The famous & renowned history of Morindos a king of Spaine who maryed with Miracola a Spanish witch: and of their seauen daughters, (rightly surnamed ladies with bleeding hearts:) their births, their liue and their deaths. A history most wonderfull, strange, and pleasant to the reader.

Auarice her Tragedie: Or the life & death of Mercuria the couetous, the fourth daughter to the inchanted queene.

Chap 7.

THe fourth of these vnhappy children, bearing the name of Mercuria the couetous, esteeming the countries con∣tent, beyond the glories of y^e court, banishing from her selfe

alprincely desires, accoūting thē the brāds of ambitiō, & the onely spurs of distruction: so making her three former sis∣ters a memoriall example of princip allities downefall, she purposed to spend her daies as a shepheardisse in the coun∣trie, where in stead of a royall court, she had the siluaine fieldes and mountaines to liue in, & in piace of her prince∣ly attendance, she had her flocks of sheeps to delight in, whose plentifull increase of wooll, wereas the treasures both of land and sea: her imperiall diadem, was her sheeps∣hooke: her pleasurable musique, the chirping melodie of birds: her guard, the pretty watchfull curre, that with his shirle barking gaue notice of insuing daungers: and the treasons complotted against her, were the tiranny of deuowring wolues: but snch was her siluaine care and countrie dilligence, that her flocks sustained small hurt by the bloody rage of this spoiler, by which means in short time, her riches grew vnualuable, and her treasures with∣out number: but the greedy thirst of her wealths further increase, so bewitched her insatiate desires, that her verry soule grew sotted with vile couetousnes, and the smallest losse thereof drew drops of blood from her heart: she feared to trust the aire with her mony, least the winde should con∣sume it away: nor the earth, least the wormes should con∣sume it: nor the sea, least fishes should purloine it: but in a more securermanner (as she thought) the intended to hide it betwirt heauen and earth, that both months, weeks daies, and howers, she might with the sight thereof glutte the sight of her thirstie eies, so hauing a huge some of pure gould, closed in an Iorne truncke, the which in a darke gloomy night, (the secret concealer of all blacke deedes) she conuaide and hid in the hollow trucnk of an old withe∣red oake, standing betwirt two steepy hills: where the tracking steps of man sildome treadeth: in which hollow tree, almost rotten with age, she secretly hid this rich iew∣ell of her soule: intombing it therein with these speeches: Lie thou there (qurth shee) my sweet gould, thou great

commaunder of mankinde, my desires content, my earths happines, my heart rauither: by seeing thee I am raui∣shed with joy, & in possessing thee I feede vppon the plea∣sures of the world: what is it not but gould can bring to passe? gould can purchace kingdomes, and betray Prin∣ces: gould can buy preferment, and make men mightie: gould can make the smitsh wife, and curb authoritie: gould can win faire Ladies, and wrong the mariage bed: gould can tempt the chastest, and sack virginitie: nay goulde can change vice into vertue, falshood into troth and vile villany into pure honestie: then be thou sweet gould my second soule, for in loosing thee the world ends with me: in this manner left she this corrupting gould lying in the hollow tree, purposing euery day once to feed her eies with the bewitching sight thereof: bnt now marke what hap∣pend to this couetous woman, the next morning by the opening of the daies windows, there came vnto the same place where this gould lay, a pooreman, a disiressed wretch with a rope in his hand, vppon the same tree to end his wearisome life: the reason was, that the pittiful cries of his wife and children, complayning for bread at his hands he not being able to satisfie their wants, came thether to hang himselfe, and so by that meanes rid himselfe from the complayning cries of his poore wife and néedy children, but as the good chaunce of smiling heauen was, in tying the roap about an arme or braunch of the same tree, making a noose to put ouer his head, and in giuing the vnkinde world a dolefull adew, he espied this coffer of gould, at which he staid from that selfe wild murther, and being ioyfull of so rich a purchase, left the rope there still hanging, and rar∣ried ried the coffer home, to the comfort of his wife & children: thus you see heauen by good meanes, sand the deare soule of this desperate man, and releeued the distressed estate of his almost starued family: which we leaue now in groat ioy, and speake of the wofull calamitte, tyed vppon the backe of this couetous ladie, who imediately after this poore means departure, came vnto the aforesaide tree to

looke vppon her gould, whereby her heart might leape at the topfull sight thereof: but no sooner found she her hopes frustrate, her gould gon, and an instrument of death left hanging vppon the tree in place thereof, she grew into such a violent dispaire, that without either care of her liues safetie, orpreuention of her soules damnation, in the same corde she strangleb herself: her bodie being thus made breathlesse, exempted from the sight of people, had no other buriall but in the rauening mawes of hunger∣starued so wies: whose straunge confusion had neuer bin knowne, but through the voice of her troubled ghoast, which walked many yeares after betwirt those two hils, and reuealed it to the country inhabitants: thus was her couetousnes scourged for a grieuous sin, both by heauen and hell.