the Trebles SYLLA It is neither so nor so ô Fundanus but of all loves do as I desire you for my sake FUNDANUS Since it is so Sylla among many good advertisements of Musonius which come to my minde this is one That whosoever would live safe and in health ought all their life time to looke to themselves and be as it were in continuall Physicke For I am not of this minde neither doe I thinke it convenient that like as Elleborus after it hath done the deed within a sicke mans bodie and wrought a cure is cast up againe together with the maladie so reason also should be sent out after the passion which it hath cured but it ought to remaine still in the mind for to keepe and preserve the judgement For why reason is not to be compared with medicines and purgative drugs but rather to holesome and nourishing meates engendring mildly in the minds of them unto whom it is made familiar a good complexion and fast habit together with some perfect health whereas admonitions and corrections applied or ministred unto passions when they swell and rage and bee in the height of their heat and inflammation hardly and with much adoe worke any effect at all and if they doe it is with much paine Neither differ they in operation from those strong odors which well may raise out of a fit those who are fallen and be subject to the Epilepsy or falling sicknes but they cure not the disease nor secure the patient for falling againe True it is that all other passions of the minde if they be taken in hand at the very point and instant when they are in their highest furie do yeeld in some sort and they admit reason comming from without into the minde for to helpe and succour but anger not onely as Melanthius saith Commits lewd parts and reason doth displace Out of her seat and proper resting place but also turneth her cleane out of house home shutteth and locketh her out of doores for altogether nay it fareth for all the world like to those who set the house on fire over their owne heads and turne themselves and it together it filleth all within full of trouble smoke and confused noises in such sort that it hath neither eie to see nor eare to listen unto those that would might assist and give aide and therefore sooner will a ship abandoned of her master in the mids of the sea and there hulling dangerously in a storme and tempest receive a pilot from some other ship without than a man tossed with the waves of furie and anger admit the reason and remonstrance of a stranger unlesse his owne reason at home were before hand well prepared But like as they who looke for no other but to have their citie besieged gather together and lay up safe their owne store and provision and all things that might serve their turne not knowing nor expecting any aide or reliefe abroad during the siege even so ought we to have our remedies ready and provided long before and the same gathered out of all parts of Philosophie and conveied into the minde for to withstand the rage of choler as being assured of this that when neede and necessitie requireth to use them wee shall not easily admit the same and suffer them to have entrance into us For surely at such a time of extremitie the soule heareth not a word that is said unto it without for the trouble and confusion within unlesse her owne reason be assistant ready both to receive and understand quickly every commandement and precept and also to prompt the same accordingly unto her And say that she doth heare looke what is said unto her after a milde calme and gentle maner that she despiseth againe if any be more instant and do urge her somewhat roughly with those she is displeased and the woorse for their admonitions for wrath being of the owne nature proud audacious unruly and hardly suffering it selfe to be handled or stirred by another much like unto a tyrant attended with a strong guard about his person ought to have something of the owne which is domesticall familiar and as it were in bred together with it for to overthrow and dissolve the same Nowe the continuall custome of anger and the ordinary or often falling into a chafe breedeth in the minde an ill habit called wrathfulnesse which in the end groweth to this passe that it maketh a man cholericke and hasty apt to be mooved at every thing and besides it engendreth a bitter humor of revenge and a testinesse implacable or hardly to be appeased namely when the mind is exulcerate once taking offence at every small occasion quarreling and complaining for toies and trifles much like unto a thin or a fine edge that entreth with the least force that the graver putteth it to But the judgement of reason opposing it selfe streightwaies against such motions and sits of choler and readie to suppresse keepe them downe is not onely a remedit for the present mischiefe but also for the time to come doeth strengthen and fortifie the mind causing it to be more firme and strong to resist such passions when they arise And now to give some instance of my selfe The same hapned unto me after I had twice or thrice made head against choler as befell sometimes to the Thebanes who having ones repelled and put to flight the Lacedaemonians warriors thought in those daies invincible were never in any one battell afterward defeated by them For from that time forward I tooke heart and courage as seeing full well that conquered it might be with the discourse of reason I perceived moreover that anger would not onely be quenched with cold water powred and cast upon it as Aristotle hath reported unto us but also that it would go out and be extinguished were it never so light a fire before by presenting neere unto it some object of feare nay I assure you by a sudden joy comming upon it unlooked for in many a man according as Homer saith choler hath melted dissolved evaporated away And therefore this resolution I made that anger was a passion not incurable if men were willing to be cured for surely the occasions and beginnings thereof are not alwaies great and forcible but we see that a jest a scoffe some sport some laughter a winke of the eie or nod of the head and such small matters hath set many in a pelting chafe even as Lady Helena saying no more but thus unto her niece or brothers daughter at their first meeting Electra virgin long time since I you saw c. drave her in such a fit of choler that therewith she was provoked to breake off her speech with this answer Wise now at last though all too late you are I may well say Who whilom left your husbands house and ran with shame away Likewise Calisthenes mightily offended Alexander with one word who when a great bole of wine went round
honestly Right excellent also are those verses of Euripides as touching them who endure long maladies I hate all those by meat and drink Who to prolong their daies doe think By Magick arte and sorcery The course of death who turne awry Where as they should be glad and faine When as they see it is but vaine Of earth to live upon the face For yoongers then to quit the place As for Merope in pronouncing these manlike and magnanimous words she mooveth the whole theater to this consideration of her speeches when she saith I am not th' onely mother left Who of faire children am bereft Nor yet a widow am I alone Who my deere husband have for gone For others infinite there bee Who have felt like calamitiee Unto this a man may very aptly adjoine these verses also What is become of that magnificence Where is king Craesus with his opulence Or Xerxes he whose monstrous worke it was By bridge the firth of Hellespont to pas To Pluto now they are for ever gon To houses of most deepe oblivion Their goods and their wealth together with their bodies are perished howbeit beleeve me some will say many are mooved perforce to weepe and lament when they see a yoong person die before due time and yet I assure you this hastie and untimely death admitteth so readie consolation that even the meanest and most vulgar comicall poets have seene into the thing and devised good meanes and effectuall reasons of comfort for consider what one of them saith in this case to him that mourned and lamented for the unripe and unseasonable death of a friend of his in these words If thou hadst knowne for certaine that thy friend Who now is dead should have beene blesse day Throughout that course of life which was behind In case the gods had staid his dying day His death had beene vntimely I would say But if long life should bring him greefes incurable To him haply was death than now more favorable Seeing then uncertaine it is whether the issue and end of this life will be expedient unto a man and whether he shall be delivered and excused thereby from greater evils or no we ought not to take ones death so heavilie as if we had utterly lost all those things which we hoped for and promised our selves by his life to enjoy and therefore me thinks that Amphiaraus in a certaine tragedy of a poet did not impertinently and without good purpose comfort the mother of Archemorus who tooke it to the heart and grieved excessively that her sonne a yoong infant died so long before the ordmarie time for thus he saith unto her No man there is of womans body born But in his dates much travell he doth beare Children some die the parents long beforn And are by them enterred then they reare And get yoong babes for those that buried were Lastly themselves into the graves doe fall This is the course this is the end of all Yet men for them doe weepe and sorrow make Whose bodies they on biere to earth doe send Although in truth a way direct they take As eares of corne full ripe which downward bend As some begin so others make an end Why should men grieve and sigh at natures lore What must shall be thinke it not hard therefore In summe every man ought both in meditation within himselfe and in earnest discourse also with others to hold this for certaine that the longest life is not best but rather the most vertuous for neither he that plaieth most upon a lute or citterne is commended for the cunnigest musician no more than he who pleadeth longest is held the most eloquent orator nor he that sitteth continually at the helme is praised for the best pilot but they that doe best deserve the greatest commendation for we are not to measure goodnesse by the length of time but by vertue by convenient proportion and measure of all words and deeds for this is that amiable beautie which is esteemed happie in this world and pleasing to the gods which is the reason that the poets have left unto us in writing that the most excellent worthies or demie gods and such as by their saying were begotten by gods changed this their mortal life and departed before they were old for even he Who was of mightie Jupiter and Phaebus loved best Permitted was not long to live and in old age to rest For this we alwaies see that ordinarily the maturitie of yeeres and the same well emploied is preferred before old age and long life for thus we repute those trees and plants best which in least time beare most frute as also those living creatures which in little space yeeld greatest profit and commodity to mans life furthermore little difference you shall finde betweene short time and long in comparison of eternitie for that a thousand yea and ten thousand yeeres according to Simonides are no more than a very prick or rather the smallest indivisible portion of a prick in respect of that which is infinit We reade in histories that there be certaine living creatures about the land of Pontus whose life is comprised within the compasse of one day for in the morning they are bred by noone they are in their vigor and at best and in the evening they be old and end their lives would not these creatures thinke you if they had the soule of man and that use of reason which we have feele the very same passions that we doe if the like accidents befell unto them certes those that died before noone would minister occasion of mourning and weeping but such as continued all day long should be reputed happy Well our life should be measured by vertue and not by continuance of time so that we are to esteem such exclamations as these foolish and full of vanitie Oh great pittie that he was taken waie so yoong it ought not to have beene that he should die yet and who is he that dare say This or that ought But many things else have beene are and shall be done heereafter which some man might say ought not to have been done howbeit come we are not into this life for to prescribe lawes but rather to obey those lawes which are decreed and set down already by the gods who governe the world and the ordinances of destinie and divine providence But to proceed those who so much deplore lament the dead do they it for love of thēselves or for their sake who are departed if in regard of their own selves for that they find how they are deprived of some pleasure or profit or els disappointed of support in their old age which they hoped to receive by those who are departed surely this were but a small occasion no honest pretence of lamentation for that it seemeth they bewaile not the dead persons but the losse of those cōmodities which they expected from them but in case they grieve in the behalf of those that
trot when they the sports remember Of lovely Venus leape for joy no cares their heart encomber So verily in these solemne pompes processions and sacrifices not onely the aged husband and the old wife the poore man that liveth in low and private estate but also The fat legd wench well under laid Which to the mill bestirs full yerne Her good round stumpes and well appaid To grinde her griest doth turne the querne the houshold hines and servants and the mercenarie day-labourers who get their living by the sweat of their browes doe altogether leape for mirth and joy of heart Kings and princes keepe great cheere in their roiall courts and make certeine roiall and publike feasts for all commers but those which they hold in the sacred temples at sacrifices and solemnities of the gods performed with fragrant perfumes and odoriforous incense where it seemeth that men approch neerest unto the majestie of the gods thinke they even touch them and be conversant with them in all honour and reverence such seasts I say yeeld a more rare joy and singular delectation than any other whereof he hath no part at all who denieth the providence of God for it is not the abundance and plentie of wine there drunke nor the store of roast sodden meat there eaten which yeeldeth joy and contentment at such solemue seasts but the assured hope and full perswasion that God is there present propitious favourable and gracious and that he accepteth in good part the honour and service done unto him For some feasts and sacrifices there be where there is no musicke at all of flutes and hautboies ne yet any chaplets and garlands of flowers used at all but a sacrifice where no god is present like as a temple without a sacred feast or holy banquet is profane unfestivall impious irreligious and without divine inspiration and devotion and to speake better wholly displeasant and odious to himselfe that offereth it for that he counterfeiteth by hypocrisie praiers and adorations onely in a shew and otherwise than he meaneth for feare of the mulutude and pronounceth words cleane contrary unto the opinions which he holdeth in Philosophie when he sacrificeth he standeth by the priest as he would by a cooke or butcher who cutteth the throat of a sheepe and after he hath sacrificed he goes his way home saying thus to himselfe I have sacrificed a sheepe as men ordinarily do unto the gods who have no care and regard of me For so it is that Epicurus teacheth his scholars to set a good countenance of the matter and neither to envie nor incurre the hatred of the common sort when they are disposed to be merie but seeming others in practise and themselves inwardly in being displeased with things done for according as Euenus saith What things are done perforce by us Displeasant be and odious Hereupon it is that they themselves do say and holde That superstitious persons are present at sacrifices and religious ceremonies not for any joy or pleasure they take there but upon a feare that they have and verily herein no difference is betweene them and superstitious folke in case it be so that they doe the same things for feare of the world which the other do for feare of the gods nay rather they be in a worse condition than those in that they have not so much hope of good as they but onely stand alwaies in dread and be troubled in mind lest they should be detected and discovered for abusing and deceiving the world by their counterfeit hypocrisie in regard of which feare they have themselves written books and treatises of the gods and of deitie so composed that they be full of ambiguities and nothing is therein soundly or cleerely delivered they do so maske disguise and cover themselves and all to cloake and hide the opinions which in deed they hold doubting the furie of the people Thus much concerning two sorts of men to wit the wicked and the simple or common multitude now therefore let us consider of a third kinde such as be of the best marke men of worth and honour most devout and religious in deed namely what sincere and pure pleasures they have by reason of the perswasion that they hold of God beleeving firmly that he is the ruler and director of all good persons the authour and father from whom proceed all things good and honest and that it is not lawfull to say or beleeve that he doth evill no more than to be perswaded that he suffereth evill for good he is by nature and looke whatsoever is good conceiveth no envie to any is fearefull of none neither is it moved with anger or hatred of ought for like as heat can not coole a thing but alwaies naturally maketh it hot so that which is good can not hurt or do ill Now anger and favour be farre remote one from the other so is choler and bitter gall much different from mildnesse and benevolence as also malice and frowardnesse are opposite unto bountie meeknesse and humanitie for that the one sort ariseth from vertue and puissance the other from weakenesse and vice Now are we not to thinke that the divine power is given to be wrathfull and gracious alike but to beleeve rather that the proper nature of God is alwaies to be helpfull and beneficiall whereas to be angry and to doe harme is not so naturall but that mightie Jupiter in heaven he descendeth from thence first downe to the earth to dispose and ordeine all things after him other gods of whom the one is surnamed The Giver another Mild and Bounteous a third Protectour or Defender as for Apollo as Pindarus saith Who doth in winged chariot flie Amid the starres in a zure skie To every man in his affaire Reputed is most debonaire Now as Diogenes was wont to say all things are Gods and likewise among friends all things are common and good men are Gods friends even so impossible it is that either he who is devout and a lover of God should not be withall happie or that a vertuous temperate and just man should not likewise be devout and religious Thinke ye then that these who denie the government of Gods providence need other punishment or be not punished sufficiently for their impietie in that they cut themselves from so great joy and pleasure as we finde in our selves we I say who are thus well given and religiously affected toward God The greatest joy that Epicurus stood upon and bare himselfe so boldly were Metrodorus Polyaenus Aristobulus and such and those he was alwaies emploied about either in curing and tending them when they were sicke or in bewailing them after they were dead whereas Lycurgus was honoured even by the prophetesse Pythia in these tearmes A man whom Jupiter did love And all the heavenly saints above As for Socrates who had a familiar spirit about him whom he imagined to speake and reason friendly with him even of kindnesse and good will and
