Midas Hovv much gold do I misse Sardanapalus And I hovv much pleasure Menippus So this I like vveep on I le joyne vvith you and sing the old sentence Know thy selfe A fit dittie to be mingled vvith your mournings A Dialogue between Pluto and Mercury Pluto DO you know old Eucrates the usurer who has not one child but five thousand Gapers after his estate Mercury The Sicyonian you mean what of him Pluto Let him live Mercury ninety yeers more to the ninety he hath lived allready and longer if it be possible But fetch hither his flatterers young Charinus and Damon and the rest Mercury That would shew very preposterous Pluto Rather very just For why do they pray so earnestly for his death but that they may enjoy his estate But that which is yet most base is that at that very time when they wish his Death they grossely observe and Court him And when he is sick all men know what they desire yet they vow sacrifices for his recovery In a word they have severall wayes of flattery Wherefore let him be immortall and let them die first and loose their gapings Mercury Well being such knaves their punishment shall be ridiculous But methinks he lures them on pretty handsomly and feeds them with hopes allwaies dissembling as if he were about to die when he is much lustier then his Flatterers They in the mean time dividing the inheritance among them are fed vvith the Image of a Phantastick happinesse Pluto Let him therefore like Iolaus cast off his old age and grovv young again But let them in the midd'st of their hopes be snatch avvay as it vvere in a golden dream and like evill men die evill deaths Mercury Enough Pluto I vvill send them to you one after another I think they are seaven Pluto Call forth their souls Mercury and let him send them every one hither before him but let him of an old man become a youth A Dialogue between Terpsion and Pluto Terpsion IS this Justice Pluto that I should die who am but thirty yeers old and that Thucritus who is almost an hundred should live Pluto Great Justice Terpsion For though he lives yet he wishes none of his friends dead whereas you all the time you lived laid nets for his estate Terpsion Was 't not fit being an old man and no longer able to use his riches he should die and leave them to those that are younger Pluto You make new lawes Terpsion that when a man can no longer use his riches with pleasure he ought to die Fate and Nature decree otherwise Terpsion I accuse them therefore of disorder For the businesse ought to run in this succession The most aged to die first then those who are next in years And not to be inverted or he to live who is decrepit hath but three teeth left scarce sees is supported by four servants distills at nose hath eyes filled with rheume hath lost all sense of pleasure and is laught at by boyes as a living sepulchre and the most beautifull and lustiest young men to die This is to make rivers run backwards At least 't were fit we knew the date of old mens lives that they might not cousen us as they do But now the old Proverb is brought to passe the Cart leads the Oxe Pluto These things are wiselier carried Terpsion then you are aware of For what ailes you that you yawne after other mens fortunes and enslave your selves to childlesse old men you do therefore but make your selves ridiculous and they bury you first which to many is metter of great pleasure for just as you pray'd for their deaths so much delight is it to others to have you die first For you have introduced a new Art to make love to old women and old men especially to those who have no children neglecting those that have whilest many of those who are courted by you well acquainted with your aimes if they chance to have children pretend to hate them that they may have observers At length those who had for a long time wasted themselves in gifts are shut out of the will and the sonne as there is good reason enjoyes all the rest cheated of their hopes gnash their teeth Terpsion You speak truth Thucritus hath almost quite eaten my estate still making me believe he would die And as often as I came to visit him he would groan and sob inwardly and counterfeit a noise like an abortive chick in the shell wherefore by how much the neerer I thought him to his grave so many gifts the more did I send him least his other flatterers should exceed me in presents many nights have my cares taken my sleep from me numbring and disposing my fortunes And indeed care and watching were the causes of my death whilest he having swallowed my bait assisted at my funerall and went before my beer laughing Pluto Maist thou live eternally Thucritus to grow rich and laugh at such men And maist thou not die till thou have sent hither all thy flatterers before thee Terpsion It would be a pleasure to me too Pluto if Chariades should die before Thucritus Pluto Take comfort Terpsion Phido Melantus and all the rest shall die before him of their Cares Terpsion This I like Live eternally Thucritus A Dialogue between Zenophantes and Callidemides Zenoph BUt how died you Callidemides you know I being Dinias parasite did over-eat my selfe and was choak't with a surfet you stood by when I died Callid I did Zenophantes I died unexpectedly you know old Ptaeodorus Zenoph You mean the rich Usurer who hath no child whose house you alwaies frequented Callid I alwaies observ'd him and flatter'd my selfe with his death but when I saw my expectation prolonged and that he began to be older then Tython I contrived a compendious way to gain his estate For having bought poyson I dealt with his