SUMMARY OF SATIRE IiI
your grasp? (15–43). As a child I too rejoiced in childish games; but you are no child, you have studied philosophy, you know the difference between the straight and the crooked; yet here you are, yawning off yesterday's debauch without a thought for the ends which alone make life worth living! (44–62).
The time will come when it will be too late to mend; be wise in time. Learn what you are, and why you were brought here; what is the true end for man, and what are his duties; don't be envious of the rich stores of your wealthy lawyer-neighbour (63–76). At this no doubt some shaggy soldier will burst into a guffaw and tell us that he doesn't care a fig for all the philosophers in creation, with their dull looks, their bent figures, their dismal mutterings and old-wife dreamings that nothing can come out of nothing, and nothing go back to nothing (77–87).
A man feels ill and consults his doctor, who orders rest and abstinence. Feeling better after a few days, he returns to his old habits, rejects scornfully the warnings of friends, and bathes on a full stomach. While drinking his wine, he is seized by a sudden stroke, and is carried to the grave by citizens of yesterday's making (88–106). You tell me you have no illness, no fever in your pulse. But does not your heart beat. high when you catch sight of money, or when a pretty girl smiles sweetly on you? Can you put up with plain food? Not you! Cold at one moment with fear, at another hot with wrath, you say things and do things which Orestes himself would declare were signs of madness (107–118).
