Note 303 — Chapter I

“Furthermore he tolde one thing among all others, meriting admiration, that certain men called Meropes dwelt in many cittyes there about, and that in the borders adiacent to their countrey, was a perilous place named Anostus, that is to say, wythout retourne, being a gaping gulfe or bottomles pit, for the ground is as it were cleft and rent in sonder, in so much that it openeth like to the mouth of insatiable hell, yt it is neither perfectly lightsome, nor absolutely darksome, but that the ayer hangeth ouer it, being tempered with a certaine kinde of clowdy rednes, that a couple of floodes set their recourse that way, the one of pleasure the other of sorow, and that about each of them growe plantes answearable in quantity and bignes to a great plaine tree. The trees which spring by ye flood of sorow yeldeth fruite of one nature, qualitie, and operation. For if any man taste thereof, a streame of teares floweth from his eyes, as out of a conduite pipe, or sluse in a running riuer, yea, such effect followeth immediately after the eating of the same, that the whole race of their life is turned into a tragical lamentation, in so much that weeping and wayling knitteth their carkeses depriued of vitall mouing, in a winding sheete, and maketh them gobbettes for the greedy graue to swallow and deuoure. The other trees which prosper vpon the bankes of the floode of pleasure, beare fruite cleane contrary to the former, for whosoeuer tasteth thereof, he is presently weined from the pappes of his auncient appetites and inueterate desires, & if he were linked in loue to any in time past, he is fettered in the forgetfulnes of them, so that al remembrance is quite abolished, by litle and litle he recouereth the yeres of his youth, reasuming vnto him by degrees, the times & seasons, long since, spent and gone. For, the frowardnes and crookednes of old age being first shaken of, the amiablenes and louelynesse of youth beginneth to budde, in so much as they put on ye estate of stripplings, then become boyes, then change to children, then reenter into infancie, & at length death maketh a finall end of all.”