Page:Disciplina Clericalis (English translation) from the fifteenth century Worcester Cathedral Manuscript F. 172.djvu/68

   up bitter hostility against him. This fellow tried to exasperate the king against the boy by some such words as these: 'Master, your majesty's moderation towards the son of your former counsellor, whose father left him an inexhaustible supply of money was very weak, not to say foolish; for now neither you nor he have the money, because he, silly youth, has squandered it.' The king, moved to anger by such words, sent a messenger for the young man, to whom he spoke as follows: "Foolish son of a wise man, idle and lavishly extravagant, why hast thou wasted the wealth acquired by wisdom which was entrusted to thy keeping?" To this the youth replied with dejected countenance — for he feared the face of his chief, inflamed as it was, with eyes flashing furiously : "Master, if I may speak with your favor, I am not, as it seems to certain people, a foolish son entrusted to you by a wise father. My father did indeed gain wealth, and he placed it where thieves might steal it, in that he left it to me from whom you could take it, or fire could burn it or any accident destroy it. But I have bestowed it where it will be faithfully kept for him and for me." And the king asked what he had done with it. The youth related to him all his care in disposing of his wealth, and when the king heard his story he praised his actions highly in the presence of his attendants, and then received him into the service formerly done by his father as recompense. He afterwards gained new wealth and acquired greater riches than he formerly possessed. It was in this way that the noble son of the king's counsellor stored away treasure in his home of delights."

After the son heard these words of his father he said: "That youth acted wisely and gave evidence that great nobility was to be manifested in him. He did as the philosopher who advised his son, saying: 'Son, sell this world for the future, and you will gain both.' And so it happened."

Another saith: "See yee lest yee bien disceived for worldly delites and broken with worldly fallaces and guyles and bien foryeteful of deth to come, lest it fal to the as it fil to the thief entryng (f. 135) the house of the Richeman." To whom the sone and of the fader: "What fil therof, fader?" [The fader]:

"The thief entrid the house of the Richeman and fond it ful of dyvers juels and precious thynges. Of this astonyed of the many dyvers diversitees and so precious Riches charged hymsilf for to