wn a rope; "How do you know, but he
threw himself in hither on purpose?" I shall say: and will relate the
death of the Sicilian poet. Empedocles, while he was ambitious of being
esteemed an immortal god, in cold blood leaped into burning Aetna. Let
poets have the privilege and license to die [as they please]. He who
saves a man against his will, does the same with him who kills him
[against his will]. Neither is it the first time that he has behaved in
this manner; nor, were he to be forced from his purposes, would he now
become a man, and lay aside his desire of such a famous death. Neither
does it appear sufficiently, why he makes verses: whether he has defiled
his father's ashes, or sacrilegiously removed the sad enclosure of the
vindictive thunder: it is evident that he is mad, and like a bear that
has burst through the gates closing his den, this unmerciful rehearser
chases the learned and unlearned. And whomsoever he seizes, he fastens
on and assassinates with recitation: a leech that will not quit the
skin, till satiated with blood.

THE END

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