it were of a yong man himselfe who hath wit at wil to colour and excuse himselfe in that escaping out of the armes of his other lovers he is fallen into the hands of a faire yoong and wealthie Ladie Never say so quoth Anthemion nor interteine such an opinion of Bacchon for say that he were not of a simple nature as he is and plaine in all his dealings yet would he never have concealed so much from me considering that he hath made me privie to all his secrets and knoweth full well that in these matters I was of all other most ready to second and set forward the sute of Ismenodora But a hard matter it is to withstand not anger as Heraclitus saith but love for whatsoever it be that it would have compasse the same it will though it be with the perill of life though it cost both goods and reputation For setting this thing aside was there ever in all our citie a woman more wise sober and modest than Ismenodora when was there ever heard abroad of her any evill report and when went there so much as a light suspition of any unhonest act out of that house Certes we must thinke and say that she seemes to have beene surprised with some divine instinct supernaturall and above humane reason Then laughed Pemptides You say even true quoth he there is a certeine great maladie of the bodie which thereupon they call sacred is there any marvell then that the greatest and most furious passion of the minde some do terme sacred and divine But it seemes unto me that it fares with you here as I saw it did sometime with two neighbours in Aegypt who argued debated one with another upon this point that whereas there was presented before them in the way as they went a serpent creeping on the ground they were resolved both of them that it presaged good was a luckie signe but either of them tooke challenged it to himselfe for even so when I see that some of you draw love into mens chambers and others into womens cabinets as a divine and singular good thing I nothing wonder thereat considering that this passion is growen to such power and is so highly honoured that even those who ought to clip the wings thereof and chace it from them of all sides those be they that magnifie and 〈◊〉 it most And verily hitherto have I held my peace as touching this matter in question for that I saw the debate and controversie was about a private cause rather than any publicke matter but now that I see how Pisias is departed I would gladly heare and know of you whereat they aimed and tended who first affirmed that Love was a God When Pemptides had propounded this question as my father addressed himselfe and began to make his answere there came another messenger in place whom Ismenodora had sent from the citie for to bring Anthemion with him for that the trouble and tumult in maner of a sedition grew more and more within the towne by occasion that the two masters of the publicke exercises were at some difference one with another whiles the one was of this minde that Bacchon was to be redemanded and delivered the other againe thought that they were to deale no farther in the matter So Anthemion arose incontinently and went his way with all speed and diligence possible and then my father calling to Pemptides by name and directing his speech unto him You seeme Pemptides quoth he in my conceit to touch a very 〈◊〉 and nice point or rather indeed to stirre a string that would not be stirred to wit the opinion and 〈◊〉 that we have as touching the gods in that you call for a reason and demonstration of them in particular For the ancient faith and beleefe received from our ancients in the country where we are borne is sufficient than which there can not be said or imagined a more evident argument For never was this knowledge found By wit of man or sense profound But this tradition being the base and foundation common to all pietie and religion if the certitude and credit thereof received from hand to hand be shaken and mooved in one onely point it becommeth suspected and doubtfull in all the rest You have heard no doubt how Euripides was coursed and troubled for the beginning of his Tragoedie Menalippe in this maner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Jupiter whose name I know By heare-say onely and no mo And verily he had a great confidence in this Tragoedie being as it should seeme magnificently and with exquisit elegancie penned but for the tumultuous murmuring of the people 〈◊〉 changed the foresaid verses as now they stand written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. God Jupiter which name in veritie Doth sort full well to his 〈◊〉 And what difference is there by our words and disputation betweene calling the opinion which we 〈◊〉 of Jupiter and of 〈◊〉 into question and making doubt of Cupid or Love For it is not now of late and never before that this God begins to call for altars or to challenge sacrifices neither is he a stranger come among us from some barbarous superstition like as certeine Attae and I wot not what Adonides and Adonaei brought in by the meanes of some halfe-men or mungrell Hermaphrodites and odde women and thus being closely crept in hath met with certeine honours and worships farre unmeet for him in such sort as he may well be accused of bastardice and under a false title to have beene enrolled in the catalogue of the gods for my good friend when you heare Empedocles saying thus And equall to the rest in length and bredth was Amitie But see in 〈◊〉 thou it beholde not with deceitfull eie you must understand him that he writeth thus of Love for that this God is not visible but apprehended onely by opinion and beleefe among other Gods which are most ancient Now if of all them in particular you seeke for a proofe and demonstration laying your hands upon echtemple and making a sophisticall triall by every altar you shall find nothing void and free from calumniation and envious slander for not to go farre off marke but these verses But Venus uneth can I see How great a goddesse she should be Of Cupid she the mother is And she alone that Love doth give Whose children we you wot wel this Are all who on the earth do live And verily Empedocles called her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say fertile or giving life Sophocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say fruitfull both of them using most fit and pertinent attributes Howbeit this great and admirable worke to wit Generation is wrought principally and directly by Venus but collaterally and as an accessary by Love which if love be present is pleasant acceptable contrariwise if love be away and not assistent thereto surely the act thereof remaineth altogether not expetible dishonorable without grace and
that quickly and with speed she might passe the darke place and bring away with her the soules of the blessed which make haste and crie because all the while they are within the shade they can not heare any more the 〈◊〉 of celestiall bodies and withall underneath the soules of the damned which are punished lamenting wailing and howling in this shadow are presented unto them And this is the reason that in the eclipses of the Moone many were wont to ring basons and 〈◊〉 of brasse and to make a great noise and clattering about these soules And affrighted they are to beholde that which they call the face of the Moone when they approch neere unto it seeming to be a terrible and fearefull sight whereas it is no such matter But like as the earth with us hath many deepe and wide gulfes as namely one here to wit the Mediterranean sea lying betweene Hercules pillars and so running into the land hither to us and another without that is to say the Caspian sea and that also of the red sea So there be these deepe concavities and vallies of the Moone and those in number three whereof the greatest they call The hole or gulfe of 〈◊〉 wherein the soules do punish and are punished according as they either did or suffred hurt whiles they were here the other two be small to wit the very passages whereby the soules must go one while to the tract of the Moone lying toward heaven and another while to that which 〈◊〉 the earth And verily that which looketh to heaven they call the Elysian field whereas the other earth-ward to us the field of Proserpina not her I meane who is under the ground just against us Howbeit the Daemons do not converse alwaies in the Moone but descend other-whiles hither below for the charge and superintendance of oracles there be assistant likewise to the highest mysteries and ceremonies and those they do celebrate having an observant eie to wicked deeds which they punish and withall ready they are to preserve the good in perils 〈◊〉 of warre as the sea In which charge and function if they themselves commit any fault and heere upon earth do ought either by injust favour or envie they feele the smart thereof according to their merits for thrust downe they are againe to the earth and sent with a witnesse into mens bodies But of the number of the better sort are they who served and accompanied Saturne as they themselves report such as in times past also were the Idaei Dactyli in Crete the Corybants in Phrygia those of 〈◊〉 in the city of Lebadia named Trophoniades besides an infinit number of others in sundry parts of the earth habitable whose names temples and honors remaine continue unto this day but the powers puissances of some do faile and are quite gone as being translated into another place making a most happy change which translation some obteine sooner other later after that the understanding is separate from the soule and separated it is by the love and desire to enjoy the image of the Sunne by which that divine blessed and desirable beautie which every nature after divers sorts seeketh after shineth For even the verie Moone turneth about continually for the love of the Sunne as longing to companie and converse with him as the very fountaine of all fertilitie Thus the nature of the soule is spent in the Moone reteining onely certeine prints marks and dreames as it were of her life and hereof thinke it was well and truely said The soule made haste as one would say Like to a dreame and flew away which it doth not immediatly upon her separation from the bodie but afterwards when she is alone by herselfe and severed from the understanding And in trueth of all that ever Homer wrote most divinely he seemeth to have written of those who are departed this life be among the spirits beneath these verses Next him I knew of Hercules the strength and image plaine Or semblance for himselfe with gods immortall did remaine For like as every one of us is not ireand courage nor feare nor yet lust no more than flesh or humours but that indeed whereby we discourse and understand even so the soule it selfe being cast into a forme by the understanding and giving a forme unto the bodie and embracing it on every side expresseth and receiveth a certeine impression and figure so as albeit she is distinctly separate both from understanding and also from the bodie she reteineth still the forme and semblance a long time insomuch as well she may be called an image And of these soules as I have already said the Moone is the element because soules doe resolve into her like as the bodies of the dead into the earth As for such as have bene vertuous and honest and which loved a studious and quiet life imploied in philosophie without medling in troublesome affaires soone are resolved for that being left and rid of understanding and using no more corporall passions they vanish away incontinently but the soules of ambitious persons and such as are busied in negotiations of amorous folke also given to the love of beautifull bodies and likewise of wrathfull people calling still to remembrance those things which they did in their life even as dreames in their sleepe walke wandring to and fro like to that ghost of Endymion for considering their inconstancie and aptnesse to be over subject unto passions the same transporteth and plucketh them from the Moone unto another generation not suffering them quietly there to passe and vanish away but stil allureth and calleth them away for now is there nothing small staied quiet constant and accordant after that being once abandoned of the understanding they come to be seized with the passions of the body so that of such soules void of reason came and were bred afterwards the Tityi and Typhons and namely that Typhon who in times past by force and violence seized the city Delphos and overturned up-side-downe the sanctuarie of the oracle there most ungracious imps destitute of all reason and understanding and abandoned to all passions upon a proud spirit and violence wherewith they were pusfed up Howbeit at length after long time the Moone receiveth the soules and composeth them the Sunne also inspiring into them againe and sowing in their vitall facultie understanding maketh them new soules yea and the earth in the third place giveth them a new bodie for nothing doth she give after death of all that which she taketh to generation And the sunne receiveth nothing of others but taketh againe that understanding which he gave But the Moone giveth and receiveth joineth and disjoineth uniteth and separateth according to her divers faculties and powers of which the one is named Ilithyia to wit that which joineth another Artonius or Diana which parteth and diuideth Of the three fatall sisters or destinies she whom they name Atropos is placed within the Sunne and giveth the
