colon toil and moil, till and drudge for a prodigal idle drone, that
devours all the gain, or lasciviously consumes with fantastical
expenses; A noble man in a bravado to encounter death, and for a small
flash of honour to cast away himself; A worldling tremble at an
executor, and yet not fear hell-fire; To wish and hope for immortality,
desire to be happy, and yet by all means avoid death, a necessary
passage to bring him to it.
To see a foolhardy fellow like those old Danes, qui decollari malunt
quam verberari, die rather than be punished, in a sottish humour
embrace death with alacrity, yet [382]scorn to lament his own sins and
miseries, or his clearest friends' departures.
To see wise men degraded, fools preferred, one govern towns and cities,
and yet a silly woman overrules him at home; [383]Command a province,
and yet his own servants or children prescribe laws to him, as
Themistocles' son did in Greece; [384]What I will (said he) my mother
will, and what my mother will, my father doth. To see horses ride in a
coach, men draw it; dogs devour their masters; towers build masons;
children rule; old men go to school; women wear the breeches;
[385]sheep demolish towns, devour men, &c. And in a word, the world
turned upside downward. O viveret Democritus.
[386]To insist in every particular were one of Hercules' labours,
there's so many ridiculous instances, as motes in the sun. Quantum est
in rebus inane? (How much vanity there is in things!) And who can speak
of all? Crimine ab uno disce omnes, take this for a taste.
But these are obvious to sense, trivial and well known, easy to be
discerned. How would Democritus have been moved, had he seen [387]the
secrets of their hearts? If every man had a window in his breast, which
Momus would have had in Vulcan's man, or that which Tully so much
wished it were written in every man's forehead, Quid quisque de
republica sentiret, what he thought; or that it could be effected in an
instant, which Mercury did by Charon in Lucian, by touching of his
eyes, to make him discern semel et simul rumores et susurros.
Spes hominum caecas, morbos, votumque labores,
Et passim toto volitantes aethere curas.
Blind hopes and wishes, their thoughts and affairs,
Whispers and rumours, and those flying cares.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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