part is a lowering their sails, not to experience or virtue or age, but

to wealth and fame. Not so Apelles the famous painter, who, when

Megabyzus sat with him, and wished to talk about lines and shades, said

to him, "Do you see my lads yonder grinding colours, they admired just

now your purple and gold, but now they are laughing at you for beginning

to talk about what you don't understand."[408] And Solon, when Croesus

asked him about happiness, replied that Tellus, an obscure Athenian, and

Bito and Cleobis were happier than he was.[409] But flatterers proclaim

kings and rich men and rulers not only happy and fortunate, but also

pre-eminent for wisdom, and art, and every virtue.

Sec. XVI. Now some cannot bear to hear the assertion of the Stoics[410]

that the wise man is at once rich, and handsome, and noble, and a king;

but flatterers declare that the rich man is at once orator and poet, and

(if he likes) painter, and flute-player, and swift-footed, and strong,

falling down if he wrestles with them, and if contending with him in

running letting him win the race, as Crisso of Himera purposely allowed

Alexander to outrun him, which vexed the king very much when he heard of

it.[411] And Carneades said that the sons of rich men and kings learnt

nothing really well and properly except how to ride, for their master

praised and flattered them in their studies, and the person who taught

them wrestling always let them throw him, whereas the horse, not knowing

or caring whether his rider were a private person or ruler, rich or

poor, soon threw him over his head if he could not ride well. Simple

therefore and fatuous was that remark of Bion, "If you could by

encomiums make your field to yield well and be fruitful, you could not

be thought wrong in tilling it so rather than digging it and labouring

in it: nor would it be strange in you to praise human beings if by so

doing you could be useful and serviceable to them." For a field does not

become worse by being praised, but those who praise a man falsely and

against his deserts puff him up and ruin him.

Sec. XVII. Enough has been said on this matter: let us now examine

outspokenness. For just as Patroclus put on the armour of Achilles, and

drove his horses to the battle, only durst not touch his spear from

Mount Pelion, but let that alone, so ought the flatterer, tricked out

and modelled in the distinctive marks and tokens of the friend, to leave

untouched and uncopied only his outspokenness, as the special burden of

friendship, "heavy, huge, strong."[412] But since flatterers, to avoid

the blame they incur by their buffoonery, and drinking, and gibes, and

jokes, sometimes work their ends by frowns and gravity, and intermix

censure and reproof, let us not pass this over either without

examination. And I think, as in Menander's Play the sham Hercules comes

on the stage not with a club stout and strong, but with a light and

hollow cane, so the outspokenness of the flatterer is to those who

experience it mild and soft, and the very reverse of vigorous, and like

those cushions for women's heads, which seem able to stand their ground,

but in reality yield and give way under their pressure; so this sham

outspokenness is puffed up and inflated with an empty and spurious and

hollow bombast, that when it contracts and collapses draws in the person

who relies on it. For true and friendly outspokenness attacks

wrong-doers, bringing pain that is salutary and likely to make them more

careful, like honey biting but cleansing ulcerated parts of the

body,[413] but in other respects serviceable and sweet. But we will

speak of this anon.[414] But the flatterer first exhibits himself as

disagreeable and passionate and unforgiving in his dealings with others.

For he is harsh to his servants, and a terrible fellow to attack and

ferret out the faults of his kinsmen and friends, and to look up to and

respect nobody who is a stranger, but to look down upon them, and is

relentless and mischief-making in making people provoked with others,

hunting after the reputation of hating vice, as one not likely knowingly

to mince matters with the vicious, or ingratiate himself with them

either in word or deed. Next he pretends to know nothing of real and

great crimes, but he is a terrible fellow to inveigh against trifling

and external shortcomings, and to fasten on them with intensity and

vehemence, as if he sees any pot or pipkin out of its place, or anyone

badly housed, or neglecting his beard or attire, or not adequately

attending to a horse or dog. But contempt of parents, and neglect of

children, and bad treatment of wife, and haughtiness to friends, and

throwing away money, all this he cares nothing about, but is silent and

does not dare to make any allusion to it: just as if the trainer in a

gymnasium were to allow the athlete to get drunk and live in

debauchery,[415] and yet be vexed at the condition of his oil-flask or

strigil if out of order; or as if the schoolmaster scolded a boy about

his tablet and pen, but paid no attention to a solecism or barbarism.

The flatterer is like a man who should make no comment on the speech of

a silly and ridiculous orator, but should find fault with his voice, and

chide him for injuring his throat by drinking cold water; or like a

person bidden to read some wretched composition, who should merely find

fault with the thickness of the paper, and call the copyist a dirty and

careless fellow. So too when Ptolemy seemed to desire to become learned,

his flatterers used to spin out the time till midnight, disputing about

some word or line or history, but not one of them all objected to his

cruelty and outrages, his torturing and beating people to death.[416]

Just as if, when a man has tumours and fistulas, one were to cut his

hair and nails with a surgeon's knife, so flatterers use outspokenness

only in cases where it gives no pain or distress.

Sec. XVIII. Moreover some of them are cleverer still and make their

outspokenness and censure a means of imparting pleasure. As Agis the

Argive,[417] when Alexander bestowed great gifts on a buffoon, cried out

in envy and displeasure, "What a piece of absurdity!" and on the king

turning angrily to him and saying, "What are you talking about?" he

replied, "I admit that I am vexed and put out, when I see that all you

descendants of Zeus alike take delight in flatterers and jesters, for

Hercules had his Cercopes, and Dionysus his Sileni, and with you too I

see that such are held in good repute." And on one occasion, when the

Emperor Tiberius entered the senate, one of his flatterers got up and

said, that being free men they ought to be outspoken, and not suppress

or conceal anything that might be important, and having by this exordium

engaged everybody's attention, a dead silence prevailing, and even

Tiberius being all attention, he said, "Listen, Caesar, to what we all

charge you with, although no one ventures to tell you openly of it; you

neglect yourself, and are careless about your health, and wear yourself

out with anxiety and labour on our behalf, taking no rest either by

night or day." And on his stringing much more together in the same

strain, they say the orator Cassius Severus said, "This outspokenness

will ruin the man."

Sec. XIX. These are indeed trifling matters: but the following are more

important and do mischief to foolish people, when flatterers accuse them

of the very contrary vices and passions to those to which they are

really addicted; as Himerius the flatterer twitted a very rich, very

mean, and very covetous Athenian with being a careless spendthrift, and

likely one day to want bread as well as his children; or on the other

hand if they rail at extravagant spendthrifts for meanness and

sordidness, as Titus Petronius railed at Nero; or exhort rulers who make

savage and cruel attacks on their subjects to lay aside their excessive

clemency, and unseasonable and inexpedient mercy. Similar to these is

the person who pretends to be on his guard against and afraid of a silly

stupid fellow as if he were clever and cunning; and the one who, if any

person fond of detraction, rejoicing in defamation and censure, should

be induced on any occasion to praise some man of note, fastens on him

and alleges against him that he has an itch for praising people. "You

are always extolling people of no merit: for who is this fellow, or what

has he said or done out of the common?" But it is in regard to the

objects of their love that they mostly attack those they flatter, and

additionally inflame them. For if they see people at variance with their

brothers, or despising their parents, or treating their wives

contemptuously, they neither take them to task nor scold them, but fan

the flame of their anger still more. "You don't sufficiently appreciate

yourself," they say, "you are yourself the cause of your being put upon

in this way, through your constant submissiveness and humility." And if

there is any tiff or fit of jealousy in regard to some courtesan or

adulteress, the flatterer is at hand with remarkable outspokenness,

adding fuel to flame,[418] and taking the lady's part, and accusing her

lover of acting in a very unkind harsh and shameful manner to her,

"O ingrate, after all those frequent kisses!"[419]

Thus Antony's friends, when he was passionately in love with the

Egyptian woman,[420] persuaded him that he was loved by her, and twitted

him with being cold and haughty to her. "She," they said, "has left her

mighty kingdom and happy mode of life, and is wasting her beauty, taking

the field with you like some camp-follower,

"The while your heart is proof 'gainst all her charms,"[421]

as you neglect her love-lorn as she is." But he that is pleased at being

reproached with his wrong-doing, and delights in those that censure him,

as he never did in those that praised him, is unconscious that he is

really perverted also by what seems to be rebuke. For such outspokenness

is like the bites of wanton women,[422] that while seeming to hurt

really tickle and excite pleasure. And just as if people mix pure wine,

which is by itself an antidote against hemlock, with it and so offer it,

they make the poison quite deadly, being rapidly carried to the heart by

the warmth,[423] so ill-disposed men, knowing that outspokenness is a

great antidote to flattery, make it a means of flattering. And so it was

rather a bad answer Bias[424] made, to the person who inquired what was

the most formidable animal, "Of wild animals the tyrant, and of tame the

flatterer." For it would have been truer to observe that tame flatterers

are those that are found round the baths and table, but the one that

intrudes into the interior of the house and into the women's apartments

with his curiosity and calumny and malignity, like the legs and arms of

the polypus, is wild and savage and unmanageable.

Sec. XX. Now one kind of caution against his snares is to know and ever

remember that, whereas the soul contains true and noble and reasoning

elements, as also unreasoning and false and emotional ones, the friend

is always a counsellor and adviser to the better instincts of the soul,

as the physician improves and maintains health, whereas the flatterer

works upon the emotional and unreasoning ones, and tickles and

titillates them and seduces them from reason, employing sensuality as

his bait. As then there are some kinds of food which neither benefit the

blood or spirit, nor brace up the nerves and marrow, but stir the

passions, excite the lower nature, and make the flesh unsound and

rotten, so the language of the flatterer adds nothing to soberness and

reason, but encourages some love passion, or stirs up foolish rage, or

incites to envy, or produces the empty and burdensome vanity of pride,

or joins in bewailing woes, or ever by his calumnies and hints makes

malignity and illiberality and suspicion sharp and timid and jealous,

and cannot fail to be detected by those that closely observe him. For he

is ever anchoring himself upon some passion, and fattening it, and, like

a bubo, fastens himself on some unsound and inflamed parts of the soul.

Are you angry? Have your revenge, says he. Do you desire anything? Get

it. Are you afraid? Let us flee. Do you suspect? Entertain no doubts

about it. But if he is difficult to detect in thus playing upon our

passions, since they often overthrow reason by their intensity and

strength, he will give a handle to find him out in smaller matters,

being consistent in them too. For if anyone feels a little uneasy after

a surfeit or excess in drink, and so is a little particular about his

food and doubts the advisability of taking a bath, a friend will try and

check him from excess, and bid him be careful and not indulge, whereas

the flatterer will drag him to the bath, bid him serve up some fresh

food, and not starve himself and so injure his constitution. And if he

see him reluctant about a journey or voyage or some business or other,

he will say that there is no hurry, that it's all one whether the

business be put off, or somebody else despatched to look after it. And

if you have promised to lend or give some money to a friend, but have

repented of your offer, and yet feel ashamed not to keep your promise,

the flatterer will throw his influence into the worse scale, he will

confirm your desire to save your purse, he will destroy your reluctance,

and will bid you be careful as having many expenses, and others to think

about besides that person. And so, unless we are entirely ignorant of

our desires, our shamelessness, and our timidity, the flatterer cannot

easily escape our detection. For he is ever the advocate of those

passions, and outspoken when we desire to repress them.[425] But so much

for this matter.

Sec. XXI. Now let us pass on to useful and kind services, for in them too

the flatterer makes it very difficult and confusing to detect him from

the friend, seeming to be zealous and ready on all occasions and never

crying off. For, as Euripides says,[426] a friend's behaviour is, "like

the utterance of truth, simple," and plain and inartificial, while that

of the flatterer "is in itself unsound, and needs wise remedies," aye,

by Zeus, and many such, and not ordinary ones. As for example in chance

meetings the friend often neither speaks nor is spoken to, but merely

looks and smiles, and then passes on, showing his inner affection and

goodwill only by his countenance, which his friend also reciprocates,

but the flatterer runs up, follows, holds out his hand at a distance,

and if he is seen and addressed first, frequently protests with oaths,

and calls witnesses to prove, that he did not see you. So in business

friends neglect many unimportant points, are not too punctilious and

officious, and do not thrust themselves upon every service, but the

flatterer is persevering and unceasing and indefatigable in it, giving

nobody else either room or place to help, but putting himself wholly at

your disposal, and if you will not find him something to do for you, he

is troubled, nay rather altogether dejected and lamenting loudly.[427]

Sec. XXII. To all sensible people all this is an indication, not of true or

sober friendship, but of a meretricious one, that embraces you more

warmly than there is any occasion for. Nevertheless let us first look at

the difference between the friend and flatterer in their promises. For

it has been well said by those who have handled this subject before us,

that the friend's promise is,

"If I can do it, and 'tis to be done,"

but the flatterer's is,

"Speak out your mind, whate'er it is, to me."[428]

And the comic dramatists put such fellows on the stage,

"Nicomachus, pit me against that soldier,

See if I beat him not into a jelly,

And make his face e'en softer than a sponge."[429]

In the next place no friend participates in any matter, unless he has

first been asked his advice, and put the matter to the test, and set it

on a suitable and expedient basis. But the flatterer, if anyone allows

him to examine a matter and give his opinion on it, not only wishes to

gratify him by compliance, but also fearing to be looked upon with

suspicion as unwilling and reluctant to engage in the business, gives in

to and even urges on his friend's desire. For there is hardly any king

or rich man who would say,

"O that a beggar I could find, or worse

Than beggar, if, with good intent to me,

He would lay bare his heart boldly and honestly;"[430]

but, like the tragedians, they require a chorus of sympathizing friends,

or the applause of a theatre. And so Merope gives the following advice

in the tragedy,

"Choose you for friends those who will speak their mind,

For those bad men that only speak to please

See that you bolt and bar out of your house."[431]

But they act just the contrary, for they turn away with horror from

those who speak their mind, and hold different views as to what is

expedient, while they welcome those bad and illiberal impostors (that

only speak to please them) not only within their houses, but also to

their affections and secrets. Now the simpler of these do not think

right or claim to advise you in important matters, but only to assist in

the carrying out of them: but the more cunning one stands by during the

discussion, and knits his brows, and nods assent with his head, but says

nothing, but if his friend express an opinion, he then says, "Hercules,

you only just anticipated me, I was about to make that very remark." For

as the mathematicians tell us that surfaces and lines neither bend nor

extend nor move of themselves, being without body and only perceived by

the mind, but only bend and extend and change their position with the

bodies whose extremities they are: so you will catch the flatterer ever

assenting with, and agreeing with, aye, and feeling with, and being

angry with, another, so easy of detection in all these points of view is

the difference between the friend and the flatterer. Moreover as regards

the kind of good service. For the favour done by a friend, as the

principal strength of an animal is within, is not for display or

ostentation, but frequently as a doctor cures his patient imperceptibly,

so a friend benefits by his intervention, or by paying off creditors, or

by managing his friend's affairs, even though the person who receives

the benefit may not be aware of it. Such was the behaviour of Arcesilaus

on various occasions, and when Apelles[432] of Chios was ill, knowing

his poverty, he took with him twenty drachmae when he visited him, and

sitting down beside him he said, "There is nothing here but those

elements of Empedocles, 'fire and water and earth and balmy expanse of

air,' but you don't lie very comfortably," and with that he moved his

pillow, and privately put the money under it. And when his old

housekeeper found it, and wonderingly told Apelles of it, he laughed and

said, "This is some trick of Arcesilaus." And the saying is also true in

philosophy that "children are like their parents."[433] For when

Cephisocrates had to stand his trial on a bill of indictment, Lacydes

(who was an intimate friend of Arcesilaus) stood by him with several

other friends, and when the prosecutor asked for his ring, which was the

principal evidence against him, Cephisocrates quietly dropped it on the

ground, and Lacydes noticing this put his foot on it and so hid it. And

after sentence was pronounced in his favour, Cephisocrates going up to

thank the jury, one of them who had seen the artifice told him to thank

Lacydes, and related to him all the matter, though Lacydes had not said

a word about it to anybody. So also I think the gods do often perform

benefits secretly, taking a natural delight in bestowing their favours

and bounties.[434] But the good service of the flatterer has no justice,

or genuineness, or simplicity, or liberality about it; but is

accompanied with sweat, and running about, and noise, and knitting of

the brow, creating an impression and appearance of toilsome and bustling

service, like a painting over-curiously wrought in bold colours, and

with bent folds wrinkles and angles, to make the closer resemblance to

life. Moreover he tires one by relating what journeys and anxieties he

has had over the matter, how many enemies he has made over it, the

thousand bothers and annoyances he has gone through, so that you say,

"The affair was not worth all this trouble." For being reminded of any

favour done to one is always unpleasant and disagreeable and

insufferable:[435] but the flatterer not only reminds us of his services

afterwards, but even during the very moment of doing them upbraids us

with them and is importunate. But the friend, if he is obliged to

mention the matter, relates it modestly, and says not a word about

himself. And so, when the Lacedaemonians sent corn to the people of

Smyrna that needed it, and the people of Smyrna wondered at their

kindness, the Lacedaemonians said, "It was no great matter, we only voted

that we and our beasts of burden should go without our dinner one day,

and sent what was so saved to you."[436] Not only is it handsome to do a

favour in that way, but it is more pleasant to the receivers of it,

because they think those who have done them the service have done it at

no great loss to themselves.

Sec. XXIII. But it is not so much by the importunity of the flatterer in

regard to services, nor by his facility in making promises, that one can

recognize his nature, as by the honourable or dishonourable kind of

service, and by the regard to please or to be of real use. For the

friend is not as Gorgias defined him, one who will ask his friend to

help him in what is right, while he will himself do many services for

his friend that are not right.

"For friend should share in good not in bad action."[437]

He will therefore rather try and turn him away from what is not

becoming, and if he cannot persuade him, good is that answer of Phocion

to Antipater, "You cannot have me both as friend and flatterer,"[438]

that is, as friend and no friend. For one must indeed assist one's

friend but not do anything wrong for him, one must advise with him but

not plot with him, one must bear witness for him but not join him in

fraud, one must certainly share adversity with him but not crime. For

since we should not wish even to know of our friends' dishonourable

acts, much less should we desire to share their dishonour by acting with

them. As then the Lacedaemonians, when conquered in battle by Antipater,

on settling the terms of peace, begged that he would lay upon them what

burdens he pleased, provided he enjoined nothing dishonourable, so the

friend, if any necessity arise involving expense or danger or trouble,

is the first to desire to be applied to and share in it with alacrity

and without crying off, but if there be anything disgraceful in

connection with it he begs to have nothing to do with it. The flatterer

on the contrary cries off from toilsome and dangerous employments, and

if you put him to the test by ringing him,[439] he returns a hollow and

spurious sound, and finds some excuse; whereas use him in disgraceful

and low and disreputable service, and trample upon him, he will think no

treatment too bad or ignominious. Have you observed the ape? He cannot

guard the house like the dog, nor bear burdens like the horse, nor

plough like the ox, so he has to bear insult and ribaldry, and put up

with being made sport of, exhibiting himself as an instrument to produce

laughter. So too the flatterer, who can neither advocate your cause, nor

give you useful counsel, nor share in your contention with anybody, but

shirks all labour and toil, never makes any excuses in underhand

transactions, is sure to lend a helping hand in any love affair, is

energetic in setting free some harlot, and not careless in clearing off

the account of a drinking score, nor remiss in making preparations for

banquets, and obsequious to concubines, but if ordered to be uncivil to

your relations, or to help in turning your wife out of doors, he is

relentless and not to be put out of countenance. So that he is not hard

to detect here too. For if ordered to do anything you please

disreputable or dishonourable, he is ready to take any pains to oblige

you.

Sec. XXIV. One might detect again how greatly the flatterer differs from

the friend by his behaviour to other friends. For the friend is best

pleased with loving and being beloved by many, and also always tries to

contrive for his friend that he too may be much loved and honoured, for

he believes in the proverb "the goods of friends are common

property,"[440] and thinks it ought to apply to nothing more than to

friends; but the false and spurious and counterfeit friend, knowing how

much he debases friendship, like debased and spurious coin, is not only

by nature envious, but shows his envy even of those who are like

himself, striving to outdo them in scurrility and gossip, while he

quakes and trembles at any of his betters, not by Zeus "merely walking

on foot by their Lydian chariot," but, to use the language of Simonides,

"not even, having pure lead by comparison with their refined

gold."[441] Whenever then, being light and counterfeit and false, he is

put to the test at close quarters with a true and solid and cast-iron

friendship, he cannot stand the test but is detected at once, and

imitates the conduct of the painter that painted some wretched cocks,

for he ordered his lad to scare away all live cocks as far from his

picture as possible. So he too scares away real friends and will not let

them come near if he can help it, but if he cannot prevent that, he

openly fawns upon them, and courts them, and admires them as his

betters, but privately runs them down and spreads calumnies about them.

And when secret detraction has produced a sore feeling,[442] if he has

not effected his end completely, he remembers and observes the teaching

of Medius, who was the chief of Alexander's flatterers, and a leading

sophist in conspiracy against the best men. He bade people confidently

sow their calumny broadcast and bite with it, teaching them that even if

the person injured should heal his sore, the scar of the calumny would

remain. Consumed by these scars, or rather gangrenes and cancers,

Alexander put to death Callisthenes, and Parmenio, and Philotas; while

he himself submitted to be completely outwitted by such as Agnon, and

Bagoas, and Agesias, and Demetrius, who worshipped him and tricked him

up and feigned him to be a barbaric god. So great is the power of

flattery, and nowhere greater, as it seems, than among the greatest

people. For their thinking and wishing the best about themselves makes

them credit the flatterer, and gives him courage.[443] For lofty heights

are difficult of approach and hard to reach for those who endeavour to

scale them, but the highmindedness and conceit of a person thrown off

his balance by good fortune or good natural parts is easily reached by

mean and petty people.

Sec. XXV. And so we advised at the beginning of this discourse, and now

advise again, to cut off self-love and too high an opinion of ourselves;

for that flatters us first, and makes us more impressionable and

prepared for external flatterers. But if we hearken to the god, and

recognize the immense importance to everyone of that saying, "Know

thyself,"[444] and at the same time carefully observe our nature and

education and training, with its thousand shortcomings in respect to

good, and the large proportion of vice and vanity mixed up with our

words and deeds and feelings, we shall not make ourselves so easy a mark

for flatterers. Alexander said that he disbelieved those who called him

a god chiefly in regard to sleep and the sexual delight, for in both

those things he was more ignoble and emotional than in other

respects.[445] So we, if we observe the blots, blemishes, shortcomings,

and imperfections of our private selves, shall perceive clearly that we

do not need a friend who shall bestow upon us praise and panegyric, but

one that will reprove us, and speak plainly to us, aye, by Zeus, and

censure us if we have done amiss. For it is only a few out of many that

venture to speak plainly to their friends rather than gratify them, and

even among those few you will not easily find any who know how to do so

properly, for they think they are outspoken when they abuse and scold.

And yet, just as in the case of any other medicine, to employ freedom of

speech unseasonably is only to give needless pain and trouble, and in a

manner to do so as to produce vexation the very thing the flatterer does

so as to produce pleasure. For it does people harm not only to praise

them unseasonably but also to blame them unseasonably, and especially

exposes them to the successful attack of flatterers, for, like water,

they abandon the rugged hills for the soft grassy valleys. And so

outspokenness ought to be tempered with kindness, and reason ought to be

called in to correct its excessive tartness, (as we tone down the too

powerful glare of a lamp), that people may not, by being troubled and

grieved at continual blame and rebuke, fly for refuge to the shade of

the flatterer, and turn aside to him to free themselves from annoyance.

For we ought, Philopappus, to banish all vice by virtue, not by the

opposite vice, as some hold,[446] by exchanging modesty for impudence,

and countrified ways for town ribaldry, and by removing their character

as far as possible from cowardice and effeminacy, even if that should

make people get very near to audacity and foolhardiness. And some even

make superstition a plea for atheism, and stupidity a plea for knavery,

perverting their nature, like a stick bent double, from inability to set

it straight. But the basest disowning of flattery is to be disagreeable

without any purpose in view, and it shows an altogether inelegant and

clumsy unfitness for social intercourse to shun by unpleasing moroseness

the suspicion of being mean and servile in friendship; like the freedman

in the comedy who thought railing only enjoying freedom of speech.

Seeing then, that it is equally disgraceful to become a flatterer

through trying only to please, as in avoiding flattery to destroy all

friendship and intimacy by excessive freedom of speech, we must avoid

both these extremes, and, as in any other case, make our freedom of

speech agreeable by its moderation. So the subject itself seems next to

demand that I should conclude it by discussing that point.

Sec. XXVI. As then we see that much trouble arises from excessive freedom

of speech, let us first of all detach from it any element of self-love,

being carefully on our guard that we may not appear to upbraid on

account of any private hurt or injury. For people do not regard a speech

on the speaker's own behalf as arising from goodwill, but from anger,

and reproach rather than admonition. For freedom in speech is friendly

and has weight, but reproach is selfish and little. And so people

respect and admire those that speak their mind freely, but accuse back

and despise those that reproach them: as Agamemnon would not stand the

moderate freedom of speech of Achilles, but submitted to and endured

the bitter attack and speech of Odysseus,

"Pernicious chief, would that thou didst command

Some sorry host, and not such men as these!"[447]

for he was restrained by the carefulness and sobriety of his speech, and

also Odysseus had no private motive of anger but only spoke out on

behalf of Greece,[448] whereas Achilles seemed rather vexed on his own

account. And Achilles himself, though not sweet-tempered or mild of

mood, but "a terrible man, and one that would perchance blame an

innocent person,"[449] yet silently listened to Patroclus bringing

against him many such charges as the following,

"Pitiless one, thy sire never was

Knight Peleus, nor thy mother gentle Thetis,

But the blue sea and steep and rocky crags

Thy parents were, so flinty is thy heart."[450]

For as Hyperides the orator bade the Athenians consider not only whether

he spoke bitterly, but whether he spoke so from interested motives,[451]

so the rebuke of a friend void of all private feeling is solemn and

grave and what one dare not lightly face. And if anyone shows plainly in

his freedom of speech, that he altogether passes over and dismisses any

offences his friend has done to himself, and only blames him for other

shortcomings, and does not spare him but gives him pain for the

interests of others, the tone of his outspokenness is invincible, and

the sweetness of his manner even intensifies the bitterness and

austerity of his rebuke. And so it has well been said, that in anger and

differences with our friends we ought more especially to act with a view

to their interest or honour. And no less friendly is it, when it appears

that we have been passed over and neglected, to boldly put in a word for

others that are neglected too, and to remind people of them, as Plato,

when he was out of favour with Dionysius, begged for an audience, and

Dionysius granted it, thinking that Plato had some personal grievance

and was going to enter into it, but Plato opened the conversation as

follows, "If, Dionysius, you knew that some enemy had sailed to Sicily

with a view to do you some harm, but found no opportunity, would you

allow him to sail back again, and go off scot-free?" "Certainly not,

Plato," replied Dionysius, "for we must not only hate and punish the

deeds of our enemies, but also their intentions." "If then," said Plato,

"anyone has come here for your benefit, and wishes to do you good, and

you do not find him an opportunity, is it right to let him go away with

neglect and without thanks?" And on Dionysius asking, who he meant, he

replied, "I mean AEschines, a man of as good a character as any of

Socrates' pupils whatever, and able to improve by his conversation any

with whom he might associate: and he is neglected, though he has made a

long voyage here to discuss philosophy with you." This speech so

affected Dionysius, that he at once threw his arms round Plato and

embraced him, admiring his benevolence and loftiness of mind, and

treated AEschines well and handsomely.

Sec. XXVII. In the next place, let us clear away as it were and remove all

insolence, and jeering, and mocking, and ribaldry, which are the evil

seasonings of freedom of speech. For as, when the surgeon performs an

operation, a certain neatness and delicacy of touch ought to accompany

his use of the knife, but all pantomimic and venturesome and fashionable

suppleness and over-finicalness ought to be far away from his hand, so

freedom of speech admits of dexterity and politeness, provided that a

pleasant way of putting it does not destroy the power of the rebuke, for

impudence and coarseness and insolence, if added to freedom of speech,

entirely mar and ruin the effect. And so the harper plausibly and

elegantly silenced Philip, who ventured to dispute with him about proper

playing on the harp, by answering him, "God forbid that you should be so

unfortunate, O king, as to understand harping better than me." But that

was not a right answer of Epicharmus, when Hiero a few days after

putting to death some of his friends invited him to supper, "You did not

invite me," he said, "the other day, when you sacrificed your friends."

Bad also was that answer of Antiphon, who, when Dionysius asked him

"which was the best kind of bronze," answered, "That of which the

Athenians made statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton." For this

unpleasant and bitter kind of language profits not those that use it,

nor does scurrility and puerile jesting please, but such kind of

speeches are indications of an incontinent tongue inspired by hate, and

full of malignity and insolence, and those who use such language do but

ruin themselves, recklessly dancing on the verge of a well.[452] For

Antiphon was put to death by Dionysius, and Timagenes lost the

friendship of Augustus, not by using on any occasion too free a tongue,

but at supper-parties and walks always declining to talk seriously,

"only saying what he knew would make the Argives laugh,"[453] and thus

virtually charging friendship with being only a cloak for abuse. For

even the comic poets have introduced on the stage many grave sentiments

well adapted to public life, but joking and ribaldry being mixed with

them, like insipid sauces with food, destroy their effect and make them

lose their nourishing power, so that the comic poets only get a

reputation for malignity and coarseness, and the audience get no benefit

from what is said. We may on other occasions jest and laugh with our

friends, but let our outspokenness be coupled with seriousness and

gravity, and if it be on important matters, let our speech be

trustworthy and moving from its pathos, and animation, and tone of

voice. And on all occasions to let an opportunity slip by is very

injurious, but especially does it destroy the usefulness of freedom of

speech. It is plain therefore that we must abstain from freedom of

speech when men are in their cups. For he disturbs the harmony of a

social gathering[454] who, in the midst of mirth and jollity, introduces

a topic that shall knit the brows and contract the face, and shall act

as a damper to the Lysian[455] god, who, as Pindar says, "looses the

rope of all our cares and anxieties." There is also great danger in such

ill-timed freedom of speech. For wine makes people easily slip into

rage, and oftentimes freedom of speech in liquor makes enemies. And

generally speaking it is not noble or brave but cowardly to conceal your

ideas when people are sober and to give free vent to them at table,

snarling like cowardly dogs. We need say no more therefore on this head.

Sec. XXVIII. But since many people do not think fit or even dare to find

fault with their friends when in prosperity, but think that condition

altogether out of the reach and range of rebuke, but inveigh against

them if they have made a slip or stumble, and trample upon them if they

are in dejection and in their power, and, like a stream swollen above

its banks, pour upon them then the torrent of all their eloquence,[456]

and enjoy and are glad at their reverse of fortune, owing to their

former contempt of them when they were poor themselves, it is not amiss

to discuss this somewhat, and to answer those words of Euripides,

"What need of friends, when things go well with us?"[457]

for those in prosperity stand in especial need of friends who shall be

outspoken to them, and abate their excessive pride. For there are few

who are sensible in prosperity, most need to borrow wisdom from others,

and such considerations as shall keep them lowly when puffed up and

giving themselves airs owing to their good fortune. But when the deity

has abased them and stripped them of their conceit, there is something

in their very circumstances to reprove them and bring about a change of

mind. And so there is no need then of a friendly outspokenness, nor of

weighty or caustic words, but truly in such reverses "it is sweet to

look into the eyes of a friendly person,"[458] consoling and cheering

one up: as Xenophon[459] tells us that the sight of Clearchus in battle

and dangers, and his calm benevolent face, inspired courage in his men

when in peril. But he who uses to a man in adversity too great freedom

and severity of speech, like a man applying too pungent a remedy to an

inflamed and angry eye, neither cures him nor abates his pain, but adds

anger to his grief, and exasperates his mental distress. For example

anyone well is not at all angry or fierce with a friend, who blames him

for his excesses with women and wine, his laziness and taking no

exercise, his frequent baths, and his unseasonable surfeiting: but to a

person ill all this is unsufferable, and even worse than his illness to

hear, "All this has happened to you through your intemperance, and

luxury, your dainty food, and love for women." The patient answers, "How

unseasonable is all this, good sir! I am making my will, the doctors are

preparing me a dose of castor and scammony, and you are scolding me and

plying me with philosophy." And thus the affairs of the unfortunate do

not admit of outspokenness and a string of Polonius-like saws, but they

require kindness and help. For when children fall down their nurses do

not run up to them and scold, but pick them up, and clean them, and tidy

their dress, and afterwards find fault and correct them. The story is

told of Demetrius of Phalerum, when an exile from his native country,

and living a humble and obscure life at Thebes, that he was not pleased

to see Crates approaching, for he expected to receive from him cynical

outspokenness and harsh language. But as Crates talked kindly to him,

and discussed his exile, and pointed out that there was no evil in it,

or anything that ought to put him about, for he had only got rid of the

uncertainties and dangers of public life, and at the same time bade him

trust in himself and his condition of mind, Demetrius cheered up and

became happier, and said to his friends, "Out upon all my former

business and employments, that left me no leisure to know such a man as

this!"

"For friendly speech is good to one in grief,

While bitter language only suits the fool."[460]

This is the way with generous friends. But the ignoble and low

flatterers of those in prosperity, as Demosthenes says fractures and

sprains always give us pain again when the body is not well,[461] adhere

to them in reverses, as if they were pleased at and enjoyed them. But

indeed if there be any need of reminding a man of the blunders he

committed through unadvisedly following his own counsel, it is enough to

say, "This was not to my mind, indeed I often tried to dissuade you from

it."[462]

Sec. XXIX. In what cases then ought a friend to be vehement, and when ought

he to use emphatic freedom of language? When circumstances call upon him

to check some headlong pleasure or rage or insolence, or to curtail

avarice, or to correct some foolish negligence. Thus Solon spoke out to

Croesus, who was corrupted and enervated by insecure good fortune,

bidding him look to the end.[463] Thus Socrates restrained Alcibiades,

and wrung from him genuine tears by his reproof, and changed his

heart.[464] Such also was the plain dealing of Cyrus with Cyaxares, and

of Plato with Dion, for when Dion was most famous and attracted to

himself the notice of all men, by the splendour and greatness of his

exploits, Plato warned him to fear and be on his guard against "pleasing

only himself, for so he would lose all his friends."[465] Speusippus

also wrote to him not to plume himself on being a great person only with

lads and women, but to see to it that by adorning Sicily with piety and

justice and good laws he might make the Academy glorious. On the other

hand Euctus and Eulaeus, companions of Perseus, in the days of his

prosperity ingratiated themselves with him, and assented to him in all

things, and danced attendance upon him, like all the other courtiers,

but when he fled after his defeat by the Romans at Pydna, they attacked

him and censured him bitterly, reminding him and upbraiding him in

regard to everything he had done amiss or neglected to do, till he was

so greatly exasperated both from grief and rage that he whipped out his

sword and killed both of them.

