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
Or Pylades:  he only calls them names,
Fury or other monster, in the style
Which people use when stirred by tragic bile.

“Opimius, who, with gold and silver store
Lodged in his coffers, ne’ertheless was poor
(The man would drink from earthen nipperkin
Flat wine on working-days, on feast-days thin),
Once fell into a lethargy so deep
That his next heir supposed it more than sleep,
And entering on possession at his ease,
Went round the coffers and applied the keys. 
The doctor had a conscience and a head: 
He had a table moved beside the bed,
Poured out a money-bag, and bade men come
And ring the coin and reckon o’er the sum: 
Then, lifting up his patient, he began: 
’That heir of yours is plundering you, good man. 
‘What? while I live?’ ’You wish to live? then take
The necessary steps:  be wide awake.’ 
‘What steps d’ye mean?’ ’Your strength will soon run short,
Unless your stomach have some strong support. 
Come, rouse yourself:  take this ptisane of rice.’ 
‘The price?’ ‘A trifle.’  ‘I will know the price.’ 
‘Eight-pence.’  ’O dear! what matters it if I
Die by disease or robbery? still I die.’ 
“‘Who then is sane?’ He that’s no fool, in troth. 
‘Then what’s a miser?’ Fool and madman both. 
’Well, if a man’s no miser, is he sane
That moment?’ No.  ‘Why, Stoic?’ I’ll explain. 
The stomach here is sound as any bell,
Craterus may say:  then is the patient well? 
May he get up?  Why no; there still are pains
That need attention in the side or reins. 
You’re not forsworn nor miserly:  go kill
A porker to the gods who ward off ill. 
You’re headlong and ambitious:  take a trip
To Madman’s Island by the next swift ship. 
For where’s the difference, down the rabble’s throat
To pour your gold, or never spend a groat?