Then again, not to pass over the matter with a smile
Like some wit - though what stops one telling the truth
While smiling, as teachers often give children biscuits
To try and tempt them to learn their alphabet? -
No: joking aside, let’s turn to more serious thoughts:
The farmer turning the heavy clay with sturdy plough,
The rascally shopkeeper, the soldier, the sailor
Who boldly sails the seas, all say they only do so
So as to retire in true idleness when they are old,
Having made a pile: just as their exemplar
The tiny labouring ant drags all she can together,
Adding what’s in her mouth to the heap she’s building,
Neither ignorant of nor careless of her tomorrow.
Though as soon as Aquarius freezes the turning year,
Wise creature that she is, she no longer forages,
Using instead what she gathered, while nothing stops you,
Nothing deflects you from riches, not scorching heat, fire
Winter, sword or sea, while there’s a man richer than you.
Yet what good is all that mass of silver and gold to you,
If, fearful, you bury it secretly in some hole in the ground?
‘If I broke into it,’ you say, ‘ it would all be gone, to the last
Brass farthing.’ Yet if you don’t what’s the point of your pile?
Though you’ve threshed a hundred thousand measures of corn
That won’t make your stomach hold any more than mine:
Just like the chain-gang where carrying the heavy bread-bag
Over your shoulder won’t gain you more than the slave
Who lifts nothing. Tell me then, what difference to the man
Who lives within Nature’s bounds, whether he ploughs a hundred
Acres or a thousand? ‘But it’s sweet to take from a big heap.’
Even so why praise your granaries more than our bins,
So long as we’re able to draw as much from the smaller?
It’s as if though you needed no more than a jug of water,
Or a single cup, you said: ‘I’d rather have the same amount
From some vast river rather than this little spring.’ That’s why
Raging Aufidus sweeps away riverbanks, and all those
Who delight in owning more than their fair share of wealth.
But the man who desires only as much as he needs,
Won’t drink muddy water, or lose his life in the flood.