Part III

Most foolish Perses! let the truths I tell,
Which spring from knowledge, in thy bosom dwell:
Lo! wickednesses rife in troops appear;
Smooth is the track of vice, the mansion near:
On virtue’s path delays and perils grow:
The gods have placed before the sweat that bathes the brow:
And ere the foot can reach her high abode,
Long, rugged, steep th’ ascent, and rough the road.
The ridge once gain’d, the path so rude of late
Runs easy on, and level to the gate.

Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides;
Who first and last the right and fit decides:
He too is good, that to the wiser friend
His docile reason can submissive bend:
But worthless he that reason’s voice defies,
Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise.

But thou, oh Perses! what my words impart
Let mem’ry bind for ever on thy heart.
Oh son of Dios! labour evermore,
That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door;
That Ceres blest, with spiky garland crown’d,
Greet thee with love and bid thy barns abound.
Still on the sluggard hungry want attends,
The scorn of man, the hate of heaven impends:
While he, averse from labour, drags his days,
Yet greedy on the gain of others preys:
Even as the stingless drones devouring seize
With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees.

Love ev’ry seemly toil, that so the store
Of foodful seasons heap thy garner’s floor.
From labour men returns of wealth behold;
Flocks in their fields and in their coffers gold:
From labour shalt thou with the love be blest
Of men and gods; the slothful they detest.
Not toil, but sloth shall ignominious be;
Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee;
Shall view thy growing wealth with alter’d sense,
For glory, virtue walk with opulence.
Thou, like a god, since labour still is found
The better part, shalt live belov’d, renown’d;
If, as I counsel, thou thy witless mind,
Though weak and empty as the veering wind,
From others’ coveted possessions turn’d,
To thrift compel, and food by labour earn’d.
Shame, which our aid or injury we find,
Shame to the needy clings of evil kind;
Shame to low indigence declining tends:
Bold zeal to wealth’s proud pinnacle ascends.
But shun extorted riches; oh far best
The heaven-sent wealth without reproach possest.
Whoe’er shall mines of hoarded gold command,
By fraudful tongue or by rapacious hand;
As oft betides when lucre lights the flame,
And shamelessness expels the better shame;
Him shall the god cast down, in darkness hurl’d,
His name, his offspring wasted from the world:
The goods for which he pawn’d his soul decay,
The breath and shining bubble of a day.

Alike the man of sin is he confest,
Who spurns the suppliant and who wrongs the guest;
Who climbs, by lure of stolen embraces led,
With ill-timed act, a brother’s marriage bed;
Who dares by crafty wickedness abuse
His trust, and robs the orphans of their dues;
Who, on the threshold of afflictive age,
His hoary parent stings with taunting rage:
On him shall Jove in anger look from high,
And deep requite the dark iniquity:
But wholly thou from these refrain thy mind,
Weak as it is, and wavering as the wind.

With thy best means perform the ritual part,
Outwardly pure and spotless at the heart,
And on thy altar let unblemish’d thighs
In fragrant savour to th’ immortals rise.
Or thou in other sort may’st well dispense
Wine-offerings and the smoke of frankincense,
Ere on the nightly couch thy limbs be laid;
Or when the stars from sacred sun-rise fade.
So shall thy piety accepted move
Their heavenly natures to propitious love:
Ne’er shall thy heritage divided be,
But others part their heritage to thee.

