Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/100

 though ye seek it not. Tell me now, O Mind, what is the height of thy desire in wealth and power? Is it not this present life and the perishable wealth that we before spoke of? O ye foolish men, do ye know what riches are, and power, and worldly weal? They are your lords and rulers, not ye theirs. Suppose ye saw a mouse, a ruler and lawgiver of mice, exacting tribute of them, how marvellous it would seem to you, and with what laughter would ye be shaken! And yet compared with his mind a man's body is as a mouse's body compared to a man's. Now, if ye think of it, ye may easily believe that man's body is more frail than that of any other living thing. The smallest fly can hurt it, and gnats with their tiny stings poison it; and even little worms torment man within and without, and sometimes nearly kill him, yea and even the little flea may kill him. Such creatures may harm him within and without. Again, one man can injure another only in the body, or at least in those worldly possessions that ye call happiness. But no man can harm the discerning mind, nor make it other than it is; and this is very evident in the Roman prince called Liberius, who was put to many tortures for refusing to tell the names of his comrades in the plot to kill the king, who had unjustly oppressed them. When he was led before the cruel king and commanded to say who his accomplices were, he bit off his own tongue and dashed it in the king's face. And so it fell out that that which the king meant as a punishment brought praise and honour to this wise man. What harm can one man