it is shameful to say, but if we are to confess the truth, the common people judge friendships by their utility. Nor will it be unpleasant to hear another speak on this subject in this manner:

"No one wants the friendship of the wretched poor; you seek gold, my friend, and a table laden with rich feasts. The poor man is driven away with a club and hissed out of every arena; it does no good for him to be virtuous or wise. Honor belongs to gold, and vice is given charm; piety is abandoned, and everyone pursues the riches of modesty."

Moreover, debauchery and drunkenness overwhelm many. Isidore asserted that these should be avoided, since from this mental disturbance arise furies and the stings of lust. Besides, it is well known that more are killed by the gullet than by the sword; thus it is sung:

"More bodies fall by food and drink than by the blade; many dangers show how true this is. For nothing harms the senses more or slackens the mind than feasts and wines consumed in various ways."

Others insolently boast in the brilliance of their own fortune, but Saint Ambrose observed that pride transformed angels into demons. It is added, from the teaching of Christ, that the haughty and arrogant should be placed in a lower station. Furthermore, one must especially flee a person corrupted by envy, for according to Saint Augustine, envy exterminates all virtues. One who seeks vain glory indulges in the luxury of clothing; as Gregory wrote, no one wants to be elegant and handsome in dress and other bodily refinement where they cannot be seen by others. Indeed, affected physical beauty is considered a vice, for a wise man contemplates the beauty of the soul, not the body. Finally, anger must be mitigated, ignorance—the nurse of vices—avoided, as well as avarice, which Cyprian likened to Hell. A lying man is called a fraudulent witness. Likewise, a person corrupted by a blemish of the spirit takes an oath, even though we read in Matthew: "You have heard it said to the ancients, you shall not swear falsely." Such a person loves discord against divine precept, for God is a God of peace, not of dissension.

Although women can be ensnared by the depravities of the soul just as men are, they are nevertheless tried by certain peculiar vices. First, a woman holds her will as reason, as Juvenal suggested when he sang:

"I want this, I command it; let my will stand for reason."

Thus she rules her husband. Sometimes women abound in quarrels night and day, which Juvenal expressed perfectly in this way:

"There is almost no case in which a woman has not stirred up a lawsuit."

Furthermore, no woman can be called chaste unless she guards herself, not the one her husband guards, according to that line of Ovid:

"No woman can be guarded unless she herself wishes it."

A woman is also condemned for intemperance, of which Propertius spoke:

"Once you have broken the reins of scorned modesty, you know no limit to your captivated mind."

Because of this, they slip from one fault to another, while women, exulting in the refinement of their clothes, indulge themselves too much, frequenting dances so they can be gazed upon by everyone, according to Ovid’s assertion:

"They come to see, and they come to be seen themselves; that place holds the ruin of chaste modesty."

Finally, a woman caught in a crime is forced to veil one wickedness with another. That this truth might be grasped, consider this couplet:

"As many birds as are in the sky, as many shells as are on the shore, so many evils and so many frauds does the female mind possess."

Pondering this depravity of soul at one time, even Marcus Tullius Cicero was forced to sing:

"No woman is good, but if any good one has happened to exist,