RICHARDO PHETIPLACIO ARMIGERO Richard Fettiplace Esq. of Bessilsleigh, and Appleton Manor, Berks. (now Oxfordshire), a member of an old and distinguished Bershire family (b. 1566, matriculated from Brasenose College at age 19 in 1582, knighted 1603, d. 1615). In his will, his great-great-grandfather William Fettiplace of Childrey, Berks., [d. 1528] bestowed important landholdings to the Provost and scholars of Queen’s College, Oxon. His son John had matriculated from that college in 1593. Evidently nothing is known about Case’s relationship with this gentleman. (His wife, the former Eleanor Poole, is better remembered than he. She wrote a MS. manual on household management that passed down in the family and was published at London in 1986.)
Although not announced on the title page of this volume, bound together with Case’s commentary on the Magna Moralia, beginning on p. 209, is Fettiplace’s own Abdedarium Moralis Philosophiae [“The ABC’s of Moral Philosophy”] written for the benefit of his son Richard “and all beginning students of the virtues.”

Quam libri faciunt A misquotation (because of faulty memory or deliberately made to suit the context?) of Ovid, Amores I.x.62, carmina quam tribuent, fama perennis erit.

The Epistle to the Reader

ut in Politicis Cases’ 1588 Sphaera Civitatis had received at least two printings on the Continent (at Frankfurt a. M., in 1589 and 1593).

libros Oeconomicorum Case would address this work with a similar commentary published in 1597, the Thesaurus Oeconomiae, also printed at Oxford by Barnes.

Poeta te docet According to a sidenote, this is an elegiac couplet by Baptista Mantuanus (Battista Spagnoli, 1447 - 1516). Specifically, it is his Epigrammata ad Falconem Protonotaarium no. 60.

Audi aliam poetam Ovid, Remedia Amoria 101f.

The Epigrams

DE SPECULO ET REFLEXU SPECULI Thomas Holland [1539 - 1612], Doctor of Theology, Regius Professor of Divinity and Rector of Exeter College.

7 The Pythagorean Archytas of Tarentum is supposed to have studied optics and some of the phenomena involved in mirrors (it was his discovery, for example, that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence, a fact mentioned by Richard Latewar in another epigram below).

 M. G. M. D. Matthew Gwinne of St. John’s College [d. 1627], a Doctor of Medicine and also a playwright (an edition of his 1603 Nero is included in the Philological Museum, and he also wrote a comedy Vertumnus for the 1605 royal visitation, printed two years later) and an inveterate contributor of gratulatory verse for the works of Case and other members of the literary circle to which they belonged, and to university anthologies. At the request of Mary Countess of Pembroke, he and John Florio prepared Sidney’s works for publication.

B. WARNER Bartholomew Warner of St. John’s College [1556 - 1619] would be appointed Oxford’s Regius Professor of Medicine in the following year.

RICHARD LATEWAR Richard Latewar [1560 - 1601] was, like Matthew Gwinne, a familar contributor of liminary verse for volumes written by members of the literary circle to which they, as well as Case, belonged, and to university anthologies. His incidental verse is unusually unsightful and of high quality, and one distinctly regrets his more significant work has all been lost.
The present poem is written in hendecasyllables.

H. PRICE Henry Price [1567 - 1600], currently a M. A. reading for the B. D. He was destined to become rector of Fleet Marston, Berks.

2 A sidenote refers to James 1.23 - 24:

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

I.i.2 ut aiunt A phrase used at Juvenal, Satire vii.154, that has passed into common usage as a proverb to describe doing something twice, with tedious effect..

I.i.4 ut ducent philosophus et orator A sidenote refers to Aristotle’s Topics Book I and to Cicero’s De partitionibus oratoriae.

I.i.5 ipsius in textu verba Case translates the first sentences of the treatise.

I.ii.6 sunt aut interna aut externa A sidenote refers to Nicomachean Ethics I.8 and X.8.

I.ii.8 solum duobus rectissime distinguitur A sidenote refers to ib. I.6 and VII.12.

I.ii.8 sicut in Metaphysicis A sidenote refers to Book XII of the Metaphysics.

