Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
If, as the poet Philoxenus used to say, my dear Marcus Sedatus, the tastiest of meats are those that are not meat, and the tastiest of fish are those that are not fish, let us leave the declaring of that opinion to those of whom Cato said that their palate is more sensitive than their heart. But it is plain to us that among the things said in philosophy, the very young take more pleasure in those that do not seem to be spoken philosophically or in earnest, and make themselves obedient and tractable to such things. For it is not only Aesop's little fables and the subjects of the poets, but also the Abaris of Heraclides and the Lycon of Ariston, and the doctrines about souls mixed with mythology, that they enthusiastically enjoy. For this reason we must not only keep them well-behaved in the pleasures of eating and drinking, but still more accustom them, when they are listening to lectures and doing their reading, to use what delights them in moderation, as one uses a relish, while pursuing what is useful and salutary from it. For closed gates do not keep a city safe from capture if it admits the enemy through even one of them, nor does self-control in other pleasures protect a young man if, without his noticing, he lets himself go through what he hears; rather, the more this pleasure touches the part of him naturally suited for thought and reasoning, the more it harms and corrupts the one who receives it, if it is neglected.
Since, then, it is perhaps neither possible nor beneficial to keep someone of the age of my Soclarus now, or your Cleander, away from poems altogether, let us keep close watch over them, on the ground that in their reading, even more than on the road, they need a guide. What occurred to me the other day to say about poems, then, I have decided now to send to you in writing. Take this and go through it, and if it seems to you to be no worse than the so-called amethysts which some people wear and take beforehand at drinking parties, pass it on to Cleander, and get a head start on his nature, since it is never sluggish but everywhere vehement and keen-sighted, and is the more easily led by such things.
In the octopus's head there is something bad, and also something good: it is that while it is most pleasant to eat, it produces troubled sleep, filling one with turbulent and strange visions, so they say. So too in poetry there is much that is sweet and nourishing for a young soul, but no less that is disturbing and deranging, if the hearing of it does not happen to have the right guidance. For it seems that not only about the land of the Egyptians, but also about poetry, one can say that it yields drugs, many good when mixed, and many harmful, to those who use it: "Therein is love, therein desire, therein beguiling converse, which steals away the wits even of the very sensible" — for its power to deceive does not touch those who are utterly simple and thoughtless.
For this reason Simonides, when someone asked him, "Why is it that you don't deceive the Thessalians alone?" answered, "Because they are too ignorant to be deceived by me." And Gorgias called tragedy a deception, in which the one who deceives is more just than the one who does not deceive, and the one who is deceived is wiser than the one who is not deceived. Should we, then, like the men of Ithaca, plaster the ears of the young with some hard and unyielding wax and force them to hoist the Epicurean skiff and flee and steer clear of poetry altogether, or rather set their judgment upright by some correct reasoning and bind it fast, so that it is not carried away by what delights it toward what harms it, and so guide and watch over them?
For not even Lycurgus, the mighty son of Dryas, was of sound mind when, because many men were getting drunk and behaving badly, he went about cutting down the vines, instead of bringing the springs nearer and, as Plato says, chastening "the god who is mad" by means of "another, sober god." For the mixing of water removes the harm of the wine without also removing its usefulness. So let us not, either, cut down or destroy the cultivated vine of the Muses that is poetry; but where its mythical and theatrical element runs riot and grows wild, insolently emboldened by unmixed pleasure toward mere reputation, there let us take hold of it and check and press it back; but where it touches something of the Muses' own grace, and the sweetness and charm of its language is not fruitless or empty, there let us introduce philosophy and mix it in.
For just as the mandrake, growing alongside the vines and passing its power into the wine, makes the intoxication gentler for those who drink it, so poetry, taking its arguments from philosophy and mixing them with the mythical element, renders learning light and welcome to the young. Hence poems are not to be avoided by those who intend to study philosophy; rather, they should study philosophy beforehand by means of poems, becoming accustomed, in what delights them, to seek and love what is useful — and if this is not present, to fight against it and find it distasteful. For this is the beginning of education, and it is likely that, according to Sophocles, if a work is begun well, its ending will be of the same character.
First, then, the young person must be brought to the poems having nothing so well-rehearsed and ready at hand as the saying, "the singers lie about many things," partly willingly and partly unwillingly. Willingly, because for the pleasure and charm of the ear, which most people pursue, they consider truth harsher than falsehood. For truth, since it happens in fact, even if it has an unpleasant ending, does not turn aside from its course; but what is fashioned in words very easily shifts and turns from the painful to the more pleasant. For neither meter nor figure nor grandeur of diction nor timeliness of metaphor nor harmony and arrangement possesses as much seductive charm as a well-woven plot of mythical narrative; but just as in paintings color is more moving than line, because of its lifelike and deceptive quality, so in poems a falsehood mixed with plausibility is more striking and more welcome than a composition, in meter and diction, that lacks story and invention.
For this reason Socrates, when he took up poetry because of certain dreams, was himself, as one who had been throughout his whole life a champion of truth, not persuasive nor naturally gifted as a fashioner of falsehoods; and so he set Aesop's fables to verse, since a poetry without falsehood is no poetry at all. For we know of sacrifices without dancers and without flute-players, but we do not know of a poetry without myth or without falsehood. The verses of Empedocles and Parmenides, the poems on snakebites of Nicander, and the maxims of Theognis are discourses that have borrowed from poetry, as a vehicle, its meter and grandeur, in order to escape being prose.
Whenever, then, something strange and disturbing is said in poems about gods or spirits or virtue by a man of note and reputation, the one who accepts the account as true goes off carried away and has his opinion corrupted, while the one who always remembers and clearly holds on to poetry's sorcery in the matter of falsehood, and is able each time to say to it: "O contrivance more dappled than the lynx, why do you knit your brows in play, and why, deceiving, do you pretend to teach?" — such a one will suffer nothing terrible and believe nothing base, but he will catch out the poet who fears Poseidon and dreads that he will burst open the earth and lay Hades bare, and he will catch out the poet who has Apollo angry on behalf of the foremost of the Achaeans, though it is Apollo himself who, having sung at the feast, having himself been present, having himself spoken these very things, is himself the one who kills him.
He will make Achilles stop weeping for the dead, and Agamemnon too, weeping in the house of Hades and stretching out powerless, feeble hands in longing for life. And if at some point he is thrown into confusion by the emotions and overpowered, drugged as it were, he will not hesitate to say to himself, "But make haste to the light," and "Know all these things, that hereafter you may tell them to your wife" — for this too Homer said gracefully, placing it in the Book of the Dead, implying that it is an audience fit for a woman, on account of its mythical character.
Such, then, are the things that the poets fashion willingly. But there are more things which they do not fashion, but which, believing and holding them as opinions themselves, they smear onto us as falsehood — as, for instance, when Homer says of Zeus: "And he set therein two fates of woeful death, one for Achilles, one for horse-taming Hector; he took it by the middle and raised it, and Hector's appointed day sank down, and he went to the house of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him." Aeschylus fashioned a whole tragedy out of this myth, entitling it The Weighing of Souls, and set before the scales of Zeus, on one side Thetis, on the other Dawn, pleading on behalf of their sons who were fighting. This is plain to everyone: that it is a piece of myth-making and fiction produced for the pleasure or the amazement of the hearer.
But the line "Zeus, who is made steward of war for men," and the line "a god plants a cause in mortals, when he wishes utterly to ruin a house," these are already spoken according to the actual opinion and belief that the poets hold, revealing and passing on to us the delusion and ignorance they themselves have about the gods. Again, the monstrous fabrications concerning descents to the dead, and the arrangements which, with fearful names, contrive apparitions and phantoms of burning rivers and savage regions and grim punishments, do not escape the notice of quite a few people, that there is much of the mythical and the false mixed into them, as a drug is mixed into food.
