על עבודת האדמה ט״זOn Husbandry 16
א׳
1[72] Passing then from the neighing animals and those that ride upon them, search, if you please, your own soul; for you will find among its constituent parts both horses and one who wields the reins and one who is mounted, all just as in the outside world.
ב׳
2[73] Desire and high spirit are horses, the one male, the other female. For this reason the one prances and wants to be free and at large and has a high neck, as you might expect of a male. The other is mean and slavish, up to sly tricks, keeps her nose in the manger and empties it in no time, for she is a female. The Mind is alike mounted man and wielder of the reins; a wielder of the reins, when he mounts accompanied by good sense, a mere mounted man when folly is his companion.
ג׳
3[74] The foolish man, since he has never learnt, cannot keep hold of the reins. They slip from his hand and drop on the ground; and straightway the animals are out of control, and their course becomes erratic and disorderly.
ד׳
4[75] The fool behind them does not take hold of anything to steady him, but tumbles out barking knee and hands and face, and loudly bewails, poor miserable fellow, his own misfortune. Many a time his feet catch in the board, and he hangs suspended turned over back-downwards, and as he is dragged along in the very wheel tracks he gets head and neck and both shoulders battered and crushed, and in the end, tossed after this fashion in every direction and knocking up against everything that comes in his way, he undergoes a most pitiable death.
ה׳
5[76] For him such is the end that results, but the vehicle lifting itself up and making violent springs, when it reaches the ground in its rebound, too easily becomes a wreck, so that it is quite beyond being mended and made strong again. The horses, released from all that kept them in, become distracted and maddened and never stop tearing along until they trip and fall, or are swept down some steep precipice and perish.