and labour hard for it. So did Seneca, by his own confession, ep. 8.
[1987]Not a day that I spend idle, part of the night I keep mine eyes
open, tired with waking, and now slumbering to their continual task.
Hear Tully pro Archia Poeta: whilst others loitered, and took their
pleasures, he was continually at his book, so they do that will be
scholars, and that to the hazard (I say) of their healths, fortunes,
wits, and lives. How much did Aristotle and Ptolemy spend? unius regni
precium they say, more than a king's ransom; how many crowns per annum,
to perfect arts, the one about his History of Creatures, the other on
his Almagest? How much time did Thebet Benchorat employ, to find out
the motion of the eighth sphere? forty years and more, some write: how
many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizzards, neglecting
all worldly affairs and their own health, wealth, esse and bene esse,
to gain knowledge for which, after all their pains, in this world's
esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses,
and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, doting, and mad.
Look for examples in Hildesheim spicel. 2, de mania et delirio: read
Trincavellius, l. 3. consil. 36, et c. 17. Montanus, consil. 233.
[1988]Garceus de Judic. genit. cap. 33. Mercurialis, consil. 86, cap.
25. Prosper [1989]Calenius in his Book de atra bile; Go to Bedlam and
ask. Or if they keep their wits, yet they are esteemed scrubs and fools
by reason of their carriage: after seven years' study
———statua, taciturnius exit,
Plerumque et risum populi quatit.———
He becomes more silent than a statue, and generally excites people's
laughter. Because they cannot ride a horse, which every clown can do;
salute and court a gentlewoman, carve at table, cringe and make conges,
which every common swasher can do, [1990]hos populus ridet, &c., they
are laughed to scorn, and accounted silly fools by our gallants. Yea,
many times, such is their misery, they deserve it: [1991]a mere
scholar, a mere ass.
[1992]Obstipo capite, et figentes lumine terram,
Murmura cum secum, et rabiosa silentia rodunt,
Atque experrecto trutinantur verba labello,
Aegroti veteris meditantes somnia, gigni
De nihilo nihilum; in nihilum nil posse reverti.
[1993]———who do lean awry
Their heads, piercing the earth with a fixt eye;
When, by themselves, they gnaw their murmuring,
And furious silence, as 'twere balancing
Each word upon their out-stretched lip, and when
They meditate the dreams of old sick men,
As, 'Out of nothing, nothing can be brought;
And that which is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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