Kitap 2
7
One part of mankind are fond of their vices with some con. stancy and adhere to their purpose: a considerable part fluctuates; one while embracing the right, another while liable to depravity. Priscus, frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare, Laeva Priscus inani. Before the time of Horace it was infamous to wear more than one ring, and when they began to wear more, they carried them only on the left hand, which was less exposed to public view, as if they would seem ashamed of such marks of effeminacy. lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place, whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every Vertumnus. Vertumnis natis iniquis. Vertumnus presided over the regular seasons of the year, established by the laws of nature. Priscus was therefore born in despite of the god, because all his changes were an effect of oddness and whim. Horace multiplies this god, Vertumni, from the different forms under which he was represented. That buffoon, Volanerius, when the deserved gout had crippled his fingers, maintained [a fellow] that he had hired at a daily price, who took up the dice and put them into a box for him: yet by how much more constant was he in his vice, by so much less wretched was he than the former person, who is now in difficulties by too loose, now by too tight a rein. "Will you not tell to-day, you varlet, whither such wretched stuff as this tends?" "Why, to you, I say." "In what respect to me, scoundrel?"