Let friends oft bidden to thy feast repair;
Let not a foe the social moment share.
Chief to thy open board the neighbour call:
When, unforeseen, domestic troubles fall,
The neighbour runs ungirded; kinsmen wait,
And, lingering for their raiment, hasten late.
As the good neighbour is our prop and stay,
So is the bad a pit-fall in our way.
Thus blest or curs’d, we this or that obtain,
The first a blessing and the last a bane.
How should thine ox by chance untimely die?
The evil neighbour looks and passes by.
If aught thou borrowest, well the measure weigh;
The same good measure to thy friend repay,
Or more, if more thou canst, unask’d concede,
So shall he prompt supply thy future need.
Usurious gains avoid; usurious gain,
Equivalent to loss, will prove thy bane.
Who loves thee, love; him woo that friendly wooes:
Give to the giver, but to him refuse
That giveth not; their gifts the generous earn;
But none bestows where never is return.
Munificence is blest: by heaven accurst
Extortion, of death-dealing plagues the worst.
Who bounteous gives though large his bounty flow,
Shall feel his heart with inward rapture glow:
Th’ extortioner of bold unblushing sin,
Though small the plunder, feels a thorn within.

If with a little thou a little blend
Continual, mighty shall the heap ascend.
Who bids his gather’d substance gradual grow
Shall see not livid hunger’s face of woe.
No bosom-pang attends the home-laid store,
But rife with loss the food without thy door:
’Tis good to take from hoards, and pain to need
What is far from thee: give the precept heed.

When broach’d or at the lees, no care be thine
To save the cask, but spare the middle wine.

To him the friend that serves thee glad dispense
With bounteous hand the meed of recompense.

Not on a brother’s plighted word rely,
But, as in laughter, set a witness by;
Mistrust destroys us and credulity.

Let no fair woman tempt thy sliding mind
With garment gather’d in a knot behind;
She prattling with gay speech inquires thy home;
But trust a woman, and a thief is come.

One only son his father’s house may tend,
And e’en with one domestic hoards ascend:
Then mayst thou leave a second son behind:
For many sons from heaven shall wealth obtain;
The care is greater, greater is the gain.

Do thus: if riches be thy soul’s desire,
By toils on toils to this thy hope aspire.

When, Atlas-born, the Pleiad stars arise
Before the sun above the dawning skies,
’Tis time to reap; and when they sink below
The morn-illumined west, ’tis time to sow.
Know too they set, immerged into the sun,
While forty days entire their circle run;
And with the lapse of the revolving year,
When sharpen’d is the sickle, re-appear.
Law of the fields, and known to every swain
Who turns the fallow soil beside the main;
Or who, remote from billowy ocean’s gales,
Tills the rich glebe of inland-winding vales.
Plough naked still, and naked sow the soil,
And naked reap; if kindly to thy toil
Thou hope to gather all that Ceres yields,
And view thy crops in season crown the fields;
Lest thou to strangers’ gates penurious rove,
And every needy effort fruitless prove:
E’en as to me thou cam’st; but hope no more
That I shall give or lend thee of my store.
Oh foolish Perses! be the labours thine
Which the good gods to earthly man assign;
Lest with thy spouse, thy babes, thou vagrant ply,
And sorrowing crave those alms which all deny.
Twice may thy plaints benignant favour gain,
And haply thrice may not be pour’d in vain;
If still persisting plead thy wearying prayer,
Thy words are nought, thy eloquence is air.
Did exhortation move, the thought should be,
From debt releasement, days from hunger free.

A house, a woman, and a steer provide,
Thy slave to tend the cows, but not thy bride.
Within let all fit implements abound,
Lest with refused entreaty wandering round,
Thy wants still press, the season glide away,
And thou with scanted labour mourn the day.
Thy task defer not till the morn arise,
Or the third sun th’ unfinish’d work surprise.
The idler never shall his garners fill,
Nor he that still defers and lingers still.
Lo! diligence can prosper every toil;
The loiterer strives with loss and execrates the soil.

When rests the keen strength of th’ o’erpowering sun
From heat that made the pores in rivers run;
When rushes in fresh rains autumnal Jove,
And man’s unburthen’d limbs now lightlier move;
For now the star of day with transient light
Rolls o’er our heads and joys in longer night;
When from the worm the forest boles are sound,
Trees bud no more, but earthward cast around
Their withering foliage, then remember well
The timely labour, and thy timber fell.