Pindarus also writeth as touching Agamedes Trophonius That after they had built the temple of Apollo in Delphos they demanded of that god their hire and reward who promised to pay them fully at the seven-nights end meane while he bade them be merie and make good cheere who did as he enjoined them so upon the seventh night following they tooke their sleepe but the next morning they were found dead in bed Moreover it is reported that when Pindarus himselfe gave order unto the commissioners that were sent from the State of Boeotia unto the oracle of Apollo for to demand what was best for man this answere was returned from the prophetisse That he who enjoined them that errand was not ignorant thereof in case the historie of Agamedes and Trophonius whereof he was author were true but if he were disposed to make further triall he should himselfe see shortly an evident proofe thereof Pindarus when he heard this answer began to thinke of death and to prepare himselfe to die and in trueth within a little while after changed his life The like narration is related of one Euthynous an Italian who was sonne to Elysius of Terinae for vertue wealth and reputation a principall man in that citie namely that he died suddenlie without any apparent cause that could be given thereof his father Elysius incontinently thereupon began to grow into some doubt as any other man besides would have done whether it might not be that he died of poison for that he was the onely childe he had and heire apparant to all his riches and not knowing otherwise how to sound the trueth hee sent out to a certeine oracle which used to give answere by the conjuration and calling forth of spirits or ghosts of men departed where after he had performed sacrifices and other ceremoniall devotions according as the law required he laied him downe to sleepe in the place where he dreamed and saw this vision There appeared unto him as he thought his owne father whom when he saw he discoursed unto him what had fortuned his sonne requesting and beseeching him to be assistant with him to finde out the trueth and the cause indeed of his so sudden death his father then should answere thus And even therefore am I come hither here therefore receive at this mans hands that certificate which I have brought unto thee for thereby shalt thou know all the cause of thy griefe and sorrow now the partie whom his father shewed and presented unto him was a yoong man that followed after him who for all the world in stature and yeeres resembled his sonne Euthynous who being demanded by him what he was made this answere I am the ghost or angell of your sonne and with that offered unto him a little scrowle or letter which when Elysius had unfolded he found written within it these three verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which may be done into English thus Elysius thou foolish man aske living Sages read Euthynous by fatall course of 〈◊〉 is dead For longer life would neither him nor parents stand in stead And thus much may suffice you both as touching the ancient histories written of this matter and also of the second point of the foresaid question But to come unto the third branch of Socrates his conjecture admit it were true that death is the utter abolition and destruction aswell of soule as body yet even so it cannot be reckoned simply ill for by that reckoning there should follow a privation of all sense and a generall deliverance from paine anxietie and angush and like as there commeth no good thereby even so no harme at all can ensue upon it forasmuch as good and evill have no being but in that thing onely which hath essence and subsislence and the same reason there is of the one as of the other so as in that which is not but utterly becommeth void anulled and taken quite out of the world there can not be imagined either the one or the other Now this is certeine that by this reason the dead returne to the same estate and condition wherein they were before their nativitie like as therefore when we were unborne we had no sense at all of good or evill no more shall we have after our departure out of this life and as those things which preceded our time nothing concerned us so whatsoever hapneth after our death shall touch us as little No paine feele they that out of world be gone To die and not be borne I holde all one For the same state and condition is after death which was before birth And do you thinke that there is any difference betweene Never to have bene and To cease from being surely they differ no more than either an house or a garment in respect of us and our use thereof after the one is ruined or fallen downe and the other all rent and torne from that benefit which we had by them before they were begun to be built or made and if you say there is no difference in them in these regards as little there is be you sure between our estate after death and our condition before our nativitie a very pretie and elegant speech therefore it was of Arcesilaus the philosopher when he said This death quoth he which every man tearmeth evill hath one peculiar propertie by it selfe of all other things that be accounted ill in that when it is present it never harmeth any man onely whiles it is absent and in expectance it hurteth folke And in very truth many men through their folly and weakenesse and upon certaine slanderous calumniations and false surmises conceived against death suffer themselves to die because sorsooth they would not die Very well therefore and aptly wrot the poet Epicharmus in these words That which was knit and joined fast Is loosed and dissolv'd at last Each thing returnes into the same Earth into earth from whence it came The spirit up to heaven anon Wherefore what harme heerein just none And as for that which Cresphontes in one place of Euripides speaking of Hercules said If under globe of earth with those he dwell Who being none have left laid once in grave A man of him might say and that right well That puissance and strength he none can have By altering it a little in the end you may thus inferre If under globe of earth with those he dwell Who being none have left laid once in grave A man of him might say and that right well That sense at all of paine he can none have A generous and noble saying also was that of the Lacedaemonians Now are we in our gallant prime Before as others had their time And after us shall others floure But we shall never see that houre As also this Now dead are they who never thought That life or death were simply ought But all their care was for to dy And live as they should
so say namely the occupation or taking up of the middle place wherein it standeth because it is in the mids for if it were thought otherwise to be founded it were altogether necessarie that some corruption should take holde of it And againe a little after for even so in some sort hath that essence bene ordeined from all eternity to occupie the middle region being presently at the very first such as if not by another maner yet by attaining this place it is eternall and subject to no corruption These words conteine one manifest repugnance and visible contrariety considering that in them he admitteth and alloweth in that which is infinit a middle place But there is a second also which as it is more darke and obscure so it implieth also a more monstrous absurditie than the other for supposing that the world can not continue incorruptible if it were seated and founded in any other place of the infinitie than in the mids it appeareth manifestly that he feared if the parts of the substance did not moove and tend toward the mids there would ensue a dissolution corruption of the world But this would he never have feared if he had not thought that bodies naturally from all sides tend to the middes not of the substance but of the place that conteineth the substance where of he had spoken in many places that it was a thing impossible and against nature for that within voidnesse there is no difference by which bodies can be said to move more one way than another and that the construction of the world is cause of the motion to the center as also that all things from every side do bend to the mids But to see this more plainly it may suffice to alledge the very text in his second booke of Motion for when he had delivered thus much That the world is a perfect body and the parts of the world not perfect because they are respective to the whole and not of themselves Having also discoursed as touching the motion thereof for that it was apt and fitted by nature to moove it selfe in all parts for to conteine and preserve and not to breake dissolve and burne it selfe he saith afterwards But the universall world tending and mooving to the same point and the parts thereof having the same motion from the nature of the body like it is that this first motion is naturally proper to all bodies namely to encline toward the mids of the world considering that the world mooveth so in regard of it selfe and the parts likewise in that they be the parts of the whole How now my goodfriend may some one say what accident is befallen unto you that you should forget to pronounce these words withall That the world in case it had not fortuned for to settle in the mids must needs have bene subject to corruption and dissolution For if it be proper and naturall to the world to tend alwaies to the same middle as also to addresse the parts thereof from all sides thereto into what place soever of the voidnesse it be carried and transported certes thus 〈◊〉 and embracing as it were it selfe as it doth it must needs continue incorruptible immortall and past all danger of fracture or dissolution for to such things as be broken bruised dissipated and dissolved this is incident by the division and dissolution of their parts when ech one runneth and retireth into their proper and naturall place out of that which is against their owne nature But you sir supposing that if the world were seated in any other place of voidnesse but in the mids there would follow a totall ruine and corruption thereof giving out also as much and therefore imagining a middle in that where naturally there can be none to wit in that which is infinit have verily quit cleane and fled from these tensions cohaerences and inclinations as having in them no assured meanes for to mainteine and holde the world together and attributed all the cause of the eternall maintenance and preservation thereof unto the occupation of a place And yet as if you tooke pleasure to argue and convince yourselfe you adjoine to the premisses thus much In what sort every severall part moveth as it is cohaerent to the rest of the body it stands with good reason that after the same maner it should moove by it selfe alone yea if for disputation sake we imagine and suppose it to be in some void part of this world and like as being kept in and enclosed on every side it would move toward the mids so it would continue in this same motion although by way of disputation we should admit that all on a sudden there should appeare some vacuity and void place round about it And is it so indeed that every part what ever it be compassed about with voidnesse forgoeth not her naturall inclination to move tend to the mids and should the world it selfe unlesse some fortune blind chance had not prepared for it a place in the mids have lost that vigor power which conteineth and holdeth all together so some parts of the substance of it moove one way and some another Now surely heerein there be many other maine contrarieties repugnant even to natural reason but this particularly among the rest encountreth the doctrine of God divine providence to wit that in attributing unto them the least and smallest causes that be he taketh from them the most principall and greatest of all other For what greater power can there be than the maintenance and preservation of this universall world or to cause the substance united together in all parts to cohaere unto it selfe But this according to the opinion of Chrysippus hapneth by meere hazzard and chance for if the occupation of a place is the cause of worlds incorruption and eternity and the same chanced by fortune we must inferre there upon that the safety of all things dependeth upon hazzard and adventure and not upon fatall destiny and divine providence As for his doctrine disputation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say of things possible which Chrysippus hath delivered directly agaisnt that of fatall destiny how can it chuse but be repugnant to it selfe for if that be not possible according to the opiniō of Diodorus which either is or shall be true but whatsoever is susceptible naturally of a power to be although the same never come into act or esse is to be counted possible there will be a number of things possible which never shal have being by destiny invincible inexpugnable surmoūting al things And therefore either this doctrine overthroweth al the force and puissance of destiny or if it be admitted as Chrysippus would have it that which potentially may be wil fal out oftentimes to be impossible whatsoever is true shall be also necessary as being comprised contained by the greatest and most powerfull necessity of all others and whatsoever is false impossible as
dead whereas if he could have held his tongue a little while longer and mastered himselfe when the king afterwards had better fortune and recovered his greatnesse and puissance he should in my conceit have gotten more thanks at his hands and beene better rewarded for keeping silence than for all the courtesie and hospitalitie that he shewed And yet this fellow had in some sort a colourable excuse for this intemperate tongue of his to wit his owne hopes and the good will that he bare unto the king but the most part of these pratlers vndo themselves without any cause or pretense at all of reason like as it befell unto Denys the tyrants barbar for when upon a time there were some talking in his shop as touching his tyrannicall government and estate how assured it was and as hard to be ruined or overthrowen as it is to breake the Diamond the said barbar laughing thereat I marvell quoth he that you should say so of Denys who is so often under my hands and at whose throat in a maner every day I holde my rasor these words were soone carried to the tyrant Denys who faire crucified this barbar and hanged him for his foolish words And to say a trueth all the sort of these barbars be commonly busie fellowes with their tongue and no marvell for lightly the greatest praters and idlest persons in a countrey frequent the barbars shop and sit in his chaire where they keepe such chat that it can not be but by hearing them prate so customably his tongue also must walke with them And therefore king Archelaus answered very pleasantly unto a barbar of his that was a man of no few words who when he had cast his linnen cloth about his shoulders said unto him Sir may it please your Highnesse to tell me how I shall cut or shave you Mary quoth he holding thy tongue and saying not a word A barbar it was who first reported in the city of Athens the newes of that great discomsiture and overthrow which the Athenians received in Sicily for keeping his shop as he did in that end of the suburbs called Pyraeum he had no sooner heard the said unlucky newes of a certaine slave who fled from thence out of the field when it was lost but leaving shop and all at sixe and seven ran directly into the city and never rested to bring the said tidings and whiles they were fresh and fire-new For feare some els might all the honour win And he teo late or second should come in Now upon the broching of these unwelcome tidings a man may well thinke and not without good cause that there was a great stirre within the city insomuch as the people assembled together into the Market place or Common hall and search was made for the authour of this rumour hereupon the said barbar was haled and brought before the bodie of the people and examined who knew not so much as the name of the partie of whom hee heard this newes But well assured I am quoth he that one said so mary who it was or what his name might be I can not tell Thus it was taken for an headlesse tale and the whole Theatre or Assembly was so moved to anger that they cried out with one voice Away with the villaine have the varlet to the racke set the knave upon the wheele he it is onely that hath made all on his owne singers ends this hath he and none but he devised for who els hath heard it or who besides him hath beleeved it Well the wheele was brought and upon it was the barbar stretched meane while and even as the poore wretch was hoised thereupon beholde there arrived and came to the citie those who brought certaine newes in deed of the said defeature even they who made a shift to escape out of that infortunate field then brake up the assembly and every man departed and retired home to his owne house for to bewaile his owne private losse and calamity leaving the silly barbar lying along bound to the wheele and racked out to the length and there remained he untill it was very late in the evening at what time he was let loose and no sooner was he at liberty but he must needs enquire newes of the executioner namely what they heard abroad of the Generall himselfe Nicias and in what sort he was slaine So inexpugnable and incorrigible a vice is this gotten by custome of much talke that a man can not leave it though he were going to the gallowes nor keepe in those tidings which no man is willing to heare for certes like as they who have drunke bitter potions or unsavory medicines can not away with the very cups where in they were even so they that bring evill and heavie tidings are ordinarily hated and detested of those unto whom they report the same And therefore Sophocles the Poet hath verie finely distinguished upon this point in these verses MESSENGER Is it your heart or els your eare That this offends which you do heare CREON. And why do'st thou search my disease To know what griefe doth me displease MESSENGER His deeds I see offend your heart But my words cause your eares to smart Well then those who tell us any wofull newes be as odious as they who worke our wo and yet for all that there is no restreint and brideling of an untemperate tongue that is given to walke and overreach It fortuned one day at Lacedaemon that the temple of Iuno called there Chalciaecos was robbed and within it was found a certeine emptie flagon or stone bottle for wine great running there was and concourse of the people thither and men could not tell what to make of that flagon at last one of them that stood by My masters quoth he if you will give me leave I shall tell you what my conceit is of that flagon for my minde gives me saith he that these church-robbers who projected to execute so perilous an enterprise had first drunke the juice of hemlocke before they entred into the action and afterwards brought wine with them in this bottle to the end that if they were not surprised nor taken in the maner they might save their lives by drinking each of them a good draught of meere wine the nature and vertue whereof as you know well enough is to quench as it were and dissolve the vigour and strength of that poison and so goe their waies safe enough but if it chance that they were taken in the deed doing then they might by meanes of that hemlocke which they had drunke die an easie death and without any great paine and torment before that they were put to torture by the magistrate He had no sooner delivered this speech but the whole companie who heard his words thought verily that such a contrived devise and so deepe a reach as this never came from one that suspected such a matter but rather knew that it was so indeed whereupon they
for sacrifice commanding that hee should take out of it the best and woorst piece thereof and so to send the said flesh unto him hee therefore well and wisely plucked foorth the tongue and sent it unto him for which hee was by good right well praised highly esteemed and held in great admiration It was not therefore onely quoth Niloxenus that hee came to so great a name but also for that hee refused not the amitie of princes and kings as you doe for Amasis admired many more things in you and namely among others when you tooke the measure of the height of the Pyramis in Egypt he woondered exceedingly and made high account of your conceit for that without any great hand-labour and the same requiring no instrument at all by setting up a staffe onely plumbe upright at the very point and end of the shadow which the said Pyramis cast and by two Triangles which the beames of the sunne caused you made demonstration that what proportion there was betweene the length of both shadowes to wit of the Pyramis and the staffe the same was betweene the height of the one and the other But as I said before you were accused unto the same king Amasis for bearing no good will unto kings and their estate which was the cause of your disgrace and disfavour with him besides there were brought unto him and presented many slanderous speeches and contumelious answers of yours as touching tyrants as for example when Molpagoras a great lord of Ionia demaunded upon a time of you what strange thing you had in your time seene you answered A tyrant living to be an old man Againe at a certeine banket there being some speech mooved as touching beasts which was the worst and did most harme you made answer that Of wilde beasts a tyrant and of tame beasts a flatterer was most dangerous for I may tell you Kings howsoever they say that they differ from tyrāts yet take they no pleasure at such Apophthegmes as those That answer quoth Thales againe was none of mine but Pittacus it was who made it one day in scoffing merilie to Myrsilus for mine one part I doe not so much mervaile at an aged tyrant as I doe woonder to see an olde pilot howbeit as touching this transposition and taking one for another I am of the same minde and am willing to say as that yoong man did who flung a stone at a dogge and missing the dog hit his owne stepmother and felled her withall whereat It makes no matter quoth he for even so the stone hath not light amisse For and in truth I my selfe alwaies esteemed Solon a right wise man for that he refused to be the tyrant of his owne country and even so Pittacus if he had never come to take upon him a monarchie would not have delivered this speech How hard a thing is it to bee a good man And it should seeme that Periander being seized upon as a man would say by the same tyranny as an hereditarie disease from his father did not amisse to endevour what he could to free himselfe and get out of it by conversing with the best men and frequenting their companie as hee hath done to this day and training unto him the societie of Sages and philosophers and being ruled and advised by them not approoving nor admitting the perilous and unhappie counsell of my country-man Thrasibulus perswading him to cut the chief men shorter by the heads For a tyrant who chooseth to command and rule slaves and vassailes rather than free men indeed nothing differeth from the husbandman who had leifer gather locusts and catch foules than reape and bring in good graine of wheat and barley for these soveraigne dominions and principalities bring with them this onely good thing in stead and recompence of many evils to wit a kind of honor and glorie if men be so happie as in ruling over good men they be better themselves and in commaunding great persons become greater themselves as for such as in their government and place of command aime at nothing but their securitie without respect of honour and honestie deserve to be set over a number of sheepe horses or beasts and not of men but this good gentleman stranger heere hath I wot not how cast us upon such discourses which are nothing convenient for our present purpose omitting both to speake and also to demaund those matters that befit better those who goe to a 〈◊〉 for thinke you not that the guest who is bidden ought not to goe prepared as well as the very master himselfe is to make preparation For the Sybarites as it should seeme solemnly invite their dames to their feasts seeme to bid them a whole yeere before of purpose that they might have time enough to trim themselves at their good leasure with rich aray and jewels of gold against they goe to a feast and for mine owne part I assure you of this mind I am that the right preparative of one who is to go unto a great dinner as he should would require a longer time than so by how much harder it is to find fit and decent ornament for the manners of the minde than to provide for the superfluous needlesse and unprofitable setting out of the bodie for a wise man who hath wit and understanding goeth not to a feast carying with him his body as a vessell to be filled but he goes thither with an intention to passe the time either in serious discourses or pleasant and mery talke to speake I say and heare according as the time shal give occasion to the companie if they meane with joy and mirth to converse together one with another A man that is come to a feast may if he like not a dish of meat or if it be naught refuse it or if the wine be not good have recourse unto the nymphes but a troublesome guest a talkative busi-bodie and an unmannerly or untaught neighbour sitting at the boord marreth all the grace of the viands be they otherwise never so deinty he corrupteth the wine yea and all the sweetnesse of the musicke how melodious so ever it be Neither may a man when he list vomit and cast up readily againe this trouble and vexation once received but in some a mutuall discontentment and offence taken at the table one with another sticketh by them and continueth as long as they have a day to live insomuch as they cannot endure the enterview one of another againe but like an old surfeit arisen of wrong done or of anger conceived by drinking wine the spight remaineth feltering corrupting in the stomacke and never will be digested In mine opinion therefore did Chilon very well and wisely who being invited as it were yesterday to a feast would never promise to come before he knew what other guests he should meet with there even everie one of them for this was his saying That a man must endure will he nill he if he be once