Sec. XXX. Let so much suffice for general occasions of freedom of speech.

There are also particular occasions, which our friends themselves

furnish, that one who really cares for his friends will not neglect, but

make use of. In some cases a question, or narrative, or the censure or

praise of similar things in other people, gives as it were the cue for

freedom of speech. Thus it is related that Demaratus came to Macedonia

from Corinth at the time when Philip was at variance with his wife and

son, and when the king asked if the Greeks were at harmony with one

another, Demaratus, being his well-wisher and friend, answered, "It is

certainly very rich of you, Philip, inquiring as to concord between the

Athenians and Peloponnesians, when you don't observe that your own house

is full of strife and variance."[466] Good also was the answer of

Diogenes, who, when Philip was marching to fight against the Greeks,

stole into his camp, and was arrested and brought before him, and the

king not recognizing him asked if he was a spy, "Certainly," replied he,

"Philip, I have come to spy out your inconsiderate folly, which makes

you, under no compulsion, come here and hazard your kingdom and life on

a moment's[467] cast of the die." This was perhaps rather too strong a

remark.

Sec. XXXI. Another suitable time for reproof is when people have been

abused by others for their faults, and have consequently become humble,

and abated their pride. The man of tact will ingeniously seize the

occasion, checking and baffling those that used the abuse, but privately

speaking seriously to his friend, and reminding him, that he ought to be

more careful if for no other reason than to take off the edge of his

enemies' satire. He will say, "How can they open their mouths against

you, or what can they urge, if you give up and abandon what you get this

bad name about?" Thus pain comes only from abuse, but profit from

reproof. And some correct their friends more daintily by blaming

others; censuring others for what they know are their friends' faults.

Thus my master Ammonius in afternoon school, noticing that some of his

pupils had not dined sufficiently simply, bade one of his freedmen

scourge his own son, charging him with being unable to get through his

dinner without vinegar,[468] but in acting thus he had an eye to us, so

that this indirect rebuke touched the guilty persons.

Sec. XXXII. We must also beware of speaking too freely to a friend in the

company of many people, remembering the well-known remark of Plato. For

when Socrates reproved one of his friends too vehemently in a discussion

at table, Plato said, "Would it not have been better to have said this

privately?" Whereupon Socrates replied, "And you too, sir, would it not

have become you to make this remark also privately?" And Pythagoras

having rebuked one of his pupils somewhat harshly before many people,

they say the young fellow went off and hung himself, and from that

moment Pythagoras never again rebuked anyone in another's presence. For,

as in the case of some foul disease, so also in the case of wrong-doing

we ought to make the detection and exposure private, and not

ostentatiously public by bringing witnesses and spectators. For it is

not the part of a friend but a sophist to seek glory by the ill-fame of

another, and to show off in company, like the doctors that perform

wonderful cures in the theatres as an advertisement.[469] And

independently of the insult, which ought not to be an element in any

cure, we must remember that vice is contentious and obstinate. For it is

not merely "love," as Euripides says, that "if checked becomes more

vehement," but an unsparing rebuke before many people makes every

infirmity and vice more impudent. As then Plato[470] urges old men who

want to teach the young reverence to act reverently to them first

themselves, so among friends a gentle rebuke is gently taken, and a

cautious and careful approach and mild censure of the wrong-doer

undermines and destroys vice, and makes its own modesty catching. So

that line is most excellent, "holding his head near, that the others

might not hear."[471] And most especially indecorous is it to expose a

husband in the hearing of his wife, or a father before his children, or

a lover in the presence of the loved one, or a master before his

scholars. For people are beside themselves with pain and rage if

reproached before those with whom they desire to be held in good repute.

And I think it was not so much wine that exasperated Alexander with

Clitus, as his seeming to put him down in the presence of many people.

And Aristomenes, the tutor of Ptolemy,[472] because he went up to the

king and woke him as he was asleep in an audience of some ambassadors,

gave a handle to the king's flatterers who professed to be indignant on

his behalf, and said, "If after your immense state-labours and many

vigils you have been overpowered by sleep, he ought to have rebuked you

privately, and not put his hands upon you before so many people." And

Ptolemy sent for a cup of poison and ordered the poor man to drink it

up. And Aristophanes said Cleon blamed him for "railing against the

state when strangers were present,"[473] and so irritating the

Athenians. We ought therefore to be very much on our guard in relation

to this point too as well as others, if we wish not to make a display

and catch the public ear, but to use our freedom of speech for

beneficial purposes and to cure vice. Moreover, what Thucydides has

represented the Corinthians saying of themselves, that "they had a right

to blame their neighbours,"[474] is not a bad precept for those to

remember who intend to use freedom of speech. Lysander, it seems, on one

occasion said to a Megarian, who was speaking somewhat boldly on behalf

of Greece among the allies, "Your words require a state to back

them":[475] similarly every man's freedom of speech requires character

behind it, and especially true is this in regard to those who censure

and correct others. Thus Plato said that his life was a tacit rebuke to

Speusippus: and doubtless Xenocrates by his mere presence in the

schools, and by his earnest look at Polemo, made a changed man of him.

Whereas a man of levity and bad character, if he ventures to rebuke

anybody, is likely to hear the line,

"He doctors others, all diseased himself."[476]

Sec. XXXIII. Yet since circumstances frequently call on people who are bad

themselves in association with other such to reprove them, the most

convenient mode of reproof will be that which contrives to include the

reprover in the same indictment as the reproved, as in the case of the

line,

"Tydides, how on earth have we forgot

Our old impetuous courage?"[477]

and,

"Now are we all not worth one single Hector."[478]

In this mild way did Socrates rebuke young men, as not himself without

ignorance, but one that needed in common with them to prosecute virtue,

and seek truth. For they gain goodwill and influence, who seem to have

the same faults as their friends, and desire to correct themselves as

well as them. But he who is high and mighty in setting down another, as

if he were himself perfect and without any imperfections, unless he be

of a very advanced age, or has an acknowledged reputation for virtue and

worth, does no good, but is only regarded as a tiresome bore. And so it

was wisely done of Phoenix to relate his own mishaps, how he had meant

killing his father, but quickly repented at the thought "that he would

be called by the Achaeans parricide,"[479] that he might not seem to be

rebuking Achilles, as one that had himself never suffered from excess of

rage. For kindness of this sort has great influence, and people yield

more to those who seem to be sympathetic and not supercilious. And since

we ought not to expose an inflamed eye to a strong light, and a soul a

prey to the passions cannot bear unmixed reproof and rebuke, one of the

most useful remedies will be found to be a slight mixture of praise, as

in the following lines,

"Ye will not sure give up your valiant courage,

The best men in the host! I should not care

If any coward left the fight, not I;

But you to do so cuts me to the heart."[480]

And,

"Where is thy bow, where thy wing'd arrows, Pandarus,

Where thy great fame, which no one here can match?"[481]

Such language again plainly cheers very much those that are down as,

"Where now is Oedipus, and his famous riddles?"[482]

and,

"Does much-enduring Hercules say this?"[483]

For not only does it soften the harsh imperiousness of censure, but

also, by reminding a man of former noble deeds, implants a desire to

emulate his former self in the person who is ashamed of what is low, and

makes himself his own exemplar for better things. But if we make a

comparison between him and other men, as his contemporaries, his

fellow-citizens, or his relations, then the contentious spirit inherent

in vice is vexed and exasperated, and is often apt to chime in angrily,

"Why don't you go off to my betters then, and leave off bothering me?"

We must therefore be on our guard against praising others, when we are

rebuking a man, unless indeed it be their parents, as Agamemnon says in

Homer,

"Little like Tydeus is his father's son!"[484]

or as Odysseus in the play called "The Scyrians,"[485]

"Dost thou card wool, and thus the lustre smirch

Of thy illustrious sire, thy noble race?"

Sec. XXXIV. But it is by no means fitting when rebuked to rebuke back, and

when spoken to plainly to answer back, for that soon kindles a flame and

causes dissension; and generally speaking such altercation will not look

so much like a retort as an inability to bear freedom of speech. It is

better therefore to listen patiently to a friend's rebuke, for if he

should afterwards do wrong himself and so need rebuke, he has set you

the example of freedom of speech. For being reminded without any malice,

that he himself has not been accustomed to spare his friends when they

have done wrong, but to convince them and show them their fault, he will

be the more inclined to yield and give himself up to correction, as it

will seem a return of goodwill and kindness rather than scolding or

rage.

Sec. XXXV. Moreover, as Thucydides says "he is well advised who [only]

incurs envy in the most important matters,"[486] so the friend ought

only to take upon himself the unpleasant duty of reproof in grave and

momentous cases. For if he is always in a fret and a fume, and rates his

acquaintances more like a tutor than a friend, his rebuke will be blunt

and ineffective in cases of the highest importance, and he will resemble

a doctor who dispenses some sharp and bitter, but important and costly,

drug in trifling cases of common occurrence, where it was not at all

needed, and so will lose all the advantages that might come from a

judicious use of freedom of speech. He will therefore be very much on

his guard against continual fault-finding, and if his friend is always

pettifogging about minute matters, and is needlessly querulous, it will

give him a handle against him in more important shortcomings. Philotimus

the doctor, when a patient who had abscesses on his liver showed him his

sore finger, said to him, "My friend, it is not the whitlow that

matters."[487] So an opportunity sometimes offers itself to a friend to

say to a man, who is always finding fault on small and trivial points,

"Why are we always discussing mere child's play, tippling,[488] and

trifles? Let such a one, my dear sir, send away his mistress, or give up

playing at dice, he will then be in my opinion in all respects an

excellent fellow." For he who receives pardon on small matters is

content that his friend should rebuke him on matters of more moment: but

the man who is ever on the scold, everywhere sour and glum, knowing and

prying into everything, is scarcely tolerable to his children or

brothers, and insufferable to his slaves.

Sec. XXXVI. But since "neither," to use the words of Euripides, "do all

troubles proceed only from old age,"[489] nor from the stupidity of our

friends, we ought to observe not only the shortcomings but also the good

points of our friends, aye, by Zeus, and to be ready to praise them

first, and only censure them afterwards. For as iron receives its

consistency and temper by first being submitted to fire and so made soft

and then dipped into cold water, so when friends have been first warmed

and melted with praises we can afterwards use gentle remonstrance, which

has a similar effect to that of dipping in the case of the metal. For an

opportunity will offer itself to say, "Are those actions worthy to be

compared with these? Do you see what fruits virtue yields? These are the

things we your friends ask of you, these become you, for these you are

designed by nature; but all that other kind of conduct we must reject

with abhorrence, 'cast it away on a mountain, or throw it into the

roaring sea.'"[490] For as a clever doctor would prefer to cure the

illness of his patient by sleep and diet rather than by castor or

scammony, so a kind friend and good father or teacher delight to use

praise rather than blame to correct the character. For nothing makes

rebuke less painful or more beneficial than to refrain from anger, and

to inveigh against wrong-doing mildly and kindly. And so we ought not

sharply to drive home the guilt of those who deny it, or prevent their

making their defence, but even contrive to furnish them with specious

excuses, and if they seem reluctant to give a bad motive for their

action we ought ourselves to find for them a better, as Hector did for

his brother Paris,

"Unhappy man, thy anger was not good,"[491]

suggesting that his absconding from the battle was not running away or

cowardice, but only anger. And Nestor says to Agamemnon,

"You only yielded to your lofty passion."[492]

For it has, I think, a better moral tendency to say "You forgot," or

"You did it inadvertently," than to say "You acted unfairly," or "You

behaved shamefully:" as also "Don't contend with your brother," than

"Don't envy your brother;" and "Avoid the woman who is your ruin," than

"Stop ruining the woman." Such is the language employed in rebuke that

desires to reform and not to wound; that rebuke which looks merely at

the effect to be produced acts on another principle. For when it is

necessary to stop people on the verge of wrong-doing, or to check some

violent and irregular impulse, or if we wish to rouse and infuse vigour

in those who prosecute virtue only feebly and languidly, we may then

assign strange and unbecoming motives for their behaviour. As Odysseus

in Sophocles' play,[493] striving to rouse Achilles, says he is not

angry about his supper,[494] but "that he is afraid now that he looks

upon the walls of Troy," and when Achilles was vexed at this, and talked

of sailing home again, he said,

"I know what 'tis you shun: 'tis not ill fame:

But Hector's near, it is not safe to beard him."

Thus by frightening the high-spirited and courageous man by the

imputation of cowardice, and the sober and orderly man by that of

licentiousness, and the liberal and munificent man by that of meanness

and avarice, people urge them on to what is good, and deter them from

what is bad, showing moderation in cases past remedy, and exhibiting in

their freedom of speech more sorrow and sympathy than fault-finding; but

in the prevention of wrong-doing and in earnest fighting against the

passions they are vehement and inexorable and assiduous: for that is the

time for downright plainness and truth. Besides we see that enemies

censure one another for what they have done amiss, as Diogenes

said,[495] he who wished to lead a good life ought to have good friends

or red-hot enemies, for the former told you what was right, and the

latter blamed you if you did what was wrong. But it is better to be on

our guard against wrong actions, through listening to the persuasion of

those that advise us well, than to repent, after we have done wrong, in

consequence of the reproaches of our enemies. And so we ought to employ

tact in our freedom of speech, as it is the greatest and most powerful

remedy in friendship, and always needs a well-chosen occasion, and

moderation in applying it.

Sec. XXXVII. Since then, as I have said before, freedom of speech is often

painful to the person who is to receive benefit from it, we must imitate

the surgeons, who, when they have performed an operation, do not leave

the suffering part to pain and smart, but bathe and foment it; so those

who do their rebuking daintily run[496] off after paining and smarting,

and by different dealing and kind words soothe and mollify them, as

statuaries smooth and polish images which have been broken or chipped.

But he that is broken and wounded by rebuke, if he is left sullen and

swelling with rage and off his equilibrium, is henceforth hard to win

back or talk over. And so people who reprove ought to be especially

careful on this point, and not to leave them too soon, nor break off

their conversation and intercourse with their acquaintances at the

exasperating and painful stage.

[348] Plato, "Laws," v. p. 731 D, E.

[349] "Laws," v. p. 730 C.

[350] Inscribed in the vestibule of the temple of Apollo

at Delphi. See Pausanias, x. 24.

[351] Used here apparently proverbially for poverty or

low position in life.

[352] Wyttenbach well compares Cicero, "De Amicitia,"

xviii.: "Accedat huc suavitas quaedam oportet sermonum

atque morum, haudquaquam mediocre condimentum amicitiae.

Tristitia autem et in omni re severitas, habet illa

quidem gravitatem: sed amicitia remissior esse debet, et

liberior, et dulcior, et ad omnem comitatem

facilitatemque proclivior."

[353] Hesiod, "Theogony," 64.

[354] Euripides, "Ion," 732.

[355] Our author assigns this saying to Prodicus, "De

Sanitate Praecepta," Sec. viii. But to Evenus, "Quaest.

Conviv." Lib. vii. Prooemium, and "Platonicae

Quaestiones," x. Sec. iii.

[356] As was usual. See Homer, "Odyssey," i. 146. Cf.

Plautus, "Persa," v. iii. 16: "Hoc age, accumbe: hunc

diem suavem meum natalem agitemus amoenum: date aquam

manibus: apponite mensam."

[357] From a play of Eupolis called "The Flatterers."

Cf. Terence, "Eunuchus," 489-491.

[358] See Athenaeus, 256 D. Compare also Valerius Maximus,

ix. 1.

[359] "Videatur Casaubonus ad Athenaeum, vi. p. 243

A."--_Wyttenbach._

[360] "Republic," p. 361 A.

[361] See Herodotus, iii. 78.

[362] See Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 1883.

[363] "Proverbium etiam a Cicerone laudatum 'De

Amicitia,' cap. vi.: Itaque non aqua, non igne, ut

aiunt, pluribus locis utimur, quam amicitia. Notavit

etiam Erasmus 'Adag.' p. 112."--_Wyttenbach._

[364] Compare Sallust, "De Catilinae Conjuratione," cap.

xx.: "Nam idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma

amicitia est."

[365] "Proverbiale, quo utitur Plutarchus in Alcibiade,

p. 203 D. Iambus Tragici esse videtur, ad Neoptolemum

dictus."--_Wyttenbach._

[366] As the polypus, or chameleon.

[367] Plato, "Phaedrus," p. 239 D.

[368] Wyttenbach compares Juvenal, iii. 100-108.

[369] See my note "On Abundance of Friends," Sec. ix.

Wyttenbach well points out the felicity of the

expression here, "siquidem parasitus est [Greek: aoikos

kai anestios]."

[370] Euripides, "Hippolytus," 219, 218. Cf. Ovid,

"Heroides," iv. 41, 42.

[371] Compare "How one may be aware of one's progress in

virtue," Sec. x. Cf. also Horace, "Satires," ii. iii. 35;

Quintilian, xi. 1.

[372] "Odyssey," xxii. 1.

[373] The demagogue is a kind of flatterer. See

Aristotle, "Pol." iv. 4.

[374] Cf. Aristophanes, "Acharnians," 153, [Greek: hoper

machimotaton thrakon ethnos].

[375] Plato was somewhat of a traveller, he three times

visited Syracuse, and also travelled in Egypt.

[376] As to the polypus, see "On Abundance of Friends,"

Sec. ix.

[377] As "Fumum et opes _strepitumque_ Romae."--Horace,

"Odes," iii. 29. 12.

[378] Homer, "Odyssey," xvi. 181.

[379] Sophocles, "Antigone," 523.

[380] As to these traits in Plato and Aristotle, compare

"De Audiendis Poetis," Sec. viii. And as to Alexander,

Plutarch tells us in his Life that he used to hold his

head a little to the left, "Life," p. 666 B. See also

"De Alexandri Fortuna aut Virtute," Sec. ii.

[381] "De Chamaeleonte Aristoteles 'Hist. Animal.' i. 11;

'Part. Animal.' iv. 11; Theophrastus Eclog. ap. Photium

edit. Aristot. Sylburg. T. viii. p. 329: [Greek:

metaballei de ho chamaileon eis panta ta chromata; plen

ten eis to leukon kai to eruthron ou dechetai metabolen.]

Similiter Plinius 'Hist. Nat.' viii. 51."--_Wyttenbach._

[382] See Athenaeus, 249 F; 435 E.

[383] Cf. Juv. iii. 113; "Scire volunt secreta domus,

atque inde timeri."

[384] Cf. Menander apud Stob. p. 437: [Greek: Ta deuter

aiei ten gynaika dei legein, Ten d' egemonian ton olon

ton andr' echein].

[385] As Lord Stowell used to say that "dinners

lubricated business."

[386] Homer, "Iliad," xi. 643.

[387] Homer, "Odyssey," iv. 178, 179.

[388] Perhaps the poley-germander. See Pliny, "Nat.

Hist," xxi. 84. The line is from Nicander Theriac. 64.

[389] "Iliad," viii. 281, 282.

[390] "Iliad," x. 243.

[391] "Iliad," vii. 109, 110.

[392] Xenophon, "Agesilaus," xi. 5. p. 673 C.

[393] To filch the grain from the bin or granary would

not of course be so important a theft as to steal the

seed-stock preserved for sowing. So probably Cato, "De

Re Rustica," v. Sec. iv.: "Segetem ne defrudet," sc.

villicus.

[394] Thucydides, iii. 82.

[395] Plato, "Republic," v. p. 474 E. Compare also

Lucretius, iv. 1160-1170; Horace, "Satires," i. 3. 38

sq.

[396] This Ptolemy was a votary of Cybele, and a

spiritual ancestor of General Booth. The worship of

Cybele is well described by Lucretius, ii. 598-643.

[397] This was Ptolemy Auletes, as the former was

Ptolemy Philopator.

[398] See Suetonius, "Nero," ch. 21.

[399] "Plerumque _minuta voce

cantillare_."--_Wyttenbach._ What Milton would have

called "a lean and flashy song."

[400] Naso suspendit adunco, as Horace, "Sat." i. 6. 5.

[401] See Athenaeus, p. 434 C.

[402] As Gnatho in Terence, "Eunuch." 496-498.

[403] Reading [Greek: Helon], as Courier, Hercher.

[404] "Iliad," x. 249. They are words of Odysseus.

[405] This was carrying flattery rather far.

"Mithridatis medicinae scientia multis memorata

veterum."--_Wyttenbach._

[406] Euripides, "Alcestis," 1159.

[407] Our author gives this definition to Simonides, "De

Gloria Atheniensium," Sec. iii.

[408] So our author again, "On Contentedness of Mind," Sec.

xii.

[409] See Herodotus, i. 30, 33; Juvenal, x. 274, 275;

and Pausanias, ii. 20.

[410] "Nobile Stoae Paradoxum. Cicero Fin. iii. 22, ex

persona Catonis. Horatius ridet Epistol. i. 1. 106-108.

Ad summam sapiens uno minor est Jove: dives, Liber,

honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum; Praecipue sanus,

nisi quum pituita molesta est."--_Wyttenbach._

[411] See also "On Contentedness of Mind," Sec. xii.

[412] Homer, "Iliad," xvi. 141. See the context also

from 130 sq.

[413] Our author has used this illustration again in

"Phocion," p. 742 B.

[414] Namely in Sec. xxvii. where [Greek: parrhesia] is

discussed.

[415] Contrary to the severe training he ought to

undergo, well expressed by Horace, "De Arte Poetica,"

412-414.

[416] Reading with Hercher [Greek: apotympanizontos kai

streblountos]. This was Ptolemy Physcon.

[417] "Unus ex Alexandri adulatoribus: memoratus Curtio

viii. 5, 6."--_Wyttenbach._

[418] A common proverb among the ancients. See "Conjugal

Precepts," Sec. xl.; Erasmus, "Adagia," pp. 1222, 1838.

[419] A line out of AEschylus' "Myrmidons." Quoted again

by our author, "Of Love," Sec. V.

[420] Cleopatra.

[421] Homer, "Odyssey," x. 329. They are the words of

Circe to Odysseus. But the line was suspected even by

old grammarians, and is put in brackets in modern

editions of the "Odyssey."

[422] See Lucretius, iv. 1079-1085.

[423] So Pliny, "Hist. Nat." xxv. 95: "Remedio est

(cicutae), priusquam perveniat ad vitalia, vini natura

excalfactoria: sed in vino pota irremediabilis

existimatur."

[424] Assigned to Pittacus by our author, "Septem

Sapientum Convivium," Sec. ii.

[425] So Wyttenbach, who reads [Greek: enstaseis], and

translates, "et libertate loquendi in nobis

reprehendendis utitur, quando nos cupiditatibus

morbisque animi nostri non indulgere, sed resistere,

volumus."

[426] "Phoenissae," 469-472.

[427] Like Juvenal's "Graeculus esuriens in caelum,

jusseris, ibit."--Juvenal, iii, 78.

[428] These are two successive lines found three times

in Homer, "Iliad," xiv. 195, 196; xviii. 426, 427;

"Odyssey," v. 89, 90. The two lines are in each case

spoken by one person.

[429] Probably lines from "The Flatterer" of Menander.

[430] From the "Ino" of Euripides.

[431] From the "Erechtheus" of Euripides.

[432] We know from Athenaeus, p. 420 D, that Apelles and

Arcesilaus were friends.

[433] An allusion to Hesiod, "Works and Days," 235. Cf.

Horace, "Odes," iv. 5. 23.

[434] See the beautiful story of Baucis and Philemon,

Ovid, "Metamorphoses," viii. 626-724: "Cura pii dis

sunt, et qui coluere coluntur."

[435] Compare Terence, "Andria," 43, 44. So too Seneca,

"De Beneficiis," ii. 10: "Haec enim beneficii inter duos

lex est: alter statim oblivisci debet dati, alter

accepti nunquam. Lacerat animum et premit frequens

meritorum commemoratio."

[436] A similar story about the Samians and

Lacedaemonians is told by Aristotle, "Oeconom." ii. 9.

[437] A line from Euripides, "Iphigenia in Aulis," 407.

[438] Also in "Conjugal Precepts," Sec. xxix.

[439] See Persius, iii. 21, 22, with Jahn's Note.

[440] See "On Love," Sec. xxi.

[441] "Auri plumbique oppositio fere proverbialis est.

Petronius, 'Satyricon,' 43. Plane fortunae filius: in

manu illius plumbum aureum fiebat."--_Wyttenbach._ The

passage about the Lydian chariot is said to be by Pindar

in our author, "Nicias," p. 523 D.

[442] Wyttenbach compares Seneca, "Epist." cxxiii. p.

495: "Horum sermo multum nocet: nam etiamsi non statim

officit, semina in animo relinquit, sequiturque nos

etiam cum ab illis discesserimus, resurrecturum postea

malum."

[443] Compare Cicero, "De Amicitia," xxvi.: "Assentatio,

quamvis perniciosa sit, nocere tamen nemini potest, nisi

ei, qui eam recipit atque ea delectatur. Ita fit, ut is

assentatoribus patefaciat aures suas maxime, qui ipse

sibi assentetur et se maxime ipse delectet."

[444] Compare Sec. i.

[445] Compare our Author, "Quaestiones Convivalium,"

viii. p. 717 F.

[446] So Horace, "Satires," i. 2, 24: "Dum vitant stulti

vitia in contraria currunt."

[447] Homer, "Iliad," xiv. 84, 85.

[448] Compare Cicero, "De Officiis," i. 25: "Omnis autem

animadversio et castigatio contumelia vacare debet:

neque ad ejus, qui punitur aliquem aut verbis fatigat,

sed ad reipublicae utilitatem referri."

[449] "Iliad," xi. 654.

[450] "Iliad," xvi. 33-35.

[451] Cf. Plutarch, "Phocion," p. 746 D.

[452] A proverb of persons on the brink of destruction.

Wells among the ancients were uncovered.

[453] "Iliad," ii. 215, of Thersites. As to Theagenes,

see Seneca, "De Ira," ii. 23.

[454] Literally, "brings a cloud over fair weather."

[455] The MSS. have Lydian. Lysian Dionysus is also

found in Pausanias, ix. 16. Lyaeus is suggested by

Wyttenbach, and read by Hercher. Lysius or Lyaeus will

both be connected with [Greek: luo], and so refer to

Dionysus as the god that looses or frees us from care.

See Horace, "Epodes," ix. 37, 38.

[456] Compare Juvenal, iii. 73, 74: "Sermo Promptus et

Isaeo torrentior."

[457] "Orestes," 667.

[458] Euripides, "Ion," 732.

[459] "Anabasis," ii. 6, 11.

[460] Perhaps by Euripides.

[461] "Olynth." ii. p. 8 C; "Pro Corona," 341 C.

[462] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 108, 109. They are the words

of Nestor to Agamemnon.

[463] See Herodotus, i. 30-32.

[464] See Plato's "Symposium," p. 215 E.

[465] See Plato, "Epist." iv. p. 321 B.

[466] See our author, "Apophthegmata," p. 179 C.

[467] Compare Horace, "Satires," i. 1. 7, 8: "Quid enim,

concurritur: horae Momento cita mors venit aut victoria

laeta."

[468] And so being dainty. See Athenaeus, ii. ch. 76.

[469] We see from this and other places that the

mountebanks and quacks of the Middle Ages and later

times existed also among the ancients. Human nature in

its great leading features is ever the same. "Omne

ignotum pro magnifico est."

[470] "Laws," p. 729 C.

[471] Homer, "Odyssey," i. 157; iv. 70; xvii. 592.

[472] Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. The circumstances are

related by Polybius, xv. 29; xvii. 35.

[473] See "Acharnians," 501, 502.

[474] Thucydides, i. 70: [Greek: kai hama, eiper tines

kai alloi, nomizomen axioi einai tois pelas psogon

epenenkein].

[475] See our Author, "Apophthegmata," p. 190 E.

[476] A line of Euripides, quoted again in "How a Man

may be benefited by his Enemies," Sec. iv.

[477] Homer, "Iliad," xi. 313.

[478] Do. viii. 234, 235.

[479] Do. ix. 461.

[480] "Iliad," xiii. 116-119.

[481] Do. v. 171, 172.

[482] Euripides, "Phoenissae," 1688.

[483] Euripides, "Hercules Furens," 1250.

[484] "Iliad," v. 800. Athene is the speaker.

[485] A play by Sophocles, now only in fragments,

relating the life of Achilles in the island of Scyros,

the scene of his amour with Deidamia, the daughter of

Lycomedes, by whom he became the father of Pyrrhus.

[486] Thucydides, ii. 64. Quoted again in "On Shyness,"

Sec. xviii.

[487] See also "De Audiendo," Sec. x.

[488] [Greek: potous] comes in rather curiously here.

Can any other word lurk under it?

[489] "Phoenissae," 528, 529.

[490] Homer, "Iliad," vi. 347.

[491] Do. vi. 326.

[492] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 109, 110.

[493] In Dindorf's "Poetae Scenici Graeci," Fragment 152.

[494] As it is not quite clear why Achilles should have

been angry about his supper, [Greek: dia to deipnon],

apropos of the context, Wyttenbach ingeniously suggests,

as this lost play of Sophocles was called [Greek: Syn

deipnon], that Plutarch may have written [Greek: en to

Deipno].

[495] Compare "How One may be aware of one's Progress in

Virtue," Sec. xi.

[496] "Ductum e proverbiali dictione [Greek: balonta

ekpheugein], emisso telo aufugere."--_Wyttenbach._

HOW A MAN MAY BE BENEFITED BY

HIS ENEMIES.

Sec. I. I am well aware, Cornelius Pulcher, that you prefer the mildest

manners in public life, by which you can be at once most useful to the

community, and most agreeable in private life to those who have any

dealings with you. But since it is difficult to find any region without

wild beasts, though it is related of Crete;[497] and hitherto there has

been no state that has not suffered from envy, rivalry, and strife, the

most fruitful seeds of hostility; (for, even if nothing else does, our

friendships involve us in enmities, as Chilo[498] the wise man

perceived, who asked the man who told him he had no enemy, whether he

had a friend either), it seems to me that a public man ought not only to

examine the whole question of enemies in its various ramifications, but

also to listen to the serious remark of Xenophon,[499] that a sensible

man will receive profit even from his enemies. The ideas therefore that

lately occurred to me to deliver, I have now put together nearly in the

identical words and send them to you, with the exception of some matter

also in "Political Precepts,"[500] a treatise which I have often noticed

in your hands.

Sec. II. People in old times were well satisfied if they were not injured

by strange and wild beasts, and that was the only motive of their fights

with them, but those of later days have by now learnt to make use of

them, for they feed on their flesh, and clothe themselves with their

wool, and make medical use of their gall and beestings, and turn their

hides into shields, so that we might reasonably fear, if beasts failed

man, that his life would become brutish, and wild, and void of

resources. Similarly since all others are satisfied with not being

injured by their enemies, but the sensible will also (as Xenophon says)

get profit out of them, we must not be incredulous, but seek a method

and plan how to obtain this advantage, seeing that life without an enemy

is impossible. The husbandman cannot cultivate every tree, nor can the

hunter tame every kind of animal, so both seek means to derive profit

according to their several necessities, the one from his barren trees,

the other from his wild animals. Sea-water also is undrinkable and

brackish, but it feeds fish, and is a sort of vehicle to convey and

transport travellers anywhere. The Satyr, when he saw fire for the first

time, wished to kiss it and embrace it, but Prometheus warned him,

"Goat, thou wilt surely mourn thy loss of beard."[501]

For fire burns whoever touches it, but it also gives light and warmth,

and is an instrument of art to all those who know how to use it.[502]

Consider also in the case of the enemy, if he is in other respects

injurious and intractable, he somehow or other gives us a handle to make

use of him by, and so is serviceable. And many things are unpleasant and

detestable and antagonistic to those to whom they happen, but you must

have noticed that some use even illnesses as a period of rest for the

body, and others by excessive toil have strengthened and trained their

bodily vigour, and some have made exile and the loss of money a passage

to leisure and philosophy, as did Diogenes and Crates. And Zeno, when he

heard of the wreck of the ship which contained all his property, said,

"Thou hast done well, Fortune, to confine me to my threadbare

cloak."[503]

For as those animals that have the strongest and healthiest stomachs eat

and digest serpents and scorpions, and some even feed on stones and

shells, which they convert into nourishment by the strength and heat of

their stomachs, while fastidious people out of health almost vomit if

offered bread and wine, so foolish people spoil even their friendships,

while the wise know how to turn to account even their enmities.

Sec. III. In the first place then it seems to me that what is most

injurious in enmity may become most useful to those that pay attention

to it? To what do I refer? Why, to the way in which your enemy ever wide

awake pries into all your affairs, and analyzes your whole life, trying

to get a handle against you somewhere, able not only to look through a

tree, like Lynceus,[504] or through stones and shells, but through your

friend and domestic and every intimate acquaintance, as far as possible

detecting your doings, and digging and ferreting into your designs. For

our friends are ill and often die without our knowing anything about it

through our delay and carelessness, but we almost pry into even the

dreams of our enemies; and our enemy knows even more than we do

ourselves of our diseases and debts and differences with our wives.[505]

But they pay most attention to our faults and hunt them out: and as

vultures follow the scent of putrid carcases, and cannot perceive sound

and wholesome ones, so the diseases and vices and crimes of life attract

the enemy, and on these those that hate us pounce, these they attack and

tear to pieces. Is not this an advantage to us? Certainly it is. For it

teaches us to live warily and be on our guard, and neither to do or say

anything carelessly or without circumspection, but ever to be vigilant

by careful mode of living that we give no handle to an enemy. For the

cautiousness that thus represses the passions and follows reason

implants a care and determination to live well and without reproach. For

as those states that have been sobered by wars with their neighbours and

continual campaigns love the blessings of order and peace, so those

people who are compelled to lead a sober life owing to their enemies,

and to be on their guard against carelessness and negligence, and to do

everything with an eye to utility, imperceptibly glide into a faultless

mode of life, and tone down their character, even without requiring much

assistance from precepts. For those who always remember the line,

"Ah! how would Priam and his sons rejoice,"[506]

are by it diverted from and learn to shun all such things as their

enemies would rejoice and laugh at. Again we see actors[507] and singers

on the stage oftentimes slack and remiss, and not taking sufficient

pains about their performances in the theatres when they have it all to

themselves; but when there is a competition and contest with others,

they not only wake up but tune their instruments, and adjust their

chords, and play on the flute with more care. Similarly whoever knows

that his enemy is antagonistic to his life and character, pays more

attention to himself, and watches his behaviour more carefully, and

regulates his life. For it is peculiar to vice to be more afraid of

enemies than friends in regard to our faults. And so Nasica, when some

expressed their opinion that the Roman Republic was now secure, since

Carthage was rased to the ground and Achaia reduced to slavery, said,

"Nay rather we are now in a critical position, since we have none left

to fear or respect."

