The prouerbes of the noble and woorthy souldier Sir Iames Lopez de Mendoza Marques of Santillana with the paraphrase of D. Peter Diaz of Toledo: wherin is contained whatsoeuer is necessarie to the leading of an honest and vertuous life. Translated out of Spanishe by Barnabe Googe.

The Paraphrase.

THe auncient Philosophers were of o∣pinion, that all the Vertues were to be reduced into the number of foure, which they named Cardinall or principall ver∣tues, whereof they accounted to bee chiefe Fortitude or manhood, which as Aristotle in the thirde of his Ethicks testifieth, is so much the more excellent and praiseworthy, as the subiect and matter wherwith it dea∣let, his dreadful and difficult: for manhood hath for his obiect or contrary, Death, which is, as Aristotle saith, the last of all dreadfull and terrible thinges, beside the great dangers, and sharp and cruell aduen∣tures: So as by reason of the difficultie or hardnesse of the obiect, there are but few that happen to attaine to this vertue. And as it is written in the Ciuil lawe, those that lose their liues for the libertie of their coun∣trey, are counted to liue for euer: for muche

better is it for a man to dye freely in fight, for the libertie of his Countrie, then esca∣ping to liue with a shamefull and cowardly flight. And as the Prouerb heere saith, and they be the very words in effect of Aristo∣tle in the 3. of the Ethicks, The death that is honourable, is to be preferred before a di∣shonourable life, which the Marques doth plainly set foorth by examples following.