Letter from St. Francis of Assisi to all the Faithful (translated into English).

To all Christians, religious, clerics, and laics, men and women, to all who dwell in the whole world, Brother Francis, their servant and subject, presents reverent homage, wishing true peace from heaven and sincere charity in the Lord.

            Being the servant of all, I am bound to serve all and to administer the balm-bearing words of my Lord. 1 Wherefore, considering in my mind that, because of the infirmity and weakness of my body, I cannot visit each one personally, I propose by this present letter and message 2 to offer you the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Word of the Father and the words of the Holy Ghost which are "spirit and life." This Word of the Father, so worthy, so holy and glorious, whose coming the most High Father announced from heaven by His holy archangel Gabriel to the holy and glorious Virgin Mary 4 in whose womb He received the true flesh of our humanity and frailty, He, being rich 5 above all, willed, nevertheless, with His most Blessed Mother, to choose poverty.

            And when His Passion was nigh, He celebrated the Pasch with His disciples and, taking bread, He gave thanks and blessed and broke saying: Take ye and eat: this is My Body. And, taking the chalice, He said: This is My Blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for you and for many unto remission of            sins. After that He prayed to the Father, saying: "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me." "And His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground." But withal, He gave up His will to the will of the Father, saying: Father, Thy will be done: not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Such was the will of the Father that His Son, Blessed and Glorious, whom He gave to us, and who was born for us, should by His own Blood, sacrifice, and oblation, offer Himself on the altar of the Cross, not for Himself, by whom "all things were made," but for our sins, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. and He wishes that we should all be saved by Him and that we should receive Him with a pure heart and a chaste body. But there are few who wish to receive Him and to be saved by Him, although His yoke is sweet and His burden light.

            Those who will not taste how sweet the Lord is and who love darkness rather than the light, not wishing to fulfil the commandments of God are cursed: of them it is said by the prophet: "They are cursed who decline from Thy commandments." But, O how happy and blessed are those who love the Lord, who do as the Lord Himself says in the Gospel: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and . . . thy neighbor as thyself." Let us therefore love God and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind because He Himself, seeking that above all, says: "The true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth." For all who "adore Him, must adore Him in spirit and in truth." And let us offer Him praises and prayers day and night, saying: "Our Father who art in heaven," for "we ought always to pray, and not to faint."           

We ought indeed to confess all our sins to a priest and receive from him the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who does not eat His Flesh and does not drink His Blood cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. Let him, however, eat and drink worthily, because he who receives unworthily "eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord," —that is, not discerning it from other foods.

            Let us, moreover, "bring forth fruits worthy of penance." And let us love our neighbors as ourselves, and, if any one does not wish to love them as himself or cannot,  let him at least do them not harm, but let him do good to them.

Let those who have received the power of judging others, exercise judgment with mercy, as they hope to obtain mercy from the Lord. For let judgment without mercy be shown to him that doth not mercy. Let us then have charity and humility and let us give alms because they wash souls from the foulness of sins. For men lose all which they leave in this world; they carry with them, however, the reward of charity and alms which they have given, for which they shall receive a recompense and worthy remuneration from the Lord.

            We ought also to fast and to abstain from vices and sins and from superfluity of food and drink, and to be Catholics. We ought also to visit Churches frequently and to reverence clerics not only for themselves, if they are sinners, but on account of their office and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they sacrifice on the altar and receive and administer to others. And let us all know for certain that no one can be saved except by the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the holy words of the Lord which clerics say and announce and distribute and they alone administer and not others. But religious especially, who have renounced the world, are bound to do more and greater things, but " not to leave the other undone."

            We ought to hate our bodies with [their] vices and sins, because the Lord says in the Gospel that all vices and sins come forth from the heart. We ought to love our enemies and do good to them that hate us. We ought to observe the precepts and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ought also to deny ourselves and to put our bodies beneath the yoke of servitude and holy obedience as each one has promised to the Lord. And let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin or offence is committed.

            But let him to whom obedience has been entrusted and who is considered greater become as the lesser and the servant of the other brothers, and let him show and have the mercy toward each of his brothers that he would wish to be shown to himself if he were in the like situation. And let him not be angry with a brother on account of his offence, but let him advise him kindly and encourage him with all patience and humility.

