to
bee a man of so litel stature and smal personage tauntyng hym with this
scoffe, sayde: The mountayne hath trauayled, Iupiter forbode, but yet
hee hathe broughte forth a mouse.[334] Agesilaus beynge offended wyth
hys saying, answered: and yet the tyme wyl come, that I shall seeme to
the a Lyon. And not longe after, it chaunced through a sedycion that
arose amonge the Aegypcyans, whan Agesilaus was gone from him, the king
was constreyned to flee to the Persians.
FOOTNOTES:
[334] This is related differently in Plutarch. "Now _Agesilaus_ being
arrived in AEGYPT, all the chiefe Captaines and Governors of King
_Tachos_ came to the seashore, and honourably received him: and not they
onely, but infinite numbers of AEgyptians of all sorts ... came thither
from all parts to see what manner of man he was. But when they saw no
stately traine about him, but an olde gray-beard layed on the grasse by
the sea side, a litle man that looked simply of the matter, and but
meanely apparelled in an ill-favored thread-bare gowne: they fell
a-laughing at him, remembring the merry tale, that a mountaine,"
&c.--North's _Plutarch_, edit 1603, fol. 629-30.
+ _Of Corar the Rhetorician, and Tisias hys scoler._ cxxxvi.
+ A certayne man called Corar, determyned hym selfe for mede[335] to
teache the arte of Rhetorycke, with whom a yong man, named Tisias,
couenanted on this wyse, that he wold pay him his wages, whan he had
perfectly learned the scyence. So whan he had lerned the art, he made no
haste to paye his teacher, wherfore hys mayster sued hym. Whan they came
before the iudges, the yonge man demaunded of hys mayster, what was the
effecte of the scyence? He aunswered: In reasonyng to perswade.[336]
Than go to, if I perswade these honourable iudges that I owe you
nothing, I wil pay you nothyng: for you are cast in your action. And yf
I can not perswade them, than wil I pay you nothing, because I haue not
yet perfectly learned the art. Corar wrestyng[337] the yonge mans owne
argumente agaynst hym selfe, said: If thou perswade them, that thou
oughteste[338] me nothynge, than (accordynge to the couenaunt) thou must
nedes pay mee my wages: for thou haste the art perfectly. Now yf thou
canst not perswade them: yet shalt thou pay mee my wages, because thou
arte condemned by the Iudges' sentence to be my detour.
FOOTNOTES:
[335] Remuneration.
[336] To persuade by reasoning.
[337] Turning by force of ingenuity.
[338] Owed.
|