Stupidity is the child of Wealth

[wolfinthewood]

Brooding on the deadly Carnival of Folly that is still being played out in and around New Orleans, I pulled The Praise of Folly off my shelves to see what Erasmus had to say.

Stupidity speaks:

...

Since there are many people who do not know from whom I am derived, with the good help of the Muses, I shall now attempt to expound this. The truth is that neither Chaos, nor Hell, Saturn nor the Titan Iapetus was my father, or any other of those out-of-date, putrefying deities, but Wealth. Never mind Hesiod and Homer, and even Jupiter himself; rest assured that it is Wealth alone who is the 'father of gods and men'. By his nod alone, everything, sacred and profane, is muddled together and turned upside down, these days every bit as much as it used to be in the past. According as Wealth decrees, so wars, peace treaties, empires, senates, trials, assemblies, marital unions, contracts, alliances, laws, professions, sports, serious matters – now I am running out of breath – in brief, all the affairs of men are managed, public and private ... Anyone who has made him angry, that person is beyond the aid of the Goddess of Wisdom herself; conversely, whoever has Wealth on his side, that person can tell even supreme Jupiter, together with his thunderbolt, to take a running jump.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (c.1466–1536)

from Encomium Moriae (1509; revisions and additions before 1522)

trans. Gillian Spraggs


© Gillian Spraggs 2005

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[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Alas, some things never change.