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@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
- περὶ πολυφιλίας
- Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Bernardakis, Gregorius N., editor; Leipzig: Teubner. 1888.
+ Περὶ πολυφιλίας
+ Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner. 1888.
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-
-
-
-%PersProse;
-]>
-
-
-
-
- De amicorum multitudine
- Machine readable text
- Plutarch
- Frank Cole Babbitt&responsibility;&fund.NEH;
- &Perseus.publish;
-
-
-
- Plutarch
- Moralia
-
- with an English Translation by
- Frank Cole Babbitt
-
-
- Cambridge, MA
- Harvard University Press
- London
- William Heinemann Ltd.
- 1928
-
- 2
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-
optical character recognition
-
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- English
- Greek
- Latin
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- tagged and parsed
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-
-
- ON HAVING MANY FRIENDS (DE AMICORUM MULTITUDINE) INTRODUCTION
-
Plutarch's essay on friendship may possibly have been offered on some
- occasion as a lecture, but there is nothing to prove or disprove this
- assumption. From what we know of Plutarch's relations to his friends we can
- well believe that he was singularly happy in his friendships, and hence well
- fitted to speak on the subject. He was familiar, too, with the literature
- dealing with friendship, and the result is an essay well worth reading.
- Cicero's essay on friendship (De amicitia) may profitably be compared with
- Plutarch's.
-
Two or three emendations of a more radical nature have been adopted in the
- text, in the effort to make it intelligible: for example, in 96 a the
- translation probably gives the right sense of the passage, as Wyttenbach
- seemed to see, but whether the emendation is right is more doubtful. Even
- more doubtful is Paton's prosentei/nein,
- based on an even more dubious emendation of e)ntei/nasqai in the quotation from Euripides ; for Plutarch
- would not be apt to refer to an aorist middle by a present active form. In
- these matters Plutarch was more careful than Paton.
-
-
-
-
Meno,Plato, Meno 71 E. the Thessalian, who felt that he had had a good training in debating,
- and, to quote Empedocles' familiar expression, was Haunting the lofty
- heights of wisdom, From a longer fragment; cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 225.
- was asked by Socrates what virtue is ; and when he
- replied impulsively and promptly that there is a virtue appropriate to a
- child and to an old man, to a grown man and to a woman, to a public official
- and to a private citizen, to a master and to a servant, Socrates exclaimed,
- A fine answer ! for when asked for one virtue you have stirred
- up a whole swarm of virtues,
-
- Cf. Moralia 441 B. inferring, not badly, that it was
- because the man knew not a single virtue that he was naming so many. And
- might not we also be subject to ridicule because we, who are not yet in
- secure possession of one friendship, are afraid that we may unwittingly
- become involved in a multitude of friendships ? We hardly differ at all from
- a man who, being maimed or blind, is afraid that he may become a Briareus of
- the hundred hands or an Argus all-seeing. And yet we commend above measure
-
- the youth in Menander's play The Epiclerus. Kock, Com. Attic. Frag. iii., Menander, No. 554. See also Plutarch, Moralia, 479 C, where four lines of the play are quoted, and Allinson, Menander (in the L.C.L.), p. 493. who says that any man
- counts it a marvellous good thing If he but have the shadow of a friend.
-
-
-
-
One thing which stands out among many others, as particularly antagonistic to
- our acquisition of friendship, is the craving for numerous friends, which is
- like that of licentious women,
- Cf. Lucian, Tozaris, 37. for because of our frequent intimacies with
- many different persons we cannot keep our hold on our earlier associates,
- who are neglected and drift away. A better comparison, perhaps, is the
- nursling of Hypsipyle, who seated himself in the meadow, and One after
- another caught up Handfuls of flowers with joyful heart, But with
- childhood's yearning unsated.Presumably from the Hypsipyle of Euripides, cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 754. Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia, 661 F.
- So it is with all of us : because anything
- new attracts us but soon palls on us, it is always the recent and freshly
- blooming friend that allures us and makes us change our minds, even while we
- are busy with many beginnings of friendship and intimacy at the same time,
- which go but little further, since, in our longing for the person we pursue,
- we pass over the one already within our grasp.
-
In the first place, then, let us begin at the hearthstone, as the saying is,
- with the story of men's lives which history Plutarch is considering Greek history only. has left us regarding steadfast
- friends, and let us take as witness and counsellor in our discussion the
- long and distant ages in which are mentioned, as paired in the bond of
- friendship, Theseus and Peirithoüs, Achilles and Patroclus,
- Orestes and Pylades, Phintias and Damon, Epameinondas
- and Pelopidas. For friendship is a creature that seeks a companion ; it is
- not like cattle and crows that flock and herd together, and to look upon
- one's friend as another self and to call him brother as
- though to suggest th'other, is nothing but a way of using
- duality as a measure of friendship. It is impossible to acquire either many
- slaves or many friends with little coin. What then is the coin of friendship
- ? It is goodwill and graciousness combined with virtue, than which nature
- has nothing more rare. It follows, then, that a strong mutual friendship
- with many persons is impossible, but, just as rivers whose waters are
- divided among many branches and channels flow weak and thin, so affection,
- naturally strong in a soul, if portioned out among many persons becomes
- utterly enfeebled. This is the reason why, in the case of animals, love for
- their young is more strongly implanted by nature in those that give birth to
- but one at a time ; and Homer's
- Iliad, ix. 482; Odyssey, xvi. 19. name for a beloved son is the only
- one, child of our eld, that is to say, born to parents who
- neither have nor can ever have another child.
-
-
-
We do not maintain that our friend should be the only one,
- but along with others let there be some child of our eld
- and late-begotten, as it were, who has consumed with us in
- the course of time the proverbial bushel of salt,
- Cf. Moralia, 482 B; Cicero, De amicitia, 19 (67); Aristotle, Eth. Nicom. viii. 3. not as is the fashion
- nowadays, by which many get the name of friend by drinking a single glass
- together, or by playing ball or gambling together, or by spending a night
- under the same roof, and so pick up a friendship from inn, gymnasium, or
- market-place.
-
-
In the houses of rich men and rulers, the people see a noisy throng of
- visitors offering their greetings and shaking hands and playing the part of
- armed retainers, and they think that those who have so many friends must be
- happy. Yet they can see a far greater number of flies in those persons'
- kitchens. But the flies do not stay on after the good food is gone, nor the
- retainers after their patron's usefulness is gone. But true friendship seeks
- after three things above all else: virtue as a good thing, intimacy as a
- pleasant thing, and usefulness as a necessary thing, for a man ought to use
- judgement before accepting a friend, and to enjoy being with him and to use
- him when in need of him, and all these things stand in the way of one's
- having many friends ; but most in the way is the first (which is the most
- important)—the approval through judgement. Therefore we must, in
- the first place, consider whether it is possible in a brief period of time
- to test dancers who are to dance together, or rowers who are to pull
- together, or servants who are to be guardians of property or attendants of
- children, let alone the testing of a multitude of friends who are to strip
- for a general contest with every kind of fortune, each one of whom Puts his
- successes with the common store, And shares in bad luck, too, without
- distress.Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 366.
- For no ship is launched upon the sea to meet so many storms, nor
- do men, when they erect protecting walls for strongholds, and dams and moles
- for harbours, anticipate perils so numerous and so great as those from which
- friendship, rightly and surely tried, promises a refuge
- and protection. But when some thrust their friendship upon us without being
- tried, and are found to be like bad coins when put to the test, Those who
- are bereft rejoice, And those who have them pray for some escape.From some play of Sophocles; it is cited again by Plutarch in Moralia, 768 E; cf.Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Sophocles, No. 779.
- But here
- is the difficulty—that it is not easy to escape or to put aside an
- unsatisfactory friendship ; but as harmful and disquieting food can neither
- be retained without causing pain and injury, nor ejected in the form in
- which it was taken in, but only as a disgusting and repulsive mess, so an
- unprincipled friend either causes pain and intense discomfort by his
- continued association, or else with accompanying enmity and hostility is
- forcibly ejected like bile.
-
-
-
We ought therefore not to accept readily chance acquaintances, or attach
- ourselves to them, nor ought we to make friends of those who seek after us,
- but rather we should seek after those who are worthy of friendship. For one
- should by no means take what can be easily taken. In fact we step over or
- thrust aside bramble and brier, which seize hold upon us, and make our way
- onward to the olive and the vine.
- Cf. Moralia, 709 E. Thus it is always an excellent thing not
- to make an intimate acquaintance of the man who is ready with his embraces,
- but rather, of our own motion, to embrace those of whom we approve as worthy
- of our attention and useful to us.
-
-
-
Just as Zeuxis,
- Cf. Plutarch, Life of Pericles, chap. xiii. (p. 159 D). when some persons charged him with painting slowly, retorted
- by saying, Yes, it takes me a long time, for it is to last
- long, so it is necessary to preserve friendship and intimacy by
-
- adopting them only after spending a long time in passing
- judgement upon them. Is it, then, true that while it is not easy to pass
- judgement on a large number of friends, yet it is easy to associate with a
- large number at the same time, or is this also impossible ? Now it is a fact
- that the enjoyment of friendship lies in its intimacy, and the pleasantest
- part of it is found in association and daily companionship: Never in life
- again shall we take counsel together Sitting apart from our comrades.Homer, Il. xxiii. 77; the words are spoken by the ghost of Patroclus to Achilles.
- And
- in regard to Odysseus, Menelaus says : Else there were nothing Which could
- have parted us twain in the midst of our love and enjoyment; No, not till
- Death's dark cloud had wrapped its shadow around us.Homer, Od. iv. 178; Plutarch quoted the first two lines in Moralia, 54 F.
- Now what is commonly
- called having a multitude of friends apparently produces the opposite
- result. For friendship draws persons together and unites them and keeps them
- united in a close fellowship by means of continual association and mutual
- acts of kindness— Just as the fig-juice fastens the white milk
- firmly and binds it, as Empedocles Probably adapted by Empedocles from Homer, Il.v. 902; cf.Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 239. puts it (for such is the unity and
- consolidation that true friendship desires to effect) ; but, on the other
- hand, having a multitude of friends causes disunion, separation, and
- divergence, since, by calling one hither and thither, and transferring one's
- attention now to this person, now to that, it does not permit any blending
- or close attachment of goodwill to take place in the intimacy which moulds
- itself about friendship and takes enduring form. This at
- once suggests also the inequality there must be and embarrassment about
- rendering services, since the very useful elements in friendship are
- rendered practically useless by having many friends. For In divers men
- solicitude excites conduct diverse.Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 721, Adespota, No. 99.
- For neither do our natures tend in the
- same direction as our impulses, nor do we, day in and day out, meet with the
- same sort of fortune ; and the occasions which prompt our various actions,
- like the winds, help some friends on their way, and are adverse to others.
-
-
-
-
But if all our friends want the same things at the same time, it is hard to
- satisfy all, in either their counsels, their public life, their ambitions,
- or their dispensing of hospitality. And if at one and the same time they
- chance to be occupied in diverse activities and experiences, and call upon
- us at the same instant, one to join him on a voyage to foreign parts,
- another to help him in defending a suit, another to sit with him as judge,
- another to help him in managing his buying and selling, another to help him
- to celebrate his wedding, another to mourn with him at a funeral, The language here seems to be an amplification of Aristotle, Ethica Nicom. ix. 10. The city
- is with burning incense filled; Full too of joyous hymns and doleful groans Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 4; cited by Plutarch also in Moralia, 169 D, 445 D, and 623 C.
- is the possession of a host of friends. It is impossible to be with them
- all, and unnatural to be with none, and yet to do a service to one alone,
- and thus to offend many, is a source of vexation; For fond affection does
- not brook neglect.A line from Menander, cited also in Moralia, 491 C; cf. Kock, Com. Attic. Frag. iii. p. 213.
-
-
-
Yet people are more tolerant of acts of negligence and remissness on the
- part of their friends, and they accept from them without anger such excuses
- as I forgot,
- I didn't know. But the man who says, I did not appear
- with you when your case was in court, for I was appearing with another
- friend, and I did not come and see you when you had
- fever, for I was busy helping so-and-so to entertain some
- friends, thus alleging, as the reason for his inattention, his
- attention to others, does not absolve himself from blame, but only
- aggravates the trouble by arousing jealousy. But most people, apparently,
- look at the possession of a host of friends merely from the point of view of
- what such friendships are able to bestow, and overlook what these demand in
- return, forgetting that he who accepts the services of many for his needs
- must in turn render like service to many in their need. Therefore, just as
- Briareus in purveying for fifty bellies with an hundred hands had no
- advantage over us who manage one stomach with what two hands provide, so in
- making use of many friends is involved also serving many, and sharing in
- their anxieties, preoccupations, and troubles. For no credence is to be
- given to Euripides
- Hippolytus, 253. when he says: In the friendship which mortals with each
- other form Moderation should rule, and it never should reach To the soul's
- inmost marrow; and easy to loose Should the spells ever be that are laid on
- the mind So to thrust them aside or to draw them close, thus easing off
- one's friendship or hauling it close according to exigencies, like the sheet
- of a ship's sail. But let us, my dear Euripides, turn the application
- Hippolytus, 253.
- of this advice to our enmities, and advise the use of
- moderation in our disagreements, not reaching the
- soul's inmost marrow, and that hatred, anger, complainings, and
- suspicions be easy to loose, and commend rather to us the
- Pythagorean
- Cf. Moralia, vol. i. 12 E and the note. maxim, not to clasp hands with many; that is,
- not to make many friends nor to welcome a common and indiscriminate
- friendship, or even a friendship with one person, if the coming of any
- friendship into one's life brings with it many afflictions, wherein refusal
- to share the other's anxieties, burdens, toils, and dangers is altogether
- intolerable for free-born and generous persons.
-
There is truth in the remark of the wise Chilon,
- Cf. Moralia, 86 C, and Aulus Gellius, i. 3. who, in answer to the man
- who boasted of having no enemy, said, The chances are that you have
- no friend either. For enmities follow close upon friendships,
- and are interwoven with them, inasmuch as
-
-
-
it is impossible for a friend not to share his friend's wrongs or disrepute
- or disfavour ; for a man's enemies at once look with suspicion and hatred
- upon his friend, and oftentimes his other friends are envious and jealous,
- and try to get him away. As the oracle given to Timesias
- Cf. the story told of Timesias by Plutarch, Moralia, 812 A. about his colony
- prophesied: Soon shall your swarms of honey-bees turn out to be hornets, so,
- in like manner, men who seek for a swarm of friends unwittingly run afoul of
- hornets' nests of enemies. Besides, the resentment of an enemy and the
- gratitude of a friend do not weigh equally in the Cf. Moralia, 86 c,
- and Aulus Gellius, i. 3. c Cf. the story told of Timesias by Plutarch,
- Moralia, 812 a.
- balance. See what treatment Alexander meted out to the
- friends and family of Philotas and Parmenio, Dionysius those of Dion, Nero
- those of Plautus,Rubellius Plautus; cf. Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 57 ff., and Dio Cassius, lxii. 14. and Tiberius those of Sejanus,
- Cf. Tacitus, Annals, v. 7 ff., and Dio Cassius, lviii. 11-12. torturing and killing
- them. For as the golden crown and the robe of Creon's daughter did not help
- Creon,Euripides, Medea, 1136 ff. but, as he suddenly ran to her and clasped her in his arms, the
- fire, fastening upon him, burned him up and destroyed him as well as his
- daughter, so some persons without deriving any benefit from their friends'
- good fortunes, perish with them in their misfortunes. This is the experience
- especially of men of culture and refinement, as Theseus, for example, shared
- with Peirithoüs his punishment and imprisonment, Yoked fast in
- duty's bonds not forged by man,A line of Euripides, probably from the Peirithoüs, cited by Plutarch also in Moralia, 482 A, 533 A, and 763 F. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 595.
- and Thucydides Thucydides, ii. 51. asserts that in the
- pestilence those who had the highest claim to virtue perished with their
- friends who were ill; for they did not spare themselves in going, as they
- did, to visit those who had claims on their friendship.
-
-
-
For these reasons it is not a fit thing to be thus unsparing of our virtue,
- uniting and intertwining it now with one and now with another, but rather
- only with those who are qualified to keep up the same participation, that is
- to say, those who are able, in a like manner, to love and participate. For
- herein plainly is the greatest obstacle of all to having a multitude of
- friends, in that friendship comes into
- being through likeness. Indeed, if even the brute beasts
- are made to mate with others unlike themselves only by forcible compulsion,
- and crouch aside, and show resentment as they try to escape from each other,
- while with animals of their own race and kind they consort with mutual
- satisfaction, and welcome the participation with a ready goodwill, how then
- is it possible for friendship to be engendered in differing characters,
- unlike feelings, and lives which hold to other principles ? It is true that
- the harmony produced on harp and lyre gets its consonance through tones of
- dissonant pitch, a likeness being somehow engendered between the higher and
- the lower notes ; but in our friendship's consonance and harmony there must
- be no element unlike, uneven, or unequal, but all must be alike to engender
- agreement in words, counsels, opinions, and feelings, and it must be as if
- one soul were apportioned among two or more bodies.
-
-
-
What man is there, then, so indefatigable, so changeable, so universally
- adaptable, that he can assimilate and accommodate himself to many persons,
- without deriding the advice of Theognis Verses 215-6, cited by Plutarch also in Moralia, 916 C and 978 E. when he says : Copy this trait of
- the cuttle-fish, which changes its colour So as to seem to the eye like to
- the rock where it clings ? However, the changes in the cuttle-fish have no
- depth, but are wholly on the surface, which, owing to its closeness or
- looseness of texture, takes up the emanations from objects which come near
- to it;
- whereas friendships seek to effect a thorough-going
- likeness in characters, feelings, language, pursuits, and dispositions. Such
- varied adaptation were the task of a Proteus,Homer, Od. iv. 383 ff.; Virgil, Georgics, iv. 387 ff. not fortunate and not at all
- scrupulous, who by magic can change himself often on the very instant from
- one character to another, reading books with the scholarly, rolling in the
- dust with wrestlers, following the hunt with sportsmen, getting drunk with
- topers, and taking part in the canvass of politicians, possessing no firmly
- founded character of his own. And as the natural philosophers say of the
- formless and colourless substance and material which is the underlying basis
- of everything and of itself turns into everything, that it is now in a state
- of combustion, now liquefied, at another time aeriform, and then again
- solid, so the possession of a multitude of friends will necessarily have, as
- its underlying basis, a soul that is very impressionable, versatile, pliant,
- and readily changeable. But friendship seeks for a fixed and steadfast
- character which does not shift about, but continues in one place and in one
- intimacy. For this reason a steadfast friend is something rare and hard to
- find. Homer, Od. iv. 383 ff; Virgil, Georgics, iv. 387 ff.
-
-
-
-
-
\ No newline at end of file
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-
-
-
-
-De amicorum multitudine
-Machine readable text
-Plutarch
-Gregorius N.
- Bernardakis
-Perseus Project, Tufts University
-Gregory Crane
-
-Prepared under the supervision of
-Lisa Cerrato
-William Merrill
-Elli Mylonas
-David Smith
-
-The National Endowment for the Humanities
-
-
-
-Trustees of Tufts University
-Medford, MA
-Perseus Project
-
-
-
-
-
-Plutarch
-Moralia
-Gregorius N. Bernardakis
-
-Leipzig
-Teubner
-1888
-
-1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
diff --git a/data/tlg0007/tlg075/__cts__.xml b/data/tlg0007/tlg075/__cts__.xml
index 1ab3e48b5..81a13110c 100644
--- a/data/tlg0007/tlg075/__cts__.xml
+++ b/data/tlg0007/tlg075/__cts__.xml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
Virtue and Vice
- Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1928.
+ Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1928 (printing).
@@ -13,9 +13,8 @@
- περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακιάς
- Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Bernardakis, Gregorius N., editor;
- Leipzig: Teubner. 1888.
+ Περὶ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακιάς
+ Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner. 1888.
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-
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-%PersProse;
-]>
-
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-
- De virtute et vitio
- Machine readable text
- Plutarch
- Frank Cole Babbitt&responsibility;&fund.NEH;
- &Perseus.publish;
-
-
-
- Plutarch
- Moralia
-
- with an English Translation by
- Frank Cole Babbitt
-
-
- Cambridge, MA
- Harvard University Press
- London
- William Heinemann Ltd.
- 1928
-
- 2
-
-
-
-
-
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-
optical character recognition
-
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- English
- Greek
- Latin
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- RS
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- tagged and parsed
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- VIRTUE AND VICE (DE VIRTUTE ET VITIO) INTRODUCTION
-
Plutarch's essay on Virtue and Vice is an excellent sermon which has not
- been overlooked by Christian preachers.
-
-
-
-
Clothes are supposed to make a man warm, not of course by warming him
- themselves in the sense of adding their warmth to him, because each garment
- by itself is cold, and for this reason very often persons who feel hot and
- feverish keep changing from one set of clothes to another ; but the warmth
- which a man gives off from his own person the clothing, closely applied to
- the body, confines and enwraps, and does not allow it, when thus imprisoned
- in the body, to be dissipated again. Now the same condition existing in
- human affairs deceives most people, who think that, if they surround
- themselves with vast houses, and get together a mass of slaves and money,
- they shall live pleasantly.
- Cf. Moralia, 99 E, supra.
