Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/304

282 thyself, hire other labourers for day-wages, lie in the wind for inheritances, speak men fair in hope to be their heir, and debase thyself to all the world, and care not to whom thou cap and knee for gain, having, I say, so sufficient means otherwise to live at ease (to wit, thy niggardise and pinching parsimony), whereby thou mayst be dispensed for doing just nothing. It is reported of a certain Byzantine, who finding an adulterer in bed with his wife, who though she were but foul, yet was ill-favoured enough, said unto him: O miserable caitiff, what necessity hath driven thee thus to do? what needs Sapragoras dowry? well, go to: thou takest great pains, poor wretch, thou fillest and stirrest the lead, thou kindlest the fire also underneath it.

Necessary it is in some sort that kings and princes should seek for wealth and riches, that these governors also and deputies under them should be great gatherers, yea, and those also who reach at the highest places and aspire to rule and sovereign dignities in great states and cities; all these (I say) have need perforce to heap up gross sums of money, to the end that for their ambition, their proud port, pomp, and vain-glorious humour, they might make sumptuous feasts, give largesses, retain a guard about their persons, send presents abroad to other states, maintain and wage whole armies, buy slaves to combat and fight at sharp to the outrance: but thou makest thyself so much ado, thou troublest and tormentest both body and mind, living like an oyster or a shell-snail, and for to pinch and spare art content to undergo and endure all pain and travail, taking no pleasure nor delight in the world afterwards, no more than the bain-keeper's poor ass, which carrying billets and faggots of dry brush and sticks to kindle fire and to heat the stouphs, is evermore full of smoke, soot, ashes and cinders; but hath no benefit at all of the bain, and is never bathed, washed, warmed, rubbed, scoured and made clean. Thus much I speak in reproach and disdain of this miserable ass-like avarice, this base raping and scraping together in manner of ants or pismires.

Now there is another kind of covetousness more savage and beast-like, which they profess who backbite and slander, raise malicious imputations, forge false wills and testaments, lie in wait for heritages, cog and cozen, and intermeddle in all matters, will be seen in everything, know all men's states, busy themselves with many cares and troubles, count upon their fingers how many friends they have yet living, and when they have all done, receive no fruition or benefit by all the goods which