|
On the Follies and Madness of the Common People
Wherein notwithstanding if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken
more boldly than truly, let us, if you please, look a little into
the lives of men, and it will easily appear not only how much they owe
to me, but how much they esteem me even from the highest to the
lowest. And yet we will not run over the lives of everyone, for that
would be too long, but only some few of the great ones, from whence we
shall easily conjecture the rest. For to what purpose is it to say
anything of the common people, who without dispute are wholly mine?
For they abound everywhere with so many several sorts of folly, and
are every day so busy in inventing new, that a thousand Democriti
are too few for so general a laughter, though there were another
Democritus to laugh at them too. 'Tis almost incredible what sport and
pastime they daily make the gods; for though they set aside their
sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet
when they begin to be well whittled with nectar and cannot think of
anything that's serious, they get them up into some part of heaven
that has better prospect than other and thence look down upon the
actions of men. Nor is there anything that pleases them better.
Good, good! what an excellent sight it is! How many several
hurly-burlies of fools! for I myself sometimes sit among those
poetical gods.
Here's one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she
slights him the more outrageously he loves her. Another marries a
woman's money, not herself. Another's jealousy keeps more eyes on
her than Argos. Another becomes a mourner, and how foolishly he
carries it! nay, hires others to bear him company to make it more
ridiculous. Another weeps over his mother-in-law's grave. Another
spends all he can rap and run on his belly, to be the more hungry
after it. Another thinks there is no happiness but in sleep and
idleness. Another turmoils himself about other men's business and
neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in taking up moneys
and changing securities, as we say borrowing of Peter to pay Paul, and
in a short time becomes bankrupt. Another starves himself to enrich
his heir. Another for a small and uncertain gain exposes his life to
the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore.
Another had rather get riches by war than live peaceably at home.
And some there are that think them easiest attained by courting old
childless men with presents; and others again by making rich old women
believe they love them; both which afford the gods most excellent
pastime, to see them cheated by those persons they thought to have
over-caught. But the most foolish and basest of all others are our
merchants, to wit such as venture on everything be it never so
dishonest, and manage it no better; who though they lie by no
allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen, and cheat, yet shuffle
themselves into the first rank, and all because they have gold rings
on their fingers. Nor are they without their flattering friars that
admire them and give them openly the title of honorable, in hopes,
no doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves.
There are also a kind of Pythagoreans with whom all things are so
common that if they get anything under their cloaks, they make no more
scruple of carrying it away than if it were their own by
inheritance. There are others too that are only rich in conceit, and
while they fancy to themselves pleasant dreams, conceive that enough
to make them happy. Some desire to be accounted wealthy abroad and are
yet ready to starve at home. One makes what haste he can to set all
going, and another rakes it together by right or wrong. This man is
ever laboring for public honors, and another lies sleeping in a
chimney corner. A great many undertake endless suits and outvie one
another who shall most enrich the dilatory judge or corrupt
advocate. One is all for innovations and another for some great
he-knows-not-what. Another leaves his wife and children at home and
goes to Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James's where he
has no business.
In short, if a man like Menippus of old could look down from the
moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he would think
he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among themselves,
fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching, playing, wantoning,
growing up, falling, and dying. Nor is it to be believed what stir,
what broils, this little creature raises, and yet in how short a
time it comes to nothing itself; while sometimes war, other times
pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together.
|