We avoid those who are lame in the right foot,
especially if we should see them early in the morning; and if anyone should see a cut priest or a eunuch
or a monkey immediately upon leaving the house,
he returns upon his tracks and goes back, auguring
that his daily business for that day will not be
successful, thanks to the bad and inauspicious omen
at the start. But in the beginning of the whole year,
at its door, on its first going forth, in its early morning, if one should see a profligate who commits and
submits to unspeakable practices, notorious for it,
broken in health, and all but called by the name of
his actions themselves, a cheat, a swindler, a perjurer,
a pestilence, a pillory, a pit, That is to say, approximately, a whipping-stock, a gallowsbird; hurling into a pit was a form of capital punishment in many cities of Greece. will not one shun him,
will not one compare him to a nefandous day?
 
Well, are you not such a person? You will not
deny it, if I know your boldness; indeed, it seems to
me that you are actually vain over the fact that you





 

have not lost the glory of your exploits, but are
conspicuous to all and have made a great noise. If,
however, you should offer opposition and should deny
that you are such a person, who will believe what you
say? The people of your native city (for it is fitting
to begin there)? No, they knew about your first
source of livelihood, and how you gave yourself over
to that pestilential soldier and shared his depravity,
serving him in every way until, after reducing you
to a torn rag, as the saying goes, he thrust you out.