The measure of gain for each man is the body, as the foot is for the shoe. Take your stand on this, and you shall preserve the measure. But if you transgress it, you must thenceforth be borne, as it were, down a steep. And so it is with the shoe, for if you will go beyond the measure of the foot, the shoe will be first gilded, then dyed purple, then embroidered. For that which hath once transgressed its measure hath no longer any limit.
The body sets the limit on what each person should acquire, just as the foot sets the size of a shoe. Stick to this, and you will keep within the proper limit. But if you go beyond it, you will be carried along as if down a steep slope. The same is true of a shoe. If you go beyond what the foot needs, the shoe will first be gilded, then dyed purple, then embroidered. For once something has gone beyond its proper measure, it no longer has any limit.