Transcriber’s notes:
Italic text is marked _thus_.
The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
[Illustration:
_Tiberius and Agrippina._
_From the painting by Peter Paul Rubens._]
PLUTARCH’S ESSAYS AND MISCELLANIES
Comprising all his Works Collected
under the Title of “Morals” · Translated
from the Greek by Several Hands
Corrected and Revised by WILLIAM
W. GOODWIN, Ph.D., Professor of
Greek Literature in Harvard University
In Five Volumes · Volume Three
[Illustration: HONOS ET VIRTVS]
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · MCMXI
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Copyright, 1898, 1905,
By LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
Printers
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME THIRD.
WITH THE TRANSLATORS’ NAMES.
WHETHER 'TWERE RIGHTLY SAID, LIVE CONCEALED.
BY CHARLES WHITAKER, ESQUIRE, SOMETIME FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE IN
OXFORD.
He who said this had no mind to live concealed, 3. Such men strive
hard to be known, 3. Even a bad man ought not to withdraw from the
notice of others, 4. It is a loss to the world, if virtuous men live
concealed, 5. If brave and good men become known, they are examples
to others, 6. Virtue by use grows bright; but human abilities,
unemployed, go to decay, 7. Our life and all our faculties were given
to be used, and to make us known, 8. Only a vicious, useless life
should be forgotten, 10.
AN ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWIXT ARISTOPHANES AND
MENANDER
BY WILLIAM BAXTER, GENT.
Aristophanes suits low and vulgar persons; Menander the men of
culture; the style of Aristophanes lacks fitness and propriety; it is
harsh, coarse, and obscene; Menander charms us by his elegance and
refinement, 11.
OF BANISHMENT, OR FLYING ONE’S COUNTRY.
BY JOHN PATRICK, OF THE CHARTERHOUSE.
Afflicted persons need to have their grief lightened, not increased,
15. Banishment may not be an evil of itself, but only as the mind
makes it such, 16. If it be an evil, philosophy may help a man to
bear it, 17. If it be an evil, let us consider how much good remains
to balance it, 18. By nature, we have no country, we are citizens
of the world, 18, 19. In whatever part of the world we are, we may
make ourselves at home, 20. It is folly to suppose that we cannot
enjoy life but where we were born, 20. A man of skill and ability
can thrive anywhere, 21. Custom makes every thing and every place
pleasant, 22. Change of scene may afford relief, 23. Happiness is not
limited to place, 24. The Cyclades are places of exile, yet great men
have lived there, 24. Homer commends islands as places of abode, 25.
An island may be a place of much quiet and enjoyment, 25, 26. Few of
the prudent and wise were buried in their own country, 27. Instances
of the fact, 28. Some of the finest human compositions were written
in exile, 29. Instances of this, 29. It is not ignominious to be
banished, 29, 30. Instances produced, 30, 33. Banishment does not
deprive us of our liberty, 31. We are all strangers and pilgrims on
earth; the soul being of heavenly origin, 34.
OF BROTHERLY LOVE
BY JOHN THOMSON, PREBENDARY OF HEREFORD.
Address to two brothers, 36. Nature, by forming some of our most
useful members in pairs, gives a hint of the need of harmony between
brothers, 37. Nature admonishes us to prefer a brother to a stranger,
38. The author’s experience at Rome, 39. To our parents, next to the
gods, is due the highest veneration, 40. Parents are happy in the
union of brothers, and sad at their disagreement, 41. Love between
brothers indicates love to parents, 42. Disaffection between brothers
indicates great wrong somewhere, 43. Brothers, once alienated, can
scarce become true friends again, 44. Brothers must bear with one
another’s failings; they should not expect perfection, 45. If your
brother has given offence to your father, intercede in his behalf,
47. If the father be dead, let justice preside in the division of his
property, 48, 49. An unequal division produces lasting hatred and
envy among brothers, 50, 51. If one brother excel another in talent
or learning, let him treat the other with condescension and kindness,
52. And let not the other indulge envy, 53. Be not jealous of a
brother’s prosperity, 53. Brothers should assist one another, 54. The
elder brother should lead, but not be exacting and overbearing, 56.
The younger should treat the elder with respect and deference, 56,
57. Avoid disagreements about little things, 57. Yield your wishes
for peace’ sake, 58. Beautiful instance of fraternal concord from the
history of Persia, 59. Another from the history of Syria, 60. When a
brother has wronged a brother, let him confess it, 61. Kindness of
Attalus to his brother Eumenes, 62. If brothers disagree, let each
avoid a correspondence with the other’s enemies, 63. Cherish your
brother’s friends, his wife and children, 64-68.
WHEREFORE THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS NOW CEASES TO DELIVER
HER ORACLES IN VERSE.
BY JOHN PHILIPS, GENT.
A walk in Delphi, 69. The statues there; the color of the brass
admired, 70. The Corinthian brass, whence its extraordinary lustre
and beauty, 70, 71. The atmosphere of Delphi, its effect on the brass
of the statues, 72. The ancient oracles of Delphi, whence their
rudeness and coarseness, 73. Could verses so devoid of neatness
and elegance proceed from Apollo? 73. The ideas were supplied by
Apollo: the words came from the priestess, 75. The statue of Hiero at
Delphi: prodigy connected with it, 76. Other similar prodigies, 76.
But these were mere accidents, 77. Strange and unlooked-for events
may happen from natural causes, 78. Even though predicted, it was
not from any foreknowledge of the prophet but only from plausible
conjecture, 78. Conjectures are sometimes verified, 79. Yet there may
be real predictions and actual prophetic inspiration, 80. Instances
given, 80. Frogs and water-snakes: what relation have they to Apollo?
80-82; and why are they represented in the Corinthian Hall at Delphi?
80-82. Why does the Corinthian Hall bear that name? 82. The statue
of Phryne the courtesan, 83. It was no worse to place such a statue
in the temple of Apollo than to fill it with spoils taken in war,
84. Yet statues and offerings are sometimes placed there in token of
gratitude, 85. But why does the Pythian priestess no longer deliver
her oracles in verse? 86. In ancient times philosophers sometimes
spoke in verse, while oracles were sometimes delivered in prose, 87,
88. Instances given, 88, 89. Some oracles are now uttered in verse,
90. A singular anecdote, 90. As the soul acts through the body as its
servant and instrument, so the Deity uses the soul, 91. As the moon
reflects the light of the sun, yet in diminished force, so the Pythia
imperfectly yet really conveys the energy of the Deity, 92. The Deity
uses men according to their ability, 93. The Pythian priestess,
having had a slender education, cannot speak the language of culture
and refinement, 93, 94. The times are much altered from what they
once were. History and philosophy do not now take a poetical form,
95, 96. Poetry has lost its ancient credit, 98. This may account for
the disuse of verse in the Delphic utterances, 98. The ambiguity
of the ancient oracles accounted for, 99. In these times of public
tranquillity there is no need of oracles, 100. Yet let us not blame
the oracle, 103.
OF THOSE SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH
PHILOSOPHERS WERE DELIGHTED.
BY JOHN DOWEL, VICAR OF MELTON MOWBRAY IN LEICESTERSHIRE.
BOOK I. A threefold division of Philosophy, 104. Natural Philosophy:
what is Nature? 105. Difference between a principle and an element?
106. What are principles? 106. Opinions of Thales, Anaximander,
Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Empedocles, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and others, concerning the origin of
things, 107-113. How was the world brought into its present order
and condition? 113. Whether the universe is one? 114. Whence the
knowledge of a Deity? 115. Different orders and classes of Deities,
117. What is God? is he perfect? is he eternal? does he interfere
with human affairs? Opinions of Pythagoras, of Socrates, Aristotle,
Epicurus, 118-122. Of geniuses and heroes, 122. Of matter: different
opinions, 123. Of ideas, 123. Of causes, 123. Of bodies, 124. Of
least things in nature, 125. Of figures, 125. Of colors, 125. Of the
division of bodies, 126. Of the mixture of the elements, 126. Of
a vacuum, 126. Of place, 127. Of space, 127. Of time, 127. Of the
essence and nature of time, 128. Of motion, 128. Of generation and
corruption, 128. Of necessity, 129. Of the nature of necessity, 129.
Of destiny or fate, 130. Of the nature of fate, 130. Of fortune, 131.
Of nature, 131.
BOOK II. Of the world, κοσμόϛ, 132. Of the figure of the world, 133.
Whether the world be an animal, 133. Whether the world be eternal and
incorruptible, 133. Whence does the world receive nutriment? 134.
From what element did God begin to raise the fabric of the world?
134. In what form and order was the world composed? 135. What is the
cause of the world’s inclination? 136. Of that thing which is beyond
the world, and whether it be a vacuum or not, 136. What parts of the
world are on the right hand and what parts are on the left? 137. Of
heaven, its nature and essence, 137. Into how many circles is the
heaven distinguished? the division of heaven, 137. What are the stars
made of? 138. Of what figure are the stars? 139. Of the order and
place of the stars, 139. Of the motion and circulation of the stars,
140. Whence do the stars receive their light? 140. What are the stars
called Dioscuri, or Castor and Pollux? 141. How stars prognosticate:
what is the cause of winter and summer? 141. Of the essence of the
sun, 141, 142. Of the magnitude of the sun, 142. Of the figure or
shape of the sun, 143. Of the turning and returning of the sun, or
the summer and winter solstice, 143. Of the eclipses of the sun, 144.
Of the essence of the moon, 145. Of the moon’s magnitude and figure,
145. Whence does the moon receive her light? 145. Of eclipses of the
moon, 146. Of the phases or aspects of the moon, 147. Of the distance
of the moon from the sun, 147. Of the year and the length of the year
in the different planets; of the great year, 147.
BOOK III. Of the galaxy, or milky way, 148. Of comets and shooting
fires, 149. Of lightning, thunder, hurricanes, and whirlwinds, 150.
Of clouds rain, snow, and hail, 151. Of the rainbow, 152. Of meteors
which resemble rods, 153. Of winds, 154. Of winter and summer,
154. Of the earth, its nature and magnitude, 154. Of the figure of
the earth, 155. Of the site and position of the earth, 155. Of the
inclination of the earth, 155. Of the motion of the earth, 156. Of
the zones of the earth, 156. Of earthquakes and their cause, 157. Of
the sea, of what it is composed, and why it has a bitter taste, 158.
Of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, 159. Of the halo, or circle
round a star, 160.
BOOK IV. Of the overflowing of the Nile, 160. Of the soul, 161.
Whether the soul be a body, and what is its nature and essence,
162. Of the parts of the soul, 162. What is the principal part of
the soul, and in what part of the body does it reside? 163. Of the
motion of the soul, 163. Of the soul’s immortality, 164. Of the
senses, and their objects, 164. Whether what appears to our senses
and imaginations be realities, 165. How many senses are there? 165.
How the conceptions of the mind are received from the senses, 166.
What is the difference between imagination (φαντασία), imaginable
(φανταστόν), fancy (φανταστικόν), and phantom (φάντασμα)? 167. Of our
sight, and by what means we see, 168. Of the images presented to the
eye in mirrors, 169. Can darkness be visible to us? 169. Of hearing,
170. Of smelling, 170. Of taste, 170. Of the voice, 171. Whether the
voice is incorporeal? what is it that gives the echo? 172. By what
means the soul is sensible, 173. Of respiration or breathing, 173. Of
the passions of the body, and whether the soul sympathizes? 175.
BOOK V. Of divination, 176. Whence do dreams arise? 176. Of the
nature of generative seed, 177. Whether the sperm be a body, 177.
