and taught that the affirmative doth conteine of connexed propositions one hundred thousand and besides one thousand fortie and nine but the negative of the same propositions comprehendeth three hundred and ten thousand with a surplusage of nine hundred fiftie and two and Xenocrates hath set downe that the number of syllables which the letters in the alphabet being coupled and combined together do affoord amount to the number of one hundred millions and two hundred thousand over why should it therefore bee thought strange and wonderfull that our body having in it so many faculties and gathering still daily by that which it eateth and drinketh so many different qualities considering withall that it useth motions and mutations which keepe not one time nor the same order alwaies the complications and mixtures of so many things together bring evermore new and unusuall kinds of maladies such as Thucydides wrot was the pestilence at Athens conjecturing that this was no ordinarie and usuall maladie by this especially for that the beasts of prey which otherwise did eat of flesh would not touch a dead bodie those also who fell sicke about the red sea as Agathircides maketh report were afflicted with strange symptomes and accidents which no man had ever read or seene and among others that there crawled from them certeine vermin like small serpents which did eat the calves of their legs and the brawnes of their armes and looke whensoever a man thought to touch them in they would againe and winding about the muskles of the flesh ingendered inflammations and impostumes with intolerable paine This pestilent disease no man ever knew before neither was it ever seene since by others but by them alone like as many other such accidents for there was a man who having beene a long time tormented with the disurie or difficultie of his urine delivered in the end by his yard a barley straw knotted as it was with joints and we know a friend and guest of ours a yoong man who together with a great quantitie of naturall seed cast foorth a little hairie worme or vermin with many feet and therewith it ranne very swiftly Aristotle writeth also that the nourse of one Timon of Cilicia retired her selfe for two moneths space every yeere and lurked in a certeine cave all the while without drinke or meat or giving any other apparence of life but onely that shee tooke her breath certes recorded it is in the Melonian books that it is a certeine signe of the liver diseased when the sicke partie is verie busie in spying seeking and chasing the mice and rats about the house a thing that now a daies is not seene let us not marvell therefore if a thing be now engendred that never was seene before and the same afterward cease as if it had never beene for the cause lieth in the nature of the bodie which sometime taketh one temperature and one while another but if Diogemanus bring in a new aire and a strange water let him alone seeing he is so disposed and yet we know well that the followers of Democritus both say and write that by the worlds which perish without this and by the straunge bodies which from that infinitie of worlds runne into this there arise many times the beginnings of plageu and pestilence yea and of other extraordinarie accidents we will passe over likewise the particular corruptions which happen in divers countries either by earthquakes excessive droughts extreme heats and unusuall raines with which it cannot be chosen but that both winds and rivers which arise out of the earth must needs be likewise infected diseased and altered but howsoever those causes wee let goe by yet omit we must not what great alterations and changes be in our bodies occasioned by our meats and viands and other diet and usage of our selves for many things which before time were not wont to hee tasted or eaten are become now most pleasant dainties as for example the drinke made of honie and wine as also the delicate dish of a farrowing swines shape or wombe as for the braine of a beast it is said that in old time they were wont to reject and cast it from them yea and so much to detest and abhorre it that they would not abide to heare one to name it and for the cucumber the melon or pompion the pomeeitron and pepper I know many old folke at this day that cannot away with their taste credible it is therefore that our bodies receive a woonderfull change and strange alteration by such things in their temperature acquiring by little and little a divers qualitie and superfluitie of excrements farre different from those before semblably wee are to beleeve that the change of order in our viands maketh much heereto for the services at the boord which in times past were called the cold tables to wit of oisters sea-urchings greene sallads of raw lettuce such other herbs be as it were the light forerunners of the feast as transferred now by Plato from the rereward to the forefront and have the first place whereas besore in old time they came in last a great matter there is also in those beavers or fore-drinkings called Propomata for our ancients would not drinke so much as water before they did eat and now a daies when as men are otherwise fasting have eat nothing they will be in maner drunke after they have well drenched their bodies they begin to fall unto their meats and whiles they be yet boiling they put into the stomacke those things that bee attenuant incisive and sharpe for to provoke and stirre up the appetite and still fill themselves up full with other viands but none of all this hath more power to make mutation in our bodies nor to breed new maladies than the varietie of sundry fashions of bathing of flesh for first formost it is made soft liquid and fluid as iron is by the fire and afterwards it receiveth the temper and tincture of hard sleele by cold water so that me thinks if any one of those who lived a little before us should see the dore of our stouphes and baines open he might say thus Heere into runneth Acheron And fire-like burning Phlegethon Whereas in our forefathers daies they used their bathes and hot-houses so milde so kinde and temperate that king Alexander the Great being in a fever lay and slept within them yea the Gaules wives bringing thither their pots of pottage and other viands did eat even there with their children who bathed together with them but it seemeth in these daies that those who are within the stouphes and baines be like unto those that are raging madde and barke as dogs they puffe and blow like fed swine they lay about them and tosse every way the aire that they draw in as it were mingled with fire water suffereth no piece nor corner of the body in quiet and rest it shaketh tosseth and remooveth out of place the least indivisible parcell
with meat before them thereby to drive those in their messe and who were set at the table from eating with them and by that meanes to engorge themselves and fill their bellies alone with the best viands served up Semblably they who are excessively and out of all measure ambitious before others as their concurrents and corrivals blame and dispraise glorie and honour to the end that they alone without any competitours might enjoy the same And heerein they doe like unto mariners sitting at the oare in a bote or gally for howsoever their eie is toward the poupe yet they labour to set the prow forward in that the flowing of the water by reciprocation caused by the stroke of the oares comming forcibly backe upon the poupe might helpe to drive forward the vessell even so they that deliver such rules and precepts whiles they make semblant to flie from glory pursue it as fast as they can for otherwise if it were not so what need had he whosoever he was to give out such a speech what meant he else to write it and when he had written it to publish the same unto posteritie If I say he meant to be unknowne to men living in his time who desired to be knowne unto those that came after him But let us come to the thing it selfe How can it chuse but be simply naught Live so hidden quoth he that no man may perceive that ever you lived as if he had said Take heed you be not knowne for a digger up of sepulchres a defacer of the tombs monuments of the dead But contrariwise a foule dishonest thing it is to live in such sort as that you should be willing that we al know not the maner thereof Yet would I for my part say cleane contrary Hide not thy life how ever thou do and if thou hast lived badly make thy selfe knowne bewiser repent amend if thou be endued with vertue hide it not neither be thou an unprofitable member if vicious continue not obstinate there but yeeld to correction admit the cure of thy vice or rather at leastwise sir make a distinction define who it is to whom you give this precept If he be ignorant unlearned wicked or foolish then it is as much as if you said thus Hide thy feaver cloke cover thy phrēsie let not the physician take notice of thee goe and put thy selfe into some darke corner where no person may have a sight of thee or of thy maladies and passions go thy way aside with all thy naughtinesse sicke as thou art of an incurable and mortall disease cover thy spight and envie hide thy superstition suppresse and conceale as it were the disorderly beatings of thine arteries take heed be afraid how you let your pulse be felt or bewray your selfe to those who have the meanes are able to admonish correct and heale you But long ago in the old world our ancestors were wont to take in hand and cure openly in publike place those that were diseased in body in those daies everie one who had met with any good medicine or knowne a remedie whereof he had the proofe either in himselfe being sicke or in another cured thereby would reveale and communicate the same unto another that stood in need thereof and thus they say The skil of Physick arising first and growing by experience became in time a noble and excellent science And even so requisit it is and necessarie to discover and lay open unto all men lives that be diseased and the infirmities of the soule to touch and handle them and by considering the inclinations of every man to say thus unto one Subject thou art to anger take heed thereof unto another Thou art given to jealousie and emulation beware of it doe thus and thus to a third Art thou amorous and full of love I have beene so my selfe otherwhiles but I repent me thereof But now a daies it is cleane contrarie in denying in cloaking covering and hiding men thrust and drive their vices inwardly and more deepely still into their secret bowels Now if they be men of woorth and vertuous whom thou counsellest to hide themselves that the world may take no knowledge of them it is all one as to say unto Epaminondas Take no charge of the conduct of an army or to Lycurgus Amuse not your head about making lawes and to Thrasibulus Kill no tyrants to Pythagoras Keepe no schoole nor teach in any wise to Socrates See you dispute not nor hold any discourses of philosophie and to your selfe Epicurus first of all Write not to your friends in Asia enroll and gather no soldiors out of Aegypt have no commerce nor negotiate with them do not protect and defend as it were with a guard from villanie and violence the yoong gentlemen of Lampsacum send not your books abroad to all men and women alike thereby to shew your learning finally ordeine nothing about your sepulture To what tended your publicke tables what meant those assemblies that you made of your familiar friends and faire yoong boies to what purpose were there so many thousands of verses written and composed so painfully by you in the honour of Metrodorus Aristobulus Chaeredemus to the end that after death they should not be forgotten Was all this because you would ratifie and establish vertue by oblivion arts by doing nothing philosophy by silence and felicitie by forgetfulnesse Will you needs bereave mans life of knowledge as if you would take away light from a feast to the end that mē might not know that you your followers do all for pleasure upon pleasure then good reason you have to give counsell saie unto your selfe Live unknowne Certes if I had a minde to leade my life with Haedia the harlot or to keepe ordinarily about me the strumpet Leontium to detest all honestie to repose all my delight and joy in the tickling pleasures of the flesh and in wanton lusts these ends verilie would require to be hidden in darknesse and covered with the shadow of the night these be the things that would be forgotten and not once knowne But if a man in the science of naturall philosophie delight in hymnes and canticles to praise God his justice and providence or in morallknowledge to set out and commend the law humane societie and the politike government of common-weale and therein regard honour and honestie not profit and commodity what reason have you to advise him for to live obscurely Is it because he should teach none by good precept is it for that no man should have a zealous love to vertue or affect honestie by his example If Themistocles had never bene knowne to the Athenians Greece had not given Xerxes the foile and repulse likewise if Camillus had beene unknowne to the Romanes peradventure by this time Rome had beene no city at all had not Dion knowne Plato Sicilie should not have beene delivered from tyrannie But this
Homer was mocked by the wooers of his wife because He cald for shieves of bread to eat And not for swords or candrons near For it was reputed a signe of magnanimity to demaund aswel as to give things of great price and value Much more then might a man deride and laugh at the auditor who will moove unto a Master or Doctour of the Chaire trifling frivolous and fruitlesse questions as otherwhiles some of these yoong men do who taking pleasure to vaunt themselves and to shew what great schollers they are in Logicke or the Mathematikes are woont to pur foorth questions as touching the sections of things indefinite also what be litterall motions or Diametricall Vnto whom a man may verie well answere as Philotimus the Phisitian did unto one that had a suppuration in his chist and by reason of an inward ulcer of his lungs was in a consumption who comming to him for counsell desired that he would give him a medicine for a little whit-flow growing about the roote of his naile but Philotimus perceiving by his colour and shortnes of winde in what case he was My good friend quoth he you have no such weed of a cure for your whit-flow you may hold your peace well enough at this time for any danger there Even so it may be said unto one of these yoong men There is no time now to thinke or dispute upon such questions but rather by what meanes you may be freed from presumptuous overweening of your selfe from pride and arrogance from wanton love and foolish toies that you may be setled in a sound state of life devoide of vanitie Moreover this yoong man is to have a good cie and ragard unto the sufficiencie of the speaker whether it be by naturall inclination or gotten by experience and practise and accordingly to frame and direct his questions in those points wherein he is most excellent and in no wise to force him who is well read and studied in Morall Philosophie to answer unto Physical or Mathematicall questions or him that is better seene in Natural Philosophy to draw unto Logick for to give his judgment of Hypothetical propositions to resolve them or to move the knots make solution of false Syllogisms Elenches sophisticall and such fallacies For like as one that would goe about to cleave wood with a key or unlocke a doore with an axe seemeth not so much to doe hurt unto those instruments as to deprive himselfe of the proper use and commoditie as well of the one as the other Even so they that require of a Speaker that which he is not apt unto by nature or wherein he is not well practised will not reape gather take that which willingly commeth from him and wherewith he is able to furnish them are not only hurt therein but incurre the name and blame of a pievish froward and malicious nature Furthermore this heed would be taken not to overlay him with many questions nor oftentimes to urge him therewith For this bewraieth one that in some sort loveth to heare himselfe speake and would be seene whereas when another doth propose a question to give attentive eare and that with mildnes and patience is a signe of a studious person and one that knoweth well how to behave himselfe in companie and can abide that others should learne aswell as he unlesse perhaps some private and particular occurrent do urge the contrarie or some passion do hinder which had neede to be staied and repressed or else some maladie and imperfection which requireth remedie For peradventure as Heraclitus saith it were not good for one to hide and conceale his owne ignorance but to let it appeere and be knowen and so to cure it But say that some fit of choler some assault of scrupulous superstition or some violent quarell and jarre with one houshold and kinsfolke or some furious passion proceeding from wanton lust Which doth the secret heart strings move That earst were never stir'd with love trouble our understanding and put it out of tune we ought not for the avoiding of a reproofe to flie for refuge to other matters and interrupt the discourse begun but be desirous to heare of such things even in open places of exercises and after the exercise or lecture done to take the Philosophers or Readers aside and conferre with them to be further enformed not as many doe who are well enough contented to heare Philosophers speake of others and have them theresore in great admiration but if it chance that a Philosopher leave other men and turne his speech to them apart to tell them freely and boldly what he thinketh admonishing and putting them in minde of such things as do concerne them then they are in a chafe then they say he speakes besides the text and more then needs For of this opinion are these men That wee are to heare Philosophers in Schooles for pastime as plaiers of Tragedies in a Theatre upon the Stage As for other matters out of the Schoole they holde them no better men than themselves and to say a trueth good reason have they so to deeme of Sophisters who are no sooner out of their chaires or come downe from off the pulpit and when their books and pettie introductions are laid out of their hands but in other serious actions and parts of this life to be discoursed of a man shall finde them as raw as other and nothing better skilled than the vulgar sort But to come unto those Philosophers indeed who worthily are so to be called and esteemed ignorant are such persons above rehearsed that their words be they spoken in earnest or in game their becks their nods their countenance whether it be composed to smiling or to frowning but principally their words directed privately to every one a part be all significant and cary some fruit commodious to those that with patience will give them leave to speake and are willing and used to hearken unto them As concerning the praises which we are to attribute unto them for their eloquence and well speaking there would in this dutie some wise caution meane be used for that in this case neither overmuch nor too little is commendable honest And verily that scholar who seemeth not to be moved or touched with any thing that he heareth is a heavie and unsupportable auditour full of a secret presumptuous opinion of himselfe conceited inwardly of his owne sufficiencie of an inbred selfe love and aptnesse to speake much of his owne doings shewing evidently that he thinketh he can speake better than that which hath beene delivered In regard whereof he never stirs brow any way decently he uttereth not a word to testific that he heareth willingly and with contentment but by a certaine forced silence affected gravitie and counterfeit countenance would purchase and winne unto himselfe the reputation of a staied man of a profound and deepe clerke and is as sparie of his praises as of his purse and money
not proceed so farre in displeasing him that thereby he breake or undo the knot of friendship he ought I say to use a sharpe rebuke as a Physician doth some bitter or tart medicine to save or peserve the life of his patient And a good friend is to play the part of a Musician who to bring his instrument into tune and so to keepe it setteth up these strings and letteth downe those and so ought a friend to exchange profit with pleasure and use one with another as occasion serveth observing still this rule often times to be pleasing unto his friend but alwaies profitable whereas the flatterer being used evermore to sing one note and to play upon the same string that is to say To please and in all his words and deeds to aime at nothing els but the contentment of him whom he flattereth can not skill either in act to resist or in speech to reproove and offend him but goeth on still in following his humor according alwaies with him in one tune and keeping the same note just with him Now as Xenophon writeth of king Agesilaus that he was well apaied to be commended of them who he knew would also blame him if there were cause so we are to thinke well of friendship when it is pleasant delightsome and cheereful if otherwhiles also it can displease and crosse againe but to have in suspition the conversation and acquaintance of such as never doe or say any thing but that which is pleasing continually keeping one course without change never rubbing where the gall is nor touching the sore without reproofe and contradiction We ought I say to have ready alwaies in remembrance the saying of an ancient Laconian who hearing king Charilaus so highly praised and extolled And how possibly quoth he can he be good who is neuer sharpe or severe unto the wicked The gad-flie as they say which useth to plague bulles and oxen setleth about their eares and so doth the tick deale by dogges after the same maner flatterers take holde of ambitious mens eares and possesse them with praises and being once set fast there hardly are they to be removed and chased away And here most needfull it is that our judgement be watchfull and observant and doe discerne whether these praises be attributed to the thing or the person wee shall perceive that the thing it selfe is praised if they commend men rather absent than in place also if they desire and affect that themselves which they do so like and approve in others again if they praise not us alone but all others for the semblable qualities likewise if they neither say nor do one thing now and another time the contrary But the principall thing of all other is this If we our selves know in our owne secret conscience that we neither repent nor be ashamed of that for which they so commend us ne yet wish in our hearts that we had said or done the contrary for the inward judgement of our mind and soule bearing witnesse against such praises and not admitting thereof is void of affections and passions wherby it neither can be touched nor corrupted and surprised by a flatterer Howbeit I know not how it commeth about that the most part of men can not abide nor receive the consolations which be ministred unto them in their adversities but rather take delight and comfort in those that weepe lament and mourne with them and yet the same men having offended or being delinquent in any duetie if one come and find fault or touch them to the quicke therefore do strike and imprint into their hearts remorse and repentance they take him for no better than an accuser and enemie contrariwise let one highly commend and magnifie that which they have done him they salute and embrace him they account their wel-willer and friend in deed Now whosoever they be that are ready to praise and extoll with applause and clapping of hands that which one hath done or said were it in earnest or in game such I say are dangerous and hurtfull for the present onely and in those things which are next hand but those who with their praises pierse as faire as to the maners within and with their flatteries proceed to corrupt their inward natures and dispositions I can liken unto those slaves or housholde servants who rob their masters not onely of that corne which is in the heape heth in the garners but also of the very seed for the inclination and towardnesse of a man are the seed that bring forth all his actions and the habitude of conditions and maners are the very source and head from whom runneth the course of our whole life which they pervert in giving to vices the names of vertues Thucydides in his storie writeth That during civill seditions and warres men transferred the accustomed significations of words unto other things for to justifie their deeds for desparate rashnesse without all reason was reputed valour and called love-Love-friend provident delay and remporizing was taken for decent cowardise Modestie and temperance was thought to be a cloke of effeminate unmanlinesse a prudent and wary circumspection in all things was held for a generall slouth and idlenesse According to which precedent we are to consider and observe in flatterers how they terme prodigalitie by the name of liberalitie cowardise is nothing with them but heedfull warinesse brainsicknesse they entitle promptitude quicknesse and celeritie base and mechanicall niggardise they account temperate frugalitie Is there one full of love and given to be amorous him they call good fellow a boun-companion a man of a kinde and good nature See they one hastie wrathfull and proud withall him they will have to be hardie valiant and magnanimous contrariwise one of a base minde and abject spirit they will grace with the attribute of fellow-like and full of humanity Much like to that which Plato hath written in one place That the amorous lover is a flatterer of those whom he loveth For if they be flat nosed like a shoing borne such they call lovely and gracious be they hawk-nosed like a griffin ôh that is a kingly sight say they those that be blacke of colour are manly white of complexion be Gods children And as for the terme Melichriis that is Hony-coloured it is alwaies verily a flattering word devised by a lover to mitigate and diminish the odiousnesse of a pale hue which he seemeth by that sweet name not to mislike but to take in the best part And verily if hee that is foule ill favoured be borne in hand that he is faire and beautifull or one of small lowe stature made beleeve that he is goodly tall he neither continueth long in this his error neither is the damage that he susteineth thereby greevous great nor unrecoverable but the praises which induce inure a man to beleeve That vice is vertue insomuch that he is nothing at all discontented in his sinne and greeved therefore
into their heads For evermore it getteth closely into some vicious passion and affection of the minde and there lurketh the same it nourisheth and feedeth fat but anon it appeereth like a botch rising estsoones upon the corrupt diseased or inflamed parts of the soule Art thou angrie with one punish him saith he Hast thou a minde to a thing buy it and make no more adoe Art thou never so little afraid let us flie and be gon Suspectest thou this or that beleeve it considently saith he But if peradventure he can hardly be seene and discovered about these passions for that they be so mightie and violent that oftentimes they chase and expell all use of reason he will give some vantage to be sooner taken in others that be not so strong and vehement where we shall find him alwaies the same and like himselfe For say a man do suspect that he hath taken a surfeit either by over liberall feeding or drinking headie wine and upon that occasion make some doubt to bathe his bodie or to eate presently againe and lay gorge upon gorge as they say A true friend wil advice him to forbeare abstaine he will admonish him to take heed to himselfe and looke to his health In comes a flatterer and he will draw him to the baine in all haste he will bid him to call for some noveltie or other to be set upon the boord willing him to fall fresh to it againe and not to punish his body and do himselfe injurie by fasting and refusing his meate and drinke Also if he see him not disposed to take a journey by land or voyage by sea or to go about any enterprise whatsoever it be slowly and with an ill will he will say unto him either that there is no such great need or the time is not so convenient but it may be put off to a farther daie or it will serve the turne well enough to send others about it Now if it fall out so that he having made promise to some familiar friend either to lend or let him have the use of some money or to give him it freely do change his minde and repent of his promise but yet be some what abashed and ashamed thus to breake his word the flatterer by and by will put himselfe to the worse and lighter end of the ballance and make it weigh downe on the purse side soone excluding and cutting off all shame for the matter What man will he say Spare your purse and save your silver you are at a great charge you keepe a great house and have many about you which must be maintained and have sufficient in such sort that if we be not altogether ignorant of our selves and wilfully blinde not seeing that we be covetous shamelesse timorous and base minded we cannot choose but start and finde out a flatterer neither is it possible that he should escape us For surely he will evermore defend and maintaine these imperfections and frankly will he speake his minde in favour there of if he perceive us to over passe our selves therein But thus much may suffice as touching these matters Let us come now to the uses and services that a flattere is employed in For in such offices he doth confound trouble and darken much the difference betweene him and a true friend shewing himselfe in apparence alwaies diligent ready and prompt in all occurrences without seeking any colourable pretenses of shifting off and a refusing to do any thin As for a faithfull friend his whole carriage and behaviour is simple like as be the words of truth as faith Eurypides without welts and gards plaine without plaits and nothing counterfeit whereas the conditions of a flatterer to say a truth By nature are diseased much And medicines needfull are for such not only with wisdome to be ministred and applied but also many in number and those I assure you of a more exquisite making and composition than any other And verily as friends many times when they meet one another in the street passe by without good-morrow or god speed or any word at all betweene them onely by some light some looke cheerefull smile or amiable regard of the eie reciprocally given and taken without any other token els there is testified the good-will and mutuall affection of the heart within whereas the flatterer runneth toward his friend to meet him followeth apace at his heeles spreadeth foorth both his armes abroad and that afarre off to embrace him and if it chance that he be saluted and spoken to first because the other had an eie on him before he will with brave words excuse himselfe yea and many times call for witnesses and bind it with great oathes good store that he saw him not Even so likewise in their affaires and negociations abroad in the world friends omit and overslip many small and light things not searching narrowly into matters not offering or expecting againe any exquiquisit service nothing curious and busie in ech thing ne yet putting themselves forward to everie kinde of ministerie but the flatterer is herein double diligent he will be continually emploied and never rest without seeming at any time to be weary no place no space nor opportunity will he give the other to do any service he looketh to be called unto and commanded and if he be not bidden he will take it ill and be displeased nay you shall have him then out of heart and discouraged complaining of his ill fortune and protesting before God and man as if he had some great wrong done unto him These be evident marks and undoubted arguments to such as have wit and understanding not of a friendship sound sober honest but rather smelling of wanton and whorish love which is more ready to embrace and clip than is decent and seemely Howbeit to examine the same more particularly let us consider what difference there is betweene a flatterer ahd a friend as touching the offers and promises that they make They who have written of this theame before us say very well that a friends promise goeth in this forme If that I can or if it may be done Fulfill I will your minde and that right soone but the offer of a flatterer runneth in this maner What would you have say but the word to me Without all doubt effected it shall be For such franke promisers and braggers as these the Poets also use to bring unto the Stage in their Comedies after this sort Now of all loves Nicomachus this I crave Set me against this souldier here so brave I will so swinge his coat you shall it see That like a pompion his flesh shall tender be His face his head I shall much softer make Than is the spunge that growes in sea or lake Moreover you shall not see a friend offer his helping hand or aide in any action unlesse he were called before to counsell and his opinion asked of the enterprise or that he have approoved and
the said counsels be enriched with notable examples similitudes and sentences which no doubt would have 〈◊〉 much more forcible and effectuall if the principall in deed had bene joined therewith to wit true pietie and religion which hath beene cleane omitted by the aut hour who in deed never knew what was the onely true and perfect tranquillitie of the soule Howbeit woonderfull it is how he should proceed so farre as he doeth having no other helpe and meanes but his owne selfe which may so much the better serve our turnes considering that we have aides and guides farre more excellent to bring us so farre as to make entrie and take assured possession of that soveraigne good and felicity whereof hee here speaketh OF THE TRANQVILLITY AND contentment of minde PLUTARCH to PACCIUS sendeth greeting OVerlate it was before I received your letter wherein you requested me to write somwhat as touching the Tranquillity of the Soule and withall of certaine places in Platoes Dialogue Timaeus which seeme to require more exact exposition but so it happened that at the very same time your friend and mine Eros had occasion to saile with speed to Rome upon the receit of certeine letters from that right worshipfull gentleman Fundanus by vertue whereof he was to depart suddenly and to repaire unto him with all expedition By which occasion having not sufficient time and leasure to performe your request in such maner as I purposed yetunwilling that the man coming from me should be seene of you emptie-handed I have collected certaine notes chosen out of those commentaries which for mine owne memorie private use I had compiled long before concerning this argument to wit The Tranquillity contentment of spirit supposing that you also demaund this present discourse not for any pleasure that you take to read a treatise penned curiously and affecting or hunting after fine phrases and exquisite words but onely in regard of some doctrine that may serve your turne and helpe you to the framing of your life as you ought knowing withall full well for the which I doe congratulate and rejoice heartily on your behalfe that notwithstanding your inward acquaintance friendship and favor with the best and principall persons of the citie and that for eloquence you come behind none that plead causes at the bar in open court but are reputed a singular Oratour yet for all that you do not as that Tragicall Merops suffer your selfe foolishly and beyond the course of nature to be carried away as he was with the vaine-glorie and applause of the multitude when they do admire and account you happie therefore but still you keepe in memorie that which oftentime you have heard from us That it is neither a rich Patritians shooe that cureth the gout in the feet nor a costly and pretious ring that healeth the whitflaw or felon in the fingers nor yet a princely diademe that easeth the head-ach For what use is there at all of goods and riches to deliver the soule from griefe and sorrow or to lead a life in rest and repose without cares and troubles What good is there of great honors promotions and credit in court unlesse they that have them know how to use the same well and honestly and likewise if they be without them can skill how to finde no misse of them but be alwaies accompanied with contentment never coveting that which is not And what is this else but reason accustomed and exercised before hand quickly to restreine and eftsoones to reprehend the passionate and unreasonable part of the soule which is given oftentimes to breake out of her bounds and not to suffer her to range and vague at her pleasure and to be transported by the objects presented unto her Like as therfore Xenophon giveth us good counsell Alwaies to remember the gods and most of all to worship and honor them when we are in prosperitie to the end that whensoever we stand in neede we may more boldly invocate and call upon them with full assurance that they will supply our necessities being thus before-hand made propitious and gratious unto us even so wisemen and such as are of good conceit ought alwaies to be furnished and well provided of reasons sufficient to serve their turne for to encounter their passions before they arise to the end that being once laide up in store they may doe most good when time serveth For as curst and angrie mastives by nature which at every noise that they heare keepe an eager baying and barking as if they were affrighted become quiet and appeased by one onely voice which is familiar unto them and wherewith they have beene acquainted so it is no small paine and trouble to still and compose the passions of the minde shittish as they be and growne wilde unlesse a man have ready at hand proper and familiar reasons to represse the same so soone as ever they begin to stir and grow out of order Now as touching those who affirme that if a man would live in tranquillity and rest he ought not to meddle nor deale in many affaires either in publike or private First and formost thus I say that they would make us pay deere for tranquillitie of minde when they would have us buy when he was bidden to stand up but cavilled with him after a mocking and jesting maner what quoth he and if you sold a fish would you bid it rise up Likewise Socrates discoursed familiarly with his fellowes and followers as touching Philosophie even when he was in prison Wheras Phaethon notwithstanding he was mounted up into heaven wept for anger and despight that no man would give him the rule and regiment of the charriot-steeds belonging to the sunne his father And as a shoe is wrested and turned according to the fashion of a crooked or splay-foot but never doth the foot writhe to the forme of a shoe even so it is for all the world with the dispositions of mens minds they frame their lives and make them like thereto For it is not use and custome that causeth the best life to be pleasant also unto them that have made choise thereof as some one haply is of opinion but wisedome rather and discretion maketh that life which is best to be also sweetest and most pleasant Since that therefore the source and fountaine of all tranquillitie and contenment of spirit is in our selves let us cleanse and purifie the same spring as cleane as possibly we can that all outward and casuall occurrences whatsoever may be made familiar and agreeable unto us knowing once how to use them well If things go crosse we ought not iwis To fret for why such choler will not boot But he that know's when ought is done amisse To set all straight shall chieve full well I wot Plato therefore compared our life to a game at Tables wherein the plaier is to wish for the luckiest cast of the dice but whatsoever his chance is he must be sure to play it
