Meditating upon this unscrupulous method of getting around childless old men, I began to take thought of the present state of our own affairs and made use of the occasion to warn Eumolpus that he might be bitten in biting the biters.

"Everything that we do," I said, "should be dictated by Prudence.) Socrates, {whose judgment was riper than that} of the gods or of men used to boast that he had never looked into a tavern nor believed the evidence of his own eyes in any crowded assembly which was disorderly: so nothing is more in keeping than always conversing with wisdom.
Live coals are more readily held in men's mouths than a secret! Whatever you talk of at home will fly forth in an instant, Become a swift rumor and beat at the walls of your city.
Nor is it enough that your confidence thus has been broken, As rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish.
The covetous servant who feared to make public his knowledge A hole in the ground dug, and therein did whisper his secret That told of a king's hidden ears: this the earth straightway echoed, And rustling reeds added that Midas was king in the story.
"Every word of this is true," I insisted, "and no one deserves to get into trouble more quickly than he who covets the goods of others! How could cheats and swindlers live unless they threw purses or little bags clinking with money into the crowd for bait?
Just as dumb brutes are enticed by food, human beings are not to be caught unless they have something in the way of hope at which to nibble! (That was the reason that the Crotonians gave us such a satisfactory reception, but) the ship does not arrive, from Africa, with your money and your slaves, as you promised.

The patience of the fortune-hunters is worn out and they have already cut down their liberality so that, either I am mistaken, or else our usual luck is about to return to punish you!".