That we Ought not to Borrow (5-8)

There is a saying among the Messenians,

Pylos there is before Pylos, and Pylos, a third, there is also,[*]

but as to the money-lenders we may say

Int’rest there is before int’rest, and int’rest a third there is also.

And then they make a laughing-stock forsooth of the scientists, who say that nothing arises out of nothing; for with these men interest arises out of that which has as yet no being or existence. And they think it is a disgrace to be a tax-collector, which the law allows; for they themselves lend money contrary to law, collecting taxes from their debtors, or rather, if the truth is to be told, cheating them in the act of lending; for he who receives less than the face value of his note is cheated. And yet the Persians regard lying as the second among wrongdoings and being in debt as the first[*]; for lying is often practised by debtors; but money-lenders lie more than debtors and cheat in their ledgers, when they write that they give so-and-so much to so-and-so, though they really give less; and the cause of their lie is avarice, not necessity or want, but insatiable greed, which in the end brings neither enjoyment nor profit to them and ruin to those whom they wrong. For they do not till the fields which they take from their debtors, nor do they live in their houses after evicting them, nor do they eat at their tables or wear their clothes, but they ruin one man first, then hunt a second, using the other as bait. For the savage practice spreads like fire, growing by the ruin and destruction of those who fall into it, consuming one after another. And the moneylender who fans and feeds this fire to the ruin of many men gains nothing, except that from time to time he can take his account-books and read how many men he has sold out, how many he has driven from their homes, and, in general, the sources from which his hoard of money, rolling in and piling up, has made such gains.

And do not think that I say this because I have declared war against the money-lenders;

Ne’er have they harried my cattle, nor ever made off with my horses[*];

but that I am pointing out to those who are too ready to become borrowers how much disgrace and servility there is in the practice and that borrowing is an act of extreme folly and weakness. Have you money? Do not borrow, for you are not in need. Have you no money? Do not borrow, for you will not be able to pay. Let us look at each of these two alternatives separately. Cato once said to an old man who was behaving wickedly: Sir, when old age has so many evils of its own, why do you add to them the disgrace of wickedness? Therefore in your own case do not heap up upon poverty, which has many attendant evils, the perplexities which arise from borrowing and owing, and do not deprive poverty of the only advantage which it possesses over wealth, namely freedom from care; since by so doing you will incur the derision of the proverb,

I am unable to carry the goat, put the ox then upon me.[*]

Being unable to carry the burden of poverty you put the money-lender upon your back, a burden difficult for even the rich to bear. How, then, am I to live? Do you ask this, when you have hands and feet and a voice, when you are a man capable of loving and being loved, of doing favours and being grateful for them? Live by teaching letters, by leading children to school, by being a door-keeper, by working as a sailor or a boatman; none of these is so disgraceful or disagreeable as hearing the order Pay up.

The well-known Roman Rutilius went up to Musonius and said, Musonius, Zeus the Saviour, whom you imitate and emulate, is no borrower; and Musonius answered with a smile, He is no lender, either. For Rutilius, who was himself a lender, was finding fault with Musonius for borrowing. This is an example of the vanity of the Stoics; for why should you bring in Zeus the Saviour, when you can use as examples things that are here before your eyes? Swallows do not borrow, ants do not borrow, creatures upon which nature has bestowed neither hands, reason, nor art; but men, with their superior intellect, support through their ingenuity horses, dogs, partridges, hares, and jackdaws in addition to themselves. Why, then, have you come to the poor opinion of yourself, that you are less

persuasive than a jackdaw, more dumb than a partridge, less well-born than a dog, so that you can obtain no help from any human being by waiting on him, entertaining him, guarding him, or fighting for him? Do you not see how many opportunities are offered on land and on the sea?

Lo, even Miccylus I beheld,[*]

says Crates,

Carding the wool, and his wife too carding the wool along with him,

Striving in terrible conflict to ’scape from the onslaught of famine.