Butler that when Ptaeodorus next call'd for drink and he usually drinks deeply he should steal it into the bowle having it ready and give it him which if he did I swore to make him a freeman Zenoph And what happen'd For me thinks you are about to tell a strange story Callid We went to bath our selves where his Boy held two cuppes one for Ptaeodorus which held the poyson the other for me But mistaking I know not how he gave the poyson to me and the sound cup to Ptaeodorus who presently drunk it off when at the instant I fell down dead and excused his funerall with my own Why do you smile Zenophantes you do not well to laugh at your friend Zenoph You have suffer'd things to he laught at Callidemides But how lookt the old man at your fall Callid First he was frighted with the Accident But being inform'd I believe how things were he laught at what the Butler had done Zenoph You did ill to make such short contrivances for a thing which would in ordinary course much safelier have happen'd had you made lesse hast A Dialogue
call you her I never heard her before and therefore to me she seemed some outlandish fowle Truely she sings in a very mournfull tune pray Socrates what manner of Bird is it Socrates Not great Chaerephon unlesse it be for the great honour she hath received from the Gods for her love to her husband For all the while she sits though in the middest of winter the world enjoyes Halcyon daies of a different calmenesse from other times whereof this day is one See you not how clear the Heavens are and how the Sea without wave or billow resembles for smoothnesse a mirrour or Glasse Chaerephon True This is indeed a Halcyon day and yesterday was such another But for Gods sake tell me Socrates may I give credit to what you said in the beginning that women have been raised out of Birds or that Birds have been transform'd into women It sounds to me altogether impossible Socrates O my friend Chaerephon we are but purblind Judges of what is possible and impossible For we pronounce according to the ignorant faithlesse dull abilities of men And therefore many things in themselves easie seem to us difficult and many things in themselves attainable seem to us not to be attained And this befalls us sometimes through unexperience sometimes through the infancy of our mindes For compared to the first cause every man though never so old is but a child And compared to Aeternity our whole life is but a childhood and spanne How then can they who know not the power of the Gods discourse of them or precisely tell what is possible and what is not you saw the storme Chaerephon about three daies since what lightnings and Thunders and tempestuous winds were there some man would tremble at the thought of them fearing least the whole world would have fallen to ruine yet you see it ended in a wonderfull Calme which lasts yet Which then think you is the harder and more unlikely to raise a stillnesse out of a blustring tempest and to cast faire weather over the world or to change the shape of a Woman into the forme of a Bird we see children every day raise severall figures and shapes from wax or clay Then certainly to God who is too great and excellent to be brought into Comparison with our performances all these things are most familiar and easy How much bigger is the Heaven then you can you tell Chaerephon No Socrates nor any man els such comparisons are not to be known or taken measure of Socrates Well then do we not see the vast disproportions of some men compared with others and how they differ in their impotencies or strength what wondrous difference is there between a man of mature age and a child five or ten dayes old both for their infirmity and might as also for all the Actions of life whither they be the defence of those our walls so often assaulted or any other performances either of body or mind which things cannot possibly enter into the apprehension of a child Then for greatnesse of strength a grown man carries no proportion or measure to a child vvho vvith one hand can easily overcome millions of them For naturally men are born of an age at first altogether unexpert and unfit for action If then one man so much excell another hovv much the Gods excell us they may consider vvho have abilities for such contemplations It vvill therefore I doubt not seem credible to most that as much as the whole world exceeds Socrates and Chaerephon in magnitude and space so much doe they exceed us in power and providence and wisdom Many things therefore to you and me and such as we are seem impossible which to others are easie For to winde a Cornet well to those who cannot play and to read or write to those who are ignorant of Grammar showes more impossible then to make women of Birds or Birds of women Nature we see finding in a Comb of Wax a shapelesse worme without Legges or Feathers gives it Winges and feet and enamelling it with great diversity of fair coloures produceth a Bee the wise Architect of Divine honey out of dumb senselesse egges she formes severall sortes of flying walking swimming Creatures assisted as 't is thought by the Sacred influence of the skie We therefore poor mortalls and infants who can neither comprehend great matters nor understand small but doubt of most things even of those which concern our selves can say little concerning the power of the immortall Gods or of their transformations of Kings-Fishers or nightingales Onely as the Glory of the Fable hath bin Conveyed to me from my Ancestors so will I to the praise of thy songes O thou bird of mourning