invited to costly suppers and cannot steale forth by night unespied and muffling himselfe in his gown go over his circle of whore-houses and in the morning cheat his pupils with his lecture of wisedome and take their money These are the things that grieve him Philosopher Art not thou troubled Menippus because thou art dead Menippus How can I who hasten'd to meet death before I was call'd But hark do you not hear a great noise from the earth Mercury Yes Menippus in more then one place 'T is a company met together who make themselves merry at Lampichus death The women also surround and follow his wife and the boyes throw stones at his children Others in Sicyonia clappe Diophantus the Orator for making a funerall Oration upon Crato Damasias mother also with other women make a lamentation for him No body bewailes thee Menippus thou liest unmolested Menippus Not so you shall presently hear the dogges dolefully barking and the Crowes beating their wings when they come to bury me Mercury Thou art a valiant fellow Menippus So we are arrived at the shore go all you straight forward to the Court of Justice I and the Ferry-man will fetch others Menippus Farewell Mercury wee 'l passe on What will become of you my friends you must all be arraigned and they say there are grievous punishments here Wheels and Vultures and restlesse stones every mans life shall be open'd and ript up A Dialogue between Crates and Diogenes Crates DId you know rich Moerichus Diogenes he that was so wondrous rich and came from Corinth who had whole fleets laden with Merchandise whose cousen Aristeas being also very wealthy used to repeat that peece of Homer Do you kill me or let me kill you Diogenes The two that alwaies courted one another Crates Crates Yes for their estates being both alike aged they publish't their wills In which Moerichus if he died first left Aristeas heire to all he had and Aristeas did the like if he died before Moerichus This was recorded They continued their Courtship and strived who should excell in flattery The presagers whether they took their conjectures from the starres or from their dreams as the Chaldaeans do nay Apollo himselfe also sometimes gave the victory to Aristeas sometimes to Moerichus so that the Ballance sometimes inclined to one sometimes to the other Diogenes What was the event Crates 't is a thing worthy my hearing Crates They both died upon one day and their estates descended to Eunomius and Thrasycles their two Kinsmen not at all presaging so great a fortune For sayling from Sicyonia to Cyrrha a contrary winde and tempest tooke them in the middle of their Course and sunk them Diogenes They were rightly served But we in our life time did no such things to one another neither did I ever pray for the death of Antisthenes that I might inherit his staffe though t were a strong one and made of a Crabtree Nor do I think Crates that you wisht me dead that you might inherit my Tubbe or Scrip or two quarts of Lupines Crates I had no need of those things Diogenes neither had you As much of Antistenes descended to you as you had use of and as much from you to me as I had use of which was much more and more pretious then the Persian Monarchy Diogenes What do you meane Crates Wisdome Contentment truth liberty and freedome Diogenes I remember I succeeded Antisthenes in those wealthy vertues and left them amplified to you Crates Others neglected such possessions and never courted us for our estates but had their eyes fasten'd upon Gold Diogenes And good reason For they could receive no such things from us but being torne with pleasure like old rotten purses what ever wisdome or liberty or truth is put into them presently droppes out and runs through the bottome being not able to hold it Resembling Danaus Daughters who powre water into a vessel full of holes But gold they retaine with tooth and naile and all the strength they have Crates We therefore even here enjoy our Treasures they bring but one single penny with them and leave that too with the Ferryman A Dialogue between Alexander Hannibal Minos Scipio Alexander 'T Is fit I be prefer'd before you Lybian being the better man Hannibal No Sir 'T is fit I should be prefer'd Alexander Let Minos judge Minos Who are you Alexander This is Hannibal the Carthaginian I am Alexander the Sonne of Philippe Minos Afore Jove both famous men But about what is your contention Alexander About taking place He saies he was a greater Commander then I. I as all the world knowes not only excell'd this fellow but all men els in Warres Minos Both therefore speak for your selves as well as you can and do you begin Lybian Hannibal I am glad Minos that I have here learnt the Greek Tongue that herein also Alexander may not excell me I say then that those men are most worthy of renown who from small Originals have arrived to great Atchievements and by their own power have made themselves worthy of Empire With a small Troope I made an inrode into Spain at first as Lievetenant under my brother where I was held fit for the greatest imployments and counted the best souldier For there I conquered the Iberians and overcame the Gaules and Hesperians and having march't over great mountaines neer the Po I over ran and demolish't diverse cities wasted all the Champion Countrey of Italy and led my army to the suburbes of Rome and slew so many Romans in one day that we measured their Rings by Bushels and made Bridges over