licked some lukewarm sauce and tried the fish,and then suppose his master had replied
by ordering the slave be crucified.
Sane men would call him more delirious
than Labeo. How much more serious130
and crazy would you call this violation? A friend commits a minor provocation which you must overlook or otherwise be thought ungracious. You then demonize him and avoid him like that man in debt135 who stays the furthest distance he can get from Ruso; once the dreaded Kalends come, unless that debtor somehow finds a sum of cash or loan, he's collared by the throat and has to listen to each anecdote140 that Ruso ever wrote. That friend may pee upon your couch while on a drinking spree or send Evander's cherished saucer flying off the table. Is this or, when dying of hunger, plucking chicken from your plate145 a reason why a friend is second-rate? What is my recourse if the fellow steals, betrays my trust, or welshes on his deals?
When up against the truth, those who proclaim
that all transgressions are about the same150
start hyperventilating. They deny
both instinct and tradition, and defy
expediency, which appears to be
the source of fairness and equality.
When brute-like men, a mute and lawless pack,155
first crawled into the world, they would attack
each other with their fists and nails, and then
with clubs, to steal an acorn or a den,
and then eventually armaments
that were developed by experience160
until they found the nouns and verbs that brought
their cries and stirrings into realms of thought.
Soon they were shunning conflict, fortifying
villages and making laws—denying
everyone the chance to pillage, loot,165
or carry off their wives, since the pursuit
of cunts provoked the most horrific wars
before Helen, though history ignores
men slain by those who were more powerful
while they were blithely rutting like a bull170
within his herd. If you decide to scan
the records of the history of man,
you will concede that we created courts
from fear of lawlessness. When nature sorts
out what is good, it cannot separate175
what's just from unjust or what should create
aversion to a thing we should pursue.
Nor should logic make us think it's true
that all offenses are identical—
from picking someone's baby vegetable180
to stealing sacred items in the night.
Let's use a scale imposing what is right,
so that we don't inflict the cruelest lashing
on someone who deserves a milder thrashing.
And if you cane a person who has earned185
a fiercer whipping, I am unconcerned
since you will tell me theft that's surreptitious
is just the same as robbery that's vicious,
and that your scythe would level small and great
offenses (if we'd let you legislate).190
If somebody is wise and well-to-do,
a shoemaker who makes the finest shoe,
and he alone is suave and king, then why
demand what's owned already?
The reply?
“You're missing what the father of our school,195
Chrysippus, had intended as the rule!
If someone wise has never made a pair
of shoes or sandals he himself could wear,
that man is still a cobbler.”
“How's that so?”
“It is just like Hermogenes; although200
he's silent, he retains his great cachet
as singer and musician, the same way
that wily Alfenus, once he discarded
his tools and shut his shop, was still regarded
as a cobbler in the truest sense205
that one who's wise displays more competence
than others in their fields of expertise,
and in this sense is king.”
“The urchins seize
your beard, and if your ‘sceptre’ won't repel
the mob, it crowds and bumps you as you yell210
and bluster back at them. O most sublime
of mighty kings, I will not take much time!
While you, as king, go bathing for small change
without a fawning aide except the strange
Crispinus, my good friends will not be stern215
when folly makes me fail; for them in turn
I'll gladly brush off any travesty
and thrive uncrowned more than ‘Your Majesty.’”
Such poets as Cratinus, Eupolis,
and Aristophanes—and numerous
other proponents of Old Comedy—
were of this habit: if, deservedly,
somebody should be called out as a louse5
or thief, a killer, or a cheating spouse,
they
