PLINY THE ELDER – NATURAL HISTORY
Pliny. Natural History, Volume I: Books 1-2. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 330. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20161229101439/http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm
BOOK II
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V. For this reason I deem it a mark of human weakness to seek to discover the shape and form of God. Whoever God is—provided there is a God—and in whatever region he is, he consists wholly of sense, sight and hearing, wholly of soul, wholly of mind, wholly of himself. To believe in gods without number, and gods corresponding to men’s vices as well as to their virtues, like the Goddesses of Modesty, Concord, Intelligence, Hope, Honour, Mercy and Faith—or else, as Democritus held, only two, Punishment and Reward, reaches an even greater height of folly. Frail, toiling mortality, remembering its own weakness, has divided such deities into groups, so as to worship in sections, each the deity he is most in need of. Consequently different races have different names for the deities, and we find countless deities in the same races, even those of the lower world being classified into groups, and diseases and also many forms of plague, in our nervous anxiety to get them placated. Because of this there is actually a Temple of Fever consecrated by the nation on the Palatine Hill, and one of Bereavement at the Temple of the Household Deities, and an Altar of Misfortune on the Esquiline. For this reason we can infer a larger population of celestials than of human beings, as individuals also make an equal number of gods on their own, by adopting their own private Junos and Genii; while certain nations have animals, even some loathsome ones, for gods, and many things still more disgraceful to tell of—swearing by rotten articles of food and other things of that sort. To believe even in marriages taking place between gods, without anybody all through the long ages of time being born as a result of them, and that some are always old and grey, others youths and boys, and gods with dusky complexions, winged, lame, born from eggs, living and dying on alternate days—this almost ranks with the mad fancies of children; but it passes all bounds of shamelessness to invent acts of adultery taking place between the gods themselves, followed by altercation and enmity, and the existence of deities of theft and of crime. For mortal to aid mortal—this is god; and this is the road to eternal glory: by this road went our Roman chieftains… To enrol such men among the deities is the most ancient method of paying them gratitude for their benefactions. In fact the names of the other gods, and also of the stars that I have mentioned above, originated from the services of men: at all events who would not admit that it is the interpretation of men’s characters that prompts them to call each other Jupiter or Mercury or other names, and that originates the nomenclature of heaven? That that supreme being, whatever it be, pays heed to man’s affairs is a ridiculous notion. Can we believe that it would not be defiled by so gloomy and so multifarious a duty? Can we doubt it? It is scarcely pertinent to determine which is more profitable for the human race, when some men pay no regard to the gods at all and the regard paid by others is of a shameful nature: they serve as the lackeys of foreign ritual, and they carry gods on their fingers; also they pass sentence of punishment upon the monsters they worship, and devise elaborate viands for them; they subject themselves to awful tyrannies, so as to find no repose even in sleep; they do not decide on marriage or having a family or indeed anything else except by the command of sacrifices; others cheat in the very Capitol and swear false oaths by Jupiter who wields the thunderbolts—and these indeed make a profit out of their crimes, whereas the others are penalized by their religious observances.
Nevertheless mortality has rendered our guesses about God even more obscure by inventing for itself a deity intermediate between these two conceptions. Everywhere in the whole world at every hour by all men’s voices Fortune alone is invoked and named, alone accused, alone impeached, alone pondered, alone applauded, alone rebuked and visited with reproaches; deemed volatile and indeed by most men blind as well, wayward, inconstant, uncertain, fickle in her favours and favouring the unworthy. To her is debited all that is spent and credited all that is received, she alone fills both pages in the whole of mortals’ account; and we are so much at the mercy of chance that Chance herself, by whom God is proved uncertain, takes the place of God. Another set of people banishes fortune also, and attributes events to its star and to the laws of birth, holding that for all men that ever are to be God’s decree has been enacted once for all, while for the rest of time leisure has been vouchsafed to Him. This belief begins to take root, and the learned and unlearned mob alike go marching on towards it at the double: witness the warnings drawn from lightning, the forecasts made by oracles, the prophecies of augurs, and even inconsiderable trifles—a sneeze, a stumble—counted as omens. His late Majesty put abroad a story that on the day on which he was almost overthrown by a mutiny in the army he had put his left boot on the wrong foot. This series of instances entangles unforeseeing mortality, so that among these things but one thing is in the least certain—that nothing certain exists, and that nothing is more pitiable, or more presnmptuous, than man! inasmuch as with the rest of living creatures their sole anxiety is for the means of life, in which nature’s bounty of itself suffices, the one blessing indeed that is actually preferable to every other being the fact that they do not think about glory, money, ambition, and above all death.
But it agrees with life’s experience to believe that in these matters the gods exercise an interest in human affairs; and that punishment for wickedness, though sometimes tardy, as God is occupied in so vast a mass of things, yet is never frustrated; and that man was not born God’s next of kin for the purpose of approximating to the beasts in vileness. But the chief consolations for nature’s imperfection in the case of man are that not even for God are all things possible—for he cannot, even if he wishes, commit suicide, the supreme boon that he has bestowed on man among all the penalties of life, nor bestow eternity on mortals or recall the deceased, nor cause a man that has lived not to have lived or one that has held high office not to have held it—and that he has no power over what is past save to forget it, and (to link our fellowship with God by means of frivolous arguments as well) that he cannot cause twice ten not to be twenty, or do many things on similar lines: which facts unquestionably demonstrate the power of nature, and prove that it is this that we mean by the word ‘God.’ It will not have been irrelevant to have diverged to these topics, which have already been widely disseminated because of the unceasing enquiry into the nature of God.