And neither Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles wrote the following as being persuaded that things really are so: "whence the sluggish rivers of murky night belch forth boundless darkness," and "and they went past the streams of Ocean and the Leucadian rock, and the narrow strait of Hades, and the backward-flowing depth." Yet as many as, lamenting death as pitiable, or the state of being unburied as terrible, have uttered cries of grief and fear, have used such words as: "do not, in going hence, leave me unwept and unburied behind you," and "and the soul, flying from his limbs, went to the house of Hades, bewailing its fate, leaving behind its vigor and youth," and "do not destroy me before my time; for it is sweet to look upon the light; do not force me to see what is beneath the earth" — these are the words of men who have suffered and been captured beforehand by opinion and delusion. For this reason they take hold of us and disturb us all the more, filling us with the very passion and weakness out of which they are said to arise.
Against these things, then, let us again prepare, having it ready at hand from the very start, that poetry is not very much concerned with the truth, and that the truth in these matters is, even for those whose whole business is nothing else but the knowledge and understanding of what is, extremely difficult to hunt down and to grasp, as they themselves admit. Let this saying of Empedocles be at hand: "Thus these things are neither to be seen nor heard by men, nor grasped by the mind"; and this of Xenophanes... and "No man has ever known, nor will any man know, the clear truth about the gods and about all the things of which I speak"; and, by Zeus, the words of Socrates in Plato, disclaiming any knowledge about these matters. For they will pay less heed to the poets as though they knew something about these things, when they see the philosophers themselves growing dizzy in dealing with them.
We will make him still more attentive by explaining to him, as we bring him to the poems, that the poetic art is an art of imitation and a power the counterpart of painting. And let him not merely have heard that oft-repeated saying, that poetry is painting that speaks, and painting is poetry that is silent; but beyond this let us teach him that when we see a painted lizard or ape or the face of Thersites, we take pleasure and marvel at it not as something beautiful but as something lifelike. For in its essence what is ugly cannot become beautiful; but the imitation, whether it achieves its likeness in dealing with something base or with something good, is praised. And conversely, if it presents a beautiful image of an ugly body, it has failed to render what is fitting and likely.
Some painters, too, depict strange actions, as Timomachus painted Medea's killing of her children, and Theon the matricide of Orestes, and Parrhasius the pretended madness of Odysseus, and Chaerephanes the licentious relations of women with men. In these especially the young must be trained, being taught that we do not praise the action which has been the subject of the imitation, but the art, if it has fittingly imitated the thing set before it. Since, then, poetry too often reports, by way of imitation, base deeds and wicked passions and characters, the young person must not accept as true, nor approve as good, what is admired and successfully achieved in such passages, but must praise it only as being fitted and appropriate to the character portrayed.
For just as we are troubled and displeased when we hear the grunting of a pig, the creaking of a pulley, and the howling of winds and the crashing of the sea, but take pleasure in it if someone imitates these things convincingly, as Parmenon did the pig and Theodorus the pulleys; and just as we flee from a diseased and festering man as an unpleasant sight, yet delight to look at Aristophon's Philoctetes and Silanion's Jocasta, made to resemble people wasting away and dying — in the same way, the young person, when reading what Thersites the jester, or Sisyphus the seducer, or Batrachus the pimp, is made to say or do, should be taught to praise the power and art that imitates these things, but to reject and censure the dispositions and actions that they imitate as being corrupting.
For it is not the same thing to imitate something beautiful and to imitate something well; for to do it well is to do it fittingly and appropriately, and things fitting and appropriate to shameful subjects are themselves shameful. Indeed, the sandals of Damonidas the lame man, which, when he lost them, he prayed might fit the feet of the thief, were poor things, yet they suited that man. And so with: "If wrong must be done at all, it is most noble to do wrong for the sake of a kingdom," and "claim for yourself the reputation of justice, but let your deeds be those of the man who does everything for gain — there the profit lies, and the dowry too — shall I not take it? Is life possible for me if I scorn a whole talent? Shall I get any sleep if I let it go? Shall I not pay the penalty even in Hades for having sinned against a talent of silver?" — these are wicked and false sentiments, but fitting for Eteocles and Ixion and an old money-lender.
If, then, we remind the children that the poets do not write these things in praise or approval, but attach what is strange and base to base and strange characters and persons, they will not be harmed by the reputation of the poets. On the contrary, the suspicion cast on the character discredits both the deed and the word alike, as being base speech and base action from a base source. Such is also the case of the sleeping together of Paris, when he has run away from the battle; for by making no other man in the world sleep with a woman by day except the unrestrained and adulterous one, Homer plainly puts such incontinence in a shameful and blameworthy light. And in these things...
We must pay very close attention to whether the poet himself gives some indication, in what he says, that he disapproves of it. Take Menander in the prologue of the Thais: he has made her sing, "Sing me such a one, goddess, bold," fair to look at yet also persuasive, wronging, shutting her door, forever asking for more, loving no one, but always pretending to. Homer, best of all, has made use of this device: for he discredits in advance the base things that are said, and vouches beforehand for the good ones. He vouches for the good in this way: "at once he spoke a gentle and cunning word," and "drawing near he checked him with mild words"; and by discrediting in advance he all but calls witnesses and openly declares that such things should be neither followed nor heeded, as being strange and base. For instance, when he is about to narrate how Agamemnon dealt harshly with the priest, he has said beforehand, "it did not please the heart of Atreus' son Agamemnon," but "he sent him away roughly" — that is, savagely and arrogantly and beyond what was fitting. And to Achilles he assigns the bold words — "you heavy with wine, having the eyes of a dog but the heart of a deer" — having first stated his own judgment: "the son of Peleus in turn addressed the son of Atreus with harsh words, and his anger had not yet ceased." For it is likely that nothing said in anger and with harshness is fair.
So too with deeds: "and he devised shameful deeds against noble Hector, stretching him out prone beside the bier of Menoetius' son." And he makes good use of comments as well, bringing to bear, as it were, his own private verdict on what is done or said — as in the case of Ares' adultery, where he makes the gods say, "evil deeds do not prosper: the slow overtakes the swift"; and in the case of Hector's arrogance and boastfulness, "so he spoke in prayer, but the lady Hera felt indignation"; and in the case of Pandarus' bowshot, "so spoke Athena, and she persuaded his witless mind." These, then, are pronouncements and judgments upon the sayings, plain for anyone attentive to see. But other lessons the poet provides from the very facts themselves — just as Euripides is said to have replied to those who reviled Ixion as impious and vile: "I did not, however, bring him off the stage before nailing him to the wheel." In Homer this kind of instruction is passed over in silence, yet it contains a helpful reflection, especially concerning the most impugned myths, which some people, forcing and twisting them by what were once called "undermeanings" and are now called "allegories," claim mean this: that Aphrodite is said to commit adultery with Ares because when the star of Ares comes into conjunction with that of Aphrodite, it produces adulterous births, and this does not escape notice when the Sun rises upon them and catches them out; and that Hera's adorning of herself for Zeus and her enchantments with the girdle mean some purification of the air as it draws near the fiery element — as if the poet himself did not offer solutions to these things.
For in the passage about Aphrodite he teaches attentive readers that base music and wicked songs and stories taking up depraved subjects produce licentious characters and unmanly lives, and men enamored of luxury, softness, and effeminacy — "changes of raiment, warm baths, and beds." That is why he has made Odysseus command the singer, "Come now, change your song, and sing of the ordering of the horse" — excellently suggesting that musicians and poets ought to take their subjects from what the wise and sensible approve. And in the passage about Hera he has shown, as well as possible, that intercourse with men achieved through drugs, sorcery, and deceit, and the favor it brings, is not only fleeting, quickly sated, and unstable, but even turns to hatred and anger once the pleasure has withered away. For such are Zeus's threats and words to her: "so that you may see whether love and the bed profit you at all, into which you came from among the gods and deceived me." For indeed the very disposition to base deeds, and their imitation, if it renders in return the shame and harm that attend them, benefits rather than harms the hearer.
