Plutarch's Morals
congratulation like this comes from an external view, from a halo of
arms and horses and the pomp of war, but the inward voice of emotion
testifies against all this vain glory;
"A heavy fate is laid on me by Zeus
The son of Cronos."[740]
And,
"Old man, I think your lot one to be envied,
As that of any man who free from danger
Passes his life unknown and in obscurity."[741]
By such reflections as these one may wean oneself from that discontent
with one's fortune, which makes one's own condition look low and mean
from too much admiring one's neighbour's.
Sec. XII. Another thing, which is a great hindrance to peace of mind, is
not to proportion our desires to our means, but to carry too much sail,
as it were, in our hopes of great things and then, if unsuccessful, to
blame destiny and fortune, and not our own folly. For he is not
unfortunate who wishes to shoot with a plough, or hunt the hare with an
ox; nor has he an evil genius opposed to him, who does not catch deer
with fishing nets, but merely is the dupe of his own stupidity and folly
in attempting impossibilities. Self-love is mainly to blame, making
people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably
desirous to engage in everything. For people not only wish at one and
the same time to be rich, and learned, and strong, and boon-companions,
and agreeable, and friends of kings, and governors of cities, but they
are also discontented if they have not dogs and horses and quails and
cocks of the first quality. Dionysius the elder was not content with
being the most powerful monarch of his times, but because he could not
beat Philoxenus the poet in singing, or surpass Plato in dialectics, was
so angry and exasperated that he put the one to work in his stone
quarries, and sent the other to AEgina and sold him there. Alexander was
of a different spirit, for when Crisso the famous runner ran a race with
him, and seemed to let the king outrun him on purpose, he was greatly
displeased. Good also was the spirit of Achilles in Homer, who, when he
said,
"None of the Achaean warriors is a match
For me in war,"
added,
"Yet in the council hall
Others there are who better are than me."[742]
And when Megabyzus the Persian visited the studio of Apelles, and began
to chatter about art, Apelles stopped him and said, "While you kept
silence you seemed to be somebody from your gold and purple, but now
these lads that are grinding colours are laughing at your nonsense." But
some who think the Stoics only talk idly, in styling their wise man not
only prudent and just and brave but also orator and general and poet and
rich man and king, yet claim for themselves all those titles, and are
indignant if they do not get them. And yet even among the gods different
functions are assigned to different personages; thus one is called the
god of war, another the god of oracles, another the god of gain, and
Aphrodite, as she has nothing to do with warlike affairs, is despatched
by Zeus to marriages and bridals.
Sec. XIII. And indeed there are some pursuits which cannot exist together,
but are by their very nature opposed. For example oratory and the study
of the mathematics require ease and leisure; whereas political ability
and the friendship of kings cannot be attained without mixing in affairs
and in public life. Moreover wine and indulgence in meat make the body
indeed strong and vigorous, but blunt the intellect; and though
unremitting attention to making and saving money will heap up wealth,
yet despising and contemning riches is a great help to philosophy. So
that all things are not within any one's power, and we must obey that
saying inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, _Know thyself_,[743]
and adapt ourselves to our natural bent, and not drag and force nature
to some other kind of life or pursuit. "The horse to the chariot, and
the ox to the plough, and swiftly alongside the ship scuds the dolphin,
while he that meditates destruction for the boar must find a staunch
hound."[744] But he that chafes and is grieved that he is not at one and
the same time "a lion reared on the mountains, exulting in his
strength,"[745] and a little Maltese lap-dog[746] reared in the lap of a
rich widow, is out of his senses. And not a whit wiser is he who wishes
to be an Empedocles, or Plato, or Democritus, and write about the world
and the real nature of things, and at the same time to be married like
Euphorion to a rich wife, or to revel and drink with Alexander like
Medius; and is grieved and vexed if he is not also admired for his
wealth like Ismenias, and for his virtue like Epaminondas. But runners
are not discontented because they do not carry off the crowns of
wrestlers, but rejoice and delight in their own crowns. "You are a
citizen of Sparta: see you make the most of her." So too said Solon:
"We will not change our virtue for their wealth,
For virtue never dies, but wealth has wings,
And flies about from one man to another."
And Strato the natural philosopher, when he heard that Menedemus had
many more pupils than he had, said, "Is it wonderful at all that more
wish to wash than to be anointed?" And Aristotle, writing to Antipater,
said, "Not only has Alexander a right to plume himself on his rule over
many subjects, but no less legitimate is satisfaction at entertaining
right opinions about the gods." For those that think so highly of their
own walk in life will not be so envious about their neighbours'. We do
not expect a vine to bear figs, nor an olive grapes, yet now-a-days,
with regard to ourselves, if we have not at one and the same time the
privilege of being accounted rich and learned, generals and
philosophers, flatterers and outspoken, stingy and extravagant, we
slander ourselves and are dissatisfied, and despise ourselves as living
a maimed and imperfect life. Furthermore, we see that nature teaches us
the same lesson.[747] For as she provides different kinds of beasts with
different kinds of food, and has not made all carnivorous, or
seed-pickers, or root-diggers, so she has given to mankind various means
of getting a livelihood, "one by keeping sheep, another by ploughing,
another by fowling,"[748] and another by catching the fish of the sea.
