Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
The reflections that occurred to me on the subject of listening, Nicander, I have sent to you in writing, so that you may know how someone who has laid aside the authority of others and put on the mantle of manhood ought to listen to one who exhorts him rightly. For anarchy — which some young men, out of lack of education, regard as freedom — sets over the appetites, once they are loosed as it were from their bonds, masters harsher than the teachers and tutors of their boyhood; and just as Herodotus
says that women strip off their modesty together with their tunic, so some young men, once they have laid aside the boy's cloak, lay aside along with it their sense of shame and fear, and having loosened the garment that gave them decorum, are at once filled with unruliness. But you, who have often heard that to follow God and to obey reason are the same thing, must consider that the passage from boyhood to manhood
is not, for those of sound mind, an abolition of authority but a change of ruler: in place of some hired man or purchased slave they take reason as the divine guide of their life, and it is right to count as free only those who follow it. For only they, having learned what they ought to want, live as they want; whereas in undisciplined and irrational impulses and actions there is something ignoble and petty,
since there is much room for regret in what is done willingly. But just as, among those enrolled as citizens, the foreigners and strangers who are entirely new find much to blame and are querulous about what goes on, while those who have grown up among the resident aliens and are familiar with the laws accept without difficulty what falls to them and are content with it, so you must, having been nurtured for a long time within philosophy — every piece of learning and
every lesson from boyhood on, having become accustomed to be conveyed by discourse mixed with philosophy — come to philosophy well-disposed and as to something of your own, which alone truly clothes young men, by means of reason, with the ornament of manhood and completeness. I think it would not be unwelcome for you to hear beforehand something about the sense of hearing, which Theophrastus says is the most emotional of all the senses. For nothing seen, nor tasted, nor touched, produces such
disturbances and confusions and panics as those which seize the soul when certain crashes and clatters and echoes fall upon the hearing. And yet it is more rational than emotional. For to vice it offers many places and parts of the body through which, entering by them, it may lay hold of the soul, but for virtue the ears of the young are a single handle, if they are kept pure
and untainted by flattery and untouched by base speech from the start. That is why Xenocrates urged that ear-guards be put on boys even more than on athletes, on the ground that while the ears of the latter are distorted by blows, the characters of the former are distorted by words — not recommending deafness or dullness of hearing, but urging that they guard against base speech until other, sound words, reared as guardians by philosophy,
take possession of that region of their disposition which is most easily moved and persuaded. And Bias of old, when Amasis bade him send the best and at the same time the worst piece of meat from the sacrificial victim, cut out the tongue and sent it, on the ground that speech carries the greatest harms and the greatest benefits. And most people, when they kiss small children, themselves take hold of their ears and bid the children do likewise,
hinting playfully that one ought especially to love those who benefit us through the ears. Since it is clear that a young man who is shut off from all discourse and tastes no reasoned speech not only remains altogether without fruit and without growth toward virtue, but is also liable to be turned toward vice — sending up, as it were from ground left unmoved and untilled, a great crop of wild growths of the soul. For the impulses toward pleasure
and the suspicions toward hardship are not foreign, nor imported from outside by words, but are, as it were, native-born, springs of countless passions and diseases; and if one lets them range unchecked wherever they are naturally inclined to go, and does not, by removing or redirecting with sound words, discipline the nature, there is no wild beast that would not appear gentler than man. That is why, since listening holds for the young a benefit that is great but a danger no less great, I think it well
to converse both with oneself always and with another about the subject of listening. For we see that most people handle even this badly: they practice speaking before they have become accustomed to listening, and they think that speech requires learning and practice, but that listening benefits anyone, however he engages in it. And yet for ball players the learning lies at once in throwing and
in catching the ball; but in the use of speech, receiving well comes before delivering — just as, in giving birth, conceiving and holding what is fertile comes before bringing forth. Now in the case of birds they say that wind-eggs and empty labors are the beginnings of certain unfinished and lifeless remnants; and likewise, for the young who are not able to listen, nor
trained to be benefited through hearing, the word truly becomes a wind-egg — 'falling inglorious, unseen, scattered beneath the clouds.' For vessels people tilt and turn to receive what is poured into them, so that there may truly be a pouring-in and not a pouring-out; but to present themselves to the speaker and to attune their attention to their listening so that nothing useful said escapes them — this people do not learn. Instead, most ridiculous of all,
