part in that play, no man better. 1 Patient yourself,

good master friar/ quoth he, 1 and be not angry; for 15 scripture saith : " In your patience you shall save your souls. 0 " 9 Then the friar, for I will rehearse his own very words, 'No, gallows-wretch, I am not angry/ quoth he, 1 or at the leastwise I do not sin ; for the Psalmist saith, "Be you angry and sin not.°" ? 20
" Then the cardinal spake gently to the friar, and de- sired him to quiet himself. 6 No, my lord/ quoth he ? ' I speak not but of a good zeal, as I ought ; for holy men had a good zeal. Wherefore it is said, " The zeal of thy house hath eaten me.°" And it is sung in the church: 25
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" The scorners of Helizeus, 0 whiles he went up into the house of God, felt the zeal of the bald " ; as perad- venture this scorning villain ribald shall feel.' 1 You do it/ quoth the cardinal, i perchance of a good mind and
s affection. But methinketh you should do, I cannot tell whether more holily, certes more wisely, if you would not set your wit to a fool's wit, and with a fool take in hand a foolish contention.' 'No, forsooth, my lord/ quoth he, ' I should not do more wisely. For Solomon
io the wise saith: " Answer a fool according to his fool- ishness 0 " ; like as I do now, and do show him the pit that he shall fall into, if he take not heed. For if many scorners of Helizeus, which was but one bald man, felt the zeal of the bald, how much more shall
is one scorner of many friars feel, among whom be many bald men°? And we have also the Pope's bulls, whereby all that mock and scorn us -be excommunicate, suspended, and accursed.' The cardinal, seeing that none end would be made, sent away the jester by a
20 privy beck,° and turned the communication to another matter. Shortly after, when he was risen from the table, he went to hear his suitors, and so dismissed us.
" Look, Master More, with how long and tedious a tale I have kept you, which surely I would have been
25 ashamed to have done, but that you so earnestly de-
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sired me, and did after such a sort give ear unto it, as though you would not that any parcel 0 of that com- munication should be left out ; which, though I have done somewhat briefly, yet could I not choose but re- hearse it, for the judgment of them, 0 which, when they s had improved and disallowed my sayings, yet inconti- nent hearing the cardinal allow them, did themselves also approve the same ; so impudently flattering him, that they were nothing ashamed to admit, yea, almost in good earnest, his jester's foolish inventions; be-io cause that he himself, by smiling at them, did seem not to disprove them. So that hereby you may right well perceive how little the courtiers would regard and esteem me and my sayings."
" I ensure you, Master Raphael," quoth I, " I took is great delectation in hearing you, all things that you said were spoken so wittily and so pleasantly. And methought myself to be in the mean time not only at home in my country but also, through the pleasant re- membrance of the cardinal, in whose house I was 20 brought up of a child, 0 to wax a child again. And, friend Raphael, though I did bear very great love towards you before, yet seeing you do so earnestly favor this man, you will not believe how much my love towards you is now increased. But yet, all this 25
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notwithstanding, I can by no means change my mind, but that I must needs believe that you, if you be dis- posed and can find in your heart to follow some prince's court, shall with your good counsels greatly help and s further the commonwealth. Wherefore there is noth- ing more appertaining to your duty ; that is to say, to the duty of a good man. For whereas your Plato judgeth 0 that weal publics shall by this means attain perfect felicity, either if philosophers be kings, or else
10 if kings give themselves to the study of philosophy ; how far, I pray you, shall commonwealths then be from this felicity, if philosophers will vouchsafe 0 to instruct kings with their good counsel ? "
" They be not so unkind," quoth he, " but they would
is gladly do it ; yea, many have done it already in books that they have put forth, if kings and princes would be willing and ready to follow good counsel. But Plato doubtless did well foresee, unless kings them- selves would apply their minds to the study of phi-
20 losophy, that else they would never thoroughly allow the counsel of philosophers ; being themselves before even from their tender age infected and corrupt with perverse and evil opinions ; which thing Plato himself proved true in King Dionysius. 0 If I should propose
25 to any king wholesome decrees, doing my endeavor to
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pluck out of his mind the pernicious original causes of vice and naughtiness, think you not that I should forthwith either be driven away, or else made a laugh- ing-stock ?
" Go to ; suppose that I were with the French king, 0 s and there sitting in his council whiles that in that most secret consultation, the king himself there being present in his own person, they beat their brains and search the very bottoms of their wits to discuss by what craft and means the king may still keep Milan 0 10 and draw to him again fugitive Naples, 0 and then how to conquer the Venetians, 0 and how to bring under his jurisdiction all Italy 0 ; then how to win the dominion of Flanders, 0 Brabant, 0 and of all Burgundy, 0 with divers other lands, whose kingdoms he hath long ago is in mind and purpose invaded. Here, whiles one coun- selleth to conclude a league of peace with the Vene- tians, which shall so long endure as shall be thought meet and expedient for their purpose, and to make them also of their counsel, yea, and besides that to 20 give them part of the prey, which afterward, when they have brought their purpose about after their own minds they may require and claim again ; another thinketh best to hire the Germans 0 ; another would have the favor of the Swychers 0 won with money ; an- 25
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other's advice is to appease the puissant power of the Emperor's majesty with gold, 0 as with a most pleasant and acceptable sacrifice ; whiles another giveth coun- sel to make peace with the King of Aragon, 0 and to
s restore unto him his own kingdom of Navarre 0 as a full assurance of peace; another cometh in with his five eggs,° and adviseth to hook in the King of Castile 0 with some hope of affinity or alliance, and to bring to their part certain peers of his court for great pensions :
10 whiles they all stay at the chiefest doubt of all, what to do in the mean time with England, and yet agree all in this, to make peace with the Englishmen 0 and with most sure and strong bonds to bind that weak and feeble friendship, so that they must be called
is friends and had in suspicion as enemies, and that therefore the Scots 0 must be had in a readiness, as it were in a standing ready at all occasions, in aunters 0 the Englishmen should stir never so little, incontinent to set upon them and, moreover, privily and secretly,
20 for openly it may not be done by the truce that is taken ; privily therefore, I say, to make much of some peer of England that is banished his country, which must claim title to the crown of the realm, and affirm himself just inheritor 0 thereof, that by this subtle
25 means they may hold to them the king, in whom else
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they have but small trust and affiance — here, I say, where so great and high matters be in consultation, where so many noble"and wise men counsel their king only to war ; here, if I, silly man, should rise up and will them to turn over the leaf ° and learn a new lesson ; 5 saying that my counsel is not to meddle with Italy, but to tarry still at home, and that the kingdom of France alone is almost greater than that it may well be governed of one man ; so that the king should not need to study how to get more: and then should pro- 10 pose unto them the decrees of the people that be called the Achoriens, 0 which be situate over against the islan3 of Utopia 0 on the south-east side — These Achoriens once made war in their king's quarrel for to get him another kingdom, which he laid claim unto and ad- is vanced himself right inheritor to the crown thereof by the title of an old alliance. 0 At the last, when they had gotten it and saw that they had even as much vexation and trouble in keeping it as they had in getting it, and that either their new conquered sub- 20 jects by sundry occasions were making daily insurrec- tions to rebel against them, or else that other countries were continually with divers inroads and foragings invading them, so that they were ever fighting, either for them or against them, and never could break up 25
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their camps; seeing themselves in the mean season pilled 0 and impoverished, their money carried out of the realm, their own men killed to maintain the glory of another nation, when they had no war, peace noth-
s ing better than war, by reason that their people in war had inured themselves to corrupt and wicked manners, * that they had taken a delight and pleasure in rob- bing and stealing, that through manslaughter they had gathered boldness to mischief, that their laws were
10 had in contempt and nothing set by° or regarded, that their king, being troubled with the charge and gov- ernance of two kingdoms, could not nor was not able ' perfectly to discharge his office towards them both; seeing again that all these evils and troubles were
is endless : at the last laid their heads together and, like faithful and loving subjects, gave to their king free choice and liberty to keep still the one of these two kingdoms, whether he would; alleging that he was not able to keep both and that they were more than
20 might well be governed of half a king ; forasmuch as no man would be content to take him for his muleteer that keepeth another man's mules besides his. So this good prince was constrained to be content with his old kingdom, and to give over the new to one of his friends;
25 which shortly after was violently driven out. — further-
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more, if I should declare unto them that all this busy preparance to war, whereby so many nations for his° sake should be brought into a troublesome hurly-burly, when all his coffers were emptied, his treasures wasted, and his people destroyed, should at the length through 5 some mischance be in vain and to none effect ; and that therefore it were best for him to content himself with his own kingdom of France, as his forefathers and pred- ecessors did before him,° to make much of it, to en- rich it, and to make it as flourishing as he could ; to endeavor himself to love his subjects and again to be beloved of them ; willingly to live with them, peace- ably to govern them, and with other kingdoms not to meddle, seeing that which he hath already is even enough for him, yea, and more than he can well turn him to — this, mine advice, Master More, how think you it would be heard and taken ? "
" So God help me, not very thankfully !" quoth I.
"Well, let us proceed then," quoth he. "Suppose that some king and his council were together, whetting their wits and devising what subtle craft they might invent to enrich the king with great treasures of money. First one counselleth to raise and enhance the valuation of money when the king must pay any, and again to call down the value of coin 0 to less than p
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it is worth when he must receive or gather any ; for thus great sums shall be paid with a little money, and where little is due much shall be received. Another counselleth to feign war, 0 that when under this color and pretence the king hath gathered great abundance of money, he may, when it shall please him, make peace with great solemnity and holy ceremonies, to blind the eyes of the poor commonalty, as taking pity and compassion, God wot, upon man's blood, like a loving and a merciful prince. Another putteth the king in remembrance of certain old and moth-eaten laws 0 that of long time have not been put in execution ; which, because no man can remember that they were made, every man hath transgressed. The fines of these laws he counselleth the king to require ; for there is no way so profitable nor more honorable, as the which hath a show and color of justice. Another advisethhim to forbid many things under great penalties and fines, specially such things as is for the people's profit not [to] be used ; and afterward to dispense for money with them, which by this prohibition sustain loss and damage. For by this means the favor of the people is won and profit riseth two ways : first by tak- ing forfeits of them whom covetousness of gains hath brought in danger of this statute ; and also by selling
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privileges and licenses, which the better that the prince is, forsooth, the dearer he selleth them, as one that is loath to grant to any private person anything that is against the profit of his people, and therefore may sell none but at an exceeding dear price. Another giveth s the king counsel to endanger 0 unto his Grace the judges of the realm, that he may have them ever on his side ; which must in every matter dispute and reason for the king's right. And they must be called into the king's palace, and be desired to argue and discuss his matters 10 in his own presence. So there shall be no matter of his so openly wrong and unjust 0 wherein one or other of them, either because he will have something to allege and object, or that he is ashamed to say that which is said already, or else to pick a thank 0 with is his prince, will not find some hole open to set a snare in, wherewith to take the contrary part in a trip. 0 Thus while the judges cannot agree among themselves, reasoning and arguing of that which is plain enough and bringing the manifest truth in doubt, in the mean 20 season the king may take a fit occasion to understand the law as shall most make for his advantage ; where- unto all either for shame or for fear will agree. Then the judges may be bold to pronounce of the king's side. For he that giveth sentence for the king cannot 25
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be without a good excuse. For it shall be sufficient for him to have equity of his part, or the bare words of the law, or a writhen 0 and wrested understanding of the same, or else, which with good and just judges s is of greater force than all laws be, the king's indisput- able prerogative. To conclude, all the counsellors agree and consent together with the rich Crassus, 0 that no abundance of gold can be sufficient for a prince, which must keep and maintain an army : furthermore,
iothat a king, though he would, can do nothing unjustly; for all that men have, yea, also the men themselves, be all his ; and that every man hath so much of his own as the king's gentleness hath not taken from him; and that it shall be most for the king's advantage that
15 his subjects have very little or nothing in their posses- sion, as whose safeguard doth herein consist, that his people do not wax wanton and wealthy through riches and liberty ; because where these things be, there men be not wont patiently to obey hard, unjust, and unlaw-
20 ful commandments ; whereas, on the other part, need and poverty doth hold down and keep under stout courages, taking from them bold and rebelling stomachs.
"Here again, if I should rise up and boldly affirm 25 that all these counsels be to the king dishonor and
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reproach, whose honor and safety is more and rather supported and upholden by the wealth and riches of his people than by his own treasures; and if I should declare that the commonalty chooseth their king for their own sake and not for his sake; for this intent that through his labor and study they might all live wealthily, safe from wrongs and in- juries; and that therefore the king ought to take more care for the wealth 0 of his people than for his own wealth, even as the office and duty of a shepherd is, in that he is a shepherd, to feed his sheep 0 rather than himself. For as touching this, that they think the defence and maintenance of peace to consist in the poverty of the people, the thing itself showeth that they be far out of the way. For where shall i a man find more wrangling, quarrelling, brawling, and chiding than among beggars? Who be more desirous of new mutations and alterations than they that be not content with the present state of their life ? Or, finally, who be bolder stomached to bring all in hurly-burly, thereby trusting to get some windfall, than they that have now nothing to lose ? And if so be that there were any king that were so smally regarded or so behated of his subjects that other ways he could not keep them in awe but only
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by open wrongs, by polling and shaving, and by bringing them to beggary; surely it were better for him to forsake his kingdom than to hold it by this means, whereby, though the name of a king
5 be kept, yet the majesty is lost. For it is against the dignity of a king to have rule over beggars, but rather over rich and wealthy men. Of this mind was the hardy and courageous Fabrice, 0 when he said that he had rather be a ruler of rich men
iothan be rich himself. And verily one man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weep and smart for it, that is the part not of a king but of a jailor.
"To be short, as he is a foolish physician that is cannot cure his patient's disease unless he cast him in another sickness; so he that cannot amend the lives of his subjects but by taking from them the wealth and commodity of life, he must needs grant that he knoweth not the feat how to govern free 20 men. But let him rather amend his own life, renounce unhonest pleasures, and forsake pride. For these L the chief vices that cause him to run in the con- tempt or hatred of his people. Let him do cost not above his power. 0 Let him restrain wickedness. Let 25 him prevent vices and take away the occasion of
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offences by well ordering his subjects, and not by suffering wickedness to increase, afterward to be punished. Let him not be too hasty in calling again laws which a custom hath abrogated 0 ; specially such as have been long forgotten and never lacked nors needed. • And let him never under the cloak and pretence of transgression take such fines and forfeits 0 as no judge will suffer a private person to take, as unjust and full of guile.
" Here, if I should bring forth before them the law 10 of the Macarians, 0 which be not far distant from Utopia, whose king the day of his coronation is bound by a solemn oath that he shall never at any time have in his treasure above a thousand pound of gold or silver — They say a very good king, which took more is care for the wealth and commodity of his country than for the enriching of himself, made this law to be a stop and a bar to kings for heaping and hoarding up so much money 0 as might impoverish their people. For he foresaw that this sum of treasure would suffice to 20 support the king in battle against his own people, if they should chance to rebel ; and also to maintain his wars against the invasions of his foreign enemies. Again he perceived the same stock of money to be too little and unsufhcient to encourage and enable him 25
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wrongfully to take away other men's goods, which was the chief cause why the law was made. Another cause was this : he thought that by this provision his people should not lack money wherewith to maintain their
s daily occupying and chaffer; and, seeing the king could not choose but lay out and bestow all that came in above the prescript sum of his stock, he thought he would seek no occasions to do his subjects injury. Such a king shall be feared of evil men and loved of
10 good men. — these and such other informations if I should use among men wholly inclined and given to the contrary part, how deaf hearers, think you, should I have?"
" Deaf hearers doubtless," quoth I ; " and in good is faith no marvel. And to speak as I think, truly I cannot allow that such communication shall be used or such counsel given as you be sure shall never be regarded nor received. For how can so strange in- formations be profitable, or how can they be beaten 20 into their heads whose minds be already prevented with clean contrary persuasions ? This school philos- ophy 0 is not unpleasant among friends in familiar com- munication, but in the councils of kings, where great matters be debated and reasoned with great authority, 25 these things have no place."
