[761] "Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"—Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, 1606, VI. 425.
The Prologue at the Court.
We are ashamed that our bird, which fluttereth by twilight, seeming a swan, should[762] bee proved a bat, set against the sun. But, as Jupiter placed Silenus asse among the starres, and Alcibiades covered his pictures, being owles and apes, with a curtaine imbroidered with lions and eagles, so are we enforced upon a rough discourse to 5 draw on a smooth excuse, resembling lapidaries who thinke to hide the cracke in a stone by setting it deepe in gold. The gods supped once with poore Baucis;[763] the Persian kings sometimes shaved stickes; our hope is Your Highnesse wil at this time lend an eare to an idle pastime. Appion, raising Homer from hell, demanded 10 only who was his father;[764] and we, calling Alexander from his grave, seeke only who was his love. Whatsoever wee present, we wish it may be thought the dancing of Agrippa[765] his shadowes, who, in the moment they were seene, were of any shape one would conceive; or Lynces,[766] who, having a quicke sight to discerne, have a short 15 memory to forget. With us it is like to fare as with these torches, which giving light to others consume themselves; and we shewing delight to others shame ourselves.
FOOTNOTES:
[762] 'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?
[763] Ovid, Meta. III. 631.
[764] Holland, XXX. 2.
[765] Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits—of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.—Godwin, Lives of Necromancers, 1834, 324-25.