Whether women give a spermatic emission, 177. How conception is
effected, 178. After what manner males and females are generated,
178. Of the causes of monstrous conceptions, 179. How it comes to
pass that a woman’s too frequent conversation with a man hinders
conception, 179. Whence it is that one birth may give two or three
children, 180. Whence arises the similitude of children to their
parents? 180. How it sometimes happens that children resemble
strangers and not their parents, 181. Whence arises barrenness
in women, and impotency in men? 181. Why mules are barren, 182.
Whether an unborn infant is an animal, 183. How the unborn child is
nourished, 183. What part of the body is first formed in the womb?
184. Whence is it that infants born in the seventh month are born
alive? 184. Of the generation of animals, 186. How many species of
animals there are, and whether all animals have sense and reason,
187. What time is required to shape the parts of animals in the womb?
188. Of what elements is each of our members composed? 188. What
causes sleep and death? 188. When is the perfection of a man dated?
189. Does the soul sleep or die with the body? 189. How plants grow,
and whether they are animals, 190. Of nourishment and growth, 191.
Whence is it that animals have appetites and pleasures? 191. What is
the cause of a fever? 192 Of health, sickness, and old age? 192.
A BREVIATE OF A DISCOURSE SHOWING THAT THE STOICS
SPEAK GREATER IMPROBABILITIES THAN THE POETS.
BY WILLIAM BAXTER, GENT.
Their philosophy leads to greater delusions than the fictions of
the poets; it is more inconsistent with real life and with possible
events, 194-196.
SYMPOSIACS.
BY T. C.
BOOK I. _Question_ 1. At a feast is it allowable to talk learnedly
and philosophize? 198. Long and tedious discourses would be out
of place: but there must be conversation: let it be on useful
subjects, 198-200. There are topics fit to be discussed at table,
200. Easy and pleasant discourse fits the occasion, 201. Disputation
and pedantry are out of place, 202. 2. Whether the entertainer
should seat the guests, or let every man take his own place, 203.
The order and respect due to age, station, and relationship, may
be observed without offence to any, the best man should have the
best place, 204-206. Custom and decency should guide, 206-208.
3. Upon what account is the place at the table, called Consular,
esteemed honorable? 210-212. Three reasons assigned, 211. 4. What
qualifications should the steward of a feast possess? 212-216.
He must be able to bear wine, have good nature, and suit his
ministrations to the wants and tastes of all, 213-215. He must keep
the company in good humor, and exclude every thing unpleasant, 216.
5. Why is it said that Love makes a man a poet? 217, 218. Poetry is
the language of strong passion, 218. 6. Whether Alexander was a great
drinker, 219-221. 7. Why old men love pure wine, 221. 8. Why old men
read best at a distance, 222-224. 9. Why fresh water washes clothes
better than salt, 224-226. 10. Why, at Athens, was it the privilege
of the tribe Aeantis, that their chorus should never be determined to
be the last? 226-228.
BOOK II. _Question_ 1. What are the most agreeable questions and
most pleasant raillery at an entertainment? 229-240. Questions are
agreeable when they give a man opportunity to display his knowledge,
to relate his own exploits, or to describe his own prosperity,
230-232. Raillery is pleasant when it refers to faults of which we
are known to be innocent; when it implies gratitude for a favor
bestowed; and when it proceeds from evident good humor, 233-240. 2.
Why in autumn are men’s stomachs better than in other seasons of the
year, 240, 241. 3. Which was first, the bird or the egg? 242-246.
The perfect must come before the imperfect, 244. 4. Is wrestling the
oldest exercise? 246, 247. 5. Why, in reckoning up different kinds of
exercises, does Homer put them in this order,—Cuffing, Wrestling,
Racing? 248, 249. 6. Why cannot Fir-trees, Pine-trees, and the
like be grafted upon? 250, 251. 7. About the fish called Remora or
Echeneis, 252. Why the horses called λυκοσπάδες are very mettlesome,
253. 9. Why the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves is sweeter than that
of others, and the wool more apt to breed lice, 254. 10. Whether the
ancients who provided for every one his mess did better than we who
set many to the same dish, 255-258.
BOOK III. Wine reveals men’s secret thoughts, 259. _Question_ 1.
Whether it is becoming to wear chaplets of flowers at table, 260-265.
Flowers were designed for our pleasure, 262. They have a good
medicinal effect, 264. 2. Whether Ivy is of a hot or cold nature,
265-267. 3. Why women are hardly, old men easily, intoxicated,
268-270. 4. Whether the temper of women is colder or hotter than
that of men, 270-272. 5. Whether wine is potentially cold, 272-274.
6. Which is the fittest time for a man to know his wife? 274-279. In
the evening, not in the daytime, 276-278. 7. Why new wine does not
intoxicate, 279, 280. 8. Why persons thoroughly drunk appear better
than those only half-drunk, 281. 9. What means the saying, Drink
either five or three, but not four? 282, 283. 10. Why flesh stinks
sooner when exposed to the moon than to the sun, 284-287.
BOOK IV. A feast should be used for the cultivation of friendship,
288. _Question_ 1. Whether different sorts of food or one single
dish, fed upon at once, be more easily digested, 289-295. 2. Why
mushrooms are thought to be produced by thunder, and why it is
believed that men asleep are never thunderstruck, 295-300. 3. Why men
usually invite many guests to a wedding supper, 300, 301. 4. Whether
sea or land affords better food, 302-306. 5. Whether the Jews abstain
from swine’s flesh because they worship that creature, or because
they have an antipathy against it, 307-310. 6. What God is worshiped
by the Jews? Bacchus, 310-312.
BOOK V. The soul has pleasures peculiar to itself and distinct
from the body, 313. _Question_ 1. Why do we take pleasure in a
representation of human suffering, while we are shocked at the
reality? 314-316. 2. That the prize for poets at the games was
ancient, 316-318. 3. Why was the Pine counted sacred to Neptune and
Bacchus, and why at first was the conqueror in the Isthmian Games
crowned with a garland of Pine, afterwards with Parsley, and now
again with Pine? 318-321. 4. Meaning of that expression in Homer,
ζωρότερον δὲ κέραιε, “mix the wine stronger,” 321, 322. 5. Concerning
those that invite many to a supper, 323-326 6. Why does a room which
at the beginning of a supper seems too narrow for the guests appear
wide enough afterwards? 326. 7. Concerning those that are said to
bewitch, 327-332. 8. Why does Homer call the apple-tree ἀγλαόκαρπον,
and Empedocles call the apples ὑπέρφλοια? 333, 334. 9. Why does the
fig-tree, having itself a sharp and bitter taste, bear sweet fruit?
335. 10. What are those that are said to be περὶ ἄλα καὶ κύμινον, and
why does Homer call salt divine? 336, 337.
BOOK VI. The memory of a useful discourse gives pleasure long
afterwards, 338, 339. _Question_ 1. Why are those that are fasting
more inclined to drink than to eat? 339, 340. 2. Whether hunger
and thirst are caused by want of nourishment or by a change in the
pores or passages of the body, 341-344. 3. Why is hunger allayed
by drinking, but thirst increased by eating? 345, 346. 4. Why is a
bucket of water drawn out of a well, and left to stand all night in
the air that is in the well, colder next morning than the rest of
the water? 347, 348. 5. Why do pebble-stones and leaden bullets,
thrown into the water, make it more cold? 348, 349. 6. What is the
reason that snow is preserved by covering it with chaff and cloths?
350, 351. 7. Ought wine to be strained? 351-354. 8. What is the
cause of Bulimy, or the greedy disease? 355-358. 9. Why does Homer
appropriate to each particular liquid a special epithet, and use none
when speaking of oil? 359, 360. 10. Why is the flesh of sacrificed
animals, after being awhile upon a fig-tree, more tender than before?
361, 362.
BOOK VII. _Question_ 1. Plato defended for saying that drink passeth
through the lungs, 363-367. 2. What humored man is he whom Plato
calls κερασβόλος, and why do seeds that fall on oxen’s horns become
ἀτεράμονα? 368-370. 3. Why is the middle of wine, the top of oil,
and the bottom of honey the best? 370, 371. 4. Why did the ancient
Romans remove the table before all the meat was eaten, and why not
extinguish the lamp? 372-375. To leave something for the servants,
374. “Leave something for the Medes”: a proverb in Boeotia, 375. 5.
That we ought carefully to preserve ourselves from pleasures arising
from bad music; and how it may be done, 376-380. Bad music, the loose
ode, enervates and debauches the mind. Have recourse to that which
is pure and good, ib. 6. Concerning those guests that are called
shadows, whether being invited by some of the invited guests, but not
by the entertainer, they ought to go to the house; and if so, in what
cases? 381-387. Such a person is placed at a disadvantage on joining
the company, and why, 382. But an invited guest, who has liberty to
invite others may do so, yet with due caution and discretion; and
the others may go, 385, 386. 7. Whether flute-girls may be admitted
to a feast, 387, 388. 8. What sort of music is fittest for an
entertainment? 389-394. Not tragedy, it is too grave and dignified,
390. But the New Comedy, as that of Menander, or a song with pipe or
harp, 391, 392. 9. That the Greeks, as well as the Persians, were
accustomed to debate state affairs at their entertainments, 394. 10.
Was that a good custom? 395-398. Are men wise over their wine? 396.
Men may drink freely, and yet not lose their wit, 397.
BOOK VIII. In our entertainments we may and should use learned and
philosophical discourse, 399. _Question_ 1. On the birthdays of
famous men, and the generation of the Gods, 400, 401. 2. What is
Plato’s meaning when he says that God all ways plays the geometer?
402-406. 3. Why sounds seem louder in the night than in the day,
406-410. 4. In the Sacred Games one sort of garland was given in
one, and another in another: why was the Palm common to all? and
why call the great dates Νικόλαοι? 411-414. 5. Why do those who
sail upon the Nile take up the water they are to use before day?
415, 416 6. Concerning those who come late to an entertainment,
and the derivation of the words ἀκράτισμα, ἀριστον, and δεὶπνον,
417-419. The Latin terms compared, 418. 7. Concerning the Symbols of
Pythagoras: Receive not a swallow into your house; as soon as you are
risen ruffle the bedclothes; and some other precepts: what is their
meaning? 419-421. 8. Why the Pythagoreans do not eat fish, 422-426.
9. Whether there can be new diseases, and how caused, 426-432. On
the negative, it is said the course of Nature is invariable, 427.
The affirmative alleges that the causes of disease may vary, become
intense and complicated, 430. Alterations in diet may raise new
diseases, 432. 10. Why we give least credit to dreams in Autumn,
432-435.
BOOK IX. _Question_ 1. Concerning verses fitly applied, and the
reverse, 436-438. 2, 3. Why is Alpha placed first in the alphabet?
and what is the proportion between the number of vowels and
semi-vowels? 438-441. 4. Which of the hands of Venus did Diomedes
wound? 441. 5. Why Plato says that the soul of Ajax came to draw her
lot in the twentieth place in hell, 442, 443. 6. What is meant by
the fable about the defeat of Neptune? and why do the Athenians omit
the second day of the month Boëdromion? 444, 445. 12. Is it probable
that the number of the stars is even or odd? 446. 13. A moot-point
from the third book of the Iliad, 446-450. 14. Observations about the
number of the Muses, and their relation to human affairs, 450-456.
15. That there are three parts in dancing, motion, gesture, and
representation: what each part is, and what is common to both poetry
and dancing, 457-460.
OF MORAL VIRTUE.
BY C. H., ESQUIRE.
