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By Root 989 0

school where the stingy man becomes liberal, and the liberal man becomes prodigal, and if there are any soldiers who are miserly, they are, like monsters, very rarely seen. My father exceeded the limits of generosity and bordered on being prodigal, something of little benefit to a man who is married and has children who will succeed to his name and position. My father had three sons, all of an age to choose a profession. Seeing, as he said, that he could not control his own nature, he decided to deprive himself of the means and cause of his being prodigal and a spendthrift by giving up his estate, without which Alexander himself would have seemed a miser. And so one day he called the three of us into a room where we could be alone, and he said something similar to what I will say now:

‘My sons, to say that I love you, it is enough to know and say that you are my children, and to understand that I do not love you, it is enough to know that I do not exercise control with regard to preserving your inheritance. So that you may know from now on that I love you as a father, and do not wish to destroy you as if I were your stepfather, I want to do something that I have been thinking about for a long time and, after mature consideration, have resolved to do. You are all of an age to choose a profession or, at least, to select an occupation that will bring you honor and profit when you are older. What I have decided is to divide my fortune into four parts: three I will give to you, each one receiving exactly the same share, and the fourth I will retain to keep me for the time it pleases heaven to grant me life. But after each of you has his share of the estate, I would like you to follow the path I indicate. There is a proverb in our Spain, one that I think is very true, as they all are, for they are brief maxims taken from long, judicious experience; the one I have in mind says: “The Church, the sea, or the royal house”; in other words, whoever wishes to be successful and wealthy should enter the Church, or go to sea as a merchant, or enter the service of kings in their courts, for, as they say: “Better the king’s crumbs than the noble lord’s favors.” I say this because I would like, and it is my desire, that one of you should pursue letters, another commerce, and the third should serve the king in war, for it is very difficult to enter his service at court, and although war does not provide many riches, it tends to bring great merit and fame. In a week’s time I shall give each of you his entire share in cash, down to the last ardite, as you will see. Tell me now if you wish to follow my opinion and advice in what I have proposed to you.’

And because I was the oldest he ordered me to respond, and after I had told him not to divest himself of his fortune but to spend as much of it as he wished, for we were young and could make one of our own, I concluded by saying I would do as he wished, and my desire was to follow the profession of arms and in that way serve God and my king. The second brother made a similar statement, but he chose to go to the Indies, using his portion to buy goods. The youngest, and, I believe, the wisest, said he wanted to enter the Church and complete the studies he had begun at Salamanca. When we had finished expressing our agreement and choosing our professions, my father embraced us all, and then, in as short a time as he had stated, he put into effect everything he had promised, and gave each of us his share, which, as I remember, amounted to three thousand gold ducados2 (an uncle of ours bought the entire estate so that it would stay in the family, and paid for it in cash).

The three of us said goodbye to our good father on the same day, and on that day, thinking it was inhuman for my father to be left old and bereft of his fortune, I persuaded him to take two thousand of my three thousand ducados, because the remainder would be enough for me to acquire everything I needed to be a soldier. My two brothers, moved by my example, each gave him a thousand ducados, so that my father had four thousand in