convey it to posterity and will often repeat thy vertuous love of thy Husband to my Wives Xantippe and Mirto not forgetting the honour bestowed upon thee by the Gods and doe you Chaerephon doe the like Chaerephon 'T is fit I should Socrates since all your words carry double perswasions and are able to instruct both sexes Socrates Now then 't is time we bid the Kings-fisher farewell and returne into the City Chaerephon 'T is so and therefore let us goe Prometheus or Caucasus The speakers Mercury Vulcan Prometheus Mercury LOok Vulcan yonder 's Caucasus to which wee are to nail this wretched Titan let 's finde out some eminent place uncovered with Snow where we may the firmelier chain him and where he may hang most open to passengers Vulcan You say well Mercury For if we chain him to some low place neer the earth his creatures men will come in to his succour and if we fasten him to the Hilltoppe he will not be seen below wherefore if you think fit let 's crucifiâ— him here in the middle of the hill which hangs over this valley and let him stretch one Arme that way and the other this Mercury 'T is well contrived for here the Rock is craggie and inaccessible and inclining to a precipice and the ascent so narrow that you can hardly stand tiptoe and every way fittest for his Crosse make no delayes therefore Prometheus but mount and suffer your selfe to be fasten'd Prometheus Vulcan Mercury pitty me who without desert am thus unfortunate Mercury Pitty thee Prometheus why is 't not enough for thee to be bound to Caucasus unlesse Jupiter doom both us to the same punishment for disobeying his Decree Stretch forth thy right hand unmanacle him Vulcan and nail him and be sure to give strength to your Hammer Now reach out thy other hand that he may fasten that too well done An Eagle will fly hither presently and will prey upon thy Liver and then thou wilt be fully rewarded for thy rare and most ingenious peece of work-manship Prometheus O Iapetus Saturne and mother Earth what tortures doe I feel who never offended or committed fault Mercury Dids't thou never offend Prometheus Who at a division of sacrifices dids't deale so unequally and deceitfully and stealing the best
shall retaine to them attending upon their Sedans And think nothing conduceth so much to their other bravery and pompe as to be called Learned Philosophers and better makers of verses then Sappho And for the raising of such an opinion they are still accompanied by pensionary Rhetoricians Grammarians and Philosophers who most ridiculously read to them either while they are dressing themselves or curling their haire or at meale time for at other times they are not at leasure Sometimes whilest the Philosopher is in the midst of his Discourse the Chambermayde enters and delivers a letter to her Lady from her Lechour-servant whereupon the learned discourse of chastity breaks off till she have wrote an answer and returne to her Lecture After a long time at the Feast of Saturne perchance or Minerva if some thread-bare Cloak or motheaten garment be sent you you must recieve it as a great present And the servant first privy to his masters intention who runs and acquaints you with his bounty is not to be sent away without a reward for his newes The next morning at least thirteen more bring you the same message every one reporting what he said to his Master how he put him in mind of it and that being intrusted with the businesse he chose the most advantagious who though they all returne fed yet grumble that you gave them no more Next your whole pension comes not to above six Crownes which if you demand you are thought impudent and troublesome and therefore before you can receive it you must insinuate and flatter and court the steward which is one step of servitude more nor is he to be neglected who is your patrons friend and of his Counsells And when you have re-received your salary you are presently to pay it again to your Taylor or Physitian or Shoomaker so that your rewards not only come late unseasonable and to no purpose but great envy is kindled upon you and by degrees the servants begin to hatch complaints against you especially finding their masters eares open to entertaine them who by this time perhapps sees you worne out with businesse and unfit for imployment and troubled with the Gowt And having gotten the most flowry and vigorous part of your age and wasted your bodily strength and worne you out like a torne garment he looks about for some dunghill where to cast you and entertaines another more able to drudg accusing you with the enticements of his page or alleaging that being an old man you defloured his maid or laying some such crime to your charge for which in the night time you are thrust out of doores by the neck forsaken of all poore and carry nothing away with your age but an incomparable Gowt And having by length of time forgotten your first course of life and made your belly as large as a sack it becomes an insatiate and never to be contented mischiefe Your stomach will expect it 's usuall repletions and grow enraged at denials Besides no bodie will afterwards entertaine you being of a spent age and become like an ancient decaied horse whose very skinne is of no use The pretence also for which you were put away carrying some possibility will brand you for an adulterer or a poysoner or the like So that your accuser though he say nothing will be believed against you who are a Greek of a light behaviour and prepared for any mischief For such they account us all and not without good cause For if