Plutarch's Morals Part 9

-- XI. And the truth of this is rendered more apparent in our hereditary and time-honoured customs and laws. For when infants die no libations are poured out for them, nor are any other rites performed for them, such as are always performed for adults. For they have no share in the earth or in things of the earth, nor do parents haunt their tombs or monuments, or sit by their bodies when they are laid out. For the laws do not allow us to mourn for such, seeing that it is an impious thing to do so in the case of persons who have departed into a better and more divine place and sphere. I know that doubts are entertained about this, but since to doubt is harder for them than to believe, let us do externally as the laws enjoin, and internally let us be more holy and pure and chaste.[204]

[191] Timoxena, as we see later on, -- ix.

[192] Adopting Reiske's reading, [Greek: maston keleuousa, proekaleito kathaper].

[193] Euripides' "Phaethon," which exists only in fragments. Clymene was the daughter of Ocea.n.u.s, and mother of Phaethon.

[194] An allusion to Euripides, "Bacchae," 317, 318.

[195] Reading with Reiske [Greek: oudeni logo de], or [Greek: alogos de]. Some such reading seems necessary to comport with the [Greek: ti gar alogoteron] two lines later.

[196] Reading [Greek: pareiches] with Xylander.

[197] A great craving for sympathy would be the modern way of putting it.

[198] See the Fable of aesop, ent.i.tled [Greek: Penthous geras], No. 355. Halme. See also Plutarch's "Consolation to Apollonius," -- xix., where the Fable is told at some length.

[199] Reading with Reiske [Greek: ouk an eipein phobetheien].

[200] An allusion to Euripides, "Andromache," 930. See Plutarch's "Conjugal Precepts," -- xl.

[201] The whole subject is discussed in full by Athenaeus, p. 632, F. F. A false quant.i.ty we see was a bugbear even before the days of Universities.

[202] Homer, "Iliad," v. 646; xxiii. 71.

[203] This section is dreadfully corrupt. I have adopted, it will be seen, the suggestions of Wyttenbach.

[204] This Consolatory Letter ends rather abruptly. It is probable that there was more of it.

THAT VIRTUE MAY BE TAUGHT.

-- I. As to virtue we deliberate and dispute whether good sense, and justice, and rect.i.tude can be taught: and then we are not surprised that, while the works of orators, and pilots, and musicians, and house-builders, and farmers, are innumerable, good men are only a name and expression, like Centaurs and Giants and Cyclopes, and that it is impossible to find any virtuous action without alloy of base motives, or any character free from vice: but if nature produces spontaneously anything good, it is marred by much that is alien to it, as fruit choked by weeds. Men learn to play on the harp, and to dance, and to read, and to farm, and to ride on horseback: they learn how to put on their shoes and clothes generally: people teach how to pour out wine, how to cook; and all these things cannot be properly performed, without being learned. The art of good living alone, though all those things I have mentioned only exist on its account, is untaught, unmethodical, inartistic, and supposed to come by the light of nature!

-- II. O sirs, by a.s.serting that virtue is not a thing to be taught, why are we making it unreal? For if teaching produces it, the deprivation of teaching prevents it. And yet, as Plato says, a discord and false note on the lyre makes not brother go to war with brother, nor sets friends at variance, nor makes states hostile to one another, so as to do and suffer at one another's hands the most dreadful things:[205] nor can anyone say that there was ever a dissension in any city as to the p.r.o.nunciation of Telchines: nor in a private house any difference between man and wife as to woof and warp. And yet no one without learning would undertake to ply the loom, or write a book, or play on the lyre, though he would thereby do no great harm, but he fears making himself ridiculous, for as Herac.l.i.tus says, "It is better to hide one's ignorance," yet everyone thinks himself competent to manage a house and wife and the state and hold any magisterial office. On one occasion, when a boy was eating rather greedily, Diogenes gave the lad's tutor a blow with his fist, ascribing the fault not to the boy, who had not learnt how to eat properly, but to the tutor who had not taught him. And can one not properly handle a dish or a cup, unless one has learnt from a boy, as Aristophanes bids us, "not to giggle, nor eat too fast, nor cross our legs,"[206] and yet be perfectly fit to manage a family and city, and wife, and live well, and hold office, when one has not learnt how one should behave in the conduct of life? When Aristippus was asked by someone, "Are you everywhere then?" he smiled and said, "If I am everywhere, I lose my pa.s.sage money."[207] Why should not you also say, "If men are not better for learning, the money paid to tutors is also lost?" For just as nurses mould with their hands the child's body, so tutors, receiving it immediately it is weaned, mould its soul, teaching it by habit the first vestiges of virtue. And the Lacedaemonian, who was asked, what good he did as a tutor, replied, "I make what is good pleasant to boys." Moreover tutors teach boys to walk in the streets with their heads down,[208] to touch salt fish with one finger only, other fish bread and meat with two, to scratch themselves in such a way, and in such a way to put on their cloak.[209]

