Plutarch's Morals
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