitude and durable vehemence in whatsoever he went about and undertooke as proceeding from a direct and powerfull judgement and from a strong motive that set him on worke For he continued voluntarily all his life time in povertie whereas he might have had wealth enough if he would have received at his friends hands sufficient who were very willing yea and tooke joy to bestow their goods upon him also he would never leave the studie and profession of Philosophie for all the great hinderances and empeachments that he met withall and finally when he might easily have escaped and saved himselfe by the meanes that his friends had prepared and for him he would never be remooved nor yeeld unto their praiers nor desist from his maner of merie and jesting speeches though death were presented unto him but held his reason firme and unremoveable in the greatest perill that was These were not the parts of a man who suffered himselfe to be transported or caried away with vaine voices or sneesings from any resolution which he had taken but of him who was guided and conducted by a greater command and more puissant power unto his dutie I heare also that he foretold some of his friends the defeature and overthrow of the Athenians armie in Sicilse And before these things Pyrilampes the sonne of Antephon being taken by us in the chase and execution of victorie about Delion and wounded with a javelin when he heard by those who were sent from Athens unto us for to treat of peace that Socrates together with Alcibiades and Laches being gone downe by the way of Rhetiste were returned in safety made report unto us that Socrates had many times called him backe other of his friends and of his band who flying with him for company along the mountaine Parnes were overtaken and killed by our horsemen for that they had taken another way of flight from the battell and not it that he directed him unto by his angell or familiar spirit And thus much I suppose that Simmias himselfe hath heard as well as I. True quoth Simmias I have heard it oftentimes and of many persons for upon this example and such like the familiar spirit of Socrates was not a little spoken of in Athens Why suffer we then ô Simmias quoth Phidolaus this Galaxidorus here by way of jest and meriment to debase so much this so great a worke of divination as to passe it away in I wot not what voices and sneesings Which signes the vulgar sort of ignorant persons made use of by jest and mockerie in small matters and of no consequence for when the question is of more greevous dangers and affaires of greater importance the saying is verified of Euripides Noman will play the foole nor such vaine words Cast out so neere the edge and dint of swords And Galaxidorus If Simmias quoth he ô Phidolaus hath hard Socrates himselfe say ought of these matters I am willing to give eare and to pardon him with you but for any thing that you ô Polymnis have said an easie matter it is to confute the same for like as in Physicke the beating of the pulse is no great matter in it selfe nor a pimple or whelke but signes they be both of no small things unto the Physician and unto the pilot and master of a ship the noise of the sea the sight or voice of some bird or a thin cloud running through the aire signifieth some great winde or violent tempest in the sea even so unto a propheticall and divining minde a sneesing or a voice spoken in it selfe considered is no such great matter but signes these may be of most important accidents For in no art nor science whatsoever men doe despise the collection or judgement of many things by a few nor of great matters by small but like as if an ignorant person who knoweth not the power of letters seeing them few in number and in forme vile and contemptible could not beleeve that a learned man was able to read and relate out of them long warres in times past the foundations of cities the acts of mighty kings and their variable fortunes and should say that there were something underneath which tolde and declared unto the said Historian every one of those matters in order he might give good occasion of laughter pleasantly to deride his ignorance unto as many as hard him speake so even so take heed and beware lest we for that we know not the vertue and efficacy of every signe and foretoken in as much as they presage future things be not foolishly angred if some prudent and wise man by the same signes foretell somewhat as touching things unknowen and namely if he say that it is not a voice nor a sneesing but a familiar spirit which hath declared the same unto him For now come I to you Polymnis who esteeme and admire Socrates as a personage who by his plaine simplicity without any counterfet vanity whatsoever hath humanized as I may so say Philosophy and attributed it to humaine reason if he called not his signe that he went by a voice or sneesing but after a tragicall maner should name it a spirit familiar For contrariwise I would marvell rather that a man so well spoken as Socrates