even those things that we are not able to cōpasse make good as namely our commendatorie letters for to finde favour in princes courts to be mediators for them unto great rulers and governors and to talke with them about their causes as being neither willing nor so hardie as thus to say The king knoweth not us hee regardeth others more and you were better go to such and such After this manner when Lysander had offended king Agesilaus and incurred his heavy displeasure and yet was thought woorthie to be chiefe in credit above all those that were about him in regard of the great opinion and reputation that men had of him for his noble acts he never bashed to repell and put backe those suters that came unto him making excuse and bidding them to go unto others and assay them who were in greater credit with the king than himselfe For it is no shame not to be able to effect all things but for a man to be driven upon a foolish modestie to enterprise such matters as he is neither able to compasse nor meet to mannage besides that it is shamefull I hold it also a right great corrosive to the heart But now to goe unto another principle we ought willingly and with a ready heart to doe pleasure unto those that request at our hands such things as be meet and reasonable not as forced thereto by a rusticall feare of shame but as yeelding unto reason and equity Contrariwise if their demaunds be hurtfull absurd and without all reason we ought evermore to have the saying of Zeno in readinesse who meeting with a yoong man one of his acquaintance walking close under the towne wall secretly as if he would not be seene asked of him the cause of his being there and understanding by him that it was because he would avoide one of his friends who had beene earnest with him to beare false witnes in his behalfe What saist thou quoth Zeno sot that thou art Was thy friend so bold and shamelesseto require that of thee which is unreasonable unjust and hurtfull unto thee And darest thou not stand against him in that which is just and honest For whosoever he was that said A crooked wedge is fit to cleave a knotted knurry tree It well be seemes against leawd folke with lewdnesse arm'd to be teacheth us an ill lesson to learne to be naught our selves when we would be revenged of naughtinesse But such as repulse those who impudently and with a shamelesse face doe molest and trouble them not suffering themselves to be overcome with shamefacednesse but rather shame to graunt unto shamelesse beggers those things that be shameful are wise men and well advised doing herein that which is right and just Now as touching those importunate and shamelesse persons who otherwise are but obscure base and of no woorth it is of no great matter to resist them when they be troublesome unto us And some there be who make no more ado but shift them off with laughter or a skoffe like as Theocritus served twaine who would seeme to borrow of him his rubber or currying combe in the verie baine of which two the one was a meere stranger unto him the other he knew well enough for a notorious theefe I know not you quoth he to the one and to the other I know what you are well enough and so he sent them both away with a meere frumpe Lysimache the priestresse of Minerva in Athens surnamed Polias that is the patronesse of the citie when certaine Muletters who brought sacrifices unto the temple called unto her for to powre them out drinke freely No quoth she my good friends I may not do so for feare you will make a custome of it Antigonus had under him in his retinue a yoong gentleman whose father in times past had bene a good warriour and lead a band or company of souldiours but himselfe was a very coward and of no service and when he sued unto him in regard of his birth to be advanced unto the place of his father late deceased Yoong man quoth he my maner is to recompense and honour the prowesse and manhood of my souldiours and not their good parentage But if the party who assaileth our modesty be a noble man of might and authority and such kinde of persons of all other will most hardly endure a repulse and be put off with a deniall or excuse and namely in the case of giving sentence or award in a matter of judgement or in a voice at the election of magistrates preadventure it may be thought neither easie nor necessarie to doe that which Cato sometimes did being then but of yoong yeeres unto Catulus now this Catulus was a man of exceeding great authoritie among the Romans and for that time bare the Censureship who came unto Cato then Lord high treasurer of Rome that yeere as a mediatour and intercessour for one who had bene condemned before by Cato in a round fine pressing and importuning him so hard with earnest praier and entreaty that in the end Cato seeing how urgent and unreasonable he was and not able to endure him any longer was forced to say thus unto him You would thinke it a foule disgrace and shame for you Catulus Censour as you are since you will not receive an answere and be gone if my serjeants and officers here should take you by the head and shoulders and send you away with that Catulus being abashed and ashamed departed in great anger and discontentment But consider rather and see whether the answere of Agesilaus and that which Themistocles made were not more modest and savoured of greater humanity for Agesilaus when his own father willed him to give sentence in a certain cause that was brought before him against all right and directly contrary to the lawes Father quoth he your selfe have taught me from my very child-hood to obey the lawes I will be therfore obedient still to your good precepts and passe no judgement against law As for Themistocles when as Simontdes seemed to request of him some what which was unjust and unlawfull Neither were you Simonides quoth he a good Poet if you should not keepe time and number in your song nor I a good Magistrate if I should judge against the law And yet as Plato was woont to say it is not for want of due proportion betweene the necke and body of the lute that one citie is at variance with another citie and friends fall out and be at difference doing what mischiefe they can one to another and suffering the like againe but for this rather that they offend and faile in that which concerneth law and justice Howbeit you shall have some who themselves observing the precise rules most exactly according to art in Musicke in Grammaticall orthographie and in the Poeticall quantitie of syllables and measures of feet can be in hand with others and request them to neglect and forget that which they ought to do in the
displeased nor to be straight laced and stiffely stand against them when they come to justifie or excuse themselves but rather both when our selves have saulted oftentimes to prevent their anger by excuse making or asking for givenesse and also by pardoning them before they come to excuse if we have beene wronged by them And therefore Euclides that great scholer of Socrates is much renowmed and famous in all schooles of Philosophie for that when he heard his brother breake out into these beastly and wicked words against him The soule ill take me if I be not revenged and meet with thee and a mischiefe come to me also quoth he againe if I appease not thine anger perswade thee to love me as well as ever thou didst But king Eumenes not in word but in deed effect surpassed all others in meekenesse and patience for Perseus king of the Macedonians being his mortall enimie had secretly addressed an ambush and set certeine men of purpose to murder him about Delphos espying their time when they sawe him going from the sea side to the said towne for to consult with the oracle of Apollo now when he was gone a little past the ambush they began to assaile him from behinde tumbling downe and throwing mightie stones upon his head and necke wherewith he was so astonished that his sight failed and he fell withall in that manner as he was taken for dead now the rumour heereof ran into all parts insomuch as certeine of his servitors and friends made speed to the citie Pergamus reporting the tidings of this occurrent as if they had beene present and seene all done whereupon Attalus the eldest brother next unto himselfe an honest and kinde hearted man one also who alwaies had caried himselfe most faithfully and loyally unto Eumenes was not onely declared king and crowned with the royall diademe but that which more is espoused and maried Queene Stratonice his said brothers wife and lay with her But afterwards when counter-newes came that Eumenes was alive and comming homeward againe Attalus laid aside his diademe and taking a partisan or javelin in his hand as his maner before time was with other pentioners and squires of the bodie he went to meet his brother king Eumenes received him right graciously tooke him lovingly by the hand embraced the Queene with all honour and of a princely and magnanimous spirit put up all yea and when he had lived a long time after without any complaint suspition and jealousie at all in the end at his death made over and assigned both the crowne and the Queene his wife unto his brother the aforesaid Attalus and what did Attalus now after his brothers decease he would not foster and bring up as heire apparant so much as one childe that he had by Stratonice his wife although she bare unto him many but he nourished and carefully cherished the sonne of his brother departed untill he was come to full age and then himselfe in his life time with his owne hands set the imperiall diademe and royall crowne upon his head and proclaimed him king But Cambyses contrariwise frighted upon a vaine dreame which he had That his brother was come to usurpe the kingdome of Asia without expecting any proofe or presumption thereof put him to death for it by occasion whereof the succession in the empire went out of the race of Cyrus upon his decease and was devolved upon the line of Darius who raigned after him a Prince who knew how to communicate the government of his affaires and his regall authoritie not onely with his brethren but also with his friends Moreover this one point more is to be remembred observed diligently in all variances and debates that are risen betweene brethren namely then especially and more than at any time else to converse and keepe companie with their friends and on the other side to avoide their enemies and evill-willers and not to be willing so much as to vouchsafe them any speech or entertainment Following herein the fashion of the Candiots who being oftentimes fallen out and in civill dissension among themselves yea and warring hot one with another no sooner heare newes of forrein enemies comming against them but they rancke themselves banding jointly together against them and this combination is that which thereupon is called Syncretesmos For some there be that like as water runneth alwaies to the lower ground and to places that chinke or cleave asunder are readie to side with those brethren or friends that be fallen out and by their suggestions buzzed into their cares ruinate and overthrow all acquaintance kinred and amitie hating indeed both parties but seeming to beare rather upon the weaker side and to settle upon him who of imbecillitie soone yeeldeth and giveth place And verily those that be simple and harmlesse friends such as commonly yong folke are apply themselves commonly to him that affecteth a brother helping increasing that love what he may but the most malicious enemies are they who espying when one brother is angrie or fallen out with another seeme to be angrie and offended together with him for companie and these do most hurt of all others Like as the hen therefore in Aesope answered unto the cat making semblance as though he heard her say she was sicke and therefore in kindnesse and love asking how she did I am well enough quoth she I thanke you so that you were farther off even so unto such a man as is inquisitive and entreth into talke as touching the debate of brethren to sound and search into some secrets betweene them one ought to answere thus Surely there would be no quarrell betweene my brother and me if neither I nor he would give care to carrie-tales and pick-thankes betweene us But now it commeth to passe I wot not how that when our eies be fore and in paine we turne away our sight from those bodies and colours which make no reverberation or repercussion backe againe upon it but when we have some complaint and quarrell or conceive anger or suspicion against our brethren we take pleasure to heare those that make all woorse and are apt enough to take any colour and infection presented to us by them where it were more needfull and expedient at such a time to avoid their enimies and evill willers and to keepe our selves out of the way from them and contrariwise to converse with their allies familiars and friends and with them to beare company especally yea and to enter into their owne houses for to complaine and blame them before their very wives frankly and with libertie of speech And yet it is a common saying That brethren when they walke together should not so much as let a stone to be betwixt them nay they are discontented and displeased in minde in case a dog chance to runne overthwart them and a number of such other things they feare whereof there is not one able to make any breach or division betweene brethren but
dispatched his letters unto thē to this effect To know whether they would receive him into their city or no they wrote backe againe in faire great capitall letters within a sheet of paper no more but O Y that is to say No so sent it unto him but he that would make answer to the former question of Socrates a little more civilly and courteously would say thus He is not within sir for he is gone to the banke or exchange to give yet a somwhat better measure he might perhaps adde moreover say He looketh there for cerreine strangers and friends of his But a vaine prating fellow and one that loves many words especially if his hap hath beene to read the booke of Antimachus the Colophonian wil make answer to the demand afore said in this wise He is not within sir gone he is to the Burse or Exchange for there he expecteth certeine strangers out of Ionia of whom and in whose behalfe Alcibiades wrote unto him who now maketh his abode within the citie of Miletus sojourneth with Tissaphernes one of the lieutenants generall of the great King of Persia who before time was in league with the Lacedaemonians stood their friend and sent them aid but not for the love of Alcibiades he is turned from them and is sided with the Athenians for Alcibtades being desirous to returne into his owne country hath prevailed so much that hee hath altered Tissaphernes his minde and drawen him away from our part and thus shall you have him rehearse in good earnest the whole eight booke in maner of Thucydides his story untill he have overwhelmed a man with a multitude of narrations and made him beleeve that in Miletus there is some great sedition that it is ready to be lost and Alcibiades to be banished a second time Herein then ought a man principally to set his foote and stay his overmuch language so as the center and circumference of the answer be that which he who maketh the demaund desireth and hath need to know Carneades before he had any great name disputed one day in the publike schooles and place appointed for exercise Unto whom the master or president of the place sent before hand and gave him warning to moderate his voice for hee spake naturally exceeding big and loud so as the schooles rung againe therewith Give men then quoth he a gage and measure for my voice upon whom the said master replied thus not unproperly Let him that disputeth with thee be the measure and rule to moderate thy voice by even so a man may in this case say The measure that hee ought to keepe who answereth is the very will and minde of him that proposeth the question Moreover like as Socrates forbad those meats which drew men on to eare when they are not hungry and likewise those drinkes which caused them to drinke who are not a thirst even so should a man who is given to much prattle be afraid of those discourses wherein he delighteth most and which he is woont to use and take greatest pleasure in and in case hee perceive them to run willingly upon him for to withstand the same and not give them interteinment As for example martiall men and warriours love to discourse and tell of battels which is the reason that the Poët Homer bringeth in Nestor eftsoones recounting his owne prowesse and feats of armes and ordinarie it is with thē who in iudiciall trials have had the upper hand of their adversaries or who beyond the hope and opinion of everie man have obteined grace and favour with kings and princes to be subject unto this maladie that evermore followeth them namely to report and recount eftsoones the maner how they came in place after what sort they were brought in the order of their pleading how they argued the case how they convinced their accusers overthrew their adversaries last of all how they were praised and commended for to say a truth joy and mirth is much more talkative than that olde Agryppina which the Poets doe feigne and devise in their comaedies for it rouseth and stirreth up it reneweth and refresheth it selfe ever anon with many discourses and narrations whereupon ready they are to fall into such speeches upon every light and colourable occasion for not onely is it true which the common proverbe saith Looke where a man doth feele his paine and griefe His hand will soone be there to yeeld reliefe but also joy and contentment draweth unto it the voice it leadeth the tongue alwaies about with it and is evermore willing to be remembred and related Thus we see that amorous lovers passe the greater part of their time in rehearsing certeine words which may renew the remembrance of their loves insomuch that if they cannot meet with one person or other to relate the same unto they will devise and talke of them with such things as have neither sense nor life like as we read of one who brake foorth into these words O datnty bed most sweet and pleasant couch ô blessed lamp ô happie candle light No lesse than God doth Bacchus you avouch nay God you are the mightiest in her sight And verily a busie prater is altogether as one would say a white line or strake in regard of all words to wit without discretion he speaketh indifferently of all matters howbeit if he be affected more to some than to others he ought to take heed thereof and absteine from them he is I say to withdraw and writhe him els from thence for that by reason of the contentment which he may therein take and the pleasure that he receiveth thereby they may lead him wide carie him every while very farre out of the way the same inclination to overshoot themselves in prating they finde also when they discourse of those matters wherein they suppose themselves to have better experience and a more excellent habit than others such an one I say being a selfe lover and ambitious withall Most part of all the day in this doth spend Himselfe to passe and others to transcend As for example in histories if he hath read much in artificiall stile and couching of his words he that is a Grammarian in relation of strange reports and newes who hath bene a great traueller and wandred through many forren countries hereof therefore great heed would bee taken for garrulitie being therein fleshed and baited willingly runneth to the old and usuall haunt like as every beast seeketh out the ordinary and accustomed pasture And in this point was the young prince Cyrus of a woonderfull and excellent nature who would never chalenge his play-fellowes and consorts in age unto any exercise wherein he knew himselfe to be superior and to surpasse but alwaies to such feats wherein he was lesse practised than they which he did aswell because he would not grieve their hearts in winning the prize from them as also for that he would profit thereby and learne
with few and by that meanes thinke their estate more sure and stedfast After this he treateth of the choise of friends but especially of one Then discourseth he of that which is requisite in true friendship annexing thereto many proper and apt similitudes which represent aswell the benefit that sincere affection bringeth as the hurt which commeth of fained and counter seit amitie This done he proveth that to enterteine a number of friends is a very hardmatter yea and unpossible for that a man is not able to converse with them nor to frame and sort with them all but that he shall procure himselfe enemies on all sides and when he hath enriched and adorned the same with not able examples he proceedeth to describe what use a man is to make of friendship and with what sort and condition of men he ought to joine in amity but this is the conclusion That an honest and vertuous man can not quit himselfe well and performe his devoire unto many friends at once OF THE PLURALITIE of friends SOcrates upon a time demanded of Menon the Thessalian who was esteemed very sufficient in all litterature and a great schoole-man exercised in long practise of disputations and named to be one as Empedocles saith who had attained to the very height and perfection of wisedome and learning what vertue was and when he had answered readily and boldly enough in this wise There is a vertue quoth he of a yoong childe and of an olde gray beard of a man and of a woman of a magistrate and of a private person of a master and of a servant I con you thanke quoth Socrates againe replying unto him you have done it very well I asked you but of one vertue and you have raised and let flie a whole swarme as it were of vertues guessing and collecting not amisse by such an answere that this deepe clearke who had named thus many vertues knew not so much as one And might not a man seeme to scorne and mocke us well enough who having not yet gotten one friendship and amity certaine are afraid forsooth lest ere we be aware we fall into a multitude and pluralitie of friends for this were even as much as if one that is maimed and starke blinde should feare to become either Briareus the giant with an hundred armes and hands or Argus who had eies all over his bodie And yet we praise and commend excessively and beyond all measure the yoong man in Menander when he saith Of all the goods which I do holde To thinke ech one I would be bolde Right woonderfull if I might finde The shadow onely of a friend But certeinly this is one cause among many others the same not the least that we cannot be possessed of any one assured amity because we covet to have so many much like vnto these common strumpets and harlots who for that they prostitute their bodies so often and to so manie men cannot make any reckoning to hold reteine any one paramor or lover fast and sure unto them for that the first commers seeing themselves neglected and cast off by the enterteinment of new retire and fall away from them and seeke elsewhere or rather much after the maner of that foster-childe of lady Hypsipyle Who being set in meddow greene With pleasant flowers all faire beseene One after other cropt them still Hunting this game with right goodwill For why his heart tooke great content In their gay hew and sweety sent So little wit and small discretion The infant had and no * repletion even so every one of us for the desire of noveltie and upon a satietie and fulnesse of that which is present and in hand suffreth himselfe ever to be caried away with a new-come friend that is fresh and flowring which fickle and inconstant affection causeth us to change often and to begin many friendships and finish none to enter still into new amities and bring none to perfection and for the love of the new which we pursue and seeke after wee passe by that which we held already and let it go To begin then first and formost at antiquity as it were from the goddesse Vesta according to the old proverbe let us examine and consider the common fame of mans life which hath beene delivered unto us from hand to hand time out of minde by the succession and progresse of so many ages from the old world unto this day and take the same for a witnesse and counseller both in this matter wee shall finde in all the yeeres past these onely couples and paires of renowmed friends to wit Theseus and Pirithous Achilles and Patroclus Orestes and Pylades Pythias and Damon Epaminondas and Pelopidas For friendship is indeed as I may so say one of these cattell that love company and desire to feed and pasture with fellowes but it can not abide heards and droves it may not away with these great flocks as jayes dawes and choughes do And whereas it is commonly said and thought that a friend is another owne selfe and men give unto him the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke as if a man would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is such another what implieth all this but that friendship should be reduced within the measure and compasse of the duall number that is of twaine Well this is certaine we can buy neither many slaves nor purchase many friends with a small piece of coine but what may be this piece of money that will fetch friends Surely kinde affection or good will and a lovely grace joined with vertue things I may tell you so rare as looke thorowout the world and the whole course of nature you shall find nothing more geason No marvell then if it be unpossible either to love many or to be loved of many perfectly and in the heigth of affection But like as great rivers if they be divided into many chanels and cut into sundry riverets cary but an ebbe water and run with no strong streame even so a vehement and affectionate love planted in the minde if it be parted many and divers waies becommeth enervate and feeble and commeth in maner to nothing This is the reason in nature that those creatures which bring forth but one and no more love their yoong more tenderly and entirely than others do theirs Homer also when he would signifie a childe most dearely beloved calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say only begotten and toward old age to wit when the parents have no more betweene them nor ever are like or doe looke to have another for mine owne part I would not desire to have that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say one friend and no more but surely I could wish that with other he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say long and late first ere he be gotten like as a sonne which is borne toward the
upon a waspes nest of enimies where there is a great ods and difference even in this that the revenging remembrance of an enimie for wrong done over-weigheth much the thankfull memorie of a friend for a benefit received and whether this be true or no confider in what maner Alexander the great entreated the friends of Philotas and parmenio how Dionysius the tyrant used the familiars of Dion after what sort Nero the emperor dealt by the acquaintance of Plautus or Tiberius Caesar by the wel-willers of Sejanus whom they caufed all to be racked tortured and put to death in the end Andlike as the costly jewels of golde and the rich apparell of king Creons daughter served him in no stead at all but the fire that tooke holde thereof flaming light out suddenly burned him when he ran unto her to take her in his armes and so consumed father and daughter together even so you shall have some who having never received any benefit at all by the prosperitie of their friends are entangled notwithstanding in their calamities and perish together with them for companie a thing that ordinarily and most of all they are subject unto who be men of profession great clearks and honourable personages Thus Theseus when Perithous his friend was punifhed and lay bound in prifon With fetters sure to him tied was Farre stronger than of yron or brasse Thucydides alfo writeth That in the great pestilence at Athens the best men and such as made greatest profession of vertue were they who did most with their friends that lay sicke of the plague for that they never spared themselves but went to visit and looke to all thofe whom they loved were familiarly acquainted with And therfore it is not meet to meet to make fo littleregard and reckoning of vertue as to hang and fasten it upon others without respect and as they say hand over head but to reserve the c̄omunication thereof to be who be worthy that is to say unto such who are able to love reciprocally and know how to impart the like againe And verily this is the greatest contrariety and opposition which crosseth pluralitie of friends in that amitie in deed is bred by similitude and conformitie for considering that the very brute beasts not endued with reafon if a man would have to ingender with those that are of divers kinds are brought to it by force and thereto compelled insomuch as they shrinke they couch downe upon their knees and be ready to flee one from another whereas contrariwise they take pleasure and delight to be coupled with their like and of the same kinde receiving willingly and enterteining their companie in the act of generation with gentlenesse and good contentment how is it possible that any found and perfect friendship fhould grow betweene those who are in behaviour quite different in affections divers in conditions opposite and whose course of life tendeth to contrary or sundry ends True it is that the harmonie of musicke whether it be in song or instrument hath symphony by antiphony that is to say the accord ariseth from discord and of contrarie notes is composed a sweet tune so as the treble and the base concurre after a sort I wot not how meet together bringing forth by their agreement that sound which pleaseth the eare but in this consonance and harmonie of friendfhip there ought to be no part unlike or unequall nothing obscure and doubtfull but the same should be compofed of all things agreeable to wit the same will the same opinion the same counsell the same affection as if one soule were parted into many bodies And what man is he so laborious so mutable so variable and apt to take every fashion form who is able to frame unto all patterns and accommodate himselfe to so many natures and will not rather be ready to laugh at the Poet Theognis who giveth this lesson Put on a minde I thee do wish As variable as Polype fish Who ay resemble will the roch To which he neerely doth approch and yet this change and transmutation of the said polype or pourcuttle fish entreth not deeply in but appeareth superficially in the skin which by the closenesse or laxitie thereof as he drawes it in or lets it out receiveth the defluctions of the colours from those bodies that are neere unto it whereas amities do require that the maners natures passions speeches studies desires and inclinations may be comformable for otherwise to doe were the propertie of a Proteus who was neither fortunate nor yet verie good and honest but who by enchantment and sorcerie could eftsoones transforme himselfe from one shape to another in one and the same instant and even so he that enterteineth many friends must of necessitie be conformable to them all namely with the learned and studious to be ever reading with professours of wrestling to bestrew his bodie with dust as they doe for to wrestle with hunters to hunt with drunkards to quaffe and carouse with ambitious citizens to sue and manage for offices without any setled mansion as it were of his owne nature for his conditions to make abode in And like as naturall Philosophers do holde That the substance or matter that hath neither forme nor any colour which they call Materia prima is a subject capable of all formes and of the owne nature so apt to alter and change that sometimes it is ardent and burning otherwhiles it is liquid and moist now rare and of an airie substance and afterwards againe grosse and thicke resembling the nature of earth even so must the minde applied to this multiplicitie of friends bee subject to many passions sundry conditions divers affections pliable variable and apt to change from one fashion to another Contrariwise simple friendship and amitie betweene twaine requireth a staied minde a firme and constant nature permanent and abiding alwaies in one place and reteining stil the same fashions which is the reason that a fast and assured friend is very geason and hard to be found OF FORTVNE The Summarie LOng time hath this Proverbe beene currant That there is nothing in this world but good fortune and misfortune Some have expounded and taken it thus as if all things were carried by meere chance and aventure or mooved and driven by inconstant fortune an idole forged in their braine for that they were ignorant in the providence of the True God who conducteth or dinarily all things in this world by second causes and subalterne meanes yea the verie motion will and workes of men for the execution of his ordinance and purpose Now Plutarch not able to arise and reach up to this divine and heavenly wisedome hidden from his knowledge staieth below and yet poore Pagan and Ethnike though he were he consuteth that dangerous opinion of Fortune shewing that it taketh away all distinction of good and evill quencheth and putteth out the light of mans life blending and confounding vice and vertue together Afterwards he prooveth
disposition and condition of an Atheist to be happie as the state of freedome and libertie but now the Atheist hath no sparke at all of superstition whereas the superstitious person is in will and affection a meere Atheist howbeit weaker than to beleeve and shew in opinion that of the gods which he would and is in his minde Moreover the Atheist in no wise giveth any cause or ministreth occasion that superstition should arise but superstition not onely was the first beginning of impietie and Atheisme but also when it is sprung up and growne doth patronise and excuse it although not truely and honestly yet not without some colourable pretence for the Sages and wise men in times past grew not into this opinion that the world was wholly voide of a divine power and deitie because they beheld and considered any thing to be found fault withall in the heaven some negligence and disorder to be marked some confusion to be observed in the starres in the times and seasons of the yeere in the revolutions thereof in the course and motions of the sunne round about the earth which is the cause of night and day or in the nouriture and food of beasts or in the yeerely generation and increase of the fruits upon the earth but the ridiculous works and deeds of superstition their passions woorthy to be mocked and laughed at their words their motions and gestures their charmes forceries enchantments and magicall illusions their runnings up and downe their beating of drums tabours their impure purifications their filthy castimonies and beastly sanctifications their barbarous and unlawfull corrections and chastisements their inhumane and shamefull indignities practized even in temples these things I say gave occasion first unto some for to say that better it were there had bene no gods at all than to admit such for gods who received and approoved these abuses yea and tooke pleasure therein or that they should be so outragious proud and injurious so base and pinching so easie to fall into choler upon a small cause and so heard to be pleased againe Had it not beene farre better for those Gaules Scythians or Tartarians in old time to have had no thought no imagination no mention at all delivered unto them in histories of gods than to thinke there were gods delighting in the bloudshed of men and to beleeve that the most holie and accomplished sacrifice and service of the gods was to cut mens throates and to spill their bloud and had it not beene more expedient for the Carthaginians by having at the first for their law-givers either Critias or Diagoras to have beene perswaded that there was neither God in heaven nor divell in hell than to sacrifice so as they did to Saturne who not as Empedocles said reprooving and taxing those that killed living creatures in sacrifice The sire lists up his deere belooved son Who first some other forme and shape did take He doth him slay and sacrifice anon And therewith vowes and foolish praiers doth make but witting and knowing killed their owne children indeed for sacrifice and looke who had no issue of their owne would buie poore mens children as if they were lambes young calves or kiddes for the saide purpose At which sacrifice the mother that bare them in her wombe would stand by without any shew at all of being mooved without weeping or sighing for pittie and compassions for otherwise if shee either fetched a sigh or shed ateare shee must loose the price of her childe and yet notwithstanding suffer it to be slaine and sacrificed Moreover before and all about the image or idoll to which the sacrifice was made the place resounded and rung againe with the noise of flutes and hautboies with the sound also of drums and timbrels to the end that the pitifull crie of the poore infants should not be heard Now if any Tryphones or other such like giants having chased and driven out the gods should usurpe the empire of the world and rule over us what other facrifices would they delight in or what offrings else and service besides could they require at mens hands Antestries the wife of the great Monarch 〈◊〉 buried quicke in the ground twelve persons and offred them for the prolonging of her owne life unto Pluto which god as Plato saith was named Pluto Dis and Hades for that being full of humanitie unto mankind wise and rich besides he was able to enterraine the soules of men with perswasive speeches and reasonable remonstrances Xenophanes the Naturalist seeing the Egyptians at their solemne feasts knocking their breasts and lamenting pitiously admonished them verie fitly in this wise My good friends if these quoth he be gods whom you honor thus lament not for them and if they be men sacrifice not unto them But there is nothing in the world so full of errors no maladie of the minde so passionate and mingled with more contrarie and repugnant opinions as this of superstition in regard whereof we ought to shunne and avoide the same but not as many who whiles they seeke to eschue the assaults of theeves by the high way side or the invasion of wilde beasts out of the forcst or the danger of fire are so transported and caried away with feare that they looke not about them nor see what they doe or whither they goe and by that meanes light upon by-waies or rather places having no way at all but in stead thereof bottomlesse pits and gulfes or else steepe downe-fals most perilous even so there be divers that seeking to avoid superstition fall headlong upon the cragged rocke of perverse and stif-necked Impietie and Atheisme leaping over true religion which is feated just in the mids betweene both OF EXILE OR BANISHMENT The Summarie THere is not a man how well soever framed to the world and setled therein who can promise unto himselfe any peaceable and assured state throughout the course of his whole life but according as it seemeth good to the clernall and wise providence of the Almightie which governeth all things to chaslise our faults or to try our constancy in faith he ought in time of a calme to prepare himselfe for a tempest and not to attend the mids of a danger before he provide for his safetie but betimes and long before to fortifie and furnish himselfe with that whereof he may have necd another day in all occurences and accidents whatsoever Our Authour therefore in this Treatise writing to comfort and encourage one of his friends cast downe with anguish occasioned by his banishment sheweth throughout all his discourse that vertue it is which maketh us happie in everie place and that there is nothing but vice that can hurt and endamage us Now as touching his particularising of this point in the first place he treateth what kinde of friends we have need of in our affliction and how we ought then to serve our turnes with them and in regard of exile mone particularly he adjoineth this advertisment
