Grac. I certainly believe in cleanliness, but I don’t think there should be an anxious and morose absorption in it.
Nugo. Do you then condemn elegance, on which Laurentius Valla has written so diffusely and which our teachers so diligently commend to us? There is an elegance, e.g., of words, in speaking, and there is an elegance of clothes in dressing.
Turd. Do you know what was told me by the letter-carrier at Louvain?
Nugo. What was that?
Turd. That Clodius fell in love madly with some girl and Lusco transferred himself from letters to merchandise, that is, from horseback to mule-back.
Nugo. What do I hear?
XII. Clodius the Lover
Turd. You all knew Clodius, full of vigour, rubicund, well-clothed, cheerful, with shining countenance, affable, genial teller of stories. Now it is said of him that he is without vigour, bloodless, of pallid colour, sallow, witless, wild-looking, stern, taciturn, one who shuns the light and human society. No one who knew him formerly would now recognise him.
Nugo. O wretched young man! Whence has this evil befallen him?
Turd. He is in love.