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
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
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
him not onely whether he were sharpe eager simply but whether he were so upon no cause nor taking any fee even so the admonition and reprehension of a friend being syncere and cleansed pure from all priuate affection ought to be reverenced it carieth I say authoritie with it and no exceptions can well be taken nor a man dare lift up an eie against it in such sort as if it appeare that he who chideth freely and blameth his friend doeth let passe and reject all those faults which hee hath committed against him and maketh no mention therof but toucheth those errours misdemeanors only which concerne others and they spare him not but pierce bite to the quicke the vehemency of such free speech is invincible and can not be challenged for the mildnes good will of the chastiser doth fortifie the austeritie bitternes of the chastisement Well therefore it was said in old time That whensoever we are angry or at some jarre variance with our friends then most of all we ought to have an eie unto their good and to study how to do somewhat that is either profitable unto them or honorable for them And no lesse materiall is this also to the maintenance of friendship if they that thinke themselves to be despised and not well regarded of their friends do put them in mind and tell them frankly of others who are neglected by them and not accounted of as they should be Thus dealt Plato with Denys at what time he was in disgrace and saw how he made no reckoning at all of him For he came unto the Tyrant upon a time and requested that he might have a day of audience and leave to conferre with him Denys graunted his request supposing verily that Plato had a purpose to complaine and expostulat with him in his owne behalfe and thereupon to discourse with him at large But Plato reasoned and debated the matter with him in this manner Sir quoth he ô Denys if you were advertised and knew that some enemie or evill willer of yours were arrived and landed in Sicilie with a full intention to do you some displeasure although he had no opportunitie or meanes to execute and effect the same would you let him faile away againe depart from Sicily with impunity and before he were talked withall I tro not ô Plato quoth Denys but I would looke to him well enough for that For we ought to hate punish not the actions onely but the verie purposes and intentions also of enemies But how and if quoth Plato againe on the contrarie side some other being expressely and of purpose come for meere love and affection that he beareth unto you and fully minded to doe you some pleasure or to advice you for your good you will give him neither time nor opportunitie therfore is it meet think you that he should be thus unthankfully dealt withal or hardly entreated at your hands With that Dionysius was somewhat mooved and demanded who that might be Aeschines quoth Plato is he a man faire conditioned and of as honest carriage and behaviour as any one that ever came out of Socrates schoole or daily and familiarly conversed with him sufficient and able by his eloquence and pithie speech to reforme the maners of those with whom he keepeth companie This Aeschines I say having taken a long voyage over sea and arrived here intending for to conferre with you philosophically is nothing regarded nor set by at all These words touched Denys so to the verie quicke that presently he not onely tooke Plato in his armes embracing him most lovingly and yeelding him great thankes for that kindnesse highly admiring his magnanimity but also from that time forward entreated Aeschines right courteously and did him all the honor that he could Secondly this libertie of speech which now is in hand we ought to cleere and purge cleane from all contumelious and injurious words from laughter scoffes and scurrile taunts which are the hurtfull and unholesome sauces as I may say wherewith many use to season their free language For like as a Chirurgian when he maketh incision and cutteth the flesh of his patient had need to use great dexteritie to have a nimble hand and an even yea and every thing neat and fine belonging to this worke and operation of his as for all dauncing gesticulations besides of his singers toyish motions and superfluous agitation thereof to shew the agilitie of his hand he is to forbeare for that time So this libertie of speech unto a friend doth admit well a certaine kind of elegancie and civilitie provided alwaies that the grace thereof retaine still a decent and comely gravitie whereas if it chaunce to have audacious braverie sancie impuritie and insolencie to the hurt or hinderance of credit it is utterly marred and looseth all authoritie And therefore it was not an unproper and unelegant speech wherewith a musitian upon a time stopped King Philips mouth that he had not a word to say againe For when he was about to have disputed and contested against the saide minstrell as touching good fingering and the sound of the severall strings of his instrument Oh sir quoth he God forbid that ever you should fall to so low an estate as to be more cunning in these matters than I. But contrariwise Epicharmus spake not so aptly and to the purpose in this behalfe For when King Hiero who a little before had put to death some of his familiar acquaintance invited him not many daies after to supper Yea marie sir but the other day when you sacrificed you bad not your friends to the feast And as badly answered Antiphon who upon a time when there was some question before Denys the Tyrant what was the best kinde of brasse Marie that quoth he whereof the Athenians made the Statutes of Harmodius and Aristogiton Such speeches as these are tart and biting and no good can come thereof neither hath that scurrilite and scoffing manner any delight but a kinde of intemperance it is of the toong mingled with a certaine maliciousnes of minde implying a will to do hurt and injurie and shewing plaine enmitie which as many as use worke their owne mischiefe and destruction dauncing as the Proverb saith a daunce untowardly about a pits brinke or jesting with edged tooles For surely it cost Antiphon his life who was put to death by the said Denys And Timagenes lost for ever the favour and friendship of Augustus Caesar not for any franke speech and broad language that ever he used against him but onely because he had taken up a foolish fashion at everie feast or banket whereunto the Emperor invited him and whensoever he walked with him eftsoones and to no purpose he would come out with these verses in Homer For naught else but to make some sport Among the Greekes he did resort pretending that the cause of that favour which he had with the Emperor was the grace and gift that
above all other things to see unto those goods which we may enjoy during the same and to oppose them against the present griefe and sorrow Afterwards he prooveth by sundrie and diversreasons that banishment is not in it selfe simply naught he 〈◊〉 and laieth open the folly and miserie of those who are too much addicted unto one countiey shewing by notable examples that a wise man may live at ease and contentment in all places that the hubitation in a strangeregion and the same limited and confined straightly withineertaine precincts doth much more good 〈◊〉 than harme that a large countrey lying out farre everie way maketh a man never a whit the more happie whereas contraiwise to be enclosed and pent up bringesh many commodities with it 〈◊〉 that this is the onely life and that is no life at all to be evermoreflitting to and fro from place to place Now when he hath beautified this theame abovesaid with many faire 〈◊〉 and proper in ductions he comforteth those who are de barred and excluded from any citie or province resuting with very good and sound arguments certaine persons who held banishment for a note of infamie shewing withall that it is nothing else but sinne and vice which bringeth a man into a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and condition concluding by the examples of Anaxagoras and Socrates that neither imprisonment nor death can enthrall or make miserable the man who loveth vertue And contrariwise he giveth us to under stand by theexamples of Phaëthon and Icarus that vitious and sinfull persons fall datly and continually one way or other into most grievous calamities through their owne audaciousnes and follie OF EXILE OR BANISHMENT SEmblable is the case of wise sentences and of good friends the best and most and assured be those reputed which are present with us in our calamities not in vaine and for a shew but to aide and succour us for many there be who will not sticke to present themselves yea and be ready to conferre and talke with their friends in time of adversitie howbeit to no good purpose at all but rather with some danger to themselves like as unskilfull divors when they goe about to helpe those that are at point to be drowned being clasped about the body sinke together with themfor company Now the speeches and discourses which come from friends and such as would seeme to be helpers ought to tend unto the consolation of the partie afflicted and not to the defence and justification of the thing that afflicteth for little need have we of such persons as should weepe and lament with us in our tribulations distresses as the maner is of the Chori or quires in Tragedies but those rather who will speake their minds frankely unto us and make remonstrance plainly That for a man to be sad and sorrowfull to afflict and cast downe himselfe is not onely every way bootlesse and unprofitable but also most vaine and foolish but where the adverse occurrents themselves being well handled and managed by reason when they are discovered what they be give a man occasion to say thus unto himselfe Thou hast no cause thus to complaine unlesse thou be dispos'd to faine A meere ridiculous follie it were to aske either of bodie and flesh what it aileth or of soule what it suffereth and whether by the occurrence of this accident it fare worse than before but to have recourse unto strangers without to teach us what our griefe is by wailing sorrowing and grieving together with us and therefore when wee are apart and alone by our selves wee ought ech one to examine our owne heart and soule about all and every mishap and infortunitie yea and to peise and weigh them as if they were so many burdens for the bodie is pressed downe onely by the weight of the fardell that loadeth it but the soule often times of it selfe giveth a surcharge over and above the things that molest it A stone of the owne nature is hard and yce of it selfe colde neither is there any thing without that giveth casually to the one the hardnesse to resist or to the other the coldnesse to congeale but banishments disgraces repulse and losse of dignitie as also contrariwise crownes honours sovereigne magistracies preeminences and highest places being powerfull either to afflict or rejoice hearts in some measure more or lesse not by their owne nature but according to judgement and opinion every man maketh to himselfe light or heavie easie to be borne or contrariwise intolerable whereupon we may heare Polynices answering thus to the demand made unto him by his mother How then is it a great calamitie To quit the place of our nativitie POLYNICES The greatest crosse of all it is doubtlesse And more indeed than my tongue can expresse but contrariwise you shall heare Aleman in another song according to a little Epigram written of him by a certeine Poet At Sardes where mine ance stours sometime abode did make If I were bred and nourished my surname I should take Of some Celinus or Bacelus in robes of golde arai'd And jewels fine while I upon the tabour plai'd But now