1292.
A man, seeing a woman ready to hold up the target for a jousting match, exclaimed, looking at the shield, and considering his spear: "Alack! this is too small a workman for so great a business."
IV.
PROPHECIES.
1293.
THE DIVISION OF THE PROPHECIES.
First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational creatures; thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of manners; sixthly, of cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of cases that are impossible in nature [paradoxes], as, for instance, of those things which, the more is taken from them, the more they grow. And reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning. And first show the evils and then the punishment of philosophical things.
Of Ants.
These creatures will form many communities, which will hide themselves and their young ones and victuals in dark caverns, and they will feed themselves and their families in dark places for many months without any light, artificial or natural.
[Footnote: Lines 1—51 are in the original written in one column, beginning with the text of line 11. At the end of the column is the programme for the arrangement of the prophecies, placed here at the head: Lines 56—79 form a second column, lines 80—97 a third one (see the reproduction of the text on the facsimile PI. CXVIII).