As much to say, leaue of now, yee haue talked of the matter inough: for the shepheards guise in many places is by opening certaine sluces to water their pastures, so as when they are wet inough they shut them againe: this application is full Allegoricke.
Ye haue another manner of Allegorie not full, but mixt, as he that wrate
thus:
The cloudes of care haue coured all my coste,
The stormes of strife, do threaten to appeare:
The waues of woe, wherein my ship is toste.
Haue broke the banks, where lay my life so deere.
Chippes of ill chance, are fallen amidst my choise,
To marre the minde that ment for to reioyce.
I call him not a full Allegorie, but mixt, bicause he discouers withall what the cloud, storme, waue, and the rest are, which in a full allegorie should not be discouered, but left at large to the readers iudgement and coniecture.
[Sidenote: Enigma, or the Riddle.]
We dissemble againe vnder couert and darkes speaches, when we speake by
way of riddle (Enigma) of which the sence can hardly be picked out, but
by the parties owne assoile, as he that said:
It is my mother well I wot,
And yet the daughter that I begot.
Meaning it by the ise which is made of frozen water, the same being molten by the sunne or fire, makes water againe.
My mother had an old woman in her nurserie, who in the winter nights would
put vs forth many prety ridles, whereof this is one:
I haue a thing and rough it is
And in the midst a hole I wis:
There came a yong man with his ginne,
And he put it a handfull in.
The good old Gentlewoman would tell vs that were children how it was meant by a furd glooue. Some other naughtie body would peraduenture haue construed it not halfe so mannerly. The riddle is pretie but that it holdes too much of the Cachemphaton or foule speach and may be drawen to a reprobate sence.
[Sidenote: Parimia, or Prouerb.]
We dissemble after a sort, when we speake by comon prouerbs, or, as we vse
to call them, old said sawes, as thus:
As the olde cocke crowes so doeth the chick:
A bad Cooke that cannot his owne fingers lick.
Meaning by the first, that the yong learne by the olde, either to be good or euill in their behauiors: by the second, that he is not to be counted a wise man, who being in authority, and hauing the administration of many good and great things, will not serue his owne turne and his friends whilest he may, & many such prouerbiall speeches: as Totnesse is turned French, for a strange alteration: Skarborow warning, for a sodaine commandement, allowing no respect or delay to bethinke a man of his busines. Note neuerthelesse a diuersitie, for the two last examples be prouerbs, the two first prouebiall speeches.
[Sidenote: Ironia, or the Drie mock.] Ye doe likewise dissemble, when ye speake in derision or mokerie, & that may be many waies: as sometime in sport, sometime in earnest, and priuily, and apertly, and pleasantly, and bitterly: but first by the figure Ironia, which we call the drye mock: as he that said to a bragging Ruffian, that threatened he would kill and slay, no doubt you are a good man of your hands: or, as it was said by a French king, to one that praide his reward, shewing how he had bene cut in the face at a certain battell fought in his seruice: ye may see, quoth the king, what it is to runne away & looke backwards. And as Alphonso king of Naples, said to one that profered to take his ring when he washt before dinner, this wil serue another well: meaning that the Gentlemen had another time taken them, & becaufe the king forgot to aske for them, neuer restored his ring againe.