Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/93

 'Well, if a man's no miser, is he sane That moment?' No. 'Why, Stoic?' I'll explain. The stomach here is sound as any bell, Craterus may say: then is the patient well? May he get up? Why no; there still are pains That need attention in the side or reins. You're not forsworn nor miserly: go kill A porker to the gods who ward off ill. You're headlong and ambitious: take a trip To Madman's Island by the next swift ship. For where's the difference, down the rabble's throat To pour your gold, or never spend a groat?
 * Servius Oppidius, so the story runs,

Rich for his time, bequeathed to his two sons Two good-sized farms, and calling to his bed The hopeful youths, in faltering accents said: 'E'er since I saw you, Aulus, give away Your nuts and taws, or squander them at play, While you, Tiberius, careful and morose, Would count them over, hide them, keep them close, I've feared lest both should err in different ways, And one have Cassius', one Cicuta's craze. So now I beg you by the household powers Who guard, and still shall guard, this roof of ours, That you diminish not, nor you augment What I and nature fix for your content. To bar ambition too, I lay an oath