Alcman I cleped am and of that Sparta great A citizen and poet for in Greekish muse my vaine Exalts me more than Dascyles or Gyges tyrants twaine for it is the opinion and nothing els that causeth one and the same thing to be unto some good and commodious as currant and approved money but to others unprofitable and hurtfull But set case that exile be a grievous calamitie as many men doe both say and sing even so among those meats which we eat there be many things bitter sharpe hote and biting in taste howbeit by mingling therewith somewhat which is sweet and pleasant we take away that which disagreeth with nature like as there be colours also offensive to the sight in such sort as that the eies be much dazled and troubled therewith by reason of their unpleasant hew or excessive and intolerable brightnesse If then for to remedie that inconvenience by such offensive and resplendent colours we have devised meanes either to intermingle shadowes withall or turne away our eies from them unto some greene and delectable objects the semblable may we doe in those sinister and crosse accidents of fortune namely by mixing among them those good and desireable blessings which a man presently doth enjoy to wit wealth and abundance of goods a number of friends and the want of nothing necessarie to this life for I do not thinke that among the Sardinians there be many who would not be very wel content with those goods and that estate which you have even in exile and chuse rather with your condition of life otherwise to live from home and in a strange countrey than like snailes evermore sticking fast to their shels be without all good things els enjoy only that which they have at home in peace without trouble and molestation Like as therefore in a certaine Comaedie there was one who exhorted
out of minde those that inhabite here Were borne in place and so remain'd alive All cities else and nations at one word With aliens peopled be who like to men At table play or else upon chesse-boord Remooved have and leapt some now some then If women we may be allow'd to grace Our native soile and with proude words exalt Presume we dare to say that in this place A temperate aire we have without default Where neither heat nor cold excessive is If ought there be that noble Greece doth yeeld Or Asia rich of best commodities And daintiest fruits by river or by field We have it here in foison plentifull To hunt to catch to reape to crop and pull And yet even he who hath set such goodly praises upon his native countrey left the same went into Macedonia and there lived in the court of King Archelam You have heard likewise I suppose this little Epigram in verse Enterred and entombed lieth here Euphorians sonne the Poet Aeschylus In Athens towne though borne sometime he were To Gelas neere in corne so plenteous For he also abandoned his owne countrey and went to dwell in Sicilie like as Simonides did before him And whereas this title or inscription is commonly read This is the Historie written by Herodotus the Halicarnassean many there be who correct it and write in this maner Herodotus the Thurian for that he remooved out of the countrey wherein he was borne became an inhabitant among the Thurians and enjoied the freedome of that colonie As for that heavenly and divine spirit in the knowledge of Muses and Poetrie Homerus who with woondrous pen Set foorth the battels Phrygien what was it that caused so many cities to debate about the place of his nativitie chalenging everie one unto themselves but onely this that hee seemed not to praise and extoll any one citie above the rest Moreover to Jupiter surnamed Hospitall know we not that there be many those right great honors done Now if any one shall say unto me that these personages were all of them ambitious aspiring to great honor and glorie doe no more but have recourse unto the Sages and those wise schooles and learned colledges of Athens call to minde and consider the renowmed clerkes and famous Philosophers either in Lycaeum or the Academie go to the gallerie Stoa the learned schoole Palladium or the Musicke-schoole Odeum If you affect love and admire above all other the fect of the Peripateticks Aristotle the prince thereof was borne in Stagira a citie of Macedonia Theophrastus in Eressus Strato came from Lampsacus Glycon from Troas Ariston from Chios and Critolaus from Phaselus If your minde stand more to praise the Stoickes cleanthes was of Assos Zeno was a Citiean Chrysippus came from Soli Diogenes from Babylon and Antipater from Tharsus and Archidamus being an Athenian borne went to dwell among the Parthians and left behind him at Babylon in succession the Stoicke discipline and Philosophie Who was it that chased and drave these men out of their native countries certes none but even of their owne accord and voluntary motion they sought all abroad for their contentment and repose which hardly or not at all can they enjoy at home in their owne houses who are in any authoritie and reputation so that as they have taught us verie well out of their bookes other good sciences which they professed so this one point of living in quietnes and rest they have shewed unto us by practise and example And even in these daies also the most renowmed and approoved clerkes yea and greatest men of marke and name live in strange countries farre remote from their owne habitations not transported by others but of themselves remooving thither not banished sent away and confined but willing to flie and avoide the troublesome affaires negotiations and businesse which their native countries amuse them with That this is true it may appeere by the most approoved excellent and commendable workes and compositions which ancient writers have left unto posteritie for the absolute finishing whereof it seemeth that the Muses used the helpe and meanes of their exile Thus Thucydides the Athenian penned the warre betweene the Peloponnesians and the Athenians whiles he was in Thracia and namely neere unto a place called the Forest of the Fosse Xenophon compiled his storie at Scillos in Elea Philip wrate in Epirus Timaeus who was borne at Taurominum in Sictlie became a writer in Athens Androtion the Athenian at Megarae and Bachilides the Poet in Peloponnesus who all and many others besides being banished out of their countries were never discouraged nor cast downe but shewed the vivacitie and vigor of their good spirits and tooke their exile at fortunes hands as a good maintenance and provision of their journey by meanes whereof they live in same and renowne now after their death whereas on the other side there remaineth no memoriall at all of those by whose factions and sidings they were driven out and exiled And therefore he deserveth to be well mocked who thinketh that banishment carrieth with it some note of infamie and reproch as necessarily adherent thereto For what say you to this Is Diogenes to be counted infamous whom when King Alexander saw sitting in the sunne he approched neere and standing by him demaunded whether he stood in need of any thing or no he had no other answere from him but this that he had need of nothing else but that he should stand alittle out of the sunne-shine and not shadow him as he did whereupon Alexander woondring at his magnanimitie and haughtie courage said presently unto those friends that were about him If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes And was Camillus disgraced any way for being banished out of Rome considering that even at this daie he is reputed and taken for the second founder thereof Neither lost Themistocles the glorie which he had woon among the Greekes by his exile but rather acquired thereto great honor estimation with the Barbarians And no man is there so base minded and carelesse of honor and credit but he would choose rather to be Themistocles banished as he was than Leobates his accuser and the cause of his banishment yea and to be Cicero who was exiled than Clodius who chased him out of Rome or Timotheus who was constrained to abandon and forsake his native countrey than Aristophon who endited him and caused him to leave the same But for that the authoritie of Euripides who seemeth mightily to defame and condemne banishment mooveth many men let us consider what be his severall questions and answeres to this point IOCASTA How then is it a great calamitie To loose the place of our nativitie POLYNICES The greatest crosse I hold it is doubtlesse And more indeed than my tongue can expresse IOCASTA The manner would I gladly understand And what doth grieve man shut from native land POLYNICES This one thing first the sorest griefe must be That of their speech they
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
drive the same without forth to the superficiall parts but contrariwise a man of government if he be not able to keepe a citie altogether in peace concord but that some troubles will arise yet at leastwise he must endevour to conteine that within the citie which is the cause thereof and nurceth the sedition and in keeping it close to labour for to heale and remedie it to this end that if it be possible he have no need either of physician or physicke from forren parts for the intentions of a man of State and government ought to be these namely to proceed in his affaires surely and to flie the violent and furious motions of vaine-glorie as hath beene said alreadie howbeit in his resolution A courage bold and full of confidence Undaunted heart and fearlesse be must have Which will not quatle for any consequence But see the end much like to sculdiors brave In field themselves who manly do behave And hazard lims and life for to defend Their countrey deere and enemies to off end and not onely to oppose himselfe against enemies but also to be armed against perilous troubles and dangerous tumults that he may be readie to resist and make head for he ought not in any case himselfe to moove tempests and raise commotions no nor when he seeth boisterous stormes comming forsake and leave his countrey in time of need He must nor I say drive his citie under his charge upon apparent danger but so soone as ever it once begin to be tossed and to float in jeopardie than is it his part to come to succor by casting out from himselfe as it were a sacred Anchor that is to say to use his boldnesse and libertie of speech considering that now the maine point of all lieth a bleeding even the safetie of his countrey Such were the dangers that hapned unto Pergamus in Neroes time and of late daies to the Rhodians during the Empire of Domitian as also before unto the Thessalians while Augustus was Emperour by occasion that they had burned Petraeus quick In these and such like occurrences a man of State and government especially if he be woorthie of that name Never shall you see Sleepie for to bee nor drawing his foote backe for feare no nor to blame and lay the fault of others ne yet to make shift for one and put himselfe out of the medley of danger but either going in embassage or embarked in some ship at sea or else readie to speake first and to say not onely thus We we Apollo have this murder don From these our coasts avert this plague anon but although himselfe be not culpable at all with the multitude yet will he put his person into danger for them For surely this is an act right honest and besides the honestie in it selfe it hapneth divers times that the vertue and noble courage of such a man hath beene so highly admired that it hath daunted the anger conceived against a whole multitude and dispatched all the fiercenesse and furie of a bitter menace like as it befell unto a King of Persia in regard of Bulis and Sperthis two gentlemen of Sparta and as it was seene in Pompey to his host and friend Sthenon for when he was fully determined to chastice the Mamertines sharpely and to proceede against them in all