Plutarch's Morals
in their friends and intimates, but also in their enemies. For railing
and anger and envy and malignity and jealousy and ill-will are the bane
of those that suffer from those infirmities, and trouble and exasperate
the foolish: as for example the quarrels of neighbours, and peevishness
of acquaintances, and the want of ability in those that manage state
affairs. By these things you yourself seem to me to be put out not a
little, as the doctors in Sophocles, who
"With bitter physic purge the bitter bile,"[730]
so vexed and bitter are you at people's weaknesses and infirmities,
which is not reasonable in you. Even your own private affairs are not
always managed by simple and good and suitable instruments, so to speak,
but very frequently by sharp and crooked ones. Do not think it then
either your business, or an easy matter either, to set all these things
to rights. But if you take people as they are, as the surgeon uses his
bandages and instruments for drawing teeth, and with cheerfulness and
serenity welcome all that happens, as you would look upon barking dogs
as only following their nature, you will be happier in the disposition
you will then have than you will be distressed at other people's
disagreeableness and shortcomings. For you will forget to make a
collection of disagreeable things,[731] which now inundate, as some
hollow and low-lying ground, your littleness of mind and weakness, which
fills itself with other people's bad points. For seeing that some of the
philosophers censure compassion to the unfortunate (on the ground that
it is good to help our neighbours, and not to give way to sentimental
sympathy in connection with them), and, what is of more importance, do
not allow those that are conscious of their errors and bad moral
disposition to be dejected and grieved at them, but bid them cure their
defects without grief at once, is it not altogether unreasonable, look
you, to allow ourselves to be peevish and vexed, because all those who
have dealings with us and come near us are not good and clever? Let us
see to it, dear Paccius, that we do not, whether we are aware of it or
not, play a part, really looking[732] not at the universal defects of
those that approach us, but at our own interests through our
selfishness, and not through our hatred of evil. For excessive
excitement about things, and an undue appetite and desire for them, or
on the other hand aversion and dislike to them, engender suspiciousness
and peevishness against persons, who were, we think, the cause of our
being deprived of some things, and of being troubled with others. But he
that is accustomed to adapt himself to things easily and calmly is most
cheerful and gentle in his dealings with people.
Sec. VIII. Wherefore let us resume our argument. As in a fever everything
seems bitter and unpleasant to the taste, but when we see others not
loathing but fancying the very same eatables and drinkables, we no
longer find the fault to be in them but in ourselves and our disease, so
we shall cease to blame and be discontented with the state of affairs,
if we see others cheerfully and without grief enduring the same. It also
makes for contentedness, when things happen against our wish, not to
overlook our many advantages and comforts, but by looking at both good
and bad to feel that the good preponderate. When our eyes are dazzled
with things too bright we turn them away, and ease them by looking at
flowers or grass, while we keep the eyes of our mind strained on
disagreeable things, and force them to dwell on bitter ideas, well-nigh
tearing them away by force from the consideration of pleasanter things.
And yet one might apply here, not unaptly, what was said to the man of
curiosity,[733]
"Malignant wretch, why art so keen to mark
Thy neighbour's fault, and seest not thine own?"
Why on earth, my good sir, do you confine your view to your troubles,
making them so vivid and acute, while you do not let your mind dwell at
all on your present comforts? But as cupping-glasses draw the worst
blood from the flesh, so you force upon your attention the worst things
in your lot: acting not a whit more wisely than that Chian, who, selling
much choice wine to others, asked for some sour wine for his own supper;
and one of his slaves being asked by another, what he had left his
master doing, replied, "Asking for bad when good was by." For most
people overlook the advantages and pleasures of their individual lives,
and run to their difficulties and grievances. Aristippus, however, was
not such a one, for he cleverly knew as in a scale to make the better
preponderate over the worse. So having lost a good farm, he asked one of
those who made a great show of condolence and sympathy, "Have you not
only one little piece of ground, while I have three fields left?" And
when he admitted that it was so, he went on to say, "Ought I not then to
condole with you rather than you with me?" For it is the act of a madman
to distress oneself over what is lost, and not to rejoice at what is
left; but like little children, if one of their many playthings be taken
away by anyone, throw the rest away and weep and cry out, so we, if we
are assailed by fortune in some one point, wail and mourn and make all
other things seem unprofitable in our eyes.
