Plutarch's Morals
curtails pleasure and involves some self-denial and pain, as a
punishment inflicted by cowardice and timidity, we care not for his
opinion. Can it be right to tend and care for the body that has an
hereditary predisposition to some malady, and are we to neglect the
growth and spread in the young character of hereditary taint of vice,
and to dally with it, and wait till it be plainly mixed up with the
feelings, and, to use the language of Pindar, "produce malignant fruit
in the heart?"
Sec. XX. Or is the deity in this respect no wiser than Hesiod, who exhorts
and advises, "not to beget children on our return from a sad funeral,
but after a banquet with the gods,"[860] as though not vice or virtue
only, but sorrow or joy and all other propensities, came from
generation, to which the poet bids us come gay and agreeable and
sprightly. But it is not Hesiod's function, or the work of human wisdom,
but it belongs to the deity, to discern and accurately distinguish
similarities and differences of character, before they become obvious by
resulting in crime through the influence of the passions. For the young
of bears and wolves and apes manifest from their birth the nature innate
in them in all its naked simplicity; whereas mankind, under the
influence of customs and opinions and laws, frequently conceal their bad
qualities and imitate what is good, so as altogether to obliterate and
escape from the innate taint of vice, or to be undetected for a long
time, throwing the veil of craft round their real nature, so that we are
scarce conscious of their villainy till we feel the blow or smart of
some unjust action, so that we are in fact only aware that there is such
a thing as injustice when men act unjustly, or as vice when men act
viciously, or as cowardice when men run away, just as if one were to
suppose that scorpions had a sting only when they stung us, or that
vipers were venomous only when they bit us, which would be a very silly
idea. For every bad man is not bad only when he breaks out into crime,
but he has the seeds of vice in his nature, and is only vicious in act
when he has opportunity and means, as opportunity makes the thief
steal,[861] and the tyrant violate the laws. But the deity is not
ignorant of the nature and disposition of every man, inasmuch as by his
very nature he can read the soul better than the body, and does not wait
to punish violence in the act, or shamelessness in the tongue, or
lasciviousness in the members. For he does not retaliate upon the
wrong-doer as having been ill-treated by him, nor is he angry with the
robber as having been plundered by him, nor does he hate the adulterer
as having himself suffered from his licentiousness, but it is to cure
him that he often punishes the adulterous or avaricious or unjust man in
embryo, before he has had time to work out all his villainy, as we try
to stop epileptic fits before they come on.
Sec. XXI. Just now we were dissatisfied that the wicked were punished late
and tardily, whereas at present we find fault with the deity for
correcting the character and disposition of same before they commit
crime, from our ignoring that the future deed may be worse and more
dreadful than the past, and the hidden intention than the overt act; for
we are not able fully to understand the reasons why it is better to
leave some alone in their ill deeds, and to arrest others in the
intention; just as no doubt medicine is not appropriate in the case of
some patients, which would be beneficial to others not ill, but yet
perhaps in a more dangerous condition still. And so the gods do not
visit all the offences of parents on their children, but if a good man
is the son of a bad one, as the son of a sickly parent is sometimes of a
good constitution, he is exempt from the punishment of his race, as not
being a participator in its viciousness. But if a young man imitates his
vicious race it is only right that he should inherit the punishment of
their ill deeds, as he would their debts. For Antigonus was not punished
for Demetrius, nor, of the old heroes,[862] Phyleus for Augeas, or
Nestor for Neleus, for though their sires were bad they were good, but
those whose nature liked and approved the vices of their ancestors,
these justice punished, taking vengeance on their similarity in
viciousness. For as the warts and moles and freckles of parents often
skip a generation, and reappear in the grandsons and granddaughters, and
as a Greek woman, that had a black baby and so was accused of adultery,
found out that she was the great granddaughter of an Ethiopian,[863] and
as the son of Pytho the Nisibian who recently died, and who was said to
trace his descent to the Sparti,[864] had the birthmark on his body of
the print of a spear the token of his race, which though long dormant
had come up again as out of the deep, so frequently earlier generations
conceal and suppress the mental idiosyncrasies and passions of their
race, which afterwards nature causes to break out in other members of
the family, and so displays the family bent either to vice or virtue."
Sec. XXII. When I had said thus much I was silent, but Olympicus smiled and
said, "We do not praise you, lest we should seem to forget your promised
story, as though what you had advanced was adequate proof enough, but we
will give our opinion when we have heard it." Then I began as follows.
