The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
page 79 of 2094 (03%)
page 79 of 2094 (03%)
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lives, to express nothing less.
What would he have said to see, hear, and read so many bloody battles, so many thousands slain at once, such streams of blood able to turn mills: _unius ob noxam furiasque_, or to make sport for princes, without any just cause, [282]"for vain titles" (saith Austin), "precedency, some wench, or such like toy, or out of desire of domineering, vainglory, malice, revenge, folly, madness," (goodly causes all, _ob quas universus orbis bellis et caedibus misceatur_,) whilst statesmen themselves in the mean time are secure at home, pampered with all delights and pleasures, take their ease, and follow their lusts, not considering what intolerable misery poor soldiers endure, their often wounds, hunger, thirst, &c., the lamentable cares, torments, calamities, and oppressions that accompany such proceedings, they feel not, take no notice of it. "So wars are begun, by the persuasion of a few debauched, hair-brain, poor, dissolute, hungry captains, parasitical fawners, unquiet hotspurs, restless innovators, green heads, to satisfy one man's private spleen, lust, ambition, avarice," &c.; _tales rapiunt scelerata in praelia causae. Flos hominum_, proper men, well proportioned, carefully brought up, able both in body and mind, sound, led like so many [283]beasts to the slaughter in the flower of their years, pride, and full strength, without all remorse and pity, sacrificed to Pluto, killed up as so many sheep, for devils' food, 40,000 at once. At once, said I, that were tolerable, but these wars last always, and for many ages; nothing so familiar as this hacking and hewing, massacres, murders, desolations--_ignoto coelum clangore remugit_, they care not what mischief they procure, so that they may enrich themselves for the present; they will so long blow the coals of contention, till all the world be consumed with fire. The [284]siege of Troy lasted ten years, eight months, there died 870,000 Grecians, 670,000 Trojans, at the taking of the city, and after were slain 276,000 men, women, and children of all sorts. Caesar killed a |
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