Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/439

Rh themselves with their apparel of which they spoil them; but first, one is destroyed, then a second followeth after, and is allured as a prey by the other. And this is much like to a wild fire, which still consumeth, and yet increaseth always by the utter decay and destruction of all that falleth into it, and devoureth one thing after another. And the usurer which maintaineth this fire, blowing and kindling it with the ruin of so many people, gaineth thereby no more fruit than this, that after a certain time he taketh his book of accounts in hand, and there readeth what a number of debtors he hath bought out of house and home, how many he hath dispossessed of their land and living, from whence he hath come and whither he hath gone in turning, winding, and heaping up his silver. Now I would not that you should thus think of me, that I speak all this upon any deadly war and enmity that I have sworn against usurers: For God be praised, they neither horses mine Have driven away, nor oxen, nor yet kine; but only to shew unto them who are so ready to take up money upon usury, what a villanous, shameful, and base thing there is in it, and how this proceedeth from nothing else but extreme folly and timidity of heart. If thou have wherewith to weld the world, never come into the usurer's book, considering thou hast no need to borrow. Hast thou not wherewith, yet take not money up and pay not interest, because thou shalt have no means to make payment.

But let us consider the one and the other apart by itself. Old Cato said unto a certain aged man, who behaved himself very badly: My friend (quoth he), considering that old age of itself hath so many evils, how cometh it to pass that you add thereto moreover the reproach and shame of lewdness and misdemeanour? even so may we say, seeing that poverty of itself hath so many and so great miseries, do not you over and above go and heap thereupon the troubles and anguishes that come of borrowing and being in debt; neither take thou from penury that only good thing wherein it excelleth riches, to wit, the want of carking and pensive cares; for otherwise thou shalt be subject unto the mockery implied by this common proverb: A goat alone when bear unneth I may, An ox upon my shoulder you do lay. Semblably, you being not able to sustain poverty alone, do surcharge yourself with an usurer, a burden hardly supportable wen for a rich and wealthy man. How then would you have o