[297] Such as Homer could have brought. Compare Horace, "Odes," iv. ix. 25-28; and Cicero, "pro Archia," x. "Magnus ille Alexander—cum in Sigeo ad Achillis tumulum adstitisset, O fortunate, inquit, adolescens, qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem inveneris."
[298] Contrary to Hesiod's saw, "Works and Days," 361, 362.
[299] So Juvenal, xiv. 138-140.
[300] Like Horace's "Non si male nunc, et olim Sic erit." "Odes," ii. x. 16, 17.
[301] Noblesse oblige in fact.
[302] Pindar, Frag. 206.
[303] Like Horace's factus ad unguem, because the sculptor tries its polish and the niceness of the joints by drawing his nail over the surface. Casaub. Pers. i. 64; Horace, "Sat." i. v. 32, 33; A. P. 294; Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 507.
WHETHER VICE IS SUFFICIENT TO CAUSE UNHAPPINESS.[304]
§ i. ... He who gets a dowry with his wife sells himself for it, as Euripides says,[305] but his gains are few and uncertain; but he who does not go all on fire through many a funeral pile, but through a regal pyre, full of panting and fear and sweat got from travelling over the sea as a merchant, has the wealth of Tantalus, but cannot enjoy it owing to his want of leisure. For that Sicyonian horse-breeder was wise, who gave Agamemnon as a present a swift mare, "that he should not follow him to wind-swept Ilium, but delight himself at home,"[306] in the quiet enjoyment of his abundant riches and painless leisure. But nowadays courtiers, and people who think they have a turn for affairs, thrust themselves forward of their own accord uninvited into courts and toilsome escorts and bivouacs, that they may get a horse, or brooch, or some such piece of good luck. "But his wife is left behind in Phylace, and tears her cheeks in her sorrow, and his house is only half complete without him,"[307] while he is dragged about, and wanders about, and wastes his time in idle hopes, and has to put up with much insult. And even if he gets any of those things he desires, giddy and dizzy at Fortune's rope-dance, he seeks retirement, and deems those happy who live obscure and in security, while they again look up admiringly at him who soars so high above their heads.[308]