optical character recognition
-
- This essay, or declamation, is clearly in an unfinished
- state throughout and a good deal is doubtless lost at
- the end, for the author has done little more with his
- subject than to show that De Amore Prolis is a bad Latin translation for the title, but that there is no better: cf. Fronto, i. p. 280, ii. p. 154 ed. Haines (L.C.L.) for the statement that there is no such quality as Leben, Scriften, u. Philos, Plutarchs, ii. pp. 165-167, attempts to complete the thought of this treatise.Quaest. Plut., iii. pp. 26 ff.Die Sprache Plutarchs, ii. pp. 31-33. When Weissenberger attempts to find discrepancies between Plutarch's thought here and elsewhere, he chooses examples in which he either misinterprets the meaning or else forgets that Plutarch is ironical and intends the opposite of what he says.Quaest. Plut., pp. 3-21: by far the most complete discussion of the vocabulary and syntax of this strange work. Patzig's conclusion is that we have here a finished essay of Plutarch; this is untenable, but his arguments for genuineness are quite conclusive. None of his successors, not even Pohlenz, shows any knowledge of his valuable work.
- Dyroff'sDe Esu Carnium, De Sollertia Animalium,
- and Gryllus is not to be taken seriously : the grounds
- are too slight.
- The text is very corrupt. The work is not listed in
- the Lamprias catalogue.
-
-
Trials of cases on appealCf. Schwyzer, Dial. Gr. Exempla, 83 for an inscription in which Argos regulates the relations between Cnossus and Tylissus circa 450 b.c.; see also M. N. Tod, International Arbitration among the Greeks (Oxford, 1913).characters
and
- emotions,
and accuse our life of a great deviation
-
-
Observe to what extent there exists in animals
-
- Cf. Life of Lysander, xxx. (451 a-b); Life of Lycurgus, xv. 1 (48 c); Moralia, 227 f; Ariston in Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 497 ed. Hense (or von Arnim. Stoic. Vet. Frag., i. p. 89); Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, ii. 141 (vol. ii. p. 191 ed. Stählin).cf. Stobaeus, vol. iv. p. 521 ed. Hense.
- ius trium liberorum
- ,Epistulae, right of inheritance and the privileges of those who had less than three children.Cf. Lucretius, i. 10-20: Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animalium, vi. 18 (573 a 27).Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, iii. 11. 1 (vol. i. p. 242 ed. Stählin).Cf. Moralia, 990 c ff.Makes the yellow honey its care,
- flattering the saccharine quality of its sweetness
- which tickles our palates, yet we overlook the wisdom
- and artifice of the other creatures which is manifested
- in the bearing and the nurture of offspring. As, for
- example, the king-fisherCf. Moraalia, 41 f, 79 c.Cf. Moralia, 983 c-d; Aelian, De Natura Animalium, ix. 17.Moralia, 983 c (De sollertia animalium), Plutarch adds a few details to this description.
- And sea-dogsop. cit., ii. 55; Moralia, 982 a; for the kinds of Halieutica, i. 379 (L.C.L.).
- And the she-bear,Cf. Aelian, op. cit., ii. 19; Aristotle, op. cit., 579 a 24: Cf. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 10. 3.
- And in HomerIl., xvii. 134-136.
-
- does he look like a beast that has any notion of
- making terms with the hunters for his children's
- lives? For, in general, the love of animals for their
- children makes the timid bold, the lazy energetic,
- the voracious sparing; like the bird in HomerIl., ix. 324; cf. Moralia, 80 a.
-
- for she feeds her young at the cost of her own hunger,
- and, though she has laid hold of food for her belly, she
- withholds it and presses it tightly with her beak, lest
- she gulp it down unawares ; or
-
-
- acquiring, as it were, a second courage in her fear for
- her young.
- Od., xx. 14-15; cf. De Vita et Poesi Homeri, 86 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 375).
- And partridges,Cf. Moralia, 971 c-d; Aelian, op. cit., iii. 16; Aristotle, Historia Animalium, ix. 8 (613 b 17); scholia on Aristophanes, Birds, 768.
- And we have before our eyes every day the manner
- in which hensCf. Aristotle, op. cit., ix. 8 (613 b 15); Anthologia Palatina, ix. 95.