Philosophers, at any rate, use examples, admonishing and instructing from things already established; poets do the very same, though they themselves fashion the events and weave the stories. Melanthius, whether in jest or in earnest, used to say that the city of the Athenians was preserved by the discord and turmoil of its orators, since not everyone leaned toward the same side, but a counterpull arose against whatever was doing harm, out of the very disagreement among the statesmen. So too the poets' inconsistencies with themselves, referring the claim of truth back and forth, do not allow a strong tilt toward what is harmful. Where, then, their placement of things side by side makes the contradictions manifest, we must plead the case for the better side, as in these lines: "in many things, my child, the gods trip men up." — "That is the easiest thing to say, to blame the gods." And again: "though you are rich in gold, these men are not bound to rejoice; it is boorish to be wealthy and know nothing else." — "And why, then, must you, who are going to die, offer sacrifice? No labor is better than piety toward the gods." Such passages have their solutions ready at hand, provided that, as has been said, we steer the young toward the better judgment. But whatever is said perversely and is not immediately resolved must be countered by setting it against things said elsewhere by the same poets to the contrary effect, without being vexed or angry at the poet, but receiving it good-humoredly and with a touch of play.
Take at once, if you will, the Homeric hurlings of the gods against one another, and their wounding at the hands of men, and their quarrels and harsh dealings: "do you know, and can you conceive another story better than this one?" — you do know it, by Zeus, and you can say it: it is put better and more excellently elsewhere: "the gods, living at ease—" and "and in this the blessed gods take pleasure all their days"; and "for so the gods have spun the thread for wretched mortals, to live in grief, while they themselves are free of care." For these are the sound and true opinions about the gods, while those other passages are fashioned to strike men with terror. Again, when Euripides says, "in many forms the gods, being wiser than our devices, trip us up," it is no worse to bear in mind what is better said by the same poet: "if the gods do anything base, they are not gods." And where Pindar has spoken very bitterly and provocatively, "one must, in every deed, darken one's enemy," you yourself nonetheless say that "the sweetness that comes against justice ends in the bitterest outcome"; and Sophocles says, "gain is sweet, even if it comes from lies," yet we have also heard from you that "false words bear no fruit."
And against that other passage about wealth — "for wealth is clever at creeping into the impassable as well as the passable places, even from afar; but a poor man, even meeting with what he desires, could not attain it. Indeed it makes an ugly and ill-named body appear wise of speech, and fair to behold" — one should set against it many of Sophocles' own lines, among them these: "even a man without wealth might, if he thinks rightly, be honored and no worse than a beggar"; and "but what pleasure is there in the many good things, if wicked scheming nurtures the fortunate wealth?" Menander, for his part, on the one hand elevated the love of pleasure and puffed it up for those fervent, passionate lovers, with all his "whoever lives and looks upon the sun we share is a slave to pleasure"; but on the other hand he turned back and redirected us toward the good, and cut off the boldness of licentiousness, saying, "a shameful life is a disgrace, even if it is pleasant." These lines stand opposed to the former ones, yet are better and more useful. Such a juxtaposition and comparison of opposites will do one of two things: it will either lead toward the better, or it will strip away belief in the worse.
And if the poets themselves do not supply solutions for what has been said improperly, it is no worse to set the pronouncements of other esteemed men against them, tipping the scale, as it were, toward the better — as, for instance, when Alexis unsettles some by saying, "the wise man must gather up pleasures; there are but three that truly have the power to benefit life in earnest: eating, drinking, and the enjoyment of Aphrodite; all else must be called mere additions," one must remind them that Socrates said the opposite: that base men live in order to eat and drink, while good men eat and drink in order to live. And against the man who wrote, "villainy is no useless weapon," in effect bidding us to make ourselves somewhat like the villainous, one may set alongside it the saying of Diogenes: for when asked how one might defend oneself against an enemy, he said, "by becoming noble and good oneself."
And Diogenes must also be brought to bear against Sophocles: for he filled many tens of thousands of people with despondency about the mysteries by writing this: "thrice blessed are those among mortals who, having beheld these rites, go to the house of Hades; for to them alone is it given to live there — for the rest, all there is evil." Diogenes, hearing something of this sort, said, "What are you saying? Will Pataecion the thief have a better lot after death than Epaminondas, just because he has been initiated?" For when Timotheus was singing of Artemis in the theater as "maddened, frenzied, prophetic, raging," Cinesias at once retorted, "may you have such a daughter!" Charming too is Bion's remark to Theognis, who says, "every man overcome by poverty can neither say nor do anything; his tongue is bound" — "how then, being poor yourself, do you talk so much nonsense and prattle on at us so?"
One must also not overlook the resources offered by neighboring or surrounding words for the purpose of correction, but rather, just as physicians believe that, although the cantharis beetle is deadly, its feet and wings nonetheless help and dissolve its potency, so too in poems, if some noun or verb lying close by blunts the tendency toward the worse reading, one should seize upon it and further clarify it — as some do with these lines: "this, surely, is a kind of privilege for wretched mortals, to cut off one's hair and let a tear fall from one's cheeks," and "for so the gods have spun the thread for wretched mortals, to live in grief." For he did not simply say, and mean, that a painful life has been spun by the gods for all men alike, but for the foolish and senseless, whom, because of their wickedness, he is accustomed to call "wretched" and "miserable" on account of their pitiable and lamentable condition.
There is, then, another way of shifting the suspicious passages in poems toward the better sense, out of the worse one: it is the one that works through the ordinary meanings of words, and it is in this that the young man ought to be trained more than in the so-called rare glosses. That other pursuit is philological and not unpleasant — knowing, for instance, that "rigedanos" means one who has died a wretched death, since the Macedonians call death "danos," and the Aeolians call victory won through endurance and persistence "kammonia," and the Dryopians call daemons "popoi." But this other kind of knowledge is necessary and useful, if we are to be benefited by poems and not harmed by them: to recognize how the poets use the names of the gods, and again the names of evils and goods, and what they mean when they name "Fortune" and what they mean when they name "Fate," and whether these words are, among the poets, used in a single sense or in many senses, as is true of many other words. For instance, they sometimes use "house" to mean the dwelling — "a house with a high roof" — and sometimes to mean one's substance — "my house is being eaten up."
And "bios" sometimes means life itself — "dark-haired Poseidon weakened his spear-point, begrudging him his life" — and sometimes it means one's property — "others are eating up my livelihood." And the word "alyein" is sometimes used in the sense of being stung and at a loss — "so he spoke, and she went off in distress, and was terribly worn" — and sometimes in the sense of exulting and rejoicing — "are you exulting because you defeated Irus the beggar?" And the word "thoazein" they use to signify either motion, as Euripides does — "a sea-monster darting from the Atlantic sea" — or sitting and being seated, as Sophocles does — "why do you sit crowded here before me on these seats, wreathed with suppliant boughs?" Charming too is the way of appropriating the ordinary meanings of words to the matters at hand, as the grammarians teach, taking each word for a different force, as in: "to praise a small ship, but to place one's cargo in a large one" — for by "praise" is signified "to commend," yet he now uses the very word "to commend" in the sense of "to decline," just as in ordinary usage we say "fare well" and bid someone "rejoice" when we want nothing further from them and are not receiving anything.
In just this way, some say that "the dread Persephone" is spoken of as one who is to be entreated to decline. Preserving, then, this same distinction and discrimination among words in matters greater and more serious, let us begin teaching the young, starting from the gods, that the poets use the names of the gods sometimes referring in thought to those very gods themselves, and sometimes to certain powers of which the gods are the givers and guides, calling them by the same names. Archilochus, for instance, when he prays and says, "hear me, lord Hephaestus, and be gracious to me as I kneel before you as an ally, and grant me such favors as you grant," is clearly invoking the god himself; but when, lamenting his sister's husband who had vanished at sea and had not obtained the customary burial, he says he would have borne the misfortune more moderately "if Hephaestus had tended his head and graceful limbs in clean garments amid the fire," in this way he did not mean the god, but the fire itself.
