<h3><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48" />II.</h3>
<p>'Now I would fain also reason with thee a little in Fortune's own words.
Do thou observe whether her contentions be just. "Man," she might say,
"why dost thou pursue me with thy daily complainings? What wrong have I
done thee? What goods of thine have I taken from thee? Choose an thou
wilt a judge, and let us dispute before him concerning the rightful
ownership of wealth and rank. If thou succeedest in showing that any one
of these things is the true property of mortal man, I freely grant those
things to be thine which thou claimest. When nature brought thee forth
out of thy mother's womb, I took thee, naked and destitute as thou wast,
I cherished thee with my substance, and, in the partiality of my favour
for thee, I brought thee up somewhat too indulgently, and this it is
which now makes thee rebellious against me. I surrounded thee <SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49" />with a
royal abundance of all those things that are in my power. Now it is my
pleasure to draw back my hand. Thou hast reason to thank me for the use
of what was not thine own; thou hast no right to complain, as if thou
hadst lost what was wholly thine. Why, then, dost bemoan thyself? I have
done thee no violence. Wealth, honour, and all such things are placed
under my control. My handmaidens know their mistress; with me they come,
and at my going they depart. I might boldly affirm that if those things
the loss of which thou lamentest had been thine, thou couldst never have
lost them. Am I alone to be forbidden to do what I will with my own?
Unrebuked, the skies now reveal the brightness of day, now shroud the
daylight in the darkness of night; the year may now engarland the face
of the earth with flowers and fruits, now disfigure it with storms and
cold. The sea is permitted to invite with smooth and tranquil surface
to-day, to-morrow to roughen with wave and storm. Shall man's insatiate
greed bind <em>me</em> to a constancy foreign to my character? This <SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50" />is my art,
this the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. I
delight to see the high come down and the low ascend. Mount up, if thou
wilt, but only on condition that thou wilt not think it a hardship to
come down when the rules of my game require it. Wert thou ignorant of my
character? Didst not know how Crœsus, King of the Lydians, erstwhile
the dreaded rival of Cyrus, was afterwards pitiably consigned to the
flame of the pyre, and only saved by a shower sent from heaven? Has it
'scaped thee how Paullus paid a meed of pious tears to the misfortunes
of King Perseus, his prisoner? What else do tragedies make such woeful
outcry over save the overthrow of kingdoms by the indiscriminate strokes
of Fortune? Didst thou not learn in thy childhood how there stand at the
threshold of Zeus 'two jars,' 'the one full of blessings, the other of
calamities'? How if thou hast drawn over-liberally from the good jar?
What if not even now have I departed wholly from thee? What if this very
mutability of mine is a just ground for hoping better things? But listen
now, <SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51" />and cease to let thy heart consume away with fretfulness, nor
expect to live on thine own terms in a realm that is common to all.'</p>
<h3>SONG II.<br/> Man's Covetousness.</h3>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span>What though Plenty pour her gifts<br/></span>
<span class="i2">With a lavish hand,<br/></span>
<span>Numberless as are the stars,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Countless as the sand,<br/></span>
<span>Will the race of man, content,<br/></span>
<span>Cease to murmur and lament?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Nay, though God, all-bounteous, give<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Gold at man's desire—<br/></span>
<span>Honours, rank, and fame—content<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Not a whit is nigher;<br/></span>
<span>But an all-devouring greed<br/></span>
<span>Yawns with ever-widening need.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span>Then what bounds can e'er restrain<br/></span>
<span class="i2">This wild lust of having,<br/></span>
<span>When with each new bounty fed<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Grows the frantic craving?<br/></span>
<span>He is never rich whose fear<br/></span>
<span>Sees grim Want forever near.<br/></span></div>
</div>
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