Plutarch's Morals
[720] "Iliad," xviii. 104.
[721] Euripides, "Orestes," 232.
[722] Homer, "Iliad," x. 88, 89.
[723] The story of Phaeethon is a very well-known one,
and is recorded very fully by Ovid in the
"Metamorphoses," Book ii.
[724] Euripides, "Bellerophon." Fragm. 298.
[725] Supplying [Greek: phyton] with Reiske.
[726] In Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoics.
[727] Zeno and his successors taught in the Piazza at
Athens called the Painted Piazza. See Pausanias, i. 15.
[728] Pindar, Nem. iv. 6.
[729] Euripides, "Bacchae," 66.
[730] Quoted again by our author "On Restraining Anger,"
Sec. xvi.
[731] As will be seen, I follow Wyttenbach's guidance in
this very corrupt passage, which is a true crux.
[732] Reading [Greek: dedorkotes].
[733] See "On Curiosity," Sec. i.
[734] Simonides.
[735] See Herodotus, vii. 56.
[736] A mina was 100 drachmae (_i.e._ L4. 1_s._ 3_d._),
and 600 obols.
[737] A slave's ordinary dress.
[738] One of the Seven Wise Men.
[739] Homer, "Iliad," iii. 182.
[740] Homer, "Iliad," ii. 111.
[741] Words of Agamemnon to the House Porter. Euripides,
"Iphigenia in Aulis," 17-19.
[742] "Iliad," xviii. 105, 106.
[743] See Pausanias, x. 24.
[744] Pindar, Fragm., 258. Quoted "On Moral Virtue," Sec.
xii.
[745] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 61; "Odyssey," vi. 130.
[746] A famous breed of dogs from the island Melita,
near Dalmatia. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," iii. 26, extr. Sec.
30; xxx. 5, extr. Sec. 14.
[747] That _Non omnia possumus omnes_.
[748] Pindar, "Isthm.," i. 65-70.
[749] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 25. Our "two of a trade
seldom agree."
[750] An allusion to "Iliad," xxiv. 527-533.
[751] Ocnus. See Pausanias, x. 29.
[752] So Wyttenbach, who reads [Greek: Hos de touton].
[753] Reading [Greek: oia] with Reiske.
[754] Homer to wit.
[755] The soul.
[756] The reading here is rather doubtful. That I have
adopted is Reiske's and Wyttenbach's.
[757] "Iliad," v. 484.
[758] Euripides, "Bacchae," 498. Compare Horace,
"Epistles," i. xvi. 78, 79.
[759] Reading with Duebner [Greek: argian]. Reiske has
[Greek: atonian].
[760] Euripides, "Orestes," 396.
[761] The _Saturnalia_ (as the Romans called this feast)
was well known as a festival of merriment and license.
ON ENVY AND HATRED.
Sec. I. Outwardly there seems no difference between hatred and envy, but
they seem identical. For generally speaking, as vice has many hooks, and
is swayed hither and thither by the passions that hang on it, there are
many points of contact and entanglement between them, for as in the case
of illnesses there is a sympathy between the various passions. Thus the
prosperous man is equally a source of pain to hate and envy. And so we
think benevolence the opposite of both these passions, being as it is a
wish for our neighbour's good, and we think hate and envy identical, for
the desire of both is the very opposite of benevolence. But since their
similarities are not so great as their dissimilarities, let us
investigate and trace out these two passions from their origin.
Sec. II. Hatred then is generated by the fancy that the person hated is
either bad generally or bad to oneself. For those who think they are
wronged naturally hate those who they think wrong them, and dislike and
are on their guard against those who are injurious or bad to
others;[762] but people envy merely those they think prosperous. So envy
seems illimitable, being, like ophthalmia, troubled at everything
bright, whereas hatred is limited, since it settles only on what seems
hostile.
Sec. III. In the second place people feel hatred even against the brutes;
for some hate cats and beetles and toads and serpents. Thus Germanicus
could not bear the crowing or sight of a cock, and the Persian magicians
kill their mice, not only hating them themselves but thinking them
hateful to their god, and the Arabians and Ethiopians abominate them as
much. Whereas we envy only human beings.
Sec. IV. Indeed among the brutes it is not likely that there should be any
envy, for they have no conception of prosperity or adversity, nor have
they any idea of reputation or want of reputation, which are the things
that mainly excite envy; but they hate one another, and are hostile to
one another, and fight with one another to the death, as eagles and
dragons, crows and owls, titmice and finches, insomuch that they say
that even the blood of these creatures will not mix, and if you try to
mix it it will immediately separate again. It is likely also that there
is strong hatred between the cock and the lion, and the pig and the
elephant, owing to fear. For what people fear they naturally hate. We
see also from this that envy differs from hatred, for the animals are
capable of the one, but not of the other.