- But a pleasant and happy life comes not from
- external things, but, on the contrary, man draws on his own character as a
- source A dictum of Zeno's; cf. Plutarch, Moralia, 477 A, and Von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, i. p. 50. from which to add the element of pleasure and joy to the things
- which surround him. Bright with a blazing fire a house looks far more
- cheerful,A verse attributed to Homer; cf. The Contest of Homer and Hesiod, 274. Again quoted Moralia, 762 D. and wealth is pleasanter, and repute and power more resplendent,
- if with them goes the gladness which springs from the heart; and so too men
- bear poverty, exile, and old age lightly and gently in proportion to the
- serenity and mildness of their character.
-
-
-
-
-
As perfumes make coarse and ragged garments fragrant, but the body of
- Anchises gave off a noisome exudation, Damping the linen robe adown his
- back,From the Laocoön of Sophocles; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Sophocles, No. 344
- so every occupation and manner of life, if attended by virtue, is
- untroubled and delightful, while, on the other hand, any admixture of vice
- renders those things which to others seem splendid, precious, and imposing,
- only troublesome, sickening, and unwelcome to their possessors. This man is
- happy deemed 'mid public throng, But when he opes his door he's thrice a
- wretch ; His wife controls, commands, and always fights.Perhaps from Menander; cf.Kock, Com. Attic. Frag. iii. p. 86, and Plutarch, Moralia, 471 B.
- Yet it is not
- difficult for any man to get rid of a bad wife if he be a real man and not a
- slave ; but against his own vice it is not possible to draw up a writing of
- divorcement and forthwith to be rid of troubles and to be at peace, having
- arranged to be by himself. No, his vice, a settled tenant of his very vitals
- always, both at night and by day, Burns, but without e'er a brand, and
- consigns to an eld all untimely.Hesiod, Works and Days, 705.
- For in travelling vice is a troublesome
- companion because of arrogance, at dinner an expensive companion owing to
- gluttony, and a distressing bedfellow, since by anxieties, cares and
- jealousies it drives out and destroys sleep. For what slumber there may be
- is sleep and repose for the body only, but for the soul terrors, dreams, and
- agitations, because of superstition.
-
- When grief o'ertakes me as I close my eyes, I'm murdered
- by my dreams.From some poet of the new comedy; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 444, Adespota, No. 185.
- says one man. In such a state do envy, fear, temper, and
- licentiousness put a man. For by day vice, looking outside of itself and
- conforming its attitude to others, is abashed and veils its emotions, and
- does not give itself up completely to its impulses, but oftentimes resists
- them and struggles against them ; but in the hours of slumber, when it has
- escaped from opinion and law, and got away as far as possible from feeling
- fear or shame, it sets every desire stirring, and awakens its depravity and
- licentiousness. It attempts incest, as Plato
- Republic, p. 571 D. says, partakes
- of forbidden meats, abstains from nothing which it wishes to do, but revels
- in lawlessness so far as it can, with images and visions which end in no
- pleasure or accomplishment of desire, but have only the power to stir to
- fierce activity the emotional and morbid propensities.
- Cf. Moralia, 83 A, supra.
-
-
-
-
-
Where, then, is the pleasure in vice, if in no part of it is to be found
- freedom from care and grief, or contentment or tranquillity or calm ? For a
- wellbalanced and healthy condition of the body gives room for engendering
- the pleasures of the flesh; but in the soul lasting joy and gladness cannot
- possibly be engendered, unless it provide itself first with cheerfulness,
- fearlessness, and courageousness as a basis to rest upon, or as a calm
- tranquillity that no billows disturb; otherwise, even though some hope or
- delectation lure us with a smile, anxiety suddenly breaks
-
- forth, like a hidden rock appearing in fair weather,
- and the soul is overwhelmed and confounded.
-
-
-
Heap up gold, amass silver, build stately promenades, fill your house with
- slaves and the city with your debtors ; unless you lay level the emotions of
- your soul, put a stop to your insatiate desires, and quit yourself of fears
- and anxieties, you are but decanting wine for a man in a fever, offering
- honey to a bilious man, and preparing tid-bits and dainties for sufferers
- from colic or dysentery, who cannot retain them or be strengthened by them,
- but are only brought nearer to death thereby. Does not your observation of
- sick persons teach you that they dislike and reject and decline the finest
- and costliest viands which their attendants offer and try to force upon them
- ; and then later, when their whole condition has changed, and good
- breathing, wholesome blood, and normal temperature have returned to their
- bodies, they get up and have joy and satisfaction in eating plain bread with
- cheese and cress ?
- Cf. Moralia, 466 D. It is such a condition that reason creates in the soul.
- You will be contented with your lot if you learn what the honourable and
- good is. You will be luxurious in poverty, and live like a king, and you
- will find no less satisfaction in the care-free life of a private citizen
- than in the life connected with high military or civic office. If you become
- a philosopher, you will live not unpleasantly, but you will learn to subsist
- pleasantly anywhere and with any resources. Wealth will give you gladness
- for the good you will do to many, poverty for your freedom from many cares,
- repute for the honours you will enjoy, and obscurity for the certainty that
- you shall not be envied.
-
-
-
-
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- De virtute et vitio
- Machine readable text
- Plutarch
- Goodwin&responsibility;&fund.NEH;
- About 100Kb&Perseus.publish;
-
-
- Plutarch
- Plutarch's Morals.
-
- Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by
- William W. Goodwin, PH. D.
-
-
- Boston
- Little, Brown, and Company
- Cambridge
- Press Of John Wilson and son
- 1874
-
- 2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- English
- Greek
-
-
-
-
- 2006
-
- GRC
- tagging
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Of virtue and vice.
-
-
-
IT is apparent that clothes make a man warm, not by
- warming him themselves or by imparting heat to him (for
- every garment is of itself cold, which is the reason that we
- see those that are very hot and in a fever often shifting and
- changing one thing for another), but what heat a man exhales out of himself, that the garment lying close to his
- body keeps together and contracts, and when it hath driven
- it inward, it will not suffer it again to dissipate. This
- being the very case of external affairs too, it is this that
- cheats vulgar heads, by making them think that, if they
- might but enclose themselves in great houses and heap
- together abundance of slaves and riches, they might then
- live to their own minds. But an agreeable and gay life is
- not to be found without us; on the contrary, it is man that
- out of his own temper, as out of a spring, adds pleasure
- and gayety to the things about him:
- The house looks merrier when the fire burns.
-
-
And wealth is the more agreeable, and fame and power the
- more resplendent, when they have the joy of the mind to
- accompany them; since we see how that through a mild
- and tame disposition men can bear poverty, banishment,
- and old age easily and sweetly.
-
-
-
For as odors perfume threadbare coats and poor rags,
- while Prince Anchises's ulcer sent forth a loathsome purulence,
- When the foul tent dript on his purple robe,
-
-
-
even so every state and condition of life, if accompanied
- with virtue, is undisturbed and delightful. But when vice
- is intermixed, it renders even the things that appear splendid, sumptuous, and magnificent most distasteful, nauseous,
- and unacceptable to the possessors.
-
-
- This man's thought happy in the market-place,
-
- But when he ope's his doors, hell is his case;
-
- The woman governs all, commands and brawls.
-
-
-
-
Though one may without any great difficulty get rid of a
- wicked cross-grained wife, if he be but a man and not a
- slave. But a man cannot write a bill of divorce to his
- vice, and thereby free himself from further trouble, and
- procure his own repose by living apart; but it still cohabits
- with him, and dwells in his very bowels, and cleaves to him
- both by night and by day;
- It burns without a torch, and hastens crude old age,Hesiod, Works and Days, 705.
-
-
-
being through its vain glory a burthensome fellow-traveller,
- and through its voracity a chargeable table-companion, and
- a troublesome bed-fellow by breaking and spoiling one's
- sleep at night with cares, anxieties, and surmises. For
- when he does sleep his body is indeed at rest and quiet,
- but his mind is through superstition in terrors, dreams,
- and frights.
-
-
- When in my slumbers sorrows fill me,
-
- Then frightful dreams and visions kill me,
-
-
-
-
saith one; just thus envy, fear, anger, and lust affect us.
- For by day-time our vice, by looking abroad and fashioning
- herself to the manner of others, grows shamefaced, and
- finds herself obliged to mask her own disorders, and does
- not yield herself up wholly to her appetites, but oftentimes
- resists and struggles with them. But in times of sleep,
- when it escapes both the opinions of men and the laws,
- and is at the remotest distance from awe and respect, it
- stirs every desire, and raises up its malignity and lewdness.
-
-
-
- For it attempts (as Plato speaks) the embraces of a mother,
- it purveys unlawful meats, and refrains from no sort of
- action, enjoying villany, as far as it is practicable, in shades
- and phantoms, that end in no real pleasure or accomplishment of desire, but have only power to stir up and enrage
- disorders and distempers.
-
-
-
Where then is the pleasure of vice, if there be nowhere to be found either freedom from care or exemption
- from trouble, or satisfaction or undisturbedness or repose ?
- A sound complexion and good health of body give indeed
- both place and birth to the flesh's pleasures; but there
- cannot be engendered a gayety and cheerfulness in the
- mind, unless undauntedness, assurance, or an immovable
- serenity be the foundation. Nay, if some hope or satisfaction should simper a little, this would be soon puddled and
- disturbed by some sudden eruption of care, like a smooth
- sea by a rock.
-
-
-
Heap up gold, gather together silver, raise up walks,
- fill your house with slaves and the town with debtors; if
- you do not appease the disorders of your own mind, and
- stint your unsatiable desire, and deliver yourself from fears
- and cares, you do but rack wine for a man in a fever, and
- administer honey to a man disturbed with bile, and prepare meat and good cheer for people that have the flux or
- gripes, who can neither retain it nor be strengthened by it,
- but are over and above spoiled by it. Do you not see how
- sick persons loathe, spit out, and refuse the finest and most
- costly meats, though they be proffered and forced upon
- them; and how again, when their complexion alters, and
- good spirits, sweet blood, and a connatural heat are engendered, they get up and gladly and willingly eat brown bread,
- cheese, and cresses ? Such a disposition as this is it that
- reason works in the mind. And you will have sufficiency,
- if you will but learn what a notable and generous mind is.
- You will live luxuriously in poverty, and be a prince; and
-
-
-
- you will be as much in love with a vacant and private life
- as with that of a general or king. If you once apply to
- philosophy, you will never live without pleasure, but you
- will learn to be everywhere pleased, and with every thing.
- You will be pleased with wealth for making you beneficial
- to many, and with poverty for not having much to care for;
- with fame for being honored, and with obscurity for being
- unenvied.
-
-
-
-
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--- a/data/tlg0007/tlg075/tlg0007.tlg075.perseus-eng3.xml
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@@ -77,16 +77,16 @@ schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
-
+
VIRTUE AND VICE (DE VIRTUTE ET VITIO)
-
+
INTRODUCTION
Plutarch's essay on Virtue and Vice is an excellent sermon which has not
been overlooked by Christian preachers.
-
+
Clothes are supposed to make a man warm, not of course by warming him
themselves in the sense of adding their warmth to him, because each garment
by itself is cold, and for this reason very often persons who feel hot and
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
-
+
As perfumes make coarse and ragged garments fragrant, but the body of
Anchises gave off a noisome exudation, Damping the linen robe adown his
back,From the Laocoön of Sophocles; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Sophocles, No. 344
@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
-
+
Where, then, is the pleasure in vice, if in no part of it is to be found
freedom from care and grief, or contentment or tranquillity or calm? For a
wellbalanced and healthy condition of the body gives room for engendering
@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?>
forth, like a hidden rock appearing in fair weather,
and the soul is overwhelmed and confounded.
-
+
Heap up gold, amass silver, build stately promenades, fill your house with
slaves and the city with your debtors; unless you lay level the emotions of
your soul, put a stop to your insatiate desires, and quit yourself of fears
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-
-
-
-
-De virtute et vitio
-Machine readable text
-Plutarch
-Gregorius N.
- Bernardakis
-Perseus Project, Tufts University
-Gregory Crane
-
-Prepared under the supervision of
-Lisa Cerrato
-William Merrill
-Elli Mylonas
-David Smith
-
-The National Endowment for the Humanities
-
-
-
-Trustees of Tufts University
-Medford, MA
-Perseus Project
-
-
-
-
-
-Plutarch
-Moralia
-Gregorius N. Bernardakis
-
-Leipzig
-Teubner
-1888
-
-1
-
-
-
-
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-
-
The following text is encoded in accordance with EpiDoc standards and with the CTS/CITE Architecture
-
-
-
This pointer pattern extracts sections
+
+
+
This pointer pattern extracts sections
+
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- English
- Greek
- Latin
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- A LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO APOLLONIUS (CONSOLATIO AD APOLLONIUM) INTRODUCTION
-
The Letter of Condolence to Apollonius, into which quotations from earlier
- authors have been emptied from the sack rather than scattered by hand, has
- in comparatively recent years fallen under suspicion as being perhaps not
- the work of Plutarch. The suspicion rests mainly on two grounds, the unusual
- length of the quotations, and certain incongruities of style. The latter may
- here be briefly dismissed with the remark that for every departure from
- accepted Plutarchean style a striking instance of conformity to his style
- may be cited, so that no very positive results are to be obtained in this
- way. The case is much the same with the quotations. Many of them are
- unusually long, although not longer than we find in other authors. Some of
- them, for example Euripides, Suppliants 1110 and 1112 (Plut. 110c), show an
- accuracy of ms. tradition so far superior that the reading given by Plutarch
- is commonly adopted by editors of Euripides in preference to the traditional
- reading of the mss. of Euripides. On the other hand, the quotation from
- Plato, Gorgias 523 a (Plut. 120 e), shows many minor variations from our
- text of Plato ; some of these are interesting in themselves, but none of
- them really disturbs the meaning of the passage.
-
We learn from the letter almost nothing about Apollonius
- and his departed son, and hardly more about Plutarch. It lacks the intimate
- touch of a similar letter which was written by Plutarch to his wife
- (Moralia, 608 a). Indeed we cannot be wholly sure that the boy was called
- Apollonius after his father, for one stroke of the pen to change the
- accusative to a vocative (121 e) would cause his name to disappear entirely.
-
The title of the letter is not found in Lamprias' list of Plutarch's works,
- nevertheless we have reference to it at a comparatively early date.
-
Some striking similarities between the letter and Cicero's Tusculan
- Disputations are doubtless to be explained by derivation from a common
- source, and this source was doubtless in large part the works of the
- Academic philosopher Crantor.
-
In the absence of actual knowledge it is convenient to assume an hypothesis
- (as in the realm of science one speaks of atoms or
- ions or of the electric current). If we assume
- that this is the original rough draft of the letter which was to be sent to
- Apollonius, nearly everything can be made to square with the hypothesis. In
- selecting some of the quotations Plutarch had put down enough of the
- context, so that later the lines he might finally choose to insert could be
- smoothly interwoven with the text, and the text itself was no doubt to be
- subjected to further polish.
-
However, we may be profoundly grateful for the collection of extracts
- included in the letter, and, if the hypothesis be right, we may also be
- grateful for this glimpse of Plutarch's methods of composition.
-
We must bear in mind that this particular form of literary composition had
- developed a style of its own, the earliest example
- perhaps being the Axiochus (of Plato ?), and we have records of many more
- now lost. Among the Romans also this form of composition was popular, and
- several examples may be found in the works of Seneca.
-
-
-
-
Even before this time, Apollonius, I felt for you in your sorrow and trouble,
- when I heard of the untimely passing from life of your son, who was very
- dear to us all—a youth who was altogether decorous and modest, and
- unusually observant of the demands of religion and justice both toward the
- gods and toward his parents and friends. In those days, close upon the time
- of his death, to visit you and urge you to bear your present lot as a mortal
- man should would have been unsuitable, when you were prostrated in both body
- and soul by the unexpected calamity ; and, besides, I could not help sharing
- in your feeling. For even the best of physicians do not at once apply the
- remedy of medicines against acute attacks of suppurating humours, but allow
- the painfulness of the inflammation, without the application of external
- medicaments, to attain some assuagement of itself.
- Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 29
- (63), and Pliny, Letters, v. 16.
-
-
-
-
Now since time, which is wont to assuage all things, has intervened since the
- calamity, and your present condition seems to demand the aid of your
- friends, I have conceived it to be proper to communicate to you some words
- that can give comfort, for the mitigation of grief and
- the termination of mournful and vain lamentations. For Words are physicians for an ailing mind, When at the
- fitting time one soothes the heart.Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 379.
- Since, according to
- the wise Euripides,Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.,
- Euripides, No. 962. The last two lines are cited supra 69 D.
- For divers ills are remedies diverse : The kindly
- speech of friends for one in grief, And admonitions when one plays the
- fool. Indeed, though there are many emotions that aifect the
- soul, yet grief, from its nature, is the most cruel of all. They say :
- To many there doth come because of grief
- Insanity and ills incurable, And some for grief have ended their own
- life.From Philemon; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 512, Philemon, No.
- 106, where additional lines are given.
-
-
-
-
-
The pain and pang felt at the death of a son has in itself good cause to
- awaken grief, which is only natural, and over it we have no control. For I,
- for my part, cannot concur with those who extol that harsh and callous
- indifference, which is both impossible and unprofitable.
- Cf. Cicero, Tusculan
- Disputations, iii. 6 (12). For this will rob us of the
- kindly feeling which comes from mutual affection and which above all else we
- must conserve. But to be carried beyond all bounds and to help in
- exaggerating our griefs I say is contrary to nature, and results from our
- depraved ideas. Therefore this also must be dismissed as injurious and
- depraved and most unbecoming to right-minded men, but a moderate indulgence
- in grief is not to be disapproved. Pray
- that we be not ill, says Crantor
- Cf. Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. iii.
- p. 146; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 6
- (12). of the Academy, but if we be ill, pray that
- sensation be left us, whether one of our members be cut off or torn
- out. For this insensibility to pain Such Stoicism was
- required by the stricter Stoic school, but the philosophers of the
- Academy would have none of it. is attained by man only at a great
- price ; for in the former case, we may suppose, it is the body which has
- been brutalized into such insensibility, but in the latter case the soul.
-
-
-
-
Reason therefore requires that men of understanding should be neither
- indifferent in such calamities nor extravagantly affected ; for the one
- course is unfeeling and brutal, the other lax and effeminate. Sensible is he
- who keeps within appropriate bounds and is able to bear judiciously both the
- agreeable and the grievous in his lot, and who has made up his mind
- beforehand to conform uncomplainingly and obediently to the dispensation of
- things ; just as in a democracy there is an allotment of offices, and he who
- draws the lot holds office, while he who fails to do so must bear his
- fortune without taking offence. For those who cannot do this would be unable
- sensibly and soberly to abide good fortune either.
-
Among the felicitous utterances the following piece of advice is to the
- point: Let no success be so unusual That it excite
- in you too great a pride, Nor abject be in turn, if ill betide ; But
- ever be the same ; preserve unchanged Your nature, like to gold when
- tried by fire.From an unknown play of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag., Euripides, No. 963.
- It is the mark of
- educated and disciplined men to keep the same habit of
- mind toward seeming prosperity, and nobly to maintain a becoming attitude
- toward adversity. For it is the task of rational prudence, either to be on
- guard against evil as it approaches, or, if it have already happened, to
- rectify it or to minimize it or to provide oneself with a virile and noble
- patience to endure it. For wisdom deals also with the good, in a fourfold
- way— either acquiring a store of goods, or conserving them, or
- adding to them, or using them judiciously. These are the laws of wisdom and
- of the other virtues, and they must be followed for better fortune or for
- worse. For No man exists who's blest in
- everything,From the Stheneboea of
- Euripides, ibid. No. 661.
- and
- truly What thou must do cannot be made “must
- not.”
- Author unknown; cf. Nauck,
- Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespot. No.
- 368.
-
-
-
-
-
For as there are in plants at one time seasons of fruitage and at another
- time seasons of unfruitfulness, and in animals at one time fecundity and at
- another time barrenness, and on the sea both fair weather and storm, so also
- in life many diverse circumstances occur which bring about a reversal of
- human fortunes. As one contemplates these reversals he might say not
- inappropriately : Not for good and no ill came thy
- life from thy sire, Agamemnon, but joy Thou shalt find interwoven with
- grief; For a mortal thou art. Though against thy desire Yet the plans of
- the gods will so have it.Euripides, Iphigenia
- at Aulis, 29; cf. Moralia, 33
- E.
- and the words of Menander
- Cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 155,
- No. 531, and Allinson, Menander (in L.C.L.), p.
- 478.:
- If you alone, young master, at your birth Had
- gained the right to do whate'er you would Throughout your life, and ever
- be in luck, And if some god agreed to this with you, Then you have right
- to feel aggrieved. He has Deceived and strangely treated you. But if
- Upon the selfsame terms as we, you drew The primal breath of universal
- life (To speak you somewhat in the tragic style), You must endure this
- better, and use sense. To sum up all I say, you are a man, Than which no
- thing that lives can swifter be Exalted high and straight brought low
- again. And rightly so; for though of puny frame, He yet doth handle many
- vast affairs, And, falling, ruins great prosperity. But you, young
- master, have not forfeited Surpassing good, and these your present ills
- But moderate are ; so bear without excess What Fortune may hereafter
- bring to you. But, in spite of this condition of affairs, some
- persons, through their foolishness, are so silly and conceited, that, when
- only a little exalted, either because of abundance of money, or importance
- of office, or petty political preferments, or because of position and
- repute, they threaten and insult those in lower station, not bearing in mind
- the uncertainty and inconstancy of fortune, nor yet the fact that the lofty
- is easily brought low and the humble in turn is exalted, transposed by the
- swift-moving changes of fortune. Therefore to try to find any constancy in
- what is inconstant is a trait of people who do not rightly reason about the
- circumstances of life. For
- The wheel goes round, and of the rim now one And
- now another part is at the top.Author unknown; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. iii. p.
