O how few there be, as said Seneca in his first tragedy,[N45] who turn to good account the time of their life or ever think upon its brevity. But of a surety thou, O prince, wast never of the number of these men, since by thy glorious and lofty deeds and cruel sufferings, thou didst add to thyself, among many princes of most excellent dignity, an eternal and undying memory, and, what is of more value, a heavenly throne, as I piously believe. O fortunate Kings, who after his death shall possess the royal seat of his ancestors, I beg you always to keep the sepulchre of this great and noble duke in your especial remembrance, since the splendour of his virtues doth form a great part of your honour. For verily the exclamations and the praises which I tell you of him, were not invented by my own wit, but are as it were the living voices of his virtues and his great merits, which would be of great profit to every one of you, if you could keep them whole and sound in your thought, not desiring that I had related them more briefly, since it would be a trouble to find his like among the men of our time. CHAPTER VII. In which five reasons appear why the Lord Infant was moved to command the search for the lands of Guinea. We imagine that we know a matter when we are acquainted with the doer of it and the end for which he did it. And since in former chapters we have set forth the Lord Infant as the chief actor in these things, giving as clear an understanding of him as we could, it is meet that in this present chapter we should know his purpose in doing them. And you should note well that the noble spirit of this Prince, by a sort of natural constraint, was ever urging him both to begin and to carry out very great deeds. For which reason, after the taking of Ceuta he always kept ships well armed against the Infidel, both for war, and because he had also a wish to know the land that lay beyond the isles of Canary and that Cape called Bojador, for that up to his time, neither by writings, nor by the memory of man, was known with any certainty the nature of the land beyond that Cape. Some said indeed that Saint Brandan had passed that way; and there was another tale of two galleys rounding the Cape, which never returned.[N46] But this doth not appear at all likely to be true, for it is not to be presumed that if the said galleys went there, some other ships would not have endeavoured to learn what voyage they had made. And because the said Lord Infant wished to know the truth of this,--since it seemed to him that if he or some other lord did not endeavour to gain that knowledge, no mariners or merchants would ever dare to attempt it--(for it is clear that none of them ever trouble themselves to sail to a place where there is not a sure and certain hope of profit)--and seeing also that no other prince took any pains in this matter, he sent out his own ships against those parts, to have manifest certainty of them all.