DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.50017#0141
THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 61
For my own part, as the country life, and this part
of it more particularly, were the inclination of my
youth itself, so they are the pleasure of my age ; and
I can truly say, that among many great employments
that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or
sought for any one of them, but often endeavoured to
escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a
private scene, where a man may go his own way and
his own pace, in the common paths or circles of life.
Inter cuncta leges et percunctabere doctos
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum,
Quid curas minuat, quid te tibi reddat amicum,
Quid pure tranquillet, honos an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitae.
But above all, the learned read and ask
By what means you may gently pass your age,
What lessens care, what makes thee thine own friend,
What truly calms the mind ; honour, or wealth,
Or else a private path of stealing life ?
These are questions that a man ought at least to ask
himself, whether he asks others or no, and to choose
his course of life rather by his own humour and
temper, than by common accidents, or advice of
friends ; at least if the Spanish proverb be true, That
a fool knows more in his own house, than a wise man in
another s.
For my own part, as the country life, and this part
of it more particularly, were the inclination of my
youth itself, so they are the pleasure of my age ; and
I can truly say, that among many great employments
that have fallen to my share, I have never asked or
sought for any one of them, but often endeavoured to
escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a
private scene, where a man may go his own way and
his own pace, in the common paths or circles of life.
Inter cuncta leges et percunctabere doctos
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum,
Quid curas minuat, quid te tibi reddat amicum,
Quid pure tranquillet, honos an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitae.
But above all, the learned read and ask
By what means you may gently pass your age,
What lessens care, what makes thee thine own friend,
What truly calms the mind ; honour, or wealth,
Or else a private path of stealing life ?
These are questions that a man ought at least to ask
himself, whether he asks others or no, and to choose
his course of life rather by his own humour and
temper, than by common accidents, or advice of
friends ; at least if the Spanish proverb be true, That
a fool knows more in his own house, than a wise man in
another s.