if they happen upon someone recounting a dinner, or a procession, or a dream, or some quarrel that occurred between him and another, they listen in silence and press for more; but if someone draws them in and teaches them something useful, or exhorts them in matters of duty, or admonishes them for their faults, or soothes them when they are angry, they do not put up with it — instead, if they are able, they contend against the speech, striving to get the better of it; and if not,
they flee off to other talk and idle chatter, filling their ears, like poor and leaky vessels, with anything rather than what is needed. Now those who raise horses well make them obedient to the bit, and those who raise children make them attentive to reason, training them to listen much and speak little. That is why Spintharus, in praising Epaminondas, said that it was not easy to find anyone else who
knew more and said less. And they say nature has given each of us two ears but one tongue, since we ought to speak less than we hear. Everywhere, then, silence is a safe adornment for the young, and especially when, in listening to another, he is not thrown into confusion nor barks out at every point, but even if the speech is not entirely
to his liking, he holds back and waits for the speaker to finish, and once he has finished, does not immediately hurl his objection, but, as Aeschines says, lets some time pass, in case the one who has spoken wishes to add something to what has been said, or to alter or take away part of it. Those who cut in at once, neither truly listening nor being listened to, but speaking against those who speak, behave badly; whereas the one trained to listen with self-control and with reverence receives the
useful speech and holds fast to it, while he sees through and detects the useless or false speech all the more clearly, showing himself a lover of truth, not a lover of contention nor rash and quarrelsome. Hence some say — not badly — that young men need to let out their conceit and pretension even more than those who want to pour something useful into wineskins need to let out the air first; for otherwise, full of swelling and puffed-up pride, they will not
receive it. Envy, then, together with malice and ill will, is in no case a good companion to any action, but is an obstacle to everything noble, and is the worst possible seatmate and adviser to a listener, making what is beneficial painful and unpleasant and hard to accept, because those who envy take more pleasure in almost anything than in what is well said. And yet a person is envious of wealth, or reputation, or beauty only
when it belongs to others, since he is vexed at others' good fortune; but the man who is displeased at a well-spoken discourse is pained by what is actually his own good. For as light is a good to those who see, so speech is a good to those who hear, if they are willing to receive it. Now other undisciplined and base dispositions produce envy directed at others, but the envy directed at speakers is engendered out of untimely love of reputation and
unjust ambition, and does not allow the man so disposed even to attend to what is being said, but disturbs and distracts his mind — partly by having it examine its own condition, to see whether it falls short of the speaker's, and partly by having it watch the others present, to see whether they admire and marvel, being struck with alarm at the praise given and growing savage toward those present if they applaud the speaker, while it lets the words already
spoken pass by and be forgotten, on the ground that remembering them is painful, but grows agitated and trembling toward what remains to be said, fearing it may prove better than what has already been said, and hastens for the speakers to stop as quickly as possible just when they are speaking best; and once the audience breaks up, it dwells on none of the things that were said, but instead tallies up the voices and dispositions of those present, fleeing those who praise as if they were madmen and
leaping away from them, but running up to and flocking together with those who find fault with and disparage what was said; and if there is nothing to find fault with, it compares certain others as having spoken better on the same subject and more effectively — until, having corrupted and ruined its own listening, it renders it useless and unprofitable to itself. That is why one must make a truce between love of listening and love of reputation, and listen to the speaker graciously and gently, as if one had come to partake of a sacred feast and
received the first-fruits of a sacrifice — praising his ability where he succeeds, but valuing also simply the eagerness of the man who brings forward into the open what he knows, and who persuades others through the means by which he himself has been persuaded. In matters that are done well, one must reflect that they are brought to success not by chance nor spontaneously but by care and toil and learning, and one must imitate these things, admiring and emulating them;
but where mistakes are made, one must fix one's attention on the causes and the source from which the deviation arose. For as Xenophon says that men skilled in household management profit both from their friends and from their enemies, so those who are alert and attentive are benefited by speakers not only when they succeed but even when they go wrong. For cheapness of thought, emptiness of phrase, a vulgar posture,
