The Best of the Worlds Classics, Restricted to prose. | Page 7

husband; for of a thousand men one will not
forsake her nor refuse her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou be
right happy, that is to say, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find a great
number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, that thou wax
poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt be all alone
without any company, except it be the company of poor folk. And yet
saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that are bond and thrall of
linage should be made worthy and noble by riches.
And just as by riches there come many goods, so by poverty come there
many harms and evils; and therefore says Cassiodore,[17] poverty the
mother of ruin, that is to say, the mother of overthrowing or falling
down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse: One of the greatest
adversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, is
constrained by poverty to eat the alms of his enemy. And the same saith
Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful and mishappy is
the condition of a poor beggar, for if he asks not his meat he dieth of
hunger, and if he ask he dieth for shame; and dire necessity
constraineth him to ask; and therefore saith Solomon: That better it is to
die than for to have such poverty; and, as the same Solomon saith:
Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to live in such wise.
By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by many other reasons
that I could say, I grant you that riches are good to 'em that well
obtained them, and to him that well uses riches; and therefore will I
shew you how ye should behave you in gathering of your riches, and in
what manner ye should use 'em. First, ye should get 'em without great
desire, by good leisure, patiently, and not over hastily, for a man that is
too desiring to get riches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other
evils; and therefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to
wax rich, he shall be not innocent: he saith also, that the riches that
hastily cometh to a man soon lightly goeth and passeth from a man, but
that riches that cometh little and little waxeth alway and multiplieth.
And, sir, ye should get riches by your wit and by your travail, unto your
profit, and that without wrong or harm doing to any other person; for
the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich, if he do harm to
another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendeth and forbiddeth by

right, that no man make himself rich unto the harm of another person.
And Tullius[18] saith: That no sorrow, no dread of death, nothing that
may fall unto a man, is so much against nature as a man to increase his
owyn profit to harm of another man. And though the great men and the
mighty men get riches more lightly than thou, yet shalt thou not be idle
nor slow to do thy profit, for thou shalt in all wise flee idleness; for
Solomon saith: That idleness teacheth a man to do many evils; and the
same Solomon saith: That he that travaileth and busieth himself to till
his land, shall eat bread, but he that is idle, and casteth him to no
business nor occupation, shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And
he that is idle and slow can never find convenient time for to do his
profit; for there is a versifier who saith, that the idle man excuseth him
in winter because of the great cold, and in summer then by reason of
the heat.
For these causes, saith Cato, waketh and inclineth you not over much to
sleep, for over much rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; and
therefore saith St. Jerome: Do some good deeds, that the devil, which is
our enemy, find you not unoccupied, for the devil he taketh not lightly
unto his working such as he findeth occupied in good works.
Then thus in getting riches ye must flee idleness; and afterward ye
should use the riches which ye have got by your wit and by your travail,
in such manner, that men hold you not too scarce, nor too sparing, nor
fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; for right as men blame
an avaricious man because of his scarcity and niggardliness, in the
same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; and therefore saith
Cato: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast obtained in such manner,
that men have no matter nor cause to call thee neither