Sec. V. Moreover envy against anyone is never just, for no one wrongs
another by his prosperity, though that is what he is envied for; but
many are hated with justice, for we even think others[763] worthy of
hatred, if they do not flee from such, and are not disgusted and vexed
at them. A great indication of this is that some people admit they hate
many, but declare they envy nobody. Indeed hatred of evil is reckoned
among praiseworthy things; and when some were praising Charillus, the
nephew of Lycurgus and king of Sparta, for his mildness and gentleness,
his colleague said, "How can Charillus be good, who is not even harsh to
the bad?" And so the poet described the bodily defects of Thersites at
much length, whereas he expressed his vile moral character most shortly
and by one remark, "He was most hateful both to Achilles and
Odysseus."[764] For to be hated by the most excellent is the height of
worthlessness. But people deny that they are envious, and, if they are
charged with being so, they put forward ten thousand pleas, saying they
are angry with the man or fear him or hate him, suggesting any other
passion than envy, and concealing it as the only disorder of the soul
which is abominable.
Sec. VI. Of necessity then these two passions cannot, like plants, be fed
and nourished and grow on the same roots; for they are by nature
different.[765] For we hate people more as they grow worse, but they are
envied only the more the more they advance in virtue. And so
Themistocles, when quite a lad, said he had done nothing remarkable, for
he was not yet envied. For as insects attack most ripe corn and roses in
their bloom, so envy fastens most on the good and on those who are
growing in virtue and good repute for moral character. Again extreme
badness intensifies hatred. So hated indeed and loathed were the
accusers of Socrates, as guilty of extreme vileness, by their
fellow-citizens, that they would neither supply them with fire, nor
answer their questions, nor touch the water they had bathed in, but
ordered the servants to pour it away as polluted, till they could bear
this hatred no longer and hung themselves. But splendid and exceptional
success often extinguishes envy. For it is not likely that anyone envied
Alexander or Cyrus, after their conquests made them lords of the world.
But as the sun, when it is high over our heads and sends down its rays,
makes next to no shadow, so at those successes that attain such a height
as to be over its head envy is humbled, and retires completely dazzled.
So Alexander had none to envy him, but many to hate him, by whom he was
plotted against till he died. So too misfortunes stop envy, but they do
not remove hatred. For people hate their enemies even when they lie
prostrate at their feet, but no one envies the unfortunate. But the
remark of one of the sophists of our day is true, that the envious are
very prone to pity; so here too there is a great difference between
these two passions, for hatred abandons neither the fortunate nor
unfortunate, whereas envy is mitigated in the extreme of either fortune.
Sec. VII. Let as look at the same again from opposite points of view. Men
put an end to their enmity and hatred, either if persuaded they have not
been wronged, or if they come round to the view that those they hated
are good men and not bad, or thirdly if they receive a kindness. For, as
Thucydides says, the last favour conferred, even though a smaller one,
if it be seasonable, outweighs a greater offence.[766] Yet the
persuasion that they have not been wronged does not put an end to envy,
for people envy although absolutely persuaded that they have not been
wronged; and the two other cases actually increase envy; for people look
with an evil eye even more on those they think good, as having virtue,
which is the greatest blessing; and if they are treated kindly by the
prosperous it grieves them, for they envy both their will and power to
do kindnesses, the former proceeding from their goodness, the latter
from their prosperity, but both being blessings. Thus envy is a passion
altogether different from hatred, seeing that what abates the one pains
and exasperates the other.
Sec. VIII. Let us now look at the intent of each of these passions. The
intent of the person who hates is to do as much harm as he can, so they
define hatred to be a disposition and intent on the watch for an
opportunity to do harm. But this is altogether foreign to envy.[767] For
those who envy their relations and friends would not wish them to come
to ruin, or fall into calamity, but are only annoyed at their
prosperity; and would hinder, if they could, their glory and renown, but
they would not bring upon them irremediable misfortunes: they are
content to remove, as in the case of a lofty house, what stands in their
light.
[762] [Greek: allos] MSS. Wyttenbach [Greek: allon].
Malo [Greek: allois].
[763] So Wyttenbach.
[764] Homer, "Iliad," ii. 220.
[765] So Wyttenbach. The reading in this passage is very
doubtful.
[766] Thucydides, i. 42.
[767] Reading [Greek: apestin holos. Oi gar
phthonountes]. What can be made of [Greek: pollous]
here?
HOW ONE CAN PRAISE ONESELF WITHOUT
EXCITING ENVY.
Sec. I. To speak to other people about one's own importance or ability,
Herculanus, is universally declared to be tiresome and illiberal, but in
fact not many even of those who censure it avoid its unpleasantness.
Thus Euripides, though he says,
"If words had to be bought by human beings,
No one would wish to trumpet his own praises.
But since one can get words _sans_ any payment
From lofty ether, everyone delights
In speaking truth or falsehood of himself,
For he can do it with impunity;"
yet uses much tiresome boasting, intermixing with the passion and action
of his plays irrelevant matter about himself. Similarly Pindar says,
that "to boast unseasonably is to play an accompaniment to
madness,"[768] yet he does not cease to talk big about his own merit,
which indeed is well worthy of encomium, who would deny it? But those
who are crowned in the games leave it to others to celebrate their
victories, to avoid the unpleasantness of singing their own praises. So
we are with justice disgusted at Timotheus[769] for trumpeting his own
glory inelegantly and contrary to custom in the inscription for his
victory over Phrynis, "A proud day for you, Timotheus, was it when the
herald cried out, 'The Milesian Timotheus is victorious over the son of
Carbo and his Ionic notes.'" As Xenophon says, "Praise from others is
the pleasantest thing a man can hear,"[770] but to others a man's
self-praise is most nauseous. For first we think those impudent who