On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosophers say that idleness is the mother of luxury. When it was asked Ovid, Why Aegisthus became an adulterer? he made no other answer but this, Because he was idle. Who were able to rid the world of loitering and laziness might easily frustrate and disappoint Cupid of all his designs, aims, engines, and devices, and so disable and appal him that his bow, quiver, and darts should from thenceforth be a mere needless load and burden to him, for that it could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either sex with all the arms he had. He is not, I believe, so expert an archer as that he can hit the cranes flying in the air, or yet the young stags skipping through the thickets, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to say, people moiling, stirring and hurrying up and down, restless, and without repose. He must have those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither, and full of ease, whom he is able, though his mother help him, to touch, much less to pierce with all his arrows. In confirmation hereof, Theophrastus, being asked on a time what kind of beast or thing he judged a toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, that it was a passion of idle and sluggish spirits. From which pretty description of tickling love-tricks that of Diogenes's hatching was not very discrepant, when he defined lechery the occupation of folks destitute of all other occupation. For this cause the Syconian engraver Canachus, being desirous to give us to understand that sloth, drowsiness, negligence, and laziness were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting.
同类推荐
热门推荐
家·国·人:水华创作研究
本文题为《家·国·人:水华创作研究》,以中国第三代导演中最具代表性的水华为研究对象,依据家、国、人之间错综复杂的关系,围绕水华的创作环境、心态及具体的创作过程、普通观众及电影学者的接受状态等层面,将水华的作品分为三类。愿你慢慢长大:给孩子朗读(朗读者系列)
本书是朗读者系列之一——《愿你慢慢长大:给孩子朗读》,收录了60多位中外作家的文章,泰戈尔、叶芝、林徽因、朱自清、圣埃克苏佩里……《愿你慢慢长大:给孩子朗读》适合表达父母与孩子之间的情感——对孩子降临的喜悦、给孩子呈现世界的渴望、让孩子成为更好自己的期待、与孩子共度美好时光的遐想……《愿你慢慢长大:给孩子朗读》一书除了收录著名作家的经典文字,对作者的主要人生经历和基本情况进行了概述,也对文字所创作的背景进行分析,还给读者提供了不少朗读的建议,让读者更立体地了解文字的内容,更顺畅地抒发自己的情感。