was so eloquent and who had all words so ready at command should say that it was a voice or a sneesing and not a divine spirit that taught him as if one should say that himselfe was wounded by an arrow and not with an arrow by him who shot it or that a poise was weighed by the balance and not with a balance by him that held or managed the balance in his hand for the worke dependeth not upon the instrument but upon him who hath the instrument and useth it for to doe the worke and even so the instrument is a kinde of signe used by that which doth signify and prognosticate thereby But as I have said already we must listen what Simmias will say as the man who knoweth this matter more exactly than others doe You say true indeed quoth Theocritus but let us see first who they be that enter heere in place and the rather because Epaminondas is one who seemeth to bring with him hither unto us the stranger above said And when we looked all toward the gates we might perceive Epaminondas indeed going before and leading the way accompanied with Ismenodorus Bacchilidas and Melissus the plaier upon the flute The
esteemed among those men like as him selfe had them in great admiration in so much as he of all others seemed most to imitate their maner of mysticall speaking under covert words to involve his doctrine and sentences within figurative aenigmaticall words for the characters which are called Hieroglyphicks in Aegypt be in maner all of them like to these precepts of Pythagoras Eat not upon a stoole or chaire Sit not over a bushell Plant no date tree Stirre not the fire in the house nor rake into it with a sword And me thinks that whereas the Pythagoreans call unitie Apollo Tiro Diana the number of seven Minerva and the first cubicke Neptune this resembleth very neere that which the Aegyptians consecrate dedicate in their temples and agreeth with that which they both do write For their king and lord Osiris they depaint and pourtray by an eie and a scepter and some there be who make this interpretation of the name Osiris as if it signified having many eies for that Os in the Aegyptian tongue betokeneth many and Iri an eie As for heaven they describe by a yoong countenance by reason of the perpetuity thereof whereby it never waxeth old An eie they set out by an heart having under it an hearth with fire burning upon it In the city of Thebes there stood up certeine images without hands resembling Judges and the chiefe or President among them was blindfolded or hoodwincked to give us to understand that justice should neither be corrupted with briberie nor partiall and respective of persons In the signet or seale ring of their 〈◊〉 and militarie men there was engraven the portracture of the great flie called the Beettill because in that kinde there is no female but they be all males they blow or cast their seed in forme of a pellet or round ball under dung which they prepare to be a place not for their food more than for their brood Whensoever therefore you shall heare the Aegyptians tell tales of the gods to wit of their vagarant and wandring perigrinations or of their dismembrings and other such like fabulous fictions you must call to minde that which we have before said and never thinke that they meane any such thing is or hath beene done according to that litterall sense for they do not say that Mercurie properly is a dog but forasmuch as the nature of this beast is to be wary watchfull vigilant and wise able to distinguish by his taking knowledge and semblance of ignorance a friend and familiar from an anemy and stranger therefore as Plato saith they attributed and likened him to the most eloquent of all the gods Neither doe they thinke when they describe the Sunne that out of the barke of the tree Lotus there ariseth a babe new borne but in this wise doe they represent unto us the Sunnerising giving thus much to understand covertly that the light and illumination of the Sunne proceedeth out of the waters of the sea for even after the same maner the most cruell and terrible king of the Persians Ochus who put to death many of his nobles and subjects and in the end slew their beefe Apis and eat him at a feast together with his friends they called The sword and even at this day in the register and catalogue of their kings he goeth under that name not signifying thereby his proper substance but to expresse his hard and fell nature and his mischievous disposition they compared him to a bloudy instrument and weapon made to murder men In hearing then and receiving after this maner that which shal be tolde unto you as touching the gods after an holy and religious maner in doing also and observing alwaies diligently the accustomed rites ordeined for the sacred service of the gods and beleeving firmely that you can not performe any sacrifice or liturgy more pleasing unto them than to study for to have a sound and true opinion of them by this meanes you shall avoid superstition which is as great a sinne as impietie and Atheisme Now the fable