I.ii.9 debetur ut proprium A sidenote refers to Nicomachean Ethics I.12.

I.iii.3 esse ipsam virtutis virtam et actionem A sidenote refers to ib. I.8.

I.iii.4 ut illic docet philosophus A sidenote refers to ib. II.5.

I.iii.5 in 2 et 7 Ethicorum A sidenote refers to ib. II.3 and VII.14.

I.vi.1 Nam mores a mora Graeci deduxerint Case is rarely as weak and unconvincing as he is here: this etymologizing pun may work in Latin (if you care do discover inner significance in such word-resemblances), but it certainly does not in Greek.

I.v.2 In primi libri Ethicorum Sidenotes on this paragraph refer to ib. I.13 and I.34.

I.vi.2 Voluptas est proprium obiectum continentiae A sidenote refers to ib. VII.7 - 9.

I.vii.2 Aristoteles in Physicis definivit A sidenote refers to Physics III.2.

I.viii.2 Peccata sunt aequalia secundum Aristotelem A sidenote refers to Nicomachean Ethics II.6.

I.ix.2 ut in Ethicis docuimus A sidenote refers to Case’s 1585 Speculum Moralium Quaestionum II.vi.

I.x - xi.4 ut in 8 Physicorum A sidenote refers to Physics VIII.6 - 7.

I.xii- xiii.2 Non hoc Medeae excusat Ovid, Metamorphoses VII.20f. The following quote is Seneca, Phaedra 199ff.

I.xii - xiii.3 iuxta illud comici Case’s memory betrayed him, unless he imagined St. Jerome was quoting from some lost comedy, for the quotation is in fact from Jerome’s Prologue to the Pentateuch in his translation of the Septuagint.

I.xii - xiii.5 Concedit philosophus A sidenote cites Aristotle, De Anima III.5.

I.xii - xiii.6 qui sciunt voluntatem Piers Plowman Passus 12, line 57.

I.xiv - xv.2 Perhaps by a printer’s error, a sidenote cites Physics III.

I.xx.2 Polydamas (vereor) me primum in agime carpet Iliad XXII.100.

I.xx.2 Ira, quae in bello brevis esse debet furor Echoing Horace, Epistlesl I.ii.63, ira furor brevis est.

I.xx.3 Sangiunis siticulosa non debet esse ira This is the first of a number of places were phrases are italicized in the text, evidently for rhetorical emphasis or to designate what Case regarded as particularly noteworthy statements, since they are not identifiable quotations. Presumably, therefore, this is italicization is the typographical equivalent to the marginal quotation marks used for the same purpose in many books of the period (and therefore, although a typographical feature, such italicization is in essence a rhetorical device).

I.xxi.1 A traditional Latin proverb.

I.xxi.2 This anecdote about some unnamed martyr comes from St. Jerome, Life of Paul the Hermit §3. The word gypsatissimis in the following sentence appears to refer to the kind of thick cosmetics used by Elizabethan women, especially fading beauties such as the queen herself, to achieve the unnatural whiteness that was admired at this time.

I.xxi.2 Case visibly temporizes because he is on thin ice here. His fictional opponent is really advocating an extreme Puritan position regarding pleasure, including the “bells and smells” of the Anglican church, against which he himself had defended academic theater (at Sphaera Civitatis V.viii.12) and music (in his treatises Apologia Musices tam Vocalis Quam Instrumentalis et Mixta (1588) and the 1586 The Praise of Musicke, which is probably also his: see here). See also his defense of theater and the dance at I.xxx.vii with the note ad loc.

I.xxii.2 qui...vindictam In the book these words are italicized.

I.xxiii - xxiv.1 Est enim...asylum These words are italicized in the text.

I.xxiii - xxiv.4 Alii respondent A sidenote indicates that the “others” in question are Duns Scotus and a fifteenth century commentator on the Nicomachean Ethics, Nicolas d’Orbelles.

I.xxv - xxvi.3 Grylli et Gnatones Gryllus was one of Odysseus’ shipmates who was turned into a pig by the sorceress Circe. He defends his situation in Plutarch’s Gryllus. Gnatho is a parasite in Terence’s Eunchuchus. They became proverbial for their stupidity and flattery respectively.