and flustered excitement joined with a tasteless delight in applause, and all such things, are more apparent to listeners in others than to speakers in themselves. That is why one must transfer the scrutiny from the speaker to oneself, examining whether we too are unwittingly guilty of the like — for it is the easiest thing in the world to find fault with one's neighbor, and it is done uselessly and vainly unless it is referred to some correction or
guarding against similar faults in ourselves. And one should not hesitate always to say to oneself, in Plato's phrase, when faults are pointed out in others, 'Am I not perhaps such a one myself?' For just as we see our own faces reflected in the eyes of those near us, so in the case of speeches we ought to see our own reflected in those of others, so that we may neither despise others too rashly nor, at the same time, fail to attend to ourselves in speaking
with more care. Useful for this purpose too is the exercise of comparison, whenever, having withdrawn by ourselves after the lecture and having taken up something that seems not to have been well or adequately said, we attempt to work on the same subject and lead ourselves on — in part filling out what was missing, in part correcting it, in part putting it differently, and in part introducing altogether new material of our own devising in relation to the theme. This
is what Plato did in response to the speech of Lysias. For to speak against a speech already delivered is not difficult but quite easy; but to set up in its place another, altogether better one, is entirely a hard task. So too the Spartan, on hearing that Philip had razed Olynthus to the ground, said, 'But he could never build up such a city.' Whenever, then, in discussion on such
a subject we do not appear to differ greatly from those who have already spoken, we take away much of our grounds for contempt, and our self-conceit and self-love are most quickly checked when put to the test by such comparisons. Now the opposite of contempt is admiration, and it belongs, I suppose, to a more reasonable and gentler nature; yet it too requires no small caution, perhaps even greater caution: for those who are contemptuous and bold profit
less from speakers, while those who are admiring and simple-hearted are harmed more, and they do not refute Heraclitus when he said, 'A dull man is apt to be thrown into a flutter by every speech.' One should offer praise to speakers simply and without guile, but extend belief to their words cautiously, and be a well-disposed and straightforward spectator of the diction and delivery of the contestants, but
an exacting and severe examiner of the usefulness and truth of what is said, so that the speakers may not be hated, and the speeches may not do harm; for it is often the case that we unwittingly admit many false and wicked doctrines through the goodwill and trust we bear toward the speakers. The Spartan magistrates, for instance, when a man who had not lived a good life offered a sound proposal, rejected it and had another man, one of good repute in his life
and character, propose the very same thing — very rightly and in a statesmanlike fashion accustoming the people to be led by the character of their advisers rather than by their words. But in the case of philosophical discourses, one must set aside the reputation of the speaker and examine the arguments themselves on their own merits. For, as in war, so too in listening, there is much that is empty show. Indeed the speaker's grey hair, and his affectation, and his knitted brow, and his self-praise,
and above all the shouts and the uproar and the leaping about of those present, strike the inexperienced and young listener with amazement, sweeping him along as if by a current. There is also something deceptive in style, when it is pleasant and abundant and applied to the subject matter with a certain grandeur and elaborate artifice. For just as most of the faults of those who sing to the flute escape the notice of the audience, so too
an ornate and pompous style outshines, in the listener's eyes, the very thing it is meant to reveal. Melanthius, for example, when asked about Diogenes' tragedy, said, as it seems, that he could not make it out for being obscured by the words; and the discourses and rehearsed pieces of most sophists not only use fine words as veils for their thoughts, but also, by sweetening their voice with certain melodic cadences and softnesses and balanced clauses,
they drive their listeners into a kind of Bacchic frenzy and carry them away, giving them an empty pleasure and receiving in return an even emptier reputation. So that what happens to them is what was said by Dionysius. For he, it seems, having promised a celebrated singer to the lyre great gifts at the performance, afterward gave nothing, as though he had already paid the debt of gratitude: 'For exactly as long,' he said, 'as you were delighting me with your singing, for just so long were you enjoying the pleasure of hoping.' This kind of exchange belongs to those
such lectures satisfy their listeners: they are admired only so long as they delight, and then, as soon as the pleasure has drained out of the ear, the reputation deserts them too, and their time — for some, even their life — has been wasted for nothing. One should therefore strip away the excess and the emptiness of the diction and pursue the fruit itself, imitating not the garland-weavers but the bees.
