Prudentes.

The Wise.

Iane bifrons, qui transacta futuraque calles,
Quique retro sannas sicut & antè vides, [1]
Tot te cur oculis, tot fingunt vultibus? an quòd
Circunspectum hominem forma fuisse docet?

Two-headed Janus, you know about what has already happened and what is yet to come, you see the jeering faces behind just as you see them in front. Why do they represent you with so many eyes, why with so many faces? Is it because this form tells us that you were a man of circumspection?

In mortem praeproperam.

Untimely death

Qui teneras forma allicuit[1] torsitque puellas,
Pulchrior & tota nobilis urbe puer,
Occidit ante diem, nulli mage flendus Aresti
Quàm tibi, cui casto iunctus amore fuit.
Ergo illi tumulum tanti monumenta doloris
Astruis, & querulis vocibus astra feris.
Me sine abis dilecte? neque ampliùs ibimus unà?
Nec mecùm in studiis otia grata teres?
Sed te terra teget, sed fati Gorgonis ora,
Delphinesque tui signa dolenda dabunt.

That handsome lad, famed throughout all the city, who attracted and tormented tender-hearted girls with his beauty, has perished before his time, mourned by no one more than you, Arestius, to whom he was joined in chaste affection. Therefore you build him a tomb as a memorial of such great love and assail the heavens with cries of grief: Beloved, are you gone away without me? Shall we never be together again? Will you never again spend happy leisure hours with me in study? But the earth will cover you, a Gorgon’s head and dolphins shall provide doleful symbols of your fate.

Lamentatur mortem praematuram nobilis
euiusdam pulcherrimique iuvenis, qui Aresti
  Link to an image of this page  [m5v p186]syncero amore, singularique amicitia coniun-
ctus fuerat. ideoque tum floridam eius aeta-
tem, tum etiam unicam dilectionem amarè
luget, & in signum ingentis doloris tumulum
sibi extruit. Exclamans quòd non solùm ille
verùm etiam Gorgonis ora & Delphines mi-
serabile eius fatum deflebunt, fuere autem
Gorgones, sorores pulcherrimae puellae filiae
Phorci, insulas Dorcadas in Oceano Aethio-
pico inhabitantes, quarum una Medusa solo
aspectu homines in lapides permutasse fer-
tur, quod propter eius summam pulchritudi-
nem fictum est, de qua Ovidius lib. 4. Metamorphoseon.
Delphines autem pueros mirum in modum
adamasse, eorumque interitum (ob desiderium)
dolenda moestitia deplorasse. Autor est Plinius
lib. 9. cap. 8. Mors omnia aequat, absque aliquo
respectu, iuvenesque senesque speciosos atque
deformes rapit, ut venustè Ovidius in consola-
tione ad Liviam de morte Drusii,

Fortuna arbitriis tempus dispensat ubique
Illa rapit iuvenes, sustulit illa senes.
Quaque ruit furibunda ruit totumque per orbem
Fulminat & caecis caeca triumphat equis.