I.xxv - xxvi.3 exclamat Boaetius A sidenote this explains that this quotation is from Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy I, poem 5).

I.xxv - xxvi.6 Improborum enim lingua It would appear that Case was paraphrasing Proverbs 17:4, An evil man listeneth to the tongue of the wicked; but a righteous man giveth no heed to false lips.

I.xxvii - xxix.1 Sed ut canis ad Nilum The dog that drinks from the Nile while running, in order to avoid its crocodiles, was proverbial in antiquity (Phaedrus I.xxv.3, Macrobius Sat. II.ii.7 etc.).

I.xxvii - xxix.1 iuxta illud Horace, Epistulae I.ii.57.

I.xxvii - xxix.1 propinquorum turba Job 29:7 - 9.

I.xxvii - xxix.2 Further lines from the poem of Boethius just quoted.

I.xxvii - xxix.5 Sanguis...arguit This sentence is italicized in the book.

I.xxvii - xxix.5 erubescit, res salva est Terence, Adelphoe 643 (the actual words are erubuit: salva res est).

I.xxvii - xxix.5 Nam quis, inquit Juvenal xiii.239f.

I.xxvii - xxix.6 In the book Quo semel...senex erit are run together and italicized as if they were a single quote. In fact, Q uo semel...Testa diu = Horace, Epistulae I.ii.47f. Malum movum malus corvus (sc. gignit) is a separate proverb, and the rest of the paragraph (which only spells out the meaning of the proverb to point out that it can be used to counter the earlier one ex malo puero bonus senex nascitur) is only italicized for rhetorical emphasis.

I.xxvii - xxix Cum mali...miseria est These words are italicized in the book.

I.xxx - xxxii.2 facetiis...capitur These words are italicized in the book.

I.xxx - xxxii.2 non sunt Aristarchi nostrorum temporum Aristarchus was a very severe Alexandrian literary critic. Roscius was a great actor at Rome in the time of Cicero.

I.xxx - xxxii.2 audiamus Ciceronem De Officiis I.ciii.4.

I.xxx - xxxii.6 Risum reputavi errorem Ecclesiastes 2:2, immediately followed by Luke 6:25.

I.xxx - xxxii.7 An ludi scenici In this unusually lengthy and spirited responsio Case returns to a long-standing Oxford debate about the legitimacy of stage-plays, a subject he had already treated in a similar responsio at Sphaera Civitatis V.viii.12, a passage which supplied the Oxford playwright William Gager with the argumentative ammunition for an afterpiece entitled Momus performed with his expanded version of Seneca’s Phaedra under the title Panniculus Hippolyto Senecae Tragoediae Assutus. The performance took place at Christ Church in 1592 as one of the enterainments presented in connection with a royal visitation. The puritanical and irascible Dr. John Rainolds, the leading spokesman of the anti-theater party, chose to regard Gager’s Momus as a personal attack on himself and erupted, thereby earning the a sharp public scolding from the queen. This in turn led to a pamplet war between Rainolds and Gager, and when Gager left Oxford, Alberico Gentili, the Regius Professor of Civil Law, took up the cause on his behalf. The entire controversy is described in detail here. One of Rainolds’ major talking-points was the injunction against transvestitism at Deuteronmy 22:5, so it is no accident that Case specifically addresses that point here. Since both Gager and Gentili were lawyers, they had allowed themselves to be drawn into haggling over legalistic particulars. Here Case attempts to move the debate back to the high ground, by repeating the justification for literature advanced by Sir Philip Sidney in the Apologie for Poetrie, that drama presents us with good examples for our imitation and bad ones for our avoidance, and is therefore morally improving.

I.xxx - xxxii.7 Quae addis de saltationibus A sidenote refers to Albertus lib. 4 et distinct. 16 (presumably the reference is to one of Albertus Magnus’ two commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics).

I.xxx - xxxii.8 illud Catonis Disticha Catonis I.xvi.1.

I.xxxiii.1 Necessitas...dicitur These words are italicized in the book.

I.xxxxiii.5 ut docet philosophus 2^o Ethicorum A sidenote instructs the reader Tabulam consule in 2. lib. Ethic., i. e. to the table appended to Case’s 1585 Speculum Moralium Quaestionum II.i.

