Plutarch's Morals
enters the body, and does not cease to be involved in the changes and
chances of this life that result from birth. For do not suppose that old
age is abused and ill-spoken of only for its wrinkles and white hair and
weakness of body, but this is the worst feature about it, that it makes
the soul feeble in its remembrance of things in the other world, and
strong in its attachment to things in this world, and bends and presses
it, if it retain the form which it had in the body from its experience.
But that soul, which does indeed enter the body, but remains only a
short time in it, being liberated from it by the higher powers, rears as
it were at a damp and soft turning post in the race of life, and hastens
on to its destined goal. For just as if anyone put out a fire, and light
it again at once, it is soon rekindled, and burns up again quickly, but
if it has been out a long time, to light it again will be a far more
difficult and irksome task, so the soul that has sojourned only a short
time in this dark and mortal life, quickly recovers the light and blaze
of its former bright life, whereas for those who have not had the good
fortune very early, to use the language of the poet, "to pass the gates
of Hades,"[202] nothing remains but a great passion for the things of
this life, and a softening of the soul through contact with the body,
and a melting away of it as if by the agency of drugs.[203]
Sec. 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, Sec. ix.
[192] Adopting Reiske's reading, [Greek: maston
keleuousa, proekaleito kathaper].
[193] Euripides' "Phaethon," which exists only in
fragments. Clymene was the daughter of Oceanus, 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, entitled [Greek: Penthous
geras], No. 355. Halme. See also Plutarch's "Consolation
to Apollonius," Sec. 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," Sec. xl.
[201] The whole subject is discussed in full by
Athenaeus, p. 632, F. F. A false quantity 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.
Sec. I. As to virtue we deliberate and dispute whether good sense, and
justice, and rectitude 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!
Sec. II. O sirs, by asserting 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
pronunciation 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 Heraclitus 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 passage 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]
Sec. 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 asserts
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, "Clitophon," 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, assigns
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.
Sec. 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 shift 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 mass of mankind, that if they could live in
big houses, and get together a quantity 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.
Sec. 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 superstition,
"For when my trouble catches me asleep,
I am undone by the most fearful dreams,"