MENANDER

THE SOURCE OF DESTRUCTION

Child: understand me:
Everything that decays rots from the inside out,
Rots with its own corruption.
Watch rust destroying iron,
Moths eating out woven wool,
Worms chewing through wood.
But the worst rot of all is envy,
The evil root of the faithless soul—
And envy is eating you away,
It is eating at you as I speak,
And it will go on eating.

VANITY

To learn just who you are
Look at tombs as you walk.
They hold the bones, the powdered dust
Of kings and tyrants, of wise men,
Of men proud of their noble fathers,
Of men glorying in their gold and their glory
And their beautiful bodies.
And when the time came
What protected them against death?
Nothing. Everyone living dies the same death.
Look at tombs and learn just who you are.