His fields not being enough, he covets villages; the proud man thinks himself alone human, and the rest animals
The Wise Man: O World, but I also want market-towns and cities.
The World: Behold, your neighbor has a market-town and a city, which other wealthier neighbors do not have; but you surpass him in the wealth of your silver. So spend some of your own and kill him (yourself, or by others’ hands) or drive him out. No stranger will attempt to buy them, and even if someone tried to interfere, he would fear you, for you are famed in wealth and power. And so, without the price rising, you will easily obtain them at a low cost, and in this way you will gain both the market-town and the city.
The rich man pursues the highest seat
The Wise Man: O World, after all this, I ask for and desire social honors.
The World: Wherever you go among men, and they learn that you are rich, they will invite you to the foremost place, at the head of the table; whoever sees you will rise to his feet, bowing to you. Thus, in this way, you will find honors too.
God is the enemy of the proud rich man
The Wise Man: O World, but I desire an honor still greater than this: to be raised up among those who rule.
The World: Go to any imperial or princely gate, and you will see that through the fame of your wealth, and still more through its power, they will grant you a boyar’s rank, and the highest one at that, until, with the help of money, if you wish, you may obtain rulership and kingship, even empire itself. Behold, then, no honor in the world is lacking to you.
It is hard to have both riches and paradise, for no one can serve two masters
The Wise Man: O World, along with all this, I would also like to gain and inherit the kingdom of heaven.
The World: O my sweet friend, is it not enough, does it not suffice you, that nothing you desired in the world has been lacking to you? Being now in such honor and glory, will you still think about death? Do you still compare yourself to other men? But who is like you, who resembles you? Do you lack anything at all? So then, my good friend, why do you grieve yourself with so many thoughts and reckonings, and why do you dwell on things that bring you sorrow? Behold, you have before your eyes all that pleases you; leave, then, all other reckonings now, and simply eat, drink, and make merry, for however much you have, you will never exhaust it.
The Wise Man’s chain of requests follows an almost mathematical ascent: treasure, fame, land, market-towns and cities, honors, rulership — and at the summit, „the kingdom of heaven.” It is the same ladder of the passions described in the previous article, only carried to its final possible step. And here, for the first time, the World stumbles. Not because she does not wish to give — but because, quite simply, she has nothing to give. Heaven cannot be bought with what she offers, however great the price.
Notice how, at each step of acquisition, the soul’s isolation also grows. The title of the first part states plainly where the pride of wealth leads: „the proud man thinks himself alone human, and the rest animals.” This is no rhetorical exaggeration on Cantemir’s part, but an exact description of what the Fathers call the blindness of vainglory: the proud rich man ceases to see the image of God in his neighbor, and sees him only as obstacle or tool. Saint Basil the Great says the same in his Homilies to the Rich: whoever makes wealth the sole measure of another’s worth has demoted his brother to the rank of beast, when in fact his brothers are formed after the very same image as he.
The request for social honors and then for rulership brings up another danger, which Saint John Chrysostom describes at length: worldly glory is never satisfied with what it has, but always climbs one step higher, because it springs not from any true worth but from an insatiable hunger of the ego. Each „yes” the World grants is like wine that does not quench thirst but inflames it further — an image Saint Isaac the Syrian often uses for passions left uncut at the root.
But the very subtitle Cantemir places over the last request says it all: „no one can serve two masters” — the Lord’s own word in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13. The kingdom of heaven is not added to the rest of one’s acquisitions as one final piece for the collection; it demands, on the contrary, that they be let go. And the World, asked about heaven, does not honestly say „I cannot give you this” — she does something craftier: she changes the subject, flatters, and ends with the very words Scripture places in the mouth of the rich fool in the Lord’s parable: „eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19), echoing Isaiah 22:13 and Ecclesiastes. This is the pure image of memento vivere without memento mori — living as though you had all the world’s days still ahead of you.
This is exactly why the World asks, rhetorically: „will you still think about death?” — because she knows that only forgetting death can keep her as mistress. Saint Isaac the Syrian says that the remembrance of death is the light that exposes the vanity of everything the world calls „good”; and whoever loses sight of it, even having gained market-towns, cities, and dominions, has lost the one thing that could have given true worth to all the rest. Here, at this threshold, the Divan shows us the natural limit of the World: she can overwhelm a man with gifts, but she can never redeem him from death — and this is exactly why she asks him not to think of it at all.