Aristonicus among others who in a certeine battell running in to rescue and succour him fought manfully and there was slaine and fell dead at his foot Alexander heereupon caused his statue to be made in brasse and to be set up in the temple of Apollo Pythius holding a lute in the one hand and a launce in the other In so doing he not onely honored the man but also Musicke as being an art which breedeth animositie in mens hearts filling those with a certeine ravishment of spirit and couragious heart to fight valiantly who are naturally framed and bred up to action for even himselfe one day when Antigenides sounded the battell with his flute and singing thereto a militarie song called Harmation was thereat so much mooved and set in such an heat by his warlike tune that he started out of the place where he sat and caught up the armes that hung up thereby ready to brandish them and to fight bearing witnesse thereby to the Spartans chaunting thus Sweetly to play on Lute and Harpe To sing thereto as pleasantly Beseemeth those that love at sharpe To fight it out right valiantly There lived also in the time of Alexander Apelles the Painter and Lysippus the Imager the former of these two painted Alexander holding a thunderbolt in his hand but so exquisitely to the life and so like unto himselfe that it was a common saying Of two Alexanders the one king Philips sonne was invincible the other of Apelles drawing was inimitable As for Lysippus when he had cast the first image of Alexander with his face up toward heaven expressing thereby the very countenance of Alexander who was woont so to looke and withall to turne his necke somewhat at one side there comes me one and setteth over it this epigram alluding very pretily to the said portraicture This image heere that stands in brasse all bright The portraict is of Alexander right Up toward heaven he both his eies doth cast And unto Jove seemes thus to speake at last Thou Jupiter in heav'n maist well be bold Mine is the earth by conquest I it hold And therefore Alexander gave commandement that no other brasse founder should cast his image but only Lysippus for he alone it was as it should seeme that had the feat to represent his naturall disposition in brasse and to expresse his vertue answerable to the lineaments and proportion of his shape As for others howsoever they might be thought to resemble the bending of his necke the cheerefull cast amiable volubility of his quicke eie yet could they never observe and keepe that virilitie of visage and lion-like looke of his In the ranke of other rare workmen may be ranged a famous Architect named Stasicrates who would not seeme to busie himselfe in making any thing that was either gallant pleasant or delectable and gracious to the eie but intended some great matter and such a piece of worke and of that argument as would require no lesse then the riches and treasure of a king to furnish and set foorth This fellow comes up to Alexander being in the high countries and provinces of his dominion where before him he found fault with all his images as well painted and engraven as cast and pourtraied any way saying they were the hand-works of base minded and mechanicall artificers But I quoth he if it may please your majestie know how and doe intend to found and establish the similitude of your roiall person in a matter that is living and immortall grounded upon eternall roots the weight and ponderositie whereof is immooveable and can not be shaken For the mountaine Athos quoth he in Thracia whereas it is greatest and riseth to a most conspicuous height where the broad plaines and high tops are proportionate to it selfe every waie having in it members lims joints distances and intervals resembling for all the world the forme of mans body may be wrought and framed so as it would serve verie well both to be called and to be indeed the statue of Alexander and worthy his Greatnesse the foote and base whereof shall touch the sea in one of the hands comprehending and holding a great citie peopled and inhabited by an infinit number of men and in the right a runing river with a perpetuall current which it powreth as it were out of a great pot into the sea as for all these petty images and puppets made of gold brasse and ivorie these wodden tables with pictures away with them all as little paltrey portracts which may be bought and sold theefe-stollen and melted defaced and marred Alexander having heard the man speake highly praised him as admiring his hautie minde his bold courage the conceit of his extraordinary invention Good fellow quoth he let Athos alone and permit it to stand a Gods name in the place where it doth and never alter the forme of it it sufficeth that it is the monument of the outragious pride insolent vanitie and folly of one king already and as for me the mountaine Caucasus the hilles Emodi the river Tanais and the Caspian sea shall be the images and statues to represent my acts But set the case I pray you that such a piece of worke had beene made finished as this great architect talked of is there any man thinke you seeing it in that forme disposition and fashion that would thinke it grew so by chance adventure No I warrant you What say we now to his image called Ceraunophoros that is to say the thunder-boltbeare what say we to another named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say leaning upon a launce Can not the greatnesse majestie of such a statue be performed by fortune without the artificial hand of man howsoever it conferre and allow thereto great store of gold brasse ivorie and all maner of rich precious matter and shall we thinke it then possible that a great personage nay rather the greatest that ever the world saw was made perfected by fortune without vertue and that it was fortune onely who made for him that provision of armes of money of men cities and horses all which things bring perill to those that know not how to use them well and neither honour and credit nor puissance but rather argue their seeblenesse and impuissance For Antisthenes said very well and truely that we should wish unto our enemies all the good things in the world save onely valour and fortitude for by that meanes they be not theirs who are in present possession of them but become theirs who are the conquerors And this is the reason men say that nature hath set upon the head of an Hart for his defence the most heartlesse and cowardly beast that is woonderfull hornes for bignesse and most dangerous by reason of their sharpe and branching knagges teaching us by this example that bodily strength and armour serveth them in no stead who have not the courage and resolution to stand their ground and fight it out And even
counseld me to lie The old mans curse that I might have perswaded so did I. And in another place O Iupiter whom men do father call thou art a God most mischievous of all Let not a yoong man in any wise be accustomed to praise such speeches neither let him seeke any colourable pretenses to cloke and excuse wicked and infamous acts he must not be studious and cunning in such inventions to shew therein his subtilitie and promptnesse of wit But rather he is to thinke thus that Poesie is the verie imitation of maners conditions and lives yea and of men such as are not altogither perfect pure and irreprehensible but in whom passions false opinions and ignorance beare some sway yet so as many times by the dexteritie and goodnesse of nature they be reformed and disposed to better waies When a yoong man then is thus prepared and his understanding so framed that when things are well done and said his heart is mooved and affected therewith as by some heavenly instinct and contrariwise not well pleased with lewd deeds or words but highly offended thereat certes such instruction of his judgement will be a meanes that he shal both heare and read any Poemes without hurt and danger But he that admireth al applieth himselfe so that he embraceth every thing he I say that commeth with a judgement devoted and enthralled to those magnificent and heroicke names like unto those disciples who counterfeited to be crump shouldred and buncht backe like their master Plato or woulds needs stut stammer and maffle as Aristotle did surely such a one will take no great heed but soone apprehend and interteine many evill things Moreover this yoong beginner of ours ought not to be affected after a timorous and superstitious manner as they are who being in a temple feare and dread every thing and are readie to worship and adore whatsoever they see or heare but boldly and confidently to pronounce and say as occasion serveth This is ill done or not decently spoken no lesse than to give his acclamation and consent to that which is well and seemely either said or done As for example Achilles seeing the soldiors how they fell sicke daily in the campe and not well appaid that the war was thus drawen out in length especially to the hinderance of his owne honor being a martiall man of great prowesse and renowne in the field assembled a counsell of war and called the Greeks together But as he was a man otherwise well seene in the skill of Physick perceiving by the ninth day past which commonly is criticall and doth determine of maladies one way or other by course of nature that it was no ordinary disease nor proceeding from usuall causes stood up to make a speech not framing himselfe to please and gratifie the common people but to give counsell unto the king himselfe in this maner I thinke we must all is done ô Agamemnon Leege Returne againe without effect to Greece and leave our seege This was well and wisely said these were modest and temperate words becomming his person But when the prophet or soothsaier said that he feared much the wrath and indignation of the mightiest man and soveraigne commander of al the Greeks he answered then never a wise or sober word for sworne a great oth that no man should be so hardy as to lay hand on the said prophet so long as he remained alive he added moreover and said full unseemely No if thou should'st both meane and name King Agamemnon I vow the same Shewing plainly by these words what little account he made of his prince and how he contemned souereigne authoritie nay he overpassed himselfe more yet and proceeded farther in heat of choler to lay hand upon his sword yea and to draw it foorth with a full purpose to kill the king which was done of him neither well for his owne honour nor wisely for the good of the State But repenting himselfe immediately Into the skabbard then anon he puts his doughty sword Minerva gave him that advise and he obeid her word Herein againe he did well and honestly for having not the power to extinguish and quench his choler quite yet he delaied it well and repressed it yea and brought it under the obeysance of reason before it brake out into any excessive outrage which had beene remedilesse Semblably Agamemnon himselfe for that which he did and said in the assembly of Counsell he was woorthy to be skorned and laughed at But in the matter concerning the Damosell Chryseis he shewed more gravitie and princely Majestie than in like case Achilles did for he when the faire Briseis was taken from him and led away Sat weeping in great agonie Retir'd apart from companie But Agamemnon himselfe in person conducting her as farre as to the ship delivering up and sending away to her owne father the woman whom a little before he said that he loved more deerely than his owne espoused wife did nothing unfitting himselfe or like a passionate lover Againe Phoenix being cursed by his father and betaken to all the hellish flends for lying with his concubine breaketh out into these words I minded once with sword of mine my fathers blood to she ad But that some god my rage represt and put this in my head How men would cry much shame on me and namely Gracians all With one voice me a parricide or Father killer call Which verses in Homer Aristarchus was afraid to let stand and therefore dashed them out But verily they serve in that place fitly for the purpose namely when Phoenix instructeth Achilles what a violent passion anger is and how there is no outrage but men will dare and do in the heat of choler when they will not be guided with reason or directed by the counsell of those that would appease them For he bringeth in Meleager also who was angrie with his citizens how be it afterwards pacified In which example as he wisely blameth and reprooveth such passious so he praiseth and commendeth as a good and expedient thing not to be led and carried away therewith but to resist and conquer them and to take up betime and repent True it is that hitherto in these places alreadie cited there is a manifest difference to be observed but where there is some obscurity as touching the true sense and meaning of a sentence we must teach a yoong man to stay himsselfe there and pause upon the point that he may be able to distinguish in this manner If Nausicaa upon the first sight of Vlisses a meere stranger falling into the same passion of love with him as Calypso did and seeking nothing but wanton pleasure as one living daintily and being now ripe and readie for marriage utter foolishly these and such like words and that before her waiting maids O that it were hap so brave a Knight to wed who hath my hart O that he would with me vouchsafe for to remaine and not depart Her boldnesse and
his actions wholly to the humor of another is never simple uniforme nor like himselfe but variable and changing alwaies from one forme to another much like as water which is powred out of one vessel into another even as it runneth forth taketh the forme and fashion of that vessell which receiveth it And herein he is cleane contrarie to the ape for the ape as it should seeme thinking to counterfeit man by turning hopping and dauncing as he doth is quickly caught but the flatterer whiles he doth imitate and counterfeit others doth entice and draw them as it were with a pipe or call into his net and so beguileth them And this he doeth not alwaies after one maner for with one he daunceth and singeth with another he wil seeme to wrestle or otherwise to exercise the bodie in feats of activitie if he chance to meet with a man that loveth to hunt and to keepe hounds him he will follow hard at heeles setting out a throat as loud in a maner as Hippolytus in the Tragedie Phoedra crying So ho this is my joy and onely good With crie to lure with tooting horne to winde By leave of gods to bring into the wood My hounds to rouse and chase the dapple Hinde And yet hath he nothing to do at all with the wilde beasts of the forrest but it is the hunter himselfe whom hee laieth for to take within his net and toile And say that hee light upon a yoong man that is a student given to learning then you shall see him also as deepe poring upon his booke and alwaies in his Studie you shall have him let his beard grow downe to his foot like a grave Philosopher who but he then in his side thred-bare students cloake after the Greeke fashion as if he had no care of himselfe nor joy of any thing els in the world not a word then in mouth but of the Numbers Orthangles and Triangles of Plato If peradventure there fall into his hands an idle do-nothing who is rich withall and a good fellow one that loveth to eat and drinke and make good cheere That wily Fox Vlysses tho His ragged garments will off do off goes then his bare and overworne studying gowne his beard he causeth to be cut shorne as neere as a new mowen field in harvest when all the corne is gone no talke then but of flagons bottels pots and cooling pans to keepe the wine cold nothing now but merie conceits to moove laughter in everie walking place and gallerie of pleasure Now hee letteth flie srumpes and scoffes against schollers and such as studie philosophie Thus by report it fell out upon a time at Syracusa For when Plato thither arrived and Denys all on a sodaine was set upon a furious fit of love to Philosophie his palace and whole court was full of dust and sand by reason of the great recourse thither of Students in Geometrie who did nothing but draw figures therein But no sooner had Plato incurred his displeasure and was out of favor no sooner had Denys the tyrant bidden Philosophie farewell given himselfe againe to belly-cheere to wine vanities wantonnesse and all loosenesse of life but all at once it seemed the whole court was transformed likewise as it were by the sorcerie and enchantment of Cyrces into hatred and detestation of good letters so as they forgat all goodnesse and betooke themselves to folly and sottishnesse To this purpose it were not amisse for to alledge as testimonies the fashions and acts of some notorious flatterers such I meane as have governed Common-welths and affected popularitie Among whom the greatest of all other was Alcibiades who all the while he was at Athens used to scoffe and had a good grace in merrie conceits pleasant jests he kept great horses and lived in jollitie most gallantly with the love and favor of all men when he sojourned in Sparta he went alwaies shaven to the bare skin in an overworne cloke or else the same very course and never washed his bodie but in cold water Afterwards being in Thrace he became a soldior and would carrouse and drinke lustily with the best He came no sooner to Tisaphernes in Asia but he gave himselfe to voluptuousnes and pleasure to riot wantonnes and superfluous delights Thus throughout the whole course of his life he wan the love of all men by framing himselfe to their humors and fashions wheresoever he came Such were not Epaminondas and Agesilaus For albeit they conversed with many sorts of people travailed divers cities and saw sundry fashions and maners of strange nations yet they never changed their behavior they were the same men still reteining evermore a decent port which became them in their apparel speech diet and their whole cariage and demeanor Plato likewise was no changeling but the same man at Syracuasa that he was in the Academie or College at Athens and looke what his cariage was before Dion the same it was and no other in Denys his court But that man may very easily finde out the variable changes of a flatterer as of the fish called the Pourcuttle who will but straine a little and take the paines to play the dissembler himselfe making shew as if he likewise were transformed into divers and sundry fashions namely in misliking the course of his former life and sodainly seeming to embrace those things which he rejected before whether it be in diet action or speech For then he shall soone see the flatterer also to be inconstant and not a man of himselfe taking love or hatred to this or that joying or greeving at a thing upon any affection of his owne that leadeth him thereto for that he receiveth alwaies as a mirrour the images of the passions motions and and lives of other men If you chance to blame one of your friends before him what will he say by and by Ah well You have found him out I see now at last though it were long since I wis I liked him not long a great while ago Contrariwise if your minde alter so that you happen to fall a praising of him againe Very well done will he say and binde it with an oth I con you thanke for that I am very glad for the mans sake and I beleeve no lesse of him Do you breake with him about the alteration of your life and beare him in hand that you meane to take another course as for example to give over State affaires to betake your selfe to a more private and quiet life Yea marie quoth he and then you do well it is more than high time so to do For long since we should have beene disburdened of these troubles so full of envie and perill Make him beleeve once that you will change your copie and that you are about to shake off this idle life and to betake your selfe unto the Common-weale both to rule and also to speake in publike place you shall have him to sooth you up and second
