commonplacing leonrtgreerte And though we hath so many books, Zephyridos arcem siquis excedat rate,1 that pinge globum tenui quem libratum undique filo sustineat summi numinis alta manus,9 or painteth uponeth all sides, this globe that by their Heavens tis' supported, is but a juvenescent breeze, yet si vel arefactae fundum combibat Hyppocrenis imum, or scarce couldest parch that mouth of Hippocrene, 11 that hath just been canulated, Justa Creatoris tetigit maledictio Terram, non lego, quot placidis hic maledixit Aquis,2 the age of the Booke thence must reveal itself to a man as though it twere' opening up for the first time, so to say, to begineth again the history of the whole world within him, for inventam casu cochleam, temereque iacentem instruxit nervis nuntius ille Deûm, 10 there art no child of Nature that tis' cultivated so malignly, that cannot be sorted out by the World of Nature, and for this purpose hath the world of literature been given to man, it is the spectando intellectus mystica of the Ichnographia,3 qui praesunt lucem praesunt nec nubila terrent nec pavidum faciunt noctis opaca gregem, 4 the lamp that casteth the sum of our nations into herds, in the darkness of our nescience, though already hath I noticed, inscius Actæon vidit sine veste Dianam: præda suis canibus non minus ipse fuit, 5 that it hurts to hath seen too much of it, and, diblumas frustra: quis enim cælaverit ignem? Lumen ab indicio proditur usque suo,6 for the same reason that one cannot hideth fire, and that light betrayeth itself by it's own characteristics, so doth our knowledge, and once we knoweth something, we canst not let it go, or ever hide the truth from ourselves, thereof Arachnae, inque malam e misera transtulit exitium, 7 the Truth hath placed me in the spider's web, and that poisonous jaw hath carried me across all kinds of destruction, and hit the Campo venale taceamus,8 or rung the bell of my sins. I hath, in respect to either the classics or those specimens of the recondite, from sed chorus Eumenidum, bubo, tristisque Megaera, scribenti insulsos accinuere sonos,12 or this little island whereof I hear the muses singing, beene seen to call: seu calidus Auster teneat aut Septentrio, seu caelo, terra, mari, aut inferis nunc abscondaris, iubeo ut ipso fulgure et Euro citius huc advenias, ex istis inquam foribus, 13 or hath ushered them out of either the subteraneous cove of Erebus, and the secret nooks of the world, or from out of the broad shooting rayes of Phoebus, called them non te cantatae laeserunt paelicis herbae, non anus Haemonia perfida la uit aqua; 14 as Dione rising, dripping with Foam, each book dampe with Haeccine Comaediae aqua benedicta est, 15 or the holy waters of comedy, and, to quote Ficino in the Theages, ac pecuniam sophistae alicui, or the money of Sophists spread about everywhere, even though there art still those books that doth anneal the Soul in stricter philosophies, factus suadela minoris, 16 to set upon a smaller store of volumes. 1. Avieni Ora Maritima 2. ? 3. Ichnographia Emblematica Triplicis Ad Deum Tri-Unum Mysticae Viae 4. Phoebi Vicaria Lampas,Lvx Clavstri. La lvmiere dv cloistre. 5. Thronus cupidinis 6. Heinsius 7. Thomus Morus 8. Cassiodorus 9. Bèze, Théodore de: Icones (1580) 10. Sambucus, Joannes: Emblemata (1564) 11. AFFANIAE 12. EPIGRAMMATUM NATHANIS CHYTRAEI 13. Euribates 14. The Love Poems of Ovid 15. Fucus sive Histriomastix 16. Baldo: Novus Aesopus 071125 what's it to you? who go blather from