very well contented to tell you that, whiche I
understand of al the same that you shall aske me, the whiche if it shall
be true, or no, I wil report me to your judgemente: and I will be glad
that you aske me, for that I am to learne, as well of you in askyng me,
as you of me in aunswerynge you: for as muche as many times a wise
demaunder, maketh one to consider many thynges, and to knowe many other,
whiche without havyng been demaunded, he should never have knowen.

COSIMO. I will retourne to thesame, that you said first, that my
graundfather and those your Princes, should have doen more wisely, to
have resembled the antiquitie in hard thinges, then in the delicate, and
I will excuse my parte, for that, the other I shall leave to excuse for
you. I doe not beleve that in his tyme was any manne, that so moche
detested the livyng in ease, as he did, and that so moche was a lover of
the same hardenesse of life, whiche you praise: notwithstandyng he knewe
not how to bee able in persone, nor in those of his sonnes to use it,
beeyng borne in so corrupte a worlde, where one that would digresse from
the common use, should bee infamed and disdained of every man:
consideryng that if one in the hottest day of Summer being naked, should
wallowe hymself upon the Sande, or in Winter in the moste coldest
monethes upon the snowe, as Diogenes did, he should be taken as a foole.
If one, (as the Spartans were wonte to doe) should nourishe his children
in a village, makyng them to slepe in the open aire, to go with hedde
and feete naked, to washe them selves in the colde water for to harden
them, to be able to abide moche paine, and for to make theim to love
lesse life, and to feare lesse death, he should be scorned, and soner
taken as a wilde beast, then as a manne. If there wer seen also one, to
nourishe himself with peason and beanes, and to despise gold, as
Fabricio doeth, he should bee praised of fewe, and followed of none: so
that he being afraied of this present maner of livyng, he left
thauncient facions, and thesame, that he could with lest admiracion
imitate in the antiquitie, he did.

FABRICIO. You have excused it in this parte mooste strongly: and surely
you saie the truthe: but I did not speake so moche of this harde maner
of livyng, as of other maners more humaine, and whiche have with the
life now a daies greater conformitie. The whiche I doe not beleve, that
it hath been difficulte to bryng to passe unto one, who is nombred