uses to make the best of them the one finding good in barren and fruitlesse plants the other in wilde and savage beasts The water of the sea is not potable but brackish and hurtful unto us howbeit fishes are nourished therewith and it serveth mans turne also to transport passengers as in a waggon into all parts and to carrie whatsoever a man will When the Satyre would have kissed and embraced fire the first time that ever he saw it Prometheus admonished him and said Thou wilt bewaile thy goats-beard soone If thou it touch t' will burne anon but it yeeldeth light and heat and is an instrument serving all arts to as many as know how to use it well semblably let us consider and see whether an enemy being otherwise harmefull and intractable or at least-wise hard to be handled may not in some sort yeeld as it were a handle to take hold by for to touch use him so as he may serve our turne and minister unto us some cōmodity For many things there are besides which be odious troublesome comberous hurtfull and contrarie unto those that have them or come neere unto them and yet you see that the verie maladies of the bodie give good occasion unto some for to live at rest and repose I meane sequestred from affairs abroad the travailes presented unto others by fortune have so exercised them that they are become thereby strong and hardy and to say more yet banishment and losse of goods hath beene the occasion unto divers yea and a singular means to give themselves to their quiet studie to philosophie like as Diogenes and Crates did in times past Zeno himselfe when newes came unto him that his ship wherein he did venture and trafficke was split and cast away Thou hast done well by me fortune quoth he to drive me againe to my scholars weed For like as those living creatures which are of a most sound and healthfull constitution have besides strong stomacks are able to concoct digest the serpents scorpions which they devoure nay some of them there be which are nourished of stones scales and shels converting the same into their nutriment by the strength and vehement heat of their spirits whereas such as be delicate tender soft and crasie are ready to cast and vomit if they taste a little bread onely or doe but sip of wine even so foolish folke doe marre and corrupt even friendship and amitie but those that are wise can skill how to use enmities to their commoditie and make them serve their turnes First and formost therefore in my conceit that which in enmitie is most hurtfull may turne to be most profitable unto such as be warie and can take good heed and what is that you will say Thine enimie as thou knowest well enough watcheth continually spying and prying into all thine actions he goeth about viewing thy whole life to see where he may finde any vantage to take hold of thee and where thou liest open that he may assaile and surprise thee his sight is so quicke that it pierceth not onely through an oke as Lynceus did or stones and shels but also it goeth quite through thy friend thy domesticall servants yea and every familiar of thine with whom thou daily doest converse for to discover as much as possibly he can what thou doest or goest about he soundeth and searcheth by undermining and secret waies what thy desseignes purposes be As for our friends it chaunceth many times that they fall extreme sicke yea and die thereupon before we know of it whiles we defer and put off from day to day to go and visit them or make small reckoning of them but as touching our enimies we are so observant that we curiously enquire hearken even after their very dreames the diseases the debts the hard usage of men to their owne wives and the untoward life betweene them are many times more unknowen unto those whom they touch and concerne than unto their enimie but aboue all he sticketh close unto thy faults inquisitive he is after them and those he traceth especially and like as the gaies or vultures flie unto the stinking sent of dead carions and putrified carcases but they have no smell or sent at all of bodies sound and whole even so those parts of our life which are diseased naught and ill affected be they that move an enemie to these leape they in great haste who are our ill willers these they seize upon and are ready to worry and plucke in peeces and this it is that profiteth us most in that it compelleth us to live orderly to looke unto our steps that we tread not awry that we neither do or say ought inconsiderately or rashly but alwaies keepe our life unblameable as if we observed a most strict and exquisite diet and verily this heedfull caution repressing the violent passions of our minde in this sort and keeping reason at home within dores engendreth a certeine studious desire an intention and will to live uprightly and without touch for like as those cities by ordinary warres with their neighbour cities and by continuall expeditions and voiages learning to be wise take a love at length unto good lawes and sound government of state even so they that by occasion of enmity be forced to live soberly to save themselves from the impuration of idlenesse and negligence yea and to do everie thing with discretion and to a good and profitable end through use and custome shall be brought by little and little ere they be aware unto a certeine setled habit that they cannot lightly trip and do amisse having their manners framed in passing good order with the least helping hand of reason and knowledge beside for they who have evermore readily before their eies this sentence This were alone for Priamus and his sonnes likewise all Oh how would they rejoice at heart in case this should befall certes would quickly be diverted turned and withdrawne from such things whereat their enimies are wont to joy and laugh a good see we not many times stage plaiers chanters musicians and such artificers in open threaters who serve for the celebration of any solemnitie unto Bacchus or other gods to play their parts carelessely to come unprovided and to carie themselves I know not how negligently nothing forward to shew their cunning and doe their best when they are by themselves alone and no other of their owne profession in place but if it chance that there be emulation and contention betweene them and other concurrents who shall do best then you shall see them not onely to come better prepared themselves but also with their instruments in very good order then shall you perceive how they will bestir themselves in trying their strings in tuning their instruments more exactly in fitting every thing about their flutes and pipes and assaying them Hee then who knoweth that he hath an enimie ready and provided to be the concurrent in
importing a generall striking out of all debts and a cancelling of bonds he imparted this desseigne and purpose of his to some of his friens who did him a shrewd turne and most unjustly wrought him much mischiefe for upon this inkling given unto them they made haste to take up and borrow all the money they could as farre as their credite would extend not long after when this edict or proclamation aforesaid concerning the annulling of all debts was come foorth and brought to light these frends of his were found to have purchased goodly houses and faire lands with the monies which they had levied Thus Solon was charged with the imputation of doing this wrong together with them when as himselfe indeede was wronged and abnused by them Agesilaus also shewed himselfe in the occasions and sutes of his frends most weake and feeble minded more iwis than in any thing else resembling the horse Pegasus in Euripides Who shrunke full low and yeelded what he could His backe to mount more than the rider would and helping his familiar frends in all their distresses more affectionatly and willingly than was meet and reason for whensoever they were called into question in justice for any transgressions he would seeme to be privie and partie with them in the same Thus hee saved one Phaebidas who was accused to have surprised secretly the castle of Thebes called Ladmia without commission and warrant alledging in his defence that such enterprises ought to be executed by his owne proper motive without attending any other commandement Moreover he wrought so with his countenance and favour that one Ephodrias who was attaint for an unlawfull and heinous act and namely for entring by force and armes with a power into the countrey of Attica what time as the Athenians were allied and confederate in amitie with the Lacedaemonians escaped judgement and was found unguiltie which he did being wrought thereto and mollified as it were by the amourous praiers of his sonne Likewise there is a missive of his found and goeth abroad to be seene which he wrote unto a certaine great lord or potentate in these tearmes If Nicias have not trespassed deliver him for justice sake if he have transgressed deliver him for my sake but howsoever it be deliver him and let him go But Phocion contrariwise would not so much as assist in judgement Charillus his own sonne in law who had married his daughter when he was called into question and indited for corruption taking money of Harpalis but left him and departed saying In all causes just and reasonable I have made you my allie and wil imbrace your affinitie in other cases you shall pardon me Timoleon also the Corinthian after that he dealt what possibly he could with his brother by remonstrance by praiers and intreaty to reclaime and disswade him from being a tyrant seeing that he could doe no good on him turned the edge of his sword against him and joined with those that murdered him in the end for a magistrate ought to friend a man and stand with him not onely with this gage as farre as to the altar that is to say untill it come to the point of being forsworne for him according as Pericles one day answered to a friend of his but also thus farre forth onely as not to doe for his sake any thing contrary to the lawes against right or prejudicial to the common-weale which rule being neglected and not precisely observed is the cause that bringeth great losse and ruine to a state as may appeare by the example of Phoebidas and Sphodrias who being not punished according to their deserts were not the least causes that brought upon Sparta the unfortunate warre and battell at Leuctrae True it is that the office of a good ruler and administratour of the weale-publicke doth not require precisely and force us to use everity and to punish every slight and small trespasse of our friends but it permitteth us after we have looked to the main-chance and secured the State then as it were of a surplussage to succour our friends to assist and helpe them in their affaires and take part with them Moreover there be certeine favours which may be done without envie and offence as namely to stand with a friend rather than another for the getting of a good office to bring into his hand some honourable commission or an easie and kinde ambaslage as namely to be sent unto a prince or potentate in the behalfe of a city or State onely to salute him and doe him honour or to give intelligence unto another city of important matters in regard of amity league and mutual societie or in case there fall out some businesse of trouble difficulty and great importance when a magistrate hath taken upon himselfe first the principall charge thereof he may chuse unto him for his adjunct or assistant in the commission some especiall frend as Diomedes did in Homer To chuse mine owne companion since that you will me let ulysses that renowmed knight how can I then forget Ulysses likewise as kindly rendreth unto him the like praise againe These coursers brave concerning which of me you do demand O aged fire arrived heere of late from Thracian land Are hither come and there were bred their lord them lost in fight Whom valiant Diomedes slew by force of armes outright And twelve friends more and doughtie knights as ever horse did ride Were with him slaine for companie and lay dead by his side This modest kinde of yeelding and submission to gratifie and pleasure friends is no lesse honourable to the praisers than to the parties praised whereas contrariwise arrogancie and self-selfe-love as Plato saith dwelleth with solitudes which is as much to say as it is forsaken and abandoned of all the world Furthermore in these honest favors and kinde courtesies which we may bestow upon some frends we ought to associate other frends besides that they may be in some sort interessed therein also and to admonish those who receive such pleasures at our hands for to praise and thanke them yea and to take themselves beholden unto them as having bene the cause of their preferment and those who counselled and perswaded thereto but if peradventure they moove us in any undecent dishonest and unreasonable sutes we must flatly denie them howbeit not after a rude bitter churlish sort but mildly and gently by way of remonstrance and to comfort them withall shewing unto them that such requests were not beseeming their good reputation and the opinion of their vertue And this could Epaminondas do of all men in the world best and shift them off after the cleanliest maner for when hee refused at the instant sute of Pelopidas to deliver out of prison a certeine Tavernor and within a while after let the same partie goe at libertie at the request of his lemon or harlot whom he loved he said unto him Pelopidas such graces and favours as these we are to grant unto
and hardly to be endured although the tyrant was otherwise kinde enough unto her and led her a faire life letting her have her owne will for the love he bare unto her insomuch as the tyrant suffied her to enjoy a great part of his puissance and regall power for love had enthralled and subdued him unto her and not one there was but she alone who knew how to use and handle him for to all the others he was untractable inflexible and savage beyond all measure but it grieved her most of all to see her native countrey so miserably abused and so unwoorthily intreated by this tyrant for there was not one day went over his head but he caused to be executed one citizen or other neither was there to be seene any hope of revenge or deliverance out of these calamities on any side for that the exiled persons and such as fled being weake and feeble every way and altogether heartlesse and fearefull were scattered some in this place others in that Aretaphila therefore building upon her-selfe alone the onely hope of recovering and raising the State of the common-weale and proposing the magnanimous and renowmed acts of Theba the wife of the tyrant Pheres as examples to imitate but wanting and destitute altogether of faithfull friends and trustie kinsfolke for to helpe and second her in any enterprise such as the present times and affaires did affoord unto the other assaied to make away the tyrant by some poison but as she was about the provision heereof and assaied to make proofe of the forces of many strong poisons she could not carrie her desseigne so secretly but it came foorth and was discovered now when the thing was averred evidently proved by strong presumptions Calbia the mother of Nicocrates a bloudy woman and of nature implacable thought to have her put to many exquisite torments and then to bring her soone after to her death but the affection that Nicocrates bare unto her wrought some delay in revenge and dulled the edge of his anger and withall Aretaphila who constantly and resolutely offered her-selfe to answer all imputations that were laid unto her charge gave some colourable excuse unto the passionate affection of the tyrant but in the end seeing that she was convinced by certaine proofes and evidences which she knew not how to answer neither could she denie that she had some drugs in her closet did temper certaine medicines but confessed that indeed she had prepared certaine drugs yet such as were neither deadly nor dangerous But my good lord quoth she unto her husband the tyrant I am much perplexed and troubled with many things of great consequence and namely how to preserve the good opinion which you have of me the kinde affection also which of your gracious favour you beare unto me by meanes wherof I have this honour as to enjoy a good part of your power and authoritie jointly with you this maketh me to be envied of wicked women at whose hands I fearing sorceries charmes enchantments and other cunning divellish casts by which they would goe about to withdraw and distract you from the love that you beare me resolved at the length with my selfe for to seeke meanes how to meet encounter and prevent their devices foolish peradventure they may be as indeed the very inventions of a woman but in no wise worthy of death unlesse haply sir in your judgement it be just and reasonable to put your wife to death for that she mindeth to give you some love drinks and amatorious cups or deviseth some charmes as desirous to be more loved of you than haply it is your pleasure for to love her Nicocrates having heard these excuses alledged by Aretaphila thought good and resolved to put her to torture whereat Calbia