De Institutione Viri Boni

De Institutione Viri Boni

The good and wise man, such as Apollo, consulted, scarcely found one among all the thousands of men, himself the judge of himself, explores his whole self to the fingernail, caring neither what the nobles think nor what the light opinion of the vain crowd, untroubled, bearing the likeness of the universe, polished and round, that nothing of outward stain may settle through his smooth surface. He ponders how long the day will be beneath the star of Cancer, and how great a night stretches itself out in tropic Capricorn, and weighs himself in the just balance of the scale, that nothing gape, that nothing jut out, that the angle meet with even sides, that the level-line nowhere swerve, that whatever lies beneath be solid, and no hollows below, not letting his eyes sink into sweet sleep before he has reckoned up all the doings of the long day: where he overstepped, what was done in due season, what not, why grace was wanting to this deed, or reason to that, what I have left undone, why this opinion has settled in me

which it had been better to change. Pitying the needy, why did I feel a grief with broken mind? What did I wish that it would be good not to wish? The useful before the honourable, why, bad as I am, did I set first? Was anyone by word, or in the end by look, grazed? Why does nature draw me more than discipline does? Thus, going over his words and deeds through all things, and, beginning, recalling all from the evening's rising, offended at the crooked, he gives the palm and the rewards to the right.