Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) - 1.1.4. lyrics

So set a limit to greed, and as you gain more Fear poverty less, achieving what you desired, Make an end of your labour, lest you do as did One Ummidius. It's not a long tale: he was rich, So much so he was forced to weigh his coins: so stingy He dressed no better than a slave: and right to the end He was fearful lest starvation overcome him. Instead a freedwoman cut him in two with an axe, She an indomitable scion of Tyndareus' race! ‘Do you want me to live, then,' you say, ‘like Naevius Or Nomentan*s?' Now you're setting up a war Of opposites. When I order you not to be avaricious I'm not telling you to become an idle spendthrift. Between Visellius' father-in-law and Tanais There's a mean. Measure in everything: in short, there are Certain boundaries, on neither side of which lies Right. I return to the point I first made, that no one's content In himself, because of greed, but envies all others Who follow different paths, pines that his neighbour's goat Has fuller udders, and instead of comparing himself With the poorer majority, tries to outdo this man and that. But however he hurries there's always one richer in front, As when the galloping hooves whisk the chariots away From the gate, the charioteer chasing the vanishing teams, Indifferent to the stragglers he's leaving behind. So we can rarely find a man who claims to have lived A happy life, who when his time is done is content To go, like a guest at the banquet who is well sated. That will do. Lest you think I've pillaged the shelves Of bleary-eyed Crispinus, I'll add not a single word.