Sec. IV. Consider also that very philosophical and witty answer of Diogenes

to the man who asked, "How shall I avenge myself on my enemy?" "By

becoming a good and honest man."[508] Some people are terribly put about

if they see their enemies' horses in a good condition, or hear their

dogs praised; if they see their farm well-tilled, their garden

well-kept, they groan aloud. What a state think you then they would be

in, if you were to exhibit yourself as a just man, sensible and good, in

words excellent, in deeds pure, in manner of life decorous, "reaping

fruit from the deep soil of the soul, where good counsels grow."[509]

Pindar says[510] "those that are conquered are reduced to complete

silence:" but not absolutely, not all men, only those that see they are

outdone by their enemies in industry, in goodness, in magnanimity, in

humanity, in kindnesses; these, as Demosthenes says, "stop the tongue,

block up the mouth, choke people, and make them silent."[511]

"Be better than the bad: 'tis in your power."[512]

If you wish to vex the man who hates you, do not abuse him by calling

him a pathick, or effeminate, or intemperate, or a low fellow, or

illiberal; but be yourself a man, and temperate, and truthful, and kind

and just in all your dealings with those you come across. But if you are

tempted to use abuse, mind that you yourself are very far from what you

abuse him for, dive down into your own soul, look for any rottenness in

yourself, lest someone suggest to you the line of the tragedian,

"You doctor others, all diseased yourself."[513]

If you say your enemy is uneducated, increase your own love of learning

and industry; if you call him coward, stir up the more your own spirit

and manliness; and if you say he is wanton and licentious, erase from

your own soul any secret trace of the love of pleasure. For nothing is

more disgraceful or more unpleasant than slander that recoils on the

person who sets it in motion; for as the reflection of light seems most

to injure weak eyes, so does censure when it recoils on the censurer,

and is borne out by the facts. For as the north-east wind attracts

clouds, so does a bad life draw upon itself rebukes.

Sec. V. Whenever Plato was in company with people who behaved in an

unseemly manner, he used to say to himself, "Am I such a person as

this?"[514] So he that censures another man's life, if he straightway

examines and mends his own, directing and turning it into the contrary

direction, will get some advantage from his censure, which will be

otherwise idle and unprofitable. Most people laugh if a bald-pate or

hump-back jeer and mock at others who are so too: it is quite as

ridiculous to jeer and mock if one lies open to retort oneself, as Leo

of Byzantium showed in his answer to the hump-back who jeered at him for

weakness of eyes, "You twit me with an infirmity natural to man, while

you yourself carry your Nemesis on your back."[515] And so do not abuse

another as an adulterer, if you yourself are mad after boys: nor as a

spendthrift, if you yourself are niggardly. Alcmaeon said to Adrastus,

"You are near kinsman to a woman that slew her husband." What was his

reply? He retaliated on him with the appropriate retort, "But you killed

with your own hand the mother that bore you."[516] And Domitius said to

Crassus, "Did you not weep for the lamprey that was bred in your

fishpond, and died?" To which Crassus replied, "Did you weep, when you

buried your three wives?" He therefore that intends to abuse others must

not be witty and noisy and impudent, but a man that does not lie open to

counter-abuse and retort, for the god seems to have enjoined upon no one

the precept "Know thyself" so much as on the person who is censorious,

to prevent people saying just what they please, and hearing what don't

please them. For such a one is wont, as Sophocles[517] says, "idly

letting his tongue flow, to hear against his will, what he willingly

says ill of others."

Sec. VI. This use and advantage then there is in abusing one's enemy, and

no less arises from being abused and ill-spoken of oneself by one's

enemies. And so Antisthenes[518] said well that those who wish to lead a

good life ought to have genuine friends or red-hot enemies; for the

former deterred you from what was wrong by reproof, the latter by abuse.

But since friendship has nowadays become very mealy-mouthed in freedom

of speech, voluble in flattery and silent in rebuke, we can only hear

the truth from our enemies. For as Telephus[519] having no surgeon of

his own, submitted his wound to be cured by his enemy's spear, so those

who cannot procure friendly rebuke must content themselves with the

censure of an enemy that hates them, reprehending and castigating their

vices, and regard not the animus of the person, but only his matter. For

as he who intended to kill the Thessalian Prometheus[520] only stabbed a

tumour, and so lanced it that the man's life was saved, and he was rid

of the tumour by its bursting, so oftentimes abuse, suddenly thrust on a

man in anger or hatred, has cured some disease in his soul which he was

ignorant of or neglected. But most people when they are abused do not

consider whether the abuse really belongs to them properly, but look

round to see what abuse they can heap on the abuser, and, as wrestlers

get smothered with the dust of the arena, do not wipe off the abuse

hurled at themselves, but bespatter others, and at last get on both

sides grimy and discoloured. But if anyone gets a bad name from an

enemy, he ought to clear himself of the imputation even more than he

would remove any stain on his clothes that was pointed out to him; and

if it be wholly untrue, yet he ought to investigate what originated the

charge, and to be on his guard and be afraid lest he had unawares done

something very near akin to what was imputed to him. As Lacydes, the

king of the Argives, by the way he wore his hair and by his mincing walk

got charged with effeminacy: and Pompey's scratching his head with one

finger was construed in the same way, though both these men were very

far from effeminacy or wantonness. And Crassus was accused of an

intrigue with one of the Vestal Virgins, because he wished to purchase

from her a pleasant estate, and therefore frequently visited her and

waited upon her. And Postumia, from her readiness to laugh and talk

somewhat freely with men, got accused and even had to stand her trial

for incest,[521] but was, however, acquitted of that charge: but Spurius

Minucius the Pontif ex Maximus, when he pronounced her innocent, urged

her not to be freer in her words than she was in her life. And though

Themistocles[522] was guiltless of treason, his intimacy with Pausanias,

and the letters and messages that frequently passed between them, laid

him under suspicion.

Sec. VII. Whenever therefore any false charge is made against us, we ought

not merely to despise and neglect it as false, but to see what word or

action, either in jest or earnest, has made the charge seem probable,

and this we must for the future be earnestly on our guard against and

shun. For if others falling into unforeseen trouble and difficulties

teach us what is expedient, as Merope says,

"Fortune has made me wise, though she has ta'en

My dearest ones as wages,"[523]

why should we not take an enemy, and pay him no wages, to teach us, and

give us profit and instruction, in matters which had escaped our notice?

For an enemy has keener perception than a friend, for, as Plato[524]

says, "the lover is blind as respects the loved one," and hatred is both

curious and talkative. Hiero was twitted by one of his enemies for his

foul breath, so he went home and said to his wife, "How is this? You

never told me of it." But she being chaste and innocent replied, "I

thought all men's breath was like that."[525] Thus perceptible and

material things, and things that are plain to everybody, are sooner

learnt from enemies than from friends and intimates.

Sec. VIII. Moreover to keep the tongue well under control, no small factor

in moral excellence, and to make it always obedient and submissive to

reason, is not possible, unless by practice and attention and

painstaking a man has subdued his worst passions, as for example anger.

For such expressions as "a word uttered involuntarily," and "escaping

the barrier of the teeth,"[526] and "words darting forth spontaneously,"

well illustrate what happens in the case of ill-disciplined souls, ever

wavering and in an unsettled condition through infirmity of temper,

through unbridled fancy, or through faulty education. But, according to

divine Plato,[527] though a word seems a very trivial matter, the

heaviest penalty follows upon it both from gods and men. But silence can

never be called to account, is not only not thirsty, to borrow the

language of Hippocrates, but when abused is dignified and Socratic, or

rather Herculean, if indeed it was Hercules who said,

"Sharp words he heeded not so much as flies."[528]

Not more dignified and noble than this is it to keep silent when an

enemy reviles you, "as one swims by a smooth and mocking cliff," but in

practice it is better. If you accustom yourself to bear silently the

abuse of an enemy, you will very easily bear the attack of a scolding

wife, and will remain undisturbed when you hear the sharp language of a

friend or brother, and will be calm and placid when you are beaten or

have something thrown at your head by your father or mother. For

Socrates put up with Xanthippe, a passionate and forward woman, which

made him a more easy companion with others, as being accustomed to

submit to her caprices; and it is far better to train and accustom the

temper to bear quietly the insults and rages and jeers and taunts of

enemies and estranged persons, and not to be distressed at it.

Sec. IX. Thus then must we exhibit in our enmities meekness and

forbearance, and in our friendships still more simplicity and

magnanimity and kindness. For it is not so graceful to do a friend a

service, as disgraceful to refuse to do so at his request; and not to

revenge oneself on an enemy when opportunity offers is generous. But the

man who sympathizes with his enemy in affliction, and assists him in

distress, and readily holds out a helping hand to his children and

family and their fortunes when in a low condition, whoever does not

admire such a man for his humanity, and praise his benevolence,

"He has a black heart made of adamant

Or iron or bronze."[529]

When Caesar ordered the statues of Pompey that had been thrown down to be

put up again,[530] Cicero said, "You have set up again Pompey's statues,

and in so doing have erected statues to yourself." We ought not

therefore to be niggardly in our praise and honour of an enemy that

deserves a good name. For he who praises another receives on that

account greater praise himself, and is the more credited on another

occasion when he finds fault, as not having any personal ill-feeling

against the man, but only disapproving of his act; and what is most

noble and advantageous, the man who is accustomed to praise his enemies,

and not to be vexed or malignant at their prosperity, is as far as

possible from envying the good fortune of his friends, and the success

of his intimates. And yet what practice will be more beneficial to our

minds, or bring about a happier disposition, than that which banishes

from us all jealousy and envy? For as in war many necessary things,

otherwise bad, are customary and have as it were the sanction of law, so

that they cannot be abolished in spite of the injury they do, so enmity

drags along in its train hatred, and envy, and jealousy, and malignity,

and revenge, and stamps them on the character. Moreover knavery, and

deceit, and villainy, that seem neither bad nor unfair if employed

against an enemy, if they once get planted in the mind are difficult to

dislodge; and eventually from force of habit get used also against

friends, unless they are forewarned and forearmed through their previous

acquaintance with the tricks of enemies. If then Pythagoras,[531]

accustoming his disciples to abstain from all cruelty and inhumanity to

the brute creation, did right to discountenance bird-fowling, and to buy

up draughts of fishes and bid them be thrown into the water again, and

to forbid killing any but wild animals, much more noble is it, in

dissensions and differences with human beings, to be a generous, just

and true enemy, and to check and tame all bad and low and knavish

propensities, that in all intercourse with friends a man may keep the

peace and abstain from doing an injury. Scaurus was an enemy and accuser

of Domitius, but when one of Domitius' slaves came to him to reveal some

important matters which were unknown to Scaurus, he would not hear him,

but seized him and sent him back to his master. And when Cato was

prosecuting Murena for canvassing, and was getting together his

evidence, he was accompanied as was usual by people who watched what he

was doing,[532] and would often ask him if he intended that day to get

together his witnesses and open the case, and if he said "No," they

believed him and went their way. All this is the greatest proof of the

credit which was reposed in Cato, but it is better and more important,

that we should accustom ourselves to deal justly even with our enemies,

and then there will be no fear that we should ever act unjustly and

treacherously to our friends and intimates.

Sec. X. But since, as Simonides says, "all larks must have their

crests,"[533] and every man's nature contains in it pugnacity and

jealousy and envy, which last is, as Pindar says, "the companion of

empty-headed men," one might get considerable advantage by purging

oneself of those passions against enemies, and by diverting them, like

sewers, as far as possible from companions and friends.[534] And this it

seems the statesmanlike Onomademus had remarked, for being on the

victorious side in a disturbance at Chios, he urged his party not to

expel all of the different faction, but to leave some, "in order," he

said, "that we may not begin to quarrel with our friends, when we have

got entirely rid of our enemies." So too our expending these passions

entirely on our enemies will give less trouble to our friends. For it

ought not to be, as Hesiod[535] says, that "potter envies potter, and

singer envies singer, and neighbour neighbour," and cousin cousin, and

brother brother, "if hastening to get rich" and enjoying prosperity. But

if there is no other way to get rid of strife and envy and quarrels,

accustom yourself to be vexed at your enemies' good fortune, and sharpen

and accentuate on them your acerbity. For as judicious gardeners think

they produce finer roses and violets by planting alongside of them

garlic and onions, that any bitter or strong elements may be transferred

to them, so your enemy's getting and attracting your envy and malignity

will render you kinder and more agreeable to your prosperous friends.

And so let us be rivals of our enemies for glory or office or righteous

gain, not only being vexed if they get ahead of us, but also carefully

observing all the steps by which they get ahead, and trying to outdo

them in industry, and hard work, and soberness, and prudence; as

Themistocles said Miltiades' victory at Marathon would not let him

sleep.[536] For he who thinks his enemy gets before him in offices, or

advocacies, or state affairs, or in favour with his friends or great

men, if from action and emulation he sinks into envy and despondency,

makes his life become idle and inoperative. But he who is not blinded by

hate,[537] but a discerning spectator of life and character and words

and deeds, will perceive that most of what he envies comes to those who

have them from diligence and prudence and good actions, and exerting

himself in the same direction he will increase his love of what is

honourable and noble, and will eradicate his vanity and sloth.

Sec. XI. But if our enemies seem to us to have got either by flattery, or

fraud, or bribery, or venal services, ill-got and discreditable power at

court or in state, it ought not to trouble us but rather inspire

pleasure in us, when we compare our own liberty and purity and

independence of life. For, as Plato[538] says, "all the gold above or

below the earth is not of equal value with virtue." And we ought ever to

remember the precept of Solon, "We will not exchange our virtue for

others' wealth."[539] Nor will we give up our virtue for the applause of

banqueting theatres, nor for honours and chief seats among eunuchs and

harlots, nor to be monarchs' satraps; for nothing is to be desired or

noble that comes from what is bad. But since, as Plato[540] says, "the

lover is blind as respects the loved one," and we notice more what our

enemies do amiss, we ought not to let either our joy at their faults or

our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to

reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors,

and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.

[497] So Pliny, viii. 83: "In Creta Insula non vulpes

ursive, atque omnino millum maleficum animal praeter

phalangium."

[498] See the same remark of Chilo, "On Abundance of

Friends," Sec. vi.

[499] "Oeconom." i. 15.

[500] A treatise of Plutarch still extant.

[501] A line from a lost Satyric Play of AEschylus,

called "Prometheus Purphoros."

[502] So fire is called [Greek: pantechnon] in AEschylus,

"Prometheus Desmotes," 7.

[503] Compare Seneca, "De Animi Tranquillitate," cap.

xiii.: "Zeno noster cum omnia sua audiret submersa,

Jubet, inquit, me fortuna expeditius philosophari."

[504] See Horace, "Epistles," i. I. 28; Pausanias, iv.

2.

[505] See Plautus, "Trinummus," 205-211.

[506] Homer, "Iliad," i. 255.

[507] Literally "the artists of Dionysus." We know what

they were from our author's "Quaestiones Romanae," Sec. 107:

[Greek: dia ti tous peri ton Dionuson technitas

histrionas Rhomaioi kalousin];

[508] Compare "De Audiendis Poetis," Sec. iv.

[509] AEschylus, "Septem contra Thebas," 593, 594.

[510] Pindar, "Fragm." 253.

[511] Demosthenes, "De Falsa Legatione," p. 406.

[512] Euripides, "Orestes," 251.

[513] A line from Euripides. Quoted also "De Adulatore

et Amico," Sec. xxxii.

[514] Compare "De Audiendo," Sec.vi. See also Horace,

"Satires," i, 4. 136, 137.

[515] The story is somewhat differently told, "Quaest.

Conviv.," Lib. ii. Sec. ix.

[516] From a lost play of Euripides.

[517] In some lost play. Compare Hesiod, "Works and

Days," 719-721; Terence, "Andria," 920.

[518] The sentiment is assigned to Diogenes twice

elsewhere by our author, namely, "How One may be aware

of one's Progress in Virtue," Sec. xi., and "How One may

discern a Flatterer from a Friend," Sec. xxxvi.

[519] See Propertius, ii. 1. 63, 64; Ovid,

"Metamorphoses," xii. 112; xiii. 171; "Tristia," v. 2.

15, 16; "Remedia Amoris," 47, 48; Erasmus, "Adagia," p.

221.

[520] "Jason Pheraeus cognomine Prometheus dictus est.

Vide Ciceronem, 'Nat. Deor.' iii. 29; Plinium, vii. 51;

Valerium Maximum, i. 8, Extem. 6."--_Wytttenbach._

[521] She was a Vestal Virgin. See Livy, iv. 44.

[522] See Thucydides, i. 135, 136.

[523] From a lost play of Euripides. Compare the

proverb, [Greek: pathemata mathemata].

[524] "Laws," v. p. 731 E.

[525] Told again "Reg. et Imperator. Apophthegm.," p.

175 B.

[526] A favourite image of Homer, employed "Iliad," iv.

350; xiv. 83; "Odyssey," i. 64; xxiii. 70.

[527] "Laws," xi. p. 935 A. Quoted again "On

Talkativeness," Sec. vii.

[528] See Pausanias, v. 14.

[529] From a Fragment of Pindar.

[530] See Suetonius, "Divus Julius," 75: "Sed et statuas

L. Sullae atque Pompeii a plebe disjectas reposuit."

[531] Compare our author, "Quaestiones Convivalium,"

viii. p. 729 E.

[532] No doubt in the interest of the defendant. See our

author, "Cato Minor," p. 769 B.

[533] A Greek proverb, see Erasmus, "Adagia," p. 921.

[534] So Cicero, "Nat. Deor." ii. 56: "In aedibus

architecti avertunt ab oculis naribusque dominorum ea

quae profluentia necessario taetri essent aliquid

habitura."

[535] "Works and Days," 23-26. Our "Two of a trade

seldom agree."

[536] Compare "How One may be aware of one's Progress in

Virtue," Sec. xiv.

[537] For as the English proverb says, "Hatred is blind

as well as love."

[538] "Laws," v. p. 728 A.

[539] Quoted more fully "How One may be aware of one's

Progress in Virtue," Sec. vi.

[540] "Laws," v. p. 731 E. See also above, Sec. vii.

ON TALKATIVENESS.[541]

Sec. I. Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to

cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative

people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this

inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen. It is a

self-chosen deafness of people who, I take it, blame nature for giving

us one tongue and two ears. If then the following advice of Euripides to

a foolish hearer was good,

"I cannot fill one that can nought retain,

Pumping up wise words for an unwise man;"

one might more justly say to a talkative man, or rather about a

talkative man,

"I cannot fill one that will nothing take,

Pumping up wise words for an unwise man;"

or rather deluging with words one that talks to those who don't listen,

and listens not to those who talk. Even if he does listen for a short

time, talkativeness hurries off what is said like the retiring sea, and

anon brings it up again multiplied with the approaching tide. The

portico at Olympia that returns many echoes to one utterance is called

seven-voiced,[542] and if the slightest utterance catches the ear of

talkativeness, it at once echoes it all round,

"Moving the mind's chords all unmoved before."[543]

For their ears can certainly have no passages leading to the brain but

only to the tongue. And so while other people retain what they hear,

talkative people lose it altogether, and, being empty-headed, they

resemble empty vessels, and go about making much noise.[544]

Sec. II. If however it seems that no attempt at cure has been left untried,

let us say to the talkative person,

"Be silent, boy; silence has great advantages;"

two of the first and foremost of which are hearing and being heard,

neither of which can happen to talkative people, for however they desire

either so unhappy are they that they must desist from it. For in all

other diseases of the soul, as love of money, love of glory, or love of

pleasure, people at any rate attain the desired object: but it is the

cruel fate of talkative people to desire hearers but not to get them,

for everyone flees from them with headlong speed; and if people are

sitting or walking about in any public place,[545] and see one coming

they quickly pass the word to one another to shift quarters. And as when

there is dead silence in any assembly they say Hermes has joined the

company, so when any prater joins some drinking party or social

gathering of friends, all are silent, not wishing to give him a chance

to break in, and if he uninvited begin to open his mouth, they all,

"like before a storm at sea, when Boreas is blowing a gale round some

headland," foreseeing tossing about and nausea, disperse. And so it is

their destiny to find neither willing table-companions, nor messmates

when they are travelling by land or by sea, but only such as cannot help

themselves; for such a fellow is always at you, plucking hold of your

clothes or chin, or giving you a dig in the ribs with his elbow. "Most

valuable are the feet in such a conjuncture," according to Archilochus,

nay according to the wise Aristotle himself. For he being bothered with

a talkative fellow, and wearied out with his absurd tales, and his

frequent question, "Is not this wonderful, Aristotle?" "Not at all,"

said he, "but it is wonderful that anyone with a pair of legs stops here

to listen to you." And to another such fellow, who said after a long

rigmarole, "Did I weary you, philosopher, by my chatter?" "Not you, by

Zeus," said he, "for I paid no attention to you." For even if talkative

people force you to listen,[546] the mind can give them only its outward

ears to deluge, while it unfolds and pursues some other thoughts within;

so they find neither hearers to attend to them, nor credit them. They

say those that are prone to Venus are commonly barren: so the prating of

talkative people is ineffectual and fruitless.

Sec. III. And yet nature has fenced and barricaded in us nothing so much as

the tongue, having put the teeth before it as a barrier, so that if,

when reason holds tight her "glossy reins,"[547] it hearken not, nor

keep within bounds, we may check its intemperance, biting it till the

blood comes. For Euripides tells us that, not from unbolted houses or

store-rooms, but "from unbridled mouths the end is misfortune."[548] But

those persons who think that houses without doors and open purses are no

good to their possessors, and yet keep their mouths open and unshut, and

allow their speech to flow continually like the waves of the

Euxine,[549] seem to regard speech as of less value than anything. And

so they never get believed, though credit is the aim of every speech;

for to inspire belief in one's hearers is the proper end of speech, but

praters are disbelieved even when they tell the truth. For as corn

stowed away in a granary is found to be larger in quantity but inferior

in quality, so the speech of a talkative man is increased by a large

addition of falsehood, which destroys his credit.

Sec. IV. Then again every man of modesty and propriety would avoid

drunkenness, for anger is next door neighbour to madness as some

think,[550] but drunkenness lives in the same house: or rather

drunkenness is madness, more short-lived indeed, but more potent also

through volition, for it is self-chosen. Nor is drunkenness censured for

anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk.

"Wine makes a prudent man begin to sing,

And gently laugh, and even makes him dance."[551]

And yet there is no harm in all this, in singing and laughing and

dancing. But the poet adds--

"And it compels to say what's best unsaid."[552]

This is indeed dreadful and dangerous. And perhaps the poet in this

passage has solved that problem of the philosophers, and stated the

difference between being under the influence of wine and being drunk,

mirth being the condition of the former, foolish talk of the latter. For

as the proverb tells us, "What is in the heart of the sober is on the

tongue of the drunken."[553] And so Bias, being silent at a drinking

bout, and jeered at by some young man in the company as stupid, replied,

"What fool could hold his tongue in liquor?" And at Athens a certain

person gave an entertainment to the king's ambassadors, and at their

desire contrived to get the philosophers there too, and as they were all

talking together and comparing ideas, and Zeno alone was silent, the

strangers greeted him and pledged him, and said, "What are we to tell

the king about you, Zeno?" And he replied, "Nothing, but that there is

an old man at Athens that can hold his tongue at a drinking bout." So

profound and mysterious and sober is silence, while drunkenness is

talkative: for it is void of sense and understanding, and so is

loquacious. And so the philosophers define drunkenness to be silly talk

in wine. Drinking therefore is not censured, if silence go with it, but

foolish prating turns being under the influence of wine into

drunkenness. And the drunken man prates only in his cups; but the

talkative man prates everywhere, in the market-place, in the theatre,

out walking, by night and by day. If he is your doctor, he is more

trouble to you than your disease: if he is on board ship with you, he

disgusts you more than sea-sickness; if he praises you, he is more

fulsome than blame. It is more pleasure associating with bad men who

have tact than with good men who prate. Nestor indeed in Sophocles'

Play, trying by his words to soothe exasperated Ajax, said to him

mildly,

"I blame you not, for though your words are bad,

Your acts are good:"

but we cannot feel so to the talkative man, for his want of tact in

words destroys and undoes all the grace of his actions.

Sec. V. Lysias wrote a defence for some accused person, and gave it him,

and he read it several times, and came to Lysias in great dejection and

said, "When I first perused this defence, it seemed to me wonderful, but

when I read it a second and third time, it seemed altogether dull and

ineffective. Then Lysias laughed, and said, "What then? Are you going to

read it more than once to the jury?" And yet do but consider the

persuasiveness and grace of Lysias' style;[554] for he "I say was a

great favourite with the dark-haired Muses."[555] And of the things

which have been said of Homer the truest is that he alone of all poets

has survived the fastidiousness of mankind, as being ever new and still

at his acme as regards giving pleasure, and yet saying and proclaiming

about himself, "I hate to spin out a plain tale over and over

again,"[556] he avoids and fears that satiety which lies in ambush for

every narrative, and takes the hearer from one subject to another, and

relieves by novelty the possibility of being surfeited. But the

talkative worry one's ears to death with their tautologies, as people

scribble the same things over and over again on palimpsests.[557]

Sec. VI. Let us remind them then first of this, that just as in the case of

wine, which was intended for pleasure and mirth, those who compel people

to drink it neat and in large quantities bring some into a disgusting

condition of drunkenness, so with speech, which is the pleasantest

social tie amongst mankind, those who make a bad and ill-advised use of

it render it unpleasing and unfit for company, paining those whom they

think to gratify, and become a laughing-stock to those who they think

admire them, and objectionable to those who they think love them. As

then he cannot be a favourite of the goddess who with Aphrodite's

charmed girdle[558] repels and drives away those who associate with him,

so he who with his speech bores and disgusts one is without either taste

or refinement.

Sec. VII. Of all other passions and disorders some are dangerous, some

hateful, some ridiculous, but in talkativeness all these elements are

combined. For praters are jeered at for their commonplaces, and hated

when they bring bad news, and run into danger when they reveal secrets.

And so Anacharsis, when he was feasted by Solon and lay down to sleep,

and was observed with his left hand on his private parts, and his right

hand on his mouth, for he thought his tongue needed the stronger

restraint, was right in his opinion. For it would be difficult to find

as many men who have been ruined by venereal excesses as cities and

leading states that have been undone by the utterance of a secret. When

Sulla was besieging Athens, and had no time to waste there, "for he had

other fish to fry,"[559] as Mithridates was ravaging Asia, and the party

of Marius was again in power at Rome, some old men in a barber's shop

happened to observe to one another that the Heptachalcon was not well

guarded, and that their city ran a great risk of being captured at that

point, and some spies who overheard this conversation reported it to

Sulla. And he at once marched up his forces, and about midnight entered

the city with his army, and all but rased it to the ground, and filled

it with slaughter and dead bodies, insomuch that the Ceramicus ran with

blood: and he was thus savage against the Athenians for their words

rather than their deeds, for they had spoken ill of him and his wife

Metella, jumping on to the walls and calling out in a jeering way,

"Sulla is a mulberry bestrewn with barley meal,"

and much similar banter. Thus they drew down upon themselves for words,

which, as Plato[560] says, are a very small matter, a very heavy

punishment.[561] The prating of one man also prevented Rome from

becoming free by the removal of Nero. For it was only the night before

the tyrant was to be murdered, and all preparations had been made, when

he that was to do the deed going to the theatre, and seeing someone in

chains near the doors who was about to be taken before Nero, and was

bewailing his sad fortune, went up close to him and whispered, "Pray

only, good sir, that to-day may pass by, to-morrow you will owe me many

thanks." He guessing the meaning of the riddle, and thinking, I take it,

"he is a fool who gives up what is in his hand for a remote

contingency,"[562] preferred certain to honourable safety. For he

informed Nero of what the man had said, and he was immediately arrested,

and torture, and fire, and scourging were applied to him, who denied now

in his necessity what before he had divulged without necessity.

Sec. VIII. Zeno the philosopher,[563] that he might not against his will

divulge any secrets when put to the torture, bit off his tongue, and

spit it at the tyrant. Famous also was the reward which Leaena had for

her taciturnity.[564] She was the mistress of Harmodius and Aristogiton,

and, although a woman, participated in their hopes of success in the

conspiracy against the tyrants: for she had revelled in the glorious cup

of love, and had been initiated in their secrets through the god. When

then they had failed in their attempt and been put to death, and she was

examined and bidden to reveal the names of the other conspirators, she

refused to do so, and held out to the end, showing that those famous men

in loving such a one as her had done nothing unworthy of them. And the

Athenians erected to her memory a bronze lioness without a tongue, and

placed it near the entrance to the Acropolis, signifying her dauntless

courage by the nobleness of that animal, and by its being without a

tongue her silence and fidelity. For no spoken word has done as much

good as many unspoken ones. For at some future day we can give utterance

if we like to what has been not said, but a word once spoken cannot be

recalled, but flies about and runs all round the world. And this is the

reason, I take it, why men teach us to speak, but the gods teach us to

be silent, silence being enjoined on us in the mysteries and in all

religious rites. Thus Homer has described the most eloquent Odysseus,

and Telemachus, and Penelope, and the nurse, as all remarkable for their

taciturnity. You remember the nurse saying,

"I'll keep it close as heart of oak or steel."[565]

And Odysseus sitting by Penelope,

"Though in his heart he pitied her sad grief,

His eyes like horn or steel impassive stood

Within their lids, and craft his tears repressed."[566]

So great control had he over all his body, and so much were all his

members under the sway and rule of reason, that he commanded his eyes

not to weep, his tongue not to speak, and his heart not to tremble or

quake.[567]

"So calm and passive did his heart remain,"[568]

reason penetrating even to the irrational instincts, and making spirit

and blood obedient and docile to it. Such also were most of his

companions, for though they were dashed to the ground and dragged along

by the Cyclops, they said not a word about Odysseus, nor did they show

the stake of wood that had been put into the fire and prepared to put

out Polyphemus' eye, but they would rather have been eaten alive than

divulge secrets, such wonderful self-control and fidelity had they.[569]

And so it was not amiss of Pittacus, when the king of Egypt sent him a

victim, and bade him take from it the best and worst piece of it, to

pull out the tongue and send that to the king, as being the instrument

of the greatest blessings and withal the greatest mischiefs.

Sec. IX. So Ino in Euripides, speaking plainly about herself, says she

knows "how to be silent when she should, and to speak when speech is

safe."[570] For those who have enjoyed a truly noble and royal education

learn first to be silent and then to speak. So the famous king

Antigonus, when his son asked him, "When are we going to shift our

quarters?" answered, "Are you afraid that you only will not hear the

trumpet?" Was he afraid then to entrust a secret to him, to whom he

intended one day to leave his kingdom? Nay rather, it was to teach him

to be close and guarded on such matters. Metellus[571] also, the

well-known veteran, when questioned somewhat similarly about an

expedition, said, "If I thought my coat knew the secret, I would strip

it off and throw it into the fire." And Eumenes, when he heard that

Craterus was marching against him, told none of his friends, but

pretended that it was Neoptolemus; for his soldiers despised

Neoptolemus, but they admired the glory and loved the virtue of

Craterus; and no one but Eumenes knew the truth, and they engaged and

were victorious, and unwittingly killed Craterus, and only recognized

his dead body. So great a part did silence play in the battle,

concealing the name of the enemy's general: so that Eumenes' friends

marvelled more than found fault at his not having told them the truth.

And if anyone should receive blame in such a case, it is better to be

censured when one has done well by keeping one's counsel, rather than to

have to accuse others through having come to grief by trusting them.

Sec. X. But, generally speaking, who has the right to blame the person who

has not kept his secret? For if it was not to be known, it was not well

to tell another person of it at all, and if you divulged your secret

yourself and expected another person to keep it, you had more faith in

another than in yourself. And so should he be such another as yourself

you are deservedly undone, and should he be a better man than yourself,

your safety is more than you could have reckoned on, as it involved

finding a man more to be trusted than yourself. But you will say, He is

my friend. Yes, but he has another friend, whom he reposes confidence in

as much as you do in your friend, and that other friend has one of his

own, and so on, so that the secret spreads in many quarters from

inability to keep it close in one. For as the unit never deviates from

its orbit, but (as its name signifies) always remains one, but the

number two contains within it the seeds of infinity, for when it departs

from itself it becomes plurality at once by doubling, so speech confined

in one person's breast is truly secret, but if it be communicated to

another it soon gets noised abroad. And so Homer calls words "winged,"

for as he that lets a bird go from his hands cannot easily get it back

again, so he that lets a word go from his mouth cannot catch or stop it,

but it is borne along "whirling on swift wings," and dispersed from one

person to another. When a ship scuds before the gale the mariners can

stop it, or at least check its course with cables and anchors, but when

the spoken word once sails out of harbour, so to speak, there is no

roadstead or anchorage for it, but borne along with much noise and echo

it dashes its utterer on the rocks, and brings him into imminent danger

of shipwreck,

"As one might set on fire Ida's woods

With a small torch, so what one tells one person

Is soon the property of all the citizens."[572]

Sec. XI. The Roman Senate had been discussing for several days a secret

matter, and there was much doubt and suspicion about it. And one of the

senator's wives, discreet in other matters but a very woman in

curiosity, pressed her husband close, and entreated him to tell her what

the secret was; she vowed and swore she would not divulge it, and did

not refrain from shedding tears at her not being trusted. And he,

nothing loth to convince her of her folly, said, "Your importunity,

wife, has prevailed, listen to a dreadful and portentous matter. It has

been told us by the priests that a lark has been seen flying in the air

with a golden helmet and spear: it is this portent that we are

considering and discussing with the augurs, as to whether it be a good

or bad omen. But say nothing about it." Having said these words he went

into the Forum. But his wife seized on the very first of her maids that

entered the room, and smote her breast, and tore her hair, and said,

"Alas! for my husband and country! What will become of us?" wishing and

teaching her maid to say, "Whatever's up?" So when she inquired she told

her all about it, adding that refrain common to all praters, "Tell no

one a word about it." The maid however had scarce left her mistress when

she told one of her fellow-servants who was doing little or nothing, and

she told her lover who happened to call at that moment. So the news

spread to the Forum so quickly that it got the start of its original

author, and one of his friends meeting him said, "Have you only just

left your house?" "Only just," he replied. "Didn't you hear the news?"

said his friend. "What news?" said he. "Why, that a lark has been seen

flying in the air with a golden helmet and spear, and the Senate are met

to discuss the portent." And he smiled and said to himself, "You are

quick, wife, for the tale to get before me to the Forum!" Then meeting

some of the Senators he disabused them of their panic. But to punish his

wife, he said when he got home, "You have undone me, wife: for the

secret has got abroad from my house, so that I must be an exile from my

country for your inability to keep a secret." And on her trying to deny

it, and saying, "Were there not three hundred Senators that heard of it

as well as you? Might not one of them have divulged it?" he replied,

"Stuff o' your three hundred! It was at your importunity that I invented

the story, to put you to the test!" This fellow tested his wife warily

and cunningly, as one pours water, and not wine or oil, into a leaky

vessel. And Fabius,[573] the friend of Augustus, hearing the Emperor in

his old age mourning over the extinction of his family, how two of his

daughter Julia's sons were dead, and how Posthumus Agrippa, the only

remaining one, was in exile through false accusation,[574] and how he

was compelled to put his wife's son[575] into the succession to the

Empire, though he pitied Agrippa and had half a mind to recall him from

banishment, repeated the Emperor's words to his wife, and she to

Livia.[576] And Livia bitterly upbraided Augustus, if he meant recalling

his grandson, for not having done so long ago, instead of bringing her

into hatred and hostility with the heir to the Empire. When Fabius came

in the morning as usual into the Emperor's presence, and said, "Hail,

Caesar!" the Emperor replied, "Farewell,[577] Fabius." And he

understanding the meaning of this straightway went home, and sent for

his wife, and said, "The Emperor knows that I have not kept his secret,

so I shall kill myself." And his wife replied, "You have deserved your

fate, since having been married to me so long you did not remember and

guard against my incontinence of speech, but suffer me to kill myself

first." So saying she took his sword, and slew herself first.

