Liber parabolarum

Day struggles against night, clear sky against cloud,

Light against darkness, thriving life against death.

This is our labor, for spirit and flesh forever

Fight; and we die if the flesh should win.

The horse bears burdens, the ox plows the earth,

The sheep gives up its wool, the dog guards the fold.

All things indeed pay what their nature owes,

Except the one who has more reason than they.

The heavenly motion moves all the stars except

One; but that one remains always the same.

So the constant and faithful man will hold without end

This manner in love, which he once took up:

Phoebus is swept back from his setting to his rising,

Whom the turning machine first bore hither and thither.

So in friendship the world stands, burns and grows cold,

Falls and rises, loves what it hated more.

Safer is the place on the ground than in high towers;

He who lies on the earth has no place from which to fall.

Storms and winds, thunder and lightning overturn

Towers with their blasts, but let low things stand.

Death and life cannot dwell together at once,

Being opposites; this stands far apart from that.

So there are two things that cannot dwell in one heart:

Love of this world, and love of God.

The prone man does not fall further, just as the horse,

Bent at the knee, is thrown by the heavy load it bears.

So the man weighed down by a great mass of vices

Cannot lift himself unless the mass is set aside.

Not where the sailor wishes, but where the wind carries,

Is the ship borne, when the swollen sea's wave comes.

Not where intention points, but where fate leads,

Must everyone go; all should follow that guide.

A phantom appears to men; but again by them

It turns to nothing, having been nothing before.

So the glory of the fleeting world is present and absent;

It does not arrive before it departs, like a dream.

While it is warm, and the day is fair, the ant labors,

Lest it perish from hunger when the deep snow comes.

So the young man, while he has time fit for toil,

Should seek what weary old age may enjoy.

Not so high does the light wing lift the bird,

That it does not return again, seeking the fields it left.

Not so does the rising wheel lift those carried up on high,

That it does not, tipping, bear them down again to the depths.

The drunk man drinks before he grows sick, licks before

He vomits, before, steady on his feet, he can walk.

Not so with us; this order is not kept among us,

That we enjoy teaching before we have learned.

A thing bought under the laws of the marketplace is not bought dear;

Seller and buyer there are equal in the deal.

But there is nothing bought more dearly under heaven

Than what is bought by long, humbling prayers.

The ox chews again with worn teeth the grass,

So that, having been chewed so often, it becomes his nourishment.

So if you wish to retain your teacher's lessons,

You should recall often what you have once heard.

The wicked smith stirs up the enclosed winds

With his bellows, while the fire itself softens hard iron.

So does fury, once roused, drive the heart of the fool within,

While it renders soft strength in the contest of strife.

By the voice of hounds wild asses are kept from their hiding places,

And the boar too comes out to be tamed by the dog's tooth.

So too priests ought to seek out the sinful,

And, unless they repent, strike them with God's sword.

Wretched and rich was once King Midas, rich

In gold, but wretched in the condition of his life.

So lives every miser, the keeper of wealth,

Possessing nothing and much of what is good, at once.

The evening star shows itself first in the evening,

And makes the light by which it shines immense.

So he does not show it late, but quickly, to those in need,

Who holds the bright light of twin love.

Aeolus tempers the mighty rages of the winds,

And Neptune often tames the sea with his trident.

So must a lord make himself feared by his fierceness,

Who desires to hold the rule of a great people.

The bull whose horns are lacking stirs up wars more quickly

Than one who can strike with a horned brow.

More often in the street we see boys fighting

Than strong men, who usually have restraint.

If an impatient-minded ox is yoked to the plow,

It cuts a crooked path in plowing, not a straight one.

So there are those who often draw back those walking forward,

When they see them taking the road of light.

We see goats turn away from snow, from rain, from hail,

And sheep straining to face them head on.

Deceit, wrath, wickedness, injustice carry off the unjust,

But the just man resists them with his whole heart.

A skiff cannot lightly cross the sea

Unless there is one who forces it to run by oars.

A runner cannot bring his course to the finish line

Unless hope and foot both assist him.