rigor for that they had rebelled the said Sthenon stept unto him and thus frankly spake That he should do neither well nor justly in case he did to death a number of innocents for one man who alone was faultie for it is I my selfe quoth he who caused the whole citie to revolt and take armes inducing my friends for love and forcing mine enemies for feare These words of his went so neere unto the heart of Pompey that he pardoned the citie and most courteously entreated Sthenon semblaby the host of Sylla having shewed the like valour and vertue although it were not to the like person died a noble death for when Sylla had woon the citie Praenesle by assault he meant to put all the inhabitants thereof to the sword excepting onely one host of his whom in regard of old hospitalite he spared and pardoned but this host friend said flatly unto him that he would never remaine alive to see that bloudy massacre not hold his life by the murtherer of his countrey and so cast himselfe into the troupe of his fellow-citizens in the heate of execution and was killed with them Well pray unto the gods we ought to preserve and keepe us that we fall not into such calamities and troublesome times to hope also and looke for better daies Moreover we are to esteeme of everie publike magistracie and of him who exerciseth it as of a great and sacred thing and in that regard to honour the same above all Now the honour which is due unto authoritie is the mutuall accord and love of those who are set in place to exercise the same together and verily this honor is much more worth than either all those crownes and diademes which they beare upon their heads or their stately mantles and roabes of purple wherewith they be arraied Howbeit they that laid the first ground and beginning of amitie their service in warres when they were fellow-souldiors or the passing of their youthfull yeeres together and contrariwise take this a cause now of enmitie that they either are joined captaines in commission for the conduct of an armie or have the charge of the Common-weale together it can not be avoided but that they must incur one of these three mischiefes For either if they esteem their fellowes and companions in government to be their equals they begin themselves first to grow into tearmes of dissention or if they take them to be their betters they fall to be envious or else in case they hold them to be inferiour unto them in good parts they despise contemne them Whereas they should indeed make court unto the greater honor and adorne their equals and advance their inferiors and in one word to love and embrace all as having an amitie and love engendred among themselves not because they have eaten at one table drunke of the same cup or met together at one feast but by a certaine common band and publike obligation as having in some sort a certaine fatherly benevolence contracted and growen upon the common affection unto their countrey Certes one reason why Scipio was not so well thought of at Rome was this that having invited all his friends to a solemne feast at the dedication of his temple to Hercules he left out Mummius his colleague or fellow in office for say that otherwise they tooke not one another for so good friends yet so it is that at such a time and upon such occasions they ought to have honored and made much one of the other by reason of their common magistracie If then Scipio a noble personage otherwise and a man of woonderfull regard incurred the imputation and
on and carry thither that they have an assured testimonie in themselves that they be affectionat ser vitour of the common-weale WHETHER AN AGED MAN ought to manage publike affaires WE are not ignorant ô Euphanes that you are woont highly to praise the poet Pindarus and how you have oftentimes in your mouth these words of his as being in your conceit well placed and pithily spoken to the point When games of price and combats once are set Who shrinketh back and doth pretend some let In darknesse hides and deepe obscuritie His fame of vertue and activitie But forasmuch as men ordinarily alledge many causes and pretenses for to colour and cover their sloth want of courage to undertake the businesse and affaires of State among others as the very last and as one would say that which is of the sacred line race they tender unto us old age suppose they have found now one sufficient argument to dull or turne backe the edge and to coole the heat of seeking honor thereby in bearing us in hand saying That there is a certein convenient meet end limited not only to the revolution of yeeres proper for combats and games of proofe but also for publike affaires and dealings in State I thought it would not be impertinent nor besides the purpose if I should send and communicate unto you a discourse which sometimes I made privately for mine owne use as touching the government of common-weale managed by men of yeeres to the end that neither of us twaine should abandon that long pilgrimage in this world which we have continued in travelling together even to this present day nor reject that civill life of ours which hither to we have led in swaying of the common-weale no more than a man would cast off an old companion of his owne age or change an ancient familiar friend for another with whom he hath had no acquaintance who hath not time sufficient to converse be made familiar with him But let us in Gods name remaine firme constant in that course of life which we have choson from the beginning make the end of life of well living all one and the same if we will not for that small while which we have to live discredit diffame that longer time which we have alreadie led as if it had bin spent foolishly and in vaine without any good laudable intention For tyrannicall dominiō is not a faire monument to be enterred in as one said somtime to Denys the tyrant for unto him this monarchicall absolute sovereigntie gotten held by so unjust wicked meanes the longer that it had continued before it failed the greater more perfect calamitie it would have brought according as Diogenes afterwards seeing the said Dionysius his son become a poore privat man deposed frō the princely tyrannicall dignity which he had O Dionysius quoth he how unworthy art thou of this estate how unfitting is it for thee for thou oughtest not to live here in liberty without any feare or doubt of any thing with us but remaine there stil as thy father did immured up confined as it were within a fortresse all thy life time untill extreme old age came But in truth a popular government which is just and lawfull wherein a man hath beene conversant and shewed himselfe alwaies no lesse profitable to the common-wealth in obeying than in commaunding is a faire sepulcher for him to be buried honorably therein and to bestow in his death the glorie of his life for this is the last thing as Simonides said that descendeth and goeth under the earth unlesse we speake of them whose honour bountie and vertue dieth first and in whom the zeale of performing their duetie doth faile and cease before that the covetous desire of things necessarie to this life giveth over as if the divine parts of our soule those which direct our actions were more fraile died sooner than the sensual corporal which neither were honestie to say nor good to beleeve no more than to give credit unto those who affirme that in getting and gaining onely we are never weary but rather we are to bring that saying of Thucydides to a better purpose not to beleeve him who was of minde that not ambition alone and desire of glorie aged in a man but also and that much rather sociality or willingnes to live converse with company civility or affection to policy managing of publik affaires a thing that doth persevere cōtinue alwaies to the very end even in ants and bees for never was it knowen that a bee with age became a drone as some there be who would have those who all their life time were employed in the State after the vigor strength of their age is past to sit stil keepe the house doing nothing els but eat feed as if they were mued up suffering their active vertue through ease and idlenesse to be quenched marred even like as iron is eaten and consumed with rust canker for want of occupying For Cato said verie wisely That since old age had of it self miseries ynough of the one they ought not to adde moreover thereunto the shame that proceedeth from vice for to mend the matter Now among many vices that be there is not one that more shameth and defameth an old man than restivenesse sloth delicacie and voluptuousnesse namely when he is seene to come downe from the hall and courts of Justice or out of the counsell chamber and such publike places for to goe and keepe himselfe close in a corner of his house like a woman or to retire into some farme in the countrey to oversee onely his mowers reapers and harvest-folke of whom it may be well said as we reade in Sophocles What is become of wise Oedipus In riddles a-reeding who was so famous For to begin to meddle in affaires of State in olde age and not before as it is reported that one Epimenides laied him downe to sleepe when he was very yoong and wakened an olde man fiftie yeeres after and ere he have shaken off and laied aside so long repose and rest that hath stucke so close unto him by use and custome to goe and put himselfe all at once upon a sudden into such travels and laborious negotiations being nothing trained nor inured therein not framed nor exercised thereto in any measure without conversing at all beforehand with men experienced in matters of Estate nor having practised worldly affaires might peradventure give good occasion to one that were disposed to reproove and finde fault for to say that which the prophetesse Pythias answered once to one who consulted with the oracle of Apollo about the like case For government and rule of citie state Who ever thou be thou commest too late An houre this is undecent and past date Thus for to knocke at Court or Pallace-gate like an unmanerly guest who
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 lying Another for to animate him to this warre alleaged the prowesses and worthy exploits atchieved by them at other times against the Persians Me thinkes quoth he you know not what you say namely that because we have overcome a thousand sheepe we should therefore set upon fiftie woolves He was upon a time in place to heare a musician sing who did his part very well and one asked him how he liked the man and what he thought of him May quoth he I take him to be a great amuser of men in a small matter When another highly extolled the citie of Athens in his presence And who can justly and dulie quoth he praise that citie which no man ever loved for being made better in it When Alexander the great had caused open proclamation to be made in the great assemblie at the Olympick games That all banished persons might returne unto their owne countries except the Thebanes Behold quoth Eudamidas heere is a wofull proclamation for you that be Thebans howbeit honorable withall for it is a signe that Alexander feareth none but you onely in all Greece A certaine citizen of Argos said one day in his hearing That the Lacsedaemonians after they be gone once out of their owne countrey and from the obeisance of their lawes proove woorse for their travelling abroad in the world But it is contrary with you that be Argives and other Greekes quoth he for being come once into our cities Sparta you are not the woorse but proove the better by that meanes It was demaunded of him what the reason might be wherefore they used to sacrifice unto the Muses before they did hazard a battell To the end quoth he that our valiant acts might be well and woorthilie written EURYCRATIDAS the sonne of Anaxandrides when one asked him why the Ephori sat every day to decide and judge of contracts