Plutarch's Morals
fisherman's basket, and after deftly and closely weaving it together,
subjects it to the action of the sea waves, that its surface may be
rendered waterproof by this plash and cement, and it is hard for even
iron or stone to break it. And what is more wonderful still, so
symmetrically is the entrance of the nest adjusted to the kingfisher's
shape and size, that no beast either greater or smaller can enter it,
they even say that it does not admit the sea, or even the very smallest
things. And cats, when they breed, very often let their kittens go out
and feed, and take them back into their entrails again.[48] And the
bear, a most savage and ugly beast, gives birth to its young without
shape or joints, and with its tongue as with an instrument moulds its
features, so that it seems to give form as well as life to its progeny.
And the lion in Homer, "whom the hunters meet in the wood with its
whelps, exulting in its strength, which so frowns that it hides its
eyes,"[49] does it not intend to bargain with the hunters for its
whelps? For universally the love of animals for their offspring makes
timid ones bold, and lazy ones energetic, and greedy ones unselfish.
And so the bird in Homer, feeding its young "with its beak, with
whatever it has captured, even though it goes ill with itself,"[50]
nourishes its young at the cost of its own hunger, and when the food is
near its maw abstains from it, and holds it tightly in its mouth, that
it may not gulp it down unawares. "And so a bitch bestriding her tender
pups, barks at a strange man, and yearns for the fray,"[51] making her
fear for them a sort of second anger. And partridges when they are
pursued with their young let them fly on, and, contriving their safety,
themselves fly so near the sportsmen as to be almost caught, and then
wheel round, and again fly back and make the sportsmen hope to catch
them, till at last, having thus provided for the safety of their young,
they lead the sportsmen on a long way. As to hens, we see every day how
they watch over their chicks, dropping their wings over some, and
letting others climb on their backs, or anywhere about them, and
clucking for joy all the time: and though they fly from dogs and dragons
when only afraid for themselves, if they are afraid for their chicks
they stand their ground and fight valiantly. Are we to suppose then that
nature has only implanted these instincts in fowls and dogs and bears,
anxious only about their offspring, to put us mortals out of countenance
and to give us a bad name? considering these examples for us to follow,
while disgrace justly attaches to our inhumanity, for mankind only is
accused of having no disinterested affection, and of not knowing how to
love except in regard to advantage. For that line is greatly admired in
the theatres, "Man loves man only for reward," and is the view of
Epicurus, who thinks that the father so loves his son, the mother her
child, children their parents. Whereas, if the brutes could understand
conversation, and if anyone were to introduce horses and cows and dogs
and birds into a common theatre,[52] and were to change the sentiment
into "neither do dogs love their pups, nor horses their foals, nor birds
their young, out of interest, but gratuitously and by nature," it would
be recognized by the affections of all of them to be a true sentiment.
Why it would be disgraceful, great God, that birth and travail and
procreation should be gratis and mere nature among the beasts, while
among mankind they should be merely mercenary transactions!
Sec. III. But such a statement is not true or worthy of credit. For as
nature, in wild growths, such as wild vines, wild figs, or wild olives,
makes the fruit imperfect and inferior to the fruit of cultivated trees,
so has she given to the brutes an imperfect affection for their kind,
one neither marked by justice nor going beyond commodity: whereas to
man, a logical and social animal, she has taught justice and law, and
honour to the gods, and building of cities, and philanthropy, and has
contributed the noble and goodly and fruitful seeds of all these in love
to one's offspring, thereby following the very first elements that are
found in the construction of the body. For nature is everywhere perfect
and artistic and complete, and, to borrow the expression of
Erasistratus, has nothing tawdry about her: but one cannot adequately
describe all the processes appertaining to birth, nor would it be
perhaps decent to pry too closely into such hidden matters, and to
particularize too minutely all their wondrous ingenuity. But her
contrivance and dispensation of milk alone is sufficient to prove
nature's wonderful care and forethought. For all the superfluous blood
in women, that owing to their languor and thinness of spirit floats
about on the surface and oppresses them, has a safety-valve provided by
nature in the menses, which relieve and cleanse the rest of the body,
and fit the womb for conception in due season. But after conception
nature stops the menses, and arrests the flow of the blood, using it as
aliment for the babe in the womb, until the time arrives for its birth,
and it requires a different kind of food. At this stage the blood is
most ingeniously changed into a supply of milk, not diffused all over
the body, but externally in the breasts, so that the babe can with its
mouth imbibe the gentle and soothing nutriment.[53] But all these
various processes of nature, all this economy, all this forethought,
would be useless, had not nature also implanted in mothers love to their
offspring and anxiety for their welfare.
