Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/51

Rh surely men do endure poverty, exile, and banishment out of their own countries, yea, and bear the burden of old age willingly and with more ease, according as their manners be mild, and the mind disposed to meekness. And like as sweet odours and aromatical perfumes give a pleasant smell unto threadbare and ragged clothes; but contrariwise, the rich robe of Anchyses yielded from under it stinking matter and corrupt blood; which, as the poet saith:

Even so with virtue, any sort of life and all manner of living is pleasant and void of sorrow: whereas contrariwise, vice causeth those things which otherwise seemed great, honourable and magnificent, to be odious, lothsome and unwelcome to those that have them, if (I say) it be mingled therewith, according to the testimony of these vulgar verses:

And yet one may with ease be rid and divorced from such a curst and shrewd wife, if he be a man indeed, and not a bond-slave; but for thine own vice, no means will serve to exempt thee from it. It is not enough to command it to be gone, by sending a little script or bill of divorcement, and to think thereby to be delivered from troubles, and so to live alone in quiet and repose. For it cleaveth close within the ribs, it sticketh fast in the very bowels, it dwelleth there both night and day:

A troublesome companion it is upon the way, by reason of arrogancy and presumption: a costly and sumptuous guest at the table for gluttony and gormandise: an unpleasant and cumbersome bedfellow in the night, in regard of thoughts, cares and jealousies which break the sleep, or trouble the same with fantasies. For whiles men lie asleep, the body is at rest and repose; but the mind all the while is disquieted and affrighted with fearful dreams and tumultuous visions, by reason of superstitious fear of the gods: