Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/445



"? Are you busying yourself with affairs of state?"

Imagine these to be the words of the bearded sage who was carried off by that deadly draught of hemlock. Tell me, you ward of the mighty Pericles, what are your qualifications? Sagacity, no doubt, and a knowledge of affairs, have come to you quickly, before your beard; you know well what to say, and what to leave unsaid. So when the bile of the multitude has been stirred to heat, the spirit moves you to impose silence on the fevered mob by a lordly waving of the hand. What will you say after that? "Fellow citizens! This proposal is unjust; that other one is bad; this third plan is the best!" For, of course, you know exactly how to weigh justice in the twin scales of the wavering balance; you can detect the straight line when it comes in between curves, even when the straddling leg of the foot-rule would lead you wrong; and you know how to affix to guilt the black mark of death. But seeing that your sleek outside skin will avail you not, why not stop waving that tail of yours to the fawning multitude before your time, when it would be better for you to be swallowing whole islands-full of hellebore undiluted? 359