Plutarch's Morals
or even married women, and cut huge slices off the father's savings for
old age, if they don't run off with them altogether. An accursed tribe,
feigning friendship, knowing nothing of real freedom, flatterers of the
rich, despisers of the poor, drawn to young men by a sort of natural
logic,[38] showing their teeth and grinning all over when their patrons
laugh,[39] misbegotten brats of fortune and bastard elements in life,
living according to the nod of the rich, free in their circumstances,
but slaves by inclination, when they are not insulted thinking
themselves insulted, because they are parasites to no purpose. So, if
any father cares for the good bringing-up of his sons, he must banish
from his house this abominable race. He must also be on his guard
against the viciousness of his sons' schoolfellows, for they are quite
sufficient to corrupt the best morals.
Sec. XVIII. What I have said hitherto is _apropos_ to my subject: I will
now speak a word to the men. Parents must not be over harsh and rough in
their natures, but must often forgive their sons' offences, remembering
that they themselves were once young. And just as doctors by infusing a
sweet flavour into their bitter potions find delight a passage to
benefit, so fathers must temper the severity of their censure by
mildness; and sometimes relax and slacken the reins of their sons'
desires, and again tighten them; and must be especially easy in respect
to their faults, or if they are angry must soon cool down. For it is
better for a father to be hot-tempered than sullen, for to continue
hostile and irreconcilable looks like hating one's son. And it is good
to seem not to notice some faults, but to extend to them the weak sight
and deafness of old age, so as seeing not to see, and hearing not to
hear, their doings. We tolerate the faults of our friends; why should we
not that of our sons? often even our slaves' drunken debauches we do not
expose. Have you been rather near? spend more freely. Have you been
vexed? let the matter pass. Has your son deceived you by the help of a
slave? do not be angry. Did he take a yoke of oxen from the field, did
he come home smelling of yesterday's debauch? wink at it. Is he scented
like a perfume shop? say nothing. Thus frisky youth gets broken in.[40]
Sec. XIX. Those of our sons who are given to pleasure and pay little heed
to rebuke, we must endeavour to marry, for marriage is the surest
restraint upon youth. And we must marry our sons to wives not much
richer or better born, for the proverb is a sound one, "Marry in your
own walk of life."[41] For those who marry wives superior to themselves
in rank are not so much the husbands of their wives as unawares slaves
to their dowries.[42]
Sec. XX. I shall add a few remarks, and then bring my subject to a close.
Before all things fathers must, by a good behaviour, set a good example
to their sons, that, looking at their lives as a mirror, they may turn
away from bad deeds and words. For those fathers who censure their
sons' faults while they themselves commit the same, are really their own
accusers, if they know it not, under their sons' name; and those who
live a depraved life have no right to censure their slaves, far less
their sons. And besides this they will become counsellors and teachers
of their sons in wrongdoing; for where old men are shameless youths will
of a certainty have no modesty. We must therefore take all pains to
teach our sons self-control, emulating the conduct of Eurydice, who,
though an Illyrian and more than a barbarian, to teach her sons educated
herself though late in life, and her love to them is well depicted in
the inscription which she offered to the Muses: "Eurydice of Hierapolis
made this offering to the Muses, having conceived a vast love for
knowledge. For when a mother with sons full-grown she learnt letters,
the preservers of knowledge."
To carry out all these precepts would be perhaps a visionary scheme; but
to attain to many, though it would need a happy disposition and much
care, is a thing possible to human nature.[43]
[3] Euripides, "Here. Fur." 1261, 1262.
[4] Euripides, "Hippol." 424, 425.
[5] Cleophantus is the name given to this lad by other
writers.
[6] Compare Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyrannus," 112, 113.
[7] The Thessalians were very pugnacious. Cf. Isocrates,
"Oratio de Pace," p. 316. [Greek: ohi men (Thettaloi)
sphisin autois haei polemousin].
[8] A proverbial expression among the ancients for
earliest childhood. See Erasmus, "Adagia."
[9] Plato, "Republic," ii. p. 429, E.
[10] See Erasmus, "Adagia."
[11] It is difficult to know how to render the word
[Greek: paidagogos] in English. He was the slave who
took the boy to school, and generally looked after him
from his seventh year upward. Tutor or governor seems
the best rendering. He had great power over the boy
entrusted to him.
[12] Plato, "Clitophon," p. 255, D.
[13] Compare Diogenes Laertius, ii. 72.
[14] Reading [Greek: koitophthorountes], the excellent
emendation of Wyttenbach.
[15] From the heathen standpoint of course, not from the
Christian. Compare the advice of Cato in Horace's
"Satires," Book i. Sat. ii. 31-35. It is a little
difficult to know what Diogenes' precept really means.
Is it that vice is universal? Like Shakespeare's
"Measure for Measure," Act ii. Sc. ii. 5. "All sects,
all ages smack of this vice."
[16] He was asked by Polus, see Plato, "Gorgias," p.
290, F.
[17] "Hippolytus," 986-989.
[18] Cf. Plato, "Cratylus," p. 257, E. [Greek: o pai
Hipponikou Hermogenes, palaia paroimia, oti chalepa ta
kala estin ope echei mathein]. So Horace, "Sat." i. ix.
59, 60, "Nil sine magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus."
[19] "Midias," p. 411, C.