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LXIII. Next comes the earth, the one division of the natural world on which for its merits we have bestowed the venerable title of mother. She belongs to men as the sky belongs to God: she receives us at birth, and gives us nurture after birth, and when once brought forth she upholds us always, and at the last when we have now been disinherited by the rest of nature she embraces us in her bosom and at that very time gives us her maternal shelter; sanctified by no service more than that whereby she makes us also sacred, even bearing our monuments and epitaphs and prolonging our name and extending our memory against the shortness of time; whose divinity is the last which in anger we invoke to lie heavy on those who are now no more, as though we did not know that she is the only element that is never wroth with man. Water rises in mist, freezes into hail, swells in waves, falls headlong in torrents; air becomes thick with clouds and rages with storms; but earth is kind and gentle and indulgent, ever a handmaid in the service of mortals, producing under our compulsion, or lavishing of her own accord, what scents and savours, what juices, what surfaces for the touch, what colours! how honestly she repays the interest lent her! what produce she fosters for our benefit! since for living creatures that are noxious the breath of life is to blame—she is compelled to receive them when their seed is sown and to maintain them when they have been born; but their harm lies in the evils of those that generate them. When a serpent has stung a man she harbours it no more, and she exacts retribution even on the account of the helpless; she produces medicinal herbs, and is ever fertile for man’s benefit; nay, even poisons she may be thought to have invented out of compassion for us, lest, when we were weary of life, hunger, the death most alien to earth’s beneficence, should consume us with slow decay, lest precipices should scatter in fragments our lacerated body, lest departure it is seeking; lest if we sought death in the deep our burial should serve for fodder; lest the torture of the steel should cleave our body. So is it! in mercy did she generate the potion whereof the easiest draught—as men drink when thirsty—gifts might painlessly just blot us out, without injury to the body or loss of blood, in such wise that when dead no birds nor beasts should touch us, and one that had perished for himself should be preserved for the earth. Let us own the truth: what earth has produced as a cure for our ills, we have made into a deadly poison; why, do we not also put her indispensable gift of iron to a similar use? Nor yet should we have any right to complain even if she had engendered poison to serve the purpose of crime. In fact in regard to one of nature’s elements we have no gratitude. For what luxuries and for what outrageous uses does she not subserve mankind? She is flung into the sea, or dug away to allow us to let in the channels. Water, iron, wood, fire, stone, growing crops, are employed to torture her at all hours, and much more to make her minister to our luxuries than our sustenance. Yet in order to make the sufferings inflicted on her surface and mere outer skin seem endurable, we probe her entrails, digging into her veins of gold and silver and mines of copper and lead; we actually drive shafts down into the depth to search for gems and certain tiny stones; we drag out her entrails, we seek a jewel merely to be worn upon a finger! How many hands are worn away with toil that a single knuckle may shine resplendent! If any beings of the nether world existed, assuredly even they would have been dug up ere now by the burrowings of avarice and luxury. And can we wonder if earth has also generated some creatures for our harm? since the wild animals, I well believe, are her guardians, and protect her from sacrilegious hands; do not serpents infest our mines, do we not handle veins of gold mingled with the roots of poison? Yet that shows the goddess all the kinder towards us, because all these avenues from which wealth issues lead but to crime and slaughter and warfare, and her whom we besprinkle with our blood we cover with unburied bones, over which nevertheless, when at length our madness has been finally discharged, she draws herself as a veil, and hides even the crimes of mortals.
I would reckon this too among the crimes of our ingratitude, that we are ignorant of her nature.
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PLINY THE ELDER – NATURAL HISTORY
Pliny. Natural History, Volume II: Books 3-7. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 352. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20161229101439/http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm
BOOK VII
THE above is a description of the world, and of the lands, races, seas, important rivers, islands and cities that it contains.
The nature of the animals also contained in it is not less important than the study of almost any other department, albeit here too the human mind is not capable of exploring the whole field.
The first place will rightly be assigned to man, for whose sake [great] Nature appears to have created all other things—thongh she asks a cruel price for all her generous gifts, making it hardly possible to judge whether she has been more a kind parent to man or more a harsh stepmother. First of all, man alone of all animals she drapes with borrowed resources. On all the rest in various wise she bestows coverings—shells, bark, spines, hides, fur, bristles, hair, down, feathers, scales, fleeces; even the trunks of trees she has protected against cold and heat by bark, sometimes in two layers: but man alone on the day of his birth she casts away naked on the naked ground, to burst at once into wailing and weeping, and none other among all the animals is more prone to tears, and that immediately at the very beginning of life; whereas, I vow, the much-talked-of smile of infancy even at the earliest is bestowed on no child less than six weeks old. This initiation into the light is followed by a period of bondage such as befalls not even the animals bred in our midst, fettering all his limbs; and thus when successfully born he lies with hands and feet in shackles, weeping—the animal that is to lord it over all the rest, and he initiates his life with punishment because of one fault only, the offence of being born. Alas the madness of those who think that from these beginnings they were bred to proud estate!
His earliest promise of strength and first grant of time makes him like a four-footed animal. When does man begin to walk? when to speak? when is his mouth firm enough to take food? how long does his skull throb, a mark of his being the weakest among all animals? Then his diseases, and all the cures contrived against his ills—these cures also subsequently defeated by new disorders! And the fact that all other creatures are aware of their own nature, some using speed, others swift flight, others swimming, whereas man alone knows nothing save by education—neither how to speak nor how to walk nor who to eat; in short the only thing he can do by natural instinct is to weep! Consequently there have been many who believed that it were best not to be born, or to be put away as soon as possible. On man alone of living creatures is bestowed grief, on him alone luxury, and that in countless forms and reaching every separate part of his frame; he alone has ambition, avarice, immeasurable appetite for life, superstition, anxiety about burial and even about what will happen after he is no more. No creature’s life is more precarious, none has a greater lust for all enjoyments, a more confused timidity, a fiercer rage. In fine, all other living creatures pass their time worthily among their own species: we see them herd together and stand firm against other kinds of animals—fierce lions do not fight among themselves, the serpent’s bite attacks not serpents, even the monsters of the sea and the fishes are only cruel against different species; whereas to man, I vow, most of his evils come from his fellowman.