Again, Euripides, when in an oath he says, "by Zeus among the stars, and by bloody Ares," named the gods themselves; but when Sophocles says, "for blind, women, and seeing nothing, Ares with the boar's face throws all into confusion," one may understand this as referring to war — just as, in turn, when Homer speaks of bronze, "of those now, dark blood spread swift Ares around the fair-flowing Scamander." Since, then, many things are spoken of in this way, one must know and remember that by the name of "Zeus" and "Zen" the poets sometimes mean the god himself, sometimes fortune, and often fate. For when they say, "Father Zeus, ruling from Ida," and "O Zeus, who, they say, is wiser than you?", they mean the god himself; but when they attach the name of Zeus to the causes of all that happens, and say, "he sent forth to Hades many mighty souls—and the will of Zeus was being fulfilled," they mean fate. For the poet does not think that the god himself contrives evils for men, but rather that—
…rightly indicates the necessity inherent in events: that for cities, armies, and generals, if they are prudent, it is fated to prosper and to overcome their enemies, but if, falling into passions and errors, they quarrel with one another and form factions, as these men did, it is fated for them to behave shamefully, to be thrown into confusion, and to fare badly. For it is fated that men reap evil returns for evil counsels. And indeed Hesiod, when he represents Prometheus urging Epimetheus never to accept gifts from Olympian Zeus but to send them back, is using the name of Zeus for the power of fortune; for he has called the good things that come by chance "gifts of Zeus" — riches, marriages, offices, and in general all external goods, the possession of which is unprofitable to those who do not know how to use them well. That is why he thinks that Epimetheus, being foolish, ought to guard against and fear good fortune, since he will be harmed and ruined by it. And again, when he says, "Never, in the face of soul-destroying poverty, bear to reproach a man, poverty that is the gift of the ever-living blessed gods," he here calls what comes by chance "god-given," meaning that it is not right to reproach those who are poor through fortune, but rather to condemn as shameful and disgraceful the poverty that comes from idleness, softness, and extravagance.
For they were not yet using the actual word "fortune," but knowing that the power of the cause which moves about in disorderly and undefined fashion is strong and beyond the guard of human reasoning, they expressed it by the names of the gods — just as we ourselves are accustomed to call certain events, characters, and, by Zeus, even words and men "divine" and "godlike." In this same way, then, most of the things that seem to be said oddly about Zeus must be set right — among them these lines: "For two urns are set upon the floor of Zeus, filled with gifts, the one of blessings, the other of evils"; and "The son of Cronos, throned on high, did not fulfill the oaths, but, plotting evil, ordains woe for both sides"; and "For then indeed there began to roll the beginning of woe for both Trojans and Danaans, through the designs of great Zeus." These are spoken as if about fortune or fate, in which the incalculability of the cause is signified to us, and its being altogether beyond our control. But wherever what happens is fitting, reasonable, and likely, there let us hold that the god is properly named — as in these lines: "but he was passing along the ranks of other men, and he avoided battle with Ajax son of Telamon, for Zeus was indignant with him if he fought with a better man"; and "For Zeus takes thought for the greatest of mortal affairs, but leaves the small ones to other divinities."
One must also pay very close attention to the other names, since they are shifted about and altered by the poets in application to many different matters. Such is the case with the word "virtue." Since it not only makes men sensible, just, and good in deeds and words, but also procures for them, in a reasonable way, reputation and power, on this account people also call reputation and power "virtue," naming them just as they call the fruit of the olive tree "olive" and the fruit of the oak "acorn," using the same name as the tree that bears it. So our young man, whenever he hears such lines as "the gods set sweat before virtue" and "then by their own valor the Danaans broke the ranks" and "if it is right to die, this is a noble way to die, sinking down into virtue as into life itself," should at once suppose that these are said of the best and most divine condition within us, which we understand to be rectitude of reason and the highest point of our rational nature, a settled disposition of the soul in agreement with itself. But when he reads again the lines "Zeus both increases and diminishes virtue in men" and "wealth is attended by virtue and glory," he should not "sit dumbstruck" and awestruck at the rich, as though they possessed virtue as something bought outright with silver, nor suppose that his own good sense is increased or curtailed depending on fortune; rather, let him consider that the poet has used the word "virtue" in place of "reputation," "power," "good fortune," or something similar.
And indeed with the word "badness" (kakotēs) too, poets sometimes mean specifically the vice and wickedness of the soul, as Hesiod does when he says, "badness may be taken in abundance, easily," and sometimes some other kind of affliction or misfortune, as Homer does when he says, "for quickly do mortals grow old in badness." So too one might be deceived about the word "happiness" (eudaimonia), supposing that the poets mean by it what the philosophers mean — the complete possession or acquisition of good things, or the perfection of a life that flows in accordance with nature — rather than using the term loosely, as people often do, calling the rich man "happy" or "blessed," and calling power or reputation "happiness." Homer, for his part, uses the words correctly: "Not indeed rejoicing in these possessions do I hold my rule." So too Menander: "I have great wealth, and am called rich by everyone, but blessed by no one." But Euripides creates a great deal of confusion and disturbance when he says, "May no grievous life of happiness be mine," and "Why do you honor tyranny, a happy injustice?" — unless one follows, as has been said, the metaphorical and loose uses of the words. So much, then, for these matters.
But this next point must be impressed upon the young repeatedly, not just once: that poetry, having imitation as its foundation, employs adornment and brilliance with regard to the actions and characters it presents, yet does not thereby abandon its resemblance to the truth, since the persuasiveness of the imitation lies precisely in its being convincing. That is why the imitation which does not wholly disregard the truth carries along with the actions it depicts signs of both vice and virtue mingled together — as Homer's does, bidding a very fond farewell to much of what the Stoics maintain, who hold that nothing base attaches to virtue and nothing decent to vice, but that the ignorant man is altogether sinful in everything, while the man of refinement acts rightly in everything. Such is what we hear in the philosophical schools; but in actual affairs and in the life of the majority, in accordance with Euripides, "good and evil could not exist apart, but there is some mixture of the two." Poetry, in the absence of truth, makes the greatest use of variety and versatility. For it is the emotional, the unexpected, and the surprising — which produce the greatest astonishment and the greatest delight — that the changes of fortune supply to stories, whereas the simple and untroubled makes for a story without incident. That is why poets do not make the same people always victorious, always prosperous, always successful in everything; nor even do they represent the gods, when they become involved in human affairs, as free from passion and error, so that nowhere does the disturbing and astonishing element go idle, poetry thereby becoming free of danger and devoid of struggle.
This being so, then, let us bring the young man to the poems without his holding such opinions about those fine and grand names, as though the men in question were wise and just, consummate kings and models of every virtue and rectitude. For he will be harmed if he admires everything as great and is awestruck by it, feeling no distaste, and neither listening to nor accepting the poet's censure of them when they act and speak in such ways as: "Would that, O father Zeus, and Athena, and Apollo, not one of all the Trojans might escape death, nor one of the Argives, but that we two alone might survive to loose the sacred headbands of Troy"; and "And I heard the most pitiful voice of Priam's daughter Cassandra, whom crafty Clytemnestra slew beside me"; and "to have union with the concubine, so as to make the old man hate her; her I obeyed, and I did the deed"; and "Father Zeus, no other of the gods is more destructive than you." The young man must not be trained to praise anything of this sort, nor, by inventing plausible excuses and specious digressions for base actions, become himself persuasive and unscrupulous; rather let him think instead that poetry is an imitation of characters and lives, and of men who are not perfect, pure, or altogether blameless, but mixed with passions, false opinions, and ignorance, though through their natural gifts they often change themselves for the better.