honest persons never respecting whether they be poore strangers and banished or no Do we not see that all the world doth honor and reverence the temple of Theseus aswell as Parthenon and Eleusinium temples dedicated to Minerva Ceres and Proserpina and yet was Theseus banished from Athens even that Theseus by whose meanes the same citie was first peopled and is at this day inhabited and that citie lost he which he held not from another but founded first himselfe As for Eleusis what beautie at all would remaine in it if we dishonor Eumolpus and be ashamed of him who remooving out of Thracia instituted at first among the Greeks the religion of sacred mysteries which continueth in force and is observed at this day what shall we say of Codrus who became king of Athens whose sonne I pray you was he was not Melanthius his father a banished man from Messina Can you chuse but commend the answere of Antisthenes to one who said unto him Thy mother is a Phrygian So was quoth he the mother of the gods why answer you not likewise when you are reproched with your banishment even so was the father of that victorious conqueror Hercules the grand-fire likewise of Bacchus who being sent out for to seeke lady Europa never returned backe into his native countrie For being a Phaenician borne At Thebes he after did arrive Far from his native soile beforne And there begat a sonne belive Who Bacchus did engender tho That mooves to furie women hight Mad Bacchus runneth to and fro In service such is his delight As for that which the Poet Aeschylus would seeme covertly by these darke words to insinuate or rather to shew a farre off when he saith thus And chaste Apollo sacred though be were Yet banished a time heaven did for be are I am content to passe over in silence and will forbeare to utter according as Herodotus saith and whereas Empedocles in the very beginning of his philosophie maketh this praeface An auncient law there stands in force decreed by gods above Groundedupon necessitie and never to remoove That after men hath 〈◊〉 hands in bloudshed horrible And in remorse of sinne is vext with horrour terrible The long liv'd angels whith attend in heaven shall chase him quite For many thousand yeeres from view of every blessed wight By vertue of this law am I from gods exiled now And wander heere and there throughone the world I know not how This he meaneth not of himselfe alone but of all us after him whom he declareth and sheweth by these words to be meere strangers passengers forreiners and banished persons in this world For it is not bloud quoth he ô men nor vitall spirit contemperate together that hath given unto us the substance of our soule and beginning of our life but hereof is the bodie only composed and framed which is earthly and mortall but the generation of the soule which commeth another way and descendeth hither into these parts beneath he doth mitigate and seeme to disguise by the most gentle and milde name that hee could devise calling it a kinde of pilgrimage from the naturall place but to use the right tearme indeed and to speake according to the very truth she doth vague and wander as banished chased and driven by the divine lawes and statutes to and fro untill such time as it setleth to a bodie as an oister or shell fish to one rocke or other in an island beaten and dashed upon with many windes and waves of the sea round about as Plato saith for that it doth not remember nor call to mind from what height of honor from how blessed an estate it is translated not changing as a man would say Sardis for Athens nor Corinth for Lemnos or Scyros but her resiance in the very heaven and about the moone with the abode upon earth and with a terrestriall life whereas it thinketh it strange and as much discontented heere for that it hath made exchange of one place for another not farre distant much like unto a poore plant that by remooving doth degenerate and begin to wither away and yet we see that for certaine plants some soile is more commodious and sortable than another wherein they will like thrive and prosper better whereas contrariwise there is no place that taketh from a man his felicitie no more than it doth his vertue fortitude or wisedome for Anaxagoras during the time that he was in prison wrote his Quadrature of the circle and Socrates even when he drunke poison discoursed as a philosopher exhorting his friends and familiars to the studie of philosophie and was by them reputed happie but contrariwise Phaeton and Icarus who as the poets do report would needs mount up into heaven through their owne folly and inconsiderate rashnes fell into most greevous and wofull calamities THAT WE OVGHT NOT TO TAKE UP MONEY UPON VSVRIE The Summarie THe covetous desire of earthly goods is a passion inturable but especially after that it hath gotten the masterie of the souse in such sort as the advertisements which are made in regard of covetous men be not proposed for any thing els but for the profit and benefit of those persons who are to keepe themselves from the nets and snares of these enemies of humane societie Now among all those who haveneed of good counsels in this behalfe we must range them that take up money upon interest who serving as a pray and bootie to these greedie and hungry hunters aught so much the rather to looke unto their owne preservation if they would not be cruelly devoured And as this infortunitie hath bene in the world ever since the entrie of sinne that alwates some or other yea and great numbers have endevoured to make their commoditie and gaine by the losse and dammage of their neighbours so we may see heere that in Plutarchs time things were growen to a woonderfull confusion the which is nothing diminished since but contrariwise it seemeth that in these our daies it is come to the very height And for to applie some remedie heereto our authour leavethusurers altogether as persons gracelesse reprobate and ancapable of all remon strance addressing himselfe unto borrowers to the end that he might discover and lay open unto them the snares and nets into which they plunge themselves and this he doth without specifying or particularising over neere of usurie because there is no meane or measure limited nor any end of this furious desire of gathering and heaping up things corruptible Considering then that covetous folke have neither nerve nor veine that reacheth or tendeth to the pittie of their neighbours meet it is and good reason that borrowers should have some mercie and compassion of themselves to weigh and ponder well the grave discourses of this authour and to applie the same unto the right use He saith therefore that the principall meanes to keepe and save themselves from the teeth of usurie is to make the best of their owne and
to no greater cost and expences but rather easeth him of some charges for that it abridgeth all curiosity of daintie viands exquisite cates costly perfumes precious ointments confitures and march-pains brought from forreine and farre countries yea and fine and delicate wines wherewith Periander being served daily at his ordinary according to the magnificence of his princely estate riches affaires and occasions yet at such a time he tooke a glorie among these Sages and wise men in sobrietie frugalitie and slender provision for not in other things onely he cut-off and concealed all superfluitie and needlesse furniture which was usuall in his house-keeping but also in his wives attire and ornaments whom hee shewed to his friends and guests nothing costly arraied nor keeping state but meanely set out and adorned Now when the tables were taken away and that Melissa had given and dealt chaplets of flowers unto us round about wee rendred thanks and said grace unto the gods in powring out unto them devoutly a little wine and the minstrell-woman having sung a while after our grace and according to our vowes departed out of the roome Then Ardalus calling unto Anacharsis by name demanded of him whether among the Scythians there were any such singing women minstrell wenches that could play upon wind instruments unto which demaund he answered extempore and without studying for the matter No quoth he nor so much as vines and as Ardalus replied againe But yet there are some gods among them are there not Yes iwis quoth he that there be and those who understand the speech and language of men but yet the Scythians are not of the same mind that the Greeks who although they thinke themselves to speake more freely and elegantly than the Scythians yet they hold opinion that the gods take more pleasure to heare the sound of bones and wood whereof their flutes and hautboies are made than the voice of man But my good friend quoth Aesope then what would you say if you knew what thse pipe-makers do nowe a daies who cast away the bones of young hind-calves and fawnes and choose before them asses bones saying forsooth that they make a better sound whereupon Cleobuline made one of her aenigmes or riddles touching a Phrygian flute Of braying asse Did force the eare Of mightie stag when he dead was with sound so cleare with hornes to brag The long shanke-bone Upright anone As hard as stone in such sort that it is a wonder how an asse which is otherwise a most blockish and absurd beast of any other most remote from all sweet harmonie of musicke should yeeld a bone so slicke so smooth and proper to make thereof a most musicall instrument Certes quoth Niloxenus then this is the reason that the inhabitants of the city Busiris reproch al us of Naucratia for that we likewise have already taken two asse-bones for the making of our pipes and as for them it is not lawfull to heare so much as the sound of a trumpet because it somewhat doth resemble the braying of an asse and you all know that the asse is infamous and odious with the Aegyptians because of Typhon Upon this every man held his peace for a while and when Pertander perceived that Niloxenus had a good minde to speake but yet durst not begin or broach any speech My masters quoth he I doe like very well of the custome of cities and head-magistrates in that they give audience and dispatch unto all strangers before their owne citizens and therefore me thinks it were well that for a time both you we forbeare our speeches which are so familiar and as it were native and home-borne among us in our owne countrey to give accesse and audience as it were in a solemne counsell and assembly of estate unto those questions and demaunds which our good friend heere hath brought out of Aegypt and namely such as are mooved from the king to Bias and Bias I doubt not will confer with you about the same Then Bias seconding this motion of his And in what place quoth he or with what companie would a man wish rather for to hazard and trie his skill than in this for to make answers accordingly and give solutions if he be put unto it and need require especially seeing that the king himselfe hath given expresse commandement that in proposing this question he should first begin within afterwards go round about the rest present the same unto you all Heerupon Niloxenus delivered unto him the kings letter desiring him to breake it open and to reade the same with an audible and loud voice before all the companie Now the substance or tenor of the said letter ran in this forme Amasis the king of the Aegyptians unto Bias the wisest Sage of all the Greekes sendeth greeting So it is that the king of the Aethiopians is entred into contestation and contention with me as touching wisedome and being in all other propositions put downe by me and found my inferior in the end after all he hath imposed upon me a commandement very strange woonderfull and hard to be performed willing me forsooth to drinke up the whole sea Now if I may compasse the solution of this riddle and darke question I shall gaine thereby many townes villages cities of his but in case I cannot assoile the same I must yeeld unto him al my cities within the country Elephantine These are therfore to request you that after you have well considered of the premisses you sende backe unto me Niloxenus incontinently with the interpretation thereof And if either your selfe or any of your citizens and country-men have occasion to use me in your affaires and occasions be sure you shall no faile of me wherein I may stead you Farewell This letter being read Bias made no long stay but after some little pause and meditation with himselfe he rounded Clcobulus it the care who sat close unto him And then what is that you say my friend of Naucratia will your master and lord king Amasis who commandeth so great a multitude of men and possesseth so large so faire and plentifull a countrey drinke all the sea for to get thereby I wot not what poore townes and villages of no importance Then Niloxenus laughing at the matter I pray you quoth he consider upon the point what is possible to be done even as you will your selfe Mary then quoth he let him send word vnto the Aethiopian king and enjoine him to stay the course of all rivers that discharge themselves into the sea untill he have drunke up in the meane time all the water in the sea that is now at this present for of that onely his demand and commandement is to be understood and not of the sea that shall be hereafter These words were no sooner spoken but Niloxenus tooke so great a contentment therein that he could not holde but needs he must embrace and kisse him immediatly for it yea and all the rest commended and
aids upon a sudden but from the Celtiberians who for to succour him demaunded two hundred talents now the other Romane captaines would not yeeld that hee should make promise unto those barbarous nations of this money for their hire and sallarie but Cato said They were much deceived and out of the way for if we winne quoth he we shall be able to pay them not of our owne but of our enemies goods if we lose the day there will be none left either to be paied or to call for pay Having woon more townes in Spaine than he had beene daies there according as he said himselfe he reserved of all that spoile and pillage for his owne use no more than he did eat and drinke but hee divided and dealt to every one of his souldiers a pound weight of silver saying That it were better that many should returne home out of warre with silver in their purses than a few with golde for that rulers and captaines ought not to grow rich themselves by their provinces and places of government in any thing but in honour and glorie In that expedition or voiage of his hee had with him in his traine five of his owne servitours of whom one there was who bought three prisoners taken in warre but when he knew that his master had intelligence thereof before that ever he came in his sight he hung and strangled himselfe Scipio surnamed Africanus praied him to favour the causes of the banished and fugitive Achoeans and to be good unto them namely that they might be recalled and restored againe to their owne countrey but he made semblance as though hee tooke no great heed and regard to such affaires and when hee saw that the matter was followed hotly in the Senate and that there grew much speech and debate about it he stood up and said Here is a great stirre indeed and as though we had nothing els to do we sit here spend all the long day disputing about these old gray-beard Greeks and all forsooth to know whether they shal be caried forth to their buriall by our porters and coresbearers heere or by those there Posthumius Albius wrote certeine histories in Greeke in the Preface and Proeme whereof he praied the readers and hearers to pardon him if he had committed any soloecisme or incongruitie in that language but Cato by way of a mocke scoffed at him and said That he deserved indeed to be pardoned for writing false Greeke in case that by the ordinance and commandement of the high commission of the Amphyctiones who were the chiefe Estates of all Greece he had bene compelled against his will to enterprise and goe in hand with the said histories SCIPIO the yoonger in foure and fiftie yeeres for so long he lived neither bought nor solde nor yet built and it is for certaine reported that in so great an house and substance as his might seeme to be there was never found but three and thirtie pound weight of silver plate and two of golde notwithstanding the city of Great Carthage was in his hand and he had enriched his souldiers more than ever any captaine did before him Observing well the precept which Polybius gave he hardly without much ado would not returne out of the market place before he had assaied to make in some sort one new friend and familiar or other of those whom he met withall Being but yet yoong he was of such reputation for his valour and wisedome that Cato the elder being demanded his opinion as touching others that were in the campe before Carthage among whom he was one delivered this commendation of him Right wise and sage indeed alone is he The rest to him but slitting shadowes be whereupon after his returne to Rome from the campe they that remained behinde called for him againe not so much by way of gratification and to do him a pleasure but because they hoped by his meanes more speedily and with greater facilitie to win Carthage now when he was entred to the very walles and yet the Carthaginians fought from the castle Polybius gave coūsel to scatter in the sea betweene which was not very deepe betweene his campe and the said castle certaine colthrops of yron or els planks beset with naile points to overcast and spread the shallow shelves with sticking upon them for feare lest that the enemies passing that arme or firth of the sea might come to assaile their rampars but he said It was a meere mockery considering that they had already gained the walles and were within the citie of their enemies to make meanes not to sight with them Finding the citie full of statues and painted tables which were brought out of Sicilie he made proclamation that the Sicilians from al their cities should come for to owne and cary away whatsoever had bene theirs but of all the pillage he would not allow any one either slave or newly affranchised of his owne traine to seize upon nor so much as buy ought notwithstanding that there was driving and carying away otherwise on all hands The greatest and most familiar friend that he had Laelius sued to be consull of Rome him he favoured and set forward his sute in all that hee could by which occasion hee demanded of one Pompeius who was thought to make labour for the same dignitie whether it were true that hee was a competitor or no now it was supposed that this Pompeius was a minstrels sonne that used to play on the flute who made answere againe that he stood not for the consulship and that which was more hee promised to assist Laelius and to get all the voices that hee could for him thus while they beleeved his words and expected his helping hand they were deceived in the end for they were given to understand for certeine that this Pompieus was in the common hall labouring hard for himselfe going about unto every citizen one after another requesting their voices in his owne behalfe whereat when all others tooke stomacke and were offended Scipio laughed apace and said We are even well enough served for our great follie thus to stay and wait all this whiles upon a fluter and piper as if we had bene to pray and invocate not men but the gods Appius Claudius was in election and concurrence against him for the office of cenfourship saying in a braverie That he used to salute all the Romans by name and by surname upon his owne knowledge of them without the helpe of a prompter whereas Scipio scarse knew one of them all Thou saiest trueth quoth Scipio for I have alwaies beene carefull not to know many but rather not to be unknowen of any He gave counsell unto the Romane citizens at what time as they warred against the Celtiberians for to send both him and his competirour together into the campe in qualitie either of lieutenants or of colonels over a thousand foot to the end that they might have the testimonie of other captaines and
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
be exceedingly beloved of him but Agesilaus turned his face away insomuch as the youth desisted and would no more offer himselfe unto him whereupon Agesilaus demanded the reason thereof and seemed to call for him unto whom his friends made answere That himselfe was the onely cause being afraid to kisse so fasire a boy but if he would not seeme to feare the youth would returne and repaire unto him in place right willingly upon this he stood musing to himselfe a good while and said never a word but then at length hee brake foorth into this speech Let him even alone neither is there any need now that you should say any thing or perswade him for mine owne part I count it a greater matter to be the conquerour and have the better hand of such than to win by force the strongest holde or the most puissant and populous citie of mine enemies for I take it better for a man to preserve and save his owne libertie to himselfe than to take it from others Moreover he was in all other things a most precise observer in every point of whatsoever the lawes commanded but in the affaires and businesse of his friends he said That straightly to keepe the rigour of justice was a very cloake and colourable pretence under which they covered themselves who were not willing to doe for their friends to which purpose there is a little letter of his found written unto Idrieus a prince of Caria for the enlarging and deliverance of a friend of his in these words If Nicias have not transgressed deliver him if he have deliver him for the love of me but howsoever yet deliver him and verily thus affected stood Agesilaus in the greatest part of his friends occasions howbeit there fell out some cases when he respected more the publike utility used his opportunity therefore according as he shewed good proofe upon a time at the dislodging of his campe in great haste hurry insomuch as he was forced to leave a boy whō he loved full well behind him for that he lay sicke for when the partie called instantly upon him by name besought him not to forsake him now at his departure Agesilaus turning backe said Oh how hard is it to be pitifull wise both at once Furthermore as touching his diet the cherishing of his bodie he would not be served with more nor better than those of his traine and company He never did eat untill he was satisfied nor tooke his drinke untill he was drunke and as for his sleepe it never had the command and mastrie over him but he tooke it onely as his occasions and affaires would permit for cold and heat he was so fitted and disposed that in all seasons of the yeere he used to weare but one and the same sort of garments his pavilion was alwaies pitched in the mids of his soldiers neither had he a bed to lye in better than any other of the meanest for he was woont to say That he who had the charge and conduct of others ought to surmount those private persons who were under his leading not in daintinesse and delicacie but in sufferance of paine and travell and in fortitude of heart and courage When one asked the question in his presence What it was wherin the lawes of Lycurgus had made the citie of Sparta better he answered That this benefit it found by them to make no recknoning at all of pleasures And to another who marvelled to see so great simplicitie and plainnesse as well in feeding as appearell both of him and also of other Lacedaemonians he said The fruit my good friend which we reape by this straight maner of life is libertie and freedome There was one who exhorted him to ease and remit a little this straight and austere manner of living For that quoth he it would not be used but in regard of the incertitude of fortune and because there may fall out such an occasion and time as might force a man so to do Yea but I said Agesilaus do willingly accustome my selfe hereto that in no mutation and change of fortune I should not seeke for change of my life And in verie truth when he grew to be aged he did not for all his yeeres give over and leave his hardnes of life and therfore when one asked him Why considering the extreame cold winter and his old age besides he went without an upper coat or gabardine he made this answer Because yoong men might learne to do as much having for an example before their eies the eldest in their countrey and such also as were their governors We reade of him that when he passed with his armie over the Thasians countrey they sent unto him for his refection meale of all sorts geese and other fowles comfitures and pastrie works fine cakes marchpanes and sugar-meats with all manner of exquisite viands and drinks most delicate and costly but of all this provision he received none but the meale aforesaid commanding those that brought the same to carrie them all away with them as things whereof he stood in no need and which he knew not what to do with In the end after they had beene verie urgent and importuned him so much as possibly they could to take that curtesie at their hands he willed them to deale all of it among the Ilots which were in deed the slaves that followed the campe whereupon when they demaunded the cause thereof he said unto them That it was not meet for those who professed valour and prowesse to receive such dainties Neither can that quoth he which serveth in stead of a bait to allure draw men to a servile nature agree wel with those who are of a bold and free courage Over and besides these Thasians having received many favours and benefits at his hands in regard whereof they tooke themselves much bound and beholden unto him dedicated temples to his honour and decreed divine worship unto him no lesse than unto a verie god and hereupon sent an embassage to declare unto him this their resolution when he had read their letters and understood what honour they minded to do unto him he asked this one question of the embassadors whether their State and countrey was able to deifie men and when they answered Yea Then quoth he begin to make your selves gods first and when you have done so I will beleeve that you also can make me a god When the Greeke Colonies in Asia had at their parliaments ordained in all their chiefe and principall cities to erect his statues he wrote backe unto them in this manner I will not that you make for me any statue or image whatsoever neither painted nor cast in mould nor wrought in clay ne yet cut and engraven any way Seeing whiles he was in Asia the house of a friend or hoste of his covered over with an embowed roofe of plankes beames and sparres foure-square he asked him whether the trees in those parts grew so
him most for that with so small a troupe and cornet of his owne horsemen which himselfe put out and addressed against them hee had given those the overthrow who at all times vaunted themselves to be the best men at armes in the world Thither came Diphridas one of the Ephori unto him being sent expresly from Sparta with a commandement unto him that incontinently he should with force and armes invade the countrey of Baeotia and he although he meant and purposed of himselfe some time after to enter with a more puissant power yet would he not disobey those great lords of the State but sent for two regiments of ten thousands a peece drawen out of those who served about Corinth and with them made a rode into Boeotia and gave battell before Coronaea unto the Thebans Athenians Argives and Corinthians where he wan the field which as witnesseth Xenophon was the greatest and most bloudie battell that had beene fought in his time but true it is that hee himselfe was in many places of his body sore wounded and then being returned home notwithstanding so many victories and happie fortunes hee never altered any jot in his owne person either for diet or otherwise for the maner of his life Seeing some of his citizens to vaunt and boast of themselves as if they were more than other men in regard that they nourished and kept horses of the game to runne in the race for the prize he perswaded his sister named Cynisca to mount into her chariot and to goe unto that solemnitie of the Olympick games there to runne a course with her horses for the best prize by which his purpose was to let the Greekes know that all this running of theirs was no matter of valour but a thing of cost and expence to shew their wealth onely He had about him Xenophon the philosopher whom he loved and highly esteemed him he requested to send for his sonnes to be brought up in Lacedaemon and there to learne the most excellent and singular discipline in the world namely the knowledge how to obey and to rule well Being otherwise demaunded wherefore he esteemed the Lacedaemonians more happy then other nations It is quoth he because they professe and exercise above all men in the world the skill of obeying and governing After the death of Lysander finding within the city of Sparta great factions and much siding which the saide Lysander incontinently after he was returned out of Asia had raised and stirred up against him he purposed and went about to detect his lewdnesse and make it appeere unto the inhabitants of Sparta what a dangerous medler he had beene whiles he lived and to this purpose having read an oration found after his decease among his papers which Creon verily the Halicarnassian had composed but Lysander meant to pronounce before the people in a general assembly of the citie tending to the alteration of the State and bringing in of many novelties he was fully minded to have divulged it abroad but when one of the auncient Senatours had read the said oration and doubted the sequell thereof considering it was so well penned and grounded upon such effectuall and perswasive reasons hee gave Agesilaus counsell not to digge up Lysander againe and rake him as it were out of his grave but to let the oration lie buried with him whose advice he followed and so rested quiet and made no more adoo and as for those who underhand crossed him and were his adversaries he did not course them openly but practised and made meanes to send some of them foorth as captaines into certaine forrain expeditions and unto others to commit certaine publike offices in which charges they caried themselves so as they were discovered for covetous wicked persons and afterwards when they were called into question judicially hee shewed himselfe contrary to mens expectation to helpe them out of trouble and succour them so as that he gat their love and good wils insomuch as in the end there was not one of them his adversarie One there was who requested him to write in his favour to his hosts and friends which he had in Asia letters of recommendation that they would defend and maintaine him in his rightfull cause My friends quoth he use to doe that which is equitie and just although I should write never a word unto them Another shewed him the wals of a city how woonderfull strong they were and magnificently built asking of him whether he thought them not stately and faire Faire quoth he yes no doubt for women to lodge and dwell in but not for men A Megarian there was who magnified and highly extolled before him the city Megara Yoong man quoth he and my good friend your brave words require some great puissance Such things as other men had in great admiration hee would not seeme so much as to take knowledge of Upon a time one Callipides an excellent plaier in Tragedies who was in great name and reputation among the Greeks insomuch as all sorts of men made no small account of him when he chanced to meet him upon the way saluted him first and afterwards prosumptuously thrust himselfe forward to walke among others with him in hope that the king would begin to shew some lightsome countenance and grace him but in the end seeing that it would not be he was so bolde as to advance himselfe and say unto him Sir king know you not me and have you not heard who I am Agesilaus looking wistly upon his face Art not thou quoth he Callipides Deicelictas for so the Lacedaemonians use to call a jester or plaier He was invited one day to come and heare a man who could counterfeit most lively and naturally the voice of the nightingale but he refused to go saying I have heard the nightingales themselves to sing many a time Menecrates the Physician had a luckie hand in divers desperate cures whereupon some there were who surnamed him Jupiter and he himselfe would over arrogantly take that name upon him insomuch as he presumed in one letter of his which he sent unto him to set this superscription Menecrates Jupiter unto king Agesilaus wisheth long life but Agesilaus wrote back unto him in this wise Agesilaus to Menecrates wisheth good health When Pharnabasus and Canon the high-admirals of the armada under the Persian king were so farre-foorth lords of the sea that they pilled and spoiled all the coasts of Laconia and besides the walles of Athens were rebuilded with the money that Pharnabasus furnished the Athenians withall the lords of the counsell of Lacedaemon were of advice that the best policie was to conclude peace with the king of Persia and to this effect sent Antalcidas one of their citizens to Tiribasus with commission treacherously to betray and deliver into the barbarous kings hands the Greeks inhabiting Asia for whose libertie Agesilaus before had made warres by which occasion Agesilaus was thought to have his hand in this shamefull and