I. And about the human race as a whole we have in large part spoken in our account of the various nations. Nor shall we now deal with manners and customs, which are beyond counting and almost as numerous as the groups of mankind; yet there are some that I think ought not to be omitted, and especially those of the people living more remote from the sea; some things among which I doubt not will appear portentous and incredible to many. For who ever believed in the Ethiopians before actually seeing them? or what is not deemed miraculous when first it comes into knowledge? how many things are judged impossible before they actually occur? Indeed the power and majesty of the nature of the universe at every turn lacks credence if one’s mind embraces parts of it only and not the whole. Not to mention peacocks, or the spotted skins of tigers and panthers and the colourings of so many animals, a small matter to tell of but one of measureless extent if pondered on is the number of national languages and dialects and varieties of speech, so numerous that a foreigner scarcely counts as a human being for someone of another race! Again though our physiognomy contains ten features or only a few more, to think that among all the thousands of human beings there exist no two countenances that are not distinct—a thing that no art could supply by counterfeit in so small a number of specimens! Nevertheless in most instances of these I shall not myself pledge my own faith, and shall preferably ascribe the facts to the authorities who will be quoted for all doubtful points: only do not let us be too proud to follow the Greeks, because of their far greater industry or older devotion to study.
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XIX. It is stated that Crassus the grandfather of Crassus who fell in Parthia never laughed, and was consequently called Agelastus, and that likewise there have been many cases of people who never wept, and that the famous philosopher Socrates always wore the same look on his countenance, never gayer and never more perturbed. This temperament sometimes develops into a kind of rigidity and a hard, unbending severity of nature, and takes away the emotions natural to humanity; persons of this sort are called ‘apathetic’ by the Greeks, who have known many men of the kind, and among them surprising to say, chiefly founders of schools of philosophy, Diogenes the Cynic, Pyrrho, Herachtus, Timo—the last indeed going as far as to hate the whole human race. But these small peculiarities of nature are known to occur variously in many persons, for instance in the case of Drusus’s daughter Antonia never spitting, in the poet and ex-consul Pomponius never belching. Persons whose bones are by nature solid, a rather rare class, are called ‘horny.’
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XXXI. Persons who have surpassed the rest of mortal kind in the remaining gifts of the mind are: in wisdom, the people who on this account won at Rome the surnames of Wise and Sage, and in Greece Socrates, whom Pythian Apollo’s oracle placed before all other men.
XXXII. Again, partnership with the oracles was bestowed by mortals on the Spartan Chilo, by canonizing in letters of gold at Delphi his three precepts, which are these: Know thyself; Desire nothing too much; The comrade of debt and litigation is misery. Moreover when he expired from joy on his son’s being victorious at Olympia, the whole of Greece followed in his funeral procession.
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XL. The one race of outstanding eminence in virtue among all the races in the whole world is undoubtedly the Roman. What human being has had the greatest happiness is not a question for human judgement, since prosperity itself different people define in different ways and each according to his own temperament. If we wish to make a true judgement and discard all fortune’s pomp in deciding the point, none among mortals is happy. Fortune deals lavishly and makes an indulgent bargain with the man whom it is possible justly to pronounce not unhappy. In fact, apart from other considerations, assuredly there is a fear that fortune may grow weary, and this fear once entertained, happiness has no firm foundation. What of the proverb that none among mortals is wise all the time? And would that as many men as possible may deem this proverb false, and not as the utterance of a prophet! Mortality, being so vain and so ingenious in self-deception, makes its calculation after the manner of the Thracian tribe that puts stone counters of different colours corresponding to each day’s experience in an urn, and on the last day sorts them and counts them out and thus pronounces judgement about each individual. What of the fact that the very day commended by that stone of brilliant whiteness contained the source of misfortune? How many men have been overthrown by attaining power! How many have been ruined and plunged into the direst torments by wealth! Wealth forsooth it is called if a man has had an hour of joy while surrounded by it. So doubtless is it! Different days pass verdict on different men and only the last day a final verdict on all men; and consequently no day is to be trusted. What of the fact that goods are not equal to evils even if of equal number, and that no joy can counterbalance the smallest grief? Alas what vain and foolish application! we count the number of the days, when it is their weight that is in question!
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PLINY THE ELDER – NATURAL HISTORY
Pliny. Natural History, Volume IV: Books 12-16. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 370. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20161229101439/http://www.masseiana.org/pliny.htm
BOOK XIV
I. SO far we have been dealing mostly with foreign trees that cannot be trained to grow elsewhere than in their place of origin and that refuse to be naturalized in strange countries. We may now speak of those common to various countries, of all of which Italy can be thought to be the special parent. Only it must be remembered by the student that for the present we are specifying their natures and not their modes of cultivation, although actually a very large factor in the nature of a tree is due to its cultivation. There is one thing at which I cannot sufficiently wonder—that of some trees the very memory has perished, and even the names recorded by authors have passed out of knowledge. For who would not admit that now that intercommunication has been established throughout the world by the majesty of the Roman Empire, life has been advanced by the interchange of commodities and by partnership in the blessings of peace, and that even things that had previously lain concealed have all now been established in general use? Still, it must be asserted, we do not find people acquainted with much that has been handed down by the writers of former days: so much more productive was the research of the men of old, or else so much more successful was their industry, when a thousand years ago at the dawn of literature Hesiod began putting forth rules for agriculture, and not a few writers followed him in these researches—which has been a source of more toil to us, inasmuch as nowadays it is necessary to investigate not only subsequent discoveries but also those that had already been made by the men of old, because general slackness has decreed an utter destruction of records.
And for this fault who can discover other causes than the general movement of affairs in the world? The fact is that other customs have come into vogue, and the minds of men are occupied about other matters: the only arts cultivated are the arts of avarice. Previously a nation’s sovereignty was self-contained, and consequently the people’s genius was also circumscribed; and so a certain barrenness of fortune made it a necessity to exercise the gifts of the mind, and kings innumerable received the homage of the arts, and put these riches in the front place when displaying their resources, believing that by the arts they could prolong their immortality. This was the reason why the rewards of life and also its achievements were then so abundant. But later generations have been positively handicapped by the expansion of the world and by our multiplicity of resources. After senators began to be selected and judges appointed on the score of wealth, and wealth became the sole adornment of magistrate and military commander, after lack of children to succeed one began to occupy the place of highest influence and power, and legacy-hunting ranked as the most profitable profession, and the only delights consisted in ownership, the true prizes of life went to ruin, and all the arts that derived their name ‘liberal’ from liberty, the supreme good, fell into the opposite class, and servility began to be the sole means of advancement. This deity was worshipped by different men in different manners and in different matters, although every man’s prayer was directed to the same end and to hopes of possessing; indeed even men of high character everywhere preferred to cultivate the vices of others rather than the good gifts that were their own. The consequence is, I protest, that pleasure has begun to live and life itself has ceased.