betweene men For that quoth he we should learne to keepe our faith and truth even among our enemies ZEUXIDAMUS likewise answered unto one who demaunded of him why the statutes and ordinances of prowesse and martiall fortitude were not reduced into a booke and given in writing unto yoong men for to reade Because quoth he we would have them to be acquainted with deeds and not with writings A certaine Aetolian said That warre was better than peace unto those who were desirous to shew themselves valorous men And not warre onely quoth he for by the gods in that respect better is death than life HERONDAS chaunced to be at Athens what time as one of the citizens was apprehended arraigned and condemned for his idlenesse judicially and by forme of law which when he understood and heard a brute and noise about him he requested one to shew him the partie that was condemned for a gentlemans life THEARIDAS whetted his sword upon a time and when one asked him if it were sharpe he answered Yea sharper than a slanderous calumniation THEMISTEAS being a prophet or soothsaier foretold unto king Leonidas the discomsiture that should happen within the passe or streights of Thermopylae with the losse both of himselfe and also of his whole armie whereupon being sent away by Leonidas unto Lacedaemon under a colour and pretense to enforme them of these future accidents but in truth to the end that he should not miscarie and die there with the rest he would not so doe neither could he forbeare but say unto Leonidas I was sent hither for a warrior to fight and not as an ordinary courrier and messenger to carrie newes betweene THEOPOMPUS when one demaunded of him how a king might preserve his kingdome and roiall estate in safetie said thus By giving his friends libertie to speake the truth and with all his power by keeping his subjects from oppression Unto a stranger who told him that in his owne countrey among his citizens he was commonly surnamed Philolacon that is to say a lover of the Laconians It were better quoth he that you were called Philopolites than Philolacon Another embassadour there came from Elis who said That he was sent from his fellow-citizens because he onely of all that citie loved and followed the Laconike maner of life of him Theopompus demaunded And whether is thine or the other citizens life the better he answered Mine Why then quoth he how is it possible that a citie should safe in which there being so great a number of inhabitants there is but one good man There was one said before him that the citie of Sparta maintained the state thereof entier for that the kings there knew how to governe well Nay quoth he not so much therefore as because the citizens there can skill how to obey well The inhabitants of the citie Pyle decreed for him in their generall counsell exceeding great honors unto whom he wrote backe againe That moderate honors time is woont to augment but immoderate to diminish and weare away THERYCION returning from the citie Delphos found king Philip encamped within the streight of Peloponnesus where he had gained the narrow passage called Isthmos upon which the city of Corinth is seated whereupon he said Peloponnesus hath but bad porters and warders of you Corinthians THECTAMENES being by the Ephori condemned to death went from the judgement place smiling away and when one that was present asked him if he despised the lawes and judiciall proceedings of Sparta No iwis quoth he but I rejoice heereat that they have condemned me in that fine which I am able to pay and discharge fully without borrowing of any friend or taking up money at interest HIPPODAMUS as Agis was with Archidamus in the campe being sent with Agis by the king unto Sparta for to provide for the affaires of weale publicke and looke unto the State refused to goe saying I cannot die a more honorable death than in fighting valiantly for the defence of Sparta now was he fourescore yeeres old and upward and tooke armes where hee raunged himselfe on the right hand of the king and there fighting by his side right manfully was slaine HIPPOCRATIDAS when a certaine prince or great lord of Caria had written unto him that he had in his hands a Lacedaemonian who having beene privie unto a conspiracie and treason intended against his person revealed not the same demaunding withall his counsell what he should doe with him wrote back againe in this wise If you have heeretofore done him any great pleasure and good turne put him to death hardly and make him away if not expell him out of your countrey considering he is a base fellow uncapable altogether of vertue He chaunced to encounter upon the way a yoong boy after whom followed one who loved him and the boy blushed for shame whereupon he said unto him Thou oughtest to goe in their company my boy with whom thou being seene needest not to change colour for the matter CALLICRATIDAS being admirall of a fleet when the friends of Lysander requested him to pleasure them in killing some of
their enemies and in consideration thereof he should receive of them fifty talents notwithstanding he stood then in very great need of mony for to buy victuals for the mariners yet would not he grant their request and when Cleander one of his counsell said unto him I would I trow if I were in your place take the offer So would I also quoth he if I were in yours Being come to Sardis unto Cyrus the yoonger who at that time was an allie and confederate of the Lacedaemonians to see if hee could speed himselfe of him with money for to enterteine mariners and mainteine the armada the first day he gave him to understand that he was thither come to speake with him but answere was made That the king was at the table drinking Well quoth he I will give attendance untill he have made an end of his beaver after he had waited a long time and saw that it was impossible for to have audience that day he departed out of the court for that time being thought very rude and uncivill in so doing the morow after when likewise he was given to understand that he was drinking againe and that he would not come abroad that day he made no more adoe but returned to Ephesus from whence he came saying withall That he ought not so farre foorth to take paines for to be provided of money as to doe any thing unseeming Sparta and besides he fell a cursing those who were the first that endured such indignitie as to subject themselves unto the insolencie of Barbarians and who taught them to abuse their riches and thereby to shew themselves so proud and disdainfull as to insult over others yea and he sware a great oath in the presence of those who were in his company that so soone as he was returned to Sparta he would labor with all his might and maine to reconcile the Greeke nations one unto another to the end that they might be more dread and terrible to the Barbarians when as they stood in no need of their forren forces to wage warre one upon another It was demanded of him what kinde of men the Ionians were Good slaves they are quoth he but bad free-men When Cyrus in the end had sent money for to pay his souldiers wages and besides some gifts and presents particularly to himselfe he received onely the foresaid pay but as for the gifts he sent them backe againe saying That he had no need of any private or particular amitie with Cyrus so long as the common friendship which he had with all the Lacedaemonians perteined also unto him A little before he gave the battell at sea neere unto Arginusie his pilot said unto him That it was best for him to saile away for that the gallies of the Athenians were fasrre more in number than theirs And what of all that quoth he is it not a shamefull infamie hurtfull besides to Sparta for to flie simply best it is to tary by it and either to win or die for it Being at the point to encounter and joine medley and having sacrificed unto the gods the soothsaier shewed unto him that the entrails of the beast signified and promised assured victory unto the armie but death unto the captaine whereat he was nothing daunted nor affrighted but said The state of Sparta lieth not in one man for when I am dead my countrey will be never the lesse but if I should recule now and yeeld unto the enemies she will be much impaired and lose her reputation Thus having substituted Cleander in his place if ought should happen otherwise than well he gave the charge and strooke a navall battell wherein fighting valiantly he ended his life CLEOMBROTUS the sonne of Pausanias when a certeine friend a stranger debated and reasoned with his father about vertue he said unto him In this point at least-wise is my father before you for that he hath already begotten a sonne and you none CLEOMENES the sonne of Anaxandrides was wont to say That Homer was the Poet of the Lacedaemonians because he taught how to make warre but Hesiodus the Poet of the Ilots for that he wrote of agriculture and husbandry He had made truce for seven daies with the Argives and the third night after it beganne perceiving that the Argives upon the assurance and confidence of the said truce were soundly asleepe he charged upon them flew some and tooke others prisoners and when he was reproched therefore and namely that he had broken his oth he answered That he never sware to observe truce in the night season but in day-time onely and besides what annoiance soever a man did unto his enemies in what sort it made no matter he was to thinke that both before God and man it was a point above justice and in no wise subject and liable unto it howbeit for this perjurie of his and breaking of covenant he was disappointed and 〈◊〉 of his hope and desseigne which was to surprise the citie of Argos for that indeed the very women tooke those armes which in memoriall of ancient victories were hung and set up fast in their temples with which they repelled them from the walles after this he fell into a furious rage and his wits were bestraught insomuch as he tooke a knife and slit his bodie from the very ancles up to the principall and noble vitall parts and so laughing and scoffing he left his life His very soothsaire would have disswaded and diverted him from leading his forces against Argos saying That his returne from thence would be dishonourable and infamous and when he presented his power before the citie he found the gates fast shut against them and the women in armes upon the walles How thinke you quoth he now doe you suppose this a dishonourable returne when as the women after all the men be dead are faine to keepe the gates fast locked When the Argives abused him with reprochfull tearmes calling him a perjured and godlesse person Well quoth he it is in you to miscall me and raile upon me as you do in word but it is in me to plague and mischiefe you indeed Unto the ambassadours of Same 's who came to moove and sollicit him for to warre upon the tyrant Polycrates and to that effect used long speeches and perswasions he answered thus As touching that point which you speake of in the beginning of your oration it is out of my head now and I remember it not in which regard also I doe not well conceive the middle part of your speech but as for that which you delivered in the latter end I mislike it altogether There was in his time a notable rover or pirate who made roads into the land and spoiled the coasts of Laconia but at the last he was intercepted and taken now being examined and demanded why he robbed in this sort I had not wherewith quoth he to mainteine and keepe my souldiers about me and therefore I came to those who