He sees further who looks with many eyes

Than the man to whom only a single eye gives sight.

That is why Jove's bride Juno gave the cow to Argus

To guard, not to you, Polyphemus.

A fire that is spread widely exerts less force

Than one to which gathered torches have lent their strength.

He attacks the enemy more forcefully who gathers his strength

Than one who assails him with scattered forces.

The worst enemy is the one who, when you have done well by him,

Rises up more fiercely, waging war on you.

So, if you wish war to be waged upon you, make the flesh

Willing for it; if you wish peace, tame its neck with hunger.

Do not think all that shines as gold is gold,

Nor that every fair apple is good.

Virtue is not in the many where it seems to be;

Our eyes are deceived by their outward deeds.

Such men have more bitterness than honey in their hearts,

Whom you might think, for their simplicity, like saints.

The goat tied to a piece of wood attacks it with bites,

Since there is nothing else given to it there.

Though each man desires pleasures for himself, it is necessary

That all take only what they are able to have.

Nothing profits us more, to wish for or seek,

Than what and how much God himself wishes to give.

Springs and rivers run to Neptune's shallows,

And water runs wherever it is able to run.

Through the valleys it always loves, the wave slips down,

And flees the hills which it holds in hatred.

Those who have enough, to them more flows; to them it is borne from everywhere.

To them it is given, from them it is bought; the poor man lies destitute everywhere.

We often see the west wind turn into the north wind,

And, its name changed, this one turn back into that.

Yet I do not marvel if the weather should vary,

Since the Maker of all things himself wills it so.

But I marvel exceedingly at the wondrous, wandering hearts of men,

Why they change themselves so often, when God forbids it.

The thief suffers no different law than the captured robber,

Though the robber goes by night, the thief by day.

He sins no less who buries his wealth in a field,

Than he who shuts up his learning in his mouth.

Let it not happen that a talent entrusted is returned without profit,

Lest God's anger call us wicked servants.

There is no need of sleep for one entering the Sirens' waters,

Nor for one who by diligence wishes to guard himself from falsehoods.

He often turns his pen who ought to turn his verse,

Bites his nails, and scratches his head with a nail;

He seeks what words he may set down first, what after,

Not everyone can place words fittingly.

Thersites added no strength in numbers to the Greeks,

Lacking in valor, powerful only in chatter.

So among chessmen the bishop stands useless,

Among birds the owl, among bees the drone;

Among swimmers the zero likes to be among the figures,

And often wishes to seize first place.

A narrow isthmus separates the grief of the seas pressing close,

This water holds peace between two seas.

Bulls cannot rush together with threatening brows

While the shepherd raises his staff between them.

The Apulian people and the Lucanian people threaten war,

But the Venusian people between them forbid the rage.

In its own den the fox becomes fierce and savage,

Though it would flee before if it were outside.

A wicked, biting dog is known at the doorstep,

While it sees the help of other dogs bring force against it.

Among his own companions the wicked man is bolder

Than he is in foreign places with an enemy threatening.

We quickly lose the hare found late among

The thorn bushes, since the hare is a fleeting thing.

We lose the eel while we grip it with our hands,

Whose slipperiness deceives the hands in the stream.

So a friend once found slips away unless he is kept,

And unless mutual freedom preserves him.

A knot loosed by a single finger was never firm,

Nor is faith strong that is broken so quickly.

He will never be trustworthy who ceases to be faithful,

He who is not trustworthy will never be a friend.

From the moment two hearts come together into one breast,

It is right that hearts remain the same breast.

He is thought less sound in mind than in body, the sick man

Who strikes his doctors with a club or a sword.

Who is more insane than a blind man led along steep paths,

If he then scorns his guide in swelling bile?

Black eye salves do not heal the one-eyed man, but the bleary-eyed;

He who is once one-eyed will be nothing but one-eyed.

We do not wish to seek a knot in a bulrush where there is none,

Nor to place great weight on a weak step.

Feed the dog, your feeding will soothe him, and though you

Beat him, once beaten, he will still love his master.

Do good to a wicked servant, and always everything

You offer him you will lose, since there is no love in him.