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XXVIII. And if anybody cares to consider the matter more carefully, there is no department of man’s life on which more labour is spent—as if nature had not given us the most healthy of beverages to drink, which all other animals make use of, whereas we compel even our beasts of burden to drink wine! and so much toil and labour and outlay is paid as the price of a thing that perverts men’s minds and produces madness, having caused the commission of thousands of crimes, and being so attractive that a large part of mankind knows of nothing else worth living for! Nay, what is more, to enable us to take more, we reduce its strength by means of a linen strainer, and other enticements are devised and even poisonous mixtures are invented to promote drinking, some men taking a dose of hemlock before they begin, in order that fear of death may compel them to drink, while others take powdered pumice and preparations which I am ashamed to teach the use of by describing them. The most cautious of these topers we see getting themselves boiled in hot baths and being carried out of the bathroom unconscious, and others actually unable to wait to get to the dinner table, no, not even to put their clothes on, but straight away on the spot, while still naked and panting, they snatch up huge vessels as if to show off their strength, and pour down the whole of the contents, so as to bring them up again at once, and then drink another draught; and they do this a second and a third time, as if they were born for the purpose of wasting wine, and as if it were impossible for the liquor to be poured away unless by using the human body as a funnel. This is the object of the exercises that have been introduced from foreign countries, and of rolling in the mud and throwing the neck back to show off the muscles of the chest. It is declared that the object of all these exercises is merely to raise a thirst! Then again, think of the drinking matches! think of the vessels engraved with scenes of adultery, as though tippling were not enough by itself to give lessons in licentiousness! Thus wine-bibbing is caused by licence, and actually a prize is offered to promote drunkenness—heaven help us, it is actually purchased. One man gets a prize for tipsiness on condition of his eating as much as he has drunk; another drinks as many cups as are demanded of him by a throw of the dice. Then it is that greedy eyes bid a price for a married woman, and their heavy glances betray it to her husband; then it is that the secrets of the heart are published abroad: some men specify the provisions of their wills, others let out facts of fatal import, and do not keep to themselves words that will come back to them through a slit in their throat—how many men having lost their lives in that way! and truth has come to be proverbially credited to wine. Meantime, even should all turn out for the best, drunkards never see the rising sun, and so shorten their lives. Tippling brings a pale face and hanging cheeks, sore eyes, shaky hands that spill the contents of vessels when they are full, and the condign punishment of haunted sleep and restless nights, and the crowning reward of drunkenness, monstrous licentiousness and delight in iniquity. Next day the breath reeks of the wine-cask, and everything is forgotten—the memory is dead. This is what they call ‘snatching life as it comes!’ when, whereas other men daily lose their yesterdays, these people lose tomorrow also. Forty years ago, during the rule of the Emperor Tiberius, the fashion set in of drinking on an empty stomach and preceding meals with a draught of wine—yet another result of foreign methods and of the doctors’ policy of perpetually advertising themselves by some novelty.
JULIAN (EMPEROR)
Julian, Emperor of Rome. The Works of Emperor Julian, Volume 1. Translated by Wilmer Cave Wright. Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1913. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 2015. Retrieved 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48664/48664-h/48664-h.html
Oration II
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(I will now, however, resume the thread of my discourse and go back to my starting-point, like those who, when a race is being started, run ahead out of the line. Well, I was saying, a moment ago, that Plato declares that a man’s real self is his mind and soul, whereas his body and his estate are but his possessions. This is the distinction made in that marvellous work, the Laws. And so if one were to go back to the beginning and say “That man is best equipped for life who makes everything that relates to happiness depend on his mind and intelligence and not on those outside himself who, by doing or faring well or ill force him out of the straight path,” he is not changing or perverting the sense of the words, but expounds and interprets them correctly. And if for Plato’s word “genius” he substitutes the word “God” he has a perfect right to do so. For if Plato gives the control of our whole life to the presiding “genius” within us which is by nature unaffected by sensation and akin to God, but must endure and suffer much because of its association with the body, and therefore gives the impression to the crowd that it also is subject to sensation and death; and if he says that this is true of every man who wishes to be happy, what must we suppose is his opinion about pure intelligence unmixed with earthly substance, which is indeed synonymous with God? To this I say every man, whether he be a private citizen or a king, ought to entrust the reins of his life, and by a king I mean one who is really worthy of the name, and not counterfeit or falsely so called, but one who is aware of God and discerns his nature because of his affinity with him, and being truly wise bows to the divine authority and yields the supremacy to God. For it is senseless and arrogant indeed for those who cultivate virtue not to submit to God once and for all, as far as possible. For we must believe that this above all else is what God approves. Again, no man must neglect the traditional form of worship or lightly regard this method of paying honour to the higher power, but rather consider that to be virtuous is to be scrupulously devout. For Piety is the child of Justice, and that justice is a characteristic of the more divine type of soul is obvious to all who discuss such matters.)