We ought each therefore to select the calling appropriate for ourselves
and labour energetically in it, and leave other people to theirs, and
not demonstrate Hesiod as coming short of the real state of things when
he said,
"Potter is wroth with potter, smith with smith."[749]
For not only do people envy those of the same trade and manner of life,
but the rich envy the learned, and the famous the rich, and advocates
sophists, aye, and freemen and patricians admire and think happy
comedians starring it at the theatres, and dancers, and the attendants
at kings' courts, and by all this envy give themselves no small trouble
and annoyance.
Sec.XIV. But that every man has in himself the magazines of content or
discontent, and that the jars containing blessings and evils are not on
the threshold of Zeus,[750] but lie stored in the mind, is plain from
the differences of men's passions. For the foolish overlook and neglect
present blessings, through their thoughts being ever intent on the
future; but the wise make the past clearly present to them through
memory. For the present giving only a moment of time to the touch, and
then evading our grasp, does not seem to the foolish to be ours or to
belong to us at all. And like that person[751] painted as rope-making in
Hades and permitting an ass feeding by to eat up the rope as fast as he
makes it, so the stupid and thankless forgetfulness of most people comes
upon them and takes possession of them, and obliterates from their mind
every past action, whether success, or pleasant leisure, or society, or
enjoyment, and breaks the unity of life which arises from the past being
blended with the present; for detaching to-day from both yesterday and
to-morrow, it soon makes every event as if it had never happened from
lack of memory. For as those in the schools, who deny the growth of our
bodies by reason of the continual flux of substance, make each of us in
theory different from himself and another man, so those who do not keep
or recall to their memory former things, but let them drift, actually
empty themselves daily, and hang upon the morrow, as if what happened a
year ago, or even yesterday and the day before yesterday, had nothing to
do with them, and had hardly occurred at all.
Sec. XV. This is one great hindrance to contentedness of mind, and another
still greater is whenever, like flies that slide down smooth places in
mirrors, but stick fast in rough places or where there are cracks, men
let pleasant and agreeable things glide from their memory, and pin
themselves down to the remembrance of unpleasant things; or rather, as
at Olynthus they say beetles, when they get into a certain place called
Destruction-to-beetles, cannot get out, but fly round and round till
they die, so men will glide into the remembrance of their woes, and will
not give themselves a respite from sorrow. But, as we use our brightest
colours in a picture, so in the mind we ought to look at the cheerful
and bright side of things, and hide and keep down the gloomy, for we
cannot altogether obliterate or get rid of it. For, as the strings of
the bow and lyre are alternately tightened and relaxed, so is it with
the order of the world; in human affairs there is nothing pure and
without alloy. But as in music there are high and low notes, and in
grammar vowels and mutes, but neither the musician nor grammarian
decline to use either kinds, but know how to blend and employ them both
for their purpose, so in human affairs which are balanced one against
another,--for, as Euripides says,
"There is no good without ill in the world,
But everything is mixed in due proportion,"--
we ought not to be disheartened or despondent; but as musicians drown
their worst music with the best, so should we take good and bad
together, and make our chequered life one of convenience and harmony.
For it is not, as Menander says,
"Directly any man is born, a genius
Befriends him, a good guide to him for life,"
but it is rather, as Empedocles states, two fates or genii take hold of
each of us when we are born and govern us. "There were Chthonia and
far-seeing Heliope, and cruel Deris, and grave Harmonia, and Callisto,
and AEschra, and Thoosa, and Denaea, and charming Nemertes, and Asaphea
with the black fruit."
Sec. XVI. And as[752] at our birth we received the mingled seeds of each of
these passions, which is the cause of much irregularity, the sensible
person hopes for better things, but expects worse, and makes the most of
either, remembering that wise maxim, _Not too much of anything._ For not
only will he who is least solicitous about to-morrow best enjoy it when
it comes, as Epicurus says, but also wealth, and renown, and power and
rule, gladden most of all the hearts of those who are least afraid of
the contrary. For the immoderate desire for each, implanting a most
immoderate fear of losing them, makes the enjoyment of them weak and
wavering, like a flame under the influence of a wind. But he whom reason
enables to say to fortune without fear or trembling,
"If you bring any good I gladly welcome it,
But if you fail me little does it trouble me,"
he can enjoy the present with most zest through his confidence, and
absence of fear of the loss of what he has, which would be unbearable.
For we may not only admire but also imitate the behaviour of Anaxagoras,
which made him cry out at the death of his son, "I knew I had begot a
mortal," and apply it to every contingency. For example, "I know that