joy them, but hide them under ground, or else wastefully spend them.
O wise Hippocrates, I laugh at such things being done, but much more when
no good comes of them, and when they are done to so ill purpose. There is
no truth or justice found amongst them, for they daily plead one against
another, [237]the son against the father and the mother, brother against
brother, kindred and friends of the same quality; and all this for riches,
whereof after death they cannot be possessors. And yet notwithstanding they
will defame and kill one another, commit all unlawful actions, contemning
God and men, friends and country. They make great account of many senseless
things, esteeming them as a great part of their treasure, statues,
pictures, and such like movables, dear bought, and so cunningly wrought, as
nothing but speech wanteth in them, [238]and yet they hate living persons
speaking to them. [239]Others affect difficult things; if they dwell on
firm land they will remove to an island, and thence to land again, being no
way constant to their desires. They commend courage and strength in wars,
and let themselves be conquered by lust and avarice; they are, in brief, as
disordered in their minds, as Thersites was in his body. And now, methinks,
O most worthy Hippocrates, you should not reprehend my laughing, perceiving
so many fooleries in men; [240]for no man will mock his own folly, but that
which he seeth in a second, and so they justly mock one another. The
drunkard calls him a glutton whom he knows to be sober. Many men love the
sea, others husbandry; briefly, they cannot agree in their own trades and
professions, much less in their lives and actions.

When Hippocrates heard these words so readily uttered, without
premeditation, to declare the world's vanity, full of ridiculous
contrariety, he made answer, that necessity compelled men to many such
actions, and divers wills ensuing from divine permission, that we might not
be idle, being nothing is so odious to them as sloth and negligence.
Besides, men cannot foresee future events, in this uncertainty of human
affairs; they would not so marry, if they could foretell the causes of
their dislike and separation; or parents, if they knew the hour of their
children's death, so tenderly provide for them; or an husbandman sow, if he
thought there would be no increase; or a merchant adventure to sea, if he
foresaw shipwreck; or be a magistrate, if presently to be deposed. Alas,
worthy