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(For there is nothing at all superior to it, nothing that can constrain and control it, or take it from him who has once possessed it. Indeed it seems to me that this possession bears the same relation to the soul as its light to the sun. For often men have stolen the votive offerings of the Sun and destroyed his temples and gone their way, and some have been punished, and others let alone as not worthy of the punishment that leads to amendment. But his light no one ever takes from the sun, not even the moon when in their conjunctions she oversteps his disc, or when she takes his rays to herself, and often, as the saying is, turns midday into night. Nor is he deprived of his light when he illumines the moon in her station opposite to himself and shares with her his own nature, nor when he fills with light and day this great and wonderful universe. Just so no good man who imparts his goodness to another was ever thought to have less virtue by as much as he had bestowed. So divine and excellent is that possession, and most true is the saying of the Athenian stranger, whoever that inspired man may have been: “All the gold beneath the earth and above ground is too little to give in exchange for virtue.” Let us therefore now boldly call its possessor wealthy, yes and I should say well-born also, and the only king among them all, if anyone agree to this. For as noble birth is better than a lowly pedigree, so virtue is better than a character not in all respects admirable. And let no one say that this statement is contentious and too strong, judging by the ordinary use of words. For the multitude are wont to say that the sons of those who have long been rich are well-born. And yet is it not extraordinary that a cook or cobbler, yes, by Zeus, or some potter who has got money together by his craft, or by some other means, is not considered well-born nor is given that title by the many, whereas if this man’s son inherit his estate and hand it on to his sons, they begin to give themselves airs and compete on the score of noble birth with the Pelopids and the Heraclids? Nay, even a man who is born of noble ancestors, but himself sinks down in the opposite scale of life, could not justly claim kinship with those ancestors, seeing that no one could be enrolled among the Pelopids who had not on his shoulder the birth-mark of that family. And in Boeotia it was said that there was the impression of a spear on the Sown-men from the clod of earth that bore and reared them, and that hence the race long preserved that distinguishing mark. And can we suppose that on men’s souls no mark of that sort is engraved, which shall tell us accurately who their fathers were and vindicate their birth as legitimate? They say that the Celts also have a river which is an incorruptible judge of offspring, and neither can the mothers persuade that river by their laments to hide and conceal their fault for them, nor the fathers who are afraid for their wives and sons in this trial, but it is an arbiter that never swerves or gives a false verdict. But we are corrupted by riches, by physical strength in its prime, by powerful ancestors, an influence from without that overshadows and does not permit us to see clearly or discern the soul; for we are unlike all other living things in this, that by the soul and by nothing else, we should with reason make our decision about noble birth. And it seems to me that the ancients, employing a wondrous sagacity of nature, since their wisdom was not like ours a thing acquired, but they were philosophers by nature, not manufactured, perceived the truth of this, and so they called Heracles the son of Zeus, and Leda’s two sons also, and Minos the law-giver, and Rhadamanthus of Cnossus they deemed worthy of the same distinction. And many others they proclaimed to be the children of other gods, because they so surpassed their mortal parents. For they looked at the soul alone and their actual deeds, and not at wealth piled high and hoary with age, nor at the power that had come down to them from some grandfather or great-grandfather. And yet some of them were the sons of fathers not wholly inglorious. But because of the superabundance in them of that virtue which men honoured and cherished, they were held to be the sons of the gods themselves. This is clear from the following fact. In the case of certain others, though they did not know those who were by nature their sires, they ascribed that title to a divinity, to recompense the virtue of those men. And we ought not to say that they were deceived, and that in ignorance they told lies about the gods. For even if in the case of other gods or deities it was natural that they should be so deceived, when they clothed them in human forms and human shapes, though those deities possess a nature not to be perceived or attained by the senses, but barely recognisable by means of pure intelligence, by reason of their kinship with it; nevertheless in the case of the visible gods it is not probable that they were deceived, for instance, when they entitled Aeetes “son of Helios” and another “son of the Dawn,” and so on with others. But, as I said, we must in these cases believe them, and make our enquiry about noble birth accordingly. And when a man has virtuous parents and himself resembles them, we may with confidence call him nobly born. But when, though his parents lack virtue, he himself can claim to possess it, we must suppose that the father who begat him is Zeus, and we must not pay less respect to him than to those who are the sons of virtuous fathers and emulate their parents. But when a bad man comes of good parents, we ought to enrol him among the bastards, while as for those who come of a bad stock and resemble their parents, never must we call them well-born, not even though their wealth amounts to ten thousand talents, not though they reckon among their ancestors twenty rulers, or, by Zeus, twenty tyrants, not though they can prove that the victories they won at Olympia or Pytho or in the encounters of war—which are in every way more brilliant than victories in the games—were more than the first Caesar’s, or can point to excavations in Assyria or to the walls of Babylon and the Egyptian pyramids besides, and to all else that is a proof of wealth and great possessions and luxury and a soul that is inflamed by ambition and, being at a loss how to use money, lavishes on things of that sort all those abundant supplies of wealth. For you are well aware that it is not wealth, either ancestral or newly acquired and pouring in from some source or other, that makes a king, nor his purple cloak nor his tiara and sceptre and diadem and ancestral throne, nay nor numerous hoplites and ten thousand cavalry; not though all men should gather together and acknowledge him for their king, because virtue they cannot bestow on him, but only power, ill-omened indeed for him that receives it, but still more for those that bestow it. For once he has received such power, a man of that sort is altogether raised aloft in the clouds, and in nowise differs from the legend of Phaethon and his fate. And there is no need of other instances to make us believe this saying, for the whole of life is full of such disasters and tales about them. And if it seems surprising to you that the title of king, so honourable, so favoured by the gods, cannot justly be claimed by men who, though they rule over a vast territory and nations without number, nevertheless settle questions that arise by an autocratic decision, without intelligence or wisdom or the virtues that go with wisdom, believe me they are not even free men; I do not mean if they merely possess what they have with none to hinder them and have their fill of power, but even though they conquer all who make war against them, and, when they lead an invading army, appear invincible and irresistible. And if any of you doubt this statement, I have no lack of notable witnesses, Greek and barbarian, who fought and won many mighty battles, and became the masters of whole nations and compelled them to pay tribute, and yet were themselves slaves in a still more shameful degree of pleasure, money and wantonness, insolence and injustice. And no man of sense would call them even powerful, not though greatness should shine upon and illumine all that they achieved. For he alone is strong whose virtue aids him to be brave and magnanimous. But he who is the slave of pleasure and cannot control his temper and appetites of all sorts, but is compelled to succumb to trivial things, is neither brave himself nor strong with a man’s strength, though we may perhaps allow him to exult like a bull or lion or leopard in his brute force, if indeed he do not lose even this and, like a drone, merely superintend the labours of others, himself a “feeble warrior,” and cowardly and dissolute. And if that be his character, he is lacking not only in true riches, but in that wealth also which men so highly honour and reverence and desire, on which hang the souls of men of all sorts, so that they undergo countless toils and labours for the sake of daily gain, and endure to sail the sea and to trade and rob and grasp at tyrannies. For they live ever acquiring but ever in want, though I do not say of necessary food and drink and clothes; for the limit of this sort of property has been clearly defined by nature and none can be deprived of it, neither birds nor fish nor wild beasts, much less prudent men. But those who are tortured by the desire and fatal passion for money must suffer a lifelong hunger, and depart from life more miserably than those who lack daily food. For these, once they have filled their bellies, enjoy perfect peace and respite from their torment, but for those others no day is sweet that does not bring them gain, nor does night with her gift of sleep that relaxes the limbs and frees men from care bring for them any remission of their raging madness, but distracts and agitates their souls as they reckon and count up their money. And not even the wealth of Tantalus and Midas, should they possess it, frees those men from their desire and their hard toil therewith, nay nor “Tyranny the greatest and sternest of the gods,” should they become possessed of this also. For have you not heard that Darius, the ruler of Persia, a man not wholly base, but insatiably and shamefully covetous of money, dug up in his greed even the tombs of the dead and exacted the most costly tribute? And hence he acquired the title that is famous among all mankind. For the notables of Persia called him by the name that the Athenians gave to Sarambos.)