- Are we, then, to believe that Nature has implanted
- these emotions in these creatures because she is
- solicitous for the offspring of hens and dogs and bears,
- and not, rather, because she is striving to make us
- ashamed and to wound us, when we reflect that these
- instances are examples to those of us who would follow
- the lead of Nature, but to those who are callous, as
- rebukes for their insensibility, by citing which theyi.e. the philosophers whose views Plutarch is criticizing.Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 450, ades. 218.What man will love his fellow-man for pay?
-
- Epicurea, p. 320, Frag. 527.Dogs do not
- love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their
- nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally,
it
- would be recognized by the emotions of them all that
- this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful -
- great Heaven! - that the begetting and the pains of
- travail and the nurture of beas ts should be Nature
- and a free gift,
but that those of men should be
- loans and wages and caution-money, all given on
- condition of a return!Cf. 496 c, infra.
But such a statement is neither true nor worth
- the hearing. For just as in uncultivated plants,
- such as wild vines and figs and olives, Nature has
- implanted the principles, though crude and imperfect,
- of cultivated fruits, so on irrational animals she has
- bestowed a love of offspring, though imperfect and
- insufficient as regards the sense of justice and one
- which does not advance beyond utility ; but in the
- case of man, a rational and social animal, Nature, by
- introducing him to a conception of justice and law and
- to the worship of the gods and to the founding of cities
- and to human kindness, has furnished noble and beautiful and fruitful seeds of all these in the joy we have
- in our children and our love of them, emotions which
- accompany their first beginnings ; and these qualities
- are found in the very constitution of their bodies. For
- although Nature is everywhere exact and workmanlike
-
- and has,
as
- Erasistratuscf. Life of Demetrius, xxxviii. (907 a ff.).no trumpery about her
; yet
- when it comes to the processes of procreation, it is
- impossible to describe them in a fitting manner, and
- perhaps it would not be decent to fix our attention
- too precisely upon the names and designations of
- these forbidden topics, but it is proper that we should
- apprehend the admirable adaptation of those hidden
- and concealed parts to the functions of procreation
- and bringing to birth. However, the productionCf. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, i. 39 (vol. i. p. 113 ed. Stählin); Galen, vol. iv. p. 176 ed. Kühn.Cf. Aristotle, 745 b 25: for the
- umbilical cord grows at first in the womb,
as
- DemocritusFrag. d. Vorsokratiker
- 5, ii. p. 171; cf. Moralia, 317 a.as an anchorage against the
- swell and drift, a cable and vine
for the fruit now
- conceived that is to be), Nature shuts the monthly
-
- Cf. Celsus, vii. 7. 17.Cf. Life of Aemilius Paulus, xiv. (262 b-d).
- But there would be no benefit in these many kinds
- of equipment for procreation, or in such ways and
- means, such zeal and forethought, if Nature had not
- implanted in mothers affection and care for their
- offspring.
-
-
- the poet tells no falsehood if it is about a new-born
-
- Il., xvii. 446-447; cf. 500 b, infra.Cf. Moralia, 758 a.
Carry the discussion back to primitive mankind,
- to those whose women were the first to bear, and
- whose men were the first to see a child born; they had
- neither any law which bade them rear their children,
- nor any expectation of gratitude or of receiving
- the wages of maintenance lent to their children
- when they were young.
- Laws, 717 c; cf. 479 f, supra
-
-
- these lines, women tell us, were written, not by
- Homer,Il., xi. 269-271.Authoress of the Odyssey.with tatters
of swaddling-clothes
- Thus warming and caressing it, both night
- And day she passes in alternate toil.
- For what pay or advantage were these services performed by those ancient parents? Nor is there
- any for those of our day, since their expectations
- are uncertain and far off. He that plants a vineyard
- in the vernal equinox gathers the grapes in the autumnal ; he that sows wheat when the Pleiades set
- reaps it when they rise ; cattle and horses and
- birds bring forth young at once ready for use ;
- but as for man, his rearing is full of trouble, his
- growth is slow, his attainment of excellence is far
- distant and most fathers die before it comes. Neocles
- did not live to see the Salamis of Themistocles
- nor Miltiades the Eurymedon of Cimon ; nor did
- Xanthippus ever hear Pericles harangue the people,
- nor did Ariston hear Plato expound philosophy ;
- nor did the fathers of Euripides and Sophocles come
- to know their sons' victories ; they but heard them
-
- Niobe of an unknown poet (cf. Moralia, 691 d), attributed by Valckenaer to Sophocles, and recently by A. Lesky (Wien. Stud., lii. 7; cf. also Pearson, Fragments of Sophocles, vol. ii. p. 98), to Aeschylus.Poet. Lyr. Graec., ii. p. 270; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, i. p. 472.For fathers a child is always fear or pain.
