The sentence that follows, enumerating the things "which are little upon the earth,[187] is not from the pen of our philosopher, but a harmless passage inserted subsequently as a pendant to the four things which "are comely in going." The main considerations that point to this conclusion and warrant us in ascribing the verses to a different author are these: all the other "numerical sayings" which are admittedly the work of Agur, contain first of all the number three and in the parallel verse four,[188] whereas this sentence speaks of four only. Again, all Agur's proverbs are in the form of strophes of six lines each; but this passage consists of five distichs. Lastly, it is a manifest digression, leads nowhither, and, what is still more important, has no point, as all Agur's sayings have.[189]
The final sentence of this interesting fragment needs no elaborate explanation: it contains the pith of Agur's practical philosophy in the form of an exhortation to renounce honour, glory, the esteem of men, &c., if we possess legitimate claims to such, and still more if we have none; the acquisition of peace and quiet is cheap at the price of obscurity; freedom from care and worry and from the evils they bring in their train, being of infinitely greater value than the chance and even the certainty of so-called "positive" enjoyments.
Footnotes:
[174] Prov. xxx. 4.
[175] The Hebrew text consists of vowelless words. The correct vowels must be ascertained before the meaning of a word or sentence can be definitely established. The vowel points of our Hebrew Bibles are not older than the seventh century A.D., and are frequently erroneous. In the present case the word stealing does not occur in the text, but only the being stolen—viz., seduction, temptation.
[176] I employ the word in its natural, not in its conventional, sense.
[177] Prov. xxx. 21, 22.
[178] Ibid xxx. 10.
[179] The word "barren" added in our Bibles (Hebrew 'oçzer, "barrenness") is not only excluded by the metre, but is also wanting in the Septuagint version—conclusive proofs that it is a later interpolation.
[180] Cf. Schopenhauer, "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," herausg. v. E. Grisebach, ii. p. 585. Grisebach's is the only correct edition of Schopenhauer's works.