[8]What is the sovereign good for you? To junket every day?
[9]But I hear an old he-goat of a centurion reply: "I have as much learning as is needful for me! I do not care to become an Arcesilas or a morose Solon!"
[10]But for me, it is my delight to grow pale over books at night.
[11]To my duties in the morning, to my pleasures in the evening.
[12]The table is spread with a dish of raw vegetables, with bread of coarse barley-flour.
[13]Together would we work and rest, and refresh ourselves after toil with pleasant festivity.
[14]Wisdom, honor, virtue. This said aloud, so that the guest may hear. To himself, and in a low whisper, he murmurs: "Oh, for a magnificent funeral for the father-in-law!"
[15]One must live on what he reaps.
[16]You know, indeed, how to hold the balance of justice with an impartial hand.
[17]But duty calls; a friend has been shipwrecked; he is cast helpless on the Brutian rocks; all his property and his empty vows have gone to the bottom of the sea.