you, Heracles, how hard and long the road is by which yonder woman
would escort you to her festal joys.[37] But I will guide you by a
short and easy road to happiness.'

[37] Hesiod, "Theog." 909; Milton, "L'Allegro," 12.

"Then spoke Virtue: 'Nay, wretched one, what good thing hast thou? or
what sweet thing art thou acquainted with--that wilt stir neither hand
nor foot to gain it? Thou, that mayest not even await the desire of
pleasure, but, or ever that desire springs up, art already satiated;
eating before thou hungerest, and drinking before thou thirsteth; who
to eke out an appetite must invent an army of cooks and confectioners;
and to whet thy thirst must lay down costliest wines, and run up and
down in search of ice in summer-time; to help thy slumbers soft
coverlets suffice not, but couches and feather-beds must be prepared
thee and rockers to rock thee to rest; since desire for sleep in thy
case springs not from toil but from vacuity and nothing in the world
to do. Even the natural appetite of love thou forcest prematurely by
every means thou mayest devise, confounding the sexes in thy service.
Thus thou educatest thy friends: with insult in the night season and
drowse of slumber during the precious hours of the day. Immortal, thou
art cast forth from the company of gods, and by good men art
dishonoured: that sweetest sound of all, the voice of praise, has
never thrilled thine ears; and the fairest of all fair visions is
hidden from thine eyes that have never beheld one bounteous deed
wrought by thine own hand. If thou openest thy lips in speech, who
will believe thy word? If thou hast need of aught, none shall satisfy
thee. What sane man will venture to join thy rablle rout? Ill indeed
are thy revellers to look upon, young men impotent of body, and old
men witless in mind: in the heyday of life they batten in sleek