"Now I shall do very well for a little while.

The material world and all that belongs to it weighs us down and clings to us like iron fetters.

We may long and strive to be free, but it pursues us and holds us fast.

Only those who are content with their miserable humanity can enjoy it.

They laugh, as you know, at Praxilla, the poetess, because she makes the dying Adonis lament, when face to face with death, that he is forced to leave the apples and pears behind him.