DEMADES Athenien condemna vn homme de sa ville, qui faisoit mestier de vendre les choses necessaires aux enterremens, soubs tiltre de ce qu’il en demandoit trop de profit, et que ce profit ne luy pouuoit venir sans la mort de beaucoup de gens. Ce iugement semble estre mal pris; d’autant qu’il ne se faict aucun profit qu’au dommage d’autruy, et qu’à ce compte il faudroit condamner toute sorte de guain.
Demades the Athenian condemned a man of his city whose trade was selling the things needed for funerals, on the ground that he asked too much profit for them, and that this profit could not come to him without the death of many people. This judgment seems ill-founded, since no profit is made except at someone else’s expense, and by that reckoning every kind of gain would have to be condemned.
Le marchand ne faict bien ses affaires, qu’à la débauche de la ieunesse: le laboureur à la cherté des bleds: l’architecte à la ruine des maisons: les officiers de la Iustice aux procez et querelles des hommes: l’honneur mesme et pratique des Ministres de la religion se tire de nostre mort et de noz vices. Nul Medecin ne prent plaisir à la santé de ses amis mesmes, dit l’ancien Comique Grec; ny soldat à la paix de sa ville: ainsi du reste. Et qui pis est, que chacun se sonde au dedans, il trouuera que nos souhaits interieurs pour la plus part naissent et se nourrissent aux despens d’autruy.
The merchant does good business only through the extravagance of the young; the farmer through the high price of grain; the architect through the ruin of houses; officers of justice through men’s lawsuits and quarrels; even the honor and practice of ministers of religion derive from our death and our vices. No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends, says the ancient Greek comic poet, nor any soldier in the peace of his city; and so on with the rest. And what is worse, let each of us sound himself within, and he will find that our inmost wishes are for the most part born and nourished at the expense of others.
Ce que considerant, il m’est venu en fantasie, comme nature ne se dement point en cela de sa generale police: car les Physiciens tiennent, que la naissance, nourrissement et, augmentation de chasque chose, est l’alteration et corruption d’vn’ autre. Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit, / Continuó hoc mors est illius, quod fuit antè.
As I considered this, it occurred to me that nature in this respect does not depart from her general order; for the natural philosophers hold that the birth, nourishment and growth of each thing is the alteration and corruption of another. For whatever is changed and passes beyond its bounds, / That is at once the death of what it was before.