Ridiculous is the mouse that commands mice, and who

Rules over them as if he were their king;

No less laughable is it when a slave is raised up

Against his master, when he rages with voice and hand.

Nothing is harsher than the lowborn man risen to the heights;

The ape snarls, sitting in a lofty seat.

Different remedies avail for different diseases,

As diseases vary, so these are varied too.

Learning does not impose itself on minds in one way alone;

On some, fear is used, on some, warning, on some, love.

You cannot water four-footed beasts while you strike them,

Nor does the rod force unwilling boys to study.

A small satchel holds cloth for sale,

And lies, folded many times, in a tiny space.

Who is such that the whole world does not suffice his greedy mind?

Estates of lands, glory, wealth, honor?

It is right that a little man be wholly without land,

Who alone desires to possess the whole earth.

The young lion roams the wilderness with harmless jaws,

Since it finds nothing that it can tear apart.

The serpent does not always sting, nor does it everywhere pour out

The venom which it always carries with it in its mouth.

Indeed, it would spare neither its sting nor its venom,

If there were anything present that it could harm with them.

Thorns and briars are not well drawn out from the feet,

While a small thorn stays left behind within;

The greater the delay, the more the wounds will fester,

And then they cannot be drawn out without pain.

He who draws faults from his heart, let him draw out fresh ones too,

And all of them alike, lest one alone bring death.

What good is it that a doctor has healed two hundred wounds,

If one remains by which the man dies?

A tree that spreads wide with branches, unless it is firm at its base,

Falls easily with its branches when struck by the South Wind.

But the one that has roots deep in the earth

Stands fast, and cannot be uprooted though the storm rages.

He who spreads wide the branches of fame, not the roots of merit,

Let him know that he himself will fall.

Not only to heaven does he who speaks such vain things displease,

But he displeases even the very fault itself.

Water taken from a small spring is no less sweet

Than that which is carried from a great river.

Both the jar and the cask sometimes hold Falernian wine,

Nor is the cask any better than the small jar itself.

Nor is drink any sweeter in splendid gold

Than it is in glass worth less than a penny.

Though every wretched man may bless even good things, let no one

Think base words fitting for a wretched body.

With eyes intent the kite scans the earth from the sky,

And sees scraps left behind from far away;

Though it hungers, it does not descend at once from on high,

But circles the place again and again in varied loops.

For there are those skilled at setting snares baited with food,

So that unwary birds may thus be deceived.

At last, having perceived that none of the fowler's craft is present,

It approaches safely with its claws and takes the entrails.

Not without some example do worms bred from flesh

Show to the eyes the work of what brings death;

With their teeth they attack the flesh they have taken to bite,

They seek no other, while that one still lasts them.

There is no counsel at all, unless salt can come to the rescue;

Salt applied generously bites and drives them off.

This is the way of worms; and it is not left to them alone,

There are men into whom that same fury now passes.

The guest does not praise the bird for its feathers,

Nor does the eloquent horse-dealer praise the horse for its hide;

Indeed, the same use does not run through every single thing alike,

Not every man honors clothes, not every man honors men.

New deeds establish a new custom through the ages,

So that nothing lies vile except the poor man.

The poor man does nothing well; but whatever the rich man does,

Whether good or bad, is held to be by reason.

What good is food taken, which leaves as soon as it is taken,

Nausea vexes the heart, the loosened bowels ache;

When the disease in the belly cannot bear remedies,

I think that is a sign not of life, but of death.

As the belly needs food, so the spirit needs it too,

They are not well fed, when the other has nothing.

Not all who attend schools everywhere actually learn,

For many come only to be seen there.

The ox is a calf but once, the dog itself a puppy but once,

Why is man twice a boy, who ought to be one only once?

Nature makes an old man from a boy, as the order demands,

But vice in turn makes a boy of an old man.

It is not fitting to yoke mice to a bearded man's little cart,

Nor to multiply Lalus's turns by chance;

Twice a boy is man, once a man, whom white old age subdues

Together with his failing strength and sense.