            We ought not to be "wise according to the flesh" and prudent, but we ought rather to be simple, humble, and pure. And let us hold our bodies in dishonor and contempt because through our fault we are all wretched and corrupt, foul and worms, as the Lord says by the prophet: "I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people." We should never desire to be above others, but ought rather to be servants and subject "to every human creature for God's sake." And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon all those who do these things and who shall persevere to the end, and He shall make His abode and dwelling in them, and they shall be children of the heavenly Father whose works they do, and they are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are spouses when by the Holy Ghost the faithful soul is united to Jesus Christ. We are His brothers when we do the will of His Father who is in heaven. We are His mothers when we bear Him in our heart and in our body through pure love and a clean conscience and we bring Him forth by holy work which ought to shine as an example to others.

            O how glorious and holy and great to have a Father in heaven! O how holy, fair, and lovable to have a spouse in heaven! O how holy and how beloved, well pleasing and humble, peaceful and sweet and desirable above all to have such a brother who has laid down His life for His sheep, and who has prayed for us to the Father, saying: Father, keep them in Thy Name whom Thou hast given Me. Father, all those whom Thou hast given Me in the world were Thine, and Thou hast given them to Me. And the words which Thou gayest Me I have given to them; and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me. I pray for them: not for the world: bless and sanctify them. And for them I sanctify Myself that they may be sanctified in one as We also are. And I will, Father, that where I am, they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory in My kingdom.

            And since He has suffered so many things for us and has done and will do so much good to us, let every creature which is in heaven and on earth and in the sea and in the abysses render praise to God and glory and honor and benediction; for He is our strength and power who alone is good, alone most high, alone almighty and admirable, glorious and alone holy, praiseworthy and blessed without end forever and ever. Amen.

            But all those who do not do penance and who do not receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but who give themselves to vices and sins and walk after evil concupiscence and bad desires and who do not observe what they have promised, corporally they serve the world and its fleshly desires and cares and solicitudes for this life, but mentally they serve the devil, deceived by him whose sons they are and whose works they do; blind they are because they see not the true light,—our Lord Jesus Christ. They have no spiritual wisdom, for they have not in them the Son of God who is the true wisdom of the Father: of these it is said: "their wisdom was swallowed up." 1 They know, understand, and do evil and wittingly lose their souls. Beware, ye blind, deceived by your enemies—to wit, by the world, the flesh and by the devil—for it is sweet to the body to commit sin and bitter to serve God because all vices and sins come forth and proceed from the heart of man, as it is said in the Gospel.

            And you have nothing of good in this world or in the future. You think to possess for long the vanities of this world, but you are deceived; for a day and an hour will come of which you think not and do not know and are ignorant of. The body grows feeble, death approaches, neighbors and friends come saying: "Put your affairs in order." And his wife and his children, neighbors and friends, make believe to weep. And looking, he sees them weeping and is moved by a bad emotion, and thinking within himself he says: "Behold, I place my soul and body and my all in your hands." Verily, that man is cursed who confides and exposes his soul and body and his all in such hands. Wherefore, the Lord says by the prophet: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man." And at once they cause a priest to come and the priest says to him: "Wilt thou do penance for all thy sins? " He answers: "I will." "Wilt thou from thy substance, as far as thou canst, satisfy for what thou hast done and for the things in which thou hast defrauded and deceived men." He answers: "No."—And the priest says: "Why not?"—"Because I have put everything into the hands of my relatives and friends." And he begins to lose the power of speech and thus this miserable man dies a bitter death.

            But let all know that wheresoever or howsoever a man may die in criminal sin, without satisfaction—when he could satisfy and did not satisfy—the devil snatches his soul from his body with such violence and anguish as no one can know except him who suffers it. And all talent and power, learning and wisdom that he thought to possess are taken from him. And his relatives and friends take to themselves his substance and divide it and say afterwards: "Cursed be his soul because he could have acquired and given us more than he did, and did not acquire it." But the worms eat his body. And thus he loses soul and body in this short life and goes into hell, where he shall be tormented without end.

            In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. All to whom this letter may come, I, Brother Francis, your little servant, pray and conjure you by the charity which God is, and with the will to kiss your feet, to receive these balm-bearing words of our Lord Jesus Christ with humility and charity and to put them in practice kindly and to observe them perfectly. And let those who do not know how to read have them read often and let them keep them by them with holy operation unto the end, for they are spirit and life. And those who do not do this shall render an account on the day of Judgment before the tribunal of Christ. And all those who shall receive them kindly and understand them and send them to others as example, if they persevere in them unto the end, 6 may the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost bless them. Amen.

“Leveza” by Cecília Meireles (in Portuguese)

Leve é o pássaro:

e a sua sombra voante,

mais leve.

E a cascata aérea

de sua garganta,

mais leve.

E o que lembra,

ouvindo-se deslizar seu canto,

mais leve.

E o desejo rápido

desse mais antigo instante,

mais leve.

E a fuga invisível

do amargo passante,

mais leve.

