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The Praise of Folly 15 I, like that limping Black-smith, begot in the sad and irksome bonds of Matrimony. Yet, mistake me not, ’twas not that blind and decrepit Plutus in Aristophanes that got me, but such as he was in his full strength and pride of youth; and not that onely, but at such a time when he had been well heated with Nectar, of which he had, at one of the Banquets of the Gods, taken a dose extraordinary. And as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is look’d upon as a main point of Nobility, it was neither, like Apollo’s, in the floating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling Sea, nor in any of blind Homer’s as blind Caves: but in the fortunate Islands, where ‘all things grew without plowing or sowing ; where neither Labour, nor Old-age, nor Disease, was ever heard of ; and in whose fields neither Daffadil, Mallows, Onyons, Beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow ; but, on the contrary, Rue, Angelica, Buglosse, Marjoram, Trefoiles, Roses, Violets, Lillies, and all the Gardens of Adonis, invite both your sight and your smelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, + —sponte sua per se dabat omnia tellus.
