And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man [withal] whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.
Ver. 9. And let this apparel and horse be delivered, &c.] All must be done in amplest manner; and if it had been done to himself, as he desired, what had all that been but a magnum nihil, as one saith, a great nothing, a glorious fancy, a rattle, to still his ambition for a while? Forte amplior fuisset, nisi veritas esset rem suspicione neutiquam carere (Lavat.). He, simple man, had wrought himself into the fool's paradise of a sublime dotage, like as the Spaniards have in their dream of a catholic monarchy, divinitus debita, saith one, sed in Utopia. They were laughed heartily at Captain Drake and his company, when they took Sancta Domingo, A.D. 1585, and in the town hall found the king of Spain's arms, and under them a globe of the world, out of which arose a horse with his forefeet cast forth with this inscription, Non sufficit orbis, Not enough territory. Pyrrhus, that ambitious king of Epirotes, had the like thought; but was slain at last with a tilestone thrown upon his head by a woman. And a like evil end befell Caesar Borgia, who, in imitation of Julius Caesar, would needs be aut Caesar, aut nullus, either Caesar or nothing, and soon after proved to be et Caesar, et nullus, Both Caesar and nothing. Had Haman but contented himself with his present condition (too good for such a captive), he might have lived in the world's account happily, and have called himself, as that French king did Tres heureuse, thrice blessed; but that insatiable thirst after honour, that gluttonous, excessive desire after more and more greatness, undid him. So true is that proverb of the ancients, Turdus ipse sibi malum cacat, Of the blackbird's dung is made the lime wherewith he is taken; so out of the dung of men's sins doth God make his lime twigs of judgment to take them withal.
To one of the king's most noble princes] Principibus maioribus paratimis. This would be no small addition to the honour of the man and splendour of the day, like as it was here in England, when Henry II, at the coronation of his eldest son, renounced the name of a king for that day, and, as server, served at the table.
That they may array the man withal] Setting him forth to the greatest advantage, as our Henry VI did, when he crowned the Lord Beauchamp king of the Isle of Wight, and as Xerxes did Demaratus, when for honour's sake he granted him to enter into Sardis, the chief city of Asia, arrayed like himself, with a straight tiara upon his head, which none might wear but kings only (Sen. 1. 6, de Benef.).
Through the street of the city] Of Susa, that he might be seen and cried up by many, for Honor est in honorante. Honour is in honour. As the meteor liveth in the air, so doth honour in the breath of other men. Plato reckoneth it among those dei ludibria quae sursum ac deorsum sub caelo feruntur, like tennis-balls bandied up and down from one to another.