Plan of the Essay, 461. Opinions of philosophers: of Menedemus,
Ariston, Zeno, Chrysippus, 462. Opinion of Plato, 464; of Aristotle,
465. The soul has a twofold nature, 463. It is composed of intellect
or reason, and the passions, 465. The reason and an intelligent
judgment must govern, 466. The passions by long training becoming
subject to the reason, the result is MORAL VIRTUE, 468. Science and
Prudence, what, and their objects, 469. How science and prudence
differ, 469, 470. Prudence has need of deliberation, 470. It corrects
the excesses and defects of passion, 470. Moral virtue is the mean
between excess and defect, 471. Yet it needs the ministry of the
passions, 471. Mean and mediocrity not the same thing, 471. The idea
further illustrated, 472. Continence distinguished from temperance,
473. Incontinence and intemperance, 474. Illustrations, 475, 476.
Moral virtue is firm and immovable, 478. The passions are subject
to frequent and sudden changes, 478. When reason is overborne by
passion, there is a sense of guilt, 479. Reason is not at variance
with itself, 480. The soul is at peace, where passion does not
interpose, 480. Reason tends to what is true and just, 480. Reason,
left to itself, embraces the truth, 481. It is often hindered by
passion, 481. Reason and passion often divide the soul, 482. They
often harmonize and concur, 483. Some philosophers affirm that
reason and passion do not materially differ, 478. Their opinions
controverted, 479, et seq. Their improper use of terms, 484. The
passions differ with their occasions, 486. Men may mistake in
their judgments, 487. The passions, deriving their strength from
the body, are powerful in the young, 489. The state of the body
corresponds with the state of the passions, 490. We should not seek
to exterminate the passions, but to regulate and control them, 490.
The passions have their proper use, 491. These considerations are of
importance in the government of States, and in the education of the
young, 493, 494.
NATURAL QUESTIONS
BY R. BROWN, M.L.
What is the reason that sea-water nourishes not trees? 495. 2. Why
do trees and seeds thrive better with rain than with watering? 496.
3. Why do herdsmen place salt before cattle? 497. 4. Why is the
water of thunder-showers fitter to water seeds? 498. 5. How comes it
to pass that, since there are eight kinds of tastes, we find salt
in no kind of fruit? 498, 499. 6. Why, if a man frequently pass
along dewy trees, are those limbs that touch the wood seized with
leprosy? 500. 7. Why in winter is the sailing of ships more slow in
rivers than in the sea? 500. 8. Why, since all other liquors upon
moving and stirring about grow cold, does the sea by being tossed
in waves grow hot? 501. 9. Why in winter is the saltness of the sea
diminished? 501. 10. Why do men pour sea-water into wine, and in
defect thereof cast in some Zacynthian earth? 502. 11. What is the
cause of sea-sickness? 502. 12. Why does pouring oil on the sea calm
its waves? 503. 13. Why do fishermen’s nets decay more in winter than
in summer? 503. 14. Why do the Dorians pray for bad making of their
hay? 504. 15. Why is rich soil fruitful of wheat, and a thin soil
of barley? 504. 16. Why is it said, Sow wheat in clay and barley in
dust? 505. 17. Why is the hair of horses, rather than of mares, used
for fishing-lines? 505. 18. Why is the sight of a cuttle-fish the
sign of a great storm? 505. 19. Why does the polypus change color?
506. 20. Why are the tears of wild boars sweet, and the tears of the
hart salt and hurtful? 507. 21. Why do tame sows farrow often, some
at one time, and some at other times; and the wild but once a year,
and all about the same time? 508. 22. Why are the paws of bears the
sweetest and pleasantest food? 509. 23. Why are the tracks of wild
beasts found with so much difficulty in spring? 509. 24. Why are
their tracks worse scented about the full moon? 509. 25. Why does
frost make hunting difficult? 510. 26. Why do brutes, when sick, seek
appropriate remedies? 510. 27. Why does must, if the vessel stand in
the cold, long continue sweet? 511. 28. Why, of all wild beasts, does
not the boar bite the toil, though wolves and foxes do this? 512. 29.
Why do we admire natural hot baths, and not cold? 512. 30. Why are
vines which are rank of leaves, but otherwise fruitless, said τραγὰν?
513. 31. Why does the vine irrigated with wine, especially its own
wine, perish? 513. 32. Why, of all trees, does the palm alone bend
upward when a weight is laid on it? 514. 33. Why is pit-water less
nutritive than that which comes from springs, or from the clouds?
514. 34. Why is the west wind commonly held to be the swiftest? 515.
35. Why cannot bees abide smoke? 515. 36. Why will bees sooner sting
persons who have lately committed whoredom? 516. 37. Why do dogs
follow after a stone thrown at them and bite it, letting alone the
man who flung it? 516. 38. Why at a certain time of the year do all
she-wolves bring forth whelps within the compass of twelve days? 517.
39. How comes it that water, apparently white at the top, is black at
the bottom? 518.
INDEX
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
PLUTARCH’S MORALS.
VOL. III.
WHETHER 'TWERE RIGHTLY SAID, LIVE CONCEALED.
1. It is sure, he that said it had no mind to live concealed, for he
spoke it out of a design of being taken notice of for his very saying
it, as if he saw deeper into things than every vulgar eye, and of
purchasing to himself a reputation, how unjustly soever, by inveigling
others into obscurity and retirement. But the poet says right:
I hate the man who makes pretence to wit,
Yet in his own concerns waives using it.[1]
For they tell us of one Philoxenus the son of Eryxis, and Gnatho the
Sicilian, who were so over greedy after any dainties set before them,
that they would blow their nose in the dish, whereby, turning the
stomachs of the other guests, they themselves went away fuller crammed
with the rarities. Thus fares it with all those whose appetite is
always lusting and insatiate after glory. They bespatter the repute
of others, as their rivals in honor, that they themselves may advance
smoothly to it and without a rub. They do like watermen, who look
astern while they row the boat ahead, still so managing the strokes
of the oar that the vessel may make on to its port. So these men who
recommend to us such kind of precepts row hard after glory, but with
their face another way. To what purpose else need this have been
said?—why committed to writing and handed down to posterity? Would he
live incognito to his contemporaries, who is so eager to be known to
succeeding ages?
2. But besides, doth not the thing itself sound ill, to bid you keep
all your lifetime out of the world’s eye, as if you had rifled the
sepulchres of the dead, or done such like detestable villany which you
should hide for? What! is it grown a crime to live, unless you can keep
all others from knowing you do so? For my part, I should pronounce that
even an ill-liver ought not to withdraw himself from the converse of
others. No; let him be known, let him be reclaimed, let him repent; so
that, if you have any stock of virtue, let it not lie unemployed, or
if you have been viciously bent, do not by flying the means continue
unreclaimed and uncured. Point me out therefore and distinguish me
the man to whom you adopt this admonition. If to one devoid of sense,
goodness, or wit, it is like one that should caution a person under
a fever or raving madness not to let it be known where he is, for
fear the physicians should find him, but rather to skulk in some dark
corner, where he and his diseases may escape discovery. So you who
labor under that pernicious, that scarce curable disease, wickedness,
are by parity of reason bid to conceal your vices, your envyings, your
superstitions, like some disorderly or feverous pulse, for fear of
falling into the hands of them who might prescribe well to you and set
you to rights again. Whereas, alas! in the days of remote antiquity,
men exhibited the sick to public view, when every charitable passenger
who had labored himself under the like malady, or had experienced a
remedy on them that did, communicated to the diseased all the receipts
he knew; thus, say they, skill in physic was patched up by multiplied
experiments, and grew to a mighty art. At the same rate ought all the
infirmities of a dissolute life, all the irregular passions of the
soul, to be laid open to the view of all, and undergo the touch of
every skilful hand, that all who examine into the temper may be able
to prescribe accordingly. For instance, doth anger transport you? The
advice in that case is, Shun the occasions of it. Doth jealousy torment
you? Take this or that course. Art thou love-sick? It hath been my own
case and infirmity to be so too; but I saw the folly of it, I repented,
I grew wiser. But for those that lie, denying, hiding, mincing, and
palliating their vices, it makes them but take the deeper dye, it
rivets their faults into them.
3. Again, if on the other hand this advice be calculated for the owners
of worth and virtue, if they must be condemned to privacy and live
unknown to the world, you do in effect bid Epaminondas lay down his
arms, you bid Lycurgus rescind his laws, you bid Thrasybulus spare
the tyrants, in a word, you bid Pythagoras forbear his instructions,
and Socrates his reasonings and discourses; nay, you lay injunctions
chiefly upon yourself, Epicurus, not to maintain that epistolary
correspondence with your Asiatic friends, not to entertain your
Egyptian visitants, not to be tutor to the youth of Lampsacus, not to
present and send about your books to women as well as men, out of an
ostentation of some wisdom in yourself more than vulgar, not to leave
such particular directions about your funeral. And in fine, to what
purpose, Epicurus, did you keep a public table? Why that concourse of
friends, that resort of fair young men, at your doors? Why so many
thousand lines so elaborately composed and writ upon Metrodorus,
Aristobulus, and Chaeredemus, that death itself might not rob us
of them; if virtue must be doomed to oblivion, art to idleness and
inactivity, philosophy to silence, and all a man’s happiness must be
forgotten?
4. But if indeed, in the state of life we are under, you will needs
seclude us from all knowledge and acquaintance with the world (as
men shut light from their entertainments and drinking-bouts, for
which they set the night apart), let it be only such who make it the
whole business of life to heap pleasure upon pleasure; let such live
recluses all their days. Were I, in truth, to wanton away my days in
the arms of your miss Hedeia, or spend them with Leontium, another dear
of yours,—were I to bid defiance to virtue, or to place all that’s
good in the gratification of the flesh or the ticklings of a sensual
pleasure,—these accursed actions and rites would need darkness and an
eternal night to veil them; and may they ever be doomed to oblivion
and obscurity. But what should they hide their heads for, who with
regard to the works of nature own and magnify a God, who celebrate his
justice and providence, who in point of morality are due observers of
the law, promoters of society and community among all men, and lovers
of the public-weal, and who in the administration thereof prefer the
common good before private advantage? Why should such men cloister up
themselves, and live recluses from the world? For would you have them
out of the way, for fear they should set a good example, and allure
others to virtue out of emulation of the precedent? If Themistocles’s
valor had been unknown at Athens, Greece had never given Xerxes that
repulse. Had not Camillus shown himself in defence of the Romans, their
city Rome had no longer stood. Sicily had not recovered her liberty,
had Plato been a stranger to Dion. Truly (in my mind) to be known to
the world under some eminent character not only carries a reputation
with it, but makes the virtues in us become practical like light,
which renders us not only visible but useful to others. Epaminondas,
during the first forty years of his life, in which no notice was taken
of him, was an useless citizen to Thebes; but afterwards, when he had
once gained credit and the government amongst the Thebans, he both
rescued them from present destruction, and freed even Greece herself
from imminent slavery, exhibiting (like light, which is in its own
nature glorious, and to others beneficial at the same time) a valor
seasonably active and serviceable to his country, yet interwoven with
his own laurels. For
Virtue, like finest brass, by use grows bright.[2]
And not our houses alone, when (as Sophocles has it) they stand long
untenanted, run the faster to ruin; but men’s natural parts, lying
unemployed for lack of acquaintance with the world, contract a kind
of filth or rust and craziness thereby. For sottish ease, and a life
wholly sedentary and given up to idleness, spoil and debilitate not
only the body but the soul too. And as close waters shadowed over by
bordering trees, and stagnated in default of springs to supply current
and motion to them, become foul and corrupt; so, methinks, is it with
the innate faculties of a dull unstirring soul,—whatever usefulness,
whatever seeds of good she may have latent in her, yet when she puts
not these powers into action, when once they stagnate, they lose their
vigor and run to decay.