Sec. XII. That was a good answer therefore that the comic poet Philippides

made to king Lysimachus, who greeted him kindly, and said to him,[578]

"What shall I give you of all my possessions?" "Whatever you like, O

king, except your secrets." And talkativeness has another plague

attached to it, even curiosity: for praters wish to hear much that they

may have much to say, and most of all do they gad about to investigate

and pry into secrets and hidden things, providing as it were an

antiquated stock of rubbish[579] for their twaddle, in fine like

children who cannot[580] hold ice in their hands, and yet are unwilling

to let it go,[581] or rather taking secrets to their bosoms and

embracing them as if they were so many serpents, that they cannot

control, but are sure to be gnawed to death by. They say that garfish

and vipers burst in giving life to their young, so secrets by coming out

ruin and destroy those who cannot keep them. Seleucus Callinicus having

lost his army and all his forces in a battle against the Galati, threw

off his diadem, and fled on a swift horse with an escort of three or

four of his men a long day's journey by bypaths and out-of-the-way

tracks, till faint and famishing for want of food he drew rein at a

small farmhouse, where by chance he found the master at home, and asked

for some bread and water. And he supplied him liberally and courteously

not only with what he asked for but with whatever else was on the farm,

and recognized the king, and being very joyful at this opportunity of

ministering to the king's necessities, he could not contain himself, nor

dissemble like the king who wished to be incognito, but he accompanied

him to the road, and on parting from him, said, "Farewell, king

Seleucus." And he stretching out his right hand, and drawing the man to

him as if he was going to kiss him, gave a sign to one of his escort to

draw his sword and cut the man's head off;

"And at his word the head roll'd in the dust."[582]

Whereas if he had been silent then, and kept his counsel for a time, as

the king afterwards became prosperous and great, he would have received,

I take it, greater favour for his silence than for his hospitality. And

yet he had I admit some excuse for his want of reticence, namely hope

and joy.

Sec. XIII. But most talkative people have no excuse for ruining themselves.

As for example in a barber's shop one day there was some conversation

about the tyranny of Dionysius, that it was as hard as adamant and

invincible, and the barber laughed and said, "Fancy your saying this to

me, who have my razor at his throat most days!" And Dionysius hearing

this had him crucified. Barbers indeed are generally a talkative race,

for people fond of prating flock to them and sit in their shops, so that

they pick up the habit from their customers. It was a witty answer

therefore of king Archelaus,[583] when a talkative barber put the towel

round his neck, and asked him, "How shall I shave you, O king?"

"Silently," said the monarch. It was a barber that first spread the news

of the great reverse of the Athenians in Sicily, having heard of it at

the Piraeus from a slave that had escaped from the island. He at once

left his shop, and ran into the city at full speed, "that no one else

should reap the fame, and he come in the second,"[584] of carrying the

news into the town. And an uproar arising, as was only to be expected,

the people assembled in the ecclesia, and began to investigate the

origin of the rumour. So the barber was dragged up and questioned, but

knew not the person's name who had told him, so was obliged to refer its

origin to an anonymous and unknown person. Then anger filled the

theatre, and the multitude cried out, "Torture the cursed fellow, put

him to the rack: he has fabricated and concocted this news: who else

heard it? who credits it?" The wheel was brought, the poor fellow

stretched on it. Meantime those came up who had brought the news, who

had escaped from the carnage in Sicily. Then all the multitude dispersed

to weep over their private sorrows, and abandoned the poor barber, who

remained fastened to the wheel. And when released late in the evening he

actually asked the executioner, if they had heard how Nicias the General

was slain. So invincible and incorrigible a vice does habit make

talkativeness to be.

Sec. XIV. And yet, as those that drink bitter and strong-smelling physic

are disgusted even with the cups they drink it out of, so those that

bring evil tidings are disliked and hated by their hearers. Wittily

therefore has Sophocles described the conversation between Creon and the

guard.

"_G._ Is't in your ears or in your mind you're grieved?

_C._ Why do you thus define the seat of grief?

_G._ The doer pains your mind, but I your ears."[585]

However those that tell the tale grieve us as well as those that did the

deed: and yet there is no means of checking or controlling the running

tongue. At Lacedaemon the temple of Athene Chalcioecus[586] was broken

into, and an empty flagon was observed lying on the ground inside, and a

great concourse of people came up and discussed the matter. And one of

the company said, "If you will allow me, I will tell you what I think

about this flagon. I cannot help being of opinion that these

sacrilegious wretches drank hemlock, and brought wine with them, before

commencing their nefarious and dangerous work: that so, if they should

fail to be detected, they might depart in safety, drinking the wine neat

as an antidote to the hemlock: whereas should they be caught in the act,

before they were put to the torture they would die of the poison easily

and painlessly." When he had uttered these words, the idea seemed so

ingenious and farfetched that it looked as if it could not emanate from

fancy, but only from knowledge of the real facts. So the crowd

surrounded this man, and asked him one after the other, "Who are you?

Who knows you? How come you to know all this?" And at last he was

convicted in this way, and confessed that he was one of those that had

committed the sacrilege. And were not the murderers of Ibycus similarly

captured? They were sitting in the theatre, and some cranes flew over

their heads, and they laughed and whispered to one another, "Behold the

avengers of Ibycus." And this being overheard by some who sat near, as

Ibycus had now been some time missing and inquired after, they laid hold

of this remark, and reported it to the magistrates. And so they were

convicted and dragged off to punishment, being brought to justice not by

the cranes but by their own inability to hold their tongues, being

compelled by some Fury or Vengeance as it were to divulge the

murder.[587] For as in the body there is an attraction to sore and

suffering parts from neighbouring parts, so the tongue of talkative

persons, ever suffering from inflammation and a throbbing pulse,

attracts and draws to it secret and hidden things. And so the tongue

ought to be fenced in, and have reason ever before it, as a bulwark, to

prevent its tripping: that we may not seem to be more silly than geese,

of whom it is said that, when they fly from Cilicia over Mt. Taurus

which swarms with eagles, they carry in their mouths a large stone,

which they employ as a gag or bridle for their scream, and so they cross

over by night unobserved.

Sec. XV. Now if anyone were to ask who is the worst and most abandoned man,

no one would pass over the traitor, or mention anyone else. It was as

the reward of treason that Euthycrates roofed his house with Macedonian

wood, as Demosthenes tells us; and that Philocrates got a large sum of

money, and spent it on women and fish; and it was for betraying Eretria

that Euphorbus and Philagrus got an estate from king Philip. But the

talkative man is an unhired and officious traitor, not of horses[588] or

walls, but of secrets which he divulges in the law courts, in factions,

in party-strife, no one thanking him for his pains; but should anyone

listen to him he thinks he is the obliged party. So that what was said

to a man who rashly and indiscriminately squandered away all his means

and bestowed them on others,

"It is not kindness in you but disease,

This itch for giving,"[589]

is appropriate also to the prater, "You don't communicate to us all this

out of friendship or goodwill, but it is a disease in you, this itch for

talking and prating."

Sec. XVI. But all this must not be looked upon merely as an indictment

against talkativeness, but an attempt to cure it: for we overcome the

passions by judgement and practice, but judgement is the first step. For

no one is wont to shun, and eradicate from his soul, what he does not

dislike. And we dislike the passions only when we discern by reason the

harm and shame that results to us by indulging them. As we see every day

in the case of talkative people: if they wish to be loved, they are

hated; if they desire to please, they bore; when they think they are

admired, they are really laughed at; they spend, and get no gain from so

doing; they injure their friends, benefit their enemies, and ruin

themselves. So that the first cure and remedy of this disorder will be

to reckon up the shame and trouble that results from it.

Sec. XVII. In the next place we must consider the opposite virtue to

talkativeness, always listening to and having on our lips the encomiums

passed upon reserve, and remembering the decorum sanctity and mysterious

power of silence, and ever bearing in mind that terse and brief

speakers, who put the maximum of matter into the minimum of words, are

more admired and esteemed and thought wiser[590] than unbridled

windbags. And so Plato[591] praises, and compares to clever javelin-men,

such as speak tersely, compressedly, and concisely. And Lycurgus by

using his citizens from boyhood to silence taught them to perfection

their brevity and terseness. For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron

only after digging down deep in the soil, and carefully separating the

iron ore, so Laconian oratory has no rind,[592] but by the removal of

all superfluous matter goes home straight to the point like steel. For

its sententiousness,[593] and pointed suppleness in repartee, comes from

the habit of silence. And we ought to quote such pointed sayings

especially to talkative people, such neatness and vigour have they, as,

for example, what the Lacedaemonians said to Philip, "[Remember]

Dionysius at Corinth."[594] And again, when Philip wrote to them, "If I

invade Laconia, I will drive you all out of house and home," they only

wrote back, "If." And when king Demetrius was indignant and cried out,

"The Lacedaemonians have only sent me one ambassador," the ambassador was

not frightened but said, "Yes, one to one man." Certainly among the

ancients men of few words were admired. So the Amphictyones did not

write extracts from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the Paeans of Pindar, in the

temple of Pythian Apollo at Delphi, but "Know thyself," "Not too much of

anything,"[595] and "Be a surety, trouble is near;"[596] so much did

they admire compactness and simplicity of speech, combining brevity with

shrewdness of mind. And is not the god himself short and concise in his

oracles? Is he not called Loxias,[597] because he prefers ambiguity to

longwindedness? And are not those who express their meaning by signs

without words wonderfully praised and admired? As Heraclitus, when some

of the citizens asked him to give them his opinion about concord, got on

the platform, and took a cup of cold water, and put some barley-meal in

it, and stirred it up with penny-royal, thus showing them that it is

being content with anything, and not needing costly dainties, that keeps

cities in peace and concord. Scilurus, the king of the Scythians, left

eighty sons, and on his death-bed asked for a bundle of sticks, and bade

his sons break it when it was tied together, and when they could not, he

took the sticks one by one and easily broke them all up: thus showing

them that their harmony and concord would make them strong and hard to

overthrow, while dissension would make them feeble and insecure.

Sec. XVIII. If then anyone were continually to recollect and repeat these

or similar terse sayings, he would probably cease to be pleased with

idle talk. As for myself, when I consider of what importance it is to

attend to reason, and to keep to one's purpose, I confess I am quite put

out of countenance by the example of the slave of Pupius Piso the

orator. He, not wishing to be annoyed by their prating, ordered his

slaves merely to answer his questions, and not say a word more. On one

occasion wishing to pay honour to Clodius who was then in power, he

ordered him to be invited to his house, and provided for him no doubt a

sumptuous entertainment. At the time fixed all the guests were present

except Clodius, for whom they waited, and the host frequently sent the

slave who used to invite guests to see if he was coming, but when

evening came, and he was now quite despaired of, he said to his slave,

"Did you not invite him?" "Certainly," said the slave. "Why then has he

not come?" said the master. "Because he declined," said the slave. "Why

then did you not tell me of it at once?" said the master. "Because you

never asked me," said the slave. This was a Roman slave. But an Athenian

slave "while digging will tell his master on what terms peace was made."

So great is the force of habit in all matters. And of it we will now

speak.

Sec. XIX. For it is not by applying bit or bridle that we can restrain the

talkative person, we must master the disease by habit. In the first

place then, when you are in company and questions are going round,

accustom yourself not to speak till all the rest have declined giving an

answer. For as Sophocles says, "counsel is not like a race;" no more are

question and answer. For in a race the victory belongs to him who gets

in first, but in company, if anyone has given a satisfactory answer, it

is sufficient by assenting and agreeing to his view to get the

reputation of being a pleasant fellow; and if no satisfactory answer is

given, then to enlighten ignorance and supply the necessary information

is well-timed and does not excite envy. But let us be especially on our

guard that, if anyone else is asked a question, we do not ourselves

anticipate and intercept him in giving an answer. It is indeed perhaps

nowhere good form, if another is asked a favour, to push him aside and

undertake to grant it ourselves; for we shall seem so to upbraid two

people at once, the one who was asked as not able to grant the favour,

and the other as not knowing how to ask in the right quarter. But

especially insulting is such forwardness and impetuosity in answering

questions. For he that anticipates by his own answer the person that was

asked the question seems to say, "What is the good of asking him? What

does he know about it? In my presence nobody else ought to be asked

about these matters." And yet we often put questions to people, not so

much because we want an answer, as to elicit from them conversation and

friendly feeling, and from a wish to fit them for company, as Socrates

drew out Theaetetus and Charmides. For it is all one to run up and kiss

one who wishes to be kissed by another, or to divert to oneself the

attention that he was bestowing on another, as to intercept another

person's answers, and to transfer people's ears, and force their

attention, and fix them on oneself; when, even if he that was asked

declines to give an answer, it will be well to hold oneself in reserve,

and only to meet the question modestly when one's turn comes, so framing

one's answer as to seem to oblige the person who asked the question, and

as if one had been appealed to for an answer by the other. For if people

are asked questions and cannot give a satisfactory answer they are with

justice excused; but he who without being asked undertakes to answer a

question, and anticipates another, is disagreeable even if he succeeds,

while, if his answer is unsatisfactory, he is ridiculed by all the

company, and his failure is a source of the liveliest satisfaction to

them.

Sec. XX. The next thing to practise oneself to in answering the questions

put to one,--a point to which the talkative person ought to pay the

greatest attention,--is not through inadvertence to give serious answers

to people who only challenge you to talk in fun and sport. For some

people concoct questions not for real information, but simply for

amusement and to pass the time away, and propound them to talkative

people, just to have them on. Against this we must be on our guard, and

not rush into conversation too hastily, or as if we were obliged for the

chance, but we must consider the character of the inquirer and his

purpose. When it seems that he really desires information, we should

accustom ourselves to pause, and interpose some interval between the

question and answer; during which time the questioner can add anything

if he chooses, and the other can reflect on his answer, and not be in

too great a hurry about it, nor bury it in obscurity, nor, as is

frequently the case in too great haste, answer some other question than

that which was asked. The Pythian Priestess indeed was accustomed to

utter some of her oracles at the very moment before the question was

put: for the god whom she serves "understands the dumb, and hears the

mute."[598] But he that wishes to give an appropriate answer must

carefully consider both the question and the mind of the questioner,

lest it be as the proverb expresses it,

"I asked for shovels, they denied me pails."[599]

Besides we ought to check this greediness and hunger for words, that it

may not seem as if we had a flood on our tongue which was dammed up, but

which we were only too glad to discharge[600] on a question being put.

Socrates indeed so repressed his thirst, that he would not allow himself

to drink after exercise in the gymnasium, till he had first drawn from

the well one bucket of water and poured it on to the ground, that he

might accustom his irrational part to wait upon reason.

Sec. XXI. There are moreover three kinds of answers to questions, the

necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For instance, if anyone

asked, "Is Socrates at home?" one, as if backward and disinclined to

answer, might say, "Not at home;" or, if he wished to speak with Laconic

brevity, might cut off "at home," and simply say "No;" as, when Philip

wrote to the Lacedaemonians to ask if they would receive him in their

city, they sent him back merely a large "No." But another would answer

more politely, "He is not at home, but with the bankers," and if he

wished to add a little more, "he expects to see some strangers there."

But the superfluous prater, if he has read Antimachus of Colophon,[601]

says, "He is not at home, but with the bankers, waiting for some Ionian

strangers, about whom he has had a letter from Alcibiades who is in the

neighbourhood of Miletus, staying with Tissaphernes the satrap of the

great king, who used long ago to favour the Lacedaemonian party, but now

attaches himself to the Athenians for Alcibiades' sake, for Alcibiades

desires to return to his country, and so has succeeded in changing the

views of Tissaphernes." And then he will go over the whole of the Eighth

Book of Thucydides, and deluge the man, till before he is aware Miletus

is captured, and Alcibiades is in exile the second time. In such a case

most of all ought we to curtail talkativeness, by following the track of

a question closely, and tracing out our answer according to the need of

the questioner with the same accuracy as we describe a circle. When

Carneades was disputing in the gymnasium before the days of his great

fame, the superintendent of the gymnasium sent to him a message to bid

him modulate his voice (for it was of the loudest), and when he asked

him to fix a standard, the superintendent replied not amiss, "The

standard of the person talking with you." So the meaning of the

questioner ought to be the standard for the answer.

Sec. XXII. Moreover as Socrates urged his disciples to abstain from such

food as tempted them to eat when they were not hungry, and from such

drinks as tempted them to drink when they were not thirsty, so the

talkative person ought to be afraid most of such subjects of

conversation as he most delights in and repeats _ad nauseam_, and to try

and resist their influence. For example, soldiers are fond of

descriptions about war, and thus Homer introduces Nestor frequently

narrating his prowess and glorious deeds. And generally speaking those

who have been successful in the law courts, or beyond their hopes been

favourites of kings and princes, are possessed, as it were by some

disease, with the itch for frequently recalling and narrating, how they

got on and were advanced, what struggles they underwent, how they argued

on some famous occasion, how they won the day either as plaintiffs or

defendants, what panegyrics were showered upon them. For joy is much

more inclined to prate than the well-known sleeplessness represented in

comedies, frequently rousing itself, and finding something fresh to

relate. And so at any excuse they slip into such narratives. For not

only,

"Where anyone does itch, there goes his hand,"[602]

but also delight has a voice of its own, and leads about the tongue in

its train, ever wishing to fortify it with memory. Thus lovers spend

most of their time in conversations that revive the memory of their

loves; and if they cannot talk to human beings about them, they talk

about them to inanimate objects, as, "O dearest bed," and,

"O happy lamp, Bacchis deems you a god,

And if she thinks so, then you are indeed

The greatest of the gods."

The talkative person therefore is merely as regards words a white

line,[603] but he that is especially inclined to certain subjects should

be especially on his guard against talking about them, and should avoid

such topics, since from the pleasure they give him they may entice him

to be very prolix and tedious. The same is the case with people in

regard to such subjects as they think they are more experienced in and

acquainted with than others. For such a one, being self-appreciative and

fond of fame, "spends most of the day in that particular branch of study

in which he chances to be proficient."[604] Thus he that is fond of

reading will give his time to research; the grammarian his to syntax;

and the traveller, who has wandered over many countries, his to

geography. We must therefore be on our guard against our favourite

topics, for they are an enticement to talkativeness, as its wonted

haunts are to an animal. Admirable therefore was the behaviour of Cyrus

in challenging his companions, not to those contests in which he was

superior to them, but to those in which he was inferior, partly that he

might not give them pain through his superiority, partly for his own

benefit by learning from them. But the talkative person acts just

contrary, for if any subject is introduced from which he might learn

something he did not know, this he rejects and refuses, not being able

to earn a good deal by a short silence,[605] but he rambles round the

subject and babbles out stale and commonplace rhapsodies. As one amongst

us, who by chance had read two or three of the books of Ephorus,[606]

bored everybody, and dispersed every social party, by always narrating

the particulars of the battle of Leuctra and its consequences, so that

he got nicknamed Epaminondas.

Sec. XXIII. Nevertheless this is one of the least of the evils of

talkativeness, and we ought even to try and divert it into such channels

as these, for prating is less of a nuisance when it is on some literary

subject. We ought also to try and get some persons to write on some

topic, and so discuss it by themselves. For Antipater the Stoic

philosopher,[607] not being able or willing it seems to dispute with

Carneades, who inveighed vehemently against the Stoic philosophy,

writing and filling many books of controversy against him, got the

nickname of _Noisy-with-the-pen_; and perhaps the exercise and

excitement of writing, keeping him very much apart from the community,

might make the talkative man by degrees better company to those he

associated with; as dogs, bestowing their rage on sticks and stones, are

less savage to men. It will also be very advantageous for such to mix

with people better and older than themselves, for they will accustom

themselves to be silent by standing in awe of their reputation. And

withal it will be well, when we are going to say something, and the

words are on our lips, to reflect and consider, "What is this word that

is so eager for utterance? To what is this tongue marching? What good

will come of speaking now, or what harm of silence?" For we ought not to

drop words as we should a burden that pressed upon us, for the word

remains still after it has been spoken just the same; but men speak

either on their own behalf if they want something, or to benefit those

that hear them, or, to gratify one another, they season everyday life

with speech, as one seasons food with salt. But if words are neither

useful to the speaker, nor necessary for the hearer, nor contain any

pleasure or charm, why are they spoken? For words may be idle and

useless as well as deeds. And besides all this we must ever remember as

most important the dictum of Simonides, that he had often repented he

had spoken, but never that he had been silent: while as to the power and

strength of practice consider how men by much toil and painstaking will

get rid even of a cough or hiccough. And silence is not only never

thirsty, as Hippocrates says, but also never brings pain or sorrow.

[541] Or _Garrulity_, _Chattering_, _Prating_. It is

Talkativeness in a bad sense.

[542] Or _Heptaphonos_. See Pausanias, v. 21.

[543] Some unknown poet's words. I suppose they mean

driving one mad, making one "Like sweet bells jangled,

out of tune and harsh."

[544] So our English proverb, "Empty vessels make the

greatest sound."

[545] Literally in a semi-circular place. It is not

quite clear whether the front seats of the theatre are

meant, or, as I have taken it, more generally, of some

public place for entertainment or meeting, some

promenade or piazza.

[546] Reading [Greek: akouein], which seems far the best

reading.

[547] Homer, "Iliad," v. 226; "Odyssey," vi. 81.

[548] "Bacchae," 385-387.

[549] See Ovid, "Tristia," iv. 4, 55-58.

[550] For example, Horace, "Epistles," i. 2, 62: "Ira

furor brevis est" I read [Greek: homotoichos] with Mez.

[551] Homer, "Odyssey," xiv. 463-465.

[552] Ibid. 466.

[553] Compare the German proverb, "Thought when sober,

said when drunk"--"Nuchtern gedacht, voll gesagt."

[554] Cf. Quintilian, x. 1, 78: "His aetate Lysias major,

subtilis atque elegans et quo nihil, si oratori satis

est docere, quaeras perfectius. Nihil enim est inane,

nihil arcessitum; puro tamen fonti quam magno flumini

propior." Cf. ix. 4, 17.

[555] Somewhat like Pindar, "Pyth." i. 1. 1, 2.

[556] "Odyssey," xii. 452, 453.

[557] See Cicero, "Ad Fam." vii. 18; Catullus, xxii. 5,

6.

[558] See "Iliad," xiv. 214-217.

[559] "Allusio ad Homericum [Greek: epei ponos allos

epeigei.]"--_Xylander._

[560] "Laws," xi. p. 935 A.

[561] So true are the words of AEschylus, [Greek: glosse

mataia zemia prostribetai].--"Prom." 329.

[562] Our "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

[563] "Non Citticus, sed Eleates. v. Cic. Tuscul. ii.

22, et Nat. Deor. 3, 33."--_Reiske._

[564] See Pausanias, i. 23. Leaena means "lioness." On

the conspiracy see Thucydides, vi. 54-59.

[565] Homer, "Odyssey," xix. 494. Plutarch quotes from

memory. The nurse's name was Euryclea.

[566] Odyssey," xix. 210-212. Quoted again "On Moral

Virtue," Sec. iv.

[567] Literally _bark_. See "Odyssey," xx. 13, 16.

[568] "Odyssey," xx. 23.

[569] See "Odyssey," ix. [Greek: Kyklopeia].

[570] Euripides, "Ino." Fragment, 416.

[571] "Significat Q. Caecilium Metellum, de quo Liv. xl.

45, 46."--_Reiske._

[572] Euripides, "Ino." Fragm. 415. Compare St. James,

iii. 5, 6.

[573] Fabius Maximus. So Tacitus, "Annals," i. 5, who

relates this story somewhat differently.

[574] See Tacitus, "Annals," i. 3. As to his fate, see

"Annals," i. 6.

[575] Tiberius Nero, who actually did succeed Augustus.

[576] The Emperor's wife.

[577] So it is in Sec. xii. But perhaps here it means, "I

wish you had more sense, Fabius!"

[578] Adopting the reading of Reiske.

[579] Reading [Greek: phorutou] or [Greek: phoryton], as

Wyttenbach.

[580] Reading [Greek: katechein dynantai] with Reiske.

[581] See Sophocles, Fragm. 162.

[582] Homer, "Iliad," x. 457.

[583] Compare "Moralia," p. 177 A; Horace, "Satires," i.

7. 3: "Omnibus et lippis notum et tonsoribus."

[584] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 207.

[585] Sophocles, "Antigone," 317-319.

[586] See Pausanias, iii. 17; iv. 15; x. 5.

[587] Compare the idea of the people of Melita, Acts

xxviii. 4.

[588] An Allusion to Dolon in Homer, "Iliad," x., 374,

sq. according to Xylander.

[589] Quoted again by our author in his "Publicola," p.

105 B., and assigned to Epicharmus.

[590] So Shakspere has taught us, "Brevity is the soul

of wit."--_Hamlet_, Act ii Sc. 2.

[591] "In Protagora."--_Xylander._

[592] That is, is all kernel. See passim our author's

"Apophthegmata Laconica."

[593] Or, _apophthegmatic nature_.

[594] Dionysius the younger, tyrant of Syracuse, was

expelled, and afterwards kept a school at Corinth. That

is the allusion. It would be like saying "Remember

Napoleon at St. Helena."

[595] See Pausanias, x. 24.

[596] See Plato, "Charmides," 165 A.

[597] A title applied to Apollo first by Herodotus, i.

91, from his ambiguous ([Greek: loxa]) oracles.

[598] Part of the words of an oracle of the Pythian

Priestess, slightly changed. The whole oracle may be

seen in Herodotus, i. 47.

[599] Proverb of cross purposes.

[600] Reading [Greek: exerasthai] with Duebner.

[601] Catullus calls him "tumidus," _i.e._ long-winded,

95, 10. See also Propertius, iii. 34-32. He was a Greek

poet, a contemporary of Socrates and Plato, and author

of a Thebaid. Pausanias mentions him, viii. 25; ix. 35.

[602] The mediaeval proverb, _Ubi dolor ibi digitus_.

[603] A proverbial expression for having no judgment.

See Sophocles, Fragm. 307; Plato, "Charmides," 154 B;

Erasmus, "Adagia." So we say a person's mind is a blank

sheet on a subject he knows nothing about.

[604] Euripides, Fragm. 202. Quoted also by Plato,

"Gorgias," 484 E.

[605] Reading with Reiske, [Greek: misthon auto dounai

to mikron siopesai me dynamenos].

[606] A celebrated Greek historian, and pupil of

Isocrates. See Cicero, "De Oratore," ii. 13.

[607] Of Tarsus. See Cicero, "De Officiis," iii. 12.

ON CURIOSITY.[608]

Sec. I. If a house is dark, or has little air, is in an exposed position,

or unhealthy, the best thing will probably be to leave it; but if one is

attached to it from long residence in it, one can improve it and make it

more light and airy and healthy by altering the position of the windows

and stairs, and by throwing open new doors and shutting up old ones. So

some towns have been altered for the better, as my native place,[609]

which did lie to the west and received the rays of the setting sun from

Parnassus, was they say turned to the east by Chaeron. And Empedocles the

naturalist is supposed to have driven away the pestilence from that

district, by having closed up a mountain gorge that was prejudicial to

health by admitting the south wind to the plains. Similarly, as there

are certain diseases of the soul that are injurious and harmful and

bring storm and darkness to it, the best thing will be to eject them and

lay them low by giving them open sky, pure air and light, or, if that

cannot be, to change and improve them some way or other. One such mental

disease, that immediately suggests itself to one, is curiosity, the

desire to know other people's troubles, a disease that seems neither

free from envy nor malignity.

"Malignant wretch, why art so keen to mark

Thy neighbour's fault, and seest not thine own?"[610]

Shift your view, and turn your curiosity so as to look inwards: if you

delight to study the history of evils, you have copious material at

home, "as much as there is water in the Alizon, or leaves on the oak,"

such a quantity of faults will you find in your own life, and passions

in your soul, and shortcomings in your duty. For as Xenophon says[611]

good managers have one place for the vessels they use in sacrificing,

and another for those they use at meals, one place for their farm

instruments, and another for their weapons of war, so your faults arise

from different causes, some from envy, some from jealousy, some from

cowardice, some from meanness. Review these, consider these; bar up the

curiosity that pries into your neighbours' windows and passages, and

open it on the men's apartments, and women's apartments, and servant's

attics, in your own house. There this inquisitiveness and curiosity will

find full vent, in inquiries that will not be useless or malicious, but

advantageous and serviceable, each one saying to himself,

"What have I done amiss? What have I done?

What that I ought to have done left undone?"

Sec. II. And now, as they say of Lamia that she is blind when she sleeps at

home, for she puts her eyes on her dressing-table, but when she goes out

she puts her eyes on again, and has good sight, so each of us turns,

like an eye, our malicious curiosity out of doors and on others, while

we are frequently blind and ignorant about our own faults and vices, not

applying to them our eyes and light. So that the curious man is more use

to his enemies than to himself, for he finds fault with and exposes

their shortcomings, and shows them what they ought to avoid and correct,

while he neglects most of his affairs at home, owing to his excitement

about things abroad. Odysseus indeed would not converse with his mother

till he had learnt from the seer Tiresias what he went to Hades to

learn; and after receiving that information, then he turned to her, and

asked questions about the other women, who Tyro was, and who the fair

Chloris, and why Epicaste[612] had died, "having fastened a noose with a

long drop to the lofty beam."[613] But we, while very remiss and

ignorant and careless about ourselves, know all about the pedigrees of

other people, that our neighbour's grandfather was a Syrian, and his

grandmother a Thracian woman, and that such a one owes three talents,

and has not paid the interest. We even inquire into such trifling

matters as where somebody's wife has been, and what those two are

talking in the corner about. But Socrates used to busy himself in

examining the secret of Pythagoras' persuasive oratory, and Aristippus,

meeting Ischomachus at the Olympian games, asked him how Socrates

conversed so as to have so much influence over the young men, and having

received from him a few scraps and samples of his style, was so

enthusiastic about it that he wasted away, and became quite pale and

lean, thirsty and parched, till he sailed to Athens and drew from the

fountain-head, and knew the wonderful man himself and his speeches and

philosophy, the object of which was that men should recognize their

faults and so get rid of them.

Sec. III. But some men cannot bear to look upon their own life, so unlovely

a spectacle is it, nor to throw and flash on themselves, like a lantern,

the reflection of reason; but their soul being burdened with all manner

of vices, and dreading and shuddering at its own interior, sallies forth

and wanders abroad, feeding and fattening its malignity there. For as a

hen, when its food stands near its coop,[614] will frequently slip off

into a corner and scratch up,

"Where I ween some poor little grain appears on the dunghill,"

so curious people neglecting conversation or inquiry about common

matters, such as no one would try and prevent or be indignant at their

prying into, pick out the secret and hidden troubles of every family.

And yet that was a witty answer of the Egyptian, to the person who asked

him, "What he was carrying wrapped up;" "It was wrapped up on purpose

that you should not know." And you too, Sir, I would say to a curious

person, why do you pry into what is hidden? If it were not something bad

it would not be hidden. Indeed it is not usual to go into a strange

house without knocking at the door, and nowadays there are porters, but

in old times there were knockers on doors to let the people inside know

when anyone called, that a stranger might not find the mistress or

daughter of the house _en deshabille_, or one of the slaves being

corrected, or the maids bawling out. But the curious person intrudes on

all such occasions as these, although he would be unwilling to be a

spectator, even if invited, of a well-ordered family: but the things for

which bars and bolts and doors are required, these he reveals and

divulges openly to others. Those are the most troublesome winds, as

Aristo says, that blow up our clothes: but the curious person not only

strips off the garments and clothes of his neighbours, but breaks

through their walls, opens their doors, and like the wanton wind, that

insinuates itself into maidenly reserve, he pries into and calumniates

dances and routs and revels.

Sec. IV. And as Cleon is satirized in the play[615] as having "his hands

among the AEtolians, but his soul in Peculation-town," so the soul of the

curious man is at once in the mansions of the rich, and the cottages of

the poor, and the courts of kings, and the bridal chambers of the newly

married; he pries into everything, the affairs of foreigners, the

affairs of princes, and sometimes not without danger. For just as if one

were to taste aconite to investigate its properties, and kill oneself

before one had discovered them, so those that pry into the troubles of

great people ruin themselves before they get the knowledge they desire;

even as those become blind who, neglecting the wide and general

diffusion all over the earth of the sun's rays, impudently attempt to

gaze at its orb and penetrate to its light. And so that was a wise

answer of Philippides the Comic Poet, when King Lysimachus asked him on

one occasion, "What would you like to have of mine?" "Anything, O king,

but your secrets." For the pleasantest and finest things to be got from

kings are public, as banquets, and riches, and festivities, and favours:

but come not near any secret of theirs, pry not into it. There is no

concealment of the joy of a prosperous monarch, or of his laugh when he

is in a playful mood, or of any tokens of his goodwill and favour; but

dreadful is what he conceals, his gloominess, his sternness, his

reserve, his store of latent wrath, his meditation on stern revenge, his

jealousy of his wife, or suspicion of his son, or doubt about the

fidelity of a friend. Flee from this cloud that is so black and

threatening, for when its hidden fury bursts forth, you will not fail to

hear its thunder and see its lightning.

