The Same In English.

THE TENTH SECTION.

[Sidenote: Frisius. Zieglerus. Saxo.] If any man shall take a great quantity of this ice, & shall keepe it neuer so warily enclosed in a coffer or vessel, it wil at that time when the ice thaweth about the Iland, vtterly vanish away, so that not the least part thereof, no nor a drop of water is to be found.

Surely, this was of necessity to be added: namely, that this ice, which according to historiographers representeth mans voice, & is the place of the damned, doth not as all other things in this wide world, consist of the matter of some element. For whereas it seemeth to be a body, when indeed it is no body: (which may directly be gathered out of Frisius absurd opinion) whereas also it pierceth through hard & solide bodies, no otherwise then spirits & ghosts: therefore it remaineth, seeing it is not of an elementary nature, that it must haue either a spirituall, or a celestial, or an infernal matter. But that it should be infernall, we can not be perswaded, because we haue heard that infernall cold is farre more vnsufferable then this ise, which vseth to be put into a boxe with mens hands, & is not of force any whit to hurt euen naked flesh, by touching thereof. Nor yet will we grant it to be spirituall: for we haue learned in naturall Philosophy, that spiritual substances can neither be seene nor felt, & cannot haue any thing taken from them: all which things do notwithstanding most manifestly agree to this ise of the Historiographers, howsoeuer according to them it be supernatural. Besides also, it is most true, that the very same yse being melted with the heat of the sunne, & resolued into water, vpon the vpper part therof, standeth fishermen in as good stead to quench their thirst, as any land-riuer would do, which thing can no way be ascribed to a spirituall substance. It is not therefore spirituall, nor yet infernall. Now none wilbe so bold to affirme, that it hath celestiall matter, least some man perhaps might hereupon imagine, that this ise hath brought hell (which the historiographers annexe vnto it) downe from heauen together with it selfe: or that the same thing should be common vnto heauen, being of one & the same matter with ise, & so that the prison of the damned may be thought to haue changed places with the heauenly paradise, & all by the ouersight of these Historiographers. Wherfore seeing the matter of this historicall ise is neither elementarie (as we haue so often proued by this place of Frisius) neither spirituall, nor infernall, both which we haue concluded euidently in short, yet sound and substanciall reasons: nor yet celestiall matter, which, religion forbiddeth a man once to imagine: it is altogether manifest, that according to the said historiographers, there is no such thing at all, which notwithstanding they blaze abroad with such astonishing admiration, & which we thinke to be an ordinary matter commonly seene and felt.

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