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… and praise God for him when they pray, not hypocritically or with the lips only, but invoking blessings on him from the bottom of their hearts. But the gods do not wait for their prayers, and unasked they give him celestial rewards, but they do not let him lack human blessings either; and if fate should compel him to fall into any misfortune, I mean one of those incurable calamities that people are always talking about, then the gods make him their follower and associate, and exalt his fame among all mankind…
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KING JAMES BIBLE 1611 – ECCLESIASTES
Ec 1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Ec 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.
Ec 1:3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
Ec 1:4 [One] generation passeth away, and [another] generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
Ec 1:5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
Ec 1:6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
Ec 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea [is] not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
Ec 1:8 All things [are] full of labour; man cannot utter [it]: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
Ec 1:9 The thing that hath been, it [is that] which shall be; and that which is done [is] that which shall be done: and [there is] no new [thing] under the sun.
Ec 1:10 Is there [any] thing whereof it may be said, See, this [is] new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
Ec 1:11 [There is] no remembrance of former [things]; neither shall there be [any] remembrance of [things] that are to come with [those] that shall come after.
Ec 1:12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
Ec 1:13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all [things] that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
Ec 1:14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 1:15 [That which is] crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
Ec 1:16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all [they] that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
Ec 1:17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
Ec 1:18 For in much wisdom [is] much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Ec 2:1 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also [is] vanity.
Ec 2:2 I said of laughter, [It is] mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?
Ec 2:3 I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what [was] that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.
Ec 2:4 I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:
Ec 2:5 I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all [kind of] fruits:
Ec 2:6 I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:
Ec 2:7 I got [me] servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:
Ec 2:8 I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, [as] musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
Ec 2:9 So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
Ec 2:10 And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.
Ec 2:11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all [was] vanity and vexation of spirit, and [there was] no profit under the sun.
Ec 2:12 And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what [can] the man [do] that cometh after the king? [even] that which hath been already done.
Ec 2:13 Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness.
Ec 2:14 The wise man’s eyes [are] in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all.
Ec 2:15 Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also [is] vanity.
Ec 2:16 For [there is] no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now [is] in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise [man]? as the fool.
Ec 2:17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun [is] grievous unto me: for all [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 2:18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
Ec 2:19 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise [man] or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This [is] also vanity.
Ec 2:20 Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.
Ec 2:21 For there is a man whose labour [is] in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it [for] his portion. This also [is] vanity and a great evil.
Ec 2:22 For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
Ec 2:23 For all his days [are] sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.
Ec 2:24 [There is] nothing better for a man, [than] that he should eat and drink, and [that] he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it [was] from the hand of God.
Ec 2:25 For who can eat, or who else can hasten [hereunto], more than I?
Ec 2:26 For [God] giveth to a man that [is] good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to [him that is] good before God. This also [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 3:1 To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Ec 3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up [that which is] planted;
Ec 3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
Ec 3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Ec 3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
Ec 3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
Ec 3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
Ec 3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ec 3:9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
Ec 3:10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
Ec 3:11 He hath made every [thing] beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Ec 3:12 I know that [there is] no good in them, but for [a man] to rejoice, and to do good in his life.
Ec 3:13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it [is] the gift of God.
Ec 3:14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth [it], that [men] should fear before him.
Ec 3:15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
Ec 3:16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, [that] wickedness [was] there; and the place of righteousness, [that] iniquity [was] there.
Ec 3:17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for [there is] a time there for every purpose and for every work.
Ec 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
Ec 3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all [is] vanity.
Ec 3:20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Ec 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Ec 3:22 Wherefore I perceive that [there is] nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that [is] his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?
Ec 4:1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of [such as were] oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors [there was] power; but they had no comforter.
Ec 4:2 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive.
Ec 4:3 Yea, better [is he] than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.
Ec 4:4 Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This [is] also vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 4:5 The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh.
Ec 4:6 Better [is] an handful [with] quietness, than both the hands full [with] travail and vexation of spirit.
Ec 4:7 Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun.
Ec 4:8 There is one [alone], and [there is] not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet [is there] no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither [saith he], For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This [is] also vanity, yea, it [is] a sore travail.
Ec 4:9 Two [are] better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.
Ec 4:10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him [that is] alone when he falleth; for [he hath] not another to help him up.
Ec 4:11 Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm [alone]?
Ec 4:12 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ec 4:13 Better [is] a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished.
Ec 4:14 For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also [he that is] born in his kingdom becometh poor.
Ec 4:15 I considered all the living which walk under the sun, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead.
Ec 4:16 [There is] no end of all the people, [even] of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also [is] vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.
Ec 5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter [any] thing before God: for God [is] in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.
Ec 5:3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice [is known] by multitude of words.
Ec 5:4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for [he hath] no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
Ec 5:5 Better [is it] that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
Ec 5:6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it [was] an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
Ec 5:7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words [there are] also [divers] vanities: but fear thou God.
Ec 5:8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for [he that is] higher than the highest regardeth; and [there be] higher than they.
Ec 5:9 Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king [himself] is served by the field.
Ec 5:10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this [is] also vanity.
Ec 5:11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good [is there] to the owners thereof, saving the beholding [of them] with their eyes?
