With any counsel beforehand decreed, The season's natural grace to thy good speed

Nor Jove consent with his revengeful will, In whom are fix'd the bounds of good and ill.

But in the usual temper of the year,
Easy to judge of, and distinguish clear,
Are both the winds and seas; none rude,

none cross,

Nor misaffected with the love of loss. And therefore put to sea; trust even the wind

Then, with thy swift ship; but when thou shalt find

Fit freight for her, as fitly stow it straight; And all haste home make. For no new wine wait,

Nor aged Autumn's showers, nor Winter's falls

Then fast approaching, nor the noisome gales

The humorous South breathes, that incense the seas,

And raisel together in one series Jove's Autumn dashes, that come smoking down,

And with his roughest brows make th' ocean frown.

But there's another season for the seas, That in the first Spring others' choices please;

When, look how much the crow takes at a stride,

So much, put forth, the young leaf is descried

On fig-tree tops; but then the gusts so fall,

That oft the sea becomes impervial.
And yet this vernal season many use
For sea affairs; which yet I would not
choose;

Nor gives it my mind any grateful taste, Since then steals out so many a ravenous blast;

Nor, but with much scathe thou canst 'scape thy bane,

Which yet men's greedy follies dare main

tain.

Money is soul to miserable men,
And to it many men their souls bequeath.
To die in dark-seas is a dreadful death.

All this I charge thee, need to note no more;

Nor in one vessel venture all thy store;

1 'Ouaprnoas, cœlestem imbrem secutus; intending a following of those things que serie quâdam continuâ se sequuntur.

But most part leave out, and impose the less;

For 'tis a wretched thing t' endure distress
Incurr'd at sea; and 'tis as ill, ashore
To use adventures, covetous of more
Than safety warrants, as upon thy wain
To lay on more load than it can sustain ;
For then thy axle breaks, thy goods
diminish,

And thrift's mean means in violent avarice vanish.

The mean observed makes an exceeding state;

Occasion took at all times equals Fate.

Thyself if well in years, thy wife take home

Not much past thirty, nor have much to

That can abide the kind receipt of none. Consort none ill though raised to any state;

Nor leave one good though ne'er so ruinate.

Abhor all taking pleasure to upbraid
A forlorn poverty, which God hath laid
On any man in so severe a kind

As quite disheartens and dissolves his mind.

Amongst men on the earth there never sprung

An ampler treasure than a sparing tongue; Which yet most grace gains when it sings the mean.

Ill-speakers ever hear as ill again.
Make not thyself at any public feast
A troublesome or over-curious guest.
'Tis common cheer, nor touches thee at all;
Besides, thy grace is much, thy cost is

small.

1'Oris, in God, signifies insight and government in all things, and his just indignation against the impious; in man, respect to the fear of God, and his reverence. Melancthon.

2 Iedvλayμévos, vigiliis et excubiis positis. Made. This precept of preferring a man's own brother to his friend is full of humanity, and savours the true taste of a true-born man; the neglect of which in these days shows children either utterly misbegotten, or got by unnatural fathers; of whom children must taste, in disposition, as a poison of degeneracy poured into them both, and a just plague for both.

lie,

Nor mend a true-spoke mind with policy,
But all things use with first simplicity.
To Jove nor no God pour out morning

wine

With unwash'd hands; for, know, the powers divine

Avert their ears, and prayers impure reject.

Put not thy urine out, with face erect, Against the Sun,' but, sitting, let it fall, Or turn thee to some undiscovering wall. And, after the great Sun is in descent, Remember, till he greet the Orient, That, in way or without, thou still forbear, Nor ope thy nakedness while thou art there.

The nights the Gods' are; and the godly

man

And wise will shun by all means to profane
The Gods' appropriates. Make no access, 2
Thy wife new left, to sacred mysteries,
Or coming from an ominous funeral feast;
But, from a banquet that the Gods have
blest

In men whose spirits are frolicly inclined, Perform those rites that propagate thy kind.

Never the fair waves of eternal floods Pass with thy feet, but first invoke the Gods,

Thine eyes cast on their streams; which those that wade,

Their hands unwash'd, those Deities invade

With future plagues; and even then angry

are.

