XXXI
In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and whatever you shall have given to the body you soon eject: but what you shall have given to the soul, you keep always.
XXXII
Do not mix anger with profuse expenditure and serve them up to your guests. Profusion which fills the body is quickly gone; but anger sinks into the soul and remains for a long time. Consider then that you be not transported with anger and insult your guests at a great expense; but rather please them with frugality and by gentle behaviour.51
XXXIII
In your banquets (meals) take care that those who serve (your slaves) are not more than those who are served; for it is foolish for many souls (persons) to wait on a few couches (seats).
XXXIV
It is best if even in the preparations for a feast you take a part of the labour, and at the enjoyment of the food, while you are feasting, you share with those who serve the things which are before you. But if such behaviour be unsuitable to the occasion, remember that you are served when you are not labouring by those who are labouring, when you are eating by those who are not eating, when you are drinking by those who are not drinking, while you are talking by those who are silent, while you are at ease by those who are under constraint; and if you remember this, you will neither being heated with anger be guilty of any absurdity yourself, nor by irritating another will you cause any mischief.52
XXXV
Quarrelling and contention are everywhere foolish, and particularly in talk over wine they are unbecoming: for a man who is drunk could not teach a man who is sober, nor on the other hand could a drunken man be convinced by a sober man. But where there is not sobriety, it will appear that to no purpose have you laboured for the result of persuasion.53
XXXVI
Grasshoppers (cicadae) are musical: snails have no voice. Snails have pleasure in being moist, but grasshoppers in being dry. Next the dew invites forth the snails and for this they crawl out: but on the contrary the sun when he is hot, rouses the grasshoppers and they sing in the sun. Therefore if you wish to be a musical man and to harmonize well with others, when over the cups the soul is bedewed with wine, at that time do not permit the soul to go forth and to be polluted; but when in company (parties) it is fired by reason, then bid her to utter oracular words and to sing the oracles of justice.
XXXVII
Examine in three ways him who is talking with you, as superior, or as inferior, or as equal: and if he is superior, you should listen to him and be convinced by him: but if he is inferior, you should convince him; if he is equal, you should agree with him; and thus you will never be guilty of being quarrelsome.
XXXVIII
It is better by assenting to truth to conquer opinion, than by assenting to opinion to be conquered by truth.
XXXIX
If you seek truth, you will not seek by every means to gain a victory; and if you have found truth, you will have the gain of not being defeated.
XL
Truth conquers with itself; but opinion conquers among those who are external.54
XLI
It is better to live with one free man and to be without fear and free, than to be a slave with many.
XLII
What you avoid suffering, do not attempt to make others suffer. You avoid slavery: take care that others are not your slaves. For if you endure to have a slave, you appear to be a slave yourself first. For vice has no community with virtue, nor freedom with slavery.
XLIII
As he who is in health would not choose to be served (ministered to) by the sick, nor for those who dwell with him to be sick, so neither would a free man endure to be served by slaves, or for those who live with him to be slaves.
XLIV
Whoever you are who wish to be not among the number of slaves, release yourself from slavery: and you will be free, if you are released from desire. For neither Aristides nor Epaminondas nor Lycurgus through being rich and served by slaves were named the one just, the other a god, and the third a saviour, but because they were poor and delivered Hellas (Greece) from slavery.55
XLV
If you wish your house to be well managed, imitate the Spartan Lycurgus. For as he did not fence his city with walls, but fortified the inhabitants by virtue and preserved the city always free;56 so do you not cast around (your house) a large court and raise high towers, but strengthen the dwellers by good will and fidelity and friendship, and then nothing harmful will enter it, not even if the whole band of wickedness shall array itself against it.
XLVI
Do not hang your house round with tablets and pictures, but decorate it with moderation (σωφροσύνη): for the one is of a foreign (unsuitable) kind, and a temporary deception of the eyes; but the other is a natural and indelible, and perpetual ornament of the house.
XLVII
Instead of an herd of oxen,