Ec 5:12 The sleep of a labouring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
Ec 5:13 There is a sore evil [which] I have seen under the sun, [namely], riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
Ec 5:14 But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and [there is] nothing in his hand.
Ec 5:15 As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
Ec 5:16 And this also [is] a sore evil, [that] in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
Ec 5:17 All his days also he eateth in darkness, and [he hath] much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
Ec 5:18 Behold [that] which I have seen: [it is] good and comely [for one] to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it [is] his portion.
Ec 5:19 Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this [is] the gift of God.
Ec 5:20 For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth [him] in the joy of his heart.
Ec 6:1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it [is] common among men:
Ec 6:2 A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this [is] vanity, and it [is] an evil disease.
Ec 6:3 If a man beget an hundred [children], and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also [that] he have no burial; I say, [that] an untimely birth [is] better than he.
Ec 6:4 For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.
Ec 6:5 Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known [any thing]: this hath more rest than the other.
Ec 6:6 Yea, though he live a thousand years twice [told], yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?
Ec 6:7 All the labour of man [is] for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
Ec 6:8 For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?
Ec 6:9 Better [is] the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this [is] also vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ec 6:10 That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it [is] man: neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he.
Ec 6:11 Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what [is] man the better?
Ec 6:12 For who knoweth what [is] good for man in [this] life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?
Ec 7:1 A good name [is] better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
Ec 7:2 [It is] better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that [is] the end of all men; and the living will lay [it] to his heart.
Ec 7:3 Sorrow [is] better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
Ec 7:4 The heart of the wise [is] in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools [is] in the house of mirth.
Ec 7:5 [It is] better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ec 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so [is] the laughter of the fool: this also [is] vanity.
Ec 7:7 Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
Ec 7:8 Better [is] the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: [and] the patient in spirit [is] better than the proud in spirit.
Ec 7:9 Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Ec 7:10 Say not thou, What is [the cause] that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
Ec 7:11 Wisdom [is] good with an inheritance: and [by it there is] profit to them that see the sun.
Ec 7:12 For wisdom [is] a defence, [and] money [is] a defence: but the excellency of knowledge [is, that] wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
Ec 7:13 Consider the work of God: for who can make [that] straight, which he hath made crooked?
Ec 7:14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
Ec 7:15 All [things] have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just [man] that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked [man] that prolongeth [his life] in his wickedness.
Ec 7:16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
Ec 7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?
Ec 7:18 [It is] good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all.
Ec 7:19 Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty [men] which are in the city.
Ec 7:20 For [there is] not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Ec 7:21 Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee:
Ec 7:22 For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
Ec 7:23 All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it [was] far from me.
Ec 7:24 That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?
Ec 7:25 I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason [of things], and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness [and] madness:
Ec 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart [is] snares and nets, [and] her hands [as] bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
Ec 7:27 Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, [counting] one by one, to find out the account:
Ec 7:28 Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
Ec 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Ec 8:1 Who [is] as the wise [man]? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.
Ec 8:2 I [counsel thee] to keep the king’s commandment, and [that] in regard of the oath of God.
Ec 8:3 Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him.
Ec 8:4 Where the word of a king [is, there is] power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
Ec 8:5 Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
Ec 8:6 Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man [is] great upon him.
Ec 8:7 For he knoweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?
Ec 8:8 [There is] no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither [hath he] power in the day of death: and [there is] no discharge in [that] war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
Ec 8:9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: [there is] a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt.
Ec 8:10 And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this [is] also vanity.
Ec 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Ec 8:12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his [days] be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:
Ec 8:13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong [his] days, [which are] as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
Ec 8:14 There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just [men], unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked [men], to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also [is] vanity.
Ec 8:15 Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
Ec 8:16 When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also [there is that] neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:)
Ec 8:17 Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek [it] out, yet he shall not find [it]; yea further; though a wise [man] think to know [it], yet shall he not be able to find [it].
Ec 9:1 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, [are] in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred [by] all [that is] before them.
Ec 9:2 All [things come] alike to all: [there is] one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as [is] the good, so [is] the sinner; [and] he that sweareth, as [he] that feareth an oath.
Ec 9:3 This [is] an evil among all [things] that are done under the sun, that [there is] one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness [is] in their heart while they live, and after that [they go] to the dead.
Ec 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Ec 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Ec 9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any [thing] that is done under the sun.
Ec 9:7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
Ec 9:8 Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
Ec 9:9 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that [is] thy portion in [this] life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
Ec 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do [it] with thy might; for [there is] no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
Ec 9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race [is] not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ec 9:12 For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so [are] the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
Ec 9:13 This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it [seemed] great unto me:
Ec 9:14 [There was] a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
Ec 9:15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
Ec 9:16 Then said I, Wisdom [is] better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom [is] despised, and his words are not heard.
Ec 9:17 The words of wise [men are] heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.
Ec 9:18 Wisdom [is] better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.
Ec 10:5 There is an evil [which] I have seen under the sun, as an error [which] proceedeth from the ruler:
Ec 10:6 Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
Ec 10:7 I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
Ec 10:8 He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
Ec 10:9 Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; [and] he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
Ec 10:10 If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom [is] profitable to direct.
Ec 10:11 Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better.
Ec 10:12 The words of a wise man’s mouth [are] gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
Ec 10:13 The beginning of the words of his mouth [is] foolishness: and the end of his talk [is] mischievous madness.
Ec 10:14 A fool also is full of words: a man cannot tell what shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?
Ec 10:15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.
Ec 10:16 Woe to thee, O land, when thy king [is] a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!
Ec 10:17 Blessed [art] thou, O land, when thy king [is] the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
Ec 11:7 Truly the light [is] sweet, and a pleasant [thing it is] for the eyes to behold the sun:
Ec 11:8 But if a man live many years, [and] rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh [is] vanity.
Ec 11:9 Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these [things] God will bring thee into judgment.
Ec 11:10 Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth [are] vanity.
Ec 12:1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
Ec 12:2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
Ec 12:3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
Ec 12:4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
Ec 12:5 Also [when] they shall be afraid of [that which is] high, and fears [shall be] in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
Ec 12:6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Ec 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Ec 12:8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all [is] vanity.