I be not deceived the reason why they hold such an Opinion of us is because most of us who are taken into Families for want of better knowledg profess Magick and Charms and the Art to provoke Love and to reconcile Enemies which we call Learning and set it off with a grave Gown and a venerable Beard Hence it comes to passe that they have the like esteem of all as they have of those whom they judg to be the best especially when they observe our Flattery both at Feasts and in our Carriage at other times and our extream basenesse to submit our selves to waies of gain And therefore not without cause when they have turned them off they mortally hate them and seek all the waies they can to destroy them as men who are able to divulge all the secrets of their life having inwardly known them and seen them naked a point which pricks them to the quick For as you have seen some fair Books whose Covers are enamell'd and guilt without but contain within Thyestes eating his children at a Banquet or Oedipus lying with his mother or Tereus deflowring two Sisters so these men are very glorious and sightly without but within hide many a Tragedy under their purple whom if you rip open and unwrap you will find them lined with much Tragicall stuffe not unlike that of Euripides or Sophocles However without they shew guilt and enamell'd Their Consciousnesse therefore breeds their hatred and makes them seek the ruine of those who fall from them as men who are able to represent them on the Stage and give their true description For a Conclusion then like Cebes I will draw you the picture of this kind of life in a small Table that by looking towards it you may know whither it be to be entred into or no. I could wish some Apelles or Parrhasius or Aâ—tion or Euphranor would limme it but because such excellent and exact Painters are not now to be found I will as well as I can give you a slender Image and Draught of it Let there then be drawn a high guilded house not situated on any low place but aloft on a hill and let the ascent to it be so steep inaccessible and slippery that those who many times hope to aspire to the top tumble down and break their necks Within let Riches dwell of a bright and amiable aspect Let their Lover having with much adoe climbed up and attained the door at first sight grow amazed And let Hope whom you may also imagine to be well favoured and diversly drest take him in this astonishment by the hand and lead him in and from his first entrance go before him then let other women receive him namely Deceit and Servitude and deliver him over to labour And let Labour after long exercise deliver the Wretch over to Old age diseased and wittherd in his face and colour Lastly let Contempt hurry him to Despaire from that time let Hope vanish and forsake him fly away Then let him be cast out not at the Golden Porch at which he entred but at some Back-door or dark Out-let naked hungry pale aged with one hand covering his shame with the other choking himself At his ejection let helplesse Weeping and Repentance meet him and double his misery And let the Picture here end Now do you Timocles having well weighed my discourse consider whither you be content to enter at the Golden Door and be dishonourably thrust out at the Postern
seemes brutish By the same reason the Gods are in worse condition then beastes for they lack nothing But that you may know how much better 't is to need few thinges then many consider that children lacke more things then grown youthes and women more then men and the diseased more then the healthy Briefly the worse estate wants more then the better Thus the Gods want nothing and therefore they neerest approach them who want least Can you imagine Hercules the most valiant of men and deservedly reckond among the Gods was miserable when hee travell'd up and downe naked clothed only with a skinne and lackt none of those things certainly hee could not be miserable who deliver'd others from calamity nor poor who ruled over land and sea For wherever hee made his assault hee vanquisht nor did hee ever meet with his equall or â—uperiour till hee left the conversation of men Can you thinke then that such a one who thus traverst the world did want a rugge or shooes you cannot But he was temperate and stout desired to live frugally and to avoid pleasure Was not his scholar Theseus also King of the Athenians Neptunes sonne and the bravest man of his time yet he contemned shooes and went barefoote and cherisht a long beard and hayre Nor was it his only but the practice of all the ancients who were your betters and would have brookt the present luxury no more then a Lyon will suffer himselfe to be shorne Tendernesse and sleeknesse of flesh they thought only became women They as they were still chose to appeare men and held hair as much their ornament as a mane a horses or a beard a Lyons To whom as God hath given somethinges for ornament and beauty soe he hath given beardes to men The ancients therefore shall be my example and imitation Nor doe I envy the men of these times for their felicity full tables and rich apparell or because they polish and smooth all parts of their body not content with those secret parts as nature sent them For my part I wish my feet differ'd not from horses hoofes as they report of Chiron Or that I wanted a coverlet no more then Lyons or high fare no more then dogges Or that any earth or floor may suffice mee for a lodging That I may thinke the world my house That my diett may be that which is easiest purchast That neither I nor any