Often the mastiff snatches the sheep from the wolves' jaws,

So that he may eat the plunder himself, not let it go free;

What does it matter whether it is eaten by the wolf, the enemy, or by him,

Since the teeth of both are equally heavy!

In many things reason considers similar acts,

Of which one who has experience can speak words.

Savage Alcon defends men's property from enemies,

So that he may guard those things for himself, not for others.

It is simply forbidden for a blind man to lead a blind man,

Lest the blind man lead his own blind man into the pits;

Yet we cannot stop the madman Alanus

From wishing to lead the blind on a doubtful path.

It is not complained that his feet stumble shamefully as he goes,

But that so few follow him by night.

I marvel and wonder greatly that he takes up the road as guide,

Whom it is well known never to have known or traveled the way.

Achilles, who was hardened for war, departed

When Aegisthus entered the marriage-chamber at home.

He who lies on feathers, having suffered nothing hard in them,

Is not able, as a hardened man would be, to endure evil.

The weary cheek changes color with rains and winds,

And tender skin is easily burned by the sun.

A shoulder accustomed to soft things does not bear a shield well,

Nor does an oiled hand hold a sword firmly.

Not every companion is faithful, not every heart

Is true; I do not wish to join myself to everyone.

Whoever wishes to be my companion, let him become, not another, but

The same as I; for it is not enough to be another self.

Should I keep as a companion one who knows what I do not know, or one who,

When I ask, has that which I do not have?

A learned companion deliberates all things with his companion,

When two hearts agree in harmony with each other.

Tomorrow-man puts off everything in his thankless way,

And from one "tomorrow" makes a thousand tomorrows for me.

Why does he not multiply today, who multiplies tomorrow?

Does not each day mark its own sun?

After today there is usually a tomorrow, brought back with the sun,

But that tomorrow does not hold what he promises me;

That tomorrow will never come, nor will the sun rise on it,

Since his tomorrow to come has no end.

Not worthy of tending are all the fields that are tended

In the world, nor the vineyard dug by every hand.

What good is it to plow the soil, or dig the vine,

When this bears no fruit, that no wine at all?

Let the barren field lie fallow, uncultivated; let

The vine also lie fallow, never to be harvested by me.

By like reason I hold that the giver ought to cease,

Who cultivates the unworthy and hands over his goods to them.

He who gives to the worthy sows and reaps, joins and increases;

But to the unworthy, what is given is wholly lost.

The ass makes us laugh, when in the manner of a lion

He is depicted; and the sly fox forces the same.

Let this one strip off the skin in which he thinks himself a lion,

So that, bearing his burden patiently, he may follow his master's commands.

And I urge that the fox rest content beneath its own skin,

Lest it provoke laughter, exulting in a lion's hide.

Puffing itself up, the frog wished to be equal to the ox,

To avenge her young whom he had crushed underfoot in the water;

But the little frog burst before the ox swore

That it could ever be made equal to him.

Drusus hastens to shave his rising beard,

Lest its shadow harm his bleary cheek by night;

He sets up a mirror, and as the mirror shows what remains,

He removes hairs with shears, and with scissors too;

And lest an itch take hold of his head, at every hour

He keeps a washer-woman ready to wash it.

Besides, he provides water for faces and hands

Every day, and cleanses the floor, covered with dust, with brooms.

This he does on the outside, but he gathers filth within,

Nor does he trouble to scrape away what grows there.

It is fitting that the hand be washed very clean beforehand,

Which presumes to wash the vessels of God;

A clean hand makes clean the vessel it washes;

A dirty one makes it dirtier than it was before.

Touched by mud, the drawn-up hem gathers filth to itself,

And what was white before suddenly turns black.

He does not rightly reproach me for having warts,

Who spares himself while carrying his own boils.

Let him first free himself, full of ulcers as he is,

And afterward let him laugh at my warts.

No one can throw down a strong boxer in a grapple,

Unless, willing to wrestle, he engages him.

Never would the walls of beautiful Troy have fallen,

Had not the labor been begun by which they fell.

