Northern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 1 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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What If Some Man Be Driuen To That Passe, That He Doth Not Onely Sell His
Sonne But Not Finding
A chapman, his owne selfe killeth and eateth him?
Examples of this kinde be common, namely of the vnwilling and
Forced
cruelty of parents towards their children, not being pricked on through
hate, or want of naturall affection, but being compelled thereunto by
vrgent necessity. Shall any man hereupon ground a generall reproch against
a whole nation? We reade that in the siege of Samaria, two mothers slew
their sonnes, and eat them sodden: 4. King, chap. 6. We reade in the siege
of Ierusalem, how lamentable the voice of that distressed mother was, being
about to kill her tender childe: My sweete babe, sayth she (for I will
report Eusebius owne words, concerning this matter, though very common,
that the affection of a mother may appeare) borne to miserie and mishap,
for whom should I conueniently reserue thee in this tumult of famine, of
warre, and sedition? If we be subdued to the gouernment of the Romans, we
shall weare out our vnhappy dayes vnder the yoke of slauery. But I thinke
famine will preuent captiuity. Besides, there is a rout of seditious rebels
much more intollerable then either of the former miseries. Come on
therefore, my sonne, be thou meat vnto thy mother, a fury to these rebels,
and a byword in the common life of men, which one thing onely is wanting to
make vp the calamities of the Iewes.
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