- Yet none the less fathers do not cease rearing children
- and, most of all, those who least need them. For it is
- ridiculous if anyone thinks that the rich sacrifice and
- rejoice when sons are born to them because they will
- have someone to support them and bury them-unless,
- by Heaven, it is for lack of heirs that they bring
- up children, since it is impossible to find or happen
- upon anyone willing to accept another's property!
-
-
- as is the number of those seeking inheritances.cf. Moralia, 1067 d; Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica, ii. p. 162; Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 452.passim, especially Horace, Satires, ii. 5.The sire of fifty daughters,
- but if he had been childless, he would have had more
- heirs, and heirs unlike his own. For sons feel no
- gratitude, nor, for the sake of inheriting, do they pay
- court or show honour, knowing that they receive the
- inheritance as their due. But you hear the words of
-
- Archelaüs of Euripides: Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.
- 2, p. 427, Frag. 228. 1; cf. Moralia, 837 e.Knights, 50-51.O Demos, judge one case, then to your bath ;
- Gorge, guzzle, stuff, and take three obols' pay.
- And the remark of Euripides,Phoenissae, 439-440; but the first line is borrowed from Sophocles, Frag. 85. 1 (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.
- 2, p. 148).
-
- is not a simple and general truth, but applies to the
- childless : it is these whom rich men feast, whom
- great men court, for these alone do advocates plead
- gratis.
- A rich man with an unknown heir's a power.
- Many, at any rate, who had many friends and much
- honour, the birth of one child has made friendless
- and powerless. Therefore not even toward the
- acquisition of power is there any aid to be derived
- from children, but the whole force of Nature exists
- no less in man than in beasts.Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 484, ades. 404.
Now both this and miny other excellences are
- obscured by vice, as a thicket springs up beside seeds
- planted in a garden. Or are we to say that man has
- no natural love for himself just because many men
- cut their throats or hurl themselves from precipices?
- And OedipusOedipus Rex, 1276-1277.
-
-
- Cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp., i. 34. 83; Valerius Maximus, viii. 9, Ext. 3.In many a guise the gods appear.
- Alcestis, Andromache, Helen, and Bacchae of Euripides; cf. Moralia, 58 a.
- But these are like those diseases and morbid
- states of the soul which drive men from their natural
- condition, as they themselves testify against themselves. For if a sow tears to pieces her suckling pig,
- or a bitch her puppy, men grow despondent and
- disturbed and offer to the gods sacrifices to avert the
- evil, and consider it a portent on the ground that
- Nature prescribes to all creatures that they should
- love and rear their offspring, not destroy them.
- Moreover, as in mines the gold, though mingled and
- covered with much earth, yet gleams through, so
- Nature, even in characters and passions which are
- themselves perverted, reveals their love for their offspring. For when poor men do not rear their children
- it is because they fear that if they are educated less
- well than is befittingMoralia, 8 e on the education of poor children.
