So, if the vice of anger, and all of the other faults
That cling to fools can’t be wholly excised, why then
Does Reason not employ her own weights and measures
And curb each offence with appropriate punishment?
If a man were to nail his slave to a cross for eating
Left-over fish and cold sauce from the dish he’d been told
To remove, sane men would call him madder than Labeo.
Well how much greater and more insane a fault is this:
When your friend has committed some slight offence,
That you’d be thought ungracious not to have pardoned,
You hate him savagely, and shun him as Ruso is shunned
By his debtor. When the unhappy Kalends come, if he can’t,
Poor wretch, rustle up principal or interest from somewhere,
He has to expose his throat, and listen to those sad Histories!
So what if a drunken friend drenches the couch, or even
Knocks a bowl that must have been touched by Evander’s
Own fingers from the table: should he be less of a friend
In my eyes, even though he may have reached for the bird
On my side of the dish? What would I do then if he should
Commit a theft, betray a trust, or even disown his word?
The Stoics who think all sins are much of a much-ness
Struggle in face of reality: all tradition and feeling rebel
And Expediency too, mother almost of fairness and justice.