(1584)
A preface and introduction; also a complaint of the troubles of the Low Countries.
A few years past, as I traveled toward Vienna in Austria, I turned aside, not without God's direction, to the town of Liege, being not far out of my way, and where I had some friends, whom both for custom and good will I was persuaded to salute.
Among whom was Charles Langius, a man, simply and without boasting be it spoken, for virtue and learning the chief of the Flemings. Who having received me into his house, tempered my entertainment, not only with courtesy and good will, but also with such communication as was profitable unto me, and will be while I live.
For he was the man that opened my eyes by driving away the clouds of some vulgar opinions: he showed me the pay-way whereby I might directly come, as Lucretius says,
To the lofty temples of Sages right,
By the clear beams of Learning's light.
For, as we walked in the porch of his house after noon, the hot sun toward the end of June, being in his full force, he asked me friendly of my journey, and the causes thereof.
To whom when I had spoken much of the troubles of the Low Countries, of the insolence of the government and soldiers, I added lastly that I pretended other excuses, but this in truth was the cause of my departure.
"For," said I, "who is of so hard and flinty a heart that can any longer endure these evils? We are tossed, as you see, these many years with the tempest of civil wars: and like sea-faring men are we beaten with sundry blasts of troubles and sedition.
"If I love quietness and rest, the trumpets and rattling of armor interrupts me. If I take solace in my country gardens and farms, the soldiers and murderers force me into the town. Therefore, Langius, I am resolved, leaving this unfortunate and unhappy Flanders—pardon me my dear country—to change land for land, and to fly into some other part of the world, where I may neither hear of the name, nor facts of a Pelops brood."
Hereat Langius much marveling and moved: "Yea, friend Lipsius, and will you thus leave us?"
"Yes truly," said I, "I will either leave you, or this life. How can I fly from these evils but only by flight? For to see and suffer these things daily as heretofore, I cannot, Langius, neither have I any plate of steel about my heart."
Langius sighed at these words, and therewithal said unto me, "O fond youth, what childishness is this? Or what mind you to seek safety by flying away? This country, I confess, is tossed and turmoiled grievously: What part of Europe is at this day free? So as you may conjecture that saying of Aristophanes to prove true:
Thundering Jupiter will turn all things upside down.
"Wherefore, Lipsius, you must not forsake your country, but the affections. Our minds must be so confirmed and conformed, that we may be at rest in troubles, and have peace even in the midst of war."
Hereto I, rashly enough, replied: "Nay surely, I will forsake my country, knowing that it is less grief to hear report of evils than to be an eyewitness unto them. Besides that, thereby we ourselves shall be without danger of the lists: Mark you not what Homer wisely warns? Be out of the weapon's reach; lest that happily some man add one wound unto another."
IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Justus Lipsius (c. 1616)
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