APPEALS to foreign judicatures first came in request
- among the Grecians out of their distrust of one another's
- justice, they deeming it as requisite to fetch justice from
- abroad, as any other necessary commodity which was not
- of their own growth. And is it not even so that philosophers, by reason of dissensions amongst themselves, have
- in the decision of some questions appealed to the nature
- of irrational beings, as to a strange city, and have submitted the final determination of such questions to the affections or to the dispositions of brutes, as being unbiassed and
- not corrupted by bribes? Or else this is the general complaint of human frailty, that while we differ about the
- most necessary and the greatest things, we consult horses,
- dogs, and birds, how we should marry, beget children, and
- bring them up; and, as if the evidence of Nature in ourselves were not to be trusted, we appeal to the dispositions
- and affections of brute beasts, and testify against the manifold transgressions of our own lives, intimating how at
- the very first and in the first things we are confounded and
- disturbed. For Nature conserves the propriety in them
- pure, unmixed, and simple; but in men, the mixture of
- ascititious opinions and judgments (as oil is served by the
- druggists) alters the properties, and does not preserve what
- is their peculiar. Nor need we wonder if irrational animals
-
-
But in brutes observe how all things are accommodated to Nature. As to marriages, they tarry not till laws
- are passed against celibacy and late marriages, as Lycurgus
- and Solon's citizens did; they matter not the disgrace of
- wanting children; nor are they ambitious of the honor of
- having three children, as many Romans, who marry and
- get children, not that they may have heirs, but that they
- may get estates. Again, the male accompanies with the
- female not at all times, because not pleasure but procreation is his end. Therefore in the spring time, when the
- fruitful breezes blow and the air is of a pregnant temper,
- then the female approaches the male, gentle and desirable,
- wantoning in the sweet smell and peculiar ornament of
- her body, full of dew and pure grass; and when she perceives she has conceived, she modestly departs, and provides for her bringing forth and for the safety of what she
- shall be delivered of. What brutes do cannot be sufficiently
- expressed; in all of them their affection to their young is
- evident by their providence, patience, and continence. Indeed we call the bee wise, and we celebrate her who deviseth the yellow honey,
flattering her for glutting us with
- her sweetness; but the wisdom and art of other creatures,
- about their bringing forth and the rearing their young, we
-
-
-
-
does she not, I say, look as if she were contriving how to
- make a bargain with the huntsman for her whelps? For
- generally the love of their young makes bold creatures
- timorous, the slothful industrious, and the voracious parsimonious. So Homer's bird gives to her young, though
- with herself it go hard.
-
-
-
and fear for her young turns into a second passion. When - partridges and their young are pursued, the old suffer the - young to fly away before, so contriving it that the fowler - may think to catch them. Thus they hover about, run - forward a little, then turn again, and so detain the fowler - till their young are safe. We daily behold hens, how they - cherish their chickens, taking some of them under their - spread wings, suffering others of them to run upon their - backs, and taking them in again, with a voice expressing - kindness and joy. When themselves are concerned, they fly - from dogs and serpents; but to defend their chickens, they - will venture beyond their strength and fight.
-And shall we think that Nature has bred such affections - in these creatures, because she is solicitous for the propagation of hens, dogs, and bears, and not that she may by - these means make us ashamed? Certainly we must conclude that these creatures, following the duct of nature, - are for our example, and that they much upbraid the remorselessness of humanity, of which human nature alone - is culpable, in not being capable of gratuitous love, nor - knowing how to be a friend without profit. Well therefore might the comedian be admired who said, For reward - only man loves man. Epicurus thinks that after this manner children are beloved of their parents, and parents of - their children. But if the benefit of speech were allowed - to brutes, and if horses, cows, dogs, and birds were brought - upon the stage, and the song were changed, and it were - said that neither the bitch loved her whelps for gain, nor - the mare her foal, nor fowls their chickens, but that they - were all beloved gratis and by impulse of nature, then by - the affection of all brutes this assertion would be approved - as just and true. And is it not a shame, that the procreation of beasts, their birth, pains in birth, and their education, should be by nature and gratis, and yet for these - things that man should require usury, rewards, and bribes?
-This assertion, as to pure Nature, can never be true,
- nor ought it to be believed. For, as in wild plants, such
- as wild vines, figs, and olives, Nature has implanted the
- principles of cultivated fruit, though crude and imperfect;
- so she has endowed beasts with a love of their young,
- though imperfect and not attaining to justice, nor proceeding further than utility. But in man, whom she produced
- a rational and political being, inclining him to justice, law,
- religion, building of cities, and friendship, she hath placed
- the seed of those things that are generous, fair, and fruitful,—that is, the love of their children,—following the first
- principles which entered into the very constitution of their
- bodies. For terms and expressions are wanting to declare
- with what industry Nature—who is skilful, unerring, and
- not to be surpassed, and (as Erasistratus says) has nothing
- idle or frivolous—has contrived all things pertaining to
- the procreation of mankind; and modesty will not permit
- it. The making and economy of milk sufficiently speak
- her providence and care. In women what abundance of
- blood more than serves for necessary uses, which, through
- languidness and want of spirit, wanders about and disturbs
- the body; being at other times by Nature in monthly periods
- discharged by proper canals and passages, for the relief
- and purgation of the body, and to render the womb like a
- field fit for the plough and seed, and desirous of it at
- seasons. But when the womb has caught the seed, and it
- has taken root (for the navel as Democritus says, grows
- first, like an anchor to keep the foetus from fluctuating, or
- as a stay or footstalk to the child), then Nature stops the
- passages proper for monthly purgations, and keeps the
- superfluous blood after that for nourishment and to moisten
- the birth, which now begins to be formed and fashioned,
- and at the end of a set number of days increases so in the
- womb, that it must seek another place and other sort of
- food. Then Nature, more diligent than any husbandman,
-
-
-
-
which infallibly holds good of infants new-born. For - nothing can be beheld so imperfect, helpless, naked, shapeless, and nasty, as man is just at his birth; to whom alone - almost Nature has denied a cleanly passage into the world; - and as he is smeared with blood, and daubed with filth, - more like to one killed than to one new-born, he could - never be touched, taken in arms, kissed, or hugged by any - one to whom Nature had not given an inbred affection for - him. Therefore other animals have their dugs below their - belly, which grow on woman above her breast, that she - may the more conveniently kiss, embrace, and cherish her - infant; because the end of bringing forth and rearing is - not necessity but love.
