Kitap 8
3.39
What a happy fellow you must be, said the Sacian, for every reason, but particularly because from being poor you have become rich. For you must enjoy your riches much more, I think, for the very reason that it was only after being hungry for wealth that you became rich.
3.40
Why, do you actually suppose, my SacianHe complains of the burden of riches friend, answered Pheraulas, that the more I own, the more happily I live? You are not aware, he went on, that it gives me not one whit more pleasure to eat and drink and sleep now than it did when I was poor. My only gain from having so much is that I am obliged to take care of more, distribute more to others, and have the trouble of looking after more than I used to have.
3.41
For now many domestics look to me for food, many for drink, and many for clothes, while some need doctors; and one comes to me with a tale about sheep attacked by wolves, or of oxen killed by falling over a precipice, or to say that some disease has broken out among the cattle. And so it looks to me, said Pheraulas, as if I had more trouble now through possessing much than I used to have from possessing little.
3.42
But still, by Zeus, said the Sacian, when everything is going well, you must at the sight of so many blessings be many times as happy as I. The pleasure that the possession of wealth gives, my good Sacian, said Pheraulas, is not nearly so great as the pain that is caused by its loss. And you shall be convinced that what I say is true: for not one of those who are rich is made sleepless for joy, but of those who lose anything you will not see one who is able to sleep for grief.
3.43
Not so, by Zeus, said the Sacian; but of those who get anything not one could you see who gets a wink of sleep for very joy.