her mother was present who never relented nor seemed to be touched with her dolorous torments but remained inexorable now when she was laid upon the racke and asked sundrie questions she yeelded not unto the paines that she sustained but continued invincible and confessed no fault in the height of all extemities untill at lenght Calbia herselfe even against her will was forced to give over tormenting her any longer and Nicocrates let her goe being not fully perswaded that the excuses alledged by her were true to be credited repenting that he had put her to such paine as he did and it was not long after so deepely was the passion of love imprinted in his heart but he returned to her and affaied to win her grace and good will againe by all honours favours courtesies and kindnesse that possibly he could shew unto her but she who had the power and strength to resist all torments and yeeld unto no paines would not be overcome with all his flatteries but joining now unto her former desire of doing some vertuous deed the animositie for to be revenged and to effect her purpose assaied other meanes One daughter she had mariageable and beautifull she was besides her she suborned and set as an alluring bait to entrap and catch the tyrants brother a yong gentleman easie to be caught with the pleasures delight of youth and many are of opinion that she used certeine charmes and amatorious potions aswell as the object of her daughters beautie whereby she enchanted and bewitched the wits and senses of this yong man whom they called Lander when he was once enamoured with the love of this yoong damofell hee prevailed so much by praiers and entreatie with his brother that he permitted him to wed her no sooner was he married but his fresh spouse having instructions before-hand from her mother began to be in hand with him and to perswade him for to enterprise the recoverie of freedome unto the citie shewing by good remonstrance that himselfe enjoied not libertie so long as he lived under tyrannie neither had he power of himselfe either to wed a wife or to keepe her when he had her if it pleased not the tyrant on the other side his friends and other of his familiar acquaintance for to gratific Aretaphila and to doe her pleasure repaired unto him continually forging some new matter of quarrels and suspitions against his brother the tyrant when he perceived that Aretaphila was also of the same minde and had her hand therein he resolved to execute the enterprise and thereupon he set one Daphnis a servant of his owne in hand with the businesse by whose meanes he killed Nicocrates but after he was thus murdered Leander would no more be advised by Aretaphila nor follow her counsell in the rest but shewed incontinently by his deportments and carriage in all action that a brother indeed hee had murdered but not-killed a tyrant for in his owne government he bare himselfe like a foole and ruled insolently and furiously howbeit unto Aretaphila he shewed alwaies some honour and reverence conferring upon her some part of his authoritie in management of State affaires for that she made no semblant at all
two sonnes Paralus and Xantippus had both changed this life behaved himselfe in this manner as Protagoras reporteth of him in these words When his two sonnes quoth he both yoong and beautifull died within eight daies one after the other he never shewed any sad countenance or heavie cheere but tooke their death most patiently for in truth he was a man at all times furnished with tranquillitie of spirit whereby he daily received great frute and commoditie not onely in respect of this happinesse that he never tasted of hearts griefe but also in that he was better reputed among the people for every man seeing him thus stoutly to take this losse and other the like crosses esteemed him valiant magnanimous and of better courage than himselfe the one being privie to his owne heart how he was woont to be troubled and afflicted in such accidents As for Pericles I say immediately after the report of both his sons departure out of this world he ware a chaplet of floures neverthelesse upon his head after the maner of his country put on a white robe made a solemne oration to the people propounded good and sage counsels to the Athenians incited them to war Semblaby Xenophon one of the followers familiars of Socrates when he offred sacrifice one day unto the gods being advertised by certaine messengers returned from the battel that his sonne Gryllus was slaine in fight presently put off the garland which was upon his head and demaunded of them the manner of his death and when they related unto him that he bare himselfe valiantly in the field and fighting manfully lost his life after he had the killing of many enemies he tooke no longer pause for to represse the passion of his mind by the discourse of reason but after a little while set the coronet of flowers againe upon his head and performed the solemnitie of sacrifice saying unto those who had brought those tidings I never praied unto the gods that my sonne should be either immortall or long lived for who knoweth whether this might be expedient or no but this rather was my praier that they would vouchsafe him the grace to be a good man and to love and serve his countrey well the which is now come to passe accordingly Dion likewise the Syracusian when he was set one day in consultation and devising with his friends hearing a great noise within his house and a loud outcry demaunded what it was and when he heard the mischaunce that hapned to wit that a sonne of his was fallen from the top of the house and dead with the fall without anie shew or signe at all of astonishment or trouble of mind he commanded that the breathlesse corps should be delivered unto women for to be interred according to the maner of the countrey and as for himselfe he held on and continued the speech that hee had begun unto his friends Demosthenes also the oratour is reported to have folowed his steps after he had buried his onely and entirely beloved daughter concerning whom Aeschines thinking in reprochfull wise to chalenger her father said thus This man within a seven-night after his daughter was depauted before that he had mourned or performed the due obsequies according to the accustomed manner being crowned with a chaplet of flowers and putting on white robes sacrificed an oxe unto the gods and thus unnaturally he made no reckoning of her that was dead his onely daughter and she that first called him father wicked wretch that he is this Rhetorician thus intending to accuse and reproch Demosthenes used this manner of speech never thinking that in blaming him after this manner he praised him namely in that hee rejected and cast behind him all mourning and shewed that he regarded the love unto his native countrey more than the naturall affection and compassion to those of his owne bloud As for king Antigonus when he heard of the death of his sonne Alcyoneus who was slaine in a battell he beheld the messengers of these wofull tidings with a constant and undaunted countenaunce but after he had mufed a while with silence and held downe his head he uttered these words O Alcyoneus thou hast lost thy life later than I looked for ventring thy selfe so resolutely as thou hast done among thine enemies without any care of thine owne safetie or respect of my admonitions These noble personages there is no man but doth admire and highly regard for their constance magnanimitie but when it commeth to the point and triall indeed they cannot imitate them through the weakenesse and imbecillitie of mind which proceedeth of ignorance and want of good instructions howbeit there be many examples of those who have right nobly and vertuously caried themselves in the death and losse of their friends and neere kinsmen which we may reade in histories as well Greeke as Latin but those that I have rehearsed already may suffice I suppose to moove you for to lay away this most irksome mourning and vaine sorrow that you take which booteth not nor can serve to any good for that yoong men of excellent vertue who die in their youth are in the grace and favour of the gods for being taken away in their best time I have already shewed heeretofore and now also will I addresse my selfe in this place as briefly as possibly I can to discourse giving testimonie of the truth to this notable wise sentence of Menander To whom the gods vouchsafe their love and grace He lives not long but soone hath runne his race But peradventure my most loving and right deere friend you may reply in this maner upon me Namely that yoong Apollonius your sonne enjoied the world at will and had all things to his hearts desire yea and more befitting it was that you should have departed out of this life and beene enterred by him who was now in the flower of his age which had beene more answerable to our nature and according to the course of humanitie True it is I confesse but haply not agreeable to that heavenly providence and government of this universall world and verily in regard of him who is now in a blessed estate it was not naturall for him to remaine in this life longer than the terme prefixed and limited unto him but after he had honestly performed the course of his time it was 〈◊〉 and requisit for him to take the way for to returne unto his destinie that called for him to come unto her but you will say that he died an untimely death true and so much the happier he is in that he hath felt no more miseries of this life for as Euripides said very well That which by name of life we call Indeed is travell continuall Certes this sonne of yours I must needs say is soone gone and in the very best of his yeeres and flower of his age a yoong man in all points entire and perfect a fresh bacheler affected esteemed and well reputed of all those
or that particular coast to wit either of Bizantine or of Cyzicum but generally all in what seas soever namely how against a tempest and storme when they see that the sea will bee very much troubled they charge and ballast themselves with little stones for feare of being overturned or driven to and fro for their lightnesse by the billowes and waves of the sea and thus by the meanes of this weight they remaine firme and fast upon the little rocks whereto they are setled As for the cranes who change their maner of flying according to the winde I say this is a skilfull quality not proper and peculiar to one kinde of fishes but common unto them all namely to swimme evermore against the waves the current yea and very warie they be that the winde blow not their tailes and raise their skales and so hurt and offend their bodies laid bare and naked yea and made rugged by that meanes Heereupon they carie their snouts and muzzels alwaies into the winde and so direct their course and thus the sea being cut afront at their head keepeth downe their finnes and gliding smoothly over their body laieth their scales even so as none of them stand staring up This is a thing as I have said cōmon unto al fishes except the Elops whose nature is to swimme downe the winde and the water neither feareth he that the winde will drive up his scales in so swimming because they doe not lie toward his taile but contrary to other fishes to ward his head Moreover the tuny is so skilfull in the solstices and equinoxes that he hath taught men to observe them without need of any astrologicall rules for looke in what place or coast of the sea the winter tropicke or solstice finds him there resteth he and stirreth not untill the equinox in the spring But a woonderfull wisedome quoth he there is in the crane to hold a stone in his foot that by the fall thereof he may quickly awaken How much wiser then my good friend Aristotimus is the dolphin who may not abide to lie still and cease stirring for that by nature he is in continuall motion and endeth his mooving and living together but when he hath need of sleepe he springeth up with his body to the toppe of the water and turneth him upon his backe with the belly upward and so suffreth it partly to flote and hull and in part to be caried through the deepe waving to and fro as it were in a hanging bedde with the agitation of the sea sleeping all the while untill he settle downe to the bottom of the sea and touch the ground then wakeneth he and mounting up with a jerke a second time suffreth himselfe to bee caried untill he be setled downe againe and thus hath he devised to have his repose and rest intermingled with a kinde of motion And it is said that the tunies doe the like and upon the same cause And now forasmuch as we have shewed already the mathematicall and astrologicall foreknowledge that fishes have in the revolution and conversion of the sunne which is confirmed likewise by the testimonie of Aristotle listen what skill they have in arithmeticke but first beleeve me of the perspective science whereof as it should seeme the poet Aeschylus was not ignorant for thus he saith in one place Like tuny fish he seemes to spie He doth so looke with his left eie For tunies in the other eie are thought to have a dimme and feeble sight and therefore when they enter Mer major into the sea of Pontus they coast along the land on the right side but contrariwise when they come foorth wherein they doe very wisely and circumspectly to commit the custody of the body alwaies to the better eie Now for that they have need of arithmeticke by reason of their societie as it may be thought and mutuall love wherein they delight they are come to that height and perfection in this arte that because they take a woondrous pleasure to feed together and to keepe one with another in sculles troupes they alwaies cast their company into a cubicke forme in maner of a battailon solid and square every way close and environed with six equall sides or faces and arranged in this ordinance as it were of a quadrat battell doe they swim as large before as behind of the one side as of the other in such sort as he that lieth in espiall to hunt these tunies if he can but take the just number how many there be of that side or front that appeereth next unto him may presently tell what the number is of the whole troupe being assured that the depth is equall to the bredth and the bredth even with the length The fish called in Greeke Hamiae tooke that name it may be thought for their conversing in companies al together and so I suppose came the Pelamydes by their name As for other fishes that be sociable love to live are seene to converse in great companies together no man is able to nūber thē they be so many Come we rather therfore to some particular societies inseparable fellowships that some have in living together amōg which is that Pinnotheres which cost the philosopher Chrysippus so much inke in his descriptiō for in al his books as wel of morall as naturall philosophie he is ranged formost As for the Spongetheres I suppose he never knew for otherwise he would not have left it out Well this Pinnotheres is a little fish as they say of the crabs kind which goeth commeth evermore with the Nacre a big shel fish keeping still by it and sits as it were a porter at his shell side which he letteth continually to stand wide open untill he spie some small fishes gotten within it such as they are woont to take for their food then doth he enter likewise into the Nacres shell and seemeth to bite the fleshy substance thereof whereupon presently the Nacre shutteth the shell hard and then they two together feed upon the bootie which they have gotten prisoners within this enclosure As touching the spongotheres a little creature it is not like unto the crabbe fish as the other but rather resembling a spider it seemeth to rule and governe the spunge which is altogether without life without bloud and sense but as many other living creatures within the sea cleaveth indeed heard to the rocks and hath a peculiar motion of the owne namely to stretch out and draw in it selfe but for to do this need she hath of the direction and advertisement of another for being of a rare hollow and soft constitution otherwise and full of many concavities void so dull of sense besides idle withal that it perceiveth not when there is any substance of good meat gotten within the said void and emptie holes this little animall at such a time giveth a kind of warning and with it she gathereth in her body