Sec. V. How shall you flee from it? Why, by dissipating and distracting

your curiosity, by turning your soul to better and pleasanter objects:

examine the phenomena of sky, and earth, and air, and sea. Are you by

nature fond of gazing at little or great things? If at great, turn your

attention to the sun, consider its rising and setting: view the changes

of the moon, like the changes of our mortal life, see how it waxes and

wanes,

"How at the first it peers out small and dim

Till it unfolds its full and glorious Orb,

And when its zenith it has once attained,

Again it wanes, grows small, and disappears."[616]

These are indeed Nature's secrets, but they bring no trouble on those

that study them. But if you decline the study of great things, inspect

with curiosity smaller matters, see how some plants flourish, are green

and gay, and exhibit their beauty, all the year round, while others are

sometimes gay like them, at other times, like some unthrift, run through

their resources entirely, and are left bare and naked. Consider again

their various shapes, how some produce oblong fruits, others angular,

others smooth and round. But perhaps you will not care to pry into all

this, since you will find nothing bad. If you must then ever bestow your

time and attention on what is bad, as the serpent lives but in deadly

matter, go to history, and turn your eye on the sum total of human

misery. For there you will find "the falls of men, and murders of their

lives,"[617] rapes of women, attacks of slaves, treachery of friends,

mixing of poisons, envyings, jealousies, "shipwrecks of families," and

dethroning of princes. Sate and cloy yourself on these, you will by so

doing vex and enrage none of your associates.

Sec. VI. But it seems curiosity does not rejoice in stale evils, but only

in fresh and recent ones, gladly viewing the spectacle of tragedies of

yesterday, but backward in taking part in comic and festive scenes. And

so the curious person is a languid and listless hearer to the narrator

of a marriage, or sacrifice, or solemn procession, he says he has heard

most of all that before, bids the narrator cut it short and come to the

point; but if his visitor tell him of the violation of some girl, or the

adultery of some married woman, or the disputes and intended litigation

of brothers, he doesn't go to sleep then, nor pretend want of leisure,

"But he pricks up his ears, and asks for more."

And indeed those lines,

"Alas! how quicker far to mortals' ears

Do ill news travel than the news of good!"

are truly said of curious people. For as cupping-glasses take away the

worst blood, so the ears of curious people attract only the worst

reports; or rather, as cities have certain ominous and gloomy gates,

through which they conduct only condemned criminals, or convey filth and

night soil, for nothing pure or holy has either ingress into or egress

from them, so into the ears of curious people goes nothing good or

elegant, but tales of murders travel and lodge there, wafting a whiff of

unholy and obscene narrations.

"And ever in my house is heard alone

The sound of wailing;"

this is to the curious their one Muse and Siren, this the sweetest note

they can hear. For curiosity desires to know what is hidden and secret;

but no one conceals his good fortune, nay sometimes people even pretend

to have such advantages as they do not really possess. So the curious

man, eager to hear a history of what is bad, is possessed by the passion

of malignity, which is brother to envy and jealousy. For envy is pain at

another's blessings, and malignity is joy at another's misfortunes: and

both proceed from the same savage and brutish vice, ill-nature.

Sec. VII. But so unpleasant is it to everybody to have his private ills

brought to light, that many have died rather than acquaint the doctors

with their secret ailments. For suppose Herophilus, or Erasistratus, or

even AEsculapius himself during his sojourn on earth, had gone with their

drugs and surgical instruments from house to house, to inquire what man

had a fistula in ano, or what woman had a cancer in her womb;--and yet

their curiosity would have been professional[618]--who would not have

driven them away from their house, for not waiting till they were sent

for, and for coming without being asked to spy out their neighbours'

ailments? But curious people pry into these and even worse matters, not

from a desire to heal them, but only to expose them to others, which

makes them deservedly hated. For we are not vexed and mortified with

custom-house officers when they levy toll on goods _bona fide_ imported,

but only when they seek for contraband articles, and rip up bags and

packages: and yet the law allows them to do even this, and sometimes it

is injurious to them not to do so. But curious people abandon and

neglect their own affairs, and are busy about their neighbours'

concerns. Seldom do they go into the country, for they do not care for

its quiet and stillness and solitude, but if once in a way they do go

there, they look more at their neighbours' vines than their own, and

inquire how many cows of their neighbour have died, or how much of his

wine has turned sour, and when they are satisfied on these points they

soon return to town again. But the genuine countryman does not willingly

listen to any rumour that chances to come from the town, for he quotes

the following lines,

"Even with spade in hand he'll tell the terms

On which peace was concluded: all these things

The cursed fellow walks about and pries into."

Sec. VIII. But curious people shun the country as stale and dull and too

quiet, and push into warehouses and markets and harbours, asking, "Any

news? Were you not in the market in the forenoon?" and sometimes

receiving for answer, "What then? Do you think things in the town change

every three hours?" Notwithstanding if anyone brings any news, he'll get

off his horse, and embrace him, and kiss him, and stand to listen. If

however the person who meets him says he has no news, he will say

somewhat peevishly, "No news, Sir? Have you not been in the market? Did

you not pass by the officers' quarters? Did you exchange no words with

those that have just arrived from Italy?" To stop such people the

Locrian authorities had an excellent rule; they fined everyone coming

from abroad who asked what the news was. For as cooks pray for plenty of

meat, and fishmongers for shoals of fish, so curious people pray for

shoals of trouble, and plenty of business, and innovations and changes,

that they may have something to hunt after and tittle-tattle about. Well

also was it in _Charondas_, the legislator of the people of Thurii,[619]

to forbid any of the citizens but adulterers and curious persons to be

ridiculed on the stage. Adultery itself indeed seems to be only the

fruit of curiosity about another man's pleasures, and an inquiring and

prying into things kept close and hidden from the world; while curiosity

is a tampering with and seduction of and revealing the nakedness of

secrets.[620]

Sec. IX. As it is likely that much learning will produce wordiness, and so

Pythagoras enjoined five years' silence on his scholars, calling it a

truce from words,[621] so defamation of character is sure to go with

curiosity. For what people are glad to hear they are glad to talk about,

and what they eagerly pick up from others they joyfully retail to

others. And so, amongst the other mischiefs of curiosity, the disease

runs counter to their desires; for all people fight shy of them, and

conceal their affairs from them, and neither care to do or say anything

in their presence, but defer consultations, and put off investigations,

till such people are out of the way; and if, when some secret is just

about to be uttered, or some important business is just about to be

arranged, some curious man happen to pop in, they are mum at once and

reserved, as one puts away fish if the cat is about; and so frequently

things seen and talked about by all the rest of the world are unknown

only to them. For the same reason the curious person never gets the

confidence of anybody. For we would rather entrust our letters and

papers and seals to slaves and strangers than to curious friends and

intimates. The famous Bellerophon,[622] though he carried letters

against his life, opened them not, but abstained from reading the letter

to the king, as he had refused to sell his honour to Proetus' wife, so

great was his continence.[623] For curiosity and adultery both come from

incontinence, and to the latter is added monstrous folly and insanity.

For to pass by so many common and public women, and to intrude oneself

on some married woman,[624] who is sure to be more costly, and possibly

less pretty to boot, is the acme of madness. Yet such is the conduct of

curious people. They neglect many gay sights, fail to hear much that

would be well worth hearing, lose much fine sport and pastime, to break

open private letters, to put their ears to their neighbour's walls, and

to whisper to their slaves and women-servants, practices always low, and

frequently dangerous.

Sec. X. It will be exceedingly useful, therefore, to deter the curious from

these propensities, for them to remember their past experience.

Simonides used to say that he occasionally opened two chests for rewards

and thanks that he had by him, and found the one full for rewards, but

the one for thanks always empty.[625] So if anyone were to open

occasionally the stores that curiosity had amassed, and observe what a

cargo there was of useless and idle and unlovely things, perhaps the

sight of all this poor stuff would inspire him with disgust. Suppose

someone, in studying the writings of the ancients, were to pick out only

their worst passages, and compile them into a volume, as Homer's

imperfect lines, and the solecisms of the tragedians, and Archilochus'

indecent and bitter railings against women, by which he so exposed

himself, would he not be worthy of the curse of the tragedian,

"Perish, compiler of thy neighbours' ills?"

And independently of such a curse, the piling up of other people's

misdoings is indecent and useless, and like the town which Philip

founded and filled with the vilest and most dissolute wretches, and

called _Rogue Town_. Curious persons, indeed, making a collection of the

faults and errors and solecisms, not of lines or poems but of people's

lives, render their memory a most inelegant and unlovely register of

dark deeds. Just as there are in Rome some people who care nothing for

pictures and statues, or even handsome boys or women exposed for sale,

but haunt the monster-market, and make eager inquiries about people who

have no calves, or three eyes, or arms like weasels, or heads like

ostriches, and look about for some

"Unnatural monster like the Minotaur,"[626]

and for a time are greatly captivated with them, but if anyone

continually gazes at such sights, they will soon give him satiety and

disgust; so let those who curiously inquire into the errors and faults

of life, and disgraces of families, and disorders in other people's

houses, first remember what little favour or advantage such prying has

brought them on previous occasions.

Sec. XI. Habit will be of the utmost importance in stopping this

propensity, if we begin early to practise self-control in respect to it,

for as the disease increases by habit and degrees, so will its cure, as

we shall see when we discuss the necessary discipline. In the first

place, let us begin with the most trifling and unimportant matters. What

hardship will it be when we walk abroad not to read the epitaphs on

graves, or what detriment shall we suffer by not glancing at the

inscriptions on walls in the public walks? Let us reflect that there is

nothing useful or pleasant for us in these notices, which only record

that so-and-so remembered so-and-so out of gratitude, and, "Here lies

the best of friends," and much poor stuff of that kind;[627] which

indeed do not seem to do much harm, except indirectly, to those that

read them, by engendering the practice of curiosity about things

immaterial. And as huntsmen do not allow the hounds to follow any scent

and run where they please, but check and restrain them in leashes,

keeping their sense of smell pure and fresh for the object of their

chase, that they may the keener dart on their tracks, "following up the

traces of the unfortunate beasts by their scent," so we must check and

repress the sallies and excursions of the curious man to every object of

interest, whether of sight or hearing, and confine him to what is

useful. For as eagles and lions on the prowl keep their claws sheathed

that they may not lose their edge and sharpness, so, when we remember

that curiosity for learning has also its edge and keenness, let us not

entirely expend or blunt it on inferior objects.

Sec. XII. Next let us accustom ourselves when we pass a strange house not

to look inside at the door, or curiously inspect the interior, as if we

were going to pilfer something, remembering always that saying of

Xenocrates, that it is all one whether one puts one's feet or eyes in

another person's house. For such prying is neither honourable, nor

comely, nor even agreeable.

"Stranger, thou'lt see within untoward sights."

For such is generally the condition inside houses, utensils kicking

about, maids lolling about, no work going on, nothing to please the eye;

and moreover such side glances, and stray shots as it were, distort the

soul, and are unhandsome, and the practice is a pernicious one. When

Diogenes saw Dioxippus, a victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot

and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching the

procession, but still turning round and casting sheep's eyes at her, he

said, "See you yon athlete straining his neck to look at a girl?" And

similarly you may see curious people twisting and straining their necks

at every spectacle alike, from the habit and practice of turning their

eyes in all directions. And I think the senses ought not to rove about,

like an ill-trained maid, when sent on an errand by the soul, but to do

their business, and then return quickly with the answer, and afterwards

to keep within the bounds of reason, and obey her behests. But it is

like those lines of Sophocles,

"Then did the AEnianian's horses bolt,

Unmanageable quite;"[628]

for so the senses not having, as we said, right training and practice,

often run away, and drag reason along with them, and plunge her into

unlawful excesses. And so, though that story about Democritus is false,

that he purposely destroyed his eyesight by the reflection from

burning-glasses (as people sometimes shut up windows that look into the

street), that they might not disturb him by frequently calling off his

attention to external things, but allow him to confine himself to purely

intellectual matters, yet it is very true in every case that those who

use the mind most are least acted upon by the senses. And so the

philosophers erected their places for study as far as possible from

towns, and called Night the time propitious to thought,[629] thinking

quiet and withdrawal from worldly distractions a great help towards

meditating upon and solving the problems of life.

Sec. XIII. Moreover, when men are abusing and reviling one another in the

market-place, it is not very difficult or tiresome not to go near them;

or if a tumultuous concourse of people crowd together, to remain seated;

or to get up and go away, if you are not master of yourself. For you

will gain no advantage by mixing yourself up with curious people: but

you will derive the greatest benefit from putting a force upon your

inclinations, and bridling your curiosity, and accustoming it to obey

reason. Afterwards it will be well to extend the practice still further,

and not to go to the theatre when some fine piece is performing, and if

your friends invite you to see some dancer or actor to decline, and, if

there is some shouting in the stadium and hippodrome, not even to turn

your head to look what is up. For as Socrates advised people to abstain

from food that made them eat when they were not hungry, and from drinks

that made them drink when they were not thirsty, so ought we also to

shun and flee from those objects of interest, whether to eye or ear,

that master us and attract us when we stand in no need of them. Thus

Cyrus would not look at Panthea, but when Araspes told him that her

beauty was well worth inspection, he replied, "For that very reason must

I the more abstain from seeing her, for if at your persuasion I were to

pay her a visit, perhaps she would persuade me to visit her again when I

could ill spare the time, so that I might neglect important business to

sit with her and gaze on her charms."[630] Similarly Alexander would not

see the wife of Darius, who was reputed to be very beautiful, but

visited her mother who was old, and would not venture to look upon the

young and handsome queen. We on the contrary peep into women's litters,

and hang about their windows, and think we do no harm, though we thus

make our curiosity a loop-hole[631] for all manner of vice.

Sec. XIV. Moreover, as it is of great help to fair dealing sometimes not to

seize some honest gain, that you may accustom yourself as far as

possible to flee from unjust gains, and as it makes greatly for virtue

to abstain sometimes from your own wife, that you may not ever be

tempted by another woman, so, applying the habit to curiosity, try not

to see and hear at times all that goes on in your own house even, and if

anyone wishes to tell you anything about it give him the go-by, and

decline to hear him. For it was nothing but his curiosity that involved

Oedipus in his extreme calamities: for it was to try and find out his

extraction that he left Corinth and met Laius, and killed him, and got

his kingdom, and married his own mother, and when he then seemed at the

acme of felicity, he must needs make further inquiries about himself;

and though his wife tried to prevent him, he none the less compelled the

old man that had been an eye-witness of the deed to tell him all the

circumstances of it, and though he long suspected how the story would

end, yet when the old man cried out,

"Alas! the dreadful tale I must then tell,"

so inflamed was he with curiosity and trembling with impatience, that he

replied,

"I too must hear, for hear it now I will."[632]

So bitter-sweet and uncontrollable is the itch of curiosity, like a

sore, shedding its blood when lanced. But he that is free from this

disease, and calm by nature, being ignorant of many unpleasant things,

may say,

"Holy oblivion of all human ills,

What wisdom dost thou bring!"[633]

Sec. XV. We ought therefore also to accustom ourselves, when we receive a

letter, not to be in a tremendous hurry about breaking the seal, as most

people are, even tearing it open with their teeth if their hands are

slow; nor to rise from our seat and run up to meet him, if a messenger

comes; and if a friend says, "I have some news to tell you," we ought to

say, "I had rather you had something useful or advantageous to tell me."

When I was on one occasion lecturing at Rome, one of my audience was the

well-known Rusticus, whom the Emperor Domitian afterwards had put to

death through envy of his glory, and a soldier came in in the middle and

brought him a letter from the Emperor, and silence ensuing, and I

stopping that he might have time to read his letter, he would not, and

did not open it till I had finished my lecture, and the audience had

dispersed; so that everybody marvelled at his self-control. But whenever

anyone who has power feeds his curiosity till it is strong and vehement,

he can no longer easily control it, when it hurries him on to illicit

acts, from force of habit; and such people open their friends' letters,

thrust themselves in at private meetings, become spectators of rites

they ought not to witness, enter holy grounds they ought not to, and pry

into the lives and conversations of kings.

Sec. XVI. Indeed tyrants themselves, who must know all things, are made

unpopular by no class more than by their spies[634] and talebearers.

Darius in his youth, when he mistrusted his own powers, and suspected

and feared everybody, was the first who employed spies; and the

Dionysiuses introduced them at Syracuse: but in a revolution they were

the first that the Syracusans took and tortured to death. Indeed

informers are of the same tribe and family as curious people. However

informers only investigate wicked acts or plots, but curious people pry

into and publish abroad the involuntary misfortunes of their neighbours.

And it is said that impious people first got their name from curiosity,

for it seems there was a mighty famine at Athens, and those people that

had wheat not producing it, but grinding it stealthily by night in their

houses, some of their neighbours went about and noticed the noise of the

mills grinding, and so they got their name.[635] This also is the origin

of the well-known Greek word for informer, (Sycophant, _quasi_

Fig-informer), for when the people were forbidden to export figs, those

who informed against those who did were called Fig-informers. It is well

worth the while of curious people to give their attention to this, that

they may be ashamed of having any similarity or connection in habit with

a class of people so universally hated and disliked as informers.

[608] Jeremy Taylor has largely borrowed from this

Treatise in his "Holy Living," chap. ii. Sec. v. Of

Modesty.

[609] Chaeronea in Boeotia.

[610] Lines from some comic poet, no doubt.

[611] "Oeconomicus," cap. viii.

[612] The mother of Oedipus, better known as "Jocasta."

[613] Homer, "Odyssey," xi. 278. Epicaste hung herself.

[614] "[Greek: oikisko] corrigit Valekenarius ad Herodot.

p. 557."--_Wyttenbach._

[615] Aristophanes, "Equites," 79.

[616] Sophocles, Fragm. 713. The lines are quoted more

fully by our author in his "Lives," p. 911. There are

there four preceding lines that compare human life to

the moon's changes.

[617] AEschylus, "Supplices," 937.

[618] All three being eminent doctors.

[619] "Intelligo Charondam."--_Xylander._

[620] Plutarch wants to show that curiosity and adultery

are really the same vice in principle. Hence his imagery

here. Jeremy Taylor has very beautifully dealt with this

passage, "Holy Living," chap. ii. Sec. v. I cannot pretend

to his felicity of language. Thus Plutarch makes

adultery mere curiosity, and curiosity a sort of

adultery in regard to secrets. A profoundly ethical and

moral view. Compare Sec. ix.

[621] Compare Lucian's [Greek: echeglottia], after

[Greek: echecheiria] (_armistice_), _Lexiph_. 9.

[622] See the story in Homer, "Iliad," vi. 155 sq.

[623] Or self-control.

[624] Literally, some woman _shut up_, or _enclosed_.

[625] See also our author's "On those who are punished

by the Deity late," Sec. xi.

[626] See Euripides, Fragm., 389. Also Plutarch's

"Theseus," cap. xv.

[627] Plutarch rather reminds one, in his evident

contempt for _Epitaphs_, of the cynic who asked, "Where

are all the bad people buried?" Where indeed?

[628] Sophocles, "Electra," 724, 725.

[629] _euphrone_, a stock phrase for night, is here

defined.

[630] "Historia exstat initio libri quinti

Cyropaediae."--_Reiske._

[631] Literally, "slippery and prone to." For the

metaphor of "slippery" compare Horace, "Odes," i. 19-8,

"Et vultus nimium lubricus adspici."

[632] This and the line above are in Sophocles, "Oedipus

Tyrannus," 1169, 1170.

[633] Euripides, "Orestes," 213.

[634] Literally, _ears_.

[635] The paronomasia is as follows. The word for

impious people is supposed to mean _listeners to mills

grinding_.

ON SHYNESS.[636]

Sec. I. Some of the things that grow on the earth are in their nature wild

and barren and injurious to the growth of seeds and plants, yet those

who till the ground consider them indications not of a bad soil but of a

rich and fat one;[637] so also there are passions of the soul that are

not good, yet are as it were offshoots of a good disposition, and one

likely to improve with good advice. Among these I class shyness, no bad

sign in itself, though it affords occasion to vice. For the modest

oftentimes plunge into the same excesses as the shameless, but then they

are pained and grieved at them, and not pleased like the others. For the

shameless person is quite apathetic at what is disgraceful, while the

modest person is easily affected even at the very appearance of it.

Shyness is in fact an excess of modesty. And thus it is called

shamefacedness, because the face exhibits the changes of the mind. For

as dejection is defined to be the grief that makes people look on the

ground, so shamefacedness is that shyness that cannot look people in the

face. And so the orator said the shameless person had not pupils[638] in

his eyes but harlots. The bashful person on the other hand shows his

delicacy and effeminacy of soul in his countenance, and palliates his

weakness, which exposes him to defeat at the hands of the impudent, by

the name of modesty. Cato used to say he was better pleased with those

lads that blushed than with those that turned pale, rightly teaching us

to fear censure more than labour,[639] and suspicion than danger.

However we must avoid too much timidity and fear of censure, since many

have played the coward, and abandoned noble ventures, more from fear of

a bad name than of the dangers to be undergone, not being able to bear a

bad reputation.

Sec. II. As we must not disregard their weakness, so neither again must we

praise that rigid and stubborn insensibility, "that recklessness and

frantic energy to rush anywhere, that seemed like a dog's courage in

Anaxarchus."[640] But we must contrive a harmonious blending of the two,

that shall remove the shamelessness of pertinacity, and the weakness of

excessive modesty; seeing its cure is difficult, and the correction of

such excesses not without danger. For as the husbandman, in rooting up

some wild and useless weed, at once plunges his spade vigorously into

the ground, and digs it up by the root, or burns it with fire, but if he

has to do with a vine that needs pruning, or some apple-tree, or olive,

he puts his hand to it very carefully, being afraid of injuring any

sound part; so the philosopher, eradicating from the soul of the young

man that ignoble and untractable weed, envy, or unseasonable avarice, or

amputating the excessive love of pleasure, may bandage and draw blood,

make deep incision, and leave scars: but if he has to apply reason as a

corrective to a tender and delicate part of the soul, such as shyness

and bashfulness, he is careful that he may not inadvertently root up

modesty as well. For nurses who are often rubbing the dirt off their

infants sometimes tear their flesh and put them to torture. We ought not

therefore, by rubbing off the shyness of youths too much, to make them

too careless and contemptuous; but as those that pull down houses close

to temples prop up the adjacent parts, so in trying to get rid of

shyness we must not eradicate with it the virtues akin to it, as modesty

and meekness and mildness, by which it insinuates itself and becomes

part of a man's character, flattering the bashful man that he has a

nature courteous and civil and affable, and not hard as flint or

self-willed. And so the Stoics from the outset verbally distinguished

shame and shyness from modesty, that they might not by identity of name

give the vice opportunity to inflict harm. But let it be granted to us

to use the words indiscriminately, following indeed the example of

Homer. For he said,

"Modesty does both harm and good to men;"[641]

and he did well to mention the harm it does first. For it becomes

advantageous only through reason's curtailing its excess, and reducing

it to moderate proportions.

Sec. III. In the first place, then, the person who is afflicted with

shyness ought to be persuaded that he suffers from an injurious disease,

and that nothing injurious can be good: nor must he be wheedled and

tickled with the praise of being called a nice and jolly fellow rather

than being styled lofty and dignified and just; nor, like Pegasus in

Euripides, "who stooped and crouched lower than he wished"[642] to take

up his rider Bellerophon, must he humble himself and grant whatever

favours are asked him, fearing to be called hard and ungentle. They say

that the Egyptian Bocchoris, who was by nature very severe, had an asp

sent him by Isis, which coiled round his head, and shaded him from

above, that he might judge righteously. Bashfulness on the contrary,

like a dead weight on languid and effeminate persons, not daring to

refuse or contradict anybody, makes jurors deliver unjust verdicts, and

shuts the mouth of counsellors, and makes people say and do many things

against their wish; and so the most headstrong person is always master

and lord of such, through his own impudence prevailing against their

modesty. So bashfulness, like soft and sloping ground, being unable to

repel or avert any attack, lies open to the most shameful acts and

passions. It is a bad guardian of youth, as Brutus said he didn't think

that person had spent his youth well who had not learnt how to say No.

It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women's apartments, as the

penitent adultress in Sophocles said to her seducer,

"You did persuade, and coax me into sin."[643]

Thus shyness, being first seduced by vice,[644] leaves its citadel

unbarred, unfortified, and open to attack. By gifts people ensnare the

worse natures, but by persuasion and playing upon their bashfulness

people often seduce even good women. I pass over the injury done to

worldly affairs by bashfulness causing people to lend to those whose

credit is doubtful, and to go security against their wish, for though

they commend that saying, "Be a surety, trouble is at hand,"[645] they

cannot apply it when business is on hand.

Sec. IV. It would not be easy to enumerate how many this vice has ruined.

When Creon said to Medea,

"Lady, 'tis better now to earn your hate,

Than through my softness afterwards to groan,"[646]

he uttered a pregnant maxim for others; for he himself was overcome by

his bashfulness, and granted her one day more, and so was the undoing of

his family. And some, when they suspected murder or poison, have failed

through it to take precautions for their safety. Thus perished Dion, not

ignorant that Callippus was plotting against him, but ashamed to be on

his guard against a friend and host. So Antipater, the son of Cassander,

having invited Demetrius to supper, and being invited back by him for

the next day, was ashamed to doubt another as he had been trusted

himself, and went, and got his throat cut after supper. And Polysperchon

promised Cassander for a hundred talents to murder Hercules, the son of

Alexander by Barsine, and invited him to supper, and, as the stripling

suspected and feared the invitation, and pleaded as an excuse that he

was not very well, Polysperchon called on him, and addressed him as

follows, "Imitate, my lad, your father's good-nature and kindness to his

friends, unless indeed you fear us as plotting against you." The young

man was ashamed to refuse any longer, so he went with him, and some of

those at the supper-party strangled him. And so that line of

Hesiod,[647]

"Invite your friend to supper, not your enemy,"

is not ridiculous, as some say, or stupid advice, but wise. Show no

bashfulness in regard to an enemy, and do not suppose him trustworthy,

though he may seem so.[648] For if you invite you will be invited back,

and if you entertain others you will be entertained back to your hurt,

if you let the temper as it were of your caution be weakened by shame.

Sec. V. As then this disease is the cause of much mischief, we must try and

exterminate it by assiduous effort, beginning first, as people are wont

to do in other matters, with small and easy things. For example, if

anyone pledge you to drink with him at a dinner when you have had

enough, do not be bashful, or do violence to nature, but put the cup

down without drinking. Again, if somebody else challenge you to play at

dice with him in your cups, be not bashful or afraid of ridicule, but

imitate Xenophanes, who, when Lasus of Hermione called him coward

because he would not play at dice with him, admitted that he was a great

coward and had no courage for what was ignoble. Again, if you meet with

some prating fellow who attacks you and sticks to you, do not be

bashful, but get rid of him, and hasten on and pursue your undertaking.

For such flights and repulses, keeping you in practice in trying to

overcome your bashfulness in small matters, will prepare you for greater

occasions. And here it is well to record a remark of Demosthenes. When

the Athenians were going to help Harpalus, and to war against Alexander,

all of a sudden Philoxenus, who was Alexander's admiral, was sighted in

the offing. And the populace being greatly alarmed, and speechless for

fear, Demosthenes said, "What will they do when they see the sun, if

they cannot lift their eyes to face a lamp?" And what will you do in

important matters, if the king desires anything, or the people importune

you, if you cannot decline to drink when your friend asks you, or evade

the onset of some prating fellow, but allow the trifler to waste all

your time, from not having nerve to say, "I will see you some other

time, I have no leisure now."[649]

Sec. VI. Moreover, the use and practice of restraining one's bashfulness in

small and unimportant matters is advantageous also in regard to praise.

For example, if a friend's harper sings badly at a drinking party, or an

actor hired at great cost murders[650] Menander, and most of the party

clap and applaud, I find it by no means hard, or bad manners, to listen

silently, and not to be so illiberal as to praise contrary to one's

convictions. For if in such matters you are not master of yourself, what

will you do if your friend reads a poor poem, or parades a speech

stupidly and ridiculously written?[651] You will praise it of course,

and join the flatterers in loud applause. But how then will you find

fault with your friend if he makes mistakes in business? How will you be

able to correct him, if he acts improperly in reference to some office,

or marriage, or the state? For I cannot indeed assent to the remark of

Pericles to his friend, who asked him to bear false witness in his

favour even to the extent of perjury, "I am your friend as far as the

altar." He went too far. But he that has long accustomed himself never

to go against his convictions in praising a speaker, or clapping a

singer, or laughing at a dull buffoon, will never go to this length, nor

say to some impudent fellow in such matters, "Swear on my behalf, bear

false witness, pronounce an unjust verdict."

Sec. VII. So also we ought to refuse people that want to borrow money of

us, from being accustomed to say No in small and easily refused matters.

Thus Archelaus, king of the Macedonians, being asked at supper for a

gold cup by a man who thought _Receive_ the finest word in the language,

bade a boy give it to Euripides,[652] and gazing intently on the man

said to him, "You are fit to ask, and not to receive, and he is fit to

receive without asking." Thus did he make judgement and not bashfulness

the arbiter of his gifts and favours. Yet we oftentimes pass over our

friends who are both deserving and in need, and give to others who

continually and impudently importune us, not from the wish to give but

from the inability to say No. So the older Antigonus, being frequently

annoyed by Bion, said, "Give a talent to Bion and necessity." Yet he was

of all the kings most clever and ingenious at getting rid of such

importunity. For on one occasion, when a Cynic asked him for a drachma,

he replied, "That would be too little for a king to give;"[653] and when

the Cynic rejoined, "Give me then a talent," he met him with, "That

would be too much for a Cynic to receive."[654] Diogenes indeed used to

go round begging to the statues in the Ceramicus, and when people

expressed their astonishment said he was practising how to bear

refusals. And we must practise ourselves in small matters, and exercise

ourselves in little things, with a view to refusing people who importune

us, or would receive from us when inconvenient, that we may be able to

avoid great miscarriages. For no one, as Demosthenes says,[655] if he

expends his resources on unnecessary things, will have means for

necessary ones. And our disgrace is greatly increased, if we are

deficient in what is noble, and abound in what is trivial.

Sec. VIII. But bashfulness is not only a bad and inconsiderate manager of

money, but also in more important matters makes us reject expediency and

reason. For when we are ill we do not call in the experienced doctor,

because we stand in awe of the family one; and instead of the best

teachers for our boys we select those that importune us;[656] and in our

suits at law we frequently refuse the aid of some skilled advocate, to

oblige the son of some friend or relative, and give him a chance to make

a forensic display; and lastly, you will find many so-called

philosophers Epicureans or Stoics, not from deliberate choice or

conviction, but simply from bashfulness, to have the same views as their

friends and acquaintances. Since this is the case, let us accustom

ourselves betimes in small and everyday matters to employ no barber or

fuller merely from bashfulness, nor to put up at a sorry inn, when a

better is at hand, merely because the innkeeper has on several occasions

been extra civil to us, but for the benefit of the habit to select the

best even in a small matter; as the Pythagoreans were careful never to

put their left leg across the right, nor to take an even number instead

of an odd, all other matters being indifferent. We must accustom

ourselves also, at a sacrifice or marriage or any entertainment of that

kind, not to invite the person who greets us and runs up to meet us, but

the friend who is serviceable to us. For he that has thus practised and

trained himself will be difficult to catch tripping, nay even

unassailable, in greater matters.

Sec. IX. Let so much suffice for practice. And of useful considerations the

first is that which teaches and reminds us, that all passions and

maladies of the soul are accompanied by the very things which we think

we avoid through them. Thus infamy comes through too great love of fame,

and pain comes from love of pleasure, and plenty of work to the idle,

and to the contentious defeats and losses of lawsuits. And so too it is

the fate of bashfulness, in fleeing from the smoke of ill-repute, to

throw itself into the fire of it.[657] For the bashful, not venturing to

say No to those that press them hard, afterwards feel shame at just

rebuke, and, through standing in awe of slight blame, frequently in the

end incur open disgrace. For if a friend asks some money of them, and

through bashfulness they cannot refuse, a little time after they are

disgraced by the facts becoming known;[658] or if they have promised to

help friends in a lawsuit, they turn round and hide their diminished

heads, and run away from fear of the other side. Many also, who have

accepted on behalf of a daughter or sister an unprofitable offer of

marriage at the bidding of bashfulness, have afterwards been compelled

to break their word, and break off the match.

Sec. X. He that said all the dwellers in Asia were slaves to one man

because they could not say the one syllable No, spoke in jest and not in

earnest; but bashful persons, even if they say nothing, can by raising

or dropping their eyebrows decline many disagreeable and unpleasant acts

of compliance. For Euripides says, "Silence is an answer to wise

men,"[659] but we stand more in need of it to inconsiderate persons, for

we can talk over the sensible. And indeed it is well to have at hand and

frequently on our lips the sayings[660] of good and famous men to quote

to those who importune us, as that of Phocion to Antipater, "You cannot

have me both as a friend and flatterer;" or his remark to the Athenians,

when they applauded him and bade him contribute to the expenses of a

festival, "I am ashamed to contribute anything to you, till I have paid

yonder person my debts to him," pointing out his creditor Callicles.

For, as Thucydides says, "It is not disgraceful to admit one's poverty,

but it is very much so not to try to mend it."[661] But he who through

stupidity or softness is too bashful to say to anyone that importunes

him,

"Stranger, no silver white is in my caves,"

but goes bail for him as it were through his promises,

"Is bound by fetters not of brass but shame."[662]

But Persaeus,[663] when he lent a sum of money to one of his friends, had

the fact duly attested by a banker in the market-place, remembering

belike that line in Hesiod,[664]

"E'en to a brother, smiling, bring you witness."

And he wondering and saying, "Why all these legal forms, Persaeus?" he

replied, "Ay, verily, that my money may be paid back in a friendly way,

and that I may not have to use legal forms to get it back." For many, at

first too bashful to see to security, have afterwards had to go to law,

and lost their friend.[665]

Sec. XI. Plato again, giving Helicon of Cyzicus a letter for Dionysius,

praised the bearer as a man of goodness and moderation, but added at the

end of the letter, "I write you this about a man, an animal by nature

apt to change." But Xenocrates, though a man of austere character, was

prevailed upon through his bashfulness to recommend to Polysperchon by

letter, one who was no good man as the event showed; for when the

Macedonian welcomed him, and inquired if he wanted any money, he asked

for a talent, and Polysperchon gave it him, but wrote to Xenocrates

advising him for the future to be more careful in the choice of people

he recommended. But Xenocrates knew not the fellow's true character; we

on the other hand very often when we know that such and such men are

bad, yet give them testimonials and money, doing ourselves injury, and

not getting any pleasure for it, as people do get in the company of

whores and flatterers, but being vexed and disgusted at the importunity

that has upset and forced our reason. For the line

"I know that what I'm going to do is bad,"[666]

is especially applicable to people that importune us, when one is going

to perjure oneself, or deliver an unjust verdict, or vote for a measure

that is inexpedient, or borrow money for someone who will never pay it

back.