rivers with dead bodies And all this I did neither call'd the sonne of Ammon nor faining my selfe a God nor telling my mothers dreams But confessing my selfe to be a man I fought against tryed experienced Captaines and joyned battle with stout and warlike souldiers not with Medes or Armenians who flie before they are pursued and yeeld the victory to any man of a bold spirit Whereas Alexander succeding his Father in his Kingdome enlarged it indeed but by the current of Fortune who when he had overcome and taken the miserable Darius in the plaines of Arbela contrary to the custome of his Ancestors would have been adored And corrupting himselfe with the Persian Luxury he slew his friends at Banquets and assisted at their murthers I had the rule of my Countrey too yet when they called me home because a great fleet of enemies sailed towards Lybia I speedily obeyed and render'd my selfe a private man and when I was afterwards condemned bore the sentence contentedly And this I did being but a Barbarian and not bred to the Greek Discipline who never read Homer like him nor was instructed by Aristotle but was led by my own excellent Genius And these are the things wherein I pronounce my selfe better then Alexander But if he think himselfe my superiour because he hath encircled his head with a Crown perchance such ornaments may seeme
I were absent to your Relations Toxaris The fourth day then after Dandamis and Amizocas had joyned friendship and confirmed it with a mutuall draught of blood the Sarmatians entred our Country with ten thousand Horse and thirty thousand foote We surprized with their invasion were put into a distraction some vvho made resistance they slevv some they led avvay alive none scap't but such as svvam crosse the River vvhere lay halfe our Army and a great part of our vvaggons For our Commanders I knovv not for vvhat designe had at that time lodged their Troopes on both sides of Tanais They therefore easily made their prey led avvay captive ransackt our Tents tooke our Chariots vvith the men and ravisht our vvives and concubines before our eyes The accident much troubled us But Amizocas as he vvas led captive and manacled loudly invok't his friend and remembred him of the cuppe and blood Which Dandamis no sooner heard but vvithout delay in the sight of all he svvumme over to the enemies vvho cast shovvres of darts at him and had vvith one assault thrust him through had he not cryed out Zizis At the pronuntiation of vvhich vvord they slay no man but receive him as yielding himselfe to be ransomed Being brought to their Generall he demanded his friend and he demanded his ransome and refused to give him liberty but at an excessive price Then said Dandamis all my possessions and fortunes you have taken from mee If naked as I am I can make you satisfaction I am ready Make your demands Take mee if you please in exchange and abuse mee as you list 'T were needlesse replyed the Sarmatian to keepe thee who didst voluntarily yield thy selfe Give something which thou now possessest in ransome of thy friend and take him Dandamis bid him aske what he would He required his eyes which the other presently submitted to be pluck't out Which being done and the Sarmatians allowing it for a ransome hee returned leaning on his friend and swimming with him back againe safely arrived at us This Action struck spirit into the Scythians who now thought themselves not vanquisht since the thing by us most valued was not conquered by the enemy but that our courage and Constancy to our friends was still unsubdued The Sarmatians on the contrary were much terrified when they consider'd what men they were to encounter upon preparation though they then overcame them by surprize 'T was therefore no sooner night but leaving most of their spoyles behind them and burning our Chariots they betooke themselves to flight Amizocas in the meane time disdaining the use of his eyes after his friend had lost his made himselfe blinde And now sightlesse as they are they are observ'd and kept with all honour at the publicke charge of the Scythians I doubt Mnesippus whether you could equall this example though I should allow you to joyne ten more to your five or if unsworne you should have liberty to use what fictions you list I have deliver'd nothing but naked story which in your narration had I know right well been painted with all variety of circumstances How affectionate Dandamis intreaties were how gladly he lost his eyes what he sayd how he return'd and with what acclamations he was received with other passages wherewith you artificially worke on your hearers Heare next the story of Belitta Cousin German to Amizocas equall to the former He beholding Basthes his friend at a hunting pluck't from his horse by a Lyon who infolding him in his pawes began to teare his throat alighting from his horse leapt upon the Lyons backe forcibly rayned backe his head upon himselfe spurr'd and provok't him thrust his fingers into his mouth and laboured with all his strength to free Basthes from his Jawes till the Lyon leaving him halfe dead turned upon Belitta and griping him in his pawes kill'd him who dying had onely the power to thrust his sword into the Lyons paunch and so all three expired Whom we have buried and erected two neighbouring monuments one to the two friends the other just opposite to the Lyon My third relation shall be of the friendship of Macentes Lonchatas and