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" That is it which I meant," quoth he, " when I said philosophy had no place among kings."
" Indeed," quoth I, " this school philosophy hath not ; which thinketh all things meet for every place. But there is another philosophy more civil, 0 which knoweth, as ye would say, her own stage, and there- after ordering and behaving herself in the play that she hath in hand, playeth her part accordingly with comeliness, uttering nothing out of due order and fashion. And this is the philosophy that you must use. Or else, whiles a comedy of Plautus 0 is playing and the vile bondmen scoffing and trifling among themselves, if you should suddenly come upon the stage in a philosopher's apparel ° and rehearse out of Octavia 0 the place wherein Seneca disputeth with i Nero,° had it not been better for you to have played the dumb person 0 than by rehearsing that which served neither for the time nor place to have made such a tragical comedy or gallimaufry 0 ? For by bringing in other stuff that nothing appertaineth to the present matter you must needs mar and pervert the play that is in hand, though the stuff that you bring be much better. What part soever you have taken upon you, play that as well as you can° and make the best of it ; and do not therefore disturb and
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bring out of order the whole matter, because that another which is merrier and better cometh to your remembrance.
"So the case standeth in a commonwealth, and so
s it is in the consultations of kings and princes. If evil opinions and naughty persuasions cannot be utterly and quite plucked out of their hearts, if you cannot even as you would remedy vices which use and cus- tom hath confirmed ; yet for this cause you must not
io leave and forsake the commonwealth; you must not forsake the ship in a tempest because you cannot rule and keep down the winds. No ; nor you must not labor to drive into their heads new and strange in- formations, which you know well shall be nothing
is regarded with them that be of clean contrary minds. But you must with, a crafty wile and a subtle train 0 study and endeavor yourself, as much as in you lieth, to handle the matter wittily and handsomely for the purpose ; and that which you cannot turn to good, so
20 to order it that it be not very bad.° For it is not pos- sible for all things to be well unless all men were good; which I think will not be yet this good many years."
" By this means," quoth he, " nothing else will be 25 brought to pass but, whiles that I go about to remedy
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the madness of others, I should be even as mad as they. For if I would speak things that be true, I must needs speak such things. But as for to speak false things, whether that be a philosopher's part or no, I cannot tell ; truly it is not my part. Howbeit, s this communication of mine, though peradventure it may seem unpleasant to them, yet can I not see why it should seem strange or foolishly newfangled. If so be that I should speak those things that Plato f eigneth in his weal public, or that the Utopians do in 10 theirs, 0 these things, though they were, as they be indeed, better, yet they might seem spoken out of place; forasmuch as here among us every man hath his possessions several to himself, and there all things be common. is
" But what was in my communication contained that might not and ought not in any place to be spoken ? saving that to them which have thoroughly decreed and determined with themselves to run headlong the contrary way, it cannot be acceptable and pleasant ; 20 because it calleth them back and showeth them the jeopardies. Verily if all things that evil and vicious manners have caused to seem inconvenient and naught should be refused as things unmeet and reproachful, then we must among Christian people wink at° the 25
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most part of all those things which Christ taught us, and so straitly forbade them to be winked at that those things also which he whispered in the ears of his disciples he commanded to be proclaimed in open
s houses. 0 And yet the most part of them is more dis- sident from the manners of the world nowadays than my communication was. But preachers, sly and wily men, following your counsel, as I suppose, because they saw men evil-willing to frame their manners to
10 Christ's rule, they have wrested and wried his doc- trine, and like a rule of lead 0 have applied it to men's manners, that by some means at the least way they might agree together. Whereby I cannot see what good they have done but that men may more sick-
15 erly be evil. And I truly should prevail even as much 0 in kings' councils: for either I must say otherways than they say, and then I were as good to say noth- ing; or else I must say the same that they say, and, as Mitio saith° in Terence, 0 help to further their mad-
20 ness. For that crafty wile and subtle train of yours, T cannot perceive to what purpose it serveth ; where- with you would have me to study and endeavor my- self, if all things cannot be made good, yet to handle them wittily and handsomely for the purpose, that is,
25 as far forth as is possible that they may not be very
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evil. For there is no place to dissemble in nor to wink in : naughty counsels must be openly allowed and very pestilent decrees must be approved. He shall be counted worse than a spy, yea, almost as evil as a traitor, that with a faint heart doth praise evil s and noisome decrees.
" Moreover, a man can have no occasion to do good, chancing into the company of them which will sooner make naught a good man than be made good them- selves ; through whose evil company he shall be marred, or else if he remain good and innocent, yet the wicked- ness and foolishness of others shall be imputed to him and laid in his neck.° So that it is impossible with that crafty wile and subtle train to turn anything to better.
" Wherefore Plato by a goodly similitude declareth 0 15 why wise men refrain to meddle in the commonwealth. For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily wet to the skin with rain, and yet cannot per- suade them to go out of the rain and take to their houses, knowing well that if they should go out to them, they 20 should nothing prevail, nor win aught by it but be wet also in the rain ; they do keep themselves within their houses, being content that they be safe them- selves, seeing they cannot remedy the folly of the people. 25
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" Howbeit, doubtless, Master More, to speak truly as my mind giveth me,° wheresoever possessions be private, where money beareth all the stroke, 0 it is hard and almost impossible that there the weal public
5 may j ustly be governed and prosperously flourish ; unless you think thus ; that justice is there executed where all things come into the hands of evil men, or that pros- perity there flourisheth where all is divided among a few, which few nevertheless do not lead their lives
10 very wealthily, and the residue live miserably, wretch- edly, and beggarly.
" Wherefore when I consider with myself and weigh in my mind the wise and godly ordinances of the Uto- pians, among whom with very few laws all things be so
15 well and wealthily ordered that virtue is had in price 0 and estimation^and yet all things being there common, every man hath abundance of everything : again, on the other part, when I compare with them so many nations ever making new laws, yet none of them all well and
20 sufficiently furnished with laws; where every man calleth that he hath gotten his own proper and private goods; where so many new laws daily made be not sufficient for every man to enjoy, defend, and know from another man's that which he calleth his own ;
25 which thing the infinite controversies in the law, that
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daily rise never to be ended, plainly declare to be true: these things, I say, when I consider with myself, I hold well with Plato, 0 and do nothing marvel that he would make no laws for them that refused those laws whereby all men should have and enjoy equal portions s of wealths and commodities. For the wise man did easily foresee that this is the one and only way to the wealth of a commonalty, if equality of all things should be brought in and stablished; which I think is not possible to be observed, where every man's goods be 10 proper and peculiar to himself. For where every man under certain titles and pretences draweth and pluck- eth to himself as much as he can, and so a few divide among themselves all the riches that there is, be there never so much abundance and store, there to the resi- 15 due is left lack and poverty. And for the most part it chanceth that this latter sort is more worthy to enjoy that state of wealth than the other be, because the rich men be coveteous, crafty, and unprofitable ; on the other part, the poor be lowly, simple, and by their daily 20 labor more profitable to the commonwealth than to themselves.
" Thus I do fully persuade myself that no equal and just distribution of things can be made, nor that per- fect wealth shall ever be among men unless this pro- 25
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priety be exiled and banished. But so long as it shall continue, so long shall remain among the most and best part of men the heavy and inevitable burden of poverty and wretchedness ; which, as I grant that it may be s somewhat eased, so I utterly deny that it can wholly be taken away. For if there were a statute made that no man should possess above a certain measure of ground and that no man should have in his stock above a prescript and appointed sum of money ; if it were
10 by certain laws decreed that neither the king should be of too great power, neither the people too proud and wealthy, and that offices should not be obtained by inordinate suit or by bribes and gifts, 0 that they should neither be bought nor sold, nor that it should be need-
15 ful for the officers to be at any cost or charge 0 in their offices — for so occasion 0 is given to the officers by fraud and ravin to gather up their money again, and by reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed of
20 wise men — by such laws, I say, like as sick bodies that be desperate and past cure be wont with continual good cherishing to be kept up, so these evils also might be lightened and mitigated. But that they may be perfectly cured and brought to a good and upright
25 state, it is not to be hoped for whiles every man is
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master of his own to himself. Yea, and whiles you go about to do your cure of one part, you shall make bigger the sore of another part ; so the help of one causeth another's harm, forasmuch as nothing can be given to any man unless that be taken from another.'' 5
" But I am of a contrary opinion," quoth I ; " for methinketh that men shall never there live wealthily where all things be common. For how can there be abundance of goods, or of anything, where every man withdraweth his hand from labor ? whom the regard 10 of his own gains driveth not to work, and the hope that he hath in other men's travails maketh him sloth- ful. Then when they be pricked with poverty and yet no man can by any law or right defend that for his own which he hath gotten with the labor of his own 15 hands, shall not there of necessity be continual sedition and bloodshed ? Specially the authority and reverend of magistrates being taken away, which, what place it may have 0 with such men, among whom is no differ- ence, I cannot devise." 20
"I marvel not," quoth he, "that you be of this opinion. For you conceive in your mind either none at aK or else a very false image and similitude of this thing But if you had been with me in Utopia and had L-esently seen their fashions and laws, as I did, 25
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which lived there five years and more and would never have come thence but only to make that new land known here ; then doubtless you would grant that you never saw people well ordered but only there."
s " Surely," quoth Master Peter, "it shall be hard for you to make me believe that there is better order in that new land than is here in these countries that we know. For good wits be as well here as there; and I think our commonwealths be ancienter than theirs,
10 wherein long use and experience hath found out many things commodious for man's life, besides that many things here among us have been found by chance, which no wit could ever have devised."
" As touching the ancientness," quoth he, " of com-
is monwealths, then you might better judge, if you had read the histories and chronicles 0 of that land ; which if we may believe, cities were there before there were men here. Now what thing soever hitherto by wit hath been devised, or found by chance, that might be
20 as well there as here. But I think verily, though it were so that we did pass them in wit, yet in study and laborsome endeavor they far pass us. For, as their chronicles testify, before our arrival there they never heard anything of us, whom they call the Ultraequi-
25 noctials, saving that once about twelve hundred years
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ago° a certain ship was lost by the isle of Utopia, which was driven thither by tempest. Certain Ro- mans and Egyptians 0 were cast on land, which after that never went thence.
" Mark now what profit they took of this one occa- 5 sion through diligence and earnest travail. There was no craft nor science within the empery of Rome whereof any profit cduld rise, but they either learned it of these strangers or else, of. them taking occasion to search for it, found it out.° So great profit was it 10 to them that ever any went thither from hence. But if any like chance before this hath brought any man from thence hither, that is as quite out of remem- brance as this also perchance in time to come shall be forgotten that ever I was there. And like as they is quickly, almost at the first meeting, made their own whatsoever is among us wealthily devised ; so I sup- pose it would be long before we would receive any- thing that among them is better instituted than among us. And this I suppose is the chief cause why their 20 commonwealths be wiselier governed and do flourish in more wealth than ours, though we neither in wit nor in riches be their inferiors."
" Therefore, gentle Master Raphael," quoth I, "I pray you and beseech you, describe unto us the island. 25
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And study not to be short ; but declare largely in order their grounds, their rivers, their cities, their people, their manners, their ordinances, their laws, and, to be short, all things that you shall think us desirous 5 to know. And you shall think us desirous to know whatsoever we know not yet."
" There is nothing," quoth he, " that I will do glad- lier ; for all these things I have fresh in mind. But the matter requireth leisure." 10 " Let us go in, therefore," quoth T, " to dinner : af- terward we will bestow the time at our pleasure."
"Content," quoth he; "be it."
So we went in and dined.
When dinner was done, we came into the same place 15 again and sat us down upon the same bench, command- ing our servants that no man should trouble us. Then I and Master Peter Giles desired Master Eaphael to perform his promise. He therefore, seeing us desirous and willing to hearken to him, when he had sit still 20 and paused a little while, musing and bethinking him- self, thus he began to speak : —
The end of the first book.
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THE SECOND BOOK
OF THE COMMUNICATION OF RAPHAEL HYTHLODAT, CONCERNING THE BEST STATE OF A COMMONWEALTH; CONTAINING THE DESCRIPTION OF UTOPIA, WITH A LARGE DECLARATION OF THE . GODLY GOVERNMENT AND OF ALL THE GOOD LAWS AND ORDERS OF THE SAME ISLAND
" The island of Utopia containeth in breadth in the middle part of it, for there it is broadest, two hundred miles; which breadth continueth through the most part of the land, saving that by little and little it Com- eth in and waxeth narrower towards both the ends ; 5 which, fetching about a circuit or compass 0 of five hundred miles, do fashion the whole island like to the new moon. Between those two corners the sea runneth in, dividing them asunder by the distance of eleven miles or thereabouts, and there surmounteth 10 into a large and wide sea, which, by reason that the land of every side compasseth it about and sheltereth it from the winds, is not rough nor mounteth not 0 with great waves but almost floweth quietly, not much
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unlike a great standing pool ; and maketh almost all the space within the belly of the land in manner of a haven, and to the great commodity of the inhabitants receiveth in ships towards every part of the land. The
s forefronts or frontiers of the two corners, what with fords and shelves and what with rocks, be very jeop- ardous and dangerous. In the middle distance between them both standeth up above the water a great rock, which therefore is nothing perilous because it is in
10 sight. Upon the top of this rock is a fair and a strong tower builded, which they hold with a garrison of men. Other rocks there be that lie hid under the water, and therefore be dangerous. The channels be known only to themselves ; and therefore it seldom chanceth that
is any stranger, unless he be guided by a Utopian, can come into this haven, insomuch that they themselves could scarcely enter without jeopardy, but that their way is directed and «ruled by certain landmarks standing on the shore. By turning, translating, and
20 removing these marks into other places, they may destroy their enemies' navies, be they never so many. The out side of the land is also full of havens ; but the landing is so surely defenced, what by nature and what by workmanship of man's hand, that a few
25 defenders may drive back many armies.
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" Howbeit, as they say and as the fashion of the place itself doth partly show, it was not ever compassed about with the sea. But King ° Utopus, whose name as conqueror the island beareth (for before that time it was called Abraxa 0 ), which also brought the rude ands wild people to that excellent perfection in all good fashions, humanity, and civil gentleness wherein they now go beyond all the people of the world, even at his first arriving and entering upon the land, forthwith obtaining the victory caused fifteen miles space of 10 uplandish ground, where the sea had no passage, to be cut and digged up, and so brought the sea round about the land. He set to this work not only the inhabitants of the island, because 0 they should not think it done in contumely and despite, but also all is his own soldiers. Thus the work, being divided into ° so great a number of workmen, was with exceeding marvellous speed despatched ; insomuch that the bor- derers, which at the first began to mock and to jest at this vain enterprise, then turned their laughter to 20 marvel at the success, and to fear.
"There be in the island fifty-four large and fair cities or shire-towns,° agreeing all together in one tongue, in like manners, institutions, and laws. They be all set and situate alike, and in ell points fashioned alike, 25
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as fax forth as the place or plot suffereth. Of these cities they that be nighest together be twenty- four miles asunder. Again there is none of them distant from the next above one day's journey afoot. 5 " There come yearly to Amaurote 0 out of every city three old men, wise and well-experienced, there to en- treat and debate of the common matters of the land. For this city, because it standeth just in the midst of the island and is therefore most meet for the ambas- 10 sadors of all parts of the realm, 0 is taken for the chief and head city. The precincts and bounds of the shires be so com m odiously appointed out and set forth for the cities that never a one of them all hath of any side less than twenty miles of ground, and of some s side also much more, as of that part where the cities be of farther distance asunder. None of the cities desire to enlarge the bounds and limits of their shires ; for they count themselves rather the good husbands than the owners of their lands.