- 740.
-
-
-
-
-
Reason is the best remedy for the cure of grief, reason and the preparedness
- through reason for all the changes of life. For one ought to realize, not
- merely that he himself is mortal by nature, but also that he is allotted to
- a life that is mortal and to conditions which readily reverse themselves.
- For men's bodies are indeed mortal, lasting but a day, and mortal is all
- that they experience and suffer, and, in a word, everything in life ; and
- all this May not be escaped nor avoided by
- mortalsHomer, Il. xii.
- 326.
- at all, but The depths of
- unseen Tartarus hold you fast by hardforged necessities, as
- Pindar Pindar, Frag. 207 (ed. Christ).
- says. Whence Demetrius of Phalerum was quite right when, in reference to a
- saying of Euripides
- Phoenissae, 558.:
- Wealth is inconstant, lasting but a
- day, and also : Small things may cause
- an overthrow ; one day Puts down the mighty and exalts the low,See
- note a on next page.
- he said
- that it was almost all admirably put, but it would have been better if he
- had said not one day, but one second of
- time.
-
- Alike the cycle of earth's fruitful plants And
- mortal men. For some life grows apace, While others perish and are
- gathered home.Both this and the preceding quotation are from the
- Ino of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.
- Euripides, Nos. 420 and 415, where additional lines are
- given.
- And elsewhere Pindar
- Pyth. viii. 135. says : Somebody? Nobody? Which is
- which ? A dream of a shadow is man. Very vividly and skilfully did he use
- this extravagance of expression in making clear the life of mankind. For
- what is feebler than a shadow ? And a dream of it!—that is
- something which defies any clear description. In similar strain Crantor,
-
- Cf. Mullach, Frag.
- Philos. Graec. iii. p. 147. endeavouring to comfort
- Hippocles upon the death of his children, says : All our ancient
- philosophy states this and urges it upon us ; and though there be
- therein other things which we do not accept, yet at any rate the
- statement that life is oftentimes toilsome and hard is only too true.
- For even if it is not so by nature, yet through our own selves it has
- reached this state of corruption. From a distant time, yes from the
- beginning, this uncertain fortune has attended us and to no good end,
- and even at our birth there is conjoined with us a portion of evil in
- everything. For the very seed of our life, since it is mortal,
- participates in this causation, and from this there steal upon us
- defectiveness of soul, diseases of body, loss of friends by death, and
- the common portion of mortals. For what reason have we turned
- our thoughts in this direction? It is that we may know that misfortune is
- nothing novel for man, but that we all have had the
- same experience of it. For Theophrastus Frag. 73 (ed. Wimmer).
- says : Fortune is heedless, and she has a wonderful power to take
- away the fruits of our labours and to overturn our seeming tranquillity,
- and for doing this she has no fixed season. These matters, and
- others like them, it is easy for each man to reason out for himself, and to
- learn them from wise men of old besides ; of whom the first is the divine
- Homer, who said
- Od. xviii. 130.: Nothing more wretched than man doth the earth support
- on its bosom, Never, he says to himself, shall he suffer from evil
- hereafter, Never, so long as the gods give him strength and his knees
- are still nimble; Then when the blessed gods bring upon him grievous
- affliction, Still he endures his misfortune, reluctant but steadfast in
- spirit. And: Such is the mood of the
- men who here on the earth are abiding, E'en as the day which the father
- of men and of gods brings upon them.
- Od.
- xviii. 136.
- And in another place : Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why do you ask of my
- fathers ? As is the race of the leaves, such too is that of all mortals.
- Some of the leaves doth the wind scatter earthward, and others the
- forest Budding puts forth in profusion, and springtime is coming upon
- us. Thus is man's race: one enters on life, and another's life
- ceases.
- Il. vi. 145.
-
- That he has admirably made use of this image of human life is clear from
- what he says in another place, in these words : To
- fight for the sake of mortals Wretched, who like to
- the leaves, at the one time all ardent Come to their fitting perfection,
- and eat of the fruit of their acres; Then again helpless they perish,
- nor is there aught that can help them.
- Il.
- xxi. 463.
-
-
-
Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, who persistently boasted of his own
- exploits, mockingly urged the lyric poet Simonides to rehearse for him some
- wise saying, whereupon the poet, being fully cognizant of his conceit,
- advised him to remember that he was only human.
- Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, ix.
- 21.
-
-
Philip, the king of the Macedonians, happened to have three pieces of good
- news reported to him all at once : the first, that he was victor at the
- Olympic games in the race of the four-horse chariots ; the second, that
- Parmenio, his general, had vanquished the Dardanians in battle, and the
- third, that Olympias had borne him a male child ; whereupon, stretching out
- his hands toward the heavens, he said: O God, offset all this by
- some moderate misfortune ! For he well knew that in cases of
- great prosperity fortune is wont to be jealous.
- Cf.
- Moralia 177 C and Plutarch's Life of
- Alexander, chap. iii. (p. 666 A).
-
-
While Theramenes, who afterwards became one of the Thirty Tyrants at Athens,
- was dining with several others, the house, in which they were, collapsed,
- and he was the only one to escape death ; but as he was being congratulated
- by everybody, he raised his voice and exclaimed in a loud tone, O
- Fortune, for what occasion are you reserving me ? And not long
- afterward he came to his end by torture at the hands of his fellow
- tyrants.He was condemned to drink hemlock, according to the usual
- tradition; cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, ii. 3. 54-56, and Aelian, Varia
- Historia, ix. 21.
-
-
-
-
-
The Poet Homer, Il. xxiv. 522; cf. also Moralia, 20 F
- and 22 B. is regarded as extraordinarily successful in bestowing
- consolation, where he represents Achilles as speaking to Priam, who has come
- to ransom Hector, as follows : Come then and rest
- on a seat; let us suffer our sorrows to slumber Quietly now in our
- bosoms, in spite of our woeful afflictions ; Nothing is ever
- accomplished by yielding to chill lamentation. Thus, then, the gods have
- spun the fate of unhappy mortals, Ever to live in distress, but
- themselves are free from all trouble. Fixed on Zeus' floor two massive
- urns stand for ever, Filled with gifts of all ills that he gives, and
- another Such is the meaning of the passage as here quoted from
- Homer; but in two other places (De audiendis
- poetis, 24 B, and De exilio, 600 D)
- Plutarch follows Plato (Republic, p. 379 D),
- who wrote khrw=n e)/mpleioi, o( me\n e)sqlw=n
- au)tar o( deilw=n, thus making one urn of evil and one
- of good. Metrical considerations make it more than probable that the
- line found in Plato was not taken from Homer, but it is only fair to
- say that these considerations could have had no weight with
- Plutarch. of blessings ; He on whom Zeus, god of thunder,
- bestows their contents commingled Sometimes meets with the good, and
- again he meets only with evil. Him upon whom he bestows what is baneful
- he makes wholly wretched ; Ravenous hunger drives him o'er the earth's
- goodly bosom, Hither and thither he goes, unhonoured of gods or of
- mortals. Hesiod, who, although he proclaimed himself the
- disciple of the Muses, is nevertheless second to Homer in reputation as well
- as in time, also confines the evils in a great urn and represents Pandora as
- opening it and scattering the host of them over the whole land and sea. His
- words
- Works and Days, 94; cf. also Moralia, 115 A and 127
- D. are as follows : Then with her hands
- did the woman, uplifting the urn's massive cover, Let them go as they
- would ; and on men she brought woeful afflictions.
- Hope alone where it was, with its place of abode yet undamaged, Under
- the rim of the urn still tarried ; nor into the open Winged its way
- forth; for before it escaped she had put on the cover. More are the woes
- unnumbered among men now freely ranging. Full is the land now of evils,
- and full of them too is the ocean ; Illnesses come upon men in the
- daytime, and others at nighttime ; Hither and thither they go, of
- themselves bringing evils to mortals ; Silent they go, since the wisdom
- of Zeus has deprived them of voices.
-
-
-
-
Closely allied with this are the following words of the comic poet
- Philemon, in the Sardius; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 497, Philemon, No.
- 73. spoken with reference to those whose grief over such
- calamities is excessive : If only tears were remedy for ills, And he who
- weeps obtained surcease of woe, Then we should purchase tears by giving
- gold. But as it is, events that come to pass, My master, do not mind nor
- heed these things, But, whether you shed tears or not, pursue The even tenor
- of their way. What then Do we accomplish by our weeping ? Naught. But as the
- trees have fruit, grief has these tears. And Dictys, who is trying to
- console Danaë in her excessive grief, says : Think you that Hades minds your moans at all, And will
- send back your child if you will groan ? Desist. By viewing close your
- neighbour's ills You might be more composed,—if you reflect
- How many mortals have to toil in bonds, How many
- reft of children face old age, And others still who from a prosperous
- reign Sink down to nothing. This you ought to heed.From the Dictys of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.,
- Euripides, No. 332.
- For he bids her to think of the
- lot of those who are equally unfortunate or even more unfortunate than
- herself, with the idea that her grief will be lightened.
-
-
-
In this connexion might be adduced the utterance of Socrates Not
- original with Socrates, cf. Herodotus, vii. 152;
- attributed to Solon by Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, ext. 2. which
- suggests that if we were all to bring our misfortunes into a common store,
- so that each person should receive an equal share in the distribution, the
- majority would be glad to take up their own and depart.
-
The poet Antimachus, also, employed a similar method. For after the death of
- his wife, Lyde, whom he loved very dearly, he composed, as a consolation for
- his grief, the elegy called Lyde, in which he enumerated the misfortunes of
- the heroes, and thus made his own grief less by means of others' ills. So it
- is clear that he who tries to console a person in grief, and demonstrates
- that the calamity is one which is common to many, and less than the
- calamities which have befallen others, changes the opinion of the one in
- grief and gives him a similar conviction— that his calamity is
- really less than he supposed it to be.
-
-
-
Aeschylus From an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 353.
- seems admirably to rebuke those who think that death is an evil. He says :
- Men are not right in hating Death, which is The
- greatest succour from our many ills. In imitation of Aeschylus
- some one else has said :
- O Death, healing physician, come.Somewhat
- similar to a line from the Philoctetes of
- Aeschylus; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 255.
- For
- it is indeed true that A harbour from all distress
- is Hades.Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No.
- 369.
- For it is a magnificent thing to be able to say
- with undaunted conviction : What man who recks not
- death can be a slave?From an unknown play of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag., Euripides, No. 958, and Plutarch, Moralia, 34 B.
- and With Hades' help shadows I do not fear.Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag., Adespota, No. 370.
- For what is there
- cruel or so very distressing in being dead ? It may be that the phenomenon
- of death, from being too familiar and natural to us, seems somehow, under
- changed circumstances, to be painful, though I know not why. For what wonder
- if the separable be separated, if the soluble be dissolved, if the
- combustible be consumed, and the corruptible be corrupted ? For at what time
- is death not existent in our very selves ? As Heracleitus
- Cf. Diels, Fragmente der
- Vorsokratiker, i. p. 95, No. 88. says : Living
- and dead are potentially the same thing, and so too waking and sleeping,
- and young and old ; for the latter revert to the former, and the former
- in turn to the latter. For as one is able from the same clay to
- model figures of living things and to obliterate them, and again to model
- and obliterate, and alternately to repeat these operations without ceasing,
- so Nature, using the same material, a long time ago raised up our
- forefathers, and then in close succession to them created our fathers, and
- then ourselves, and later will create others and still
- others in a neverending cycle ; and the stream of generation, thus flowing
- onward perpetually, will never stop, and so likewise its counterpart,
- flowing in the opposite direction—which is the stream of
- destruction, whether it be designated by the poets as Acheron or as Cocytus.
- The same agency which at the first showed us the light of the sun brings
- also the darkness of Hades. May not the air surrounding us serve to
- symbolize this, causing as it does day and night alternately, which bring us
- life and death, and sleep and waking ? Wherefore it is said that life is a
- debt to destiny, the idea being that the loan which our forefathers
- contracted is to be repaid by us. This debt we ought to discharge cheerfully
- and without bemoaning whenever the lender asks for payment; for in this way
- we should show ourselves to be most honourable men.
-
-
-
I imagine also that it was because Nature saw the indefiniteness and the
- brevity of life that she caused the time allowed us before death to be kept
- from us. And it is better so; for if we knew this beforehand, some persons
- would be utterly wasted by griefs before their time, and would be dead long
- before they died. Observe too the painfulness of life, and the exhaustion
- caused by many cares ; if we should wish to enumerate all these, we should
- too readily condemn life, and we should confirm the opinion which now
- prevails in the minds of some that it is better to be dead than to live.
- Simonides Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii.,
- Simonides, No. 39. at any rate says : Petty indeed is men's strength ; All their strivings are vain ; Toil
- upon toil in a life of no length. Death hovers over
- them all, Death which is foreordained. Equal the share by the brave is
- attained In death with the base. And Pindar
- Pyth.iii. 82; cf. Homer,
- Il. xxiv. 527, quoted supra 105 C. says : A pair of
- miseries with each good The deathless gods mete out to mortal man. The
- foolish cannot bear them as they should. And Sophocles
- From an unknown play; cf. Nauck, T.G.F., Sophocles, No. 761. says : Mourn you a mortal if he's passed away, Not knowing if
- the future brings him gain ? And Euripides
- Alcestis, 780. says : Know you the nature of this mortal world ? I wot not.
- For whence could you ? But hear me. By all mankind is owed a debt to
- death, And not a single man can be assured If he shall live throughout
- the coming day. For Fortune's movements are inscrutable. Since,
- then, the life of men is such as these poets say it is, surely it is more
- fitting to felicitate those who have been released from their servitude in
- it than to pity them and bewail them, as the majority do through ignorance.
-
-
-
-
Socrates Plato, Apology, p. 40 C. said
- that death resembles either a very deep sleep or a long and distant journey,
- or, thirdly, a sort of destruction and extinction of both the body and the
- soul, but that by no one of these possibilities is it an evil. Each of these
- conceptions he pursued further, and the first one first. For if death is a sleep, and there is nothing evil in the
- state of those who sleep, it is evident that there is likewise nothing evil
- in the state of those who are dead. Nay, what need is there even to state
- that the deepest sleep is indeed the sweetest ? For the fact is of itself
- patent to all men, and Homer
- Od. xiii.
- 80. bears witness by saying regarding it: Slumber the deepest and sweetest, and nearest to death
- in its semblance. In another place
- Il. xiv. 231. also he says : Here she chanced to encounter the brother of Death, which is
- Slumber, and Slumber and Death, the
- twin brothers,
- Il. xvi. 672,
- 682.
- thereby indicating their similarity in appearance,
- for twins show most similarity. And again somewhere
- Il. xi. 241. he says that death is a brazen
- sleep, in allusion to our insensibility in it. And not
- inelegantly did the man Mnesimachus. Cf. Kock,
- Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 422, Mnesimachus, No.
- 11. Initiation into the lesser mysteries (celebrated at Agrae, near
- Athens, in March) was required before one could be admitted to the great
- Eleusinian festival in September. seem to put the case who called
- sleep the Lesser Mysteries of death; for sleep is really
- a preparatory rite for death. Very wise was the remark of the cynic
- Diogenes, who, when he had sunk into slumber and was about to depart this
- life, was roused by his physician, who inquired if anything distressed him.
- Nothing, he said, for the one brother merely
- forestalls the other.
-
- Cf. a similar
- remark attributed to Gorgias of Leontini in Aelian, Varia Historia, ii. 35.
-
-
-
-
If death indeed resembles a journey, even so it is not
- an evil. On the contrary, it may even be a good. For to pass one's time
- unenslaved by the flesh and its emotions, by which the mind is distracted
- and tainted with human folly, would be a blessed piece of good fortune.
- For the body, says Plato,
- Phaedo, p. 66 B.
- in countless ways leaves us no leisure because of its necessary care
- and feeding. Moreover, if any diseases invade it, they hinder our
- pursuit of reality, and it fills us with lusts and desires and fears and
- all manner of fancies and folly, so that, as the saying goes, because of
- it we really have no opportunity to think seriously of anything. It is a
- fact that wars and strifes and battles are brought about by nothing else
- except the body and its desires ; for all wars are waged for the
- acquisition of property, and property we are forced to acquire because
- of the body, since we are slaves in its service ; and the result is
- that, because of these things, we have no leisure for study. And the
- worst of all is, that even if we do gain some leisure from the demands
- of the body, and turn to the consideration of some subject, yet at every
- point in our investigation the body forces itself in, and causes tumult
- and confusion, and disconcerts us, so that on account of it we are
- unable to discern the truth. Nay, the fact has been thoroughly
- demonstrated to us that, if we are ever going to have any pure
- knowledge, we must divest ourselves of the body, and with the soul
- itself observe the realities. And, as it appears, we shall possess what
- we desire and what we profess to long for—and that is
- wisdom—only, as our reasoning shows, after we are dead, but
- not while we are alive. For if it is impossible in
- company with the body to have any pure knowledge, then one of two things
- is true : either it is not possible to attain knowledge anywhere, or
- else only after death. For then the soul will be quite by itself,
- separate from the body, but before that time never. And so, while we
- live, we shall, as it appears, be nearest to knowledge if, as far as
- possible, we have no association or communion with the body, except such
- as absolute necessity requires, and if we do not taint ourselves with
- its nature, but keep ourselves pure of it until such time as God himself
- shall release us. And thus, being rid of the irrationality of the body,
- we shall, in all likelihood, be in the company of others in like state,
- and we shall behold with our own eyes the pure and absolute, which is
- the truth ; since for the impure to touch the pure may well be against
- the divine ordinance.
-
-
So, even if it be likely that death transports us into another place, it is
- not an evil ; for it may possibly prove to be a good, as Plato has shown.
- Wherefore very wonderful were the words which Socrates Plato, Apology, p. 29 A. uttered before his
- judges, to this effect: To be afraid of death, Sirs, is nothing else
- than to seem to be wise when one is not; for it is to seem to know what
- one does not know. For in regard to death nobody knows even whether it
- happens to be for mankind the greatest of all good things, yet they fear
- it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils. From
- this view it seems that the poet does not dissent who says :
- Let none fear death, which is release from
- toils,Author unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No.
- 371.
- —ay, and from the greatest of evils as
- well.
-
-
-
It is said that the Deity also bears witness to this. For tradition tells us
- that many for their righteousness have gained this gift from the gods. Most
- of these I shall pass over, having regard to due proportion in my
- composition; but I shall mention the most conspicuous, whose story is on the
- lips of all men.
-
First I shall relate for you the tale of Cleobis and Biton, the Argive
- youths.
- Cf.Herodotus, i. 31, and
- Plutarch, Moralia, Frag. in vol. vii. p. 126
- Bernardakis. They say that their mother was priestess of Hera,
- and when the time had come for her to go up to the temple, and the mules
- that always drew her wagon were late in arriving, and the hour was pressing,
- these young men put themselves to the wagon and drew their mother to the
- temple ; and she, overjoyed at the devotion of her sons, prayed that the
- best boon that man can receive be given them by the goddess. They then lay
- down to sleep and never arose again, the goddess granting them death as a
- reward for their devotion.
-
Of Agamedes and Trophonius, Pindar
- Cf. Frag. 2
- of Pindar (ed. Christ). says that after building the temple at
- Delphi they asked Apollo for a reward, and he promised them to make payment
- on the seventh day, bidding them in the meantime to eat, drink, and be
- merry. They did what was commanded, and on the evening of the seventh day
- lay down to sleep and their life came to an end.
-
It is said that Pindar himself enjoined upon the
- deputies of the Boeotians who were sent to consult the god that they should
- inquire, What is the best thing for mankind ? and the
- prophetic priestess made answer, that he himself could not be ignorant of it
- if the story which had been written about Trophonius and Agamedes were his ;
- but if he desired to learn it by experience, it should be made manifest to
- him within a short time. As a result of this inquiry Pindar inferred that he
- should expect death, and after a short time his end came.
-
They say that the following incident happened to the Italian
- Euthynoüs.The story comes from Crantor's Consolatio, according to Cicero. He was
- the son of Elysius, of Terina, a man foremost among the people there in
- virtue, wealth, and repute, and Euthynoüs came to his end suddenly
- from some unknown cause. Now it occurred to Elysius, as it might have
- occurred to anybody else, that his son had perhaps died of poisoning; for he
- was his only heir to a large property and estate. Being in perplexity as to
- how he might put his suspicions to the test, he visited a place where the
- spirits of the dead are conjured up, and having offered the preliminary
- sacrifice prescribed by custom, he lay down to sleep in the place, and had
- this vision. It seemed that his own father came to him, and that on seeing
- his father he related to him what had happened touching his son, and begged
- and besought his help to discover the man who was responsible for his son's
- death. And his father said, It is for this that I am come. Take from
- this person here what he brings for you, and from this you will learn
- about everything over which you are now grieving. The person
- whom he indicated was a young man who followed him, resembling his son
- Euthynoüs and close to him in years and stature. So Elysius asked who he was ; and he said, I am the ghost of your
- son, and with these words he handed him a paper. This Elysius
- opened and saw written there these three lines : Verily somehow the minds of men in ignorance wander; Dead now
- Euthynoüs lies ; destiny so has decreed. Not for himself was it
- good that he live, nor yet for his parents.Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. iii. p. 148; cf. Cicero, Tusculan
- Disputations, i. 48 (115).