"For of all things, that on the earth do breathe
Or creep, man is by far the wretchedest."[54]
And the poet's words are especially applicable to a newborn babe. For
there is nothing so imperfect, so helpless, so naked, so shapeless, so
foul as a newborn babe: to whom almost alone nature has given an impure
outlet to the light of day: being kneaded with blood, and full of
defilement, and like one killed rather than born: which no one would
touch, or lift up, or kiss, or embrace, but from natural affection. And
that is why all the animals have their udders under the belly, women
alone have their breasts high on their bodies, that they can lift up
their babes to kiss, to dandle, and to fondle: seeing that their bearing
and rearing children comes not from necessity but love.
Sec. IV. Refer the question to the ancient inhabitants of the earth, to the
first mothers and fathers. There was no law ordering them to have
families, no expectation of advantage or return to be got out of them. I
should rather say that mothers would be likely to be hostile and bear
malice to their babes, owing to the great danger and pains of travail.
And women say the lines, "When the sharp pangs of travail seize on the
pregnant woman, then come to her aid the Ilithyiae, who help women in
hard childbirth, those daughters of Hera, goddesses of travail,"[55]
were not written by Homer, but by some Homerid who had been a mother, or
was even then in the throes of travail, and who vividly felt the sharp
pain in her womb. But the love to one's offspring implanted by nature,
moves and influences the mother even then: in the very height of her
throes, she neglects not nor flees from her babe, but turns to it and
smiles at it, and takes it up and caresses it, though she derives no
pleasure or utility from it, but with pain and sorrow receives it,
"warming it and fostering it in swaddling clothes, with unintermittent
assiduity both night and day."[56] What hope of gain or advantage had
they in those days? nay, or even now? for the hopes of parents are
uncertain, and have to be long waited for. He who plants a vine in the
spring equinox, gleans its vintage in the autumnal equinox; he who sows
corn when the Pleiads set, reaps it when they rise; cattle and horses
and birds have produce at once fit for use; whereas man's bringing up is
toilsome, his growth slow; and as excellence flowers late, most fathers
die before their sons attain to fame. Neocles lived not to see
Themistocles' victory at Salamis, nor Miltiades Cimon's at the
Eurymedon, nor did Xanthippus hear Pericles haranguing, nor did Aristo
hear Plato philosophizing, nor did their fathers know of the triumphs of
Euripides and Sophocles. They heard them faltering in speech and lisping
in syllables, the poor parents saw their errors in revelling and
drinking and love-affairs, so that of all Evenus'[57] lines, that one
alone is most remembered and quoted, "to a father a son is always a
cause of fear or pain." Nevertheless, parents do not cease to bring up
sons, even when they can least need them. For it is ridiculous to
suppose that the rich, when they have sons, sacrifice and rejoice that
they will have people to take care of them and to bury them; unless
indeed they bring up sons from want of heirs; as if one could not find
or fall in with anyone who would be willing to have another's property!
Why, the sand on the sea shore, and the dust, and the wings of birds of
varied note, are less numerous than the number of would-be heirs. For
had Danaus, the father of fifty daughters, been childless, he would have
had more heirs, and of a different spirit. For sons have no gratitude,
nor regard, nor veneration for inheritance; but take it as a debt;
whereas the voices of strangers which you hear round the childless man,
are like those lines in the play, "O People, first bathe, after one
decision in the courts, then eat, drink, gobble, take the
three-obol-piece."[58] And what Euripides has said, "Money finds friends
for men, and has the greatest power among mankind," is not merely a
general truth, but is especially true in the case of the childless. For
those the rich entertain to dinner, those great men pay court to, to
those alone orators give their services gratis. "A mighty personage is a
rich man, whose heir is unknown." It has at any rate made many much
loved and honoured, whom the possession of one child would have made
unloved and insignificant. Whence we see that there is no power or
advantage to be got from children, but that the love of them, alike in
mankind as among the animals, proceeds entirely from nature.
Sec. V. What if this natural affection, like many other virtues, is
obscured by badness, as a wilderness chokes a garden? Are we to say that
man does not love himself by nature, because many cut their throats or
throw themselves down precipices? Did not Oedipus put out his eyes? And
did not Hegesias by his speeches make, many of his hearers to commit
suicide?[59] "Fatality has many different aspects."[60] But all these
are diseases and maladies of the soul driving a man contrary to nature
out of his wits: as men themselves testify even against themselves. For
if a sow destroys one of its litter, or a bitch one of its pups, men are
dejected and troubled, and think it an evil omen, and sacrifice to the
gods to avert any bad results, on the score that it is natural to all to
love and cherish their offspring, unnatural to destroy it. For just as
in mines the gold is conspicuous even though mixed up with earth, so
nature manifests plainly love to offspring even in instances of faulty
habits and affections. For when the poor do not rear their children, it
is from fear that if reared to man's estate they would be more than
ought to be the case servile, and have little culture, and be debarred
of all advantages: so, thinking poverty the worst of all evils, they
cannot bear to give it their children, any more than they would some bad
disease.[61]
[44] Much of this is very corrupt in the Greek. I have
tried to get the best sense I could; but it is very
obscure. Certainly Plutarch's style is often very harsh
and crabbed.