friend of mine may covet Silver or Gold the thirst whereof is the root of all evills factions warres treasons and slaughters All which have the desire of more for their fountaine and springe Bee therefore the itch of abundance farre from mee And when I have not sufficient yet may I bee content This is our doctrine utterly different from the common received opinions of the most Nor are you to marvaile that wee differ from others in our manners and course who differ so much from us in their elections and choices Meane time I wonder at you how you can thinke there is a certaine habit and behaviour proper for a fidler trumpeter and player and do not perceive that there is a garbe and dresse proper also for a vertuous man but thinke he is to habitt himselfe like the most though the most be vitious If then good men are to be peculiar in their clothes what attire is seemlier then that which is most disgracefull to the luxurious and which they most eschew 'T is my bravery therefore to wear a slovenly nasty patâ—ht coate neglected hayre and to go barefoote whereas you in your bravery resemble Cinaedo's from whom you are not to be distinguish't either in the colour or delicacy of your garments or the number of your suites clokes or shoos or the curlings and powdrings of your hayre For the most couâ—tly among you smell just like them And what can hee doe like a man who is perfumed like a Pathicke Then you are as impatient of labour as they as easily melted with pleasures you eate sleep and goe like them or rather ye refuse to goe and are carryed like burdens some of you by men others by beasts My own feet carry mee where I list who am patient of cold and heat and repine not at the seasons which the Gods send or because they make mee miserable But you through too much felicity are content with nothing but alwayes complaine You loath the things you have and desire the things you have not In winter you wish summer in summer winter In heat cold and in cold heat like displeased sick folkes who are alwayes whining Onely they have their sicknesse for a cause you your manners Would you then have us change our course and rectifie our life by yours who so frequently erre in your counsels and are so indiscreet in your actions and do nothing with judgment or discourse but by custome and appetite Certainly you differ nothing from men carried by a Torrent For they are hurryed where ever the floud pleaseth and you where your Lusts. Soe that you are in his case who as they say ascended the back of a wild horse The horse ran away with him and hee being in full speed could not alight And when one met him and askt whither he rode so fast hee said whithersoever this horse pleaseth Soe should one aske you whither you are carryed your answer will be if you speake truth wheresoever your affections please Particularly sometimes where your pleasure pleaseth sometimes where your ambition sometimes where your vainglory sometimes where your covetousnesse of gaine sometimes also your rage sometimes your feare still some passion or other transports you You then are mounted on the back not of one but of many wild horses by turnes which hurry you upon steeps and precipices yet till you fall you perceive not your danger Whereas my patcht coat which you deride and my hayre and rude accoutrements have the power to create mee a quiet life to do what I list and to converse with whom I list None of the ignorant or unlearned will approach mee for my habits sake Then effeminate men decline mee afarre off onely the best wits modestest men and lovers of vertue resort to mee in whose company I take delight Their gates who are call'd Great men I regard not but looke upon their guilt chaplets and purple as arguments of their pride and laugh at the wearers But that you may know how agreeable my habit is not onely to good men but to the Gods themselves and then laugh if you can consider their Statues whom do they most resemble you or mee goe over all the Temples also both of the Greekes and Barbarians and consider whether their Gods have long hayre and beards like mee or are like you carved and drawne trimd and shaven You shall see most of them clothlesse and naked like mee How dare you then speake of my accoutrements as reproachfull when they become the Gods Iupiter Confuted or a Discourse of Destiny The Speakers Cyniscus
Philocles why most men desire to lye and delight not only to speake fictions themselves but give busie attention to others who do Philocles There be many reasons Tychiades which compell some men to speake untruthes because they see 't is profitable Tychiades This is nothing to the purpose My question concern'd not them who lye for profit for such deserve pardon and some praise who have thereby defeated their enemies and used it as a preservative against dangers like Vlysses who by such slights secured his own life and the return of his companions But I now speake of those who preferre the very lye before truth and take pleasure to busie themselves in fables without any necessary judgment I would fain know what motives such men have to do so Philocles Have you met with any born with such a naturall love to lying Tychiades There are many such Philocles What other motive can they have not to speak truth but their madnesse Else certainly they would never preferre the worst thing before the best Tychiades This is nothing since I can show you many of great discretion and wisedome in other things who yet are Captives to this delusion and love of lyes Nor am I a little troubled to see men of excellent