For the garland-weavers, going over the flowery and fragrant blossoms, string and weave them together into something pleasant but short-lived and unfruitful; the bees, by contrast, often fly past meadows of violets, roses, and hyacinths and settle instead on the roughest, sharpest thyme, and there they stay, working out golden honey, and once they have taken something useful they fly off to their proper task. In just this way, then,
the lover of learning and the pure-minded listener should let the flowery and delicate elements of diction, and the dramatic and showy elements of subject matter, go by, reckoning them fodder for drones playing at sophistry, and should instead, with close attention, sink down into the sense of the discourse and the disposition of the speaker, drawing from it what is useful and beneficial — remembering that he has come not to a theater or a concert hall but to
a school and a place of instruction, to set his life right by reason. For this reason one must make an examination and assessment of what one has heard by looking to oneself and one's own state, reckoning up whether any of the passions has grown gentler, whether any of one's griefs has become lighter, whether one has courage, a settled resolve, an enthusiasm for virtue and the good. For one should not, on rising
from the barber's chair, go and stand before the mirror and feel one's head, examining the cut of the hair and the change made by the trim, and yet on leaving a lecture and a class not immediately look to oneself, studying the soul to see whether it has set aside anything troublesome and superfluous and become lighter and more pleasant. "For neither a bath," says Ariston, "nor a discourse is of any use
unless it cleanses." Let the young man, then, take pleasure in being benefited by what he hears; but he must not make the pleasure of listening his goal, nor think he ought to leave a philosopher's class humming a tune and glowing with delight, nor go looking to be perfumed when what he needs is a poultice and a compress — rather he should be grateful if, like smoke driving bees from a hive, some pungent word clears out a mind clouded with thick haze and dullness. And
if it is fitting for speakers not to neglect entirely a diction that has some charm and persuasiveness, this is the very last thing the young man should trouble himself about, at least at first. Later on, just as men who are drinking, once they have stopped being thirsty, then begin to notice and turn over in their hands the engraving on the cups, so too, once he has been filled with doctrines and can catch his breath, he may be allowed to examine the diction for whatever elegance or refinement it has. But the man who,
right from the start, fails to root himself in the substance and instead insists that the diction be Attic and spare is like someone unwilling to drink a medicine unless the vessel is fired from Attic clay, or to wrap himself in a cloak for winter unless the wool is from Attic sheep — sitting there useless and unmoved, as it were, wrapped in the thin, threadbare cloak of a Lysianic speech. These
maladies have produced, in the schools, a great desolation of mind and sound thinking, and a great deal of idle chatter and pretension, with the young men paying attention not to the life, conduct, and public bearing of a philosopher, but valuing instead diction, phrases, and fine delivery, without knowing or even caring to examine whether what is delivered is useful or useless, necessary or empty and superfluous.