of Isis and Osiris is as briefly as may be by cutting off many superfluous matters that serve to no purpose delivered in this wise It is said that dame Rhea at what time as Saturne lay secretly with her was espied by the Sunne who cursed her and among other maledictions praied that she might not be delivered nor bring forth child neither in any moneth nor yeere but Mercurie being inamoured of this goddesse companied likewise with her and afterwards as he plaied at dice with the Moone and won from her the seventieth part of every one of her illuminations which being all put together make five entire daies he added the same unto the three hundred and threescore daies of the yeere and those odde daies the Aegyptians do call at this present the daies of the Epact celebrating and solemnizing them as the birthdaies of their gods for that when the full time of Rhea was expired upon the first day of them was Osiris borne at whose birth a voice was heard That the lord of the whole world now came into light and some say that a certeine woman named Pamyle as she went to fetch water for the temple of Jupiter in the city of Thebes heard this voice commanding her to proclaime aloud That the Great King and Benefactour Osiris was now borne also for that Saturne committed this babe Osiris into her hands for to be noursed therefore in honour of her there was a festivall day solemnized named thereupon Pamylia much like unto that which is named Phallephoria unto Priapus On the second day she was delivered of Aroueris who is Apollo whom some likewise call the elder Orus Upon the third day she brought forth Typhon but he came not at the just time nor at the right place but brake thorow his mothers side and issued foorth at the wound On the fourth day was Isis borne in a watery place called Panhygra And the fifth day she was delivered of Nephthe who of some is named also Teleute and Venus others call her Nice Now it is said that she conceived Osiris and Aroueris by the Sunne Isis by Mercurie Typhon and Nephthe by Saturne which is the cause that the kings reputing the third of these intercalar daies to be desasterous and dismall dispatched no affaires thereupon neither did they cherish themselves by meat and drinke or otherwise untill night that Nephthe was honoured by Typhon that Isis and Osiris were in love in their mothers bellie before they were borne and lay together secretly and by slealth and some give out that by this meanes Aroueris was begotten and borne who by the Aegyptians is called Orus the elder and by the Greeks Apollo Well during the time that Osiris reigned king in Aegypt immediatly he brought the Aegyptians from their needy poore and savage kinde of life by teaching them how to sow and plant their grounds by establishing good lawes among them and by shewing
image representing god as being the onely creature in the world which hath no tongue for as much as divine speech needeth neither voice nor tongue But through the paths of Justice walks with still and silent pace Directing right all mortall things in their due time and place And of all beasts living within the water the crocodile onely as men say hath over his eies a certeine thinne filme or transparent webbe to cover them which commeth downe from his forehead in such sort as that he can see and not be seene wherein he is conformable and like unto the sovereigne of all the gods Moreover looke in what place the female is discharged of her spawne there is the utmost marke and limit of the rising and inundation of Nylus for being not able to lay their egges in the water and affraid withall to sit far off they have a most perfect and exquisit foresight of that which will be insomuch as they make use of the rivers approch when they lay and whiles they sit and cove their egges be preserved drie and are never drenched with the water A hundred egges they lay in so many daies they hatch and as manie yeeres live they which are longest lived And this is the first and principall number that they use who treat of celestiall matters Moreover as touching those beasts which are honored for both causes we have spoken before of the dogge but the Ibis or blacke storke besides that it killeth those serpents whose pricke and sting is deadly she was the first that taught us the use of that evacuation or clensing the body by clistre which is so ordinarie in Physicke for perceived she is to purge clense and mundifie her-selfe in that sort whereupon the most religious priests and those who are of greatest experience when they would be purified take for their holy water to sprinckle themselves with the very same out of which the Ibis drinketh for she never drinks of empoisoned and infected water neither will she come neere unto it Moreover with her two legges standing at large one from the other and her bill together she maketh an absolute triangle with three even sides besides the varietie and speckled mixture of her plume consisting of white feathers and blacke representeth the Moone when she