judgment in other things take delight to deceive themselves and others You cannot but know those ancients better then I Herodotus Ctesias the Cnidian and the Poets before them Homer especially All men of great name whose writings are stored with fictions So that they not only deceived their hearers then but have conveyed their lyes to us also in a preserved succession of excellent Poetry and verses I cannot therefore but blush for them as often as they speak of a Schisme in heaven of Prometheus chains the Gyants Insurrection and the whole Tragedy of Hell How Iupiter also for love became a Bull or Swan and how a woman was transform'd into a Fowl or Bear Besides their Pegasus's Chimaera's Gorgon's Cyclop's and the like strange prodigious fables fit only to recreate the mindes of children who yet fear Goblins and Fayries But these are things tolerable in Poets How ridiculous is it that whole Cittyes and Nations should unanimously agree in a publique lye Thus the Cretans are not ashamed to show Iupiters Tombe The Athenians say that Ericthonius grew from the earth and that the first people of Attica sprung from thence like Coleworts Yet these speak much modestlyer then the Thebans who derive themselves from a serpents teeth sown Yet he who takes not such ridiculous fictions for true but upon discreet examination thinks it proper only for a Coroebus or Margites to beleve that Triptolemus was caryed through the Air by winged Dragons Or that Pan came asistant to the Greeks from Arcadia into Marathon Or that Orithyia was ravisht by Boreas is held irreligious and foolish for dissenting from such clear and evident truths So powerfull is a received lye Philocles Yet both Poets Tychiades and Cittyes are thus excusable that the one mingle fictions with their writings the better to take their readers The Athenians Thebans and other countryes make their beginnings more majestick from such fabulous Originalls Besides should all fiction be banisht Greece how many reporters would dye of famine Since none there are patient to hear truth spoken gratis In my judgment therefore they who delight in lyes for no other reason but because they are lyes are most deservedly to be laught at Tychiades You say true I now came from the learned Eucrates where I heard many things fabulous and incredible or rather leaving them in the midst of their discourses impatient of naâ—rations so much beyond beliefe like so many Hobgoblins they scared mee away with their prodigyes and wonders Philocles Aeucrates Tychiades is a man of credit nor can I beleeve that one of so deep a beard of the age of threescore and of such continued study in Philosophy should endure to heare another faign in his presence much lesse that he should offer to faign himself Tychiades You know not my friend what lyes he told how constantly he affirmed them and mingled Oathes with his fictions and produced his children for witnesses So that I looking upon him thought variously sometimes that he was mad and beside himself sometimes that being a cheater he had long scape't my discovery and had carryed about a contemptible Ape in a Lyons shape so absurd were his discourses Philocles In the name of Vesta what were they Tychiadeâ— I long to know what cosenage he could disguise with so long a beard Tychiades I usually at other times when I had leisure Tychiades visited him But to day having occasion to speake with Leontichus who as you know is my intimate friend and being told by his boy that he was early in the morning gone to visit Eucrates who lay sicke as wel to meet Leontichus as to see him of whose sickness I was till then ignorant I went thither Where I found not Leontichus who as they said was newly departed but a crowd of others Among whom was Cleodemus the Peripatetick Dinomachus the Stoick and Ion you know him he that is so admired for Plato's discourses as if he only understood exactly his meaning and were able to be his interpreter to others You see what men I name to you All Sages famed for vertue heads of their severall sectes All venerable and carrying an awfull terrour in their lookes There was present also Antigonus the Physitian sent for I suppose out of necessity of the disease Though Eucrates seemed to be much upon the recovery and his sicknesse not dangerous For the humour was againe fallen into his feet As soon as Eucrates saw me remitting his voice he feebly bad me sit down by him on the bed whom as I entred I heard lowd and shrill I very carefull not to touch his feet and using the accustomed complement that I knew not of his sicknesse but upon the first intimation came post sate neer him The discourse of the company was concerning his disease of which they had in part already spoken and were then going on each severally to prescribe a severall medicine and cure Take up from the ground said Cleodemus with your left hand the tooth of a weesill so kill'd as I said before bind it in a Lyons skinne newly flead then wrap it about your legges and your pain will presently cease 'T is not in a Lyons skinne as I have heard said Dinomachus but in a Virgin Hindes skinne unbuckt And so the receipt is more probable For a Deer is swift and most strong of feet A Lyon indeed is strong and his fatte and right paw and the stiffe haires of his beard are of great vertue if one know how to apply them every one with his proper charm But they promise small cure of the gowte I also once thought said Cleodemus that a Stagges skinne was to be used for his fleetnesâ—e but since a certain wise Lybian hath me taught otherwise and