-- III. What then? He that says that the doctor's skill is wanted in the case of a slight skin-eruption or whitlow, but is not needed in the case of pleurisy, fever, or lunacy, in what respect does he differ from the man that says that schools and teaching and precepts are only for small and boyish duties, while great and important matters are to be left to mere routine and accident? For, as the man is ridiculous who says we ought to learn to row but not to steer, so he who allows all other arts to be learnt, but not virtue, seems to act altogether contrary to the Scythians. For they, as Herodotus tells us,[210] blind their slaves that they may remain with them, but such an one puts the eye of reason into slavish and servile arts, and takes it away from virtue. And the general Iphicrates well answered Callias, the son of Chabrias, who asked him, "What are you? an archer? a targeteer? cavalry, or infantry?" "None of these," said he, "but the commander of them all." Ridiculous therefore is he who says that the use of the bow and other arms and the sling and riding are to be taught, but that strategy and how to command an army comes by the light of nature. Still more ridiculous is he who a.s.serts that good sense alone need not be taught, without which all other arts are useless and profitless, seeing that she is the mistress and orderer and arranger of all of them, and puts each of them to their proper use.

For example, what grace would there be in a banquet, though the servants had been well-trained, and had learnt how to dress and cook the meat and pour out the wine,[211] unless there was good order and method among the waiters?[212]

[205] Plato, "c.l.i.tophon," p. 407, C.

[206] Aristophanes, "Clouds," 983.

[207] Does Juvenal allude to this, viii. 97?

[208] So as to look modest and be "Ingenui vultus pueri, ingenuique pudoris."

[209] Reading with Salmasius, [Greek: anabalein].

[210] Herodotus, iv. 2. The historian, however, a.s.signs other reasons for blinding them.

[211] A line from "Odyssey," xv. 323.

[212] "Malim [Greek: daitumonas]." Wyttenbach, who remarks generally on this short treatise, "Non integra videtur esse nec continua disputatio, sed disputationis, Plutarcheae tamen, excerptum compendium."

ON VIRTUE AND VICE.

-- I. Clothes seem to warm a man, not by throwing out heat themselves (for in itself every garment is cold, whence in great heat or in fevers people frequently change and s.h.i.+ft them), but the heat which a man throws out from his own body is retained and wrapped in by a dress fitting close to the body, which does not admit of the heat being dissipated when once it has got firm hold. A somewhat similar case is the idea that deceives the ma.s.s of mankind, that if they could live in big houses, and get together a quant.i.ty of slaves and money, they would have a happy life. But a happy and cheerful life is not from without, on the contrary, a man adds the pleasure and gratification to the things that surround him, his temperament being as it were the source of his feelings.[213]

"But when the fire blazes the house is brighter to look at."[214]

So, too, wealth is pleasanter, and fame and power more splendid, when a man has joy in his heart, seeing that men can bear easily and quietly poverty and exile and old age if their character is a contented and mild one.

