* The literal translation would be, “The artisan of all kinds who handles the chisel is more motionless than he who handles the hoe.”  Both here, and in several other passages of this little satiric poem, I have been obliged to paraphrase the text in order to render it intelligible to the modern reader.

[Illustration:  099.jpg STONE-CUTTERS FINISHING THE DRESSING OF LIMESTONE BLOCKS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellini, Monumenti civili,
     pl. xlviii. 2.

—­but for him his fields are the timber, his business is the metal,—­and at night when the other is free,—­he, he works with his hands over and above what he has already done,—­for at night, he works at home by the lamp.—­The stone-cutter who seeks his living by working in all kinds of durable stone,—­when at last he has earned something—­and his two arms are worn out, he stops;—­but if at sunrise he remain sitting,—­his legs are tied to his back.* —­The barber who shaves until the evening,—­when he falls to and eats, it is without sitting down** —­while running from street to street to seek custom;—­if he is constant [at work] his two arms fill his belly—­as the bee eats in proportion to its toil.—­Shall I tell thee of the mason—­how he endures misery?—­Exposed to all the winds—­while he builds without any garment but a belt—­and while the bunch of lotus-flowers [which is fixed] on the [completed] houses—­is still far out of his reach,***

* This is an allusion to the cruel manner in which the Egyptians were accustomed to bind their prisoners, as it were in a bundle, with the legs bent backward along the back and attached to the arms.  The working-day commenced then, as now, at sunrise, and lasted till sunset, with a short interval of one or two hours at midday for the workmen’s dinner and siesta.

** Literally, “He places himself on his elbow.”  The metaphor seems to me to be taken from the practice of the trade itself:  the barber keeps his elbow raised when shaving and lowers it when he is eating.

*** This passage is conjecturally translated.  I suppose the Egyptian masons had a custom analogous to that of our own, and attached a bunch of lotus to the highest part of a building they had just finished:  nothing, however, has come to light to confirm this conjecture.

—­his two arms are worn out with work; his provisions are placed higgledy piggledy amongst his refuse,—­he consumes himself, for he has no other bread than his fingers—­and he becomes wearied all at once.—­He is much and dreadfully exhausted—­for there is [always] a block [to be dragged] in this or that building,—­a block of ten cubits by six,—­there is [always] a block [to be dragged] in this or that month [as far as the] scaffolding poles [to which is fixed] the bunch of lotus-flowers on the [completed] houses.—­When the work is quite finished,—­if he has bread, he returns home,—­and his children have been beaten unmercifully [during his absence].—­The weaver within doors is worse off there than a woman;—­squatting, his knees against his chest,—­he does not breathe.—­If during the day he slackens weaving,—­he is bound fast as the lotuses of the lake;—­and it is by giving bread to the doorkeeper, that the latter permits him to see the light.