5. See you not how on night’s approach a sluggish drowsiness oft-times
seizes the body, and sloth and inactiveness surprise the soul, and
she finds herself heavy and quite unfit for action? Have you not then
observed how a man’s reason (like fire scarce visible and just going
out) retires into itself, and how by reason of its inactivity and
dulness it is gently agitated by divers fantastical imaginations, so
that nothing remains but some obscure indications that the man is alive.
But when the orient sun brings back the day,
It chases night and dreamy sleep away.
It doth, as it were, bring the world together again, and with his
returned light call up and excite all mankind to thought and action;
and, as Democritus tells us, men setting themselves every new-spring
day to endeavors of mutual beneficence and service one towards
another, as if they were fastened in the straitest tie together, do all
of them, some from one, some from another quarter of the world, rouse
up and awake to action.
6. For my own part, I am fully persuaded that life itself, and our
being born at the rate we are, and the origin we share in common with
all mankind, were vouchsafed us by God to the intent we should be known
to one another. It is true, whilst man, in that little part of him, his
soul, lies struggling and scattered in the vast womb of the universe,
he is an obscure and unknown being; but, when once he gets hither
into this world and puts a body on, he grows illustrious, and from an
obscure becomes a conspicuous being; from an hidden, an apparent one.
For knowledge does not lead to essence (or being), as some maintain;
but the essence of things rather conducts us into the knowledge and
understanding thereof. For the birth or generation of individuals
gives not any being to them which they had not before, but brings that
individual into view; as also the corruption or death of any creature
is not its annihilation or reduction into mere nothing, but rather a
sending the dissolved being into an invisible state. Hence is it that
many persons (conformably to their ancient country laws), taking the
Sun to be Apollo, gave him the names of Delius and Pythius (that is,
conspicuous and known). But for him, be he either God or Daemon, who
hath dominion over the opposite portion, the infernal regions, they
call him Hades (that is, invisible)
Emperor of gloomy night and lazy sleep,
for that at our death and dissolution we pass into a state of
invisibility and beyond the reach of mortal eyes. I am indeed of
opinion, that the ancients called man Phos (that is, light), because
from the affinity of their natures strong desires are bred in mankind
of continually seeing and being seen to each other. Nay, some
philosophers hold the soul itself to be essentially light; which
they would prove by this among other arguments, that nothing is so
insupportable to the mind of man as ignorance and obscurity. Whatever
is destitute of light she avoids, and darkness, the harbor of fears
and suspicions, is uneasy to her; whereas, on the other hand, light
is so delicious, so desirable a thing, that without that, and wrapped
in darkness, none of the delectables in nature are pleasing to her.
This makes all our very pleasures, all our diversions and enjoyments,
charming and grateful to us, like some universal relishing ingredients
mixed with the others to make them palatable. But he that casts himself
into obscure retirements, he that sits surrounded in darkness and
buries himself alive, seems, in my mind, to repine at his own birth and
grudge he ever had a being.
7. And yet it is certain, in the regions prepared for pious souls, they
conserve not only an existence in (or agreeable to) nature, but are
encircled with glory.
There the sun with glorious ray,
Chasing shady night away,
Makes an everlasting day;
Where souls in fields of purple roses play;
Others in verdant plains disport,
Crowned with trees of every sort,
Trees that never fruit do bear,
But always in the blossom are.[3]
The rivers there without rude murmurs gently glide, and there they meet
and bear each other company, passing away their time in commemorating
and running over things past and present.
A third state there is of them who have led vicious and wicked lives,
which precipitates souls into a kind of hell and miserable abyss,
Where sluggish streams of sable night
Spout floods of darkness infinite.[**duplicate anchor]
This is the receptacle of the tormented; here lie they hid under
the veils of eternal ignorance and oblivion. For vultures do not
everlastingly gorge themselves upon the liver of a wicked man, exposed
by angry Gods upon the earth, as poets fondly feign of Prometheus. For
either rottenness or the funeral pile hath consumed that long ago. Nor
do the bodies of the tormented undergo (as Sisyphus is fabled to do)
the toil and pressure of weighty burdens;
For strength no longer flesh and bone sustains.[4]
There are no reliques of the body in dead men which stripes and
tortures can make impressions on; but in very truth the sole punishment
of ill-livers is an inglorious obscurity, or a final abolition, which
through oblivion hurls and plunges them into deplorable rivers,
bottomless seas, and a dark abyss, involving all in uselessness and
inactivity, absolute ignorance and obscurity, as their last and eternal
doom.
AN ABSTRACT OF A COMPARISON BETWIXT ARISTOPHANES AND MENANDER.
1. To speak in sum and in general, he prefers Menander by far; and as
to particulars, he adds what here ensues. Aristophanes, he saith, is
importune, theatric, and sordid in his expression; but Menander not
so at all. For the rude and vulgar person is taken with the things
the former speaketh; but the well-bred man will be quite out of humor
with them. I mean, his opposed terms, his words of one cadence, and
his derivatives. For the one makes use of these with due observance
and but seldom, and bestows care upon them; but the other frequently,
unseasonably, and frigidly. “For he is much commended,” said he, “for
ducking the chamberlains, they being indeed not chamberlains (ταμίαι)
but bugbears (Λαμίαι).” And again,—“This rascal breathes out nothing
but roguery and affidavitry;” and “Beat him well in his belly with the
entrails and the guts;” and, “I shall laugh till I go to Laughington
(Γέλαν);” and, “Thou poor sharded ostracized pot, what shall I do with
thee?” and, “To you women surely he is a mad plague, for he grew up
himself among these mad worts;”—and, “Look here, how the moths have
eaten away my crest;” and, “Bring me hither the gorgon-backed circle of
my shield;” “Give me the round-backed circle of a cheese-cake;”—and
much more of such like stuff.[5] There is then in the structure of
his words something tragic and something comic, something blustering
and something prosaic, an obscurity, a vulgarness, a turgidness,
and a strutting, with a nauseous prattling and fooling. And as his
style has so great varieties and dissonances in it, so neither doth
he give to his persons what is fitting and proper to each,—as state
(for instance) to a prince, force to an orator, innocence to a woman,
meanness of language to a poor man, and sauciness to a tradesman,—but
he deals out to every person, as it were by lot, such words as come
next to his hand, and you would scarce discern whether he that is
talking be a son, a father, a peasant, a God, an old woman, or a hero.
2. But now Menander’s phrase is so well turned and contempered with
itself, and so everywhere conspiring, that, while it traverses many
passions and humors and is accommodated to all sorts of persons,
it still shows the same, and even retains its semblance in trite,
familiar, and every-day expressions. And if his master do now and
then require something of rant and noise, he doth but (like a skilful
flutist) set open all the holes of his pipe, and then presently stop
them again with good decorum and restore the tune to its natural
state. And though there be a great number of excellent artists of all
professions, yet never did any shoemaker make the same sort of shoe, or
tireman the same sort of visor, or tailor the same sort of garment, to
fit a man, a woman, a child, an old man, and a slave. But Menander hath
so addressed his style, as to proportion it to every sex, condition,
and age; and this, though he took the business in hand when he was very
young, and died in the vigor of his composition and action, when, as
Aristotle tells us, authors receive most and greatest improvement in
their styles. If a man shall then compare the middle and last with the
first of Menander’s plays, he will by them easily conceive what others
he would have added to them, had he had but longer life.
3. He adds further, that of dramatic exhibitors, some address
themselves to the crowd and populace, and others again to a few; but
it is a hard matter to say which of them all knew what was befitting
in both the kinds. But Aristophanes is neither grateful to the vulgar,
nor tolerable to the wise; but it fares with his poesy as it doth
with a courtesan who, when she finds she is now stricken and past
her prime, counterfeits a sober matron, and then the vulgar cannot
endure her affectation, and the better sort abominate her lewdness and
wicked nature. But Menander hath with his charms shown himself every
way sufficient for satisfaction, being the sole lecture, argument,
and dispute at theatres, schools, and at tables; hereby rendering his
poesy the most universal ornament that was ever produced by Greece, and
showing what and how extraordinary his ability in language was, while
he passes every way with an irresistible persuasion, and wins every
man’s ear and understanding who has knowledge of the Greek tongue. And
for what other reason in truth should a man of parts and erudition be
at the pains to frequent the theatre, but for the sake of Menander
only? And when are the play-houses better filled with men of letters,
than when his comic mask is exhibited? And at private entertainments
among friends, for whom doth the table more justly make room or Bacchus
give place than for Menander? To philosophers also and hard students
(as painters are wont, when they have tired out their eyes at their
work, to divert them to certain florid and green colors) Menander is a
repose from their auditors and intense thinkings, and entertains their
minds with gay shady meadows refreshed with cool and gentle breezes.
4. He adds, moreover, that though this city breeds at this time very
many and excellent representers of comedy, Menander’s plays participate
of a plenteous and divine salt, as if they were made of the very sea
out of which Venus herself sprang. But that of Aristophanes is harsh
and coarse and hath in it an angry and biting sharpness. And for my
part I cannot tell where his so much boasted ability lies, whether in
his style or persons. The parts he acts I am sure are quite over-acted
and depraved. His knave (for instance) is not fine, but dirty; his
peasant is not assured, but stupid; his droll is not jocose, but
ridiculous; and his lover is not gay, but lewd. So that to me the man
seems not to have written his poesy for any temperate person, but to
have intended his smut and obscenity for the debauched and lewd, his
invective and satire for the malicious and ill-humored.
OF BANISHMENT, OR FLYING ONE’S COUNTRY.
1. One may say of discourses what they use to say of friends, that they
are the best and firmest that afford their useful presence and help in
calamities. Many indeed present themselves and discourse with those
that are fallen into misfortunes, who yet do them more harm than good.
Like men that attempt to succor drowning persons and have themselves
no skill in diving under water, they entangle one another, and sink
together to the bottom. The discourses of friends, such as would help
an afflicted person, ought to be directed to the consolation, and not
to the patronage of his sorrows. For we have no need in our distresses
of such as may bear us company in weeping and howling, like a chorus in
a tragedy, but of such as will deal freely with us, and will convince
us that,—as it is in all cases vain and foolish and to no purpose to
grieve and cast down one’s self,—so, when the things themselves that
afflict us, after a rational examination and discovery of what they
are, give a man leave to say to himself thus.
Thou feel’st but little pain and smart.
Unless thou’lt feign and act a part,
it would be extremely ridiculous for him not to put the question to his
body, and ask it what it has suffered, nor to his soul, and ask how
much worse it is become by this accident, but only to make use of those
teachers of grief from abroad, who come to bear a part with him in his
sorrow, or to express indignation at what has happened.
2. Let us therefore, when we are alone, question with ourselves
concerning the things that have befallen us, considering them as heavy
loads. The body, we know, is under pressure by a burden lying upon it;
but the soul oft-times adds a further weight of her own to things. A
stone is hard and ice is cold by nature, not by any thing from without
happening to make such qualities and impressions upon them. But as
for banishment and disgraces and loss of honors (and so for their
contraries, crowns, chief rule, and precedency of place), our opinion
prescribing the measure of our joys or sorrows and not the nature of
the things themselves, every man makes them to himself light or heavy,
easy to be borne or grievous. You may hear Polynices’s answer to this
question,
JOCAST. But say, is’t so deplorable a case
To live in exile from one’s native place?
POLYN. It’s sad indeed; and whatsoe’er you guess,
’Tis worse to endure than any can express.[6]
But you may hear Alcman in quite another strain, as the epigrammatist
has brought him in saying:
Sardis, my ancient fatherland,
Hadst thou, by Fate’s supreme command,
My helpless childhood nourished,
I must have begg’d my daily bread,
Or else, a beardless priest become,
Have toss’d Cybele frantic down.