" They have in the country, in all parts of the shire, houses or farms builded, well appointed and furnished with all sorts of instruments and tools belonging to husbandry. These houses be inhabited of the citi- zens, which come thither to dwell by course. 0 No household or farm in the country hath fewer than
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forty persons, men and women, besides two bondmen, 0 which be all under the rule and order of the good man and the good wife of the house, being both very sage and discreet persons. And every thirty farms or fami- lies have one head ruler, which is called a phylarch, 0 s being as it were a head bailiff. Out of every one of these families or farms cometh every year into the city twenty persons which have continued two years before in the country. In their place so many fresh be sent thither out of the city, which of them thatio have been there a year already, and be therefore ex- pert and cunning in husbandry, shall be instructed and taught ; and they the next year shall teach other. This order is used, for fear that either scarceness of victuals or some other like incommodity should 15 chance through lack of knowledge, if they should be all together new and fresh and unexpert in hus- bandry. This manner and fashion of yearly chang- ing and renewing the occupiers of husbandry, 0 though it be solemn and customably 0 used, to the intent that 20 no man shall be constrained against his will to con- tinue long in that hard and sharp kind of life, yet nany of them have such a pleasure and delight in husbandry that they obtain a longer space of years. These husbandmen plow and till the ground, and breed 25
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up cattle, and make ready wood, which they carry t( the city either by land or by water, as they mav most conveniently. They bring up a great multitudt of pullen, and that^by a marvellous policy. For th* 5 hens do not sit upon the eggs : but by keeping them in a certain equal heat, they bring life into them and hatch them. The chickens, as soon as they be come out of the shell, follow men and women instead of the hens.
10 " They bring up very few horses, nor none but very fierce ones; and for none other use or purpose but only to exercise their youth in riding and feats of arms. For oxen be put to all the labor of plowing and drawing; which they grant to be not so good
is as horses [at a] sudden brunt and, as we say, at a dead lift, 0 but yet they hold opinion that oxen will abide and suffer much more labor and pain than horses will. And they think that they be not in danger and subject unto so many diseases, and that they be kept and
20 maintained with much less cost and charge, and finally that they be good for meat when they be past labor.
" They sow corn only for bread ; for their drink is either wine made of grapes, or else of apples or 25 pears, or else it is clean water; and many times
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meath made of honey or licorice sodden in water, for thereof they have great store. And though they know certainly (for they know it perfectly indeed), how much victuals the city with the whole country or shire round about it doth spend, yet they sows much more corn and breed up much more cattle than serveth for their own use ; and the overplus they part among their borderers. Whatsoever necessary things be lacking in the country, all such stuff they fetch out of the city ; where, without any exchange, 10 they easily obtain it of the magistrates of the city. For every month many of them go into the city on the holy day.° When their harvest day draweth near and is at hand, then the phylarchs, which be the head officers and bailiffs of husbandry, send word 15 to the magistrates of the city what number of harvest- men is needful to be sent to them out of the city; the which company of harvest-men, being there ready at the day appointed, almost in one fair day despatch- eth all the harvest work. 20
OF THE CITIES, AND NAMELY OP AMAUROTE
" As for their cities, he that knoweth one of them knoweth them all ; they be all so like one to another, as far forth as the nature of the place permitteth.
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I will describe therefore to you one or other of them, for it skilleth not° greatly which; but which rather than Amaurote ? Of them all this is the worthiest and of most dignity ; for the residue knowledge it for the head
5 city, because there is the council-house. 0 Nor to me any of them all is better beloved, as wherein I lived five whole years together.
" The city of Amaurote standeth upon the side of a low hill, in fashion almost foursquare 0 : for the
10 breadth of it beginneth a little beneath the top of the hill, and still continueth by the space of two miles until it come to the river of Anyder 0 ; the length of it which lieth by the river's side is some- what more.
is " The river of Anyder riseth twenty-four miles 0 above Amaurote out of a little spring ; but being increased by other small floods and brooks that run into it, and among other two somewhat big ones, before the city it is half a mile broad, 0 and farther broader. And sixty
20 miles beyond the city it falleth into the ocean sea.° By all that space 0 that lieth between the sea and the city, and a good sort of° miles also above the city, the water ebbeth and floweth six hours together with a swift tide. 0 When the sea floweth in, for the length
25 of thirty miles it filleth all the Anyder with salt water
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and driveth back the fresh water of the river; and somewhat further it changeth the sweetness of the fresh water with saltness : but a little beyond that the river waxeth- sweet, and runneth forby the city fresh and pleasant ; and when the sea ebbeth and goeth 5 back again, the fresh water followeth it almost even to the very fall into the sea.
" There goeth a bridge over the river, made not of ] iles or of timber but of stonework with gorgeous and substantial arches, at that part of the city that is 10 farthest from the sea; to the intent that ships may go along forby all the side of the city without let. They have also another river, which indeed is not very great ; but it runneth gently and pleasantly. For it riseth even out of the same hill that the city standeth is upon and runneth down a slope through the midst of the city into Anyder. And because it riseth a little without the city, the Amaurotians have enclosed the head-spring of it with strong fences and bulwarks, and so have joined it to the city. This is done to the in- 20 tent that the water should not be stopped, nor turned away or poisoned, if their enemies should chance to come upon them. From thence the water is derived and brought down in canals of brick divers ways into the lower parts of the city. Where that cannot be 25
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done, by reason that the place will not suffer it, there they gather the rain-water in great cisterns, which doth them as good service.
" The city is compassed about with a high and thick
5 wall, full of turrets and bulwarks. A dry ditch, but deep and broad and overgrown with bushes, briars, and thorns, goeth about three sides or quarters of the city ; to the fourth side the river itself serveth for a ditch. The streets be appointed and set forth very
10 commodious and handsome, both for carriage 0 and also against the winds. The houses be of fair and gorgeous building, and on the street-side they stand joined to- gether in a long row through the whole street without any partition or separation. The streets be twenty foot
15 broad. On the back side of the houses, through the whole length of the street, lie large gardens, which be closed in round about with the back part of the streets. Every house hath two doors, one into the street and a postern-door on the back side into the garden. These
20 doors be made with two leaves, never locked nor bolted, so easy to be opened that they will follow the least drawing of a finger and shut again by themselves. Every man that will may go in, for there is nothing within the houses that is private or any man's own.°
25 And every ten year they change their houses by lot.
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u They set great store by their gardens. In them they have vineyards, all manner of fruit, herbs, and flowers, so pleasant, so well furnished, and so finely kept, that I never saw thing more fruitful nor better trimmed in any place. Their study and diligences herein cometh not only of pleasure, but also of a cer- tain strife and contention that is between street and street, concerning the trimming, husbanding, and fur- nishing of their gardens, every man for his own part. And verily you shall not lightly find in all the city 10 anything that is more commodious, either for the profit of the citizens or for pleasure. And therefore it may seem that the first founder of the city minded nothing so much as he did these gardens.
" For they say that King 0 Utopus himself, even at is the first beginning, appointed and drew forth the plat- form of the city into this fashion and figure that it hath now ; but the gallant garnishing and the beauti- ful setting forth of it, whereunto he saw that one man's age would not suffice, that he left to posterity. 20 For their chronicles, which they keep written with all diligent circumspection, containing the history of sev- enteen hundred and sixty years, even from the first conquest of the island, record and witness that the houses in the beginning were very low, and like homely 25
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cottages or poor shepherd-houses, made at all adven- I tures° of every rude piece of wood that came first to 1 hands, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw. 0 But now the houses, be curiously builded,
5 after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with three stories one over another. The outsides of the walls be made either of hard flint or of plaster or else of brick ; and the inner sides be well strengthened with timber-work. The roofs be plain and flat, covered with a certain kind
io of plaster that is of no cost and yet so tempered that no fire can hurt or perish it, and withstandeth the vio- lence of the weather better than any lead. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, 0 for it is - there much used ; and somewhere also with fine linen j
is cloth dipped in oil or amber, 0 and that for two com- j modities ; for by this means more light cometh in, and the wind is better kept out.
OF THE MAGISTRATES
" Every thirty families or farms choose them yearly an officer, which in their old language is called the 20 syphogrant, 0 and by a newer name the phy larch. Every ten syphogrant s, with all their three hundred families, be under an officer which was once called the trani- bore, now the chief phylarch.
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"Moreover, as concerning the election of the prince, 0 all the syphogrants, which be in number two hundred, first be sworn to choose him whom they think most meet and expedient. Then by a secret election they name prince one of those four whom the people be- 5 fore named unto them ; for out of the four quarters of the city there be four chosen, out of every quarter one, to stand for the election, which be put up to° the council. The prince's office continueth all his life- time, unless he be deposed or put down for suspicion 10 of tyranny. They choose the tranibores yearly, but lightly they change them not. All the other offices be but for one year. The tranibores every third day, and sometimes, if need be, oftener, come into the coun- cil-house with the prince. Their council is concern- 15 ing the commonwealth. If there be any controversies among the commoners, which be very few, they dispatch and end them by and by. They take ever two sypho- grants to them in counsel, and every day a new couple. And that is provided that nothing touching the com- 20 monwealth shall be confirmed and ratified, unless it have been reasoned of and debated three days in the council before it be decreed. It is death 0 to have any consultation for the commonwealth out of the council or the place of the common election. 0 This statute, 25
H
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they say, was made to the intent that the prince and tranibores might not easily conspire together to op- press the people by tyranny and to change the state of the weal public. Therefore matters of great weight
5 and importance be brought to the election-house of the syphogrants, which open the matter to their fami- lies ; and afterward, when they have consulted among themselves, they show their device to the council. Sometime the matter is brought before the council of
10 the whole island.
" Furthermore, this custom also the council useth, to dispute or reason of no matter the same day° that it is first proposed or put forth but to defer it to the next sitting of the council ; because that no man when he
is hath rashly there spoken that cometh first to his tongue's end, shall then afterward rather study for reasons wherewith to defend and confirm his first foolish sentence than for the commodity of the com- monwealth ; as one rather willing the harm or hin-
20 drance of the weal public than any loss or diminution of his own existimation, 0 and as one that would not for shame — which is a very foolish shame — be counted anything overseen in the matter at the first, who at the first ought to have spoken rather wisely
25 than hastily or rashly.
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OF SCIENCES, CRAFTS, AND OCCUPATIONS
"Husbandry is a science common to them all in general, both men and women, wherein they be all ex- pert and cunning. In this they be all instruct even from their youth; partly in schools with traditions and precepts, and partly in the country nigh the city, 5 brought up° as it were in playing, not only beholding the use of it but by occasion of exercising their bodies practising it also.
" Besides husbandry, which, as I said, is common to them all, every one of them learneth one or other 10 several and particular science as his own proper craft. That is most commonly either cloth working 0 in wool or flax, or masonry, 0 or the smith's craft, or the car- penter's science ; for there is none other occupation that any number to speak of doth use there. For 15 their garments, which throughout all the island be of one fashion 0 (saving that there is a difference between the man's garment and the woman's, between the married and the unmarried), and this one continueth forevermore unchanged, seemly and comely to the eye, 20 no let to the moving and wielding of the body, also fit both for winter and summer — as for these gar- ments, I say, every family maketh their own.° But of
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the other foresaid crafts every man learneth one ; and not only the men but also the women. But the women, as the weaker sort, be put to the easier crafts: they work wool and flax. The other more laborsome
s sciences be committed to the men. For the most part every man is brought up in his father's craft, for most commonly they be naturally thereto bent and inclined ; but if a man's mind stand to any other, he is by adop- tion put into a family of that occupation which he
10 doth most fantasy ; whom not only his father but also the magistrates do diligently look to, that he be put to a discreet and an honest householder. Yea, and if any person, when he hath learned one craft, be desir- ous to learn also another, he is likewise suffered and
15 permitted. When he hath learned both, he occupieth whether he will ; unless the city have more need of the one than of the other.
" The chief and almost the only office of the sypho- grants is to see and take heed that no man sit idle, but
20 that every one apply his own craft with earnest dili- gence ; and yet for all that not to be wearied from early in the morning to late in the evening with continual work, 0 like laboring and toiling beasts. For this is worse than the miserable and wretched condition of
25 bondmen; which, nevertheless, is almost everywhere
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the life of workmen and artificers, saving in Utopia. For they, dividing the day and the night into twenty- four just hours, appoint and assign only six of those hours to work 0 ; three before noon, upon the which they go straight to dinner; and after dinner, when they 5 have rested two hours, then they work three; and upon that they go to supper. About eight of the clock in the evening, counting one of the clock at the first hour after noon, they go to bed. Eight hours they give to sleep. 0 All the void time, that is between the hours of work, sleep, and meat, that they be suffered to bestow, every man as he liketh best himself: not to the intent that they should misspend this time in riot or slothfulness ; but, being then licensed from the labor of their own occupations, to bestow the time well and thriftily upon some other good science, as shall please them. For it is a solemn custom there to have lectures daily early in the morning, where to be present they only be constrained that be namely chosen and appointed to learning. Howbeit a great multitude of every sort of people, both men and women, go to hear lectures ; some one and some another, as every man's nature is inclined. Yet this notwithstanding, if any man had rather bestow this time upon his own occupa- tion, as it chanceth in many, whose minds rise not in°
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the contemplation of any science liberal, he is not letted nor prohibited ; but is also praised and com- mended as profitable to the commonwealth.
"After supper they bestow one hour in play; in s summer in their gardens, in winter in their common halls, where they dine and sup. There they exercise themselves in music, or else in honest and wholesome communication. Dice-play and such other foolish and pernicious games, 0 they know not ; but they use two
io games not much unlike the chess. The one is the bat- tle of numbers, 0 wherein one number stealeth away another. The other is wherein vices fight with vir- tues, 0 as it were in battle array or a set field ; in the which game is very properly showed both the strife
is and discord that vices have among themselves, and again their unity and concord against virtues; and also what vices be repugnant to what virtues ; with what power and strength they assail them openly ; by what wiles and subtlety they assault them secretly ;
20 with what help and aid the virtues resist and over- come the puissance of the vices; by what craft they frustrate their purposes ; and finally by what sleight 0 or means the one getteth the victory.
" But here, lest you be deceived, one thing you must
as look more narrowly upon. For seeing they bestow
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but six hours in work, perchance you may think that the lack of some necessary things hereof may ensue. But this is nothing so ; for that small time is not only enough but also too much for the store and abundance of all things that be requisite either for the necessity s or commodity of life ; the which thing you also shall perceive if you weigh and consider with yourselves how great a part of the people in other countries liveth idle. First, almost all women, which be the half of the whole number ; or else, if the women be 10 anywhere occupied, there most commonly in their stead the men be idle. 0 Besides this, how great and how idle a company is there of priests and religious men, as they call them 0 ? Put thereto all rich men, specially all landed men, which commonly be called 15 gentlemen and noblemen. Take into this number also their servants ; I mean all that flock of stout, bragging rush-bucklers. Join to them also sturdy and valiant beggars, cloaking their idle life under the color of some disease or sickness. And truly you shall find 20 them much fewer than you thought by whose labor all these things be gotten that men use and live by. Now, consider with yourself, of these few that do work, how few be occupied in necessary works. For where money beareth all the swing, 0 there many vain 25
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and superfluous occupations must needs be used to serve only for riotous superfluity and unhonest pleasure. For the same multitude that now is occupied in work, if they were divided into so few° s occupations as the necessary use of nature requireth, in so great plenty of things as then of necessity would ensue, doubtless the prices would be too little for the artificers to maintain their livings. But if all these that be now busied about unprofitable occupa- tions, with all the whole flock of them that live idly and slothfully, which consume and waste every one of them more of these things that come by other men's labor than two of the workmen themselves do ; if all these, I say, were set to profitable occupations, you easily perceive how little time would be enough, yea and too much, to store us with all things that may be requisite either for necessity or for commodity ; yea, or for pleasure, so that the same pleasure be true and natural.
" And this in Utopia the thing itself maketh mani- fest and plain ; for there in all the city, with the whole country or shire adjoining to it, scarcely five hundred persons of all the whole number of men and women that be neither too old nor too weak to work be licensed from labor. Among them be the sypho-
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grants, which, though they be by the laws exempt and privileged from labor, yet they exempt not them- selves; to the intent that they may the rather by their example provoke other to work. The same vacation from labor do they also enjoy to whom the s people, persuaded by the commendation of the priests and secret election of the syphogrants, have given a perpetual license from labor to learning. But if any one of them prove not according to the expectation and hope of him conceived, he is forthwith plucked 10 back to the company of artificers. And contrariwise, often it chanceth that a handicraftsman doth so earnestly bestow his vacant and spare hours in learn- ing, and through diligence so profit therein, that he is taken from his handy occupation 0 and promoted to the 15 company of the learned.