serve for foure obols by the day After that the Thebans had defaited the Lacedaemonians at the battell of Leuctres they invaded the countrey of Laconia so farre as to the verie river Eurotas and one of them in boasting glorious maner began to say And where be now these brave Laconians what is become of them a Laconian who was a captive among them straight waies made this answer They are no where now indeed for if they were you would never have come thus farre as you doe At what time as the Athenians delivered up their owne citie into the hands of the Lacedaemonians for to be at their discretion they requested that at leastwise they would leave them the isle Samos unto whom the Laconians made this answer When you are not masters of your owne doe you demand that which is other mens hereupon arose the common proverbe throughout all Greece Who cannot that which was his owne save The Isle of Samos would yet faine have The Lacedaemonians forced upon a time a certaine citie and wan it by assault which the Ephori being advertised of said thus Now is the exercise of our yoong men cleane gone now shall they have no more concurrents to keepe them occupied When one of their kings made promise unto them for to rase another citie and destroy it utterly if they so would which oftentimes before had put those of Lacedaemon to much trouble the said Ephori would not permit him saying thus unto him Doe not emolish and take away quite the whetstone that giveth an edge to the harts of our youth The same Ephori would never allow that there should be any professed masters to teach their yong men for to wrestle and exercise other feats of activitie To this end say they that there might bee jealousie and emulation among them not in artificiall slight but in force and vertue And therefore when one demaunded of Lysander how Charon had in wrestling overcome him and laid him along on the plaine ground Even by slight and cunning quoth he and not by pure strength Philip king of Macedonia before he made entrie into their country wrote unto them to this effect Whether they had rather that he entred as a friend or as an enemie unto whom they returned this answer Neither one nor the other When they had sent an embassador to Demetrius the sonne of Antigonus having intelligence that the said embassadour in parle with him eftsoones gave him the name of King they condemned him to pay a fine when he was returned home notwithstanding that hee brought as a present and gratuitie from the said Demetrius in time of extreme famine a certain measure of corne called Medimnus for every poll throughout the whole citie It hapned that a leud and wicked man delivered in a certaine consultation very good counsell this advice of his they approoved right well howbeit receive it they would not comming out of his mouth but caused it to be pronounced by another who was knowen to be a man of good life Two brethren there were at variance and in sute of law together the Ephori set a good fine upon their fathers head for that he neglected his sonnes and suffred them to maintaine quarrell and debate one against another A certaine musician who was a stranger and a traveller they likewise condemned to pay a summe of money for that he strake the strings of his harpe with his fingers Two boies fought together and one gave the other a mortall wound with a sickle or reaping hooke when the boy that was hurt lay at the point of death was ready to yeeld up the ghost other companions of his promised to be revenged for his death and to kill the other who thus deadly had wounded him Doe not so I beseech you quoth he as you love the gods for that were injustice and euen I my selfe had done as much for him if I had beene ought and could have raught him first There was another yong lad unto whom certaine mates and fellows of his in that season wherin yong lads were permitted freely to filtch whatsoever they could handsomely come by but reputed it was a shamefull and infamous thing for them to be surprized and taken in the maner brought a yong cub or little foxe to keepe alive which they had stollen those who had lost the said cub came to make search now had this lad hidden it close under his clothes the unhappie beast being angred gnawed bit him in the flanke as far as to his very bowels which he endured resolutely and never quetched at it for feare he should be discovered but after all others were gone and the search past when his companions saw what a shrewd turne the curst cub had done him they child him for it saying That it had been far better to have brought forth the cub and shewed him rather than to hide him thus with danger of death Nay Iwis quoth he for I had rather die with all the dolorous torments in the world than for to save my life shamefully to be detected so for want of a good heart Some there were who encountred certaine Laconians upon the way in the countrey unto whom they said Happie are you that can come now this way for the theeves are but newly gone from hence Nay forsooth by god Mars we sweare we are never the happier therefore but they rather because they are not fallen into our hands One demaunded of a Laconian upon a time what he knew and was skilfull in Mary in this to be free A yoong lad of Sparta being taken prisoner by King Antigonus and sold among other captives obeied him who had bought him in all things that he thought meet for to be done by a freeman but when he commaunded to bring him an urinall or chamber-pot to pisse in he would not endure that indignitie but said Fetch it your selfe for me I am no servant for you in such ministeries now when his master urged him thereto and pressed hard upon him hee ran up to the ridge or roofe of the house and said You shall see what an one you have bought and with that cast himselfe downe with his head forward and brake his owne necke Another there was to be sold and when the partie who was about him said thus Wilt thou be good and profitable if I doe buy thee Yea that I will quoth he though you never buy me Another there was likewise upon market and when the crier proclaimed aloud Here is a slave who buies him who A shame take thee quoth he couldst not thou say a captive or prisoner but a slave A Laconian had for the badge or ensigne of his buckler a slie painted and the same no bigger than one is naturally whereupon some mocked him and said That he had mad choise of this ensigne because he would not be knowen by it Nay rather quoth he I did it because I would be the better marked for I meane
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
particular propertie that gave an edge thereto and caused me to love her above the rest and that was a speciall grace that she had to make joy and pleasure and the same without any mixture at all of curstnesse or forwardnesse and nothing given to whining and complaint for she was of a woonderfull kinde and gentle nature loving she was againe to those that loved her and marvellous desirous to gratifie and pleasure others in which regards she both delighted me and also yeelded no small testimonie of rare debonairitie that nature had endued her withall for shee would make pretie meanes to her nourse and seeme as it were to intreat her to give the brest or pap not onely to other infants like her selfe her play feeres but also to little babies and puppets and such like gauds as little ones take joy in and wherewith they use to play as if upon a singular courtesie and humanitie shee could sinde in her heart to communicate and distribute from her owne table even the best things that shee had among them that did her any pleasure But I see no reason sweet wife why these lovely qualities and such like wherein we tooke contentment and joy in her life time should disquiet and troubles us now after her death when we either thinke or make relation of them and I feare againe lest by our dolour and griefe we abandon and put cleane away all the remembrance thereof like as Clymene desired to do when she said I hate the bow so light of Cornel tree All exercise abroad farewell for me as avoiding alwaies and trembling at the remembrance and commemoration of her sonne which did no other good but renew her griefe and dolour for naturally we seeke to flee all that troubleth and offendeth us We ought therefore so to demeane our selves that as whiles she lived we had nothing in the world more sweet to embrace more pleasant to see or delectable to heare than our daughter so the cogitation of her may still abide and live with us all our life time having by many degrees our joy multiplied more than our heavinesse augmented if it be meet and fit that the reasons and arguments which wee have often times delivered to others should profit us when time and occasion requireth and not lie still and idle for any good wee have by them nor challenge and accuse us for that in stead of joies past we bring upon our selves many moregriefs by farre They that have come unto us report thus much of you and that with great admiration of your vertue that you never put on mourning weed nor so much as changed your robe that by no meanes you could be brought to disfigure your selfe or any of your waiting maidens and women about you nor offer any outrage or injurie to them in this behalfe neither did you set out her funerals with any sumptuous panegyricall pompe as if it had bene some solemne feast but performed every thing soberly and civilly after a still maner accompained onely with our kinsefolke and friends But my selfe verily made no great woonder that you who never tooke pride and pleasure to be seene either in theater or in publike procession but rather alwaies esteemed all such magnificence so vaine and sumptuositie superfluous even in those things that tended to delight have observed the most safe way of plainnesse and simplicitie in these occasions of sorrow and sadnesse For a vertuous and chaste matrone ought not onely to keepe herselfe pure and inviolate in Bacchanall feasts but also to thinke thus with herselfe that the turbulent stormes of sorrow and passionate motions of anguish had no lesse need of continencie to resist and withstand not the naturall love and affection of mothers to their children as many thinke but the intemperance of the mind For we allow and graunt unto this naturall kindnesse a certaine affection to bewaile to reverence to wish for to long after and to beare in minde those that are departed but the excessive and insatiable desire of lamentations which forceth men and women to loud out-cries to knocke beat and mangle their owne bodies is no lesse unseemely and shamefull than incontinence in pleasures howbeit it seemeth by good right to deserve excuse and pardon for that in this undecencie there is griefe and bitternesse of sorrow adjoined where as in the other pleasure and delight for what is more absurd and sencelesse than to seeme for to take away excesse of laughter and mirch but contrariwise to give head unto streames of teares which proceed from one fountain and to suffer folke to give themselves over to weeping and lementation as much as they will as also that which some use to doe namely to chide and rebuke their wives for some sweet perfumes odoriferous pomanders or purple garments which they are desirous to have and in the meane while permit them to tear their haire in time of mourning to shave their heads to put on blacke to sit unseemely upon the bare ground or in ashes and in most painfull maner to crie out upon God and man yea and that which of all others is woorst when their wives chastise excessively or punish unjustly their servants to come betweene and staie their hands but when they rigorously and cruelly torment themselves to let them alone and neglect them in those crosse accidents which contrariwise had need of facilitie and humanitie But betweene us twaine sweet heart there was never any need of such fraie or combat and I suppose there will never be For to speake of that frugalitie which is seene in plaine and simple apparell or of sobrietie in ordinary diet and tending of the bodie never was there any philosopher yet conversing with us in our house whom you put not downe and strucke into an extraordinarie amaze nor so much as a citizen whom you caused not to admire as a strange and woonderfull sight whether it were in publicke sacrifices or in frequent theaters and solemne processions your rare simplicitie semblably heeretofore you shewed great constancie upon the like conflict and accident at the death of your eldest sonne and againe when that gentle and beautifull Charon departed from us untimely in the prime of his yeeres and I remember very well that certaine strangers who journeied with me along from the sea side at what time as word was brought of my sonnes death came home with others to my house who seeing all things there setled nothing out of order but all silent and quiet as they themselves afterward made report began to thinke that the said newes was false and no such calamitie had hapned so wisely had you composed ali matters within house when as iwis there was good occasion given that might have excused some disorder and confusion and yet this sonne you were nurse unto your selfe and gave it suck at your owne pappe yea and endured the painfull incision of your brest by reason of a cancerous hard tumour that came by a contusian Oh