reproch or touch notwithstanding shee was yoong and therewith beautifull This fresh widow whiles she treated of a mariage to be made betweene Bacchon a yoong gentleman a neighbours childe whose mother was a very familiar friend of hers a certeine yoong maiden a kinswoman of her owne by often talking with him and frequenting his company much fell herselfe in some fancie with the yoong man Thus both hearing and speaking much good and many kinde speeches of him and seeing besides a number of other gentlemen and persons of good woorth to be enamoured upon him by little and little she also fell to bee in hot love with the youth howbeit with a full intention and resolution to doe nothing that should be dishonest or unbeseeming her place parentage reputation but to be wedded unto Bacchon lawfully in the open sight of the world and so to live with him in the estate of wedlocke As the thing it selfe seemed at the first very strange so the mother of the yoong man of one side doubted and suspected the greatnesse of her state and the nobility magnificence of her house linage as not meet correspondent to his cōdition for to be a lover or to be matched there and on the other side some of his companions who used to ride forth a hunting with him considering that the yoong age of Bacchon was not answerable to the yeeres of Ismenodora buzzed many doubts in his head and frighted him from her what they could saying That she might be his mother and that one of her age was not for him and thus by their jesting and scoffing they hindered the mariage more than they who laboured in good earnest to breake it for hee began to enter into himselfe and considering that he was yet a beardlesse youth and scarcely undergrowen he was abashed and ashamed to mary a widow Howbeit in the end shaking off all others he referred himselfe to Anthemion and Pisias for to tell him their minds upon the point and to advise him for his best Now was Anthemion his cousen german one of good yeeres and elder than himselfe farre and Pisias of all those that made love unto him most austere and therefore he both withstood the mariage and also checked Anthemion as one who abandoned and betraied the yoong man unto Ismenodora Contrariwise Anthemion charged Pisias and said he did not well who being otherwise an honest man yet heerein imitated leawd lovers for that he went about to put his friend beside a good bargaine who now might be sped with so great a mariage out offo worshipfull an house and wealthy besides to the end that he might have the pleasure to see him a long time stripped naked in the wrestling place fresh still and smooth and not having touched a woman But because they should not by arguing thus one against another grow by little and little into heat of choler they chose for umpiers and judges of this their controversie my father and those who were of his company and thither they came assistant also there were unto them other of their friends Daphnaeus to the one and Protogenes to the other as if they had beene provided of set purpose to plead a cause As for Protogenes who sided with Pisias he inveighed verily with open mouth against dame Ismenodora whereupon Daphnaeus O Hercules quoth he what are we not to expect and what thing in the world may not happen in case it be so that Protogenes is ready heere to give defiance and make warre against love who all his life both in earnest and in game hath beene wholy in love and all for love which hath caused him to forget his booke and to forget his naturall countrey not as Laius did who was but five daies journey distant for that love of his was slow and heavy and kept still upon the land whereas your Cupid Protogenes With his light wings displaied and spred Hath over seafull swiftly fled from out of Cilicia to Athens to see faire boies and to converse and goe up and downe with them for to say a trueth the chiefe cause why Protogenes made a voiage out of his owne countrey and became a traveller was at the first this and no other Heere at the company tooke up a laughter and Protogenes Thinke you quoth he that I warre not against love and not rather stande in the defence of love against lascivious wantonnesse and violent intemperance which by most shamefull acts and filthy passions would perforce chalenge and breake into the fairest most honest and venerable names that be Why quoth Daphnaeus then do you terme mariage and the secret of mariage to wit the lawfull conjunction of man and wife most vile and dishonest actions than which there can be no knot nor linke in the world more sacred and holy This bond in trueth of wedlocke quoth Protogenes as it is necessary for generation is by good right praised by Polititians and law-givers who recommend the same highly unto the people and common multitude but to speake of true love indeed there is no jot or part therof in the societie and felowship of women neither doe I thinke that you and such as your selves whose affections stand to wives or maidens do love them no more than a flie loveth milke or a bee the hony combe as caters and cookes who keepe foules in mue and feed calves and other such beasts fatte in darke places and yet for all that they love them not But like as nature leadeth and conducteth our appetite moderately and as much as is sufficient to bread and other viands but the excesse thereof which maketh the naturall appetite to be a vicious passion is called gourmandise and pampering of the flesh even so there is naturally in men and women both a desire to enjoy the mutuall pleasure one of another whereas the impetuous lust which commeth with a kinde of force and violence so as it hardly can be held in is not fitly called love neither deserveth it that name For love if it seise upon a yoong kinde and gentle heart endeth by amity in vertue whereas of these affections and lusts afterwomen if they have successe and speed never so well there followeth in the end the fruit of some pleasure the fruition and enjoying of youth and a beautifull body and that is all And thus much testified Aristippus who when one went about to make him have a distaste and mislike of Lais the curtisan saying that she loved him not made this answer I suppose quoth he that neither good wine nor delicate fish loveth me but yet quoth he I take pleasure and delight in drinking the one and eating the other For surely the end of desire and appetite is pleasure and the fruition of it But love if it have once lost the hope and expectation of amity and kindnesse will not continue nor cherish and make much for beauty sake that which is irksome and odious be it neverso gallant and in
is ready to die for love of him I marvel much who hinders her that she goeth not to his house in a maske that she sings not lamentable ditties at his dore amorous plaints that she adorneth not his images with garlands and chaplets of flowers and that she entreth not into combat with her corrivals and winne him from them all by fight and feats of activity for these be the casts of lovers let her knit her browes let her forbeare to live bravely and daintily putting on the countenance and habit meet for this passion but if she be modest shamefaced sober and honest as that she is abashed so to doe let her sit womanly and decently as it becommeth at home in her house expecting her lovers and woers to come and court her there For such a woman as doth not dissemble but bewraieth openly that she is in love a man would avoid and detest so farre would he be from taking her to be his wife or laying for the ground of his mariage such shamelesse incontinence Now when Protogenes had made an end of his speech and paused a while See you not ô Anthemion quoth Daphnaeus how they make this a common cause againe and matter of disputation enforcing us to speake still of nuptiall love who denie not our selves to be the mainteiners thereof nor avoid to enter into the daunce as they say and to shew our selves to be the champions of it Yes mary do I quoth Anthemion I pray you take upon you to defend at large this love and withall let us have your helping hand about this point as touching riches which Pisias urgeth especially and wherewith he seemeth to affright us more than with any thing else What can we doe lesse quoth my father then for were it not a reproch offred unto woman kind and would it not greatly redound to their discredit and blame in case we would reject and cast off Ismenodora for her love and her wealth sake But she is brave she is sumptuous costly and bearing a great port What matters that so long as she is faire beautifull and yoong But she is come of a noble house and highly descended What harme of that if she live in good name and be of good reputation for it is not necessary that wives to approove their honesty and wisdome should be sower austere curst shrewd for chaste dames and sober matrons doe indeed detest bitternesse as an odious thing and intollerable And yet some there be that call them furies and say they be curst shrewes unto their husbands when they be modest wise discret and honest Were it not best therefore to espouse some od Abrotonon out of Thracia bought in open market or some Bacchis a Milesian passing in exchange for raw hides and prized no deerer And yet we know there be many men whom such women as these hold most shamefully under their girdles and rule as they list For even minstrell wenches of Samos and such as professed dauncing as Aristonica Oenanthe with her tabour and pipe Agathocleia have over-topped kings and princes yea troaden their crownes and diademes under foot As for Semiramis a Syrian she was at first no better than a poore wench servant and concubine to one of the great king Ninus slaves but after that the king himselfe had set his 〈◊〉 and fancie upon her he was so devoted unto her she againe so imperiously ruled over him and with such contempt that she was so bold to require at his hands that he would permit her to sit one day upon her roiall throne under the cloth of estate with the diademe about her head and so to give audience and dispatch the affaires of the kingdome in stead of him which when Ninus had graunted given expresse charge withall that all his subjects whatsoever should yeeld their loiall obedience to her as to his owne person yea and performe whatsoever she ordeined and decreed she caried herselfe with great moderation in her first commandements to make triall of the pensioners and guard about her and when she saw that they gainsaid her in nothing but were very diligent and serviceable she commanded them to arrest and apprehend the body of Ninus the king then to binde him fast and finally to doe him to death Al which when they had fully executed she reigned indeed for a long time in great state and magnificence ruled all Asia And was not Belestie I pray you a Barbarian woman bought up even in the very market among other slaves and yet those of Alexandria have certeine temples chappels altars which king Ptolomaeus who was enamoured upon her caused to be entituled by the name of Venus Belestie And Phryne the famous courtensan who both heere and also at Delphos is shrined in the same temple and chappell with Cupid whose statue all of beaten gold standeth among those of kings and queenes by what great dowry was it that she had all her lovers in such subjection under her But like as these persons through their effeminate softnesse and pusillanimity became ere they were aware a very prey and pillage to such women so on the other side we finde others of base degree and poore condition who being joined in mariage to noble rich wives were not utterly overthrowen with such matches nor struck saile or abated ought of their generositie and high spirit but lived alwaies loved and honored by those wives yea and were masters over them to their dying day But he that rangeth and reduceth his wife into a narrow compasse and low estate as if one bent a ring to the slendernesse of his finger for feare it should drop off resembleth those for all the world who clip and shave the maines of their mares and plucke the haire off their tailes and then drive them to water into some river or poole for it is said that when they see themselves in the water so ill favouredly shorne and curtailed they let fall their courage stomacke and hautie spirit so as they suffer themselves afterward to be covered by asses And therefore like as to preferre the riches of a woman above her vertue or to make choise thereof before nobility of birth were base and illiberall so to reject wealth joigned with vertue and noble parentage is meere folly King Antigonus writing unto a captaine of his whom he put with a garison into the fortresse Munichia in Athens the which he fortified with all diligence possible commanded him not onely to make the collar and cheine strong but the dogge also weake and leane giving him thereby to understand that he should empoverish the Athenians and take from them all meanes whereby they might rebell or rise against him But a man who hath taken to wife a rich and beautifull woman ought not to make her either poore or foule and ill-favoured but rather by his discretion good government wisdome and by making semblance that he is ravished with no admiration of any
from it daily is highly to be reckoned and accounted of and therefore neither can the Delphians be noted for follie in that they terme Venus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a chariot by reason of this yoke-fellowship nor Homer in calling this conjunction of man and wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say amity and friendship Solon likewise is deemed by this to have beene an excellent law-giver and most expert in that which concerneth mariage when he decreed expresly that the husband should thrice in a moneth at the least embrace his wife and company in bed with her not for carnall pleasures sake I assure you but like as cities and states use after a certeine time betweene to renew their leagues and confederacies one with another so he would have that the alliance of mariage should eftsooones be enterteined anew by such solace and delectation after jarres which otherwhiles arise and breed by some bone cast betweene Yea but there be many enormious and furious parts will some one say that are plaied by such as are in love with women And be there not more I pray by those that are enamoured upon boies do but marke him who uttereth these passionate words So often as these eies of mine behold That beardlesse youth that smooth and lovely boy I faint and fall then wish I him to hold Within mine armes and so to die with joy And that on tombe were set where I do lie An Epigram mine end to testifie But as there is a furious passion in some men doting upon women so there is as raging an affection in others toward boies but neither the one nor the other is love Well most absurd it were to say that women are not endued with other vertues for what need we to speake of their temperance and chastity of their prudence fidelity and justice considering that even fortitude it selfe constant confidence and resolution yea and magnaminity is in many of them very evident Now to holde that being by nature not indisposed unto other vertues they are untoward for amitie onely and frendship which is an imputation laid upon them is altogether beside all reason For well knowen it is that they be loving to their children and husbands and this their naturall affection is like unto a fertile field or battell soile capable of amitie not unapt for perswasion nor destitute of the Graces And like as Poesie having sitted unto speech song meeter and thime as pleasant spices to aromatize and season the same by meanes whereof that profitable instruction which it yeeldeth is more attractive and effectuall as also the danger therein more inevitable Even so nature having endued a woman with an amiable cast and aspect of the eie with sweet speech and a beautifull countenance hath given unto her great meanes if she be lascivious and wanton with her pleasure to decive a man and if she be chaste and honest to gaine the good will and favour of her husband Plato gave counsell unto Xenocrates an excellent Philosopher and a woorthy personage otherwise howbeit in his behavior exceeding soure and austere to sacrifice unto the Graces and even so a man might advise a good matron and sober dame to offer sacrifice unto Love for his propitious favour unto mariage and his residence with her and that her husband by her kind loving demeanour unto him may keepe home and not seeke abroad to some other and so be forced in the end to breake out into such speeches as these out of the Comoedie Wretch that I am and man unhappy I So good a wife to quit with injury For in wedlocke to love is a better and greater thing by farre than to be loved for it keepeth folke from falling into many faults slips or to say more truly it averteth them from all those inconveniences which may corrupt marre ruinate a mariage as for those passionate affections which in the beginning of matrimoniall love moove fittes somewhat poinant and biting let me entreat you good friend Zeuxippus not to feare for any exulceration or smart itch that they have although to say a trueth it were no great harme if haply by some little wound you come to be incorporate and united to an honest woman like as trees that by incision are engraffed and grow one within another for when all is said is not the beginning of conception a kinde of exulceration neither can there be a mixture of two things into one unlesse they mutually suffer one of the other be reciprocally affected And verily the Mathematical rudiments which children be taught at the beginning trouble them even as Philosophie also at the first is harsh unto yong men but like as this unpleasantnesse continueth not alwaies with thē no more doeth that mordacity sticke still among lovers And it seemeth that Love at the first resembleth the mixture of two liquors which when they begin to incorporate together boile and worke one with another for even so Love seemeth to make a certaine confused tract and ebullition but after a while that the same be once setled and throughly clensed it bringeth unto Lovers a most firme and assured habit and there is properly that mixtion and temperature which is called universall and thorough the whole whereas the love of other friends conversing and living together may be very well compared to the mixtion which is made by these touching and interlacings of atomes which Epicurus speaketh of and the same is subject to ruptures separations and startings a sunder neither can it possibly make that union which matrimoniall love and mutuall conjunction doeth for neither doe there arise from any other Loves greater pleasures nor commodities more continually one from another ne yet is the benefit and good of any other friendship so honorable or expetible as When man and wife keepe house with one accord And lovingly agree at bed and bord Especially when the law warranteth it and the bond of procreation common betweene them is assistant thereto And verily nature sheweth that the gods themselves have need of such love for thus the Poets say that the heaven loveth the earth and the Naturalists hold that the Sunne likewise is in love with the Moone which every moneth is in conjunction with him by whom also she conceiveth In briefe must it not follow necessarily that the earth which is the mother and breeder of men of living creatures and all plants shall perish and be wholly extinct when love which is ardent desire and instinct inspired from god shall abandon the matter and the matter likewise shall cease to lust and seeke after the principle and cause of her conception But to the end that we may not range too farre nor use any superfluous and nugatory words your selfe doe know that these paederasties are of all other most uncertaine and such as use them are wont to scoffe much thereat and say that the amitie of such boies is in manner of an egge divided
