rubie, emeralde or topas curiousely cemented and peeced together,
they sende them in chaines, bracelets, collars and girdles to their
mistresses to weare for a remembrance. Some fewe measures composed in this
sort this gentleman gaue me, which I translated word for word and as neere
as I could followed both the phrase and the figure, which is somewhat hard
to performe, because of the restraint of the figure from which ye may not
digresse. At the beginning they wil seeme nothing pleasant to an English
eare, but time and vsage will make them acceptable inough, as it doth in
all other new guises, be it for wearing of apparell or otherwise. The
formes of your Geometricall figures be hereunder represented.
[Illustration: labelled diagrams of lines of different lengths (forming
different shapes):
The Lozange, called Rombus (diamond)
The Fuzie or spindle, called Romboides (narrow diamond)
The Triangle or Tricquet (pyramid)
The Square or quadrangle (square)
The Pillaster or Cillinder (tall rectangle)
The Spire or taper, called piramis (tall pyramid)
The Rondel or Sphere (circle)
The egge or figure ouall (vertical egg)
The Tricquet reuerst (triangle)
The Tricquet displayed (hour-glass)
The Taper reuersed (narrow triangle)
The Rondel displayed (half circle upon the other half)
The Lozange reuersed (wide diamond <>) u
The Egge displayed (half oval upon the other half - n)
The Lozange rabbated (hexagon).]
_Of the Lozange._
The _Lozange_ is a most beautifull figure, & fit for this purpose, being
in his kind a quadrangle reuerst, with his point vpward like to a quarrell
of glasse the Greekes and Latines both call it _Rombus_ which may be the
cause as I suppose why they also gaue that name to the fish commonly
called the _Turbot_, who beareth iustly that figure, it ought not to
containe about thirteene or fifteene or one & twentie meetres, & the
longest furnisheth the middle angle, the rest passe vpward and downward,
still abating their lengthes by one or two sillables till they come to the
point: the Fuzie is of the same nature but that he is sharper and
slenderer. I will giue you an example of two of those which my Italian
friend bestowed vpon me, which as neare as I could I trnslated into the
same figure obseruing the phrase of the Orientall speach word for word.
A great Emperor in Tartary whom they cal _Can_, for his good fortune
in the wars & many notable conquests he had made, was surnamed
_Temir Cutz
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