Now Alcman I am call’d—a name
Inscribed in Sparta’s lists of fame,
Whose many tripods record bear
Of solemn wreaths and tripods rare,
Achieved in worship at the shrine
Of Heliconian maids divine,
By whose great aid I’m mounted higher
Than Gyges or his wealthy sire.[7]
Thus one man’s opinion makes the same thing commodious, like current
money, and another man’s unserviceable and hurtful.
3. But let us grant (as many say and sing) that it is a grievous thing
to be banished. So there are also many things that we eat, of a bitter,
sharp, and biting taste, which yet by a mixture of other things more
mild and sweet have all their unpleasantness taken off. There are also
some colors troublesome to look upon, which bear so hard and strike so
piercingly upon the sight, that they confound and dazzle it; if now
by mixing shadows with them, or by turning our eyes upon some green
and pleasant color, we remedy this inconvenience, thou mayst also do
the same to the afflictions that befall thee, considering them with
a mixture of those advantages and benefits thou still enjoyest, as
wealth, friends, vacancy from business, and a supply of all things
necessary to human life. For I think there are few Sardians but would
desire to be in your condition, though banished, and would choose to
live as you may do, though in a strange country, rather than—like
snails that grow to their shells—enjoy no other good, saving only what
they have at home without trouble.
4. As he therefore in the comedy that advised his unfortunate friend
to take heart and to revenge himself of Fortune, being asked which
way, answered, By the help of philosophy; so we also may be revenged
of her, by acting worthily like philosophers. For what course do we
take when it is rainy weather, or a cold north wind blows? We creep
to the fireside, or go into a bath, put on more clothes, or go into
a dry house; and do not sit still in a shower and cry. It is in thy
power above most men’s to revive and cherish that part of thy life
which seems to be chill and benumbed, not needing any other helps, but
only according to thy best judgment and prudence making use of the
things that thou possessest. The cupping-glasses physicians use, by
drawing the worst humors out of the body, alleviate and preserve the
rest; but they that are prone to grieve and make sad complaints, by
mustering together alway the worst of their afflictive circumstances,
by debating these things over and over, being fastened (as it were) to
their troubles, make the most advantageous things to be wholly useless
to themselves, and especially when their case requires most help and
assistance. As for those two hogsheads, my friend, which Homer says lie
in heaven, full, the one of the good, the other of the ill fates of
men,—it is not Jupiter that sits to draw out and transmit to some a
moderate share of evils mixed with good, but to others only unqualified
streams of evil; but it is we ourselves who do it. Those of us that are
wise, drawing out of the good to temper with our evils, make our lives
pleasant and potable; but the greater part (which are fools) are like
sieves, which let the best pass through, but the worst and the very
dregs of misfortune stick to them and remain behind.
5. Wherefore, if we fall into any real evil or calamity, we must bring
in what is pleasant and delightful of the remaining good things in our
possession, and thus, by what we enjoy at home, mitigate the sense of
those evils that befall us from abroad. But where there is no evil in
the nature of the things, but the whole of that which afflicts us is
framed by imagination and false opinion, in this case we must do just
as we deal with children that are apt to be frighted with false faces
and vizards; by bringing them nearer, and making them handle and turn
them on every side, they are brought at last to despise them; so we, by
a nearer touching and fixing our consideration upon our feigned evils,
may be able to detect and discover the weakness and vanity of what we
fear and so tragically deplore.
Such is your present condition of being banished out of that which
you account your country; for nature has given us no country, as it
has given us no house or field, no smith’s or apothecary’s shop, as
Ariston said; but every one of them is always made or rather called
such a man’s by his dwelling in it or making use of it. For man (as
Plato says) is not an earthly and unmovable, but a heavenly plant, the
head raising the body erect as from a root, and directed upwards toward
heaven.[8] Hence is that saying of Hercules:
Am I of Thebes or Argos? Whether
You please, for I’m content with either;
But to determine one, ’tis pity,
In Greece my country’s every city.
But Socrates expressed it better, when he said, he was not an Athenian
or a Greek, but a citizen of the world (just as a man calls himself
a citizen of Rhodes or Corinth), because he did not enclose himself
within the limits of Sunium, Taenarum, or the Ceraunian mountains.
Behold how yonder azure sky,
Extending vastly wide and high
To infinitely distant spaces,
In her soft arms our earth embraces.[9]
These are the boundaries of our country, and no man is an exile or a
stranger or foreigner in these, where there is the same fire, water,
air, the same rulers, administrators, and presidents, the same sun,
moon, and daystar; where there are the same laws to all, and where,
under one orderly disposition and government, are the summer and winter
solstices, the equinoxes, Pleiades, Arcturus, times of sowing and
planting; where there is one king and supreme ruler, which is God, who
comprehends the beginning, the middle, and end of the universe; who
passes through all things in a straight course, compassing all things
according to nature: justice follows him to take vengeance on those
that transgress the divine law, which justice we naturally all make use
of towards all men, as being citizens of the same community.
6. But for thee to complain that thou dost not dwell at Sardis is
no objection; for all the Athenians do not inhabit Collytus, nor do
all the men of Corinth live in the Cranium, nor all of Lacedaemon in
Pitane.
Do you look upon those Athenians as strangers and banished persons
who removed from Melite to Diomea,—whence they called the month
Metageitnion, and the sacrifices they offered in memory of their
removal Metageitnia, being pleased with and cheerfully accepting this
new neighborhood to another people? Surely you will not say so. What
parts of the inhabited earth or of the whole earth can be said to be
far distant one from another, when mathematicians demonstrate that the
whole earth is to be accounted as an indivisible point, compared with
the heavens? But we, like pismires or bees, when we are cast out of
one ant-hill or hive, are in great anxiety, and take on as if we were
strangers and undone, not knowing how to make and account all things
our own, as indeed they are. We shall certainly laugh at his folly who
shall affirm there was a better moon at Athens than at Corinth; and yet
we in a sort commit the same error, when being in a strange country we
look upon the earth, the sea, the air, the heavens doubtfully, as if
they were not the same, but quite different from those we have been
accustomed to. Nature in our first production sent us out free and
loose; we bind and straiten and pin up ourselves in houses, and reduce
ourselves into a scant and little room.
Moreover, we laugh at the kings of Persia, who (if the story be true)
will drink only the water of the River Choaspes, by this means making
the rest of the habitable world to be without water, as to themselves;
but we, when we remove to other countries, and retain our longings
after Cephissus and Eurotas, and are pleased with nothing so much as
the hills Taygetus and Parnassus, we make the whole earth unhabitable
to ourselves, and are without a house or city where we can dwell.
7. When certain Egyptians, not enduring the anger and hard usage of
their king, went to dwell in Ethiopia, and some earnestly entreated
them to return to their wives and children they had left behind them,
they very impudently showed them their privy parts, saying they should
never want wives or children whilst they carried those about them.
But it is more grave and becoming to say that whosoever happens to be
provided with a competency of the necessaries to life, wheresoever
he is, is not without a city or a dwelling, nor need reckon himself
a stranger there; only he ought to have besides these prudence and
consideration, like a governing anchor, that he may be able to make
advantage of any port at which he arrives. It is not easy indeed for
him that has lost his wealth quickly to gather it up again; but every
city becomes presently that man’s country who has the skill to use it,
and who has those roots which can live and thrive, cling and grow to
every place. Such had Themistocles, and such had Demetrius Phalareus;
for this last named, after his banishment, being the prime friend
of King Ptolemy in Alexandria, not only was abundantly provided for
himself, but also sent presents to the Athenians. As for Themistocles,
he was maintained by an allowance suitable to his quality at the King’s
charge, and is reported to have said to his wife and children, We had
been undone, if we had not been undone. Diogenes the Cynic also, when
one told him, The Sinopians have condemned thee to fly from Pontus,
replied, And I have condemned them to stay in Pontus,
Close prisoners there to be,
At th’ utmost shore of the fierce Euxine Sea.[10]
Stratonicus enquiring of his host in the isle of Seriphus what crime
among them was punished with banishment, and being told forgery was so
punished, he asked him why he did not commit that crime that he might
be removed out of that strait place; and yet there, as the comedian
expresses it, they reap down their figs with slings, and that island is
provided with all things that it wants.
8. For if you consider the truth of things, setting aside vain fancy
and opinion, he that has got an agreeable city to dwell in is a
stranger and foreigner to all the rest, for it seems not reasonable and
just, that leaving his own he should go to dwell in another city. As
the proverb is, “Sparta is the province fallen to your lot, adorn it,”
though it should be in no credit or prove unhealthful, though disturbed
with seditions, and its affairs in distemper and out of order. But
as for him whom Fortune has deprived of his own habitation, it gives
him leave to go and dwell where he pleases. That good precept of the
Pythagoreans, “Make choice of the best life you can, and custom will
make it pleasant,” is here also wise and useful. Choose the best and
pleasantest place to live in, and time will make it thy country, and
such a country as will not encumber and distract thee, not laying on
thee such commands as these,—Bring in so much money; Go on such an
embassy to Rome; Entertain such a governor; Bear such a public office.
If a prudent person and no way conceited, calls these things to mind,
he will choose to live in exile in such a sorry island as Gyarus, or in
Cynarus that is “so hard and barren and unfit for plantation,” and do
this without reluctancy, not making such sorrowful complaints as the
women do in the poet Simonides:
The troubled sea’s dark waves surround me,
And with their horrid noise confound me;
but will rather remind himself of that saying of King Philip, who
receiving a fall in a place of wrestling, when he turned himself in
rising and saw the print of his body in the dust, exclaimed, Good God!
what a small portion of earth has Nature assigned us, and yet we covet
the whole world.
9. I presume you have seen the island of Naxos, or at least the town
of Hyria here hard by; in the former of which Ephialtes and Otus made
their abode, and in the latter Orion dwelt. Alcmaeon’s seat was on
the newly hardened mud which the river Achelous had cast up,—when he
fled from the Furies, as the poets tell us,—but I guess it was when
he fled from the rulers of the state and from seditions, and to avoid
those furies, the sycophants and informers, that he chose that little
spot of ground to dwell on, where he was free from business and lived
in ease and quiet. Tiberius Caesar passed the last seven years of his
life in the island of Capreae; and that sacred governing spirit that
swayed the whole world, and was enclosed as it were in his breast, yet
for so long time never removed nor changed place. And yet the thoughts
and cares of the empire, that were poured in upon him and invaded him
on every side, made that island’s repose and retirement to be less pure
and undisturbed to him. But he that by retreating to a small island can
free himself from great evils is a miserable man, if he does not often
say and sing those verses of Pindar to himself,—
Where slender cypress grows I’d have a seat,
But care not for the shady woods of Crete!
I’ve little land and so not many trees,
But free from sorrow I enjoy much ease,—
not being disquieted with seditions or the edicts of princes, nor with
administering affairs when the public is in straits, nor undergoing
officers that are hard to be put by and denied.
10. For if that be a good saying of Callimachus, that we ought not to
measure wisdom by a Persian cord, much less should we measure happiness
by cords of furlongs, or, if we chance to inhabit an island of two
hundred furlongs and not (like Sicily) of four days’ sail in compass,
think that we ought to disquiet ourselves and lament as if we were
very miserable and unfortunate. For what does a place of large extent
contribute to the tranquillity of one’s life? Do you not hear Tantalus
saying in the tragedy:
I sow the Berecyntian ground,
A field of twelve days’ journey round?