note of insolencie and presumption because he forgat or omitted so small a demonstration and token of humanitie how can it be that he who goeth about to impaire the dignitie and credit of his companions in government or discrediteth and digraceth him in those actions especially which proceed from honour and bountie or upon an arrogant humour of his owne will seeme to do all and attribute the whole to himselfe alone how can such an one I say be reputed either modest or reasonable I remember my selfe that when I was but of yoong yeres I was sent with another in embassage to the Proconsul and for that my companion staid about I wot not what behind I went alone and did that which we had in commission to do together after my returne when I was to give an account unto the State and to report the effect of my charge message back againe my father arose and taking me apart willed me in no wise to speak in the singular number say I departed or went but We departed Item not I said or quoth I but We said in the whole recitall of the rest to joine alwaies my companion as if he had been associat at one hand with me in that which I did alone And verily this is not onely decent convenient and civill but that which more is it taketh from glorie that which is offensive to wit envie which is the cause that great captaines attribute and ascribe their noble acts to fortune and their good angell as did Timoleon even he who overthrew the Tyrannies established in Sicilie who founded and erected a temple to Good-Fortune Pythou also when he was highly praised and commended at Athens for having slaine king Cotys with his owne hand It was God quoth he who for to doe the deed used my hand And Theopompus king of the Lacedemonians when one said unto him that Sparta was saved and stood vpright for that their kings know how to rule well Nay rather quoth he because the people know how to obey well and to say a truth both these depend one upon the other howbeit most men are of this opinion and so they give out that the better part of policie or knowledge belonging to civill government lieth in this to fit men and frame them meete to be well ruled and commanded for in every citie there is alwaies a greater number of subjects than rulers and ech one in his turne especially in a popular state is governour but a while and for it afterwards continueth governed all the rest of his life in such sort that it is a most honest and profitable apprentiship as it were to learne for to obey those who have authoritie to command although haply they have meaner parts otherwise and be of lesse credite and power than our selves for a meer absurditie it were that wheras a principall or excellent actour in a Tragedie such as Theodorus was or Potus for hire waiteth oftentimes upon another mercenarie plaier who hath not above three words in his part to say and speaketh unto him in all humilitie and reverence because peradventure he hath the roiall band of a diademe about his head and a scepter in his hand in the true and unfained actions of our life and in case of policie and government a rich and mightie person should despise and set light by a magistrate for that he is a simple man otherwise and peradventure poore and of meane estate yea and proceede to wrong violate and impaire the publike dignitie wherein he is placed yea and to offer violence thereby unto the authoritie of a State whereas he ought rather with his owne credite and puissance helpe out the defect and weakenesse of such a man and by his greatnesse countenance his authoritie for thus in the citie of Lacedemon the kings were woont to rise up out of their thrones before the Ephori and whosoever els was summoned called by them came not an ordinary foot-pace or faire and softly but running in great haste in token of obedience and to shew unto other citizens how obeisant they were taking a great joy and glorie in this that they honour their magistrates not as some vaine-glorious and ungracious sots voide of all civilitie and manners wanting judgement and discretion who to shewe forsooth their exceeding power upon which they stande much and pride themselves will not let to offer abuse unto the judges and wardens of the publike games combats and pastimes or to give reprochfull termes to those that leade the dance or set out the plaies in the Bacchanale feast yea and mocke captaines and laught at the presidents wardens of the publik exercises for youth who have not the wit to know That to give honour is oftentimes more honorable than to be honored for surely to an honourable person who beareth a great sway carieth a mightie port with him in a citie it is a greater ornament grace to accompany a magistrate and as it were to guard and squire him than if the said magistrate should put him before or seeme to waite upon him in his traine and to say a truth as this were the way to worke him displeasure and procure him envie from the hearts of as manie as see it so the other would win him true glorie which proceedeth of love and benevolence And verily when such a man is seene otherwhiles in the magistrates house when he saluteth or greeteth him first and either giveth him the upper-hand or the middle place as they walke together he addeth an ornament to the dignirie of the citie and looseth thereby none of his own Moreover it is a popular thing and that which gaineth the hearts of the multitude if such a person can beare patiently the hard tearmes of a magistrates whiles he is in place and endure his cholericke fits for then he may with Diomedes in Homer say thus to himselfe How ever now I little do say It will be mine honor another day Or as one said of Demosthenes Well he is not now Demosthenes onely but he is a law-giver he is a president of the sacred plaies and solemne games and a crowne he hath upon his head c. and therefore it is good to put up all nowe and to deferre vengeance untill another time for either we shall come upon him when he is out of his office or at least wise wee shall gaine thus much by delay that choler will be well cooled and allaied by that time Moreover in any government or magistracie whatsoever a good subject ought to strive as it were a vie with the rulers especially if they be persons of good sort and gracious behaviour in diligence care and fore-cast for the benefit of the State namely in going to them to give notice and intelligence of whatsoever is meet to be done in putting into their hands for to be executed that which he hath with mature deliberation rightly resolved upon in giving meanes unto them for to
citie and one of the ancient Senatours mooved the rest that both twaine should be banished out of the citie before there arose further mischiefe and lest the citie by occasion of their deadly fewd should be filled with parts taking of both sides and so be in danger of utter destruction which when he could not perswade and bring to passe the people grew into an open sedition and after many miserable calamities ruinated and overthrew a most excellent State government You haue heard I am sure of domesticall examples and namely the enmitie of Pardalus and Tyrrhenus who went within a verie little of overthrowing the citie of Sardis and upon small and private causes had brought the same into civill war and open rebellion by their factioins and particular quarrels And therefore a man of government ought alwaies to be watchfull and vigilant and not to neglect no more than in a bodie naturall the beginnings of maladies all little heart-burnings and offences that quickly passe from one to another but to stay their course and remedie the same with all convenient speed For by a heedfull eie and carefull prevention as Cato saith that which was at first great becommeth small and that which was small commeth to nothing Now to induce and perswade other men so to doe there is not a more artificiall device nor a better meanes than for a man of government to shew himselfe exorable inclined to pardon easie to be reconciled in like cases in principal matters of weight greatest importance resolute and constant without any rankor or malice and in none at all seeme to be selfe-willed peevish contentious cholerike or subject to any other passion which may breed a sharpnesse and bitternesse in necessarie controversies and doubtfull cases which can not be avoided For in those combats at buffets which champions performe for pleasure in manner of foiles the manner is to binde about their fists certaine round muffles like bals to the end that when they come to coping and to let drive one at another they might take no harme considering the knocks and thumps that they give are so soft and can not put them to any paine to speake of even so in the sutes processes and trials of law which passe betweene citizens of the same citie the best way is to argue and plead by laying downe their allegatiions and reasons simply and purely and not to sharpen or envenime their matters like darts and arrowes with poisoned taunts railing tearmes opprobrious speeches and spightfull threats and so to make deepe wounds and the same festured with venim whereby the controversies may grow incurable and augment still in such sort that in the end they touch the State He that can so cary himselfe in his owne affaires as to avoid these foresaid mischiefs and dangers shal be able to compasse others in the like and make them willing to be ruled by reason so that afterwards when once the particular occasions of priuie grudges be taken away the quarrels and discords which touch a common-wealth are sooner pacified and composed neither doe they ever bring any inconveniences hard to be cured or remedilesse WHETHER AN AGED MAN OUGHT TO MANAGE PUBLICKE AFFAIRES The Summarie THe title of this discour se discover eth sufficiently the intention of the Author but for that they who manage affaires of State and namely men in yeeres fall oftentimes into one of these two extremities as touching their duetie namely that they be either too slacke and remisse or else more stiffe and severe than they ought these precepts of Plutarch a man well conversed in high places and offices and who as we may gather by his words was well striken in age when he wrote this Treatise ought to be diligently read considered and practised by men of authoritie And albeit this booke containeth some advertisements in that behalfe which sort not wholy with the order of government put in practise in these our daies yet so it is that the fundamentall reasons are so well laid that any politician or States-man building therupon may assure himselfe that he shall raise edifie some good piece of worke Now he beginneth with the resutation of one common objection of certaine men who enjoine command elder folke to sit still and remaine quiet and he prooveth the contrarie namely that then it is meet that they should put themselves foorth more than ever before but he addeth this correction and caveat withall that they have beene a long time alreadie broken as it were to the world and beaten in publike affaires to the end that they be not taxed and noted for their slender carriage or light vanitie nor proove the cause of some great mischiefe medling as they do in that which they had not wel comprehended before After this he proposeth and laieth abroad the examples of men well qualified who have given good proofe of their sufficiencte in old age whereupon he inferreth that those be the persons indeed unto whom government doth appertaine and that to go about for to make such idle now in their latter daies were as absurde and as much injurie offeredunto them as to confine a prudent Prince and wise King to some house in the countrey and this he inforceth and verifieth by eloquent compcrisons and by the example of Pompeius Which done he setteth downe the causes which ought to put forward and moove a man well stept in yeeres to the government of a common-weale confuting those who are of the contrarie opinion and prooving that elderly persons are more fit therefore than yoonger because of the experience and aut boritte that age doth affoord them as also in regardof many other reasons then he returneth the objection upon them and sheweth that yoong folke are unmeet for publike charges unlesse they have beene the disciples of the aged or be directed and guided by them he resuteth those also who esteeme that such a vocation resembleth some particular trafficke or negotiation and when he hath so done he taketh in hand againe his principall point detecting and laying open the folly of those who would bereave old men of all administration of publike matters and then he exhorteth them to take heart and shunne idlenesse which he doth diffame wonderfully and setteth before their eles their duetie which he also considereth inparticular then he adviseth them not to take so much upon them not to accept any charge unworthie or not beseeming that gravitie which time and age hath given them but tooccupie and busie themselves with that which is honorable and of great consequence to endevour and strive for to serve their countrey and above all in matters of importance to use good discretion as well in the refusall as the acceptation of dignities and offfices carying themselves with such dexterity among yoong men that they may induct set them into the way of vertue And for a conclusion he teacheth all persons who deale in State affaires what resolution they should put
yeeres of age should arme and follow him now when they were offended and wroth hereat Why my masters quoth he what cause have you to complaine I will go with you my selfe and be your captaine who carie already above fourscore yeeres on my backe And of Masanissa Polybius writeth in his storie that he died when he was fourscore and ten yeeres old and left behind him at his death a sonne of his owne bodie begotten but fower yeeres old also that a little before his dying day he overthrew the Carthaginians in a raunged battell and the morrow after was seene eating favourly at his verie tent doore a piece of browne bread and when some marvelled at him why he so did he answered thus out of the Poet Sophocles For iron and brasse be bright and cleare All while mans hand the same doth weare But the house wherein none dwels at all In time must needs decay and fall and even as much may be said of the the lustre glosse and resplendent light of the minde by which we discourse we remember conceive and understand And therefore it is generally held and said that kings become much better in wars and militarie expeditions than they be all the whiles they sit still quietly at home In such sort that it is reported of King Attalus the brother of Eumenes how being enervate by long peace and rest Philopaemen one of his favourites led him up and downe as he list by the nose and indeed being fed as fat as a beast he might do with him what he would so as the Romans were wont to aske by way of mockerie ever and anon as any sailed out of Asia whether the king were in grace and favour with Philopaemen and might do any thing with him There could not easily be found many Romane captaines more sufficient warriours in all kinde of service than was Lucullus so long as he was in action and mainteined his wit and understanding entier but after that he gave himselfe over once to an idle life and sat mued up as it were like an house-bird at home and medled no more in the affaires of the common-weale he became very dull blockish and benummed much like to sea-spunges after a long calme when the salt water doth not dash and drench them so that afterwards hee committed his olde age to be dieted cured and ordered unto one of his affranchised bondslaves named Callisthenes by whom it was thought he was medicined with amatorious drinks and bewitched with other charmes and sorceries untill such time as his brother Marcus displaced this servitour from about him and would needs have the government and disposition of his person the rest of his life which was not very long But Dartus the father of Xerxes was wont to say That in perillous times and dangerous troubles he became the better and much wiser than himselfe Aeleas a King of Scythia said that he thought himselfe no better than his horse-keeper when he was ilde Dionysius the elder being demaunded upon a time whether he were at leisure and had nought to do God defend quoth he that ever it should be so with me for a bow as they say if it be over-bent will breake but the mind if it be over-slacke For the verie musicians themselves if they discontinue overlong the hearing of their accords the Geometricians likewise to proove resolve their conclusions the Arithmeticians also to exercise continually their accounts and reckonings together with the verie actions do impaire by long time and age the habitudes that they had gotten before in their severall arts albeit they be not so much practike as speculative sciences but the politike habitude which is Prudence Discretion Sage advise and Justice and besides all these Experience which can skill in all occurrences how to make choise of opportunities and the verie point of occasions as also a sufficiencie to be able with good words to perswade that which is meet this habitude I say and knowledge can not be preserved maintained but by speaking often in publike place by doing affaires by discoursing and by judgement and a hard case it were if by discontinuing and leaving off these goodly exercises it should neglect and suffer to voide out of the mind so many faire and laudable vertues for verie like it is that in so doing all humanitie sociable courtesie and gratitude in time for want of use and practise would decay and fade away which in deed should never cease nor have an end Now if you had Tithonus for your father who indeed was immortall howbeit by reason of extreme age standing in need continually of great helpe and carefull attendance would you avoide all good meanes would you denie or be weary of doing him dutifull service namely to wait upon him to speake unto him to find talke with him and to succour him everie way under a colour and pretense that you had ministred unto him long enough I trow you would not Our countrey then resembling our father or our mother rather according to the tearme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Candiots give it which is more aged and hath many more rights over us and straighter obligations of us than hath either father or mother how durable and long lived so ever it be yet notwithstanding subject it is to age and is not sufficent of it selfe but hath alwaies need of some carefull eie and good regard over it and requireth much succour and vigilance she I say plucketh unto her a man of honour and policie she takes sure hold and will not let him go She 〈◊〉 him by skirt of roabe behind And holds him fast least that he from her wind you know well that there be many Pythiades that is to say five yeeres terames gone over my head since I began first to minister as Priest unto Apollo Pythius but yet I suppose you would not say thus unto me Plutarch you have sacrificed enough now you have gone in procession often enough already or you have lead a sufficient number of dances in the honour and worship of your god now you are growen in yeeres and become aged it were time now that you laid off the coronet which you weare on your head in token of your priesthood and give over the oracle by reason of your old age Neither would I have you thinke that it is lawfull for you notwithstanding you be farre stept in yeeres to relinquish and resigne up your holy service of Jupiter the tutor and patron of cities the president of civill assemblies and counsels you I say who are the sovereigne high priest and the great prophet of the sacred ceremonies of religion politike wherein you thus long time have bene entred and professed But laying aside if you thinke good these arguments that may distract and pull an old man from the administration of the State let us discourse philosophically and consider a little upon this point namely that we doe not impose upon old age any
cost but if he wrought or practised any losle or displeasure unto them he would be his enemie When the Argives were entred into league and amitie with the Thebans those of Athens sent their ambassadours into Arcadie to assay if they could draw the Arcadians to side with them So these ambassadours began to charge and accuse unto them aswell the Argives as the Thebans insomuch as Callistratus the oratour who was their speaker upbraided both cities and hit them in the teeth with Orestes and Oedipus then Epaminondas who sat in this assembly of councell rose up and said We confesse indeed my masters that in times past there was in our citie one parricide who killed his owne father like as another in Argos who murdered his owne mother but when we had chased and banished them for committing these facts the Athenians received them both And when the Spartans had charged the Thebans with many great and grievous imputations Why my masters of Sparta quoth Epaminondas these Thebans if they have done nothing els yet thus much they have effected that you have forgotten your maner of short speech and using few words The Athenians had contracted alliance and amitie with Alexander the tyrant of Pheres in Thessalie a mortall enemie of the Thebans and who promised to the Athenians for to serve them flesh in the market at halfe an obolus a pound weight And wee quoth Epaminondas will furnish the Athenians with wood enough for nothing to roast and seethe the said flesh for if they begin busily to intermeddle more than we like of we will fell and cut downe all the trees growing in that countrey Knowing well enought that the Boeotians were lost for idlenesse he determined and advised to keepe them continually in exercise of armes now when the time approched for the election of governors and that they were minded to chuse him their Boeotarches that is to say the ruler of Boeotia Be well advised my masters quoth he what ye do whiles it lieth in your hands for if you elect me your captaine generall make this reckoning that to warre you shall He was wont to call the countrey of Boeotia because it lieth plaine and open the stage and scaffold of warre saying that it was impossible for the inhabitants to keepe and hold it so long as they had not one hand within their shield and the other on their sword Chabrias the captaine of the Athenians having put to foile and defaited some few Thebans about Corinth who for heat of fight had run disbanded and out of aray made a bravado for which exploit as if he had won some great field he caused a tropheae to be erected in memoriall of this victorie whereas Epaminondas scoffed and said That hee should not have set up a trophaeum there but rather an hecatesium that is to say the statue of Proserpina for that in times past it was an ordinary thing to set up the image of Proserpina in maner of a crosse at the first carrefour or meeting of crosse waies which was found nere unto the gate of a city When one brought him word that the Athenians had sent an armie into Peloponesus bravely set out and appointed with new armour Now surely quoth he Antigenidas wil weepe and sigh when he knoweth once that Tellis hath gotten him new flutes and pipes to play upon now this Tellis was a bad minstrell and Antigenidas an excellent musician He perceived upon a time that his esquire or shield-bearer had received a good piece of money for the ransome of a prisoner which was in his hands whereupon he said unto him Give me my shield but goe thou thy waies and buy thee a taverne or victualling house wherein thou maiest leade the rest of thy life for I see well that thou wilt no more expose thy selfe to the dangers of warre as before-time since thou art now become one of these rich and happie men of the world He was once demanded the question whom he reputed to be the best captaine himselfe Chabrias or Iphicrates his answere was It is hard to judge so long as we all be alive At his returne out of of the countrey of Laconia hee was judicially accused for a capitall crime together with other captaines joined in commission with him for holding their charge longer by foure moneths than the lawes allowed as for his companions and collegues above-said hee willed them to derive all the fault from themselves and lay it upon him as if he had forced them so to doe but in his owne defence he pleaded thus Albeit I can not deliver better words than I have performed deeds yet if I be compelled as I see I am to say somewhat for my selfe before the judges I request thus much at their handes that if they be determined to put me to death they would cōmand to be engraven upon the square columne or pillar of my sepulchre my condēnation and the cause therof to the end that all the Greekes might know how Epaminondas was condemned to die for that hee had forced the Thebans against willes to waste and burne the countrey of Laconia which in five hundred yeeres before had never bene forraied nor spoiled also that hee had repeopled the citie of Messene two hundred and thirtie yeeres after it had bene destroied and left desert by the Lacedemonians Item that he had reunited concorporated and brought into one league all the States and cities of Arcadie and last of all that he had recovered and restored unto the Greeks their libertie for all these acts have bene atchieved by us in this voiage the judges when they heard this speech of his rose from the bench and went out of the court laughing heartily neither would they so much as receive the voices or verdicts to be given up against him After the last battell that ever he sought wherin he was wounded to death being brought into his tent he called first for Diophantis and after him for Iolidas but when he heard that they were both slaine hee advised the Thebans to compound and grow to an agreement with their enemies as if they had not one captaine more that knew how to leade them to the warres and in trueth the event did verifie his words and bare witnesse with him that he knew his citizens best of any man PELOPIDAS joint captaine with Epaminondas in the charge of Baeotia when his friends found fault with his neglect in one thing right necessary to wit the gathering of a masse of money together Money indeed quoth he is necessary but for such an one as this Nicomedes here shewing a poore cripple maimed lame and impotent in hand and foot When he departed from Thebes upon a time to a battell his wife praied him to have a regard unto his owne safetie This is quoth he an advertisement fit for others as for a captaine who hath the place of command he is to be put in minde for to save those under his
