One time scatters and one gathers;
 One builds, one breaks; one weeps, one laughs;
 One time to sadness, one to gaiety inclines;
 One labours and one rests; one stands, one sits;
 One proffers and one takes away;
 One stays and one removes; one animates, one kills.
 In all the years, the months, the days, the hours,
 Love waits on me, strikes, binds, and burns.
 To me continual dissolution,
 Continual weeping holds me and destroys.
 All times to me are full of woe;
 All things time takes from me,
 And gives me naught, not even death.

Cic. I understand the meaning quite perfectly, and confess that all things agree very well. It is time to proceed to the next.

XV.

Tans. Here behold a serpent languishing in the snow, where a labourer has thrown it, and a naked child burning in the midst of the fire, with certain other details and circumstances, with the legend which says: "Idem, itidem non idem." This seems more like an enigma than anything else, and I do not feel sure that I can explain it at all; yet I do believe that it means that the same fate vexes, and the same torments both the one and the other—that is, immeasurably, without mercy and unto death, by means of various instruments or contrary principles, showing itself the same whether cold or hot. But this, it seems to me, requires longer and special consideration.

Cic. Some other time. Read the lines:

39.

Limp snake, that writhest in the snow,
 Twisting and turning here and there
 To find some ease from the tormenting cold,
 If the congealing ice could know thy pain,
 Or had the sense to feel thy smart,
 And thou couldst find a voice for thy complaint,
 I do believe thy argument would make it pitiful.
 I with eternal fire am scourged, am burnt, and bitten,
 And in the iciness of my divinity find no deliverance,
 No pity does she feel, nor can she know, alas!
 The rigorous ardour of my flames.

40.

Serpent, thou fain wouldst flee, but canst not;
 Try for thy hiding-place, it is no more;
 Recall thy strength, 'tis spent;
 Wait for the sun, behind thick fog he hides;
 Cry mercy of the hind, he fears thy tooth.
 Fortune invoke, she hears thee not, the jade!
 Nor flight, nor place, nor star, nor man, nor fate
 Can bring to thee deliverance from death.
 Thou dost become congealed. Melting am I.
 I like thy rigours, thee my ardour pleases;
 Help have I none for thee, and thou hast none for me.
 Clear is our evil fate—all hope resign.

Cic. Let us go, and by the way we will seek to untie this knot—if possible.

Tans. So be it.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. LONDON AND EDINBURGH





THE APOLOGY OF THE NOLAN

TO THE MOST VIRTUOUS AND LOVELY LADIES.

O lovely, graceful nymphs of England!
 Not in repugnance nor in scorn
 Our spirit holds you,
 Nor would our pen abase you
 More than it must—to call you feminine!
 Exemption I am sure you would not claim,
 Being subject to the common influence;
 Shining on earth as do the stars in heaven.
 Your sov'reign beauty, ladies, our austerity
 Cannot depreciate, nor would do so,
 For we have not in view a superhuman kind,
 Such poison,[A] therefore, far from you be set,
 For here we see the one, the great Diana,
 Who is to you as sun amongst the stars.
 Wit, words, learning and art,
 And whatsoe'er is mine of scribbling faculty,
 I humbly place before you.

[A] Arsenico.

Transcribers Notes:

Page 162: Original source said 34