Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 3).djvu/345

 To brave the winter with his nipping cold, A houseless tenant of the open air, See in me all the ousel. Is't my business, In sultry summer's dry and parched season, To dare the stifling heat, and prate the while Mocking the noontide blaze? I am at once The grasshopper: to abhor the mother'd oil? I am the very dust to lick it up And blind me to its use: to walk a-mornings Barefoot? the crane: to sleep no wink? the bat.

The same.

In bearing hunger and in eating nothing, I can assure you, you may reckon me A Tithymallus or Philippides; In drinking water I'm a very frog; In loving thyme and greens—a caterpillar; In hating Bagnios—a lump of dirt; In living out of doors all winter-time— A blackbird; in enduring sultry heat, And chattering at noon—a grasshopper; In neither using oil, nor seeing it— A cloud of dust; in walking up and down Bare-footed at the dawn of day—a crane; In sleeping not one single jot—a bat.—

(Book vi. § 35, p. 376.)

He that invented first the scheme of sponging On other men for dinner, was a sage Of thorough democratic principles. But may the wretch who asks a friend or stranger To dine, and then requests he'll pay his club, Be sent without a farthing into exile.—

(Book vi. § 36, p. 377.)

I wish to show how highly dignified This office of the parasite was held,