[1884] “Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima
furti,
Non
contenta bonis animum quoque perfida mergit,
Foeda,
furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.”
For a little pleasure they take, and some small gains and gettings now and then, their wives and children are ringed in the meantime, and they themselves with loss of body and soul rue it in the end. I will say nothing of those prodigious prodigals, perdendae pecuniae, genitos, as he [1885] taxed Anthony, Qui patrimonium sine ulla fori calumnia amittunt, saith [1886]Cyprian, and [1887]mad sybaritical spendthrifts, Quique una comedunt patrimonia coena; that eat up all at a breakfast, at a supper, or amongst bawds, parasites, and players, consume themselves in an instant, as if they had flung it into [1888]Tiber, with great wages, vain and idle expenses, &c., not themselves only, but even all their friends, as a man desperately swimming drowns him that comes to help him, by suretyship and borrowing they will willingly undo all their associates and allies. [1889] Irati pecuniis, as he saith, angry with their money: [1890]"what with a wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, and a gamesome hand,” when they have indiscreetly impoverished themselves, mortgaged their wits, together with their lands, and entombed their ancestors’ fair possessions in their bowels, they may lead the rest of their days in prison, as many times they do; they repent at leisure; and when all is gone begin to be thrifty: but Sera est in fundo parsimonia, ’tis then too late to look about; their [1891]end is misery, sorrow, shame, and discontent. And well they deserve to be infamous and discontent. [1892]_Catamidiari in Amphitheatro_, as by Adrian the emperor’s edict they were of old, decoctores bonorum suorum, so he calls them, prodigal fools, to be publicly shamed,