King Antigonus asked Cleanthes, when he met him in Athens after not seeing him for a while, Are you still grinding corn, Cleanthes? Yes, Your Majesty, he replied; I do it in order not to be a deserter from Zeno’s instruction, nor from philosophy either. What a great spirit the man had who came from the mill and the kneading-trough, and with the hand which ground the flour and baked the bread wrote about the gods, the moon, the stars, and the sun! But to us such labours seem slavish. And therefore, in order to be free, we contract debts and pay court to men who are ruiners of homes, we act as bodyguard to them, dine them, make them presents, and pay them tribute, not because of our poverty (for no one lends to poor men), but because of our extravagance. For if we were content with the necessaries of life, the race of money-lenders would be as non-existent as that of Centaurs and Gorgons; but luxury produced money-lenders just as it did goldsmiths, silversmiths, perfumers, and dyers in gay colours; for our debts are incurred, not to pay for bread or wine, but for country-seats, slaves, mules, banquet-halls, and tables, and because we give shows to the cities with unrestrained expenditure, contending in fruitless and thankless rivalries. But the man who is once involved remains a debtor all his life, exchanging, like a horse that has once been bridled, one rider for another. And there is no escape to those former pastures and meadows, but they wander like the spirits described by Empedocles, who have been expelled by the gods and thrown out from heaven:

Into the waves of the sea they are driv’n by the might of the ether;

Then on the floor of the earth the sea vomits them; earth then ejects them

Into the untiring sun’s rays; and he hurls them to eddying ether.[*]

And so one after another takes over[*] the borrower, first a usurer or broker of Corinth, then one of Patrae, then an Athenian, until, attacked on all sides by all of them, he is dissolved and chopped up into the small change of interest payments. For just as a man who has fallen into the mire must either get up or stay where he is, but he who turns and rolls over covers his wet and drenched person with more dirt; so in their transfers and changes of loans, by assuming additional interest payments and plastering themselves with them,[*] they weigh themselves down more and more; and they are much like persons ill with cholera, who do not accept treatment, but vomit up the prescribed medicine and then continue constantly to collect more disease. Similarly these borrowers refuse to be purged, and always, at every season of the year, when painfully and with convulsions they cough up the interest while another payment immediately accrues and presses upon them, they suffer a fresh attack of nausea and headache. What they ought to do is to get rid of debts and become healthy and free again.

From now on my words are addressed to those who are more well-to-do and accustomed to a softer way of living, those who say Am I, then, to be without slaves, without hearth and home?, as if a sick man who is swollen up with dropsy should say to his physician Am I, then, to be made thin and empty? Why not, to make you get well? And so you should do without slaves, that you may not be a slave yourself, and without property, that you may not be the property of another. Hear the tale of the vultures: One of them had an attack of vomiting and said he was spewing out bowels, but the other, who was there, said What harm is there in that? For you are not spewing out your own bowels, but those of the corpse we tore to pieces a little while ago. So any man in debt sells, not his own plot of land, nor his own house, but those of his creditor whom by law he has made their owner. Not so, by Zeus, he says; why, my father left me this field. Yes, and your father left you your liberty and your civil rights, which you ought

to value more. So, too, he who begat you made your foot and your hand, but when it is mortified, you pay a surgeon for cutting it off. Calypso clothed Odysseus in her garment, putting fragrant raiment upon him[*] that breathed of her divine person, as a gift and a memento of her love; but when he was capsized and engulfed by the waves and could hardly keep himself up since the garment had become soaked and heavy, he took it off and threw it from him, then, binding a wimple about his naked breast,

Long-shore he swam looking landward,[*]

and when he reached safety he had no lack of garment or food. Well, then, is it not a tempest that arises about debtors when the lender after a while comes up to them saying Pay?

Thus having spoken he gathered the clouds and stirred up the great waters;

East wind and South wind and West with furious blasts raged together,[*]

as interest rolled up upon interest; and the debtor, overwhelmed, continues to clutch them as they weigh him down, for he cannot swim away and escape; no, he sinks down to the bottom and disappears along with the friends who have endorsed his notes. Crates the Theban, when he was not pressed for payment and did not even owe anything, because he disliked the mere administration of property, its cares and distractions, abandoned an estate valued at eight talents and, donning cloak and wallet, took refuge in philosophy and poverty. Anaxagoras also left his land to be grazed over by sheep.[*] But what need is there of mentioning these men, when Philoxenus the lyric poet, who shared in the allotment of lands in a colony in Sicily, which ensured him a livelihood and a household furnished with abundant resources, when he saw that luxury, indulgence in a life of pleasure, and lack of culture were prevalent there, said, By the Gods, these good things shall not make me lose myself; I will rather lose them, and leaving his allotment to others, he sailed away. But people in debt are content to be dunned, mulcted of tribute, enslaved, and cheated; they endure, like Phineus, to feed winged harpies which carry off their food and devour it, buying their grain, not at the proper season, but before it is harvested, and purchasing the oil before the olives have been plucked. And I have wine, says the borrower, at such and such a price, and he gives his note for its value; but the cluster still hangs clinging on the vine and waiting for the rising of Arcturus.