Thomas Hobbes

“ With tyrannous and dreadful pain,
Dost take from men the very power to complain. XII.
Then down it went into the breast,
There are all the seats and shops of life possest,
Such noisome smells from thence did come,
As if the stomach were a tomb;
No food would there abide,
Or if it did, turn’d to the enemies side,
The very meat new poysons to the Plague supply’d.
Next to the heart the fires came,
The heart did wonder what usurping flame,
What unknown furnace should
On its more natural heat intrude,
Strait call’d its spirits up, but found too well,
It was too late now to rebell. ”

“ Scattred in Fields the Bodies lay,
The earth call’d to the Fowls to take their Flesh away.
In vain she call’d, they come not nigh,
Nor would their food with their own ruine buy,
But at full meals, they hunger, pine, and die. ”

“ For having no Houses, but dwelling at that time of the year in stifling Booths, the Mortality was now without all form; and dying men lay tumbling one upon another in the Streets, and men half dead about every Conduit through desire of water. ”

“ I shall onely say for my self, that I took Cicero’s advice, who bids us in imitation propose the Noblest pattern to our thoughts; for so we may be sure to be raised above the common Level, though we come infinitely short of what we aim at. ”

“ For when one had made a Funeral Pile, another getting before him, would throw on his dead, and give it fire. And when one was in burning, another would come, and having cast thereon him whom he carried, go his way again. And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the City, began at first from this disease. For that which a man before would dissemble, and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he [p6] durst now do freely, seeing before his Eyes such quick revolution, of the rich dying, and men worth nothing inheriting their Estates ”

“ In the very beginning of Summer, the Peloponnesians, and their Confederates, with two thirds of their forces, as before invaded Attica, under the conduct of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamas, King of Lacedæmon, and after they had encamped themselves, wasted the Countrey about them.
They had not been many days in Attica, when the Plague first began amongst the Athenians, said also to have seized formerly on divers other parts, as about Lemnos, and elsewhere; but so great a Plague, and Mortality of Men, was never remembred to have hapned in any place before. ”

“ Where thou may’st kill, and yet the loss will not be great,
There rage, there spread, and there infect the Air,
Murder whole towns and families there,
Thy worst against those Savage nations dare,
Those whom Man-kind can spare,
Those whom man-kind it self doth fear ”

“ Neither the fear of the Gods, nor Laws of men, awed any man. Not the former, because they concluded it was alike to worship or not worship, from seeing that alike they all perished: nor the latter, because no man expected that lives would last, till he received punishment of his crimes by Judgement. But they thought there was now over their heads some far greater Judgement decreed against them; before which fell, they thought to enjoy some little part of their Lives.
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The Plague of
ATHENS.
Unhappy Man! ”

“ Now let every man, Physician, or other, concerning the ground of this sickness, whence it sprung, and what causes he thinks able to produce so great an alteration, speak according to his own knowledge; for my own part, I will deliver but the manner of it, and lay open onely such things, as one may take his Mark by, to discover the same if it come again, having been both sick of it my self, and seen others sick of the same. This year, by confession of all men, was of all other, for other Diseases, most free and healthful. If any man were sick before, his disease turned to this ”

“ The Temples also where they dwelt in Tents, were all full of the dead that died within them; for oppressed with the violence of the Calamity, and not knowing what to do, Men grew careless, both of Holy and Prophane things alike. And the Laws which they formerly used touching Funerals, were all now broken; every one burying where he could find room. And many for want of things necessary, after so many Deaths before, were forced to become impudent in the Funerals of their Friends. ”

“ As for pains, no man was forward in any action of Honour, to take any, because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not, before they atchieved it. But what any man knew to be delightful, and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and honourable. ”

“ As long as the disease was at the height, their bodies wasted not, but resisted the torment beyond all expectation, insomuch as the most of them either died of their inward burning in 9 or 7 dayes, whilest they had yet strength, or if they escaped that, then the disease falling down into their bellies, and causing there great exulcerations and immoderate looseness, they died many of them afterwards through weakness: For the disease (which took first the head) began above, and came down, and passed through the whole body ”

“ For if men forbore to visit them for fear, then they died forlorn, whereby many Families became empty, for want of such as should take care of them. If they forbore not, then they died themselves, and principally the honestest men. ”

“ For this disease never took any man the second time so as to be mortal. And these men were both by others counted happy, and they also themselves, through excess of present joy, conceived a kind of light hope, never to die of any other sickness hereafter. Besides the present affliction, the reception of the Countrey people, and of their substance into the City, oppressed both them, and much more the people themselves that so came in. ”

“ Go, make the Spaniard innocent,
Go, and root out all man-kind there.
That when the Europæan Armies shall appear,
Their sin may be the less,
They may find all a wilderness,
And without blood the gold and silver there possess. XXVI.
Nor is this all which we thee grant ”

“ And when once it was setled in the Stomach, it caused vomit, and with great torment came up all manner of bilious purgation that Physicians ever named. Most of them had also the Hickeyexe, which brought with it a strong Convulsion, and in some ceased quickly, but in others was long before it gave over. Their bodies outwardly to the touch, were neither very hot, nor pale, but reddish, livid, and beflowred with little pimples and whelks ”

“ For at first, neither were the Physicians able to cure it, through ignorance of what it was, but died fastest themselves, as being the men that most approach’d the sick, nor any other art of man availed whatsoever. All supplications to the Gods, and enquiries of Oracles, and whatsoever other means they used of that kind, proved all unprofitable ”

“ Scarronnides, or Virgil Travestie, a Mock-Poem, being the first Book of Virgils Æneis in English, Burlesque.
Scarronnides, or Virgil Travestie, a Mock-Poem, being the fourth Book of Virgils Æneis in English, Burlesque: both by a Person of Honour.
Also, a List of what Damages we have received by the Dutch; And a brief History of the late War with the Turks.
PLAYES.
IMPRIMATUR,
Guil. Jane. R. P. D. Hen. Epis. Lond. ”