But he says a little after:
My mind, that used to mount the skies,
Fallen to the earth dejected lies,
And now this friendly counsel brings,—
Less to admire all earthly things.[11]
Nausithous, forsaking the spacious country of Hyperia because the
Cyclops bordered upon it, and removing to an island far distant from
all other people, chose there,
Remote from all commerce t’ abide,
By sea’s surrounding waves denied;[12]
and yet he procured a very pleasant way of living to his own citizens.
The Cyclades islands were formerly inhabited by the children of Minos,
and afterwards by the children of Codrus and Neleus; in which now
fools that are banished thither think they are punished. And indeed,
what island is there to which men are wont to be banished that is not
larger than the land that lies about Scillus, in which Xenophon after
his military expedition passed delicately his old age? The Academy
near Athens, that was purchased for three thousand drachmas, was the
place where Plato, Xenocrates, and Polemo dwelt; there they held their
schools, and there they lived all their lifetime, except one day every
year, when Xenocrates came into the city at the time of the Bacchanals
and the new tragedies, to grace the feast, as they say. Theocritus of
Chios reproached Aristotle, who affected a court-life with Philip and
Alexander, that he chose instead of the Academy rather to dwell at the
mouth of Borborus. For there is a river by Pella, which the Macedonians
call by that name.
But as for islands, Homer sets himself as it were studiously to commend
them in these verses:
He comes to the isle of Lemnos, and the town
Where divine Thoas dwelt, of great renown;
and
As much as fruitful Lesbos does contain,
A seat which Gods above do not disdain;
and
When he to th’ lofty hills of Scyros came,
And took the town that boasts Enyeus’s name;
and
These from Dulichium and th’ Echinades,
Blest isles, that lie ’gainst Elis, o’er the seas.[13]
And among the famous men that dwelt in islands they reckon Aeolus, a
great favorite of the Gods, the most prudent Ulysses, the most valiant
Ajax, and Alcinous, the most courteous entertainer of strangers.
11. When Zeno was told that the only ship he had remaining was cast
away at sea with all her lading, he replied: Well done Fortune, that
hast reduced me to the habit and life of a philosopher. And, indeed, a
man that is not puffed up with conceit nor madly in love with a crowd
will not, I suppose, have any reason to accuse Fortune for constraining
him to live in an island, but will rather commend her for removing
so much anxiety and agitation of his mind, for putting a stop to his
rambles in foreign countries, to his dangers at sea, and the noise and
tumult of the exchange, and for giving him a fixed, vacant, undisturbed
life, such a life as he may truly call his own, describing as it
were a circle about him, in which is contained the use of all things
necessary. For what island is there that has not a horse, a walk,
and a bath in it; that has not fishes and hares for such as delight
in hunting and angling and such like sports? But the chiefest of all
is, that the quiet which others thirst so much after thou commonly
mayst have here without seeking. For those that are gamesters at dice,
shutting up themselves at home, there are sycophants and busy spies
that hunt them out, and prosecute them from their houses of pleasure
and gardens in the suburbs, and hale them by violence before the
judges or the court. But none sails to an island to give a man any
disturbance, no petitioner, no borrower, no urger to suretyship, no one
that comes to beg his voice when he stands candidate for an office;
only the best friends and familiars, out of good-will and desire to
see him, may come over thither; and the rest of his life is safe and
inviolable to him, if he has the will and the skill to live at ease.
But he that cries up the happiness of those that run about in other
countries, or spend the most of their life in inns and passage-boats,
is no wiser than he is that thinks the planets in a better estate
than the fixed stars. And yet every planet rolling about in its
proper sphere, as in an island, keeps its order. For the sun never
transgresses its limited measures, as Heraclitus says; if it did do so,
the Furies, which are the attendants of Justice, would find it out and
punish it.
12. These things, my friend, and such like we say and sing to those
who, by being banished into an island, have no correspondence or
commerce with other people,
Hindered by waves of the surrounding deep,
Which many ’gainst their mind close prisoners keep.[14]
But as for thee, who art not assigned to one place only, but forbidden
only to live in one, the prohibiting thee one is the giving thee leave
to dwell anywhere else besides. If on one hand it is urged thus against
you: You are in no office, you are not of the senate, nor preside
as moderator at the public games, you may oppose on the other hand
thus: We head no factions, we make no expensive treats, nor give long
attendance at the governor’s gates; we care not at all who is chosen
into our province, though he be choleric or unsufferably vexatious.
But just as Archilochus disparaged the island of Thasos because of its
asperity and inequality in some places overlooking its fruitful fields
and vineyards, saying thus of it,
Like ridge of ass’s back it stood,
Full of wild plants, for nothing good;
so we, whilst we pore upon one part of banishment which is ignominious,
overlook its vacancy from business, and that leisure and freedom it
affords us.
Men admired the happiness of the Persian kings, that passed their
winter in Babylon, their summer in Media, and the pleasant spring-time
at Susa. And he that is an exile may, if he pleases, when the mysteries
of Ceres are celebrated, go and live at Eleusis; and he may keep the
feasts of Bacchus at Argos; at the time of the Pythian games, he
may pass over to Delphi, and of the Isthmian, to Corinth, if public
spectacles and shows are the things he admires; if not, then he may
be idle, or walk, or read, or sleep quietly; and you may add that
privilege Diogenes bragged of when he said, “Aristotle dines when it
seems good to King Philip, but Diogenes when he himself pleases,”
having no business, no magistrate, no prefect to interrupt and disturb
his customary way of living.
13. For this reason, you will find that very few of the most prudent
and wise men were buried in their own country, but the most of them,
when none forced them to it, weighed anchor and steered their course to
live in another port, removing some to Athens, and others from it.
Who ever gave a greater encomium of his own country than Euripides in
the following verses?
We are all of this country’s native race,
Not brought-in strangers from another place,
As some, like dice hither and thither thrown,
Remove in haste from this to t’other town.
And, if a woman may have leave to boast,
A temperate air breathes here in every coast;
We neither curse summer’s immoderate heat,
Nor yet complain the winter’s cold’s too great.
If aught there be that noble Greece doth yield,
Or Asia rich, by river or by field,
We seek it out and bring it to our doors.
And yet he that wrote all this went himself into Macedonia, and passed
the rest of his days in the court of Archelaus. I suppose you have also
heard of this short epigram:
Here lieth buried Aeschylus, the son
Of the Athenian Euphorion;
In Sicily his latest breath did yield,
And buried lies by Gela’s fruitful field.
For both he and Simonides before him went into Sicily. And whereas we
meet with this title, “This publication of the History of Herodotus
of Halicarnassus,” many have changed it into Herodotus of Thurii, for
he dwelt at Thurii, and was a member of that colony. And that sacred
and divine poet Homer, that adorned the Trojan war,—why was he a
controversy to so many cities (every one pleading he was theirs) but
because he did not cry up any one of them to the disparagement of the
rest? Many also and great are the honors that are paid to Jupiter
Hospitalis.
14. If any one object, that these men hunted ambitiously after glory
and honor, let him go to the philosophers and the schools and nurseries
of wisdom at Athens, those in the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoa,
the Palladium, the Odeum. If he admires and prefers the Peripatetic
philosophy before the rest, Aristotle was a native of Stagira,
Theophrastus of Ephesus, Straton of Lampsacus, Glycon of Troas, Ariston
of Ceus, Critolaus of Phaselis. If thou art for the Stoic philosophy,
Zeno was of Citium, Cleanthes of Assus, Chrysippus of Soli, Diogenes
of Babylon, Antipater of Tarsus, and Archedemus who was of Athens went
over to the Parthians, and left a succession of Stoic philosophers in
Babylon. And who, I pray, persecuted and chased these men out of their
country? Nobody at all; but they pursued their own quiet, which men
cannot easily enjoy at home that are in any reputation or have any
power; other things they taught us by what they said, but this by what
they did. For even now the most approved and excellent persons live
abroad out of their own country, not being transported, but departing
voluntarily, not being driven thence, but flying from business and from
the disquiets and molestations which they are sure to meet with at home.
It seems to me that the Muses helped the ancient writers to finish
their choicest and most approved compositions, by calling in, as it
were, banishment to their assistance. Thucydides the Athenian wrote
the Peloponnesian and Athenian War in Thrace, hard by the forest of
Scapte; Xenophon wrote his history in Scillus belonging to Elis;
Philistus in Epirus, Timaeus of Tauromenum at Athens, Androtion the
Athenian in Megara, Bacchylides the poet in Peloponnesus. These and
many more, after they had lost their country, did not lose all hope nor
were dejected in their minds, but took occasion thereupon to express
the vivacity of their spirit and the dexterity of their wit, receiving
their banishment at the hands of Fortune as a viaticum that she had
sent them; whereby they became renowned everywhere after death, whereas
there is no remaining mention of those factious persons that expelled
them.
15. He therefore is ridiculous that looks upon it as an ignominious
thing to be banished. For what is it that thou sayest? Was Diogenes
ignominious, when Alexander, who saw him sitting and sunning himself,
came and asked him whether he wanted any thing, and he answered him,
that he lacked nothing but that he would go a little aside and not
stand in his light? The king, admiring the presence of his mind,
turned to his followers and said: If I were not Alexander, I would
be Diogenes. Was Camillus inglorious because he was expelled Rome,
considering he has got the reputation of being its second founder?
Neither did Themistocles by his banishment lose any of the renown he
had gained in Greece, but added to it that which he had acquired among
the barbarians; neither is there any so without all sense of honor,
or of such an abject mind, that had not rather be Themistocles the
banished, than Leobates that indicted him; or be Cicero that had the
same fate, than Clodius that expelled him Rome; or be Timotheus that
abandoned his country, than Aristophon that was his accuser.
16. But because the words of Euripides move many, who seems to frame a
heavy charge against banishment and to urge it home, let us see what he
says more particularly in his questions and answers about it.
JOCASTA. But is’t so sad one’s country to forego,
And live in exile? Pray, son, let me know.
POL. Some ills when told are great, when tried are less;
But this is saddest felt, though sad t’ express.
JOC. What is’t, I pray, afflicts the banished most?
POL. That liberty to speak one’s mind is lost.
JOC. He is indeed a slave that dares not utter
His thoughts, nor ’gainst his cruel masters mutter.
POL. But all their insolencies must o’erpass,
And bear their follies tamely like an ass.[15]
These assertions of his are neither good nor true. For first, not to
speak what one thinks is not a piece of slavery; but it is the part
of a prudent man to hold one’s peace and be silent when time and
the circumstances of affairs require it; as he himself says better
elsewhere, that a wise man knows
Both when it’s best no tongue to find,
And when it’s safe to speak his mind.
Again, as for the rudeness and insolency of such as have power in their
hands, they that stay in their country are no less forced to bear and
endure it than those that are driven out of it; nay, commonly the
former stand more in fear of false informations and the violence of
unjust rulers in cities than the latter. But his greatest mistake and
absurdity is his taking away all freedom of speech from exiles. It is
wonderful indeed if Theodorus had no freedom of this kind, who,—when
King Lysimachus said to him: Thou being such a criminal, the country
cast thee forth, did it not?—replied: Yes, not being able to bear me;
just as Semele cast out Bacchus, when she could bear him no longer. And
when the king showed him Telesphorus in an iron cage, with his eyes
digged out of their holes, his nose and ears and tongue cut off, and
said: So I deal with those that injure me, he was not abashed. What!
did not Diogenes retain his wonted freedom of speaking, who coming into
King Philip’s camp, when he was going to give the Grecians battle, was
brought before him for a spy; and confessed that he was so, but that he
came to take a view of his unsatiable greediness of empire and of his
madness and folly who was going in the short time of a fight to throw a
die for his crown and life?