" Out of this order of the learned be chosen ambas- sadors, priests, tranibores, and finally the prince him- self; whom they in their old tongue call barzanes, 0 and by a newer name adamus. 0 The residue of the 20 people being neither idle nor yet occupied about un- profitable exercises, it may be easily judged in how few hours how much good work by them may be done towards those things that I have spoken of. This commodity they have also above other, that in the 25
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most part of necessary occupations they need not so | much work as other nations do. For first of all the building or repairing of houses asketh 0 everywhere so many men's continual labor, because that the unthrifty |
s heir suffereth the houses that his father builded in continuance of time to fall in decay ; so that which he might have upholden with little cost, his successor is constrained to build it again anew, to his great charge. Yea, many times also the house that stood one man in j
io much money, another is of so nice and so delicate a mind that he setteth nothing by it ; and it being neg- lected, and therefore shortly falling into ruin, he build- eth up another in another place with no less cost and ) charge. But among the Utopians, where all things
15 be set in a good order and the commonwealth in a ' good stay, 0 it very seldom chanceth that they choose a new plot to build an house upon. And they do not only find speedy and quick remedies for present faults, but also prevent them that be like to fall. And by
20 this means their houses continue and last very long with little labor and small reparations ; insomuch that | that kind of workmen sometimes have almost nothing to do ; but that they be commanded to hew timber at home, and to square and trim up stones, to the intent
25 that if any work chance, it may the speedier rise.
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" Now, sir, 0 in their apparel, mark, I pray you, how few workmen they need. First of all, whiles they be at work, they be covered homely with leather or skins that will last seven years. When they go forth abroad, they cast upon them a cloak, which hideth the other 5 homely apparel. These cloaks throughout the whole island be all of one color, and that is the natural color of the wool. They therefore do not only spend much less woolen cloth than is spent in other countries, but also the same standeth them in much less cost. But 10 linen cloth is made with less labor, and is therefore had more in use. But in linen cloth only whiteness, in woolen only cleanliness, is regarded; as for the smallness or fineness of the thread, that is nothing passed for.° And this is the cause wherefore in other is places four or five cloth gowns of divers colors and as many silk coats be not enough for one man. Yea, and if he be of the delicate and nice sort, ten be too few ; whereas there one garment will serve a man most commonly two years. For why should he desire more ? 20 seeing if he had them, he should not be the better happed 0 or covered from cold, neither in his apparel any whit the comelier.
"Wherefore, seeing they be all exercised in profit- able occupations, and that few artificers in the same 25
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crafts be sufficient, this is because that, plenty of all things being among them, they do sometimes bring forth an innumerable company of people to amend the highways, if any be broken. Many times also, when
s they have no such work to be occupied about, an open proclamation is made that they shall bestow fewer hours in work. For the magistrates do not exercise their citizens against their wills in unneedful labors. For why ? In the institution of that weal public this
10 end is only and chiefly pretended and minded, that what time may possibly be spared from the necessary occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the citizens should withdraw from the bodily service to the free liberty of the mind and garnishing of the
is same. For herein they suppose the felicity of this life to consist.
OF THEIR LIVING AND MUTUAL CONVERSATION TOGETHER
"But now will I declare how the citizens use them- selves one towards another, what familiar occupying and entertainment 0 there is among the people, and 20 what fashion they use in distributing everything. First, the city consisteth of families 0 : the families most commonly be made of kindreds. For the women,
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when they be married at a lawful age, they go into their husbands' houses; but the male children, with all the whole male offspring, continue still in their own family, and be governed of the eldest and ancientest father, 0 unless he dote for age ; for then the next to 5 him in age is put in his room.
"But to the intent the prescript number of the citizens should neither decrease nor above measure increase, it is ordained that no family^ which in every city be six thousand in the whole, besides them of the 10 country, shall at once have fewer children of the age of fourteen years or thereabout 0 than ten or more than sixteen ; for of children under this age no number can be appointed. This measure or number is easily ob- served and kept by putting them that in fuller families 15 .be above the number into families of smaller increase. But if chance be that in the whole city the store in- crease above the just number, therewith they fill up the lack of other cities. But if so be that the multi- tude throughout the whole island pass and exceed the 20 due number, then they choose out of every city certain citizens and build up a town under their own laws in the next land 0 where the inhabitants have much waste and unoccupied ground, receiving also of the inhabit- ants to them, if they will join and dwell with them. 25
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They, thus joining and dwelling together, do easily agree in one fashion of living, and that to the great wealth of both the peoples. For they so bring the matter about by their laws that the ground which
s before was neither good nor profitable for the one nor for the other, is now sufficient and fruitful enough for them both. But if the inhabitants of that land will not dwell with them, to be ordered by their laws, then they drive them out of those bounds which they have
10 limited and appointed out for themselves. And if they resist aud rebel, then they make war against them ; for they count this the most just cause of war, when any people holdeth a piece of ground void and vacant to no good nor profitable use, keeping other
15 from the use and possession of it, which notwithstand- ing by the law of nature ought thereof to be nourished and relieved. If any chance do so much diminish the number of any of their cities that it cannot be filled up again without the diminishing of the just number
20 of the other cities, which they say chanced but twice since the beginning of the land, through a great pesti- lent plague, 0 then they make up the number with citi- zens fetched out of their own foreign towns 0 ; for they had rather suffer their foreign towns to decay and per-
25 ish than any city of their own island to be diminished.
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" But now again to the conversation of the citizens among themselves: the eldest, as I said, ruleth the family ; the wives be ministers to their husbands, the children to their parents, and, to be short, the younger to their elders. Every city is divided into four equal parts. In the midst of every quarter there is a market-place of all manner of things; thither the works of every family be brought into certain houses, and every kind of thing is laid up several in barns or store-houses. From hence the father of every family or every householder fetcheth whatsoever he and his have need of and carrieth it away with him without money, without exchange, without any gage or pledge. For why should anything be denied unto him, seeing there is abundance of all things and that it is not to be feared lest any man will ask more than he needeth ? For why should it be thought that man would ask more than enough which is sure never to lack ? Certainly, in all kinds of living creatures, either fear of lack doth cause covetousness and ravin, or, in man only, pride ; which counteth it a glorious thing to pass and excel other in the superfluous and vain ostentation of things ; the which kind of vice among the Utopians can have no place.
" Next to the market-places that I spake of stand
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meat-markets,° whither be brought not only all sorts | of herbs, and the fruits of trees, with bread, but also fish, and all manner of four-footed beasts and wild- fowl that be man's meat. But first the filthiness and
15 ordure thereof is clean washed away in the running river, without the city, in places appointed, meet for the same purpose. From thence the beasts be brought in killed, and clean washed by the hands of their bondmen; for they permit not their free citi- |
10 zens to accustom their selves to the killing of beasts, through the use whereof they think that clemency, the ( gentlest affection of our nature, doth by little and little decay and perish. Neither they suffer anything that is filthy, loathsome, or uncleanly to be brought
s into the city ; lest the air, by the stench thereof infected and corrupt, should cause pestilent diseases.
" Moreover every street hath certain great large halls set in equal distance one from another, every one known by a several name. In these halls dwell
20 the syphogrants ; and to every one of the same halls be appointed thirty families, of either side fifteen. The stewards of every hall at a certain hour come into the meat-markets, where they receive meat according to the number of their halls. 0
25 " But first and chiefly of all, respect is had to the sick
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that be cured in the hospitals. 0 For in the circuit of the city, a little without the walls, they have four hospitals, 0 so big, so wide, so ample, and so large that they may seem four little towns ; which were devised of that bigness partly to the intent the sick, be they never so many in number, should not lie too throng or strait, 0 and therefore uneasily and incommodiously; and partly that they which were taken and holden with contagious diseases, such as be wont by infection to creep from one to another, might be laid apart, far from the company of the residue. These hos- pitals be so well appointed, and with all things necessary to health so furnished, and moreover so diligent attendance through the continual presence of cunning physicians is given that, though no man be sent thither against his will, yet notwithstanding there is no sick person in all the city that had not rather lie there than at home in his own house. When the steward of the sick hath received such meats as the physicians have prescribed, then the best is equally divided among the halls, according to the company of every one, saving that there is had a respect to the prince, the bishop, 0 the tranibores, and to ambassadors and all strangers, if there be any, which be very few and seldom. But they also, when they
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be there, have certain houses appointed and prepared for them.
"To these halls at the set hours of dinner and supper 0 cometh all the whole syphogranty or ward, 0
s warned by the noise of a brazen trumpet ; except such as be sick in the hospitals or else in their own houses. Howbeit, no man is prohibited or forbid, after the halls be served, to fetch home meat out of the market to his own house 0 ; for they know that no man will do
10 it without a cause reasonable. For, though no man be prohibited to dine at home, yet no man doth it will- ingly, because it is counted a point of small honesty 0 ; and also it were a folly to take the pain to dress a bad dinner at home, when they may be welcome to
is good and fine fare so nigh hand at the hall. In this hall all vile service, all slavery and drudgery, with all laborsome toil and business, is done by bondmen. But the women of every family by course 0 have the office and charge of cookery, for seething and dressing
20 the meat, and ordering all things thereto belonging. They sit at three tables or more, according to the number of their company. The men sit upon the bench next the wall, and the women against them on the other side of the table, that, if any sudden evil
25 should chance to them, as many times happeneth to
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women with child, they may rise without trouble or disturbance of anybody, and go thence into the nursery.
" The nurses sit several alone with their young suck- lings in a certain parlor appointed and deputed to the 5 same purpose, never without fire and clean water, nor yet without cradles; that when they will they may lay down the young infants, and at their pleasure take them out of their swathing-clothes and hold them to the fire, and refresh them with play. Every mother 10 is nurse to her own child, unless either death or sick- ness be the let. When that chanceth, the wives of the syphogrants quickly provide a nurse. And that is not hard to be done, for they that can do it do proffer themselves to no service so gladly as to that ; because is that there this kind of pity is much praised, and the child that is nourished ever after taketh his nurse for his own natural mother. Also among the nurses sit all the children that be under the age of five years. All the other children of both kinds, as well boys as girls, 20 that be under the age of marriage, do either serve at the tables, 0 or else, if they be too young thereto, yet they stand by with marvellous silence. 0 That which is given to them from the table they eat, and other sev- eral dinner-time they have none. The syphogrant and 25
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his wife sitteth in the midst of the high table, foras- much as that is counted the honorablest place, and because from thence all the whole company is in their sight ; for that table standeth overthwart the over end° s of the hall. To them be joined two of the ancientest and eldest, for at every table they sit four at a mess.° But if there be a church standing in that syphogranty 0 or ward, then the priest and his wife 0 sitteth with the syphogrant as chief in the company. On both sides
10 of them sit young men, and next unto them again old men ; and thus throughout all the house, equal of age be set together and yet be mixed with unequal ages. This they say was ordained to the intent that the sage gravity and reverence of the elders should keep the
15 youngers from wanton license of words and behavior ; forasmuch as nothing can be so secretly spoken or done at the table but either they that sit on the one side or on the other must needs perceive it. The dishes be not set down in order from the first place,
20 but all the old men, whose places be marked with some special token to be known, be first served of their meat, and then the residue equally. The old men di- vide their dainties, if there be not such an abundance of them that the whole company may be served alike, 0
25 as they think best to the younger that sit of both sides
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them. Thus the elders be not defrauded of their due honor, and nevertheless equal commodity cometh to every one.
"They begin every dinner and supper of reading 0 something that pertaineth to good manners and vir-s tue ; but it is short, because no man shall be grieved therewith. Hereof the elders take occasion of hon- est communication, but neither sad nor unpleasant. Howbeit, they do not spend all the whole dinner- time themselves with long and tedious talks, butio they gladly hear also the young men; yea and do purposely provoke them to talk, to the intent that they may have a proof of every man's wit and toward- ness or disposition to virtue, which commonly in the liberty of feasting doth show and utter itself. Their 15 dinners be very short, but their suppers be somewhat longer 0 ) because that after dinner followeth labor, after supper sleep and natural rest, which they think to be of more strength and efficacy to wholesome and healthful digestion. No supper is passed without 20 music, 0 nor their banquets 0 lack no conceits nor jun- kets 0 : they burn sweet gums and spices for perfumes and pleasant smells, and sprinkle about sweet oint- ments and waters; yea, they leave nothing undone that maketh for° the cheering of the company. For 25
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they be much inclined to this opinion : to think no kind of pleasure forbidden, whereof coraeth no harm.
" Thus therefore and after this sort they live to- gether in the city ; but in the country they that dwell s alone, far from any neighbors, do dine and sup at home in their own houses. For no family there lack- eth any kind of victuals, as from whom 0 cometh all that the citizens eat and live by.
OP THEIR JOURNEYING OR TRAVELLING ABROAD, WITH DIVERS OTHER MATTERS CUNNINGLY REASONED AND WITTILY DISCUSSED 0
" But if any be desirous to visit either their friends iothat dwell in another city or to see the place itself, they easily obtain license of their syphogrants and tranibores, unless there be some profitable let.° No man goeth out alone ; but a company is sent forth to- gether with their prince's letters, 0 which do testify is that they have license to go that journey, and pre- scribeth also the day of their return. 0 They have a wagon given them, with a common bondman, which driveth the oxen and taketh charge of them. But unless they have women in their company, they send 20 home the wagon again, as an impediment and a let. And though they carry nothing forth with them, yet
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in all their journey they lack nothing; for whereso- ever they come they be at home. If they tarry in a place longer than one day, then there every one of them f alleth to his own occupation, and be very gently entertained of 0 the workmen and companies of the same crafts. If any man of his own head and with- out leave walk out of his precinct and bounds, taken without the prince's letters, he is brought again for a fugitive or a runaway with great shame and rebuke, and is sharply punished. If he be taken in that fault again, he is punished with bondage.
" If any be desirous to walk abroad into the fields, or into the country that belongeth to the same city that he dwelleth in, obtaining the good- will of his father and the consent of his wife, he is not prohibited. But into what part of the country soever he cometh, he hath no meat given him until he have wrought out his forenoon's task, or else dispatched so much work as there is wont to be wrought before supper. Observ- ing this law and condition, he may go whither he will within the bounds of his own city 0 ; for he shall be no less profitable to the city than if he were within it.
" Now you see how little liberty they have to loiter, how they can have no cloak or pretence to idleness. There be neither wine-taverns nor ale-houses nor stews
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nor any occasion of vice or wickedness, no lurking | corners, no places of wicked counsels or unlawful assemblies ; but they be in the present sight and under the eyes of every man; so that of necessity 5 they must either apply their accustomed labors or else recreate themselves with honest and laudable pastimes.
"This fashion being used among the people, they i must of necessity have store and plenty of all things ; and seeing they be all thereof partners equally, there-
iofore can no man there be poor or needy. In the council of Amaurote (whither, as I said, 0 every city sendeth three men apiece yearly), as soon as it is per- I fectly known of what things there is in every place j plenty, and again what things be scant in any place,
15 incontinent the lack of the one is performed 0 and filled up with the abundance of the other. And this they do freely without any benefit, taking nothing again of them to whom the things is given ; but those cities that have given of their store to any other city *
20 that lacketh, requiring nothing again of the same 1 city, do take such things as they lack of another city I to the which they gave nothing. So the whole island is, as it were, one family or household.