For such a disposition and cast of mind in the young man — being roused and sharing the enthusiasm for what is well said and well done, while not accepting the base but feeling distaste for it — will render his listening harmless. But the one who admires everything, makes himself at home with everything, and has enslaved his judgment to the reputation of the heroic names, like those who imitate Plato's stooped shoulders or Aristotle's lisp, will unwittingly become complaisant toward many base things as well. One must not, however, act timidly, as though shuddering and bowing down before everything in a temple out of superstition; rather, one should grow accustomed to declaring boldly, no less than "rightly" and "fittingly," also "not rightly" and "not fittingly." For example: Achilles calls an assembly of the soldiers when they are sick, being more troubled than anyone else by the war's inactivity because of the fame and reputation it brings him in campaigns; and being knowledgeable in medicine and aware that such things naturally come to a crisis on the ninth day, and perceiving that the sickness is not of the usual kind nor arising from common causes, he rises — not to play the demagogue before the crowd, but to become an adviser to the king: "Son of Atreus, now I think we shall be driven back and return home again" — this rightly, moderately, and fittingly. But when the seer says he fears the anger of the most powerful of the Greeks, no longer rightly or moderately does he swear that no one shall lay hands upon him while he lives, adding "not even if you name Agamemnon," showing contempt and disdain for the ruler.
Provoked still further by this, he rushes for his sword intending to kill him, acting rightly neither for what is honorable nor for what is expedient. Then, changing his mind again, "he thrust the great sword back into its sheath, and did not disobey the word of Athena" — rightly and nobly again, in that, though unable to root out his anger entirely, he nevertheless, before doing anything irreparable, changed course and restrained himself, becoming obedient to reason. Again, Agamemnon, in what he does and says at the assembly, is ridiculous, but in the matter concerning Chryseis he is more dignified and more kingly. For while Achilles, when Briseis was being led away, "wept, and sat apart from his companions, withdrawing from them," Agamemnon himself put the woman aboard the ship, handed her over, and sent her away — the very woman he had just said he preferred to his own wedded wife — without doing anything erotic or shameful. And indeed Phoenix, who was cursed by his father because of a concubine, says: "I resolved to kill him with the sharp bronze, but one of the immortals stayed my anger, putting into my mind the talk of the people and the many reproaches of men, so that I might not be called a father-slayer among the Achaeans" — Aristarchus removed these lines out of fear, but they are actually appropriate to the occasion, since Phoenix is teaching Achilles what anger is and what things men dare to do because of passion, when they do not use reason and do not listen to those who try to calm them.
And indeed he brings Meleager on stage as angry with his fellow citizens, and then softened — rightly censuring the passions, while praising as noble and expedient the failure to follow them through, but rather to resist, to master them, and to change one's mind. Here, then, the distinction is clear; but where the poet's intention is unclear, the young man must be guided by drawing distinctions in some such way as this. If Nausicaa, having seen the stranger Odysseus and having experienced toward him the same feeling as Calypso did — being a young girl of luxurious life and of an age for marriage — babbles such things to her handmaids as "Would that such a husband as this might be called mine, dwelling here, and that it might please him to remain here," then her boldness and lack of restraint deserve censure. But if, having discerned the man's character in his words and having admired his encounter with her as full of good sense, she prays to live with such a man rather than with one of the citizens who is merely a sailor or a dancer, this is worthy of admiration.
Again, when Penelope converses with the suitors not inhumanely, and they give her presents of garments and other adornments, while Odysseus is pleased "because he was drawing gifts from them, and beguiling their hearts" — if he takes pleasure in the bribe-taking and in the acquisitiveness itself, he surpasses in procuring even the comic figure of Poliagros, "happy Poliagros, who keeps a heaven-sent, wealth-bearing goat"; but if he supposes he will have them more in his power because of their hope, being confident and not expecting what is to come, then his being pleased and confident makes sense. Likewise with the counting of the treasures which the Phaeacians set ashore with him and then sailed away: if he truly, being in such solitude and in such obscurity and uncertainty about his own circumstances, fears about the goods lest "they may have gone off with some of them aboard their hollow ship," this deserves pity, or, by Zeus, one might rather detest such love of wealth; but if, as some say, being in doubt about whether this is really Ithaca, he thinks the safety of his goods to be proof of the Phaeacians' honesty — this is no poor piece of evidence, and his foresight deserves praise.
Some also censure the very scene of his being set ashore, if it really happened while he was asleep, and say that the Tyrrhenians preserve some tradition that Odysseus was by nature drowsy and for this reason hard to engage in conversation with most people. But if the sleep was not real, but rather, being ashamed to send the Phaeacians away without gifts of hospitality and friendliness, and being unable to escape the notice of his enemies while they were present, he used the pretense as a cover for his difficulty, making himself appear to be sleeping — this interpretation is accepted. And by pointing these things out to the young, we shall not allow their characters to drift toward what is base, but rather shall foster emulation of and preference for what is better, at once assigning blame to some things and praise to others.
This must be done especially in the case of tragedies, which contain persuasive and cunning speeches attached to disreputable and wicked actions. For Sophocles' saying is not altogether true, that "there are no fine words apart from fine deeds"; indeed he himself is accustomed to furnish base characters and outrageous actions with speeches that are charming and humane in their pretexts. His fellow-tent-companion, again, you see has made Phaedra even reproach Theseus, as though it were because of his transgressions that she fell in love with Hippolytus. And he gives similar license to Helen against Hecuba in the Trojan Women, in her view that Hecuba deserves punishment rather, because she bore Paris, the adulterer. None of these things, then, should be considered clever or artful,
...let the young man train himself, and let him not smile approvingly at such ingenious excuse-making, but rather loathe the words even more than the deeds of licentiousness. In every case, moreover, it is useful to seek out the reason for each thing that is said. Cato, while still a small boy, would do whatever his tutor ordered, but he demanded the reason and rationale for the order; poets, by contrast, are not to be believed as one believes tutors or lawgivers, unless the point being made has some reasoning behind it. And it will have one, if it is sound; but if it is base, it will be seen to be empty and foolish. Yet most people harshly demand reasons for trivial statements of this sort and ask searchingly how such lines as 'never set the wine-jug above the mixing-bowl for those who are drinking' or 'whatever man comes upon another's chariot from his own, let him reach out his spear' are meant — while they accept without any scrutiny the persuasiveness of far weightier statements, such as these: 'it enslaves a man, however bold his spirit, when he is conscious of the wrongdoing of his mother or father,' and 'the man who has fared badly ought to think small of himself' — even though such lines touch character and disturb people's lives, implanting base judgments and ignoble opinions in them, unless we are in the habit of saying, in response to each one, 'Why ought the man who has fared badly think small of himself, rather than rise up against fortune and hold himself high and unbowed? And why, if I am born of a base and foolish father but am myself good and prudent, should it not be fitting for me to think highly of myself because of my own virtue, but instead be cowed and humbled on account of my father's ignorance?' For the one who meets such lines in this way, standing his ground, and who does not surrender himself to every argument as if carried sideways by a gust of wind, but believes it right to hold to the saying, 'a foolish man loves to be startled by every argument,' will parry off many things that are said neither truthfully nor usefully.
This much, then, will render the hearing of poetry harmless. But since, just as among the leaves and thriving shoots of a vine the fruit is often hidden and escapes notice, shaded over as it is, so too in poetic diction and elaborately woven myths much that is beneficial and useful eludes the young reader — and he must not suffer this, but must avoid wandering away from the matters at hand, and must cling especially to whatever tends toward virtue and is capable of shaping character — it is no bad thing to go through these points too briefly, touching on the subject matter only in outline, and leaving lengthy treatments, elaborate constructions, and a crowd of examples to those who write in a more showy, display-oriented manner.