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
owne safetie and life mooveth us but even for our pleasure we have a poore sheepe lying under our hand with the throat turned upward a philosopher of the one side should say Cut the throat for it is a brute beast and another admonish us on the other side saying Stay your hand and take heed what you doe for what know you to the contrarie whether in that sheepe be the soule lodged of some kinsman of yours or peradventure of some God Is the danger before God all one and the same whether I refuse to eat of the flesh or beleeve not that I kill my child or some one of my kinsfolke But surely the Stoicks are not equally matched in this fight for the defence of eating flesh For what is the reason that they so band themselves and be so open mouthed in the maintenance of the belly and the kitchin what is the cause that condemning pleasure as they doe for an effeminate thing and not to be held either good or indifferent no nor so much as familiar and agreeable to nature they stand so much in the patronage of those things that make to the pleasure and delight of feeding And yet by all consequence reason would that considering they chase and banish from the table all sweet perfumes and odoriferous ointments yea and al pastrie worke and banketting junkets they should be rather offended at the sight of bloud and flesh But now as if by their precise philosophicall rules they would controule our day books and journals of our ordinarie expences they cut off all the cost bestowed upon our table in things needlesse and superfluous meane while they sinde no fault with that which savoureth of bloudshed and crueltie in this superfluitie of table furniture We doe not indeed say they because there is no communication of rights betweene beasts and us but a man might answer them againe verie well No more is there betweene us and perfumes or other forraine and exoticall sauces and yet you would have us to absteine from them rejecting and blaming on all sides that which in any pleasure is neither profitable nor needfull But let us I pray you consider upon this point a little neerer to wit whether there be any communitie in right and justice betweene us and unreasonable creatures or no and let us doe it not subtilly and artificially as the captious manner is of these sophisters in their disputations but rather after a gentle and familiar sort having an eie unto our owne passions and affections let us reason and decide the matter with our selves THAT A MAN CANNOT LIVE PLEASANTLY ACCORDING TO THE DOCTRINE OF EPICURUS The Summarie GReat disputations there have beene holden among the Philosophers and Sages of the world as touching the sovereigne good of man as it may appeere even at this day by the books that are extant among us and yet neither one nor other have hit the true marke whereat they shot to wit The right knowledge of God Howbeit some of them are a great deale farther out of the way than others and namely the Epicureans whom our author doth perstringe in many places as holding a doctrine cleane contrary unto theirs according as his writings doe testifie And forasmuch as Epicurus and his disciples placed and established this sovereigne good in pleasure of the bodie this their opinion is heere examined and confuted at large for in forme of a dialogue Plutarch rehearseth the communication or conference which he had with Aristodemus Zeuxippus and Theon as they walked together immediately after one lecture of his upon this matter who having shewed in generall tearmes the absurdities of this Epicurian doctrine maint eineth in one word That it is no life at all for to live according to the same Then he explaneth and sheweth what the Epicureans meane by this word To live and from thence proceedeth forward to refute their imagination and whatsoever dependeth thereupon and that by sound and weighty arguments intermingling many pretie conceits and pleasant jests together with certeine proper similitudes for the purpose After he had prooved that they were deceived themselves and seduced their disciples he holdeth moreover this point That even they deprive themselves of the true good which consisteth in the repose and contentment of the mind rejecting as they doe all Histories Mathematicall arts and liberall sciences and among the rest Poëtrie and Musicke shewing throughout all this discourse that such persons are deprived of common sense Passing forward he holdeth and mainteineth that the soule taketh joyin a contentment proper to it selfe and afterwards in discoursing of the pleasure that active life doth bring he refuteth more and more his adversarie addressing to this purpose a certeine conference and comparison betweene the pleasures of bodie and soule whereby a man may see the miserie of the one and the excellencie of the other This point he enricheth with divers examples the end whereof sheweth That there is nothing at all to be counted great or profitable in the schoole of Epicurus whose scholars never durst approove his opinion especially in death also That vertuous men have without all comparison much more pleasure in this world than the Epicureans who in their afflictions know not how to receive any joy or comfort by remembrance of their pleasures past And this is the very summe of the dialogue during the time that the above named persons did walke who after they were set began the disputation a fresh and spake in the first place of Gods providence condemning by diversreasons the atheisme of the Epicureans who are altogether inexcusable even in comparison of the common sort given to superstition continuing and holding on this discourse he depainteth very lively the nature of the Epicureans and commeth to represent and set down the contentment that men of honor have in their religion where also he holdeth this point That God is not the author of evill and that the Epicureans are sufficiently punished for their impietie in depriving themselves of that pleasure which commeth unto us by meditation of the divine wisedome in the conduct and management of all things Consequently he sheweth that this their prophane philosophie overthroweth and confoundeth all persons as well in their death as during their life Whereupon he proceedeth to treat of the immortality of the soule and of the life to come describing at large the misery of the Epicureans and for a finall conclusion he compriseth in fower or five lines the summary of all their error and so shutteth up and concludeth the whole disputation THAT A MAN CANNOT live pleasantly according to the doctrine of Epicurus COlotes one of the disciples and familiar followers of Epicurus wrote and published a booke wherein he endevoured to proove and declare That there was no life at all to speake of according to the opinions and sentences of other Philosophers Now as touching that which readily came into my minde for the answere of his challenge and the discourse against his
meats upon the boord set are Be merie man and make no spare No sooner are these words let flie But all at once they hout and crie The pots then walke one filles out wine Another bring a garland fine Of flowers full fresh his head to crowne And decks the cup whiles wine goes downe And then the minstrell Phoebus knight With faire greene branch of Laurell dight Sets out his rude and rustie throte And sings a filthie tunelesse note With that one thrusts the pipe him fro And sounds his wench and bed fello Do not thinke you the letters of Metrodorus resemble these vanities which he wrote unto his brother in these tearmes There is no need at all Timocrates neither ought a man to expose himselfe into danger for the safetie of Greece or to straine and busie his head to winne a coronet among them in testimonie of his wisedome but he is to eat and drinke wine merily so as the bodie may enjoy all pleasure and susteine no harme And againe in another place of the same letters he hath these words Oh how joifull was I and glad at heart ôh what contentment of spirit found I when I had learned once of Epicurus to make much of my bellie and to gratifie it as I ought For to say a trueth to you ô Timocrates that art a Naturalist The sovereigne good of a man lieth about the bellie In summe these men doe limit set out and circumscribe the greatnesse of humane pleasure within the compasse of the bellie as it were within center and circumserence but surely impossible it is that they should ever have their part of any great roial and magnificall joy such as indeed causeth magnanimitie and hautinesse of courage bringeth glorious honour abroad or tranquillitie of spirit at home who have made choise of a close and private life within doores never shewing themselves in the world nor medling with the publicke affaires of common weale a life I say sequestred from all offices of humanitie farre removed from any instinct of honour or desire to gratifie others thereby to deserve thanks or winne favour for the soule I may tell you is no base and small thing it is not vile and illiberall extending her desires onely to that which is good to bee eaten as doe these poulps or pourcuttle fishes which stretch their cleies as farre as to their meat and no farther for such appetites as these are most quickly cut off with satietie and filled in a moment but when the motions and desires of the minde tending to vertue and honestie to honour also and contentment of conscience upon vertuous deeds and well doing are once growen to their vigor and perfection they have not for their limit the length and tearme onely of mans life but surely the desire of honor and the affection to profit the societie of men comprehending all aeternitie striveth still to goe forward in such actions and beneficiall deeds as yeeld infinit pleasures that cannot be expressed which joies great personages and men of woorth can not shake off and avoid though they would for flie they from them what they can yet they environ them about on every side they are readie to meet them whersoever they goe when as by their beneficence and good deeds they have once refreshed and cheered many other for of such persons may well this verse be verified To towne when that he comes or there doth walk Men him behold as God and so doe talk For when a man hath so affected and disposed others that they are glad and leape for joy to see him that they have a longing desire to touch salute speak unto him who seeth not though otherwise he were blinde that he findeth great joies in himselfe and enjoieth most sweet contentiment this is the cause that such men are never wearie of well dooing nor thinke it a trouble to be emploied to the good of others for we shall evermore heare from