Not even for an hour can you bear to be alone, nor can you advantageously apply your leisure time, but you endeavor, a fugitive and wanderer, to escape from yourself, now vainly seeking to banish remorse by wine, and now by sleep; but the gloomy companion presses on you, and pursues you as you fly.
Justice, though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.
[Lat., Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede poena claudo.]
The body loaded by the excess of yesterday, depresses the mind also, and fixes to the ground this particle of divine breath.
[Lat., Quin corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis, animum quoque praegravat una
Atque affigit humo divinae particulam aurae.]
Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach,
So shalt thou live beyond the reach
Of adverse Fortune's pow'r;
Not always tempt the distant deep,
Nor always timorously creep
Along the treach'rous shore.