ey
are not ashamed to pay interest on their goods when out at pawn. And yet
the famous Pericles made the ornament of Athene, which weighed forty
talents of fine gold, removable at will, for "so," he said, "we can use
the gold in war, and at some other time restore as costly a one." So
should we too in our necessities, as in a siege, not receive a garrison
imposed on us by a hostile money-lender, nor allow our goods to go into
slavery; but stripping our table, our bed, our carriages, and our diet,
of superfluities, we should keep ourselves free, intending to restore
all those things again, if we have good luck.

Sec. III. So the Roman matrons offered their gold and ornaments as
first-fruits to Pythian Apollo, out of which a golden cup was made and
sent to Delphi;[883] and the Carthaginian matrons had their heads shorn,
and with the hair cut off made cords for the machines and engines to be
used in defence of their country.[884] But we being ashamed of
independence enslave ourselves to covenants and conditions, when we
ought to restrict and confine ourselves to what is useful, and dock or
sell useless superfluities, to build a temple of liberty for ourselves,
our wives, and children. The famous Artemis at Ephesus gives asylum and
security from their creditors to debtors, when they take refuge in her
temple; but the asylum and sanctuary of frugality is everywhere open to
the sober-minded, affording them joyful and honourable and ample space
for much ease. For as the Pythian Priestess told the Athenians at the
time of the Median war that the god had given them wooden walls,[885]
and they left the region and city, their goods and houses, and took
refuge in their ships for liberty, so the god gives us a wooden table,
and earthenware plate, and coarse garments, if we wish to live free.
Care not for fine horses or chariots with handsome harness, adorned with
gold[886] and silver, which swift interest will catch up and outrun, but
mounted on any chance donkey or nag flee from the hostile and tyrannical
money-lender, not demanding like the Mede land and water,[887] but
interfering with your liberty, and lowering your status. If you pay him
not, he duns you; if you offer the money, he won't have it; if you are
selling anything, he cheapens the price; if you don't want to sell, he
forces you; if you sue him, he comes to terms with you; if you swear, he
hectors; if you go to his house, he shuts the door in your face; whereas
if you