infamous practise for 〈◊〉 who was his mortall enemie wrought by all meanes possible to effect peace because he saw that warre continually augmented the credit of Agesilaus and made him most mightie and honourable yet neverthelesse he answered unto one that reproched him with the Lacedaemonians saying That they were Medified or turned Medians Nay rather quoth he the Medians are Laconified and become Laconians The question was propounded unto him upon a time whether of these two vertues in his judgement was the better Fortitude or Justice and he answered That where Justice reigned Fortitude bare no sway and was nothing worth for if we were all righteous and honest men there would be no need at all of Fortitude The people of Greece dwelling in Asia had a custome to call the king of Persia The great king And wherefore quoth he is he greater than I unlesse he be more temperat and righteous semblably he said That the inhabitants of Asia were good slaves but naughtie freemen Being asked how a man might win himselfe the greatest name and reputation among men he answered thus If he say well and yet do better This was a speech of his That a good captaine ought to shew unto his enemies valour and hardinesse but unto those that be under his charge love and benevolence Another demanded of him what children should learne in their youth That quoth he which they are to doe and practise when they be men growen He was judge in a cause where the plaintife had pleaded well but the defendant very badly who eftsoones and at every sentence did nothing but repeat these words O Agesilaus a king ought to protect and helpe the lawes unto whom Agesilaus answered in this wise If one had undermined thy house or robbed thee of thy raiment wouldest thou thinke and looke that a carpenter or mason were bound to repaire thy house and the weaver or tailour for to supplie thy want of clothes The king of Persia had writ unto him a letter missive after a generall peace concluded which letter was brought by a gentleman of Persia who came with Callias the Lacedaemonian and the contents thereof was to this effect That the king of Persia desired to enter into some more especiall amitie and fraternitie with him but he would not accept thereof saying unto the messenger Thou shalt deliver this answere from me unto the king thy master that hee needed not to write any such particular letters unto mee concerning private friendship for if hee friend the Lacedaemonians in generall and shew himselfe to love the Greeks and desire their good I also reciprocally will be his friend to the utmost of my power but if I may finde that he practiseth treacherie and attempteth ought prejudiciall to the state of Greece well may he write epistle upon epistle and I receive from him one letter after another but let him trust to this I will never be his friend Hee loved very tenderly his owne children when they were little ones insomuch as he would play with them up and downe the house yea and put a long cane betweene his legs and ride upon it like an hobby horse with them for company and if it chanced that any of his friends spied him so doing he would pray them to say nothing unto any man thereof untill they had babes and children of their owne But during the continuall warres that he had with the Thebans he fortuned in one battell to be grievouslie wounded which when Antalcidas saw he said unto him Certes you have received of the Thebans the due salarie and reward that you deserved for teaching them as you have done even against their willes how to fight which they neither could nor ever would have learned to doe for in trueth it is reported that the Thebans then became more martiall and warlike than ever before-time as being inured and exercised in armes by the continuall roads and invasions that the Lacedaemomans made which was the reason that ancient Lycurgus in those lawes of his which be called Rhetrae expresly forbad his people to make warre often upon one and the same nation for feare lest in so doing their enemies should learne to be good souldiers When he heard that the allies and confederates of Lacedaemon were offended and tooke this continuall warfare ill complaining that they were never in maner out of armes but caried their harnesse continually upon their backs and besides being many more in number they followed yet the Lacedaemonians who were but an handfull to all them he being minded to convince them in this and to shew how many they were commanded all his said confederates to assemble together and to sit them downe pell-mell one with another the Lacedaemonians likewise to take their place over-against them apart by themselves which done he caused an herald to cry aloud in the hearing of all That all the potters should rise first and when those were risen that the brasse-founders and smithes should stand up then the carpenters after them the masons and so all other artisans handi-crafts men one after another by which meanes all the confederats wel-nere were risen up and none in maner left sitting but all this while not a Lacedaemonian stirred off his seat for that forbidden they were all to learne or exercise any mechanicall craft then Agesilaus tooke up a laughter and said Lo my masters and friends how many more souldiers are we able to send into the warres than you can make In that bloodie battell fought at Leuctres many Lacedaemonians there were that ran out of the field fled who by the lawes and ordinances of the countrey were all their life time noted with infamy howbeit the Ephori seeing that the citie by this meanes would be dispeopled of citizens and lie desert in that verie time when as it had more need than ever before of souldiers were desirous to devise a policie how to deliver them of this ignominie and yet notwithstanding preferre the lawes in their entire and full force therefore to bring this about they elected Agesilaus for their law-giver to enact a new lawes who being come before the open audience of the city spake unto them in this manner Yee men of Lacedaemon I am not willing in any wise to be the author and inventor of new lawes and as for those which you have alreadie I minde not to put any thing thereto to take fro or otherwise to alter and chaunge them and therefore mee thinkes it is meere and reasonable that from to morrow forward those which you have should stand in their ful vigor strength and vertue accustomed Moreover as few as there remained in the citie when Epaminondas was about to assaile it with a great fleete and a violent tempest as it were of Thebans and their confederates puffed up with pride for the late victorie atchieved in the plaine of Leuctres with those few I say hee put him and his forces backe and caused them to returne without
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
of discontentment nor directly and in open maner seemed to warre against him but privily practised and cunningly disposed all for first and formost she raised warre upon him out of Lybia by the meanes of a prince there named Anabus betweene whom and her there passed secret intelligence him shee sollicited and perswaded to invade his countrey and with a puissant armie to approch the citie Cyrene then she buzzed into Leanders head certeine surmizes and suspitions of disloialtie in his peeres his friends and captaines giving him to understand that their stood not to this warre but that they loved peace and quietnesse rather Which quoth she to say a truth as things now stand were better for you for the establishment of your roial state dominion in case you would rule in deed holde under and keepe in awe your subjects and citizens and for mine owne part I holde it good policie for you to make meanes for a treatie of peace which I will labour to effect and for that purpose bring you and Anabus together to an interview and parle if you thinke so good before that you grow to farther tearmes of hostilitie and open warre which may breed a mischiefe that afterwards will admit no cure nor remedie This motion she handled and followed with such dexteritie that Leander condescended thereto and shee her selfe in person went to conferre with the Lybian prince whom she requested that so soone as ever they were met together to treat of this pretended accord he should arrest the tyrant as his prisoner and to doe this feat she promised him great gifts and presents besides a good reward in money the Lybian soone accorded hereto now Leander made some doubt at first to go into this parle and staied a while but afterwards for the good respect that he had unto Aretaphila who promised in his behalfe that he should come to conference he set forward naked without armes and without his guards when he approched the place appointed for this interview and had a sight once of Anabus his heart misgave him againe and being much troubled and perplexed he would not go on but said he would stay for his guard howbeit Aretaphila who was there present partly encouraged him and in part rebuked and checked hin saying That he would be taken and reputed for a base minded coward and a disloiall person who made no account of his word if he should now flinch and start backe at the last when they were at point to meet she laied holde upon him plucked him forward by the hand and with great boldnesse and resolution haled him untill she had delivered him into the hands of the barbarous prince then immediatly was hee apprehended and his bodie attached by the Lybians who kept him bound as a prisoner and set a straight guard about him untill such time as the friends of Aretaphila with other citizens of Cirene were come to the campe and brought the money and gifts unto her which she had promised unto Anabus For so soone as it was knowen in the city that Leander was taken prisoner in sure hold a number also of the multitude ran forth to the place appointed of conference and so soone as they had set an eie on Aretaphila they went within a little of forgetting all their anger and malice which they bare unto the tyrant thinking that the revenge and exemplarie punishment of him was but accessarie and by-matter as being now wholly amused upon another thing and supposing the principall fruition of their libertie consisted in saluting and greeting her most kindly and with so great joy that the teares ran downe their cheeks insomuch as they were ready to kneele yea and cast themselves downe prostrate at her feet no lesse than before the sacred image and statue of a goddesse thus they flocked unto her by troups out of the citie one after another all day long insomuch as it was wel in the evening before they could advise with themselves to seize upon the person of Leander and hardly before darke night did they bring him with them into the citie Now after they were well satisfied with giving all maner of praises and doing what honour they could devise unto Aretaphila in the end they turned to consultation what was best to be done with the tyrants so they proceeded to burne Calbia quicke and as for Leander they put him in a leather poke and sowed it up close and then cast it into the sea Then ordeined and decreed it was that Aretaphila should have the charge and administration of the weale publicke with some other of the principall personages of the citie joined in commission with her but she as one who had plaied many and sundry parts alreadie upon the stage so well that shee had gotten the garland and crowne of victorie when shee saw that her countrey and citie was now fully free and at libertie immediatly betooke her selfe to her owne private house as it were cloistered up with women onely and would no more intermeddle in the affaires of State abroad but the rest of her life she passed in peace and repose with her kinsfolke and friends without setting her selfe to any businesse save onely to her wheele her web and such womens works CAMMA THere were in times past two most puissant Lords and Tetrarches of Galatia who also were in blood of kinne one to the other Sinatus and Synorix Sinatus had espoused a yoong virgin named Camma and made her his wife a ladie highly esteemed of as many as knew her as well for the beautie of her person as the floure of her age but admired much more in regard of her vertue and honestie for she had not onely a tender respect of her owne good name and honour carried an affectionate love and true heart unto her but also was wise magnanimous and passing well beloved of all her subjects and tenants in regard of her gentle nature and her debonair and bounteous disposition and that which made her better reputed and more renowmed was this that she was both a religious priestresse of Diana a goddesse whom the Galatians most devoutly honour and worship and also in every solemne procession and publicke sacrifice she would alwaies be seene abroad most sumptuously set out and stately adorned It fortuned so that Synorix was enamoured of this brave dame but being not able to bring about his purpose and to enjoy her neither by faire meanes nor foule perswade he or menance what he could so long as her husband lived the divell put in his head to commit a most heinous and detestable fact for he said waite for Sinatus and treacherously murthered him he staied not long after but he fell to wooing of Camma and courting herby way of marriage she made her abode within the temple at that time and tooke the infamous act committed by Synorix not piteously and as one cast downe and dejected therewith but with a slout heart and a stomacke mooved to anger
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
parents being wicked and vicious were themselves honest and very profitable to the common-wealth Are we not then to thinke that it were far better to punish in due time and maner convenient than to proceed unto revenge hastily and out of hand like as that was of Callippus the Athenian who making semblance or friendship unto Dion stabbed him at once with his dagger and was himselfe afterwards killed with the same by his friends as also that other of Mitius the Argive who was murdered in a certeine commotion and civill broile for it hapned so that in a frequent assembly of the people gathered together in the market place for to beholde a solemne shew a statue of brasse fell upon the murderer of Mitius and killed him outright And you have heard I am sure ô Patrocleas have you not what befell unto Bessus the Poeonian and Ariston the Oeteian two colonels of mercenarie and forren souldiers No verily quoth he but I would gladly know This Ariston quoth I having stollen and caried away out of this temple certeine jewels and costly furniture of queene Eriphyle which of long time had there bene kept safe by the grant and permission of the tyrants who ruled this citie carried them as a present to his wife but his sonne being on a time upon some occasion displeased and angrie with his mother set fire on the house and burnt it with all that was within it As for Bessus who had murdered his owne father he continued a good while not detected until such time as being one day at supper with certeine of his friends that were strangers with the head of his speare he pierced and cast downe a swallowes neast and so killed the yong birds within it and when those that stood by seemed as good reason there was to say unto him How commeth this to passe goood sir and what aile you that you have committed so leud and horrible an act Why quoth he againe doe these birds crie aloud and beare false witnesse against me testifying that I have murdered mine owne father hee had no sooner let fall this word but those who were present tooke holde thereof and wondering much thereat went directly to the king and gave information of him who made so diligent inquisition that the thing upon examination was discovered and Bessus for his part punished accordingly for a parricide Thus much I say have we related that it may be held as a confessed trueth and supposition that wicked men otherwhiles have some delay of their punishment as for the rest you are to thinke that you ought to hearken unto Hesiodus the Poet who saith not as Plato did that the punishment of sinne doth follow sinne hard at the heeles but is of the same time and age as borne and bred in one place with it and springing out of the very same root and stocke for these be his words in one place Bad counsell who deviseth first Unto himselfe shall finde it worst And in another Who doth for others mischiefe frame To his owne heart contrives the same The venimous flies Cantharides are said to conteine in themselves a certeine remedie made and compounded by a cōtrarietie or antipathie in nature which serveth for their owne counterpoison but wickednesse ingendering within it selfe I wot not what displeasure and punishment not after a sinfull act is committed but even at the very instant of committing it beginneth to suffer the paine due to the offence neither is there a malefactour but when he seeth others like himselfe punished in their bodies beareth forth his owne crosse whereas mischievous wickednesse frameth of her selfe the engines of her owne torment as being a wonderfull artisan of a miserable life which together with shame and reproch hath in it lamentable calamities many terrible frights fearefull perturbations and passions of the spirit remorse of conscience desperate repentance and continuall troubles and unquietnesse But some men there be who for all the world resemble little children that beholding many times in the theater leaud and naughtie persons arraied in cloth of golde rich mantles and robes of purple adorned also with crownes upon their heads when they either dance or play their parts upon the stage have them in great admiration as reputing them right happie untill such time as they see them how they be either pricked and pierced with goads or sending flames of fire out of those gorgeous costly and sumptuous vestments For to say a trueth many wicked persons who dwel in stately houses are descended from noble parentage sit in high places of authoritie beare great dignities and glorious titles are not knowen for the most part what plagues and punishments they susteine before they be seene to have their throats cut or their necks broken by being cast downe headlong from on high which a man is not to tearme punishments simply but rather the finall end and complishment of thereof For like as Herodicus of Selymbria being fallen into an incurable phthisicke or consumption by the ulcer of his lungs was the first man as Plato saith who in the cure of the said disease joined with other Physicke bodily exercise and in so doing drew out and prolonged death both to himselfe and to all others who were likewise infected with that maladie even so may we say that wicked persons as many as seeme to have escaped a present plague and the stroke of punishment out of hand suffer in truth the paine due for their sinfull acts not in the end onely and a great time after but susteine the same a longer time so that the vengeance taken for their sinfull life is nothing slower but much more produced and drawen out to the length neither be they punished at the last in their olde age but they waxe olde rather in punishment which they have endured all their life Now when I speake of long time I meane it in regard of our selves for in respect of the gods the whole race of mans life how long soever it be thought is a matter of nothing or no more than the very moment and point of the instant For say that a malefactour our should suffer the space of thirtie yeres for some hainous fact that he hath committed it is all one as if a man should stretch him upon the racke or hang him upon a jibbet in the evening toward night and not in the morning betimes especially seeing that such an one all the while that he liveth remaineth close and fast shut up as it were in a strong prison or cage out of which he hath no meanes to make an escape and get away Now if in the meane while they make many feasts manage sundry matters and enterprise divers things if they give presents and largesses abroad and say they give themselves to their disports and pleasures it is even as much and all one as when malefactours during the time they be in prison should play at dice or cockall game having continually over head the rope
reasons in the defence of other Philosophers I have before-time put downe in writing but forasmuch as after the lecture and disputation of this matter ended there passed many speeches in our walke against that sect I thought it good to collect and gather the same yea and to reduce them into a written treatise if for nothing els yet for this cause to give them at leastwise to understand who are so ready to note censure and correct others that a man ought to have heard and read with great heed and diligence and not superficially the works and writings of those whom he taketh upon him to reprove and refute and not to picke out one word here another there or to take hold of his words delivered by way of talke conference and not couched and set down precisely in writing thereby to repell and drive away the ignorant and such as have no knowledge of those things For when as we walked forth after the lecture as our maner was out of the schoole into the common place of exercise Zeuxippus mooving speech began in this wise Me thinks quoth he that this discourse hath beene delivered much more mildly and gently than becommeth franknesse and libertie of speech beseeming the schooles which is the reason that Heraclides and his followers be departed from us as discontented and displeased yea and much more bitterly nipping and checking us without any cause given on our part than either Epicurus or Metrodorus Then Theon Why said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quoth he that Colotes in comparison of them is the most modest and fairest spoken man in the world For the most foule and reprochfull tearmes that can be devised for to raile and slander withall to wit of sacrileges scurrilities vanities of speech talkative babbling glorious and vanting arrogancie whoremonging murders counterfeit hypocrites cousiners cursed creatures heavie headed brainsicke tedious and making their braines ake who reade them these I say they have raked up together and discharged as it were haile-shot upon Aristotle Socrates Pythagoras Protagoras Theraclides Hipparchus and whom not of all the most renowmed and principall Philosophers in such sort that how well and wisely soever they have carried themselves otherwise yet in regard of their foule mouthes slanderous speeches and beastly backbitings they deserve to be sequestred farre off and put out of the range and number of wise men and Philosophers for envie emulation and jealousie ought not to enter into this divine dance and heavenly quire being so weake and impotent that they can not dissemble and hide their griefe and discontent Heereat Aristodemus Heraclides quoth hee who by profession is a Grammarian in the behalfe of all the poeticall rabble for so it pleaseth the Epicureans to blason them and for all the foolish and fabulous vanities of Homer hath well requited Epicurus or because Metrodorus in so many places of his writings hath reviled and abused that prince of poets but as for them ô Zeuxippus let them goe as they are and whereas it was objected in the beginning of the speech against those men That there was no living at all after their precepts and rules why doe not we our selves alone by our selves taking unto us Theon for our associat because this man here is wearie go in hand to prosecute the same thorowly Then Theon made him this answere This combat hath before us beene Perform'd by others well I weene And therefore propounding to our selves if it please you another marke and scope to aime at let us for to be revenged of the injurie done unto other philosophers proceed after this forme of processe and assay to proove and shew if it be possible that according to the doctrine even of these Epicureans men can not live in joy and pleasure Say you so quoth I then and laughed heartily withall now surely me thinks you are leapt upon their bellies and be readie to trample then with both your feet certes you will enforce these men to fight for their verie owne flesh if you bereave them of pleasure who doe nothing els but crie out and sing this note We are in deed no champions brave In fight with fists no grace we have neither are we eloquent oratours wise magistrates or prudent governours and rulers of cities or States But for to feast and make good cheere To eat and drinke we have no peere We love I say to banquet alwaies and make merie to give our selves contentment and all the delightfull motions and pricks of the flesh if haply any pleasure and joy thereby may be transmitted and sent into the soule so as you seeme to me not to deprive these men of joy and solace onely but also of their very life in case you doe not leave them a pleasant and jocund life How then quoth Theon if you thinke so well of this subject matter why do not you set in hand to it at this present For mine owne part said he again content I will be to heare you and answer againe if you request so much but begin you first to set us in the traine thereof for I will yeeld unto you the superioritie and presidence of this disputation Now when Theon seemed to pretend some small excuse Aristodemus O what a compendious ready faire plaine way quoth he have you cut us of for to come unto this point in not permitting us first to make inquisition unto this Epicurean sect and to put them to their triall as touching vertue and honestie for it no easie matter nay it is impossible to drive these men from a pleasant and voluptuous life so long as they suppose and set downe this That the supreame end of all humane felicitie lieth in pleasure wheras if we could once have brought this about That they lived not honestly presently and withall they had bene put by their pleasant life for they themselves confesse and say That a man can not live in joy unlesse he be honest for that the one may not stand without the other As touching that point quoth Theon we will not sticke in the progresse of our discourse to handle it but for the present we will take that which they grant and make our use of it this therefore they holde That the sovereigne good whereof we speake consisteth in the bellie and the parts thereabout as also in those other passages and conduits of the bodie thorow which pleasure entreth into it no pain at all and they are of opinion that all the fine devices subtill and wittie inventions in the world were put in triall and practised for to please and content the bellie or at leastwise for the good hope that she should enjoy contentment according as the wise Philosopher Metrodorus hath said and written And verily by this their first supposition without going any farther it is easie to be knowen and seene my good friend what a slender poore rotten and unsteadie foundation they have laied to ground upon it their sovereigne good considering that even
setting pleasure onely aside what other thing is there in the world be it never so pure holy and venerable that they embrace and love Had it not beene more reason for the leading of a joyfull life to be offended with sweet perfumes and to reject odoriferous oiles and ointments as bettles jeires and vultures doe than to abhorre detest and shun the talke and discourses of Humanitians Criticks Grammarians and Musicians for what maner of flute or hautboies what harpe or lute how well soever set tuned and fitted for song What quire resounding loud and shrill From pleasant mouth and brest so sweet A song in parts set with great skill When cunning men in musicke meet so greatly delighted Epicurus and Metrodorus as the discourses the rules and precepts of quites and carols the questions and propositions concerning flutes and hautboies touching proportions consonances harmonicall accords would affect Aristotle Theophrastus Hieronymus and Dicaearchus as for example what is the reason that of two pipes or flutes otherwise even and equall that which hath the straighter and narrower mouth yeeldeth the bigger and more base sound also what might be the cause that the same pipe when it is lifted and set upward becommeth loud in all the tones that it maketh but holde it downward once it soundeth as low so doth one pipe also when it is set close unto another give a base sound but contrariwise if it be disjoined and put asunder it soundeth higher and more shrill As also how it commeth to passe that if a man sow chaffe or cast dust thicke upon the stage or scaffold in a Theater the people there assembled be deafe and cannot heare the plaiers or minstrels Semblably when king Alexander the Great was minded to have made in the citie of Pella the forepart of the stage in the Theater all of brasse what mooved his workman or Architect not to permit him so to doe for feare it would drowne and dull the voice of the plaiers Finally why among sundry kinds of Musicke that which is called Chromaticall delighteth enlargeth and joieth the heart whereas the Harmonicall contracteth and draweth it in making it sad and dumpish Moreover the maners and natures of men which Poets represent in their writings their wittie fictions the difference and varietie of their stile the solution of darke doubts and quaint questions which besides a delightsome grace and beautifull elegance carie with them a familiar and perswasive power whereout ech one may reape profit insomuch as they are able as Xenophon saith to make a man forget even love it selfe so effectuall is this pleasure and delight Howbeit the Epicureans here have no feeling and experience nay which is woorse they desire to have none as they say themselves but imploying the whole contemplative part of the soule in thinking upon nothing els but the bodie and plucking it downward together with sensuall and carnall lusts as fishers nets with little rols and plummets of lead they differ nothing at all from horsekeepers or shepherds and other herdmen who lay before their beasts hay straw or some kinde of grasse and herbs as the proper fodder forage for the cattell which they have in charge for do they not even so intend to feed the soule fat as men franke up swine with bodily pleasures in that they would have her to be glad for the hope shee hath that the body shall shortly enjoy some pleasure or els in the remembrance of those which it hath enjoied in times past as for any proper delight or particular pleasure of her owne they suffer her to receive none from herselfe nor so much as to seeke thereafter And verily can there be any thing more absurd beside all apparance and shew of reason than whereas there be two parts whereof man is compounded to wit soule and body of which the soule is more woorth and placed in the higher degree to say and affirme that there is in the bodie some good thing proper peculiar familiar and naturall unto it and none in the soule but that she sits still tending the bodie and looking onely to it that she smileth upon the passions and affections thereof joying and taking contentment with it onely having of herselfe originally no motion no election no choise no desire nor pleasure at all Now surely they should either by putting off their maske and discovering themselves have gone roundly to worke making man flesh and nothing else but flesh as some there be who flatly denie that there is any spirituall substance in him or else leaving in us two different natures they ought to have let either of them alone by it selfe with their severall good and evill that I say which is familiar or contrarie unto it like as among the five senses everie one is destined appropriat to one object sensible although all of them by a certaine woonderfull sympathy be affected one to the other Now the proper sensative organ or instrument of the soule is the understanding and to say that the same hath no peculiar subject to worke upon no proper spectacle to behold no familiar motion no naturall and inbred passion or affection in the fruition whereof it should take pleasure and delight is the greatest absurditie of all others And verily this is the saying of these men unlesse haply some ther be who ere they be aware charge upon them some slanderous and false imputations Heereat began I to speake and say unto him Not so sir if we may be judges but I pray you let be all action of inquirie and proceed hardly to finish and make an end of your discourse And why quoth he should not Aristodemus succeed after me if you haply refuse slatly or be loth to speake You say true indeed quoth Aristodemus but that shall not be untill you be wearie of speech as this man is and for the present since you are yet fresh and in heart I beseech you my good friend spare not your selfe but use your facultie lest you be thought for very sloth and idlenesse to draw back and goe out of the lists Certes quoth Theon then it is but a small matter and the same very easie which is behind for there remaineth no more but to shew and recount how many joies and pleasures there be in active life and that part of the soule which is given to action First and formost even they themselves in some place graunt and confesse that it is a greater pleasure to doe good and to benefit others than to receive a benefit from another as for good turnes a man I confesse may doe them in bare words and sayings but surely the most and greatest are performed by acts and deeds and thus much doth the verie word of benefit or weldoing import and even they themselves testifie no lesse For but a while since wee heard this man report what words and speeches Epicurus delivered what letters he wrot and sent unto his friends in extolling praising and magnifying
Metrodorus how bravely and valiantly he went downe from the citie of Athens to the port Pyreaeum for to aid and succour Mythris the Syrian albeit Metrodorus did no service at all in that sally What manner of pleasures then and how great ought wee to esteeme those which Plato enjoied when Dion a scholar of his one of his bringing up rose up to put downe the tyrant Dionysius to deliver the state of Sicily from servitude what contentment might Aristotle find when he caused the citie of his nativitie which was ruinate and rased to the ground to be reedified and his countrimen fellow-citizens to be called home who were banished what delights and joies were those of Theophrastus and Phidias who deposed and overthrew those tyrants who usurped the lordly dominion of their countrey and for private persons in particular how many they relieved not in sending unto them a strike or a bushell of corne and meale as Epicurus sent unto some but in working and effecting that those who were exiled out of their native countrey driven from their owne houses and turned out of all their goods might returne home againe and reenter upon all that such as had beene prisoners and lien in irons might be delivered and set at large as many also as were put from their wives and children might recover and enjoy them againe What need I make rehearsall unto you who know all this well enough But surely the impudence and absurditie of this man I can not though I would passe over with silence who debasing and casting under foot the acts of Themistocles and Miltiades as he did wrot of himselfe to certeine of his friends in this sort Right nobly valiantly and magnificently have you shewed your endevour and care of us in provision of corne to furnish us withall and againe you have declared by notorious signes which mount up into heaven the singular love and good will which you beare unto me And if a man observe the manner of this stile and writing he shall find that if he take out of the misteries of this great philosopher that which concerneth a little corne all the words besides are so curiously couched and penned as if the epistle had beene written purposedly as a thankes giving for the safety of all Greece or at leastwise for delivering setting free and preserving the whole citie and people of Athens What should I busie my head to shew unto you that for the delights of the bodie nature had need to be at great cost and expences neither doth the chiefe pleasure which they seeke after consist in course bisket-bread in pease pottage or lentile broth but the appetites of these voluptuous persons call for exquisit and daintie viands for sweete and delicate wines such as those be of Thasos for sweet odours pleasant perfumes and precious ointments for curious junkets and banketting dishes for tarts cake-bread marchpanes and other pastrie works well wrought beaten and tempered with the sweet liquor gathered by the yellow winged Bee over and besides all this their mind stands also to faire and beautiful yoong damosels they must have some pretie Leontium some fine Boïchon some sweet Hedia or daintie Nicedion whom they keepe and nourish of purpose within their gardens of pleasure to be ready at hand As for the delights and joies of the mind there is no man but will consesse and say That founded they ought to be upon the greatnesse of some noble actions and the beautie of worthy and memorable works if we would have them to be not vaine base and childish but contrariwise reputed grave generous magnificent and manlike whereas to vaunt and glory of being let loose to a dissolute course of life and the fruition of pleasures and delights after the maner of sailers and mariners when they celebrate the seast of Venus to boast also and please himselfe in this That being desperatly sicke of that kinde of dropsie which the Physicians call Ascites he forbare not to feast his friends still and keepe good companie neither spared to adde and gather more moisture and waterish humours still unto his dropsie and remembring the last words that his brother Neocles spake upon his death-bed melted and consumed with a speciall joy and pleasure of his owne tempered with teares there is no man I trow of sound judgement and in his right wits who would tearme these sottish sollies either sound joies or perfect delights but surely if there be any Sardonian laughter as they call it belonging also to the soule it is seated in my conceit even in such joies and mirths mingled with teares as these which do violence unto nature but if any man shal say that these be solaces let him compare them with others and see how farre these excell and go beyond them which are expressed by these verses By sage advice I have effected this That Spartaes martiall fame eclipsed is Also This man ô friend and stranger both was while he lived heere The great and glorious starre of Rome his native citie decre Likewise I wot not what I should you call An heavenly God and man mortall And when I set before mine eies the noble and worthy acts of Thrasibulus and Pelopidas or behold the victories either of Aristides in that journey of Plateae or of Miltiades at the battell of Marathon I am even ravished and transported besides my selfe and forced to say with Herodotus and deliver this sentence That in this active life there is more sweetnesse and delectation than glorie and honour and that this is so Epaminondas will beare me witnesse who by report gave out this speech that the greatest contentment which ever he had during his life was this That his father and mother were both alive to see that noble Trophee of his for the victorie that he wan at Leuctres being generall of the Thebans against the Lacedaemonians Compare we now with this mother of Epaminondas Epicurus his mother who tooke so great joy to see her sonne keeping close in a daintie garden and orchard of pleasure where he and his familiar friend Polyenus gat children in common upon a trull and courtisan of Cyzicum for that both mother and sister of Metrodorus were exceeding glad of his marriage may appeare by his letters missive written unto his brother which are extant in his books and yet they goe up and downe everie where crying with open mouth That they have lived in joy doing nought els but extoll and magnifie their delicate life faring much like unto slaves when they solemnize the feast of Saturne supping and making good cheere together or celebrate the Bacchanales running about the fields so as a man may hardly abide to heare the utas and yelling noise they make when upon the insolent joy of their hearts they breake out into many fooleries and utter they care not unto whom as vaine and fond speeches in this maner Why sut'st thou still thou wretched lout Come let us drinke and quaffe about The
