A14461:386
The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wiseThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise
The Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Divided into three parts, dialogue wise: set out with such grace, that it cannot be, but that a man shall take great pleasure in the reading thereof. Translated out of French into English, by John Brooke of AsheThe Christian disputations, by Master Peter Viret. Deuided into three partes, dialogue wise: set out with such grace, that it cannot be, but that a man shall take greate pleasure in the reading thereoff. Translated out of French into English, by Iohn Brooke of Ashe
London: printed by Thomas East, 1579
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Hillarius. The dead hath then deceived & mocked them as well as the old men who do spend all their goods under hope that they shall dye in short time, & afterwards, as men say, were constrained to go beg at the gates & doors, desiring to give some alms unto those poor people whom death hath beguiled. These Priests have as 1great occasion to complain of him, as the Curate had, who (as men say) complained of his Parishioners, saying: what would you have me do my Parishioners? you will neither offer nor yet dye. Whereof do ye think that I can live? have you determined ye I should dye with hunger? do you not think Eusebius, ye one may say the same of them that Seneca hath written of Aruncius and Aterius, and of other 2like, who do make it an occupation & science to purchase after heritages & to watch after testaments, saying that they have the same desire which the Marrons had, & those who make it an occupation to bury the dead bodies, & to furnish & prepare that which is necessary for the burials & funerals. For the greater that the number of the dead bodies are, so much is the game the greater both of the one and the other. And therefore saith he: Those ye do make it an occupation to bury the dead know not of whom they ought to desire death: But these hunters & watchers after testaments & heritages, do desire that their friends & kinsmen should die. If the Priests of the Paynims had been like unto our Priests, I doubt not but that they would have joined unto those here. For they desire as much the death of men, and more then those, sith that they make & do the occupation both of the one & the other. Wherefore when I hear them sing their songs so pitiously and lamentable, about the dead, & their graves, me thinks that I 3see children cry, as the proverb saith, at the burying of their stepmother. And that they are like unto the little children, who do weep & laugh all with one wind, & by and by are appeased, so ye when one giveth them a piece of bread, or an apple, and that which they ask for: Even so we must appease those & give them money to comfort them. Afterwards as soon as they have received it, behold them mappings & lamentations ⟨p. 66⟩are ended, their sorrow is turned into joy, & Requiem into Gaudeamus.