-- II. For as perfumes make threadbare coats and rags to smell sweet, while the body of Anchises sent forth a fetid discharge, "distilling from his back on to his linen robe," so every kind of life with virtue is painless and pleasurable, whereas vice if infused into it makes splendour and wealth and magnificence painful, and sickening, and unwelcome to its possessors.

"He is deemed happy in the market-place, But when he gets him home, thrice miserable, His wife rules all, quarrels, and domineers."[215]

And yet there would be no great difficulty in getting rid of a bad wife, if one was a man and not a slave. But a man cannot by writing a bill of divorce to his vice get rid of all trouble at once, and enjoy tranquillity by living apart: for it is ever present in his vitals, and sticks to him night and day, "and burns without a torch, and consigns him to gloomy old age,"[216] being a disagreeable fellow-traveller owing to its arrogance, and a costly companion at table owing to its daintiness, and an unpleasant bed-fellow, disturbing and marring sleep by anxiety and care and envy. For during such a one's sleep the body indeed gets rest, but the mind has terrors, and dreams, and perturbations, owing to superst.i.tion,

"For when my trouble catches me asleep, I am undone by the most fearful dreams,"

as one says. For thus envy, and fear, and anger, and l.u.s.t affect one.

During the daytime, indeed, vice looks abroad and imitates the behaviour of others, is shy and conceals its evil desires, and does not altogether give way to its propensities, but often even resists and fights stoutly against them; but in sleep it escapes the observation of people and the law, and, being as far as possible removed from fear or modesty, gives every pa.s.sion play, and excites its depravity and licentiousness, for, to borrow Plato's expression,[217] "it attempts incest with its mother, and procures for itself unlawful meats, and abstains from no action whatever," and enjoys lawlessness as far as is practicable in visions and phantasies, that end in no complete pleasure or satisfaction, but can only stir up and inflame the pa.s.sions and morbid emotions.

-- III. Where then is the pleasure of vice, if there is nowhere in it freedom from anxiety and pain, or independence, or tranquillity, or rest?[218] A healthy and sound const.i.tution does indeed augment the pleasures of the body, but for the soul there can be no lasting joy or gratification, unless cheerfulness and fearlessness and courage supply a calm serenity free from storms; for otherwise, even if hope or delight smile on the soul, it is soon confused and disturbed by care lifting up its head again, so that it is but the calm of a sunken rock.

-- IV. Pile up gold, heap up silver, build covered walks, fill your house with slaves and the town with debtors, unless you lay to rest the pa.s.sions of the soul, and put a curb on your insatiable desires, and rid yourself of fear and anxiety, you are but pouring out wine for a man in a fever, and giving honey to a man who is bilious, and laying out a sumptuous banquet for people who are suffering from dysentery, and can neither retain their food nor get any benefit from it, but are made even worse by it. Have you never observed how sick persons turn against and spit out and refuse the daintiest and most costly viands, though people offer them and almost force them down their throats, but on another occasion, when their condition is different, their respiration good, their blood in a healthy state, and their natural warmth restored, they get up, and enjoy and make a good meal of simple bread and cheese and cress? Such, also, is the effect of reason on the mind. You will be contented, if you have learned what is good and honourable. You will live daintily and be a king in poverty, and enjoy a quiet and private life as much as the public life of general or statesman. By the aid of philosophy you will live not unpleasantly, for you will learn to extract pleasure from all places and things: wealth will make you happy, because it will enable you to benefit many; and poverty, as you will not then have many anxieties; and glory, for it will make you honoured; and obscurity, for you will then be safe from envy.

[213] Happiness comes from within, not from without. The true seat of happiness is the mind. Compare Milton, "Paradise Lost," Book i. 254, 255:--

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of h.e.l.l, a h.e.l.l of Heaven."

[214] Homeric Epigrammata, xiii. 5.

[215] Wyttenbach thinks these lines are by Menander.

Plutarch quotes them again "On Contentedness of Mind," -- xi.

[216] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 705.

[217] Plato, "Republic," ix. p. 571, D. Quoted again, "How one may be aware of one's Progress in Virtue," -- xii.