the night a voice that gave warning and advertised that shortly after they should looke for the Gaules to warre upon them As for that temple upon the banke of the river Tyber of Fortune surnamed Fortis that is to say Strong Martiall Valiant and Magnanimous for that to her belonged generositie and the forcible power to tame and overcome all things they built a temple to the honour of her within the orchards and gardens that Caesar by his last will and testament bequeathed unto the people of Rome as being perswaded that himselfe by the gracious favour of Fortune became the greatest man of all the Romans as himselfe doth testifie As concerning Julius Caesar I would have bene abashed and ashamed to say that through the favour of Fortune he was lifted up to that rare greatnesse but that his owne selfe beareth witnesse thereof for being departed from Brindois the fourth day of Ianuary and imbarked for to pursue Pompeius even at the verie height and in the heart of Winter he crossed the seas most safely as if Fortune had held in the tempestuous weather of that season and when he found Pompeius strong and puissant aswell by sea as land as having all his forces assembled together about him in a set and standing campe being himselfe but weake and accompanied with a small power for that the companies which Antonius and Sabinus should have brought lingered and staied behinde he adventured to take sea againe and putting himselfe into a small frigat sailed away unknowen both to the master and also to the pilot of the said barke in simple habit as if he had bene some meane and ordinary servitor but by occasion of a violent returne of the tide ful against the current of the river withall of a great tempest that arose seeing that the pilot was readie to alter his course and turne abaft backe he plucked away his garment from his head where with he sat hoodwinked and discovered his face saying unto the pilot Holde the helme hard good fellow and be not afraid to set forward be bolde I say hoise sailes spred them open to the winde at aventure and feare not for thou hast aboord Caesar and his Fortune So much perswaded was he and confidently assured that Fortune sailed with him accompanied him in all his marches and voiages assisted him in the campe aided him in battell conducted and directed him in all his warres whose worke indeed it was and could proceed from nothing els but her to command a calme at sea to procure faire weather and a Summer season in Winter to make them swift and nimble who otherwise were most slow and heavie to cause them to be couragious who were grearest cowards and most heartlesse and that which is more incredible than all the rest to force Pompey to flie and Ptolemeus to kill his owne guest to the end that Pompey might die and yet Caesar be not stained with his bloudshed What should I alledge the testimonie of his sonne the first emperour surnamed Augustus who for the space of fiftie yeeres and foure was absolute commander both by sea and land of the whole world who when he sent his nephew or sisters sonne to the warres praied and wished at Gods hands for no more but that he might prove as valiant as Scipio and as well beloved as Pompey and as fortunate as himselfe ascribing the making of himselfe as great as he was unto Fortune as if a man should intitle some singular piece of worke with the name of the workeman or artificer which Fortune of his was the cause that he got the start and vantage of Cicero Lepidus Pausa Hirtius and Marcus Antonius by whose counsels brave exploits and prowesses expeditions victories voiages armadoes legions campes and in one word by these warres as well by sea as by land she made him ever chiefe and principall lifting him on high still and putting them downe by whom hee was mounted and advanced untill in the end hee remained alone and had no peere nor second For it was for his sake that Cicero gave counsell Lepidus ledde an armie Pansa vanquished the enimie Hirtius lost his life in the sield and Antonius lived riotously in drunkennesse gluttonie and lecherie for I reckon Cleopatra among the favors that Fortune did to Augustus against whom as against some rock Antonius so great a commaunder so absolute a prince and mightie triumvir should runne himselfe be split and sinke to the end that Caesar Augustus might survive and remaine alone And to this purpose reported it is of him that there being so inward acquaintance and familiarity as there was among them that they used often to passe the time away together in playing at tennis or at dice or seeing some prety sport of cocks and quailes of the game which were kept for the nonce to sight when Antonius went evermore away with the worst and on the loosing hand one of his familiar friends a man well seene in the art of divination would manie times frankly say unto him by way of remonstrance and admonition Sir what meane you to meddle or have any dealing with this yoong gentleman meaning Augustus Fly and avoid his company I advise you more renowmed and better reputed you are than he his elder you are you have a greater commaund and seignorie than he more expert in feats of armes and of better experience and practise by farre but good sir your Genius or familiar spirit is afraid of his your Fortune which by it selfe apart is great flattereth and courteth his and unlesse you remoove your selfe farre from him it will forsake you quite and goe unto him Thus you see what evidences and proofes Fortune may alledge for herselfe by way of testimonie But we are besides to bring foorth those which are more reall and drawen from the things themselves beginning our discourse at the very foundation and nativitie as it were of Rome city In the first place therefore who will not say and confesse that for the birth the preservation the nouriture rearing and education of Romulus well might the excellencies of Vertue be the hidden ground-worke and first foundation but surely it was Fortune alone that raised the same above ground and built all up For to beginne at the verie generation and procreation even of those who first founded and planted the citie of Rome they seeme both to proceed from a woonderfull favour of rare Fortune for it is said that their mother lay with god Mars and was by him conceived and like as the report goeth that Hercules was begotten in a long night by reason that the day extraordinarily and besides the course of nature was held backe and the sunne staied in his race and rising even so we finde it recorded in histories that when Romulus was gotten and conceived the sunne became ecclipsed by reason of his ful conjunction indeed with the moone like as Mars being a very god medled with Sylvia a mortall woman also that the same
suppose quoth Agias for to eat and drinke simply that we invite one another but for to eat and drinke together for companie and good-fellowship whereas this parting and division of flesh and other viands into portions doth abolish all communication societie making indeed many severall suppers and many men to sit at supper apart but not one supping with another or fellow-guest in one messe when every man takes as it were from the butchers stall his own joint of meat or a piece of flesh by just waight or at a certeine size so sets his part before him For is not all one I pray you and what difference is there I would faine know to allow ech one of the guests at table his owne cup by himselfe to fill every man his Congious or gallon of wine yea and to allow him his table apart from others like as by report the linage of Demophon sometime served Orestes and so to bid them drinke without any regard or heed of others what diversitie I say is in this and the manner of these our daies namely to set before every man his lofe of bread and piece of flesh for to feed by himselfe as it were at his owne manger Surely all the oddes is that we have no commaundement to keepe silence and say never a word when we are at our meat as those had who interteined and feasted Orestes and verilie even this haply ought to provoke and bring us that are met to the communion participation of al things at a feast or banquet namely that we talke there one to another that we be partakers together of one song of a minstrell wenches musicke delighting us all and one as well as another with her playing upon a psalterie or pipe singing thereto Moreover that standing cup of amitie and good-felowship which is set in the very middes of the company for to drinke out of it one to another and that without any limitation or restreint to certeine bounds standeth as it were a source and lively fountaine of love and good will and hath no other stint and measure but the thirst and disposition of every one to drinke at his pleasure not like to this most unjust distribution of bread and flesh to every one which masketh it selfe with a false colour of equality among those who are unequall for even that as even and equall as it seemeth and in manner all one is too much for him that needs but a little and too little for him who hath need of much Like as therefore my good friend he is a ridiculous and foolish leech who to many and sundrie patients sicke of diverse and different diseases exhibiteth and giveth medicines just of one weight and exactly of the same measure even so were the master of a feast woorthy to be laughed at who having invited to his table sundry persons who are not hungry or thirsty alike would enterteine and serve them all indifferently after one order measuring the equalitie of his distribution by proportion arithmeticall and not geometricall True it is I confesse that we go or send al of us to the taverne for to buy our wine by one the same measure just which is allowed and set downe by the publicke State but to the table every man brings his owne stomacke the which is filled not with an equall quantitie of meat or drinke to all others but with that which sufficeth ech one As touching those banquets that Homer speaketh of wherein every man had his part cut out to what purpose should we bring them hither from military discipline and the custome of a campe to the manner and fashion of these daies but more reason it is that we resolve and propose unto our selves for to imitate heerein the humanity courtesie of those in old time who highly honored not only those who lodged ordinarily and made their abode with them under one roufe but also such as drunke of the same cuppe eat of the same meat and fedde out of one dish with them insomuch as they enterteined and reverenced their societie in all things Away therefore I pray you with those short meales and slender pittances of Homer which in my conceit are somewhat too scantand pinching and as a man would say over hungry and thirstie as having kings and princes for the masters and makers of them who be more sparing of their purses and looking more neerely to their expences than those good hoasts and keepers of ordinaries in Italy as who being in armes and arranged in batell raie and ready to joine in conflict with the enemie could remember precisely how many times ech one of their guests who dined or supped with them tooke the cuppe and dranke Yet commend me to those banquets and feasts which Pindarus writeth of for surely they are much better in which as he saith Full oft a prince and person honorable Among them all sat at some stately table For why such feasts had the communication of all things together and verily this was the felowship and knot indeed of true friends whereas the other was a distraction and separation of persons who made semblance to be the greatest friends and yet could not agree and communicate together so much as in the feeding of one dish of meat Agias had good audience given him and was well commended for the reasons which he alledged and then we set one of the company to come upon him in this manner saying That Agias thought it very strange and was offended that he should have an equall portion which others allowed him carying as he did before him such a grand-paunch and in truth a great eater he was and given exceeding much to belly cheere For a common fish as Democritus was wont to say hath no bone And yet this is that quoth I which especially and above all induceth us to the use of these portions and not without good reason considering that we acknowledge fatall necessitie by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for according as the old lady Jocasta said in Euripides That which uniteth cities and great States And knits in league confederates is nothing els but equalitie and nothing in the world hath so much need thereof as the societie and communion at the table which is grounded upon nature and law of necessitie nothing so much the usage whereof is not newly taken up nor drawen in as needful by opinion of others but right necessarie in it selfe For at an ordinary or common repast where folke feed together of one dish if one eat more than his fellowes certes he that can not plie his teeth so fast and commeth short of him doth maligne and repine at him for it like as that galley which maketh way and skuddeth before others is spighted by those that come dragging behinde For mee thinks it is not an auspicate beginning of a feast nor agreeable to amitie and good fellowship to snatch or lurch one from another
that women never eat the middle part of a Lectuce THE FOURTH BOOKE OF Symposiaques or banquet-questions The Proëme POlybius in times past ô Sossius Senecio gave unto Scipio Africanus this good advertisement Never to depart out of the market or common place where citizens daily assembled about their affaires untill he had gotten one new friend or other more than he had before Where you must understand this name of friend not precisely as the Stoicks doe nor after the subtile acceptation of the word according to curious Sophysters namely for him that continueth firme fast for ever and immutable but after a civill and vulgar maner for a wel willer as Dicaearchus meant when he said That we ought to make all men our well-willers but honest men onely our friends for surely this true friendship and amitie can not be gotten and purchased but in long time and by vertue whereas that good-will of civill persons may be gained by affaires and dealings one with another by conference and conversing and other-whiles by playing and gaming together namely when opportunitie of time and place meeteth therewith which helpeth not a little to the winning of humane affection and favour among men But consider now whether that lesson and precept of Polybius may be fitted not onely to the market and common place aforesaid but also to a feast or banquet namely That a man ought never to rise from the table nor to depart from the company met at a feast before he know that he hath acquired the love and good affection of some one of those there assembled and so much the rather because men repaire ordinarie to the publike place of the citie about other negotiations and businesse but to a feast wise and discreet persons come as much to get new friends as to do pleasure unto those whom they have already and therefore as it were a base absurd and illiberall part to seeme to carry away from a feast or banquet any thing whatsoever so to goe from thence with more friends than he brought thither at his entrance is a delectable honest and honourable thing like as on the contrary side he that is negligent and carelesse in this behalfe maketh that meeting and fellowship unpleasant and unprofitable unto himselfe and so he goes his way as one that had supped with his bellie and not with his minde and spirit for he that commeth as a guest to supper among others commeth not onely to take his part with them of bread wine meats and junkets but to communicate also in their discourses in their learning yea and their pleasant courtesie tending all in the end to good will and amitie For wrestlers to catch and take fast hold one of another had need of dust strewed upon their hands but wine at the table especially when it is accompanied with good talke is that which giveth meanes to lay holde upon friends and to knit them together For speech doth transfuse and derive by discourse and communication as it were by conduits and pipes courtesie and humanity from the bodie to the mind for otherwise dispersed it is and wandreth all over the bodie and doth no other good at all but onely fill and satisfie the same And like as marble taketh from iron red-hot the fluxible moisture by cooling it and maketh that softnesse to become hard and stiffe whereby it is more apt to reteine the impression of any forme received even so honest discourse and talke at the table suffereth not the guests that are eating and drinking together to run endlong still and be carried away with the strength of wine but staieth them and causeth their mirth and jollitie proceeding from their liberall drinking to be well tempered lovely well beseeming yea and apt to be fealed as it were with the signet of amity and friendship if a man know with dexteritie how to handle and manage men when they are thus made soft and tender yea and capable of any impression through kinde heat by the meanes of wine and good cheere THE FIRST QUESTION Whether the food consisting of sundry sorts of viands be easier of digestion than the simple THe first question then of this fourth Decade of Table discourses shall be concerning diversitie of meats for by occasion of the solemne feast Elaphebolia for the celebration whereof we went to the city Hyampolis Philon the physician invited us who as it should seeme had made great preparation of good cheere to enterteine us magnificently and seeing with Philinus a yoong lad his sonne feeding heartily upon drie bread without calling for any other meat to it tooke occasion to breake out into this admiration O Hercules now surely here is the common proverbe verified indeed They fought in place all full of stone But from the earth could lift up none and therewith he leapt forth and ran into the kitchin to fetch some good victuals for them and after he had staied a pretie while away he came againe and brought nothing with him but a few drie figs and some cheese which when I saw This is quoth I the ordinary fashion of those who having made provision of rare and exquisit things which also be costly and sumptuous do neglect 〈◊〉 which be good and necessarie whereof afterwards they finde a misse and want I never remembred quoth Philon that our Philinus heere seemeth to feed after the maner of Sostratus who never by report did eat or drinke any thing all his life time but onely milke but as for him very like it is that upon some change of minde he began this maner of diet and that he had not alwaies lived so but this Philinus here like another Chiron feedeth his sonne like as Achilles was brought up from his very infancie with such meats as have no bloud in them that is to say of the fruits of the earth And thinke you not that by this certeine demonstration he verifieth that which is written of the grashoppers namely that they live of the aire and dew I never thought upon a supper quoth Philinus or a feast of an hūdred beasts killed for sacrifice as they were when Aristomenes feasted his friends for otherwise I would have come from home well provided before-hand of simple viands which be holsome and healthfull as preservatives hanging about our necks against these sumptuous surfetous feaverous feasts for that I have heard many times physicians say That simple viands are easier of digestion than varietie of meats like as they be also readier at hand and sooner provided Then Marcion directing his speech unto Philo This Philinus heere quoth he marres all your provision of good cheere frighting as he doth your guests and what lies in him withdrawing them from eating thereof but if you will request me I shall answer in your behalfe I will pawne my selfe also and be their warrant yea and proove unto them afterwards that the diversitie of meats is more easie to bee concocted and digested than their simplicitie
the best sauce in the world and as for salt Homer called it divine and most men gave it the name of the Graces for that being mingled or otherwise taken with most of our meates it gives a kinde of grace and commendeth them as pleasant and agreeable to the stomacke But to say a truth the most divine sauce of a table or a supper is the presence of a friend a familiar and one whom a man knoweth well not so much for that he eateth and drinketh with us but rather because as he is partaker of our speeches so he doth participate his owne unto us especially if in such reciprocall talke there be any good discourses and those which be profitable fit and pertinent to the purpose for much babling indeed and lavish speech that many men use at the boord and in their cuppes bewraieth their vaine folly driving them oftentimes into inconsiderate and passionate fits and to perverse lewdnesse and therefore no lesse requisite it is and needfull to make choise of speeches than of friends to be admitted to our table and in this case we ought both to thinke and also to say contrary unto the auncient Lacedaemonians who when they received any yoong man or stranger into their guild-halles called phiditia where they used to dine and suppe in publicke together would shew unto them the dores of the place and say Out at these there never goeth word but we acquainting our selves with good words and pertinent speeches at the table in our discourses are willing and content that the same should go forth all and be set abroad to all persons whatsoever for that the matters and arguments of our talke are void of lascivious wantonnesse without backbiting flaundering malice and illiberall scurrilitie not beseeming men of good education as a man may well judge by these examples following in the Decade of this seventh booke THE FIRST QUESTION Against those who reproove Plato for saying That our drinke passeth by the lungs IT hapned one day in summer time that one of the company where I was at supper came out with this verse of Alcaus which every man hath readily in his mouth and pronounced it with a loud voice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Now drinke and wet thy lungs with wine For why the hot Dogge-starre doth shine No marvell quoth Nicias then a physician of the city Nicopolis if a poet as Alcaeus was were ignorant in that which Plato a great philosopher knew not and yet Alcaus in some sort may be borne out in saying so and relieved in this wise namely that the lungs being so neere as they are unto the stomacke enjoy the benefit of the liquid drinke and therefor it was not improperly said That they be wette and soked therewith but this famous philosopher by expresse words hath left in writing that our drinke directly passeth for the most part thorow the lungs so that he hath given us no meanes of any probabilitie in the world to excuse and defend him would we never so faine so grosse is his errour and ignorance so palpable for in the first place considering it is necessary that the drie nourishment should be mingled with the liquid plaine it is that there ought to be one common vessell which is the stomacke for to receive them both together to the end that it might transmit and send into the bellie and panch beneath the meat well soaked and made soft besides seeing that the lungs be smooth and every way compact and solide how is it possible that if a man drinke a supping or grewell wherein there is a little meale or flowre it should get thorow and not stay there for this is the doubt that Erasistratus objected very well against Plato Moreover this philosopher having considered most parts of the bodie and searched by reason wherefore they were made and being desirous to know as became a man of his profession for what use nature had framed every one he might have thought thus much That the wezill of the throat otherwise called Epiglottis was not made for nothing and to no purpose but ordeined for this that when we swallow any food it might keepe downe and close the conduit of the winde-pipe for feare that nothing might fall that way upon the lights which part no doubt is woonderfully troubled tormented and torne as it were with the cough when any little thing is gotten thither where the breath doth passe to and fro Now this wezill abovesaid being placed just in the middes and indifferent to serve both passages when we speake doth shut the mouth of that conduit or wezand that leadeth to the stomacke and as we either eat or drinke falleth likewise upon the winde-pipe that goeth to the lungs keeping that passage pure and cleere for the winde and breath to go and come at ease by way of respiration Furthermore thus much we know by experience That those who take their drinke leasurely letting it go downe by little and little have moister bellies than those who powre their liquor downe at once for by this meanes the drinke is caried directly into the bladder passing away apace and with violence making no stay whereas otherwise it resteth longer with the meat which it soaketh gently and is better mingled and incorporate into it but wee should never see the one or the other if at the first our drinke and meat went apart and had their severall waies by themselves when wee swallow them downe for wee conjoine our meat and drinke together sending them both one after another to the end that the liquor might serve in stead of a waggon according as Erasistratus was woont to say for to carrie and convey the meat and the nourishment into all parts After that Nicias had made this discourse Protogenes the Grammarian added moreover and seconded him in this wise saying That the poet Homer first of all other saw well enough and observed that the stomacke was the proper receptacle and vessell to receive our food as the winde-pipe which they called in olde time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to admit the winde and the breath and hereupon it came that they used to call those who had big and loud voices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say wide-throated meaning by the throat the winde-pipe and not the gullet wezand or gorge and therefore when he had said of Achilles charging Hector with his launce Heran him through his gorge at first A speeding wound and deadly thrust A little after he added and said His winde-pipe yet he went beside And did not it in twaine divide He meaneth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the proper instrument of the voice and conduit of the breath which he cut not quite in sunder as he did the other named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the wezand or gullet Upon these words all was husht for a time untill Florus tooke upon him to speake in the
to come in by which meanes whiles they looked evermore when the said dish should come to the table and did eat more sparily in hope of it of those meats which stood before them there was sufficient for them all But whiles I seemed thus to play upon the point before the company there present Florus thought good that this question ought to be handled in good earnest and more seriously namely as touching those shadowes abovesaid Whether it might stand with honesty and good maners to follow or goe with them who were bidden As for Cesernius his sonne in law he utterly condemned that fashion For a man ought quoth he to obey the counsell of Hesiodus who writeth thus Above all others to thy feast Invite thy friend who loves thee best If not so yet be sure at leastwise to bid thy familiars and those of thine acquaintance for to participate with thee in thy sacred libations and thanks givings to the gods at the table in discourses there held in the courtesies passing to and fro and namely in drinking one to another but now a daies it is with men that make feasts as with those who keepe ferrie-barges or barks to transport passengers for when they take in men aboord they permit them to cast into the vessell what fardels or baggage they have besides for even so we making a feast for some especiall persons give them leave to fill the place with whomsoever they please whether they be honest men of worth or no it makes no matter And I would marvell much if a man of quality and one that knoweth good maners would come thus bidden as it were at the second hand which is all one as unbiddē being such an one as many times the master of the feast himselfe knoweth not and if he be one of his acquaintance and knowledge and yet unbidden surely it were more shame now to go unto his house as it it were to upbraid him and cast in his teeth as if he came unto his feast without his good will and yet would take his part thereof even by violence and strong hand Moreover to go before or tarrie after him who would seeme to bid one to another mans table carieth some shame with it and would make a modest and honest man dismaied and blanke neither is it a decent thing to have need of witnesses and a warrant as it were betweene him and the master of the house to insinuate thus much that he is come indeed not as one formally bidden to supper but as the shadow of such and such a man besides to daunce attendance upon another and observe when he hath bene in the stouph is anointed and washed waiting the houre when he will goe sooner or later this in my simple judgement is a very base and mechanicall thing savouring strongly of the bonfon or parasit Gnatho if ever there were such a smell-feast as Gnatho who haunted mens tables where it cost him naught furthermore if there be no time or place where in a mans tongue may be better permitted to say thus Art thou dispos'd to boast to cracke and brave In measure speake out hardly good leave have than at a banquet where commonly there is most libertie allowed and intermingled in all that is done and said and every thing is well taken as in mirth how should a man behave and governe himselfe at such a place who is not a lawfull and naturall bidden guest indeed but as a man would say a bastard and subreptitious crept in and intruded I wot not how into a feast without all order of inviting for say that hee doe speake freely at the boord or say he doe not lie open he shall both for the one and the other to the calumniations of them there present neither is it a small inconvenience to be made a marke for scurrile tearmes and a meere laughing stocke namely when a man putteth up and endureth the base name of a shadow and will be content to answere thereunto for I assure you to make small account of unseemely words is the next waie to leade men unto undecent and dishonest deedes and to acquaint them therewith by little and little wherefore when I invite others to a feast or supper unto mine owne house I allow them otherwhiles to bring their shadowes with them for the custome of a citie is much and may not well be broken but surely when I have my selfe beene called upon to goe with others to a place where I am not bidden I have ever yet denied and could not for any thing be brought unto it Upon which words ensued silence for a time untill Florus began againe in this wise Certes this second point is more difficult and doubtfull than the other for when wee are to enterteine strangers that be travellers as hath beene said before we must of necessitie invite them in this order the reason is because it were incivilitie and discourtesie to part them and their friends in a strange place whom they were woont to have about them and againe it is no easie matter to know whom a man hath in his company See then quoth I whether they who have given libertie unto them that make a feast thus to invite guests that they may take others unto them as you say permit not them also whom they would bring as their shadowes to obey and so to come unto a feast for it standeth not with honestie to graunt and give that which is not meet for to demaund or give not in one word to sollicite or exhort one to that whereunto he would not willingly be sollicited either to doe or give his consent but as for great States and rulers or strangers travelling by the way there is no such inviting or choise to be made for enterteined they must be whom soever they bring with them but otherwise when one friend feasteth another it were a more friendly and courteous part for himselfe to bid the familiars or kinsfolke of his said friend knowing them so well as he doth for by this meanes greater honour he doth unto his friend yea and winneth more thanks at his hands againe when the partie invited shall know that he loveth them best that most willingly he desireth to have their companie as taking pleasure that they be honored and intreated to come as well for his sake and yet for all this it would otherwhiles be wholly referred unto his discretion that is bidden like as those who sacrifice unto some one god doe honour likewise and make vowes unto those who are partakers of the same temple and altar in common although they name them not severally by themselves ** For there is neither wine deintie viands nor sweet perfumes that give such contentment and pleasure at a feast as doth a man whom one loveth and liketh well of sitting by his side or neere unto him at the table moreover to aske and demaund of the man himselfe whom one would feast what viands or
Macellus who after he had committed many outrages and robberies was with much ado in the end taken and punished and of his goods which were forfeit to the State there was built a publike shambles or market place to sell flesh-meats in which of his name was called Macellum 55 Why upon the Ides of Januarie the minstrels at Rome who plaied upon the haut boies were permitted to goe up and downe the city disguised in womens apparell A Rose this fashion upon that occasion which is reported namely that king Numa had granted unto them many immunities and honorable priviledges in his time for the great devotion that hee had in the service of the gods and for that afterwards the Tribunes militarie who governed the citie in Consular authority tooke the same from them they went their way discontented and departed quite from the citie of Rome but soone after the people had a misse of them and besides the priests made it a matter of conscience for that in all the sacrifices thorowout the citie there was no sound of flute or hautboies Now when they would not returne againe being sent for but made their abode in the citie Tibur there was a certeine afranchised bondslave who secretly undertooke unto the magistrates to finde some meanes for to fetch them home So he caused a sumptuous feast to be made as if he meant to celebrate some solemne sacrifice and invited to it the pipers and plaiers of the hautboies aforesaid and at this feast he tooke order there should be divers women also and all night long there was nothing but piping playing singing and dancing but all of a sudden this master of the feast caused a rumor to be raised that his lord and master was come to take him in the maner whereupon making semblant that he was much troubled and affrighted he perswaded the minstrels to mount with all speed into close coatches covered all over with skinnes and so to be carried to Tibur But this was a deceitfull practise of his for he caused the coatches to be turned about another way and unawares to them who partly for the darkenesse of the night and in part because they were drowsie and the wine in their heads tooke no heed of the way he brought all to Rome betimes in the morning by the breake of day disguised as they were many of them in light coloured gownes like women which for that they had over-watched and over-drunke themselves they had put on and knew not therof Then being by the magistrates overcome with faire words and reconciled againe to the citie they held ever after this custome every yeere upon such a day To go up and downe the citie thus foolishly disguised 56 What is the reason that it is commonly received that certein matrons of the city at the first founded and built the temple of Carmenta and to this day honour it highly with great reverence FOr it is said that upon a time the Senat had forbidden the dames and wives of the city to ride in coatches whereupon they tooke such a stomacke and were so despighteous that to be revenged of their husbands they conspired altogether not to conceive or be with child by them nor to bring them any more babes and in this minde they persisted still untill their husbands began to bethinke them selves better of the matter and let them have their will to ride in their coatches againe as before time and then they began to breed and beare children a fresh and those who soonest conceived and bare most and with greatest ease founded then the temple of Carmenta And as I suppose this Carmenta was the mother of Evander who came with him into Italy whose right name indeed was Themis or as some say Nicostrata now for that she rendred propheticall answeres and oracles in verse the Latins surnamed her Carmenta for verses in their tongue they call Carmina Others are of opinion that Carmenta was one of the Destinies which is the cause that such matrons and mothers sacrifice unto her And the Etymologic of this name Carmenta is as much as Carens mente that is to say beside her right wits or bestraught by reason that her senses were so ravished and transported so that her verses gave her not the name Carmenta but contrariwise her verses were called Carmina of her because when she was thus ravished and caried beside herselfe she chanted certeine oracles and prophesies in verse 57 What is the cause that the women who sacrifice unto the goddesse Rumina doe powre and cast store of milke upon their sacrifice but no wine at all do they bring thither for to be drunke IS it for that the Latins in their tongue call a pap Ruma And well it may so be for that the wilde figge tree neere unto which the she wolfe gave sucke with her teats unto Romulus was in that respect called Ficus Rumtnalis Like as therefore we name in our Greeke language those milch nourses that suckle yoong infants at their brests Thelona being a word derived of 〈◊〉 which signifieth a pap even so this goddesse Rumina which is as much to say as Nurse and one that taketh the care and charge of nourishing and rearing up of infants admitteth not in her sacrifices any wine for that it is hurtfull to the nouriture of little babes and sucklings 58 What is the reason that of the Romane Senatours some are called simply Patres others with an addition Patres conscripti IS it for that they first who were instituted and ordeined by Romulus were named Patres 〈◊〉 that is to say Gentlemen or Nobly borne such as we in Greece tearme Eupatrides Or rather they were so called because they could avouch and shew their fathers but such as were adjoined afterwards by way of supply and enrolled out of the Commoners houses were Patres conscripti thereupon 59 Wherefore was there one altar common to Hercules and the Muses MAy it not be for that Hercules taught Evander the letters according as Juba writeth Certes in those daies it was accounted an honourable office for men to teach their kinsefolke and friends to spell letters and to reade For a long time after it and but of late daies it was that they began to teach for hire and for money and the first that ever was knowen to keepe a publicke schoole for reading was one named Spurius Carbilius the freed servant of that Carbilius who first put away his wife 60 What is the reason that there being two altars dedicated unto Hercules women are not partakers of the greater nor tast one whit of that which is offered or sacrificed thereupon IS it because as the report goes Carmenta came not soone enough to be assistant unto the sacrifice no more did the family of the Pinarij whereupon they tooke that name for in regard that they came tardie admitted they were not to the feast with others who made good cheere and therefore got the name Pinarij as if one