"Thespesius of Soli, an intimate friend of that Protogenes[865] who
lived in this city with us for some time, had been very profligate
during the early part of his life, and had quickly run through his
property, and for some time owing to his straits had given himself up to
bad practices, when repenting of his old ways, and following the pursuit
of riches, he resembled those profligate husbands that pay no attention
to their wives while they live with them, but get rid of them, and then,
after they have married other men, do all they can wickedly to seduce
them. Abstaining then from nothing dishonourable that could bring either
enjoyment or gain, in no long time he got together no great amount of
property, but a very great reputation for villainy. But what most
damaged his character was the answer he received from the oracle of
Amphilochus.[866] For he sent it seems a messenger to consult the god
whether he would live the rest of his life better, and the answer was he
would do better after his death. And indeed this happened in a sense not
long after. For he fell headlong down from a great height, and though he
had received no wound nor even a blow, the fall did for him, but three
days after (just as he was about to be buried) he recovered. He soon
picked up his strength again, and went home, and so changed his manner
of life that people would hardly credit it. For the Cilicians say that
they know nobody who was in those days more fairdealing in business, or
more devout to the deity, or more disagreeable to his enemies, or more
faithful to his friends; insomuch that all who had any dealings with him
desired to hear the reason of this change, not thinking that so great a
reformation of character could have proceeded from chance, and their
idea was correct, as his narrative to Protogenes and others of his great
friends showed. For he told them that, when his soul left the body, the
change he first underwent was as if he were a pilot thrown violently
into the sea out of a ship. Then raising himself up a little, he thought
he recovered the power of breathing again altogether, and looked round
him in every direction, as if one eye of the soul was open. But he saw
none of the things he had ever seen before, but stars enormous in size
and at immense distance from one another, sending forth a wonderful and
intense brightness of colour, so that the soul was borne along and moved
about everywhere quickly and easily, like a ship is fair weather. But
omitting most of the sights he saw, he said that the souls of the dead
mounted into the air, which yielded to them and formed fiery bubbles,
and then, when each bubble quietly broke, they assumed human forms,
light in weight but with different kinds of motion, for some leapt about
with wonderful agility and darted straight upwards, while others like
spindles flitted round all together in a circle, some in an upward
direction, some in a downward, with mixed and confused motion, hardly
stopping at all, or only after a very long time. As to most of these he
was ignorant who they were, but he saw two or three that he knew, and
tried to approach them and talk with them, but they would not listen to
him, and did not seem to be in their right minds, but out of their
senses and distraught, avoiding every sight and touch, and at first
turned round and round alone, but afterwards meeting many other souls
whirling round and in the same condition as themselves, they moved about
promiscuously with no particular object in view, and uttered
inarticulate sounds, like yells, mixed with wailing and terror. Other
souls in the upper part of the air seemed joyful, and frequently
approached one another in a friendly way, and avoided those troubled
souls, and seemed to mark their displeasure by keeping themselves to
themselves, and their joy and delight by extension and expansion. At
last he said he saw the soul of a relation, that he thought he knew but
was not quite sure, as he died when he was a boy, which came up to him
and said to him, "Welcome, Thespesius." And he wondering, and saying
that his name was not Thespesius but Aridaeus, the soul replied, "That
was your old name, but henceforth it will be Thespesius. For assuredly
you are not dead, but by the will of the gods are come here with your
intellect, for the rest of your soul you have left in the body like an
anchor; and as a proof of what I say both now and hereafter notice that
the souls of the dead have no shadow and do not move their eyelids."
Thespesius, on hearing these words, pulled himself somewhat more
together again, and began to use his reason, and looking more closely he
noticed that an indistinct and shadow-like line was suspended over him,
while the others shone all round and were transparent, but were not all
alike; for some were like the full-moon at its brightest, throwing out
one smooth even and continuous colour, others had spots or light marks
here and there, while others were quite variegated and strange to the
sight, with black spots like snakes, while others again had dim
scratches.
Then the kinsman of Thespesius (for there is nothing to prevent our
calling the souls by the name of the persons), pointed out everything,
and told him that Adrastea, the daughter of Necessity and Zeus, was
placed in the highest position to punish all crimes, and no criminal was
either so great or so small as to be able to escape her either by fraud
or violence. But, as there were three kinds of punishment, each had its
own officer and administering functionary. "For speedy Vengeance
undertakes the punishment of those that are to be corrected at once in
the body and through their bodies, and she mildly passes by many
offences that only need expiation; but if the cure of vice demands
further pains, then the deity hands over such criminals after death to
Justice, and those whom Justice rejects as altogether incurable, Erinnys
(the third and fiercest of Adrastea's officers), pursues as they are
fleeing and wandering about in various directions, and with pitiless
severity utterly undoes them all, and thrusts them down to a place not
to be seen or spoken about. And, of all these punishments, that which is
administered in this life by Vengeance is most like those in use among
the barbarians. For as among the Persians they pluck off and scourge the
garments and tiaras of those that are to be punished, while the