their mouths these and such like speeches Thy father thee begat and brought to light That thou one day might'st profit many a wight Againe Let us not cease but shew a minde Of doing good to all manking What need I to speake heere of those that bee excellent men and good in the highest degree for if to any one of those who are not extremely wicked at the very point and instant of death he in whose hands lieth his life be he a god or some king should graunt one howres respit and permit him to employ himselfe at his owne choise either to execute some memorable act or else to take his pleasure for the while so that immediately after that howre past he should goe to his death How many thinke you would chuse rather during this small time to lie with that courtisane and famous strumpet Lais or drink liberally of good Ariusian wine than to kill the tyrant Archias for to deliver the citie of Thebes from tyrannicall servitude for mine owne part verily I suppose that there is not one for this I observe in those sword-fencers who fight at sharpe a combat to the uttrance such I meane as are not altogether brutish and savage but of the Greekish nation when they are to enter in place for to performe their devoir notwithstanding there be presented unto them many deintie dishes and costly cates chuse rather at this very time to recommend unto their friends their wives and children to manumise and enfranchise their slaves than to serve their bellies and content their sensuall appetites But admit that these bodily pleasures be great matters and highly to be accounted of the same are common also even to those that leade an active life and manage affaires of State For as the Poet saith Wine muscadell they drinke and likewise eat Fine manchet bread made of the whitest wheat They banket also and feast with their friends yea and much more merily in my conceit after they be returned from bloudie battels or other great exploits and important services like as Alexander Agesilaus Phocion also and Epaminondas were woont to do than these who are annointed against the fire or carried easily in their litters and yet such as they mocke and scorne those who indeed have the fruition of other greater and more deintie pleasures for what should a man speake of Epaminondas who being invited to a supper unto his friends house when he saw that the provision was greater and more sumptuous than his state might well beare would not stay and suppe with him but said thus unto his friend I thought you would have sacrificed un-the gods and not have beene a wastefull and prodigall spender and no marvell for king Alexander the Great refused to entertaine the exquisit cooks of Ada Queene of Caria saying That he had better about him of his owne to dresse his meat to wit for his dinner or breakfast early rising and travelling before day-light and for his supper a light and hungry dinner As for Philoxenus who wrot
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
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
quoth he to the number of thirty at the least If there be so many quoth he how commeth it to passe that you onely crosse and gainsay yea and hinder that which hath beene concluded and agreed upon by us all and to this purpose have dispatched a light-horseman to ride in poste unto the banished persons who had put themselves in their journey hitherward charging them to returne backe and that in no wise they should goe forward this day considering that the most part of those things which went to this journey fortuneit selfe had procured prepared fit for their hands upon these words of Phyllidas we were all much troubled and perplexed but Charon aboue the rest fastning his eie upon Hipposthenidas and that with a sowre and sterne countenance Most wicked wretch that thou art quoth he what hast thou done unto us No harme said Hipposthenidas in case leaving this curst angrie voice of yours you can be content and have patience to heare and understand the reasons of a man as aged as your selfe and having as many gray haires as you have for if this be the point to shew unto our fellow citizens how hardy and couragious we are that we make no reckoning of our lives and care not for any perill of death seeing we have day enough Phyllidas let us never stay for the darke evening but presently and immediately from this place run upon the tyrants with our swords drawen let us kill and slay let us die upon them and make no spare of our selves for it is no hard matter to do and suffer all this mary to deliver the citie of Thebes out of the hands of so many armed men as hold it to disseize and expell the garrison of the Spartanes with the murder of two or three men is not so easie a thing for Phyllidas hath not provided so much wine for his feast and banquet as will be sufficient to make fifteene hundred souldiers of Archius guard drunken and say we had killed him yet Crippidas and Arcesus are ready at night both of them sober enough to keepe the corps du guard why make wee such haste then to draw our friends into an evident and certeine danger of present death especially seeing withall that our enemies be in some sort advertised of their comming and approch for if it were not so why was there commandement given by them to those of Thespiae for to be in their armes upon the third day which is this and readie to goe with the Lacedaemonian captaines whensoever they gave commandement And as for Amphitheus this very day as I understand after their judiciall proceeding against him they minded to put to death upon the comming of Archias And are not these pregnant presumptions that the plot and enterprise is to them discovered Were it not better then to deferre the execution of our designments a while longer untill such time as the gods be reconciled and appeased for our divinors and wisards having sacrificed a beese unto Ceres pronounce that the fire of the sacrifice denounceth some great sedition and danger to the common weale and that which you Charon particularly ought to take good heed of is this Yesterday and no longer since Hippathodorus the sonne of Erianthes a man otherwise of good sort and one who knoweth nothing at all of our enterprise had this speech with me Charon is your familiar friend Hippathodorus but with me not greatly acquainted advertise him therefore if you thinke so good that he beware and looke to himselfe in regard of some great danger strange accident that is toward him for the last night as I dreamed me thought I saw that his house was in travell as it were of childe that he and his friends being themselves in distresse praied unto the gods for her delivery standing round about her during her labour and painfull travell but she seemed to loow and rore yea and to cast out certeine inarticulate voices untill at the last there issued out of it a mightie fire wherewith a great part of the citie was immediately burnt and the castle Cadmea covered all over with smoke onely but no part of the sire ascended thereto Loe what the vision was which this honest man related unto me Charon which I assure you for the present set me in a great quaking and trembling but much more when I once heard say that this day the exiled persons were to returne and be lodged here within an house of the citie In great anguish therefore I am and in a wonderfull agonie for feare least we engage our selves within a world of calamities and miseries without being able to execute any exploit of importance upon our enemies unlesse it be to make a garboile and set all on a light fire for I suppose that the citie when all is done will be ours but Cadmea the castle as it is already will be for them Then Theocritus taking upon him to speake and staying Charon who was about to reply somewhat against this Hipposthenidas I interpret all this quoth he cleane contrary for there is not a signe that confirmeth me mor ein following of this enterprise although I have had alwaies good presages in t eh behalfe of the banished in all the sacrifices that I have offred than this vision which you have rehearsed if it be so as you say that a great and light fire shone over all the citie and the same arising out of a friends house and that the habitation of our enemeis and the place of their retreat was darkned and made blacke againe with the smoke which never brings with it any thing better than teares and troublesome confusion and whereas from amogn us there arose in articulate vocies in case a man should construe it in evill part and take exception thereat in regard of the voice the same will be when our enterprise which now is enfolded in obscure doubtfull and uncerteine suspicion shall at once both appeere and also prevaile as for the ill signes of the sacrifices they touch not the publike estate but those who now are most powerfull and in greatest authoritie As Theocritus thus was speaking yet still I said unto Hipposthenidas And whom I pray you have you sent unto the men for if he be not too farre onward on his way we will send after to overtake him I am not able to say of a trueth Caphisias whether it be possible to reach him quoth Hipposthenidas for he hath one of the best horses in all Thebes under him and a man he is whom yee all know very well for he is the master of Melons chariots and his chariot men one unto whom Melon himselfe from the very first discovered this plot and made privie unto it With that I considering and thinking with my selfe what man he should speake of It is not Chlidon quoth I ô Hipposthenidas he who no longer since than the last yeere wanne the prise in the horse running at the solemne feast of
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
Barbarisme A rude and corrupt maner of speech full of barbarous and absonant words Basis The flat piedstall or foote of a Columne pillar statue or such like whereupon it standeth Baeotarches or Baeotarchae The soueraigne magistrate or Ruler of the Boeotians Baeotius a kinde of Mesure or Note in Musick used in Baeotia C CAius A common forename to many families in Rome and Caia to the woman kinde as usuall as John and Jone with us as appeereth by this forme of speech ordinary in mariage Where thou art Caius I will be Caia Calends See Kalends Callasitres Hardnesse in maner of brawn as in the skinne of hands or feet occasioned by much labour and trauell Cancerous that is to say Resembling a certeine hard tumor or swelling occasioned by melancholicke bloud named a Cancer for the likenesse it hath to a crab-fish named in Latine Cancer partly for the swelling veines appearing about it like unto the feet or cleis of the said fish and in part for that it is not easily remooved no more than the crab if it once settle to a place lastly because the colour is not much unlike This swelling if it breake out into an ulcer hardly or unneth admitteth any cure and by some is called a Wolfe Candyli A kind of dainty meat made with hony and milke Candys an ornament of the Persians Medians and other East nations much like to a Diademe Catamite A boy abused against kinde a baggage Cataplasme A pultesse or grosse maner of plaster To Cauterize To burne or seare with a red hot iron or other mettall Cenotaph An emptie Tombe or Sepulcher wherein no corps is interred Censours Magistrates of State in Rome whose charge was to valew and estimate mens goods and enroll them accordingly in their seuerall ranges Also to demise unto certaine farmers called Publicanes the publicke profits of the city for a rent and to put foorth the city works unto them to be undertaken at a price Likewise their office it was to oversee mens maners whereby oftentimes they woulde deprive Senatours of their dignitie take from Gentlemen their horses of service and rings displace commanders out of their owne tribe disable them for giving voices and make them AErarij Centre The middle pricke of a circle or globe equally