The Measure of the Ground

When a man is set over stone, let him first learn the ground beneath it.

For weight asks no leave, and measure bows to no crown.
The earth holds the score in its own time.

My hands were given charge of line and level, and the bearing of loads and the curing of brick. I learned early that work done in haste shapes a pride more brittle than the hardest cured brick. Set your line in clay, and it holds; then lean on a reed, and it gives by degrees. Sand feels kind under the foot, yet it yields under the first stone.

The ground does not change its contour for praise or command.

Set work on poor ground and the first faults come small. What shows is smoothed. What should be mended is signed as sound. But when the load shifts, it cannot return.

Two builders laboured on the same plain with the same tools. One went up quickly on easy ground and his roof was seen first. The other cut into the hardest of places and waited until the rock would carry. His work rose slowly enough to lose the patience of men.

There is room enough in Shinar for a broad footing. Give the weight a wide bed, and it sits. Force height on yielding ground, and the cracks will hold the light.

My king, I lay this before you with the care of a servant, friend and craftsman.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand because it was agreeable.
The wise man built upon the rock.
He paid the full cost before planting a single stone.

Ammur-Kal
The First Towerwright of Shinar