Connected with this is the rule about the questions one poses. A man who has come to dinner should make use of what is set before him and not ask for anything else, nor find fault; but a man who has come to a feast of words, if the terms are fixed, should listen to the speaker in silence — for those who drag the discussion off into other topics, interjecting questions and raising further difficulties, are not welcome
nor are they easy company in an audience; they gain nothing themselves, and they throw the speaker and his discourse into confusion together. But when the speaker himself bids his hearers ask questions and pose problems, one ought always to be seen posing something useful and necessary. Odysseus is mocked by the suitors for begging scraps of food, not swords or cauldrons — for they take it as a sign of greatness of spirit to give something great, and likewise
to ask for something great. Even more, one might laugh at a listener who stirs up the speaker over small and stingy problems, of the sort that some young men, showing off a knack for logic-chopping or mathematics, are in the habit of proposing — about the division of indivisibles, or what kind of motion is 'lateral' and what 'diametrical.' To such people one may say what Philotimus
said to the man with an abscessed lung and consumption. For when the man began talking to him and asking for a salve for a hangnail, Philotimus, perceiving from his complexion and his breathing the real state of his health, said, "My good fellow, this is no time for you to be talking about a hangnail." So too, young man, it is not the time for you to be examining such questions, but rather to see how, once freed from conceit, pretension, love affairs, and idle talk, you may establish yourself in a life
free of vanity and sound. One must also take great care to frame one's questions in keeping with the speaker's experience or natural ability, in those areas where he is strongest, and not force a man who philosophizes more on the ethical side to take up problems in natural science or mathematics, nor drag a man who prides himself on natural philosophy into judgments about conditional propositions and the solution of logical paradoxes. For just as
a man who tries to split wood with a key and open a door with an axe would seem not to be doing harm to those tools but rather depriving himself of the use and function proper to each, so those who ask of a speaker what he is not by nature suited for and has not practiced, while failing to pluck and take what he does have and does offer, not only fail to profit thereby but also incur a reputation for ill nature and malice.
One must also guard against posing many questions oneself, and often: for this too is, in a way, a form of showing off. To listen readily and agreeably when someone else puts forward a question is the mark of a man who loves learning and is sociable — provided none of his own private concerns is pressing and urgent, some passion needing to be checked, some ailment needing comfort. For perhaps it is not even true that "it is better to hide one's ignorance," as Heraclitus says, but rather one should bring it out into the open and
attend to it. And if some anger, or an attack of superstitious fear, or a sharp quarrel with one's own household, or a frenzied desire born of love stirs the strings of the mind that ought to remain still and throws the understanding into turmoil, one must not flee for refuge into other topics, escaping examination, but must listen precisely about these very things in the lectures, and afterward, privately, approach the speaker and question him further about them — not do the opposite,
as most people do, who take delight in and admire philosophers when they discourse about other matters, but who, if the philosopher sets the others aside and speaks to them privately and frankly about their own faults, reminding them of what concerns them, are annoyed and think it meddlesome. For they suppose, quite reasonably, that one ought to listen to philosophers in their schools just as one listens to tragic actors in the theater, and that outside, in everyday affairs, philosophers are no
different from themselves. Toward the sophists this reaction is understandable: once they have risen from their seats and put away their books and their introductory manuals, in the real business of life they appear small and ordinary to most people; but toward genuine philosophers it is not right to feel this way, since people fail to realize that seriousness and play alike, a nod, a smile, a frown — all of these belong to
them, and above all the discourse conducted privately with each individual bears some useful fruit for those accustomed to be patient and attentive. The proper practice of giving praise also requires a certain caution and moderation, since neither falling short of it nor going beyond it is generous. A heavy and tiresome listener is one who is utterly unmoved and unresponsive to everything said, full of a hidden conceit and