distant from the circumference thereof Centumviri A certeine Court of Judges in Rome chosen three out of every tribe And albeit there were 35. tribes and the whole number by that account amounted to an hundred and five yet in round reckoning and by custome they went under the name of an hundred and therefore were called Centumviri Cercopes Certaine ridiculous people inhabiting the Iland Pitherusa having tailes like monkeys good for nought but to make sport Chalons A small piece of brasse money the eighth part or as some say the sixth of the Atticke Obolus somewhat better than halfe a farthing or a cue Chromaticke Musicke Was soft delicate and effeminate ful of descant fained voices and quavering as some are of opinion Cidaris An ornament of the head which in Persia Media and Armenia the Kings and High priests wore with a blew band or ribband about it beset with white spots Cinaradae A familie descended from Cinaras Some read Cinyradae and Cinyras Circumgyration A turning or winding round Cn. A forename to some houses in Rome Colian earth So called of Colias a promontory or hill in the territorie of Attica Colleague A fellow or companion in office Colonies Were townes wherein the Romanes placed citizens of their owne to inhabit either as Free-holders or tenants undertakers endowed with franchises and liberties diversly Erected first by Romulus Comoedia vetus Licentiously abused all maner of persons not forbearing to name and traduce upon the Stage even the best men such as noble Pericles wise Solon and just Aristides nay it spared not the very State it selfe and bodie of the Common-weale whereupon at length it was condemned and put downe Conctons Orations or speeches made openly before the body of the people such properly as the Tribunes of the Commons used unto them Congiarium a dole or liberall gift of some Prince or Noble person bestowed upon the people It tooke the name of that measure Congius much about our gallon which was given in oile or wine by the poll but afterwards any other such gift or distribution whether it were in other victuals or in money went under that name Consuls two in number Soveraigne Magistrates in Rome succeeding in the place of Kings with the same authoritie and roiall ensignes onely they were chosen yeerely Contignate Close set together so as they touch one another as houses adjoining Contusions Bruises dry-beatings or crushes Convulsions Plucking or shooting paines Cramps Cordax A lascivious and unseemly kinde of daunce used in Comoedies at the first but misliked afterwards and rejected Criticks Grammarians who tooke upon them to censure and judge Poemes and other works of authors such as Aristarchus was Criticall daies In Physicke be observed according to the motion of the humour and the Moone in which the disease sheweth some notable alteration to life or death as if the patient had then his dome In which regard we say that the seventh day is a king but the sixth a tyrant Cube A square figure as in Geometrie the Die having sixe faces foure square and even in Arithmeticke a number multiplied in it selfe as nine arising of thrice three and sixteene of foure times foure Curvature that is to say Bending round as in the felly of a wheele Corollarie An overdeale or overmeasure given more than is due or was promised Curule chaire A seat of estate among the Romans made of Ivorie whereupon certaine Magistrates were called Curules who were allowed to sit thereon as also Triumphes were named Curules when those that triumphed were gloriously beseene in such a chaire drawen with a chariot for distinction of Oration wherein Captaines rode on horsebacke onely Cyath A small measure of liquid things the twelfth part of Sextarius which was much about our wine quart So that a Cyath may go for three good spoonefuls and answereth in weight to an ounce and halfe with the better Cynicke Philosophers Such as Antisthenes Diogenes and their followers were so named of Cynosarges a grove or schoole without Athens where they taught or rather of their dogged and currish maner of biting barking at men in noting their lives over rudely D DEcius A forename For Decius although it were the Gentile name of an house in Rome yet grew afterwards to be a forename as Paulus and likewise forenames at the first in processe of time came to name Families D. Decimus A forename to certeine Romans as namely to Brutus surnamed Albinus one of the conspiratours that killed Iul. Caesar. Decade That which conteineth tenne as the Decades of Livie which consist every one of tenne books Democratie A free State or popular gouernment wherein every citizen is capable of soveraigne Magistracy Desiccative that is
morning 1318.40 Rue growing neere unto a fig tree is not so strong sented 723.30 Rue why called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke 684.1 Rubbings or frictions which be good for students 619.30 Rulers ought not to dispend above their living and abilitie 378.1 Rulers ought to live warily and without note 350.50 how they may helpe and advaunce their friends 361.20 how they ought to cary themselves toward their companions in governement 370.20.30 Rulers ought not to be over-precise 472.40 Rulers must banish from themselves avarice 374.40 they ought to bee voide of ambition 374.50 Ruma 632.40 Rumina a goddesse at Rome 870.10 Rusticus his gravity 142.143 Rust of brasse how caused 1187.30 Rutilius a prowde usurer reproved he is by Musonius 286.10 ib. S SAbbats feast of the Jewes 712.20 Sabbat whereof it commeth 712.20 Sabine maidens ravished 861.20 Sabinus the husband of Empona 1157.20 Saboi ib. Sacadas an ancient Poet and musician 1251.20 Sacred fish 976.10 Sacrificing of children 268.1.10 Sacrificing of men and women 268.1 Sacrifice how to be observed at the Oracle at Delphi 1347.10.1349.1.10 Sacriledge strangely detected by the offender himselfe 201.40 Saffron chaplets what use they have 684.20 Sages in olde time accounted seven were in trueth but five 1354.10 Sailers and sea men love to discourse of the sea 662.50 Salaminia a ship 364.30 Salmatica beseeged by Anniball 489.50 Salt highly commended 709.10 provoketh appetite to meate and drinke 709.30 about Salt and Cumin a proverbe 727.40 Salt-fish washed in sea water is the fresher and sweeter 658.30 of Savours onely the Saltish is not found in fruits 1005.10 Salts called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 728.10 Salt why so highly honored 727.40 it provoketh wanton lust 728.1 why called divine 728.10 Salt why given to beasts 1004.20 Salt procureth appetite to food ib. it maintaineth health ib. 30. it abateth corpulency ib. it mooveth to generation ib. the SAME 1031. Sambicus a miserable man 902.30 Sanctus a god at Rome 861.1 Saosis Queene of Byblos in Aegypt 1293.40 Sapience what it is 68.1.804.30 Sapphoes fits in love 1147.50 Sapphoes verses 759.1.1148.1 Sarapis who he was 1298.20 Serapis or Sarapis the same that Pluto 1298.40 Sarapis from whence it is derived 1299 1 Sardanapalus his epitaph 310.1.1269.1 Sardanapalus an effeminate person advanced by fortune 1264.30 the epigram over his statue 1276.20 Sardians port sale 868.40.50 to Saturne the Romans sacrificed bare headed 854.20 Saturne kept in prison by Jupiter 1180.20 Saturne counted a terrestriall or subterranean god 854.30 Saturne the father of verity 854.30 Saturnes reigne ib. 40 the Island of Saturne 1181.1 Saturnalia solemnized in December 862.20 Saturnes temple the treasury at Rome 865.20 the arches for records 865. 20. in his raigne there was justice and peace ib. why portraied with a sickle in his hand ib. Saturne supposed to cut the privy members of Coelum or Ouranos 〈◊〉 Saturne a stranger in Italy 865.50 in Saturnes temple embassadors are regestred 865.50 Saturne kept prisoner asleepe by Briareus 1332.20 Sauces provoking appetite are to be avoided 614.10 Scalenon 1020.30 Scamander 901.1 Scammonie a violent purgative 623.50 Scaurus his uprightnesse shewed to Domitius his enimy 243.40 Scaurus 〈◊〉 trecherie even toward his enimy 243.40 Scedasus his lamentable historie and of his daughters 946. 10 his daughters defloured 946.20 murdered ib. 20. his death and his daughters murder revenged 947.20 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it is 785.20 a Scelet presented at Aegyptian feasts 328.30.1294.10 Schema in dancing 800.1 a Scholasticall life 1058.1 Scilurus and his 80 sonnes 103.40 Scilurus perswadeth his children to unity 405.30 Scolia certaine songs 645. 10. sung at feasts 1257.1 Scipio not well thought of for leaving out Mummius at a feast 370.30 why blamed otherwise 297.20 blamed for loving his bed to well ib. 351.1 Scipio the elder his apophthegmes 529.50 a great student ib. accused judicially before the people 530.40 his maner of plea. ib. Scipio the yonger his apophthegmes 433. 50. his commendation 434.10 Scipio used the advise of Laelius 400.50 not blamed in praising himselfe 303.40 Scipio Nasica his saying of the 〈◊〉 state 239.20 Sea what it is 832. 1. how it commeth to be salt or brackish ib. Sea commodious to mans life 778.50 Sea aire most agrecable to us 709.40 Sea accounted a fifth element 990. 40. what commodities it affoordeth to man-kind 990.50 Sea-water nourisheth no trees 1003.1.10 Sea-water hotter by agitation contrary to other waters 1006.20 naturally hot ib. 30. lesse brackish in winter than in summer ib. why it is put into vessels with wine ib. Sea sickenesse how it commeth 1007.10 Sea why the Aegyptians doe detest 1300.20 Sea-gods faigned to be the fathers of many children 728.50 Sea Salt Sea-fish and Sailers odious to the Aegyptians 778. 40 Seaven the sacred number and the commendation thereof 1361.1 Secrecie of K. Antigonus and Metellus 197.30 Secrecie of K. Eumenes and his stratageme wrought thereby 197.40 Secrets revealed the cause of much ruine 195.40 Section of bodies 814.30 Seditions how to be prevented and appeased 386.40 Sedition dangerous at Delphi 381.10 Sedition at Syracusa 381.10 Sedition at Sardis ib. 20 Seed falling upon oxe hornes why they proove hard and untoward 746.40 Seed what it is 671.20 Seed naturall to be spared 619.1 why called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1100. 50. what it is 841.40 whether it be a body 841.50 of Seednesse three seasons 323.1 Seeing in the night how it commeth 658.10 Seleucus Callinicus how he served a blab of his tongue Sella Curulis 877.20 Selfe-praise 301.20 in what cases allowed 302. 50. See more in praise Semiramis of base degree became a Queene 1136.40 her brave acts 1276.20 her 〈◊〉 ambition 1136.50 her sepulcher and epitaph 〈◊〉 P. Sempronis why he drowned his wife 855.10 Senate of Rome why so called 391.30 Senses inserted in our bodies by harmonie 1256.20 Sense what it is 835.50 Senses how many 835.50 Sense common 837.10 Sentences over the temple porch at Delphi 103.20 Septerian what feast 891.1 Septimontium what festivall solemnity 873.20 Sepulcher of children 895.60 Sepulcher of envy 496.50 Sermons how to be heard with profit 56.30 Servius Tullius a favourite of fortune 635. 40. strangely borne 636. 1. how he came to the crowne 636.10 Seth what it signifieth 1307.40 1304.20 Sextilis what moneth at Rome 856.10 Sextilis is August 863.30 Sextius a great student in philosophy 249.1 Shadowes at a feast 682.30 who they be 753.50 how they began ib. whether it be good manners to goe as a Shadow to a feast 754.20 what shadowes a guest invited may bring with him 755.50 Shame good and bad 164.30 Shame breedeth fortitude 42.40.50 Sheepe woolfe-bittē why they yeeld sweetest flesh 677.40 whether their wooll breed lice 677.40 Sibylla the prophetesse 1190.1.716.30 Sicknesse how to be prevented 618 30.40 how immediately occasioned 849.40 Sight how it is caused 837.10 Signes 12 in the Zodiaque they be dissociable 846.20 Sideritis the Load-stone 1312.1 Silenus caught by K. Midas instructeth him of life and death 525.50 Sileni