"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage, Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage Philosophers are, said he, whose part is to learn The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."
The same comparison occurs also in Don Quixote, part ii. cap. 12. See note E378.
[E136] "Atrop." "The fatall sisters," Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, daughters of Erebus and the Night, were supposed to spin out the life of man as it were a long thread, which they drew out in length, till his fatal hour had arrived; but if by any other casualty his days were shortened, then _Atropos_ was said to have cut the thread in two. Hence the old verse: "Clotho colum bajulat, Lachesis trahit, Atropos occat."
[E137] "Euer among," an expression of frequent occurrence in Early English, meaning "constantly, continually." Compare the Mod. Eng. "all the while." In a Carol of the fifteenth century, we read:
"Thys endus nyȝth I saw a syȝth, A stare as bryȝt as day; And _ever among_ A mayden song Lullay, by by, lullay."
"Our der Lady she stod hym by, And wepe water ful bytterly, And terys of blod _ever among_."
[E138] "As onely of whom our comfort is had." The expression is obscure, but the meaning is clear: as the only one from whom our comfort (or strength) is derived.
[E139] "Good husbands," that is, good husbandmen or farmers.
[E140] "Then lightly," an old form of expression. Tusser means that poor people are then _probably_ or _generally_ most sorely oppressed. Cf. "Short summer _lightly_ has a forward spring."--Shakspere, Richard III. Act iii. sc. 1.
[E141] "Few Capons are cut now except about Dorking in Surrey; they have been excluded by the turkey, a more magnificent, but perhaps not a better fowl."--Pegge's Forme of Cury, ed. 1780, p. 19.
[E142] "Vpon the tune of King Salomon." Mar. 4, 1559, there is a receipt from Ralph Newberry for his licence for printing a ballad called "Kynge Saloman," Registr. Station. Comp. Lond. notat. A fol. 48a. Again in 1562, a licence to print "iij balletts, the one entituled 'Newes oute of Kent;' the other, a 'Newe ballat after the tune of Kynge Solomon;' and the third, 'Newes oute of Heaven and Hell.'"--_Ibid._ fol. 75a. Again, _ibid._ "Crestenmas Carowles auctorisshed by my lord of London." A ballad of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is entered in 1567, _ibid._ fol. 166a.--Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, vol. iii. p. 428.