Euripides, reckons up
five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to
deject some pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling of our
own infirmities or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel us up; as if
we be long sick:

"O beata sanitas, te praesente, amaenum
Ver florit gratiis, absque te nemo beatus:"

O blessed health! "thou art above all gold and treasure," Ecclus. xxx. 15,
the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss, without thee there can be no
happiness: or visited with some loathsome disease, offensive to others, or
troublesome to ourselves; as a stinking breath, deformity of our limbs,
crookedness, loss of an eye, leg, hand, paleness, leanness, redness,
baldness, loss or want of hair, &c., _hic ubi fluere caepit, diros ictus
cordi infert_, saith [2386]Synesius, he himself troubled not a little _ob
comae defectum_, the loss of hair alone, strikes a cruel stroke to the
heart. Acco, an old woman, seeing by chance her face in a true glass (for
she used false flattering glasses belike at other times, as most
gentlewomen do,) _animi dolore in insaniam delapsa est_, (Caelius
Rhodiginus _l. 17, c. 2_,) ran mad. [2387]Brotheus, the son of Vulcan,
because he was ridiculous for his imperfections, flung himself into the
fire. Lais of Corinth, now grown old, gave up her glass to Venus, for she
could hot abide to look upon it. [2388]_Qualis sum nolo, qualis eram
nequeo_. Generally to fair nice pieces, old age and foul linen are two most
odious things, a torment of torments, they may not abide the thought of it,

[2389] ------"o deorum
Quisquis haec audis, utinam inter errem
Nuda leones,"

"Antequam turpis macies decentes
Occupet malas, teneraeque succus
Defluat praedae, speciosa quaerro
Pascere tigres."

"Hear me, some gracious heavenly power,
Let lions dire this naked corse devour.
My cheeks ere hollow wrinkles seize.
Ere yet their rosy bloom decays:
While youth yet rolls its vital flood,
Let tigers friendly riot in my blood."

To be foul, ugly, and deformed, much better be buried alive. Some are fair
but barren, and that galls them. "Hannah wept sore, did not eat, and was
troubled in spirit, and all for her barrenness," 1 Sam. 1. and Gen. 30.
Rachel said "in the anguish of her soul, give me a child, or I shall die:"
another hath too many: one was