§ 5. Astrology Soothsayer. Beware the ides of March. Caesar. He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass. Julius Caesar, 1. ii. 23-24 What serious contemplation Edgar. How now, brother Edmund! are you in? Edmund. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what should follow these eclipses. Edgar. Do you busy yourself with that? Edmund. I promise you the effects he writes of succeed unhappily; as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state; menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what. Edgar. How long have you been a sectary astronomical? King Lear, I. ii. 155-170 A Mock Prognostication The eclipse of the sun according to Proclus' opinion is like to produce many hot and pestilent infirmities, especially amongst summoners and pettifoggers, whose faces being combust with many fiery inflamatives shall show ye dearth that by their devout drinking is like to ensue of barley, if violent death take not away such consuming maltworms....And Mars being placed near unto the sun sheweth that there shall be a great death among people. Old women that can live no longer shall die for age: and young men that have usurers to their father shall this year have great cause to laugh, for the devil hath made a decree, that after they are once in hell, they shall never rise again to trouble their executors. Beside that by all conjectural arguments the influence of Mars shall be so violent, that divers soldiers in parts beyond the seas, shall fall out for want of their pay, and here in our meridional clime, great quarrels shall be raised between man and man, especially in cases of law. Gentry shall go check-mate with justice, and coin out countenance ofttimes equity*. The poor sitting on penniless bench, shall sell their coats to strive for a straw, and * See Glossary under "Checkmate." lawyers laugh such fools to scorn as cannot keep their crowns in their purses.... It is further to be feared, that because the eclipse happeneth in July, there will through the extreme heat grow such abundance of fleas, that women shall not go to bed before twelve o'clock at night, for the great murders and stratagems they are like to commit upon those little animals. And whereas this eclipse falleth out at three of the clock in the afternoon, it foresheweth that many shall go soberer into taverns than they shall come out: and that he which drinks hard and lies cold, shall never die of the sweat; although Gemini, combust and retrograde, sheweth that some shall have so sore a sweating, that they may sell their hair by the pound to stuff tennis balls. But if the beadles of Bridewell be careful this summer, it may be hoped that Petticoat Lane may be less pestered with ill airs than it was wont: and the houses there so clear cleansed, that honest women may dwell there without any dread of the whip and the cart.... But here by the way, gentle reader, note that this eclipse sheweth that this year shall be some strange births of children produced in some monstrous form, to the great grief of the parents, and fearful spectacle of the beholders: but because the eclipse chanceth southerly, it is little to be feared that the effects shall fall in England: yet somewhat it is to be doubted, that divers children shall be born, that when they come to age shall not know their own fathers. Some shall be born with feet like unto hares, that they shall run so swift, that they shall never tarry with master, but trudge from post to pillar, till they take up Beggars' Bush for their lodging. Others shall have noses like swine, that there shall not be a feast within a mile, but they shall smell it out. But especially it is to be doubted, that divers women this year shall be born with two tongues, to the terrible grief of such as shall marry them, uttering in their fury such rough-cast eloquence, that "knave' and slave' shall be but holiday words to their husbands. And whereas this fearful eclipse doth continue but an hour and a half, it signifieth that this year women's love to their husbands shall be very short, sometimes so momentary, that it shall scarce continue from the church door to the wedding house: and that hens, capons, geese, and other pullin shall little haunt poor men's tables, but fly away with spits in their bellies to fat churls' houses, that pamper themselves up with delicates and dainties. Although very few other effects are to be prognosticated, yet let me give this caveat to my countrymen, as a clause to this wonderful eclipse. Let such as have clothes enow, keep themselves warm from taking cold: and I would wish rich men all this winter to sit by a good fire, and hardly to go to bed without a cup of sack, and that so qualified with sugar, that they prove not rheumatic: let them feed daintily and take ease enough, and no doubt according to the judgment of Albumazar, they are like to live as long as they can, and not to die one hour before their time. THOMAS NASHE? A wonderful astrological prognostication 1591 CHAPTER IV EDUCATION At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 1. Child and parent As You Like It, 11. vii. 143-147 Two views of childhood (a) A humourist's A child is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy, whose small practice in the world can only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time and much handling dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of worm-wood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity. His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loth to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses but the emblems and mocking of men's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember; and sighs to see what innocence he has out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God, and like his first father much worse in his breeches. He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse. The one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another. JOHN EARLE, Micro-cosmographie 1628 (b) A puritan's Meditations of the misery of infancy What wast thou being an infant but a brute, having the shape of a man? Was not thy body conceived in the heat of lust, the secret of shame, and stain of original sin? And thus wast thou cast naked upon the earth, all imbrued in the blood of filthiness, (filthy indeed when the Son of God, who disdained not to take on him man's nature and the infirmities thereof, yet thought it unbeseeming his Holiness to be conceived after the sinful manner of man's conception): so that thy mother was ashamed to let thee know the manner thereof. What cause then hast thou to boast of thy birth, which was a cursed pain to thy mother, and to thyself the entrance into a troublesome life? The greatness of which miseries, because thou couldest not utter in words, thou diddest express (as well as thou couldest) in weeping tears. Meditations of the miseries of youth What is youth, but an untamed beast? All whose actions are rash, and rude, not capable of good counsel when it is given; and ape-like, delighting in nothing but in toys and baubles? Therefore thou no sooner begannest to have a little strength and discretion, but forthwith thou wast kept under the rod and fear of parents and masters: as if thou hadst been born to live under the discipline of others, rather than at the disposition of thine own will. No tired horse was ever more willing to be rid of his burden, than thou wast to get out of the servile state of this bondage-a state not worth the description. LEWES BAYLY, Practice of Pietie 1612 |