I.xxxiii.14 Multi enim...voluerunt These words are italicized in the book.

I.xxxiv.4 per se subsistens A sidenote refers to Book III of De Anima.

I.xxxiv.10 de quo Martialis Martial VIII.l.1f.

II.iii.9 Consilium poetae in hac re audiendum est The source of this line is unidentified.

II.vi.6 hoc modo in specie conservetur A sidenote refers to Cicero, De Officiis I.xi.

II.vi.7 deteriora sequor See the note on I.xii.2.

II.vii.3 Sic mens humana...causam dirigit These words are italicized in the text.

II.vii.10 O Sophocles male audis At an advanced age Sophocles is alleged to have fallen into the clutches of the courtesan Archippe and made her the heiress to his property.

II.viii.1 Deus autem...malis supplicia These words are italicized in the text.

II.viii.2 Natura motum, fortuna casum dedit These words are italicized in the text.

II.viii.3 Sed plura de hac re in Physicis Case must have already been working on, or at least contemplating the writing of his great commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, the Lapis Philosophicus, which was published by Joseph Barnes in 1599. In the next sentence he punningly plays on his surname and casus, the Latin word for “accident.”

II.viii.5 a Deo...prorsus aliena These words are italicized in the text.

II.viii.7 Fortuna favet fatuis An old Latin proverb.

II.viii.11 ut Iuvenalis cecinit Juvenal x.365f.

II.ix - x.2 solum nomen...charitatis non esset These words are italicized in the text.

II.xi.3 illud didicere poetae Ovid, Ars Amatoria I.585f. (the second line of the couplet is quoted directly below).

II.xi.4 si desit tibi Laelius The name chosen for this hypothetical friend is significant, since Laelius is the principal in Cicero’s De Amicitia.

II.xi.4 Sed o misera This sentence is italicized in the book.

II.xi.6 ut ait Euripides The reference is to a fragment of a lost play by Euripides quoted by Aristotle at the beginning of Book VIII of the Nichomachean Ethics (fr. 898 Nauck).

II.xi.10 Quod vero nos...dignum rependimus These words are italicized in the text.

II.xi.11 Raro aut nobilium The italicized words seem to be paraphrasing a statement at this point in the Magna Moralia, to the effect that friendships are rarely formed between superiors and inferiors in such things as wealth and social standing.

II.xii - xiv.2 odium Dei et hominum This appears to be some kind of quotation or proverb, but its source is unidentified.

II.xii - xiv.3 Est enim...patris These words are italicized in the text.

II.xii - xiv.4 Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis A famous line from Matthew Boubon's epitaph for Lothar I.

II.xii - xiv.6 Utrum filius sit magis opus patris quam matris? Underlying this question discussed by Case (but not by the author of the Magna Moralia) is a debate in ancient medical theory that can be traced back at least as far as Aechylus’ Eumenides (657ff.), or rather the medical thinking of that playwright’s time, about the respective roles of the father and the mother in the process of generation. (It is worth remembering that by the time he wrote this work Case was a Doctor of Medicine, as he signed himself on the title page.)

II.xv - xvi.2 Opus ergo est...demonstrent nostras These words are italicized in the text.

II.xv - xvi.3 Quippe...occasum habent These words are italicized in the text.

II.xv - xvi.4 Nam satis...habet unum These words are italicized in the text.

II.xvii.2 At amici...nulli sunt These words are italicized in the text.

II.xvii.2 Nam extincta...naturae servus These words are italicized in the text.

II.xvii.3 secundum Aristotelem in Politicis A sidenote refers to Politics V and Ethics VIII.

II.xvii.3 Nam licentiam....increpandi sument These words are italicized in the text.

II.xvii.4 Nam si...incendium excitaret These words are italicized in the text.

II.xvii.6 nec ad Africanum illum A sidenote refers to Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis.

II.xvii.6 qui in Arcadia sua A sidenote refers to the friendship of Pyrocles and Musidorus in Book V of Sidney’s Arcadia (first published in 1590).

Peroratio 2 Nam nomo sum...libenter nolo These words are italicized in the text.