Plutarch's Morals
down, and in trying to recall a word or thought that slipped his memory
had to stop short.[272] And Homer did not deny that his first line was
unmetrical,[273] though he had sufficient confidence to follow it up by
so many other lines, so great was his genius. Much more then ought those
who aim at virtue and what is noble to lose no opportunity of public
speaking, paying very little attention to either uproar or applause at
their speeches.
Sec. X. And not only ought each to see to his discourses but also to his
actions whether he regards utility more than show, and truth more than
display. For if a genuine love for youth or maiden seeks no witnesses,
but is content to enjoy its delights privately, far more does it become
the philosopher and lover of the beautiful, who is conversant with
virtue through his actions, to pride himself on his silence, and not to
need people to praise or listen to him. As that man who called his maid
in the house, and cried out to her, "See, Dionysia, I am angry no
longer,"[274] so he that does anything agreeable and polite, and then
goes and spreads it about the town, plainly shows that he looks for
public applause and has a strong propensity to vain-glory, and as yet
has no acquaintance with virtue as a reality but only as a dream,
restlessly roving about amid phantoms and shadows, and making a display
of whatever he does as painters display a picture. It is therefore a
sign of progress in virtue not merely to have given to a friend or done
a good turn to an acquaintance without mentioning it to other people,
but also to have given an honest vote among many unjust ones, and to
have withstood the dishonourable request of some rich man or of some man
in office, and to have been above taking bribes, and, by Zeus, to have
been thirsty all night and not to have drunk, or, like Agesilaus,[275]
to have resisted, though strongly tempted, the kiss of a handsome youth
or maiden, and to have kept the fact to oneself and been silent about
it. For one's being satisfied with one's own good opinion[276] and not
despising it, but rejoicing in it and acquiescing in it as competent to
see and decide on what is honourable, proves that reason is rooted and
grounded within one, and that, to borrow the language of Democritus, one
is accustomed to draw one's delights from oneself. And just as farmers
behold with greater pleasure those ears of corn which bend and bow down
to the ground, while they look upon those that from their lightness
stand straight upright as empty pretenders, so also among those young
men who wish to be philosophers those that are most empty and without
any solidity show the greatest amount of assurance in their appearance
and walk, and a face full of haughtiness and contempt that looks down on
everybody, but when they begin to grow full and get some fruit from
study they lay aside their proud and vain[277] bearing. And just as in
vessels that contain water the air is excluded, so with men that are
full of solid merit their pride abates, and their estimate of themselves
becomes a lower one, and they cease to plume themselves on a long beard
and threadbare cloak,[278] and transfer their training to the mind, and
are most severe and austere to themselves, while they are milder in
their intercourse with everybody else; and they do not as before
eagerly snatch at the name and reputation of philosopher, nor do they
write themselves down as such, but even if he were addressed by that
title by anyone else, an ingenuous young man would say, smiling and
blushing, "I am not a god: why do you liken me to the immortals?"[279]
For as AEschylus says,
"I never can mistake the burning eye
Of the young woman that has once known man,"[280]
so to the young man who has tasted of true progress in philosophy the
following lines of Sappho are applicable, "My tongue cleaves to the roof
of my month, and a fire courses all over my lean body," and his eye will
be gentle and mild, and you would desire to hear him speak. For as those
who are initiated come together at first with confusion and noise and
jostle one another, but when the mysteries are being performed and
exhibited, they give their attention with awe and silence, so also at
the commencement of philosophy you will see round its doors much
confusion and assurance and prating, some rudely and violently jostling
their way to reputation, but he who once enters in, and sees the great
light, as when shrines are open to view, assumes another air and is
silent and awe-struck, and in humility and decorum follows reason as if
she were a god. And the playful remark of Menedemus seems to suit these
very well. He said that the majority of those who went to school at
Athens became first wise, and then philosophers, after that orators, and
as time went on became ordinary kind of people, the more they had to do
with learning, so much the more laying aside their pride and high
estimate of themselves.
