1Lest you should ask, excellent Quinctius, whether my farm feeds its master with ploughland or enriches him with the berries of the olive, with apples or meadows or the elm clothed with vines, the shape and situation of the land will be described to you at length. 5Mountains, unbroken except that they are parted by a shady valley, but such that the sun as it comes looks on its right side, and warms the left as it departs in its fleeing chariot. 8You would praise the mild climate; what if the bushes generously bear red cornels and plums? 9If oak and holm-oak delight the flock with much fruit, the master with much shade?
11You would say Tarentum had been brought nearer, green with leaves. There is a spring, too, fit to give its name to a stream, so that not even the Hebrus winding through Thrace is cooler or purer; it flows, helpful for an ailing head, helpful for the stomach. 15This sweet retreat, and even, if you believe me, lovely, keeps me safe for you in the hours of September. 17You live rightly, if you take care to be what you are called. All of us, all Rome, have long been calling you happy; 19but I fear you may believe another about yourself more than yourself, or think that anyone other than the wise and good man is happy, or that, if the people keep calling you sound and in good health, you may hide a lurking fever near dinner time, until a trembling falls upon your greasy hands.
24It is the false shame of fools that conceals untreated sores. 25If someone were to speak of wars fought by you on land and sea and soothe your idle ears with these words: 'May Jupiter, who watches over both you and the city, keep it in doubt whether the people wish you safe more, or you the people,' you could recognise the praises of Augustus: when you allow yourself to be called wise and faultless, do you, tell me please, answer to your own name? 31'Of course I like to be called a good and prudent man, as you do.' 33He who gave this today will take it away tomorrow, if he wishes, just as, if he has conferred the fasces on an unworthy man, he will likewise pull them away.
35'Put it down, it's mine,' he says: I put it down and withdraw sadly. 36If the same people shout 'thief', deny that I am chaste, maintain that I have strangled my father with a noose, should I be stung by false reproaches and change colour? 39Whom does false honour delight and lying infamy frighten, but the man who is faulty and in need of cure? 40Who is a good man? 41'He who keeps the decrees of the Fathers, the laws and rights, by whose judgement many great lawsuits are settled, by whose surety property and by whose testimony cases are held secure.' 44But his whole household and all the neighbourhood see him foul within, though handsome in his fine skin.
46If a slave says to me, 'I have not stolen nor run away,' I reply, 'You have your reward, you are not burned with lashes.' 48'I have not killed a man.' 'You will not feed the crows on a cross.' 49'I am good and honest.' The Sabine shakes his head and keeps saying no. 50For the wary wolf fears the pit, the hawk the suspected snares, and the kite-fish the hidden hook. Good men hate to do wrong from love of virtue; you will commit no wrong for fear of punishment: let there be hope of escaping notice, and you will mix sacred with profane. 55For when you steal one out of a thousand bushels of beans, my loss, on those terms, is lighter, but not your crime.
57The good man, whom the whole forum and every tribunal watches, whenever he propitiates the gods with a pig or an ox, 'Father Janus!' 59when he has said it clearly, and clearly 'Apollo!', 60he moves his lips, afraid of being heard: 'Lovely Laverna, grant me to deceive, grant me to seem just and holy, throw night over my sins and a cloud over my frauds.' 63How the miser is better than a slave, how he is freer, when he stoops down at the crossroads for a penny fixed there, I do not see; 65for he who desires will also fear; 65and further, he who lives in fear will never be free in my eyes. He has lost his arms, deserted Virtue's post, who is always hurrying and swamped in increasing his wealth.
69Since you can sell a captive, do not kill him; 70he will serve usefully; 70let him graze flocks and plough as a hardy labourer, let him sail as a trader and winter amid the waves, help the grain supply, carry corn and provisions. 73The good and wise man will dare to say: 'Pentheus, ruler of Thebes, what unworthy thing will you force me to bear and suffer?' 75'I shall take away your goods.' 75'You mean my cattle, my property, couches, silver: you may take them.' 76'I shall keep you in handcuffs and fetters under a cruel jailer.' 78'The god himself, as soon as I wish, will set me free.' 78I think he means this: 'I shall die.' 79Death is the final line of things.