- Such, you
- observe, is the purport of the tales recorded in ancient writers.
-
-
-
If, however, death is really a complete destruction and dissolution of both
- body and soul (for this was the third of Socrates' conjectures), even so it
- is not an evil. For, according to him, there ensues a sort of insensibility
- and a liberation from all pain and anxiety. For just as no good can attach
- to us in such a state, so also can no evil; for just as the good, from its
- nature, can exist only in the case of that which is and has substantiality,
- so it is also with the evil. But in the case of that which is not, but has
- been removed from the sphere of being, neither of them can have any real
- existence. Now those who have died return to the same state in which they
- were before birth ; therefore, as nothing was either good or evil for us
- before birth, even so will it be with us after death. And just as all events
- before our lifetime were nothing to us, even so will all events subsequent
- to our lifetime be nothing to us. For in reality
- No suffering affects the dead,From the Philoctetes of Aeschylus; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.,
- Aeschylus, No. 255.
- since Not to be born I count the same as death.Euripides, Trojan Women, 636.
- For the
- condition after the end of life is the same as that before birth. But do you
- imagine that there is a difference between not being born at all, and being
- born and then passing away? Surely not, unless you assume also that there is
- a difference in a house or a garment of ours after its destruction, as
- compared with the time when it had not yet been fashioned. But if there is
- no difference in these cases, it is evident that there is no difference in
- the case of death, either, as compared with the condition before birth.
- Arcesilaus puts the matter neatly : This that we call an evil,
- death, is the only one of the supposed evils which, when present, has
- never caused anybody any pain, but causes pain when it is not present
- but merely expected. As a matter of fact, many people, because
- of their utter fatuity and their false opinion regarding death, die in their
- effort to keep from dying.
- Cf. 107, A supra.
- Excellently does
- Epicharmus
- Cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 122.
- put it: To be and not to be hath been his
- fate; once more Gone is he whence he
- came, earth back to earth, The soul on high. What here is evil ?
- Naught. Cresphontes in some play of Euripides,The Cresphontes; cf. Nauck, Trag.
- Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 450. speaking of Heracles,
- says : For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth
- 'Mid lifeless shades, his vigour would be naught.
- This you might rewrite and say, For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth 'Mid
- lifeless shades, his dolour would be naught. Noble also is the
- Spartan songBergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec.iii. p.
- 662.: Here now are we ; before us others
- throve, and others still straightway, But we shall never live to see
- their day ; and again : Those who have
- died and who counted no honour the living or dying, Only to consummate
- both nobly were honour for them.
- Ibid. iii.
- p. 516; cf. Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas. chap. i. (p. 278 A).
-
- Excellently does Euripides
- Suppliants,
- 1109. say of those who patiently endure long illnesses : I hate the men who would prolong their lives By foods
- and drinks and charms of magic art, Perverting nature's course to keep
- off death ; They ought, when they no longer serve the land, To quit this
- life, and clear the way for youth. And Merope Referred to
- the Cresphontes of Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.,
- Euripides, No. 454. stirs the theatres by expressing manly
- sentiments when she speaks the following words : Not mine the only children who have died, Nor I the only woman robbed
- of spouse ; Others as well as I have drunk life's dregs. With
- this the following might be appropriately combined :
- Where now are all those things magnificentGreat
- Croesus, lord of Lydia ? Xerxes, too, Who yoked the sullen neck of
- Hellespont ? Gone all to Hades and Oblivion's house,Author
- unknown; cf. Nauck, Trag.
- Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 372, and Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p.
- 739.
- and their wealth perished with their bodies.
-
-
-
- True, it may be said, but an untimely death moves
- most people to mourning and lamentation. Yet, even for this,
- words of consolation are so readily found that they have been perceived by
- even uninspired poets, and comfort has been had from them. Observe what one
- of the comic poets
- Cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 429, Adespota, No.
- 116. says on this subject to a man who is grieving for an
- untimely death : Then if you knew that, had he
- lived this life, Which he did not live, Fate had favoured him, His death
- was not well timed ; but if again This life had brought some ill
- incurable, Then Death perhaps were kindlier than you. Since,
- then, it is uncertain whether or not it was profitable for him that he
- rested from his labours, forsaking this life and released from greater ills,
- we ought not to bear it so grievously as though we had lost all that we
- thought we should gain from him. Not ill considered, evidently, is the
- comfort which Amphiaraus in the poem offers to the mother of Archemorus, who
- is greatly affected because her son came to his end in his infancy long
- before his time. For he says : There is no man that
- does not suffer ill; Man buries children, and begets yet more, And dies himself. Men are distressed at this,
- Committing earth to earth. But Fate decrees That life be garnered like
- the ripened grain, That one shall live and one shall pass from life.
- What need to grieve at this, which Nature says Must be the constant
- cycle of all life ? In what must be there's naught that man need
- dread.From the Hypsipyle of Euripides;
- cf. Nauck, Trag.
- Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 757.
-
-
-
-
-
In general everyone ought to hold the conviction, if he seriously reviews the
- facts both by himself and in the company of another, that not the longest
- life is the best, but the most efficient. For it is not the man who has
- played the lyre the most, or made the most speeches, or piloted the most
- ships, who is commended, but he who has done these things excellently.
- Excellence is not to be ascribed to length of time, but to worth and timely
- fitness. For these have come to be regarded as tokens of good fortune and of
- divine favour. It is for this reason, at any rate, that the poets have
- traditionally represented those of the heroes who were preeminent and sprung
- from the gods as quitting this life before old age, like him Who to the
- heart of great Zeus and Apollo was held to be dearest, Loved with exceeding
- great love ; but of eld he reached not the threshold.Homer, Od. xv. 245. For we everywhere observe
- that it is a happy use of opportunity, rather than a happy old age, that
- wins the highest place.
- Cf. Marcus Antoninus,
- 24. 1, and Seneca, Epist. 93. 2. For of
- trees and plants the best are those that in a brief time produce the most
- crops of fruit, and the best of animals are those from which in no long time
- we have the greatest service toward our livelihood. The terms long
- and short obviously appear to lose their
- difference if we fix our gaze on eternity. For a
- thousand or ten thousand years, according to Simonides, are but a vague
- second of time, or rather the smallest fraction of a second. Take the case
- of those creatures which they relate exist on the shores of the Black
- Sea,Aristotle, Hist. animal. v. 19. 3f.
- (copied by Pliny, Natural History, xi. 36 (43)).
- Cf. Aelian, De nat.
- animal. v. 43; Cicero, Tusculan
- Disputations, i. 39 (94). and have an existence of only
- one day, being born in the morning, reaching the prime of life at mid-day,
- and toward evening growing old and ending their existence ; would there not
- be in those creatures this same feeling which prevails with us, if each of
- them had within him a human soul and power to reason, and would not the same
- relative conditions obviously obtain there, so that those who departed this
- life before mid-day would cause lamentation and tears, while those who lived
- through the day would be accounted altogether happy ? The measure of life is
- its excellence, not its length in years.
-
-
-
We must regard as vain and foolish such exclamations as these : But
- he ought not to have been snatched away while young ! For who
- may say what ought to be ? Many other things, of which one may say
- they ought not to have been done, have been done, and are done,
- and will be done over and over again. For we have come into this world, not
- to make laws for its governance, but to obey the commandments of the gods
- who preside over the universe, and the decrees of Fate or Providence.
-
-
-
But do those who mourn for the untimely dead, mourn on their own account or
- on account of the departed ? If on their own account, because they have been
- cut off from some gratification or profit or comfort in old age, which they
- might have expected from the dead, then is their excuse for grieving wholly
- selfish; for it will be plain that they mourn, not
- for them, but for their services. But if they mourn on account of the dead,
- then if they will fix their attention on the fact that the dead are in no
- evil state, they will rid themselves of grief by following that wise and
- ancient admonition to magnify the good and to minimize and lessen the evil.
- If, then, mourning is a good, we ought to enlarge and magnify it in every
- way. But if, as the truth is, we admit it to be an evil, we ought to
- minimize and reduce it, and as far as possible to efface it.
-
That this is easy is plainly to be seen from the following sort of
- consolation. They say that one of the ancient philosophers visited
- Arsinoë, the queen, who was mourning for her son, and made use of
- this story,
- Cf. Moralia 609 F, where the idea
- is attributed to Aesop. saying that at the time Zeus was
- distributing to the deities their honours. Mourning did not happen to be
- present, but arrived after the distribution had been made. But when she said
- it was only right that some honour be given to her also, Zeus, being
- perplexed, since all the honours had been used up, finally gave her that
- honour which is paid in the case of those who have died—tears and
- griefs. Just as the other deities, therefore, are fond of those by whom they
- are honoured, so also is Mourning. Therefore, Madame, if you treat
- her with disrespect, she will not come near you; but if she is strictly
- honoured by you with the honours which were conceded to her, namely
- griefs and lamentations, she will love you and affectionately will be
- ever with you, provided only she be constantly honoured by you.
- Admirably, it appears, he succeeded, by this story, in convincing the woman
- and in alleviating her mourning and lamentations.
-
-
-
-
In general one might say to the man who mourns, Shall you at some
- time cease to take this to heart, or shall you feel that you must grieve
- always every day of your life ? For if you purpose to remain always in
- this extreme state of affliction, you will bring complete wretchedness
- and the most bitter misery upon yourself by the ignobleness and
- cowardice of your soul. But if you intend some time to change your
- attitude, why do you not change it at once and extricate yourself from
- this misfortune ? Give attention now to those arguments by the use of
- which, as time goes on, your release shall be accomplished, and relieve
- yourself now of your sad condition. For in the case of bodily
- afflictions the quickest way of relief is the better. Therefore concede
- now to reason and education what you surely will later concede to time,
- and release yourself from your troubles.
-
-
-
-
- But I cannot, he says, for I never expected or looked
- for this experience. But you ought to have looked for it, and to
- have previously pronounced judgement on human affairs for their uncertainty
- and fatuity, and then you would not now have been taken off your guard as by
- enemies suddenly come upon you. Admirably does Theseus in Euripides In
- an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. Euripides, No. 964 D; cf. the translation by Cicero, Tusculan
- Disputations, iii. 14 (29). appear to have prepared
- himself for such crises, for he says : But I have
- learned this from a certain sage, And on these cares and troubles set my
- mind, And on myself laid exile from my land And early deaths and other
- forms of ills, That if I suffer aught my fancy saw,
- It should not, coming newly, hurt the more. But the more ignoble
- and untutored sometimes cannot even recall themselves to the consideration
- of anything seemly and profitable, but go out of their way to find extremes
- of wretchedness, even to punishing their innocent body and to forcing the
- unafflicted, as Achaeus Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag. p. 757, Achaeus, No. 45. says, to join in their
- grief.
-
-
-
Wherefore very excellently Plato Adapted from the Republic, p. 604 B. appears to advise us
- in such misfortunes to maintain a calm demeanour,
- since neither the evil nor the good in them is at all plain, and since
- no advance is made by the man who takes things much to heart. For grief
- stands in the way of sane counsel about an event and prevents one from
- arranging his affairs with relation to what has befallen, as a player
- does at a throw of the dice, in whatever way reason may convince him
- would be best. We ought not, therefore, when we have fallen to act like
- children and hold on to the injured place and scream, but we should
- accustom our soul speedily to concern itself with curing the injury and
- raising up the fallen, and we should put away lamentation by remedial
- art.
-
-
They say that the lawgiver of the Lyclans
- Cf.
- Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 13. ordered his citizens, whenever they
- mourned, to clothe themselves first in women's garments and then to mourn,
- wishing to make it clear that mourning is womanish and unbecoming to
- decorous men who lay claim to the education of the free-born. Yes, mourning
- is verily feminine, and weak, and ignoble, since women
- are more given to it than men, and barbarians more than Greeks, and inferior
- men more than better men ; and of the barbarians themselves, not the most
- noble, Celts and Galatians, and all who by nature are filled with a more
- manly spirit, but rather, if such there are, the Egyptians and Syrians and
- Lydians and all those who are like them. For it is recorded that some of
- these go down into pits and remain there for several days, not desiring even
- to behold the light of the sun since the deceased also is bereft of it. At
- any rate the tragic poet Ion,Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 54. who was not without knowledge
- of the foolishness of these peoples, has represented a woman as saying :
- The nurse of lusty children I have come, To
- supplicate you, from the mourning pits. And some of the
- barbarians even cut off parts of their bodies, their noses and ears, and
- mutilate other portions of their bodies also, thinking to gratify the dead
- by abandoning that moderation of feeling which Nature enjoins in such cases.
-
-
-
-
But I dare say that, in answer to this, some may assert their belief that
- there need not be mourning for every death, but only for untimely deaths,
- because of the failure of the dead to gain what are commonly held to be the
- advantages of life, such as marriage, education, manhood, citizenship, or
- public office (for these are the considerations, they say, which most cause
- grief to those who suffer misfortune through untimely deaths, since they are
- robbed of their hope out of due time) ; but they do not realize that the
- untimely death shows no disparity if it be considered with reference to the
- Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 54.
- common lot of man. For just as when it has been decided
- to migrate to a new fatherland, and the journey is compulsory for all, and
- none by entreaty can escape it, some go on ahead and others follow after,
- but all come to the same place; in the same manner, of all who are
- journeying toward Destiny those who come more tardily have no advantage over
- those who arrive earlier. If it be true that untimely death is an evil, the
- most untimely would be that of infants and children, and still more that of
- the newly born. But such deaths we bear easily and cheerfully, but the
- deaths of those who have already lived some time with distress and mourning
- because of our fanciful notion, born of vain hopes, since we have come to
- feel quite assured of the continued tarrying with us of persons who have
- lived so long. But if the years of man's life were but twenty, we should
- feel that he who passed away at fifteen had not died untimely, but that he
- had already attained an adequate measure of age, while the man who had
- completed the prescribed period of twenty years, or who had come close to
- the count of twenty years, we should assuredly deem happy as having lived
- through a most blessed and perfect life. But if the length of life were two
- hundred years, we should certainly feel that he who came to his end at one
- hundred was cut off untimely, and we should betake ours elves to wailing and
- lamentation.
-
-
-
It is evident, therefore, that even the death which we call untimely readily
- admits of consolation, both for these reasons and for those previously
- given. For in fact Troïlus shed fewer tears than did Priam; A
- saying of Callimachus; cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 93 (39); Plutarch, Moralia, 211 A.
- and if Priam had died earlier, while his kingdom and
- his great prosperity were at their height, he would not have used such sad
- words as he did in his conversation with his own son Hector, when he advised
- him to withdraw from the battle with Achilles ; he says: Homer, Il. xxii. 56.
- Come then within the walled city, my son, so to
- save from destruction All of the men and the women of Troy, nor afford a
- great triumph Unto the offspring of Peleus, and forfeit the years of
- your lifetime. Also for me have compassion, ill-starred, while yet I
- have feeling ; Hapless I am ; on the threshold of eld will the Father,
- descended from Cronus, Make me to perish in pitiful doom, after visions
- of evils, Sons being slain and our daughters as well being dragged to be
- captives, Chambers of treasure all wantonly plundered and poor little
- children Dashed to the earth in the terrible strife by the merciless
- foeman, Wives of my sons being dragged by the ravishing hands of
- Achaeans. Me, last of all, at the very front doors shall the dogs tear
- to pieces, Ravening, eager for blood, when a foeman wielding his weapon,
- Keen-edged of bronze, by a stroke or a throw, takes the life from my
- body. Yet when the dogs bring defilement on hair and on beard that is
- hoary, And on the body as well of an old man slain by the foeman, This
- is the saddest of sights ever seen by us unhappy mortals. Thus did the
- old man speak, and his hoary locks plucked by the handful, Tearing his
- hair from his head, but he moved not the spirit of Hector. Since
- you have, then, so very many examples regarding the
- matter, bear in mind the fact that death relieves not a few persons from
- great and grievous ills which, if they had lived on, they would surely have
- experienced. But, out of regard for the due proportions of my argument, I
- omit these, contenting myself with what has been said touching the
- wrongfulness of being carried away beyond natural and moderate bounds to
- futile mourning and ignoble lamentation.
-
-
-
Crantor Mullach, Frag. Philor. Graec. iii. p.
- 149. says that not being to blame for one's unhappy state is no
- small alleviation for misfortunes ; but I should say that it surpasses all
- others as a remedy for the cure of grief. But affection and love for the
- departed does not consist in distressing ourselves, but in benefiting the
- beloved one; and a benefit for those who have been taken away is the honour
- paid to them through keeping their memory green. For no good man, after he
- is dead, is deserving of lamentations, but of hymns and songs of joy ; not
- of mourning, but of an honourable memory ; not of sorrowing tears, but of
- offerings of sacrifice,—if the departed one is now a partaker in
- some life more divine, relieved of servitude to the body, and of these
- everlasting cares and misfortunes which those who have received a mortal
- life as their portion are constrained to undergo until such time as they
- shall complete their allotted earthly existence, which Nature has not given
- to us for eternity; but she has distributed to us severally the apportioned
- amount in accordance with the laws of fate.
-
-
-
Wherefore, over those who die men of good sense ought not to be carried away
- by sorrow beyond the natural and moderate limit of grief, which so affects
- the soul, into useless and barbarian mourning, and they
- ought not to wait for that outcome which has already been the lot of many in
- the past, the result of which is that they terminate their own lives in
- misery before they have put off their mourning, and gain nothing but a
- forlorn burial in their garments of sorrow, as their woes and the ills born
- of their unreasonableness follow them to the grave, so that one might utter
- over them the verse of Homer : Combined from Il. xxiii. 109, and Od. i. 423 (=Od. xviii. 306). While they were weeping
- and wailing black darkness descended upon them.
-
We should therefore often hold converse with ourselves after this fashion and
- say : What ? Shall we some day cease grieving, or shall we consort
- with unceasing misery to the very end of our life ? For to
- regard our mourning as unending is the mark of the most extreme foolishness,
- especially when we observe how those who have been in the deepest grief and
- greatest mourning often become most cheerful under the influence of time,
- and at the very tombs where they gave violent expression to their grief by
- wailing and beating their breasts, they arrange most elaborate banquets with
- musicians and all the other forms of diversion. It is accordingly the mark
- of a madman thus to assume that he shall keep his mourning permanently. If,
- however, men should reason that mourning will come to an end after some
- particular event, they might go on and reason that it will come to an end
- when time, forsooth, has produced some effect ; for not even God can undo
- what has been done. So, then, that which in the present instance has come to
- pass contrary to our expectation and contrary to our opinion has only
- demonstrated what is wont, through the very course of
- events, to happen in the case of many men. What then ? Are we unable,
- through reason, to learn this fact and draw the conclusion, that Full is the earth now of evils, and full of them too
- is the ocean,Hesiod, Works and Days, 101;
- cf. 105 E supra.
-
- and also this : Such woes of woes for mortal men, And round about the Fates throng
- close; There is no vacant pathway for the air ?From an unknown
- lyric poet; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 689.
-
-
-
-
-
Not merely now, but long ago, as Crantor Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. iii. p. 149. says, the lot of man
- has been bewailed by many wise men, who have felt that life is a punishment
- and that for man to be born at all is the greatest calamity. Aristotle
-
- Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 48 (114), and Aristotle, Frag. No. 44 Rose. says that Silenus when
- he was captured declared this to Midas. It is better to quote the very words
- of the philosopher. He says, in the work which is entitled Eudemus, or Of
- the Soul, the following : ' Wherefore, O best and blessedest of all,
- in addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed
- and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous
- against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against
- those who have already become our betters and superiors. And this is
- such an old and ancient belief with us that no one knows at all either
- the beginning of the time or the name of the person who first
- promulgated it, but it continues to be a fixed belief for all
- time.
- Cf. Sophocles, Antigone 466.
- And in addition to this you observe how the saying,
- which is on the lips of all men, has been passed from mouth to mouth for
- many years.' ' What is this ?' said he. And the other, again taking up
- the discourse, said : ' That not to be born is the best of all, and that
- to be dead is better than to live. And the proof that this is so has
- been given to many men by the deity. So, for example, they say that
- Silenus, after the hunt in which Midas of yore had captured him, when
- Midas questioned and inquired of him what is the best thing for mankind
- and what is the most preferable of all things, was at first unwilling to
- teli, but maintained a stubborn silence. But when at last, by employing
- every device, Midas induced him to say something to him, Silenus, forced
- to speak, said : Ephemeral offspring of a travailing genius and
- of harsh fortune, why do you force me to speak what it were better
- for you men not to know ? For a life spent in ignorance of one's own
- woes is most free from grief. But for men it is utterly impossible
- that they should obtain the best thing of all, or even have any
- share in its nature (for the best thing for all men and women is not
- to be born) ; however, the next best thing to this, and the first of
- those to which man can attain, but nevertheless only the second
- best, is, after being born, to die as quickly as possible.
