Book 3
26
But why have you contrived to make yourself so useless and good for nothing that nobody will receive you into his house, nobody take care of you; but although, if any sound, useful vessel be thrown out of doors, whoever finds it will take it up and prize it as something gained, yet nobody will take you up, but everybody esteem you a loss. What, cannot you so much as perform the office of a dog or a cock? Why, then, do you wish to live any longer if you are so worthless? Does any good man fear that food should fail him? It does not fail the blind; it does not fail the lame. Shall it fail a good man? A paymaster is always to be found for a soldier, or a laborer, or a shoemaker, and shall one be wanting to a good man? Is God so negligent of his own institutions, of his servants, of his witnesses, whom alone he uses for examples to the uninstructed, to show that he exists, and that he administers the universe rightly, and doth not neglect human affairs, and that no evil can happen to a good man, either living or dead? What, then, is the case, when he doth not bestow food? What else than that, like a good general, he hath made me a signal of retreat? I obey, I follow, speaking well of my leader, praising his works. For I came when it seemed good to him; and, again, when it seems good to him, I depart; and in life it was my business to praise God within myself and to every auditor, and to the world. Doth he grant me but few things? Doth he refuse me affluence? It is not his pleasure that I should live luxuriously; for he did not grant that even to Hercules, his own son; but another reigned over Argos and Mycene, while he obeyed, labored, and strove. And Eurystheus was just what he was,—neither truly king of Argos, nor of Mycene; not being indeed king over himself. But Hercules was ruler and governor of the whole earth and seas; the expeller of lawlessness and injustice; the introducer of justice and sanctity. And this he effected naked and alone. Again, when Ulysses was shipwrecked and cast away, did his helpless condition at all deject him? Did it break his spirit? No; but how did he go to Nausicaa and her attendants, to ask those necessaries which it seems most shameful to beg from another? As some lion, bred in the mountains, confiding in strength. Homer, Odyssey, 6.130. H.