Ec 12:9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, [and] set in order many proverbs.
Ec 12:10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and [that which was] written [was] upright, [even] words of truth.
Ec 12:11 The words of the wise [are] as goads, and as nails fastened [by] the masters of assemblies, [which] are given from one shepherd.
Ec 12:12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books [there is] no end; and much study [is] a weariness of the flesh.
Ec 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this [is] the whole [duty] of man.
Ec 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.
KING JAMES BIBLE 1611 – PSALMS
Ps 49:1 <<To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.>> Hear this, all [ye] people; give ear, all [ye] inhabitants of the world:
Ps 49:2 Both low and high, rich and poor, together.
Ps 49:3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart [shall be] of understanding.
Ps 49:4 I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
Ps 49:5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, [when] the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
Ps 49:6 They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
Ps 49:7 None [of them] can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
Ps 49:8 (For the redemption of their soul [is] precious, and it ceaseth for ever:)
Ps 49:9 That he should still live for ever, [and] not see corruption.
Ps 49:10 For he seeth [that] wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.
Ps 49:11 Their inward thought [is, that] their houses [shall continue] for ever, [and] their dwelling places to all generations; they call [their] lands after their own names.
Ps 49:12 Nevertheless man [being] in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts [that] perish.
Ps 49:13 This their way [is] their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.
Ps 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
Ps 49:15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
Ps 49:16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
Ps 49:17 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
Ps 49:18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and [men] will praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself.
Ps 49:19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.
Ps 49:20 Man [that is] in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts [that] perish.
KING JAMES BIBLE 1611 – HAGGAI
Hag 1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
Hag 1:2 Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built.
Hag 1:3 Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,
Hag 1:4 [Is it] time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house [lie] waste?
Hag 1:5 Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
Hag 1:6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages [to put it] into a bag with holes.
Hag 1:7 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
Hag 1:8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.
Hag 1:9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, [it came] to little; and when ye brought [it] home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that [is] waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
Hag 1:10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed [from] her fruit.
Hag 1:11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon [that] which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
Hag 1:12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD.
Hag 1:13 Then spake Haggai the LORD’s messenger in the LORD’s message unto the people, saying, I [am] with you, saith the LORD.
Hag 1:14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God,
Hag 1:15 In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.
Hag 2:1 In the seventh [month], in the one and twentieth [day] of the month, came the word of the LORD by the prophet Haggai, saying,
Hag 2:2 Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying,
Hag 2:3 Who [is] left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? [is it] not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?
Hag 2:4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I [am] with you, saith the LORD of hosts:
Hag 2:5 [According to] the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.
Hag 2:6 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it [is] a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry [land];
Hag 2:7 And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.
Hag 2:8 The silver [is] mine, and the gold [is] mine, saith the LORD of hosts.
Hag 2:9 The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.
Hag 2:10 In the four and twentieth [day] of the ninth [month], in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying,
Hag 2:11 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests [concerning] the law, saying,
Hag 2:12 If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No.
Hag 2:13 Then said Haggai, If [one that is] unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean.
Hag 2:14 Then answered Haggai, and said, So [is] this people, and so [is] this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so [is] every work of their hands; and that which they offer there [is] unclean.
Hag 2:15 And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the LORD:
Hag 2:16 Since those [days] were, when [one] came to an heap of twenty [measures], there were [but] ten: when [one] came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty [vessels] out of the press, there were [but] twenty.
Hag 2:17 I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labours of your hands; yet ye [turned] not to me, saith the LORD.
Hag 2:18 Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth [month, even] from the day that the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid, consider [it].
Hag 2:19 Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless [you].
KING JAMES BIBLE 1611 – MALACHI
Mal 1:1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? [Was] not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
Mal 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
Mal 1:4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever.
Mal 1:5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel.
Mal 1:6 A son honoureth [his] father, and a servant his master: if then I [be] a father, where [is] mine honour? and if I [be] a master, where [is] my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
Mal 1:7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD [is] contemptible.
Mal 1:8 And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, [is it] not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, [is it] not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 1:9 And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 1:10 Who [is there] even among you that would shut the doors [for nought]? neither do ye kindle [fire] on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
Mal 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name [shall be] great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense [shall be] offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name [shall be] great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 1:12 But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the LORD [is] polluted; and the fruit thereof, [even] his meat, [is] contemptible.
Mal 1:13 Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness [is it]! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts; and ye brought [that which was] torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD.
Mal 1:14 But cursed [be] the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I [am] a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name [is] dreadful among the heathen.
Mal 2:1 And now, O ye priests, this commandment [is] for you.
Mal 2:2 If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay [it] to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay [it] to heart.
Mal 2:3 Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, [even] the dung of your solemn feasts; and [one] shall take you away with it.
Mal 2:4 And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 2:5 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him [for] the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.
Mal 2:6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.
Mal 2:7 For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he [is] the messenger of the LORD of hosts.
Mal 2:8 But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 2:9 Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.
Mal 2:10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Mal 2:11 Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god.
Mal 2:12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.
Mal 2:13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth [it] with good will at your hand.
Mal 2:14 Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet [is] she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
Mal 2:15 And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
Mal 2:16 For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for [one] covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
Mal 2:17 Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied [him]? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil [is] good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where [is] the God of judgment?
Mal 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 3:2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he [is] like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
Mal 3:3 And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
Mal 3:4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
Mal 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in [his] wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger [from his right], and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 3:6 For I [am] the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Mal 3:7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept [them]. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?
Mal 3:8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
Mal 3:9 Ye [are] cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, [even] this whole nation.
Mal 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that [there shall] not [be room] enough [to receive it].
Mal 3:11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 3:12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 3:13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken [so much] against thee?
Mal 3:14 Ye have said, It [is] vain to serve God: and what profit [is it] that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?
Mal 3:15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, [they that] tempt God are even delivered.
Mal 3:16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard [it], and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
Mal 3:17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Mal 3:18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Mal 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
Mal 4:3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do [this], saith the LORD of hosts.
Mal 4:4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, [with] the statutes and judgments.
Larus Thorhallsson 