is past the full Now we must not marvell at the Aegyptians for pleasing and contenting themselves in such slight representations and similitudes for even the Grecks themselves as well in their pictures as other images of the gods melted and wrought to any mould used many times such resemblances for one statue in Creta they had of Jupiter without eares because it is not meant for him who is lord governour of all to have any instruction by the hearing of others Unto the image of Pallas Phidias the Imager set a dragon like as to that of Venus in the city of Elisa Tortoise giving us by this to understand that maidens had need of guidance and good custodie and that maried woman ought to keepe the house and be silent The three-forked mace of Neptune signifieth the third place which the sea and element of water holdeth under heaven and aire for which cause they called the sea Amphitrite and the petie sea gods Tritons Also the Pythagoreans have highly honored the numbers and figures Geometricall by the gods names for the triangle with three equal sides they called Pallas borne out of Jupiters braine and Tritogenia for that it is equally divided with three right lines from three angles drawen by the plumbe One or unitie they named Apollo As well for his perswasive grace as plaine simplicitie That doeth appeere in youthfull face and this is unitie Two they termed Contention and Boldnesse and three Justice For whereas to offend and be offended to doe and to suffer wrong come the one by excesse and the other by defect Just remaineth equally betweene in the middes That famous quaternarie of theirs named 〈◊〉 which consisteth of foure nines and amounteth to thirtie sixe was their greatest oth 〈◊〉 in every mans mouth they called it the World as being accomplished of the first foure even numbers and the first foure odde compounded into one together If then the most excellent and best renowmed Philosophers perceiving in things which have neither body nor soule some type and figure of deitie have not thought it good to neglect or despise any thing herein or passe it over without due honour I suppose we ought much lesse so to doe in those properties and qualities which are in natures sensitive having life and being capable of passions and affections according to their inclinations and conditions And therefore we must not content our selves and rest in the worshipping of these and such like beasts but by them adore the divinitie that shineth in them as in most cleere and bright mirrors according to nature reputing them alwaies as the instrument and artificiall workemanship of God who ruleth and governeth the universall world neither ought we to thinke that any thing void of life and destitute of sense can be more woorthy or excellent than that which is endued with life and senses no not although a man hung never so much gold or a number of rich emerauds about it for it is neither colours nor figures nor polished bodies that deitie doeth inhabite in but whatsoever doeth not participate life nor is by nature capable thereof is of a more base and abject condition than the very dead But that nature which liveth and seeth which also in it selfe hath the beginning of motion and knowledge of that which is proper and meet as also of that which is strange unto it the same I say hath drawen some influence and portion of that wise providence whereby the universall world is governed as Heraclitus saith And therefore the deitie is no lesse represented in such natures than in works made of brasse and stone which are likewise subject to corruption and alteration but over and besides they are naturally voide of all sense and understanding Thus much of that opinion as touching the worship of beasts which I approove for best Moreover the habilliments of Isis be of different tinctures and colours for her whole power consisteth and is emploied in matter which receiveth all formes and becommeth all maner of things to wit light darknesse day night fire water life death beginning and end But the robes of Osiris have neither shade nor varietie but are of one simple colour even that which is lightsome and bright For the first primitive cause is simple the principle or beginning is without all mixture as being spiritual intellegible Whereupon it is that they make shew but once for all of his habiliments which when they have done they lay them up againe and bestow them safe and keepe them so straightly that no man may see or handle them whereas contrariwise they use those of Isis many times For that sensible things be in usage and seeing they are