Arsacomas This Arsacomas became enamoured of Mazaea daughter of Leucanor who raigned in Bosphorus at that time when he was sent Embassadour thither to demand the Tribute which the Bosphorans are obliged to pay us but were then behind three months beyond their accustomed day For having sight of Mazaea at a feast a goodly and amiable Lady he was enflamed and much struck with her The businesse of the tribute was now transacted and the King having given him his answer and entertained him at a banquet was ready to give him his dispatch 'T is the custome in Bosphorus that suiters wooe openly at Table where they declare their Quality and to what fortunes they can bring those they desire to marry It happened that there were many suitors then present both Kings and Kings sonnes Among whom were Tigrapates Prince of Themiscyra and Adyrmachus Duke of Maclyna hand many others every wooer having revealed himself and showne upon what confidence he came thither a suiter is to feast with the rest and to sit silent The Feast ended he is to take a cuppe and to powre wine on the Table then to addresse himselfe to the Bride and to enlarge his owne praises by declaring his Pedigree wealth and power Many having perform'd the Ceremony and extoll'd their Dominions estates at last Arsacomas requesting the cup spilt no wine for we hold it reproachfull to the God to spill him but taking it off at a draught give me thy daughter Mazaea O King said he to wife who for my riches and possessions am much to be preferr'd before these whereat Leucanor wondring and knowing Arsacomas to be but a poore vulgar Scythian ask't him How many head of Cattle and wagons have you Arsacomas for herein you Scythians are onely rich I have said he neither waggons nor flocks but I have two rare and excellent friends such as no Scythian hath besides which raised their generall laughter who contemned and thought him drunke In the morning Adyrmachus was prefer'd before the rest who shortly after purposed to carry his Bride into Maeotis to his Machlyans At his returne Arsacomas reported to his two friends how dishonourably he was refused by the King and laught at in the banquet for his poverty Though said he I told him what great Treasures I had in you Lonchates and Macentas and in your friendship which is much more pretious and powerfull then all the Bosphoran forces whereat he laught and dispised us Scythians and gave his daughter in marryage to Adyrmachus the Machlyan for boasting himselfe to have ten golden Cuppes eighty fourseated Chariots besides sheep and oxen in abundance preferring before valiant men heards of Cattle wrought bowles and massie Chariots Two things then my best friends torment mee my love of Mazaea and affront in so publique an assembly where I suppose you
them when they they once begin to know what is best and arrive at such a strength of body as to endure labours All which I will unfold to you that you may be instructed why wee set them those Games and compell them to exercise their bodies not meerly for the Games fake or the glory of the prize for few attaine to it but for a farre more excellent good which hereby growes to the whole Commonwealth and to themselves in particular For there is a more publique prize and crowne proposed to all good Cittizens not made of Pine or wild Olive or Parsly but which comprehends the common happinesse of men namely the private liberty of every one and publique of the State besides riches glory fruition of solemne Assemblies security of friends and whatsoever Blessings else men would aske in their prayers of the Gods All which are woven into the Garland I spoke of and accompany that prize to which those exercisâ—s and labours lead Anachar Why then most venerable Solon having rewards of such value did you tell mee of Apples and Parsly and boughs of wild Olive and Pine Solon Even these Anacharsis will not be of slight consideration to you after you understand what I am about to say For these have the same purpose and end and are but lesser portions of that ample and happy reward and Garland I mentioned But my discourse hath I know not how broke order to begin with things done in the Isthmian Olympick and Nemean Games I therefore since my leisure and your patience meet will dravv things from their first principles and lay for my originall that publique reward to which all these exercises aspire Anachar You shall do well Solon if you use no more digressions by the way And thereby I shall the easier be perswaded not to laugh any more when I see one stalke Majestically crowned with wild Olive or Parsly If you please therefore let us withdraw into yonder shade where wee may sit undisturb'd with the noyse of the exercisers For not to dissemble I am impatient of the scorching Sun-beames striking on my bare head and left my cap at home that I might not be the onely man seene among you in a forraine Habit. Besides now is the time of the yeare that the scorching starre which you call the Dogge raignes and burnes all things and renders the Ayre sultry and enflamed The Sun also now at noone being verticall casts an insupportable raye on our bodies So that I wonder you being an old man do not like me swet nor appeare molested with the heat nor looke about for some cool place to retire to but patiently brook the season Solon Those foolish exercises Anacharsis and frequent tumblings in the mire and open contentions in the Sands do harden and