Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

Signs of Heaven, as Sun, Moon, with their Eclip∣ses, &c. as we are not to be dismaied at them, so not to be contemners of them. [ 1937]

PEricles the great and famous Athenian, who in the beginning of the Pelopo∣nesian war,* 1.1 being ready with a great Fleet of an hundreth and Fifty Ships to Loyse up sail, was presented (even as he went up into his Gally) with a great and terrible Eclipse of the Sun, which made the sky so dark that some of the big∣ger Stars appeared; At which the Governour of the Ship was sore affrighted, and the reupon with therest of the company refused to set sail; which when Pericles perceived (either truly contemning the threatnings of the Stars, or fear∣ing that the hearts of his Souldiers should fail) he put his cloak for a while be∣fore the Governours eyes, and then by and by taking it away again, asked him; If that which he had done with his Cloak portended any thing; To whom the Gover∣nour answered, No; No more, saith he, maist thou think is signified by this Eclipse though the Moon be now betwixt the Sun and our sight: Which being said, he com∣manded that they should hoyse up Sail and be gon about the intended expediti∣on: But this of Pericles was surely an overbold presumption, as in the end ap∣peared,

there being soon after not onely misery brought upon his own Coun∣try and dishonour upon himself, but all Greece wasted under the sad calamity of a long lasting War: Thus it is, that; as the signs of Heaven, such as the Eclip∣ses of the Sun and Moon, Comets, &c. are not things whereat we should after an Heathenish manner be dismaid, so should we not contemn them nor the signi∣fication intended by them,* 1.2 they are called by the name of influences, Iob 38. 31. from the Greek word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 super et fluo, that is to flow into or upon; they must needs then have some object to flow into, or work upon, and by their working they speak to all those who will but lend an Ear to hear them,* 1.3 that is to us who are here below, who inhabit this dull dark Globe of Mortali∣ty, over whose heads they hang, that casting our eyes upon them, we may not onely behold them, but according to that Wisedome which God hath given us look into their significations by considering their motions, configura∣tions, Risings, Settings, Aspects, Occultations, Eclipses, Conjunctions, and the like.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Plutarch in vita.
• * 1.2

  Joh. Swan Signa Coeli, Serm. 1652.
• * 1.3

  Praestat tamen teipsum cog∣noscere quam siderum cur∣sus, vim her∣barum, &c. Bern. medit.