Fortune is like the market, where, many times, if you can stay a
little, the price will fall; and again, it is sometimes like Sibylla’s
offer,[257] which at first offereth the commodity at full, then
consumeth part and part, and still holdeth up the price; for occasion
(as it is in the common verse) “turneth a bald noddle,[258] after she
hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken;” or, at least,
turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after the
belly, which is hard to clasp.[259] There is surely no greater wisdom
than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things. Dangers are no
more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men
than forced them; nay, it were better to meet some dangers half-way,
though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon
their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will
fall asleep. On the other side, to be deceived with too long shadows
(as some have been when the moon was low, and shone on their enemies’
back), and so to shoot off before the time; or to teach dangers to
come on by over early buckling towards them, is another extreme. The
ripeness or unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well
weighed; and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great
actions to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with
his hundred hands, first to watch and then to speed; for the helmet of
Pluto,[260] which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in
the council, and celerity in the execution; for when things are once
come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like
the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns
the eye.