Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/338

334 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. gree ? whence does he get money to live so extravagantly 1 when yon find that such talk* as this grows rife among the people, it is time for you to think of packing up your awls and be jogging in good time ; but make your retreat like a lion, and not like a hare. Pretend you are called away by the emperor to some great employment, and that you shall return in a short time at the head of an army. Those that have anything they are not willing to lose will not dare to open their mouths against you when you are gone.

But above all, I advise you to have a care of that peevish, malicious set of men called poets. If anything displeases them they will envenom their papers, and the venom of them will be of a sudden diffused all the world over. Ha. Let me die if I am not wonderfully pleased with your counsel, and I will make it my business to let you see that you have got a docible scholar, and a youth that is not ungrateful ; the first good horse that I shall get into my pasture that is equal to your deserts I will present you with. Ne. Well, all that remains is that you be as good as your word. But what is the reason that you shoiild be so fond of a false opinion of nobility 1 Ha. For no other reason but that they are in a manner lawless, and do what they please. And do you think this a matter of small moment 1 Ne. If the worst come that can come, death is owing to nature, although you lived a Carthu- sian; and it is an easier death to be broken on the wheel than to die of the stone, the gout, or the palsy ; for it is like a soldier to believe that after death there remains nothing of a man but his carcase. Ha. And I am of that opinion.  

Qu. Cato bids us learn of those that are learned, and for that reason, my Utenhovius, I have a mind to make use of you for my master. For what reason did the ancient directors in religious affairs order the clergy to wear ankle-coats that is, vestments reaching down to their ankles? Ch. I am of opinion it was done for these two reasons : first, for the sake of modesty, that nothing of nakedness might be exposed, for in old time they did not wear those sort of trousers that reach from the waist to the feet, nor did they in common wear drawers or breeches. And, for the same reason, it is accounted immodest -for women to wear short coats, long ones being more agree- able to the modesty of the sex. In the second place, not only for the sake of modesty, but also to distinguish them from the common people by their habit ; for the more loose they are in their morals the shorter they wear their coats. Qu. What you say is very probable. But I have learned from Aristotle and Pliny that men have not the tali but only four-footed beasts ; and not all of them neither, but only some of those that are cloven-footed, nor have they them in their hinder legs. How then can the garment be called a talarian garment which a man wears, unless in former days men went upon all-fours, according to Aristophanes's play 1 Ch. Nay, if we give credit to (Edipus, there are some men that are four-footed, some three-footed, and some two-footed, 