and spitefull speeches for envious and malicious persons NARRATIONS OF LOVE The Summarie IN this discourse Plutarch relateth five tragicall histories which shew the pitifull accidents that befell certeine persons transported with the inordinate and irregular affection of Love leaving thereby unto the reader a faire and cleere mirrour wherein to beholde the judgements of God upon those that abandon themselves to be carried away by intemperance and loosenesse NARRATIONS OF LOVE IN the citie Aliartos situate within Boeotia there was sometime a yoong maiden of excellent beautie named Aristoclea and the daughter she was of Theophanes and two yoong gentlemen there were that made sute unto her in way of mariage to wit Straton an Orchomenian Callisthenes of Aliartos aforesaid Now was Straton the richer of the twaine and farre more enamoured of the damosell for seene her he had when she washed herselfe in the fountaine of Ercyne which is in Lebadia against the time that she was to carrie in procession to Jupiter surnamed King a sacred panier as the maner was of the Canephorae to do But Callisthenes had the vantage of him and was deeper in her love for that he was besides neere of kin unto the virgin So Theophanes her father being doubtfull what to doe for he stood in feare of Straton as one who for wealth and noble parentage went well-neere beyond all the Boeotians resolved at length to referre the choise unto the oracle of Jupiter Trophonius but Straton who was borne in hand by those of the house about Aristoclea that she inclined more unto him laboured earnestly that the matter might be put unto the election of the damosell herselfe whereupon when Theophanes the father demanded of her in the face of the world Whom she loved better and would chuse to be her husband she preferred Callisthenes whereat Straton shewed himselfe immediatly not a little discontented for this repulse and disgrace but two daies after he came unto Theophanes and Callisthenes pretending and saying that he would not fall out with them but was desirous still of their good favour and friendship how ever his ill fortune had envied him the marriage of the yoong virgin They approving well of this speech and taking his words in very good part invited him as a guest to the wedding feast meane while he provided himselfe of a good number of his friends and besides no small troupe of servants whom he disposed secretly in their houses heere and there against the time that this maiden after the custome and maner of the countrey should go downe to a certeine fountaine named Cissoeisa there to sacrifice unto the Nymphes before her marriage day now as she passed by those who lay in ambush came all running forth from every side and seized upon her bodie but Straton himselfe principally who drew and haled the damosell unto him as hard as he could Callisthenes againe on the other side for his part as became him held her fast so did they about him thus the silly maiden was tugged and pulled to and fro so long betweene them that before they were aware dead she was among them in their hands upon which strange occurrent what became of Callisthenes it is not knowen whether he presently made away himselfe or fled into voluntary exile for he was no more seene as for Straton in the very sight of all men there in the place he killed himselfe upon the very body of his espoused bride 2 There was one named Phidon a Peloponnesian affecting the seignorie of all Peloponnesus and being desirous that the citie of Argos his native seat should be ladie over all others laied an ambush first for the Corinthians to intrap them for he sent an embassage unto Corinth to demand a levie of a thousand yoong men that were the lustiest and most valourous gallants of the whole citie The Corinthians sent them accordingly under the conduct of one of their captaines named Dexander Now the purpose of this Phidon was to set upon this troupe and kill them every one to the end that he might thereby enfeeble the Corinthians and make the citie serve his owne turne as a strong bulwarke most commodiously seated to command and subdue all Peloponnesus This desseigne of his he communicated unto certeine of his friends for to be put in execution accordingly among whom there was one named Abron who being a familiar friend unto Dexander revealed unto him the conspiracie whereupon the said regiment of a thousand yong men before they were charged by the said ambush retired themselves and recovered Corinth in safetie Then Phidon bestirred himselfe to finde out the man who had thus betraied and discovered his plot which Abron fearing withdrew himselfe to Corinth taking with him his wife children and his whole familie where he setled and remained in a village named Melissa belonging to the territorie of that citie there begat he a sonne whom of the very place which he inhabited he named Melissus and this Melissus in processe of time had a sonne of his owne called Actaeon who proved the most beautifull and withall the modestest lad of all other youths and springals of his age in regard whereof many there were enamoured of him but among the rest one especially named Archias descended lineally from the noble race of Hercules and for wealth credit and authoritie the greatest person in all Corinth This Archias seeing that by no faire meanes and perswasions he could prevaile with yoong Actaeon and winne his love resolved with himselfe to use violence and forcibly to ravish and carrie away this faire boy so he came upon a time as it were to make merrie unto the house of Melissus his father accompanied with a great traine of friends and attended upon with a good troupe of his owne householde-servants where he gave the attempt to have away the boy by force but the father with his friends made resistance the neighbours also came foorth to rescue and did all what they could to holde and keepe the youth with them but what with the one side and what with the other poore Actaeon was so pulled and tugged that betweene them hee lost his lfe which done all the rest went their waies and departed but Melissus the father brought the dead corps of his childe into the market place of the Corinthians presented it there unto them and demaunded justice to be done upon those who had committed this foule outrage The Corinthians made no greater a matter of it but onely shewed that they were sory for his mishap and so he returned home as he came without effect attending and waiting for the solemne assembly at the Isthmicke games where being mounted up to the top of Neptunes temple he cried out against the whole race of the Baccharides and withall rehearsed by way of commemoration the beneficence of his father Abron unto them and when he had called for vengeance unto the gods hee threw himselfe downe headlong among the rocks and brake his necke
in the hall abovesaid when all the waies and passages were shut up she brought a great deale of wood which was provided for the sacrifice and plled the same against the doores and so set it on fire But when their husbands came running for to helpe from all parts Democrita killed her two daughters and herselfe upon them The Lacedaemonians not knowing upon whom to discharge their anger caused the dead bodies of Democrita and her two daughters to be throwen without the confines and liberties of their territorie for which act of theirs God being highly displeased sent as the Chronicles do record a great earthquake among the Lacedaemonians WHETHER CREATVRES BE MORE WISE THEY OF THE LAND OR THOSE OF THE WATER The Summarie IN this treatise and discourse affoording among other things much pleasure in the reading Plutarch bringeth in two yoong gentlemen Aristotimus and Phoedimus who in the presence of a frequent companie plead the cause of living creatures Aristotimus in the first place for them of the land and Phoedimus in the second for those of the water the drift and conclusion of whose pleas commeth to this point that without resolving unto whom the prize ought to be adjudged one of the companie inferreth that the examples alledged both of the one side and of the other do prove that those creatures have some use of reason Moreover we may distinctly divide this booke into three principall parts the first conteineth a conference betweene Soclarus and Autobulus who gave eare afterwards unto the others for Soclarus taking occasion to speake of a written discourse recited in the praise of hunting commendeth this exercise and preferreth it before combats of sword plaiers and fencers which Autobulus will in no wise approove but holdeth that this warre against beasts schooleth as it were and traineth men to learne for to kill one another afterwards And for that some entrance and accesse there was to be given unto the principall disputation of the intelligence and knowledge which is in brute beasts they doe examine the opinion of the Stoicks who bereave them of all understanding passion and pleasure which opinion of theirs being at large debated is afterward refuted with this resolution that man out-goeth beasts in all subtiltie and quicknesse of wit injustice and equitie meet for civill societie and yet beasts although they be more dull and heavie than men are not therefore void of all discourse and naturall reason Then Autobulus confirmeth this by the consideration of horses and dogges enraged a sufficient testimonie that such creatures before-time had reason and understanding Soclarus opposeth himselfe against such a confirmation in the behalfe of the Stoicks and Peripateticks whereupon Autobulus distinguisheth of the arguments and inclining partly to the side of the Pythagoreans sheweth what maner of justice or injustice we ought to consider in the carriage of men toward beasts And then come the two yoong gentlemen abovenamed in place where Aristotimus taking in hand the cause of land-beasts discourseth at large thereupon which is the second part of this present treatise True it is that all the beginning of his plea is defective and wanting howbeit that which remaineth and is extant sheweth sufficiently the carefull industry of our author in searching into the history of nature and examples drawen out thereof as also out of an infinit number of books to passing good purpose Well then Aristotimus sheweth in the first place that the hunting of land-beasts is a far nobler and more commendable exercise than that of the water and comming then to the point namely to the use of reason which consisteth in the election and preference of one thing before another in provisions forecasts and prerogatives in affections aswell those which be milde and gentle as the other which are violent in diligence and industry in arts and sciences in hardinesse equitie temperance courage and magnanimitie he prooveth all this to be without comparison farre more in land-creatures than in other for the proofe and verifying whereof he produceth bulles elephants lions mice swallowes spiders ravens dogs bees geese cranes herons pismires wolves foxes mules partridges hares beares urchins and divers sorts besides of foure footed beasts of fowles likewise insects wormes and serpents all which are specified in particular afterwards In the last part Phoedimus making some excuse that be was not well prepared taketh in hand neverthelesse the cause of fishes and in the very entrance declareth that notwithstanding it be an hard matter to shew the sufficiencie of such creatures which are so divided and severed from us yet notwithstanding produce he will his proofs and arguments drawen from certeine and notable things recommending fishes in this respect that they are so wise and considerate as he sheweth by examples being not taught nor monished unto any waies framed and trained by man like as most part of land beasts be and yet by the way he prooveth by eeles lampreis and crocodiles that fishes may be made tame with men and how our auncients esteemed highly the institution of such mute creatures after this he describeth their naturall prudence both in defending themselves and also in offending and assailing others alledging infinit examples to this purpose as the skill and knowledge they have in the Mathematicks their amity their fellowship their love their kinde affection to their yoong ones alledging in the end divers histories of dolphins love unto men whereupon Soclarus taking occasion to speake inferreth that these two pleaders agree in one point and if a man would joine and lay together their arguments proofes and reasons they would make head passing well and strongly against those who would take from beasts both of land and water all discourse of reason WHETHER CREATURES BE more wise they of the land or they of the water AUTOBULUS LEonidas a king of Lacedaemon being demaunded upon a time what he thought of Tyrtaeus I take him to bee quoth he a good poet to whet and polish the courages of yoong men for that by his verses he doth imprint in the hearts of yoong gentlemen an ardent affection with a magnanimous desire to winne honour and glorie in regard whereof they will not spare themselves in battels and fights but expose their lives to all perils whatsoever Semblably am I greatly affraid my very good friends left the discourse as touching the praise of hunting which was read yesterday in this company hath so stirred up and excited beyond all measure our yoong men who love that game so well that from hencefoorth they will thinke all other things but accessaries and by-matters or rather make no account at all of other exercises but will runne altogether unto this sport and minde none other besides considering that I finde my selfe now a fresh more hotly given and youthfully affectionate thereunto than mine age would require insomuch as according to the words of dame Phaedra in Euripides All my desire is now to call And cry unto my hounds in chase The dapple stagge
and understanding the elephants as king Juba writeth shew unto us an evident example for they that hunt them are woont to dig deepe trenches and thatch them over with a thinne cote of light straw or some small brush Now when one of the heard chanceth to fall into a trench for many of them use to go and feed together all the rest bring a mighty deale of stones rammell wood and whatsoever they can get which they fling into the ditch for to fill it up to the end that their fellow may have meanes thereby to get up againe The same writer recordeth also that elephants use to pray unto gods to purifie themselves with the sea water and to adore the sunne rising by lifting up their trunked snout into the aire as if it were their hād all thus of their own accord untaught And to say a truth of all beasts the elephant is most devout religious as K. Ptolemaeus Philopater hath wel testified for after he had defaited Antiochus was minded to render condign thanks unto the gods for so glorious a victorie among many other beasts for sacrifice he slew foure elephants but afterwards being much disquieted and troubled in the night with fearefull dreames and namely that God was wroth and threatned him for such an uncouth and strange sacrifice hee made meanes to appease his ire by many other propitiatorie oblations and among the rest hee dedicated unto him fower elephants of brasse in steed of those which were killed no lesse is the sociable kindnesse and good nature which lions shew one one unto another for the yoonger sort which are more able and nimble of body lead forth with them into the chace for to hunt and prey those that be elder and unweldy who when they be weary sit them downe and rest waiting for the other who being gone forward to hunt if they meet with game and speed then they all set up a roaring note altogether much like unto the bellowing of bulles and thereby call their fellowes to them which the old lions hearing presently runne unto them where they take their part and devour they prey in common To speake of the amatorious affections of brute beasts some are very savage and exceeding furious others more milde and not altogether unlike unto the courting and wooing used betweene man and woman yea I may say to you smelling somewhat of wanton and venerious behaviour and such was the love of an elephant a counter suter or corrivall with Aristophanes the grammarian to a woman in Alexandria that sold chaplets or garlands of flowers neither did the elephant shew lesse affection to her than the man for hee would bring her alwaies out of the fruit market as he passed by some apples peares or other fruit and then he would stay long with her yea and otherwhiles put his snout as it were his hand within her bosome under her partlet and gently feele her soft pappes and white skinne about her faire brest A dragon also there was enamoured upon a yoong maiden of Aetolia it would come to visit her by night creepe along the very bare skinne of her body yea and winde about her without any harme in the world done unto her either willingly or otherwise and then would gently depart from her by the breake of day now when this serpent had continued thus for certeine nights together ordinarily at the last the friends of the yoong damosel remooved her and sent her out of the way a good way off but the dragon for three or fower nights together came not to the house but wandred and sought up and downe heere and there as it should seem for the wench in the end with much adoo having found her out he came and clasped her about not in that milde and gentle maner as before time but after a rougher sort for having with other windings and knots bound her hands and armes fast unto her body with the rest of his taile he flapped and beat her legges shewing a gentle kinde of amorous displeasure and anger yet so as it might seeme he had more affection to pardon than desire to punish her As for the goose in Aegypt which fell in love with a boy and the goat that cast a fansie to Glauce the minstrell wench because they are histories so wel knowen and in every mans mouth for that also I suppose you are wearie already of so many tedious tales and narrations I forbeare to relate them before you but the merles crowes and perroquets or popinjaies which learne to prate and yeeld their voice and breath to them that teach him so pliable so tractable and docible for to forme and expresse a certeine number of letters and syllables as they would have them me thinks they plead sufficiently and are able to defend the cause of all other beasts teaching us as I may say by learning of us that capable they be not onely of the inward discourse of reason but also of the outward gift uttered by distinct words and an articulate voice were it not then a meere ridiculous mockerie to compare these creatures with other dumbe beasts which have not so much voice in them as will serve to houle withall or to expresse a groane and complaint but how great a grace and elegancie there is in the naturall voices and songs of these which they resound of themselves without learning of any masters the best musicians and most sufficient poets that ever were do testifie who compare their sweetest canticles and poems unto their songs of swannes and nightingals now forasmuch as to teach sheweth greater use of reason than to learne wee are to give credit unto Aristotle who saith that brute beasts are endued also with that gift namely that they teach one another for hee writeth that the nightingale hath beene seene to traine up her yoong ones in singing and this experience may serve to testifie on his behalfe that those nightingales sing nothing so well which are taken very yong out of the nest and were not fedde nor brought up by their dammes for those that be nourished by them learne withall of them to sing and that not for money and gaine nor yet for glory but because they take pleasure to sing well and love the elegance above the profit of the voice and to this purpose report I will unto you a storie which I have heard of many as well Greeks as Romans who were present and eie witnesses There was a barber within the city of Rome who kept a shoppe over against the temple called Grecostisis or Forum Graecum and there nourished a pie which would so talke prate and chatte as it was woonderfull counting the speech of men and women the voice of beasts and sound of musicall instruments and that voluntarily of her selfe without the constreint of any person onely she accustomed her selfe so to doe and tooke a certeine pride and glory in it endevouring all that she could to leave nothing
pliable shewed very well that he held it for a singular vertue to be sociable and to know how to sort and agree with others like as the same Pindar us himselfe When God did call he gave attendance And never bragd of all his valiance meaning and signifying Cadmus The olde Theologians and Divines who of all Philosophers are most ancient have put into the hands of of the images of the gods musicall instruments minding nothing lesse thereby than to make this god or that a minstrell either to play on lute or to sound the flute but because they thought there was no greater piece of worke than accord and harmonicall symphonic could beseeme the gods Like as therefore hee that would seeke for sesquitertian sesquialterall or double proportions of Musicke in the necke or bridge in the belly or backe of a lute or in the pegs and pinnes thereof were a ridiculous foole for howsoever these parts ought to have a symmetrie and proportion one to another in regard of length and thicknesse yet the harmonie where of we speake is to be considered in the sounds onely Even so probable it is and standeth with great reason that the bodies of the starres the distances and intervals of sphaeres the celeritie also of their courses and revolutions should be proportionate one unto the other yea and unto the whole world as instruments of musicke well set and tuned albeit the just quantitie of the measure be unknowen unto But this we are to thinke that the principall effect and efficacie of these numbers and proportions which that great and sovereigne Creatour used is the consonance accord and agreement of the soule in it selfe with which she being endowed she hath replenished both the heaven it selfe when she was setled thereupon with an infinite number of good things and also disposed and ordeined all things upon the earth by seasons by changes and mutations tempered and measured most excellently well and with surpassing wisdome aswell for the production and generation of all things as for the preservation and safety of them when they were created and made AN EPITOME OR BREVIARIE of a Treatise as touching the creation of the Soule according to Plato in Timaeus THis Treatise entituled Of the creation of the soule as it is described in the booke of of Plato named Timaeus declareth all that Plato and the Platoniques have written of that argument and inferreth certeine proportions and similitudes Geometricall which he supposeth pertinent to the speculation and intelligence of the nature of the soule as also certeine Musical and Arithmeticall Theoremes His meaning and saying is that the first matter was brought into forme and shape by the soule Hee attributeth to the universall world a soule and likewise to every living creature a soule of the owne by it selfe which ruleth and governeth it He bringeth in the said soule in some sort not engendred and yet after a sort subject to generation But hee affirmeth that eternall matter to have bene formed by God that evill and vice is an impe springing from the said matter To the end quoth he that it might never come into mans thought That God was the authour or cause of evill All the rest of this Breviarie is word for word in the Treatise it selfe therefore may be well spared in this place and not rehearsed a second time OF FATALL NECESSITY This little Treatise is so pitiously torne maimed and dismembred thorowout that a man may sooner divine and guesse thereat as I have done than translate it I beseech the readers therefore to holde me excused in case I neither please my selfe nor content them in that which I have written ENdevour I will and addresse my selfe to write unto you most deere and loving friend Piso as plainly and compendiously as possible I can mine opinion as touching Fatall destinie for to satisfie your request albeit you know full well how wary and precise I am in my writing First and formost therefore thus much you must understand That this terme of Fatall destinie is spoken and understood two maner of waies the one as it is an action and the other as it is a substance In the first place Plato hath figuratively drawen it forth under a type described it as an action both in his diologue entituled Phaedrus in these words It is an Adrastian law or inevitable ordinance which alwaies followeth and accompanieth God And also in his treatise called Timaeus after this maner The lawes which God hath pronounced and published to the immortall soules in the procreation of the universall world Likewise in his books of Common-wealth he saith That Fatall necessitie is the reason and speech of Lachesis the daughter of Necessitie By which places he giveth us to understand not tragically but after a theologicall maner what his minde and opinion is Now if a man taking the said places already cited quoted would expound the same more familiarly in other words he may declare the former descriptiō in Phaedrus after this sort namely that Fatall destinie is a divine reason or sentence intransgressible and inevitable proceeding from a cause that cannot be diverted nor impeached And according to that which he delivereth in Timaeus it is a law consequently ensuing upon the nature and creation of the world by the rule whereof all things passe and are dispenced that be done For this is it that Lachesis worketh effecteth who is in trueth the daughter of Necessity as we have both alreadie said also shall better understand by that which we are to deliver hereafter in this and other treatises at our leasure Thus you see what Destinie is as it goeth for an action but being taken for a substance it seemeth to be the universall soule of the whole world and admitteth a tripartite division The first Destiny is that which erreth not the second seemeth to erre and the third is under heaven conversant about the earth of which three the highest is called Clotho that next under it is named Atropos and the lowest Lachesis and she receiveth the influences of her two celestiall sisters transmitting and fastening the same upon terrestriall things which are under her governmēt Thus have we shewed summarily what is to be thought said as touching Destiny being taken as a substance namely What it is what parts it hath after what sort it is how it is ordeined and in what maner it standeth both in respect of it selfe and also in regard of us but as concerning the particularities of all these points there is another fable in the Politiques of Plato which covertly in some sort giveth us intelligence thereof and the same have we assaied to explane unfolde unto you as wel as possibly we can But to returne unto our Destiny as it is an action let us discourse thereof forasmuch as many questions naturall morall and rationall depend thereupon Now for that we have in some sort sufficiently defined already what it is we are to consider consequently
a foule person is worthy to be loved because there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hope and expectance that one day he will become faire mary when he hath gotten this beawty once and is withall become good and honest then he is beloved of no man For love say they is a certaine hunting as it were after a yong body as yet rude and unperfect howbeit framed by nature unto vertue LAMPRIAS And what other thing do we now my good friend but refute the errors of their sect who do thus force pervert and destroy all our common conceptions with their actions which be senselesse and their words and termes as unusuall and strange For there was no person to hinder this love of wise men toward yong folke if affection were away although all men and women to both thinke and imagin love to be such a passion as the woers of Penelope in Homer seeme to acknowledge Whose heat of love was such that in their hart They wisht in bed to lie with her apart Like as Jupiter also said to Juno in another place of the said poet Come let us now to bed both goe and there with sweet delight Solace our selves for never earst before remember I That any love to women fatre no nor to Goddesse bright Thus tam'd my hart or prict me so with them to company DIADUMENUS Thus you see how they expell and drive morall philosophy into such matters as these So tntricate and tortuous So winding qutte throughout That nothing sound is therein found But all turnes round about And yet they deprave vilipend disgrace and flout all others as if they were the men alone who restored nature and custome into their integrety as it ought to be instituted their speech accordingly But nature of it selfe doth divert and induce by appetitions pursuits inclinations and impulsions ech thing to that which is proper and fit for it And as for the custome of Logicke being so wrangling and contentious as it is it receiveth no good at all nor profit like as the eare diseased by vaine sounds is filled with thickenesse and hardnesse of hearing Of which if you thinke so good we will begin anew and discourse else were another time but now for this present let us take in hand to run over their naturall philosophy which no lesse troubleth and confoundeth common anticipations and conceptions in the maine principles and most important points than their morall doctrine as touching the ends of all things First and formost this is apparently absurd and against all common sense to say that a thing is yet hath no being nor essence and the things which are not yet have a being which though it be most absurd they affirme even of the universall world for putting downe this supposition that there is round about the said world a certaine infinit voidnesse they affirme that the universall world is neither body nor bodilesse whereupon ensueth that the world is and yet hath no existence For they call bodies onely existent for as much as it is the property of a thing existent to doe and suffer somewhat And seeing this universall nature hath no existence therefore it shall neither doe nor suffer ought neither shall it be in any place for that which occupieth place is a bodie but that universall thing is not a body Moreover that which occupieth one and the same place is said to remaine and rest and therefore the said universall nature doth not remaine for that it occupieth no place and that which more is it mooveth not at all first because that which mooveth ought to be in a place and roome certaine Againe because whatsoever mooveth either mooveth it selfe or else is mooved by another now that which mooveth it selfe hath certeine inclinations either of lightnesse or ponderosity which ponderosity and lightnesse be either certeine habitudes or faculties powers or else differences of ech body but that universality is no body whereupon it must of necessity follow that the same is neither light nor heavy and so by good consequence hath in it no principle or beginning of motion neither shall it be mooved of another for without beyond it there is nothing so that they must be forced to say as they doe indeed that the said universall nature doth neither rest nor moove In sum for that according to their opinion we must not say in any case that it is a body and yet the heaven the earth the living creatures plants men and stones be bodies that which is no body it selfe shall by these reckonings have parts thereof which are bodies and that which is not ponderous shall have parts weightie and that which is not light shall have parts light which is as much against common sense and conceptions as dreames are not more considering that there is nothing so evident and agreeable to common sense than this distinction If any thing be not animate the same is inanimate and againe if a thing be not inanimate the same is animate And yet this manifest evidence they subvert and overthrow affirming thus as they do that this universal frame is neither animate nor inanimate Over and besides no man thinketh or imagineth that the same is unperfect considering that there is no part thereof wanting and yet they holde it to be unperfect For say they that which is perfect is finite and determinate but the whole and universall world for the infinitenesse thereof is indefinite So by their saying some thing there is that is neither perfect not unperfect Moreover neither is the said universall frame a part because there is nothing greater than it nor yet the whole for that which is whole must be affirmed like wise to be digested and in order whereas being as it is infinite it is indeterminate and out of order Furthermore The other is not the cause of the universall world for that there is no other beside it neither is it the cause of The other nor of it selfe for that it is not made to do any thing and we take a cause to be that which worketh an effect Now set case we should demand of all the men in the world what they imagine NOTHING to be and what conceit they have of it would they not say thinke you that it is that which is neither a cause it selfe nor hath any cause of it which is neither a part nor yet the whole neither perfect nor unperfect neither having a soule nor yet without a soule neither moving nor stil quiet nor subsisting and neither body nor without body For what is all this but Nothing yet what all others do affirme and verifie of Nothing the same doe they alone of the universall world so that it seemeth they make All and Nothing both one Thus they must be driven to say that Time is nothing neither Praedicable nor Proposition nor Connexion nor Composition which be termes of Logicke that they use no Philosophers so much and yet they say that they have no existence nor being
So that no man is able to praise those sufficiently and to their full desert who to represse such furious and beastly affections have set downe law established policie and government of State instituted magistrates and ordeined holsome decrees and edicts But who bee they that confound yea and utterly abolish all this Are they not those who give out that all the great empires and dominions in the worlde are nothing comparable to the crowne and garland of fearelesse tranquillity and repose Are they not those who say that to be a king and to reigne is to sinne to erre and wander out of the true way leading to felicity yea and to this purpose write disertly in these termes we are to shew how to maintaine in best sort and to keepe the end of nature and how a man may avoid at the very first not to enter willingly and of his owne accord into offices of state and government of the multitude Over and besides these speeches also be theirs there is no need at all henceforth for a man to labour and take paines for the preservation of the Greeks nor in regard of wisdome and learning to seeke for to obtaine a crowne at their hands but to eate and drinke Ô Timocrates without hurt doing to the body or rather withall contentment of the flesh And yet the first and most important article of the digests and ordinance of lawes and policie which Colotes so highly commendeth is the beleefe and firme perswasion of the gods whereby Lycurgus in times past sanctified the Lacedēmonians Numa the Romans that ancient Ion the Athenians and whereby Deucalion brought all the Greeks universally to religion which noble and renowmed personages made the people devout affectionate zealously to the gods in praiers othes oracles and prophesies by the meanes of hope and feare together which they imprinced in their hearts In such sort that if you travell through the world well you may finde cities without wals without literature without kings not peopled and inhabited without housen 〈◊〉 and such as desire no coine which know not what Theaters or publicke hals of bodily exercise meane but never was there nor ever shall be any one city seene without temple church or chappell without some god or other which useth no praiers nor othes no prophesies and divinations no sacrifices either to obtaine good blessings or to avert heavy curses and calamities nay me thinks a man should sooner finde a city built in the aire without any plot of ground whereon it is seated than that any common wealth altogether void of religion the opinion of the gods should either be first established or afterwards preserved and maintained in that 〈◊〉 This is it that containeth and holdeth together all humane society this is the foundation prop and stay of all lawes which they subvert and overthrow directly who goenot round about the bush as they say nor secretly and by circuit of covert speeches but openly and even at the first assault set upon the principall point of all to wit the opinion of God and religion and then afterwards as if they were haunted with the furies they confesse how greivously they have sinned in shuffling and confounding thus all rights and lawes and in abolishing the ordinance of justice and pollicy to the end that they might obtaine no pardon for to slip and erre in opinion although it be not a part of wise men yet it is a thing incident to man but to impute and object those faults unto others which they commit themselves what should a man call it if he forbeate to use the proper termes names that it deserveth For if in writing against 〈◊〉 or Bion the Sophister he had made mention of lawes of pollicy of justice and government of common weale might not one have said unto him as Electra did to her furious brother Orestes Poore soule be quiet feare none ill Deare hart in bed see thou be still cherishing and keeping warme thy poore body As for me let them argue and expostulate with me about these points who have lived oeconomically or politickly And such are they all whom Colotes hath reviled and railed upon Among whom Democritus verily in his writings admonisheth and exhorteth both to learne military science as being of all others the greatest and also to take paines and endure travels Whereby men attaine to much renowme and honour As for Parmenedes hee beawtified and adorned his owne native countrey with most excellent lawes which he ordained in so much as the magistrates every yeere when they newly enter into their offices binde the citizens by an oth to observe the slatutes and lawes of Parmenides And Empedocles not onely judicially convented and condemned the principall persons of the city wherein he dwelt for their insolent behaviour and for distracting or embeselling the publicke treasure but also delivered all the territorie about it from sterility and pestilence whereunto before time it was subject by emmuring and stopping up the open passages of a certaine mountaine through which the southern winde blew and overspred all the plaine country underneath Socrates after he was condemned to death when his frends had made meanes for him to escape refused to take the benefit thereof because he would maintaine and confirme the authority of the lawes chusing rather to die unjustly than to save his life by disobaying the lawes of his country Melissus being praetor or captaine generall of the city wherein he dwelt defaited the Athenians in a battell at sea Plato left behinde him in writing many good discourses of the lawes and of civill government but much better imprinted he in the hearts and minds of his disciples familiars which were the cause that Dion freed Sicily from the tyrany of Dionysius and Thrace likewise was delivered by the meanes of Python and Heracledes who killed king Cotys Chabrtas and Phocion worthy commaunders of the Athenians armie came both out of the schoole Academia As for Epicurus he sent as farre as into Asia certaine persons of purpose to taunt and revile Timocrates yea and caused the man to be banished out of the kings court onely for that he had offended Metrodorus his brother And this you may read written in their owne books But Plato sent of those friends which were brought up under him Aristonimus to the Arcadians for to ordeine their common wealth Phormio to the Elians Menedemus to those of Pyrrha Eudoxus to the Cnidians and Aristotle to those of Stagira who being all his disciples and samiliars did pen and set downe lawes Alexander the Great requested to have from Xenocrates rules and precepts as touching the government of a kingdome And he who was sent unto Alexander from the Greeks dwelling in Asia who most of all other set him on a light fire and whetted him on to enterprise the warre against the barbarous king of Persia was Delius an Ephesian one of Platoes familiars Zenon also ascholar of Parmenides undertooke to kill