-For let us look back to ancient times, to those who
- first brought forth and who first saw a child born. Upon
- them certainly no law enjoined any necessity of rearing
- their offspring, nor could expectation of thanks oblige
- them to feed their infants, as if it were for usury. Nay,
-
-
-
-
These verses, some say, were not written by Homer, but
- by some Homeress, who either had been or was then in
- travail, and felt the very pangs in her bowels. Yet the
- love implanted by Nature melts and sways the childbed
- woman. While she is still in a sweat and trembling for
- pain, she is not averse to her infant; but turns it to her,
- smiles on it, hugs and kisses it. Though she finds no true
- sweetness, nor yet profit, however, she sometimes rocks it
- in a warm cradle, sometimes she dances it in the cool air,
- turning one toil into another, resting neither night nor day.
-
For what reward or gain was all this? For as little
- then as now; for the hopes are uncertain and far off. He
- that plants a vine in the vernal equinox gathers grapes
- upon it in the autumnal. He that sows wheat at the setting of the Pleiades reaps it at their rising. Cows, mares,
- and birds bring forth young ready for use. Man's
- education is laborious, his increase slow, his virtue lies at
- a distance; so that most parents die before their children
- show their virtue. Neocles never saw Themistocles's victory at Salamis, nor Miltiades the valor of Cimon at Eurymedon; Xanthippus never heard Pericles pleading; nor
- Aristo Plato philosophizing; nor did the fathers of Euripides and Sophocles know the victories their sons won,
- though they heard them indeed stammering and learning
- to talk. It is the mishap of fathers to see the revelling,
- drinking, and love intrigues of their children; to which
- purpose that of Evenus is memorable,
-
-
-
-
And yet men find no end of rearing of children; they especially who have no need of them. For it is ridiculous
- to think that rich men, when they have children born to
- them, sacrifice and rejoice that they may have some to
- maintain and to bury them. Or is it perhaps that they
- bring up children for want of heirs, because, forsooth, men
- cannot be found to accept of another man's estate? Sand,
- dust, and the feathers of all the birds in the world, are not
- so numerous
as heirs are to other men's estates. Danaus
- was the father of fifty daughters; but if he had wanted
- issue, he might have had many more heirs. The case is
- far otherwise with children; they make not acknowledgments nor curry favor nor pay their devotions, as expecting
- the inheritance of due. But you may hear strangers who
- hang about them that have no heirs, talking like the comedian:
-
-
-
-
And what Euripides said,
-
-
-
-
does not universally hold true, but of such only as have
- no children. To such the rich give banquets, such great
- men honor, and for such only lawyers plead gratis. A
- rich man who has no known heir can do great matters.
- Many a man who has had a great number of friends and
- followers, as soon as he has had a child, has been divested
- of all his alliances and power. So that children do not
- augment a man's power; but their whole power over their
- parents' affection is due to Nature, and is shown no less
- in men than in beasts.
But this natural affection, like many other good qualities
-
- For fatal things in various shapes do walk.
