He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
Ver. 19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.] His corpse shall be cast out, like carrion, into some bycorner. A just hand of God upon this wicked one, that he who had made so many to weep, should have none to weep over him; he who had such a stately house in Jerusalem, should not have a grave to house his carcase in: sed insepulta sepultura elatus, a as Cicero phraseth it; but without the ordinary honour of burial, should be cast out, or thrown into a ditch or a dunghill, to be devoured by the beasts of the earth and fowls of heaven. Our Richard II, for his exactions to maintain a great court and favourites, lost his kingdom, was starved to death at Pomfret Castle, and scarcely afforded common burial. King Stephen was interred in Faversham monastery; but since, his body, for the value of the lead wherein it was coffined, was cast into river. Let great ones so live, as that they meet not in the end with the death of a dog, the burial of an ass, and the epitaph of an ox; such as Aristotle calleth that of Sardanapalus -
“ ταυτ εχω, Eφαγον και εφυβρισα, ”& c.
Or that of Pope Alexander VI and his Lucrece -
“ Hospes abi: iacet hic et scelus et vitium. ”
a Philippic i.