an inward self-importance, as though he had something better to say than what is being said, moving neither an eyebrow in acknowledgment nor uttering a sound as honest witness to his enjoyment of listening, but instead hunting after a reputation for steadiness and depth through silence and an affected gravity of manner and bearing, as if he thought that whatever praise he gave another he was thereby taking away from himself, like money. There are, in fact, many who wrongly and out of tune
take up Pythagoras's saying as their own. For Pythagoras said that from philosophy he had gained the ability to be astonished at nothing; but these men take it to mean praising and honoring nothing, placing what is dignified in contempt and pursuing it through disdain. For philosophical reasoning removes wonder and amazement that spring from inexperience and ignorance, by knowledge and understanding of the cause of each thing, but it does not destroy
what is easy-going, moderate, and humane. For truly and steadfastly good men, the finest honor is to honor someone worthy, and the most fitting adornment is to add adornment to another, an act that comes from an abundance and generosity of reputation. But those who are stingy about praising others seem still to be poor and hungry themselves. The opposite type, in turn, who passes judgment on nothing but stops at every word
and syllable, shouting out — being a light and flighty sort of person — often fails to please even the very competitors he praises, and always annoys the audience, stirring them up and making them rise together against their better judgment, as though they were being dragged along by force out of a sense of shame, joining in the shouting. Having gained nothing himself because his attention during the praise-giving has been so disordered and flighty, he leaves carrying away one of three labels:
he is thought to be either an ironist, a flatterer, or a man of poor taste in matters of discourse. Now a judge deciding a case must listen neither out of hostility nor out of favor, but with a mind directed toward justice; but in lectures devoted to learning, no law and no oath restrains us from receiving the speaker with goodwill. Indeed the ancients even set up
Hermes alongside the Graces in worship, since discourse above all demands what is gracious and endearing. For it is not even possible for a speaker to be so utterly off the mark and mistaken as to offer no thought worthy of praise, no recollection of others' views, not even the very subject and purpose of the speech, nor even the diction or arrangement of what is said — as though among hedgehog-thorns and rough rest-harrow
there could grow the blossoms of soft gillyflowers. For if even those who deliver praises of vomiting, of fever, and, by Zeus, of the chamber pot are not lacking in persuasiveness, surely a discourse delivered by a man who is somehow reputed, or even merely called, a philosopher would not fail to give favorably disposed and kindly listeners any occasion at all, any opening, for praise. At any rate, all who are in the bloom of youth, as Plato says, somehow bite
the lover, and, calling the fair-skinned children of the gods "honey-pale" and the dark-skinned ones "manly," and endearingly calling the hook-nosed "kingly" and the snub-nosed "graceful" and the sallow "golden-hued," he embraces and cherishes them; for love is clever, like ivy, at fastening onto anything as a pretext. Much more, then, will the man who loves listening and loves learning always be resourceful in finding some reason
for which he will not appear out of place in praising each of the speakers. Indeed Plato, while not praising Lysias's speech for its invention and finding fault with its lack of order, nevertheless praises its delivery, and says that "each of the words has been clearly and roundly turned on the lathe." One might find fault with Archilochus for his subject matter, with Parmenides for his versification, with Phocylides for his plainness, with Euripides for
his talkativeness, with Sophocles for his unevenness — just as, of course, among the orators too, one lacks character, another is sluggish in stirring passion, another is wanting in charm; yet each is praised for that particular power by which he is naturally able to move and lead an audience. So that for listeners too there is abundant and ungrudging opportunity to show goodwill toward speakers. For some it is enough
even if we do not bear witness with our voice, to display gentleness of eye, calmness of countenance, and a kindly, untroubled disposition. Those other things, indeed, are already common and general to every audience, applying even to speakers who fail completely: an unaffected, steady posture, seated upright, one's gaze fixed on the speaker himself, an attitude of active attention, and a composure of countenance that is clear
and shows no trace not only of insolence or ill temper but also of other cares and preoccupations — since in every undertaking, beauty is achieved when many elements, like numbers, converge at a single moment through some proportion and harmony, while ugliness arises at once from a single element, whether missing or wrongly present; just as, in the case of
