than men: men die in thousands and ten
thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then
the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end
should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a
banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour
_Geta_, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he commanded a
banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in
after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen, following
the last dish, which was two miles off from the foremost, brought him an
index of their several names. Neither did he pingle, when it was set on
the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose
from the table.

WILL SUM. O intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without
the consent of a whetstone![32]

SUM. Ungracious man, how fondly he argueth!

VER. Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the
veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it, and tread upon it,
and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till
the iron age, _donec facinus invasit mortales_, as the poet says; and
the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it that an unthrift, of
any, comes nearest a happy man, in so much as he comes nearest to
beggary. Cicero saith, _summum bonum_ consists in _omnium rerum
vacatione_, that is, the chiefest felicity that may be to rest from all
labours. Now who doth so much _vacare a rebus_, who rests so much, who
hath so little to do as the beggar? who can sing so merry a note, as he
that cannot change a groat?[33] _Cui nil est, nil deest_: he that hath
nothing wants nothing. On the other side, it is said of the carl, _Omnia
habeo, nec quicquam habeo_: I have all things, yet want everything.
_Multi mihi vitio vertunt quia egeo_, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus
Gellius; _at ego illis quia nequeunt egere_: many upbraid me, saith he,
because I am poor; but I upbraid them, because they cannot live if they
be poor.[34] It is a common proverb, _Divesque miserque_, a rich man and
a miserable: _nam natura paucis contenta_, none so contented as the poor
man. Admit that the chiefest happiness were not rest or ease, but
knowledge, as Herillus, Alcidamus, and many of Socrates' followers
affirm; why _paupertas omnes perdocet artes_, poverty instructs a man in
all arts; it makes a man hardy and venturous, and therefore is it ca