It should be one's chief aim, commencing life,
To get a home before he gets a wife,
And have his farm well stocked with useful tools,
Plows, wagons, carts, and cattle, horses, mules.
All needful implements he should provide,
And household comforts for his future bride,
Lest, homesick, she too oft, (a foe to mirth,)
Pine for the old, the dear paternal hearth.
For nothing checks the strange desire to roam,
Or cures homesickness, like a thrifty home.
Also, a lad to chore, a man to plow,
And servant girl to cook, and milk the cow;
A mastiff, too, his midnight watch to keep
On prowling thieves, when you are fast asleep.
When, thus prepared, you reach the marrying age,[1]
Set springes for your bird; you have the cage.
Let her who shares the fortunes of thy bed
And board, thine equal be; let equals wed.
Or, if not equals, and good sense approve,
Then wed below thy means, but not above.
Should you spurn this advice and seek to hatch
Yourself a fortune by a splendid match,—
Leave thy own tilth to sow and reap itself,
While thou go'st gambling for another's pelf,—
Thou mightst get jilted and, in hopeless age
And disappointment, reap a gambler's wage.
Ev'n though thou win and to thy little store
Add acres vast and thousands, score on score,
Thou barter'st freedom for a gilded noose,—
Whose yoke so galling as a wealthy shrew's?
- ↑ That is, according to Hesiod, about thirty. See Note (a).