First, then, the young man, distinguishing what is good from what is base, should attend also to the characters to whom the things said are attributed, and to the actions which the poet assigns, fittingly, to each of the two sorts. For example, Achilles says to Agamemnon, though speaking in anger, 'for I shall never again have a prize equal to yours, whenever the Achaeans sack some well-inhabited citadel of the Trojans' — whereas Thersites, railing at the very same man, says, 'your huts are full of bronze, and there are many choice women in your huts, whom we Achaeans give to you first of all, whenever we take a citadel.' And again Achilles says, 'if only Zeus should somewhere grant that the well-walled city of Troy be sacked,' while Thersites says, 'whomever I lead off in bonds, or any other of the Achaeans.'
Again, when Agamemnon, in his review of the troops, rebuked Diomedes, Diomedes said nothing in reply, out of respect for 'the rebuke of a revered king'; but Sthenelus, a man of no account, said, 'Son of Atreus, do not lie, since you know well how to speak the truth — we declare ourselves to be far better men than our fathers.' This difference, if not overlooked, will teach the young man to regard freedom from conceit and moderation as admirable, and to be wary of boastfulness and self-praise as base.
It is also useful to note Agamemnon's own behavior here: he passed by Sthenelus without a word, but did not neglect Odysseus — instead he answered him and addressed him, 'so that he might know he was angry; and then again he took up his speech.' For to defend oneself to everyone is obsequious and beneath one's dignity, while to despise everyone is arrogant and foolish.
Diomedes behaves best of all: during the battle he keeps silent while being spoken ill of by the king, but after the battle he speaks his mind freely to him, saying, 'first you reproached my courage among the Danaans.' It is also good not to pass over the difference between a prudent man and a boastful seer. Calchas failed to grasp the right occasion, but before the assembled crowd made nothing of accusing the king of having brought the plague upon them; Nestor, on the other hand, wishing to introduce a proposal for reconciliation with Achilles, and not wanting to seem to be slandering Agamemnon before the multitude as one who had erred and acted out of anger, said instead, 'give a feast for the elders — that is fitting, not at all improper; and when many are gathered, you will follow the man who gives the best counsel.' And after the meal he sends out the envoys — for this was a correction of the error, whereas the other course would have been accusation and insult.
Further, one must also observe the differences characteristic of different peoples, which are of the following kind. The Trojans advance with shouting and boldness, while the Achaeans advance in silence, fearing their commanders — for to fear one's leaders while the enemy is close at hand is a sign both of courage and of discipline. Hence Plato trains men to fear blame and disgrace more than toil and danger, while Cato used to say that he loved men who blush more than men who go pale.
There is also a character distinctive of the way different men make promises. Dolon promises, 'for I shall go straight through the army until I reach Agamemnon's ship,' whereas Diomedes promises nothing, but says he would be less afraid if sent along with another man. Forethought, then, is Greek and refined, whereas rashness is barbarian and base; and one ought to emulate the one and be displeased by the other.
There is also a certain not unprofitable observation to be made concerning the feeling shown toward the Trojans and toward Hector, when Ajax is about to fight him in single combat. Aeschylus, when a boxer was struck in the face at the Isthmian games and a shout went up from the crowd, said, 'what a thing training is — the spectators shout, but the man who was struck stays silent.' So too, when the poet says that as Ajax's armor made him shine, the Greeks rejoiced to see it, 'but a terrible trembling came over the limbs of every Trojan, and Hector's own heart pounded within his breast,' who would not admire the difference? The heart of the man actually in danger merely beats, as though he were only about to wrestle or run a race, by Zeus — but the bodies of the spectators tremble and throb from goodwill and fear on behalf of their champion.
Here too one should observe the difference between the best man and the worst. Thersites 'was most hateful to Achilles above all, and to Odysseus,' whereas Ajax was always dear to Achilles, and says of him to Hector, 'now indeed you will know clearly, all on your own, what other champions there are besides among the Danaans, apart from Achilles, breaker of men, the lion-hearted' — and this is a eulogy of Achilles; but what follows is spoken usefully on behalf of everyone: 'we are the sort of men who could meet you, and many of us too' — showing himself to be neither the only nor the best, but one capable, along with many others, of defending equally well.
This much, then, is enough concerning such differences, unless we wish to add this point as well: that many of the Trojans have been taken captive alive, but none of the Achaeans; and some of the Trojans have thrown themselves at the feet of their enemies — Adrastus, the sons of Antimachus, Lycaon, and Hector himself, begging for the burial of his body from Achilles — but none of the Achaeans has done so, since supplicating and grovelling in contests of arms is barbarian, while it is Greek to conquer fighting or to die.
Since, just as in pastures the bee pursues the flower, the goat the young shoot, the pig the root, and other animals the seed and the fruit, so too in the reading of poems one man plucks out the narrative, another clings to the beauty and craftsmanship of the words — as Aristophanes says of Euripides, 'for I make use of the roundness of his very mouth' — while others attend to what is said usefully with a view to character. It is to these last that our discussion is now addressed; let us remind them that it is a strange thing if the lover of stories does not miss what is told in a novel and extraordinary way, and the lover of language does not let slip what is expressed with purity and rhetorical skill, but the man who is ambitious for honor and love of beauty, and who takes up poems not for amusement but for education, listens lazily and carelessly to what is proclaimed concerning courage or self-control or justice — such as these lines: 'Son of Tydeus, what has come over us, that we have forgotten our furious valor? Come now, dear friend, stand by me; for it will indeed be a disgrace if crest-waving Hector takes the ships.' For to see the most prudent man, in the midst of danger of being destroyed and perishing along with everyone else, fearing disgrace and reproach rather than death, will instill in the young man a passionate devotion to virtue.
And by the line 'Athena rejoiced in the prudent, just man,' the poet supplies this same reflection, representing the goddess as rejoicing not in a rich man, nor in one handsome of body, nor in a strong one, but in a prudent and just man; and again, when she says of Odysseus that she does not overlook or abandon him 'because he is courteous and quick of mind and sensible,' she shows that virtue alone among our qualities is dear to the gods and divine — if indeed like things are by nature pleasing to like.
And since, though mastering one's anger seems and is a great thing, it is a still greater thing to guard against and take forethought so as not to fall into anger at all or be overcome by it, this too must be pointed out to readers, not carelessly: that Achilles, though not inclined to forbearance nor gentle, bids Priam keep quiet and not provoke him, thus: 'Provoke me no longer now, old man; I myself intend to release Hector to you, for a messenger came to me from Zeus. Do not, old man — I will not allow even you yourself into my hut, suppliant though you are, lest I transgress the commands of Zeus.' And having washed Hector's body and laid it out properly, he himself places it on the wagon before it can be seen by his father in its mangled state — lest the old man, seeing his son, be unable to hold back his wrath in his grieving heart, and Achilles' own heart be stirred and he kill him, thereby transgressing the commands of Zeus.
For it is a mark of remarkable foresight that a man prone to anger, naturally harsh and passionate, should not fail to notice this about himself, but should guard against and watch out for the occasions of it, and forestall them far in advance by reasoning, so that he will not fall into that passion even unwillingly.
In the same way, the man fond of wine must guard himself against drunkenness, and the man prone to love must guard himself against passion — just as Agesilaus would not endure being kissed by the handsome youth who approached him, and Cyrus did not even dare to look upon Panthea, whereas uneducated men, on the contrary, gather kindling for their passions and expose themselves precisely to those things toward which they are most prone to slip and fail.
Odysseus not only restrains himself when angered, but also, perceiving from what Telemachus says that he is harsh and hates wrongdoing, blunts his edge and prepares him well in advance to keep quiet and endure, bidding him: 'and if they dishonor me throughout the house, let your own dear heart endure it, though I suffer ill, even if they drag me by the feet through the house to the door, or hit me with missiles; you, watching, must endure it.' For just as horses are not reined in during the actual races but before the races, so too men who are hard to restrain in the face of terrors, and high-spirited, are led into contests only after being taken in hand and prepared in advance by reasoning.
