United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


This people in the beginnyng pente within narowe boundes, so in processe by litle and litle, through their valeauntnes and force enlarged their limites: that thei became lordes of many countries aboute, and grewe into a great gouernaunce and renoume. Thei nestled first vpon the floude Araxis so fewe in nombre and so base: that no manne thought theim worthie the troublyng or talkyng of.

FABRICIO. Either I have tolde you, or I minded to tell you, howe that my reasoning of the affaires of warre, ought not to passe the boundes of Europe: when thus it is, I am not bounde unto you, to make accompte of the same, which is used in Asia, yet I muste saye unto you thus, that the warring of the Parthians, was altogether contrarye, to the same of the Romanes: for as muche as the Parthians, warred all on horsebacke, and in the fight, they proceeded confusedlye, and scattered, and it was a maner of fighte unstable, and full of uncertaintie.

The first fronte of the armie, is made perfectly whole and thicke, bicause it must withstande the brunt of the enemies, and it hath not to receive in it any of their felowes: and for this, it is fitte that it bee full of menne: bicause a fewe menne, should make it weake, either thinnesse, or for lacke of sufficiente nomber: but the seconde companie, for as moche as it must first receive their frendes, to sustain the enemie, it is mete that it have greate spaces, and for this it behoveth, that it be of lesse nomber then the first: for that if it wer of greater nomber, or equall, it should bee conveniente, either not to leave the distaunces, the whiche should be disorder, or leavyng theim, to passe the boundes of thoseafore, the whiche should make the facion of the armie unperfecte: and it is not true that you saie, that the enemie, the more that he entereth into the maine battaile, so moche the weaker he findeth it: for that the enemie, can never faight with the seconde order, except the first be joined with thesame: so that he cometh to finde the middest of the maine battaile more stronger, and not more weaker, havyng to faight with the first, and with the seconde order altogether: the verie same happeneth, when the enemie should come to the thirde companie: for that there, not with twoo battailes, whiche is founde freshe, but with all the maine battaile he must faight: and for that this last part hath to receive moste men, the spaces therof is requisite to be greatest, and that whiche receiveth them, to be the leste nomber.

Concernyng the seconde demaunde, my intent is not that every space, of me marked out, bee covered with a pavilion onely, but to be used, as tourneth commodious to soch as lodge there, either with more or with lesse Tentes, so that thei go not out of the boundes of thesame.

And so ioyning in confederacie, planted themselues together in a plotte, assigned their boundes, framed vp cotages, one by anothers chieque, diked in themselues, chose officers and gouernours and deuised lawes, that thei also emong theimselues might liue in quiete. So beginning a rough paterne of tounes and of Cities, that aftre ware laboured to more curious finesse.

The lines shall be quoted verbatim, though not literatim; and perhaps no better example, and none more readily appreciable by a modern ear, could be given than the fourth of them of the harmonious effect of Chaucer's usage of SLURRING, referred to above: Why liked thee my yellow hair to see More than the boundes of mine honesty?