Liber parabolarum

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.