The Perils of Festive Debt

We celebrate in this way the appointed days; and for every human matter, talk is considered the leader; but where the cause and the goal are absent, this is mere chatter and vanity.

O, the absurdity! All those who have received wander about, hoping from one another. Those who receive are grieved, and those who have received do not hold on. For the gift passes to others, and the one who receives from the responsible party gives to the one above. The gold of this day is unstable, like a ball in play, being sharply passed by me to the other.

And it is a new manner of gift-bearing and of service, having the contribution as a necessity. For the greater and more glorious one is shamed, the lesser one asks, and all move by steps upon the bosoms of the superior ones. And what happens during the rushing of the waters, this is now to be seen.

For there, a thin stream having flowed out mixes its currents with the one with it and the greater; and that one is covered again by the one more flooding, and many even thinner streams being gathered together become an addition to a neighboring river; this one again passes to another of the greater, and another to another, until the last one establishes the water by depth and breadth like the sea.

This feast is pseudonymous, full of extortion; for both the procession and the inner stay were not undisturbed. For the actors and the wonder-workers of the orchestra, having divided themselves into ranks and systems, wander through each house; and indeed they speak well and applaud, but they remain more conveniently at the gates of the practitioners, until the one inside is cut off.

Silver, being besieged, goes before what it has and what it does not have. Approaching the doors in exchange, they receive one another, and until a late night there is no respite from evil, but one outcry takes hold of another, and one calamity of another.

This is the best feast and becomes the cause of loans for men, and of their offspring; a starting point of poverty, the beginning of misfortunes. If anyone, because of the unreliability of his substance, cannot even find a lender, he is dragged away like one failing to pay royal taxes, weeps like one being taken captive, is consumed like one who has fallen to a robber, is guarded, and is flogged.

If there is even a little in the house for the sustenance of a wife and struggling children, this is sent ahead; but those starving sit amidst the crowd during the bright feast. It is a new law of bad habit, to celebrate boredom and to call a general assembly of men's destitution.

This day teaches even small children to be grasping and simple-minded lovers of silver, and prepares them to plunder from house to house and to bring new gifts, while being bound by silver. But the giving of the double is a repayment, and from here the dishonest and the unrestrained begin to impress those with simple minds among the young.

And what does this day prepare for the holy and best farmers! It works for them a city that is fleeing and unapproachable; and more so are they paying it back than hares pay back the nets. For those found are flogged, are reproached, lose what is in their hands, are fought against in peace, are insulted, and are mocked by words and deeds.