-
But all these things are disease and craziness of mind, - transporting a man out of his own nature; and in this - men testify against themselves. For if a sow or a bitch - kill the young they have brought forth, men look dejected, - are disturbed, sacrifice to the Gods to avert the mischief, - and do account it a miracle; because men know that Nature has implanted in all creatures the love of their young, - so that they should feed them and not kill them. For as - among metals gold, though mixed with much rubbish, will - appear; so Nature, even in vicious deeds and affection, declares the love to posterity. For poor people do not rear - their children, fearing that, if they should not be well educated, they would prove slavish, clownish, and destitute of all - things commendable; since they cannot endure to entail - poverty, which they look upon as the worst of all evils or - diseases, upon their posterity.
- This essay, or declamation, is clearly in an unfinished state throughout and a good deal is doubtless lost at the end, for the author has done little more with his subject than to show that
Dyroff’s
Trials of cases on appealcharacters
and emotions,
and accuse our life of a great deviation
Observe to what extent there exists in animals Makes the yellow honey its care,
flattering the saccharine quality of its sweetness which tickles our palates, yet we overlook the wisdom and artifice of the other creatures which is manifested in the bearing and the nurture of offspring. As, for example, the king-fisher
And sea-dogs
And the she-bear,
And in Homer
does he look like a beast that has any notion of making terms with the hunters for his children’s lives? For, in general, the love of animals for their children makes the timid bold, the lazy energetic, the voracious sparing; like the bird in Homer
for she feeds her young at the cost of her own hunger, and, though she has laid hold of food for her belly, she withholds it and presses it tightly with her beak, lest she gulp it down unawares; or
acquiring, as it were, a second courage in her fear for her young.
And partridges,
And we have before our eyes every day the manner in which hens
Are we, then, to believe that Nature has implanted these emotions in these creatures because she is solicitous for the offspring of hens and dogs and bears, and not, rather, because she is striving to make us ashamed and to wound us, when we reflect that these instances are examples to those of us who would follow the lead of Nature, but to those who are callous, as rebukes for their insensibility, by citing which theyWhat man will love his fellow-man for pay?
Dogs do not love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally,
it would be recognized by the emotions of them all that this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful - great Heaven! - that the begetting and the pains of travail and the nurture of beas ts should be Nature
and a free gift,
but that those of men should be loans and wages and caution-money, all given on condition of a return!
But such a statement is neither true nor worth the hearing. For just as in uncultivated plants, such as wild vines and figs and olives, Nature has implanted the principles, though crude and imperfect, of cultivated fruits, so on irrational animals she has bestowed a love of offspring, though imperfect and insufficient as regards the sense of justice and one which does not advance beyond utility; but in the case of man, a rational and social animal, Nature, by introducing him to a conception of justice and law and to the worship of the gods and to the founding of cities and to human kindness, has furnished noble and beautiful and fruitful seeds of all these in the joy we have in our children and our love of them, emotions which accompany their first beginnings; and these qualities are found in the very constitution of their bodies. For although Nature is everywhere exact and workmanlike and has,
as Erasistratusno trumpery about her
; yet when it comes to the processes of procreation, it is impossible to describe them in a fitting manner, and perhaps it would not be decent to fix our attention too precisely upon the names and designations of these forbidden topics, but it is proper that we should apprehend the admirable adaptation of those hidden and concealed parts to the functions of procreation and bringing to birth. However, the productionfor the umbilical cord grows at first in the womb,
as Democritus5, ii. p. 171; as an anchorage against the swell and drift, a cable and vine
for the fruit now conceived that is to be), Nature shuts the monthly
But there would be no benefit in these many kinds of equipment for procreation, or in such ways and means, such zeal and forethought, if Nature had not implanted in mothers affection and care for their offspring.
the poet tells no falsehood if it is about a new-born
Carry the discussion back to primitive mankind, to those whose women were the first to bear, and whose men were the first to see a child born; they had neither any law which bade them rear their children, nor any expectation of gratitude or of receiving the wages of maintenance lent to their children when they were young.
these lines, women tell us, were written, not by Homer,with tatters
of swaddling-clothes Thus warming and caressing it, both night And day she passes in alternate toil.
For what pay or advantage were these services performed by those ancient parents? Nor is there any for those of our day, since their expectations are uncertain and far off. He that plants a vineyard in the vernal equinox gathers the grapes in the autumnal; he that sows wheat when the Pleiades set reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses and birds bring forth young at once ready for use; but as for man, his rearing is full of trouble, his growth is slow, his attainment of excellence is far distant and most fathers die before it comes. Neocles did not live to see the Salamis of Themistocles nor Miltiades the Eurymedon of Cimon; nor did Xanthippus ever hear Pericles harangue the people, nor did Ariston hear Plato expound philosophy; nor did the fathers of Euripides and Sophocles come to know their sons’ victories; they but heard them For fathers a child is always fear or pain.