Of thy five branches see thou never pare

1 Μηδ' ἀντ ̓ ηελίου, neque contra solem versus erectus meito. He would have no contempt against the Sun; either directly, or allegorically, intending by the Sun great and reverend men, against whom nihil protervé et irreverenter agendum. If in the plain sense, which he makes serious, he would not have a man make water turning purposely against the Sun, nor standing, but sitting; as at this day even amongst the rude Turks it is abhorred, quibus religiosum est ut sedentes mingant, et ingens flagitium designari credunt siquis in publico cacaret aut mingeret.

2 Μηδ' αἰδοῖα. Melancthon expounds this place, a congressu uxoris ne sacra accedas, whom I have followed; dvopnuos signifies here infaustus, and rapos, funebre epulum.

3 Μηδ' ἀπὸ πεντόζοιο. He says a man must not pare his nails at the table; in which our reverend author is so respectful and moral in his

The dry from off the green, at solemn feasts;

Nor on the quaffing mazers of thy guests Bestow the bowl vow'd to the Powers Divine ;

For harmful fate is swallow'd with the wine.

When thou hast once begun to build a house,

Leave't not unfinish'd, lest the ominous
Ill-spoken crow encounter thee abroad,
And from her bough, thy means outgone,
explode.

From three-foot pots of meat set on the fire

To serve thy house, serve not thy taste's desire

With ravine of the meat, till on the board
Thou seest it set, and sacrifice afford.
Not if thou wash first, and the Gods
wouldst please

With that respect to them; for even for these

Pains are imposed, being all impieties. On tombstones, or fix'd seats, no boy permit,

That's grown to twelve years old, to idly

sit;

For 'tis not good, but makes a slothful

man.

In baths, whose waters women first began

For in their time even these parts have their pain

Grievous enough. If any homely place, Sylvan or other, thou seest vow'd to grace

Of any God, by fire made for the weal Of any poor soul moved with simplest zeal,

Mock not the mysteries; for God disdains Those impious parts, and pays them certain pains.

Never in channels of those streams that pay

The ocean tribute, give thy urine way; Nor into fountains; but, past all neglect, See thou avoid it; for the grave respect Given to these secrets meets with blest effect.

Do this, and fly the people's bitter fame,

For fame is ill, 'tis light and raised like flame;

The burthen heavy yet, and hard to cast. No fame doth wholly perish, when her blast

Echo resounds in all the people's cries,
For she herself is of the Deities.

Hi rectè in fontes immingere dicuntur, qui sacram doctrinam commaculant.

2 Aeinv, gravem or terribilem famam, he adviseth a man to avoid; intending with deserv

man;

setting down, that he nameth not nails, but calls what is to be pared away, avov, siccum or aridum, and the nail itself, xλwpov, viridum, because it is still growing; he calls likewise the hand névrogos, quae in quinos ramos disper gitur, because it puts out five fingers like branches.

known to himself impartially and betwixt God and him, every worthy man should despise the contrary conceit of the world; according to that of Quintilian, writing to Seneca, affirming he cared no more what the misjudging world vented against him, quàm de ventre redditi crepitus.

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK

OF WORKS.

THE days, that for thy works are good or ill,

According to the influence they instil; Of Jove with all care learn, and give them then,

For their discharge, in precept to thy men. The Thirtieth day of every month is best,

With diligent inspection to digest The next month's works, and part thy household foods;

That being the day when all litigious goods

Are justly sentenced, by the people's voices. And till that day next month give these days choices,

For they are mark'd out by most-knowing Jove.

First, the first day, in which the moon doth move

With radiance renew'd; and then the fourth;

The seventh day next, being first in sacred worth,

For that day did Latona bring to light The gold-sword-wearing Sun; next then the eighth3

1 'EmóпTopal, diligenti inspectione digero, seu secerno et eligo. He begins with the last day of the month, which he names not a day of any good or bad influence, but being, as 'twere, their term day, in which their business in law was attended; and that not lasting all the day, he adviseth to spend the rest of it in disposing the

next month's labours. Of the rest he makes difference, showing which are infortunate, and which auspicious, and are so far to be observed as natural cause is to be given for them; for it were madness not to ascribe reason to Nature, or to make that reason so far above us, that we cannot know by it what is daily in use with us; all being for our cause created of God; and therefore the differences of days arise in some part from the aspects, quibus luna intuetur solem, nam quadrati aspectus cient pugnam

naturæ cum morbo.

