Where the rain bow toucheth the tree, no caterpillars will hang on the leaves; where the gloworme creepeth in the night, no adder will goe in the day: wee hope in the eares where our travailes be lodged, no carping shall harbour in those tongues. Our exercises must be as your judgment is, resembling water, which is alwayes of 5 the same colour into what it runneth. In the Troyan horse lay couched souldiers with children;[982] and in heapes of many words we feare divers unfit among some allowable. But, as Demosthenes with often breathing up the hill, amended his stammering, so wee hope with sundrie labours against the haire[983] to correct our studies. 10 If the tree be blasted that blossomes, the fault is in the winde and not in the root; and if our pastimes bee misliked that have beene allowed, you must impute it to the malice of others and not our endevour. And so we rest in good case, if you rest well content.
FOOTNOTES:
[982] Knights.
[983] Against the grain. F.
The Epilogue at the Court
We cannot tell whether wee are fallen among Diomedes[984] birdes or his horses,—the one received some men with sweet notes,[985] the other bit all men with sharpe teeth. But, as Homer's gods conveyed them into cloudes whom they would have kept from curses, and, as Venus, least Adonis should be pricked with the stings of 5 adders, covered his face with the wings of swans, so wee hope, being shielded with your Highnesse countenance, wee shall, though heare[986] the neighing, yet not feele the kicking of those jades, and receive, though no prayse—which we cannot deserve—yet a pardon, which in all humilitie we desire. As yet we cannot tell what we 10 should tearme our labours, iron or bullion; only it belongeth to your Majestie to make them fit either for the forge or the mynt, currant by the stampe or counterfeit by the anvill. For, as nothing is to be called white unlesse it had beene named white by the first creator,[987] so can there be nothing thought good in the opinion of others unlesse 15 it be christened good by the judgement of your selfe. For our selves, againe, we are like these torches of waxe, of which, being in your Highnesse hands, you may make doves or vultures, roses or nettles, laurell for a garland or ealder for a disgrace.[988]
FOOTNOTES:
[984] A king of Thrace who fed his horses with human flesh.
[985] "Birds called Diomedæ. Toothed they are, and they have eies as red and bright as the fire: otherwise their feathers be all white. Found they be in one place, innobled for the tombe and Temple of Diomedes, on the coast of Apulia. Their manner is to cry with open mouth uncessantly at any strangers that come aland, save only Grecians, upon whom they wil seem to fawne and make signs of love ... as descended from the race of Diomedes." Holland, X. 44.