listening itself, not only a heavy, scowling brow, an unpleasant expression, a wandering gaze, a twisting of the body, and an unseemly crossing of the legs, but also nodding, whispering to another, smiling, sleepy yawning, and drooping — and everything resembling these — is culpable and requires great caution. Some people think that the speaker has some work to do, but the listener
none at all — they think it right that the speaker should arrive having thought and prepared, while they themselves, thoughtless and careless of their obligations, throw themselves down and sit as though they had simply come to a dinner, to be treated well while others labor. And yet even a pleasant dinner guest has some work to do, and a listener far more so. For he is a partner in the discourse and a fellow-worker with the speaker, and it is not the case that he should
examine the speaker's faults harshly, holding him to account word by word and point by point, while he himself behaves without accountability, conducting himself improperly and committing many solecisms in his listening — but rather, just as in ball games the one receiving the throw must move in rhythm together with the thrower, so too in speeches there is a certain shared rhythm between the speaker and the listener, if each keeps to what is fitting for himself. One must also
not use exclamations of praise carelessly, at random. Indeed even Epicurus is offensive when he says that his friends' letters were greeted with bursts of applause. As for those who nowadays import foreign expressions into their audiences, saying "divinely!" and "in a god-inspired way!" and "unapproachably!" — as though "well done," "wisely," and "truly" were no longer sufficient —
the signs of approval that Plato, Socrates, and Hyperides used to employ, but instead misbehave and bring speakers into disrepute, as though they needed extravagant and superfluous praise. Also thoroughly unpleasant are those who confirm speakers' words with an oath, as if giving testimony in a lawcourt. No less irritating than these are those who miss the mark in matters of quality, when they call out "keenly!" to a philosopher, but
"gracefully" or "charmingly" to an old man, transferring to philosophers the expressions used by revelers and merrymakers at school festivals, and bestowing on a sober discourse the kind of praise fit for a courtesan—like crowning an athlete with a garland of roses instead of laurel or wild olive. Euripides the poet, when he was singing over to the chorus a song he had composed, set to a musical mode, and one of them laughed, said, "if you were not
insensitive and ignorant, you would not have laughed at my singing in the mixolydian mode." A philosophical and statesmanlike man, I think, would cut short the affected languor of a listener by saying: "you seem to me foolish and ill-bred; for if I were teaching, admonishing, or discoursing about the gods, the constitution, or government, you would not be trilling and dancing along to my words." See how truly
absurd it is. When a philosopher is speaking, people outside, hearing the shouting and clamor of those within, are at a loss whether the applause is for a flute-player, a lyre-player, or some dancer. And indeed one ought to listen to warnings and rebukes neither insensibly nor unmanfully. For those who bear being spoken ill of by philosophers so easily and carelessly that they laugh even while being refuted, and then applaud
those who are refuting them, just as parasites applaud their patrons even when being reviled by them—being altogether impudent and shameless—give no fine or true proof of courage by their shamelessness. For to bear an inoffensive jest, let loose in some playful banter with wit, without pain and cheerfully, is not ignoble or uneducated but rather quite gentlemanly and Laconic; but when a discourse applies, like a biting medicine, a searching and reproving word for the correction of character,
one ought not to hear it while shrinking back, nor drenched in sweat and dizziness, with the soul aflame with shame, but rather unflinching, and not grimacing or feigning indifference—which belongs to some young person terribly ill-bred and unresponsive to shame through habit and continuance in wrongdoing, like flesh grown hard and callused, whose soul takes no bruise. Since this is so, those young people of the opposite disposition,
if they are once spoken ill of, flee without turning back and run away from philosophy altogether, and although they had from nature a fine foundation for their safety in their sense of shame, they destroy it through softness and self-indulgence, not enduring the process of refutation nor nobly accepting correction, but turning their ears away toward gentle and soft conversation, listening to certain flatterers or sophists
who sing to them pleasant but useless and unprofitable tunes. Just as one who, after surgery, flees the doctor and will not submit to the bandage endures the pain but forfeits the benefit of the treatment, so too the one who does not allow the discourse that has cut and wounded him to heal over and settle his foolishness departs from philosophy stung and pained, but having gained no benefit at all.
