Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/452

 am I that our two lives are derived from one common star, which links them both together (30–51).

No two men have the same desires. One is a busy merchant, another longs for ease; games, gambling, and love have each their votaries, but when their joints have been broken by old age and gout, all alike bemoan their days of grossness, and lament the life they have left behind them (52–61). Your delight is in study; you love to sow in the hearts of youth the good grain of Cleanthes. But men will not learn the one true lesson of life; "To-morrow," they say, "will be soon enough," and then again, "to-morrow": a morrow which is for ever pursued and never reached (62–72). What we want is freedom; but not the sort of freedom which is bestowed by the lictor's rod (73–82). "But is not the newly-made Davus free? has he not liberty to do what he likes? "Not so," says the Stoic; "no man is free who has not learnt the proper uses of life; no man is free to do what he will spoil in the doing of it. A doctor must understand medicine, a sailor navigation; how can a man live rightly if he does not understand the principle of right living, knowing what to aim at, what to avoid, how to behave in all the circumstances of life? Satisfy me on these points, and I will call you free, and a wise man to boot; but if your knowledge is but pretence, if you are but an ass in a lion's skin, reason will not listen to your claim; naught but folly can come out of a fool, not one step can he take without going wrong" (83–123). "For all that I am free," you say. "What? do you know of no master but one who uses the rod? Are you not a slave when your passions drive you this way or that way as they will? Avarice bids you rise and 366