enjoyment of them. If I want skill or force to restrain the beast
that I ride upon, though I bought it, and call it my own, yet in the
truth of the matter I am at that time rather his man than he my
horse. The voluptuous men (whom we are fallen upon) may be divided,
I think, into the lustful and luxurious, who are both servants of
the belly; the other whom we spoke of before, the ambitious and the
covetous, were [Greek text], evil wild beasts; these are [Greek
text], slow bellies, as our translation renders it; but the word
[Greek text] (which is a fantastical word with two directly opposite
significations) will bear as well the translation of quick or
diligent bellies, and both interpretations may be applied to these
men. Metrodorus said, "That he had learnt [Greek text], to give his
belly just thanks for all his pleasures." This by the calumniators
of Epicurus his philosophy was objected as one of the most
scandalous of all their sayings, which, according to my charitable
understanding, may admit a very virtuous sense, which is, that he
thanked his own belly for that moderation in the customary appetites
of it, which can only give a man liberty and happiness in this
world. Let this suffice at present to be spoken of those great
trinmviri of the world; the covetous man, who is a mean villain,
like Lepidus; the ambitious, who is a brave one, like Octavius; and
the voluptuous, who is a loose and debauched one, like Mark Antony.
Quisnam igitur Liber? Sapiens, sibi qui Imperiosus. Not Oenomaus,
who commits himself wholly to a charioteer that may break his neck,
but the man


Who governs his own course with steady hand,
Who does himself with sovereign power command;
Whom neither death nor poverty does fright,