One who, like the fool, believes "nothing is more valuable" than what gold can buy (4) and repines that what they've "lightly thrown away" cannot be gathered again (24). They labor vainly after riches, neglecting the present moment (26), and see life as a "scene of delusion, a series of misadventures" (28). They dread as mortals, yet desire as if immortal (30), clinging to outrage and licentiousness in youth (31) and finding only infirmities in age. They fail to improve their wisdom and virtue (18), always beginning anew instead of continuing to live wisely from their first period (25). Their "bed of roses" is fraught with unseen thorns.