ul to the gods, dost thou guard [these possessions],
for fear of wanting thyself: to the end that thy son, or even the
freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up? For how little will each day
deduct from your capital, if you begin to pour better oil upon your
greens and your head, filthy with scurf not combed out? If any thing be
a sufficiency, wherefore are you guilty of perjury [wherefore] do you
rob, and plunder from all quarters? Are you in your senses? If you were
to begin to pelt the populace with stones, and the slaves, which you
purchased with your money; all the: very boys and girls will cry out
that you are a madman. When you dispatch your wife with a rope, and your
mother with poison, are you right in your head? Why not? You neither did
this at Argos, nor slew your mother with the sword, as the mad Orestes
did. What, do you imagine that he ran? mad after he had murdered his
parent; and that he was not driven mad by the wicked Furies, before he
warmed his sharp steel in his mother's throat? Nay, from the time that
Orestes is deemed to have been of a dangerous disposition, he did
nothing in fact that you can blame; he did not dare to offer violence
with his sword to Pylades, nor to his sister Electra; he only gave ill
language to both of them, by calling her a Fury, and him some other
[opprobrious name], which, his violent choler suggested.

Opimius, poor amid silver and gold hoarded up within, who used to drink
out of Campanian ware Veientine wine on holidays, and mere dregs on
common days, was some time ago taken with a prodigious lethargy;
insomuch that his heir was already scouring about his coffers and keys,
in joy and triumph. His physician, a man of much dispatch and fidelity,
raises him in this manner: he orders a table to be brought, and the bags
of money to be poured out, and several persons to approach in order to
count it: by this method he sets the man upon his legs again. And at the
same time he addresses him to this effect. Unless you guard your money
your ravenous heir will even now carry off these [treasures] of yours.
What, while I am alive? That you may live, therefore, awake; do this.
What would you have me do? Why your blood will fail you that are so much
reduced, unless food and some great restorative be administered to your
decaying stomach. Do you hesitate? come on; take this ptisan made of
rice. How much did it cost? A trifle. How much then? Eight asses. Alas!
what does it matter, whethe