handles the hoe;*

* The literal translation would be, "The artisan of all
kinds who handles the chisel is more motionless than he who
handles the hoe." Both here, and in several other passages
of this little satiric poem, I have been obliged to
paraphrase the text in order to render it intelligible to
the modern reader.

[Illustration: 099.jpg STONE-CUTTERS FINISHING THE DRESSING OF LIMESTONE
BLOCKS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Rosellini, _Monumenti civili_,
pl. xlviii. 2.

--but for him his fields are the timber, his business is the metal,--and
at night when the other is free,--he, he works with his hands over and
above what he has already done,--for at night, he works at home by the
lamp.--The stone-cutter who seeks his living by working in all kinds of
durable stone,--when at last he has earned something--and his two arms
are worn out, he stops;--but if at sunrise he remain sitting,--his legs
are tied to his back.* --The barber who shaves until the evening,--when
he falls to and eats, it is without sitting down** --while running from
street to street to seek custom;--if he is constant [at work] his two
arms fill his belly--as the bee eats in proportion to its toil.--Shall
I tell thee of the mason--how he endures misery?--Exposed to all the
winds--while he builds without any garment but a belt--and while the
bunch of lotus-flowers [which is fixed] on the [completed] houses--is
still far out of his reach,***

* This is an allusion to the cruel manner in which the
Egyptians were accustomed to bind their prisoners, as it
were in a bundle, with the legs bent backward along the back
and attached to the arms. The working-day commenced then, as
now, at sunrise, and lasted till sunset, with a short
interval of one or two hours at midday for the workmen's
dinner and siesta.

** Literally, "He places himself on his elbow." The metaphor
seems to me to be taken from the practice of the trade
itself: the barber keeps his elbow raised when shaving and
lowers it when he is eating.

*** This passage is conjecturally translated. I suppose the
Egyptian masons had a custom analogous to that of our own,
and attached a bunch of lotus to the highest part of a
building they had just finished: nothing, however, has come
to light to confirm this conjecture.

--his two arms are worn out with work; his provisio