Nam miserum est patria amissa, laribusque vagari Mendicum, et timida voce rogare cibos:
Omnibus invisus, quocunque accesserit exul Semper erit, semper spretus egensque jacet, &c.
A miserable thing 'tis so to wander, And like a beggar for to whine at door,
Contemn'd of all the world, an exile is, Hated, rejected, needy still and poor.
Polynices in his conference with Jocasta in [2385]Euripides, reckons up five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to deject some pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling of our own infirmities or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel us up; as if we be long sick: O beata sanitas, te praesente, amaenum Ver florit gratiis, absque te nemo beatus:
O blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure, Ecclus. xxx. 15, the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss, without thee there can be no happiness: or visited with some loathsome disease, offensive to others, or troublesome to ourselves; as a stinking breath, deformity of our limbs, crookedness, loss of an eye, leg, hand, paleness, leanness, redness, baldness, loss or want of hair, &c., hic ubi fluere caepit, diros ictus cordi infert, saith [2386]Synesius, he himself troubled not a little ob comae defectum, the loss of hair alone, strikes a cruel stroke to the heart. Acco, an old woman, seeing by chance her face in a true glass (for she used false flattering glasses belike at other times, as most gentlewomen do,) animi dolore in insaniam delapsa est, (Caelius Rhodiginus l. 17, c. 2,) ran mad. [2387]Brotheus, the son of Vulcan, because he was ridiculous for his imperfections, flung himself into the fire. Lais of Corinth, now grown old, gave up her glass to Venus, for she could hot abide to look upon it. [2388]Qualis sum nolo, qualis eram nequeo. Generally to fair nice pieces, old age and foul linen are two most odious things, a torment of torments, they may not abide the thought of it, [2389]———o deorum Quisquis haec audis, utinam inter errem
Antequam turpis macies decentes Occupet malas, teneraeque succus Defluat praedae, speciosa quaerro
Hear me, some gracious heavenly power, Let lions dire this naked corse devour. My cheeks ere hollow wrinkles seize. Ere yet their rosy bloom decays: While youth yet rolls its vital flood, Let tigers friendly riot in my blood.