" But when they have made sufficient provision of I
25 store for themselves (which they think not done until
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they have provided for two years following, because of the uncertainty of the next year's proof 0 ), then of those things whereof they have abundance they carry forth into other countries great plenty; as grain, honey, wool, flax, wood, madder, purple dye, fells, 5 wax, tallow, leather, and living beasts. And the seventh part of all these things they give frankly and freely to the poor of that country ; the residue they sell at a reasonable and mean price. By this trade of traffic or merchandise, they bring into their own coun- 10 try not only great plenty of gold and silver, but also all such things as they lack at home, which is almost nothing but iron. 0 And by reason they have long used this trade, now they have more abundance of these things than any man will believe. Now, there- 15 fore, they care not whether they sell for ready money or else upon trust to be paid at a day° and to have the most part in debts. But in so doing they never follow the credence of private men, but the assurance or warrantise of the whole city, 0 by instruments and 20 writings made in that behalf accordingly. When the day of payment is come and expired, the city gathereth up the debt of the private debtors 0 and putteth it into the common box, and so long hath the use and profit of it until the Utopians, their creditors, demand it. The 25
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most part of it they never ask ; for that thing which is to them no profit, to take it from other to whom it is profitable, they think it no right nor conscience. 0 But if the case so stand that they must lend part of
s that money to another people, then they require their debt ; or when they have war ; for the which purpose only they keep at home all the treasure which they have, to be hoi pen and succored by it either in extreme jeopardies or in sudden dangers, but especially and
10 chiefly to hire therewith, and that for unreasonable great wages, strange soldiers. 0 For they had rather put strangers in jeopardy than their own countrymen; knowing that for money enough their enemies them- selves many times may be bought and sold, or else
is through treason be set together by the ears among themselves. For this cause they keep an inestimable treasure ; but yet not as a treasure, but so they have it and use it as in good faith I am ashamed to show, fearing that my words shall not be believed. 0 And
20 this I have more cause to fear, for that I know how difficultly and hardly I myself would have believed another man telling the same, if I had not presently seen it with mine own eyes. For it must needs be that how far a thing is dissonant and disagreeing from the
25 guise and trade 0 of the hearers, so far shall it be out
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of their belief. Howbeit, a wise and indifferent es- teemer 0 of things will not greatly marvel perchance, seeing all their other laws and customs do so much differ from ours, if the use also of gold and silver among them be applied rather to their own fashions than to ours. I mean, in that they occupy not money themselves, but keep it for that chance; which as it may happen, so it may be that it shall never come to pass.
" In the meantime gold and silver, whereof money is made, they do so use as none of them doth more esteem it than the very nature of the thing deserveth. And then who doth not plainly see how far it is under iron 0 ? as without the which men can no better live than without fire and water ; whereas to gold and silver nature hath given no use that we may not well lack, if that the folly of men had not set it in higher estimation for the rareness' sake. But, of the con- trary part, nature, as a most tender and loving mother, hath placed the best and most necessary things open abroad, as the air, the water, and the earth itself ; and hath removed and hid farthest from us vain and unprofitable things. Therefore if these metals among them should be fast locked up in some tower, it might be suspected that the prince and the council, as the
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people is ever foolishly imagining, 0 intended by some subtlety to deceive the commons and to take some profit of it to themselves. Furthermore, if they should make thereof plate and such other finely and
5 cunningly wrought stuff, if at any time they should have occasion to break it and melt it again and there- with to pay their soldiers wages, they see and per- ceive very well that men would be loath to part from those things that they once begun to have pleasure
I0 and delight in
" To remedy all this, they have found out a means, which, as it is agreeable to all their other laws and customs, so it is from ours, where gold is so much set by and so diligently kept, very far discrepant 0 and
IS repugnant ; and therefore incredible, but only to them that be wise. 0 For whereas they eat and drink in earthen and glass vessels, which indeed be curiously and properly made, and yet be of very small value ; of gold and silver they make commonly chamber-pots
20 and other like vessels that serve for most vile uses, not only in their common halls but in every man's private house. Furthermore of the same metals they make great chains with fetters, and gyves, wherein they tie their bondmen. Finally, whosoever for any
25 offence be infamed, by their ears hang rings of gold,
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upon their fingers they wear rings of gold, and about their necks chains of gold, 0 and in conclusion their heads be tied about with gold. Thus, by all means that may be, they procure to have gold and silver among them in reproach and infamy. And there- 5 fore these metals, which other nations do as griev- ously and sorrowfully forego, as in a manner from their own lives; if they should altogether at once° be taken from the Utopians, no man there would think that he had lost the worth of one farthing. 10
"They gather also pearls by the sea-side and diamonds and carbuncles upon certain rocks, and yet they seek not for them ; but by chance finding them they cut and polish them, and therewith they deck their young infants ; which, like as in the first years 15 of their childhood they make much and be fond .and proud of such ornaments, so when they be a little more grown in years and discretion, perceiving that none but children do wear such toys and trifles, they lay them away even of their own shamefastness with- 20 out any bidding of their parents ; even as our children, when they wax big, do cast away nuts,° brooches, and puppets. Therefore these laws and customs, which be so far different from all other nations, how divers fancies also and minds they do cause did I never so 25
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plainly perceive as in the ambassadors of the Anemolians. 0
"These ambassadors came to Amaurote whiles I was there ; and because they came to entreat of great
sand weighty matters, those- three citizens 0 apiece out of every city were come thither before them. But all the ambassadors of the next countries, which had been there before and knew the fashions and manners of the Utopians, among whom they perceived no honor
10 given to sumptuous and costly apparel, silks to be contemned, gold also to be infamed and reproach- ful, were wont to come thither in very homely and simple apparel; but the Anemolians, because they dwell far thence and had very little acquaintance with
is them, hearing that they were all apparelled alike, and that very rudely and homely, thinking them not to have the things which they did not wear, being there- fore more proud than wise, determined in the gor- geousness of their apparel to represent very gods, and
20 with the bright shining and glistering of their gay clothing to dazzle the eyes of the silly poor Utopians. So there came in three ambassadors with a hundred servants all apparelled in changeable colors, the most of them in silks ; the ambassadors themselves (for at
25 home in their own country they were noblemen) in
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cloth of gold, with great chains of gold, with gold hang- ing at their ears, with gold rings upon their fingers, with brooches and aiglets 0 of gold upon their caps, which glistered full of pearls and precious stones; to be short, trimmed and adorned with all those things s which among the Utopians were either the punish- ment of bondmen, or the reproach of infamed per- sons, or else trifles for young children to play withal. Therefore it would have done a man good at his heart to have seen how proudly they displayed their pea- 10 cock feathers, how much they made of their painted sheaths, and how loftily they set forth and advanced themselves, 0 when they compared their gallant apparel with the poor raiment of the Utopians; for all the people were swarmed forth into the streets. And on is the other side it was no less pleasure to consider how much they were deceived, and how far they missed of their purpose; being contrary ways taken than they thought they should have been; for to the eyes of all the Utopians, except very few which had been in 20 other countries for some reasonable cause, all that gor- geousness of apparel seemed shameful and reproach- ful, insomuch that they most reverently saluted the vilest and most abject of them for lords, "passing over the ambassadors themselves without any honor, judg-25
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ing them by their wearing of golden chains to be ^ bondmen. Yea, you should have seen children also \ that had cast away their pearls and precious stones, * when they saw the like sticking upon the ambassa-
s dors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the | sides, saying thus to them : i Look, mother, how great , a lubber 0 doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as ' though he were a little child still ! ' But the mother, yea, and that also in good earnest: ' Peace, son/ saith
10 she ; ' I think he be some of the ambassadors' fools.' Some found fault at their gold chains as to no use nor j purpose, being so small and weak that a bondman might easily break them; and again so wide and I large that when it pleased him he might cast them
is off and run away at liberty whither he would. 4 " But when the ambassadors had been there a day or two and saw so great abundance of gold so lightly esteemed, yea, in no less reproach than it was with them in honor ; and, besides that, more gold in the (
20 chains and gyves of one fugitive bondman than all , the costly ornaments of them three was worth, they | began to abate their courage and for very shame laid 1 away all that gorgeous array whereof they were so proud ; and specially when they had talked familiarly 1
25 with the Utopians and had learned all their fashions
1
i
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and opinions. For they marvel that any men be so foolish as to have delight and pleasure in the doubtful glistering of a little trifling stone which may behold any of the stars or else the sun itself ; or that any man is so mad as to count himself the nobler for the 5 smaller or finer thread of wool, which self-same wool, be it now in never so fine a spun thread, did once a sheep wear, and yet was she all that time no other
► thing than a sheep.
" They marvel also that gold, which of the own na- 10 ture° is a thing so unprofitable, is now among all people in so high estimation that man himself, by whom, yea and for the use of whom, it is so much set by, is in much less estimation than the gold itself: insomuch that a lumpish, blockheaded churl, and 15 which hath no more wit than an ass, yea, and as full of naughtiness and foolishness, shall have nevertheless many wise and good men in subjection and bondage, only for this, because he hath a great heap of gold ; which if it should be taken from him by any fortune, 20 or by some subtle wile of the law ( which no less than fortune doth raise up the low and pluck down the
* high) and be given to the most vile slave and abject dreuell of all his household, then shortly after he shall go into the service of his servant as an augmen- 25
K
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tation or an overplus beside his money. Bat they ^ much more marvel at and detest the madness of thein 4 a which to those rich men, in whose debt and danger 1 they be not, do give almost divine honors for none other j
s consideration but because they be rich ; and yet know- | ing them to be such niggish penny-fathers 0 that they j be sure as long as they live not the worth of one far- ' thing of that heap of gold shall come to them. j " These and such like opinions have they conceived, 4
io partly by education, being brought up in that com- monwealth, whose laws and customs be far different j from these kinds of folly, and partly by good literature and learning. For though there be not many in every I city which be exempt and discharged of all other
is labors and appointed only to learning ; that is to say, j such in whom even from their very childhood they have perceived a singular towardness, a fine wit, and a mind apt to good learning ; yet all in their childhood be in- struct in learning : and the better part of the people, \
20 both men and women, 0 throughout all their whole life do bestow in learning those spare hours, which we said | they have vacant from bodily labors. They be taught , learning in their own native tongue; for it is both J copious in words and also pleasant to the ear, and for '
25 the utterance of a man's mind very perfect and sure. 0
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The most part of all that side of the world useth the same language, saving that among the Utopians it is finest and purest ; and according to the diversity of the countries it is diversely altered.
"Of all these philosophers, whose names be here 5 famous in this part of the world to us known, before our coming thither, not as much as the fame of any of them was common among them ; and yet in music, logic, arithmetic, and geometry 0 they have found out in a manner all that our ancient philosophers have 10 taught. But as they in all things be almost equal to our old ancient clerks, 0 so our new logicians in subtle inventions have far passed and gone beyond them. 0 For they have not devised one of all those rules of restrictions, amplifications, and suppositions, very 15 wittily invented in the Small LogicaU, 0 which here our children in every place do learn. Furthermore they were never yet able to find out the second intentions 0 ; insomuch that none of them all could ever see man himself in common, 0 as they call him ; though he be, 20 as you know, bigger than ever was any giant, yea, and pointed to of us even with our finger. But they be in the course of the stars and the movings of the heavenly spheres 0 very expert and cunning. They have also wittily excogitated and devised instruments of divers 25
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fashions, wherein is exactly comprehended and con- I tained the movings and situations of the sun, the ^ moon, and of all the other stars 0 which appear in their ! horizon. But as for the amities and dissensions of |
5 the planets 0 and all that deceitful divination by the ( stars, they never as much as dreamed thereof. Rains, winds, and other courses of tempests they know before I by certain tokens, which they have learned by long use and observation. But of the causes of all these 4
10 things, of the ebbing, flowing, and saltness of the sea, and finally of the original beginning and nature of heaven and of the world, they hold partly the same I opinions that our old philosophers hold, and partly, i as our philosophers vary among themselves, so they
15 also, whiles they bring new reasons of things, do disa- gree from all them, and yet among themselves in all points they do not accord.
"In that part of philosophy which entreateth of manners and virtue, 0 their reasons and opinions agree |
20 with ours. They dispute of the good qualities of the soul, of the body, and of fortune ; and whether the name of goodness may be applied to all these or only , to the endowments and gifts of the soul. They reason J of virtue and pleasure. 0 But the chief and principal 1
25 question is in what thing, be it one or more, the
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felicity of man consisteth. But in this point they seem almost too much given and inclined to the opinion of them which defend pleasure ° ; wherein they determine either all or the chiefest part of man's felicity to rest. And, which is more to be marvelled at, the defence of s this so dainty and delicate an opinion they fetch even from their grave, sharp, bitter, and rigorous religion. 0 For they never dispute of felicity or blessedness but they join to the reasons of philosophy certain principles taken out of religion ; without the which, to the in- io ? vestigation of true felicity, they think reason of itself J weak and unperfect. Those principles be these and such like: that the soul is immortal, and by the bountiful goodness of God ordained to felicity ; that to our virtues and good deeds rewards be appointed 15 after this life, and to our evil deeds punishments. 0 Though these be pertaining to religion, yet they think it meet that they should be believed and granted by proofs of reason. But if these principles were con- demned and disannulled, then without any delay they 20 pronounce no man to be so foolish, which would not do all his diligence and endeavor to obtain pleasure by right or wrong, only avoiding this inconvenience, that the less pleasure should not be a let or hindrance to the bigger 0 ; or that he labored not for that pleasure 25
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which would bring after it displeasure, grief, and sorrow. 0 For they judge it extreme madness to follow sharp and painful virtue, and not only to banish the pleasure of life, but also willingly to suffer grief with-
s out any hope of profit thereof ensuing. For what profit can there be, if a man, when he hath passed over all his life unpleasantly, that is to say, wretchedly, shall have no reward after his death ?
" But now, sir,° they think not felicity to rest in all
io pleasure, but only in that pleasure that is good and honest 0 ; and that hereto, as to perfect blessedness, our nature is allured and drawn even of virtue ; where- to only they that be of the contrary opinion do attrib- ute felicity. 0 For they define virtue to be a life
15 ordered according to nature ° ; and that we be here unto ordained of God ; and that he doth follow the course of nature, which in desiring and refusing things is ruled by reason. Furthermore, that reason doth chiefly and principally kindle in men the love and
20 veneration of the Divine Majesty, of whose goodness it is that we be, and that we be in possibility to attain felicity. 0 And that, secondarily, it moveth and pro- voketh us to lead our life out of care in joy and mirth, 0 and to help all other, in respect of the society
2s of nature, to obtain the same. For there was never
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man so earnest and painful a follower of virtue and hater of pleasure, that would so enjoin you labors, watchings, and fastings, 0 but he would also exhort you to ease and lighten to your power the lack and misery of others ; praising the same as a deed of humanity s and pity. Then if it be a point of humanity for man to bring health and comfort to man, and specially (which is a virtue most peculiarly belonging to man) to mitigate and assuage the grief of others, and by tak- ing from them the sorrow and heaviness of life, to restore them to joy, that is to say to pleasure ; why may it not then be said that nature doth provoke every man to do the same to himself ?
" For a joyful life, that is to say, a pleasant life, is either evil ; and if it be so, then thou shouldst not i only help no man thereto, but rather as much as in thee lieth help all men from it, as noisome and hurtful ; or else, if thou not only mayst but also of duty art bound to procure it to others, why not chiefly to thyself, to whom thou art bound to show as much favor as to other ? For when nature biddeth thee to be good and gentle to other, she commandeth thee not to be cruel and ungentle to thyself. Therefore even very nature, say they, prescribeth to us a joyful life, that is to say, pleasure as the end of all our operations. And they
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define virtue to be life ordered according to the pre- ^ script of nature. 0 But in that that nature doth allure \ and provoke men one to help another to live merrily * (which surely she doth, not without a good cause ; for 1
s no man is so far above the lot of man's state or condi- j tion, that nature doth cark and care for him only, which equally favoreth all that be comprehended under ' the communion of one shape, form, and fashion), verily she commandeth thee to use diligeut circumspection, *
iothat thou do not so seek for thine own commodities, that thou procure others incommodities. I
" Wherefore their opinion is, that not only cove- nants and bargains made among private men ought to be well and faithfully fulfilled, observed, and kept,
is but also common laws ; which either a good prince \ hath justly published, or else the people, neither oppressed with tyranny, neither deceived by fraud and guile, hath by their common consent constitute and ratified, concerning the partition of the commodi- |
20 ties of life, — that is to say, the matter- of pleasure, i These laws not offended, it is wisdom that thou look \ to thine own wealth. 0 And to do the same for the i commonwealth is no less than thy duty, if thou -j bearest any reverent love or any natural zeal and affec-
25 tion to thy native country. But to go about to let
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another man of his pleasure, whiles thou procurest thine own, that is open wrong. Contrariwise, to with- draw something from thyself to give to other, that is a point of humanity and gentleness; which never taketh away so much commodity as it bringeth again. 5 For it is recompensed with the return of benefits ; and the conscience of the good deed, with the remembrance of the thankful love and benevolence of them to whom thou hast done it, doth bring more pleasure to thy mind than that which thou hast withholden from thy- 10 self could have brought to thy body. Finally (which to a godly-disposed and a religious mind is easy to be persuaded), God recompenseth the gift of a short and small pleasure with great and everlasting joy. There- fore, the matter diligently weighed and considered, 15 thus they think : that all our actions, and in them the virtues themselves, be referred at the last to pleasure as their end and felicity.