of Brasidas her apophthegmes 479.40 Argoi the name of all Greeks 861.40 Argos women their vertuous act 486.1 Aridaeus an unwoorthie prince 1277.30 Aridaeus a yoong prince unfit to rule 395.50 Aridices his bitter scoffe 668.10 Arigaeus his apophthegme 454.30 Arimanius 1044.1 Arimanius a martiall Enthusiasme 1143.1 Arimanius what God 1306.1 Arimenes his kindnes to Xerxes his brother 403.40 Ariobarzanes sonne of Darius a traitour executed by his father 909.50 Arion his historie 342.20 Ariopagus 396.40 Aristaeus what God 1141.20 Aristarchium a temple of Diana 902.40 Aristinus what answer 〈◊〉 had from the Oracle 852.1 Aristides kinde to Cimon 398.20 his apophthegmes 418.50 he stood upon his owne bothom ib. at enmity with Themistocles 419.1 he laieth it downe for the Common-wealth ib. Aristippus his apophthegme as touching the education of children 6.10 his answer as touching Lais the courtisan 1133.10 Aristippus and Aeschines at a jarre how they agreed 130.40 Aristoclea her tragicall historie 944.40 Aristocrates punished long after for betraying the Messenians 1540.1 Aristocraties allow no oratours at bar to move passions 72.40 Aristodemus fearefull and melancholike 296.1 Aristodemus usurpeth tyrannie over Cumes 505.50.290.1 Aristodemus Socrates his 〈◊〉 at a feast 753.50 Aristodemus tyrant of Argos killeth himselfe 265.10.205.10 his villanie 946.40 surnamed Malacos 505.30 murdered by conspiratours 506.30 Aristogiton a promoter condemned 421.10 Aristomache a Poetresse 716.30 Aristomenes poisoned by Ptolomaeus 112.20 Ariston his opinion of vertue 64.50 Ariston his apophthegmes 454.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dinner whereof it is derived 775.30 Ariston punished by God for sacriledge 545.20 Aristonicus an harper honoured after his death by K. Alexander 1274.40 Aristophanes discommended in comparison of Menander 942.40 Aristotimus a 〈◊〉 tyrant over the Elians 492.30 his treacherous vilany toward the wives of Elis. 493.10 murdered by conspiratours 494.1 his wife hung herselfe 495 Aristotle how he dealt with prating fellowes 193.30 reedifieth Stagira his native city 1128.50 his opinion of God 812.10 his opinion as touching the principles of all things 808.10 Aristotle a master in his speech 34.20 Aristotle the younger his opinion as touching the face in the Moone 1161.1 Arithmeticke 1019.1 Arithmeticall proportion chaced out of Lacedaemon by Lycurgus 767.50 〈◊〉 a great favorite of Augustus Caesar. 368.20 Aroveris borne 1292.20 Arsaphes 1302.20 Arsinoe how she was comforted by a Philosopher for the death of her sonne 521.50 Arsinoe 899.30 Artaxerxes accepted a small present graciously 402.20 Artaxerxes Long-hand his apophthegmes 404.1 Artaxerxes Mnemon his apophthegmes and behaviour 404.30 Artemisium the Promontory 906 40 Artemisia a lady adviseth Xerxes 1243.10 Artemis that is to say Diana why so called 1184.40 Article a part of speech seldome used by Homer 1028.10 Arts from whence they proceed 232.30 Artyni who they be 888.50 Aruntius carnally abused his owne daughter and sacrificed by her 912.1.10 Aruntius Paterculus executed worthily by Aemilius Censorinus 917.30 Aspis the serpent why honoured among the Aegyptians 1316.30 The Asse why honoured among the Jewes 701.10 Asses and horses having apples and figges a load be faint with the disease Bulimos 739.1 what is the reason thereof 799.40 Asander 1152.20 Asaron 645.10 Ascanius vanquished Mezentius 876.20 Asias what it was 1250.40 Aso a Queene of Arabia 1292.40 Asopicus a darling of Epaminondas 1146.10 Asphodel 339.1 Assembly of lusly gallants 898.1 Assent and the cohibition thereof argued prò contrà 1124.10.20 Astarte Queene of Byblos in Aegypt 1293.40 Aster a notable archer 908.50 Astomi people of India 1177.30 Astrologie is conteined under Geometrie 797.10 Astrologie 1019.10 Astycratidas his apophthegmes 455.50 Asyndeton 1028,40 Ate. 346.10 Ateas the king of the Scythians his apophthegmes 405.20 Ateas misliketh musicke 405.20 592.1 1273.50 〈◊〉 unto idlenesse 394.30 Atepomorus king of the Gaules 914.40 Athamas and Agaue enraged 263.20 Athenians more renowmed for martiall feats than good letters 981.50 Athenians of what disposition they be 349.30 Athenians why they suppresse the second day of August 187.40 reprooved by a Laconian for plaies 985.50 Athens and Attica highly commended 279.1.10 The Athenians would not breake open king Philips letters to his wife 350.1 Athens divided into three regions 357.20 the mother and nurse of good arts 982.20 Athenians abuse Sylla and his wife with 〈◊〉 language 196.1 Athenodorus his kindnesse to his brother Zeno. 181.20 Atheisme and superstition compared 260.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who they were 1099.1 Atheists who they were 810.40 Athisme mainteined by Epicurus 592.20 Athisme 260.40 what it is ib. 50. it arose from superstition 267. 40. 50. how engendred 260.1 Athos the mountaine 1175.20 Atlas 1163.20 Atomi 602.50.807.40.50 Athyri what it signifieth 1310.20 Atropos 1049.10.797.40 her function 1184.40 what she is and where she keepeth 1219.30 K. Attalus died upon his birth day 766.1 Attalus his reciprocall love to his brother Eumenes 188.20.416.30 Attalus a king ruled and led by Philopaemen 394.20 Attalus espouseth the wife of his brother yet living 416.30 Avarice how it differeth from other lusts 211.20 Against Avarice 299.10.20 Averruncani See Apotropoei Augurs who they be 883.10 why not degraded ib. Augurs forbidden to observe bird flight if they had an ulcer about them 874.30 Augurs and Auspices why they had their lanterns open 874.10 After August no bird-flight observed 863.30 Of August the second day suppressed by the Athenians out of the kallender 187.40.792.10 Augustus Caesar first emperour of Rome 631.50 Augustus Caesar his apophthegmes 442. 50. how he paid his father Caesars legacies 442.1 his clemency to the Alexandrians ib. 10. his affection to Arius ib. his anger noted by Athenodorus 442. 30. his praier for his nephew Tyberius Caesar 631.50 fortunes dearling ib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 901.20 In Autumne we are more hungrie than in any other time of the yeere 669.10 Autumne called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 785.10 Axiomes ten by complication how many propositions they bring foorth 782.20 B B. Vsed for Ph. 890.20 B. for P. ib. Babylon a hot province 685.20 about it they lie upon water budgets 686.50 Baccharis the herbe what vertue it hath in garlands 684.20 Bacchiadae 945.50 Bacchon the faire 1131.50 Bacchus why called by the Romans Liber pater 885.1 why he had many Nymphs to be his nurses 696.1 surnamed Dendriteus 717. 20. the sonne or father of oblivion 751.40 why called Eleuther and Lysius 764.10 Bacchanals how they were performed in old time 214.30 Bacchus how he commeth to have many denominations 1358.1 Bacchus patrone of husbandrie 797.20 not sworne by within dores at Rome 860.10 What is all this to 〈◊〉 a proverb whereupon it arose 645.1 Bacchae why they use rime and meeter 654.40 Bacchae 643.40 Bacchus taken to be the 〈◊〉 god 712.10 surnamed Lyaeus and Choraeus 722.40 he was a good captaine 722.40 a physician 683.40 why surnamed Methymnaeus 685. 40. surnamed Lysius or Libes and wherefore 692.30 what is the end thereof 337.20 why named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 726.50 Bucchus surnamed Bugenes 1301.20 Bacchus portraied with a bulles head 1301.20 Bacchus the
other meanes became enamoured upon her so farre that he was ready to give unto her and to do for the love of her whatsoever she would also that she promised to go with him in case he would agree and graunt one thing and as the said philosopher telleth the tale thereupon she required of him an obligation of his oth and after he had faithfully sworne unto her she demaunded that hee should deliver unto her the castle Delio for that was the name of the fort or piece whereof hee had the charge otherwise she said that she would never come in bed with him whereupon he aswell for the great desire that he had to enjoy her love as in regard of his foresaid oath by which he was bound and obliged quit the place and rendred it into the hands of Polycrite who presently delivered it up unto her countrey-men and fellow-citizens by which meanes they being now able once againe to make their parts good with the Milesians made an accord and concluded peace under what conditions they desired themselves LAMPSACE IN the citie Phocaea there were sometimes two brethren twinnes of the house and family of the Codridae the one named Phobus the other Blepsus of which twaine Phobus was the first that according as Charon the Chronicler of Lampsacum doth record cast himselfe from the high rocks and cliffes of Leucas into the sea This Phobus being of great puissance and royall authoritie in his countrey hapned to have some private affaire and negotiation of his owne in theisle of Paros and thither he went where he contracted amitie alliance and hospitalitie with Mandron king of the Bebrycians surnamed Pityoessenes and by vertue of this new league he aided them and in their behalfe made warre with them against other barbarous people their neighbours who did them wrong and wrought them much damage afterwards when he was upon his departure and returne home Mandron among many other courtesies and tokens of kindnesse which he bestowed upon him now ready to embarke and take the sea offered him the one moitie of his country and city if he would come dwel in the citie Pityoessa with some part of the Phocaeans for to people the place whereupon Phobus after he was come home againe to Phocaea proposed this matter unto the Phocaeans his citizens having perswaded them to accept of the offer he sent his owne brother as leader and captaine to conduct this colonie of new inhabitants who upon their first arrivall and comming thither found themselves as well entreated as courteously entertained as they could wish or looke for at Mandron his hands but in tract of time after that they had gotten many advantages at the Barbarians hands their neighbours borderers wan divers booties from them and gained much pillage spoile they began to be envied first and afterwards to be dread and feared of the Bebrycians who being desirous for to be rid and delivered of such guests durst not addresse themselves unto Mandron whom they knew to be an honest and just man for to perswade him to practise any disloyaltie or treacherie against men of the Greek nation but espying a time when he was absent and out of the countrey they complotted and prepared to surprize the Phocaeans by a wile and so to dispatch them al to once out of the way but Lampsace the daughter of Mandron a maiden yet unmarried having some fore-inkling and intelligence of this forelaied ambush laboured dealt first with her familiar friends to divert them from so wicked an enterprise shewing and prooving unto them that it was a damnable act before God and abominable among men to proceed so treacherously against their allies and confederates who had beene ready at all times to aid and assist them in their need against their enemies and besides were now incorporate with them and their fellow-citizens but when she saw that there would no good be done and that she could not disswade them from it she acquainted the Greeks under-hand with this treason which was a warping against them advised them to look unto themselves stand upon their own guard so the Phocaeans made a solemn sacrifice a publick feast invited the Pityoessenes to come out of the citie into the suburbes to take part therof themselves they divided into two troupes whereof the one seised the wals of the citie whiles the inhabitants were at the feast meane time the other were busie in massacring the guests that were bidden to it and by this meanes they became masters of the whole citie and sent for Mandron whom they desired to participate with them in their counsels and affaires as for Lampsace his daughter who fortuned to die of sicknesse they interred magnificently and in memoriall of that good which she did unto them called the citie after her name Lampsacum howbeit Mandron because he would not be suspected to have beene a traitour unto his owne people would not consent to dwell among them but required to have of them the wives and children of them who were dead whom they sent unto him with all speed and diligence without dooing any harme or displeasure at all unto them as for Lamsaca unto whom before they had ordeined heroick honors they decreed for ever to sacrifice unto her as unto a goddesse and even to this day they doe continue and observe the same divine worship unto her ARETAPHILA ARetaphila of Cyrene was none of them that lived in ancient time but lately in the daies of king Mithridates but she shewed vertue performed an act comparable to the magnanimous counsels and desseignes of the most autike demi-goddesses that ever were daughter she was to Aeglator and wife to Phaedimus both noble men and great personages faire beautifull of visage of deepe conceit and high reach and namely in matters of estate affaires of government well experienced the publike calamities of her countrey did illustrate her name and caused her to be well knowne and voiced in the world for Nicocrates having usurped the tyrannie of Cyrene put to death many of the chiefe and principall men of the citie and among the rest one Melanippus the high priest of Apollo whom he slew with his owne hands for to enjoy his priesthood he did to death also Phaedimus the husband of Aretaphila and not content therewith married her perforce and against her will this tyrant over above an infinit number of other cruelties which he daily committed set certaine warders at every gate of the city who when there was caried foorth any dead corps to buriall out of the citie abused the same with digging into the soles of their feet with the points of their daggers and poinards or else with searing them with red hot irons for feare that any of the inhabitants should be conveied alive out of the citie under colour of being borne to the grave as dead private and particular crosses had Aretaphila no doubt which were greevous unto her