Sec. IX. Suppose someone should say, What blessings have we? I would reply,
What have we not? One has reputation, another a house, another a wife,
another a good friend. When Antipater of Tarsus was reckoning up on his
death-bed his various pieces of good fortune, he did not even pass over
his favourable voyage from Cilicia to Athens. So we should not overlook,
but take account of everyday blessings, and rejoice that we live, and
are well, and see the sun, and that no war or sedition plagues our
country, but that the earth is open to cultivation, the sea secure to
mariners, and that we can speak or be silent, lead a busy or an idle
life, as we choose. We shall get more contentedness from the presence of
all these blessings, if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time
to time how people ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace,
and strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends,
and how painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had
them. For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great
and valuable when it is lost, and of no value while we have it. For not
having it cannot add value to anything. Nor ought we to amass things we
regard as valuable, and always be on the tremble and afraid of losing
them as valuable things, and yet, when we have them, ignore them and
think little of them; but we ought to use them for our pleasure and
enjoyment, that we may bear their loss, if that should happen, with more
equanimity. But most people, as Arcesilaus said, think it right to
inspect minutely and in every detail, perusing them alike with the eyes
of the body and mind, other people's poems and paintings and statues,
while they neglect to study their own lives, which have often many not
unpleasing subjects for contemplation, looking abroad and ever admiring
other people's reputations and fortunes, as adulterers admire other
men's wives, and think cheap of their own.
Sec. X. And yet it makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the
most part at home and to our own condition, or if not, to look at the
case of people worse off than ourselves, and not, as most people do, to
compare ourselves with those who are better off. For example, those who
are in chains think those happy who are freed from their chains, and
they again freemen, and freemen citizens, and they again the rich, and
the rich satraps, and satraps kings, and kings the gods, content with
hardly anything short of hurling thunderbolts and lightning. And so they
ever want something above them, and are never thankful for what they
have.
"I care not for the wealth of golden Gyges,"
and,
"I never had or envy or desire
To be a god, or love for mighty empire,
Far distant from my eyes are all such things."
But this, you will say, was the language of a Thasian. But you will find
others, Chians or Galatians or Bithynians, not content with the share of
glory or power they have among their fellow-citizens, but weeping
because they do not wear senators' shoes; or, if they have them, that
they cannot be praetors at Rome; or, if they get that office, that they
are not consuls; or, if they are consuls, that they are only proclaimed
second and not first. What is all this but seeking out excuses for being
unthankful to fortune, only to torment and punish oneself? But he that
has a mind in sound condition, does not sit down in sorrow and dejection
if he is less renowned or rich than some of the countless myriads of
mankind that the sun looks upon, "who feed on the produce of the wide
world,"[734] but goes on his way rejoicing at his fortune and life, as
far fairer and happier than that of myriads of others. In the Olympian
games it is not possible to be the victor by choosing one's competitors.
But in the race of life circumstances allow us to plume ourselves on
surpassing many, and to be objects of envy rather than to have to envy
others, unless we pit ourselves against a Briareus or a Hercules.
Whenever then you admire anyone carried by in his litter as a greater
man than yourself, lower your eyes and look at those that bear the
litter. And when you think the famous Xerxes happy for his passage over
the Hellespont, as a native of those parts[735] did, look too at those
who dug through Mount Athos under the lash, and at those whose ears and
noses were cut off because the bridge was broken by the waves, consider
their state of mind also, for they think your life and fortunes happy.
Socrates, when he heard one of his friends saying, "How dear this city
is! Chian wine costs one mina,[736] a purple robe three, and half a pint
of honey five drachmae," took him to the meal market, and showed him half
a peck of meal for an obol, then took him to the olive market, and
showed him a peck of olives for two coppers, and lastly showed him that
a sleeveless vest[737] was only ten drachmae. At each place Socrates'
friend exclaimed, "How cheap this city is!" So also we, when we hear
anyone saying that our affairs are bad and in a woful plight, because we
are not consuls or governors, may reply, "Our affairs are in an
admirable condition, and our life an enviable one, seeing that we do not
beg, nor carry burdens, nor live by flattery."
Sec. XI. But since through our folly we are accustomed to live more with an
eye to others than ourselves, and since nature is so jealous and envious
that it rejoices not so much in its own blessings as it is pained by
those of others, do not look only at the much-cried-up splendour of
those whom you envy and admire, but open and draw, as it were, the gaudy
curtain of their pomp and show, and peep within, you will see that they
have much to trouble them, and many things to annoy them. The well-known
Pittacus,[738] whose fame was so great for fortitude and wisdom and
uprightness, was once entertaining some guests, and his wife came in in
a rage and upset the table, and as the guests were dismayed he said,
Every one of you has some trouble, and he who has mine only is not so
bad off.
"Happy is he accounted at the forum,
But when he opens the door of his own house
Thrice miserable; for his wife rules all,
Still lords it over him, and is ever quarrelling.
Many griefs has he that I wot not of."
Many such cases are there, unknown to the public, for family pride casts
a veil over them, to be found in wealth and glory and even in royalty.
"O happy son of Atreus, child of destiny,
Blessed thy lot;"[739]