Part 2: The Admonition. Chapter 1. Wretched Is the King Who Misuses the Gifts God Has Given Him

¹ You are listening, my emperor—for I have not recited these things to you idly, nor, as the saying goes, to sing to no purpose; but so that I might show you how many good things you have been furnished with by the Almighty, and how it is entirely within your power to surpass every emperor there has ever been, aided by so many advantages toward the good. For who will be more blessed than you, if to all these gifts you add the crowning touch of your own virtue? And who more wretched, if you defile them by the baseness of your later deeds?