Philosophie But I pray you my very good friend quoth I unto him forbeare this vehement and accusatorie humour of yours and be not angry if haply you see that some because they be borne of leud and wicked parents are punished or else doe not rejoice so much nor be ready to praise in case you see nobilitie also of birth to be so highly honored for if we stand upon this point and dare avow that recompence of vertue ought by right and reason to continue in the line and posteritie we are by good consequence to make this account that punishment likewise should not stay and cease together with misdeeds committed but reciprocally fall upon those that are descended of misdoers and malefactors for he who willingly seeth the progenie of Cimon honoured at Athens and contrariwise is offended and displeased in his heart to see the race of Lachares or Ariston banished driven out of the citie he I say seemeth to be too soft tender and passing effeminate or rather to speake more properly over-contentious and quarrelsome even against the gods complaining and murmuring of the one side if the children childrens children of an impious wicked person do prosper in the world and contrariwise is no lesse given to blame and find fault if he doe see the posterity of wicked and ungracious men to be held under plagued or altogether destroied from the face of the earth accusing the gods if the children of a naughtie man be afflicted even as much as if they had honest persons to their parents But as for these reasons alledged make you this reckoning that they be bulwarks and rampars for you opposed against such bitter sharpe accusers as these be But now taking in hand again the end as it were of a clew of thread or a bottom of yearne to direct us as in a darke place and where there be many cranks turnings and windings to and fro I meane the matter of gods secret judgements let us conduct and guide our selves gently and warily according to that which is most likely probable considering that even of those things which we daily manage and doe our selves we are not able to set downe an undoubted certaintie as for example who can yeeld a sound reason wherefore we cause and bid the children of those parents who died either of the phthisick and consumption of the lungs or of the dropsie to sit with their feet drenched in water until the dead corps be fully burned in the funeral fire For an opiniō there is that by this meanes the said maladies shall not passe unto them as hereditarie nor take hold of their bodies as also what the cause should be that if a goat hold in her mouth the herbe called Eryngites that is to say Sea-holly the whole flocke will stand still untill such time as the goat-herd come and take the said herbe out of her mouth Other hidden properties there be which by secret influences and passages from one to another worke strange effects and incredible as well speedily as in longer tract of time and in very truth we woonder more at the intermission and stay of time betweene than we doe of the distance of place and yet there is greater occasion to marvell thereat as namely that a pestilent maladie which began in Aethiopia should raigne in the citie of Athens and fill every street and corner thereof in such sort as Pericles died and Thucydides was sicke thereof than that when the Phocaeans and Sybarits had committed some hainous sins the punishment therefore should fall upon their children go through their posteritie For surely these powers and hidden properties have certaine relations and correspondences from the last to the first the cause whereof although it be unknowen to us yet it ceaseth not secretly to bring foorth her proper effects But there seemeth to be verie apparent reason of justice that publicke vengeance from above should fall upon cities many a yeere after for that a citie is one entire thing and a continued body as it were like unto a living creature which goeth not beside or out of it selfe for any mutations of ages nor in tract and continuance of time changing first into one and then into another by succession but is alwaies uniforme and like it selfe receiving evermore and taking upon it all the thanke for well doing or the blame for misdeeds of whatsoever it doth or hath done in common so long as the societie that linketh holdeth it together maintaineth her unitie for to make many yea innumerable cities of one by dividing it according to space of time were as much as to go about to make of one man many because he is now become old who before was a yong youth in times past also a very stripling or springall or else to speake more properly this resembleth the devises of Epicharmus wherupon was invented that maner of Sophisters arguing which they cal the Croissant argument for thus they reason He that long since borrowed or tooke up mony now oweth it not because he is no more himselfe but become another he that yesterday was invited to a feast cōmeth this day as an unbidden guest cōsidering that he is now another man And verily divers ages make greater difference in ech one of us than they do commonly in cities and States for he that had seene the citie of Athens thirtie yeeres agoe and came to visit it at this day would know it to be altogether the very same that then it was insomuch as the maners customes motions games pastimes serious affaires favours of the people their pleasures displeasures and anger at this present resemble wholly those in ancient time whereas if a man be any long time out of sight hardly his very familiar friend shall be able to know him his countenance will be so much changed and as touching his maners and behaviour which alter and change so soone upon every occasion by reason of all sorts of labour travell accidents and lawes there is such varietie and so great alteration that even he who is ordinarily acquainted and conversant with him would marvell to see the strangenesse and noveltie thereof and yet the man is held and reputed still the same from his nativitie unto his dying day and in like case a citie remaineth alwaies one and the selfe same in which respect we deeme it great reason that it should participate aswell the blame and reproch of ancestours as enjoy their glorie and puissance unlesse we make no care to cast all things in the river of Heraclitus into which by report no one thing entreth twise for that it hath a propertie to alter all things and change their nature Now if it be so that a citie is an united and continued thing in it selfe we are to thinke no lesse of a race and progenie which dependeth upon one and the same stocke producing and bringing foorth a certeine power and communication of qualities and the same doth
there is I say that bitter almonds should have power to withstand the strength of meere wine considering they drie the body within and will not permit the veines to bee full upon the tention and commotion whereof they say drunkennesse doth proceed and for evident proofe of this there may be a good argument gathered from that which befalleth foxes who having eaten bitter almonds is they drinke not presently upon them die therewith by reason that all their humors suddenly are spent and consumed THE SEVENTH QUESTION What is the cause that old folke take greater delight in pure and strong wine than others THere arose a question about old persons what the reason might be that they loved better to drink wine without water or at the leastwise delaied but a little Some alledged the habit of their bodies being cold and hard to be set into an heat in regard whereof the strength of wine was meet and agreeable to their temperature a reason very common and ready at hand but surely neither sufficient for to bee the cause of such an effect nor yet simply true for the same hapueth to their other sences as being hard to be mooved and affected yea and nothing easie to be stirred for to apprehend the qualities thereto belonging unlesse the same be passing strong and vehement whereof the true cause indeed is this that their temperature being weake dull and feeble loveth to be put in minde by knocking upon and this is the cause that for their taste they delight in such sapours as be biting their smelling likewise standeth even so to odors that be strong for affected it is with more pleasure in such as be not tempered nor delaied as for the sense of touching they feele no great paine of ulcers and sores and if it happen that they be wounded their hurt and harme is not so great the same befalleth to their hearing for their eares be in manner deafe and heereupon it is that musicians as they grow in yeeres and waxe aged straine and raise their voice in singing so much the higher and lowder as if they stirred up the organs of hearing by the vehement force of the sound for looke what is steele to the edge and temper of iron for cutting the same is spirit to the bodie for sense and feeling and when it beginnes once to slacke faile and decay the sense likewise and the instruments thereof become dull heavie and earthly having need of some such quicke thing to pricke it in good earnest as strong wine is THE EIGHTH QUESTION How it comes to passe that olde folke reade better afarre off than neere at hand AGainst those reasons which wee devised and alledged upon the subject matter and point in hand it seemed that there might be opposed the eie-sight for that elder persons for to reade any thing the better remoove the letters farther from their eies and in trueth can not well reade neere at hand which the poet Aeschylus seemeth covertly to implie and shew unto us in these verses Know him thou canst not if neere he stand to thee A good olde scribe thou maist much sooner be And Sophocles more plainly testifieth as much when he writeth of old folke in this wise The voice to them arrives not readily And hardly thorow their eares the way can finde Their eies do see farre off confusedly But neere at hand they all be very blinde If then it be so that the senses of aged persons and the instruments serving thereto are not willingly obeisant to their proper objects unlesse the same be strong and vehement what should the cause be that in reading they can not endure the reverberation of the light from letters if they be neere but setting the booke farther off from their eies they do by that meanes enfeeble as it were that light for that it is spread and dissipate in the aire like as the strength of wine when it is tempered with water To this probleme some answered thus That they remoove books and letters farre from their eie-sight not because they would make the saide light more milde or lesse radiant but contrariwise for that they are desirous to catch and gather more splendor and to fill the meane intervall which is betweene the eie and the letter with lightsome and shining aire Others accorded with those who holde that the eies do send out of them certeine raies for by reason that aswell from the one eie as the other a pyramidal beame doth issue the point whereof is in the sight of the eie and the basis doth comprehend the object that is seene probable it is that both these pyramides goe forward apart one from the other a good space and distance but after they be a great way off and come to encounter one another and be confounded together they make but one entire light and this is the reason that albeit the eies are twaine yet every thing that we see appeareth one and not two for that in trueth the meeting and shining together of those two pyramides in common do make of two sights but one This being presupposed and set downe olde men approching neere to letters comprehend the same more feebly in regard that the pyramidall beames of their eies are not yet joined and met together but ech of them reach to the objects apart but if they be farther off so that the said pyramides may be intermingled they see more perfectly much like to them who with both hands can claspe and hold that which they are not able to do with one alone Then my brother Lamprias opposed himselfe against all this and as one who had not read the booke of Hieronymus but even upon the pregnancy and quickenesse of his wit seemed to render another reason namely That we see by the meanes of certeine images arising from the objects or visible things which at the first be big and for that cause trouble the sight of old folke when they regard them neere and hard-by being indeed but hard and slow of motion but when the said images be advanced and spread farther into the aire and have gained some good distance the grosse and terrestriall parts of them breake and fall downe but the more subtill portions reach as farre as to the eies without any paine or offence unto them and do insinuate and accommodate themselves equally and smoothly into their concavities so that the eies being lesse troubled apprehend and receive them better And even so it is with the odours of flowers which are very sweet to smell unto a good way off whereas if a man come over-neere unto them they yeeld nothing so kinde and pleasant a sent the reason is because that together with the savour there goeth from the flower much earthly matter grosse and thicke which corrupteth and marreth the fragrant sweetnesse of the odour if it be smelled to very neere but in case the same be a prety way off that terrestriall vaparation is dispersed round about and so falleth
birth taking himselfe immediately with the maner But why say I so for we quoth he are come of no better seeds made the party and all the company to laugh heartily Semblably there was a minstrell or professed musician who kindly and with a very good grace repressed the presumptuous curiositie and unskilfulnesse of king Philip who forgat himselfe so much that hee would needs reade a lecture as it were unto the said minstrell how he should finger and strike finding fault with him in certeine accords of musicke Ah God forbid quoth he my good leege lord that it should go so heard with your grace as to be more skiful in this art than my selfe for thus whiles he seemed to mocke himselfe he told the king of his fault without offence and this seemeth to be a device that comicall poets otherwhiles practise to allay the bitter gall of their quips taunts namely to scoffe at themselves as Aristophanes used to make sport with his own bald pate and Cratinus noted himselfe that he loved wine so well in that comedie which he intituled Pytine that is to say a bottle or flagon of wine but above all this regard and consideration would be had that all such scoffes and merrie jestes come from a man extempore and readily either by way of answer to a present demaund or occasioned upon some other sudden scoffe and in no wise to seeme farre fetcht as a thing premeditate studied on before for like as men beare and endure with more patience the anger and debates among themselves arising now and then at the table whiles they be in the middes of their cups but if another stranger should come in place and offer abuse to any of the guests and so trouble the company hee should be reputed an enemie and for very hatred they would thrust him out of the dores by head shoulders even so we can find in our harts easily to pardon a scoffe a frump or broad jest if it proceed from some matter at the present deliverie or seeme to come naturally unforced and without all art but in case it be not occasioned presently nor respective to the purpose but drawen as one would say violently by the haire of the head from elswhere then it resembleth some ambush fore-laied afarre off for to wrong and do injurie to one person or other like to that jest of Timagenes which he discharged upon the husband of a woman who was wont ordinarily to cast up her gorge in this maner With musicke bad you doe begin Thus vomiting to bring her in As also the demand proposed unto the philosopher Athenodorus whether the love of parents to their children be musicall For surely such unseasonable cuts and taunts as these not accommodate to time and place nor fitted to the present occasion doe bewray a malicious minde and a deliberate purpose to offer wrong and abuse and therefore such persons as delight in these biting girds many times for a word which is the lightest thing in the world as Plato saith have paied a most heavie and grievous price whereas contrariwise they that know how to place their words in due time in meet place and aptly to the purpose do verifie the testimonie of the same Plato who saith That it is an assured signe of a mans good bringing up and the point of liberall nurture and instruction to know how to jest with a decent grace and without the offence of any person THE SECOND QUESTION Why men be more hungrie and eat better in Autumne than in any other quarter of the yeere IN the borough Eleusine after the ceremonies of sacred mysteries were performed whē as the solemnitie celebrated with so frequent concourse of people was at the highest we were feasted by Glaucias the oratour in his house where when others had made an end of supper Xenocles his brother began after his maner to cavill and scoffe at my brother Lamprias twitting him with his large feeding and indeed hitting in his teeth and reproching him with the voracitie of the Boeotians who are taken to be good trencher-men whereupon I in the defence of my brother and to be revenged of Xenocles tooke occasion out of the doctrine of Epicurus and said unto him What good fir all men do not define and determine the utmost point and perfection of pleasure to be indolence or the privation of paine as your good master Epicurus doth and besides my brother Lamprias who honoureth and esteemeth more the walking galleries of the Peripateticks and the schoole of the Stoicks called Lyceum than he doth the garden of Epicurus must of necessitie and in effect beare witnesse to Aristotle who affirmeth That there is no man but he eateth more in Autumne than in any other season of the yeere and a reason he giveth thereof although it be now out of my head So much the better quoth Glaucias for we our selves will see if we can finde it out after supper is done Now when the tables were taken away Glaucias and Xenocles both imputed the cause thereof to the sundry fruits of that season and that after a divers sort For one said that new fruits do make the bellie soluble and so by evacuation of the bodie engender alwaies fresh appetites to meat The other to wit Xenocles affirmed that these fruits for the most part carrie with them a certeine piercing and mordicant quallitie yet pleasant withall whereby they provoke and quicken the stomacke to appetite more than any viands or sauces whatsoever insomuch as those who be sickly and have lost their stomacks recover the same many times by eating some of those fruits new gathered But Lamprias alledged that our familiar and naturall heat by which we are nourished in Summer time is dispersed and becommeth more feeble and resolved but contrariwise upon the entrance of Autumne it gathereth it selfe together inwardly againe and is fortified by the meanes of the colde ambient aire which knitteth constreineth and closeth up the pores of the bodie Then I because it should not be thought that I would be one to participate in this conference without contributing somewhat of mine owne when my course came to speake declard that in Summer time by reason of the excessive heat of the weather we are more thirstie and in regard of the same heat and drought take in more moisture and liquid nourishment Now therefore nature quoth I by reason of the change of the aire and the season seeking as her maner is for the contrary causeth us to be more hungry in Autumne than at other times and for the temperature of the bodie tendereth unto it as much drie food as it had taken moisture in Summer time and yet a man can not well say that the cause of this effect dependeth nothing at all of the viands which we eat consisting much of new and fresh fruits not onely thicke gruels and pottage but also of pulset wheat-bread and flesh reared the same yeere which being
and so maketh an equall distribution and supply thorowout But this transformation and change of the pores from which it is said that hunger and thirst doth proceed what kinde of thing is it I would gladly know For mine owne part none other differences see I but of more and lese and according as they be either stopped or opened when they bee obstructed or stopped receive they cannot either drinke or meat when they be opened and unstopped they make a voide and free place and surely that is nothing els but the want of that which is proper and naturall For the reason my good friend Philo why clothes which are to be died be dipped first in alome water is because that such water hath a piercing scouring and abstersive vertue by meanes whereof when all the superfluous filth in them is consumed and rid away the pores being opened reteine more surely the tincture which is given unto the clothes onely because they receive the same better by reason of the emptinesse occasioned by want THE THIRD QUESTION What is the cause that when men be hungry if they drinke are delivered from their hunger but contrariwise when they be athirst if they eate are more thirsty than before WHen those discourses were thus passed he who invited us to supper began in this wise It seemeth unto me my masters that this reason as touching the voidance and repletion of pores carieth with it a great apparence of truth and namely in the solution of another question besides to wit Why in them who be hungry if they drinke their hunger ceaseth immediately and contrariwise they who are a thirst if they eat are still more thirstie I am of opinion quoth he that those who alledge and urge these pores and their effects doe render the reason and cause of this accident very easilie and with exceeding great probabilitie however in many points they enforce the same not so much as probably for whereas all bodies have pores some of one measure and symmetry others of another those which be larger than the rest receive food solid as well as liquid both together such as bee narrower and more streight admit drinke the avoidance and evacuation of which causeth thirst like as of the other hunger and therefore if they who be a thirst doe eat they finde no succour and benefit thereby because the pores by reason of their streightnesse are not able to receive drie and solid nutriment but continue still indigent and destitute of that which is their due and fit for them whereas they who be hungry in case they drinke finde comfort thereby for that the liquid nouriture entring into those large pores and filling those concavities of theirs doe slake and diminish mightily the force of their hunger As touching the event and effect quoth I true it is as I thinke but I cannot accord and give my consent to the supposition of the cause pretended For if quoth I a man should hold that with these pores and conduits upon which some stand so much so greatly embrace and mainteine so stoutly the flesh is pierced and by meanes thereof full of holes surely he would make it very loose quavering flaggie and so rotten that it would not hang together moreover to say that the same parts of the body doe not receive meat and drinke together but that they doe passe and runne as it were thorough a streiner or canvase bolter some one way and some another me thinks is a very strange position a meere devised fiction for this verie mixture of humiditie tempering and making tender the meats received together with the cooperative helpe of the inward naturall heat and the spirits doth cut subtiliate and mince the foode with all manner of incisions shreddings and divisions no tooles no knives nor instruments in the world so fine and small insomuch as every part and parcell of the said nourishment is familiar meet convenient for ech part member of the bodie not applied fitted as it were to certeine vessels and holes to be filled thereby but united perfectly concorporate to the whole and every part thereof but if this were not so yet the maine point of the question is not assoiled for all that for they who eat unlesse they also drinke to it are so farre off from allaying their thirst that contrariwise they increase the same and to this point there is not yet a word said Consider now said I whether the positions reasons which we set downe are not probable apparent first we suppose that moisture being consumed by drinesse is cleane perished gone that drinesse being tempered susteined by moisture hath certeine diffusions exhalations secondly we hold that neither hunger is a general universal want of dry food nor thirst of moisture but a certeine scantnesse and defect of the one and the other when there is not enough and sufficient for those who altogether doe want the same bee neither hungrie nor thirstie but die presently Let these supposals be laid for grounds it will not be from hencefoorth hard to know the cause of that which is in question for thirst increaseth upon them that eat because meats by their drinesse doe gather together sucke and drinke up the humidity dispersed and which is left but small and feeble in all the bodie causing the same to evaporate away like as we may observe without our bodies how dry earth and dust do quickly snatch dispatch and consume quite the liquor or moisture that is mingled therewith contrariwise drinke necessarily slaketh hunger for by reason that moisture drenching and soking that little meat which it findeth dry and hard raiseth from it certeine vapors and moist exhalations and those it doth elevate and carrie up into all the body applying the same to the parts that stand in need and therefore Erasistratus not unproperly tearmed moisture the wagon of the viands for being mixed and tempered with such things as otherwise of themselves by reason of their drinesse or other evill disposition be idle and heavy it raiseth and lifteth up and heereupon it commeth that many men who have beene exceeding hungry onely by bathing or washing themselves without any drinke at all have woonderfully aswaged and allaied their hunger for the moisture from without entring into the body causeth them to be more succulent and in better plight for that it doth enlarge the parts within so that it doth mitigate the fell mood and appease the crhell rage of hunger To conclude this is the reason that they who are determined to pine themselves to death by utter abstinence from all solid meats live and continue a long time if they receive but water onely even untill the time that all be quite evaporate spent and dried up which might nourish and be united unto the bodie THE FOURTH QUESTION What is the cause that pit or well-water being drawen if it be left all night within the aire of the pit becommeth colder than it