"Ballad of Reading Gaol" - Version I, Part III by Oscar Wilde (in English)

III

In Debtors' Yard the stones are hard,

And the dripping wall is high,

So it was there he took the air

Beneath the leaden sky,

And by each side a Warder walked,

For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched

His anguish night and day;

Who watched him when he rose to weep,

And when he crouched to pray;

Who watched him lest himself should rob

Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon

The Regulations Act:

The Doctor said that Death was but

A scientific fact:

And twice a day the Chaplain called

And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,

And drank his quart of beer:

His soul was resolute, and held

No hiding-place for fear;

He often said that he was glad

The hangman's hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing

No Warder dared to ask:

For he to whom a watcher's doom

Is given as his task,

Must set a lock upon his lips,

And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try

To comfort or console:

And what should Human Pity do

Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

What word of grace in such a place

Could help a brother's soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring

We trod the Fool's Parade!

We did not care: we knew we were

The Devil's Own Brigade:

And shaven head and feet of lead

Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds

With blunt and bleeding nails;

We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,

And cleaned the shining rails:

And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,

And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,

We turned the dusty drill:

We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,

And sweated on the mill:

But in the heart of every man

Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day

Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:

And we forgot the bitter lot

That waits for fool and knave,

Till once, as we tramped in from work,

We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole

Gaped for a living thing;

The very mud cried out for blood

To the thirsty asphalte ring:

And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair

Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent

On Death and Dread and Doom:

The hangman, with his little bag,

Went shuffling through the gloom

And each man trembled as he crept

Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors

Were full of forms of Fear,

And up and down the iron town

Stole feet we could not hear,

And through the bars that hide the stars

White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams

In a pleasant meadow-land,

The watcher watched him as he slept,

And could not understand

How one could sleep so sweet a sleep

With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep

Who never yet have wept:

So we-the fool, the fraud, the knave-

That endless vigil kept,

And through each brain on hands of pain

Another's terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing

To feel another's guilt!

For, right within, the sword of Sin

Pierced to its poisoned hilt,

And as molten lead were the tears we shed

For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt

Crept by each padlocked door,

And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,

Grey figures on the floor,

And wondered why men knelt to pray

Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,

Mad mourners of a corpse!

The troubled plumes of midnight were

The plumes upon a hearse:

And bitter wine upon a sponge

Was the savior of Remorse.

The cock crew, the red cock crew,

But never came the day:

And crooked shape of Terror crouched,

In the corners where we lay:

And each evil sprite that walks by night

Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,

Like travelers through a mist:

They mocked the moon in a rigadoon

Of delicate turn and twist,

And with formal pace and loathsome grace

The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,

Slim shadows hand in hand:

About, about, in ghostly rout

They trod a saraband:

And the damned grotesques made arabesques,

Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,

They tripped on pointed tread:

But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,

As their grisly masque they led,

And loud they sang, and loud they sang,

For they sang to wake the dead.

'Oho!' they cried, 'The world is wide,

But fettered limbs go lame!

And once, or twice, to throw the dice

Is a gentlemanly game,

But he does not win who plays with Sin

In the secret House of Shame.'

No things of air these antics were

That frolicked with such glee:

To men whose lives were held in gyves,

And whose feet might not go free,

Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,

Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;

Some wheeled in smirking pairs:

With the mincing step of demirep

Some sidled up the stairs:

And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,

Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,

But still the night went on:

Through its giant loom the web of gloom

Crept till each thread was spun:

And, as we prayed, we grew afraid

Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round

The weeping prison-wall:

Till like a wheel of turning-steel

We felt the minutes crawl:

O moaning wind! what had we done

To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars

Like a lattice wrought in lead,

Move right across the whitewashed wall

That faced my three-plank bed,

And I knew that somewhere in the world

God's dreadful dawn was red.

At six o'clock we cleaned our cells,

At seven all was still,

But the sough and swing of a mighty wing

The prison seemed to fill,

For the Lord of Death with icy breath

Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,

Nor ride a moon-white steed.

Three yards of cord and a sliding board

Are all the gallows' need:

So with rope of shame the Herald came

To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen

Of filthy darkness grope:

We did not dare to breathe a prayer,

Or give our anguish scope:

Something was dead in each of us,

And what was dead was Hope.