-
- Cf. Theognis, 425; Bacchylidies, v. 160;
- Sophocles, Oed. Col. 1225; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, i. 48 (115).
- It is evident, therefore, that he made this declaration with the
- conviction that the existence after death is better than that in life.'
- One might cite thousands and thousands of examples under this same
- head, but there is no need to be prolix.
-
-
-
-
We ought not, therefore, to lament those who die young on the ground that
- they have been deprived of those things which in a long life are accounted
- good ; for this is uncertain, as we have often said—whether the
- things of which they have been deprived are good or evil; for the evils are
- much the more numerous. And whereas we acquire the good things only with
- difficulty and at the expense of many anxieties, the evils we acquire very
- easily. For they say that the latter are compact and conjoined, and are
- brought together by many influences, while the good things are disjoined,
- and hardly manage to unite towards the very end of life. We therefore
- resemble men who have forgotten, not merely, as Euripides Adapted from
- the Phoenissae, 555. says, that Mortals are not the owners of their wealth,
- but also that they do not own a single one of human possessions. Wherefore
- we must say in regard to all things that We keep
- and care for that which is the gods', And when they will they take it
- back again.
- Ibid. 556.
- We
- ought not, therefore, to bear it with bad grace if the gods make demand upon
- us for what they have loaned us for a short time.
- Cf. Cebes, Tabula, xxxi., and Cicero,
- Tusculan Disputations, i. 39 (93).
- For even the bankers, as we are in the habit of saying frequently, when
- demand is made upon them for the return of deposits, do not chafe at the
- repayment, if they be honourable men. To those who do not make repayment
- with good grace one might fairly say, Have you forgotten that you
- accepted this on condition that you should return it ? Quite
- parallel is the lot of all mortals. For we hold our life, as it were, on
- deposit from the gods, who have compelled us to accept the account, and
- there is no fixed time for its return, just as with the
- bankers and their deposits, but it is uncertain when the depositor will
- demand payment. If a man, therefore, is exceedingly indignant, either when
- he himself is about to die, or when his children have died, must he not
- manifestly have forgotten that he is but human and the father of children
- who are mortal ? For it is not characteristic of a man of sense to be
- unaware of the fact that man is a mortal creature, and that he is born to
- die. At any rate, if Niobe of the fable had had this conception ready at
- hand, that even the woman who, Laden with the happy
- burden Of sweet life and growing children, Looks upon the pleasant
- sunlight,From an unknown poet; cf.
- Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No.
- 373, and Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p.
- 720.
- must die, she would not have been so resentful
- as to wish to abandon life on account of the magnitude of her misfortune,
- and to implore the gods that she herself might be hurried to the most awful
- perdition.
-
There are two of the inscriptions at Delphi
- Cf.
- Plato, Protagoras, p. 343 B, and Charmides, p. 165 A; Aristotle, Rheoric, ii. 12, 14; Pausanias, x. 24, 1;
- Plutarch, Moralia, 167 B, 385 D, and 511 B, and
- De vita et poesi Homeri, 151. which
- are most indispensable to living. These are : Know thyself
- and Avoid extremes, for on these two commandments hang all
- the rest. These two are in harmony and agreement with each other, and the
- one seems to be made as clear as possible through the other. For in
- self-knowledge is included the avoidance of extremes, and in the latter is
- included self-knowledge. Therefore Ion Nauck, Trag.
- Graec. Frag. p. 743, Ion, No. 55. speaks of the former
- as follows : Not much to say is “Know
- thyself” ; to do This, Zeus alone of gods doth
- understand.
- And, of the other, Pindar
- Frag. 216 (Christ). says : The
- wise have landed with exceeding praise the words “Avoid
- extremes.”
-
-
-
-
-
If, then, one keeps these in mind as god-given injunctions, he will be able
- easily to adapt them to all the circumstances of life, and to bear with such
- circumstances intelligently, by being heedful of his own nature, and
- heedful, in whatever may befall him, not to go beyond the limit of
- propriety, either in being elated to boastfulness or in being humbled and
- cast down to wailings and lamentations, through weakness of the spirit and
- the fear of death which is implanted in us as a result of our ignorance of
- what is wont to happen in life in accordance with the decree of necessity or
- destiny. Excellent is the advice which the Pythagoreans
- Carmina Aurea, 17. gave, saying : Whatsoe'er woes by the gods' dispensation all mortals
- must suffer, What be the fate you must bear, you should bear it and not
- be indignant. And the tragic poet Aeschylus Attributed to
- Euripides by Stobaeus, Florilegium, cviii. 43;
- cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec.
- Frag., Euripides, No. 1078. says : It is the mark of just and knowing men In woes to feel
- no anger at the gods; and EuripidesFrom an unknown play;
- cf. Nauck, ibid.,
- Euripides, No. 965.: Of mortals he who
- yields to fate we think Is wise and knows the ways of Providence
- ; and in another place From the Melanippe; cf. Nauck, ibid.,
- Euripides, No. 505. he says :
- Of mortals he who bears his lot aright To me seems
- noblest and of soundest sense.
-
-
-
-
Most people grumble about everything, and have a feeling that everything
- which happens to them contrary to their expectations is brought about
- through the spite of Fortune and the divine powers. Therefore they wail at
- everything, and groan, and curse their luck. To them one might say in
- retort: God is no bane to you ; 'tis you
- yourself,Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus,
- 379.
- you and your foolish and distorted notions due
- to your lack of education. It is because of this fallacious and deluded
- notion that men cry out against any sort of death. If a man die while on a
- journey, they groan over him and say : Wretched his
- fate ; not for him shall his father or much revered mother Close his
- dear eyelids in death.Homer, Il. xi.
- 452.
- But if he die in his own land with his parents
- at his bedside, they deplore his being snatched from their arms and leaving
- them the memory of the painful sight. If he die in silence without uttering
- a word about anything, they say amid their tears : No, not a word did you say to me, which for the weight of its meaning
- Ever might dwell in my mind.Homer, Il.xxiv. 744.
- But if he talked a little at the
- time of his death, they keep his words always before their mind as a sort of
- kindling for their grief. If he die suddenly, they deplore his death,
- saying, He was snatched away ; Sophocles, Oedipus
- Tyrannus, 379. b Homer, Il. xi. 452. c Homer, Il. xxiv. 744.
- but if he lingered long, they complain that he wasted
- away and suffered before he died. Any pretext is sufficient to arouse grief
- and lamentations. This movement the poets initiated, and especially the
- first of them, Homer,
- Il. xxiii. 222, and xvii. 37. who says : E'en as a father laments as the pyre of
- his dead son he kindles, Wedded not long; by his death he brought woe to his
- unhappy parents. Not to be told is the mourning and grief that he caused for
- his parents. And yet so far it is not evident that the father is justified
- in bewailing thus. But note this next line : Only and darlingest son, who is
- heir to his many possessions.
- Il. ix. 482.
-
-
-
-
-
For who knows but that God, having a fatherly care for the human race, and
- foreseeing future events, early removes some persons from life untimely?
- Wherefore we must believe that they undergo nothing that should be avoided.
- (For In what must be, there's naught that men need dread,From the Hypsipyle of Euripides, quoted supra, 110 F.
- nor in any of
- those events which come to pass in accordance with the postulates or the
- logical deductions of reason), both because the great majority of deaths
- forestall other and greater troubles and because it were better for some not
- to be born even, for others to die at the very moment of birth, for others
- after they have gone on in life a little way, and for still others while
- they are in their full vigour. Toward all such deaths we should maintain a
- cheerful frame of mind, since we know that we cannot escape
- destiny. It is the mark of educated men to take it for
- granted that those who seem to have been deprived of life untimely have but
- forestalled us for a brief time; for the longest life is short and momentary
- in comparison with eternity. And we know, too, that many who have protracted
- their period of mourning have, after no long time, followed their lamented
- friends, without having gained any advantage from their mourning, but only
- useless torment by their misery.
-
Since the time of sojourn in life is very brief, we ought not, in unkempt
- grief and utterly wretched mourning, to ruin our lives by racking ourselves
- with mental anguish and bodily torments, but to turn to the better and more
- human course, by striving earnestly to converse with men who will not, for
- flattery, grieve with us and arouse our sorrows, but will endeavour to
- dispel our griefs through noble and dignified consolation. We should hearken
- to Homer and keep in mind those lines of his
- Il. vi. 486. which Hector spoke to
- Andromache, endeavouring, in his turn, to comfort her : Dearest, you seem
- much excited; be not overtroubled in spirit; No man beyond what is fated
- shall send me in death unto Hades. For not a man among mortals, I say, has
- escaped what is destined, Neither the base nor the noble, when once he has
- entered life's pathway. Of this destiny the poet elsewhere Homer, Il.xx. 128. says : When from
- his mother he came, in the thread of his life Fate entwined it.
-
-
-
-
-
Keeping these things before our mind, we shall rid ourselves of the useless
- and vain extremes of mourning, since the time remaining of our life is
- altogether short. We must therefore be chary of it, so that we may live it
- in cheerfulness of spirit and without the disturbance of mournful griefs, by
- giving up the outward signs of sorrow and by bethinking ourselves of the
- care of our bodies and the welfare of those who live with us. It is a good
- thing also to call to mind the arguments which most likely we have sometimes
- employed with relatives or friends
- Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 29-30 (71-74). who found themselves in similar
- calamities, when we tried to comfort them and to persuade them to bear the
- usual happenings of life in the usual way and a man's lot like a man; and it
- is a good thing, too, not to put ourselves in the position of being able to
- help others to find relief from grief, but ourselves to have no profit in
- recalling the means through which we must cure the soul's
- distress—by healing remedies of
- reason
-
- Cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon,, 848.—since we should postpone anything else rather than
- the putting aside of grief. And yet one poet Hesiod, Works and Days, 414. says that the man who in any
- matter puts off till to-morrow is wrestling with
- destruction—a proverb which is repeated among all men.
- Much more, I think, is this true of the man who puts over to a future time
- the experiences which his soul finds so troublesome and so hard to face.
-
-
-
-
It is a good thing, too, to contemplate those men who nobly and high-mindedly
- and calmly have been resigned to the deaths which have befallen their
- sons—Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, Demosthenes of Athens, Dion of
- Syracuse, King Antigonus, and very
- many others among men both of earlier times and of our
- own day.
-
Of these, Anaxagoras,
- Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 2; Galen, v. p. 418 (ed. Kuhn); Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 14 (30) and 24 (58); Valerius Maximus, v 10. ext. 3. according to the traditional story, was talking about
- natural philosophy in conversation with his friends, when he heard from one
- of the messengers, who were sent to bring him the news, of the end which had
- befallen his son. He stopped for a moment and then said to those present,
- I knew that I had begotten a son who was mortal.
-
-
Pericles,
- Cf. Plutarch, Life of Pericles, chap. xxxvi. (p. 172 c); Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 6; Valerius Maximus, v. 10, ext. 1. who was called the Olympian because of his
- surpassing power of reasoning and of understanding, learned that both his
- sons, Paralus and Xanthippus, had passed from life. Protagoras describes his
- conduct in these words : His sons were comely youths, but though
- they died within seven days of each other, he bore their deaths without
- repining. For he continued to hold to that serenity from which day by
- day he added greatly to his credit of being blest by Fortune and
- untroubled by sorrow, and to his high repute with the people at large.
- For each and every man, as he beheld Pericles bearing his sorrows so
- stoutly, felt that he was high-minded and manful and his own superior,
- being only too well aware of what would be his own helplessness under
- such circumstances. For Pericles, immediately after the tidings about
- his two sons, none the less placed the garland upon his head, according
- to the time-honoured custom at Athens, and, clad in garb of white,
- harangued the people,
- 'taking lead in good counsel,' Adapted from Homer, Il. ii. 273. and inspiriting
- the Athenians to war.
-
-
Xenophon,
- Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 3; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 54; Valerius Maximus, v. 10, ext. 2. the follower of Socrates, was once offering sacrifice when he
- learned from the messengers who had come from the field of battle that his
- son Gryllus had met his death while fighting. He took the garland from his
- head and questioned them as to how he had died. When the messengers reported
- that he died nobly, displaying the greatest valour and after slaying many of
- the enemy, Xenophon was completely silent for a few moments while mastering
- his emotion by the power of reason, and then, replacing the gai'land, he
- completed the sacrifice, remarking to the messengers, I prayed to
- the gods, not that my son should be immortal or even long of life (for
- it is not clear whether it be of advantage so), but that he should be
- brave and patriotic ; and so it has come to pass.
-
-
Dion
- Cf. Plutarch, Life of Dion, chap. lv. (p. 982 c): Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 4. of Syracuse was sitting in consultation with his friends, when there
- arose, in the house a commotion and a great screaming, and upon inquiring
- the cause and hearing what had happened—that his son had fallen
- from the roof and been killed—he was not at all disconcerted, but
- commanded the corpse to be given over to the women for the usual preparation
- for burial, and he himself did not leave off the discussion in which he was
- engaged.
-
His example, they say, Demosthenes
- Cf. Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, chap. xxii. (p. 855 D), and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iii. 26 (63). the orator emulated when he lost his only
- and much-loved daughter, of whom Aeschines, Or. iii. (Against Ctesiphon) 77 (p. 64). thinking to reproach
- Demosthenes, speaks as follows : On the seventh
- day after his daughter's death, before he had mourned for her or
- performed the customary rites, putting on a garland and resuming his
- white apparel, he offered a sacrifice in public and violated all custom,
- when he had lost, poor wretch, his only daughter, who was the first
- child to address him as father. So then Aeschines, purposing,
- after the manner of the political speaker, to reproach him, rehearsed these
- facts, being quite unaware that thereby he was really commending
- Demosthenes, who put aside his grief, and displayed his patriotism in
- preference to his feelings for his kindred.
-
Antigonus Antigonus Gonatas; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 5. the king, on learning of the death of his son Alcyoneus, which had
- occurred in the line of battle, gazed proudly upon the messengers who had
- brought news of the calamity, and, after waiting for a moment, said, bowing
- his head, Not so very early, Alcyoneus, have you departed this life,
- since you always rushed so recklessly against the enemy without a
- thought either of your own safety or of my counsels.
-
-
The whole world wonders at these men and admires them for their nobility of
- mind, but others have not the ability to imitate them in practice because of
- that weakness of spirit which results from lack of education. But although
- there are so many examples, which have been handed down to us through both
- Greek and Roman history, of men who have behaved nobly and honourably at the
- deaths of their relatives, yet what has been said will suffice to induce you
- to put aside mourning, which is the most distressing of all things, and also
- the fruit Antigonus Gonatas; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii.
- 5.
- less pain, which serves no useful purpose, involved in
- mourning.
-
-
-
The fact that those who excel in virtues pass on to their fate while young,
- as though beloved of the gods, I have already called to your attention in an
- earlier part 111 B supra
- of my letter, and I shall endeavour at this time to touch upon
- it very briefly, merely adding my testimony to that which has been so well
- said by Menander From the Double Deceiver: cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 36, Menander, No. 125, and Allinson's Menander (L.C.L.), p. 345. The sentiment is found many times in other writers, cf. Plautus, Bacch. iv. 7. 18 quem di diligunt adulescens moritur.
- : Whom the gods love dies young. But perhaps, my dearest
- Apollonius, you would say in retort that your young son had been placed
- under the special care of Apollo and the Fates, and that it should have been
- you who, on departing this life, received the last offices from him, after
- he had come to full manhood ; for this, you say, is in accordance with
- nature. Yes, in accordance with your nature, no doubt, and mine, and that of
- mankind in general, but not in accordance with the Providence which presides
- over all or with the universal dispensation. But for that boy, now among the
- blessed, it was not in accordance with nature that he should tarry beyond
- the time allotted to him for life on this earth, but that, after fulfilling
- this term with due obedience, he should set forth to meet his fate, which
- was already (to use his own words
- i.e. his dying words, Fate summons me; cf. the dying words of Alcestis, Charon summons me, Euripides, Alcestis, 254, and Plato, Phaedo, 115 A.) summoning him to himself. But he
- died untimely. Yes, but for this very reason his lot is happier,
- and he is spared many evils ; for Euripides In an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 966. says :
-
- Life bears the name of life, being but toil. But he, in
- the most blooming period of his years, has departed early, a perfect youth,
- envied and admired by all who knew him. He was fond of his father and mother
- and his relatives and friends, or, to put it in a word, he loved his fellow
- men ; he respected the elderly among his friends as fathers, he was
- affectionate towards his companions and familiar friends, he honoured his
- teachers, and was most kind toward strangers and citizens, gentle with all
- and beloved of all, both because of his charm of appearance and because of
- his affable kindliness.
-
Ah well, but he, bearing with him the fair and fitting fame of your
- righteousness and his own conjoined, has departed early to eternity from out
- this mortal life, as from an evening party, before falling into any such
- grossness of conduct as is wont to be the concomitant of a long old age. And
- if the account of the ancient poets and philosophers is true, as it most
- likely is, and so there is for those of the departed who have been righteous
- a certain honour and preferment, as is said, and a place set apart in which
- their souls pass their existence, then you ought to be of good hope for your
- dear departed son that he will be reckoned among their number and will be
- with them.
-
-
-
These are the words of the melic poet Pindar
- Frag. 129 (ed. Christ); cf. also the two lines quoted in Moralia, 17 C, and the amplification of these lines which Plutarch gives in Moralia, 1130 C. regarding the righteous in the
- other world : For them doth the strength of the sun shine below, While night
- all the earth doth overstrow.
- In meadows of roses their suburbs lie, Roses all tinged
- with a crimson dye. They are shaded by trees that incense bear, And trees
- with golden fruit so fair. Some with horses and sports of might, Others in
- music and draughts delight. Happiness there grows ever apace, Perfumes are
- wafted o'er the loved place, As the incense they strew where the gods'
- altars are And the fire that consumes it is seen from afar. And a little
- farther on, in another lament for the dead, speaking of the soul, he says
- Frag.131 (ed. Christ); cf. also Plutarch, Life of Romulus, xxviii. (p. 35 D).
- : In happy fate they all The line is incomplete, lacking a finite verb. Were freed by death from labour's thrall. Man's
- body follows at the beck of death O'ermastering. Alive is left The image of
- the stature that he gained, Since this alone is from the gods obtained. It
- sleeps while limbs move to and fro, But, while we sleep, in dreams doth show
- The choice we cannot disregard Between the pleasant and the hard.
-
-
-
-
The divine Plato has said a good deal in his treatise On the Soul about its
- immortality, and not a little also in the Republic and Meno and Gorgias, and
- here and there in his other dialogues. What is said in the dialogue On the
- Soul I will copy, with comments, and send you separately, as you desired.
- But for the present occasion these words, which were spoken
- to Callicles the Athenian, the friend and disciple of
- Gorgias the orator, are timely and profitable. They say that Socrates,
- according to Plato's account,
- Gorgias, p. 523 A. says : Listen to a very beautiful
- story, which you, I imagine, will regard as a myth, but which I regard
- as a story; for what I am going to say I shall relate as true. As Homer
- Iliad, xv. 187.
- tells the tale, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto divided the kingdom when they
- received it from their father. Now this was the custom regarding men
- even in the time of Cronus, and it has persisted among the gods to this
- day—that the man who has passed through life justly and in
- holiness shall, at his death, depart to the Islands of the Blest and
- dwell in all happiness beyond the reach of evil, while he who has lived
- an unjust and godless life shall go to the prison-house of justice and
- punishment, which they call Tartarus. The judges of these men, in the
- time of Cronus and in the early days of Zeus's dominion, were living,
- and judged the living, giving judgement on the day when the men were
- about to die. As time went on, for some reason the cases were not
- decided well. Accordingly Pluto and the supervisors in the Islands of
- the Blest went to Zeus and said to him that there kept coming to them at
- both places inadmissible persons. ' Very well,' said Zeus, ' then I
- shall put a stop to this proceeding. The judgements are now rendered
- poorly ; for,' said he, ' those who are judged are judged with a
- covering on them, since they are judged while alive, and so,' he
- continued, a good
- many perhaps who have base souls are clad with
- beautiful bodies and ancestry and riches, and, when the judgement takes
- place, many come to testify for them that they have lived righteously.
- So not only are the judges disconcerted by these things, but at the same
- time they themselves sit in judgement with a covering on them, having
- before their own souls, like a veil, their eyes and ears and their whole
- body. All these things come between, both their own covering and that of
- those who are being judged. In the first place, then, all their
- foreknowledge of death must be ended ; for now they have foreknowledge
- of it. So Prometheus has been told to put an end to this. Secondly, they
- must be judged divested of all these things ; for they must be judged
- after they have died. The judge also must be naked, and dead, that he
- may view with his very soul the very soul of every man instantly after
- he has died, and isolated from all his kin, having left behind on earth
- all earthly adornments, so that his judgement may be just. I, therefore,
- realizing this situation sooner than you, have made my own sons judges,
- two from Asia—Minos and Rhadamanthys‚Äîand one from
- Europe—Aeacus. These, then, as soon as they have died, shall sit in
- judgement in the meadow at the parting of the ways whence the two roads
- lead, the one to the Islands of the Blest and the other to Tartarus. The
- people of Asia shall Rhadamanthys judge, while Aeacus shall judge the
- people of Europe; and to Minos I shall give the prerogative of
- pronouncing final judgement in case the other
- two be in any doubt, in order that the decision in
- regard to the route which men must take shall be as just as possible.'