ceaseth to be it commeth and goeth together in such sort as that which beginneth to breed never reacheth to the perfection of being for that in very deed this generation is never accomplished nor resteth as being come to a ful end and perfection of being but continually changeth and moveth from one to another even as of humane seed first there is gathered within the mothers wombe a fruit or masse without forme then an infant having some forme and shape afterwards being out of the mothers belly it is a sucking babe anon it proves to be alad or boy within a while a stripling or springall then a youth afterwards a man growen consequently an elderly ancient person last of ala croked old man so that the former ages precedent generations be alwais abolished by the subsequent those that follow But we like ridiculous fooles be affraid of one kinde of death when as we have already died so many deaths and doe nothing daily and hourely but die still For not onely as Heraclitus saith the death of fire is the life of aire and the end of aire the beginning of water but much more evidently we may observe the same in our selves The floure of our yeeres dieth and passeth away when old age commeth youth endeth in the floure of lusty and perfect age childhood determineth in youth infancy in childhood Yesterday dieth in this day and this day will be dead by to morow neither continueth any man alwaies one and the same but we are engendred many according as the matter glideth turneth and is driven about one image mould or patterne common to all figures For were it not so but that we continued still the same how is it that we take delight now in these things whereas we joied before in others how is it that we love and hate praise and dispraise contrary things how commeth it to passe that we use divers speeches fal into different discourses are in sundry affections retaine not the same visage one countenance one minde and one thought For there is no likelihood at all that without change a man should entertaine other passions and looke who is changed he continueth not the same and if he be not the same he is not at all but together with changing from the same he changeth also to be simply for that continually he is altered from one to another and by consequence our sense is deceived mistaking that which appeareth for that which is indeed and all for want of knowledge what it is to be But what is it in trueth to be Surely to be eternall that is to say which never had beginning in generation nor shall have end by corruption and in which time never worketh any mutation For a moveable and mutable thing is time appearing as it were in a shadow with the matter which runneth and floweth continually never remaining stable permanent and solid but may be compared unto a leaking vessell conteining in it after a sort generations and corruptions And to it properly belong these tearmes 〈◊〉 and after Hath bene shall be which presently at the very first sight do evidently shew that time hath no being For it were a great folly and manifest absurditie to say that a thing is which as yet commeth not into esse or hath already ceased to be And as for these words Present Instant Now c. by which it seemeth that principally we ground and mainteine the intelligence of Time reason discovereth the same and immediatly overthroweth it for incontinently it is thrust out dispatched into future and past so that it fareth with us in this case as with those who would see a thing very farre distant for of necessitie the visuall beames of his sight doe faile before they can reach thereto Now if the same befall to nature which is measured that unto time which measureth it there is nothing in it permanent nor subsistent but all things therein be either breeding or dying according as they have reference unto time And therefore it may not be allowed to say of that which is It hath beene or it shall be for these termes be certaine inclinations passages departures and chaunges of that which cannot endure nor continue in being Whereupon we are to conclude that God alone is and that not according to any measure of time but respective to eternity immutable and unmooveable not gaged within the compasse of time nor subsert either to inclination or declination any way before whom nothing ever was nor after whom ought shall be nothing future nothing past nothing elder nothing yoonger but being one really by this one Present or Now accomplisheth his eternitie and being alway Neither is there any thing that may truely be said to be but he alone nor of him may it be verified He hath beene or shall be for that he is without beginning and end In this maner therefore we ought in our worship and adoration to salute and invocate him saying EI that is to say Thou art unlesse a man will rather according as some of the ancients used to doe salve him by this title EI EN that is to say Thou art one for god is not many as every one of us who are a confused heape and masse composed or rather thrust together of infinit diversities and differences proceeding from all sorts of alterations but as that which is ought to be one so that which is one ought to be for alternative diversitie being the difference of that which is departeth from it and goeth to the engendring of that which is not And therefore very rightly agreeth unto this god the first of his names as also the second and the third for Apollo he is called as denying