For not only, as Euripides says, is Telephus's wound soothed by the filings of the spear that caused it, but also the sting that philosophy implants in young men of good nature is healed by the very discourse that inflicted it. For this reason one must suffer somewhat and feel the bite, but the one being refuted must not be crushed or lose heart; rather, as in an initiation rite where philosophy is just beginning its rites of purification, one should endure the first purifications and disturbances, hoping
for something sweet and bright to come out of the present distress and turmoil. And indeed, even if the reproof seems to come unjustly, it is good to endure and hold out while the speaker is still talking; but once he has stopped, one should approach him with a defense and a request that he reserve that frankness of speech and that intensity, which he is now using against him, for some occasion of genuine wrongdoing. Further, just as in learning letters and
the lyre and wrestling, the first lessons involve much confusion, toil, and obscurity, but then, as one progresses little by little, familiarity and understanding grow, as with people one comes to know, until everything becomes friendly, tractable, and easy to say and do—so too, though philosophy has something rough, difficult, and unfamiliar in its first terms and subject matter, one ought not,
out of fear at the beginnings, timidly and faintheartedly abandon it, but by trying each point, persisting, and yearning for further progress, wait for the habituation that makes everything fine pleasant. For it will come before long, bringing much light to one's learning and instilling powerful longings for virtue, without which it is the mark of a very wretched or cowardly man to endure the rest of life, having fallen away from philosophy
through lack of manly courage. Now perhaps the subject matter itself does present some difficulty to the inexperienced and the young at the outset; still, for the most part they fall into obscurity and ignorance through their own fault, erring in the same way from opposite natures. For some, out of a certain shame and consideration for the speaker, hesitate to ask questions and confirm what has been said, and instead nod along as though they understood,
while others, out of an untimely and empty ambition to compete with others, display their quickness and capacity for learning by claiming to already understand before they have actually grasped it, and so they never do grasp it. Then it turns out that those modest and silent ones, when they have gone away, are distressed and at a loss, and in the end, driven by necessity, they trouble those who spoke, with even greater embarrassment, by going back to question them and chase after them, while the ambitious
and bold ones always conceal and hide the ignorance that dwells within them. So let us cast off entirely such great stupidity and pretense, and go toward learning, and with our minds set on grasping what is called useful, let us endure the laughter of those who seem naturally gifted—just as Cleanthes and Xenocrates, though they seemed slower than their fellow students, did not run away from learning nor grow weary,
but got ahead of themselves by joking about it, comparing themselves to narrow-mouthed vessels and bronze writing-tablets, in that they took in words with difficulty but retained them safely and securely. For it is not only, as Phocylides says, that one who seeks to learn much must be deceived much, but one must also endure much mockery and disrepute, and having accepted jibes and buffoonery, must drive out and overpower ignorance with all one's spirit.
Yet the opposite error must not be neglected either, the one committed by those who, out of sluggishness, are unpleasant and tiresome, for they are unwilling, once left to themselves, to take trouble, but instead give trouble to the speaker, repeatedly asking about the same things, like unfledged nestlings always gaping toward another's mouth, wanting to receive everything already prepared and worked out by others. Others, hunting for attentiveness
and sharpness where it is not needed, seeking a reputation for it, wear down speakers with chatter and fussiness, always raising some further difficulty about unnecessary matters and demanding proofs of things that need none—so a short road becomes long, as Sophocles says, not only for themselves but for others too. For by constantly interrupting the teacher with empty and superfluous questions, as in a journey together, they impede
the continuity of the lesson, which then involves stops and delays. These people, then, according to Hieronymus, are like cowardly and stingy puppies that bite at the hides at home and pull at the scraps of the animals but never actually lay hold of the beasts themselves. But let us urge on those idle ones, once they have grasped the main points with their understanding, to work out the rest for themselves, and to let memory guide discovery,
and, taking another's discourse as a starting point and a seed, to nurture and increase it. For the mind does not need filling up like a vessel, but rather, like fuel, it needs only a kindling spark that creates in it an impulse to discover and a desire for the truth. Just as, if someone in need of fire from a neighbor, upon finding a large and bright fire there, were to stay there permanently, warming himself, so too if someone, coming
to share in another's discourse, does not think it necessary to kindle a light of his own and a mind of his own, but instead sits enjoying the lecture, charmed by it, drawing from the words only a kind of blush and glow for his reputation, while he has not warmed away or driven out through philosophy the inner mold and darkness of his soul. If, then, one needs any further precept for listening, one must, remembering also what has just
been said, practice discovery together with learning, so that we may acquire not a sophistic or merely erudite disposition but an inward and philosophical one, believing that hearing well is the beginning of living well.