Yet none the less fathers do not cease rearing children and, most of all, those who least need them. For it is ridiculous if anyone thinks that the rich sacrifice and rejoice when sons are born to them because they will have someone to support them and bury them-unless, by Heaven, it is for lack of heirs that they bring up children, since it is impossible to find or happen upon anyone willing to accept another’s property!
as is the number of those seeking inheritances.The sire of fifty daughters,
but if he had been childless, he would have had more heirs, and heirs unlike his own. For sons feel no gratitude, nor, for the sake of inheriting, do they pay court or show honour, knowing that they receive the inheritance as their due. But you hear the words of 2, p. 427, Frag. 228. 1; O Demos, judge one case, then to your bath; Gorge, guzzle, stuff, and take three obols’ pay.
And the remark of Euripides,2, p. 148).
is not a simple and general truth, but applies to the childless: it is these whom rich men feast, whom great men court, for these alone do advocates plead gratis. A rich man with an unknown heir’s a power.
Many, at any rate, who had many friends and much honour, the birth of one child has made friendless and powerless. Therefore not even toward the acquisition of power is there any aid to be derived from children, but the whole force of Nature exists no less in man than in beasts.
Now both this and miny other excellences are obscured by vice, as a thicket springs up beside seeds planted in a garden. Or are we to say that man has no natural love for himself just because many men cut their throats or hurl themselves from precipices? And Oedipus
In many a guise the gods appear.
But these are like those diseases and morbid states of the soul which drive men from their natural condition, as they themselves testify against themselves. For if a sow tears to pieces her suckling pig, or a bitch her puppy, men grow despondent and disturbed and offer to the gods sacrifices to avert the evil, and consider it a portent on the ground that Nature prescribes to all creatures that they should love and rear their offspring, not destroy them. Moreover, as in mines the gold, though mingled and covered with much earth, yet gleams through, so Nature, even in characters and passions which are themselves perverted, reveals their love for their offspring. For when poor men do not rear their children it is because they fear that if they are educated less well than is befitting
This essay, or declamation, is clearly in an unfinished state throughout and a good deal is doubtless lost at the end, for the author has done little more with his subject than to show that
Dyroff’s
The text is very corrupt. The work is not listed in the Lamprias catalogue.
Trials of cases on appealcharacters
and emotions,
and accuse our life of a great deviation
Observe to what extent there exists in animals Makes the yellow honey its care,
flattering the saccharine quality of its sweetness which tickles our palates, yet we overlook the wisdom and artifice of the other creatures which is manifested in the bearing and the nurture of offspring. As, for example, the king-fisher
And sea-dogs
And the she-bear,
And in Homer
does he look like a beast that has any notion of making terms with the hunters for his children’s lives? For, in general, the love of animals for their children makes the timid bold, the lazy energetic, the voracious sparing; like the bird in Homer
for she feeds her young at the cost of her own hunger, and, though she has laid hold of food for her belly, she withholds it and presses it tightly with her beak, lest she gulp it down unawares; or
acquiring, as it were, a second courage in her fear for her young.
And partridges,
And we have before our eyes every day the manner in which hens
Are we, then, to believe that Nature has implanted these emotions in these creatures because she is solicitous for the offspring of hens and dogs and bears, and not, rather, because she is striving to make us ashamed and to wound us, when we reflect that these instances are examples to those of us who would follow the lead of Nature, but to those who are callous, as rebukes for their insensibility, by citing which theyWhat man will love his fellow-man for pay?
Dogs do not love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally,
it would be recognized by the emotions of them all that this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful - great Heaven! - that the begetting and the pains of travail and the nurture of beas ts should be Nature
and a free gift,
but that those of men should be loans and wages and caution-money, all given on condition of a return!
