A second death shall you surprise.

[119] Caius Luscinus Fabricius, Consul 282 B.C., opponent of Pyrrhus;
Lucius Iunius Brutus, Consul 509 B.C., founder of the Republic; Marcus
Porcius Cato (Cato maior). Consul 195 B.C., great-grandfather of M.
Porcius Cato (Uticensis).

VIII.

Sed ne me inexorabile contra fortunam gerere bellum putes, est aliquando
cum de hominibus illa, fallax illa nihil, bene mereatur, tum scilicet cum
se aperit, cum frontem detegit moresque profitetur. Nondum forte quid
loquar intellegis. Mirum est quod dicere gestio, eoque sententiam uerbis
explicare uix queo. Etenim plus hominibus reor aduersam quam prosperam
prodesse fortunam. Illa enim semper specie felicitatis cum uidetur blanda,
mentitur; haec semper uera est, cum se instabilem mutatione demonstrat.
Illa fallit, haec instruit, illa mendacium specie bonorum mentes fruentium
ligat, haec cognitione fragilis felicitatis absoluit. Itaque illam uideas
uentosam, fluentem suique semper ignaram, hanc sobriam succinctamque et
ipsius aduersitatis exercitatione prudentem. Postremo felix a uero bono
deuios blanditiis trahit, aduersa plerumque ad uera bona reduces unco
retrahit. An hoc inter minima aestimandum putas quod amicorum tibi fidelium
mentes haec aspera, haec horribilis fortuna detexit, haec tibi certos
sodalium uultus ambiguosque secreuit, discedens suos abstulit, tuos
reliquit? Quanti hoc integer, ut uidebaris tibi fortunatus, emisses! Nunc
et amissas opes querere; quod pretiosissimum diuitiarum genus est amicos
inuenisti.

VIII.

But lest thou shouldst think that I am at implacable war with Fortune,
there is a time when this thy goddess ceasing to deceive deserveth of
men, to wit, when she declareth herself, when she discovereth her face
and showeth herself in her own colours. Perhaps thou understandest not
yet what I say. I would utter a wonderful thing, insomuch as I can
scarcely explicate my mind in words. For I think that Fortune, when she
is opposite, is more profitable to men than when she is favourable. For
in prosperity, by a show of happiness and seeming to caress, she is ever
false, but in adversity when she showeth herself inconstant by changing,
she is ever true. In that she deceiveth, in this she instructeth; in
that she imprisoneth the minds of men with falsely seeming goods, which
they enjoy, in this she setteth them at liberty by discovering the
uncertainty of them. Where