and discontentment should be infamous and reputed for wicked persons and such as are so taken must needs be odious and in great disgrace if so be they hold honour good name and reputation to be things pleasant and delectable When Theon had made an end of this speech thought good it was to give over walking and when as our custome and manner was we were set downe upon the seats we rested a pretie while in silence ruminating as it were and pondering that which had beene delivered but long this was not for Zeuxippus thinking upon that which had beene said And who quoth he shall goe through with that which remaineth behind considering that me thinks we are not as yet come to a full point and finall conclusion for seeing that erewhile he hath made mention by the way of Divination and likewise put us in minde of Divine providence two maine points I may tell you whereupon these men doe greatly stand and which by their saying yeeld them not the least pleasure contentment repose of spirit and assurance in this life therefore I hold it necessarie that somewhat were said as touching the same Then Aristodemus taking the matter in hand As for the pleasure quoth he which they pretend in this case me thinks by all in maner that hath beene spoken that if their reasons should goe for currant and bring that about which they purpose intend well may they free and deliver their spirit of I wot not what feare of the gods and a certaine superstition butsurely they imprint no joy nor minister any comfort and contentment to their minds at all in any regard of the gods for to be troubled with no dread of the gods nor comforted by any hope from them worketh this effect and maketh them so affected towards the gods as we are to the fishes of the Hyrcan sea expecting neither good nesse nor harme from them But if we must adde somewhat more to that which hath beene said alreadie thus much I take it wee may be bold to set downe as received and granted by them First and formost that they impugne them mightily who condemne and take away all heavinesse sorrow weeping sighes and lamentations for the death of friends and they assirme that this indolence tending to a kinde of impassibilitie proceedeth from another evill greater and woorse than it to wit cruell inhumanitie or else an outragious and furious desire of vainglorie and ostentation and therefore they hold it better to suffer a little sorrow and to grieve moderately so a man runne not all to teares and marre his eies with weeping nor shew all maner of passions as some doe by their deeds and writings because they would be thought affectionate and heartie lovers of their friends and withall of a gentle and tender nature For thus much hath Epicurus delivered in many of his books and namely in his letters where he maketh mention of the death of Hegesianax writing unto Dositheus the father and Pyrsos the brother of the man departed For long it is not since by fortune those letters of his came to my hands which I perused and in imitating their maner of arguing I say That Atheisme and impietie is no lesse sinne than the crueltie or vaine and arrogant ostentation abovesaid unto which impietie they would induce us with their perswasions who take from God both favor and also anger For better it were that to the opinion and beliefe which we have of the gods there were adjoined and engraffed an affection mixed and compassed of reverence and feare than in flying therefro to leave unto our selves neither hope nor pleasure no assurance in prosperitie ne yet recourse unto the goodnesse of of the gods in time of adversitie True it is that we ought to ridde away from the opinion that we have of the gods all superstition if it be possible as well as from our eies all gummie and glutinous matter offending the sight but if this may not be we are not therefore to cut away quite or to put out the eies cleane of that faith and beliefe which men for the most part have of the gods and this is not a severe feareful and austere conceit as these imagine who traduce and slander divine providence to make it odious and terrible as folke doe by little children whom they use to scarre with the fantasticall illusion Empusa as if it were some infernall furie or tragicall vengeance seizing upon them but some few men there be who in that sort doe feare God as that it is better and more expedient for them so to doe than otherwise not to stand in awe of him for in dreading him as a gracious and propitious lord unto the good and an enemie unto the wicked by this one kinde of feare which maketh them that they have no need at all of many others they are delivered from those baits which many times allure and entice men to evill and thus keeping vice short and not giving it head but holding it neere unto them and within their reach that it cannot escape and get from them they be lesse tormented than those who be so hardie as to emploie the same and dare put it in practise but soone after fall into fearefull fits and repent themselves But as touching the disposition toward God in the common sort of men who are ignorant unlettered and of a grosse conceit for the most part howbeit not very wicked nor starke naught true it is that as together with the reverence and honour that they beare to the gods there is intermingled a certaine trembling feare which properly is called superstition so likewise there is an infinit deale more of good hope and true joy which causeth them to praie unto the gods continually for their owne good estate and for happie successe in their affaires and they receive all prosperitie as sent unto them from heaven above which appeereth evidently by most notable and significant arguments for surely no exercises recreat us more than those of religion and devotion in the temples of the gods no times and seasons are more joious than those solemne feasts in their honour no actions no sights more delight and joy our hearts than those which we doe and see our selves either singing and dauncing solemnly in the presence of the gods or being assistant at their sacrifices or the ceremonious mysteries of divine service for at such times our soule is nothing sadde cast downe or melancholike as if she had to deale with some terrible tyrants or bloudie but chers where good reason were that she should bee heavie and dejected but looke where she thinketh and is perswaded most that God is present in that place especially she casteth behinde her all anguishes agonies sorrowes feares and anxieties there I say she giveth herselfe to all manner of joy even to drinke wine most liberally to play disport laugh and be merie As the poet said in love and wanton matters Both grey-beard old and aged
bright as golde This is the fish which I doe sacred holde but many take it for the elops for rare he is to be found and hard to be taken howbeit manie times he is seene about the coast of Pamphylia and whensoever the fishers can meet with any of them and bring them home both they themselves weare chaplets of flowers for joy and also they crowne and adorne their barques with garlands yea and at their arrivall they are received with much shouting and clapping of hands but the most part are of opinion that the anthios beforesaid is he which they call the sacred fish and so is he held to be for that wheresoever he is there may no hurtfull nor ravening monster be found there insomuch as the Divers plunge downe into the sea for spunges boldly in those coasts where these be yea and other fishes both spawne and reare their yoong frie safely there as having him for their pledge and warrant of all safety and security as in a priviledged place The cause hereof is hardly to be rendred whether it be that such hurtfull fishes upon a secret antipathie in nature doe avoid him as elephants a swine and lions a cocke or that there be some marks signes of those coasts which are clere of such harmfull monsters which he knoweth well and observeth being a fish quicke of wit and as good of memorie Common it is to all females for to have a naturall care and providence for their yong but in fishes the males generally are so respective that way and so farre off from devouring the seed of their owne kinde that they continue neere unto the spawne that the females have cast and keepe the same as Aristotle hath left in writing Some milters there be that follow after the spawners and sprinkle them a little about the taile otherwise the spawne or frie will not be faire and great but remaine unperfect and come to no growth This property particularly by themselves have the phycides that they build their nests with the sea weeds or reits covering and defending therewith their spawne and frie against the waves of the sea Dog-fishes give not place in any sort to the most tame and gentle beasts in the world for kinde love and naturall affection to their yoong for first they engender spawne and after that a quicke frie and that not without but within nourishing and carrying the same within their owne bodies after a kind of second generation but when they are growen to any bignesse they put them foorth and teach them how to swim hard by them and afterwards receive them by the mouth into their bodie which serveth in stead of a place of abode of nourishment and of refuge untill such time as they be so big that they can shift for themselves Moreover the provident care of the tortoise in the generation nourishment and preservation of yer yoong is woonderfull for out she goeth of the sea and laieth her egges or casteth her spawne upon the banke side but being not able to cove or sit upon them nor to remaine herselfe upon the land out of the sea any long time she bestoweth them in the gravell and afterwards covereth them with the lightest and finest sand that she can get when she hath thus hidden them surely some say that with her feet she draweth raies or lines or els imprinteth certeine pricks which may serve for privy marks to herselfe to finde out the place againe others affirme that the male turneth the females upon the backe and so leaveth the print of their shell within the same but that which is more admirable she observeth just the fortieth day for in so many daies the egges come to their maturity and be hatched and then returneth she to the place where knowing her owne treasure by the seale she openeth it with great joy and pleasure as no man doth his casket of jewels or cabinet where his golde lieth The crocodiles deale much after this maner in all other points but at what marks they aime in chusing or finding out the place where they breed no mortall man is able to imagine or give a reason whereupon it is commonly said that the foreknowledge of this beast in that respect proceedeth not from any discourse of reason but of some supernaturall divination for going neither farther nor neerer than just to that gage and heigth where Nilus the river for that yeere will rise and cover the earth there laieth she her egges so that when the paisant or countrey man chanceth by fortune to hit upen a crocodiles nest himselfe knoweth and telleth his neighbours how high the river will overflow that Summer following so just doth she measure the place that will be drowned with water that herselfe may be sure not to be drenched while she sitteth and coveth furthermore when her yoong bee newly hatched if she see any one of them so soone as ever it is out of the shell not to catch with the mouth one thing or other comming next in the way be it flie pismire gnat earth-worme straw or grasse the damme taketh it betweene her teeth teareth it and killeth it presently but such as give some proofe of animositie audacitie and execution those she loveth those she cherisheth and maketh much of bestowing her love as the wisest men judge it meet and reasonable according to reason and discretion and not with blinde affection The sea-calves likewise bring forth their yoong on the dry land but within a while after they traine them to the sea give them a taste of the salt water then quickly bring them back againe thus practise they with them by little and little many times together untill they have gotten more heart and begin of themselves to delight for to live within the sea Frogs about their breeding time cal one to another by a certaine amorous note or nuptiall tune called properly Ololugon And when the male hath by this meanes entised and allured the female to him they attend and waite together for the night and why In the water they cannot possibly engender and upon the land they fear to do it in the day time dark night is no sooner come but boldly they go foorth of the water and then without feare they claspe and embrace one another Moreover against a showre of raine their crooking voice such as it is you shall heare more cleere and shrill than ordinarie which is a most infallible signe of raine But oh sweet Neptune what a foule fault and grosse errour was I like to have committed how absurd and ridiculous should I have made my selfe if being amused and busied to speake of these sea-calves and frogs I had forgotten and overpassed the wisest creature and that which the gods love best of all those that do frequent and hant the sea for what musicke of the nightingale is comparable to that of the halcyon what artificiall building of the swallowes and martinets what entier amitie love of
doves what skilfull cunning of the bees deserveth to be put in ballance with these sea-fowles halcyones Of what living creatures have the gods and goddesses so much honored the breeding travell and birth for it is said that there was but one onely Isle to wit Delos that was so wel beloved that it received the childbirth of Latona when she was delivered of Apollo Diana which iland floating before time continued afterwards firme-land whereas the pleasure of God is such that all seas should be still and calme without waves winds or drop of raine falling upon them all the while that the halcyon laieth and coveth which is just about the winter solstice even when the daies bee shortest which is the reason that there is no living creature that men love so well by whose meanes seven daies they have and seven nights even in the verie heart of winter during which time they may safely saile having their voiage by sea for those daies space more secure than their travell by land Now if I must say somewhat likewise of ech particular vertue that this bird hath first and foremost the female is so loving to the male her mate that she tarrieth not with him for one season only but al the yeere long keepeth him company and that not for shamelesse lust wantonnesse for she never admitteth any other male to tread her but onely upon a kind love and tender affection even like an honest wedded wife that keepeth onely to her husband And when the male groweth to be for age weake and unweldie in such sort as he cannot follow her but with much ado she beareth and feedeth him in his old age she never forsaketh nor leaveth him alone for any thing but she taketh him upon her shoulders carrieth him everie where about tendeth him most tenderly and is with him stil unto his dying day Now for the affection which she beareth to her yoong and the care that she hath of them and their safetie when she perceiveth once that she is with egge presently shee goeth about the building of her nest not tempering mudde or cley for to make thereof morter nor dawbing it upon the walles and spreading it over the roufe as the swallowes do and yet employing her whole body or the most part thereof about her worke as doth the bee which entring in the hony-combe with her entier bodie and working withall the six feet together devideth the place in six angled cels but the alcyon having but one instrument one toole one engine to worke withall even her owne bill without any thing else in the world to helpe her in her travell and operation yet what workmanship she makes what fabricks she frameth like unto a master carpenter or shipwright hard it were to beleeve unlesse a man had seene it being in deed such a fabricke and piece of worke which onely of all other cannot bee overthrowen nor drenched with the sea for first and formost shee goes and gathers a number of bones of the fish called Belone that is to say a Needle which shee joineth and bindeth together interlacing them some long-wise others overthwart much like as the woofe is woven upon the warpe in a loome winding plaiting and twisting them up and downe one within another so that in the end fashioned it is in forme round yet extended out in length like unto a fishers wee le or bow-net after she hath finished this frame shee bringeth it to some creeke and opposeth it against the waves where the sea gently beating and dashing upon it teacheth her to mend that was not well compact and to fortifie it in such places where shee sees it gapeth or is not united close by reason of the sea-water that hath undone the composition thereof contrariwise that which was well jointed the sea doth so settle and drive together that hardly a man is able to breake dissolve or doe it injurie either with knocke of stone or dint of edged toole But that which yet maketh it more admirable is the proportion and forme of the concavitie and hole within this vessell for framed it is composed in such sort that it will receive and admit no other thing but the verie bird which made it for nought else can enter into it so close it is and shut up no not so much as the very water of the sea I am assured that there is not one of you all but he hath many times seene this nest but for mine owne part who have both viewed touched and handled it and that verie often I am readie to say and sing thus The like at Delos once I weene Was in Apollos temple seene I meane the altar made al of hornes renowmed amongst the seven wonders of the world for that without soder glew or any other matter to binde and holde the parcels together made it was and framed of hornes which grew on the right side of the head onely But ô that this god would be so good and gracious unto me being in some sort musicall and an islander like himselfe as to pardon me if I sing the praise of that sirene and mer-maid so highly commended as also gently to heare mee laugh at these demands and interrogatories that these propound who in mockerie seeme to aske Why Apollo is never called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the killer of conger nor Diana his sister 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say a striker of barbels knowing that even Venus borne as she was of the sea and instituting her sacrifices neere unto it taketh no pleasure that any thing should be killed And moreover ye wot well enough that in the city of Leptis the priests of Neptune eat nothing that commeth out of the sea as also that in the citie Elcusin those who are professed religious and admitted to the holy mysteries of Ceres honour the barbell yea and in the city of Argos the priestresse of Diana upon a devout reverence forbeareth to feed of this creature for that these barbles doe kill and destroy all that ever they can the sea-hare which is so venimous and so deadly a poison to man in regard of which benefit reported they are friendly unto mankinde and preservers of their health and therefore honoured they be and kept as sacrosanct and yet you shall see in many cities of Greece both temples and altars dedicated unto Diana surnamed Dictynna as one would say affected unto fishers nets like as to Apollo Delphinius for certeine it is that the place which he especially chose above all others for his abode the posteritie descended from the Cretansians came to inhabit and people being conducted thither by the guidance of a dolphin and not because himselfe as some fabulous writers report being transformed into a dolphin swam before their fleet but surely a dolphin he sent to direct those men their navigation and so he brought them to the bay of Cirrha Also written it is in histories that those who were