I ne'er thought honesty an ass till this day.

VER. This world is transitory; it was made of nothing, and it must to
nothing: wherefore, if we will do the will of our high Creator, whose
will it is that it pass to nothing, we must help to consume it to
nothing. Gold is more vile than men: men die in thousands and ten
thousands, yea, many times in hundred thousands, in one battle. If then
the best husband has been so liberal of his best handiwork, to what end
should we make much of a glittering excrement, or doubt to spend at a
banquet as many pounds as he spends men at a battle? Methinks I honour
_Geta_, the Roman emperor, for a brave-minded fellow; for he commanded a
banquet to be made him of all meats under the sun, which were served in
after the order of the alphabet, and the clerk of the kitchen, following
the last dish, which was two miles off from the foremost, brought him an
index of their several names. Neither did he pingle, when it was set on
the board, but for the space of three days and three nights never rose
from the table.

WILL SUM. O intolerable lying villain, that was never begotten without
the consent of a whetstone![32]

SUM. Ungracious man, how fondly he argueth!

VER. Tell me, I pray, wherefore was gold laid under our feet in the
veins of the earth, but that we should contemn it, and tread upon it,
and so consequently tread thrift under our feet? It was not known till
the iron age, _donec facinus invasit mortales_, as the poet says; and
the Scythians always detested it. I will prove it that an unthrift, of
any, comes nearest a happy man, in so much as he comes nearest to
beggary. Cicero saith, _summum bonum_ consists in _omnium rerum