Latin Texts & Translations

Gold is dug out of the earth, and, in close proximity to it, chrysocolla, ^[Note] a substance which, that it may appear all the more precious, still retains the name ^[Note] which it has borrowed from gold. ^[Note] It was not enough for us to have discovered one bane for the human race, but we must set a value too upon the very humours of gold. ^[Note] While avarice, too, was on the search

for silver, it congratulated itself upon the discovery of minium, ^[Note] and devised a use to be made of this red earth.

Alas for the prodigal inventions of man! in how many ways have we augmented the value of things! ^[Note] In addition to the standard value of these metals, the art of painting lends its aid, and we have rendered gold and silver still more costly by the art of chasing them. Man has learned how to challenge both Nature and art to become the incitements to vice! His very cups he has delighted to engrave with libidinous subjects, and he takes pleasure in drinking from vessels of obscene form! ^[Note] But in lapse of time, the metals passed out of fashion, and men began to make no account of them; gold and silver, in fact, became too common. From this same earth we have extracted vessels of murrhine ^[Note] and vases of crystal, ^[Note] objects the very fragility of which is considered to enhance their value. In fact, it has come to be looked upon as a proof of opulence, and as quite the glory of luxury, to possess that which may be irremediably destroyed in an instant. Nor was even this enough;—we now drink from out of a mass of gems, ^[Note] and we set our goblets with smaragdi; ^[Note] we take delight in possessing the wealth of India, as the promoter of intoxication, and gold is now nothing more than a mere accessory. ^[Note]