One must also not listen carelessly to the names used, but should reject the playful ingenuity of Cleanthes; for he sometimes indulges in irony, pretending to explain 'Zeus, father, ruling from Ida' and 'Zeus, lord of Dodona,' bidding that they be read as one and the same, on the ground that the vapor rising from the earth, because of its dispersal, is 'Ana-dodonaean.' Chrysippus too is often tediously subtle in many places, not playing but forcing implausible ingenuities, straining to make 'wide-browed son of Cronus' mean the one skilled in dialectic and preeminent in the power of reasoning. It is better to leave such matters to the grammarians and instead press upon those points which combine usefulness with plausibility, such as 'nor did my spirit bid me otherwise, since I learned to be noble' and 'for he knew how to be gentle to all' — for by showing that courage is something learned, and by holding that dealing with people affectionately and graciously comes from knowledge and follows from reason, the poet urges us not to neglect ourselves, but to learn what is good and attend to those who teach, on the ground that both clumsiness and cowardice are ignorance and lack of understanding.
Very much in harmony with these are also the words he speaks concerning Zeus and Poseidon: 'truly the two of us are of one stock and one lineage, yet Zeus was born first and knows more' — for the poet shows that prudence is the most divine and most kingly of qualities, in which he places the greatest superiority of Zeus, since he believes that the other virtues follow from it as well.
At the same time, the young man must be trained to listen alertly to passages such as these: 'he will not tell a lie, for he is a very prudent man,' and 'Antilochus, you who were once so prudent, what have you done? You have shamed my valor and harmed my horses,' and 'Glaucus, why, being such a man, have you spoken so arrogantly? My friend, I truly thought you were wiser in mind than others' — teaching that prudent men neither lie, nor fight unfairly in contests, nor accuse others undeservedly.
And by saying that Pandarus was persuaded, through folly, to violate the oaths, the poet makes it clear that he does not think a prudent man would ever act unjustly. Similar lessons can also be shown concerning self-control, by drawing attention to lines such as these: 'and the wife of Proetus, divine Anteia, fell madly in love with him, desiring to unite with him in secret intimacy; but she could not persuade the wise-hearted Bellerophon, whose thoughts were set on what was good,' and 'she indeed at first refused the shameful deed, divine Clytemnestra, for she was possessed of a good mind.'
In these passages, then, the poet attributes the cause of self-control to prudence; while in his exhortations before battles he repeatedly says such things as, 'shame, o Lycians! Where are you fleeing? Now be swift and...
...but lay to heart, each of you, shame and indignation, for indeed a great battle has arisen." Self-controlled men, it seems, become brave precisely because, by feeling shame at what is base, they are able to master their pleasures and to stand firm against dangers. Starting from this very point, Timotheus was not wrong when, in his Persians, he exhorted the Greeks: "Revere shame, ally of war-loving valor." Aeschylus too, on the subject of
caring for one's reputation without vanity, and of not being carried away or puffed up by the praises of the crowd, places this under the heading of prudence when he writes of Amphiaraus: "For he wishes not to seem best but to be, reaping a deep furrow through his mind, from which noble counsels spring." For to be great-minded on the strength of oneself and of one's own truly excellent disposition belongs to a man of sense.
Since everything, then, is referred back to prudence, it is shown that every form of virtue arises out of reason and teaching. The bee, by nature, finds in the sharpest flowers and the roughest thorns the smoothest and most useful honey; so too children, if rightly nourished on poetry, will manage to draw something useful and beneficial even from lines that carry base and strange suspicions.
Take Agamemnon, for instance: he is at once made suspect, as a man who, for a bribe, let off from the campaign that rich fellow who had given him the mare Aithe as a gift, so that he might not have to follow him to windy Ilion but might stay behind and enjoy himself at home—"for Zeus had given him great wealth." Yet, as Aristotle says, he acted rightly in preferring a good horse to a man of that sort; for
"a cowardly, spiritless man, dissolved by wealth and softness, is not worth a dog, no, by Zeus, nor even a donkey." Again, Thetis seems most shamefully to call her son to pleasures and to remind him of the delights of love. But here too one must set alongside it Achilles' self-restraint: although he loves Briseis, who has come back to him, and though he knows the end of his life is near, he does not hasten toward
the enjoyment of pleasures, nor, like most men, does he mourn his friend in idleness and in neglect of his duties; rather, he abstains from pleasures because of his grief, yet remains active in deeds and in command. Again, Archilochus is not praised for grieving over the man whose sister was destroyed at sea, while planning to fight his grief with wine and revelry. Yet the reason he gave is not without sense:
"for neither by weeping shall I heal it, nor shall I make it worse by pursuing delights and festivities." For if he supposed he would do nothing worse by pursuing delights and festivities, how will our present circumstances be any the worse for us who philosophize, and engage in public affairs, and go up to the marketplace, and go down to the Academy, and attend to farming? Hence the practice of amending such lines is not ill employed, a practice which
both Cleanthes and Antisthenes used. The latter, seeing the Athenians applauding loudly in the theater at "What is shameful, if it does not seem so to those who practice it?", at once countered it: "the shameful is shameful, whether it seems so or not." And Cleanthes, on the subject of wealth, rewrote "to give one's body to friends, and, should it fall into sickness, to save it by expense," thus: "to give one's body to whores,
and, should it fall into sickness, to ruin it by expense." And Zeno, correcting the line of Sophocles, "whoever goes to a tyrant's court is his slave, even though he came there free," rewrote it as "he is not a slave, if he came there free," thereby making "free" signify the fearless, high-minded, and unhumbled man. What, then, prevents us too from urging the young toward what is better by such rephrasings,
making use of what is said in some such fashion as this? "This is what men should envy: that the bow of one's care fall upon what one wishes." No—rather, "that the bow of one's care fall upon what is advantageous." For to want and to obtain what one ought not is pitiable and not to be envied. And: "not upon every good thing did Atreus beget you, Agamemnon; you must both rejoice and grieve"—
no, by Zeus, we shall say instead: "you must rejoice, and not grieve, when you obtain what is moderate; for not upon every good thing did Atreus beget you, Agamemnon." "Alas, this by now is a god-sent evil among men, when one knows the good but does not act on it." It is indeed bestial, irrational, and pitiable for a man who knows the better course to be led by the worse through lack of self-control and softness. "It is the speaker's character that persuades,
not his argument." Rather: "character, and argument, or character working through argument"—just as a rider works through the bit and a helmsman through the rudder, virtue possessing no instrument so humane and so akin to itself as reason. "Does it incline more to the female than to the male? Wherever beauty is present, it is impartial." It would have been better to say, "wherever self-control is present, it is impartial"—
truly so, and evenly balanced; whereas the man swayed this way and that by pleasure and by youthful bloom is left-handed and unsteady. "Fear of the divine belongs to the self-controlled among mortals." And yet not at all—rather, "confidence in the divine belongs to the self-controlled among mortals," while fear belongs to the senseless, the foolish, and the thankless, because they regard with suspicion, as something harmful, the very power and source of every good, and are afraid of it.
Such, then, is the kind of correction in question. But the further use one may make of such sayings was rightly pointed out by Chrysippus: that one must transfer and carry over their usefulness to things of the same kind. For Hesiod, when he says, "not even an ox would perish, were it not for a bad neighbor," says the same, in effect, about a dog and about a donkey, and about everything else alike that is capable of perishing.