a little troubled at this chalenge but after he had paused and thought upon the matter a while in the end he spake to this effect It is an ordinary thing quoth he with Plato to play with us many times merrily by certeine devised names that hee useth but whensoever hee inserteth some fable in any treatise of the soule he doth it right soberly and hath a deepe meaning and profound sense therein for the intelligent nature of heaven he calleth a Chariot volant to wit the harmonicall motion and revolution of the world and heere in this place whereof we are now in question to wit in the end of the tenth booke of his Common-wealth he bringeth in a messenger from hell to relate newes of that which he had there himselfe seene and calleth him by the name of Era a Pamphylian borne and the sonne of Armonius giving us covertly by an aenigmaticall conveiance thus much to understand That our soules are engendred by harmonie and so joined to our bodies but when they be disjoined and separate from them they runne together all into aire from every side and so returne againe from thence unto second generations what should hinder then but this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was put downe by him not to shew a truth whereof he spake but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a probable speech and conjecturall fiction or else a thing spoken as it should seeme to a dead bodie and so uttered vainly and at a venture in the aire for Plato alwaies toucheth three causes as being the philosopher who either first knew or principally understood how fatall destiny is mingled with fortune and againe how our freewill is woont to bee joined with either of them or is complicate with both and now in this place before cited hee sheweth excellently well what power each of these causes hath in our humane affaires attributing the choice and election of our life unto free will for vertue and vice be free and at the commaund of no lord and tying to the necessitie of fatall destinie a religious life to God-ward in them who have made a good choise and contrariwise in those who have made a choise of the woorst but the cadences or chaunces of lots which being cast at a venture and lighting heere and there without order befall to every one of us bring in fortune and preoccupate or prevent much of that which is ours by the sundry educations or governments of common-weale wherein it hapneth each of us to live for this I would have every one of you to consider whether it bee not meere folly and without all reason to seeke for a cause of that which is done by fortune and casually for if lot should seeme to come by reason there were to be imputed no more to fortune or adventure but all to some fatall destinie or providence Whiles Lamprias delivered this speech Marcus the Grammarian seemed to count and number I wot not what upon his fingers to himselfe apart but when he had made an end the said Marcus named aloud all those soules or spirits which are called out in Homers Necya Among which quoth he the ghost onely of Elpenor wandering still in the middle confines is not reckoned with those beneath in another world for that his bodie as yet is not interred and committed to the earth as for the soule of Tiresias also it seemeth not to bee numbred with the rest To whom now dead Proserpina above the rest did give This gift alone right wise to be although he did not live as also the power to speake with the living and to understand their state and affaires even before he had drunke the bloud of sacrificed beasts If then quoth hee ô Lamprias you subtract these two and count the rest you shall finde that the soule of Ajax was just the twentieth of those which presented themselves to Ulysses and heereto alluded Plato as it should seeme by way of mirth joining his fable together with that evocation of spirits otherwise called Necyra in Homers Odyssea THE SIXTH QUESTION What is covertly meant by the fable wherein Neptune is feigned to have beene vanquished as also why the Athenians take out the second day of the moneth August NOw when the whole company were growen to a certeine uprore Menephyllus a Peripateticke philosopher calling unto Hylas by name You see quoth he now that this question was not propounded by way of mockerie and contumelious flouting but you my good friend leaving this froward and mal-contented Ajax whose name as Sophocles saith is ominous and of ill presage betake your selfe unto Neptune and side with him a while who is wont to recount unto us himselfe how he hath beene oftentimes overcome to wit in this city by Minerva at Delphi by Apollo in Argos by Juno in Aegina by Jupiter and in Naxus by Bacchus and yet in all his repulses disfavors and infortunities he bare himselfe alwaies mild and gentle carying no ranckor or malice in his heart for proofe heereof there is even in this city a temple common to him and Minerva in which there standeth also an altar dedicated to Oblivion Then Hylas who seemed by this time more pleasantly disposed But you have forgotten quoth he ô Menephyllus that we have abolished the second day of the moneth August not in regard of the moone but because it was thought to be the day upon which Neptune and Minerva pleaded for the scignorie of this territorie of Attica Now I assure you quoth Lamprias Neptune was every way much more civill and reasonable than Thrasibulus in case being not a winner as the other but a loser he could forget all grudge and malice A great breach and defect there is in the Greeke originall wherein wanteth the farther handling of this question as also 5. questions entier following and a part of the 6. to wit 7 Why the accords in musicke are devided into three 8 Wherein differ the intervals or spaces melodious from those that be accordant 9 What cause is it that maketh accord and what is the reason that when one toucheth two strings accordant together the melody is ascribed to the base 10 What is the cause that the eclipticke revolutions of sunne and moone being in number equall yet we see the moone oftner ecclipsed than the sunne 11 That we continue not alwaies one and the same in regard of the daily deflux of our substance 12 Whether of the twaine is more probable that the number of starres is even or odde Of this twelfth question thus much remaineth as followeth Lysander was wont to say That children are to be deceived with cockall bones but men with othes Then Glaucias I have heard quoth he that this speech was used against Polycrates the tyrant but it may be that it was spoken also to others But whereby do you demaund this of me Because verily quoth Sospis I see that children snatch at such bones the Academiques catch at words for it
difference betweene a Principle and an Element but Thales Milesius thinketh they be both one howbeit there is a great difference betweene the one and the other for elements be compounded whereas we holde that the first Principles neither be compounded nor are any complet substance and verily earth water aire and fire we tearme Elements but Principles we call other Natures in this respect that there is nothing precedent or before them wherof they are ingendred for otherwise if they were not the first they should in no wise be Principles but that rather were to be so called wherof they be ingendred Now certeine things there are precedent whereof earth and water c. be composed to wit the first matter without all forme and shape as also the first forme it selfe which we call Entelechia and thirdly Privation Thales therefore is in an error when he saith that water was both the Element and Principle or first beginning of all things CHAP. III. Of principles or first beginnings what they be THALES the Milesian affirmed that Water was the first principle of the whole world and this man seemeth to have beene the first author of philosophie and of him tooke the Ionique fect of Philosophers their name for many families there were successively of Philosophers who having studied Philosophie in Aegypt went to Miletum when hee was farre stept in yeeres where he mainteined this position That all things were made of Water so all things were to be resolved againe into Water The reasons of this conjecture of his were these first because naturall seed is the principle and beginning of all living creatures and that is of a moist substance therefore probable it is that all other things likewise have humiditie for their principle secondly for that all sorts of plants be nourished by moisture which if they want they wither and fade away thirdly considering that the fire or the sunne it selfe and the starres is nourished and mainteined by vapours proceeding from the waters the whole world also by consequence consisteth of the same which is the reason that Homer supposing all things to be engendred of water saith thus The ocean sea from whence 〈◊〉 thing 〈◊〉 is and hath beginning But ANAXIMANDER the Milesian holdeth that Infinitie is the principle of al for every thing proceedeth from it resolveth into it againe therefore there be engendred infinit worlds and those vanish againe into that whereof they bee engendred and why is there this Infinitie Because quoth he there should never faile any generation but still have 〈◊〉 howbeit even he also erreth heerein for that he declareth not what is this Infinitie whereof he speaketh whether it be aire water or any other body he faileth likewise in this that he putteth downe a subject matter but overthroweth the efficient cause for this Infinity whereof he talketh is nothing else but matter and matter cannot atteine to perfection nor come into act unlesse there be some mooving and efficient cause ANAXIMENES the Milesian mainteineth that aire is the principle of the world for that all things come of it and returne unto it Like as quoth he our soule which is aire keepeth us alive even so spirit and aire mainteine the Being of the whole world for spirit and aire be two words signifying both one thing But this Philosopher is out of the way as well as the rest in that hee thinketh that living creatures be composed of a simple spirit or uniforme aire and impossible it is that there should be but one principle of all things to wit matter but there ought withall to be supposed an efficient cause for it is not enough to be provided of silver or gold for to make a vessell or piece of plate if there come not unto it the efficient cause to wit the gold-smith semblably we are to say of brasse wood and all other sorts of matter ANAXAGORAS the Clazomenian is perswaded and so teacheth That the principles of the world and all that therein is are small like parcels which hee tearmeth Homaeomeries for hee thought it altogether absurd and impossible that any thing should bee made of that which is not or bee dissolved into that which hath no being for howsoever we take our nourishment simple and uniforme as for example eat bread of corne and drinke water yet with this nutriment are nourished haires veines arteries sinewes bones and other parts of the bodie which being so Confesse wee must quoth hee likewise that in this food which wee receive are all things which have their Being and that all things doe grow and encrease of that which hath Being so that in this nourishment be those parcels which breed bloud sinewes bones and other parts of our body which may bee comprehended by discourse of reason for we are not to reduce all unto the outward sense to shew and proove that bread and water effect these things but it may suffice that in them these parts are conceived by reason Inasmuch therefore as in nourishment there be parcels semblable unto that which they breed in that regard he called them Homaeomeries affirming them to be the principles of all things and even so he would have these semblable parcels to be the matter of all things and for efficient cause he setteth downe a Minde or understanding that ordereth and disposeth al. And thus beginneth he to goe to worke and reasoneth in this wise All things at first were consumed and hudled together pell mell but that Minde or understanding doth sever dispose and set them in order in this one thing yet he hath done wel and is to be commended that unto the matter he hath adjoined a workman ARCHELAUS an Athenian the sonne of Apollodorus affirmeth that the principle of all things was the infinit aire together with the condensation and rarefaction thereof of which the one is fire and the other water and these Philosophers following by continuall succession one upon another after Thales made that sect which is called 〈◊〉 But from another head PYTHAGORAS the sonne of Mnesarchus a Samian borne the first author of the name of Philosophie held that the principle of all things were Numbers and their symmetries that is to say the proportions that they have in their correspondency one unto another which hee calleth otherwise Harmonies those elements that be composed of them both are tearmed by him 〈◊〉 furthermore hee reckoneth among Principles Unitie and Twaine indefioit of which the one tendeth and hasteneth to an efficient and specificall cause to wit a Minde and the same is God the other unto a passive and materiall cause namely the visible world Moreover he thought that the Denarie or Ten was the absolute nature and perfection of numbers for that all men as well Greeks as Barbarians count untill ten and when they be thither come they returne backe againe unto unitie over and besides hee said That all the power of ten consisted within fower and in a quaternarie the reason is this
that if a man begin at one and reckon on still numbring upright unto foure hee shall make up ten surpasse he once the quaternarie he is gone beyond the denarie as for example one and two make three three thereto arise to sixe put thereto foure and you have ten insomuch as number collected by unities resteth in ten but the force and puissance thereof 〈◊〉 in foure The Pythagoreans therefore were wont to sweare by the quaternarie or number of foure which they held to be the 〈◊〉 oath that they could take as appeereth by this Distichon I sweare by this quaternity That 〈◊〉 our soules fountaine Which of natures eternity Doth seed and root containe And our soule as he saith doth consist of the quaternary number for there is in it understanding science opinion and sence from whence proceedeth all manner of art and knowledge and whereupon we our selves are called reasonable as for understanding it is that unity for that it conceiveth and knoweth not but by unitie as for example There being many men they are not every one in particular subject to our senses but incomprehensible and infinit mary in our understanding we conceive and apprehend this one man alone unto whom none is like and so in our cogitation we consider one man onely but if they bee considered particularly apart they are infinit for all these genders and kindes are in unitie and therefore when the question is asked of a particular man what he is we yeeld a generall definition and say He is a reasonable creature apt to discourse by reason and so likewise of this or that horse wee must answer That hee is a living creature having a propertie to neigh. Thus you see how understanding is unity whereby we understand these things but the binary or number of two is by good right an indefinit science for all demonstration and proofe of any science yea and moreover all manner of syllogisme or argumentation doth collect a conclusion which was doubtfull of certeine premised propositions confessed as true whereby it sheweth easily another thing whereof the comprehension is science and so it appeereth that science by a likelihood is the binarie number but opinion by good reason may be said the ternary number by comprehension for that opinion is of many and the ternarie number implieth a pluralitie or multitude as we may see by the poet when he saith Thrice happy men Those Greeks were then And for this cause Pythagoras made no reckoning of three whose sect bare the name of Italique for that he not able to endure the tyrannicall dominion of Polycrates departed from Samos his native country and went to keepe his schoole in Italy HERACLYTUS and HIPPASUS the Metapontine were of opinion that Fire was the principle and beginning of all for of fire say they all things are made and in fire they shal have an end and when it is extrinct and quenched the universall world is in this manner engendred and framed for first and formost the grosest part thereof being condensate and thrust together into it selfe becommeth earth and afterwards when the same earth is resolved by fire it turneth to be water which when it doth evaporate is converted into aire againe the whole world and all the bodies therein conteined shall be one day consumed by fire in that generall conflagration and burning of all whereby hee concludeth that fire is the beginning of all things as that whereof all was made and the end likewise for that all things are resolved into it EPICURUS the Athenian sonne of Neocles following the philosophie of Democritus saith That the principles of all things be certeine Atomes that is to say little bodies indivisible and by reason onely perceptible the same solide and admitting no vacuitie not engendred immortall eternall incorruptible such as neither can be broken nor receive any forme of the parts ne yet be otherwise altered These quoth he being perceptible comprehended by reason moove notwithstanding in emptinesse and by emptinesse as the same voidnesse is infinite so the said bodies also be in number infinit howbeit these three qualities are incident unto them figure bignesse and waight for DIMOCRITUS allowed them but twaine to wit bignesse and figure but Epicurus added unto them a third namely poise or ponderositie For these bodies quoth he must of necessitie moove by the permission of the weight otherwise they could not possibly stirre the figures also of their bodies hee said were comprehensible and not infinit and these were neither hooked nor three-forked ne yet round in manner of a ring for such formes are apt to breake as for the Atomes themselves they be impassible and infrangible having certeine figures no otherwise perceptible but by reason and such a body is called Atomus not in this regard that it is the least of all but for that it cannot be divided as being impassible and admitting no vacuitie and therefore he that nameth an Atome saith as much as infrangible impassible and without vacuitie now that there is such an indivisible body called Atomus it is apparent for that there be elements eternall bodies void and an unitie EMPEDOCLES an Agrigentine the sonne of Meton saith There be foure elements fire aire water and earth also two principall faculties or powers namely 〈◊〉 and discord or amitie and enmitie of which the one hath puissance to unite the other to dissolve and these be his words Foure seeds and rootes of all things that you see Now listen first and hearken what they be Lord Jupiter with hisignipotence And lady Junoes vit all influence Rich Pluto and dame Nestis weeping ay Who with her teares our seed-sourse weets alway By Jupiter hee meaneth fierie heat and ardent skie by Juno giving life the aire by Pluto the earth by Nestis and this humane fountaine of naturall seed water SOCRATES the sonne of Sophroniscus and PLATO the sonne of Ariston both Athenians for the opinions of them both concerning the world and all things therein be the same have set downe three principles God Matter and Idea that is to say Forme God is an universall spirit or Minde Matter is the first and principall subject of generation and corruption Idea an incorporall substance resting in the thoughts and cogitations of God which God is the generall soule and intelligence of the world ARISTOTELES of Stagira the sonne of Nichomachus hath put downe for Principles these three to wit a certaine forme called Eutelectus Matter and Privation for elements foure and for a fifth Quintessence the heavenly bodie which is immutable ZENO the sonne of Mnaseas a Citican borne holdeth for two principles God and Mtater whereof the one is an active and efficient cause and the other passive and besides foure elements CHAP. IIII. How the the world was framed THis world then became composed formed in a round figure bending and coping after this manner those Atomes or indivisible bodies having an accidentarie and inconsiderate motion stirring continually and
opinion that the Winde is a fluxion of the aire when as the most subtile and liquid parts thereof be either stirred or melted and resolved by the Sunne The STOICKS affirme that every blast is a fluxion of the aire and that according to the mutation of regions they change their names as for example that which bloweth from the darknesse of the night and Sunne setting is named Zephyrus from the East and Sunne rising Apeliotes from the North Boreas and from the South Libs METRODORUS supposeth that a waterish vapour being inchafed by the heat of the Sun produceth and raiseth these winds and as for those that be anniversary named Etesia they blow when the aire about the North pole is thickened and congealed with cold and so accompanie the Sunne and flow as it were with him as he retireth from the Summer Tropicke after the 〈◊〉 Solstice CHAP. VIII Of Winter and Summer EMPEDOCLES and the STOICKS do hold that Winter commeth when the aire is predominant in thickenesse and is forced upward but Summer when the fire is in that wise predominant and is driven downward Thus having discoursed of the impressions aloft in the aire we will treat also by the way of those which are seene upon and about the earth CHAP. IX Of the Earth the substance and magnitude thereof THALES with his followers affirme there is but one Earth 〈◊〉 the Pythagorean mainteineth twaine one heere and another opposit against it which the Antipodes inhabit The STOICKS say there is one Earth and the same finite XENOPHANES holdeth that beneath it is founded upon an infinit depth and that compact it is of aire and fire METRODORUS is of opinion that Earth is the very sediment and ground of the water like as 〈◊〉 Sunne is the residence of the aire CHAP. X. The forme of the Earth THALES the STOICKS and their schoole affirme the Earth to be round in maner of a globe or ball ANAXIMANDER resembleth the Earth unto a columne or pillar of stone such as are seene upon the superficies thereof ANAXIMENES compareth it to a flat table LEUCIPPUS unto a drum or tabour DEMOCRITUS saith that it is in forme broad in maner of a platter hollow in the mids CHAP. XI The 〈◊〉 of the Earth THe disciples of THALES maintaine that the Earth is seated in midst of the world XENOPHANES affirmeth that it was first founded and rooted as it were to an infinite depth PHILOLAUS the Pythagorean saith that fire is the middle as being the hearth of the world in the second place he raungeth the Earth of the Antipodes and in the third this wherein wee inhabit which lieth opposite unto that counter earth and turneth about it which is the reason quoth he that those who dwell there are not seene by the inhabitants heere PARMENIDES was the 〈◊〉 Philosopher who set out and limited the habitable parts of the Earth to wit those which are under the two Zones unto the Tropicks or Solsticiall circles CHAP. XII Of the bending of the earth PYTHAGORAS is of opinion that the earth enclineth toward the Meridionall parts by reason of the 〈◊〉 which is in those South coasts for that the Septentrionall tracts are congealed and frozen with cold whereas the opposite regions be inflamed and burnt DEMOCRITUS yeeldeth this reason because of the ambient aire is weaker toward the South quoth hee the Earth as it groweth and encreaseth doth bend to that side for the North parts be 〈◊〉 whereas contrariwise the Southeren parts are temperate in which regard it weigheth more that way whereas indeed it is more plentifull in bearing fruits and those growing to greater augmentation CHAP. XIII The motion of the Earth SOme hold the Earth to be unmoveable and quite but PHILOLAUS the Pythagorean saith that it moveth round about the fire in the oblique circle according as the Sunne and Moone do HERACLIDES of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean would indeed have the Earth to move howbeit not from place to place but rather after a turning manner like unto a wheele upon the axell tree from West to East round about her owne center DEMOCRITUS saith that the Earth at first wandred to and fro by reason as well of smalnesse as lightnesse but waxing in time thicke and heavie it came to rest unmoveable CHAP. XIIII The division of the Earth and how many Zones it hath PYTHAGORAS saith that the earth is divided into five Zones proportionably to the sphaere of the universall heaven to wit the Artick circle the Tropick of Summer the Tropick of Winter the Aequinoctiall and the Antartick Of which the middlemost doth determine and set out the verie mids and heart of the earth and for that cause it is named Torrida Zona that is to say the burnt climat but that region is habitable as being temperate which lieth in the mids betweene the summer and the winter Tropick CHAP. XV. Of Earthquakes THALES and DEMOCRITUS attribute the cause of Earthquakes unto water The STOICKS thus define and say Earthquake is the moisture within the earth subtiliated and resolved into the aire and so breaking out perforce ANAXIMENES is of opinion that raritie and drinesse of the earth together be the causes of Earthquake wherof the one is engendred by excessive drougth the other by gluts of raine ANAXAGORAS holdeth that when the aire is gotten within the earth and meeteth with the superficies thereof which it findeth tough and thicke so as it cannot get forth it shaketh it in manner of trembling ARITSTOTLE alledgeth the Antiperistasis of the circumstant cold which environeth it about on everie side both above and beneath for heat endevoreth and maketh hast to mount aloft as being by nature light A drie exhalation therefore finding it selfe enclosed within and staied striveth to make way through the cliffs and thicks of the Earth in which busines it cannot chuse but by turning to and fro up and downe disquiet and shake the earth METRODORUS is of mind that no bodie being in the owne proper and naturall place can stirre or moove unlesse some one do actually thrust or pull it The earth therefore quoth he being situate in the owne place naturally mooveth not howsoever some placesthereof may remove into others PARMENIDES and DEMOCRITUS reason in this wise for that the earth on everie side is of equall distance and confineth still in one counterpoise as having no cause wherefore it should incline more to the one side than to the other therefore well it may shake onely but not stirre or remoove for all that ANAXIMENES saith that the Earth is caried up and downe in the aire for that it is broad and flat Others say that it floteth upon the water like as planks or boords and that for this cause it mooveth PLATO affirmeth that of all motions there be six sorts of circumstances above beneath on the right hand on the left before and behind Also that the earth cannot possibly moove according to any of these differences for that on everie