2 IIpŵτov evη, primum novilunium, which he calls sacred, nam omnia initia sacra; the fourth likewise he calls sacred, quia eo die prodit a coitu Luna, primumque tum conspicitur.

And ninth are good, being both days that retain

The moon's prime strength t' instruct the works of men.

Th' eleventh and twelfth are likewise both good days;

The twelfth yet far exceeds th' eleventh's repair,

For that day hangs the spinner in the air, And weaves up her web; so the spinster all

Her rock then ends, exposing it to sale. So Earth's third housewife, the ingenious ant,

On that day ends her mole-hills' cure of

want.

The day herself in their example then Tasking her fire, and bounds her length to

men.

The thirteenth day take care thou sow no seed,

To plant yet 'tis a day of special speed. The sixteenth day plants set prove fruitless still;

To get a son 'tis good, a daughter ill.
Nor good to get, nor give in nuptials;
Nor in the sixth day any influence falls
To fashion her begetting confluence,
But to geld kids and lambs, and sheep-
cotes fence,

It is a day of much benevolence;
To get a son it good effects affords;
And loves to cut one's heart with bitter
words;

And yet it likes fair speeches, too, and

lies,

And whispering out detractive obloquies. The eighth the bellowing bullock lib and goat;

The

twelfth the labouring mule. But if of note

1 'Evdekárn. The tenth let pass, the eleventh and twelfth he praises diversely, because the moon beholds the sun then in a triangular aspect, which is ever called benevolent.

3 Képroμos, cor alicui scindens.

To estimate and arbitrate a cause, Thou wouldst a son get, the great twentieth day

Consort thy wife, when full the morn's broad ray

Shines through thy windows; for that day is fit

To form a great and honourable wit.
The tenth is likewise good to get a son;
Fourteenth a daughter; then lay hand

1 "Iσropa oŵra, prudentem virum judicem, seu arbitrum, quod eos gnaros esse oporteat rei de qua agitur. He calls it the great twentieth, because it is the last, unvòs μerOUVTOS, which is of the middle decade of the month;

diebus TOû pivovTos, or days of the dying moon immediately following.

2 Terpàs. The fourteenth is good to get a daughter, because the moon then abounds in humours, and her light is more gelid and cold, her heat more temperate; and therefore he says it is good likewise to tame beasts in, since then, by the abundance of humours, they are made more gentle, and consequently easier tamed.

3 Τετράδ. He calls this day so baneful, because of the opposition of the sun and moon, and the time then being, that is, between the old and new moon, are hurtful for bodies; such as labour with choleric diseases, most languish then; those with phlegmatic, contrary.

IléμTтas. He warns men to fly all fifth days, that is the fifth, the fifteenth, and the five-and-twentieth, because all vengeful spirits he affirms then to be most busy with men.

The seventeenth day he thinketh best to winnow, or dight corn, à plenilunio, because about that time winds are stirred up, and the air is drier.

with care)

Upon a smooth floor, let the vinnoware
Dight and expose to the opposed gale.
Then let thy forest-feller cut thee all
Thy chamber fuel, and the numerous
parts

Of naval timber apt for shipwrights' arts.
The four-and-twentieth day begin to close
Thy ships of leak. The ninth day never
blows

Least ill at all on men. The nineteenth day

Yields (after noon yet) a more gentle ray, Auspicious both to plant, and generate Both sons and daughters; ill to no estate. But the thrice-ninth day's goodness few men know,

Being best day of the whole month to make flow

Both wine and corn-tuns, and to curb the force

Of mules and oxen and the swift-hooved horse.

And3 then the well-built ship launch. But few men

Know truth in anything; or where or

when

Though lengthless, spent as endless; fowl

and beast

1 IIpwrior eiràs, prima nova. That is, from the beginning of the month, he calls harmless, propter geminum aspectum, cum sol abest á signis.

2 Proverb, nullus dies omnino malus.

3 Ilaûpot. He says few observe these differences of days, and as few know or make any difference betwixt one day and another.

He says few approve those days, because these cause most change of tempests and men's bodies in the beginning of the last quarter.

5 All this, and the lives of fowls, is cited out of this author by Plutarch; not being extant in the common copy.