[20] _i.e._, occasionally and sparingly.
[21] Diogenes Laertius assigns the remark to Aristippus,
while Stobaeus fathers it on Aristo.
[22] A favourite thought with the ancients. Compare
Isocrates, "Admonitio ad Demonicum," p. 18; and
Aristotle, "Nic. Eth.," iv. 3.
[23] "Republic," vii. p. 489, E.
[24] A famous Proverb. It is "the master's eye"
generally, as in Xenophon, "Oeconom." xii. 20; and
Aristotle, "Oeconom." i. 6.
[25] "Works and Days," 361, 362. The lines were
favourite ones with our author. He quotes them again, Sec.
3, of "How one may be aware of one's Progress in
Virtue."
[26] See Pausanias, ix. 9. Also Erasmus, "Adagia."
[27] A fragment from the "Protesilaus" of Euripides. Our
"It takes two to make a quarrel."
[28] See Plutarch's Lysander.
[29] Or _symposium_, where all sorts of liberties were
taken.
[30] I have softened his phrase. His actual words were
very coarse, and would naturally be resented by Ptolemy.
See Athenaeus, 621, A.
[31] See "Iliad," v. 83; xvi. 334; xx, 477.
[32] A fragment from the "Dictys" of Euripides.
[33] "Republ." v. 463, F. sq.
[34] Cf. Shakespeare's "Winter Tale," Act iii. sc. iii.
59-63.
[35] As Horace's father did. See "Satires," Book i. Sat.
iv. 105-129.
[36] What we call _black sheep_.
[37] From Simonides. Cf. Seneca, "Epist." xlix. "Punctum
est quod vivimus, et adhuc puncto minus."
[38] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: hos ek logikes
technes.]
[39] Like _Carker_ in Dombey.
[40] Compare the character of Micio in the "Adelphi" of
Terence.
[41] This saying is assigned by Diogenes Laertius to
Pittacus.
[42] Compare Plautus, "Asinaria," i. l. 74. "Argentum
accepi: dote imperum vendidi." Compare also our author,
"Whether Vice is sufficient to cause Unhappiness," Sec. i.
[43] Wyttenbach thinks this treatise is not Plutarch's.
He bases his conclusion partly on external, partly on
internal, grounds. It is not quoted by Stobaeus, or any
of the ancients, before the fourteenth century. And its
style is not Plutarch's; it has many words foreign to
Plutarch: it has "nescio quid novum ac peregrinum, ab
illa Plutarchea copia et gravitate diversum leve et
inane." Certainly its matter is superior to its manner.
ON LOVE TO ONE'S OFFSPRING.
Sec. I. Appeals to foreign law-courts were first devised among the Greeks
through mistrust of one another's justice, for they looked on justice as
a necessity not indigenous among them. Is it not on much the same
principle that the philosophers, in regard to some of their questions,
owing to their variety of opinion, have appealed to the brute creation
as to a strange state, and submitted the decision to their instincts and
habits as not to be talked over and impartial? Or is it a general
charge against human infirmity that, having different opinions on the
most necessary and important things, we seek in horses and dogs and
birds how to marry and beget and rear children, as though we had no
means of making our own nature known, and appeal to the habits and
instincts of the brute creation, and call them in to bear witness
against the many deviations from nature in our lives, which from the
first are confused and disorderly. For among the brutes nature remains
ever the same, pure and simple, but in men, owing to reason and habit,
like oil in the hands of the perfumers, being mixed up with many added
opinions, it becomes various and loses its original simplicity. And let
us not wonder that the brutes follow nature more closely than human
beings, for in that respect even they are outstripped by inanimate
things, which, being dowered neither with imagination nor any appetite
or inclination contrary to nature, ever continue in the one path which
nature has prescribed for them, as if they were tied and bound. But in
brutes the gentleness of mood inspired by reason, the subtlety, the love
of freedom, are not qualities found in excess, but they have
unreasonable appetites and desires, and act in a roundabout way within
certain limits, riding, as it were, at the anchor of nature, and only
going straight under bit and bridle. But in man reason, which is
absolute master, inventing different modes and fashions of life, has
left no plain or evident trace of nature.[44]
Sec. II. Consider in their marriages how much the animals follow nature.
For they do not wait for any legislation about bachelor or late-married,
like the citizens of Lycurgus and Solon, nor do they fear penalties for
childlessness, nor are they anxious for the _jus trium liberorum_,[45]
like many of the Romans, who only marry and have children for the
privileges it bestows, not to have heirs, but to be qualified for
succeeding themselves to inheritances. Then, again, the male animal
does not go with the female at all times; for its aim is not pleasure
but procreation: so in the season of spring, the most appropriate time
for such pairings,[46] the female being submissive and tender attracts
the male by her beautiful condition of body, coming as she does from the
dew and fresh pastures, and when pregnant modestly retires and takes
thought for the birth and safety of her offspring. We cannot adequately
describe all this, but every animal exhibits for its young affection and
forethought and endurance and unselfishness. We call the bee wise, and
celebrate its "making the yellow honey,"[47] flattering it for its
tickling sweetness; but we neglect the wisdom and ingenuity of other
creatures, both as regards the birth and bringing up of their young. For
example, the kingfisher after conception weaves its nest with the thorns
of the marine needle, making it round and oblong in shape like a