Kitap 2
5
Since (circumlocutions apart) you are in dread of poverty, hear by what means you may grow wealthy. If a thrush, or any [nice] thing for your own private [eating], shall be given you; it must wing way to that place, where shines a great fortune, the possessor being an old man: delicious apples, and whatever dainties your well-cultivated ground brings forth for you, let the rich man, as more to be reverenced than your household god, taste before him: and, though he be perjured, of no family, stained with his brother's blood, a runaway; if he desire it, do not refuse to go along with him, his companion on the outer side. Comes exterior. In walking with a companion, the side which is most exposed was called the outer side. When three people walk together, the middle is, for the same reason, the most honorable place, and is therefore always given to the person of most distinction, interior comes. What, shall I walk cheek by jole with a filthy Damas? I did not behave myself in that manner at Troy, contending always with the best. You must then be poor. I will command my sturdy soul to bear this evil; I have formerly endured even greater. Do thou, O prophet, tell me forthwith how I may amass riches, and heaps of money. In troth I have told you, and tell you again. Use your craft to lie at catch for the last wills of old men: nor, if one or two cunning chaps escape by biting the bait off the hook, either lay aside hope, or quit the art, though disappointed in your aim. If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy without heirs, should he be a rogue, who daringly takes the law of a better man, be thou. his advocate: despise the citizen, who is superior in reputation, and [the justness of] his cause, if at home he has a son or a fruitful wife. [Address him thus:] "Quintus, for instance, or Publius Quinte, puta, aut Publi. A slave was no sooner made free, than he qualified himself with a surname, such as Marcus, Quintus, Publius, which carried a sort of dignity with it. The Romans saluted each other by their surnames. (delicate ears delight in the prefixed name), your virtue has made me your friend. I am acquainted with the precarious quirks of the law; I can plead causes. Any one shall sooner snatch my eyes from me, than he shall despise or defraud you of an empty nut. This is my care, that you lose nothing, that you be not made a jest of." Bid him go home, and make much of himself. Be his solicitor yourself: persevere, and be steadfast: whether the glaring dog-star shall cleave the infant statues; or Furius, destined with his greasy paunch, Pingui tentus omaso. Furius, in a poem on the Gallic war, had said, Iupiter hibernas cana nivo conspuet Alpes. Horace applies it to the author himself; adding pingui tentus omaso in ridicule of his appearance. Furius poeta immanis ventris, qui nivem spumam (sputum) Iovis dixit. Ideo hoc ejus persona dedit, tanquam ipse spuat.: Sch. Acr. Orelli considers three several passages of Furius to be referred to: rubra canicula findit infantes statuas, is a passage in which Furius describes a statuary, and thought he had a happy expression in infantes, since statues are ἀγλώττοι. By pingui tentus omasi, some general opposed to Caesar is described as a voracious barbarian. Hibernas, etc., formed the first line of his poetical history of Caesar. shall spue white snow over the wintery Alps. Do not you see (shall some one say, jogging the person that stands next to him by the elbow) how indefatigable he is, how serviceable to his friends, how acute? [By this means] more tunnies shall swim in, and your fish-ponds will increase.