the tyrant Demylus and having no good successe therein but missing of his purpose maintained the doctrine of Parmenides to be pure and fine golde tried in the fire from all base mettal shewing by the effect that a magnanimous man is to feare nothing but turpitude and dishonour and that they be children and women or else effeminate and heartlesse men like women who are affraid of dolor and paine for having bitten off his tongue with his owne teeth he spit it in the tyrants face But out of the schoole of Epicurus and of those who follow his rules and doctrines I doe not aske what tyrant killer there was or valiant man and victorious in feats of armes what lawgiver what counsellour what king or governour of state either died or suffred torture for the upholding of right and justice but onely which of all these Sages did ever so much as imbarke and make a voiage by sea in his countries service and for the good thereof which of them went in embassage or disbursed any mony thereabout or where is there extant upon record any civill action of yours in matter of government And yet because that Metrodorus went downe one day from the city as far as to the haven Pyraeaeum tooke a journey of five or six miles to aide Mythra the Syrian one of the king of Persias traine and court who had bene arrested and taken prisoner he wrot unto all the friends that he had in the world of this exploit of his and this doubty voiage Epicurus hath magnified exalted in many of his letters What a doe would they have made then if they had done such an act as Aristotle did who reedified the city of his nativity Stagira which had bene destroied by king Philip or as Theophrastus who twice delivered and freed his native city being held and oppressed by tyrants Should not thinke you the the river Nilus have sooner given over to beare the popyr reed than they bene weary of discribing their brave deeds And is not this a grievous matter and a great indignity that of so many sects of Philosophers that have bene they onely in maner enjoy the good things and benefits that are in cities without contributing any thing of their owne unto them There are not any Poets Tragedians or Comedians but they have endevoured to doe or say alwaies some good thing or other for the defence of lawes and policie but these here if peradventure they write ought write of policie that we should not intermeddle at all in the civill government of state of Rhetoricke that we should not plead any causes eloquently at the barre of Roialty that we should avoid the conversing and living in kings courts neither doe they name at any time those great persons who manage affaires of common weale but by way of mockerie for to debase and abolish their glorie As for example of Epaminondas they say that he had indeed some good thing onely in name and word but the same was but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say as little as might be for that is the very terme that it pleaseth them to use Moreover they name him heart of yron demaunding why he marched up and downe through out all Peloponnesus with his armie as he did and sat not rather quiet at home in his owne house with a dainty chaplet upon his head given wholly to make good chere and to sleepe with his belly full in a whole skin But me thinks I should not for any thing omit in this place to rehearse what Metrodorus hath written in his booke of philosophy wherein abjuring all dealing in government of state he saith thus Some there be of these wisemen quoth he who being full of vanity and arrogancy had so deepe an insight into the businesse thereof that in treating of the rules of good life and of vertue they suffer themselves to be carried away with the very same desires that Lycurgus and 〈◊〉 fell into What was this vanity indeed and the aboundance of vanity and pride to set the city of Athens free to reduce Sparta to good policy and the government of holsome lawes that yong men should doe nothing licenciously nor get children upon curtisans and harlots and that riches wanton delicacie intemperance loosenesse dissolution should beare no sway nor have the commaund in cities but law onely and justice for these were the desires of Solon And thus Metrodorus by way of scorne and contumelious reproch addeth thus much more for a conclusion to the rest And therefore quoth he it is well beseeming a gentleman to laugh a good and right heartly at all other men but especially at these Solones and Lycurgi But verily such an one were not a gentleman Metrodorus nor well borne but servile base unruly and dissolute and who deserved to be scurged not with the whip which is for free borne persons but with that whip Astragalote where with the maner was to whip and chastice those gelded sacrificers called Gally when they did amisse in the cerimonies and sacrifices of Cylote the great mother of the gods Now that they warred not against the lawgivers but the very lawes themselves a man may heare and learne of Epicurus for in his questions he demaundeth of himselfe whether a wise man being assured that no man ever should know would doe and commit any thing that the law forbiddeth and he maketh an answere which is not full nor an open plaine and simple affirmation saying doe it I will marry confesse it and be knowen thereof I will not Againe writing as I suppose unto Idomeneus he admonisheth him not to subject and enthrall his life unto lawes and the opinions and reputations of men unlesse it be in this regard onely that otherwise there is prepared odious whipping chere and that neere at hand If then it be so that they who abolish lawes governments and policies do withall subvert and overthrow mans life if Metrodorus and Epicurus doe no lesse withdrawing and averting their friends and followers from dealing in publicke affaires and spitefully hating those who doe meddle therein miscalling and railing at the chiefe and wisest lawgivers that ever were yea and willing them to contemne the lawes so that they keepe themselves out of the feare of the whip and danger of punnishment I cannot see that Colotes hath in any thing so much belied others and raised false imputations against them as he hath indeed and truely accused the doctrine and opinions of Epicurus OF LOVE The Summarie THis Dialogue is more dangerous to be read by yoong men than any other Treatise of Plutarch for that there be certeine glaunces heere and there against honest marriage to upholde indirectly and under hana the cursed and 〈◊〉 filthinesse covertly couched under the name of the Love of yoong boyes But minds guarded and armed with true chastitie and the feare of God may see evidently in this discourse the miserable estate of the world in that there be found
reproch or touch notwithstanding shee was yoong and therewith beautifull This fresh widow whiles she treated of a mariage to be made betweene Bacchon a yoong gentleman a neighbours childe whose mother was a very familiar friend of hers a certeine yoong maiden a kinswoman of her owne by often talking with him and frequenting his company much fell herselfe in some fancie with the yoong man Thus both hearing and speaking much good and many kinde speeches of him and seeing besides a number of other gentlemen and persons of good woorth to be enamoured upon him by little and little she also fell to bee in hot love with the youth howbeit with a full intention and resolution to doe nothing that should be dishonest or unbeseeming her place parentage reputation but to be wedded unto Bacchon lawfully in the open sight of the world and so to live with him in the estate of wedlocke As the thing it selfe seemed at the first very strange so the mother of the yoong man of one side doubted and suspected the greatnesse of her state and the nobility magnificence of her house linage as not meet correspondent to his cōdition for to be a lover or to be matched there and on the other side some of his companions who used to ride forth a hunting with him considering that the yoong age of Bacchon was not answerable to the yeeres of Ismenodora buzzed many doubts in his head and frighted him from her what they could saying That she might be his mother and that one of her age was not for him and thus by their jesting and scoffing they hindered the mariage more than they who laboured in good earnest to breake it for hee began to enter into himselfe and considering that he was yet a beardlesse youth and scarcely undergrowen he was abashed and ashamed to mary a widow Howbeit in the end shaking off all others he referred himselfe to Anthemion and Pisias for to tell him their minds upon the point and to advise him for his best Now was Anthemion his cousen german one of good yeeres and elder than himselfe farre and Pisias of all those that made love unto him most austere and therefore he both withstood the mariage and also checked Anthemion as one who abandoned and betraied the yoong man unto Ismenodora Contrariwise Anthemion charged Pisias and said he did not well who being otherwise an honest man yet heerein imitated leawd lovers for that he went about to put his friend beside a good bargaine who now might be sped with so great a mariage out offo worshipfull an house and wealthy besides to the end that he might have the pleasure to see him a long time stripped naked in the wrestling place fresh still and smooth and not having touched a woman But because they should not by arguing thus one against another grow by little and little into heat of choler they chose for umpiers and judges of this their controversie my father and those who were of his company and thither they came assistant also there were unto them other of their friends Daphnaeus to the one and Protogenes to the other as if they had beene provided of set purpose to plead a cause As for Protogenes who sided with Pisias he inveighed verily with open mouth against dame Ismenodora whereupon Daphnaeus O Hercules quoth he what are we not to expect and what thing in the world may not happen in case it be so that Protogenes is ready heere to give defiance and make warre against love who all his life both in earnest and in game hath beene wholy in love and all for love which hath caused him to forget his booke and to forget his naturall countrey not as Laius did who was but five daies journey distant for that love of his was slow and heavy and kept still upon the land whereas your Cupid Protogenes With his light wings displaied and spred Hath over seafull swiftly fled from out of Cilicia to Athens to see faire boies and to converse and goe up and downe with them for to say a trueth the chiefe cause why Protogenes made a voiage out of his owne countrey and became a traveller was at the first this and no other Heere at the company tooke up a laughter and Protogenes Thinke you quoth he that I warre not against love and not rather stande in the defence of love against lascivious wantonnesse and violent intemperance which by most shamefull acts and filthy passions would perforce chalenge and breake into the fairest most honest and venerable names that be Why quoth Daphnaeus then do you terme mariage and the secret of mariage to wit the lawfull conjunction of man and wife most vile and dishonest actions than which there can be no knot nor linke in the world more sacred and holy This bond in trueth of wedlocke quoth Protogenes as it is necessary for generation is by good right praised by Polititians and law-givers who recommend the same highly unto the people and common multitude but to speake of true love indeed there is no jot or part therof in the societie and felowship of women neither doe I thinke that you and such as your selves whose affections stand to wives or maidens do love them no more than a flie loveth milke or a bee the hony combe as caters and cookes who keepe foules in mue and feed calves and other such beasts fatte in darke places and yet for all that they love them not But like as nature leadeth and conducteth our appetite moderately and as much as is sufficient to bread and other viands but the excesse thereof which maketh the naturall appetite to be a vicious passion is called gourmandise and pampering of the flesh even so there is naturally in men and women both a desire to enjoy the mutuall pleasure one of another whereas the impetuous lust which commeth with a kinde of force and violence so as it hardly can be held in is not fitly called love neither deserveth it that name For love if it seise upon a yoong kinde and gentle heart endeth by amity in vertue whereas of these affections and lusts afterwomen if they have successe and speed never so well there followeth in the end the fruit of some pleasure the fruition and enjoying of youth and a beautifull body and that is all And thus much testified Aristippus who when one went about to make him have a distaste and mislike of Lais the curtisan saying that she loved him not made this answer I suppose quoth he that neither good wine nor delicate fish loveth me but yet quoth he I take pleasure and delight in drinking the one and eating the other For surely the end of desire and appetite is pleasure and the fruition of it But love if it have once lost the hope and expectation of amity and kindnesse will not continue nor cherish and make much for beauty sake that which is irksome and odious be it neverso gallant and in
the flower and prime of age unlesse it bring foorth and yeeld such fruit which is familiar unto it even a nature disposed to amity and vertue And therefore it is that you may heare some husbaud in a comoedie speaking tragically thus unto his wife Thou hatest me and I againe thine hatred and disdaine Will eas'ly beare and this abuse turne to my proper gaine For surely more amorous than this man is not hee who not for lucre and profit but for the fleshly pleasure of Venus endureth a curst shrewd and froward wife in whom there is no good nature nor kinde affection After which maner Philippides the Comicall Poet scoffed at the Oratour Stratocles and mocked him in these verses She winds from thee she turnes away unkind Hardly thou canst once kisse her head behinde But if we must needs call this passion Love yet surely it shall be but an effeminate and bastard love sending us into womens chambers and cabinets as it were to Cynosarges at Athens where no other youthes do exercise but misbegotten bastards or rather like as they say there is one kinde of gentle faulcons or roiall eagles bred in the mountaines which Homer calleth the Blacke eagle for game whereas other kinds there be of bastard hawks which about pooles and meres catch fish or seaze upon heavie winged birds and slow of flight which many times wanting their prey make a piteous noise and lamentable cry for very hunger and famine even so the true and naturall love is that of yoong boies which sparkleth not with the ardent heat of concupiscence as Anacreon saith the other of maidens and virgins doeth it is not besmered with sweet ointments nor tricked up and trimmed but plaine and simple alwaies a man shall see it without any intising allurements in the Philosophers schooles or about publicke parks of exercise and wrestling places where it hunteth kindly and with a very quicke and piercingeie after none but yoong striplings and springals exciting and encouraging earnestly unto vertue as many as are meet and woorthy to have paines taken with them whereas the other delicate and effeminate love that keepeth home and stirreth not out of dores but keepeth continually in womens laps under canapies or within curtaines in womens beds and soft pallets seeking alwaies after daintie delights and pampered up with unmanly pleasures wherein there is no reciprocall amitie nor heavenly ravishment of the spirit is worthy to be rejected and chased farre away like as Solon banished it out of his common wealth when he expresly forbad all slaves and those of servile condition to love boies or to be anointed in the open aire without the baines but he debarred them not from the companie of women For amitie is an honest civill and laudable thing but fleshly pleasure base vile and illiberall And therefore that a servile slave should make love to a sweet youth it is neither decent civil nor commendable for this is no carnall love nor hurtfull any way as that other is of women Protogenes would have continued his speech and said more but Daphnaeus interrupting him Now surely you have done it very well quoth he and alledged Solon trimly for the purpose and wee must belike take him for the judge of a true lover and the rule to go by especially when he saith Thoushalt love boies till lovely downe upon their face doth spring Catching at mouth their pleasant breath and soft thighs cherishing Adjoine also unto Solon if you thinke good the Poet Aeschylus whereas he saith Unthankfull man unkinde thou art For kisses sweet which thou hast found Regarding not of thy deare hart The thighs so streight and buttocks round Here are proper judges indeed of love Others I wot well there be who laugh at them because they would have lovers like to sacrificers bowel-priers and soothsaiers to cast an eie to the hanches and the loines but I for my part gather from hence a very good and forcible argument in the behalfe of women for if the companie with males that is against kinde neither taketh away nor doth prejudice the amitie and good will of lovers farre more probable it is that the love to women which is according to nature is performed by a kinde of obsequious favour and endeth in amity for the voluntarie submission of the female to the male was by our ancestors in olde time ô Protogenes termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Grace or Favour which is the reason that Pindarus saith Vulcane was borne of Juno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say without the Graces And Sappho the Poetresse speaking to a yoong girle not as yet for her tender yeeres marriageable Too yoong my childe you seeme to me Withouten Grace also to be And Hercules was asked the question of one in these termes What did you force the maiden by compulsion Or win her grace and favour with perswasion whereas the submission in this kinde of males to males if it be against their will is named violence and plaine rape but if it be voluntarie and that upon an effeminate weaknesse they be so farre beside their right wits as to yeeld themselves to be ridden as it were and covered for those be Platoes words in maner of foure footed beasts I say such love is altogether without Grace without decencie most unseemly filthy and abominable And therefore I suppose verily that Solon powred out those verses when he was a lustie yoonker ranke of blood and full of naturall seed as Plato saith for when he was well stept in yeres he sung in another tune and wrote thus The sports of VENUS Lady bright And BACCHUS now are my delight In MUSICKE eke I pleasure take For why these three men joies do make when he had retired and withdrawen his life as it were out of a troublesome sea and tempestuous storme of Paederafltum into the quiet calme of lawfull marriage and studie of Philosophie Now if we will consider better looke nerer into the truth the passion of Love ô Protogenes be it in one sex or another is all one the same but if upon a froward and contentious humor you will needs divide and distinguish them you shall finde that this love of boies doth not conteine it selfe within compasse but as one late borne and out of the seasonable time of age and course of this life a very bastard and begotten secretly in darknesse it would wrongfully drive out the true legitimate naturall love which is more ancient For it was but yesterday or two daies ago as one would say my good friend and namely since yong lads began in Greece to disrobe turne themselves naked out of their clothes for the exercise of their bodies that it crept into these impaled places where youthes prepared themselves for to wrestle there closely setling it selfe lodged and was enstalled where by little and little when the wings were full growen it became so insolent that it could not be held in
thing that she hath to beare himselfe equall unto her and in no wise subject giving by his good demeanour and carriage a counterpeise to the balance for to hold her firme or a waight rather to make her incline and bend that way which is good for them both Now to returne unto Ismenodora her yeeres are meet for mariage and her person fitte for breeding and bearing children and I heare say the woman is in the very floure and best of her time for elder she is not and with that he smiled upon Pisias than any of her suters and corrivals neither hath she any gray haires as some of those that be affectionate to Bacchon and follow him Now if they thinke themselves of a meet age to converse familiarly with him what should hinder her but she should affect and fancie the yong mans person as well if not better as any yong maiden whatsoever And verily these yong folke are otherwhiles hard to be matched united and concorporated together and much a doe there is but by long continuance of time to cast aside and shake off wantonnesse and wildenesse for at the first there is many a soule day and blustring tempest and 〈◊〉 will they abide the yoke and drawe together but especially if there be any inkling or jelousie of other loves abroad which like unto windes when the pilot is away do trouble and disquiet the wedlocke of such yoong persons as neither be willing to obey nor have the skill to commaund If it be so then that a nourse can rule her little babe sucking at her pap a schoolemaster the boy that is his scholar a master of exercises the yong springall a lover the youth whom he loveth the law and the captaine a man growen and him that is able to beare armes insomuch as there is no person of what age soever without government and at his owne libertie to doe what he list what absurdity is it if a wife that hath wit and discretion and is besides the elder governe and direct the life of a yong man her husband being as she is profitable unto him in regard she is the wiser and besides milde and gentle in her government for that she loveth him Over and besides to conclude we all that are Boeotians quoth he ought both to honour Hercules and also not to be offended with the mariage of those who are in yeeres unequall knowing as we doe that he gave his owne wife Megara being thirty three yeeres olde in mariage to Iolaus being then but sixteene yeeres of age As these words passed to and fro there came as my father made report one of 〈◊〉 companions galloping hard one horsebacke from out of the city bringing newes of a very strange and wonderfull occurrent For Ismenodora perswading her selfe as probable it was that Bacchon misliked not this mariage in his heart but that he held off for the respect and reverence that he carried unto those who seemed to divert him from it resolved not to give over her suit nor to cast off the yong men Whereupon she sent for such of her friends as were lusty yong and adventurous gallants and withall her favourits those that wished well to her love certaine women also who were inward with her and most trusty and when she had assembled them all together in her house and communicated her mind unto them she waited the very houre when as Bacchon was wont ordinarily to passe by her dores going well and orderly appointed forth to the publicke place of wrestling Now when he approched nere unto her house all enhuiled and anointed as he was accompanied only with two or three persons Ismenodora her selfe stepped forth of dores crossed the way upon him and only touched the mandilion that he had about him which signall being given all at once her friends leapt forth faire caught up this faire youth in his mandilion and dublet as he was and gently caried him into her house and immediatly shut the dores fast locked No sooner had they gotten him within dores but the women in the house turning him out of his upper mandilion aforesaid put upon him a faire wedding robe with all the servants of the house ran up and downe and adorned with ivie and olive branches the dores and gates not onely of Ismenodora but also of Bacchons house and with that a minstrill wench also passed along through the street piping and singing a wedding song As for the citizens of Thespiae and the strangers who were there at that time some of them tooke up a laughter others being angry and offended hereat incited the masters and governours of the publicke exercises who indeed have great authority over the youth and carry a vigilent eie unto them for to looke nerely unto all their behaviours whereupon they made no account at all of the present exercises then in hand but leaving the theater to the dore they came of Ismenodora where they fell into hot reasoning and debating of the matter one against another Now when the said friend of Pisias was come in all haste riding upon the spurre with this newes as if he had brought some great tidings out of the campe in time of warre he had no sooner uttered panting for want of winde and in maner breathlesse these words Ismenodora hath ravished Bacchon but Zeuxippus as my father told the tale laughed heartily and out of Euripides as he was one who alwaies loved to reade that Poet pronounced this sentence Well done faire dame you having wealth at will Are worldly wise your minde thus to fulfill But Pisias rising up in great choler cried out O the will of God what will be the end of this licentious libertie which thus overthroweth our citie seeing how all the world is growen already to this passe that through our unbrideled audaciousnesse we doe what we list and passe for no lawes but why say I lawes for haply it is but a ridiculous thing to take indignation for the transgressing of civill law and right for even the very lawe of nature is violated by the insolent rashnesse of women Was there ever the like example seene in the very isle Lemnos Let us be gone quoth he goe we and quit from hence foorth the wrestling schooles and publike place of exercises the common hall of justice and the senate house and commit all to women if the city be so inervate as to put up such an indignitie So Pisias brake company and departed in these termes and Protogenes followed after him partly as angry as he and in part appeasing mitigating his mood a little Then Anthemion To say a trueth quoth he this was an audacious part of hers and savouring somwhat of the enterprise of those Lemnian wives in old time and no marvell for we our selves know that the woman was exceeding amorous Hereat Soclarus Why thinke you quoth he that this was a ravishment indeed and plaine force and not rather a subtile devise and stratageme as
beene by their naturall inclinations according as ech of them is light or heavie placed and situate as they be but surely by some other reason they have beene so ranged and ordeined After these words were said when I would have given unto Lucius his turne to speake and to hold on this discourse there being nothing at all behinde left but the demonstrations of this doctrine Aristotle began to smile I am a witnesse quoth he that you have directed al these your contradictions and refutations against those who hold that the Moone is it selfe halfe fire and who affirme that all bodies of their owne accord tend either upward or downward directly But whether there be any one who saith that the Starres of their owne nature have a circular motion that in substance they be far different from the foure elements that came not ever so much as by chance and fortune into your remembrance and therefore I count my selfe exempt from all trouble and molestation in that behalfe Why good sir quoth Luctus if yee should haply suppose and set downe that the other starres and the whole heaven besides were of a pure and syncere nature voide of all change and mutation in regard of passion as also bring in a certeine circle in which they performed their motions by a perpetuall revolution you should not finde any one at this time to gaine-say you notwithstanding there were in this position doubts and difficulties innumerable But when your speech is descended so low as to touch the Moone then can it not mainteine in her that impassibility and the celestiall beautie of that body But to leave all other inequalities and differences therein certes that very face which appeareth in the body of the Moone commeth necessarily from some passion of her owne substance or else by the mixture of some other for that which is mingled in some sort alwaies suffereth because it looseth that former puritie being perforce overcast and filled with that which is woorse As for that dull and slow course of hers that weake and feeble heat whereby as the Poet Jon saith The grapes their kinde concoction lacke And on the vine tree turne not blacke unto what shall we attribute the same if not to her imbecilitie in case an eternall and heavenly body can be subject unto any such passion In summe my good friend Aristotle if the Moone be earth surely a most faire and beautifull thing it seemeth to be and full of great maiestie if a starre or light or some divine and celestiall body I am affraid least she proove deformed and foule yea and disgrace that beautifull name of hers in case of all those bodies in heaven which are in number so many she onely remaineth to have need of the light of another Casting behinde her eie alwaies Upon the Sunne and his bright raies according as Parmentdes writeth And verily our familiar friend having in a lecture of his prooved by demonstration this proposition of Anaxagoras that all the light which the Moone hath the Sunne giveth unto her was commended and well reputed for it For mine owne part I am not minded to say what I have learned either of you or with you but taking this for a thing granted and confessed I will proceed forward to the rest behinde Probable therefore it is that the Moone is illuminate not in maner of a glasse or crystall stone by the bright irradiation and shining beames of the Sunne striking through her neither yet by a certaine collustration and mutuall conjunction of lights as torches which being set a burning together do augment the light for so it would be no lesse ful moone in the conjunction or first quarter than in the opposition in case she did not conteine and keepe in nor repell the raies of the sunne but suffer them to passe through her by reason of her raritie and frugositie or if by a contempeture she shineth and kindleth as it were the light about her for we cannot alledge her oblique and biase declination or her aversions and turnings away before and after the conjunction or change as when it is halfe Moone tipped croisant or in the wane but being directly and plumbe under the bodie that illuminateth it as Democritus saith it receiveth and admitteth the Sunne in such sort as by all likelihood she should then appeare and he shine through her But so farre is she from so doing that both herselfe at such a time is unseene and many times hideth the Sunne and keepeth off his beames from us for according to Empedocles His raies aloft she turneth cleane aside That to the earth beneath they cannot wend The earth it selfe she doth obscure and hide So farre as she in compasse doth extend As if this light of the Sunne fell upon night and darknesse and not upon another starre And whereas Posadonius saith that in regard of the thicknes depth of the Moones body the light of the Sun can not through her pierce as far as unto us this is manifestly convinced as untrue For the aire as infinite as it is and deeper by many degrees than the Moone is neverthelesse illuminated and lightned all over and thoughout by the Sunne It remaineth therefore that according to the opinion of Empedocles the Moone-light which appeareth unto us commeth by the reflexion and repercussion of the Sunne-beames And heereupon it is that the same is not with us hot and bright as of necessitie it would be if it did proceed either from the inflammation or commixtion of two lights But like as the refraction or reverberation of a voice doth cause an eccho or resonance more obscure than is the voice it selfe as it was pronounced and as the raps that shot rebounding backe againe doeth give are more milde and soft Even so the Sunne beames when they beat Upon the Moone in compasse great yeeld a weake and feeble reflexion or refluxion as one would say of light the force thereof being much abated resolved by the refraction reflexion Then Sylla Certes great probalitie this carieth with it that you have delivered But the most forcible objection that is made against this position how thinke you is it any waies mitigated and mollified or hath our friend heere passed it over quite with silence Whereby speake you this quoth Lucius what opposition meane you or is it the doubt or difficulty about the Moone when she appeareth the one halfe Even the very same quoth Sylla for there is some reason considering that all reflexion is made by equall angles that when the halfe Moone is in the middes of heaven the light should not be caried from her upon the earth but glaunce and fall beyond the earth for the Sunne being upon the Horizon toucheth with his raies the Moone and therefore being reflected and broken aequally they must light upon the opposite bound of the Horizon and so not send the light hither or else there shall ensue a great distortion and difference of the
