CHAPTER 10
INTRODUCTION
9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your unsteady life, which are given to you under the sun, all the time of your vanity. For this is your portion in life and in your labor wherewith you labor under the sun. 10
Whatsoever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly. For neither work nor reason nor knowledge nor wisdom will be in hell, whither you are hastening.
11 I turned myself to another thing, and I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong nor bread to the wise nor riches to the learned nor favor to the skillful. But time and chance in all. 12 No one knows his own end. But as fish are taken with the hook and as birds are caught with a snare, so men and women are taken in the evil time, when it will suddenly come upon them.
13 This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed to me to be very great. 14 A little city, and few men in it. There came against it a great king and built bulwarks round about it, and the siege was perfect. 15 Now there was found in it a man poor and wise, and he delivered the city by his wisdom. And no one afterward remembered that poor person. 16 And I said that wisdom is better than strength. How then is the wisdom of the poor person slighted and his words not heard? 17 The words of the wise are heard in silence, more than the cry of a prince among fools. 18 Better is wisdom than weapons of war, and the person who will sin in one will lose many good things.
CHAPTER 10
1 Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the ointment. Wisdom is more precious and a little glory for a time than foolishness.
2 The heart of the wise are in their right hands, and the heart of fools is in their left hands.
ST. BONAVENTURE'S COMMENTARY ON ECCLESIASTES
3 But, and the fool when he walks in the way, whereas he himself is a fool, esteems all people to be fools.
4 If the spirit of the one who has power ascend upon you, leave not your place, because care will make the greatest sins to cease.
5 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were by an error proceeding from the face of the prince.6 A fool set in high dignity, and the rich sit beneath. 7 I have seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants.
8 The person who digs a hole will fall into it, and the person who breaks a hedge, a serpent will bite him. 9 The person who removes stones will be hurt by them, and the person who cuts trees will be wounded by them. 10 If the iron be blunt, and be not as before, but be made blunt, with much labor it will be sharpened. And after industry wisdom will follow. 11 If a serpent bites in secret, the person who backbites in secret is no better. 12 The words of the mouth of a wise person are grace. The lips of a fool will throw him down headlong. 13 The beginning of his words is folly, and the end of his talk is a mischievous error. 14 A fool multiplies words.
People cannot tell what has been before them. And what will be after them, who can tell them?
15 The labor of fools will afflict them who do not know how to go to the city.
16 Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child and your princes eat in the morning. 17 Blessed is the land, whose king is noble, and whose princes eat in due season for refreshment and not for riotousness.
18 By slothfulness a building will be brought down, and through the weakness of hands the house will leak.
19 For the sake of laughter they make bread and wine that those drinking may feast, and all things obey money.
20 Do not speak detraction against the king in your thought, and in your private chamber speak no evil of the rich person, because even the birds of the air will carry