om very th you; ncreased of eating y person ared war d degree -e pleas For my s delight er of our of the ophon, immer, ractices es also, prolong r as we sibility neither ess you an invene g bet ess, as of such -ithout pre de vet he y that enjoy enjoy: ment of those very pleasures, in the first place they a but petty objects which it enjoys, as I have said befor then they are those of which old age, if it does not abur antly possess them, is not altogether destitute. As he more delighted with Turpio Ambivius, who is specta on the foremost bench,1 yet he also is delighted who is the hindmost; so youth having a close view of pleasu is perhaps more gratified; but old age is as much lighted as is necessary in viewing them at a distan But of what high value are the following circumstanc that the soul, after it has served out, as it were, its ti under lust, ambition, contention, enmities, and all t passions, shall retire within itself, and, as the phrase live with itself? But if it has, as it were, food for stu and learning, nothing is more delightful than an old a of leisure. I saw Caius Gallus, the intimate friend of yo father, Scipio, almost expiring in the employment of c culating the sky and the earth. How often did daylig overtake him when he had begun to draw some figure night, how often did night when he had begun in t morning? How it did delight him to predict to us t eclipses of the sun and the moon long before their occ rence! What shall we say in the case of pursuits 1 dignified, yet, notwithstanding, requiring acutenes How Nævius did delight in his Punic war! how Plauti in his Truculentus! how in his Pseudolus! I saw also t old man Livy,' who, though he had brought a play up the stage six years before I was born, in the consulsh of Cento and Tuditanus, yet advanced in age even to t 1 rima caved. The theater was of a semicircular form: the forem rows next the stage were called orchestra; fourteen rows behind them w assigned to the knights, the rest to the people. The whole was frequen called cavea. 2 Livius Andronicus flourished at Rome about 240 Christian era. years before time of my youth. Why should I speak of P nius Crassus's study both of pontifical and civil the present Publius Scipio, who within thes was created chief pontiff? Yet we have see persons whom I have mentioned, ardent in the when old men. But as to Marcus Cethegus, wh rightly called the "marrow of persuasion," great zeal did we see him engage in the pract tory, even when an old man! What pleasures, arising from banquets, or plays, or harlots, are pared with these pleasures? And these, indee pursuits of learning, which too, with the sensibl educated, increase along with their age: so that saying of Solon, when he says in a certain v observed before, that he grew old learning ma every day-than which pleasure of the mind, none can be greater. XV. I come now to the pleasures of husband which I am excessively delighted; which are no by any old age, and appear in my mind to nearest approach to the life of a wise man.1 For relation to the earth, which never refuses comm never returns without interest that which it hath but sometimes with less, generally with very great And yet for my part it is not only the product virtue and nature of the earth itself delights me when in its softened and subdued bosom it has the scattered seed, first of all confines what i within it, from which harrowing, which produ 1 "God Almighty first planted a garden; and indeed it is th human pleasures; it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of: out which buildings and palaces are but gross handy-works, and a ever see, that, when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men co CHAP. XV. lius Lici w? or of Few days th what e of oraerefore, be comare the and well a noble se, as I things rtainly, n, with hecked ke the ey have nd, and eived; terest. ut the which, ceived idden s that urest of an shall to build er per effect, derives its name (occatio); then, when it is warmed by heat and its own compression, it spreads it out, and elicits from it the verdant blade, which, supported by th fibers of the roots, gradually grows up, and, rising on jointed stalk, is now inclosed in a sheath, as if it were. o tender age, out of which, when it hath shot up, it ther pours forth the fruit of the ear, piled in due order, and i guarded by a rampart of beards against the pecking of the smaller birds. Why should I, in the case of vines, tell o the plantings, the risings, the stages of growth? Tha you may know the repose and amusement of my old age I assure you that I can never have enough of that gratifi cation. For I pass over the peculiar nature of all thing which are produced from the earth: which generates such great trunks and branches from so small a grain of the fi or from the grape-stone, or from the minutest seeds o other fruits and roots: shoots, plants, twigs, quicksets layers, do not these produce the effect of delighting an one even to admiration? The vine, indeed, which bị nature is prone to fall, and is borne down to the ground unless it be propped, in order to raise itself up, embrace with its tendrils, as it were with hands, whatever it meet with; which, as it creeps with manifold and wanderin course, the skill of the husbandmen, pruning with th knife, restrains from running into a forest of twigs, an spreading too far in all directions. Accordingly, in th beginning of spring, in those twigs which are left, ther rises up as it were at the joints of the branches tha which is called a bud, from which the nascent grape show itself; which, increasing in size by the moisture of th earth and the heat of the sun, is at first very acid to th taste, and then as it ripens grows sweet, and being clothe with its large leaves does not want moderate warmth, and yet keeps off the excessive heat of the sun; what can be in fruit on the one hand more ric other hand more beautiful in appearance? O only the advantage, as I said before, but also t tion and the nature itself delights me: the row the joining of the heads, the tying up and proj vines, and the pruning of some twigs, and the others, which I have mentioned. Why should irrigations, why to the diggings of the ground, trenching by which the ground is made much ductive? Why should I speak of the advantage ing? I have treated of it in that book which I specting rural affairs, concerning which the learn has not said a single word, though he has writ the cultivation of the land. But Homer, who, a to me, lived many ages before, introduces Laer ing the regret which he felt for his son, by tilling and manuring it. Nor indeed is rural life delis reason of corn-fields only and meadows and viney groves, but also for its gardens and orchards; als feeding of cattle, the swarms of bees, and the v all kinds of flowers. Nor do plantings' only giv light, but also engraftings; than which agricul invented nothing more ingenious. XVI. I can enumerate many amusements of rus but even those things which I have mentioned, I to have been rather long. But you will forgive both from my love of rural life I have been carrie 1 I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden, as one of innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at rest. It great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and umerable subiects for meditation ". Spectator No 477 an which or on the which not - cultiva of props, gation of afting of allude to y to the ore pro- rote re- appears he land ful by ds and for the ety of ne de e has life; ceive ; for way, e most r first nness s us a ggests hing. and old age is by nature rather talkative, that I may no appear to vindicate it from all failings. In such a life the as this, Marcus Curius,' after he had triumphed over th Samnites, over the Sabines, over Pyrrhus, spent the closin period of his existence. In contemplating whose count seat, too (for it is not far distant from my house), I ca not sufficiently admire either the continence of the ma himself, or the moral character of the times. When the Samnites had brought a great quantity of go to Curius as he sat by his fire-side, they were repelled wi disdain by him; for he said that it did not appear to hi glorious to possess gold, but to have power over tho who possessed gold. Could so great a soul fail in rende ing old age pleasant? But I come to husbandmen, that may not digress from myself. In the country at that tim there were senators, and they, too, old men: inasmuch Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus was at the plow when it w announced to him that he was made dictator: by who command when dictator, Caius Servilius Ahala, the mast of the horse, arrested and put to death Spurius Meliu who was aspiring to kingly power. From their count house, Curius and other old men were summoned to th senate, from which cause they who summoned them we termed "viatores." Was then their old age to be pitie who amused themselves in the cultivation of land?] my opinion, indeed, I know not whether any other ca be more happy: and not only in the discharge of dut because to the whole race of mankind the cultivation the land is beneficial; but also from the amusement, whic I have mentioned, and that fullness and abundance of a things which are connected with the food of men, a 1 Curius Dentatus Marcus Annius, celebrated for his fortitude and f gality. He was thrice consul, and twice honored with a triumph. |