t home: Thy children are in ward by decree of
the Provinciall Judge: Thy wife (having ended her mourning time in
lamentable wise, with face and visage blubbered with teares, in such
sort that she hath well nigh wept out both her eyes) is constrained by
her parents to put out of remembrance the unfortunate losse and lacke of
thee at home, and against her will to take a new husband. And dost thou
live here as a ghost or hogge, to our great shame and ignominy?

Then he answered he to me and said, O my friend Aristomenus, now
perceive I well that you are ignorant of the whirling changes, the
unstable forces, and slippery inconstancy of Fortune: and therewithall
he covered his face (even then blushing for very shame) with his rugged
mantle insomuch that from his navel downwards he appeared all naked.

But I not willing to see him any longer in such great miserie and
calamitie, took him by the hand and lifted him up from the ground: who
having his face covered in such sort, Let Fortune (quoth he) triumph yet
more, let her have her sway, and finish that which shee hath begun.
And therewithall I put off one of my garments and covered him, and
immediately I brought him to the Baine, and caused him to be anointed,
wiped, and the filthy scurfe of his body to be rubbed away; which done,
though I were very weary my selfe, yet I led the poore miser to my Inne,
where he reposed his body upon a bed, and then I brought him meat and
drinke, and so wee talked together: for there we might be merry and
laugh at our pleasure, and so we were, untill such time as he (fetching
a pittifull sigh from the bottom of his heart, and beating his face in
miserable sort), began to say.

THE THIRD CHAPTER

How Socrates in his returne from Macedony to Larissa was spoyled and
robbed, and how he fell acquainted with one Meroe a Witch.

Alas poore miser that I am, that for the onely desire to see a game of
triall of weapons, am fallen into these miseries and wretched snares
of misfortune. For in my returne from Macedonie, wheras I sould all
my wares, and played the Merchant by the space of ten months, a little
before that I came to Larissa, I turned out of the way, to view the
scituation of the countrey there, and behold in the bottom of a deep
valley I was suddenly environed with a company of theeves, who robbed
and spoiled me of such things as I had, and yet would hardly suffer
me to escape. But I beeing in such extremity, in the end was happil