For he invested me with the highest dignity that could be found, not only in his household, but in the whole world: namely, with the office of a shepherd: for first he did entrust me with his swine, then his goats, and then his whole flock of sheep, that I should keep and feed the same, and by means of my bagpipe (of which Strabo writeth that in Arabia its music alone doth fatten the sheep and lambs) protect them from the wolf. Then was I like to David (save that he in place of the bagpipe had but a harp), which was no bad beginning for me, but a good omen that in time, if I had any manner of luck, I should become a famous man: for from the beginning of the world high personages have been shepherds, as we read in Holy Writ of Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons: yea, of Moses also, which must first keep his father-in-law his sheep before he was made law-giver and ruler over six hundred thousand men in Israel. And now may some man say these were holy and godly men, and no Spessart peasant-lads knowing nought of God? Which I must confess: yet why should my then innocence be laid to my charge? Yet, among the heathen of old time you will find examples as many as among God's chosen folk. So among the Romans were noble families that without doubt were called Bubulci, Vituli, Vitellii, Caprae, and so forth, because they had to do with the cattle so named, and 'tis like had even herded them. 'Tis certain Romulus and Remus were shepherds, and Spartacus that made the whole Roman world to tremble. What! was not Paris, King Priam's son, a shepherd, and Anchises the Trojan prince, Aeneas's father? The beautiful Endymion, of whom the chaste Luna was enamoured, was a shepherd, and so too the grisly Polypheme. Yea, the gods themselves were not ashamed of this trade: Apollo kept the kine of Admetus, King of Thessaly; Mercurius and his son Daphnis, Pan and Proteus, were all mighty shepherds: and therefore be they still called by our fantastic poets the patrons of herdsmen. Mesha, King of Moab, as we do read in II Kings, was a sheep-master; Cyrus, the great King of Persia, was not only reared by Mithridates, a shepherd, but himself did keep sheep; Gyges was first a herdsman, and then by the power of a ring became a king; and Ismael Sophi, a Persian king, did in his youth likewise herd cattle. So that Philo, the Jew, doth excellently deal with the matter in his life of Moses when he saith the shepherd's trade is a preparation and a beginning for the ruling of men, for as men are trained and exercised for the wars in hunting, so should they that are intended for government first be reared in the gentle and kindly duty of a shepherd: all which my dad doubtless did understand: yea, to know it doth to this hour give me no little hope of my future greatness.