- This, Callicles, is what I have heard, and believe to be true ; and from
- these words I draw the following inference—that death is, as it seems
- to me, nothing else than the severing of two things, soul and body, from
- each other.
-
-
-
-
Having collected and put together these extracts, my dearest Apollonius, with
- great diligence, I have completed this letter of condolence to you, which is
- most needful to enable you to put aside your present grief and to put an end
- to mourning, which is the most distressing of all things. In it is included
- also for your son, Apollonius, a youth so very dear to the gods, a fitting
- tribute, which is much coveted by the sanctified—a tribute due to
- his honourable memory and to his fair fame, which will endure for time
- eternal. You will do well, therefore, to be persuaded by reason, and, as a
- favour to your dear departed son, to turn from your unprofitable distress
- and desolation, which affect both body and soul, and to go back to your
- accustomed and natural course of life. Forasmuch as your son, while he was
- living among us, was sorry to see either you or his mother downcast, even
- so, now that he is with the gods and is feasting with them, he would not be
- well satisfied with your present course of life. Resume, therefore, the
- spirit of a brave-hearted and high-minded man who loves his offspring, and
- set free from all this wretchedness both yourself, the mother of the youth,
- and your relatives and friends, as you may do by pursuing a more tranquil
- form of life, which will be most gratifying both to your son and to all of
- us who are concerned for you, as we rightly should be.
-
-
-
-
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-
-
-
-
-Consolatio ad Apollonium
-Machine readable text
-Plutarch
-Gregorius N.
- Bernardakis
-Perseus Project, Tufts University
-Gregory Crane
-
-Prepared under the supervision of
-Lisa Cerrato
-William Merrill
-Elli Mylonas
-David Smith
-
-The National Endowment for the Humanities
-
-
-
-Trustees of Tufts University
-Medford, MA
-Perseus Project
-
-
-
-
-
-Plutarch
-Moralia
-Gregorius N.
- Bernardakis
-
-Leipzig
-Teubner
-1888
-
-1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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Plutarch's Rules for the Preservation of Health
- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor; Poole, Matthew, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. 1874 (printing).
+ Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor; Poole, Matthew, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. 1874.
- ὑγιεινὰ παραγγέλματα
+ Ὑγιεινὰ παραγγέλματαPlutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Bernardakis, Gregorius N., editor; Leipzig: Teubner. 1888.
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- De tuenda sanitate praecepta
- Machine readable text
- Plutarch
- Frank Cole Babbitt&responsibility;&fund.NEH;
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- Plutarch
- Moralia
-
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- Frank Cole Babbitt
-
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- Cambridge, MA
- Harvard University Press
- London
- William Heinemann Ltd.
- 1928
-
- 2
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- ADVICE ABOUT KEEPING WELL (DE TUENDA SANITATE PRAECEPTA) INTRODUCTION
-
Plutarch had more than a casual interest in medicine, for, besides this essay
- on keeping well, his other works abound in references to the behaviour of
- the sick and their treatment, and the medical practices of his day. Long
- before the time of Plutarch the art of medicine, always empirical, had been
- put on a solid foundation, and the acute observations of Hippocrates and his
- school had been set down in writing ; and this body of Hippocratic medical
- writings, along with others, was in circulation, and had undoubtedly been
- read by Plutarch.
-
That medicine has made very great advances since Plutarch's time is, of
- course, self-evident; aseptic,
- antiseptic, and sterilize are now household
- words, and the germ theory of disease has, in recent times, shed light on
- much which before was dark. But Plutarch is not dealing with the technical
- side of medicine ; he is only giving some common-sense advice on rational
- living, and much that he has to say in regard to rest, exercise, and diet is
- in accord with the best medical practice of the present day. In fact, it is
- doubtful if any physician would take exception to anything that Plutarch
- advises (his advice is meant for men whose work is done with their heads
- rather than their hands), and one might name men in public life to-day, well
- on in years, who have followed many of his suggestions, unwittingly, no
- doubt, but to their own advantage.
-
-
The essay seems, at the first glance, to be put in the form of a dialogue,
- but it is about as much of a dialogue as Quiller-Couch's Foe-Farrell. The
- dialogue form is merely a literary subterfuge to present an essay in a
- slightly more attractive form, and the third person of the dialogue, only
- occasionally recalled to the reader by the parsimonious interjection of
- he said, may be presumed to be Plutarch, the author. The
- two speakers in the brief dialogue at the beginning of the essay are
- Moschion, a physician, whom Plutarch introduces also into the Symposiacs
- (Moralia, 658 a), and Zeuxippus, a friend of Plutarch's, who is introduced
- also as a speaking character in two other essays of Plutarch's (Moralia, 748
- e and 1086 c), besides being mentioned several times in other essays.
-
That the essay was written some time after a.d. 81 is clear from the
- reference to the death of the Roman Emperor Titus (123 d).
-
The title of the essay is included in Lamprias' list of Plutarch's works, and
- Stobaeus, in his Florilegium, has several quotations from it, sometimes with
- a slightly different reading, but none of these readings changes the meaning
- of the passage at all, and rarely is one to be preferred to the reading
- found in the mss. of Plutarch (see Vol. I. Introd. p. xxi).
-
Indeed, the text of this essay has suffered more at the hands of modern
- editors than from the ancient copyists, for a glance at the foot-notes
- inBernardakis's edition will show that the gratuitous and unnecessary
- changes introduced into the text by modern editors outnumber their
- corrections of the minor errors in spelling, and the like, made by the
- ancient copyists.
-
-
-
-
Moschion. So, Zeuxippus, yesterday you drove away Glaucus, the physician,
- when he wished to join in your philosophical discussions.
-
Zeuxippus. No, my dear Moschion, I did not drive him away, nor did he wish to
- join in philosophical discussion, but I avoided him and feared giving an
- opening to a man fond of contention. In medicine the man is, as Homer Homer, Il. xi. 514. puts
- it, Worth many others together, but he is not kindly disposed towards
- philosophy, and there is always a certain harshness and ill-nature inherent
- in his remarks. And just then he was coming at us full tilt, crying out,
- even before he came near us, that it was no small or suitable task,
- amounting in fact to a confusion of all bounds, which had been boldly
- assumed by us in discussing a healthful manner of living. For he asserted
- that the subjects of philosophy and medicine are as far
- remote from each other as are the boundaries of
- any Mysians and Phrygians
- Proverbial; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 560. ; and thereupon, as he had at
- the tip of his tongue some statements of ours, which, though not very
- carefully formulated, are certainly not without utility, he proceeded to
- tear them to pieces.
-
Moschion. Well, in this and in other matters, Zeuxippus,
- I should be very glad to be your attentive listener.
-
Zeuxippus. That is because you, Moschion, have a natural gift for philosophy,
- and you feel incensed at the philosopher who does not take an interest in
- medicine, and you are indignant that such a man should imagine it more
- becoming for him, in the eyes of mankind, to profess some knowledge of
- geometry, logical discussion, and music, than to desire to seek out and know
- All that of evil and good may have chanced to betide in the dwelling Homer, Od. iv, 392.
- which
- is his own body. And yet you will see a larger number of spectators in the
- theatres where money to pay for admission is distributed to those who gather
- together, as at Athens ; and of the liberal arts medicine is inferior to
- none in elegance, distinction, and the satisfaction which it yields, and it
- gives to its students admission to something of very great
- importance—the preservation of their life and health.
- Consequently, the charge of trespass ought not to lie against philosophers
- if they discuss matters of health, but rather should they be blamed if they
- do not consider it their duty to abolish all boundarylines altogether, and
- to make a single field, as it were, of all honourable studies, and therein
- to cultivate them in common, thus aiming in their discussion at both the
- pleasant and the essential.
-
Moschion. Well, Zeuxippus, let us say no more about Glaucus, who is so
- self-important that he wants to be a law unto himself, needing no help from
- philosophy ; but do you tell us in detail the whole discussion ; or, if you
- prefer, just those statements Homer, Od. iv. 392.
- which you first referred to as not altogether carefully
- formulated, which you say Glaucus seized upon.
-
-
-
Zeuxippus. Well, our companion Plutarch himself presumably. asserted that he had heard somebody say that
- keeping the hands always warm, and never allowing them to get cold, is in no
- small measure conducive to health, and, conversely, the chilling of the
- extremities, by concentrating the warmth in the interior of the body,
- creates, as it were, a habit or a predisposition towards feverishness ; and
- for a man to divert the substances in his body toward the surface, and to
- conduct and distribute them, along with the warmth, to all parts of his body
- , is healthful.
- Cf. Moralia, 635 C. If therefore we happen to be doing something with our hands
- and using them, the motion itself brings the warmth to these parts, and
- keeps it there ; but when not engaged in such activities we must by no means
- allow the cold to find lodgement in our extremities.
-
-
-
This, then, was one of the things ridiculed. The second, I think, concerned
- the food which you people serve to the sick. For he urged that we should
- partake of it and taste it from time to time, and get ourselves used to it
- in time of health, and not abhor and detest such a regimen, like little
- children, but gradually make it familiar and congenial to our appetites, so
- that in sickness we may not be disaffected over our fare as if it were so
- much medicine, and may not show impatience at receiving something simple,
- unappetising, and savourless.
- Cf. Moralia, 661 B. For this reason, too, omitting the bath now
- and then before going to a meal is not a thing to be avoided, nor drinking
- only water when wine is at hand, nor drinking anything lukewarm in the
- summer-time when there is snow on the table ; and while dismissing once for all time the ostentatious and studied
- abstinence from such things and the bragging over it, we should silently, by
- our own selves, habituate the appetite to be obedient to expediency with all
- serenity, and long beforehand we must rid our soul of its squeamishness in
- times of sickness about such trifles, and its lamentation thereat, as it
- deplores how it has been driven away from great and fond pleasures to an
- ignoble and humiliating way of living.
-
Well has it been said, Choose the life that is best, and constant
- habit will make it pleasant,
- A precept of Pythagoras according to Plutarch, Moralia, 466 F, and other writers who quote it; cf. also Moralia, 602 B. and, in particular, it is
- profitable for a man, experimenting with each several department of life and
- especially with those which have to do with the practices which affect the
- body, to inculcate a fixed habit during periods of soundest health, so thus
- to make these things agreeable, familiar, and congenial to his nature,
- Cf. Plato, Laws, p. 797 E.
- bearing in mind how some men feel and act in times of sickness, being angry
- and fretful when hot water and gruel, or plain bread, is served to them,
- calling these things abominable and unpleasant, and abominable and
- hard-hearted also those who would force such things upon them. A bath has
- proved to be the death of many men who at the outset had not much the matter
- with them, save only that they could not and would not bear to taste food
- unless they had first had their bath ; of whom Titus the Emperor There are varying accounts regarding the manner of Titus's death, poisoning or drowning being also alleged. was one,
- as those who attended him in his illness affirm.
-
-
-
Something, moreover, was said to this effect, that, while the less expensive
- things are always more healthful for the body, we ought especially to guard
- against excess in eating and drinking, and against all
- self-indulgence when we have immediately on hand some festival or a visit
- from friends, or when we are expecting an entertainment of some king or high
- official with its unavoidable social engagements ; and thus we should, as it
- were, in fair weather make our body trim and buoyant against the oncoming
- wind and wave. It is indeed a hard task, in the midst of company and good
- cheer, to keep to moderation and one's habits and at the same time to avoid
- the extreme disagreeableness which makes one appear offensive and tiresome
- to the whole company. Therefore, to avoid adding fire to fire (as the
- proverb has it),The proverb may be found in Plato's Laws, p. 666 A, and often repeated in other writers. and gorging to gorging, and strong drink to strong drink,
- we ought with all seriousness to imitate the polite joke of Philip. It was
- in this wise The story is repeated by Plutarch, Moralia, 178 D, and referred to, Moralia, 707 B. : A man had invited Philip to dinner in the country, assuming
- that he had but a few with him, but when later the host saw Philip bringing
- a great company, no great preparations having been made, he was much
- perturbed . Philip, becoming aware of the situation, sent word privately to
- each of his friends to leave room for cake. They, following
- the advice, and looking for more to come, ate sparingly of what was before
- them, and so the dinner was ample for all. In this manner, then, we ought to
- prepare ourselves in anticipation of our imperative round of social
- engagements by keeping room in the body for elaborate dishes and pastry,
- and, I dare to say it, for indulgence in strong drink also, by bringing to
- these things an appetite fresh and willing.
-
-
-
If, however, such imperative occasions suddenly confront us when we are
- overloaded and in no condition for taking part—if, for instance,
- we receive an invitation from a high official, or guests appear, so that we are constrained by a false sense of shame to
- join company with men who are in fit condition and to drink with
- them—then especially, in order to combat shame which works
- mischief for men
- The reference may be to Homer, Il. xxiv. 45 (cf. Hesiod, Works and Days, 318). (or rather I would call it shamefacedness),
- we should summon to our defence the words which Creon speaks Euripides, Medea, 290, quoted also in Moralia, 530 C. in the
- tragedy : 'Twere better, friend, to gain your hatred now Than be
- soft-hearted and lament anon. For to be so afraid of being thought ill-bred
- as to plunge oneself into a pleurisy or brain-fever is proof that one is in
- very truth ill-bred, possessed of neither sense nor the reason which knows
- how to consort with men without the wine-glass and the savour of food.
- Cf. Moralia, 612 F. For
- a request to be excused, if characterized by cleverness and wit, is no less
- agreeable than joining in the round of gaiety ; and if a man provides a
- banquet in the same spirit in which he provides a burnt-offering which it is
- forbidden to taste, and personally abstains when the wine-cup and the table
- are before him, at the same time volunteering cheerfully some playful
- allusion to himself, he will create a pleasanter impression than the man who
- gets drunk and gormandizes for company. Of the men of earlier times he Presumable Plutarch again.
- mentioned Alexander,
- Cf. Plutarch's Life of Alexander, chap. lxxv. (p. 706 C); Diodorus, xvii. 117; Athenaeus, 434 C; Arrian, Anabasis, vii. 25. 1; Quintus Curtius, x. 4; Justin, xii. 13. who, after a prolonged debauch, was ashamed to say no
- to the challenges of Medius, and abandoned himself to a fresh round of hard
- drinking, which cost him his life; and of the men of our time he mentioned
- Regulus the prize-fighter. For when Titus Caesar called him to the bath at
- daybreak,
- he came and bathed with him, took but one drink, they
- say, and died immediately from a stroke of apoplexy.
-
These are the teachings which Glaucus in derision quoted aggressively to us
- as pedantic. The rest he was not eager to hear, nor we to tell him. But I
- beg that you will examine each of the several statements.
-
-
-
First there is Socrates,Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 3. 6; cf. Plutarch, Moralia 513 C, 521 E, and 661 F. who, in urging us to be on our guard against such
- things to eat as persuade us to eat when we are not hungry, and such things
- to drink as persuade us to drink when we are not thirsty, did not absolutely
- forbid the use of these things ; but he was instructing us to use them only
- if we needed them, and to make the pleasure in them serve our necessity,
- just as our statesmen do who turn to military uses their funds for
- amusements.Perhaps a reference to Demosthenes, lix. 4, which says that in time of war all surplus funds are to be devoted to the army. For that which is pleasant, in so far as it is a nutritive
- element, is congenial to our nature, and it is by remaining still hungry
- that we ought to get enjoyment from the necessary or the pleasant foods ;
- but we should not stir up in ourselves a second and separate set of
- appetites after we have appeased the usual ones. And here is another
- consideration. Just as Socrates Xenophon, Symposium, ii. 17-20; again referred to infra, 130 E and Moralia, 711 E. found dancing a not unpleasant exercise,
- so the man for whom pastry and sweets serve as a meal and as food suffers
- less injury. But when a man has satisfied the moderate demands of his
- nature, and has had his fill, he ought to exercise the very greatest
- vigilance against helping himself to such things. And in such matters, while
- we should be on guard against love of pleasure and gluttony, yet we should
- be no less on guard against vulgarity and love of notoriety. For these
- latter often help to persuade people to eat something
- when they are not hungry, and to drink when they are not thirsty,
- Supra, 124 D. by
- suggesting utterly sordid and cheap conceits—that it is absurd not
- to take advantage of the presence of some rare and expensive thing, as, for
- example, sow's udder,For the cruelties practised in the preparation of this highly esteemed delicacy see Plutarch, Moralia, 997 A. Italian mushrooms, Samian cake, or snow in Egypt. For
- things of this sort do indeed often induce people to use what is renowned
- and rare, since they are led on by empty repute as by an attractive savour,
- and compel their body to do its share, although it feels no need, so that
- they may have a tale to tell to others, and may be envied for their
- enjoyment of things so hard to obtain and so uncommon. Quite similar is
- their behaviour toward notorious women. There are times when they repose in
- quiet with their own wives who are both lovely and loving, but when they
- have paid money to a Phryne or a Laïs, although their body is in
- sorry state and is inclined to shirk its task, they rouse it forthwith to
- action, and call in licentiousness to minister to pleasure, all because of
- empty repute. In fact, Phryne herself, in her advancing years, said that she
- got a better price for her remnants because of her repute.
-
-
-
It is a great marvel if we get off unscathed, when we concede to the body
- only as much of pleasures as Nature in her need finds a place for, but still
- more so when we battle with it vigorously to thwart its appetites, and keep
- putting them off, and finally consent to some negotiation with such as will
- not be denied, or, as Plato The quotation does not appear in Plato, but Plutarch is probably summing up from memory an account of a contest with the passions such as may be found, for example, in the Phaedrus, pp. 254 ff. says, yield when the body bites and
- strains. But when the case is reversed,
- and the desires descend from the mind to the body and
- force it to be subservient to the mind's emotions, and to join in their
- excitements, there is no way to prevent their leaving as a residue the most
- violent and serious injuries as the aftermath of feeble and evanescent
- pleasures. Least of all ought the body to be stirred to pleasures by the
- mind's desire, since such an origin is unnatural. Just as tickling the
- arm-pits so affects the mind as to produce laughter which is not natural, or
- even mild or happy, but convulsive and harsh, so whatsoever pleasures the
- body achieves through being prodded and disturbed by the mind are deranging
- and disturbing and foreign to Nature. Whenever, then, someone of those rare
- and notorious means of enjoyment is afforded us, we ought to take more pride
- in abstinence than in enjoyment, remembering that just as Simonides Repeated in more or less similar form, Moralia, 10 F and 514 F. used
- to say that he had never been sorry for having kept silent, but many a time
- for having spoken, so we have never been sorry either for having put a
- dainty to one side, or for having drunk water instead of Falernian wine, but
- the opposite ; not only ought Nature not to be forced, but if anything of
- this sort is offered her even when she has need of it, the appetite ought to
- be often diverted from it towards the plain and familiar food for the sake
- of habituation and training. If one must needs do wrong, are the words of
- the Theban,Eteocles in the Phoenissae of Euripides, i. 524; quoted by Plutarch also in Moralia, 18 D. who is not correct in saying, far best it were To do it for a
- kingdom's sake.
- But we can improve on this by saying that if we must
- needs seek repute in such matters as food and drink, far best it
- were by continence for the sake of health. Nevertheless
- stinginess and greediness constrain some persons, who repress and reduce
- their desires in their own homes, to stuff themselves and enjoy themselves
- with expensive things at others' houses as though they were engaged in
- ruthless foraging in an enemy's country ; then they go away much indisposed,
- and for the next day they have an attack of indigestion to pay for their
- insatiable appetite. So Crates,
- Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. ii. p. 670, Crates, No. 10 or Diels, Poet. Phil. Frag. p. 219, Crates, No. 6 thinking that luxury and extravagance were
- as much to blame as anything for the growth of civil discords and the rule
- of despots in states, humorously advised : Do not, by always making our fare
- more ample than lentils, Throw us all into discord. And let everybody exhort
- himself not to make his fare always more ample than lentils,
- and by all means not to proceed beyond cress and olives to croquettes and
- fish, and by overeating throw his body into discord, that is
- to say, into derangements and diarrhoeas. For the inexpensive things keep
- the appetite to its natural limits of moderation, but the arts of the chefs
- and their trained helpers, and, in the words of the comic poet,Author unknown; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 435.
- These
- knavish dainties and these complex foods, are constantly advancing and
- enlarging the bounds of enjoyment, and altering our ideas of what is good
- for us. I do not know how it is that, while we loathe and detest women who
- contrive philters and magic to use upon their husbands, we entrust our food and provisions to hirelings and slaves to be
- all but bewitched and drugged. If the saying of Arcesilaus Repeated by Plutarch, Moralia, 705 E, in a slightly different form. Cf. Aulus Gellius, iii. 5. addressed to
- the adulterous and licentious appears too bitter, to the effect that ' it
- makes no difference whether a man practises lewdness in the front parlour or
- in the back hall,' yet it is not without its application to our subject. For
- in very truth, what difference does it make whether a man employ
- aphrodisiacs to stir and excite licentiousness for the purposes of pleasure,
- or whether he stimulate his taste by odours and sauces to require, like the
- itch, continual scratchings and ticklings ?