side it lieth lowest of all things in the world and by occasion thereof resteth unmooveable hauing no cause why it should encline more to one part than to another but yet some places of her because of their raritie do jogge and shake EPICURUS keepeth his old tune saying it may well be that the earth being shogged and as it were rocked and beaten by the aire underneath which is grosse and of the nature of water therefore mooveth and quaketh As also it may be quoth he that being holow and full of holes in the parts below it is forced to tremble and shake by the aire that is gotten within the caves and concavities and there enclosed CHAP. XVI Of the Sea how it was made and commeth to be bitter ANAXIMANDER affirmeth that the Sea is a residue remaining of the primitive humidity whereof the Sunne hauing burnt up and consumed a great part the rest behind he altered and turned from the naturall kind by his excessive ardent heat ANAXAGORAS is of opinion that the said first humiditie being diffused and spred abroad in manner of a poole or great meere was burnt by the motion of the sunne about it and when the oileous substance thereof was exhaled and consumed the rest setled below and turned into a brackish and bitter-saltnesse which is the Sea EMPEDOCLES saith that the Sea is the sweat of the earth enchafed by the sunne being bathed and washed all over aloft ANTISTON thinketh it to be the sweat of heat the moisture whereof which was within being by much seething and boiling sent out becommeth salt a thing ordinary in all sweats METRODORUS supposeth the Sea to be that moisture which running thorough the earth reteined some part of the densitie thereof like as that which passeth through ashes The disciples of PLATO imagine that so much of the elementarie water which is congealed of the aire by refrigeration is sweet and fresh but whatsoever did evaporate by burning and inflammation became salt CHAP. XVII Of the Tides to wit the ebbing and flowing of the sea what is the cause thereof ARISTOTLE and HERACLITUS affirme that it is the sunne which doth it as who stirreth raiseth and carieth about with him the most part of the windes which comming to blow upon the Ocean cause the Atlanticke sea to swell and so make the flux or high water but when the same are allaied and cleane downe the sea falleth low and so causeth a reflux and ebbe or low water PYTHEAS of Marseils referreth the cause of Flowing to the full moone and of Ebbing to the moone in the wane PLATO attributeth all to a certeine rising of the waters saying There is such an elevation that through the mouth of a cave carieth the Ebbe and Flow to and fro by the meanes whereof the seas doe rise and flow contrarily TIMAEUS alledgeth the cause hereof to be the rivers which falling from the mountaines in Gaule enter into the Atlantique sea which by their violent corruptions driving before them the water of the sea cause the Flow and by their ceasing and returne backe by times the Ebbe SELEUCUS the Mathematician who affirmed also that the earth mooved saith that the motion thereof is opposit and contrary to that of the moone also that the winde being driven to and fro by these two contrary revolutions bloweth and beateth upon the Atlanticke ocean troubleth the sea also and no marvell according as it is disquieted it selfe CHAP. XVIII Of the round circle called Halo THis Halo is made after this manner betweene the body of the moone or any other starre and our eie-sight there gathereth a grosse and mistie aire by which aire anon our sight commeth to be reflected and diffused and afterwards the same incurreth upon the said starre according to the exterior circumference thereof and thereupon appeereth a circle round about the starre which being there seene is called Halo for that it seemeth that the apparent impression is close unto that upon which our sight so enlarged as is before said doth fall THE FOURTH BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme HAving runne through the generall parts of the world I will now passe unto the particulars CHAP. I. Of the rising and inundation of Nilus THALES thinketh that the anniversarie windes called Etcsiae blowing directly against Aegypt cause the water of Nilus to swell for that the sea being driven by these windes entreth within the mouth of the said river and hindereth it that it cannot discharge it selfe freely into the sea but is repulsed backward EUTHYMENES of Marseils supposeth that this river is filled with the water of the ocean and the great sea lying without the continent which he imagineth to be fresh and sweet ANAXAGORAS saith that this hapneth by the snowe in Aethiopia which melteth in summer and is congealed and frozen in winter DEMOCRITUS is of opinion that it is long of the snowe in the north parts which about the aestival solstice and returne of the sunne being dissolved and dilated breedeth vapors and of them be engendred clouds which being driven by the Etesian windes into Aethiopia and Aegypt toward the south cause great and violent raines wherewith both lakes and the river also Nilus be filled HERODOTUS the Historian writeth that this river hath as much water from his sources and springs in winter as in summer but to us it seemeth lesse in winter because the sunne being then neerer unto Aegypt causeth the said water to evaporate EPHORUS the Historiographer reporteth that all Aegypt doth resolve and runne at it were wholly into swet in summer time whereunto Arabia and Libya doe conferre and contribute also their waters for that the earth there is light and sandy EUDOXUS saith that the priests of Aegypt assigne the cause hereof to the great raines and the Antiperistasis or contrarie occurse of seasons for that when it is Summer with us who inhabit within the Zone toward the Summer Tropicke it is Winter with those who dwell in the opposit Zone under the Winter Tropicke whereupon saith he proceedeth this great inundation of waters breaking downe unto the river Nilus CHAP. II. Of the Soule THALES was the first that defined the Soule to be a nature moving alwaies or having motion of it selfe PYTHAGORAS saith it is a certeine number moving it selfe and this number he taketh for intelligence or understanding PLATO supposeth it to be an intellectuall substance mooving it selfe and that according to harmonicall number ARISTOTLE is of opinion that it is the first Entelechia or primitive act of a naturall and organicall bodie having life potentially DICEARCHUS thinketh it to be the harmonie and concordance of the foure elements ASCLEPIADES the Physician defineth it to be an exercise in common of all the senses together CHAP. III. Whether the Soule be a body and what is the substance of it ALl these Philsosophers before rehearsed suppose that the Soule is incorporall that of the owne nature it mooveth and is a spirituall substance and the action of a
was not this an holsome lesson and instruction of obedience to teach and advise men to obey their superiors not to thinke much for to be under others but like as the moone is willing to give 〈◊〉 as it were and apply her selfe to her better content to be ranged in a second place and as Parmenides saith Having aneie and due regard Alwaies the bright Sun beames toward even so they ought to rest in a second degree to follow after and be under the conduct and direction of another who sitteth in the first place and of his power authority and honor in some measure to enjoy a part 77 Why think they the yeeres dedicated to Jupiter and the moneths to Juno MAy it not be for that of Gods invisible and who are no otherwise seene but by the eies of our understanding those that reigne as princes be Jupiter and Juno but of the visible the Sun and Moone Now the Sun is he who causeth the yeere and the Moone maketh the moneth Neither are we to thinke that these be onely and simply the figures and images of them but beleeve we must that the materiall Sun which we behold is Jupiter and this materiall Moone Juno And the reason why they call her Juno which word is as much to say as yoong or new is in regarde of the course of the Moone and otherwhiles they surname her also Juno-Lucina that is to say light or shining being of opinion that she helpeth women in travel of child-birth bike as the Moone doth according to these verses By starres that turne full round in Azur skie By Moone who helps child-births right speedily For it seemeth that women at the full of the moone be most easily delivered of childbirth 78 What is the cause that in observing bird-flight that which is presented on the left hand is reputed lucky and prosperous IS not this altogether untrue and are not many men in an errour by ignorance of the equivocation of the word Sinistrum their maner of Dialect for that which we in Greeke call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say on the auke or left hand they say in Latin Sinistrum and that which signifieth to permit or let be they expresse by the verbe Sinere and when they will a man to let a thing alone they say unto him Sine whereupon it may seeme that this word Sinistrum is derived That presaging bird then which permitteth and suffreth an action to be done being as it were Sinisterion the vulgar sort suppose though not aright to be Sinistrum that is to say on the left hand and so they tearme it Or may it not be rather as Dionysius saith for that when Ascanius the sonne of Aeneas wanne a field against Mezentius as the two armies stood arranged one affronting the other in battel ray it thundred on his left hand and because thereupon he obteined the victory they deemed even then that this thunder was a token presaging good and for that cause observed it ever after so to fall out Others thinke that this presage and foretoken of good lucke hapned unto Aeneas and verily at the battell of Leuctres the Thebanes began to breake the ranks of their enemies and to discomfit them with the left wing of their battel and thereby in the end atchieved a brave victorie whereupon ever after in all their conflicts they gave preference and the honour of leading and giving the first charge to the left wing Or rather is it not as Juba writch because that when we looke toward the sunne rising the North side is on our left hand and some will say that the North is the right side and upper part of the whole world But consider I pray you whether the left hand being the weaker of the twaine the presages comming on that side doe not fortifie and support the defect of puissance which it hath and so make it as it were even and equall to the other Or rather considering that earthly and mortall things they supposing to be opposite unto those that be heavenly and immortall did not imagine consequently that whatsoever was on the left in regard of us the gods sent from their right side 79 Wherefore was it lawfull as Rome when a noble personage who sometime had entred triumphant into the city was dead and his corps burnt as the maner was in a funerall fire to take up the reliques of his bones to 〈◊〉 the same into the city and there to strew them according as Pyrrho the Lyparean hath left in writing WAs not this to honour the memorie of the dead for the like honourable priviledge they had graunted unto other valiant warriors and brave captaines namely that not onely themselves but also their posteritie descending lineally from them might be enterred in their common market place of the city as for example unto 〈◊〉 and Fabricius and it is said that for to continue this prerogative in force when any of their posteritie afterwards were departed this life and their bodies brought into the market place accordingly the maner was to put a burning torch under them and doe no more but presently to take it away againe by which ceremonie they 〈◊〉 still the due honour without envie and confirmed it onely to be lawfull if they would take the benefit thereof 80 What is the cause that when they feasted at the common charges any generall captaine who made his 〈◊〉 into the citie with 〈◊〉 they never admitted the Consuls to the feast but that which more is sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hand messengers of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them not to come unto the 〈◊〉 WAs it for that they thought it meet and convenient to yeeld unto the triumpher both the highest place to sit in and the most costly cup to drinke out of as also the honour to be attended upon with a traine home to his house after supper which prerogatives no other might enjoy but the Consuls onely if they had beene present in the place 81 Why is it that the Tribune of the commons onely weareth no embrodered purple robe considering that all other magistrates besides 〈◊〉 weare the same IS it not for that they to speak properly are no magistrates for in truth they have no ushers or vergers to carie before them the knitches of rods which are the ensignes of magistracie neither sit they in the chaire of estate called Sella 〈◊〉 to determine causes judicially or give audience unto the people nor enter into the administration of their office at the beginning of the yeere as all other magistrates doe neither are they put downe and deposed after the election of a Dictatour but whereas the full power and authoritie of all other magistrates of State he transferreth from them upon himselfe the Tribunes onely of the people continue still and surcease not to execute their function as having another place degree by themselves in the common-weale and like as fome oratours and lawiers doe hold that exception in law
first borne IS it for that as some say Servius being by chance borne of a maid-servant and a captive had Fortune so favourable unto him that he reigned nobly and gloriously king at Rome For most Romans are of this opinion Or rather because Fortune gave unto the city of Rome her first originall and beginning of so mightie an empire Or lieth not herein some deeper cause which we are to fetch out of the secrets of Nature and Philosophie namely that Fortune is the principle of all things insomuch as Nature consisteth by Fortune namely when to some things concurring casually and by chance there is some order and dispose adjoined 107 What is the reason that the Romans call those who act comedies and other theatricall plaies Histriones IS it for that cause which as Claudius Rufus hath left in writing for he reporteth that many yeeres ago and namely in those daies when Cajus Sulpitius and Licinius Stolo were Consuls there raigned a great pestilence at Rome such a mortalitie as consumed all the stage plaiers indifferently one with another Whereupon at their instant praier and request there repaired out of Tuscane to Rome many excellent and singular actours in this kinde among whom he who was of greatest reputation and had caried the name longest in all theaters for his rare gift and dexteritie that way was called Hister of whose name all other afterwards were tearmed Histriones 108 Why espoused not the Romans in mariage those women who were neere of kin unto them WAs it because they were desirous to amplifie and encrease their alliances and acquire more kinsfolke by giving their daughters in mariage to others and by taking to wife others than their owne kinred Or for that they feared in such wedlock the jarres and quarrels of those who be of kin which are able to extinguish and abolish even the verie lawes and rights of nature Or else seeing as they did how women by reason of their weaknesse and infirmitie stand in need of many helpers they would not have men to contract mariage nor dwell in one house with those who were neere in blood to them to the end that if the husband should offer wrong and injurie to his wife her kinsfolke might succour and assist her 109 Why is it not lawfull for Jupiters priest whom they name Flamen Dialis to handle or once touch meale or leaven FOr meale is it not be because it is an unperfect and raw kind of nourishment for neither continueth it the same that it was to wit wheat c. nor is that yet which it should be namely bread but hath lost that nature which it had before of seed and withall hath not gotten the use of food and nourishment And hereupon it is that the poet calleth meale by a Metaphor or borrowed speech Mylephaton which is as much to say as killed and marred by the mill in grinding and as for leaven both it selfe is engendred of a 〈◊〉 corruption of meale and also corrupteth in a maner the whole lumpe of dough wherin it is mixed for the said dough becommeth lesse firme and fast than it was before it hangeth not together and in one word the leaven of the paste seemeth to be a verie putrifaction and tottennesse thereof And verely if there be too much of the leaven put to the dough it maketh it so sharpe and soure that it cannot be eaten and in verie truth spoileth the meale quite 110 Wherefore is the said priest likewise forbidden to touch raw flesh IS it by this custome to withdraw him farre from eating of raw things Or is it for the same cause that he abhorreth and detesteth meale for neither is it any more a living animall nor come yet to be meat for by boiling and rosting it groweth to such an alteration as changeth the verie forme thereof whereas raw flesh and newly killed is neither pure and impolluted to the eie but hideous to see to and besides it hath I wot not what resemblance to an ougly sore or filthie ulcer 111 What is the reason that the Romans have expresly commaunded the same priest or Flamen of Jupiter not onely to touch a dogge or a goat but not so much as to name either of them TO speake of the Goat first is it not for detestation of his excessive lust and lecherie and besides for his ranke and filthie savour or because they are afraid of him as of a diseased creature and subject to maladies for surely there seemeth not to be a beast in the world so much given to the falling sicknesse as it is nor infecteth so soone those that either eate of the flesh or once touch it when it is surprised with this evill The cause whereof some say to be the streightnesse of those conduits and passages by which the spirits go and come which oftentimes happen to be intercepted and stopped And this they conjecture by the small and slender voice that this beast hath the better to confirme the same we do see ordinarily that men likewise who be subject to this malady grow in the end to have such a voice as in some fort resembleth the 〈◊〉 of goats Now for the Dog true it is haply that he is not so lecherous nor smelleth altogether so strong and so ranke as doth the Goat and yet some there be who say that a Dog might not be permitted to come within the castle of Athens nor to enter into the Isle of Delos because forsooth he lineth bitches openly in the sight of everie man as if bulls boares and stalions had their secret chambers to do their kind with females and did not leape and cover them in the broad field and open yard without being abashed at the matter But ignorant they are of the true cause indeed which is for that a Dog is by nature fell and 〈◊〉 given to arre and warre upon a verie small occasion in which respect men banish them from sanctuaries holy churches and priviledged places giving thereby unto poore afflicted suppliants free accesse unto them for their safe and sure refuge And even so verie probable it is that this Flamen or priest of Jupiter whom they would have to be as an holy sacred and living image for to flie unto should be accessible and easie to be approched unto by humble futers and such as stand in need of him without any thing in the way to empeach to put backe or to 〈◊〉 them which was the cause that he had a little bed or pallet made for him in the verie porch or entrie of his house and that servant or slave who could find meanes to come and fall downe at his feet and lay hold on his knees was for that day freed from the whip and past danger of all other punishment say he were a prisoner with irons and bolts at his feet that could make shift to approch neere unto this priest he was let loose and his gives and fetters were throwen out of the house not
none And if we will bring evill into the world without a precedent cause principle to beget it we shall run and fall into the difficult perplexities of the Stoicks for of those two principles which are it cannot be that either the good or that which is altogether without forme and quality whatsoever should give being or beginning to that which is naught Neither hath Plato done as some that came after him who for want of seeing and understanding a third principle and cause betweene God and matter have runne on end and tumbled into the most absurd and falsest reasons that is devising forsooth I wot not how that the nature of evill should come without forth casually and by accident or rather of the owne accord forasmuch as they will not graunt unto Epicurus that the least atome that is should turne never so little or decline a side saying that he bringeth in a rash and inconsiderate motion without any cause precedent whereas they themselves the meane-while affirme that sin vice wickednesse and ten thousand other deformities and imperfections of the body come by consequence without any cause efficient in the principles But Plato saith not so for he ridding matter from al different quality and remooving farre from God all cause of evill thus hath hee written as touching the world in his Politiques The world quoth he received al good things from the first author who created it but what evill thing soever there is what wickednesse what injustice in heaven the same it selfe hath from the exterior habitude which was before and the same it doth transmit give to the creatures beneath And a little after he proceedeth thus In tract of time quoth he as oblivion tooke holde and set sure footing the passion and imperfection of the old disorder came in place and got the upper hand more and more and great danger there is least growing to dissolution it be plunged againe into the vast gulfe and bottomlesse pit of confused dissimilitude But dissimilitude there can be none in matter by reason that it is without qualitie and void of all difference whereof Eudemus among others being ignorant mocked Plato for not putting that to be the cause source and first originall of evill things which in many places he calleth mother and nurse for Plato indeed tearmeth matter mother and nurse but he saith likewise That the cause of evill is the motive puissance resiant in the said matter which is in bodies become divisible to wit a reasonlesse and disorderly motion howbeit for all that not without soule which plainly and expresly in his books of lawes he tearmeth a soule contrary and repugnant to that which is the cause of all good for that the soule may well be the cause and principle of motion but understanding is the cause of order and harmony in motion for God made not the matter idle but hath kept it from being any any more 〈◊〉 troubled with a foolish and rash cause neither hath he given unto nature the beginnings and principles of mutations and passions but being as it was enwrapped and enfolded with all sorts of passions and inordinate mutations hee cleered it of all enormities disorders and errors whatsoever using as proper instruments to bring about all this numbers measures and proportions the effect whereof is not to give unto things by mooving and mutation the passions and differences of the other and of diversitie but rather to make them infallible firme and stable yea and like unto those things which are alwaies of one sort and evermore resemble themselves This is in my judgement the minde and sentence of Plato whereof my principall proofe and argument is this that by this interpretation is salved that contrariety which men say and seemeth indeed to be in his writings for a man would not attribute unto a drunken sophister much lesse than unto Plato so great unconstance and repugnance of words as to affirme one and the same nature to be created and uncreated and namely in his booke entituled Phaedrus that the soule is eternall and uncreated but in Timaeus that it was created and engendied Now as touching those words of his in the treatise Phaedrus they are well neere in every mans mouth verie rife whereby he prooveth that the soule can not perish because it was never engendred and semblably he prooveth that generation it had none because it mooveth it selfe Againe in the booke entituled Timaeus God quoth he hath not made the soule to be yoonger than the body according as now in this place we purpose to say that it commeth after it for never would he have permitted that the elder being coupled and linked with the yoonger should be commaunded by it But we standing much I wot not how upon inconsiderate rashnesse and vanity use to speake in some sort accordingly for certaine it is that God hath with the bodie joined the soule as precedent both in creation and also in power and vertue like as the dame or mistresse with her subject for to rule and commaund Againe when he had said that the soule being turned upon her selfe began to live a wise and eternall life The body of the heaven quoth he was made visible but the soule invisible participating the discourse of reason and of harmony engendred by the best of things intellectuall and eternall being likewise it selfe the best of things engendred and temporall Where it is to be noted that in this place expresly calling God the best of all eternall things and the soule the best of things created and temporall by this most evident antithesis and contrariety he taketh from the soule that eternity which is without beginning and procreation And what other solution or reconciliation is there of these contradictions but that which himself giveth to those who are willing to receive it for he pronounceth that soule to be ingenerable and not procreated which mooved all things rashly and disorderly before the constitution of the world but contrariwise he calleth that procreated and engendred which Godframed and composed of the first and of a parmanent eternall and perfect good substance namely by creating it wise and well ordered and by putting and conferring even from himselfe unto sense understanding and order unto motion which when he had thus made he ordained and appointed it to be the governor and regent of the whole world And even after the same maner he pronounceth that the body of the world is in one sort eternall to wit not created nor engendred and after another sort both created and engendred For when he saith that whatsoever is visible was never at rest but mooved rashly and without all order and that God tooke the same disposed and ranged it in good order as also when he saith that the fowre generall elements fire water earth and aire before the whole world was of them framed and ordered decently made a woonderfull trouble trembling as it were in the matter and were mightily shaken by