For Man's grim Justice goes its way,

And will not swerve aside:

It slays the weak, it slays the strong,

It has a deadly stride:

With iron heel it slays the strong,

The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:

Each tongue was thick with thirst:

For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate

That makes a man accursed,

And Fate will use a running noose

For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,

Save to wait for the sign to come:

So, like things of stone in a valley lone,

Quiet we sat and dumb:

But each man's heart beat thick and quick

Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock

Smote on the shivering air,

And from all the gaol rose up a wail

Of impotent despair,

Like the sound that frightened marshes hear

From a leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things

In the crystal of a dream,

We saw the greasy hempen rope

Hooked to the blackened beam,

And heard the prayer the hangman's snare

Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so

That he gave that bitter cry,

And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,

None knew so well as I:

For he who live more lives than one

More deaths than one must die.

“Perkin Warbeck” by Lord Alfred Douglas (in English)

I

At Turney in Flanders I was born

Fore-doomed to splendour and sorrow,

For I was a king when they cut the corn,

And they strangle me to-morrow.

II

Oh ! why was I made so red and white,

So fair and straight and tall ?

And why were my eyes so blue and bright,

And my hands so white and small ?

III

And why was my hair like the yellow silk,

And curled like the hair of a king ?

And my body like the soft new milk

That the maids bring from milking ?

IV

I was nothing but a weaver's son,

I was born in a weaver's bed ;

My brothers toiled and my sisters spun,

And my mother wove for our bread.

V

I was the latest child she had,

And my mother loved me the best.

She would laugh for joy and anon be sad

That I was not as the rest.

VI

For my brothers and sisters were black as the gate

Whereby I shall pass to-morrow,

But I was white and delicate,

And born to splendour and sorrow.

VII

And. my father the weaver died full soon,

But my mother lived for me ;

And I had silk doublets and satin shoon

And was nurtured tenderly.

VIII

And the good priests had much joy of me,

For I had wisdom and wit;

And there was no tongue or subtlety

But I could master it.

IX

And when I was fourteen summers old

There came an English knight,

With purple cloak and spurs of gold,

And sword of chrysolite.

X

He rode through the town both sad and slow,

And his hands lay in his lap ;

He wore a scarf as white as the snow,

And a snow-white rose in his cap.

XI

And he passed me by in the market-place,

And he reined his horse and stared,

And I looked him fair and full in the face,

And he stayed with his head all bared.

XII

And he leaped down quick and bowed his knee,

And took hold on my hand,

And he said, ' Is it ghost or wraith that I see,

Or the White Rose of England .? '

XIII

And I answered him in the Flemish tongue,

' My name is Peter Warbeckke,

From Katharine de Faro I am sprung,

And my father was John Osbeckke.

XIV

' My father toiled and weaved with his hand

And bare neither sword nor shield

And the White Rose of fair England

Turned red on Bosworth field.'

XV

And he answered, ' What matter for anything ?

For God hath given to thee

The voice of the king and the face of the king,

And the king thou shalt surely be.'

XVI

And he wrought on me till the vesper bell,

And I rode forth out of the town :

And I might not bid my mother farewell,

Lest her love should seem more than a crown.

XVII

And the sun went down, and the night waxed black,

And the wind sang wearily ;

And I thought on my mother, and would have gone back,

But he would not suffer me.

XVIII

And we rode, and we rode, was it nine days or three ?

Till we heard the bells that ring

For ' my cousin Margaret of Burgundy,'

And I was indeed a king.

XIX

For I had a hundred fighting men '

To come at my beck and call,

And I had silk and fine linen

To line my bed withal.

XX

They dressed me all in silken dresses,

And little I wot did they reck

Of the precious scents for my golden tresses,

And the golden chains for my neck.

XXI

And all the path for ' the rose ' to walk

Was strewn with flowers and posies,

I was the milk-white rose of York,

The rose of all the roses.

XXII

And the Lady Margaret taught me well,

Till I spake without lisping

Of Warwick and Clarence and Isabel,

And ' my father ' Edward the King.

XXIII

And I sailed to Ireland and to France,

And I sailed to fair Scotland,

And had much honour and pleasaunce,

And Katharine Gordon's hand.

XXIV

And after that what brooks it to say

Whither I went or why ?

I was as loath to leave my play

And fight, as now to die.

XXV

For I was not made for wars and strife

And blood and slaughtering,

I was but a boy that loved his life,

And I had not the heart of a king.

XXVI

Oh ! why hath God dealt so hardly with me,

That such a thing should be done,

That a boy should be born with a king's body

And the heart of a weaver's son ?

XXVII

I was well pleased to be at the court,

Lord of the thing that seems;

It was merry to be a prince for sport,

A king in a kingdom of dreams.

XXVIII

But ever they said I must strive and fight

To wrest away the crown,

So I came to England in the night

And I warred on Exeter town.

XXIX

And the King came up with a mighty host

And what could I do but fly ?