" Pleasure they call every motion and state of the body or mind wherein man hath naturally delectation. 20 Appetite they join to nature, 0 and that not without a good cause. For like as not only the senses, but also right reason, coveteth whatsoever is naturally pleas- ant ; so that it may be gotten without wrong or in- jury, not letting or debarring a greater pleasure, nor 25
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causing painful labor ; even so those things that men by vain imagination do feign against nature to be pleasant (as though it lay in their power to change the things as they do the names of things), all such 5 pleasures they believe to be of so small help and furtherance to felicity that they count them great let and hindrance ; because that, in whom they have once taken place, 0 all his mind they possess with a false opinion of pleasure ; so that there is no place left for
io true and natural delectations. For there be many things which of their own nature contain no pleasant- ness, yea the most part of them much grief and sorrow ; and yet, through the perverse and malicious nickering incitements of lewd and unhonest desires,
i 5 be taken not only for special and sovereign pleasures, but also be counted among the chief causes of life.
" In this counterfeit kind of pleasure they put them that I spake of before ; which, the better gown they have on, the better men they think themselves : in the
20 which thing they do twice err, for they be no less de- ceived in that they think their gown the better than they be in that they think themselves the better. For if you consider the profitable use of the garment, why should wool of a finer-spun thread be thought
25 better than the wool of a coarse-spun thread 0 ? Yet
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they, as though the one did pass the other by nature and not by their mistaking, avaunce themselves 0 and think the price of their own persons thereby greatly increased. And therefore the honor, which in a coarse gown they durst not have looked for, they require as s it were of duty, for their finer gown's sake. And if they be passed by without reverence, they take it angrily and disdainfully.
" And again, is it not a like madness to take a pride in vain and unprofitable honors ? For what natural 10 or true pleasure dost thou take of another man's bare head or bowed knees ? Will this ease the pain of thy knees, or remedy the phrensy of thy head ? In this image of counterfeit pleasure, they be of a marvellous madness, which for the opinion of no'bility 0 rejoice is much in their own conceit, because it was their fortune to come of such ancestors, whose stock of long time hath been counted rich (for now nobility is nothing else), 0 specially rich in lands. And though their ancestors left them not one foot of land, or else they 20 themselves have squandered it away, yet they think themselves not the less noble therefore of one hair. 0
"In this number also they count them that take pleasure and delight, as I said, in gems and precious stones, and think themselves almost gods if they chance 25
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to get an excellent one ; specially of that kind which in that time of their own countrymen is had in highest estimation ; for one kind of stone keepeth not his price still in all countries and at all times. Nor they buy
s them not but taken out of the gold and bare ; no, nor so neither, before they have made the seller to swear that he will warrant and assure it to be a true stone and no counterfeit gem. Such care they take lest a counterfeit stone should deceive their eyes in the stead
ioof a right stone. 0 But why shouldst thou not take even as much pleasure in beholding a counterfeit stone which thine eye cannot discern from a right stone ? They should both be of a like value to thee, even as to a blind man. What shall I say of them that keep
15 superfluous riches, to take delectation only in the be- holding and not in the use or occupying thereof ? Do they take true pleasure, or else be they deceived with false pleasure? Or of them 0 that be in a contrary vice, hiding the gold which they shall never occupy,
20 nor peradventure never see more; and, whiles they take' care lest they shall lose it, do lose it indeed? For what is it else, when they hide it in the ground, taking it both from their own use and perchance from all other men's also ? And yet thou, when thou hast hid
25 thy treasure, as one out of all care hoppest for joy;
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the which treasure, if it should chance to be stolen and thou, ignorant of the theft, shouldst die ten years after ; all that ten years' space that thou livedest after thy money was stolen, what matter was it to thee whether it had been taken away, or else safe as thou s leftest it ? Truly both ways like profit came to thee.
"To these so foolish pleasures they join dicers, whose madness they know by hearsay and not by use ; hunters also, and hawkers. For what pleasure is there, say they, in casting the dice upon a table ; which 10 thou hast done so often that if there were any pleasure in it, yet the oft use might make thee weary thereof ? Or what delight can there be, and not rather dis- pleasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs ? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a 15 dog followeth an hare than when a dog followeth a dog ? for one thing is done in both ; that is to say, running; if thou hast pleasure therein. But if the hope of slaughter and the expectation of tearing in pieces the beast doth please thee, thou shouldst rather 20 be moved with pity to see a silly innocent hare mur- dered of a dog, the weak of the stronger, the fearful of the fierce, the innocent of the cruel and unmerciful. Therefore all this exercise of hunting, as a thing un- worthy to be used of free men, the Utopians have 25
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rejected to their butchers ; to the which craft, as we said before, 0 they appoint their bondmen. For they count hunting the lowest, vilest, and most abject part of butchery ; and the other parts of it more profitable
s and more honest, as which do bring much more com- modity ; and do kill beasts only for necessity, whereas the hunter seeketh nothing but pleasure of the silly and woeful beast's slaughter and murder ; the which pleasure in beholding death they think doth rise in
io the very beasts either of a cruel affection of mind or else to be changed in continuance of time into cruelty by long use of so cruel a pleasure. This therefore and all such like, which is innumerable, though the common sort of people doth take them for pleasures,
15 yet they, seeing there is no natural pleasantness in them, do plainly determine them to have no affinity with true and right pleasure. For as touching that they do commonly move the sense with delectation (which seemeth to be a work of pleasure) this doth
20 nothing diminish their opinion. For not the nature of the thing but their perverse and lewd custom is the cause hereof ; which causeth them to accept bitter or sour things for sweet things, even as women with child, ' in their vitiate and corrupt taste, think pitch and
25 tallow sweeter than any honey. Howbeit no man's
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judgment, depraved and corrupt either by sickness or by custom, can change the nature of pleasure more than it can do the nature of other things.
"They make divers kinds of true pleasures; for some they attribute to the soul and some to the body. 5 To the soul they give intelligence and that delectation that cometh of the contemplation of truth. Hereunto is joined the pleasant remembrance of the good life past 0 and the assured hopes of a future happiness.
"The pleasure of the body they divide into two 10 parts. The first is when delectation is sensibly felt and perceived, which many times chanceth by the re- newing and refreshing of those parts which our natu- ral heat drieth up: this cometh by meat and drink, and sometimes whiles those things be voided whereof 15 is in the body over-great abundance. Sometimes pleasure riseth, exhibiting to any member nothing that it desireth nor taking from it any pain that it feeleth, which for all that tickleth and moveth our senses with a certain secret efficacy, but with a mani- 20 f est motion, and turneth them to it ; as is that which cometh of music.
" The second part of bodily pleasure they say is that which consisteth and resteth in the quiet and upright state of the body. And that truly is every 25
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man's own proper health, intermingled and disturbed with no grief. For this, if it be not letted nor as- saulted with no grief, 0 is delectable of itself, though it be moved with no external or outward pleasure, s For though it be not so plain and manifest to the sense as the greedy lust of eating and drinking, yet nevertheless many take it for the chiefest pleasure. All the Utopians grant it to be a right great pleasure, and, as you would say,° the foundation and ground
10 of all pleasures ; as which even alone is able to make the state and condition of life delectable and pleasant ; and, it being once taken away, there is no place left for any pleasure. For to be without grief, not having health, that they call unsensibility and not pleasure.
is The Utopians have long ago rejected and condemned the opinion of them which said that steadfast and quiet health (for this question also hath been dili- gently debated among them) ought not therefore to be counted a pleasure, because they say it cannot be
20 presently and sensibly perceived and felt by some outward motion. 0 But, of the contrary part, now they agree almost all in this, that health is a most sovereign pleasure. For seeing that in sickness, say they, is grief, which is a mortal enemy to pleasure,
25 even as sickness is to health, why should not then
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pleasure be in the quietness of health ? For they say it maketh nothing to this matter, 0 whether you say that sickness is a grief, or that in sickness is grief, for all cometh to one purpose. For whether health be a pleasure itself or a necessary cause of 5 pleasure, as fire is of heat, truly both ways it f ol- io weth, that they cannot be without pleasure that be in perfect health. Furthermore, whiles we eat, say they, then health, which began to be appaired, fighteth by the help of food against hunger ; in the 10 which fight whiles health by little and little getteth the upper hand, that same proceeding, and, as ye would say,° that onwardness to the wont strength ministreth that pleasure whereby we be so refreshed. Health therefore, which in the conflict is joyful, shall is it not be merry when it hath gotten the victory ? But as soon as it hath recovered the pristinate strength, 0 which thing only in all the fight it coveted, shall it incontinent be astonied? Nor shall it not know nor embrace the own wealth 0 and goodness ? For 20 that it is said health cannot be felt, this, they think, is nothing true. For what man waking, 0 say they, f eeleth not himself in health but he that is not 0 ? Is there any man so possessed with stonish insensibility, or with the sleeping sickness, 0 that he will not grant 25
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health to be acceptable to him and delectable ? But what other thing is delectation than that which by another name is called pleasure ?
" They embrace [therefore] chiefly the pleasures of
s the mind ; for them they count the chiefest and most principal of all. The chief part of them they think doth come of the exercise of virtue and conscience of good life. Of these pleasures that the body ministreth they give the preeminence to health. For the delight
10 of eating and drinking, and whatsoever hath any like pleasantness, they determine to be pleasures much to be desired, but no other ways than for health's sake. For such things of their own proper nature be not pleasant, but in that they resist sickness privily steal-
ising on. Therefore, like as it is a wise man's part rather to avoid sickness than to wish for medicines, and rather to drive away and put to flight careful griefs 0 than to call for comfort, so it is much better not to need this kind of pleasure than in sealing 0 the
20 contrary grief to be eased of the same: the which kind of pleasure if any man take for his felicity, that man must needs grant that then he shall be in most felicity, if he live that life which is led in continual hunger, thirst, itching, eating, drinking, scratching,
25 and rubbing ; the which life how not only foul it is
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but also miserable and wretched, who perceiveth not ? These doubtless be the basest pleasures of all, as un- pure and imperfect ; for they never come but accom- panied with their contrary griefs, as with the pleasure of eating is joined hunger, and that after no very 5 equal sort. For of these two the grief is both the more vehement, and also of longer continuance. For it riseth before the pleasure, and endeth not until the pleasure die with it.
" Wherefore such pleasures they think not greatly 10 to be set by, but in that they be necessary. Howbeit they have delight also in these, and thankfully knowl- edge the tender love of mother nature, which with most pleasant delectation allureth her children to that which of necessity they be driven often [to] use. For 15 how wretched and miserable should our life be, if these daily griefs of hunger and thirst could not be driven away but with bitter potions and sour medicines, as the other diseases be wherewith we be seldomer troubled ? But beauty, strength, nimbleness, these, as peculiar and 20 pleasant gifts of nature, they make much of. But those pleasures which be received by the ears, the eyes, and the nose ; which nature willeth to be proper and peculiar to man (for no other kind of living beasts doth behold the fairness and the beauty of the world, 25
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\
or is moved with any respect of savours, but only for \ the diversity of meats, neither perceiveth the concor- i dant and discordant distances of sounds and tunes) | these pleasures, I say, they accept and allow as cer- \
s tain pleasant rejoicings of life. But in all things this cautel they use, that a less pleasure hinder not a bigger, and that the pleasure be no cause of displeas- ure ; which they think to follow of necessity, if the pleasure be unhonest. But yet to despise the comeli- J
10 ness of beauty, to waste the bodily strength, to turn j nimbleness into sluggishness, to consume and make feeble the body with fasting, to do injury to health, | and to reject the other pleasant motions of nature (unless a man neglect these his commodities whiles he
is doth with a fervent zeal procure the wealth of others, • or the common profit, for the which pleasure forborne he is in hope of a greater pleasure of God) : else for a vain shadow of virtue, for the wealth and profit of no man, to punish himself, 0 or to the intent he may be .
20 able courageously to suffer adversity, which perchance shall never come to him : this to do they think it a | point of extreme madness, and a token of a man cruelly-minded towards himself and unkind toward J nature, as one so disdaining to be in her danger that
25 he renounceth and ref useth all her benefits.
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" This is their sentence 0 and opinion of virtue and . pleasure. And they believe that by man's reason none can be found truer than this, unless any godlier be inspired into man from heaven. Wherein whether they believe well or no, neither the time doth suffer s us to discuss, neither it is now necessary ; for we have taken upon us° to show and declare their lores and ordinances, 0 and not to defend them. 0
"But this thing I believe 0 verily : howsoever these decrees be, that there is in no place of the world 10 neither a more excellent people, neither a more flour- ishing commonwealth. They be light and quick of body, full of activity and nimbleness, and of more strength than a man would judge them by their stature, which for all that is not too low. And though their soil 15 be not very fruitful nor their air very wholesome, yet against the air they so defend them with temperate diet, and so order and husband their ground with dili- gent travail, that in no country is greater increase, and plenty of corn and cattle, nor men's bodies of longer 20 life and subject or apt to fewer diseases. There, there- fore, a man may see well and diligently exploited and furnished 0 not only those things which husbandmen do commonly in other countries, as by craft and cunning to remedy the barrenness of the ground, but also a whole 25
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wood by the hands of the people plucked up by the roots in one place and set again in another place ; wherein was had regard and consideration not of plenty but of commodious carriage, that wood and timber
s might be nigher to the sea or the rivers or the cities. For it is less labor and business to carry grain far by land than wood. The people be gentle, merry, quick, and fine-witted, delighting in quietness, and when need requireth, able to abide and suffer much
10 bodily labor; else they be not greatly desirous and fond of it, but in the exercise and study of the mind they be never weary.
" When they had heard me speak 0 of the Greek lit- erature or learning (for in Latin there was nothing that
15 I thought they would greatly allow besides historians and poets), they made wonderful earnest and importu- nate suit unto me that I would teach and instruct them in that tongue and learning. I began therefore to read 0 unto them, at the first, truly, more because I would not
20 seem to refuse the labor than that I hoped that they would anything profit therein. But when I had gone forward a little, I perceived incontinent by their dili- gence that my labor should not be bestowed in vain ; for they began so easily to fashion their letters, so
25 plainly to pronounce the words, so quickly to learn by
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heart, and so surely to rehearse the same, that I mar- velled at it ; saving that the most part of them were fine and chosen wits and of ripe age, picked out of the company of the learned men, which not only of their own free and voluntary will, but also by the command- s ment of the council undertook to learn this language. Therefore in less than three years' space there was nothing in the Greek tongue that they lacked. They were able to read good authors without any stay, if the book were not false. 0 10
" This kind of learning, as I suppose, they took so much the sooner, because it is somewhat alliant to them. For I think that this nation took their begin- ning of the Greeks, because their speech, which in all other points is not much unlike the Persian tongue, 15 keepeth divers signs and tokens of the Greek lan- guage in the names of their cities and of their magis- trates. 0 They have of me° (for, when I was deter- mined to enter into my fourth voyage, 0 I cast into the ship in the stead of merchandise, a pretty fardel 0 of 20 books, because I intended to come again rather never than shortly ) the most part of Plato's works, more of Aristotle's, also Theophrastus' Of Plants, 0 but in divers places (which I am sorry for ) imperfect. For whiles we were sailing, a marmoset chanced upon the book as 25
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it was negligently laid by, which, wantonly playing therewith, plucked out certain leaves and tore them in pieces. 0 Of them that have written the grammar, they have only Lascaris 0 ; for Theodorus 0 I carried not with
s me, nor never a dictionary but Hesychius 0 and Di- oscorides. 0 They set great store by Plutarch's 0 books ; and they be delighted with LucianV merry conceits and jests. Of the poets they have Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles in Aldus' 0 small print.
