Si que ce patient estoit en grand oppressé.”
But Reusner’s Emblems (bk. i. Emb. 27, p. 37, edition 1581), and Whitney’s (p. 75), adopt the same motto, O vita misero longa,—“O life, how long for the wretched.” The stanzas of the latter may be accepted as being in some degree representative of those of the former,—
“To Caucasus, behoulde Promethevs chain’de,
Whose liuer still, a greedie gripe dothe rente:
He neuer dies, and yet is alwaies pain’de,
With tortures dire, by which the Poëttes ment,
That hee, that still amid misfortunes standes,
Is sorrowes slaue, and bounde in lastinge bandes.
For, when that griefe doth grate vppon our gall,
Or surging seas, of sorrowes moste doe swell,