Suitable for the Reader

and I do not wish to equate myself to anyone, even the least, much less to glorify myself above them, nevertheless, if such humility were not so pleasing to God and useful among men, I would almost have dared to affirm that most of them, however much of a "refined nose" a classical idiom for a discerning person and "oiled Lar" referring to a well-cared-for household god or pampered person they might be, with all their wisdom and skill, would hardly have done it a second time in such a way.

10. And you will say this even more, reader, and repeat it with me, once you have weighed the matter a little more strictly in the balance. For then, you will find a most luminous reason not to condemn, but rather to admire vehemently: how, namely, I have still, in so brief a space, attacked this work and this—whatever it is—with equal daring and fear (even being unconditioned and a stranger, without property and money on the journey; without fire, in the strongest winter; and having no book, nor any companion). In the worst days, which are entirely, clearly, the burdens of extreme necessity, and the cares of acquiring food and clothing that extract different things from me, I have watched to such a file meaning the revision process as you see.

But my muse is rough; we sing what odes we can,

Which often has not refreshed the learned, chirping bird.

11. I, furthermore, sometimes near midday, sometimes near evening, having "feasted" with those most expert and sagacious Aristarchs a name used for harsh, pedantic critics, returned continually as empty in belly as I was broken and religious in mind. But along the way, I threw around manifold thoughts and dragged them through my mind. For sometimes, craning my neck, I would shout barbarically: "Oh, what a parasite, what a pseudocritic the world is! Puppies are judged by moles. What an unregulated school this is! Ants are instructed by woodpeckers. What a turbulent sea! Small fish are devoured by great ones. How poorly ordered a stable it is! Sheep are oppressed by oxen. The poor and men of good mind are variously depressed, rejected, neglected; others flourish, happy as much in vices as in riches. He who defends the most just cause does not obtain his right, but falls in his case. Alas for the morosity of mortals, but oh, the wicked and baneful demons of the sons of Adam! With prayers, the poor man speaks, and the rich man speaks fiercely; for whatever they say, whatever they do, is praised and accepted by all, whether it is done well or ill."

No bad man is happy; who does not do it aptly, if he is rich?

This one thing brings the most sorrowful tears and thoughts.

Alas, shameful poverty, there is nothing harder in you,

Than that you make men ridiculous and creaking!

12. Sometimes I also said to myself, "Truly, fortune favors fools." In the present time, it still happens in the world, as in the Solomonic age, that animals are valued more than the learned and literate.

Whole towns worship dogs, no one worships Dianas.

Little masters please, poor wretches lie ignored, the learned and wise are bury-able. Great merchants of sulfur possibly a reference to alchemical traders or charlatans are of greater value than Plato himself.

A well-dressed man is believed by a thousand to be skilled because of his clothes,

Even if he is an idiot.

If you lack clothes, and are not honestly dressed;

If your hat is worn, if your cloak is filthy and torn,

If your toga is dirty, and one shoe gapes with a torn skin,

Or if, with a sewn-up wound, it shows thick and fresh linen,

And more than one scar, you are of no praise, even if you hold everything you hear.

13. Meanwhile, however, while I dispute with myself so playfully, there occurred repeatedly from that truly golden little book (which, under my own auspices—as much from the healthy juice of things and the gravity of the sentences as from the hidden drawing of the Holy Spirit—easily snatches the palm from all volumes of the world touching on similar material, and ever since I saw and read it, it has tasted uniquely to my heart)