[De contemptu mundi]

of your adolescence, or to what masters are you subject, or, to speak more truly, to what slaveries? If you are rich, you are subjected to much labor so that you may consume your goods with the vanities of this world, unless your parents restrain you. If you are handsome, every young girl, and not only young girls, but also women of mature age seek your embraces and urge you on, and then under golden shackles you will emit many sweats, and by not sparing in vigils, you consume your adolescence in vain. If you are strong, military service seeks you out, or the cultivation of fields, in which you again spend your days and years of adolescence in cold and heat, considering them for a greater cause. If you are poor, nothing is more miserable, because then you are subjected to every labor and anxiety. And although this age is more exempt and voluptuous in both men and women, nonetheless it is subjected to these and other infinite miseries or distresses, which our pen at present is not able to express, nor do we deem it appropriate to write all those things down, but we believe it is right to leave it to those more learned and more erudite than ourselves. Therefore, relaxing the reins of our style to the fourth degree of age, it is called youth itself, the firmest of all ages, ending in