-
-
-
At some other time, then, it may be that we shall have to speak against
- pleasures, and show what an intrinsic beauty and dignity belongs to
- continence ; but the present discourse is on the side of many pleasures and
- great. For diseases do not take from us and spoil for us so many of our
- enterprises or hopes or travels or pastimes as they do of our pleasures.
- Hence contempt for health is least profitable for those who make pleasure
- their chief aim. For infirmities allow many persons to be philosophers, or
- actually even generals or kings, but the pleasures and enjoyments of the
- body in some cases do not come to life at all in time of disease, and those
- that come to life yield but a brief part of what they properly should, and
- even that is not pure, but contaminated with much that is foreign, and
- marked, as it were, by the beatings of surge and storm. For it is not true
- that In well-gorged bodies Love resides,The sentiment is probably taken from Euripides; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 895, and Plutarch, Moralia, 917 B. but rather in serenity and
- calmness of the flesh does
- love find its end in pleasure, as also do eating and
- drinking ; and health affords to pleasures, as calm weather to the
- halcyons,
- Cf. Aristotle, Historia animalium, v. 8; Plutarch, Moralia, 982 F. a safe and lovely nesting and hatching of their young. Prodicus
- seems to have put the matter very neatly in saying that fire is the best of
- sauces Attributed to Evenus in Moralia, 50 A 697 D, and 1010 C. ; but one might more truly speak of health as being the most divine
- and agreeable sauce. For boiled, baked, or fried foods afford no proper
- pleasure or even gratification to those who are suffering from disease,
- debauch, or nausea, while a clean and unspoiled appetite makes everything,
- to a sound body, pleasant and eagerly craved, as Homer has
- said,
- Od. viii. 164. Cf. also 101 C supra.
- —that is, agreeable.
-
-
-
As Demades used to say that the Athenians, who were for making war in season
- and out of season, never voted for peace save when wearing black, so we
- never give a thought to a plain and restrained way of living except when
- using enemas and poultices. But when we find ourselves in this plight we try
- hard to stifle the thought of our wrongdoings, setting ourselves against
- their remembrance, and, as is the way of most people who object to this or
- that air or this or that locality as insalubrious when they say that they
- dread travelling, we exclude our intemperance and self-indulgence from the
- cause of our illness. Nay, we should recall how Lysimachus 202 B.C.; cf. also Moralia, 183 E and 555 D. Lysimachus was one of the successors of Alexander the Great. among the Getae
- was constrained by thirst to surrender himself and the army with him as
- prisoners of war, and afterwards as he drank cold water exclaimed,
- My God, for what a brief pleasure have I thrown
- away great prosperity ! And in the same
- way we ought in our attacks of illness to remember that for a cold drink, an
- ill-timed bath, or a social party, we have spoiled many of our pleasures and
- have ruined many an honourable enterprise and delightful recreation. For the
- sting caused by such reflections keeps the memory raw, so that, like a scar
- that remains when the body is in health, it makes us more circumspect about
- our way of living. For the healthy body will not, to any immoderate extent,
- breed desires that are vehement, intractable, unwonted, and hard to
- dispossess ; nay, we can boldly and confidently oppose the appetites which
- would fain go beyond all bounds and assault our enjoyments, knowing that
- their whining and whimpering is a trivial and childish manifestation, and
- that later, when the table is removed, they will cease repining and make no
- complaint nor feel themselves aggrieved, but, on the contrary, untainted and
- cheerful rather than dulled and nauseated by over-indulgence, await the
- morrow. The remark which Timotheus That this story had acquired almost a fixed phraseology in the source from which Plutarch took it may be seen by comparing this passage and Plutarch, Moralia, 686 A, Aelian, Varia Historia, ii. 18, Athenaeus, p. 419 d, and Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 35 (100). made, the day after he had dined with
- Plato at the Academy on the simple fare of the scholar, is in point here :
- Those who dine with Plato, he said, get on
- pleasantly the next day also. And it is reported that Alexander
- said
- Cf. Plutarch, Moralia, 180 A, 1099 C, and Life of Alexander, chap. xxii. (p. 677 B). when he discharged the chefs of Ada that he had better ones always to
- take with him—his night marches for breakfast, and for dinner his
- frugal breakfast.
-
-
-
I am not unaware that men contract fevers
- because of fatigue and extremes of heat and cold ; but
- just as the scents of flowers are weak by themselves, whereas, when they are
- mixed with oil, they acquire strength and intensity, so a great mass of food
- to start with provides substance and body, as it were, for the causes and
- sources of disease that come from the outside. Without such material none of
- these things would cause any trouble, but they would readily fade away and
- be dissipated, if clear blood and an unpolluted spirit are at hand to meet
- the disturbance ; but in a mass of superfluous food a sort of turbulent
- sediment, as it were, is stirred up, which makes everything foul and hard to
- manage and hard to get rid of. Therefore we must not act like those much
- admired (!) ship-masters who for greed take on a big cargo, and thenceforth
- are continually engaged in baling out the sea-water. So we must not stuff
- and overload our body, and afterwards employ purgatives and injections, but
- rather keep it all the time trim, so that, if ever it suffer depression, it
- shall, owing to its buoyancy, bob up again like a cork.
-
-
-
We ought to take special precautions in the case of premonitory symptoms and
- sensations. For what Hesiod has said
- Works and Days, 104, quoted more fully supra, 105 E. of the illnesses that go hither and
- thither assailing mankind is not true of all, that Silent they go, since the
- wisdom of Zeus has deprived them of voices, but most of them have as their
- harbingers, forerunners, and heralds, attacks of indigestion and lassitude.
- Feelings of heaviness or of fatigue, says Hippocrates,
- Aphorisms, ii. 5 (ed. Chartier, 38, 43, Kuhn, iii. p. 712).
- when due to no external cause,
- indicate disease, since, presumably, the
- spirit about the nerves is subjected to tension and pressure owing to
- fullness within the body. Nevertheless, some men, although their body itself
- all but resists and would fain drag them to their beds and their rest, are
- led by gluttony and self-indulgence to rush off to the baths and eagerly to
- join in the drinking-bouts, as if they were laying in provisions for a siege
- and were fearful lest the fever seize them before they have had luncheon.
- Others, less gross than these, are not indeed caught in this folly, but very
- stupidly, just because they are ashamed to admit having a headache or
- indigestion, and to keep their clothes on all day, when a crowd on their way
- to the gymnasium invite them to come along, they get up and go, strip with
- the others, and go through the same exercises as do those who are in sound
- health. But as for the majority, Hope, backed by a proverb which well
- accords with incontinence and weakness of purpose, persuades and induces
- them to get up and go recklessly to their accustomed haunts, thinking to
- expel and dispel wine with wine, and headache with headache.
- Similia similibus curentur. The proverb as not been handed down in this form, but Plutarch may have in mind the proverb found in Pollux, ix. 120 (see Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 500, and his notes, especially the reference to Athenaeus, 44 a): Nail with nail and peg with peg (a man drives out). Sligtly different versions may be found in Leutsch and Schneidewin, Paroemiographi Graeci, ii. pp. 116 and 171. Against this
- hope should be set Cato's caution which that grand old man phrased in this
- way
- Cf. Moralia, 825 D. : Make the great small, and abolish the small altogether
- ; also the thought that it is better to submit patiently to fasting
- and resting with nothing to show for it, rather than to take any chances by
- rushing pell-mell to a bath or a dinner. For if there
- is anything the matter with us, failure to take proper
- precaution and to put a check on ourselves will do us harm ; and if nothing
- is the matter, it will do no harm for the body to be subjected to some
- restrictions and cleared of some of its encumbrances. But that childish
- person who is afraid to let his friends and servants discover that he is in
- a state of discomfort from excessive eating or drinking, will, if he is
- ashamed to admit having indigestion to-day, tomorrow admit having diarrhoea
- or fever or gripes. The shame of want makes want a shame to bear,From an unknown play of Menander; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 220. but much
- more is it a shame to bear indigestion, overloading, and over-fullness in a
- body which is dragged to the bath like a rotten and leaky boat into the sea.
- For just exactly as some persons, when they are voyaging and a storm is
- raging, are ashamed to tarry on shore, and so they put out to sea, and then
- are in most shameful case, shrieking and sea-sick, so those who regard it as
- ignoble, amidst suspicious premonitory symptoms of their body, to spend one
- day in bed, and not to take their meals at table, keep to their bed most
- shamefully for many days, under purging and poulticing, servile and
- attentive to physicians, asking for wine or cold water, and suffering
- themselves to do and to utter many extravagant and ignoble things because of
- their distress and fear.
-
Moreover, it is well that those who because of pleasures fail in
- self-control, and give way to their desires or are carried away by them,
- should be instructed and reminded that pleasures derive most of their
- satisfaction from the body;
-
-
-
and as the Spartans give to the cook vinegar and salt only,
- bidding him seek whatever else he needs in the
- slaughtered animal itself,A humorous turn is given to this custom in the anecdote related by Plutarch, Moralia, 995 B. so in the body are the best of sauces for
- whatever is served, if so be that it is served to a body which is healthy
- and clean. For everything of this sort is sweet or
- costly irrespectively of the user and by itself, but Nature
- decrees that it becomes pleasant only in and in connexion
- with the person that is pleased and is in harmony with Nature; but in those
- who are captious or suffering from a debauch, or are in a bad way, all
- things lose their intrinsic agreeableness and freshness. Therefore there is
- no need to look to see whether the fish be fresh, the bread white, the bath
- warm, or the girl shapely, but a man should look to himself to see whether
- he be not nauseated, feculent, stale, or in any way upset. Otherwise, just
- as drunken revellers who force their way into a house of mourning provide no
- cheerfulness or pleasure, but only cause weeping and wailing, so in a body
- that is in a bad condition and out of harmony with Nature, the pleasures of
- love, elaborate food, baths and wine, when combined with such elements in
- the body as are unsettled and tainted, set up phlegm and bile and bring on
- an upset, besides being unduly exciting, while they yield no pleasure to
- speak of, nor any enjoyment like what we expected.
-
-
-
The very exact mode of living, exact to a hair's breadth, to
- use the popular expression,See the note on 86 A in Vol. I. puts the body in a timorous and precarious
- state, and abridges the self-respect of the soul itself, so that it comes to
- look askance at every activity, and to no less
- a degree at spending any time or participating at all
- in pleasures or labours, and goes at no undertaking with readiness and
- confidence. A man ought to handle his body like the sail of a ship, and
- neither lower and reduce it much when no cloud is in sight, nor be slack and
- careless in managing it when he comes to suspect something is wrong, but he
- should rather ease the body off and lighten its load, as has already been
- said, and not wait for indigestions and diarrhoeas, nor heightened
- temperatures nor fits of drowsiness. And yet some people wait until a fever
- is already at their doors and then, being as excited as if a message or a
- summons to court had come, just manage to restrict themselves ; whereas they
- ought, while these things are still afar off, to be cautious Before the
- storm, as though along the strand The North wind blew.Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ii. p. 88.
-
-
-
-
-
For it is absurd to give careful heed to the croaking of ravens, the clucking
- of hens, and swine m their wild excitement over bedding,b as
- Democritusc put it, making signs of winds and rains out of these, and at the
- same time not to forestall nor take precaution against the stirrings, the
- ups and downs, and the premonitory symptoms in the body, and not to hold
- these to be signs of a storm that is going to take place in one's self, and
- is just about to break. Wherefore not merely in the matter of food and
- exercise do we need to keep watch of our body, to see whether, contrary to
- its habits, it takes to these reluctantly and without zest, or at another
- time is thirsty and hungry in an unnatural way, but also, in the matter of
- sleep, to beware of lack of
- continuity and of evenness, marked by irregularities
- and sharp interruptions, and to beware also of the abnormal in dreams,
- which, if so be that our visions are improper or unwonted, argues an
- over-abundance or concretion of humours, or a disturbance of spirit within
- us. And also the emotions of the soul have often given warning that the body
- is perilously near disease. For instance, irrational discouragements and
- fears take possession of people oftentimes from no apparent cause, and
- suddenly extinguish their hopes ; in temper they become irascible, sharp,
- and pained at trifles, and they are tearful and dismayed whenever bad
- vapours and bitter exhalations encounter and unite with the
- rotations of the soul, as Plato
- Timaeus, p. 47 D. has it. Therefore those to whom
- such things happen have need to consider and to remember that, if the cause
- is not one which concerns the spirit, it is one which concerns the body, and
- that it needs reducing or toning down.
-
-
-
It is very profitable when visiting sick friends to inquire of them the
- causes of their illness, not by talking pedantically and officiously about
- stoppages, irruptions, and trite generalities, and incidentally displaying
- some acquaintance with medical terminology and literature, but by listening
- in no perfunctory way to these homely and common details of overeating,
- exposure to the sun, fatigue, sleeplessness, and especially the manner of
- living which the man was following when he fell sick of the fever. Then,
- like Plato, who, on his way home, was accustomed to say on the subject of
- others' faults, Am not I too possibly like them ?
-
- Cf. Moralia, 40 D, 88 E, and 463 E. a man
- ought to correct in himself the faults he observes in his neighbours, and be
- watchful and mindful not to become involved in the same
- difficulties, and be himself compelled to take to his bed, and there give
- voice to his yearnings for precious health, but rather, when another is
- undergoing this experience, he will impress upon himself how valuable a
- thing is health, and that he ought to try to preserve this by giving heed to
- himself, and by being frugal. It is not a bad thing, either, to take a look
- at our own way of living ; for if we have been engaged in a bout of drinking
- and eating, or in some hardships and other irregularities, and the body
- presents no suspicious or premonitory symptoms, nevertheless we ought to be
- watchful of ourselves and forestall any trouble by means of rest and quiet
- when fresh from the pleasures of love, or when fatigued ; also by drinking
- water after the free use of wine and after social gaiety, and especially,
- after indulging in a heavy diet of meat or multifarious foods, to eat
- lightly, and leave no mass of superfluous residue in the body. For these
- very things are of themselves the causes of many diseases, and they add
- material and potency to the other causes.
- Cf. Moralia, 732 E. Wherefore it has been very well
- said, Eating not unto satiety, labouring not unto weariness, and
- observance of chastity, are the most healthful things.
- Probably based on Hippocrates: cf. Hippocrates, Epidemics, vi. 4. 20 (ed. Chartier, 9, 500, Kühn, iii. p. 605). For
- incontinence, by undermining especially the powers by which the food is
- assimilated, causes further superfluity and overcrowding.
-
-
-
Let us now take up each topic anew once more; and in the first place, on the
- subject of exercises suitable for scholars, we beg to remark that one might
- follow the example of the man who, by saying that he had nothing to write
- for people dwelling by the sea on the subject of ships, showed clearly that
- they were in use ; and so in the same way one might say
- that he was not writing for scholars on the subject of exercise. For it is
- wonderful what an exercise is the daily use of the voice in speaking aloud,
- conducing, not only to health, but also to strength—not the
- strength of the wrestler which lays on flesh and makes the exterior solid
- like the walls of a building, but a strength which engenders an
- all-pervasive vigour and a real energy in the most vital and dominant parts.
- That breathing gives strength the athletic trainers make clear in telling
- the athletes to brace themselves against the rubbing and stop their breath
- meantime, and keep tense the portions of the body that are being kneaded and
- massaged. Now the voice is a movement of the breath, and if it be given
- vigour, not in the throat, but, as it were, at its source in the lungs, it
- increases the warmth, tones down the blood, clears out every vein, opens
- every artery, and does not permit of any concretion or solidifying of
- superfluous fluid like a sediment to take place in the containing organs
- which take over and digest the food. For this reason we ought especially to
- make ourselves habituated and used to this exercise by continual speaking,
- or, if there be any suspicion that our body is not quite up to the mark or
- is somewhat fatigued, then by reading aloud or declaiming. For reading
- stands in the same relation to discussion as riding in a carriage to active
- exercise, and as though upon the vehicle of another's words it moves softly,
- and carries the voice gently this way and that. But discussion adds
- contention and vehemence, as the mind joins in the encounter along with the
- body. We must, however, be cautious about passionate and convulsive
- vociferations. For
- spasmodic expulsion and straining of the breath
- produces ruptures and sprains.
-
After reading or discussion, before going to walk, one should make use of
- rubbing with oil in a warm room to render the flesh supple, extending the
- massage so far as practicable to the inward parts, and gently equalizing the
- vital spirit and diffusing it into the extremities. Let the limits of the
- amount of this rubbing be what is agreeable to the senses and not
- discomforting. For the man who thus composes the inward disquiet and tension
- in his vital spirit manages the superfluous in his body without discomfort,
- and if unfavourable weather or some engagement prevent his going to walk, it
- does not matter, for Nature has received her proper due. Wherefore neither
- travelling nor stopping at an inn ought to be made an excuse for silence,
- nor even if everybody there deride one. For where it is not disgraceful to
- eat it is certainly not disgraceful to take exercise; nay, it is more
- disgraceful to feel timid and embarrassed before sailors, muleteers, and
- innkeepers, who do not deride the man who plays ball and goes through the
- movements of sparring alone, but the man who speaks, even though in his
- exercises he instruct, question, learn, and use his memory. Socrates said Xenophon, Symposium, 2. 18.
-
- that for a man's movements in dancing a room that would accommodate seven
- persons at dinner was large enough to take exercise in, but for a man who
- takes his exercise through singing or speaking every place affords him
- adequate room for this exercise both when standing up and when lying down.
- But we must observe this one caution—not to strain our voices too
- hard
- when we are conscious of a fullness, venery, or
- fatigue. This is the experience of many of the public speakers and sophists,
- some of whom are led on by repute and ambition, others on account of
- emoluments or political rivalries, to competition in excess of what is best
- for them. Our Niger, when he was giving public lectures in Galatia, happened
- to swallow a fish bone. But, as another sophist from abroad had made his
- appearance and was lecturing, Niger, dreading to give the impression that he
- had yielded to his rival, still lectured although the bone was sticking in
- his throat; unable to bear the distress from the great and stubborn
- inflammation that arose, he submitted to a deep incision from the outside,
- and through the opening the bone was removed ; but the place grew sore and
- purulent and caused his death. But comment on these matters may well be
- postponed to a later occasion. Perhaps infra, 135 D.
-
-
-
-
To take a cold bath after exercising is ostentatious and juvenile rather than
- healthful. For the power of resistance to external influences and the
- hardiness which it seems to create in the body really produces a more evil
- effect on the inward parts by stopping up the pores, causing the fluids to
- collect together, and condensing the exudations which are always wanting to
- be released and dispersed. Besides, those who insist upon taking cold baths
- have to make a further change into that exact and strictly ordered way of
- living which we are trying to avoid, and they have to be always taking heed
- not to transgress this, since every shortcoming is at once bitterly brought
- to book. On the other hand, warm baths have much to offer by way of excuse.
- For they do not detract so much from vigour and strength as they help towards health by rendering the food yielding
- and soft for the digestion, and by providing for the painless dispersion of
- whatever escapes digestion, at least if it do not remain altogether crude
- and high up, and soothing any latent feelings of fatigue. However, when
- Nature affords us a sense of a moderate and comfortable condition in our
- body, the bath had better be left alone. A gentle rubbing with oil beside a
- fire is better, if the body require warming, for it can take for itself the
- requisite amount of such warmth ; but the sun permits the use of its warmth
- at neither higher nor lower temperature than is determined by the
- temperature of the air. So much will suffice in regard to exercise.
-
-
-
Coming now to the subject of food, if there be anything helpful in my earlier
- suggestions as to how we may beguile and pacify our appetites, we must give
- some further advice regarding what comes next; but if it be difficult to
- manage a belly that has been set free, as it were from bondage, and to
- wrangle with it when it has no ears to hear, as Cato The same remark is found in Moralia, 198 D, 996 D, and Life of M. Cato, chap. viii. (p. 340 A). used to say, we must
- contrive by means of the character of our food to make the quantity less
- burdensome ; and of the solid and very nourishing foods, things, for
- example, like meat and cheese, dried figs and boiled eggs, one may partake
- if he helps himself cautiously (for it is hard work to decline all the
- time), but should stick to the thin and light things, such as most of the
- garden stuff, birds, and such fish as have not much fat. For it is possible
- by partaking of these things both to gratify the appetites and not oppress
- the body. Especially to be feared are indigestions
- arising from meats It is worth while to compare Plutarch's essays on eating meat, Moralia, 993 A-999 B. ; for they are depressing at the outset, and a
- pernicious residue from them remains behind. It is best to accustom the body
- not to require meat in addition to other food. For the earth yields in
- abundance many things not only for nourishment but also for comfort and
- enjoyment, some of which it grants to our use just as they are with no
- trouble on our part, while others we may make savoury by all sorts of
- combination and preparation. But since custom has become a sort of unnatural
- second nature, our use of meat should not be for the satisfaction of
- appetite, as is the case with wolves or lions ; but while we may put it in
- as a sort of prop and support of our diet, we should use other foods and
- relishes which for the body are more in accord with nature and less dulling
- to the reasoning faculty, which, as it were, is kindled from plain and light
- substances.
