Liber parabolarum

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.