Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/440

418 me to live? Haply some man will say: And dost thou indeed ask this question, having hands and feet of thine own? having the gift of speech, voice, and being a man, unto whom it is given both to love and also to be loved; as well to do a pleasure as to receive a courtesy with thanksgiving. Thou mayest teach grammar, bring up young children, be a porter or door-keeper; thou mayest be a sailor or mariner, thou mayest row in a barge or galley: for none of all these trades is more reproachful, odious or troublesome than to hear one say unto thee: Pay me mine own, or discharge the debt that thou owest me. Rutilius, that rich Roman, coming upon a time at Rome to Musonius the philosopher, said unto him thus in his ear: Musonius, Jupiter surnamed Saviour, whom you and such other philosophers as you are, make profession to imitate and follow, taketh up no money at interest: but Musonius, smiling again, returned him this present answer: No more doth he put forth any money for use.

Now this Rutilius, who was an usurer, reproached the other for taking money at interest, which was a foolish arrogant humour of a Stoic: for what need hadst thou, Rutilius, to meddle with Jupiter Saviour, and allege his name, considering that a man may report the selfsame by those very things which are familiar and apparent? The swallows are not in the usurer's book, the pismires pay not for use of money, and yet to them hath not nature given either hands or reason, or any art and mystery; whereas she hath endued man with such abundance of understanding, and aptness to learn and practise, that he can skill not only to nourish himself, but also to keep horses, hounds, partridges, hares, and jays: why dost thou then disable and condemn thyself, as if thou wert less docible and sensible than a jay, more mute than a partridge, more idle than a dog, in that thou canst make no means to have good of a man, neither by double diligence, by making court, by observance and service, nor by maintaining his quarrel and entering into combat in his defence? seest thou not how the earth doth bring forth many things, and how the sea affordeth as many for the use of man? And verily as Crates saith: I saw myself how Mycilus wool did card. And how with him his wife the rolls did spin: Thus during war when times were extreme hard, Both jointly wrought, to keep them from famine.

King Antigonus, when he had not of a long time seen Cleanthes the philosopher, meeting him one day in Athens, spake unto him and said: How now, Cleanthes, dost thou grind at the