like as what is done by nature must needs succeed and come after nature Semblably what is done by fatall destiny is after fatall destiny of necessity must be more new moderne and therfore the supreme providence is the ancientest of all excepting him alone whose intelligence it is or wil or both twaine together to wit the sovereigne authour creatour maker and father of all things And for what cause is it saith Timaeus that he hath made framed this fabricke of the world for that he is all good and in him being all good there can not be imprinted or engendred any envie but seeing he is altogether void and free from it his will was that as much as possibly might be all things should resemble himselfe He then who shall receive and admit this for the most principall and and proper originall of the generation and creation of the world such as wise men have delivered unto us by writing is in the right way and doeth very well For God willing that all things should be good and nothing at all to his power evill tooke all that was visible restlesse as it was and mooving still rashly confusedly irregularly and without order which he brought out of confusion and ranged into order judging this to be every way farre better than the other for neither it was nor is convenient and meet for him who is himselfe right good to make any thing that should not be most excellent and beautifull Thus therefore we are to esteeme that providence I meane that which is principall and soveraigne hath constituted and ordeined these things first and then in order such as ensue and depend thereof even as farre as to the soules of men Afterwards having thus created the universall world hee ordeined eight sphaeres answering in number to so many principall starres and distributed to every one of them a severall soule all which he set ech one as it were within a chariot over the nature of the whole shewing unto them the lawes and ordinances of Fatall destiny *** What is he then who will not beleeve that by these words he plainly sheweth and declareth Fatall destiny and the same to be as one would say a tribunall yea a politicke constitution of civill lawes meet and agreeable to the soules of men whereof afterwards he rendreth a reason And as touching the second providence he doeth after a sort expresly signifie the same in these words saying Having therefore prescribed all these lawes unto them to the end that if afterwards there should be any default he might be exempted from all cause of evill he spred and sowed some upon the earth others about the moone and some againe upon other organs and instruments of time after which distribution he gave commandement and charge to the yoong gods for to frame and create mortall bodies as also to make up and finish that which remained and was wanting in mans soule and when they had made perfect all that was adhaerent and consequent thereto then to rule and governe after the best and wisest maner possible this mortall creature to the end that it selfe should not be the cause of the owne evils and miseries for in these words where it is said That he might be exempt and not the cause of any evill ensuing afterwards he sheweth cleerely and evidently to every one the cause of Fatall destiny The order also and office of these petie-gods declareth unto us the second providence yea and it seemeth that in some sort it toucheth by the way the third providence in case it be so that for this purpose these lawes and ordinances were established because he might not be blamed or accused as the author of any evill in any one afterwards for God himselfe being cleere exempt from all evill neither hath need of lawes nor requireth any Fatall destiny but ech one of these petie-gods led and haled by the providence of him who hath engendred them doth their owne devoir and office belonging unto them That this is true and the very minde and opinion of Plato appeereth manifestly in my conceit by the testimonie of those words which are reported by the law-giver in his books of lawes in this maner If there were any man quoth he so by nature sufficient or by divine fortune so happily borne that he could be able to comprehend this he should require no lawes to command him for no law there is nor ordinance of more woorth and puissance than is knowledge and science neither can he possibly be a servile slave or subject to any who is truely and indeed free by nature but he ought to command all For mine owne part thus I understand and interpret the sentence of Plato For whereas there is a triple providence the first as that which hath engendred Fatall destiny in some sort comprehendeth it the second being engendred with it is likewise wholly comprised in it the third engendred after Fatal destiny is comprised under it in that maner as That which is in us and fortune as we have already said for those whom the assistance of the power of our Daemon doth aid according as Socrates saith expoūding unto Theages what is the inevitable ordinance of Adrastia these I say are those whom you understand well enough for they grow and come forward quickly with speed so as where it is said that a Daemon or angell doth favour any it must be referred to the third providence but that suddenly they grow and come to proofe it is by the power of Fatall destiny And to be short it is very plaine and evident that even this also is a kinde of destiny And peradventure it may seeme much more probable that even the second providence is comprehended under destiny yea and in summe all things whatsoever be made or done considering that destiny according to the substance thereof hath bene rightly divided by us into three parts And verily that speech as touching the chaine and concatenation comprehendeth the revolutions of the heavens in the number and raunge of those things which happen by supposition but verily of these points I will not debate much to wit whether we are to call them Hapning by supposition or rather conjunct unto destiny considering that the precedent cause and commander of destiny it selfe is also fatall And thus to speake summarily and by way of abridgement is our opinion but the contrary sentence unto this ordeineth all things to be not onely under destiny but also according to destiny and by it Now all things accord unto the other and that which accordeth to another the same must be gran-to be the other according then to this opinion contingent is said to be the first that which is in us the second fortune the third accident or casuall chance and adventure the fourth together with all that dependeth thereupon to wit praise blame and those of the same kinde the fifth and last of all may bee said to be the praiers unto the
out of water having earth under it there ex haleth aire which aire comming to be subtilized the fire is produced and environeth it round about as for the stars they are set on fire out of these together with the sunne what is more contrary than to be set on fire and to be cooled what more opposite to subtilization and rarefaction than inspissation and condensation the one maketh water and earth of fire and aire the other turneth that which is moist and terrestriall into fire and aire And yet in one place he maketh kindling of fire and in another refrigeration to bee the cause of quickning and giving soule unto a thing for when the said firing and inflammation comes generall throughout then it liveth and is become an annimall creature but after it commeth to be quenched and thickned it turneth into water and earth and so into a corporall substance In the first booke of Providence he writeth thus For the world being throughout on fire presently it is with all the soule and governour of it selfe but when it is turned into moisture and the soule left within it and is after a sort converted into a soule and body so as it seemeth compounded of them both then the case is altered In which text he affirmeth plainly that the very inanimat parts of the world by exustion and inflammation turne and change into the soule thereof and contrariwise by extinction the soule is relaxed and moistned againe and so returneth into a corporall nature Heereupon I inferre that he is very absurd one while to make of senselesse things animat and living by way of refrigeration and another while to transmure the most part of the soule of the world into insensible and inanimat things But over and above all this the discourse which he maketh as touching the generation of the soule conteineth a proofe demonstration contrary to his owne opinion for he saith That the soule is engendred after that the infant is gone out of the mothers wombe for that the spirit then is transformed by refrigeration even as the temper is gotten of steele Now to prove that the soule is engendred and that after the birth of the infant hee bringeth this for a principall argument Because children become like unto their parents in behaviour and naturall inclination wherein the contrariety that he delivereth is so evident as that a man may see it by the very eie for it is not possible that the soule which is engendred after birth should be framed to the maners and disposition of the parents before nativity or else we must say and fall out it will that the soule before it was in esse was already like unto a soule which is all one as that it was by similitude and resemblance and yet was not because as yet it had not a reall substance Now if any one doe say that it ariseth from the temperature and complexion of the bodies that this similitude is imprinted in them howbeit when the soules are once engendred they become changed he shall overthrow the argument and proofe whereby it is shewed that the soule was engendred for heereupon it would follow that the soule although it were ingenerable when it entreth from without into the body is changed by the temperature of the like Chrysippus sometime saith that the aire is light that it mounteth upward on high and otherwhiles for it againe that it is neither heavy nor light To prove this see what he saith in his second booke of Motion namely that fire having in it no ponderosity at all ascendeth aloft semblably the aire and as the water is more conformable to the earth so the aire doth rather resemble the fire But in his booke entituled Naturall arts he bendeth to the contrary opinion to wit that the aire hath neither ponderosity nor lightnesse of it selfe He affirmeth that the aire by nature is darke and for that cause by consequence it is also the primitive cold and that tenebrosity or darknesse is directly opposite unto light and cleerenesse and the coldnesse thereof to the heat of fire Mooving this discourse in the first booke of his Naturall questions contrary to all this in his treatise of Habitudes he saith That these habitudes be nothing else but aires For that bodies quoth he be 〈◊〉 by them and the cause why every body conteined by any habitude is such as it is is the continent aire which in iron is called hardnesse in stone spissitude or thicknesse in silver whitenesse in which words there is great contrariety and as much false absurditie for if this aire remaine the same still as it is in the owne nature how commeth blacke in that which is not white to be called whitenesse softnesse in that which is not hard to be named hardnesse or rare in that which is not solide and massie to be called solidity But in case it be said that by mixture therein it is altered and so becommeth semblable how then can it be an habitude a faculty power or cause of these effects whereby it selfe is brought under and subdued for that were to suffer rather than to doe and this alteration is not of a nature conteining but of a languishing impotencie whereby it loseth all the properties and qualities of the owne and yet in every place they hold that matter of it selfe idle and without motion is subject and exposed to the receit of qualities which qualities are spirits and those powers of the aire which into what parts soever of the matter they get and insinuate themselves doe give a forme and imprint a figure into them But how can they mainteine this supposing as they do the aire to be such as they say it is for if it be an habitude and power it will conforme and shape unto it selfe every body so as it will make the same both blacke and soft but if by being mixed and contempered with them it take formes contrary unto those which it hath by nature it followeth then that it is the matter of matter and neither the habitude cause nor power thereof Chrysippus hath written often times that without the world there is an infinit voidnesse and that this infinitie hath neither beginning middle nor end And this is the principall reason whereby they resute that motion downward of the 〈◊〉 by themselves which Epicurus hath brought in for in that which is infinit there are no locall differences whereby a man may understand or specifie either high or low But in the fourth booke of Things possible he supposeth a certeine middle space and meane place betweene wherein he saith the world is founded The very text where he affirmeth this runneth in these words And therefore we must say of the world that it is corruptible and although it be very hard to proove it yet me thinks rather it should be so than otherwise Neverthelesse this maketh much to the inducing of us to beleeve that it hath a certeine incorruptibility if I may
〈◊〉 that is to say the protectour of plants another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the president of physicke and divination meane while neither is health simply good nor generation ne yet fertilitie of the ground and abundance of fruits but indifferent yea and unprofitable to those who have them The third point of the comon conception of the gods is that they differ in nothing so much from men as in felicity and vertue but according to Chrysippus they are in this respect nothing superior to men for he holdeth that for vertue Jupiter is no better than Dion also that Jupiter Dion being both of them wise doe equally and reciprocally helpe one another for this is the good that the gods doe unto men and men likewise unto the gods namely when they proove wise and prudent and not otherwise So that if a man be no lesse vertuous he is not lesse happy insomuch as he is equall unto Jupiter the saviour in felicitie though otherwise infortunate and who for grievous maladies and dolorous dismembring of his body is forced to make himselfe away and leave his life provided alwaies that he be a wise man Howbeit such an one there neither is nor ever hath bene living upon the earth whereas contrariwise infinit thousands and millions there are and have beene of miserable men and extreme infortunate under the rule and dominion of Jupiter the government administration wherof is most excellent And what can there be more against common sense than to say that Jupiter governing and dispensing all things passing well yet we should be exceeding miserable If therefore which unlawfull is once to speake Jupiter would no longer be a saviour nor a deliverer nor a protectour and surnamed thereupon Soter Lysius and Alexicacos but cleane contrary unto these goodly and beautifull denominations there can not possibly be added any more goodnesse to things that be either in number or magnitude as they say whereas all men live in the extremitie of miserie and wickednesse considering that neither vice can admit no augmentation nor misery addition and yet this is not the woorst nor greatest absurdity but mightily angry and offended they are with Menander for speaking as he did thus bravely in open theater I hold good things exceeding meane degree The greatest cause of humane miserie For this say they is against the common conception of men meane while themselves make God who is good and goodnesse it selfe to be the author of evils for matter could not verily produce any evill of it selfe being as it is without all qualities and all those differences and varieties which it hath it received of that which moved and formed it to wit reason within which giveth it a forme and shape for that it is not made to moove and shape it selfe And therefore it cannot otherwise be but that evill if it come by nothing should proceed and have being from that which is not or if it come by some mooving cause the same must be God For if they thinke that Jupiter hath no power of his owne parts nor useth ech one according to his owne proper reason they speake against common sense and doe imagine a certeine animall whereof many parts are not obeisant to his will but use their owne private actions and operations whereunto the whole never gave incitation nor began in them any motion For among those creatures which have life and soule there is none so ill framed and composed as that against the will thereof either the feet should goe forward or the tongue speake or the horne push and strike or the teeth bite whereof God of necessity must endure abide the most part if against his will evill men being parts of himselfe doe lie doe circumvent and beguile others commit burglary breake open houses to rob their neighbors or kill one another And if according as Chrysippus saith it is not possible that the least part should be have it selfe otherwise than it pleaseth Jupiter and that every living thing doeth rest stay and moove according as he leadeth manageth turneth staieth and disposeth it Now well I wot this voice of his Sounds worse and more mischcivous is For more tolerable it were by a great deale to say that ten thousand parts through the impotencie and feeblenesse of Jupiter committed many absurdities perforce even against his nature and will than to avouch that there is no intemperance no deceit and wickednesse where of Jupiter is not the cause Moreover seeing that the world by their saying is a city and the Sarres citizens if it be so there must be also tribes and magistracies yea and plaine it is that the Sunne must be a Senatour yea the evenning starre some provost major or governor of the city And I wot not wel whether he who taketh in hand to confute such things can broch and set abroad other greater absurdities in naturall matters than those doe who deliver and pronounce these doctrines Is not this a position against common sense to affirme that the seed should be greater and more than that which is engendred of it For we see verily that nature in all living creatures and plants even those that be of a wilde and savage kinde taketh very small and slender matters such as hardly can be seene for the beginning the generation of most great and huge bodies For not onely of a graine or corne of wheat it produceth a stalke with an eare and of a little grape stone it bringeth forth a vine tree but also of a pepin kernill akorne or bery escaped and fallen by chance from a bird as if of some sparkle it kindled and set on fire generation it sendeth forth the stocke of some bush or thorne or else a tall and mighty body of an oake a date or pine tree And hereupon it is that genetall seed is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke as one would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the enfolding and wrapping together of a great masse into a small quantity also nature taketh the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the inflation and defusion of proportions and numbers which are opened loosened under it And againe the fire which they say is the seed of the world after that generall conflagration shall change into the owne seed the world which from a smaller body and little masse is extended into a great inflation and defusion yea and moreover occupieth an infinite space of voidnesse which it filleth by his augmentation but as it is engendered that huge greatnesse retireth and setleth anon by reason that the matter is contracted and gathered into it selfe upon the generation We may heare them dispute and reade many of their books and discourses wherein they argue and crie out aloud against the Academicks for confounding all things with their Aparalaxies that is to say indistinguible identities
light of the Sunne commeth to wit the Aaire the Moone and the earth we see that one of them is by him illuminate not as the aire but as the earth we must of necessity collect that those two be of one nature considering that of the same cause they suffer the same effects Now when all the companie highly commended Lucius for this disputation Passing well done of you Lucius quoth I you have to a proper discourse annexed as prety a comparison for we must give you your right and not defraud you of that which is your due With that smiled Lucius I have yet quoth he a second proportion which I will adde unto the other to the end that we may prove by demonstration that the Moone wholy resembleth the earth not only by this that she suffreth togtheer with the earth from the same cause the same accidents but also because they both doe worke the like effects upon the same object For this I am sure you will yeeld and grant unto me that of all those things which are observed about the Sunne none doe so much resemble one another as his eclips doth his setting or going downe if you will but call to minde that meeting of Sunne and Moone together which hapned of late daies and beginning immediatly after noonested caused many a starre from sundry parts of the skie to be seene and wrought such a temperature or disposition in the aire as is of the twilight evening and morning But if you will not grant me the said supposition in this our Theon here will cite and bring I trow Mimnermus Cydias Archilochus and besides them Stesichorus and Pindarus lamenting that in eclipses the world is robbed of their greatest light which they bewaile as if it were enterred saying that midnight was come at noone day and that the radiant beames of the Sunne went in the way and path of darkenesse but above all he will alledge Homer saying that in an eclips the faces and visages of men were overcast and seized upon with night and darkenesse also that the Sunne was quite lost and missing out of the heaven being in conjunction with the Moone ************** And this hapneth by a naturall cause according as Homer sheweth in this verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What time as Moones their interchange begin As one goes out another commethin As for the rest in mine advise they be as certaine and doe conclude as exactly as the demonstrations of the Mathematicians to wit that as the night is the shadow of the earth so the eclipse of the Sun is the shadow of the Moone when as the sight returneth upon it selfe For the Sunne going downe is hidden from our sight by the earth and being eclipsed is likewise darkened by the Moone and both the one and the otherbe offuscations of darkenesse that of the Sunne setting by the earth and the other of the Sunne eclipsed by the Moone by the reason that the shade 〈◊〉 our sight of which premises the conclusion evidently doth follow For if the effect be like the efficients also be semblable because necessary it is that the same accidents or effects in the 〈◊〉 subject must come from the same efficient Now if the darkenesse occasioned by the eclipses be not so deepe nor affect the aire so forcibly as doth the night we are not to marvell thereat for the substance of that bodie which maketh the night and of it that 〈◊〉 the eclipse may wel be the same although the greatnesse be not equall For the Aegyptians I suppose doe hold that the Moone is in bignesse the 72. part of the earth And Anaxagoras saith it is just as big as Peloponnesus Aristarchus writeth that the overthwart line or Diamiter of the Moone in proportion to that of the earth is lesse than if 60. were compared with nineteene and somewhat more than if a hundred and eight were compared with 43 and thereby the earth bereaveth us of all sight of the Sunne so great it is For it must be a great obstacle and opposition betweene which continueth the time of a night and the Moone albeit otherwhile she hideth all the Sunne yet that ecclipse neither lasteth not so long nor is so universall for there appeareth alwaies about his circumference some light which will not permit the darknesse to be so blacke and deepe and altogether so obscure Aristotle also I meane the ancient Philosopher of that name rendring a reason why there happen ecclipses of the Moone oftener than of the Sunne among other causes brings in this for one that the Sunne is ecclipsed by the obstruction of the Moone and the Moone by that of the earth which is much greater and more spacious and so by consequence is opposed very often And Posidonius defined this accident thus The ecclipse of the Sunne quoth he is the conjunction or meeting of the Sunne and the Moone the shadow whereof doeth darken our eie-sight for there is no defect or ecclipse of the Sunnes light but unto those whose sight the shadow of the Moone hath caught and so hindreth them from seeing the Sunne Now in confessing that the shadow of the Moone reacheth downe unto us I know not what he hath left himselfe for to alledge Certes impossible it is that a starre should cast a shadow for that which is voide altogether of light is called a shadow and light maketh no shadow but contrariwise naturally riddeth it away But what arguments besides were alledged to this purpose quoth he The Moone quoth I then suffereth the same ecclipse Well done quoth he of you to reduce this into my memorie But would you have me to prosecute this disputation as if you had already granted and set downe that the Moone is subject to ecclipses when she is caught within the shadow of the earth or that for a subject and argument of some declamation and demonstration unto you I first rehearse all the arguments one after another Mary do so I pray you quoth Theon bestow your labour in such a discourse I had need verily quoth he of some perswasion having onely heard say that when these three bodies to wit the earth the Sunne and the Moone are directly in one right line then happen ecclipses for that either the earth taketh the Sunne from the Moone or the Moone taketh him from the earth for the Sunne is in defect or ecclipse when the Moone and the Moone likewise when the earth is in the mids of them three whereof the one falleth out in conjunction the other in the opposition or full Moone Then quoth Lucius these be in a maner all the principall points and the very briefe of those that which hath beene delivered but to begin withall if you thinke so good take in hand that firme argument which is drawen from the forme and figure of the shadow which indeed is a Conus or Pyramis resembling a sugar loafe with the sharpe end forward namely when a great fire or great light being round