Let whoever desires to be good and pious begin;

He who has begun well has half the deed done.

How will a work be done, unless it is first begun?

It is agreed that all things have their beginning.

Fortune favors the bold; nothing terrifies a bold, great heart;

Whatever the mind shrinks from has no power over it.

A great camel, hindered by its hump, cannot

Pass through the small, narrow eye of a needle;

Nor does the gate of heaven let the wealthy man pass through,

While the burden of his riches forces the wretched man to halt.

Why does man, with so perverse a heart, seek the death of his soul,

Why does he grasp at what takes away his own life to live?

Happy is the poor man whom his own will makes poor;

There is nothing to weigh down his back when he seeks the heights;

No robber, no bandit, no cunning thief lies in ambush for him,

While he travels the roads he has taken without fear.

A thousand roads lead men through the ages to Rome,

Who wish to seek the Lord with their whole heart;

There is a road that leads straight through high mountains,

Heavy with brambles and thorns in its steepness;

There is also a certain path which harsh gravel

Roughens, and daily wears at the soles of the feet;

There is a road through the sea, a road through deserts, through the deepest

Valleys, through crags, through places hard on the foot;

Through woodland and hidden places, through the fearsome lairs of wild beasts,

Through thorns, briars, through muddy shallows.

The raven always gapes, and always seeks out carcasses,

It always loves death, and death too feeds it.

Him whom his own weakness, and old age itself, oppress,

It gladdens, when he himself thinks he is dying.

Not only does the raven lie in wait for the dying,

The greatest part of men now does that very same thing.

The son wishes his father's death before its day, that he may become

His heir, and lay hold by law of his wretched wealth.

Ah, the sorrow! that grief and that crime pass even into the clergy;

This one buys the church, while another holds it.

The ox is struck twice, twice feels the sharp goad,

If he kicks back against his own spur;

The iron makes two wounds from one wound,

The later blow will be worse than the first.

Why then do servants, created to obey their master,

Raise arms in rage of heart against their master?

This fury, this rage, this indignation offers

Laughter, and seeks to possess a hateful evil.

While he held his head bowed at his master's raging,

Davus escaped his master's chains with difficulty.

There is no measure in the immoderate madman,

While he gives to the abyss whatever he can have.

The miser exceeds the norm of reason no less,

While, spending nothing, he always heaps up wealth.

Let no one follow either of these, since both are vicious;

There is a road which virtue teaches between the two.

This one is a dog, that one a wolf, though each devours the flesh,

As the wolf hides it, or the dog likewise hides his wealth.

Let him who cares to walk the path of life avoid,

With opposing fronts, crimes that war against each other.

If anyone takes care to plow his little field for profit,

And afterward entrust his seed to it,

Let him first uproot the thorns that harm the crops,

And cut with a sickle the brambles, if any are there.

Ferns too are harmful; he strives to destroy the harmful ferns

Who wishes to purify his crops.

No field brings forth anything but what its seed provides;

Filth springs up where the dung runs riot.

Watchful care tends fields well, while neglect indeed

Renders them barren; whence the poet says:

On neglected fields the fern grows up to be burned.

By the fern he denotes a man's own vice.

That man does not know what sweetness sweet food holds,

Who has never learned what hunger itself might be.

After the burning of thirst, after hunger, these two things

Are very sweet to us: drink itself, and food.

Honey clings more sweetly to the human palate,

If a bad taste has bitten it beforehand.

He who suffers cold reveres warm garments,

He who has suffered great illness rejoices at the lot of health.

Let him who considers the false goods of earth alone, and the goods of heaven,

Set the false ones wholly aside, and seek the true goods.

Let him strip his heart of the world's unlawful things and mischances,

Who wishes to secure a place beforehand in the heavens.

That man does not live well whom anxiety over things

Torments, and whom fear wears out night and day.

He does not sleep securely who fears to lose his life

Along with the things which he himself possesses.

Whence we read that by an example a king showed

That he was not (as his servant said) happy:

Led to the table, above his own head a sword

Hung, held barely by a thin thread;

He ordered him to eat, along with the feast; but he

Did not dare, since he saw death on every side;

So he said: this is my case, always fearing a fall and a mischance,

To die, for certain, either by my own hand or an enemy's.