and disavowing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say plurality multitude likewise Iëias which is as much to say as One or alone thirdly Phoebus by which name they called in the olde time All that was cleane and pure without mixture and pollution And semblably even at this day the Thessalians if I be not deceived say that their priests upon certeine vacant dayes when they keepe forth of their temples and live apart pivatly to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now that which is one is also pure and syncere for pollution commeth by occasion that one thing is mingled with another like as Homer speaking in one place of Yvorie having a tincture of red said it was polluted and the word that he useth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diers also when they would expresse that their colours be medleies or mixed use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say to be corrupted and the very mixture they tearme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Corruption It behooveth therefore that the thing which is syncere and incorruptible should be also one and simple without all mixture whatsoever In which regard they who thinke that Apollo and the Sunne be both one god are worthy to
of the waters that served the city as also to the Arcenall c. Moreover they had power to attach the bodies of great persons and were charged to see unto the provision of corne and victuals At the first none but of noble families or Patricians were advanced to this place but in processe of time Commoners also atteined thereto More of them how in Iulius Casars time there were elected six Aediles whereof two were named Cereals See Alexander at Alexander lib. 4. cap. 4. Genial dieth Aegineticke Mna or Mina Seemeth to be the ancient coine or money of Greece for they were the first that coined money and of them came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caelius Rhodig Aeolius Modus In Musicke a certeine simple plaine and mild tune apt to procure sleepe and bring folke to bed Aequinox That time of the yeere when the daies and nights be of equall length which hapneth twice in the yeere to wit in March and September Aestivall that is to say Of the Summer as the Aestivall Solstice or Tropicke of the Sunne when he is come neerest unto us and returneth Southward from us Aloïdae or Aloïadae were Othus and Ephialtes two giants so named of Aloëus the giant their supposed father for of his wife Iphimedia Neptune begat them It is said that every moneth they grew nine fingers Alphabet The order or rew of Greeke letters as they stand so called of Alpha and Beta the two formost letters and it answereth to our A.B.C. Alternative By course or turnes one after another going and comming c. Amphictyones Were a certein solemne counsell of State in Greece who held twice in the yeere a meeting in the Spring and Autunne at Thermopyle being assembled from the 12 flourithing cities of Greece there to consult of most important affaires Amphitheatre A spacious shew place in forme round and made as it were of two Theaters See Theater Amphora A measure in Rome of liquors only It seemeth to take that name of the two eares it had of either side one it conteined eight Congios which are somewhat under as many of our wine gallons Amnets Preservatives hung about the necke or otherwise worne against witchcraft poison eiebiting sicknesse or any other evils Anarchie The state of a city or countrey without government Andria A societie of men meeting together in some publicke hall for to eat and drinke Instituted first among the Thebans like to the Phiditia in Lacedaemon Annales Histories Records or Chronicles conteining things done from yere to yeere Anniversarie Comming once enery yeere at a certeine time as the Nativity of Christ and Sturbridge faire c. Antarcticke That is to say Opposit unto the Arcticke See 〈◊〉 Antidote A medicine properly taken inwardly against a poison or some pestilent and venimous disease A counterpoison or preservative Antipathie A repugnance in nature by reason of contrarie affections whereby some can not abide the smell of roses others may not endure the sight of a Cat c. Antiparistasis A 〈◊〉 or restraint on every side whereby either colde or heat is made stronger in it selfe by the restraining of the contrary as the naturall heat of our bodies in Winter through the coldnesse of the aire compassing it about likewise the coldnesse of the middle region of the aire in Summer by occasion of the heat on both sides cansing thunder and haile c. Antiphonie A noise of contrarie sounds Antipodes Those people who inhabit under and beneath our Hemisphaere and go with their feet full against ours Apathte Impassibilitie or voidnesse of all affections and passions Apaturia A feast solemnized for the space of foure daies at Athens in the honour of Bacchus So called of Apate that is to say Deceit because Xanthius the Boeotian was in single fight slaine deceitfully by Thimoeles the Athenian For the