NATURE.
Well, then, for a season I will depart,
Leaving you together here both twain;
What I have shown, man, print well in thine heart,[13]
And mark well this figure that here shall remain,
Whereby thou mayest perceive many things more plain
Concerning the matter I spoke of before;
And when that I shall resort here again,
Of high points of cunning I shall show thee more.
STUDIOUS DESIRE.
Now, Humanity, call to your memory
The cunning points that Nature hath declared;
And though he has shown divers points and many
Of the elements so wondersly[14] formed
Yet many other causes there are would be learned,
As to know the generation of things all
Here in the earth, how they be engendered,
As herbs, plants, well-springs, stone, and metal.
HUMANITY.
Those things to know for me be full expedient,
But yet in those points which Nature late showed me,
My mind in them as yet is not content,
For I can no manner wise perceive nor see,
Nor prove by reason why the earth should be
In the middes of the firmament hanging so small,
And the earth with the water to be round withal.
STUDIOUS DESIRE.
Me thinketh myself, as to some of those points
I could give a sufficient solution;
For, first of all, thou must needs grant this,
That the earth is so deep, and bottom hath none,
Or else there is some gross thing it standeth upon,
Or else that it hangeth, thou must needs consent,
Even in the middes of the firmament.
HUMANITY.
What then? go forth with thine argument.