Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/279

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PETRONIUS ARBITER
 

to be inferred from the crowns which gratitude can place even upon the heads of the unworthy! Then why, you demand, are you dressed so shabbily? For that very reason; love or art never yet made anyone rich.”


The trader trusts his fortune to the sea and takes his gains,
The warrior, for his deeds, is girt with gold;
The wily sycophant lies drunk on purple counterpanes,
Young wives must pay debauchees or they’re cold.
But solitary, shivering, in tatters Genius stands
Invoking a neglected art, for succor at its hands.


CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-FOURTH. “It is certainly true that a man is hated when he declares himself an enemy to all vice, and begins to follow the right road in life, because, in the first place, his habits are different from those of other people; for who ever approved of anything to which he took exceptions? Then, they whose only ambition is to pile up riches, don’t want to believe that men can possess anything better than

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