tale goeth that whiles they were in combat Bacchus appeared behind Xanthius clad in a goats skinne and when Thimoeles charged his concurrent for comming into the field with an assistant as he looked backe he was killed by Thimoeles abovenamed Apologie A plea for the defence or excuse of any person Apothegme A short sententious speech Apoplexie A disease comming suddenly in maner of a stroke with an universall astonishment and deprivation of sense and motion which either causeth death quickely or else endeth in a dead palsey Archontes Were chiefe magistrates at Athens at first every tenth yeere and afterwards yeerely chosen by lot unto whom the rule of the common-welth in their popular state was committed of whom the first was named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say King the second Archon that is to say Ruler the third Polemarchus and the other six Thesmothelae Arctick that is to say Northerly so called of Arctos in Greeke which signifieth the Beare that is to say those conspicuous seaven starres in the North named Charlematns waine neere unto which is that pole or point of the imaginarie axell-tree about which the heavens turne which thereupon is named The pole Arctick and over against it underneath our Hemisphaere is the other pole called Antarctick in the South part of the world Aristocratre A forme of Government or a State wherein the nobles and best men be Rulers To Aromatize that is to say To season or make pleasant by putting thereto some sweete and odoriferous spices Astragalote Mastis A scourge or whip the strings whereof are set and wrought with ankle-bones called Astragali thereby to give a more grievous lash Atomi Indivisible bodies like to motes in the Sunne beames of which Democritus and Epicurus imagined all things to be made Atticke pure that is to say The most fine and eloquent for in Athens they spake the purest Greeke insomuch as Thucydides called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Greece of Greece as one would say the very quintenssence of Greece Averrunct or Averruncani Were gods among the Romans supposed to put by and chace away evils and calamities such as Hercules and Apollo among the Greekes called thereupon Apotropaei Auspices Plutarch seemeth to take for Augures that is to say Certeine priests or soothsaiers who by the inspection and observation of birds did foretell future things Axiomes Were principal propositions in Logicke of as great authoritie and force as Maximes in law and it should seeme that those Maximes be derived corruptly from Axiomes B BAcchanalta named also 〈◊〉 Certein licentious festivall solemnities in the honor of Bacchus performed at the first by day light and afterward in the night season with all maner of filthy wantonnesse instituted first in Athens and other cities of Greece euery three yeeres in Aegypt also at last they were taken vp in Italy and at Rome Bacchiadae A noble familie in Corinth who for the space almost of 200. yeeres there ruled Bachyllion A song or daunce which seemeth to take the name of a famous Tragoedian poet named Bachyllus who devised and practised it like as Pyladion of Pylades as notable a Comoedian
whiles we be tempering about this immoderate shamefacednesse for to remoove it that we do not draw away with it grace and modesty gentlenes and debonarity which be adjacents and lie close unto it under which qualities lieth lurking and sticketh close to the foresaid naughtie bashfulnesse flattering him that is possessed therewith as if he were full of humanitie courtesie civilitie and common sense not opinionative severe inflexible and untractable which is the reason that the Stoicke Philosophers when they dispute of this matter have distinguished by severall names this aptnes to blush or over-much bashfulnesse from modestie and shamefacednesse indeed for feare lest the aequivocation and ambiguitie of one common word might give some occasion and vantage to the vicious passion it selfe to do some hurt As for us they must give us leave to use the tearmes without calumniation or rather permit us to distinguish according to Homer when he saith Shame is a thing that doth mickle harme and profiteth as much neither without good cause is it that in the former place he putteth downe the harme and discommoditie thereof for surely it is not profitable but by the meanes of reason which cutteth off that which is superfluous and leaveth a meane behinde To come then unto the remedies thereof it behooveth him first and formost who is given to blushing at every smal matter to beleeve be perswaded that he is possessed with such an hurtfull passion now there is nothing hurtfull which is good and honest neither ought he to take pleasure and delight when he shall be tickled in the eare with praises and commendations when he shall heare himselfe called gentle jolly and courteous in steed of grave magnanimous and just neither let him do as Pegasus the horse in Euripides who When mount his back Bellerophontes should With trembling