avoid that imputation.[3] For with the incontinent man it is not as
with the self-seeker and the covetous. These may at any rate be held
to enrich themselves in depriving others. But the intemperate man
cannot claim in like fashion to be a blessing to himself if a curse to
his neighbours; nay, the mischief which he may cause to others is
nothing by comparison with that which redounds against himself, since
it is the height of mischief to ruin--I do not say one's own house and
property--but one's own body and one's own soul. Or to take an example
from social intercourse, no one cares for a guest who evidently takes
more pleasure in the wine and the viands than in the friends beside
him--who stints his comrades of the affection due to them to dote upon
a mistress. Does it not come to this, that every honest man is bound
to look upon self-restraint as the very corner-stone of virtue:[4]
which he should seek to lay down as the basis and foundation of his
soul? Without self-restraint who can lay any good lesson to heart or
practise it when learnt in any degree worth speaking of? Or, to put it
conversely, what slave of pleasure will not suffer degeneracy of soul
and body? By Hera,[5] well may every free man pray to be saved from
the service of such a slave; and well too may he who is in bondage to
such pleasures supplicate Heaven to send him good masters, seeing that
is the one hope of salvation left him."

[1] Lit. "a beautiful and brave possesion."

[2] {proubibaze}.

[3] Or, "how should the master himself beware lest he fall into that
category."

[4] {krepida}. See Pind. "Pyth." iv. 138; ib. vii. 3; ib. fr. 93.