I had three thousand men at the most,

And I was most loath to die.

XXX

And they took me and brought me to London town,

And I stood where all men might see ;

I, that had well-nigh worn a crown,

In a shameful pillory !

XXXI

And I cried these words in the English tongue,

' I am Peter Warbeckke,

From Katharine de Faro I am sprung

And my father was John Osbeckke.

XXXII

' My father toiled and weaved with his hand,

And bare neither sword nor shield ;

And the White Rose of fair England

Turned red on Bosworth field.'

XXXIII

And they gave me my life, but they held me fast

Within this weary place ;

But I wrought on my guards ere a month was past,

With my wit and my comely face.

XXXIV

And they were ready to set me free,

But when it was almost done,

And I thought I should gain the narrow sea '

And look on the face of the sun,

XXXV

The lord of the tower had word of it,

And, alas! for my poor hope,

For this is the end of my face and my wit

That to-morrow I die by the rope.

XXXVI

And the time draws nigh and the darkness closes,

And the night is almost done.

What had I to do with their roses,

I, the poor weaver's son ?

XXXVII

They promised me a bed so rich

And a queen to be my bride,

And I have gotten a narrow ditch

And a stake to pierce my side.

XXXVIII

They promised me a kingly part

And a crown my head to deck,

And I have gotten the hangman's cart

And a hempen cord for my neck.

XXXIX

Oh ! I would that I had never been born,

To splendour and shame and sorrow,

For it's ill riding to grim Tiborne,

Where I must ride to-morrow.

XL

I shall dress me all in silk and scarlet,

And the hangman shall have my ring,

For though I be hanged like a low-born varlet

They shall know I was once a king.

XLI

And may I not fall faint or sick

Till I reach at last to the goal,

And I pray that the rope may choke me quick

And Christ receive my soul.

"O Sorriso do Tio Pavel Pleffel" (Chapter XI) by José Thiesen (in Portuguese)

            - Aquelas aves tagarelas te cansaram?

            Era o sr. Pavel atrás de mim.

            - Elas são engraçadas, mas.. sim, falam demais!

            - Ficaram encantadas contigo.

            - Ora... disse eu, encabulado.

            Foi então que um grupo de colibris, jóias aladas, cercaram-nos com suas vozinhas suaves:

            - A quadrilha, tio Pavel! A quadrilha vai começar!

            - Vens conosco assistir a quadrilha? perguntou o sr. Pavel, com seu rosto sempre sério. Vais gostar disso.

            - O que é a quadrilha?

            - A “Quadrilha das Marocas” é uma dança tradicional e muito antiga entre as aves.

            - E porque o colibri chamou o sr. De “tio”?

            - Alguns chamam-me assim por afeto.

           

"The Raiders of Ra" by Unknown Writer (in English)

art by Dan Spiegle - Space Ghost #1 – Gold Key, 1966.

"Ecclesiastes" (Chapter X) by Qoheleth (in English)

Chapter 10

1 More weighty than wisdom or wealth is a little folly!

2 The wise man's understanding turns him to his right;

the fool's understanding turns him to his left.

3 When the fool walks through the street, in his lack of understanding he calls everything foolish.

4 Should the anger of the ruler burst upon you, forsake not your place; for mildness abates great offenses. 5 I have seen under the sun another evil, like a mistake that proceeds from the ruler: 6 a fool put in lofty position while the rich sit in lowly places. 7 I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes walked on the ground like slaves.

8 He who digs a pit may fall into it,

and he who breaks through a wall may be bitten by a serpent.

9 He who moves stones may be hurt by them, and

he who chops wood is in danger from it.

10 If the iron becomes dull, though at first he made easy progress, he must increase his efforts; but the craftsman has the advantage of his skill. 11 If the serpent bites because it has not been charmed, then there is no advantage for the charmer.

12 Words from the wise man's mouth win favor,

but the fool's lips consume him.

13 The beginning of his words is folly, and the end of his talk is utter madness; 14 yet the fool multiplies words. Man knows not what is to come, for who can tell him what is to come after him?

15 When will the fool be weary of his labor,

he who knows not the way to the city?

16 Woe to you, O land, whose king was a servant, and whose princes dine in the morning! 17 Blessed are you, O land, whose king is of noble birth, and whose princes dine at the right time (for vigor and not in drinking bouts).

18 When hands are lazy, the rafters sag;

when hands are slack, the house leaks.

19 Bread and oil call forth merriment and wine makes the living glad, but money answers for everything.

20 Even in your thoughts do not make light of the king,

nor in the privacy of your bedroom revile the rich.

Because the birds of the air may carry your voice,

a winged creature may tell what you say.