10 Of the historians they have Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodian. 0 Also my companion, Tricius Apinatus, 0 car- ried with him physic books : certain small works of Hip- pocrates 0 and Galen's Microtechne, 0 the which book they have in great estimation. For though there be
15 almost no nation under heaven that hath less need of physic than they, yet, this notwithstanding, physic is nowhere in greater honor; because they count the knowledge of it among the goodliest and most profit- able parts of philosophy. 0 For whiles they by the help I
20 of this philosophy search out the secret mysteries of J nature, they think that they not only receive thereby | wonderful great pleasure, but also obtain great thanks I and favor of the Author and Maker thereof; whom * they think, according to the fashion- of other artificers, 1
25 to have set forth the marvellous and gorgeous frame
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of the world for man to behold, whom only he hath made of wit and capacity to consider and understand the excellency of so great a work. And therefore, say they, doth he bear more good-will and love to the curi- ous and diligent beholder and viewer of his work and s marveller at° the same than he doth to him, which like a very beast without wit and reason, or as one without sense or moving, hath no regard to so great and so wonderful a spectacle.
" The wits therefore of the Utopians, inured and 10 exercised in learning, be marvellous quick in the in- vention of feats helping anything to the advantage and wealth of life. Howbeit, two feats they may thank us for ; that is, the science of imprinting and the craft of making paper 0 : and yet not only us but is chiefly and principally themselves. For when we showed to them Aldus 0 his print in books of paper, and told them of the stuff whereof paper is made and of the feat of graving letters, speaking somewhat more than we could plainly declare 0 (for there was 20 none of us that knew perfectly either the one or the other), they forthwith very wittily conjectured the thing. And whereas before they wrote only in skins, in barks of trees, and in reeds, 0 now they have at- tempted to make paper and to imprint letters. And 25
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though at first it proved not all of the best, yet by often assaying the same they shortly got the feat of both, and have so brought the matter about that if they had copies of Greek authors, they could lack
s no books. But now they have no more than I re- hearsed before; saving that by printing of books they have multiplied and increased the same into many thousand of copies.
" Whosoever cometh thither to see the land, being
10 excellent in any gift of wit, or through much and long journeying well-experienced and seen in the knowledge of many countries (for the which cause we were very welcome to them), him they receive and entertain wonders gently and lovingly ; for they
is have delight to hear what is done in every land. Howbeit, very few merchant-men come thither. For what should they bring thither ? unless it were iron ; or else gold and silver, which they had rather carry home again. Also such things as are to be carried
20 out of their land, they think it more wisdom to carry that gear forth themselves than that others should come thither to fetch it, to the intent they may the better know the out-lands of every side them and keep in ure the feat° and knowledge of sailing. 0
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OF BONDMEN, SICK PERSONS, WEDLOCK, AND DIVERS OTHER MATTERS 0
a They neither make bondmen of prisoners taken in battle, unless it be in battle that they fought them- selves, nor [of] bondmen's children, nor, to be short, [of] any man whom they can get out of another country, though he were there a bondman ; but either such as s among themselves for heinous offences be punished with bondage, or else such as in the cities of other lands for great trespasses be condemned to death. And of this sort of bondmen they have most store; for many of them they bring home, sometimes paying 10 very little for them ; yea, most commonly getting them for gramercy. 0 These sorts of bondmen they keep not only in continual work and labor but also in bonds. But their own men they handle hardest, whom they judge more desperate and to have deserved greater is punishment; because they, being so godly 0 brought up to virtue in so excellent a commonwealth could not for all that be refrained from misdoing.
" Another kind of bondmen they have, when a vile drudge, being a poor laborer in another country, doth 20 choose of his own free-will to be a bondman among them. These they handle and order honestly, and en-
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tertain almost as gently as their own free citizens; saving that they put them to a little more labor, as thereto accustomed. If any such be disposed to depart thence, which seldom is seen, they neither hold him, s against his will, neither send him away with empty- hands.
" The sick, as I said, they see to with great affec- tion, and let nothing at all pass 0 concerning either physic or good diet, whereby they may be restored
10 again to their health. Them that be sick of incurable diseases they comfort with sitting by them, with talk- ing with them, and, to be short, with all manner of helps that may be. But if the disease be not only in- curable but also full of continual pain and anguish,
is then the priests and the magistrates exhort the man, seeing he is not able to do any duty of life, and by overliving his own death 0 is noisome and irksome to other and grievous to himself, that he will determine with himself no longer to cherish that pestilent and
20 painful disease; and, seeing his life is to him but a torment, that he will not be unwilling to .die, but rather take a good hope to him and either dispatch himself out of that painful life, as out of a prison or a rack of torment, or else suffer himself willingly to be
25 rid out of it° by other. And in so doing they tell him
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he shall do wisely, seeing by his death he shall lose no commodity but end his pain. And because in that act he shall follow the counsel of the priests, that is to say of the interpreters of God's will and pleasure, they show him that he shall do like a godly and a vir- 5 tuous man. They that be thus persuaded finish their lives willingly, either with hunger, or else die in their sleep 0 without any feeling of death. But they cause none such to die against his will ; nor they use no less diligence and attendance about him ; believing this to 10 be an honorable death. 0 Else he that killeth himself before that the priests and the council have allowed the cause of his death, him, as unworthy both of the earth and of fire, they cast unburied into some stink- ing marsh. 15
" The woman is not married before she be eighteen years old.° The man is four years elder before he may marry. If either the man or the woman be proved to have bodily offended, before their marriage, with another, he or she, whether it be,° is sharply punished; 20 and both the offenders be forbidden ever after in all their life to marry, unless the fault be forgiven by the prince's pardon. But both the good man and the good wife of the house where that offence was done, as being slack and negligent in looking to their charge, 2 $
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be in danger of great reproach and infamy. That offence is so sharply punished because they perceive that unless they be diligently kept from the liberty of this vice, few will join together in the love of marriage ;
5 wherein all the life must be led with one, and also all the griefs and displeasures that come therewith must patiently be taken and borne.
" Furthermore, in choosing wives and husbands they observe earnestly and straitly a custom which seemed
io to us very fond and foolish. For a sad and an honest matron showeth the woman, be she maid or widow, naked to the wooer ; and likewise a sage and discreet man exhibiteth the wooer naked to the woman. At this custom we laughed and disallowed it as foolish. 0
15 But they on the other part do greatly wonder at the folly of all other nations, which in buying a colt, whereas a little money is in hazard, be so chary and circumspect that though he be almost all bare, yet they will not buy him unless the saddle and all the harness |
20 be taken off, lest under those coverings be hid some I gall or sore ; and yet in choosing a wife, which shall \ be either pleasure or displeasure to them all their life I after, they be so reckless 0 that, all the residue of the J woman's body being covered with clothes, they esteem i
25 her scarcely by one handbreadth (for they can see no
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more but her face) ; and so do join her to them not without great jeopardy of evil agreeing together, if any- thing in her body afterward do offend and mislike them. For all men be not so wise as to have respect to the virtuous conditions of the party ; and the endowments s of the body cause the virtues of the mind more to be esteemed and regarded, yea, even in the marriages of wise men. Verily so foul deformity may be hid under those coverings that it may quite alienate and take away the man's mind from his wife, when it 10 shall not be lawful for their bodies to be separate again. If such deformity happen by any chance after the marriage is consummate and finished; well, there is no remedy but patience. Every man must take his fortune, well a worth! But it were well is done that a law were made, whereby all such deceits might be eschewed and avoided beforehand. And this were they constrained more earnestly to look upon, because they only of the nations in that part of the world be content every man with one wife apiece, 20 and matrimony is there never broken but by death, except adultery break the bond or else the intolerable wayward manners of either party. For if either of them find them self for any such cause grieved, they may by the license of the council change and take 25
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another. But the other party liveth ever after in infamy and out of wedlock. But for the husband to put away his wife for no fault but for that some mishap is fallen to her body, this by no means they
5 will suffer. For they judge it a great point of cruelty that anybody in their most need of help and comfort should be cast off and forsaken; and that old age, which both bringeth sickness with it and is a sickness itself, should unkindly and unfaithfully be dealt
10 withal. 0 But now and then it chanceth, whereas the man and the woman cannot well agree between them- selves, both of them finding other with whom they hope to live more quietly and merrily, that they by the full consent of them both be divorced 0 asunder and
15 new married to other; but that not without the au- thority of the council, which agreeth to no divorces before they and their wives have diligently tried and examined the matter. Yea and then also they be loath to consent to it, because they know this to be the
20 next way to break love° between man and wife, to be in easy hope of a new marriage.
" Breakers of wedlock be punished with most griev- ous bondage. And if both the offenders were married, then the parties which in that behalf have suffered
25 wrong be divorced from the avowters if they will, and
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be married together, or else to whom they lust. But if either of them both do still continue in love toward so unkind a bedfellow, the use of wedlock is not to them forbidden, if the party be disposed to follow in toil and drudgery the person which for that offence is 5 condemned to bondage. And very oft it chanceth that the repentance of the one and the earnest diligence of the other doth so move the prince with pity and com- passion that he restoreth the bond-person from servi- tude to liberty and freedom again. But if the same 10 party be taken eftsoons 0 in that fault, there is no other way but death. To other trespasses there is no pre- script punishment appointed by any law° ; but accord- ing to the heinousness of the offence or contrary, so the punishment is moderated by the discretion of the 15 council.
" The husbands chastise their wives and the parents their children, unless they have done any so horrible an offence that the open punishment 0 thereof maketh much f or° the advancement of honest manners. But 20 most commonly the most heinous faults be punished with the incommodity 0 of bondage; for that they suppose to be to the offenders no less grief, and to the commonwealth more profitable, than if they should hastily put them to death and make them out of the 25
M
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way. For there cometh more profit of their labor than of their death, and by their example they fear other 0 the longer from like offences. But if they, being thus used, do rebel and kick 0 again, then forsooth sthey be slain as desperate and wild beasts, whom neither prison nor chain could restrain and keep under. But they which take their bondage patiently be not left all hopeless ; for after they have been broken and tamed with long miseries, if then they show such
io repentance whereby it may be perceived that they be sorrier for their offence than for their punishment, sometimes by the prince's prerogative, and sometimes by the voice and consent of the people, their bondage either is mitigated or else clean remitted and forgiven.
is He that moveth to advowtry is in no less danger and jeopardy than if he had committed advowtry indeed ; for in all offences they count the intent and pretensed purpose as evil as the act or deed itself. 0 For they think that no let ought to excuse him that did his
ao best to have no let.
" They set great store by fools 0 ; and as it is great reproach to do to any of them hurt or injury, so they prohibit not to take pleasure of foolishness. For that, they think, doth much good to the fools. And if any
as man be so sad and stern that he cannot laugh neither
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at their words nor at their deeds, none of them be committed to his tuition, 0 for fear lest he would not order them gently and favorably enough to whom they should bring no delectation (for other goodness in them is none) : much less any profit should they yield him.
" To mock a man for his deformity, or for that he s lacketh any part or limb of his body, is counted great dishonesty and reproach, not to him that is mocked, but to him that mocketh; which unwisely doth imbraid any man of that as a vice which was not in 10 his power to eschew. Also as they count and reckon very little wit to be in him that regardeth not natural beauty and comeliness, so to help the same with paint- ings is taken for a vain and a wanton pride, not with- out great infamy. For they know even by very 15 experience that no comeliness of beauty doth so highly commend and advance the wives in the conceit of their husbands as honest conditions and lowliness 0 ; for as love is oftentimes won with beauty, so it is not kept, preserved, and continued but by virtue and 20 obedience.
"They do not only fear their people from doing evil by punishments, but also allure them to virtue with rewards of honor. Therefore they set up in the market-place the images of notable men and of such 25
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as have been great and bountiful benefactors to the ' commonwealth, for the perpetual memory of their good acts ; and also that the glory and renown of the ancestors may stir and provoke their posterity to vir- stue. He that inordinately and ambitiously desireth promotions is left all hopeless for ever attaining any promotion as long as he liveth. They live together lovingly ; for no magistrate is either haughty or fear- ful : fathers they be called, and like fathers they use
10 themselves. The citizens, as it is their duty, do will- ingly exhibit unto them due honor without any com- pulsion. Nor the prince himself is not known from the other by his apparel, nor by a crown or diadem or cap of maintenance, 0 but by a little sheaf of corn
15 carried before him. And so a taper of wax is borne before the bishop, whereby only he is known.
" They have but few laws ; for to people so instruct and institute 0 very few do suffice. Yea, this thing they chiefly reprove among other nations, that innu- |
20 merable books of laws 0 and expositions upon the same j be not sufficient. But they think it against all right \ and justice that men should be bound to those laws j which either be in number more than be able to be 1 read or else blinder and darker than that any man can 1
25 well understand them. Furthermore they utterly
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exclude and banish all proctors and sergeants at the law,° which craftily handle matters and subtly dis- pute of the laws; for they think it most meet that every man should plead his own matter and tell the same tale before the judge that he would tell to his 5 man of law. So shall there be less circumstance of words 0 and the truth shall sooner come to light ; whiles the judge with a discreet judgment doth weigh the words of him whom no lawyer hath instruct with deceit ; and whiles he helpeth and beareth out simple 10 wits against the false and malicious circumversions of crafty children. 0 This is hard to be observed in other countries, in so infinite a number of blind and intri- cate laws; but in Utopia every man is a cunning lawyer ; for, as I said, they have very few laws and 15 the plainer and grosser that any interpretation is, that they allow as most just. For all laws, say they, be made and published only to the intent that by them every man should be put in remembrance of his duty: but the crafty and subtle interpretation of them can 20 put very few in that remembrance, for they be but few that do perceive them ; whereas the simple, the plain, and gross meaning of the laws is open to every man. Else as touching the vulgar sort of the people, which be both most in number and have most need 25
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to know their duties, were it not as good for thein that no law were made at all as, when it is made, to bring so blind an interpretation upon it that without great wit and long arguing no man can discuss it ? to s the finding out whereof neither the gross judgment of the people can attain, neither the whole life of them that be occupied in working for their livings can suffice thereto.
" These virtues of the Utopians have caused their
10 next neighbors and borderers, which live free and under no subjection (for the Utopians long ago have deliv- ered many of them from tyranny), to take magistrates of them, some for a year and some for five years' space ; which when the time of their office is expired
is they bring home again with honor and praise, and take new ones again with them into their country. These nations have undoubtedly very well and whole- somely provided for their commonwealths : for, seeing that both the making and the marring of the weal
20 public doth depend and hang of the manners of the rulers and magistrates, what officers could they more wisely have chosen than those which cannot be led from honesty by bribes 0 (for to them that shortly after shall depart thence into their own country money
25 should be unprofitable), nor yet be moved either with
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favor or malice towards any man, as being strangers and unacquainted with the people ? — the which two vices of affection 0 and avarice where they take place 0 in judgments, incontinent they break justice, 0 the strongest and surest bond of a commonwealth. These peoples which fetch their officers and rulers from them, the Utopians call their fellows ; and other, to whom they have been beneficial, they call their friends.
" As touching leagues, which in other places be- tween country and country be so oft concluded, broken, and made again, they never make none with any nation. For to what purpose serve leagues ? say they ; as though nature had not set sufficient love between man and man. And whoso regardeth not nature, think you that he will pass for words ? They be brought into this opinion chiefly because that in those parts of the world leagues between princes be wont to be kept and observed very slenderly. For here in Europa, 0 and especially in these parts where the faith and religion of Christ reigneth, the majesty of leagues is everywhere esteemed holy and inviolable ; partly through the justice and goodness of princes and partly through the reverence of great bishops 0 ; which, like as they make no promises themselves but
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they do very religiously perform the same, so they exhort all princes in any wise to abide by their prom- ises ; and them that refuse or deny so to do, by their pontifical power and authority they compel thereto, s And surely they think well 0 that it might seem a very reproachful thing, if in the leagues of them, which by a peculiar name be called faithful, 0 faith should have no place.
