But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
Ver. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision] Id quod ei morbo suo longe gravius fuerit, sicut et Hebraei testantur, saith Mercer. This troubled him much more than all his sores and sicknesses; that every young shackrag slighted him, and laughed him to scorn. In this case especially,
- Faciles motus mens generosa capit (Ovid).
You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it; but to be despised or belied they cannot brook; but least of all by base persons: Quilibet ab aquila quam corvo discerpi mavult. Job was now grown ancient, and had been honourable, as he had set forth, Job 29:1,25. Old age and honour, in the Greek tongue, are near akin, Cognata sunt, γηρας et γερας, ut ηθος et εθος; and,
Summa fuit quondam capitis reverentia cani:
Inque sue precio ruga senilis erat.
But it is a sign of gasping devotion, and that things are far out of order, when the child behaveth himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable, Isaiah 3:5 , as at Bethel, where those poorly bred children derided the old prophet, and petulantly cried after him, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head," 2 Kings 2:23 . If the like unworthy usage befall us, let it suffice us that our betters, Job, David, Christ himself, have sped no better. Art not thou glad to fare as Phocion? said he to a lowly man that was to die with him.
Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock ] i.e. To have made my dog keepers, that they might feed with them, as the prodigal son did with the swine. Dogs are commonly looked upon as paltry carrion creatures; only some, for their mind's sake, and others, for certain necessary uses, as shepherds and hunters, make some reckoning of them. It was not permitted to a dog to enter into the Acropolis, or tower of Athens, for his libidinousness and ill savour, δια του ακολαστου και δυσωδους (Plut.). At Rome they crucified a dog yearly, in detestation of those dogs in the capitol that gave not warning of the approach of an enemy. Job, it seems, had his dog feeders, men of meanest account. Now these men's sons, a beggarly breed, and very rascals, insulted and trampled upon this precious man, dealt as basely and coarsely with him, haply, as those factious fellows in Geneva did with reverend Calvin; whom they not only in contempt called Cain (as Athanasius was sometimes by his enemies called Sathanasius; and Cyprian, Coprian, that is, a dunghill fellow), but also named their dogs Calvin, as Beza, in his Life, reporteth.