-
-
-
Of the liquids milk ought not to be used as a beverage but as a food
- possessing solid and nourishing power. With regard to wine we ought to talk
- as does Euripides From an unknown play: cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 967. The sentiment is a favourite one with Euripides; cf., for example, Iphigeneia at Aulis, 543-557; Medea 627-634; Helena, 1105. with regard to Love : May est thou be mine, but moderate
- be, I pray, yet ne'er abandon me. For wine is the most beneficial of
- beverages, the pleasantest of medicines, and the least cloying of appetizing
- things, provided that there is a happy combination of it with the occasion
- as well as with water. Water, not only the water that is mixed with b
- From an unknown play: cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, No. 967.
- The sentiment is a favourite one with Euripides ; cf., for example,
- Iphigeneia at Aulis, 543-557; Medea, 627-634; Helena, 1105.
- the wine, but that which is drunk by itself in the
- interim between the draughts of the mixture, makes the mixture more
- innocent. One ought to accustom oneself, therefore, in the course of the
- daily routine to partake of two or three glasses of water, thus both making
- the potency of the wine milder, and making the drinking of water habitual
- with the body, so that, whenever it comes to be in need of water, it may not
- feel strange towards the drink, and refuse it. For the fact is that some
- people feel most impelled towards wine when the drink which they most need
- is water. For after being exposed to the sun, and again when chilled, and
- after speaking more earnestly and thinking more intently than usual, and, in
- general, after exertions and strivings, they think they ought to drink wine,
- feeling that Nature requires for the body some comfort and change after
- labours. But Nature does not require comfort, if comfort is only a name for
- self-indulgence, but she does require a change, a change which puts the body
- in a state midway between pleasure and pain. Therefore in such circumstances
- there should not only be some reduction in food, but wine should be either
- altogether eliminated or else partaken of between times very diluted and
- practically engulfed by the drinking of water. For wine, being truculent and
- keen, intensifies the disturbances of the body, and exacerbates and
- irritates the contused parts, which are in need of the comfort and
- alleviation that water best supplies. For if, in spite of the fact that we
- are not thirsty, we drink hot water after undergoing exertion, strain, or
- heat, we are sensible of a relaxing and soothing effect within us; for the
- aqueous fluid is mild and does not quicken the pulse,
- whereas that of wine has great impetuosity and a potency that is not kindly
- or humanely disposed toward recent affections. As for the acerbities and
- bitterness which some say fasting engenders in the body , if anybody fears
- them, or if, childlike, he thinks it a dreadful thing not to have a meal
- served before the fever which he suspects is coming, the drinking of water
- is a very fitting middle course. In fact we frequently make to Dionysus
- himself offerings which include no wine, thus habituating ourselves quite
- properly not to be always looking for strong drink. Minos, too, because of
- grief, abolished the flute and garland from the sacrifice.
- Cf. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 15. 7. Yet we know that
- a grieving soul is not affected either by garlands or by flute. But no one's
- body is so strong that wine, thrust upon it when it is disturbed and
- feverish, does it no harm.
-
-
-
The Lydians, they say, Herodotus, i. 94. in a time of famine, alternately spent one day in
- regaling themselves with food, and the next in jollity and games of chance.
- But in the case of a scholarly and cultivated man, on an occasion which
- requires a later dinner than usual, a mathematical problem on hand, or some
- pamphlet or musical instrument, will not permit him to be harried by his
- belly ; on the contrary, he will steadily turn away and transfer his
- thoughts from the table to these other things, and scare away his appetites,
- like Harpies, by means of the Muses. Does not the Scythian,
- Cf. Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, chap. xix. (p. 897 C). while he is
- drinking, ofttimes put his hand to his bow, and twang the string, thus
- summoning back his senses which are being unstrung by the liquor ; and shall
- a Greek man be afraid of those who deride him when by letters and books he
- endeavours quietly to ease and relax an unfeeling and
- inexorable desire? When the young men described by Menander From an unknown play; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p 183, No. 607. Cf. also Plutarch, Moralia, 706 B. were, as they
- were drinking, insidiously beset by the pimp, who introduced some handsome
- and high-priced concubines, each one of them (as he says), Bent down his
- head and munched his own dessert, being on his guard and afraid to look at
- them. But scholars have many fair and pleasant outlooks and diversions, if
- so be they can in no other way keep under control the canine and bestial
- element in their appetites when at table. The utterances of athletic
- trainers and the talk of teachers of gymnastics, who assert on every
- occasion that scholarly conversation at dinner spoils the food and makes the
- head heavy, are to be feared only when we propose to solve the Indian
- problem or to discuss determinants These are both thought to be logical fallacies of the type of Achilles and the tortoise, or the Liar.
- Cf. also Moralia, 1070 C. during dinner. The leaf-bud at the top
- of the date-palm is sweet, but they say that it brings on a violent headache
-
- Cf. Xenophon, Anabasis, ii. 3. 15. ; and an exercise in logic is by no means a sweet morsel
- From Pindar, Frag. 124 (ed. Christ). to top off a dinner, but, on the contrary, it is quite likely to bring on
- a headache, and is extremely fatiguing as well. But if they will not allow
- us to start any other inquiry or scholarly discussion,
- Cf. Moralia 612 F, where this topic is treated more fully. or to read while at
- dinner any of those things which, besides being beautiful and useful,
- contain also the element of pleasurable allurement and sweetness, we shall
- bid them not to bother us, but to take themselves off, and in the training
- grounds and buildings to engage in such talk with the athletes, whom they
- have torn from their books,
- and by accustoming them to spend the whole day in
- jesting and scurrility, have, as the clever Ariston said, made them as
- glossy and blockish as the pillars in a gymnasium. But as for ourselves, we
- shall follow the advice of the physicians who recommend always to let some
- time intervene between dinner and sleep, and not, after jumbling our
- victuals into our body and oppressing our spirit, to hinder our digestion at
- once with the food that is still unassimilated and fermenting, but rather to
- provide for it some respite and relaxation ; just as those who think it is
- the right thing to keep their bodies moving after dinner do not do this by
- means of foot-races and strenuous boxing and wrestling, but by gentle
- walking and decorous dancing, so we shall hold that we ought not to distract
- our minds after dinner either with business or cares or pseudo-learned
- disputations, which have as their goal an ostentatious or stirring rivalry.
- But many of the problems of natural science are light and enticing, and
- there are many stories which contain ethical considerations and the
- soul's satisfaction, as Homer has phrased this, and nothing
- repellent. The spending of time over questions of history and poetry some
- persons, not unpleasingly, have called a second repast
- Cf. Moralia 672 E. for men of
- scholarship and culture. There are also inoffensive stories and fables, and
- it is less onerous to exchange opinions about a flute and a lyre than to
- listen to the sound of the lyre and the
- flute itself. The length of time for this is such as
- the digestion needs to assert itself and gain the upper hand over the food
- as it is gradually absorbed and begins to agree with us.
-
-
-
Aristotle holds
- Frag. 224 (233 in Rose's edition).that walking about on the part of those who have just dined
- revives the bodily warmth, while sleep, if they go to sleep at once,
- smothers it; but others hold that quiet improves the digestive faculties,
- while movement disturbs the processes of assimilation; and this has
- persuaded some to walk about immediately after dinner, and others to remain
- quiet. In view of the two opinions a man might appear properly to attain
- both results who after dinner keeps his body warm and quiet, and does not
- let his mind sink at once into sleep and idleness, but, as has been
- previously suggested,
- Supra 130 A-E. lightly diverts and enlivens his spirits by talking
- himself and listening to another on one of the numerous topics which are
- agreeable and not acrimonious or depressing.
-
-
-
The use of emetics and cathartics, abominable comforts for an
- overloaded stomach,
- Plato, Critias, p. 115 B.
- ought never, except under the stress of
- great necessity, to be inaugurated, as is the way of most people, who fill
- up their bodies for the sake of emptying them, and then empty them for the
- sake of filling them up again, thus transgressing against nature, and are
- vexed no less at their fullness than at their emptiness—or,
- better, they are utterly depressed over their fullness, as being a hindrance
- to enjoyment, but set about bringing on emptiness with the idea of making
- room always for pleasures. The harmfulness in all this is manifest; for both
- procedures give rise to disorders and convulsive movements in the body. What is peculiarly bad in the use of an emetic is
- that it increases and fosters an insatiate greediness. For the feelings of
- hunger become rough and turbulent, like rivers that are interrupted in their
- course, and they gulp the food down violently, always ravening and
- resembling not appetites that need victuals, but inflammations that need
- medicines and poultices. For this reason the pleasures that lay hold upon
- such persons are swift in their action and imperfect, and attended by much
- palpitation and agitation while being experienced, and these are succeeded
- by distensions and sharp pains in the passages, and retention of gases,
- which cannot wait for the natural movements, but stay in the upper part of
- the body as in water-logged ships which require the jettisoning of their
- cargo, not merely of their surplus. The violent disturbances lower down in
- the bowels resulting from medication, by decomposing and liquefying the
- existing contents, increase rather than relieve the overcrowding. Just
- imagine that anybody , feeling much troubled at the crowd of Greeks living
- in his city, should fill up the city with Arab and Scythian immigrants ! Yet
- it is just this radical mistake that some people make in connexion with the
- expulsion of the surplus of habitual and familiar foods, when they introduce
- into the body from the outside Cnidian berries, scammony, or other
- incongruous and drastic agents, which have more need of being purged away
- than power of purging our nature. It is best, therefore, by moderate and
- temperate living to make the body constantly selfsufficient and well
- adjusted as regards filling the stomach and emptying it.
-
If ever absolute necessity befall us, vomiting should be
- induced without medication and a great ado, and without causing any
- disturbance beyond merely avoiding indigestion by at once allowing the
- excess to be peacefully ejected. Just as linen cleansed with lye and washing
- powders wears out faster than that washed in plenty of water, so vomitings
- with drugs maltreat and ruin the body. If the bowels are getting sluggish,
- there is no medicine like some sorts of food that afford a mild stimulus to
- the inclinations and gently dissolve the cause of trouble. Experience with
- these is familiar to all, and their use is not attended by discomfort. But
- if it will not yield to these, the drinking of water for several days, or
- fasting, or an enema, should be tried next rather than disturbing and
- pernicious dosing to which most people hurriedly resort, after the manner of
- licentious women who employ drugs and instruments to produce abortion for
- the sake of the enjoyment of conceiving again.
-
-
-
But we need say no more about this class of persons. However, to speak once
- again of those too exact persons who interject set periods of fasting
- according to a fixed schedule, they are wrong in teaching their nature to
- feel a need of restraint when not in need of it, and in making necessary the
- unnecessary retrenchment at a time which makes demand for what is
- customarily required. It is better to apply such discipline to the body with
- a certain freedom, and, if there be no premonitory or suspicious symptoms,
- to keep, as has been already suggested,
- Supra, 128 E. our general mode of life responsive
- to changes so as to meet whatever may befall it, and not to let it be
- enslaved or bound to one formula of life, which has trained itself to be
- guided by certain seasons, or numbers, or schedules.
- For it is not safe, nor easy, nor befitting a citizen or a man, but like the
- life of an oyster or the trunk of a tree—this immutability and
- forced compliance in the matter of food and abstinence, movement and rest;
- it is fitting only for men who have reduced and restricted themselves to a
- retired, idle, solitary, friendless, and inglorious life, far removed from
- the duties of citizenship. No, said he, it fits not
- with my opinion.
- A paraphrase of Homer, Il. ix. 108.
-
-
-
-
For health is not to be purchased by idleness and inactivity, which are the
- greatest evils attendant on sickness, and the man who thinks to conserve his
- health by uselessness and ease does not differ from him who guards his eyes
- by not seeing, and his voice by not speaking. For a man in good health could
- not devote himself to any better object than to numerous humane activities.
- Least of all is it to be assumed that laziness is healthful, if it destroys
- what health aims at; and it is not true either that inactive people are more
- healthy. For Xenocrates did not keep in better health than Phocion, nor
- Theophrastus than Demetrius, and the running away from every activity that
- smacked of ambition did not help Epicurus and his followers at all to attain
- their much-talked-of condition of perfect bodily health. But we ought, by
- attention to other details, to preserve the natural constitution of our
- bodies, recognizing that every life has room for both disease and health.
-
However, our friend said that to men in public life should be given advice
- opposite to that which Plato Not extant in Plato's writings, but a faint suggestion of the idea may be found in Laws, p. 643 B.
- used to give to the young men. For the philosopher, as
- he took his leave after the exercise, was in the habit of saying, Be
- sure, my boys, that you store up the lesson of this hour of leisure for
- some good end. But we would advise those who take part in the
- government to employ their active labours for good and necessary ends, and
- not subject their bodies to stress on account of small and paltry matters,
- as is the way of most people, who make themselves miserable over incidental
- things, and wear themselves out with loss of sleep, going to this place and
- that place, and running about, all for no useful or decent purpose, but only
- from a spirit of insolence, envy, or rivalry against others, or in the
- pursuit of unprofitable and empty repute. It was in special reference to
- such people, as I think, that Demolitus said,Mullach, Frag. Philos. Graec. i. p. 342; cf. also Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ii. p. 91. that, if the body were to
- enter suit against the soul for cruel and abusive treatment, the soul would
- not be acquitted. Perhaps, too, there is some truth in what Theophrastus
- said,This and the preceding quotation are given in greatly amplified form in Fragment i, 2 of De anima (vol. vii. p. 2 of Bernardakis's edition of the Moralia). in his metaphorical statement, that the soul pays a high rental to
- the body. At any rate, the body reaps the fruit of more evils from the soul
- than the soul from the body, inasmuch as the soul uses the body
- unreasonably, and the body does not get the care that it deserves. For
- whenever the soul is occupied with its own emotions, strivings, and
- concerns, it is prodigal of the body. I do not know what possessed Jason Despot of Pherae; cf. the note supra on 89 C. Cf. also for the sentiment Plutarch, Moralia, 817 F, and Aristotle, Rhetoric, i. 12; also The Epistle to the Romans, iii. 8 and vi. 1.
- to say : We must do wrong in small ways for the sake of doing right
- in large ways. But we, with good reason, would advise the man in
- public life to be indifferent to small things, and to take his ease and give
- himself
- plenty of rest while attending to them, if, when he
- comes to honourable and important activities, he wishes to have his body not
- worn by drudging, nor dull, nor on the point of giving out, but refreshed by
- quiet, like a ship in the dock ; so that when the soul again points the way
- to needful activities, it May run like weanling colt beside its dam.Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr.ii. p. 738, Simonides of Amorgus, No. 5; repeated in Moralia, 84 D, 446 E, 790 F, and in a fragment quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium, cxv. 18.
-
-
-
-
Therefore, when circumstances afford us opportunity, we should give ourselves
- a chance to recuperate, and to this end we should not grudge to our body
- either sleep or luncheon or ease, which is the mean between indulgence and
- discomfort,An adumbration of the Aristotelian doctrine that virtue is a mean. nor observe the sort of limit that most people observe whereby
- they wear out their body, like steel that is being tempered, by the changes
- to which they subject it; whenever the body has been strained and oppressed
- by much hard work, it is once more softened and relaxed immoderately in
- pleasures, and again, as the next step, while it is still flaccid and
- relaxed from venery and wine, it is coerced into going to the Forum or to
- Court or into some business requiring fervent and intense application.
- Heracleitus, suffering from dropsy, bade his physician to bring on a
- drought to follow the wet spell;
- Cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, i. pp. 67-68. but most people are completely
- in error, inasmuch as, when they are in the midst of exertions, labours, and
- deprivations, they are most inclined to surrender their bodies to pleasures
- to be made languid and relaxed, and then, after their pleasures, bending
- them, as it were, into place, and stretching them tight again.
- For Nature does not require any such form of
- compensation in the case of the body. But, on the other hand, in the soul
- the licentious and unmannerly element, immediately after undergoing
- hardships, is carried away, as sailors are, by wantonness to pleasures and
- enjoyments, and, after the pleasures, it is again coerced to tasks and
- business ; and the result is that it does not allow Nature to attain the
- composure and calm which she needs most, but deranges and disturbs her
- because of this irregularity. But people who have sense are least given to
- proffering pleasures to the body when it is busied with labours. For they
- have absolutely no need, nor even recollection, of such things, inasmuch as
- they are keeping their thoughts intent on the good to be accomplished by
- their activity ; and by the joy or earnestness in their souls they
- completely dwarf their other desires. There is a jocose remark attributed to
- Epameinondas in regard to a good man who fell ill and died about the time of
- the battle of Leuctra : Great Heavens ! How did he find time to die
- when there was so much going on ? This may be repeated with
- truth in the case of a man who has in hand some public activity or
- philosophic meditation: What time has this man now for indigestion or
- drunkenness or carnal desires ? But when such men find
- themselves again at leisure following upon their activities, they compose
- and rest their bodies, guarding against and avoiding useless toils, and more
- especially unnecessary pleasures, on the ground that they are inimical to
- Nature.
-
-
-
I have heard that Tiberius Caesar once said that a man over sixty who holds
- out his hand to a physician is ridiculous.
- Cf. Moralia, 794 B; Tacitus, Annals, vi. 46. To me that seems a pretty strong statement, but this does seem to be true, that
- each person ought neither to be unacquainted with the peculiarities of his
- own pulse (for there are many individual diversities), nor ignorant of any
- idiosyncrasy which his body has in regard to temperature and dryness,
- Cf. Moralia, 735 F. and
- what things in actual practice have proved to be beneficial or detrimental
- to it. For the man has no perception regarding himself, and is but a blind
- and deaf tenant in his own body, who gets his knowledge of these matters
- from another, and must inquire of his physician whether his health is better
- in summer or winter, whether he can more easily tolerate liquid or solid
- foods, and whether his pulse is naturally fast or slow. For it is useful and
- easy for us to know things of this sort, since we have daily experience and
- association with them.
-
In regard to food and drink it is expedient to note what kinds are wholesome
- rather than what are pleasant, and to be better acquainted with those that
- are good in the stomach rather than in the mouth, and those that do not
- disturb the digestion rather than those that greatly tickle the palate. For
- to inquire of a physician what is hard or easy for oneself to digest, and
- what is constipating or laxative, is no less disgraceful than to inquire
- what is sweet and what is bitter and what is sour. But nowadays people
- correct the chefs, being expert at detecting what dish has in it more
- sweetening or salt or sourness than is proper ; but they do not themselves
- know what, when taken into their own bodies, will be light and painless and
- beneficial. Therefore, a mistake is not often made in seasoning a soup at
- their houses, but by their vile and pernicious seasoning of themselves every
- day they provide a plentiful business for the
- physicians. Now such persons do not regard the sweetest soup as the best,
- but they mix in also bitter and pungent flavourings ; on the other hand,
- they inject into the body numerous cloying pleasures, partly from ignorance,
- and partly because they do not remember that to whatever is healthful and
- beneficial nature adds a pleasure which causes neither pain nor repentance.
- But we must keep in mind both those things that are congenial and suitable
- to the body, and, conversely, as changes attendant on the season occur and
- different circumstances arise, we should, in full knowledge of the facts,
- suitably adjust our mode of living to each.
-
-
-
Now as to various difficulties, due to observance of petty detail and to lack
- of freedom, which most men encounter—men who are engaged in the
- toilsome business of harvesting and caring for their crops and by sleepless
- nights and running hither and thither bring to light the latent infirmities
- of their bodies—there is no good reason to fear that such will be
- experienced by scholars and men in public life, with reference to whom our
- discussion has taken its present form ; but these must guard against another
- and more subtle kind of pettiness that inheres in letters and learning, an
- influence which compels them to be unsparing and careless of their body, so
- that they oftentimes, when the body is ready to succumb, will not surrender,
- but will force the mortal to be partner with the immortal, and the
- earth-born with the celestial, in rivalry and achievement. Then later, to
- quote the words of the ox to his fellow-servant the camel, who was unwilling
- to lighten his burden : Well, before long you will be carrying me as
- well as all this load (as actually
- resulted when the ox fell dead).
- Cf. Aesop's Fables, No. 125.And this is just what happens to the mind
- : if it is unwilling to relax a little and give up to the body in distress
- and need, a little later a fever or a vertigo attacks it, and it is
- compelled to give up its books and discussions and studies, and share with
- the body its sickness and weariness. Plato
- Timaeus, p. 88 B. was right, therefore, in
- advising that there should be no movement of the body without the mind or of
- the mind without the body, but that we should preserve, as it were, the even
- balance of a well-matched team ; when the body shares most in the work and
- weariness of the mind we should repay it by giving it the most care and
- attention, and we should feel that of the good gifts which fair and lovely
- Health bestows the fairest is the unhampered opportunity to get and to use
- virtue both in words and in deeds. Cf. Aesop's Fables‚Äö No. 125. b
- Timaeus, p. 88 b.
-
-
-
-
-
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-
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-
-
-De tuenda sanitate praecepta
-Machine readable text
-Plutarch
-Gregorius N.
- Bernardakis
-Perseus Project, Tufts University
-Gregory Crane
-
-Prepared under the supervision of
-Lisa Cerrato
-William Merrill
-Elli Mylonas
-David Smith
-
-The National Endowment for the Humanities
-
-
-
-Trustees of Tufts University
-Medford, MA
-Perseus Project
-
-
-
-
-
-Plutarch
-Moralia
-Gregorius N. Bernardakis
-
-Leipzig
-Teubner
-1888
-
-1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-