Therefore a learned man ought not too much to be ashamed to bear that sometime, which Apollo, god of learning, himself was not ashamed always to bear.  And because ye would have a man wait upon the Muses, and not at all meddle with shooting:  I marvel that you do not remember how that the nine Muses their self, as soon as they were born, were put to nurse to a lady called Euphemis, which had a son named Erotus, with whom the nine Muses for his excellent shooting kept evermore company withal, and used daily to shoot together in the Mount Parnassus; and at last it chanced this Erotus to die, whose death the Muses lamented greatly, and fell all upon their knees afore Jupiter their father; and at their request, Erotus, for shooting with the Muses on earth, was made a sign and called Sagittarius in heaven.  Therefore you see that if Apollo and the Muses either were examples indeed, or only feigned of wise men to be examples of learning, honest shooting may well enough be companion with honest study.

Philologe—­Well, Toxophile, if you have no stronger defense of shooting than poets, I fear if your companions which love shooting heard you, they would think you made it but a trifling and fabling matter, rather than any other man that loveth not shooting could be persuaded by this reason to love it.

Toxophile—­Even as I am not so fond but I know that these be fables, so I am sure you be not so ignorant but you know what such noble wits as the poets had, meant by such matters; which oftentimes, under the covering of a fable, do hide and wrap in goodly precepts of philosophy, with the true judgment of things.  Which to be true, specially in Homer and Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, and Galen plainly do show; when through all their works (in a manner) they determine all controversies by these two poets and such like authorities.  Therefore, if in this matter I seem to fable and nothing prove, I am content you judge so on me, seeing the same judgment shall condemn with me Plato, Aristotle, and Galen, whom in that error I am well content to follow.  If these old examples prove nothing for shooting, what say you to this, that the best learned and sagest men in this realm which be now alive, both love shooting and use shooting, as the best learned bishops that be? amongst whom, Philologe, you yourself know four or five, which, as in all good learning, virtue, and sageness, they give other men example what thing they should do, even so by their shooting they plainly show what honest pastime other men given to learning may honestly use.  That earnest study must be recreated with honest pastime, sufficiently I have proved afore, both by reason and authority of the best learned men that ever wrote.  Then seeing pastimes be leful [lawful], the most fittest for learning is to be sought for.  A pastime, saith Aristotle, must be like a medicine.  Medicines stand by contraries; therefore, the nature of studying considered, the fittest pastime shall soon appear.  In study every