shew the singular providence of God in the preservation of States and confusion of such wicked members as disturbe the publicke peace But in this recitall there is inserted and that with good grace a digression as touching the familiar spirit of Socrates by occasion of a Pythagorean Philosopher newly come out of Italie to Thebes for to take up the bones of Lysis for by occasion that Galaxidorus the Epicurean derided the superstition of this stranger praising withall the wisdome and learning of Socrates who had cleered and delivered Philosophie from all fantasticall illusions of spirits and ghosts Theocritus bringeth in an example of a certeine prediction of this familiar spirit But withall when the other had demanded the question whether the same were an humane and naturall thing or no the disputation began to kindle and waxe hote untill such time as Epaminondas and this stranger named Theanor came in place and then they fell into 〈◊〉 of povertie and riches by occasion that Theanor offered silver unto the The bans in recompense of their kindnesse and good enterteinment shewed unto Lysis And as they would have proceeded forward in this argument there came one who ministred occasion for to returne unto the former narration as touching the enterprise and exploit of the said exiled persons in which there is intermingled againe a treatise concerning the familiar of Socrates with a large recitall of the fable of Timarchus After which Caphisias rehearseth the issue of the tragaedie of the tyrants shewing thorowout notable discourses of the divine wisdome and joining therewith a consideration of Socrates his wisedome guiding and directing to a particular plot for the good of all Greece But in this place the reader must remember and call to minde who this Socrates was to wit a man destitute of the true knowledge of God and therefore he is to holde for suspected and naught this familiar spirit of his if a man would receive and admit the opinion of some interloquutors who suppose it was a Daemon or spirit from without to the end that we should not rest upon revelation inspirations and guidances of angels unlesse it be of such the testimonies whereof are grounded upon the holy scripture but flie from the profane curiositie of certeine fantcsticall heads who by their books published abroad in print have dared to revive and raise up againe this false opinion which some in this age of ours have of samiliar spirits by whom they are for sooth as well advised and as surely taught and instructed as by the very spirit of God speaking unto us by his written word OF THE DAEMON OR familiar spirit of Socrates ARCHIDAMUS I Have heard as I remember ô Caphisias a prety speech of a certaine painter making a comparison of those who came to see the pictures and tables which he had painted for he was woont to say that the ignorant beholders and such as had no skill at all in the art of painting resembled them who saluted a whole multitude of people all at once but the better sort and such as were skilfull were like unto those who used to salve every one whom they met severally by name for that the former had no exquisit insight into the works but a superficiall and generall knowledge onely whereas the other contrariwise judging every piece and part thereof will not misse one jote but peruse consider and censure that which is well done or otherwise Semblably it falleth out in my judgement as touching trueactions indeed which are not painted The conceit and understanding of the more idle and carelesse persons resteth in this bare knowledge in case they conceive only the summary and issue of a thing but that of studious and diligent persons and lovers of faire and goodly things like unto a judicious and excellent spectator of vertue as of some great and singular art taketh more pleasure to heare the particularities in speciall for that the end of matters ordinarily hath many things common with fortune but the good wit is better seene in causes in the vertue of particular occurrences affaires which are presented as when valour sheweth it selfe not astonied but considerate and well advised in the greatest perils where the discourse of reason is mingled with passion which the sudden occasion of danger presented doth bring Supposing then that we also are of this kinde of spectators declare you to us now in order from the beginning how this matter did passe and proceed in the execution thereof as also what talke and discourse was held there for that by all likelihood you were present and for mine owne part so desirous I am to heare that I would not faile to go as farre as to Thebes for the knowledge thereof were it not that I am thought already of the Athenians to favorise the Boeotians more than I should CAPHISIAS Certes Archidamus since you are so earnest and forward to learne how these affaires were managed I ought in regard of the good will which you beare unto us before any businesse whatsoever as Pindarus saith to have come hither expresly for to relate the same unto you but since we are hither come in embassage already and at good leasure whiles we attend what answere and dispatch the people of Athens will give us in making it strange and goodly and refusing to satisfie so civill a request of a personage so kinde and well affectionate to his friends were as much as to revive the olde reproch imputed upon the Boeotians to wit that they hate good letters and learned discourses which reproch began to weare away with your Socrates and in so doing it seemeth that we treat of affaires with two priests and therefore see whether the Seigniors here present be disposed to heare the report of so many speeches and actions for the narration will not be short considering that you will me to adjoine thereto the words that passed also ARCHIDAMUS You know not the men ô Caphisias and yet well woorthy they are to be knowen for noble persons they had to their fathers and those who had beene well affected to our countrey As for him pointing to Lysithides he is quoth he the nephew of Thrasibulus but he here is Timotheus the sonne of Conon those there be the children of Archinus and the other our familiar friends So that you shall be sure to have a well willing auditorie and such as will take pleasure to heare this narration CAPHISIAS You say well But where were I best to begin my speech in regard of those matters that ye have already heard and knowen which I would not willingly repeat ARCHIDAMUS We know reasonably well in what state the citie of Thebes stood before the returne of the banished persons and namely how Archias and Leontidas had secred intelligence and complotted with Phoebidas the Lacedaemonian captaine whom they perswaded during the time of truce to surprise the castle of Cadmus and how having executed this disseigne they drave some citizens
ancient Musicians used in their numbers and measure their variety much more diverse different than now it is So that we may boldly say that the varietie of thymes the difference also and diversitie of strokes was then more variable For men in these daies love skill and knowledge but in former times they affected numbers and measures So that it appeareth plainely that the ancients abstained from broken Musicke and song not because they had no skill but for that they had no will to approve thereof And no mervell for many fashions there be in the world and this our life which are well enough knowen though they be not practised many strange they be by reason of disuse which grew upon occasion that some thing was observed therein not decent seemly But that it was not for ignorance nor want of experience that Plato rejected other kindes of Musicke but onely because they were not beseeming such a common wealth of his we will shew hereafter and withall that he was expert and skilfull in harmony For in that procreation of the soule which he describeth in the booke of Timaeus he declareth what study he had emploied in other Mathematicall studies and in Musicke besides writing after this maner Thus in maner quoth he did God at the first And after that he filled the double and treble intervals in cutting off one portion from thence and putting it betweene both of them in such sort as in everie intervall or distance there were two moities Certes this Exordium or Prooeme is a sufficient proofe of skill and experience in harmonie according as wee will shew heereafter Three sorts of primitive medieties there be out of which all other bee drawen to wit Arithmeticall Geometricall and Harmonicall Arithmeticall is that which surmounteth and is surmounted in equall number Geometricall in even proportion and Harmonicall neither in reason and proportion nor in number Plato therefore intending to declare harmonically the harmony of the foure elements of the soule and the cause why things so divers accorded together in each intervall hath put downe tow medieties of the soule and that acording to musical proportion For in the accord Diapason in Musicke two intervals there are betweene two extremities whereof we will shew the proportion For the accord Diapason consisteth in a double proportion as for example six and twelve will make a double proportion in number And this intervall is from Hypate Meson unto Nete Diczeugmenon Now six and twelve being the two extremities Hypate Meson conteineth the number of six and Nete Diezeugmenon that of twelve It remaineth now that we ought to take unto these the meane numbers betweene these two extremities the extreames whereof will be found the one in proportion Epitritos or 〈◊〉 the other Hemiotios or sesquialterall And these be numbers eight and nine For eight is serquitertian to six and nine sesquialterall Thus much as touching one of the extreames As for the other which is twelve it is above nine in sesquitertian proportion and above eight in sesquialterall These two numbers then being betweene six and twelve and the intervall 〈◊〉 compounded and consisting of Diatesseron and Diapente it appeareth that Mese shall have the number of eight and Paramese the number of nine which done there will be the same habitude from Hypate and Mese that is from Paramese to Nete of a disjoint Tetrachord The same proportion is found also in numbers for the same reason that is from six to eight is from nine to twelve and looke what reason there is betweene six and nine the same is betweene eight and twelve Now betweene eight and six the proportion is sesquitertian as also betweene twelve and nine But betweene nine and six sesquialterall like as betweene twelve and eight Thus much may serve to shew that Plato was well studied and very expert in the Mathematicks Now that harmony is a venerable worthy and divine thing Artstotle the desciple of Plato testifieth in these words Harmony quoth he is celestiall of a beautifull and wonderfull nature and more than humaine which being of it selfe divided into foure it hath two medieties the one arithmeticall the other harmonicall and of the parts thereof the magnitudes and extremities are seene according to number and equality of measure for accords in song are appropriat and fitted in two Tetrachords These be the words of Aristotle who said that the body of harmony is composed of parts dislike and accordant verily one with the other but yet the medieties of the same agree according to reason arithmeticall for that Nete according to Hypate by double proportion maketh an accord and consonants of Diapason For it hath as we have before said Nete of twelve unities and Hypate of six Paramese according with Hypate in proportion sesquialterall of nine unities But of Mese we say that it hath eight unities the principal intervals of Musicke are composed of these to wit Diatessaron which consisteth of a proportion sesquitertian of Diapente which standeth upon a sesquialterall and Diapason of a duple For so is preserved the proportion sesquioctave which is accordingto the proportion Toniaeus Thus you see how the parts of harmony doe both surmount and also are surmounted of other parts by the same excesse and the medieties of medieties as well according to expresse in numbers as Geometricall puissance Thus Aristotle declareth them to have these and such like powers namely that Nete surmounteth Mese by a third part and that Hypate is semblably surmounted of Paramese in such sort as these excesses are of the kinde of Relatives which have relation to another for they surmount and be surmounted by the same parts And therefore by the same proportion the two extreames of Mese and Paramese doe surmount and be surmounted to wit sesquitertian and sesquialterall And after this fort is the harmonicall excesse But the excesse of Nete and Mese by arithmeticall proportion sheweth the exuperances in equall partie and even so Paramese in proportion to Hypate for Paramese surmounteth Mese in proportion sesquioctave Like as againe Nete is a double proportion of Hypate and Paramese of Hypate in proportion sesquialterall and Mese sesquitertian in regard of Hypate See then how harmony is composed according to Aristotle himselfe of her parts and numbers And so verily by him it is composed most naturally of a nature as well finit as infinit both of even and also of od it selfe and all the parts thereof for it selfe totally and whole is even as being composed of foure parts or termes the parts whereof and their proportions be even od and even not even For nete it hath even of twelve unities Paramese od of nine unities Mese even of eight unities and Hypate even not even of six unities So that harmony thus composed both it selfe and the parts thereof one to the other as well in excesse as in proportions the whole accordeth with the whole and the parts together And that which more is the very
some who openly maintaine that Osiris is the Sunne and that the Greeks call him Sirtus but the article which the Aegyptians put before to wit O is the cause that so much is not evidently perceived as also that Isis is nothing else but the Moone and of her images those that have hornes upon them signifie no other thing but the Moone croissant but such as are covered and clad in blacke betoken those daies wherein she is hidden or darkened namely when she runneth after the Sunne which is the reason that in love matters they invocate the Moone And Eudoxus himselfe saith that Isis is the president over amatorious folke And verily in all these ceremonies there is some probabilitie and likelihood of trueth But to say that Typhon is the Sunne is so absurd that we ought not so much as give eare to those who affirme so But returne we now to our former matter For Isis is the feminine part of nature apt to receive all generation upon which occasion called she is by Plato the nurse and Pandeches that is to say capable of all yea and the common sort name her Myrionymus which is as much to say as having an infinite number of names for that she receiveth all formes and shapes according as it pleaseth that first reason to convert and turne her Moreover there is imprinted in her naturally a love of the first and principall essence which is nothing else but the soveraigne good and it she desireth seeketh and pursueth after Contrariwise she flieth and repelleth from her any part and portion that proceedeth from ill And howsoever she be the subject matter and meet place apt to receive as well the one as the other yet of it selfe enclined she is alwaies rather to the better and applieth herselfe to engender the same yea and to disseminate and sowe the defluxions and similitudes thereof wherein she taketh pleasure and rejoiceth when she hath conceived and is great therewith ready to be delivered For this is a representation and description of the substance engendred in matter and nothing else but an imitation of that which is And therefore you may see it is not besides the purpose that they imagine and devise the soule of Osiris to be eternall and immortall but as for the body that Typhon many times doth teare mangle and abolish it that it cannot be seene and that Isis goeth up and downe wandring heere and there gathering together the dismembred pieces thereof for that which is good and spirituall by consequence is not any waies subject to change and alteration but that which is sensible and materiall doth yeeld from it selfe certeine images admitting withall and receiving sundry porportions formes and similitudes like as the prints and stamps of seales set upon waxe doe not continue and remaine alwaies but are subject to change alteration disorder and trouble and this same was chased from the superor region and sent downe hither where it fighteth against Horus whom Isis engendred sensible as being the very image of the spirituall and intellectuall world And heereupon it is that Typhon is said to accuse him of bastardie as being nothing pure and sincere like unto his father to wit reason and understanding which of it selfe is simple and not medled with any passion but in the matter adulterate and degenerat by the reason that it is corporall Howbeit in the end the victorie is on Mercuries side for hee is the discourse of reason which testifieth unto us and sheweth that nature hath produced this world materiall metamorphozed to the spirituall forme for the nativity of Apollo engendred betweene Isis Osiris whiles the gods were yet in the belly of Rhea symbolizeth thus much that before the world was evidently brought to light and fully accomplished the matter of reason being found naturally of it selfe rude and unperfect brought foorth the first generation for which cause they say that god being as yet lame was borne and begotten in darkenesse whom they call the elder Horus For the world yet it was not but an image onely and designe of the world and a bare fantasie of that which should be But this Horus heere is determinate definit and perfect who killeth not Typhon right out but taketh from him his force and puissance that he can doe little or nothing And heereupon it is that by report in the citie Coptus the image of Horus holdeth in one hand the generall member of Typhon and they fable besides that Mercurie having berest him of his 〈◊〉 made thereof strings for his harpe and so used them Heereby they teach that reason framing the whole world set it in tune and brought it to accord framing it of those parts which before were at jarre and discord howbeit remooved not nor abolished altogether the pernicious and hurtfull nature but accomplished the vertue thereof And therefore it is that it being feeble and weake wrought also as it were and intermingled or interlaced with those parts and members which be subject to passions and mutations causeth earthquakes and tremblings excessive heates and extreame drinesse with extraordinarie windes in the aire besides thunder lightnings and firie tempests It impoisoneth moreover the waters and windes infecting them with pestilence reaching up and bearing the head aloft as farre as to the Moone obscuring and darkning many times even that which is by nature cleane and shining And thus the Aegyptians do both thinke and say that Typhon sometime strooke the eie of Horus and another while plucked it out of his head and devoured it and then afterwards delivered it againe unto the Sunne By the striking aforesaid they meane aenigmatically the wane or decrease of the Moone monethly by the totall privation of the eie they understand her ecclipse and defect of light which the Sunne doth remedy by relumination of her streight waies as soone as she is gotten past the shade of the earth But the principall and more divine nature is composed and consisteth of three things to wit of an intellectuall nature of matter and a compound of them both which we call the world Now that intellectuall part Plato nameth Idea the patterne also of the father as for matter he termeth it a mother nurse a foundation also and a plot or place for generation and that which is produced of both he is woont to call the issue and thing procreated And a man may very well conjecture that the Aegyptians compared the nature of the whole world especially to this as the fairest triangle of all other And Plato in his books of policy or common wealth seemeth also to have used the same when he composeth and describeth his nuptiall figure which triangle is of this sort that the side which maketh the right angle is of three the basis of foure and the third line called Hypotinusa of five aequivolent in power to the other two that comprehend it so that the line which directly falleth plumbe upon the base must answer proportionably to the male
image representing god as being the onely creature in the world which hath no tongue for as much as divine speech needeth neither voice nor tongue But through the paths of Justice walks with still and silent pace Directing right all mortall things in their due time and place And of all beasts living within the water the crocodile onely as men say hath over his eies a certeine thinne filme or transparent webbe to cover them which commeth downe from his forehead in such sort as that he can see and not be seene wherein he is conformable and like unto the sovereigne of all the gods Moreover looke in what place the female is discharged of her spawne there is the utmost marke and limit of the rising and inundation of Nylus for being not able to lay their egges in the water and affraid withall to sit far off they have a most perfect and exquisit foresight of that which will be insomuch as they make use of the rivers approch when they lay and whiles they sit and cove their egges be preserved drie and are never drenched with the water A hundred egges they lay in so many daies they hatch and as manie yeeres live they which are longest lived And this is the first and principall number that they use who treat of celestiall matters Moreover as touching those beasts which are honored for both causes we have spoken before of the dogge but the Ibis or blacke storke besides that it killeth those serpents whose pricke and sting is deadly she was the first that taught us the use of that evacuation or clensing the body by clistre which is so ordinarie in Physicke for perceived she is to purge clense and mundifie her-selfe in that sort whereupon the most religious priests and those who are of greatest experience when they would be purified take for their holy water to sprinckle themselves with the very same out of which the Ibis drinketh for she never drinks of empoisoned and infected water neither will she come neere unto it Moreover with her two legges standing at large one from the other and her bill together she maketh an absolute triangle with three even sides besides the varietie and speckled mixture of her plume consisting of white feathers and blacke representeth the Moone when she is past the full Now we must not marvell at the Aegyptians for pleasing and contenting themselves in such slight representations and similitudes for even the Grecks themselves as well in their pictures as other images of the gods melted and wrought to any mould used many times such resemblances for one statue in Creta they had of Jupiter without eares because it is not meant for him who is lord governour of all to have any instruction by the hearing of others Unto the image of Pallas Phidias the Imager set a dragon like as to that of Venus in the city of Elisa Tortoise giving us by this to understand that maidens had need of guidance and good custodie and that maried woman ought to keepe the house and be silent The three-forked mace of Neptune signifieth the third place which the sea and element of water holdeth under heaven and aire for which cause they called the sea Amphitrite and the petie sea gods Tritons Also the Pythagoreans have highly honored the numbers and figures Geometricall by the gods names for the triangle with three equal sides they called Pallas borne out of Jupiters braine and Tritogenia for that it is equally divided with three right lines from three angles drawen by the plumbe One or unitie they named Apollo As well for his perswasive grace as plaine simplicitie That doeth appeere in youthfull face and this is unitie Two they termed Contention and Boldnesse and three Justice For whereas to offend and be offended to doe and to suffer wrong come the one by excesse and the other by defect Just remaineth equally betweene in the middes That famous quaternarie of theirs named 〈◊〉 which consisteth of foure nines and amounteth to thirtie sixe was their greatest oth 〈◊〉 in every mans mouth they called it the World as being accomplished of the first foure even numbers and the first foure odde compounded into one together If then the most excellent and best renowmed Philosophers perceiving in things which have neither body nor soule some type and figure of deitie have not thought it good to neglect or despise any thing herein or passe it over without due honour I suppose we ought much lesse so to doe in those properties and qualities which are in natures sensitive having life and being capable of passions and affections according to their inclinations and conditions And therefore we must not content our selves and rest in the worshipping of these and such like beasts but by them adore the divinitie that shineth in them as in most cleere and bright mirrors according to nature reputing them alwaies as the instrument and artificiall workemanship of God who ruleth and governeth the universall world neither ought we to thinke that any thing void of life and destitute of sense can be more woorthy or excellent than that which is endued with life and senses no not although a man hung never so much gold or a number of rich emerauds about it for it is neither colours nor figures nor polished bodies that deitie doeth inhabite in but whatsoever doeth not participate life nor is by nature capable thereof is of a more base and abject condition than the very dead But that nature which liveth and seeth which also in it selfe hath the beginning of motion and knowledge of that which is proper and meet as also of that which is strange unto it the same I say hath drawen some influence and portion of that wise providence whereby the universall world is governed as Heraclitus saith And therefore the deitie is no lesse represented in such natures than in works made of brasse and stone which are likewise subject to corruption and alteration but over and besides they are naturally voide of all sense and understanding Thus much of that opinion as touching the worship of beasts which I approove for best Moreover the habilliments of Isis be of different tinctures and colours for her whole power consisteth and is emploied in matter which receiveth all formes and becommeth all maner of things to wit light darknesse day night fire water life death beginning and end But the robes of Osiris have neither shade nor varietie but are of one simple colour even that which is lightsome and bright For the first primitive cause is simple the principle or beginning is without all mixture as being spiritual intellegible Whereupon it is that they make shew but once for all of his habiliments which when they have done they lay them up againe and bestow them safe and keepe them so straightly that no man may see or handle them whereas contrariwise they use those of Isis many times For that sensible things be in usage and seeing they are
