Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/441

Rh mill and turn the quern-stone still? Yea, sir (quoth Cleanthes again), I grind yet, and I do it for to earn my living; howbeit, for all that, I give not over my profession of philosophy. O the admurable courage and high spirit of this man, who coming from the mill, with that very hand which turned about the stone, ground the meal and kneaded the dough, wrote of the nature of the gods, of the moon, of the stars and the sun! But we do think all these to be base and servile works; and yet verily, because we would be free (God wot), we care not to thrust ourselves into debt, we pay for the use of money, we flatter vile and base persons, we give them presents, we invite and feast them, we yield (as it were) tribute underhand unto them; and this we do not in regard of poverty (for no man useth to put forth his money into a poor man's hand), but even upon a superfluity and riotous expense of our own: for if we could content ourselves with those things that are necessary for the life of man, there would not be an usurer in the world, no more than there are centaurs and monstrous gorgons. But excess it is and daintiness which hath engendered usurers; like as the same hath bred goldsmiths, silversmiths, confectioners, perfumers, and dyers of gallant colours. We come not in debt to bakers and vintners for our bread and wine; but we owe rather for the price and purchase of fair houses and lands, for a great number and retinue of slaves, of fine mules, of trim halls and dining chambers, of rich tables and the costly furniture belonging thereto, besides other foolish and excessive expenses which we oftentimes are at, when we exhibit plays and solemn pastimes into whole cities for to gratify and do pleasure unto the people; and that upon a vain ambition and desire of popular favour; and many times we receive no other fruit of all our cost and labour but ingratitude.

Now he that is once enwrapped in debt remaineth a debtor still all the days of his life; and he fareth like to an horse, who after he hath once received the bit into his mouth, changeth his rider eftsoons, and is never unridden, but one or other is always on his back. No way and means there is to avoid from thence, and to recover those fair pastures and pleasant meadows out of which those indebted persons are turned; but they wander astray to and fro, like to those cursed fiends and malign spirits whom Empedocles writeth to have been driven by the gods out. of heaven: For such the heavenly power first chas'd down to the sea beneath; The sea again up to the earth did cast them by and by; Then afterwards, the earth them did unto the beams bequeath Of restless sun, and they at last sent them to starry sky.