Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antic or personate actor this is, that so insolently intrudes upon this common theatre, t...

Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antic or personate actor this is, that so insolently intrudes upon this common theatre, to the world's view, arrogating another man's name; whence he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say; although, as he said, "Primum si noluero, non respondebo, quis coacturus est?" I am a free man born, and may choose whether I will tell; who can compel me? If I be urged, I will as readily reply as that Egyptian in Plutarch, when a curious fellow would need know what he had in his basket, "Quum vides velatam, quid inquiris in rem absconditam?" It was therefore covered, because he should not know what was in it.

Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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