[Sidenote: _Antitheton_, or the renconter] Ye haue another figure very pleasnt and fit for amplification, which to answer the Greeke terme, we may call the encounter, but following the Latine name by reason of his contentious nature, we may call him the Quarreller, for so be al such persons as delight in taking the contrary part of whatsoeuer shalbe spoken: when I was scholler in Oxford they called euery such one _Iohannes ad oppositum._ _Good haue I doone you, much, harme did I neuer none, Ready to ioy your gaines, your losses to bemone, Why therefore should you grutch so sore as my welfare: Who onely bred your blisse, and neuer causd your care._ Or as it is in these two verses where one speaking of _Cupids_ bowe, deciphered thereby the nature of sensual loue, whose beginning is more pleasant than the end, thus allegorically and by _antitheton_. _His bent is sweete, his loose is somewhat sowre, In ioy begunne, ends oft in wofull bowre._ Maister _Diar_ in this quarelling figure. _Nor loue hath now the force, on me which it ones had, Your frownes can neither make me mourne, nor fauors make me glad._ _Socrates_ the Greek Oratour was a litle too full of this figure, & so was the Spaniard that wrote the life of _Marcus Aurelius_ & many of our moderne writers in vulgar, vse it in excesse & incurre the vice of fond affectation: otherwise the figure is very commendable. In this quarrelling figure we once plaid this merry Epigrame of an importune and shrewd wife, thus: _My neighbour hath a wife, not fit to make him thriue, But good to kill a quicke man, or make a dead reuiue. So shrewd she is for God, so cunning and so wise, To counter with her goodman, and all by contraries. For when he is merry, she lurcheth and she loures, When he is sad she singes, or laughes it out by houres. Bid her be still her tongue to talke shall neuer cease, When she should speake and please, for spight she holds her peace, Bid spare and she will spend, bid spend she spares as fast, What first ye would haue done, be sure it shalbe last. Say go, she comes, say come, she goes, and leaues him all alone, Her husband (as I thinke) calles her ouerthwart Ione._ [Sidenote: _Erotema_, or the Questioner.] There is a kinde of figuratiue speach when we aske many questions and looke for none answere, speaking indeed by interrogation, which we might as well say by affirmation. This figure I call the _Questioner_ or inquisitiue, as when _Medea_ excusing her great crueltie vsed in the murder of her owne children which she had by _Iason_, said: _Was I able to make them I praie you tell, And am I not able to marre them all aswell?_ Or as another wrote very commendably. _Why strive I with the streame, or hoppe against the hill, On search that neuer can be found, and loose my labour still?