" But in that new-found part of the world, which is
10 scarcely so far from us beyond the line equinoctial as our life and manners be dissident from theirs, no trust nor confidence is in leagues. But the more and holier ceremonies the league is knit up with, the sooner it is broken 0 by some cavillation found in the words;
15 which many times of purpose be so craftily put in and placed that the bands can never be so sure nor so strong but they will find some hole open to creep out at and to break both league and truth: the which crafty dealing, yea, the which fraud and deceit, if
20 they should know it to be practised among private men in their bargains and contracts, they would incon- tinent cry out at it with a sour countenance as an offence most detestable and worthy to be punished with a shameful death 0 ; yea, even very they 0 that
25 advance themselves authors of like counsel given to
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princes. Wherefore it may well be thought either that all justice is but a base and a low virtue, and which avaleth itself far under the high dignity of kings ; or at the leastwise that there be two justices, the one, meet for the inferior sort of the people, going 5 afoot and creeping by low on the ground, and bound down on every side with many bands, because it shall not run at rovers 0 ; the other a princely virtue, which like as it is of much higher majesty than the other poor justice, so also it is of much more liberty, as to 10 the which nothing is unlawful that it lusteth after.
"These manners of princes, as I said, which be there 0 so evil keepers 0 of leagues cause the Utopians, as I suppose, to make no leagues at all ; which per- chance would change their mind if they lived here. 15 Howbeit they think that though leagues be never so faithfully observed and kept, yet the custom of making leagues was very evil begun. 0 For this causeth men (as though nations which be separate asunder by the space of a little hill or a river were coupled together 20 by no society or bond of nature), to think themselves born adversaries and enemies one to another; and that it is lawful for the one to seek the death and de- struction of the other, if leagues were not ; yea, 'and that, after the leagues be accorded, friendship doth 25
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not grow and increase ; but the license of robbing and stealing doth still remain, as far forth 0 as, for lack of foresight and advisement in writing the words of the league, any sentence or clause to the contrary is not s therein sufficiently comprehended. But they be of a contrary opinion : that is, that no man ought to be counted an enemy which hath done no injury ; and that the fellowship of nature is a strong league ; and that men be better and more surely knit together by 10 love and benevolence than by covenants of leagues, by hearty affection of mind than by words.
OF WARFARE
" War or battle, as a thing very beastly, and yet to no kind of beasts in so much use as it is to man, they do detest and abhor; and, contrary to the custom
is almost of all other nations, they count nothing so much against glory 0 as glory gotten in war. And therefore, though they do daily practise and exercise themselves in the discipline of war (and that not only the men but also the women, upon certain appointed
20 days), lest they should be to seek in the feat of arms 0 if need should require ; yet they never go to battle but either in the defence of their own country or to drive out of their friends' land the enemies that be come in,
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or by their power to deliver from the yoke and bondage of -tyranny some people that be oppressed with tyranny ; which thing they do of mere pity and compassion. Howbeit they send help to their friends ; not ever 0 in their defence but sometimes also to requite and revenge s injuries before to them done. But this they do not unless their counsel and advice in the matter be asked whiles it is yet new and fresh. For if they find the cause probable 0 and if the contrary part 0 will not restore again such things as be of them justly demanded, 10 then they be the chief authors and makers of the war; which they do not only as oft as by inroads and invasions of soldiers preys and booties be driven away, but then also much more mortally 0 when their friends' merchants in any land, either under the pretence of is unjust laws or else by the wresting and wrong under- standing of good laws, do sustain an unjust accusation under the color of justice. Neither the battle which the Utopians fought for the Nephelogetes 0 against the Alaopolitanes 0 a little before our time was made for 20 any other cause but that the Nephelogete merchant- men, as the Utopians thought, suffered wrong of the Alaopolitanes under the pretence of right. But whether it were right or wrong, it was with so cruel and mortal war revenged, the countries round about joining their 25
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help and power to the puissance and malice of both parties, that most flourishing and wealthy peoples being some of them shrewdly shaken and some of them sharply beaten, the mischiefs were not finished * snor ended until the Alaopolitanes at the last were yielded up as bondmen into the jurisdiction of the Nephelogetes, for the Utopians fought not this | war for themselves. And yet the Nephelogetes before the war, when the Alaopolitanes flourished in wealth,
io were nothing to be compared with them.
"So eagerly the Utopians prosecute the injuries done to their friends, yea, in money matters ; and not their own likewise. For if they by covin or guile be wiped beside their goods, 0 so that no violence be done
is to their bodies, they wreak their anger by abstaining from occupying with that nation until they have made satisfaction. Not for because they set less store by their own citizens than by their friends ; but that they take the loss of their friends' money more heavily
20 than the loss of their own : because that their friends' merchantmen, forasmuch as that they lose is their own private goods, sustain great damage by the loss ; but their own citizens lose nothing but of the common goods and of that which was at home plentiful and al-
25 most superfluous, else had it not been sent forth :
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therefore no man feeleth the loss. And for this cause they think it too cruel an act to revenge that loss with the death of many ; the incommodity of the which loss no man feeleth neither in his life, neither in his living. 0 But if it chance that any of their men in any other 5 country be maimed or killed, whether it be done by a common or a private counsel ; knowing and trying out the truth of the matter by their ambassadors, unless the offenders be rendered unto them in recompense of the injury, they will not be appeased ; but incontinent they 10 proclaim war against them. The offenders yielded they punish either with death or with bondage.
" They be not only sorry but also ashamed to achieve the victory with much bloodshed, counting it great folly to buy precious wares too dear. They rejoice 15 and avaunt themselves if they vanquish and oppress their enemies by craft and deceit ; and for that act they make a general triumph and as if the matter were manfully handled, they set up a pillar of stone in the place where they so vanquished their enemies in 20 token of the victory. For then they glory, then they boast and crack that they have played the men indeed, when they have so overcome as no other living creature but only man could, that is to say, by the might and puissance of wit. For with bodily strength, say they 25
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bears, lions, boars, wolves, dogs, and other wild beasts do fight ; and as the most part of them do pass us in strength and fierce courage, so in wit and reason we be much stronger than they all.
5 " Their chief and principal purpose in war is to ob- tain that thing which if they had before obtained, they would not have moved battle. 0 But if that be not | possible, they take so cruel vengeance of them which be in the fault that ever after they be afeared to do
iothe like. This is their chief and principal intent, which they immediately and first of all prosecute and set forward 0 ; but yet so that they be more circum- spect in avoiding and eschewing jeopardies than they be desirous of praise and renown. Therefore imme-
is diately after that war is once solemnly denounced, they procure many proclamations, signed with their own common seal, to be set up privily at one time in their enemy's land in places most frequented. In these proclamations they promise great rewards to him that
20 will kill their enemy's prince ; and somewhat less gifts, but them very great also, for every head of them whose names be in the said proclamations contained. They be those whom they count their chief adversaries, next unto the prince. Whatsoever is prescribed unto
2s him that killeth any of the proclaimed persons, that is
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doubled to him that bringeth any of the same to them alive : yea, and to the proclaimed persons themselves, if they will change their minds and come in to them, taking their parts, they proffer the same great rewards with pardon and surety of their lives. 5
"Therefore it quickly cometh to pass that they 0 have all other men in suspicion, and be unfaithful and mistrusting among themselves one to another, living in great fear and in no less jeopardy. For it is well known that divers times the most part of 10 them, and specially the prince himself, hath been betrayed of them in whom they put their most hope and trust. So that 0 there is no manner of act nor deed that gifts and rewards do not enforce men unto. And in rewards they keep no measure 0 ; but, remem- 15 bering and considering into how great hazard and jeopardy they call them, endeavor themselves to recompense the greatness of the danger with like great benefits. And therefore they promise not only wonderful great abundance of gold, but also lands 20 of great revenues, lying in most safe places among their friends. And their promises they perform faithfully, without any fraud or covin.
"This custom of buying and selling adversaries among other people is disallowed, as a cruel act of 25
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a base and a cowardish mind. But they in this I behalf think themselves much praiseworthy, as who like wise men by this means dispatch great wars without any battle or skirmish. Yea, they count 5 it also a deed of pity and mercy, because that by the death of a few offenders the lives of a great num- ber of innocents, as well of their own men as also of | their enemies, be ransomed and saved, which in fight- ing should have been slain. For they do no less pity
iothe base and common sort of their enemies' people than they do their own, knowing that they be driven to war against their wills by the furious madness I of their princes and heads. | " If by none of these means the matter go forward
15 as they would have it, then they procure occasions of I debate and dissension 0 to be spread among their enemies, as by bringing the prince's brother or some of the noblemen in hope to obtain the kingdom. If this way prevail not, then they raise . up the people that be
20 next neighbors and borderers to their enemies and them they set in their necks under the color of some old I title of right, such as kings do never lack. To them 1 they promise their help and aid in their war ; and as for I money they give them abundance, but of their own citi- \
25 zens they send to them few or none ; whom they make ,
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so much of and love so entirely that they would not be willing to change any of them for their adversary's prince. But their gold and silver, because they kept it all for this only purpose, they lay it out frankly and freely ; as who should live even as wealthily, if they 5 had bestowed it every penny. Yea, and besides their riches which they keep at home, they have also an infinite treasure abroad, by reason that, as I said be- fore, many nations be in their debt. Therefore they hire soldiers out of all countries and send them to battle, but chiefly of the Zapoletes. 0 This people is five hundred miles from Utopia eastward. 0 They be hideous, 0 savage, and fierce, dwelling in wild woods and high mountains, where they were bred and brought up. They be of an hard nature, able to abide and sustain heat, cold, and labor; abhorring from 0 all delicate dainties, occupying no husbandry nor tillage of the ground, homely and rude both in the building of their houses and in their apparel ; given unto no goodness, but only to the breeding and bringing up of cattle. The most part of their living is by hunting and stealing. They be born only to war, which they diligently and earnestly seek for ; and when they have gotten it, they be wonders glad thereof. They go forth of their country in great companies together, and whosoever
N
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lacketh soldiers, there they proffer their service for small wages. This is only the craft that they have to
. get their living by. They maintain their life by seek- .
ing their death. For them whom with they be in s wages, 0 they fight hardily, fiercely, and faithfully ; but they bind themselves for no certain time. But upon this condition they enter into bonds, that the next day they will take part with the other side for greater wages ; and the next day after that they will
10 be ready to come back again for a little more money. 0 There be few wars thereaway wherein is not a great number of them in both parties. Therefore it daily chanceth that nigh kinsfolk, which were hired together on one part and there very friendly and familiarly used
15 themselves one with another, shortly after, being sepa- ' rate into contrary parts, run one against another envi- ously and fiercely ; and forgetting both kindred and friendship, thrust their swords one in another, and that 1 for none other cause but that they be hired of 1
20 contrary princes for a little money ; which they do so highly regard and esteem that they will easily be pro- 1 voked to change parts for a halfpenny more wages by J the day. So quickly they have taken a smack in° \ coveteousness, which for all that is to them no profit ;
25 for that they get by fighting immediately they spend unthrif tily and wretchedly in riot. |
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"This people fight for the Utopians against all nations, because they give them greater wages than any other nation will. For the Utopians, like as they seek good men to use well, so they seek these evil and vicious men to abuse ; whom when need requireth 5 with promises of great rewards they put forth into great jeopardies, from whence the most part of them never cometh again to ask their rewards. But to them that remain on live they pay that which they promised faithfully, that they may be the more willing to put 10 themselves in like dangers another time. Nor the Utopians pass not how many of them they bring to destruction; for they believe that they should do a very good deed for all mankind, if they could rid out of the world all that foul, stinking den of that most is wicked and cursed people.
"Next unto these they use the soldiers of them whom they fight for ; and then the help of their other friends ; and last of all they join to° their own citizens, among whom they give to one of tried virtue and 20 prowess the rule, governance, and conduction of the whole army. Under him they appoint two other; which whiles he is safe be both private and out of office, but if he be taken or slain, the one of the other two succeedeth him, as it were by inheritance. 0 And 25
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if the second miscarry 0 then the third taketh his room ; lest that, as the chance of battle is uncertain and doubtful, the jeopardy or death of the captain should bring the whole army in hazard. They choose s soldiers out of every city those which put forth them- selves willingly ; for they thrust no man forth into war against his will, because they believe if any man be fearful and faint-hearted of nature he will not only do no manful and hardy act himself but also be occasion
10 of cowardness to his fellows. But if any battle be made against their own country, then they put these cowards, so that they be° strong-bodied, in ships among other, bold-hearted men ; or else they dispose them upon the walls, from whence they may not fly.
15 Thus, what for shame that their enemies be at hand and what for because they be without hope of running away, they forget all fear. And many times extreme necessity turneth cowardness into prowess and manli- ness.
20 " But as none of them is thrust forth of his country in- to war against his will, so women that be willing to accom- pany their husbands in times of war be not prohibited or stopped. Yea, they provoke and exhort them to it with praises. And in set field 0 the wives do stand
25 every one by her own husband's side. Also every
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man is compassed next about with his own children, kinsfolks, and alliance ; that they whom nature chiefly moveth to mutual succor thus standing together may help one another. 0 It is a great reproach and dis- honesty for the husband to come home without his 5 wife, or the wife without her husband, or the son with- out his father. And therefore, if the other part stick so hard by it that the battle come to their hands, 0 it is fought with great slaughter and bloodshed, even to the utter destruction of both parts. For as they make all 10 the means and shifts that may be to keep themselves from the necessity of fighting so that they may dispatch the battle by their hired soldiers, so when there is no remedy but that they must needs fight themselves, then they do as courageously fall to it as before, whiles they 15 might, they did wisely avoid it. Nor they be not most fierce at the first brunt ; but in continuance by little and little their fierce courage encreaseth, with so stubborn and obstinate minds that they will rather die than give back an inch. For that surety of living 20 which every man hath at home, being joined with no careful anxiety or remembrance how their posterity shall live after them (for this pensiveness oftentimes breaketh and abateth courageous stomachs) maketh them stout and hardy and disdainful to be conquered. 25
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Moreover, their knowledge in chivalry and feats of arms putteth them in a good hope. 0 Finally, the wholesome and virtuous opinions wherein they were brought up even from their childhood, partly through
s learning and partly through the good ordinances and laws of their weal public, augment and increase their manful courage. By reason whereof they neither set so little store by their lives that they will rashly and unadvisedly cast them away, nor they be not so far in
10 lewd and fond love therewith that they will shame- fully covet to keep them when honesty biddeth leave them.
" When the battle is hottest and in all places most fierce and fervent, a band of chosen and picked young
15 men, which be sworn to live and die together, take upon them to destroy their adversary's captain. Him they invade, now with privy wiles, now by open strength. At him they strike both near and far off. He is as- sailed with a long and a continual assault, fresh men
20 still coming in the wearied men's places ; and seldom it chanceth, unless he save himself by flying, that he is not either slain or else taken prisoner and yielded to his enemies alive. If they win the field, they per- secute not their enemies with the violent rage of
25 slaughter, for they had rather take them alive than
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kill them. Neither they do so follow the chase and pursuit of their enemies but they leave behind them one part of their host in battle array under their standards; insomuch that if all their whole army be discomfited and overcome, saving the rearward, and 5 that they therewith achieve the victory, then they had rather let all their enemies scape than to fol- low them out of array. For they remember it hath chanced unto themselves more than once: the whole power and strength of their host being vanquished 10 and put to flight, whiles their enemies rejoicing in the victory have persecuted them flying, some one way and some another, few of their men lying in an am- bush, there ready at all occasions, have suddenly risen upon them thus dispersed and scattered out of is array and through presumption of safety unadvisedly pursuing the chase, and have incontinent changed the fortune of the whole battle, and spite of their teeth 0 wresting out of their hands the sure and undoubted victory, being a little before conquered, have for their 20