stranger followed after a man of a good and ingenious countenance to see to and who carried in his visage great mildnesse and humanity besides went in his apparel very gravely and decently Now when he had taken his place and was set downe close unto Simmias and my brother next unto me and all the rest as every one thought good after silence made Simmias addressing his speech unto my brother Go to now Epaminondas quoth he what stranger is this from whence commeth he and what may be his name for this is the ordinary beginning and usuall entrance to farther knowledge and acquaintance His name quoth my brother is Theanor ô Simmias a man borne in the city Croton one of them who in those parts professe Philosophy and 〈◊〉 not the glory of great Pythagoras but is come hither from out of Italy a long journey to confirme by good works his good doctrine and profession But you Epaminondas your selfe quoth the stranger then hinder me from doing of all good deeds the best For if it be an honest thing for a man to doe good unto his friends dishonest it cannot be to receive good at their hands for in thanks there is as much need of a receiver as of a giver being a thing composed of them both and tending to a vertuous worke and he that receiveth not a good turne as a tennis ball fairely sent unto him disgraceth it much suffring it to fall short and light upon the ground For what marke is there that a man shooteth at which he is so glad to hit and so sory to misse as this that one worthy of a benefit good turne he either hath it accordingly or faileth thereof unworthily And yet in this comparison he that there in shooting at the marke which standeth still and misseth it is in fault but heere he who refuseth and flieth from it is he that doth wrong and injury unto the grace of a benifit which by his refusall it cannot attaine to that which it tendeth unto As for the causes of this my voiage hither I have already shewed unto you and desirous I am to rehearse them againe unto these gentlemen heere present that they may be judges in my behalfe against you When the colledges and societies of the Pythagorean Philosophers planted in every city of our country were expelled by the strong hand of the seditious faction of the Cyclonians when those who kept still together were assembled and held a counsell in the city of Metapontine the seditious set the house on fire on every side where they were met and burnt them altogether except Philolaus and Lysis who being yet yong active and able of body put the fire by and escaped through it And Phylolaus being retired into the countrey of the Laconians saved himselfe among his friends who began already to rally themselves and grow to an head yea and to have the upper hand of the said Cyclonians As for Lysis long it was ere any man knew what was become of him untill such time as Gorgias the Leontine being sailed backe againe out of Greece into Sicelie brought certeine newes unto Arcesus that he had spoken with Lysis and that he made his abode in the city of Thehes Whereupon Arcesus minded incontinently to embarke and take the sea so desirous he was to see the man but finding himselfe for feeblenesse and age together very unable to persorme such a voiage he tooke order expresly upon his death bed with his friends to bring him over alive if it were possible into Italie or at leastwise if haply he were dead before to convey his bones and reliques over But the warres seditions troubles and tyrannies that came betweene and were in the way expeached those friends that they could not during his life accomplish this charge that he had laied upon them but after that the spirit or ghost of Lysis now departed appearing visibly unto us gave intelligence of his death and when report was made unto us by them who knew the certeine trueth how liberally he was enterteined and kept with you ô Polymnis and namely in a poore house where he was held and reputed as one of the children and in his old age richly mainteined and so died in blessed estate I being a yoong man was sent alone from many others of the ancient sort who have store of money and be willing to bestow the same upon you who want it in recompense of that great favor and gracious friendship of yours extended to him As for Lysis worshipfully he was enterred by you and bestowed in an honourable sepulchre but yet more honourable for him will be that courtesie which by way of recompense is given to his friend by other friends of his and kinsfolke Whiles the stranger spake thus the teares trickled downe my fathers cheeks and he wept a good while for the remembrance of Lysis But my brother smiling upon me as his maner was How shall we do now Caphisias quoth he shall we cast off and abandon our poverty for money and so say no more but keepe silence In no wise quoth I let us not quit and forsake our olde friend and so good a fostresse of yoong folke but defend you it for your turne it is now to speake And yet I quoth he my father feare not that our house is pregnable for money unlesse it be in regard onely of Caphisias who may seeme to have some need of a faire robe to shew himselfe brave and gallant unto those that make love unto him who are in number so many as also of plenty of viands and food to the end that he may endure the toile and travell of bodily exercises and combats which he must abide in the wrestling schooles But seeing this other heere of whom I had more distrust doth not abandon povertie nor reseth out the hereditary indigence of his father house as a tincture and unseemly slaine but although he be yet a yoong man reputeth himselfe gaily set out and adorned with srugality taking a pride therein and resting contented with his present fortunes Wherein should we any more employ out gold and silver if we had it and what use are we to make of it What would you have us to gild our armor and cover our shields as Nicias the Athenian did with purple and gold intermingled therewith And shall we buy for you father a faire mantle of the fine rich cloth of Miletus and for my mother a trim coat of scarlet coloured with purple For surely we will never abuse this present in pampering our bellie feasting our selves and making more sumptuous cheere than ordinary by receiving riches into our house as a costly and chargeable guest Fie upon that my sonne quoth my father God forbid I should ever see such a change in mine house Why quoth he againe we will not sit stil in the house keeping riches with watch and ward idle for so the benefit were not beneficiall but without all grace and
innumerable inclinations as it were with so many cords hath more agility than all the ingins or instruments in the world if a man hath the skill to manage and handle it with reason after it hath taken once a little motion that it may bend to that which conceived it for the beginnings of instincts and passions tend all to this intelligent and conceiving part which being stirred and shaken it draweth pulleth stretcheth and haleth the whole man Wherein we are given to understand what force and power hath the thing that is entred into the conceit and intelligence of the minde For bones are senselesse the sinewes and flesh full of humors and the whole masse of all these parts together heavie and ponderous lying still without some motions but so soone as the soule putteth somewhat into the understanding and that the same moveth the inclinations thereto it starteth up and riseth all at once and being stretched in all parts runneth a maine as if it had wings into action And so the maner of this moving direction and promptitude is not hard and much lesse impossible to comprehend whereby the soule hath no sooner understood any object but it draweth presently with it by instincts and inclinations the whole masse of the body For like as reason conceived and comprised without any voice moveth the understanding even so in mine opinion it is not such an hard matter but that a more divine intelligence and a soule more excellent should draw another inferior to it touching it from without like as one speech or reason may touch another and as light the reflection of light For we in trueth make our conceptions and cogitations knowen one to another as if we touched them in the darke by meanes of voice but the intelligences of Daemons having their light doe shine unto those who are capable thereof standing in need neither of nownes nor verbs which men use in speaking one to the other by which markes they see the images and resemblances of the conceptions and thoughts of the minde but the very intelligences cogitations indeed they know not unlesse they be such as have a singluar and divine light as we have already said and yet that which is performed by the ministery of the voice doth in some sort helpe and satisfie those who otherwise are incredulous For the aire being formed and stamped as it were by the impression of articulate sounds and become throughout all speech and voice carieth conception and intelligence into the minde of the hearer and therefore according to this similitude and reason what marvell is it if that also heater and therefore according to this similitude and reason what marvell is ti if that also which is conceived by these superior natures altereth the aire and if the aire being by reason of that quallity which it hath apt to receive impressions signifieth unto excellent men and such as have a rar and divine nature the speech of him who hath conceived ought in is minde For like as the stroks that light upon targuits or sheelds of brasse be heard a farre off when they proceed from the bottome in the mids within by reason of the resonance and rebound whereas the blowes that fall upon other sheelds are drowned and dispersed so as they be not heard at al even so the words or speeches of Daemous and spirits although they be carried and flie to the eares of all indifferently yet they resound to those onely who are of a settled and staied nature and whose soules are at quiet such as we call divine and celestiall men Now the vulgar sort have an opinion that some Daemon doth communicate a kinde of divinitie unto men in their sleepes but they thinke it strange and a miracle incredible if a man should say unto them that the gods doe move and affect them semblably when the be awake and have the full use of reason As if a man should thinke that a musician may play well upon his harpe or lute when all the strings be slacked and let downe but when the said instruments be set in tune and have their strings set up he cannot make any sound nor play well thereupon For they consider not the cause which is within them to wit their discord trouble and confusion whereof our familiar friend Socrates was exempt according as the oracle prophesied of him before which during his infancie was given unto his father for by it commanded he was to let him doe all that came into his minde and in no wise either to force or divert him but to suffer the instinct and nature of the child to have the reines at large by praying onely unto Jupiter Agoraeus that is to say eloquent and to the Muses for him and farther than so not to busie himselfe nor to take care for Socrates as if he had within him a guide and conductor of his life better than ten thousand masters and paedagogues Thus you see Philolaus what our opinion and judgement is as touching the Daemon or familiar spirit of Socrates both living and dead as who reject these voices sneesings and all such fooleries But what we have hard Timarchus of Chaeronea to discourse of this point I wot not well whether I were best to utter and relate the same for feare some would thinke that I loved to tell vaine tales Not so quoth Theocritus but I pray you be so good as to rehearse the same unto us For albeit fables doe not very well expresse the trueth yet in some sort they reach the same unto us For albeit fables doe not very well expresse the trueth yet in some sort they reach thereto But first tell us who this Timarchus was For I never knew the man And that may well be ô Simmias quoth Theocritus for he died when he was very yong and requested earnestly of Socrates to be buried nere unto Lamprocles Socrates his sonne who departed this life but few daies before being a deere friend of his and of the same age Now this yong gentleman being very desirous as he was of a generous disposition and had newly tasted the sweetnesse of Philosophy to know what was the nature and power of Socrates familiar spirit when he had imparted his mind and purpose unto me only and Cebes went downe into the cave or vault of Trophonius after the usuall sacrifices and accustomed complements due to that oracle performed where having remained two nights and one day insomuch as many men were out of all hope that ever he would come forth againe yea and his kinsfolke and frends bewailes the losse of him one morning betimes he issued forth very glad and jocand And after he had given thanks unto the god and adored him so soone as he was gotten through the presse of the multitude who expected his returne he recounted unto us many wonders strange to be heard and seene for he said that being descended into the place of the oracle he first met with much darknes
regard and take in protection those who adventure thus for righteousnesse and justice sake Many of us there were Archidamus whose teares trickled downe their cheeks to heare Charon deliver these words but himselfe being inflexible and not relenting one jote with an undanted heart a setled countenance and eies still drie put his sonne into Pelopidas hands embraced every one of us shooke us by the hands and so encouraging us to proceed went forth of the doores Woonderfull was this but much more you would have woondred to have seene the alacrity cheerefull and constant resolution of his sonne as if he had beene another Neoptolemus who never looked pale nor changed colour for the matter notwithstanding so great danger presented neither was he one jote astond but contrariwise drew forth Pelopidas sword out of his scabberd to see and trie whether it was keene enough Whiles these matters thus passed there comes towards us Diotonus one of Cephisodorus friends with a sword by his side and a good cuirason of steele under his robe who having heard that Charon was sent for to come to Archias blamed much our long delay whetned us on to go forthwith to the tyrants houses For in so doing quoth he we shall prevent them by comming suddenly upon them if not yet better were it for us to set upon them without dores separate one from another and not all in one plumpe than to stay for them enclosed all within one parlour and be there taken by our enemies like a swarme of bees and have all our throats cut In like maner Theocritus the divinor urged us to make haste saying that all the signes of sacrifices were good and presaged happy successe with all security Whereupon we began on all hands to take armes and to prepare our selves by which time Charon was returned to us with a merrie and cheerefull countenance who smiling and looking upon us Be of good chere quoth he my masters and friends all is well there is no danger and our affaire proceedeth well for Archias and Philippus so soone as they heard that I was come upon their sending for me being already well cup-shotten and halfe drunke with wine so as both their minds and bodies were very farre out of tune with much adoe they rose from the boord and came foorth to the dore unto me Now Charon quoth Archias we heare that our banished men lie lurking here within the citie being secretly and by stealth entred into it Whereat I seeming to be much amazed Where quoth I are they said to be and who That we know not quoth Archtas and that is the cause why we sent for you to come before us if haply you have heard any thing of it more certeinly Heereupon I remaining for a while as one somewhat astonied and pensive comming againe to my selfe began thus to thinke that this must needs be some headlesse rumour and arising from no good ground nor certeine author neither was it like to be any one of them that were privy to the complot who had discovered it because they would not then have beene ignorant of the house where they were assembled and therefore it could not chuse but be some blinde brute blowen abroad through the citie and come to their eares So I said unto him that during the life of Androclides we had heard many such flying tales and vaine false rumors that ranne about the city and troubled us But now quoth he ô Archtas I have heard no such thing howbeit if it please you to command me I will enquire and hearken farther into the thing and if I find any matter of importance I will come and enforme you of it It is well said of you quoth Phyllidas and it were very good Charon that in these cases you be very inquisitive and leave nothing unsearched for why should we be carelesse and negligent in any thing but rather it behooveth us to be circumspect and to looke about us on every side providence in these cases is very requisite and good it is to make all sure and when he had so said he tooke Archias and had him into the parlour where they be now drinking hard and therefore my good friends let us stay no longer but after we have made our praiers unto the gods for our good speed go about our businesse Charon had no sooner said this but we praied unto the gods for their assistance and encouraged one another to the enterprise It was the very just time when all men use to be at supper and the whistling winde arising stil more more had brought some snow or sleet mingled with a drisling raine so as there was not one person to be seene in the streets as we passed along Those therefore who were appointed to assaile Leontidas and Hippates who dwelt neere together went out in their cloakes having no other armes or weapons but ech of them their swords and those were Pelopidas Democlidas and Cephisodorus But Charon Melon and others ordeined to set upon Archis had their brest-plates or demy-cuiraces before them and upon their heads thicke chaplets some of firre others of the pine or pitch tree branches and part of them were clad in womens apparell counterfeiting drunken persons as if they were come in a maske and mummerie with their women And that which more is ô Archidamus fortune also making the beastly cowardise and sottish ignorance of our enemies equall to our hardinesse and resolute preparations and having diversified and distinguished even from the beginning our enterprise like a plaie or enterlude with many dangerous intercurrents was assistant ran with us at the very point and upshot of the execution thereof presenting unto us even then a doubtfull dangerous occurrent of a most sudden unexpected accident for when Charen after he had talked with Archias Philippus was returned to the house and had disposed us in order for to go in hand with the execution of our dessignment there was brought from hence a letter written by Archias the high priest heere among you unto that Archias his old hoast and friend which declared unto him as it should seeme by all likelihood the returne of the banished and the surprise which they were about the house also wherein they were assembled and all the complices who were of the conspiracy Archias being by this time drenched and drowned in wine and besides that transported and past himselfe with the expectation of the women whose comming he attended albeit the messenger that brought the letter said it contained serious affaires of great consequence yet he onely received it and made no other answer but this What tellest thou me of serious affaires we shall thinke of them to morrow and with that put the letters under the pillow whereon he leaned calling for the pot againe and commanding that it should be filled sending Phyllidas ever and anon to the dore to see if the women were yet comming Thus whiles this hope enterteined and held
worke as beseemed so great a king and one derived from a divine race the end whereof was not a masse of gold to be caried along after him upon ten thousand camels backs nor the superfluous delights of Media not sumptuous and dilicate tables not faire and beautifull ladies not the good and pleasant wines of Calydonia nor the dainty fish of Hyrcania out of the Caspian sea but to reduce the whole world to be governed in one and the same order to be obedient to one empire and to be ruled by the same maner of life And verily this desire was inbred in him this was nourished and grew up with him from his very infancie There came embassadors upon a time from the king of Persia to his father Philip who at the same time was not in the country but gone forth Alexander gave them honorable intertainement very courteously as became his fathers sonne but this especially was observed in him that he did not aske them childish questions as other boies did to wit about golden vines trailed from one tree to another nor of the pendant gardens at Babylon hanging above in the aire ne yet what robes and sumptuous habiliments their king did weare but all his talke and conference with them was concerning matters most important for the state of an empire inquisitive he was what forces and power of men the king of Persia could bring out into the field and maintaine in what ward of the battell the king himselfe was arranged when he fought a field much like unto that Ulysses in Homer who demanded of Dolon as touching Hector His martiall armes where doth he lay His horses tell me where stand they Which be the readiest and shortest waies for those who would travel from the coasts of the Meditteranean sea up into the high countries in so much as these strangers the embassadors wondered exceedingly and said Now surely this child is the great king and ours the rich No sooner was his father Philip departed this life but presently his heart served him to passe over the straights of Hellespont and being already fed with his hopes and forward in the preparation and provision of his voiage he made what speed he could to set foot in Asia But see heere how fortune crossed his designes she averted him quite and drew him backe againe raising a thousand troubles and busie occasions to stay hinder his intended course First she caused those barbarous nations bordering and adjoining upon him to rise up in armes and thereby held him occupied in the warres against the Illyrians and Triballians by the meanes whereof he was haled away as farre as to Scythia and the nations inhabiting along the river Danubie who diverted him cleane from his affaires intended in the high provinces of Asia Howbeit having overrunne these countries and dispatched all difficulties with great perils and most dangerous battels he set in hand againe with his former enterprise and made haste to his passage voiage a second time But lo even there also fortune excited the city of Thebes against him and laid the warre of the Greeks in his way to stop his expedition driving him to extreame streights and to a very hard exigent by fire and sword to be revenged of a people that were his owne countrymen and of the same kinred and nation the issue whereof was most grieveous and lamentable Having exploited this he crossed the seas at the last furnished with provision of money and victuals as Phylarchus writeth to serve for thirty daies and no longer or as Aristobulus reporteth having onely seventy talents of silver to defray the whole charges of the voiage For of his owne demaine and possessions at home as also of the crowne revenewes he had bestowed the most part upon his friends and followers onely Perdiccas would receive nothing at his hands but when he made offer to give him his part with the rest demanded thus of him But what reserve you for yourselfe Alexander Who answered My hopes Why then quoth he I will take part thereof for it is not reason that we should receive your goods but wait for the pillage of Darius And what were those hopes of Alexander upon which he passed over into Asia Surely not a power measured by the strong wals of many rich populous cities not fleets of ships sailing through the mountaines not whips and fetters testifying the folly and madnesse of barbarous princes who thought thereby to punish and chastice the raging sea But for externall meanes without himselfe a resolution of prowesse in a small power of armed men well trussed and compact together an aemulation to excell one another among yong men of the same age a contention and strife for vertue and glory in those that were his minions about him But the great hopes indeed and most assured were in his owne person to wit his devout religion to Godward the 〈◊〉 confidence and affiance that he had in his friends frugality continence bounty a contempt of death magnanimity and resolution humanity courtesie affable intertainment a simple nature plaine without plaits not faigned and counterfait constancie in his counsell celerity in his execution soveraignty and priority in honor and a resolute purpose to accomplish any honest duty and office For Homer did not well and decently to compose and frame the beautifull personage of Agamemnon as the patterne of a per fect prince out of three images after this maner For eies and head much like he was in sight To Jove who takes in lightning such delight God Mars in wast and loines resembled he In brest compar'd to Neptune he may be But the nature of Alexander in case that God who made or created him formed and compounded it of many vertues may we not well and truly say that he endued with the courageous spirit of Cyrus the sober temperance of Agesilaus the quicke wit and pregnant conceit of Themistocles the approoved skill and experience of Philip the valourous boldnesse of Brasidas the rare eloquence and sufficiencie of Pericles in State matters and politicke government For to speake of those in ancient times more continent he was and chast than Agamemnon who preferred a captive concubine before his owne espoused and lawfull wife as for Alexander he absteined from those women whom he tooke prisoners in warre and would not touch one of them before he had wedded her more magnanimous than Achilles who for a little money yeelded the dead corps of Hector to be ransommed whereas Alexander defraied great summes in the funerals and interring of Darius bodie Againe Achilles tooke of his friends for the appeasing of his choler gifts and presents after a mercenary maner but Alexander enriched his very enemies when he had gotten the victorie More religious he was than Diamedes a man who was evermore ready to fight against the gods whereas he thought that all victory happy successe came by the grace and favour of the gods Deerer he was to his
Nisus 893.20 Abyrtacae 703.50 Academiques 1122.30 Acca Larentia one a courtisane and another the nourse of Romulus Remus 862.30 Acca Larentia honored at Rome 862.20.30 Acca Larentia surnamed Fabula how she came renowmed 862.30 Inheritresse to Taruntius 863.1 made Rome her heire ib. Acco and Alphito 1065.1 Acephati verses in Homer 140.20 Acesander a Lybian Chronicler 716.30 Acheron what it signifieth 515.50 Achilles well seene in Physicke 34.30 729.50 Praiseth himselfe without blame 304.50 commended for avoiding occasions of anger 40.50 his continencie 43.30 charged by Vlysses for sitting idlely in Scytos 46.1 of an implacable nature 720.10 noted for anger 〈◊〉 24.26 he loved not wine-bibbing 720.20 whom he invited to the funerall feast of Patroclus 786.40 noted for his fell nature 106.40 his discretion betweene Menelaus and Antilochus 648.30 he kept an hungrie table 750.1 he digested his choler by Musicke 1261.40 noted for a wanton Catamite 568.30 killed by Paris 793.50 Achillium 899.1 Achrades wilde peares 903.40 Acidusa 901.20 Acratisma that is to say a breakfast whereof it is derived 775.20 Acratisma and Ariston supposed to be both one 775.30 Acroames or Ear-sports which be allowed at supper time 758.30 Acron the Physician how he cured the plague 1319.1 Acrotatus his Apophthegmes 453.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who they be 604.20 Actaeon the sonne of Melissus a most beautifull youth his pitifull death 945.30 945.40 Action all in all in Eloquence 932.1 Actus the dogge of one Pyrrhus 963.40 Active life 9.40 Ada Queene of Caria 596.20 Ades what it signifieth 608.30 1000.10 Adiaphora 69.1 Adimantus a noble captaine debased by Herodotus 1243.30.40 what names Adimantus gave unto his children 1244.20 Adipsa 339.1 Admetus 1146 Admirable things not to be discredited 723.1 Admiration of other men in a meane 55.20 to Admire nothing Niladmirari 59 Adonis thought to be Bacchus 711.40 Adrastia 557.40 1050.20 Adrastia and Atropos whereof derived 1080.30 Adrastus reviled by Alcmaeon 240.30 he requiteth Alcmaeon ib. Adulterie of Mars and Venus in Homer what it signifieth 25.10 Adulterie strange in Sparta 465.10 Aeacium a priviledged place 933.50 Aeacus a judge of the dead 532.20 Aeantis a tribe at Athens 659.40 never adjudged to the 〈◊〉 place 659.50 highly praised 660.20 whereof it tooke the name ib. 40 Aegeria the nymph 633.30 Aegipan 913.1 Aegipans whence they come 568.50 Aegles wings consume other feathers 723.20 Aegon how he came to be king of the Argives 1281.1 Aegyptians neither sowe nor eat beanes 777.20 Aegyptian priestes absteine from salt 728.1 and sish 778.30 Aegyptian kings how chosen 1290.40 Aegypt in old time Sea 1303.40 Aemylij who they were called 917.30 Aemilius a tyrant 916.40 Aemilius Censorinus a bloudie prince 917.20 Aemilius killeth himselfe 912.30 Aeneas at sacrifice covered his head 854.1 Aeneans their wandering their voiage 891.50 896.10.20 Aeolies who they be 899.30 Aequality which is commendable 768.1 Aequality 679.30 Aequality of sinnes held by Stoiks 74.40 Aequinoctiall circle 820.40 Aeschines the oratour his parentage 926.40 Aeschines the oratour first acted tragoedies 926.50 his emploiments in State affaires 927.1 banished 927.10 his oration against Ctesiphon ib. 20. his saying to the Rhodians as touching Demosthenes ib. his schole at Rhodes ib. his death ib. his orations ib. 30. he endited Timarchus ib. 40. his education and first rising 927.30.40 Aescre what fiend or Daemon 157.30 Aeschylus wrote his tragoedies being well heat with wine 763.40 his speech of a champion at the Isthmicke games 39.10 his tragoedies conceived by the insluence of Bacchus ib. entombed in a strange countrey 277.20 Aesculapius the patron of 〈◊〉 997.20 his temple why without the citie of Rome 881.1 Aesops fox and the urchin 392.20 Aesope with his tale 330.30 his fable of the dog 338.20 Aesope executed by the Delphians 549.10 his death revengeà and expiated ib. 20. Aesops hen and the cat 188.50 Aesops dogs and the skins 1091.20 Aethe a faire mare 43.20.565.40 Aether the skie 819.10 In Aethiopia they live not long 849.50 Aetna full of flowers 1011.10 Affabilitie commendeth children and yoong folke 12.1 commendable in rulers 378.30 Affections not to be cleane rooted out 76.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what day it was 785.1 Agamedes Trophonius built the temple at Delphi 1518.20 Agamemnon clogged with cares 147.50 Agamemnon noted for Paederastie 568.30 Agamemnon murdered treacherously 812.1 noted in Homer for pride 24.10 Agamemnon his person how compounded 1284.1 Agamestor how he behaved himselfe at a mery meeting 653.10 Aganide skilfull in Astronomie 324.40 Agathocles his Apophthegmes 407.40 being of base parentage he came to be a great Monarch 307.40 his patience 126.1 Agave enraged 314.1 Aged rulers ought to be mild unto yoonger persons growing up under them 398.10 Aged rulers paterns to yoonger 392.40 Age of man what it is 1328.1 Agenor his sacred grove 903.30 Agenorides an ancient Physician 683.40 Agesicles his apophthegms 444.1 Agesilaus the brother of Themistocles his valour and resolution 906.40.50 K. Agesilaus fined for giving presents to the Senatours of Sparta newly created 179.20 he avoided the occasions of wantonnesse 41. 10. his lamenesse 1191.20 of whom he desired to be commended 92. 30. his Apophthegmes 424. 10. he would have no statues made for him after his death ib. 50. commended in his olde age by Xenophon 385.1 Agesilaus the Great his Apophthegmes 444.10 Agesilaus noted for partialitie 445.50 his sober diet 446.10 his continencie 445. 20. his sufferance of paine and travell 446.10 his temperance ib. 30 his faithfull love to his countrey 450. 1. his tendernesse over his children ib. his not able stratageme 451.10 he served under K. Nectanebas in Aegypt 451.20 his death ib. 30. his letter for a friend to the perverting of justice 360.10 too much addicted to his friends 359.50 K. Agesipolis his Apophthegms 451.40 Agesipolis the sonne of Pausanias his Apophthegmes 451.50 Agias given to bellie cheere 679.20 Agis a worthy prince 400.30 his Apophthegmes 423.40 Agis the yonger his Apophthegms 425.1 Agis the sonne of Archidamus his Apophthegmes 452.1 Agis the yonger his apophthegms 452.50 Agis the last king of the Lacedaemonians his apophthegmes 453.1 his death ib. Agis the Argive a cunning flatterer about K. Alexander the Great 98.20 Aglaonice well seene in Astrologie how she deluded the wives of Thessalie 1329.10 Agrioma a feast 899.40 Agronia 765.30 Agroteros 1141.20 Agrotera a surname of Diana 1235.20 Agrypina talkative 206.30 Ajax Telamonius how he came in the twentieth place to the lotterie 790.50 his feare compared with that of Dolon 74.50 Aigos Potamoi 1189.30 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what place 821.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifieth 788.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifieth in some Poets 29.40 Ainautae who they be 897.50 Aire how made 808.40 the primitive colde 995.40 Aire or Spirit the beginning of all things 806.1 why called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 995.50 Aire the very body and substance of voice 771.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what it signifieth in Homer 737.1 Aix 891.10 Al what parts it hath
790. 19. this Lady gently See 791. 3. and therefore 〈◊〉 798. 1. our willes 799. 18. in nature 800. 4. a lively and true  9. of running water they are  12. with hot desire and  42. 〈◊〉 with her gold crowne honour'd Faire 〈◊〉 and well  45. From 〈◊〉 favour'd  55. And 〈◊〉 801. 1. who list to know 805. 43. That as all things 808. 18. called Entelechia 811. 21. snow blacke 〈◊〉 cold 816. 33. and percussion  47. chaine there is comprised  37. Nature none there is 824. 36. the curvature or 〈◊〉 826. 2. Pseudophanes 828. 38. warre portends 831. 32. the clifts and chinks 834. 42. hold it to be in 836. 53. I thee beseech 839. 10. and cich pease 846. 22. Scorpio is unsociable 848. 5. the inferior bellie 853. 29. about and returne  54. with their 〈◊〉 855. 48. for that 〈◊〉 was a Lady 858. 44. and present offrings 869. 37. whom partly 871. 8. with them their Tutelar  36. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  46. were the greatest 872. 32. Cirque of 〈◊〉  57. Febraten and Febrarin 874. 15. called Auspices  56. smalnesse 〈◊〉 Fortune 881. 31. of all besides  51. 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 pease 884. 29. the uneven number nine 886. 41. not onely not to touch 889. 〈◊〉 and there held them still 898. 28. in all respects otherwise 899. 8. Stratonice  12. by townes and villages  55. them they send 903. 12. injuries and wrongs  54. any mony at interest 905. 21. Hercules being departed 906. 41. in which battle L. Glauco 915. 24. and bestowed every man 918. 35. States and governments  46. corporation of Rhamnus  48. as some thinke by himselfe 919. 3. no 〈◊〉 by those  9. 〈◊〉 and Archinous 920. 13. preferied by Andron The Senate hath ordeined 921. 24. he was driven out 223. 3. for sapience should now immortall be 925. 10. the sonne of Conon 928. 25. up to the very cope  32. demaunded to have had 929. 9. meeting with the children 932. 7. driven out of countenance  8. of lusty youthfulnesse  22. alleadged testimonies  26. the 〈◊〉 934. 5. to convince the Macedoni 943. 7. as buckler in ans 945. 17. body of the espoused virgin  53. of the Bacchiadae 950. 1. being not taught nourished nor any waies framed  47. commended hunting 952. 16. againe for them contrarie 954. 29. when they coove or sit 955. 30. and the same not in small  32. For that Heraclitus  33. dealing with thē as he doth 960. 13. at Hercules if he putting 961. 9. the nature of this wit intelligence 962. 21. conclusion inferred  25. either disjunct or conjunct 967. 29. among other prety tricks  37. matter of the play required 969. 28. hides and deepe obscurity  49. a tincture as one would say from 970. 6. among the rest those in 971. 4. that rurall oxe head bare  51. within the Amphitheaters  56. that he may raise himselfe upon and so get foorth 972. 2. but say it were true 974. 26. enter into the sea of Pontus 977. 1 within the sand 978. 2 swallowes doe nor yet 979. 35. About the temple Nemeium 980. 24. with his feet and as men say 984. 16. called Phiditia 986. 42. most sacred oblation that is  56. 〈◊〉 accompanieth 988. 44. the inconsiderate folly 991. 54. a man may account 992. 45. another declamation 994. 19. and perceivance of cold 997. 56. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 998. 46. contiguate 999. 2. not evermore cold alike  8. huge meeres 1004. 36. cattell to licke salt 1009. 5. the 〈◊〉  43. others their smitings  〈◊〉 in steed of crookes 1012. 9. divers 〈◊〉 sweetnesses  31. in the vatte 1017. 8. most just and equall  42. immutable doth alwaies 1020. 8. thereof yet 〈◊〉  36. and Icasaedron 1021 56. cupping glasses  51. rough 〈◊〉 1023. 30. to succeed and receive them the 1024. 24. no nor any noise consonant 1026. 43. Adverb For the Particle 〈◊〉 1028. 34. in gesture in port by the regard of his eie in his voice 1029. 39. either parts or elements 1031. In the marg and his sectaries  45. generation either of it selfe 1034. 24. much lesse then unto 1036. 48. to wit two and three unto  35. of three to two 1038. 1 which are inserted 1040. 10. of which let the lesse number  44. a sesquiterce to a 〈◊〉 1046. 3. of the Eclipticke  42. Paramese 1052. 3. certaine and one 1059. 23. As for 〈◊〉 1063. 43. very bald and absurd 1066. 22. forbiddeth expresly 1067. 3. and are better  5. and all one as to say 1068. 10. such as Hydanthyrsus the Scythian was and Leucon  55. could receive wrong 1075. 28. nor expedient is if 1087. 40. had filled two cups 1092. 42. is conducible 1095. 21. in the peising and handling  46. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1097. 28. the care diseased 1102. 17. the water aloft  2. Also they annexe heereto their 1115. 38. is really of a 1116. In the marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1121. 56. Phosphoria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1124. 8 to heare belive 1127. 55. 〈◊〉 pardon For to slip 1129. 〈◊〉 the papyr reed  33. of Cybele the great 1132. 5. friend of hers and a  49. that I 〈◊〉 now against 1134. 39. of Paederastie 1136. 10. signes of ripenesse show 1138. 47. stratage me as it were of the yong man himselfe 141. 17. And is there never a god 1142. 9. The shady night me never  39. need it hath not of 〈◊〉  50. even so saith he  57. Panique terrors and frights 1143. 35. or enamelled  47. and so doe call them it is 1144. 28. named Nicostratus 1146. 32. wome have not ordinarily 1147. 9. into fire burning 1150. 18. but divers like as  20. and if this would not seeme 1151. 10. wonderfull generative  42. invention of love that 1152. 33. to second his suit 1153. 10. braches and bitches 1155. 4. and revile Venus 1156. 31. confused trouble and In the marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1159. 47 to incite those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  50. have made the overture 1160. 15 amulets 1163. 18. avowed to be the earth 1164. 2. Do bitter 1165. 1. bodies heere and their concretion with the earth  2. which be there gathered  9. highest cope 1166. 22. to come themselves 〈◊〉 1169. 18. 〈◊〉 1174. 27. and the calme white  56. is a dead body 1175. 21. and argumentation 1176. 10. even and subtile  30. and curbed mirrors 1177. 27. doe not 〈◊〉 1181. 1. with the windes and transported  27. incontaminate 1183 18. grandeur  40. They be assistant 1185. 35. all the babble of  43. make this disputation of 1186. 21. presently withall 1188. 37. And 〈◊〉 some you 1191. 55. called 〈◊〉 shall 1194. 9. or seene the 〈◊〉  15. from his root