And what say you to Hannibal the Carthaginian? Did not he use a
convenient freedom towards Antiochus (he at that time an exile, and
the other a king), when upon an advantageous occasion he advised him
to give his enemies battle? He, when he had sacrificed, told him the
entrails forbade it. Hannibal sharply rebuked him thus: You are for
doing what the flesh of a beast, not what the reason of a wise man,
adviseth.
Neither does banishment deprive geometricians or mathematicians of
the liberty of discoursing freely concerning matters they know and
have skill in; and why should any worthy or good man be denied it? But
meanness of thought obstructs and hinders the voice, strangles the
power of speech, and makes a man a mute. But let us see what follows
from Euripides:
JOC. Upon good hopes exiles can thrive, they say.
POL. Hopes have fine looks, but kill one with delay.[16]
This is also an accusation of men’s folly rather than of banishment;
for it is not the well instructed and those that know how to use what
they have aright, but such as depend upon what is to come and desire
what they have not, that are carried and tossed up and down by hopes,
as in a floating vessel, though they have scarce ever stirred beyond
the gates of their own city. But to go on:
JOC. Did not your father’s friends aid your distress?
POL. Take care to thrive; for if you once are poor,
Those you call friends will know you then no more.
JOC. Did not your high birth stand you in some stead?
POL. It’s sad to want, for honor buys no bread.
These also are ungrateful speeches of Polynices, who accuses banishment
as casting disparagement upon noble birth and leaving a man without
friends, who yet because of his high birth was thought worthy, though
an exile, to have a king’s daughter given him in marriage, and also by
the powerful assistance of his friends gathered such an army as to make
war against his own country, as he confesses himself a little after:
Many a famous Grecian peer
And captain from Mycenae here
In readiness t’ assist me tarry;
Sad service ’tis, but necessary.[17]
Neither are the words of his lamenting mother any wiser:
No nuptial torch at all I lighted have
To thee, as doth a wedding-feast beseem;
No marriage-song was sung; nor thee to lave
Was water brought from fair Ismenus’ stream.
She ought to have been well pleased and rejoiced when she heard that
her son dwelt in such kingly palaces; but, whilst she laments that the
nuptial torch was not lighted, and the want of waters from Ismenus’s
river for him to have bathed in (as if people at Argos were destitute
both of fire and water at their weddings), she makes those evils, which
her own conceit and folly produced, to be the effects of banishment.
17. But is it not then an ignominious thing to be an exile? Yes, it is
among fools, with whom it is a reproach to be poor, to be bald, or of
low stature, and (with as much reason) to be a stranger or a pilgrim.
But they that do not fall into these mistakes admire good men, though
they happen to be poor or strangers or in exile. Do not we see the
temple of Theseus venerated by all men, as well as the Parthenon and
Eleusinium? And yet Theseus was banished from Athens, by whose means
it is at this time inhabited; and lost his abode in that city, which
he did not hold as a tenant, but himself built. And what remarkable
thing is there remaining in Eleusis, if we are ashamed of Eumolpus, who
coming thither from Thrace initiated the Greeks, and still does so,
in the mysteries of religion? And whose son was Codrus, that reigned
at Athens, but of that Melanthus who was banished from Messene? Will
you not commend that speech of Antisthenes, who, when one said to him,
Phrygia is thy mother, replied, She was also the mother of the Gods?
And if any one reproach thee with thy banishment, why canst not thou
answer, that the father of the great conqueror Hercules was an exile?
And so was Cadmus the grandfather of Bacchus, who, being sent abroad in
search for Europa, did return no more:
Sprung from Phoenicia, to Thebes he came;
Thebes to his grandson Bacchus lays a claim,
Who there inspires with rage the female rout,
That worship him by running mad about.[18]
As for those things which Aeschylus obscurely insinuates in that
expression of his,
And of Apollo, chaste God, banished heaven,
I’ll favor my tongue, as Herodotus phrases it, and say nothing.
Empedocles, when he prefaces to his philosophy thus,—
This old decree of fate unchanged stands,—
Whoso with horrid crimes defiles his hands,
To long-lived Daemons this commission’s given
To chase him many ages out of heaven.
Into this sad condition I am hurled,
Banished from God to wander through the world,—
does not here only point at himself; but in what he says of himself he
shows the condition of us all, that we are pilgrims and strangers and
exiles here in this world. For know, says he, O men, that it is not
blood nor a spirit tempered with it that gave being and beginning to
the soul, but it is your terrestrial and mortal body that is made up of
these. And by the soft name of pilgrimage, he insinuates the origin of
the soul, that comes hither from another place. And the truth is, she
flies and wanders up and down, being driven by the divine decrees and
laws; and afterwards, as in an island surrounded with a great sea, as
Plato speaks, she is tied and linked to the body, just like an oyster
to its shell, and because she is not able to remember nor relate,
From what a vast and high degree
Of honor and felicity
she has removed,—not from Sardis to Athens, not from Corinth to
Lemnos or Scyros, but having changed heaven and the moon for earth and
an earthly life,—if she is forced to make little removes here from
place to place, the soul hereupon is ill at ease and troubled at her
new and strange state, and hangs her head like a decaying plant. And
indeed some one country is found to be more agreeable to a plant than
another, in which it thrives and flourishes better; but no place can
deprive a man of his happiness, unless he pleases, no more than of his
virtue and prudence. For Anaxagoras wrote his book of the Squaring
of a Circle in prison; and Socrates, just when he was going to drink
the poison that killed him, discoursed of philosophy, and exhorted his
friends to the study of it; who then admired him as a happy man. But
Phaëton and Tantalus, though they mounted up to heaven, yet, the poets
tell us, through their folly fell into the extremest calamities.
OF BROTHERLY LOVE.
1. The ancient statues of Castor and Pollux are called by the Spartans
Docana; and they are two pieces of wood one over against the other
joined with two other cross ends, and the community and undividedness
of this consecrated representation seems to resemble the fraternal
love of these two Gods. In like manner do I devote this discourse
of Brotherly Love to you, Nigrinus and Quintus, as a gift in common
betwixt you both, who well deserve it. For as to the things it advises
to, you will, while you already practise them, seem rather to give your
testimonies to them than to be exhorted by them. And the satisfaction
you have from well-doing will give the more firm durance to your
judgment, when you shall find yourselves approved by wise and judicious
spectators. Aristarchus the father of Theodectes said indeed once, by
way of flout of the Sophists, that formerly there were scarce seven
Sophists to be found, but that in his time there could hardly be found
so many who were not Sophists. But I see brotherly love is as scarce
in our days as brotherly hatred was in ancient times, the instances
of which have been publicly exposed in tragedies and public shows for
their strangeness. But all in our times, when they have fortuned to
have good brothers, do no less admire them than the famed Molionidae,
that are supposed to have been born with their bodies joined with each
other. And to enjoy in common their fathers’ wealth, friends, and
slaves is looked upon as incredible and prodigious, as if one soul
should make use of the hands, feet, and eyes of two bodies.
2. And Nature hath given us very near examples of the use of
brothers, by contriving most of the necessary parts of our bodies
double, as it were, brothers and twins,—as hands, feet, eyes, ears,
nostrils,—thereby telling us that all these were thus distinguished
for mutual benefit and assistance, and not for variance and discord.
And when she parted the very hands into many and unequal fingers, she
made them thereby the most curious and artificial of all our members;
insomuch that the ancient philosopher Anaxagoras assigned the hands for
the reason of all human knowledge and discretion. But the contrary to
this seems the truth. For it is not man’s having hands that makes him
the wisest animal, but his being naturally reasonable and capable of
art was the reason why such organs were conferred upon him. And this
also is most manifest to every one, that the reason why Nature out of
one seed and source formed two, three, and more brethren was not for
difference and opposition, but that their being apart might render
them the more capable of assisting one another. For those that were
treble-bodied and hundred-handed, if any such there were, while they
had all their members joined to each other, could do nothing without
them or apart, as brothers can who can live together and travel,
undertake public employments and practise husbandry, by one another’s
help, if they preserve but that principle of benevolence and concord
that Nature hath bestowed upon them. But if they do not, they will not
at all differ in my opinion from feet that trip up one another, and
fingers that are unnaturally writhen and distorted by one another. Yea,
rather, as things moist and dry, cold and hot, partake of one nature in
the same body, and by their consent and agreement engender the best
and most pleasant temperament and harmony,—without which (they say)
there is neither satisfaction nor benefit in either riches or kingship
itself, which renders man equal to Gods,—but if excess and discord
befall them, they miserably ruinate and confound the animal; so, where
there is an unanimous accordance amongst brothers, the family thrives
and flourishes, and friends and acquaintance, like a well furnished
choir, in all their actions, words, and thoughts maintain a delightful
harmony.
But jarring feuds advance the worst of men,
such as a vile ill-tongued slave at home, an insinuating parasite
abroad, or some other envious person. For as diseases in bodies
nauseating their ordinary diet incline the appetite to every improper
and noxious thing; so calumny freely entertained against relations,
and through prejudging credulity enhanced into suspicion, occasions an
adopting the pernicious acquaintance of such as are ready enough to
crowd into the room of their betters.
3. The Arcadian prophet in Herodotus was forced to supply the loss of
one of his feet with an artificial one made of wood. But he who in a
difference throws off his brother, and out of places of common resort
takes a stranger for his comrade, seems to do no less than wilfully
to mangle off a part of himself, attempting to repair the barbarous
breach by the unnatural application of an extraneous member. For the
ordinary inclinations and desires of men, being after some sort of
society or other, sufficiently admonish them to set the highest value
upon relations, to pay them all becoming respects, and to have a tender
regard for their persons, nothing being more irksome to nature than to
live in that destitution and solitude that denies them the happiness of
a friend and the privilege of communication. Well therefore was that of
Menander:
’Tis not o’th’ store of sprightly wine,
Nor plenty of delicious meats,
Though generous Nature should design
T’ oblige us with perpetual treats;
’Tis not on these we for content depend,
So much as on the shadow of a friend.
For a great deal of friendship in the world is really no better and no
more than the mere imitation and resemblance of that first affection
that Nature wrought in parents towards their children, and in their
children towards one another. And whoever has not a particular esteem
and regard for this kind of friendship, I know no reason any one has to
credit his kindest pretensions. For what shall we make of that man who
in his complaisance, either in company or in his letters, salutes his
friend by the name of brother, and yet scorns the company of that very
brother whose name was so serviceable to him in his compliment? For,
as it is the part of a madman to adorn and set out the effigies of his
brother, and in the mean time to abuse, beat, and maim his person; so,
to value and honor the name in others but to hate and shun the brother
himself is likewise an action of one that is not so well in his wits
as he should be, and that never yet considered that Nature is a most
sacred thing.
4. I remember, when I was at Rome, I undertook an umpirage between two
brothers. The one pretended to the study of philosophy, but (as it
appeared by the event) with as little reason as to the relation of a
brother. For, when I advised him that now was the time for him to show
his philosophy, in the prudent managery and government of himself,
whilst he was to treat with so dear a relation as a brother, and such
a one especially as wanted those advantages of knowledge and education
that he had; Your counsel, replied my philosopher, may do well with
some illiterate novice or other; but, for my part, I see no such great
matter in that which you so gravely allege, our being the issue of the
same parents. True, I answered, you declare evidently enough that you
make no account of your affinity. But, by your favor, Mr. Philosopher,
all of your profession that I ever was acquainted with, whatever their
private opinions were, affirm both in their prose and poetry that,
next to the Gods and the laws, her conservators and guardians, Nature
had assigned to parents the highest honor and veneration. And there is
nothing that men can perform more grateful to the Gods, than freely
and constantly to pay their utmost acknowledgments and thanks to their
parents, and those from whom they received their nurture and education;
as, on the other hand, there is no greater argument of a profane and
impious spirit than a contemptuous and surly behavior towards them. We
are therefore enjoined to take heed of doing any one wrong. But he that
demeans not himself with that exactness before his parents that all his
actions may afford them a pleasure and satisfaction, though he give
them no other distaste, is sure to undergo a very hard censure. Now
what can more effectually express the gratitude of children to their
parents, or what actions or dispositions in their children can be more
delightful and rejoicing, than firm love and amity amongst them?
