For as there are in plants at one time seasons of fruitage and at another
time seasons of unfruitfulness, and in animals at one time fecundity and at
another time barrenness, and on the sea both fair weather and storm, so also
in life many diverse circumstances occur which bring about a reversal of
human fortunes. As one contemplates these reversals he might say not
inappropriately :
Not for good and no ill came thy
life from thy sire, Agamemnon, but joy Thou shalt find interwoven with
grief; For a mortal thou art. Though against thy desire Yet the plans of
the gods will so have it.1
and the words of Menander
2:
[p. 117]
If you alone, young master, at your birth Had
gained the right to do whate'er you would Throughout your life, and ever
be in luck, And if some god agreed to this with you, Then you have right
to feel aggrieved. He has Deceived and strangely treated you. But if
Upon the selfsame terms as we, you drew The primal breath of universal
life (To speak you somewhat in the tragic style), You must endure this
better, and use sense. To sum up all I say, you are a man, Than which no
thing that lives can swifter be Exalted high and straight brought low
again. And rightly so; for though of puny frame, He yet doth handle many
vast affairs, And, falling, ruins great prosperity. But you, young
master, have not forfeited Surpassing good, and these your present ills
But moderate are ; so bear without excess What Fortune may hereafter
bring to you.
But, in spite of this condition of affairs, some
persons, through their foolishness, are so silly and conceited, that, when
only a little exalted, either because of abundance of money, or importance
of office, or petty political preferments, or because of position and
repute, they threaten and insult those in lower station, not bearing in mind
the uncertainty and inconstancy of fortune, nor yet the fact that the lofty
is easily brought low and the humble in turn is exalted, transposed by the
swift-moving changes of fortune. Therefore to try to find any constancy in
what is inconstant is a trait of people who do not rightly reason about the
circumstances of life. For
[p. 119]
The wheel goes round, and of the rim now one And
now another part is at the top.3