Sec. XII. And so repentance follows more closely upon bashfulness than upon

any emotion, and that not afterwards, but in the very act. For we are

vexed with ourselves when we give, and ashamed when we perjure

ourselves, and get ill-fame from our advocacies, and are put to the

blush, when we cannot fulfil our promises. For frequently, from

inability to say No, we promise impossibilities to persevering

applicants, as introductions at court, and audiences with princes, from

reluctance or want of nerve to say, "The king does not know us, others

have his regard far more." But Lysander, when he was out of favour with

Agesilaus, though he was thought to have very great influence with him

owing to his great reputation, was not ashamed to dismiss suitors, and

bid them go and pay their court to others who had more influence with

the king. For not to be able to do everything carries no disgrace with

it, but to undertake and try and force your way to what you are unable

to do, or unqualified by nature for, is in addition to the disgrace

incurred a task full of trouble.

Sec. XIII. To take another element into consideration, all seemly and

modest requests we ought readily to comply with, not bashfully but

heartily, whereas in injurious or unreasonable requests we ought ever to

remember the conduct of Zeno, who, meeting a young man he knew walking

very quietly near a wall, and learning from him that he was trying to

get out of the way of a friend who wanted him to perjure himself on his

behalf, said to him, "O stupid fellow, what do you tell me? Is he not

afraid or ashamed to press you to what is not right? And dare not you

stand up boldly against him for what is right?" For he that said

"villainy is no bad weapon against villainy"[667] taught people the bad

practice of standing on one's defence against vice by imitating it; but

to get rid of those who shamelessly and unblushingly importune us by

their own effrontery, and not to gratify the immodest in their

disgraceful desires through false modesty, is the right and proper

conduct of sensible people.

Sec. XIV. Moreover it is no great task to resist disreputable and low and

worthless fellows who importune you, but some send such off with a laugh

or a jest, as Theocritus did, who, when two fellows in the public baths,

one a stranger, the other a well-known thief, wanted to borrow his

scraper,[668] put them both off with a playful answer, "You, sir, I

don't know, and you I know too well." And Lysimache,[669] the priestess

of Athene Polias at Athens, when some muleteers that bore the sacred

vessels asked her to give them a drink, answered, "I hesitate to do so

from fear that you would make a practice of it." And when a certain

young man, the son of a distinguished officer, but himself effeminate

and far from bold, asked Antigonus for promotion, he replied, "With me,

young man, honours are given for personal prowess, not for the prowess

of ancestors."

Sec. XV. But if the person that importunes us be famous or a man of power,

for such persons are very hard to move by entreaty or to get rid of when

they come to sue for your vote and interest, it will not perhaps be easy

or even necessary to behave as Cato, when quite a young man, did to

Catulus. Catulus was in the highest repute at Rome, and at that time

held the office of censor, and went to Cato, who then held the office of

quaestor, and tried to beg off someone whom he had fined, and was urgent

and even violent in his petitions, till Cato at last lost all patience,

and said, "To have you, the censor, removed by my officers against your

will, Catulus, would not be a seemly thing for you." So Catulus felt

ashamed, and went off in a rage. But see whether the answers of

Agesilaus and Themistocles are not more modest and in better form.

Agesilaus, when he was asked by his father to pronounce sentence

contrary to the law, said, "Father, I was taught by you even from my

earliest years to obey the laws, so now I shall obey you and do nothing

contrary to law." And Themistocles, when Simonides asked him to do

something unjust, replied, "Neither would you be a good poet if your

lines violated the laws of metre, nor should I be a good magistrate if I

gave decisions contrary to law."

Sec. XVI. And yet it is not on account of want of metrical harmony in

respect to the lyre, to borrow the words of Plato, that cities quarrel

with cities and friends with friends, and do and suffer the worst woes,

but on account of deviations[670] from law and justice. And yet some,

who themselves pay great attention to melody and letters and measures,

do not think it wrong for others to neglect what is right in

magistracies and judicial sentences and business generally. One must

therefore deal with them in the following manner. Does an orator ask a

favour of you when you are acting as juryman, or a demagogue when you

are sitting in council? Say you will grant his request if he first utter

a solecism, or introduce a barbarism into his speech; he will refuse

because of the shame that would attach itself to him; at any rate we see

some that will not in a speech let two vowels come together. If again

some illustrious and distinguished person importune you to something

bad, bid him come into the market-place dancing or making wry faces, and

if he refuse you will have an opportunity to speak, and ask him which is

more disgraceful, to utter a solecism and make wry faces, or to violate

the law and one's oath, and contrary to justice to do more for a bad

than for a good man. Nicostratus the Argive, when Archidamus offered him

a large sum of money and any Lacedaemonian bride he chose if he would

deliver up Cromnum, said Archidamus could not be a descendant of

Hercules, for he travelled about and killed evil-doers, whereas

Archidamus tried to make evil-doers of the good. In like manner, if a

man of good repute tries to force and importune us to something bad, let

us tell him that he is acting in an ignoble way, and not as his birth

and virtue would warrant.

Sec. XVII. But in the case of people of no repute you must see whether you

can persuade the miser by your importunity to lend you money without a

bond, or the proud man to yield you the better place, or the ambitious

man to surrender some office to you when he might take it himself. For

truly it would seem monstrous that, while such remain firm and

inflexible and unmoveable in their vicious propensities, we who wish to

be, and profess to be, men of honour and justice should be so little

masters of ourselves as to abandon and betray virtue. For indeed, if

those who importune us do it for glory and power, it is absurd that we

should adorn and aggrandize others only to get infamy and a bad name

ourselves; like unfair umpires in the public games, or like people

voting only to ingratiate themselves, and so bestowing improperly

offices and prizes[671] and glory on others, while they rob themselves

of respect and fair fame. And if we see that the person who importunes

us only does so for money, does it not occur to one that it is monstrous

to be prodigal of one's own fame and reputation merely to make somebody

else's purse heavier? Why the idea must occur to most people, they sin

with their eyes open; like people who are urged hard to toss off big

bumpers, and grunt and groan and make wry faces, but at last do as they

are told.

Sec. XVIII. Such weakness of mind is like a temperament of body equally

susceptible to heat and cold; for if such people are praised by those

that importune them they are overcome and yield at once, whereas they

are mortally afraid of the blame and suspicions of those whose desires

they do not comply with. But we ought to be stout and resolute in either

case, neither yielding to bullying nor cajolery. Thucydides indeed tells

us, since envy necessarily follows ability, that "he is well advised who

incurs envy in matters of the highest importance."[672] But we, thinking

it difficult to escape envy, and seeing that it is altogether impossible

not to incur blame or give offence to those we live with, shall be well

advised if we prefer the hatred of the perverse to that of those who

might justly find fault with us for having iniquitously served their

turn. And indeed we ought to be on our guard against praise from those

who importune us, which is sure to be altogether insincere, and not to

resemble swine, readily allowing anyone that presses to make use of us

from our pleasure at itching and tickling, and submitting ourselves to

their will. For those that give their ears to flatterers differ not a

whit from such as let themselves be tripped up at wrestling, only their

overthrow and fall is more disgraceful; some forbearing hostility and

reproof in the case of bad men, that they may be called merciful and

humane and compassionate; and others on the contrary persuaded to take

up unnecessary and dangerous animosities and charges by those who praise

them as the only men, the only people that never flatter, and go so far

as to entitle them their mouthpieces and voices. Accordingly Bio[673]

compared such people to jars, that you could easily take by the ears and

turn about at your will. Thus it is recorded that the sophist Alexinus

in one of his lectures said a good many bad things about Stilpo the

Megarian, but when one of those that were present said, "Why, he was

speaking in your praise only the other day," he replied, "I don't doubt

it; for he is the best and noblest of men." Menedemus on the contrary,

having heard that Alexinus[674] frequently praised him, replied, "But I

always censure him, for that man is bad who either praises a bad man or

is blamed by a good." So inflexible and proof was he against such

flattery, and master of that advice which Hercules in Antisthenes[675]

gave, when he ordered his sons to be grateful to no one that praised

them; which meant nothing else than that they should not be

dumbfoundered at it, nor flatter again those who praised them. Very apt,

I take it, was the remark of Pindar to one who told him that he praised

him everywhere and to all persons, "I am greatly obliged to you, and

will make your account true by my actions."

Sec. XIX. A useful precept in reference to all passions is especially

valuable in the case of the bashful. When they have been overcome by

this infirmity, and against their judgement have erred and been

confounded, let them fix it in their memories, and, remembering the pain

and grief it gave them, let them recall it to their mind and be on their

guard for a very long time. For as travellers that have stumbled against

a stone, or pilots that have been wrecked off a headland, if they

remember these occurrences, not only dread and are on their guard

continually on those spots, but also on all similar ones; so those that

frequently remember the disgrace and injury that bashfulness brought

them, and its sorrow and anguish, will in similar cases be on their

guard against their weakness, and will not readily allow themselves to

be subjugated by it again.

[636] Or _bashfulness_, _shamefacedness_, what the

French call _mauvaise honte_.

[637] Shakespeare puts all this into one line: "Most

subject is the fattest soil to weeds."--_2 Henry IV._,

A. iv. Sc. iv.

[638] Or _girls_. [Greek: kore] means both a girl, and

the pupil of the eye.

[639] So Wyttenbach.

[640] These lines are quoted again "On Moral Virtue," Sec.

vi.

[641] "Iliad," xxiv. 44, 45.

[642] Euripides, "Bellerophon," Fragm., 313.

[643] Soph., Fragm., 736.

[644] Surely it is necessary to read [Greek:

prodiaphthareisa to akolasto].

[645] See Plato, "Charmides," 165 A.

[646] Euripides, "Medea," 290, 291.

[647] "Works and Days," 342.

[648] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: med hypolabe

pisteuein, dokounta].

[649] See Horace's very amusing "Satire," i. ix., on

such tiresome fellows.

[650] [Greek: epitribo] is used in the same sense by

Demosthenes, p. 288.

[651] On such social pests see Juvenal, i. 1-14.

[652] See Pausanias, i. 2. Euripides left Athens about

409 B.C., and took up his abode for good in Macedonia at

the court of Archelaus, where he died 406 B.C.

[653] For a drachma was only worth 6 obols, or 93/4_d._ of

our money, nearly = Roman denarius.

[654] A talent was 6,000 drachmae, or 36,000 obols, about

L243 15_s._ of our money.

[655] "Olynth." iii. p. 33, Sec. 19.

[656] Compare "On Education," Sec. vii.

[657] Our "Out of the frying-pan into the fire." Cf.

"Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."

[658] By their having to borrow themselves.

[659] Fragm. 947.

[660] Or apophthegms, of which Plutarch and Lord Verulam

have both left us collections.

[661] Thucydides, ii. 40. Pericles is the speaker.

[662] A slightly-changed line from Euripides'

"Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Quoted correctly "On Abundance

of Friends," Sec. vii.

[663] "Zenonis discipulus."--_Reiske._

[664] "Works and Days," 371.

[665] Cf. Shakspere, "Hamlet," i. iii. 76.

[666] Euripides, "Medea," 1078.

[667] Our "Set a thief to catch a thief."

[668] Or strigil. See Otto Jahn's note on Persius, v.

126.

[669] "Forsitan illa quam nominat Pausanias, i.

27."--_Reiske._

[670] Literally "want of tune in." We cannot well keep

up the metaphor. Compare with this passage, "That virtue

may be taught," Sec. ii.

[671] Literally "crowns."

[672] Thucydides, ii. 64. Pericles is the speaker.

Quoted again in "How one may discern a flatterer from a

friend," Sec. XXXV.

[673] "Est Bio Borysthenita, de quo vide Diog.

Laert."--_Reiske._

[674] "De Alexino Eleo vide Diog. Laert., ii. 109.

Nostri p. 1063, 3."--_Reiske._

[675] Antisthenes wrote a book called "Hercules." See

Diogenes Laertius, vi. 16.

ON RESTRAINING ANGER.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.

Sec. I. _Sylla._ Those painters, Fundanus, seem to me to do well who,

before giving the finishing touches to their paintings, lay them by for

a time and then revise them; because by taking their eyes off them for a

time they gain by frequent inspection a new insight, and are more apt to

detect minute differences, that continuous familiarity would have

hidden. Now since a human being cannot so separate himself from himself

for a time, and make a break in his continuity, and then approach

himself again--and that is perhaps the chief reason why a man is a worse

judge of himself than of others--the next best thing will be for a man

to inspect his friends after an interval, and likewise offer himself to

their scrutiny, not to see whether he has aged quickly, or whether his

bodily condition is better or worse, but to examine his moral character,

and see whether time has added any good quality, or removed any bad one.

On my return then to Rome after an absence of two years, and having been

with you now five months, I am not at all surprised that there has been

a great increase and growth in those good points which you formerly had

owing to your admirable nature; but when I see how gentle and obedient

to reason your former excessive impetuosity and hot temper has become,

it cannot but occur to me to quote the line,

"Ye gods, how much more mild is he become!"[676]

And this mildness has not wrought in you sloth or weakness, but like

cultivation of the soil it has produced a smoothness and depth fit for

action, instead of the former impetuosity and vehemence. And so it is

clear that your propensity to anger has not been effaced by any

declining vigour or through some chance, but has been cured by good

precepts. And indeed, for I will tell you the truth, when our friend

Eros[677] reported this change in you to me, I suspected that owing to

goodwill he bare witness not of the actual state of the case, but of

what was becoming to all good and virtuous men, although, as you know,

he can never be persuaded to depart from his real opinion to ingratiate

himself with anyone. But now he is acquitted of false witness, and do

you, as your journey gives you leisure, narrate to me the mode of cure

you employed to make your temper so under control, so natural, gentle

and obedient to reason.

_Fundanus._ Most friendly Sylla, take care that you do not in your

goodwill and affection to me rest under any misconception of my real

condition. For it is possible that Eros, not being able always himself

to keep his temper in its place in the obedience that Homer speaks

of,[678] but sometimes carried away by his hatred of what is bad, may

think me grown milder than I really am, as in changes of the scale in

music the lowest notes become the highest.

_Sylla._ Neither of these is the case, Fundanus, but oblige me by doing

as I ask.

Sec. II. _Fundanus._ One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I

remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet

themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason

as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but

we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For

the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which

co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those

by whom it is taken. But admonition and reproof, when passion is at its

height and swelling, does little or no good, but resembles very closely

those strong-smelling substances, that are able to set on their legs

again those that have fallen in epileptic fits, but cannot rid them of

their disease. For although all other passions, even at the moment of

their acme, do in some sort listen to reason and admit it into the soul,

yet anger does not, for, as Melanthius says,

"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,"

for it absolutely turns reason out of doors, and bolts it out, and, like

those persons who burn themselves and houses together, it makes all the

interior full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that what would be

advantageous can neither be seen nor heard. And so an empty ship in a

storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than

a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice,

unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who

expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of

relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far

and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up

in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy

task to import them. For either the soul doesn't hear what is said

without because of the uproar, if it have not within its own reason

(like a boatswain as it were) to receive at once and understand every

exhortation; or if it does hear, it despises what is uttered mildly and

gently, while it is exasperated by harsh censure. For anger being

haughty and self-willed and hard to be worked upon by another, like a

fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it[679] to

overthrow it.

Sec. III. Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces

an evil disposition of soul, which people call irascibility, and which

ends in passionateness, bitterness, and peevishness, whenever the mind

becomes sore and vexed at trifles and querulous at everyday occurrences,

like iron thin and beaten out too fine. But when the judgement checks

and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for

the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future. It has

happened to myself indeed twice or thrice, when I strongly fought

against anger, that I was in the same plight as the Thebans, who after

they had once defeated the Lacedaemonians, whom they had hitherto thought

invincible, never lost a battle against them again. I then felt

confident that reason can win the victory. I saw also that anger is not

only appeased by the sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle attested,

but is also extinguished by the action of fear; aye, and, as Homer tells

us, anger has been cured and has melted away in the case of many by some

sudden joy. So that I came to the conclusion that this passion is not

incurable for those who wish to be cured. For it does not arise from

great and important causes, but banter and joking, a laugh or a nod, and

similar trifles make many angry, as Helen by addressing her niece,

"Electra, maiden now for no short time,"[680]

provoked her to reply,

"Your wisdom blossoms late, since formerly

You left your house in shame;"[681]

and Callisthenes incensed Alexander, by saying, when a huge cup was

brought to him, "I will not drink to Alexander till I shall require the

help of AEsculapius."

Sec. IV. As then it is easy to put out a flame kindled in the hair of hares

and in wicks and rubbish, but if it once gets hold of things solid and

thick, it quickly destroys and consumes them, "raging amidst the lofty

work of the carpenters," as AEschylus[682] says; so he that observes

anger in its rise, and sees it gradually smoking and bursting forth into

fire from some chatter or rubbishy scurrility, need have no great

trouble with it, but can frequently smother it merely by silence and

contempt. For as a person puts out a fire by bringing no fuel to it, so

with respect to anger, he that does not in the beginning fan it, and

stir up its rage in himself, keeps it off and destroys it. And so,

though Hieronymus has given us many useful sayings and precepts, I am

not pleased with his remark that there is no perception of anger in its

birth, but only in its actual developement, so quick is it. For none of

the passions when stirred up and set in motion has so palpable a birth

and growth as anger. As indeed Homer skilfully shows us, where he

represents Achilles as seized at once with grief, when word was brought

him _of Patroclus' death_, in the line,

"Thus spake he, and grief's dark cloud covered him;"[683]

whereas he represents him as waxing angry with Agamemnon slowly, and as

inflamed by his many words, which if either of them[684] had abstained

from, their quarrel would not have attained such growth and magnitude.

And so Socrates, as often as he perceived any anger rising in him

against any of his friends, "setting himself like some ocean promontory

to break the violence of the waves," would lower his voice, and put on a

smiling countenance, and give his eye a gentler expression, by inclining

in the other direction and running counter to his passion, thus keeping

himself from fall and defeat.

Sec. V. For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger, like the putting

down of some tyrant, is not to obey or listen to it when it bids you

speak loud, and look fierce, and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and

not to make the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing

about and crying out. In love affairs indeed, such things as revellings,

and serenadings, and crowning the loved one's door with garlands, may

indeed bring, some pleasant and elegant relief.

"I went, but asked not who or whose she was,

I merely kissed her door-post. If that be

A crime, I do plead guilty to the same."[685]

In the case of mourners also giving up to weeping and wailing takes away

with the tears much of the grief. But anger on the contrary is much more

fanned by what angry persons do and say. It is best therefore to be

calm, or to flee and hide ourselves and go to a haven of quiet, when we

feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic fit, that we fall

not, or rather fall not on others, for it is our friends that we fall

upon most and most frequently. For we do not love all, nor envy all, nor

fear all men; but nothing is untouched or unassailed by anger; for we

are angry with friends and enemies, parents and children, aye, and with

the gods, and beasts, and even things inanimate, as was Thamyris,

"Breaking his gold-bound horn, breaking the music

Of well-compacted lyre;"[686]

and Pandarus, who called down a curse upon himself, if he did not burn

his bow "after breaking it with his hands."[687] And Xerxes inflicted

stripes and blows on the sea, and sent letters to Mount Athos, "Divine

Athos, whose top reaches heaven, put not in the way of my works stones

large and difficult to deal with, or else I will hew thee down, and

throw thee into the sea." For anger has many formidable aspects, and

many ridiculous ones, so that of all the passions it is the most hated

and despised. It will be well to consider both aspects.

Sec. VI. To begin then, whether my process was wrong or right I know not,

but I began my cure of anger by noticing its effects in others, as the

Lacedaemonians study the nature of drunkenness in the Helots. And in the

first place, as Hippocrates tells us that disease is most dangerous in

which the face of the patient is most unlike himself, so observing that

people beside themselves with anger change their face, colour, walk, and

voice, I formed an impression as it were of that aspect of passion, and

was very disgusted with myself if ever I should appear so frightful and

like one out of his mind to my friends and wife and daughters, not only

wild and unlike oneself in appearance, but also with a voice savage and

harsh, as I had noticed in some[688] of my acquaintance, who could

neither preserve for anger their ordinary behaviour, or demeanour, or

grace of language, or persuasiveness and gentleness in conversation.

Caius Gracchus, indeed, the orator, whose character was harsh and style

of oratory impassioned, had a pitch-pipe made for him, such as musicians

use to heighten or lower their voices by degrees, and this, when he was

making a speech, a slave stood behind him and held, and used to give him

a mild and gentle note on it, whereby he lowered his key, and removed

from his voice the harsh and passionate element, charming and laying the

heat of the orator,

"As shepherds' wax-joined reed sounds musically

With sleep provoking strain."[689]

For myself if I had some elegant and sprightly companion, I should not

be vexed at his showing me a looking-glass in my fits of anger, as they

offer one to some after a bath to little useful end. For to behold

oneself unnaturally distorted in countenance will condemn anger in no

small degree. The poets playfully tell us that Athene when playing on

the pipe was rebuked thus by a Satyr,

"That look no way becomes you, take your armour,

Lay down your pipes, and do compose your cheeks,"

and though she paid no attention to him, yet afterwards when she saw her

face in a river, she felt vexed and threw her pipes away, although art

had made melody a compensation for her unsightliness. And Marsyas, it

seems, by a sort of mouthpiece forcibly repressed the violence of his

breath, and tricked up and hid the contortion of his face,

"Around his shaggy temples put bright gold,

And o'er his open mouth thongs tied behind."

Now anger, that puffs up and distends the face so as to look ugly,

utters a voice still more harsh and unpleasant,

"Moving the mind's chords undisturbed before."

They say that the sea is cleansed when agitated by the winds it throws

up tangle and seaweed; but the intemperate and bitter and vain words,

which the mind throws up when the soul is agitated, defile the speakers

of them first of all and fill them with infamy, as always having those

thoughts within their bosom and being defiled with them, but only giving

vent to them in anger. And so for a word which is, as Plato styles it,

"a very small matter," they incur a most heavy punishment, for they get

reputed to be enemies, and evil speakers, and malignant in disposition.

Sec. VII. Seeing and observing all this, it occurs to me to take it as a

matter of fact, and record it for my own general use, that if it is good

to keep the tongue soft and smooth in a fever, it is better to keep it

so in anger. For if the tongue of people in a fever be unnatural, it is

a bad sign, but not the cause of their malady; but the tongue of angry

people, being rough and foul, and breaking out into unseemly speeches,

produces insults that work irremediable mischief, and argue deep-rooted

malevolence within. For wine drunk neat does not exhibit the soul in so

ungovernable and hateful a condition as temper does: for the outbreaks

of the one smack of laughter and fun, while those of the other are

compounded with gall: and at a drinking-bout he that is silent is

burdensome to the company and tiresome, whereas in anger nothing is more

highly thought of than silence, as Sappho advises,

"When anger's busy in the brain

Thy idly-barking tongue restrain."

Sec. VIII. And not only does the consideration of all this naturally arise

from observing ourselves in the moments of anger, but we cannot help

seeing also the other properties of rage, how ignoble it is, how

unmanly, how devoid of dignity and greatness of mind! And yet to most

people its noise seems vigour, its threatening confidence, and its

obstinacy force of character; some even not wisely entitle its

savageness magnanimity, and its implacability firmness, and its morosity

hatred of what is bad. For their actions and motions and whole demeanour

argue great littleness and meanness, not only when they are fierce with

little boys, and peevish with women, and think it right to treat dogs

and horses and mules with harshness, as Otesiphon the pancratiast

thought fit to kick back a mule that had kicked him, but even in the

butcheries that tyrants commit their littleness of soul is apparent in

their savageness, and their suffering in their action, so that they are

like the bites of serpents, that, when they are burnt and smart with

pain, violently thrust their venom on those that have hurt them. For as

a swelling is produced in the flesh by a heavy blow, so in softest souls

the inclination to hurt others gets its greater strength from greater

weakness. Thus women are more prone to anger than men, and people ill

than people well, and old men than men in their prime, and the

unfortunate than the prosperous; the miser is most prone to anger with

his steward, the glutton with his cook, the jealous man with his wife,

the vain man when he is spoken ill of; and worst of all are those "men

who are too eager in states for office, or to head a faction, a manifest

sorrow," to borrow Pindar's words. So from the very great pain and

suffering of the soul there arises mainly from weakness anger, which is

not like the nerves of the soul, as some one defined it, but like its

strainings and convulsions when it is excessively vehement in its thirst

for revenge.

Sec. IX. Such bad examples as these were not pleasant to look at but

necessary, but I shall now proceed to describe people who have been mild

and easy in dealing with anger, conduct gratifying either to see or hear

about, being utterly disgusted[690] with people who use such language

as,

"You have a man wronged: shall a man stand this?"

and,

"Put your heel upon his neck, and dash his head against

the ground,"

and other provoking expressions such as these, by which some not well

have transferred anger from the woman's side of the house to the man's.

For manliness in all other respects seems to resemble justice, and to

differ from it only in respect to gentleness, with which it has more

affinities. For it sometimes happens to worse men to govern better ones,

but to erect a trophy in the soul against anger (which Heraclitus says

it is difficult to contend against, for whatever it wishes is bought at

the price of the soul), is a proof of power so great and victorious as

to be able to apply the judgement as if it were nerves and sinews to the

passions. So I always try to collect and peruse the remarks on this

subject not only of the philosophers, who foolish[691] people say had no

gall in their composition, but still more of kings and tyrants. Such was

the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him near

his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff out, and said,

"What's to do? can you not go rather farther off to run me down?" And

when Arcadio the Achaean, who was always railing against Philip, and

advising people to flee

"Unto a country where they knew not Philip,"

visited Macedonia afterwards on some chance or other, the king's friends

thought he ought to be punished and the matter not looked over; but

Philip treated him kindly, and sent him presents and gifts, and

afterwards bade inquiry to be made as to what sort of account of him

Arcadio now gave to the Greeks; and when all testified that the fellow

had become a wonderful praiser of the king, Philip said, "You see I knew

how to cure him better than all of you." And at the Olympian games when

there was defamation of Philip, and some of his suite said to him, that

the Greeks ought to smart for it, because they railed against him when

they were treated well by him, he replied, "What will they do then if

they are treated badly by me?" Excellent also was the behaviour of

Pisistratus to Thrasybulus, and of Porsena to Mucius, and of Magas to

Philemon. As to Magas, after he had been publicly jeered at by Philemon

in one of his comedies at the theatre in the following words,

"Magas, the king hath written thee a letter,

Unhappy Magas, since thou can'st not read,"

after having taken Philemon, who had been cast on shore by a storm at

Paraetonium, he commanded one of his soldiers only to touch his neck with

the naked sword and then to go away quietly, and dismissed him, after

sending him a ball and some dice as if he were a silly boy. And Ptolemy

on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his ignorance, asked him who

was the father of Peleus, and he answered, "I will tell you, if you tell

me first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure

birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an

unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a

flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And Alexander was more savage

than usual in his behaviour to Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when

he was taken captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on his

inquiring, "What, nothing more?" he replied "No. For everything is

included in being used as a king." So they call the king of the gods

Milichius,[692] while they call Ares Maimactes;[693] and punishment and

torture they assign to the Erinnyes and to demons, not to the gods or

Olympus.

Sec. X. As then a certain person passed the following remark on Philip when

he had razed Olynthus to the ground, "He certainly could not build such

another city," so we may say to anger, "You can root up, and destroy,

and throw down, but to raise up and save and spare and tolerate is the

work of mildness and moderation, the work of a Camillus, a Metellus, an

Aristides, a Socrates; but to sting and bite is to resemble the ant and

horse-fly. For, indeed, when I consider revenge, I find its angry method

to be for the most part ineffectual, since it spends itself in biting

the lips and gnashing the teeth, and in vain attacks, and in railings

coupled with foolish threats, and eventually resembles children running

races, who from feebleness ridiculously tumble down before they reach

the goal they are hastening to. So that speech of the Rhodian to a

lictor of the Roman praetor who was shouting and talking insolently was

not inapt, "It is no matter to me what you say, but what your master

thinks."[694] And Sophocles, when he had introduced Neoptolemus and

Eurypylus as armed for the battle, gives them this high

commendation,[695]

"They rushed into the midst of armed warriors,"

Some barbarians indeed poison their steel, but bravery has no need of

gall, being dipped in reason, but rage and fury are not invincible but

rotten. And so the Lacedaemonians by their pipes turn away the anger of

their warriors, and sacrifice to the Muses before commencing battle,

that reason may abide with them, and when they have routed a foe do not

follow up the victory,[696] but relax their rage, which like small

daggers they can easily take back. But anger kills myriads before it is

glutted with revenge, as happened in the case of Cyrus and Pelopidas the

Theban. But Agathocles bore mildly the revilings of those he was

besieging, and when one of them cried out, "Potter, how are you going to

get money to pay your mercenaries?" he replied laughingly, "Out of your

town if I take it." And when some of those on the wall threw his

ugliness into the teeth of Antigonus, he said to them, "I thought I was

rather a handsome fellow." But after he had taken the town, he sold for

slaves those that had flouted him, protesting that, if they insulted him

again, he would bring the matter before their masters. I have noticed

also that hunters and orators are very unsuccessful when they give way

to anger.[697] And Aristotle tells us that the friends of Satyrus

stopped up his ears with wax when he was to plead a cause, that he might

not make any confusion in the case through rage at the abuse of his

enemies. And does it not frequently happen with ourselves that a slave

who has offended escapes punishment, because they abscond in fear of our

threats and harsh words? What nurses then say to children, "Give up

crying, and you shall have it," may usefully be applied to anger, thus,

"Do not be in a hurry, or bawl out, or be vehement, and you will sooner

and better get what you want." For a father, seeing his boy trying to

cut or cleave something with a knife, takes the knife from him and does

it himself: and similarly a person, taking revenge out of the hand of

passion, does himself safely and usefully and without harm punish the

person who deserves punishment, and not himself instead, as anger often

does.

Sec. XI. Now though all the passions need such discipline as by exercise

shall tame and subdue their unreasoning and disobedient elements, yet

there is none which we ought to keep under by such discipline so much as

the exhibition of anger to our servants. For neither envy, nor fear, nor

rivalry come into play between them and us; but our frequent displays of

anger to them, creating many offences and faults, make us to slip as if

on slippery ground owing to our autocracy with our servants, which no

one resists or prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible

power so as never to break out under the influence of passion, unless

one wields power with much meekness, and refuses to listen to the

frequent complaints of one's wife and friends charging one with being

too easy and lax with one's servants. And by nothing have I been more

exasperated against them, as if they were being ruined for want of

correction. At last, though late, I got to see that in the first place

it is better to make them worse by forbearance, than by bitterness and

anger to distort oneself for the correction of others. In the next place

I observed that many for the very reason that they were not corrected

were frequently ashamed to be bad, and made pardon rather than

punishment the commencement of their reformation, aye, and made better

slaves to some merely at their nod silently and cheerfully than to

others with all their beatings and brandings, and so I came to the

conclusion that reason gets better obeyed than temper, for it is not as

the poet said,

"Where there is fear, there too is self-respect,"

but it is just the other way about, for self-respect begets that kind of

fear that corrects the behaviour. But perpetual and pitiless beating

produces not so much repentance for wrong-doing as contrivances to

continue in it without detection. In the third place, ever remembering

and reflecting within myself that, just as he that teaches us the use of

the bow does not forbid us to shoot but only to miss the mark, so it

will not prevent punishment altogether to teach people to do it in

season, and with moderation, utility, and decorum, I strive to remove

anger most especially by not forbidding those who are to be corrected to

speak in their defence, but by listening to them. For the interval of

time gives a pause to passion, and a delay that mitigates it, and so

judgement finds out both the fit manner and adequate amount of

punishment. Moreover he that is punished has nothing to allege against

his correction, if he is punished not in anger but only after his guilt

is brought home to him. And the greatest disgrace will not be incurred,

which is when the servant seems to speak more justly than the master. As

then Phocion, after the death of Alexander, to stop the Athenians from

revolting and believing the news too soon, said to them, "Men of Athens,

if he is dead to-day, he will certainly also be dead to-morrow and the

next day," so I think the man who is in a hurry to punish anyone in his

rage ought to consider with himself, "If this person has wronged you

to-day, he will also have wronged you to-morrow and the next day; and

there will be no harm done if he shall be punished somewhat late;

whereas if he shall be punished at once, he will always seem to you to

have been innocent, as has often happened before now." For which of us

is so savage as to chastise and scourge a slave because five or ten days

before he over-roasted the meat, or upset the table, or was somewhat

tardy on some errand? And yet these are the very things for which we put

ourselves out and are harsh and implacable, immediately after they have

happened and are recent. For as bodies seem greater in a mist, so do

little matters in a rage. We ought therefore to consider such arguments

as these at once, and if, when there is no trace of passion left, the

matter appear bad to calm and clear reason, then it ought to be taken in

hand, and the punishment ought not to be neglected or abandoned, as we

leave food when we have lost our appetites. For nothing causes people to

punish so much when their anger is fierce, as that when it is appeased

they do not punish at all, but forget the matter entirely, and resemble

lazy rowers, who lie in harbour when the sea is calm, and then sail out

to their peril when the wind gets up. So we, condemning reason for

slackness and mildness in punishing, are in a hurry to punish, borne

along by passion as by a dangerous gale. He that is hungry takes his

food as nature dictates, but he that punishes should have no hunger or

thirst for it, nor require anger as a sauce to stimulate him to it, but

should punish when he is as far as possible from having any desire for

it, and has to compel his reason to it. For we ought not, as Aristotle

tells us slaves in his time were scourged in Etruria to the music of the

flute, to go headlong into punishing with a desire and zest for it, and

to delight in punishing, and then afterwards to be sorry at it--for the

first is savage, and the last womanish--but we should without either

sorrow or pleasure chastise at the dictates of reason, giving anger no

opportunity to interfere.

Sec. XII. But this perhaps will not appear a cure of anger so much as a

putting away and avoiding such faults as men commit in anger. And yet,

though the swelling of the spleen is only a symptom of fever, the fever

is assuaged by its abating, as Hieronymus tells us. Now when I

contemplated the origin of anger itself, I observed that, though

different persons fell into it for different reasons, yet in nearly all

of them was the idea of their being despised and neglected to be found.

So we ought to help those who try to get rid of anger, by removing as

far as possible from them any action savouring of contempt or contumely,

and by looking upon their anger as folly or necessity, or emotion, or

mischance, as Sophocles says,

"In those that are unfortunate, O king,

No mind stays firm, but all their balance lose."[698]

And so Agamemnon, ascribing to Ate his carrying off Briseis, yet says to

Achilles,

"I wish to please you in return, and give

Completest satisfaction."[699]

For suing is not the action of one who shews his contempt, and when he

that has done an injury is humble he removes all idea of slighting one.

