FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   >>  
es are very unworthy the French good nature, and also, God be thanked, our air is very well purged of them since this good advice: 'tis enough that they say "no" in doing it, according to the rule of the good Marot. "Un doulx nenny, avec un doulx sourire Est tant honneste."--Marot. History is everywhere full of those who by a thousand ways have exchanged a painful and irksome life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, to fly, he said, both the future and the past. Granius Silvanus and Statius Proximus, after having been pardoned by Nero, killed themselves; either disdaining to live by the favour of so wicked a man, or that they might not be troubled, at some other time, to obtain a second pardon, considering the proclivity of his nature to suspect and credit accusations against worthy men. Spargapises, son of Queen Tomyris, being a prisoner of war to Cyrus, made use of the first favour Cyrus shewed him, in commanding him to be unbound, to kill himself, having pretended to no other benefit of liberty, but only to be revenged of himself for the disgrace of being taken. Boges, governor in Eion for King Xerxes, being besieged by the Athenian army under the conduct of Cimon, refused the conditions offered, that he might safe return into Asia with all his wealth, impatient to survive the loss of a place his master had given him to keep; wherefore, having defended the city to the last extremity, nothing being left to eat, he first threw all the gold and whatever else the enemy could make booty of into the river Strymon, and then causing a great pile to be set on fire, and the throats of all the women, children, concubines, and servants to be cut, he threw their bodies into the fire, and at last leaped into it himself. Ninachetuen, an Indian lord, so soon as he heard the first whisper of the Portuguese Viceroy's determination to dispossess him, without any apparent cause, of his command in Malacca, to transfer it to the King of Campar, he took this resolution with himself: he caused a scaffold, more long than broad, to be erected, supported by columns royally adorned with tapestry and strewed with flowers and abundance of perfumes; all which being prepared, in a robe of cloth of gold, set full of jewels of great value, he came out into the street, and mounted the steps to the scaffold, at one corner of which he had a pile lighted of aromatic wood. Everybody ran to see to what end these
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50  
51   52   53   54   55   56   >>  



Top keywords:

favour

 

killed

 

scaffold

 

nature

 

throats

 

survive

 

leaped

 

return

 

concubines

 
wealth

bodies
 
servants
 

impatient

 
children
 

causing

 
defended
 
extremity
 

Ninachetuen

 

wherefore

 

Strymon


master

 

prepared

 
jewels
 
perfumes
 

abundance

 

adorned

 

royally

 

tapestry

 

strewed

 

flowers


street

 

Everybody

 

aromatic

 

mounted

 

corner

 

lighted

 

columns

 
supported
 

Viceroy

 

determination


dispossess

 

Portuguese

 
whisper
 

Indian

 

apparent

 

erected

 
caused
 
resolution
 

Malacca

 
command