But such a statement is neither true nor worth the hearing. For just as in uncultivated plants, such as wild vines and figs and olives, Nature has implanted the principles, though crude and imperfect, of cultivated fruits, so on irrational animals she has bestowed a love of offspring, though imperfect and insufficient as regards the sense of justice and one which does not advance beyond utility; but in the case of man, a rational and social animal, Nature, by introducing him to a conception of justice and law and to the worship of the gods and to the founding of cities and to human kindness, has furnished noble and beautiful and fruitful seeds of all these in the joy we have in our children and our love of them, emotions which accompany their first beginnings; and these qualities are found in the very constitution of their bodies. For although Nature is everywhere exact and workmanlike and has,
as Erasistratusno trumpery about her
; yet when it comes to the processes of procreation, it is impossible to describe them in a fitting manner, and perhaps it would not be decent to fix our attention too precisely upon the names and designations of these forbidden topics, but it is proper that we should apprehend the admirable adaptation of those hidden and concealed parts to the functions of procreation and bringing to birth. However, the productionfor the umbilical cord grows at first in the womb,
as Democritus5, ii. p. 171; as an anchorage against the swell and drift, a cable and vine
for the fruit now conceived that is to be), Nature shuts the monthly
But there would be no benefit in these many kinds of equipment for procreation, or in such ways and means, such zeal and forethought, if Nature had not implanted in mothers affection and care for their offspring.
the poet tells no falsehood if it is about a new-born
Carry the discussion back to primitive mankind, to those whose women were the first to bear, and whose men were the first to see a child born; they had neither any law which bade them rear their children, nor any expectation of gratitude or of receiving the wages of maintenance lent to their children when they were young.
these lines, women tell us, were written, not by Homer,with tatters
of swaddling-clothes Thus warming and caressing it, both night And day she passes in alternate toil.
For what pay or advantage were these services performed by those ancient parents? Nor is there any for those of our day, since their expectations are uncertain and far off. He that plants a vineyard in the vernal equinox gathers the grapes in the autumnal; he that sows wheat when the Pleiades set reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses and birds bring forth young at once ready for use; but as for man, his rearing is full of trouble, his growth is slow, his attainment of excellence is far distant and most fathers die before it comes. Neocles did not live to see the Salamis of Themistocles nor Miltiades the Eurymedon of Cimon; nor did Xanthippus ever hear Pericles harangue the people, nor did Ariston hear Plato expound philosophy; nor did the fathers of Euripides and Sophocles come to know their sons’ victories; they but heard them For fathers a child is always fear or pain.
Yet none the less fathers do not cease rearing children and, most of all, those who least need them. For it is ridiculous if anyone thinks that the rich sacrifice and rejoice when sons are born to them because they will have someone to support them and bury them-unless, by Heaven, it is for lack of heirs that they bring up children, since it is impossible to find or happen upon anyone willing to accept another’s property!
as is the number of those seeking inheritances.The sire of fifty daughters,
but if he had been childless, he would have had more heirs, and heirs unlike his own. For sons feel no gratitude, nor, for the sake of inheriting, do they pay court or show honour, knowing that they receive the inheritance as their due. But you hear the words of 2, p. 427, Frag. 228. 1; O Demos, judge one case, then to your bath; Gorge, guzzle, stuff, and take three obols’ pay.
And the remark of Euripides,2, p. 148).
is not a simple and general truth, but applies to the childless: it is these whom rich men feast, whom great men court, for these alone do advocates plead gratis. A rich man with an unknown heir’s a power.
Many, at any rate, who had many friends and much honour, the birth of one child has made friendless and powerless. Therefore not even toward the acquisition of power is there any aid to be derived from children, but the whole force of Nature exists no less in man than in beasts.
Now both this and miny other excellences are obscured by vice, as a thicket springs up beside seeds planted in a garden. Or are we to say that man has no natural love for himself just because many men cut their throats or hurl themselves from precipices? And Oedipus
In many a guise the gods appear.
But these are like those diseases and morbid states of the soul which drive men from their natural condition, as they themselves testify against themselves. For if a sow tears to pieces her suckling pig, or a bitch her puppy, men grow despondent and disturbed and offer to the gods sacrifices to avert the evil, and consider it a portent on the ground that Nature prescribes to all creatures that they should love and rear their offspring, not destroy them. Moreover, as in mines the gold, though mingled and covered with much earth, yet gleams through, so Nature, even in characters and passions which are themselves perverted, reveals their love for their offspring. For when poor men do not rear their children it is because they fear that if they are educated less well than is befitting