And again, when Euripides says, "who is a slave, if he takes no thought of death?", one must understand that he has said the same thing about pain and about disease. For just as physicians, having learned the power of a drug suited to one disease, transfer it and apply it to everything similar, so too a saying capable of being made common and put to public use ought not to be left tied narrowly to one single matter,
but should be set in motion toward everything of the same kind; and the young should be trained to perceive this commonality and to transfer swiftly what applies, practicing and exercising their quickness of perception on many examples, so that when Menander says, "blessed is the man who has both substance and sense," they may suppose this said also of reputation, of leadership, and of the power of eloquence; and likewise the rebuke addressed to
Achilles, sitting among the maidens on Scyros, by Odysseus—"But you, who quench the bright light of your line, do you card wool, born as you are of the noblest of the Greeks?"—they should suppose is meant also for the prodigal, and for the shamefully greedy man, and for the careless and uneducated man: "You drink, born of the noblest of the Greeks," or "you gamble at dice, or bet on quails, or keep a shop, or lend at usury,
thinking nothing great and nothing worthy of your noble birth." Do not say "wealth"—"I do not marvel at a possession which even the basest man readily acquires." Then do not say "reputation" either, nor "bodily beauty," nor "a general's cloak," nor "a priest's crown," things which we see even the basest men obtaining. For cowardice bears shameful children, and, yes, by Zeus, so do licentiousness, superstition, and envy,
and all the other diseases of the soul besides. And Homer has spoken most aptly in "Paris, best in looks" and "Hector, best in looks"—for he shows this to be worthy of censure and reproach, in one who has nothing better to offer than good looks. This too must be applied to similar cases, checking those who think highly of themselves over things worth nothing, and teaching the young to regard as an insult and a reproach "best at making money," and
"best at dining," and "best among slaves or pack-animals," and, by Zeus, even the bare word "best" said straightaway on its own—for one ought to pursue eminence starting from noble things, being first among the first and great among the greatest; whereas a reputation drawn from small and trivial things is inglorious and unworthy of ambition. This is brought home to us at once by the example
one finds in surveying the terms of censure and of praise, above all in Homer's poems: for it becomes strikingly clear from them that bodily and fortuitous advantages are not to be reckoned worthy of great concern. For, in the first place, in their greetings and forms of address, they do not call men handsome, or rich, or strong, but use such honorific epithets as "Zeus-born son of Laertes, resourceful Odysseus," and "Hector, son of Priam, equal to Zeus in counsel,"
and "Achilles, son of Peleus, great glory of the Achaeans," and "noble son of Menoetius, dear to my heart." But then, when they revile one another, they touch on nothing bodily at all, but direct their censures at faults: "heavy with wine, with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer," and "wretched in strife, ill-counseled fool," and "Idomeneus, why do you boast so before your time? It does not become you to play the braggart," and "wretched in speech, blustering oaf"—
and finally Thersites is reviled by Odysseus not as lame, or bald, or hunchbacked, but as "confused of speech"; whereas Hephaestus, though lame, is addressed by his own mother in affection, on account of that very lameness, as "Rise up, my crook-footed child." Thus Homer mocks those who feel shame over lameness or blindness, holding that what is not disgraceful should not be blamed, and that what comes about not through our own fault but by chance is not disgraceful either.
Two great benefits, then, accrue to those carefully trained to listen to poetry in this way: the one tending toward moderation—not to reproach anyone harshly and thoughtlessly for his fortune; the other tending toward greatness of spirit—that when they themselves meet with reversals of fortune, they not be humbled or disturbed, but bear mockery, abuse, and ridicule with equanimity, keeping especially ready at hand the saying of Philemon: "nothing is sweeter, nor more in tune, than to be able to bear being reviled."
But if someone appears actually to need correction, one should take hold of his faults and his passions—just as the tragic Adrastus did when Alcmaeon said to him, "you are born kin to a murderous woman," and he replied, "but you, with your own hand, killed the mother who bore you." For just as those who beat clothing do not touch the body within, so those who reproach certain misfortunes or low birth are directing their blows at what is external,
emptily and thoughtlessly, without touching the soul or the things that truly stand in need of correction and of biting reproof. And just as before, against base and harmful poetry, we set in array the sayings and maxims of famous statesmen, and thereby seemed to undermine and check belief in the poets, so too, whatever we find among them that is fine and useful, we ought to nurture and strengthen with the demonstrations
and testimonies of the philosophers, crediting the discovery to those philosophers—for this is both just and beneficial, since belief gains in strength and authority when what is said on the stage, sung to the lyre, and rehearsed in school agrees with the doctrines of Pythagoras and of Plato, and when the precepts of Chilon and of Bias lead to the same conclusions as those childhood readings. Hence
one must point out, and not merely in passing, that "my child, deeds of war are not given to you; rather you must pursue the lovely deeds of marriage" is no different from "Zeus is jealous of you, if you fight with a better man"—it carries the very same thought. And "fools, who do not know how much more the half is than the whole" is the same as "an evil counsel is worst for the one who counseled it"—this is identical
with Plato's doctrines in the Gorgias and the Republic, concerning the claim that "doing wrong is worse than suffering wrong," and that to do evil is more harmful than to suffer it. One must add to this, too, the confident line of Aeschylus, "toil has no long duration at its peak," for this is the very thing constantly repeated and admired as coming from Epicurus, namely that
"great pains bring a swift end, while long-lasting ones carry no great weight." Of these two sayings, Aeschylus stated the one plainly, while the other lies close beside what he said: for if the toil that is great and intense does not last, then what does last is not great, nor hard to endure. And as for the words of Thespis, these: "you see that Zeus is foremost among the gods in this, that he practices no falsehood, no boasting,
and no foolish laughter"—how does this differ from "the divine is set far apart from pleasure and pain," as Plato used to say? And "let us affirm that virtue holds a glory to be trusted; but wealth keeps company even with cowards," a saying of Bacchylides; and again, similarly, from Euripides: "and I count nothing more venerable
than self-control, since it is always found among the good"—and "you strive to honor wealth, and think that by it you will achieve virtue, yet, for all your noble company, you will sit there unblessed"—is this not a demonstration of what the philosophers say about wealth and about external goods, namely that apart from virtue they are useless and unprofitable even to those who possess them? For to connect and align these lines so closely with philosophical doctrines draws the poems out
of the realm of myth and of the theatrical mask, and lends weight to them as things usefully said; moreover, it opens up in advance and sets in motion beforehand the young person's soul toward the arguments of philosophy. For he then comes to those arguments not wholly untasted of them, nor unaccustomed to hearing them, nor uncritically full only of what he has always heard from his mother and his nurse, and, by Zeus, from his father and his tutor—people who count the rich blessed and honor them,
while shuddering at death and at toil, who regard virtue as nothing to be envied, and who think nothing matters apart from money and reputation. When such young people hear the philosophers saying the opposite of all this, at first bewilderment, confusion, and astonishment seize them, and they neither accept it nor endure it, unless, as though about to see the sun after long being in darkness, they have first grown accustomed, in a kind of dim, blended light—truth mixed with myth—
a gentle radiance, to look steadily at such things without discomfort and without turning away. For having already heard it in poetry, and having already read it, that one should mourn for the one who is born, considering into how many evils he is coming, but should send off the dead man, who has ceased from his toils, rejoicing and with words of good omen, from the house; and "for what more, mortals, do we need than these two things only, the fruit of Demeter and a draught of water?"; and "O tyranny, dear to barbarian men"; and
"the prosperity of mortals"—those who are troubled least by such things become less disturbed and less resentful when they hear from the philosophers that "death is nothing to us," and that "the wealth that nature requires has its limits," and that "happiness and blessedness lie not in abundance of money, nor in bulk of possessions, nor in any offices or positions of power, but in freedom from pain, in gentleness of the passions, and in a disposition of soul in accordance with...
...that is defined according to nature."
For these reasons, then, and because of everything said before, the young man needs good guidance in his reading, so that, rather than being prejudiced beforehand, he may instead be prepared in advance — made well-disposed, friendly, and akin to philosophy by poetry, and so sent forward toward it.