But the angry person must not expect this, but rather take to himself

the answer of Diogenes, who, when it was said to him, "These people

laugh at you," replied, "But I am not one to be laughed at," and not

think himself despised, but rather despise the person who gave the

offence, as acting from weakness, or error, or rashness, or

heedlessness, or illiberality, or old age, or youth. Nor must we

entertain such notions with regard to our servants and friends. For they

do not despise us as void of ability or energy, but owing to our

evenness and good-nature, some because we are mild, and others presuming

on our affection for them. But as it is we not only fly into rages with

wife and slaves and friends, as if we were slighted by them, but we also

frequently, from forming the same idea of being slighted, fall foul of

innkeepers and sailors and muleteers, and are vexed at dogs that bark

and asses that are in our way: like the man who was going to beat an

ass-driver, but when he cried out he was an Athenian, he said to the

ass, "You are not an Athenian anyway," and beat it with many stripes.

Sec. XIII. Moreover those continuous and frequent fits of anger that gather

together in the soul by degrees, like a swarm of bees or wasps, are

generated within us by selfishness and peevishness, luxury and softness.

And so nothing causes us to be mild to our servants and wife and friends

so much as easiness and simplicity, and the learning to be content with

what we have, and not to require a quantity of superfluities.

"He who likes not his meat if over-roast

Or over-boiled, or under-roast or under-boiled,

And never praises it however dressed,"

but will not drink unless he have snow to cool his drink, nor eat bread

purchased in the market, nor touch food served on cheap or earthenware

plates, nor sleep upon any but a feather bed that rises and falls like

the sea stirred up from its depths, and with rods and blows hastens his

servants at table, so that they run about and cry out and sweat as if

they were bringing poultices to sores, he is slave to a weak querulous

and discontented mode of life, and, like one who has a continual cough

or various ailments, whether he is aware of it or not, he is in an

ulcerous and catarrh-like condition as regards his proneness to anger.

We must therefore train the body to contentment by plain living, that it

may be easily satisfied: for they that require little do not miss much;

and it is no great hardship to begin with our food, and take it silently

whatever it is, and not by being choleric and peevish to thrust upon

ourselves and friends the worst sauce to meat, anger.

"No more unpleasant supper could there be"[700]

than that wherein the servants are beaten, and the wife scolded, because

something is burnt or smoked or not salt enough, or because the bread is

too cold. Arcesilaus was once entertaining some friends and strangers,

and when dinner was served, there was no bread, through the servants

having neglected to buy any. In such a case as this which of us would

not have broken the walls with vociferation? But he only smiled and

said, "How unfit a sage is to give an entertainment!" And when Socrates

once took Euthydemus home with him from the wrestling-school, Xanthippe

was in a towering rage, and scolded, and at last upset the table, and

Euthydemus rose and went away full of sorrow. But Socrates said to him,

"Did not a hen at your house the other day fly in and act in the very

same way? And we did not put ourselves out about it." We ought to

receive our friends with gaiety and smiles and welcome, not knitting our

brows, or inspiring fear and trembling in the attendants. We ought also

to accustom ourselves to the use of any kind of ware at table, and not

to stint ourselves to one kind rather than another, as some pick out a

particular tankard or horn, as they say Marius did, out of many, and

will not drink out of anything else; and some act in the same way with

regard to oil-flasks and scrapers,[701] being content with only one out

of all, and so, if such an article is broken or lost, they are very much

put out about it, and punish with severity. He then that is prone to

anger should not use rare and dainty things, such as choice cups and

seals and precious stones: for if they are lost they put a man beside

himself much more than the loss of ordinary and easily got things would

do. And so when Nero had got an eight-cornered tent constructed, a

wonderful object both for its beauty and costliness, Seneca said to him,

"You have now shown yourself to be poor, for if you should lose this,

you will not be able to procure such another." And indeed it did so

happen that the tent was lost by shipwreck, but Nero bore its loss

patiently, remembering what Seneca had said. Now this easiness about

things generally makes a man also easy and gentle to his servants, and

if to them, then it is clear he will be so to his friends also, and to

all that serve under him in any capacity. So we observe that

newly-purchased slaves do not inquire about the master who has bought

them, whether he is superstitious or envious, but only whether he is a

bad-tempered man: and generally speaking we see that neither can men put

up with chaste wives, nor wives with loving husbands, nor friends with

one another, if they be ill-tempered to boot. So neither marriage nor

friendship is bearable with anger, though without anger even drunkenness

is a small matter. For the wand of Dionysus punishes sufficiently the

drunken man, but if anger be added it turns wine from being the

dispeller of care and inspirer of the dance into a savage and fury. And

simple madness can be cured by Anticyra,[702] but madness mixed with

anger is the producer of tragedies and dreadful narratives.

Sec. XIV. So we ought to give anger no vent, either in jest, for that draws

hatred to friendliness; or in discussion, for that turns love of

learning into strife; or on the judgement-seat, for that adds insolence

to power; or in teaching, for that produces dejection and hatred of

learning: or in prosperity, for that increases envy; or in adversity,

for that deprives people of compassion, when they are peevish and run

counter to those who condole with them, like Priam,

"A murrain on you, worthless wretches all,

Have you no griefs at home, that here you come

To sympathize with me?"[703]

Good temper on the other hand is useful in some circumstances, adorns

and sweetens others, and gets the better of all peevishness and anger by

its gentleness. Thus Euclides,[704] when his brother said to him in a

dispute between them, "May I perish, if I don't have my revenge on you!"

replied, "May I perish, if I don't persuade you!" and so at once turned

and changed him. And Polemo, when a man reviled him who was fond of

precious stones and quite crazy for costly seal-rings, made no answer,

but bestowed all his attention on one of his seal-rings, and eyed it

closely; and he being delighted said, "Do not look at it so, Polemo, but

in the light of the sun, and it will appear to you more beautiful." And

Aristippus, when there was anger between him and AEschines, and somebody

said, "O Aristippus, where is now your friendship?" replied, "It is

asleep, but I will wake it up," and went to AEschines, and said to him,

"Do I seem to you so utterly unfortunate and incurable as to be unworthy

of any consideration?" And AEschines replied, "It is not at all wonderful

that you, being naturally superior to me in all things, should have been

first to detect in this matter too what was needful."

"For not a woman only, but young child

Tickling the bristly boar with tender hand,

Will lay him prostrate sooner than an athlete."

But we that tame wild beasts and make them gentle, and carry in our arms

young wolves and lions' whelps, inconsistently repel our children and

friends and acquaintances in our rage, and let loose our temper like

some wild beast on our servants and fellow-citizens, speciously trying

to disguise it not rightly under the name of hatred of evil, but it is,

I suppose, as with the other passions and diseases of the soul, we

cannot get rid of any of them by calling one prudence, and another

liberality, and another piety.

Sec. XV. And yet, as Zeno said the seed was a mixture and compound drawn

from all the faculties of the soul, so anger seems a universal seed from

all the passions. For it is drawn from pain and pleasure and

haughtiness, and from envy it gets its property of malignity--and it is

even worse than envy,[705] for it does not mind its own suffering if it

can only implicate another in misery--and the most unlovely kind of

desire is innate in it, namely the appetite for injuring another. So

when we go to the houses of spendthrifts we hear a flute-playing girl

early in the morning, and see "the dregs of wine," as one said, and

fragments of garlands, and the servants at the doors reeking of

yesterday's debauch; but for tokens of savage and peevish masters these

you will see by the faces, and marks, and manacles of their servants:

for in the house of an angry man

"The only music ever heard is wailing,"

stewards being beaten within, and maids tortured, so that the spectators

even in their jollity and pleasure pity these victims of passion.

Sec. XVI. Moreover those to whom it happens through their genuine hatred of

what is bad to be frequently overtaken by anger, can abate its excess

and acerbity by giving up their excessive confidence in their intimates.

For nothing swells the anger more, than when a good man is detected of

villainy, or one who we thought loved us falls out and jangles with us.

As for my own disposition, you know of course how mightily it inclines

to goodwill and belief in mankind. As then people walking on empty

space,[706] the more confidently I believe in anybody's affection, the

more sorrow and distress do I feel if my estimate is a mistaken one. And

indeed I could never divest myself of my ardour and zeal in affection,

but as to trusting people I could perhaps use Plato's caution as a curb.

For he said he so praised Helicon the mathematician, because he was by

nature a changeable animal, but that he was afraid of those that were

well educated in the city, lest, being human beings and the seed of

human beings, they should reveal by some trait or other the weakness of

human nature. But Sophocles' line,

"Trace out most human acts, you'll find them base,"

seems to trample on human nature and lower its merits too much. Still

such a peevish and condemnatory verdict as this has a tendency to make

people milder in their rage, for it is the sudden and unexpected that

makes people go distracted. And we ought, as Panaetius somewhere said, to

imitate Anaxagoras, and as he said at the death of his son, "I knew that

I had begotten a mortal," so ought every one of us to use the following

kind of language in those contretemps that stir up our anger, "I knew

that the slave I bought was not a philosopher," "I knew that the friend

I had was not perfect," "I knew that my wife was but a woman." And if

anyone would also constantly put to himself that question of Plato, "Am

I myself all I should be?" and look at home instead of abroad, and curb

his propensity to censoriousness, he would not be so keen to detect evil

in others, for he would see that he stood in need of much allowance

himself. But now each of us, when angry and punishing, quote the words

of Aristides and Cato, "Do not steal, Do not tell lies," and "Why are

you lazy?" And, what is most disgraceful of all, we blame angry people

when we are angry ourselves, and chastise in temper faults that were

committed in temper, unlike the doctors who

"With bitter physic purge the bitter bile,"

for we rather increase and aggravate the disease. Whenever then I busy

myself with such considerations as these, I try also to curtail my

curiosity. For to scrutinize and pry into everything too minutely, and

to overhaul every business of a servant, or action of a friend, or

pastime of a son, or whisper of a wife, produces frequent, indeed daily,

fits of anger, caused entirely by peevishness and harshness of

character. Euripides says that the Deity

"In great things intervenes, but small things leaves

To fortune;"[707]

but I am of opinion that a prudent man should commit nothing to fortune,

nor neglect anything, but should put some things in his wife's hands to

manage, others in the hands of his servants, others in the hands of his

friends, (as a governor has his stewards, and financiers, and

controllers), while he himself superintends the most important and

weighty matters. For as small writing strains the eyes, so small matters

even more strain and bother people, and stir up their anger, which

carries this evil habit to greater matters. Above all I thought that

saying of Empedocles, "Fast from evil,"[708] a great and divine one, and

I approved of those promises and vows as not ungraceful or

unphilosophical, to abstain for a year from wine and Venus, honouring

the deity by continence, or for a stated time to give up lying, taking

great heed to ourselves to be truthful always whether in play or

earnest. With these I compared my own vow, as no less pleasing to the

gods and holy, first to abstain from anger for a few days, like spending

days without drunkenness or even without wine at all, offering as it

were wineless offerings of honey.[709] Then I tried for a month or two,

and so in time made some progress in forbearance by earnest resolve, and

by keeping myself courteous and without anger and using fair language,

purifying myself from evil words and absurd actions, and from passion

which for a little unlovely pleasure pays us with great mental

disturbance and the bitterest repentance. In consequence of all this my

experience, and the assistance of the deity, has made me form the view,

that courtesy and gentleness and kindliness are not so agreeable, and

pleasant, and delightful, to any of those we live with as to ourselves,

that have those qualities.[710]

[676] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 373.

[677] Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the

mind," Sec. i.

[678] The allusion is to Homer's "Odyssey," xx. 23.

[679] Reading [Greek: ex heautou] with Reiske.

[680] Euripides, "Orestes," 72.

[681] Euripides, "Orestes," 99.

[682] Fragment 361.

[683] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 591.

[684] The reading of the MSS. is [Greek: auton].

[685] Lines of Callimachus. [Greek: phlien] is the

admirable emendation of Salmasius.

[686] Sophocles, "Thamyras," Fragm. 232.

[687] "Iliad," v. 214-216.

[688] Reading [Greek: eniois], as Wyttenbach suggests.

[689] Aeschylus, "Prometheus," 574, 575.

[690] It will be seen I adopt the reading and

punctuation of Xylander.

[691] This is the reading of Reiske and Duebner.

[692] That is _mild_. Zeus is so called, Pausanias, i.

37; ii. 9, 20.

[693] That is, _fierce_, _furious_. It will be seen I

adopt the suggestion of Reiske.

[694] Literally "is silent about." It is like the saying

about Von Moltke that he can be silent in six or seven

languages.

[695] Adopting Reiske's reading.

[696] Compare Pausanias, iv. 8.

[697] Duebner puts this sentence in brackets.

[698] Sophocles, "Antigone," 563, 564.

[699] Homer, "Iliad," xix. 138.

[700] Homer, "Odyssey," xx. 392.

[701] Or strigils.

[702] Anticyra was famous for its hellebore, which was

prescribed in cases of madness. See Horace, "Satires,"

ii. 3. 82, 83.

[703] Homer, "Iliad," xxiv. 239, 240.

[704] A philosopher of Megara, and disciple of Socrates.

Compare our author, "De Fraterno Amore," Sec. xviii.

[705] So Reiske. Duebner reads [Greek: phobou]. The MSS.

have [Greek: phonou], which Wyttenbach retains, but is

evidently not quite satisfied with the text. Can [Greek:

phthonou]--[Greek: heteron] be an account of [Greek:

epichairekakia]?

[706] Up in the clouds. Cf. [Greek: aerobateo].

[707] Horace, remembering these lines no doubt, says "De

Arte Poetica," 191, 192,

"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit."

[708] It is quite likely that the delicious poet Robert

Herrick borrowed hence his "To starve thy sin not bin,

That is to keep thy Lent." For we know he was a student

of the "Moralia" when at the University of Cambridge.

[709] See AEschylus, "Eumenides," 107. Sophocles,

"Oedipus Colonaeus," 481. See also our author's "De

Sanitate Praecepta," Sec. xix.

[710] Jeremy Taylor has closely imitated parts of this

Dialogue in his "Holy Living," chapter iv. sect. viii.,

"Twelve remedies against anger, by way of exercise,"

"Thirteen remedies against anger, by way of

consideration." Such a storehouse did he make of the

"Moralia."

ON CONTENTEDNESS OF MIND.[711]

PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO PACCIUS.

Sec. I. It was late when I received your letter, asking me to write to you

something on contentedness of mind, and on those things in the Timaeus

that require an accurate explanation. And it so fell out that at that

very time our friend Eros was obliged to set sail at once for Rome,

having received a letter from the excellent Fundanus, urging haste

according to his wont. And not having as much time as I could have

wished to meet your request, and yet not thinking for one moment of

letting my messenger go to you entirely empty-handed, I copied out the

notes that I had chanced to make on contentedness of mind. For I thought

that you did not desire this discourse merely to be treated to a subject

handled in fine style, but for the real business of life. And I

congratulate you that, though you have friendships with princes, and

have as much forensic reputation as anybody, yet you are not in the same

plight as the tragic Merops, nor have you like him by the felicitations

of the multitude been induced to forget the sufferings of humanity; but

you remember, what you have often heard, that a patrician's slipper[712]

is no cure for the gout, nor a costly ring for a whitlow, nor a diadem

for the headache. For how can riches, or fame, or power at court help us

to ease of mind or a calm life, unless we enjoy them when present, but

are not for ever pining after them when absent? And what else causes

this but the long exercise and practice of reason, which, when the

unreasoning and emotional part of the soul breaks out of bounds, curbs

it quickly, and does not allow it to be carried away headlong from its

actual position? And as Xenophon[713] advised that we should remember

and honour the gods most especially in prosperity, that so, when we

should be in any strait, we might confidently call upon them as already

our well-wishers and friends; so sensible men would do well before

trouble comes to meditate on remedies how to bear it, that they may be

the more efficacious from being ready for use long before. For as savage

dogs are excited at every sound, and are only soothed by a familiar

voice, so also it is not easy to quiet the wild passions of the soul,

unless familiar and well-known arguments be at hand to check its

excitement.

Sec. II. He then that said, that the man that wished to have an easy mind

ought to have little to do either public or private, first of all makes

ease of mind a very costly article for us, if it is to be bought at the

price of doing nothing, as if he should advise every sick person,

"Lie still, poor wretch, in bed."[714]

And indeed stupor is a bad remedy for the body against despair,[715] nor

is he any better physician of the soul who removes its trouble and

anxiety by recommending a lazy and soft life and a leaving our friends

and relations and country in the lurch. In the next place, it is false

that those that have little to do are easy in mind. For then women would

be easier in mind than men, since they mostly stay at home in

inactivity, and even now-a-days it is as Hesiod says,[716]

"The North Wind comes not near a soft-skinned maiden;"

yet griefs and troubles and unrest, proceeding from jealousy or

superstition or ambition or vanity, inundate the women's part of the

house with unceasing flow. And Laertes, though he lived for twenty years

a solitary life in the country,

"With an old woman to attend on him,

Who duly set on board his meat and drink,"[717]

and fled from his country and house and kingdom, yet had sorrow and

dejection[718] as a perpetual companion with leisure. And some have been

often thrown into sad unrest merely from inaction, as the following,

"But fleet Achilles, Zeus-sprung, son of Peleus,

Sat by the swiftly-sailing ships and fumed,

Nor ever did frequent th' ennobling council,

Nor ever join the war, but pined in heart,

Though in his tent abiding, for the fray."[719]

And full of emotion and distress at this state of things he himself

says,

"A useless burden to the earth I sit

Beside the ships."[720]

So even Epicurus thinks that those who are desirous of honour and glory

should not rust in inglorious ease, but use their natural talents in

public life for the benefit of the community at large, seeing that they

are by nature so constituted that they would be more likely to be

troubled and afflicted at inaction, if they did not get what they

desired. But he is absurd in that he does not urge men of ability to

take part in public life, but only the restless. But we ought not to

estimate ease or unrest of mind by our many or few actions, but by their

fairness or foulness. For the omission of fair actions troubles and

distresses us, as I have said before, quite as much as the actual doing

of foul actions.

Sec. III. As for those who think that one kind of life is especially free

from trouble, as some think that of farmers, others that of bachelors,

others that of kings, Menander sufficiently exposes their error in the

following lines:

"Phania, I thought those rich who need not borrow,

Nor groan at nights, nor cry out 'Woe is me,'

Kicked up and down in this untoward world,

But sweet and gentle sleep they may enjoy."

He then goes on to remark that he saw the rich suffering the same as the

poor,

"Trouble and life are truly near akin.

With the luxurious or the glorious life

Trouble consorts, and in the life of poverty

Lasts with it to the end."

But just as people on the sea, timid and prone to sea-sickness, think

they will suffer from it less on board a merchantman than on a boat, and

for the same reason shift their quarters to a trireme, but do not attain

anything by these changes, for they take with them their timidity and

qualmishness, so changes of life do not remove the sorrows and troubles

of the soul; which proceed from want of experience and reflection, and

from inability or ignorance rightly to enjoy the present. These afflict

the rich as well as the poor; these trouble the married as well as the

unmarried; these make people shun the forum, but find no happiness in

retirement; these make people eagerly desire introductions at court,

though when got they straightway care no more about them.

"The sick are peevish in their straits and needs."[721]

For the wife bothers them, and they grumble at the doctor, and they find

the bed uneasy, and, as Ion says,

"The friend that visits them tires their patience,

And yet they do not like him to depart."

But afterwards, when the illness is over, and a sounder condition

supervenes, health returns and makes all things pleasant and acceptable.

He that yesterday loathed eggs and cakes of finest meal and purest bread

will to-day eat eagerly and with appetite coarsest bread with a few

olives and cress.

Sec. IV. Such contentedness and change of view in regard to every kind of

life does the infusion of reason bring about. When Alexander heard from

Anaxarchus of the infinite number of worlds, he wept, and when his

friends asked him what was the matter, he replied, "Is it not a matter

for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not

conquered one?" But Crates, who had only a wallet and threadbare cloak,

passed all his life jesting and laughing as if at a festival. Agamemnon

was troubled with his rule over so many subjects,

"You look on Agamemnon, Atreus' son,

Whom Zeus has plunged for ever in a mass

Of never-ending cares."[722]

But Diogenes when he was being sold sat down and kept jeering at the

auctioneer, and would not stand up when he bade him, but said joking and

laughing, "Would you tell a fish you were selling to stand up?" And

Socrates in prison played the philosopher and discoursed with his

friends. But Phaeethon,[723] when he got up to heaven, wept because

nobody gave to him his father's horses and chariot. As therefore the

shoe is shaped by the foot, and not the foot by the shoe, so does the

disposition make the life similar to itself. For it is not, as one said,

custom that makes the best life seem sweet to those that choose it, but

it is sense that makes that very life at once the best and sweetest. Let

us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us,

that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting

the best face on them.

"Events will take their course, it is no good

Our being angry at them, he is happiest

Who wisely turns them to the best account."[724]

Sec. V. Plato compared human life to a game at dice, wherein we ought to

throw according to our requirements, and, having thrown, to make the

best use of whatever turns up. It is not in our power indeed to

determine what the throw will be, but it is our part, if we are wise, to

accept in a right spirit whatever fortune sends, and so to contrive

matters that what we wish should do us most good, and what we do not

wish should do us least harm. For those who live at random and without

judgement, like those sickly people who can stand neither heat nor cold,

are unduly elated by prosperity, and cast down by adversity; and in

either case suffer from unrest, but 'tis their own fault, and perhaps

they suffer most in what are called good circumstances. Theodorus, who

was surnamed the Atheist, used to say that he held out arguments with

his right hand, but his hearers received them with their left; so

awkward people frequently take in a clumsy manner the favours of

fortune; but men of sense, as bees extract honey from thyme which is the

strongest and driest of herbs,[725] so from the least auspicious

circumstances frequently derive advantage and profit.

Sec. VI. We ought then to cultivate such a habit as this, like the man who

threw a stone at his dog, and missed it, but hit his step-mother, and

cried out, "Not so bad." Thus we may often turn the edge of fortune when

things turn not out as we wish. Diogenes was driven into exile; "not so

bad;" for his exile made him turn philosopher. And Zeno of Cittium,[726]

when he heard that the only merchantman he had was wrecked, cargo and

all, said, "Fortune, you treat me handsomely, since you reduce me to my

threadbare cloak and piazza."[727] What prevents our imitating such men

as these? Have you failed to get some office? You will be able to live

in the country henceforth, and manage your own affairs. Did you court

the friendship of some great man, and meet with a rebuff? You will live

free from danger and cares. Have you again had matters to deal with that

required labour and thought? "Warm water will not so much make the limbs

soft by soaking," to quote Pindar,[728] as glory and honour and power

make "labour sweet, and toil to be no toil."[729] Or has any bad luck or

contumely fallen on you in consequence of some calumny or from envy? The

breeze is favourable that will waft you to the Muses and the Academy, as

it did Plato when his friendship with Dionysius came to an end. It does

indeed greatly conduce to contentedness of mind to see how famous men

have borne the same troubles with an unruffled mind. For example, does

childlessness trouble you? Consider those kings of the Romans, none of

whom left his kingdom to a son. Are you distressed at the pinch of

poverty? Who of the Boeotians would you rather prefer to be than

Epaminondas, or of the Romans than Fabricius? Has your wife been

seduced? Have you never read that inscription at Delphi,

"Agis the king of land and sea erected me;"

and have you not heard that his wife Timaea was seduced by Alcibiades,

and in her whispers to her handmaidens called the child that was born

Alcibiades? Yet this did not prevent Agis from being the most famous and

greatest of the Greeks. Neither again did the licentiousness of his

daughter prevent Stilpo from leading the merriest life of all the

philosophers that were his contemporaries. And when Metrocles reproached

him with her life, he said, "Is it my fault or hers?" And when Metrocles

answered, "Her fault, but your misfortune," he rejoined, "How say you?

Are not faults also slips?" "Certainly," said he. "And are not slips

mischances in those matters wherein we slip?" Metrocles assented. "And

are not mischances misfortunes in those matters wherein we mischance?"

By this gentle and philosophical argument he demonstrated the Cynic's

reproach to be an idle bark.

Sec. VII. But most people are troubled and exasperated not only at the bad

in their friends and intimates, but also in their enemies. For railing

and anger and envy and malignity and jealousy and ill-will are the bane

of those that suffer from those infirmities, and trouble and exasperate

the foolish: as for example the quarrels of neighbours, and peevishness

of acquaintances, and the want of ability in those that manage state

affairs. By these things you yourself seem to me to be put out not a

little, as the doctors in Sophocles, who

"With bitter physic purge the bitter bile,"[730]

so vexed and bitter are you at people's weaknesses and infirmities,

which is not reasonable in you. Even your own private affairs are not

always managed by simple and good and suitable instruments, so to speak,

but very frequently by sharp and crooked ones. Do not think it then

either your business, or an easy matter either, to set all these things

to rights. But if you take people as they are, as the surgeon uses his

bandages and instruments for drawing teeth, and with cheerfulness and

serenity welcome all that happens, as you would look upon barking dogs

as only following their nature, you will be happier in the disposition

you will then have than you will be distressed at other people's

disagreeableness and shortcomings. For you will forget to make a

collection of disagreeable things,[731] which now inundate, as some

hollow and low-lying ground, your littleness of mind and weakness, which

fills itself with other people's bad points. For seeing that some of the

philosophers censure compassion to the unfortunate (on the ground that

it is good to help our neighbours, and not to give way to sentimental

sympathy in connection with them), and, what is of more importance, do

not allow those that are conscious of their errors and bad moral

disposition to be dejected and grieved at them, but bid them cure their

defects without grief at once, is it not altogether unreasonable, look

you, to allow ourselves to be peevish and vexed, because all those who

have dealings with us and come near us are not good and clever? Let us

see to it, dear Paccius, that we do not, whether we are aware of it or

not, play a part, really looking[732] not at the universal defects of

those that approach us, but at our own interests through our

selfishness, and not through our hatred of evil. For excessive

excitement about things, and an undue appetite and desire for them, or

on the other hand aversion and dislike to them, engender suspiciousness

and peevishness against persons, who were, we think, the cause of our

being deprived of some things, and of being troubled with others. But he

that is accustomed to adapt himself to things easily and calmly is most

cheerful and gentle in his dealings with people.

Sec. VIII. Wherefore let us resume our argument. As in a fever everything

seems bitter and unpleasant to the taste, but when we see others not

loathing but fancying the very same eatables and drinkables, we no

longer find the fault to be in them but in ourselves and our disease, so

we shall cease to blame and be discontented with the state of affairs,

if we see others cheerfully and without grief enduring the same. It also

makes for contentedness, when things happen against our wish, not to

overlook our many advantages and comforts, but by looking at both good

and bad to feel that the good preponderate. When our eyes are dazzled

with things too bright we turn them away, and ease them by looking at

flowers or grass, while we keep the eyes of our mind strained on

disagreeable things, and force them to dwell on bitter ideas, well-nigh

tearing them away by force from the consideration of pleasanter things.

And yet one might apply here, not unaptly, what was said to the man of

curiosity,[733]

"Malignant wretch, why art so keen to mark

Thy neighbour's fault, and seest not thine own?"

Why on earth, my good sir, do you confine your view to your troubles,

making them so vivid and acute, while you do not let your mind dwell at

all on your present comforts? But as cupping-glasses draw the worst

blood from the flesh, so you force upon your attention the worst things

in your lot: acting not a whit more wisely than that Chian, who, selling

much choice wine to others, asked for some sour wine for his own supper;

and one of his slaves being asked by another, what he had left his

master doing, replied, "Asking for bad when good was by." For most

people overlook the advantages and pleasures of their individual lives,

and run to their difficulties and grievances. Aristippus, however, was

not such a one, for he cleverly knew as in a scale to make the better

preponderate over the worse. So having lost a good farm, he asked one of

those who made a great show of condolence and sympathy, "Have you not

only one little piece of ground, while I have three fields left?" And

when he admitted that it was so, he went on to say, "Ought I not then to

condole with you rather than you with me?" For it is the act of a madman

to distress oneself over what is lost, and not to rejoice at what is

left; but like little children, if one of their many playthings be taken

away by anyone, throw the rest away and weep and cry out, so we, if we

are assailed by fortune in some one point, wail and mourn and make all

other things seem unprofitable in our eyes.

Sec. IX. Suppose someone should say, What blessings have we? I would reply,

What have we not? One has reputation, another a house, another a wife,

another a good friend. When Antipater of Tarsus was reckoning up on his

death-bed his various pieces of good fortune, he did not even pass over

his favourable voyage from Cilicia to Athens. So we should not overlook,

but take account of everyday blessings, and rejoice that we live, and

are well, and see the sun, and that no war or sedition plagues our

country, but that the earth is open to cultivation, the sea secure to

mariners, and that we can speak or be silent, lead a busy or an idle

life, as we choose. We shall get more contentedness from the presence of

all these blessings, if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time

to time how people ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace,

and strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends,

and how painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had

them. For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great

and valuable when it is lost, and of no value while we have it. For not

having it cannot add value to anything. Nor ought we to amass things we

regard as valuable, and always be on the tremble and afraid of losing

them as valuable things, and yet, when we have them, ignore them and

think little of them; but we ought to use them for our pleasure and

enjoyment, that we may bear their loss, if that should happen, with more

equanimity. But most people, as Arcesilaus said, think it right to

inspect minutely and in every detail, perusing them alike with the eyes

of the body and mind, other people's poems and paintings and statues,

while they neglect to study their own lives, which have often many not

unpleasing subjects for contemplation, looking abroad and ever admiring

other people's reputations and fortunes, as adulterers admire other

men's wives, and think cheap of their own.

Sec. X. And yet it makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the

most part at home and to our own condition, or if not, to look at the

case of people worse off than ourselves, and not, as most people do, to

compare ourselves with those who are better off. For example, those who

are in chains think those happy who are freed from their chains, and

they again freemen, and freemen citizens, and they again the rich, and

the rich satraps, and satraps kings, and kings the gods, content with

hardly anything short of hurling thunderbolts and lightning. And so they

ever want something above them, and are never thankful for what they

have.

"I care not for the wealth of golden Gyges,"

and,

"I never had or envy or desire

To be a god, or love for mighty empire,

Far distant from my eyes are all such things."

But this, you will say, was the language of a Thasian. But you will find

others, Chians or Galatians or Bithynians, not content with the share of

glory or power they have among their fellow-citizens, but weeping

because they do not wear senators' shoes; or, if they have them, that

they cannot be praetors at Rome; or, if they get that office, that they

are not consuls; or, if they are consuls, that they are only proclaimed

second and not first. What is all this but seeking out excuses for being

unthankful to fortune, only to torment and punish oneself? But he that

has a mind in sound condition, does not sit down in sorrow and dejection

if he is less renowned or rich than some of the countless myriads of

mankind that the sun looks upon, "who feed on the produce of the wide

world,"[734] but goes on his way rejoicing at his fortune and life, as

far fairer and happier than that of myriads of others. In the Olympian

games it is not possible to be the victor by choosing one's competitors.

But in the race of life circumstances allow us to plume ourselves on

surpassing many, and to be objects of envy rather than to have to envy

others, unless we pit ourselves against a Briareus or a Hercules.

Whenever then you admire anyone carried by in his litter as a greater

man than yourself, lower your eyes and look at those that bear the

litter. And when you think the famous Xerxes happy for his passage over

the Hellespont, as a native of those parts[735] did, look too at those

who dug through Mount Athos under the lash, and at those whose ears and

noses were cut off because the bridge was broken by the waves, consider

their state of mind also, for they think your life and fortunes happy.

Socrates, when he heard one of his friends saying, "How dear this city

is! Chian wine costs one mina,[736] a purple robe three, and half a pint

of honey five drachmae," took him to the meal market, and showed him half

a peck of meal for an obol, then took him to the olive market, and

showed him a peck of olives for two coppers, and lastly showed him that

a sleeveless vest[737] was only ten drachmae. At each place Socrates'

friend exclaimed, "How cheap this city is!" So also we, when we hear

anyone saying that our affairs are bad and in a woful plight, because we

are not consuls or governors, may reply, "Our affairs are in an

admirable condition, and our life an enviable one, seeing that we do not

beg, nor carry burdens, nor live by flattery."

Sec. XI. But since through our folly we are accustomed to live more with an

eye to others than ourselves, and since nature is so jealous and envious

that it rejoices not so much in its own blessings as it is pained by

those of others, do not look only at the much-cried-up splendour of

those whom you envy and admire, but open and draw, as it were, the gaudy

curtain of their pomp and show, and peep within, you will see that they

have much to trouble them, and many things to annoy them. The well-known

Pittacus,[738] whose fame was so great for fortitude and wisdom and

uprightness, was once entertaining some guests, and his wife came in in

a rage and upset the table, and as the guests were dismayed he said,

Every one of you has some trouble, and he who has mine only is not so

bad off.

"Happy is he accounted at the forum,

But when he opens the door of his own house

Thrice miserable; for his wife rules all,

Still lords it over him, and is ever quarrelling.

Many griefs has he that I wot not of."

Many such cases are there, unknown to the public, for family pride casts

a veil over them, to be found in wealth and glory and even in royalty.

"O happy son of Atreus, child of destiny,

Blessed thy lot;"[739]

congratulation like this comes from an external view, from a halo of

arms and horses and the pomp of war, but the inward voice of emotion

testifies against all this vain glory;

"A heavy fate is laid on me by Zeus

The son of Cronos."[740]

And,

"Old man, I think your lot one to be envied,

As that of any man who free from danger

Passes his life unknown and in obscurity."[741]

By such reflections as these one may wean oneself from that discontent

with one's fortune, which makes one's own condition look low and mean

from too much admiring one's neighbour's.

Sec. XII. Another thing, which is a great hindrance to peace of mind, is

not to proportion our desires to our means, but to carry too much sail,

as it were, in our hopes of great things and then, if unsuccessful, to

blame destiny and fortune, and not our own folly. For he is not

unfortunate who wishes to shoot with a plough, or hunt the hare with an

ox; nor has he an evil genius opposed to him, who does not catch deer

with fishing nets, but merely is the dupe of his own stupidity and folly

in attempting impossibilities. Self-love is mainly to blame, making

people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably

desirous to engage in everything. For people not only wish at one and

the same time to be rich, and learned, and strong, and boon-companions,

and agreeable, and friends of kings, and governors of cities, but they

are also discontented if they have not dogs and horses and quails and

cocks of the first quality. Dionysius the elder was not content with

being the most powerful monarch of his times, but because he could not

beat Philoxenus the poet in singing, or surpass Plato in dialectics, was

so angry and exasperated that he put the one to work in his stone

quarries, and sent the other to AEgina and sold him there. Alexander was

of a different spirit, for when Crisso the famous runner ran a race with

him, and seemed to let the king outrun him on purpose, he was greatly

displeased. Good also was the spirit of Achilles in Homer, who, when he

said,

"None of the Achaean warriors is a match

For me in war,"

added,

"Yet in the council hall

Others there are who better are than me."[742]

And when Megabyzus the Persian visited the studio of Apelles, and began

to chatter about art, Apelles stopped him and said, "While you kept

silence you seemed to be somebody from your gold and purple, but now

these lads that are grinding colours are laughing at your nonsense." But

some who think the Stoics only talk idly, in styling their wise man not

only prudent and just and brave but also orator and general and poet and

rich man and king, yet claim for themselves all those titles, and are

indignant if they do not get them. And yet even among the gods different

functions are assigned to different personages; thus one is called the

god of war, another the god of oracles, another the god of gain, and

Aphrodite, as she has nothing to do with warlike affairs, is despatched

by Zeus to marriages and bridals.

