[49]
To contradict one's elders or to be impudent to them1 was then considered more reprehensible than it is nowadays to sin against one's parents; and to eat or drink in a tavern was something which no one, not even an honest slave, would venture to do;2 for they cultivated the manners of a gentleman, not those of a buffoon; and as for those who had a turn for jesting and playing the clown, whom we today speak of as clever wits, they were then looked upon as sorry fools.3
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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