Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/91

A century old, on straw he yet will lie,
While in his chest rich coverlets, the prey
Of moth and canker, moulder and decay,
Few men can see much madness in his whim,
Because the mass of mortals ail like him.
"O heaven-abandoned wretch! is all this care
To save your stores for some degenerate heir,
A son, or e'en a freedman, who will pour
All down his throttle, ere a year is o'er?
You fear to come to want yourself, you say?
Come, calculate how small the loss per day,
If henceforth to your cabbage you allow
And your own head the oil you grudge them now.
If anything's sufficient, why forswear,
Embezzle, swindle, pilfer everywhere?
Can you be sane? suppose you choose to throw
Stones at the crowd, as by your door they go,
Or at the slaves, your chattels, every lad
And every girl will hoot yon down as mad:
When with a rope you kill your wife, with bane
Your aged mother, are you right in brain?
Why not? Orestes did it with the blade,
And 'twas in Argos that the scene was laid.
Think you that madness only then begun
To seize him, when the impious deed was done,
And not that Furies spurred him on, before
The sword grew purple with a parent's gore?
Nay, from the time they reckon him insane,
He did no deed of which you could complain:
No stroke this madman at Electra aims