Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/281

 birth and at his death has passed unnoticed. If you are disposed to be of service to your friends, and to treat yourself with somewhat more indulgence, you, being poor, must pay your respects to the great. Aristippus, if he could dine to his satisfaction on herbs, would never frequent [the tables] of the great. If he who blames me, [replies Aristippus,] knew how to live with the great, he would scorn his vegetables. Tell me, which maxim and conduct of the two you approve; or, since you are my junior, hear the reason why Aristippus’ opinion is preferable; for thus, as they report, he baffled the snarling cynic: “I play the buffoon for my own advantage, you [to please] the populace. This [conduct of mine] is better and far more honorable; that a horse may carry and a great man feed me, pay court to the great: you beg for refuse, an inferior to the [poor] giver; though you pretend you are in want of nothing.” As for Aristippus, every complexion of life, every station and circumstance sat gracefully upon him, aspiring in general to greater things, yet equal to the present: on the other hand, I shall be much surprised, if a contrary way of life should become [this cynic], whom obstinacy clothes with a double rag. The one will not wait for his purple robe;