peradventure it were better for a man to yeeld reasons of his owne opinion rather than of anothers To begin againe therefore I say that nature being parted and devided at the first in two parts the one sensible mutable subject to generation and corruption and varietie every way the other spirituall and intelligible and continuing evermore in one and the same state it were very strange and absurd my good friends first to say that the spirituall nature receiveth division and hath diversity and difference in it and then to thinke much and grow into heat of cholar and anger if a man allow not the passible and corporall nature wholly united and concorporate in it selfe without dividing or separating it into many parts For more meet it were yet and reasonable that natures parmanent and divine should cohere unto themselves inseparably and avoid as much as is possible all distraction and divulsion and yet this force and power of The Other medling also even with these causeth in spirituall and intellectuall things greater dissociations and dissimilitudes in forme and essentiall reason than are the locall distances in those corporall natures And therefore Plato confuting those who hold this position that all is one affirmeth these five grounds and principles of all to wit Essence or seeing The same The other and after all Motion and Station Admit these five no marvell is it if nature of those five bodily elements hath framed proper figures and representations for every one of them not simple and pure but so as every one of them is most participant of each of those properties and puissances For plaine and evident it is that the cube is most meet and sortable unto station and repose in regard of the stability and stedy firmitude of those broad and flat faces which it hath As for the Pyramis who seeth not and acknowledgeth not incontinently in it the nature of fire ever mooving in those long and slender sides and sharpe angles that it hath Also the nature of Dodecaedron apt to comprehend all other figures may seeme propetly to be the image representing Ens or That which is in respect of all corporall essence Of the other twaine Icosaedron resembleth The Other or Diverse but Octaedron hath a principall reference to the forme of The same And so by this reckoning the one of them produceth foorth Aire capable of all substance in one forme and the other exhibiteth unto us Water which by temperature may turne into all sorts of qualities Now if so be that nature requireth in all things and throughout all an equall and uniforme distribution very probable it is that there be also five worlds and neither more nor fewer than there be moulds or patterns to the end that ech example or patterne may hold the first place and principall puislance in ech world like as they have in the first constitution and composition of bodies And this may stand in some sort for an answer and to satisfie him who mervaileth how we devide that nature which is subject to generation and alteration into so many kinds but yet I beseech you consider and weigh with me more diligently this argument Certeine it is that of those two first and supreme principles I meane Unity and Binary or Duality this latter being the element and originall primative of all difformity disorder and confusion is called Infinity but contrariwise the nature of Unitie determining and limiting the void infinity which hath no proportion nor termination reduceth it into a good forme and maketh it in some sort capable and apt to receive a denomination which alwaies accompanieth sensible things And verily these two generall principles shew themselves first in number or rather indeed to speake generally no multitude is called number untill such time as unitie comming to be imprinted as the forme in matter cutteth off from indeterminate infinity that which is superfluous heere more and there lesse for then ech multitude becommeth and is made number when as it is once determined and limited by unitie but if a man take unitie away then the indesinite and indeterminate Dualitie comming againe in place to confound all maketh it to be without order without grace without number and without measure Now considering it is so that the forme is not the destruction of matter but rather the figure ornament and order thereof it must needs be that both these principles are within number from which proceedeth the chiefe dissimilitude and greatest difference For the indefinite and indeterminate principle to wit Duality is the author and cause of the even number but the better to wit Unitie is the father as one would say of the odde number so as the first even number is two and the first odde number three of which is compounded five by conjunction common to both but in the owne puissance odde For it behooved necessary it was in as much as that which is corporall sensible for composition sake is divided into many parts by the power and force of The Other that is to say of Diversitie that it should be neither the first even number nor yet the first uneven or odde but a third consisting of both to the end that it might be procreate of both principles to wit of that which engendreth the even number and of that which produceth the odde for it could not be that the one should be parted from the other because that both of them have the nature puissance of a principle These two principles then being conjoinct together the better being the mightier is opposed unto the indeterminate infinitie which divideth the corporal nature so the matter being divided the unitie interposing it selfe between impeacheth the universall nature that it was not divided and parted into two equall portions but there was a pluralitie of worlds caused by The Other that is to say by Diversitie and difference of that which is infinit and determinate but this 〈◊〉 was brought into an odde and uneven number by the vertue and puissance of The same and that which is finite because the better principle suffred not nature to extend farther than was expedient For if one had beene pure and simple without mixture the matter should have had no separation at all but in as much as it was mixed with Dualitie which is a divisive nature it hath received indeed and suffred by this meanes separation and division howbeit staied it hath in good time because the odde was the master and superior over the even This was the reason that our auncients in old time were wont to use the verbe Pempasesthai when they would signifie to number or to reckon And I thinke verily that this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say All was derived of Pente that is to say Five not without good reason because that five is compounded of the two first numbers and when other numbers afterwards be multiplied by others they produce divers numbers whereas five if it be multiplied
forme and of matter being brought to perfection is procreated this Quinarie or number of five Now if it be true as some do hold that Unitie it selfe is quadrat and foure-square as being that which is the power of it selfe and determineth in it selfe then five being thus compounded of the two first quadrat numbers ought so much the rather to be esteemed so noble and excellent as none can be comparable unto it And yet there is one excellency behind that passeth all those which went before But I feare me quoth I lest if the same be uttered it would debase in some sort the honor of our Plato like as himselfe said the honour and authority of Anaxagor as was depressed and put downe by the name of the Moone who attributed unto himselfe the first invention of the Moones illuminations by the Sunne whereas it was a very ancient opinion long before he was borne How say you hath he not said thus much in his Dialogue entituled Cratylus Yes verily answered Eustrophus but I see not the like consequence for all that But you know quoth I that in his booke entituled The Sophister he setteth downe five most principall beginnings of all things to wit That which is The same The other Motion the fourth and Rest for the fift Moreover in his Dialogue Philebus he bringeth in another kinde of partition and division of these principles where he saith That one is Infinite another Finite or the end and of the mixture of these twaine is made and accomplished all generation as for the cause whereby they are mixed he putteth it for the fourth kinde but leaveth to our conjecture the fift by the meanes whereof that which is composed and mixed is redivided and separate againe And for mine owne part I suppose verily that these principles be the figures and images as it were of those before to wit of That which is The thing engendred of Motion Infinite of Rest the End or Finit of The same the Cause that mixeth of The other the Cause that doth separate But say they be divers principles and not the same yet howsoever it be there are alwaies still five kinds five differences of the said principles Some of them before Plato being of the same opinion or having heard so much of another consecrated two E. E. unto the god of this temple as a very signe to symbolize that number which comprehendeth all And peradventure having heard also that Good appeareth in five kinds whereof the first is Meane or Measure the second Symmetrie or Proportion the third Under standing the fourth The Sciences Arts and True Opinions which are in the soule the fifth Pure and Syncere Pleasure without mixture of any trouble and paine they staied there reciting this verse out of Orpheus But at the sixth age cease your song It booteth not to chaunt so long After these discourses passed betweene us Yet one briefe word more quoth he will I say unto Nicander and those about him For sing I will To men of skill The sixth day of the moneth when you lead the Prophetesse Pythia into some hal named Prytanium the first casting of lots among you of three tendeth to five for she casteth three and you two how say you is it not so Yes verily quoth Nicander but the cause heereof we dare not reveale and declare unto others Well then quoth I smiling thereat untill such time as god permitteth us after we are become holy and consecrate for to know the trueth thereof meane while let that also be added unto the praises which have bene alledged in the recommendation of the number Five Thus ended the discourse as touching the commendations attributed unto the number of five by the Arithmeticians and Mathematicians as far as I can remember or call to mind And Ammonius as he was a man who bestowed not the worst and least part of his time in Mathematicke Philosophy tooke no small pleasure in the hearing of such discourses and said Needlesse it is and to no purpose to stand much upon the precise and exact confutation of that which these yong men heere have alledged unlesse it be that every number will affoord you also sufficient matter and argument of praise if you will but take the paines to looke into them for to say nothing of others a whole day would not be enough to expresse in words all the vertues and properties of the sacred number Seven dedicated to Apollo And moreover we shall seeme to pronounce against the Sages and wisemen that they fight both against common law received and all antiquity of time if disseizing the number of seven of that preeminence whereof it is in possession they should consecrate Five unto Apollo as more meet and beseeming for him And therefore mine opinion is that this writing EI signifieth neither number nor order nor conjunction nor any other defective particle but is an entier salutation of it selfe and a compellation of the God which together with the very utterance and pronuntiation of the word induceth the speaker to think of the greatnesse power of him who seemeth to salute and greet every one of us when we come hither with these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know thy selfe which signifieth no lesse than if he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say All haile or god save you and we again to render the like answer him EI that is to say Thou art yeelding unto him not a false but a true appellation and title which onely and to him alone appertaineth namely that he is For in very trueth and to speake as it is we who are mortall men have no part at all of being indeed because that all humane nature being ever in the midst betweene generation and corruption giveth but an obscure apparence a darke shadow a weake and uncertaine opinion of it selfe And if paradventure you bend your minde and cogitation for to comprehend a substance and essence thereof you shal doe as much good as if you would cluch water in your hand with a bent fist for the more you seeme to gripe and presse together that which of the owne nature is fluid and runneth out so much the more shall you leese of that which you will claspe and hold and even so all things being subject to alteration and to passe from one change unto another reason seeking for a reall subsistence is deceived as not able to apprehend any thing subsistant in trueth and permanent for that every thing tendeth to a being before it is or beginneth to die so soone as it is engendred For as Her 〈◊〉 was wont to say a man cannot possibly enter twice into one and the same river no more is he able to finde any mortall substance twice in one and the same estate Such is the suddenesse and celerity of change that no sooner is it dissipated but it gathereth againe anon or rather indeed not againe nor anon but at once it both subsisteth and also
together close and be united leaving an emptie place in those vessels wherein they were conteined and from which they be retired The voice therefore comming among and lighting upon many of these bodies thus scattered and dispersed thicke everie where either is drowned altogether at once or disgregated and broken as it were in pieces or else meeteth with many impeachments to withstand and stay it but where there is a space void and wherein there is not a bodie it having a free and full course and the same not interrupted but plaine and continued commeth so much the sooner unto the eare and together with that swiftnesse reteineth still the articulate expresse and distinct sound of every word in speech for you see how emptie vessels if a man knocke upon them answere better to every stroake and carrie the sound and noise a great way off yea and many times they yeeld a sound that goeth round about and continueth a good while redoubling the noise whereas let a vessell be filled either with solid bodies or els with some liquor it is altogether deafe and dumbe if I may so say and yeeldeth no sound againe for that it hath no place nor way to passe thorow Now among solid bodies gold and stone because they be full and massie have a very small and feeble sound that will be heard any way and that little which they doe render is soone gone contrariwise brasse is verie vocall resonant and as one would say a blab of the tongue for that it hath much emptinesse in it and the substance or masse thereof is light and thinne not compact of many bodies hudled together and thrust one upon another but hath foison and plentie of that substance mingled together which is soft yeelding and not resisting the touch or the stroake which affoordeth easinesse unto other motions and so enterteining the voice gently and willingly sendeth it untill it meet somthing in the way which stoppeth the mouth for then it staieth and ceaseth to pierce any further because of the stoppage that it findeth And this is it quoth he in mine opinion that causeth the night to be more resonant and the day lesse for that the heat in day time which dissolveth the aire causeth the intervalles betweene the atomes or motes abovesaid to be the smaller this onely I would request that no man here doe oppose himselfe to contradict the premisses and first suppositions of mine Now when as Ammonius willed me to say somewhat and replie against him As touching your formost supposals friend Boethus quoth I about the great emptinesse let them stand since you will have it so but whereas you have set downe that the said emptinesse maketh much for the motion and easie passage of the voice I like not well of that supposition for surely this qualitie not to be touched smitten or made to suffer is rather proper unto silence and still taciturnitie whereas the voice is the striking and beating upon a sounding bodie and a sounding bodie is that which accordeth and correspondeth to it selfe moveable light uniforme simple and pliable like as is our aire for water earth and fire be of themselves dumbe speechlesse but they sound speake all of them when any spirit or aire is gotten in then I say they make a noise as for brasse there is no voidnesse within it but for that mixed it is with an united and equall spirit therefore it answereth againe to claps and knocks and therewithall resoundeth and if wee may conjecture by that which our eie seeth and judgeth yron seemeth to be spongeous and as it were worme-eaten within full of holes and hollowed in maner of hony-combs howbeit a mettall it is of all other that hath the woorst voice and is most mute there was no need therfore to trouble the night so much in restreining compressing and driving in the aire thereof so close of the one side and leaving so many places and spaces void on the other side as if the aire impeached the voice and corrupted the substance thereof considering it selfe is the very substance forme and puissance of it over and besides it should follow thereupon that unequall nights namely those that be foggie and mistie or exceeding colde were more resonant than those that be faire and cleere for that in such nights those atomes are clunged close together and looke where they come they leave a place void of bodies moreover that which is easie and evident to be seene the colde Winter night ought by this reckoning to be more vocall and fuller of noise than the hot Summers night whereof neither the one nor the other is true and therefore letting this reason such as it is goe by I will produce Anaxagoras who saith That the sunne causeth the aire to move and stirre after a certeine trembling motion as if it did beat and pant as it may appeare by those little motes and shavings as it were in maner of dust which flutter and flie up and downe thorow those holes whereas the sunne-shine passeth such as some Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which saith he chirming as it were and making a humming in the day time cause by their noise any other voice or sound not so easie to be heard but in the night season as their motion ceaseth so consequently their noise also is gone After I had thus said Ammonius began in this wise We may be deemed haply ridiculous quoth he to thinke that we can refute Democritus or to go about for to correct Anaxagoras howbeit we must of necessitie take from these little bodies of Anaxagoras his devising this chirming noise before said which is neither like to be so nor any waies necessarie sufficient it wil be to admit the trembling motion and stirring of them dancing as they doe in the same light and by that meanes disgregating and breaking the voice many times and scatter it to and fro for the aire as hath bene said already being the very body and substance of the voice if it be quiet and setled giveth a direct united and continned way unto the small parcels and movings of the voice to passe along a great way for calme weather and the tranquillitie of the aire is resonant whereas contrariwise tempestuous weather is dumbe and mute according to which Simonides hath thus written For then no blasts of winde arose on hie Shaking tree-leaves that men need once to feare Lest they might breake sweet songs and melodie Stopping the sound from passage to their eare For often times the agitation of the aire permitteth not the full expresse and articulate forme of the voice to reach unto the sense of hearing howbeit somewhat it carrieth alwaies thorow from it if the same be multiplied much and forced aloud as for the night in it selfe in hath nothing to stirre and trouble the aire whereas the day hath one great cause thereof to wit the sun as Anaxagoras himselfe hath said Then Thrasyllus the sonne of Ammontus taking his
turne to speake What should we meane by this I pray you in the name of Jupiter quoth he to attribute this cause unto an invisible motion of the aire and leave the agitation tossing and divulsion thereof which is so manifest and evident to our eies for this great ruler and commander in the heaven Jupiter doth not after an imperceptible maner nor by little and little stirre the smallest parcels of the aire but all at once so soone as he sheweth his face exciteth and moveth all things in the world Giving foorthwith a signall in such wise As men thereby unto their works may rise which they no sooner see but they obey and follow as if together with the new day they were regenerate againe and entred into another manner of life as Democritus saith setting themselves unto their businesse and affaires not without some noise effectual cries in which sense Ibycus called not impertinently the morning or dawning of the day Clytus for that now we begin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say to heare others yea to speake aloud our selves whereas the aire of the night being for the most part calme and still without any waves and billowes for that everie thing is at rest and repose by all likelihood conveigheth the voice entier and whole unto us not brokē nor diminished one jot At these words Aristodemus of Cypres who was one of our companie But take heed Thrasyllus quoth he that this which you say be not convinced and resuted by the battels and marches of great armies in the night season for that upon such an occasion the noise and outcries be no lesse resounding and cleere how troubled and waving soever the aire be than otherwise and peradventure there is some cause thereof proceeding also from our selves for the most part of that which we speake in the night season is of this nature that either we commaund some body after a turbulent manner as if a passion urged us thereto or if we demaund and aske ought we crie as loud as we can for that the thing which wakeneth and maketh us to rise at such a time when as we should sleepe and take our repose for to speake or doe any thing is no small matter or peaceable but great and important hasting us for the urgent necessitie thereof unto our businesse in such sort that our words and voices which then we utter go from us in greater force and vehemency THE FOURTH QUESTION How it comes to passe that of the sacred games of prize some use one maner of chaplet and some another yet all have the branch of the date tree Also why the great dates bee called Nicolai During the solemnitie of the Isthmick games at what time as Sospis was the judge and directour thereof now the second time other feasts of his I avoided namely when as hee invited one while many strangers together and otherwhiles a number of none else but citizens and those one with another but one time above the rest when as hee feasted those onely who were his greatest friends and all men of learning I my selfe also was a bidden guest and present among them now by that time that the first service at the table was taken awaie there came one unto the professed oratour and rhetorician Herodes who brought unto him from a scholar and familiar of his who had wonne the prize for an encomiasticall or laudatorie oration that he had made a branch of the date tree together with a plaited and broided coronet of flowers which when he had curteously received he returned them backe to him again saying withall that hee marvelled why some of these sacred games had for their prize this crowne and others that but generally all a branch of date tree For mine owne part quoth he I cannot perswade my selfe that this ariseth upon that cause which some alledge namely the equality and uniformitie of the leaves springing and growing out as they doe alwaies even and orderly one just against another directly wherein they seeme to contend and strive a vie resembling thereby a kinde of combat and that victorie it selfe tooke the name in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say not yeelding nor giving place for there be many other plants which as it were by weight and measure distribute nourishment equally unto their boughes and branches growing opposite in that manner and heerein observe exactly a woonderfull order and equality but in my conceit more probabilitie and apparence of reason they alledge who imagine suppose that our auncients made choice of this tree because they tooke a love to the beautie talnesse and streight growing thereof and namely Homer who compareth the beautie of Nausicaa the Phaeocian queene unto the plant or stem of a faire date tree for this you all know verie well that in old time they were wont alwaies to cast upon those victorious champions who had wonne the prize roses and rose champion flowers yea and some otherwhiles apples and pomegranates thinking by this meanes to recompence and honour them but there is nothing else so much in the date tree to commend it so evidently above other trees for in all Greece fruit it beareth none that is good to be eaten as being unperfect and not ripe enough and if it bare heere as it doth in Syria and Aegypt the date which of all fruits for the lovely contentment of the eie is of all sights most delightsome and for the sweetnesse of taste of all banquetting dishes most pleasant there were not a tree in the world comparable unto it and verily the great monarch and emperour Augustus by report for that he loved singularly well one Nicolaus a philosopher Peripatetick in regard that he was of gentle nature and sweet behaviour tall and slender withall of stature and besides of a ruddy and purple colour in his visage called the fairest and greatest dates after his name Nicolai and to this day they beare that denomination In this discourse Herodes pleased the company no lesse with the mention of Nicolaus the philosopher than he did with that which he had spoken to the question And therefore quoth Sospis so much the rather ought we every one to devise for to conferre unto this question propounded whatsoever hee is perswaded concerning it Then I for my part first brought foorth mine opinion as touching the superioritie of this date tree at the sacred games because the glorie of victours and conquerors ought to endure and continue incorruptible and as much as possibly may be not age and waxe old for the date tree liveth as long as any plant whatsoever that is longest lived and this is testified by these verses of Orpheus Living as long as plants of date trees tall Which in the head be greene and spread withall And this is the onely tree in manner which hath that propertie indeed which is reported though not so truely of many others And