Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/88

 Is not more wise, but wears his pigtail too. One class of fools sees reason for alarm In trivial matters, innocent of harm: Stroll in the open plain, you'll hear them talk Of fires, rocks, torrents, that obstruct their walk: Another, unlike these, but not more sane, Takes fires and torrents for the open plain: Let mother, sister, father, wife combined Cry 'There's a pitfall! there's a rock! pray mind!' They'll hear no more than drunken Fufius, he Who slept the part of queen Ilione, While Catienus, shouting in his ear, Roared like a Stentor, 'Hearken, mother dear!'
 * "Well, now, I'll prove the mass of humankind

Have judgments just as jaundiced, just as blind. That Damasippus shows himself insane By buying ancient statues, all think plain: But he that lends him money, is he free From the same charge? 'O, surely.' Let us see. I bid you take a sum you won't return: You take it: is this madness, I would learn? Were it not greater madness to renounce The prey that Mercury puts within your pounce? Secure him with ten bonds; a hundred; nay, Clap on a thousand; still he'll slip away, This Protean scoundrel: drag him into court, You'll only find yourself the more his sport: He'll laugh till scarce you'd think his jaws his own, And turn to boar or bird, to tree or stone. If prudence in affairs denotes men sane