fortifie us against the Sunne nor need we cappes to protect our heads from his beames But let us withdraw I expect not you should consent or bind your whole faith to every thing I speake as Law but when you think I speak amisse presently to contradict and rectifie my discourse For in one of those two I will not faile either to make you of my opinion if you meet with nothing to be contradicted or learne from you how erroneously I have beene the author of those customes For which the whole Citty of Athens will give you ample thankes Nor can you more oblige them then by disciplining and instilling righter opinions into mee which I will not conceale but will presently make them publique and standing in open Assembly thus bespeake the Citty I O yee Athenians have heretofore written Lawes which I thought most necessary for the State But this stranger pointing at you Anacharsis being by Country a Scythian yet a wise man hath otherwise instructed mee and taught mee better principles and institutions Let him therefore be registred your Benefactor and erect his brasen statue among the persons most of honour in the Citty neere Minerva Hereupon assure your selfe Anacharsis the Athenians will not be ashamed to be taught better rules by a Barbarian and a stranger Anachars I heard as much before of you Athenians that you were great scoffers For how should I being a rude wandring man living in a waggon and travailing from one Country to another who never inhabited or till now saw a Citty discourse of policy or teach men borne and bred in an ancient State where for so many successions they have lived under the best forme of government especially you Solon whose study they say it hath alwayes beene to lay the best foundations of a Common-wealth and to know under what Lawes it would most flourish 'T is fit therefore your Authority being a Law-giver should sway mee And therefore if I oppose you where you seeme not to speake reason it shall be that I may be the firmlier instructed See we are now sheltred in this Arbour from the Sunne this coole marble also offers us a pleasant and seasonable seat Begin your discourse then and say why you breed your children to those hard labours or how puddles and exercise can make them gallant men or how dust and tumblings in the mire can advance their vertues This I first desire to know you shall informe mee of other particulars in their place and order Remember I pray withall in the structure of your narration that you speake to a Barbarian which I tell you that you may neither involve nor prolong your discourse For I shall be apt to forget the beginning if your narration be too much lengthened Solon Your admonition will be timelier Anacharsis when you find mee darke in my expressions or digressing from the purpose It shall therefore be in your power to aske what questions by the way and to cut off what superfluities you please But where I am pertinent and rove not from the marke you must give mee leave to be copious and to observe the practice of my Country allow'd of even by the Areopagus where matters of the highest nature are decided For in that Court the Judges being entred and placed to determine of murthers intended wounds and conflagrations Liberty is given both for the accuser and the accused to speake by turnes either themselves or by their Advocates retain'd to plead for them who as long as they speake to the businesse are heard with silence of the Senate But if any shall offer by a preface to render the Judges favourable or to draw pitty or powerfulnesse to his cause which are the ordinary arts of young Oratours presently a Cryer stands forth and enjoynes him silence and suffers him not to trifle before the Senate or to colour the businesse with eloquence but to present it naked to them So I doe constitute you Anacharsis the Areopagite of my present discourse and give you power to heare mee according to the Lawes of my Court and where you find mee over Rhetoricall to silence mee but where I speake agreeable to the businesse to suffer mee to enlarge
to our desires or vvho vvould covet to performe any high Action From hence you may conjecture hovv they vvould behave themelves in Warre armed for the defence of their Countrey Children Wives and Temples who naked for a wreath of wild Olive or Apples are enflamed with such a serious desire of victory How would you be affected should you see our Quayle and Cockfightings and our solemne studies of them perhaps you would laugh especially if you knew that our Custome were built upon a Law which commands all of docile Age to be present and to behold the Fowles contend to their utmost rigour But 't is no argument for Laughter For hereby an insensible contempt of Dangers steales into their soules who mean not to appear more degenerous or cowardly then Cocks And are hence taught not to yield to wounds wearinesse or other difficulties whatsoever Now to make the like trialls of them in Armes and to behold their mutuall slaughters were savage and inhumane 'T were great improvidence also to destroy those valiant men whose courages would be better imployed against an enemy Because then you resolve Anacharsis to see other parts of Greece pray remember when you arrive at Lacedaemon that you laugh not at them also nor think them vainly busied when met together in the Theater at Ball you see them strike one another or assembled in a place surrounded with water and divided