stoup'd more than his owne selfe would that is to say give place and yeeld after a base manner to the demaunds and requests of everie man or object himselfe to their wil and pleasure for feare forsooth lest one should say of him Lo what a hard man is this See how inexorable he is It is reported of Bocchorus a king of Egypt that being rough fell austere the goddesse Isis sent the serpent called Aspis for to wind and wreath about his head and so to cast a shadow over him from above to the ende that hee might be put in minde to judge aright but this excessive shamefastnesse which alwaies overspreadeth and covereth them who are not manly but faint-hearted and effeminate not suffering them once to dare to deny or gainsay any thing surely would avert and withdraw judges from doing justice close up their mouthes that in counsels and consultations should deliver their opinion frankly yea and cause them both to say and do many things inconsiderately against their minde which otherwhiles they would not For looke whosoever is most unreasonable and importunate he will ever tyrannize and dominier over such an one forcing by his impudencie the bashfulnesse of the other by which meanes it commeth to passe that this excessive shame like unto a low piece of soft ground which is ready to receive all the water that comes and apt to be overflowed and drowned having no power to withstand and repulse any encounter nor say a word to the contrarie whatsoever is proposed yeeldeth accesse to the lewdest desseignes acts and passions that be An evill guardian and keeper of childhood and yoong age is this excessive bashfulnesse as Brutus well said who was of this minde that neither he nor she could well and honestly passe the flower of their fresh youth who had not the heart and face to refuse and denie any thing even so likewise a bad governesse it is of the bride-bed and womens chamber according to that which shee saide in Sophocles to the adulterer who repented of the fact Thy flattering words have me seduced And so perswaded I am abused In such sort as this bashfulnes over and besides that it is vicious and faultie it selfe spoileth and marreth cleane the intemperate incontinent person by making no resistance to his appetites and demaunds but letting all ly unfortified unbard and unlockt yeelding easie accesse and entrance to those that will make assault and give the attempt who may by great gifts and large offers catch and compasse the wickedest natures that be but surely by perswasions and inductions and by the meanes withall of this excessive bashfulnesse they oftentimes conquer and get the mastrie even of such as are of honest and gentle disposition Here I passe-by the detriments and damages that this bashfulnesse hath beene the cause of in many matters and that of profit and commoditie namely how many men having not the heart to say nay have put forth and lent their money even to those whose credite they distrust have beene sureties for such as otherwise they would have beene loth and unwilling to engage themselves for who can approove and commend this golden sentence written upon the temple of Apollo Be surety thou maist but make account then to pay howbeit they have not the power to do themselves good by that warning when they come to deale in the world And how many have come unto their end and died by the meanes of this foolish qualitie it were hard to reckon For Creon in Euripides when he spake thus unto Medea For me Madame it were much better now by flat deniall your minde to discontent Than having once thus yeelded unto you sigh afterwards full sore and ay repent gave a very good lesson for others to follow but himselfe overcome at length through his foolish bashfulnesse graunting one day longer of delay at her request overthrew his owne state and his whole house Some there were also who doubting and suspecting that they were laide for to be bloodily murdered or made away by poison yet upon a foolish modestie not refusing to go into the place of daunger came to their death and were soone destroied Thus died Dion who notwithstanding hee knew well enough that Callippus laide wait for him to take away his life yet forsooth abashed he was to distrust his friend and host and so to stand upon his guard Thus was Antipater the sonne of Cassander massacred who having first invited Demetrius to supper was bidden the morrow after to his house likewise and for that he was abashed to mistrust Demetrius who the day before had trusted him refused not to go but after supper he was murdered for his labour Moreover when Polysperchon had undertaken and promised unto Cassander for the summe of one hundred talents to kill Hercules a base sonne of king Alexander by lady Barsine he sent and requested the said Hercules to sup with with him in his lodging the yoong gentleman had no liking at all to such a bidding but mistrusting and fearing his curtesie alleaged for his excuse that he was not well at ease whereupon Polysperchon came himselfe in person unto