Free The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works by Thomas Nashe Page B

that are most fit for them,
And shun the contrary all that they may;
They know what is for their own diet best,
And seek about for’t very carefully;
At sight of any whip they run away,
As runs a thief from noise of hue and cry;
Nor live they on the sweat of others’ brows,
But have their trades to get their living with,
Hunting and coney-catching, two fine arts.
Yea, there be of them, as there be of men,
Of every occupation more or less:
Some carriers, and they fetch; some watermen,
And they will dive and swim when you bid them;
Some butchers, and they do worry sheep by night;
Some cooks, and they do nothing but turn spits.
Chrysippus holds dogs are logicians,
In that, by study and by canvassing,
They can distinguish twixt three several things:
As when he cometh where three broad ways meet,
And of those three hath stay’d at two of them,
By which he guesseth that the game went not,
Without more pause he runneth on the third;
Which, as Chrysippus saith, insinuates
As if he reason’d thus within himself:
‘Either he went this, that, or yonder way,
But neither that, nor yonder, therefore this.’
But whether they logicians be or no,
Cynics they are, for they will snarl and bite;
Right courtiers to flatter and to fawn;
Valiant to set upon the enemies,
Most faithful and constant to their friends;
Nay, they are wise, as Homer witnesseth,
Who, talking of Ulysses coming home,
Saith all his household but Argus, his dog,
Had quite forgot him. Ay, and his deep insight
Nor Pallas’ art 82 in altering of his shape,
Nor his base weeds, nor absence twenty years,
Could go beyond, or any way delude.
That dogs physicians are, thus I infer:
They are ne’er sick, but they know their disease,
And find out means to ease them of their grief;
Special good surgeons to cure dangerous wounds,
For, strucken with a stake into the flesh,
This policy they use to get it out:
They trail one of their feet upon the ground,
And gnaw the flesh about, where the wound is,
Till it be clean drawn out; and then, because
Ulcers and sores kept foul are hardly cur’d,
They lick and purify it with their tongue,
And well observe Hippocrates’ old rule;
The only medicine for the foot is rest,’
For if they have the least hurt in their feet,
They bear them up and look they be not stirr’d
When humours rise, they eat a sovereign 83 herb,
Whereby what cloys their stomachs they cast up,
And, as some writers of experience tell,
They were the first invented vomiting.
Sham’st thou not, Autumn, unadvisedly
To slander such rare creatures as they be?
    SUMMER : We call’d thee not, Orion, to this end,
To tell a story of dogs’ qualities.
With all thy hunting how are we enrich’d?
What tribute payest thou us for thy high place?
    ORION : What tribute-should I pay you out of nought?
Hunters do hunt for pleasure, not for gain.
While dog-days last, the harvest safely thrives;
The sun burns hot, to finish up fruits’ growth;
There is no blood-letting to make men weak.
Physicians with their
Cataposia
,
Recipe Elinctoria
,
Masticatorum
and
Cataplasmata
; 84
Their gargarisms, 85 clysters, 86 and pitched cloths, 87
Their perfumes, syrups, and their triacles, 88
Refrain to poison the sick patients,
And dare not minister till I be out.
Then none will bathe, and so are fewer drown’d;
All lust is perilsome, therefore less us’d.
In brief, the year without me cannot stand:
Summer, I am thy staff and thy right hand.
    SUMMER : A broken staff, a lame right hand I had,
If thou wert all the stay that held me up.
Nihil violentum perpetuum
: 89
‘No violence that liveth to old age.’
Ill-governed star, that never bod’st good luck,
I banish thee a twelve-month and a day,
Forth of my presence. Come not in my sight,
Nor show thy head, so much as in the night.
    ORION : I am content, though hunting be not out;
We will go hunt in hell for better hap.
One parting blow, my hearts, unto our friends,
To bid the fields and