into Battalions naked as they are they make a formall Warre upon one another till one side namely the Lycurgians drive the other namely the Herculeans out of the Island or force them backward into the mote whereupon followes peace and no man is afterwards struck especially when you see them whipt at an Altar and streaming with bloud their Fathers and Mothers standing by not at all moved with the Spectacle but threatning them if they shrink under their stripes and intreating them to hold out to their utmost patience and to take courage from their sufferings Hence many die under the scourge disdaining to faint in the presence of their familiars as long as they have life or to favour their bodies To whose honours you shall see statues publickly erected by the Spartans When therefore you see this done think them not madde or that they thus discipline their Children without just cause because no Tyrant is feared or enemy neer For Lycurgus their founder will give you very good reasons why he instituted such cruell customes being neither enemy nor carried by his hatred to the unprofitable destruction of the youth of the state but desirous to render these who were to defend their Country stout and of courage above their sufferings Or suppose Lycurgus should say nothing yet you your selfe know well that none such taken in warre did amidst the tortures of the enemy ever discover any secret of the Spartanes But smiled when they were rackt and strived with their Tormentors who should be first tired Anacharsis Was Lycurgus himselfe Solon in his young daies bred to the Whippe Or without trialls of his own was he only the author of the Discipline Solon He was very old before he wrote his Lawes and came thither from Creet where he had so journed a while because he heard they had the best Lawes having Minus the Sonne of Iupiter for their Lawgiver Anachars Why then Solon do not you imitate Lycurgus and whippe your Children An education wise and worthy of you Solon Because we hold our own native exercises sufficient and think forrain imitation below us Anachars Or rather because you understand I suppose how ridiculous 't is to be whipt naked and to supplicate with erected hands without profit either to him that is vvhipt or to the state If I come to Sparta therefore at a time vvhen they discipline they cannot but forthvvith publiquely stone me for I shall laugh to see them scourged like Theeves Pilferers or such like malefactors For clearly a Citty accustomed to such ridiculous sufferings in my Judgment should be purged with Hellebore Solon Think not generous Sir being alone Orator and solitary and no repliers present you have vanquisht you will meet those at Sparta who will give probable satisfaction Since then I have made you a just report of our Customes which you have entertained with no great approbation Let me not seem unreasonable if I request a brief report from you how you Scythians do breed your children and by what exercises you make them stout and valiant Anacharsis 'T is but Justice Solon I will therefore make you a narration of our Scythian Customes not so glorious perhaps or gratefull to you as your own for we are not so valiant as to strike one another on the cheek yet such as they are you shall hear Till to morrow then if you think fit let us break off our Discourse that in private I may the better recollect what you have said and furnish my memory with what I am to say Here then put we a period to this conference and depart For the evening cometh on A Discourse of sorrowing for the Dead 'T Is worthy the Observation what many in their sorrow do and say and what is said by those that comfort them how they account some accidents intollerable both to those that mourn and to those that are mourned When by Pluto and Proserpina they not at all understand whither they be evill and deplorable or gratefull and desireable to the sufferers but make fashion and custome the rule of their grief For when any body dies this is their manner But first I will tell you what opinions they hold of Death Whereby it shall appear upon what grounds they are thus superfluous The greater part of people whom the wise call Idiots building their faith upon Homer Hesiod and other Fablers and making their Poetry their Law imagine a certain deep place or hell under ground large spacious darke and sunlesse yet so lightsome in appearance as to represent to them every thing there In this vault as one of them told me the story raignes Iupiters brother call'd Pluto honour'd with that stile from the store of Ghosts wherewith he is enricht whose forme of Commonwealth and the life of soules infernall is thus ordered It fell to him by Division and Lot to rule over the Dead which as he receives he binds in unavoidable Chaines and permits none to return but some few once in an Age upon weighty reasons Through his Countrey run Rivers great and terrible from their very Names called Cocytus and Phlegeton and the like And what is yet worse the entrance to it is the Lake of Acheron which first receives all Commers and is not to be past or sayled over without a Ferryman being for depth not to be waded and for breadth not to be swumme over In a word the Ghosts of Fowles departed cannot fly over it In the Descent seated in a Gate of Adamant sits Aeacus the Kings Cousin German who commands the passage Neere him lieth a dogge with
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