Sec. XI. Of people that need the help of the physician some, if their tooth
ache or even finger smart, run at once to the doctor, others if they are
feverish send for one and implore his assistance at their own home,
others who are melancholy or crazy or delirious will not sometimes even
see the doctor if he comes to their house, but drive him away, or avoid
him, ignorant through their grievous disease that they are diseased at
all. Similarly of those who have done what is wrong some are
incorrigible, being hostile and indignant and furious at those who
reprove and admonish them, while others are meeker and bear and allow
reproof. Now, when one has done what is wrong, to offer oneself for
reproof, to expose the case and reveal one's wrongdoing, and not to
rejoice if it lies hid, or be satisfied if it is not known, but to make
confession of it and ask for interference and admonishment, is no small
indication of progress in virtue. And so Diogenes said that one who
wished to do what was right ought to seek either a good friend or
red-hot enemy, that either by rebuke or mild entreaty he might flee from
vice. But as long as anyone, making a display of dirt or stains on his
clothes, or a torn shoe, prides himself to outsiders on his freedom from
arrogance, and, by Zeus, thinks himself doing something very smart if he
jeers at himself as a dwarf or hunchback, but wraps up and conceals as
if they were ulcers the inner vileness of his soul and the deformities
of his life, as his envy, his malignity, his littleness, his love of
pleasure, and will not let anyone touch or look at them from fear of
disgrace, such a one has made little progress in virtue, yea rather
none. But he that joins issue with his vices, and shows that he himself
is even more pained and grieved about them than anyone else, or, what is
next best, is able and willing to listen patiently to the reproof of
another and to correct his life accordingly, he seems truly to be
disgusted at his depravity and resolute to divest himself of it. We
ought certainly to be ashamed of and shun every appearance of vice, but
he who is more put about by his vice itself than by the bad reputation
that ensues upon it, will not mind either hearing it spoken against or
even speaking against it himself if it make him a better man. That was a
witty remark of Diogenes to a young man, who when seen in a tavern
retired into the kitchen: "The more," said he, "you retire, the more are
you in the tavern."[281] Even so the more a vicious man denies his vice,
the more does it insinuate itself and master him: as those people
really poor who pretend to be rich get still more poor from their false
display. But he who is really making progress in virtue imitates
Hippocrates, who confessed publicly and put into black and white that he
had made a mistake about the sutures of the skull,[282] for he will
think it monstrous, if that great man declared his mistake, that others
might not fall into the same error, and yet he himself for his own
deliverance from vice cannot bear to be shown he is in the wrong, and to
confess his stupidity and ignorance. Moreover the sayings of Bion and
Pyrrho will test not so much one's progress as a greater and more
perfect habit of virtue. Bion maintained that his friends might think
they had made progress, when they could listen as patiently to abuse as
to such language as the following, "Stranger, you look not like a bad or
foolish person,"[283] "Health and joy go with you, may the gods give you
happiness!"[284] While as to Pyrrho they say, when he was at sea and in
peril from a storm, that he pointed out a little pig that was quietly
enjoying some grain that had been scattered about, and said to his
companions that the man who did not wish to be disturbed by the changes
and chances of life should attain a similar composedness of mind through
reason and philosophy.
Sec. XII. Look also at the opinion of Zeno, who thought that everybody
might gauge his progress in virtue by his dreams, if he saw himself in
his dreams pleasing himself with nothing disgraceful, and neither doing
nor wishing to do anything dreadful or unjust, but that, as in the clear
depths of a calm and tranquil sea, his fancy and passions were plainly
shown to be under the control of reason. And this had not escaped the
notice of Plato,[285] it seems, who had earlier expressed in form and
outline the part that fancy and unreason played in sleep in the soul
that was by nature tyrannical, "for it attempts incest," he says, "with
its mother, and procures for itself unlawful meats, and gives itself up
to the most abandoned desires, such as in daytime the law through shame
and fear debars people from." As then beasts of burden that have been
well-trained do not, even if their driver let go the reins, attempt to
turn aside and leave the proper road, but go forward orderly as usual,
pursuing their way without stumbling, so those whose unreason has become
obedient and mild and tempered by reason, will not easily wish, either
in dreams or in illnesses, to deal insolently or lawlessly through their
desires, but will keep to their usual habits, which acquire their power
and force by attention. For if the body can by training make itself and
its members so subject to control, that the eyes in sorrow can refrain
from tears, and the heart from palpitating in fear, and the passions can
be calm in the presence of beautiful youths and maidens, is it not far
more likely that the training of the passions and emotions of the soul
will allay, tame down, and mould their propensities even in dreams? A
story is told about the philosopher Stilpo,[286] that he thought he saw
in a dream Poseidon angry with him because he had not sacrificed an ox
to him, as was usual among the Megarians:[287] and that he, not a bit
frightened, said, "What are you talking about, Poseidon? Do you come
here as a peevish boy, because I have not with borrowed money filled the
town with the smell of sacrifice, and have only sacrificed to you out of
what I had at home on a modest scale?" Then he thought that Poseidon
smiled at him, and held out his right hand, and said that for his sake
he would give the Megarians a large shoal of anchovies. Those, then,
that have such pleasant, clear, and painless dreams, and no frightful,
or harsh, or malignant, or untoward apparition, may be said to have
reflections of their progress in virtue; whereas agitation and panics
and ignoble flights, and boyish delights, and lamentations in the case
of sad and strange dreams, are like the waves that break on the coast,
the soul not having yet got its proper composure, but being still in
course of being moulded by opinions and laws, from which it escapes in
dreams as far as possible, so that it is once again set free and open
to the passions. Do you investigate all these points too, as to whether