A bad companion draws his companion to bad deeds, and thus

He who was formerly good becomes bad and worthless.

Nor is it any wonder, since hope runs swifter toward evil

Than toward that work which God wishes to be done.

A weight seeks the depths more easily than it rises to the heights,

Which oxen's necks can scarcely drag from the ground;

Are not oxen who draw carts sometimes drawn themselves,

While the wheel, moved on a downward path, rushes on;

While this one pulls upward as much as he is able, that other pulls downward,

This one hinders him, and he often falls backward.

For a path taken from a lofty summit is more prone

Than one that climbs back up from a sunken valley.

If a wild beast, a stranger to the woods, should by chance show

Rabies among a crowd, will it not perish there?

Do they not die by the bites of serpents, those

Whom the road or chance draws in among them?

Who but a serpent associates with serpents,

Since they sting grievously whatever clings to them?

Flowers wither, and grasses are killed

Which poisons, poured out by mere touch, burn away.

The Marsian people place their children in doubt among these,

Wishing to know in this way whether they are truly born of them;

For it is said that serpents spare only those,

While with the charms of their mouth they befriend them.

While you are able to bend, or straighten a bent twig,

See that the young plant is trained to your liking.

When it has grown old and set firm in great strength,

You will not easily bend that imperial head.

Again, if you allow a bent thing to rise up first crooked,

It will always remain as crooked as it was at first.

So while man is a boy, let him be taught to hold to what is right,

Lest he steep his heart in the evils he grows used to.

However much the potter may change wet clay,

He cannot impose a new shape on it once dry.

The young hound barks at a deer's hide throughout the house

At first, so that, once trained, it may be able to enter the woods.

You will see three kinds of servants serving in three ways,

Not three at once to one master, but rather to three different ones.

For there is one who, trusting in the wage of the life to come,

Submits himself to the commands and service of God:

This one is not a slave, since he who bears the reins of wholesome

Justice will be free and exalted.

There is also one who obeys, subject to a wretched little man,

As once the first fathers established it;

Yet the imperious master does not wholly subjugate this one to himself,

The inner man is not held bound by chains.

The third is a slave, who always obeys vice,

Who now thinks he stands, now falls, seeking the depths.

What remains certain for him, but death and death's own image?

This always follows him; this holds him, and this drags him on.

This one lives wholly a slave in both ways.

So that a wall may be made level by the plumb-line, it is needful,

Lest the house collapse when this very thing fails.

How can the frame of a tottering wall stand,

If a weak foundation fails under its burden?

By like reason, if anyone strives toward the lofty arts,

He must know in his heart that he needs the elementary parts first.

The ancient poets learned the elementary parts before the arts,

And for that reason they earned great honor.

First writing plain prose, and afterward composing verse.

Reaching out, they placed their hands beneath the rod;

Wisdom, once they were steeped in these elements, led them to Athens,

By constantly frequenting the crossroads of the quadrivium.

Restrain your unlawful passions, pitiable boy,

Know that the enemy stirs them up to bring about death.

Take your mind away from these things, and look upon their wretched sorrows;

Other things must be pondered by you more than these.

Be mindful that you will be dust, that you will be food for worms,

When you will lie rotting in the cold earth.

There will be no one in the world who will wish to look on you further,

When your flesh, more foul than a dog's, lies broken.

Why do you cut off your own head with your own sword, why do you willingly

Run into the demon's chains? Why do you do his bidding?

Stand firm against the passions that constantly rise up,

And let him not overcome you who thinks to overcome you thus.

Alas! why does man seek so much while he passes like a shadow,

Why does he carry pride, who is and will be ash?

Why does he desire, and fear, and why does he try to subject

All things to himself? Why does he always seek to live here?

Not so, no; since that expectation perishes again and again,

The dew falls, and life rushes back down to its depths;

So stands man; or tell me by what deed the rest holds firm,

What more are they? Each thing is vain, and each is nothing.