Sec. XIII. And indeed there are some pursuits which cannot exist together,

but are by their very nature opposed. For example oratory and the study

of the mathematics require ease and leisure; whereas political ability

and the friendship of kings cannot be attained without mixing in affairs

and in public life. Moreover wine and indulgence in meat make the body

indeed strong and vigorous, but blunt the intellect; and though

unremitting attention to making and saving money will heap up wealth,

yet despising and contemning riches is a great help to philosophy. So

that all things are not within any one's power, and we must obey that

saying inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, _Know thyself_,[743]

and adapt ourselves to our natural bent, and not drag and force nature

to some other kind of life or pursuit. "The horse to the chariot, and

the ox to the plough, and swiftly alongside the ship scuds the dolphin,

while he that meditates destruction for the boar must find a staunch

hound."[744] But he that chafes and is grieved that he is not at one and

the same time "a lion reared on the mountains, exulting in his

strength,"[745] and a little Maltese lap-dog[746] reared in the lap of a

rich widow, is out of his senses. And not a whit wiser is he who wishes

to be an Empedocles, or Plato, or Democritus, and write about the world

and the real nature of things, and at the same time to be married like

Euphorion to a rich wife, or to revel and drink with Alexander like

Medius; and is grieved and vexed if he is not also admired for his

wealth like Ismenias, and for his virtue like Epaminondas. But runners

are not discontented because they do not carry off the crowns of

wrestlers, but rejoice and delight in their own crowns. "You are a

citizen of Sparta: see you make the most of her." So too said Solon:

"We will not change our virtue for their wealth,

For virtue never dies, but wealth has wings,

And flies about from one man to another."

And Strato the natural philosopher, when he heard that Menedemus had

many more pupils than he had, said, "Is it wonderful at all that more

wish to wash than to be anointed?" And Aristotle, writing to Antipater,

said, "Not only has Alexander a right to plume himself on his rule over

many subjects, but no less legitimate is satisfaction at entertaining

right opinions about the gods." For those that think so highly of their

own walk in life will not be so envious about their neighbours'. We do

not expect a vine to bear figs, nor an olive grapes, yet now-a-days,

with regard to ourselves, if we have not at one and the same time the

privilege of being accounted rich and learned, generals and

philosophers, flatterers and outspoken, stingy and extravagant, we

slander ourselves and are dissatisfied, and despise ourselves as living

a maimed and imperfect life. Furthermore, we see that nature teaches us

the same lesson.[747] For as she provides different kinds of beasts with

different kinds of food, and has not made all carnivorous, or

seed-pickers, or root-diggers, so she has given to mankind various means

of getting a livelihood, "one by keeping sheep, another by ploughing,

another by fowling,"[748] and another by catching the fish of the sea.

We ought each therefore to select the calling appropriate for ourselves

and labour energetically in it, and leave other people to theirs, and

not demonstrate Hesiod as coming short of the real state of things when

he said,

"Potter is wroth with potter, smith with smith."[749]

For not only do people envy those of the same trade and manner of life,

but the rich envy the learned, and the famous the rich, and advocates

sophists, aye, and freemen and patricians admire and think happy

comedians starring it at the theatres, and dancers, and the attendants

at kings' courts, and by all this envy give themselves no small trouble

and annoyance.

Sec.XIV. But that every man has in himself the magazines of content or

discontent, and that the jars containing blessings and evils are not on

the threshold of Zeus,[750] but lie stored in the mind, is plain from

the differences of men's passions. For the foolish overlook and neglect

present blessings, through their thoughts being ever intent on the

future; but the wise make the past clearly present to them through

memory. For the present giving only a moment of time to the touch, and

then evading our grasp, does not seem to the foolish to be ours or to

belong to us at all. And like that person[751] painted as rope-making in

Hades and permitting an ass feeding by to eat up the rope as fast as he

makes it, so the stupid and thankless forgetfulness of most people comes

upon them and takes possession of them, and obliterates from their mind

every past action, whether success, or pleasant leisure, or society, or

enjoyment, and breaks the unity of life which arises from the past being

blended with the present; for detaching to-day from both yesterday and

to-morrow, it soon makes every event as if it had never happened from

lack of memory. For as those in the schools, who deny the growth of our

bodies by reason of the continual flux of substance, make each of us in

theory different from himself and another man, so those who do not keep

or recall to their memory former things, but let them drift, actually

empty themselves daily, and hang upon the morrow, as if what happened a

year ago, or even yesterday and the day before yesterday, had nothing to

do with them, and had hardly occurred at all.

Sec. XV. This is one great hindrance to contentedness of mind, and another

still greater is whenever, like flies that slide down smooth places in

mirrors, but stick fast in rough places or where there are cracks, men

let pleasant and agreeable things glide from their memory, and pin

themselves down to the remembrance of unpleasant things; or rather, as

at Olynthus they say beetles, when they get into a certain place called

Destruction-to-beetles, cannot get out, but fly round and round till

they die, so men will glide into the remembrance of their woes, and will

not give themselves a respite from sorrow. But, as we use our brightest

colours in a picture, so in the mind we ought to look at the cheerful

and bright side of things, and hide and keep down the gloomy, for we

cannot altogether obliterate or get rid of it. For, as the strings of

the bow and lyre are alternately tightened and relaxed, so is it with

the order of the world; in human affairs there is nothing pure and

without alloy. But as in music there are high and low notes, and in

grammar vowels and mutes, but neither the musician nor grammarian

decline to use either kinds, but know how to blend and employ them both

for their purpose, so in human affairs which are balanced one against

another,--for, as Euripides says,

"There is no good without ill in the world,

But everything is mixed in due proportion,"--

we ought not to be disheartened or despondent; but as musicians drown

their worst music with the best, so should we take good and bad

together, and make our chequered life one of convenience and harmony.

For it is not, as Menander says,

"Directly any man is born, a genius

Befriends him, a good guide to him for life,"

but it is rather, as Empedocles states, two fates or genii take hold of

each of us when we are born and govern us. "There were Chthonia and

far-seeing Heliope, and cruel Deris, and grave Harmonia, and Callisto,

and AEschra, and Thoosa, and Denaea, and charming Nemertes, and Asaphea

with the black fruit."

Sec. XVI. And as[752] at our birth we received the mingled seeds of each of

these passions, which is the cause of much irregularity, the sensible

person hopes for better things, but expects worse, and makes the most of

either, remembering that wise maxim, _Not too much of anything._ For not

only will he who is least solicitous about to-morrow best enjoy it when

it comes, as Epicurus says, but also wealth, and renown, and power and

rule, gladden most of all the hearts of those who are least afraid of

the contrary. For the immoderate desire for each, implanting a most

immoderate fear of losing them, makes the enjoyment of them weak and

wavering, like a flame under the influence of a wind. But he whom reason

enables to say to fortune without fear or trembling,

"If you bring any good I gladly welcome it,

But if you fail me little does it trouble me,"

he can enjoy the present with most zest through his confidence, and

absence of fear of the loss of what he has, which would be unbearable.

For we may not only admire but also imitate the behaviour of Anaxagoras,

which made him cry out at the death of his son, "I knew I had begot a

mortal," and apply it to every contingency. For example, "I know that

wealth is ephemeral and insecure; I know that those who gave power can

take it away again; I know that my wife is good, but still a woman; and

that my friend, since a human being, is by nature a changeable animal,

to use Plato's expression." For such a prepared frame of mind, if

anything happens unwished for but not unexpected, not admitting of such

phrases as "I shouldn't have dreamed of it," or "I expected quite a

different lot," or "I didn't look for this," abates the violent[753]

beatings and palpitations of the heart, and quickly causes wild unrest

to subside. Carneades indeed reminds us that in great matters the

unexpected makes the sum total of grief and dejection. Certainly the

kingdom of Macedonia was many times smaller than the Roman Empire, but

when Perseus lost Macedonia, he not only himself bewailed his wretched

fate, but seemed to all men the most unfortunate and unlucky of mankind;

yet AEmilius who conquered him, though he had to give up to another the

command both by land and sea, yet was crowned, and offered sacrifice,

and was justly esteemed happy. For he knew that he had taken a command

which he would have to give up, but Perseus lost his kingdom without

expecting it. Well also has the poet[754] shown the power of anything

that happens unexpectedly. For Odysseus wept bitterly at the death of

his dog, but was not so moved when he sat by his wife who wept, for in

the latter case he had come fully determined to keep his emotion under

the control of reason, whereas in the former it was against his

expectation, and therefore fell upon him as a sudden blow.

Sec. XVII. And since generally speaking some things which happen against

our will pain and trouble us by their very nature, while in the case of

most we accustom ourselves and learn to be disgusted with them from

fancy, it is not unprofitable to counteract this to have ever ready that

line of Menander,

"You suffer no dread thing but in your fancy."

For what, if they touch you neither in soul nor body, are such things to

you as the low birth of your father, or the adultery of your wife, or

the loss of some prize or precedence, since even by their absence a man

is not prevented from being in excellent condition both of body and

soul. And with respect to the things that seem to pain us by their very

nature, as sickness, and anxieties, and the deaths of friends and

children, we should remember, that line of Euripides,

"Alas! and why alas? we only suffer

What mortals must expect."

For no argument has so much weight with emotion when it is borne down

with grief, as that which reminds it of the common and natural necessity

to which man is exposed owing to the body, the only handle which he

gives to fortune, for in his most important and influential part[755] he

is secure against external things. When Demetrius captured Megara, he

asked Stilpo if any of his things had been plundered, and Stilpo

answered, "I saw nobody carrying off anything of mine."[756] And so when

fortune has plundered us and stripped us of everything else, we have

that within ourselves

"Which the Achaeans ne'er could rob us of."[757]

So that we ought not altogether to abase and lower nature, as if she had

no strength or stability against fortune; but on the contrary, knowing

that the rotten and perishable part of man, wherein alone he lies open

to fortune, is small, while we ourselves are masters of the better part,

wherein are situated our greatest blessings, as good opinions and

teaching and virtuous precepts, all which things cannot be abstracted

from us or perish, we ought to look on the future with invincible

courage, and say to fortune, as Socrates is supposed to have said to his

accusers Anytus and Melitus before the jury, "Anytus and Melitus can

kill me, but they cannot hurt me." For fortune can afflict us with

disease, take away our money, calumniate us to the people or king, but

cannot make a good and brave and high-souled man bad and cowardly and

low and ignoble and envious, nor take away that disposition of mind,

whose constant presence is of more use for the conduct of life than the

presence of a pilot at sea. For the pilot cannot make calm the wild wave

or wind, nor can he find a haven at his need wherever he wishes, nor can

he await his fate with confidence and without trembling, but as long as

he has not despaired, but uses his skill, he scuds before the gale,

"lowering his big sail, till his lower mast is only just above the sea

dark as Erebus," and sits at the helm trembling and quaking. But the

disposition of a wise man gives calm even to the body, mostly cutting

off the causes of diseases by temperance and plain living and moderate

exercise; but if some beginning of trouble arise from without, as we

avoid a sunken rock, so he passes by it with furled sail, as Asclepiades

puts it; but if some unexpected and tremendous gale come upon him and

prove too much for him, the harbour is at hand, and he can swim away

from the body, as from a leaky boat.

Sec. XVIII. For it is the fear of death, and not the desire of life, that

makes the foolish person to hang to the body, clinging to it, as

Odysseus did to the fig-tree from fear of Charybdis that lay below,

"Where the wind neither let him stay, or sail,"

so that he was displeased at this, and afraid of that. But he who

understands somehow or other the nature of the soul, and reflects that

the change it will undergo at death will be either to something better

or at least not worse, he has in his fearlessness of death no small help

to ease of mind in life. For to one who can enjoy life when virtue and

what is congenial to him have the upper hand, and that can fearlessly

depart from life, when uncongenial and unnatural things are in the

ascendant, with the words on his lips,

"The deity shall free me, when I will,"[758]

what can we imagine could befall such a man as this that would vex him

and wear him and harass him? For he who said, "I have anticipated you, O

fortune, and cut off all your loopholes to get at me," did not trust to

bolts or keys or walls, but to determination and reason, which are

within the power of all persons that choose. And we ought not to despair

or disbelieve any of these sayings, but admiring them and emulating them

and being enthusiastic about them, we ought to try and test ourselves in

smaller matters with a view to greater, not avoiding or rejecting that

self-examination, nor sheltering ourselves under the remark, "Perhaps

nothing will be more difficult." For inertia[759] and softness are

generated by that self-indulgence which ever occupies itself only with

the easiest tasks, and flees from the disagreeable to what is most

pleasant. But the soul that accustoms itself to face steadily sickness

and grief and exile, and calls in reason to its help in each case, will

find in what appears so sore and dreadful much that is false, empty, and

rotten, as reason will show in each case.

Sec. XIX. And yet many shudder at that line of Menander,

"No one can say, I shall not suffer this or that,"

being ignorant how much it helps us to freedom from grief to practise to

be able to look fortune in the face with our eyes open, and not to

entertain fine and soft fancies, like one reared in the shade on many

hopes that always yield and never resist. We can, however, answer

Menander's line,

"No one can say, I shall not suffer this or that,"

for a man can say, "I will not do this or that, I will not lie, I will

not play the rogue, I will not cheat, I will not scheme." For this is in

our power, and is no small but great help to ease of mind. As on the

contrary

"The consciousness of having done ill deeds,"[760]

like a sore in the flesh, leaves in the mind a regret which ever wounds

it and pricks it. For reason banishes all other griefs, but itself

creates regret when the soul is vexed with shame and self-tormented. For

as those who shudder in ague-fits or burn in fevers feel more trouble

and distress than those who externally suffer the same from cold or

heat, so the grief is lighter which comes externally from chance, but

that lament,

"None is to blame for this but I myself,"

coming from within on one's own misdeeds, intensifies one's bitterness

by the shame felt. And so neither costly house, nor quantity of gold,

nor pride of race, nor weighty office, nor grace of language, nor

eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life, as a soul pure from

evil acts and desires, having an imperturbable and undefiled character

as the source of its life; whence good actions flow, producing an

enthusiastic and cheerful energy accompanied by loftiness of thought,

and a memory sweeter and more lasting than that hope which Pindar says

is the support of old age. Censers do not, as Carneades said, after they

are emptied, long retain their sweet smell; but in the mind of the wise

man good actions always leave a fresh and fragrant memory, by which joy

is watered and flourishes, and despises those who wail over life and

abuse it as a region of ills, or as a place of exile for souls in this

world.

Sec. XX. I am very taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon,

who was dressing with much display for a feast, "Does not a good man

consider every day a feast?" And a very great feast too, if we live

soberly. For the world is a most holy and divine temple, into which man

is introduced at his birth, not to behold motionless images made by

hands, but those things (to use the language of Plato) which the divine

mind has exhibited as the visible representations of invisible things,

having innate in them the principle of life and motion, as the sun moon

and stars, and rivers ever flowing with fresh water, and the earth

affording maintenance to plants and animals. Seeing then that life is

the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full

of ease of mind and joy; not as most people wait for the festivals of

Cronos[761] and Dionysus and the Panathenaea and other similar days, that

they may joy and refresh themselves with bought laughter, paying actors

and dancers for the same. On such occasions indeed we sit silently and

decorously, for no one wails when he is initiated, or groans when he

beholds the Pythian games, or when he is drinking at the festival of

Cronos:[761] but men shame the festivals which the deity supplies us

with and initiates us in, passing most of their time in lamentation and

heaviness of heart and distressing anxiety. And though men delight in

the pleasing notes of musical instruments, and in the songs of birds,

and behold with joy the animals playing and frisking, and on the

contrary are distressed when they roar and howl and look savage; yet in

regard to their own life, when they see it without smiles and dejected,

and ever oppressed and afflicted by the most wretched sorrows and toils

and unending cares, they do not think of trying to procure alleviation

and ease. How is this? Nay, they will not even listen to others'

exhortation, which would enable them to acquiesce in the present without

repining, and to remember the past with thankfulness, and to meet the

future hopefully and cheerfully without fear or suspicion.

[711] Or cheerfulness, or tranquillity of mind. Jeremy

Taylor has largely borrowed again from this treatise in

his "Holy Living," ch. ii. Sec. 6, "Of Contentedness in all

Estates and Accidents."

[712] Reading with Salmasius [Greek: kaltios patrikios].

[713] "Locus Xenophontis est Cyropaed.," l. i. p.

52.--_Reiske._

[714] Euripides, "Orestes," 258.

[715] So Wyttenbach, Duebner. Vulgo [Greek:

anaisthesias--aponia.]

[716] "Works and Days," 519.

[717] "Odyssey," i. 191, 192.

[718] I read [Greek: katepheian].

[719] "Iliad," i. 488-492.

[720] "Iliad," xviii. 104.

[721] Euripides, "Orestes," 232.

[722] Homer, "Iliad," x. 88, 89.

[723] The story of Phaeethon is a very well-known one,

and is recorded very fully by Ovid in the

"Metamorphoses," Book ii.

[724] Euripides, "Bellerophon." Fragm. 298.

[725] Supplying [Greek: phyton] with Reiske.

[726] In Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoics.

[727] Zeno and his successors taught in the Piazza at

Athens called the Painted Piazza. See Pausanias, i. 15.

[728] Pindar, Nem. iv. 6.

[729] Euripides, "Bacchae," 66.

[730] Quoted again by our author "On Restraining Anger,"

Sec. xvi.

[731] As will be seen, I follow Wyttenbach's guidance in

this very corrupt passage, which is a true crux.

[732] Reading [Greek: dedorkotes].

[733] See "On Curiosity," Sec. i.

[734] Simonides.

[735] See Herodotus, vii. 56.

[736] A mina was 100 drachmae (_i.e._ L4. 1_s._ 3_d._),

and 600 obols.

[737] A slave's ordinary dress.

[738] One of the Seven Wise Men.

[739] Homer, "Iliad," iii. 182.

[740] Homer, "Iliad," ii. 111.

[741] Words of Agamemnon to the House Porter. Euripides,

"Iphigenia in Aulis," 17-19.

[742] "Iliad," xviii. 105, 106.

[743] See Pausanias, x. 24.

[744] Pindar, Fragm., 258. Quoted "On Moral Virtue," Sec.

xii.

[745] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 61; "Odyssey," vi. 130.

[746] A famous breed of dogs from the island Melita,

near Dalmatia. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," iii. 26, extr. Sec.

30; xxx. 5, extr. Sec. 14.

[747] That _Non omnia possumus omnes_.

[748] Pindar, "Isthm.," i. 65-70.

[749] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 25. Our "two of a trade

seldom agree."

[750] An allusion to "Iliad," xxiv. 527-533.

[751] Ocnus. See Pausanias, x. 29.

[752] So Wyttenbach, who reads [Greek: Hos de touton].

[753] Reading [Greek: oia] with Reiske.

[754] Homer to wit.

[755] The soul.

[756] The reading here is rather doubtful. That I have

adopted is Reiske's and Wyttenbach's.

[757] "Iliad," v. 484.

[758] Euripides, "Bacchae," 498. Compare Horace,

"Epistles," i. xvi. 78, 79.

[759] Reading with Duebner [Greek: argian]. Reiske has

[Greek: atonian].

[760] Euripides, "Orestes," 396.

[761] The _Saturnalia_ (as the Romans called this feast)

was well known as a festival of merriment and license.

ON ENVY AND HATRED.

Sec. I. Outwardly there seems no difference between hatred and envy, but

they seem identical. For generally speaking, as vice has many hooks, and

is swayed hither and thither by the passions that hang on it, there are

many points of contact and entanglement between them, for as in the case

of illnesses there is a sympathy between the various passions. Thus the

prosperous man is equally a source of pain to hate and envy. And so we

think benevolence the opposite of both these passions, being as it is a

wish for our neighbour's good, and we think hate and envy identical, for

the desire of both is the very opposite of benevolence. But since their

similarities are not so great as their dissimilarities, let us

investigate and trace out these two passions from their origin.

Sec. II. Hatred then is generated by the fancy that the person hated is

either bad generally or bad to oneself. For those who think they are

wronged naturally hate those who they think wrong them, and dislike and

are on their guard against those who are injurious or bad to

others;[762] but people envy merely those they think prosperous. So envy

seems illimitable, being, like ophthalmia, troubled at everything

bright, whereas hatred is limited, since it settles only on what seems

hostile.

Sec. III. In the second place people feel hatred even against the brutes;

for some hate cats and beetles and toads and serpents. Thus Germanicus

could not bear the crowing or sight of a cock, and the Persian magicians

kill their mice, not only hating them themselves but thinking them

hateful to their god, and the Arabians and Ethiopians abominate them as

much. Whereas we envy only human beings.

Sec. IV. Indeed among the brutes it is not likely that there should be any

envy, for they have no conception of prosperity or adversity, nor have

they any idea of reputation or want of reputation, which are the things

that mainly excite envy; but they hate one another, and are hostile to

one another, and fight with one another to the death, as eagles and

dragons, crows and owls, titmice and finches, insomuch that they say

that even the blood of these creatures will not mix, and if you try to

mix it it will immediately separate again. It is likely also that there

is strong hatred between the cock and the lion, and the pig and the

elephant, owing to fear. For what people fear they naturally hate. We

see also from this that envy differs from hatred, for the animals are

capable of the one, but not of the other.

Sec. V. Moreover envy against anyone is never just, for no one wrongs

another by his prosperity, though that is what he is envied for; but

many are hated with justice, for we even think others[763] worthy of

hatred, if they do not flee from such, and are not disgusted and vexed

at them. A great indication of this is that some people admit they hate

many, but declare they envy nobody. Indeed hatred of evil is reckoned

among praiseworthy things; and when some were praising Charillus, the

nephew of Lycurgus and king of Sparta, for his mildness and gentleness,

his colleague said, "How can Charillus be good, who is not even harsh to

the bad?" And so the poet described the bodily defects of Thersites at

much length, whereas he expressed his vile moral character most shortly

and by one remark, "He was most hateful both to Achilles and

Odysseus."[764] For to be hated by the most excellent is the height of

worthlessness. But people deny that they are envious, and, if they are

charged with being so, they put forward ten thousand pleas, saying they

are angry with the man or fear him or hate him, suggesting any other

passion than envy, and concealing it as the only disorder of the soul

which is abominable.

Sec. VI. Of necessity then these two passions cannot, like plants, be fed

and nourished and grow on the same roots; for they are by nature

different.[765] For we hate people more as they grow worse, but they are

envied only the more the more they advance in virtue. And so

Themistocles, when quite a lad, said he had done nothing remarkable, for

he was not yet envied. For as insects attack most ripe corn and roses in

their bloom, so envy fastens most on the good and on those who are

growing in virtue and good repute for moral character. Again extreme

badness intensifies hatred. So hated indeed and loathed were the

accusers of Socrates, as guilty of extreme vileness, by their

fellow-citizens, that they would neither supply them with fire, nor

answer their questions, nor touch the water they had bathed in, but

ordered the servants to pour it away as polluted, till they could bear

this hatred no longer and hung themselves. But splendid and exceptional

success often extinguishes envy. For it is not likely that anyone envied

Alexander or Cyrus, after their conquests made them lords of the world.

But as the sun, when it is high over our heads and sends down its rays,

makes next to no shadow, so at those successes that attain such a height

as to be over its head envy is humbled, and retires completely dazzled.

So Alexander had none to envy him, but many to hate him, by whom he was

plotted against till he died. So too misfortunes stop envy, but they do

not remove hatred. For people hate their enemies even when they lie

prostrate at their feet, but no one envies the unfortunate. But the

remark of one of the sophists of our day is true, that the envious are

very prone to pity; so here too there is a great difference between

these two passions, for hatred abandons neither the fortunate nor

unfortunate, whereas envy is mitigated in the extreme of either fortune.

Sec. VII. Let as look at the same again from opposite points of view. Men

put an end to their enmity and hatred, either if persuaded they have not

been wronged, or if they come round to the view that those they hated

are good men and not bad, or thirdly if they receive a kindness. For, as

Thucydides says, the last favour conferred, even though a smaller one,

if it be seasonable, outweighs a greater offence.[766] Yet the

persuasion that they have not been wronged does not put an end to envy,

for people envy although absolutely persuaded that they have not been

wronged; and the two other cases actually increase envy; for people look

with an evil eye even more on those they think good, as having virtue,

which is the greatest blessing; and if they are treated kindly by the

prosperous it grieves them, for they envy both their will and power to

do kindnesses, the former proceeding from their goodness, the latter

from their prosperity, but both being blessings. Thus envy is a passion

altogether different from hatred, seeing that what abates the one pains

and exasperates the other.

Sec. VIII. Let us now look at the intent of each of these passions. The

intent of the person who hates is to do as much harm as he can, so they

define hatred to be a disposition and intent on the watch for an

opportunity to do harm. But this is altogether foreign to envy.[767] For

those who envy their relations and friends would not wish them to come

to ruin, or fall into calamity, but are only annoyed at their

prosperity; and would hinder, if they could, their glory and renown, but

they would not bring upon them irremediable misfortunes: they are

content to remove, as in the case of a lofty house, what stands in their

light.

[762] [Greek: allos] MSS. Wyttenbach [Greek: allon].

Malo [Greek: allois].

[763] So Wyttenbach.

[764] Homer, "Iliad," ii. 220.

[765] So Wyttenbach. The reading in this passage is very

doubtful.

[766] Thucydides, i. 42.

[767] Reading [Greek: apestin holos. Oi gar

phthonountes]. What can be made of [Greek: pollous]

here?

HOW ONE CAN PRAISE ONESELF WITHOUT

EXCITING ENVY.

Sec. I. To speak to other people about one's own importance or ability,

Herculanus, is universally declared to be tiresome and illiberal, but in

fact not many even of those who censure it avoid its unpleasantness.

Thus Euripides, though he says,

"If words had to be bought by human beings,

No one would wish to trumpet his own praises.

But since one can get words _sans_ any payment

From lofty ether, everyone delights

In speaking truth or falsehood of himself,

For he can do it with impunity;"

yet uses much tiresome boasting, intermixing with the passion and action

of his plays irrelevant matter about himself. Similarly Pindar says,

that "to boast unseasonably is to play an accompaniment to

madness,"[768] yet he does not cease to talk big about his own merit,

which indeed is well worthy of encomium, who would deny it? But those

who are crowned in the games leave it to others to celebrate their

victories, to avoid the unpleasantness of singing their own praises. So

we are with justice disgusted at Timotheus[769] for trumpeting his own

glory inelegantly and contrary to custom in the inscription for his

victory over Phrynis, "A proud day for you, Timotheus, was it when the

herald cried out, 'The Milesian Timotheus is victorious over the son of

Carbo and his Ionic notes.'" As Xenophon says, "Praise from others is

the pleasantest thing a man can hear,"[770] but to others a man's

self-praise is most nauseous. For first we think those impudent who

praise themselves, since modesty would be becoming even if they were

praised by others; secondly, we think them unjust in giving themselves

what they ought to receive from others; thirdly, if we are silent we

seem to be vexed and to envy them, and if we are afraid of this

imputation, we are obliged to heap praise upon them contrary to our real

opinion, and to bear them out, undertaking a task more befitting gross

flattery than honour.

Sec. II. And yet, in spite of all this, there are occasions when a

statesman may venture to speak in his own praise, not to cry up his own

glory and merit, but when the time and matter demand that he should

speak the truth about himself, as he would about another; especially

when it is mentioned that another has done good and excellent

things,[771] there is no need for him to suppress the fact that he has

done as well. For such self-praise bears excellent fruit, since much

more and better praise springs from it as from seed. For the statesman

does not ask for reputation as a reward or consolation, nor is he merely

pleased at its attending upon his actions, but he values it because

credit and character give him opportunities to do good on a larger

scale. For it is both easy and pleasant to benefit those who believe in

us and are friendly to us, but it is not easy to act virtuously against

suspicion and calumny, and to force one's benefits on those that reject

them. Let us now consider, if there are any other reasons warranting

self-praise in a statesman, what they are, that, while we avoid vain

glory and disgusting other people, we may not omit any useful kind of

self-praise.

Sec. III. That is vain glory then when men seem to praise themselves that

they may call forth the laudation of others; and it is especially

despised because it seems to proceed from ambition and an unseasonable

opinion of oneself. For as those who cannot obtain food are forced to

feed on their own flesh against nature, and that is the end of famine,

so those that hunger after praise, if they get no one else to praise

them, disgrace themselves by their anxiety to feed their own vanity. But

when, not merely content with praising themselves, they vie with the

praise of others, and pit their own deeds and actions against theirs,

with the intent of outshining them, they add envy and malignity to their

vanity. The proverb teaches us that to put our foot into another's dance

is meddlesome and ridiculous; we ought equally to be on our guard

against intruding our own panegyric into others' praises out of envy and

spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we

should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of

honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless,

we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by

direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these

encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid all such conduct as

this.

Sec. IV. But self-praise cannot be blamed, if it is an answer to some

charge or calumny, as those words of Pericles, "And yet you are angry

with such a man as me, a man I take it inferior to no one either in

knowledge of what should be done, or in ability to point out the same,

and a lover of my country to boot, and superior to bribes."[772] For not

only did he avoid all swagger and vainglory and ambition in talking thus

loftily about himself, but he also exhibited the spirit and greatness of

his virtue, which could abase and crush envy because it could not be

abased itself. For people will hardly condemn such men, for they are

elevated and cheered and inspired by noble self-laudation such as this,

if it have a true basis, as all history testifies. Thus the Thebans,

when their generals were charged with not returning home, and laying

down their office of Boeotarchs when their time had expired, but instead

of that making inroads into Laconia, and helping Messene, hardly

acquitted Pelopidas, who was submissive and suppliant, but for

Epaminondas,[773] who gloried in what he had done, and at last said that

he was ready to die, if they would confess that he had ravaged Laconia,

and restored Messene, and made Arcadia one state, against the will of

the Thebans, they would not pass sentence upon him, but admired his

heroism, and with rejoicing and smiles set him free. So too we must not

altogether find fault with Sthenelus in Homer saying,

"We boast ourselves far better than our fathers,"[774]

when we remember the words of Agamemnon,

"How now? thou son of brave horse-taming Tydeus,

Why dost thou crouch for fear, and watch far off

The lines of battle? How unlike thy father!"[775]

For it was not because he was defamed himself, but he stood up for his

friend[776] that was abused, the occasion giving him a reasonable excuse

for self-commendation. So too the Romans were far from pleased at

Cicero's frequently passing encomiums upon himself in the affair of

Catiline, yet when Scipio said they ought not to try him (Scipio), since

he had given them the power to try anybody, they put on garlands, and

accompanied him to the Capitol, and sacrificed with him. For Cicero was

not compelled to praise himself, but only did so for glory, whereas the

danger in which Scipio stood removed envy from him.

Sec. V. And not only on one's trial and in danger, but also in misfortune,

is tall talk and boasting more suitable than in prosperity. For in

prosperity people seem to clutch as it were at glory and enjoy it, and

so gratify their ambition; but in adversity, being far from ambition

owing to circumstances, such self-commendation seems to be a bearing up

and fortifying the spirit against fortune, and an avoidance altogether

of that desire for pity and condolence, and that humility, which we

often find in adversity. As then we esteem those persons vain and

without sense who in walking hold themselves very erect and with a stiff

neck, yet in boxing or fighting we commend such as hold themselves up

and alert, so the man struggling with adversity, who stands up straight

against his fate, "in fighting posture like some boxer,"[777] and

instead of being humble and abject becomes through his boasting lofty

and dignified, seems to be not offensive and impudent, but great and

invincible. This is why, I suppose, Homer has represented Patroclus

modest and without reproach in prosperity, yet at the moment of death

saying grandiloquently,

"Had twenty warriors fought me such as thou,

All had succumbed to my victorious spear."[778]

And Phocion, though in other respects he was gentle, yet after his

sentence exhibited his greatness of soul to many others, and notably to

one of those that were to die with him, who was weeping and wailing, to

whom he said, "What! are you not content to die with Phocion?"

Sec. VI. Not less, but still more, lawful is it for a public man who is

wronged to speak on his own behalf to those who treat him with

ingratitude. Thus Achilles generally conceded glory to the gods, and

modestly used such language as,

"If ever Zeus

Shall grant to me to sack Troy's well-built town;"[779]

but when insulted and outraged contrary to his deserts, he utters in his

rage boastful words,

"Alighting from my ships twelve towns I sacked,"[780]

and,

"For they will never dare to face my helmet

When it gleams near."[781]

For frank outspokenness, when it is part of one's defence, admits of

boasting. It was in this spirit no doubt that Themistocles, who neither

in word nor deed had given any offence, when he saw the Athenians were

tired of him and treating him with neglect, did not abstain from saying,

"My good sirs, why do you tire of receiving benefits so frequently at

the same hands?" and[782] "When the storm is on you fly to me for

shelter as to a tree, but when fine weather comes again, then you pass

by and strip me of my leaves."

Sec. VII. They then that are wronged generally mention what they have done

well to those who are ungrateful. And the person who is blamed for what

he has done well is altogether to be pardoned, and not censured, if he

passes encomiums on his own actions: for he is in the position of one

not scolding but making his defence. This it was that made Demosthenes'

freedom of speech splendid, and prevented people being wearied out by

the praise which in all his speech _On the Crown_ he lavished on

himself, pluming himself on those embassies and decrees in connection

with the war with which fault had been found.

Sec. VIII. Not very unlike this is the grace of antithesis, when a person

shows that the opposite of what he is charged with is base and low. Thus

Lycurgus when he was charged at Athens with having bribed an informer to

silence, replied, "What kind of a citizen do you think me, who, having

had so long time the fingering of your public money, am detected in

giving rather than taking unjustly?" And Cicero, when Metellus told him

that he had destroyed more as a witness than he had got acquitted as an

advocate, answered, "Who denies that my honesty is greater than my

eloquence?" Compare such sayings of Demosthenes as, "Who would not have

been justified in killing me, had I tried in word only to impair the

ancient glory of our city?"[783] And, "What think you these wretches

would have said, if the states had departed, when I was curiously

discussing these points?"[784] And indeed the whole of that speech _On

the Crown_ most ingeniously introduces his own praises in his

antitheses, and answers to the charges brought against him.

Sec. IX. However it is worth while to notice in his speech that he most

artistically inserts praise of his audience in the remarks about

himself, and so makes his speech less egotistical and less likely to

raise envy. Thus he shows how the Athenians behaved to the Euboeans and

to the Thebans, and what benefits they conferred on the people of

Byzantium and on the Chersonese, claiming for himself only a subordinate