Parcae were three sisters of destiny, wherof Clotho was figured holding the distaff, Lachesis drawing out the thread, and Atropos cutting it off.

Signification: The Poets fain that these three sisters betoken the felicity and state of man, and the misery of man.

By the threads, man’s life is signified, for warning every estate to live well, so long as Lachesis doth draw the thread. It giveth warning that time be diligently spent, for when Atropos comes to cut the thread, thereby is signified the end of life; then is nature’s course ended. If the thread be white, it betokens felicity; if it be black, endless misery it is. If the life be virtuous, it obtains life; if it be vicious, then follows death.

CHAP. XXXVII. Of Thieves and Robbers.

It follows that we speak in the next place of such as by their greedy covetousness and unquenchable desire of lucre, transgress the fourth commandment of the second Table; to wit, Thou shalt not steale, wherein not only simply theft, but also Sacrilege is condemned. And first of Sacrilege.

… Such another was Cambyses King of Persia, who sent fifty thousand men to rob and destroy the temple of Jupiter Ammon; but in their journey so mighty a tempest arose, that they were overwhelmed with the sand, not one of them remaining to carry news of their success.

Brennus was constrained to slay himself, for enterprising to rob the Temple of Apollo at Delphos. Philomelus, Onomarchus, and Phayllus, went about the same practice, and indeed robbed the Temple of all the treasures therein. But one of them was burned, another drowned, and the third broke his neck. To conclude, the Athenians put to death a young child for taking but a golden plate out of Diana’s Temple, but first they offered him other jewels and trinkets, which when he despised in respect of the plate, they rigorously punished him as guilty of sacrilege.