1How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one lives content with the lot which either Reason has given him or Chance has thrown in his way, but praises those who follow different paths? 4'O lucky merchants!' says the soldier, heavy with years, his limbs now broken by much toil. 6The merchant, on the other hand, as the South Winds toss his ship: 'Soldiering is better. 7And why? 7There is a clash: in an hour's moment comes swift death or joyful victory.' The man skilled in right and statute praises the farmer, when a client knocks at his door around cockcrow; 11the other, who has given sureties and been dragged from the country into the city, cries that only those who live in the city are happy.
13The other instances of this kind (so many are there) could wear out even talkative Fabius. 14Not to keep you waiting, hear where I am heading with this. 15If some god were to say, 'Look, I shall now do what you want: you, a soldier just now, shall be a merchant; 17you, a lawyer just now, a countryman: you go this way, you that, your parts exchanged; off with you. 18Come on, why are you standing there?' they would refuse. 19And yet they are free to be happy. 20What reason is there why Jupiter should not, as they deserve, puff out both his cheeks at them in anger and say that henceforth he will not be so obliging as to lend an ear to their prayers?
23Besides, not to run through it laughing like someone telling jokes — though what forbids one to tell the truth with a laugh? 25As kindly teachers sometimes give little cakes to boys, so that they may be willing to learn their first letters — but still, let us put play aside and look into serious matters: the man who turns the heavy earth with the hard plough, this cheating innkeeper, the soldier and the sailors who race boldly over every sea, say that they bear their toil with this intention, that when they are old they may retire to safe leisure, once they have provisions piled up for themselves: just as the tiny ant — for she is their example — a creature of great industry, drags in her mouth whatever she can and adds it to the heap she is building, by no means unaware or careless of the future.
36She, as soon as Aquarius saddens the turning year, never creeps out anywhere, and wisely uses what she has gathered before, while you are turned from profit neither by blazing heat nor by winter; fire, sea, sword, nothing stands in your way, so long as no other man is richer than you. 41What good does it do you to bury a vast weight of silver and gold, fearfully and by stealth, in a hole dug in the earth? 43Is it that, if you were to break into it, it would dwindle to a worthless copper? 44But unless that is done, what beauty has the heap you have built up? 45Suppose your threshing floor has threshed a hundred thousand bushels of grain: your belly will not hold more for that than mine: just as, if among the slaves for sale you happened to carry the net of bread on your loaded shoulder, you would receive no more than the one who carried nothing.
49Or tell me, what does it matter to a man who lives within the limits of nature whether he ploughs a hundred acres or a thousand? 51'But it is pleasant to take from a large heap.' So long as you let us draw just as much from a small one, why should you praise your granaries more than our baskets? 54It is as if you needed no more than a jug or a cup of water and said, 'I would rather take the same amount from a great river than from this little spring.' Hence it happens that those who delight in a plenty fuller than is right are carried off, bank and all, by the fierce Aufidus.
59But the man who wants only as little as he needs neither drinks water muddied with slime nor loses his life in the waves. 61But a good part of mankind, deceived by false desire, says, 'Nothing is enough, because you are worth as much as you have': what can you do with such a man? 63Bid him be wretched, since he is so willingly: like a certain man at Athens, it is recorded, mean and rich, who used to scorn the people's talk like this: 'The people hiss me, but I applaud myself at home, as soon as I gaze at the coins in my chest.' Thirsty Tantalus snatches at the streams that flee from his lips — why are you laughing?
69Change the name, and the tale is told about you: you fall asleep gaping over moneybags piled up from every side, and are forced to spare them as if they were sacred, or to enjoy them as if they were painted pictures. 73Do you not know what money is worth, what use it offers? 74Let bread be bought, vegetables, a pint of wine; add the things which human nature would grieve to be denied. 76Or is it this that pleases you, to lie awake half dead with fear, and night and day to dread wicked thieves, fires, slaves, in case they rob you and run away? 78Of goods like these I should always wish to be the poorest of men.
80But if your body has fallen sick, attacked by a chill, or some other mishap has pinned you to your bed, have you someone to sit by you, prepare poultices, call the doctor, so that he may raise you up and restore you to your children and dear relatives? 84Your wife does not want you well, nor does your son; 84all hate you, neighbours, acquaintances, boys and girls. 86Do you wonder, when you put everything second to money, if no one offers you the love you do not earn? 88But if you wished to keep, without any effort, the relatives whom nature gives you, and to keep your friends, you would waste your pains, poor wretch, like someone training an ass to run on the Campus obedient to the reins.
92In short, let there be an end to getting, and since you have more, fear poverty less and begin to end your toil, now that you have gained what you longed for, so as not to do what a certain Umidius did; 95it is not a long story: he was so rich that he measured his money, so mean that he never dressed better than a slave, and right up to his final hour he feared that lack of food would overwhelm him. 99But a freedwoman split him down the middle with an axe, the bravest of the daughters of Tyndareus. 101'What then do you advise me? 101To live like Naevius, or like Nomentanus?' You keep pitting things that clash head to head: when I forbid you to be a miser, I am not telling you to become a wastrel and a good-for-nothing: there is something between Tanais and the father-in-law of Visellius: there is a measure in things, there are, in short, fixed limits, beyond and short of which what is right cannot stand.
108I return to where I left off, how no one, miser that he is, is satisfied with himself, but rather praises those who follow different paths, and pines because his neighbour's she-goat carries a more swollen udder, and does not compare himself with the greater crowd of poorer men, but labours to outdo this man and that. 113So the richer man always stands in the way of one who hurries, as, when the hooves sweep along the chariots let loose from the starting gates, the charioteer presses hard on the horses that are beating his own, scorning the one he has passed as he goes along among the last. 117Hence it comes about that we can rarely find a man who says he has lived happily and, content with the time he has spent, departs from life like a guest who has had his fill.
120Now that is enough. 120In case you think I have rifled the book-boxes of bleary-eyed Crispinus, I shall not add a word more.