Explore "Gryll Grange" by Thomas Love Peacock on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Non duco contentionis funern, dum constet inter nos, quod / fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam. -- Petronius Arbiter. / I do not draw the rope of contention,{1} while it is agreed / amongst us, that almost the whole world practises acting.
1 A metaphor apparently taken from persons pulling in / opposite directions at each end of a rope. I cannot see, as / some have done, that it has anything in common with Horace's / _Tortum digna sequi potius quant ducere funern_: 'More / worthy to follow than to lead the tightened cord': which is / a metaphor taken from a towing line, or any line acting in a / similar manner, where one draws and another is drawn. Horace / applies it to money, which he says should be the slave, and / not the master of its possessor.