5. And this may be understood by lesser instances. For, if parents will
be displeased when an old servant that has been favored by them shall
be reproached and flouted at by the children, or if the plants and the
fields wherein they took pleasure be neglected, if the forgetting a
dog or a beloved horse fret their humorsome age (that is very apt to
be jealous of the love and obedience of their children), if, lastly,
when they disaffect and despise those recreations that are pleasing
to the eye and ear, or those juvenile exercises and games which they
themselves formerly delighted in,—if at any of all these things the
parents will be angry and offended,—how will they endure such discord
as inflames their children with mutual malice and hatred, fills their
mouths with opprobrious and execrating language and works them into
such an inveteracy that the contrary and spiteful method of their
actions declares a drift and design of ruining one another? If, I say,
those smaller matters provoke their anger, how will all the rest be
resented? Who can resolve me? But, on the other hand, where the love
of brothers is such that they make up that distance Nature has placed
them at (in respect of their different bodies) by united affections,
insomuch that their studies and recreations, their earnest and their
jest, keep true time and agree exactly together, such a pleasing
consort amongst their children proves a nursing melody to the decayed
parents to preserve and maintain their quiet and peace in their old
(though tender) age. For never was any father so intent upon oratory,
ambitious of honor, or craving after riches, as fond of his children.
Wherefore neither is it so great a satisfaction to hear them speak
well, find them grow wealthy, or see them honored with the power of
magistracy, as to be endeared to each other in mutual affection.
Wherefore it is reported of Apollonis of Cyzicum, mother of King
Eumenes and three other sons, Attalus, Philetaerus, and Athenaeus, that
she always accounted herself happy and gave the Gods thanks, not so
much for wealth or empire, as because she saw her three sons guarding
the eldest, and him reigning securely among his armed brothers. And on
the contrary, Artaxerxes, understanding that his son Ochus had laid a
plot against his brothers, died with sorrow at the surprise. For the
quarrels of brothers are pernicious, saith Euripides, but most of all
to the parents themselves. For he that hates and plagues his brother
can hardly forbear blaming the father who begot and the mother who bare
him.
6. Wherefore Pisistratus, being about to marry again, his sons being
grown up to a mature age, gave them their deserved character of praise,
together with the reason of his designs for a second marriage,—that
he might be the happy father of more such children. Now those who are
truly ingenious do not only love one another the more entirely for the
sake of their common parents, but they love their very parents for the
sake of one another; always owning themselves bound to their parents
especially for the mutual happiness that they enjoy in each other,
and looking upon their brethren as the dearest and the most valuable
treasure they could have received from their parents. And thus Homer
elegantly expresses Telemachus bewailing the want of a brother:
Stern Jove has in some angry mood
Condemned our race to solitude.[19]
But I like not Hesiod’s judgment so well, who is all for a single
son’s inheriting. Not so well (I say) from Hesiod, a pupil of the
Muses, who being endeared sisters kept always together, and therefore
from that inseparate union (ὁμοῦ οὖσαι) were called Muses. To parents
therefore the love of brothers is a plain argument of their children’s
love to themselves. And to the children of the brothers themselves it
is the best of precedents, and that which affords the most effectual
advice that can be thought of; as again, they will be forward enough
in following the worst of their parents’ humors and inheriting their
animosities. But for one who has led his relations a contentious life,
and quarrelled himself up into wrinkles and gray hairs,—for such a one
to begin a lecture of love to his children is just like him.
Who boldly takes the fees,
To cure in others what’s his own disease.[20]
In a word, his own actions weaken and confute all the arguments of his
best counsel. Take Eteocles of Thebes reflecting upon his brother and
flying out after this manner.
I’d mount the Heavens, I’d strive to meet the sun
In’s setting forth, I’d travel with him down
Beneath the earth, I’d balk no enterprise.
To gain Jove’s mighty power and tyrannize.[21]
Suppose, I say, out of this rage, he had presently fallen into the
softer strain of good advice to his children, charging them thus:
Prize gentle amity that vies
With none for grandeur; concord prize
That joins together friends and states.
And keeps them long confederates.
Equality!—whatever else deceives
Our trust, ’tis this our very selves outlives;
who is there that would not have despised him? Or what would you have
thought of Atreus, after he had treated his brother at a barbarous
supper, to hear him afterwards thus instructing his children:
Such love as doth become related friends
Alone, when ills betide, its succor lends?
7. It is therefore very needful to throw off those ill dispositions,
as being very grievous and troublesome to their parents, and more
destructive to children in respect of the ill example. Besides, it
occasions many strange censures and much obloquy amongst men. For they
will not be apt to imagine that so near and intimate relations as
brothers, that have eaten of the same bread and all along participated
of the same common maintenance, and who have conversed so familiarly
together, should break out into contention, except they were conscious
to themselves of a great deal of naughtiness. For it must be some
great matter that violates the bonds of natural affection; whence it
is that such breaches are so hardly healed up again. For, as those
things which are joined together by art, being parted, may by the
same art be compacted again, but if there be a fracture in a natural
body, there is much difficulty in setting and uniting the broken
parts; so, if friendships that through a long tract of time have been
firmly and closely contracted come once to be violated, no endeavors
will bring them together any more. And brothers, when they have once
broke natural affection, are hardly made true friends again; or, if
there be some kind of peace made betwixt them, it is like to prove but
superficial only, and such as carries a filthy festering scar along
with it. Now all enmity between man and man which is attended with
these perturbations of quarrelsomeness, passion, envy, recording of
an injury, must needs be troublesome and vexatious; but that which is
harbored against a brother, with whom they communicate in sacrifices
and other religious rites of their parents, with whom they have the
same common charnel-house and the same or a near habitation, is much
more to be lamented,—especially if we reflect upon the horrid madness
of some brothers, in being so prejudiced against their own flesh and
blood, that his face and person once so welcome and familiar, his voice
all along from his childhood as well beloved as known, should on a
sudden become so very detestable. How loudly does this reproach their
ill-nature and savage dispositions, that, whilst they behold other
brethren lovingly conversing in the same house and dieting together
at the same table, managing the same estate and attended by the same
servants, they alone divide friends, choose contrary acquaintance,
resolving to abandon every thing that their brother may approve of? Now
it is obvious to any to understand, that new friends and companions may
be compassed and new kindred may come in when the old, like decayed
weapons and worn-out utensils, are lost and gone. But there is no more
regaining of a lost brother, than of a hand that is cut off or an eye
that is beaten out. The Persian woman therefore spake truth, when she
preferred the saving her brother’s life before her very children’s,
alleging that she was in a possibility of having more children if she
should be deprived of those she had, but, her parents being dead, she
could hope for no more brothers after him.[22]
8. You will ask me then, What shall a man do with an untoward brother?
I answer, every kind and degree of friendship is subject to abuse from
the persons, and in that respect has its taint, according to that of
Sophocles:
Who into human things makes scrutinies,
He may on most his censures exercise.
For, if you examine the love of relations, the love of associates, or
the more sensual passion of fond lovers, you will find none of them
all clear, pure, and free from all faults. Wherefore the Spartan, when
he married a little wife, said that of evils he had to choose the
least. But brothers would do well to bear with one another’s familiar
failings, rather than to adventure upon the trial of strangers. For
as the former is blameless because it is necessary, so the other is
blameworthy because it is voluntary. For it is not to be expected that
a sociable guest or a wild crony should be bound by the same
Chains of respect, forged by no human hand,
as one who was nourished from the same breast and carries the same
blood in his veins. And therefore it would become a virtuous mind to
make a favorable construction of his brother’s miscarriages, and to
bespeak him with this candor:
I cannot leave you thus under a cloud
Of infelicities,[23]
whether debauched with vice or eclipsed with ignorance, for fear my
inadvertency to some failing that naturally descends upon you from
one of our parents should make me too severe against you. For, as
Theophrastus said, as to strangers, judgment must rule affection rather
than affection prescribe to judgment; but where nature denies judgment
this prerogative, and will not wait for the bushel of salt (as the
proverb has it) to be eaten, but has already infused and begun in us
the principle of love, there we should not be too rigid and exact in
the examining of faults. Now what would you think of men when they
can easily dispense with and smile at the sociable vices of their
acquaintance, and in the mean time be so implacably incensed with the
irregularities of a brother? Or when fierce dogs, horses, wolves, cats,
apes, lions, are so much their favorites that they feed and delight in
them, and yet cannot stomach only their brother’s passion, ignorance,
or ambition? Or of others who have made away their houses and lands to
harlots, and quarrelled with their brothers only about the floor or
corner of the house? Nay, further, such a prejudice have they to them,
that they justify the hating them from the rule of hating every ill
thing, maliciously accounting them as such; and they go up and down
cursing and reproaching their brothers for their vices, while they are
never offended or discontented therewith in others, but are willing
enough daily to frequent and haunt their company.
9. And this may serve for the beginning of my discourse. I shall enter
upon my instructions not as others do, with the distribution of the
parents’ goods, but with advice rather to avoid envious strifes and
emulation whilst the parents are living. Agesilaus was punished with a
mulct by the Lacedaemonian council for sending every one of the ancient
men an ox as a reward of his fortitude; the reason they gave for their
distaste was, that by this means he won too much upon the people,
and made the commonalty become wholly serviceable to his own private
interest. Now I would persuade the son to show all possible honor and
reverence to his parents, but not with that greedy design of engrossing
all their love to himself,—of which too many have been guilty, working
their brethren out of favor, on purpose to make way for their own
interest,—a fault which they are apt to palliate with specious,
but unjust pretences. For they deprive and cheat their brethren out
of the greatest and most valuable good they are capable of receiving
from their parents, viz., their kindness and affection, whilst they
slyly and disingenuously steal in upon them in their business, and
surprise them in their errors, demeaning themselves with all imaginable
observance to their parents, and especially with the greatest care and
preciseness in those things wherein they see their brethren have been
faulty or suspected to be so. But a kind brother, and one that truly
deserves the name, will make his brother’s condition his own, freely
take upon himself a share of his sufferings, particularly in the anger
of his parents, and be ready to do any thing that may conduce to the
restoring him into favor; but if he has neglected some opportunity or
something which ought to have been done by him, to excuse it upon his
nature, as being more ready and seriously disposed for other things.
That of Agamemnon therefore was well spoken in the behalf of his
brother:
Nor sloth, nor silly humor makes him stay;
I am the only cause. All his delay
Waits my attempts:[24]
and he says that this charge was delivered him by his brother. Fathers
willingly allow of the changing of names, and have an inclination to
believe their children when they make the best interpretation of their
brother’s failings,—as when they call carelessness simple honesty, or
stupidity goodness, or, if he be quarrelsome, term him a smart-spirited
youth and one that will not endure to be trampled on. By this means it
comes to pass, that he who makes his brother’s peace and ingratiates
him with his offended father at the same time fairly advances his own
interest, and grows deservedly the more in favor.
10. But when the storm is once over, it is necessary to be serious
with him, to reprehend him sharply for his crime, discovering to him
with all freedom wherein he has been wanting in his duty. For as such
guilty brothers are not to be allowed in their faults, neither are they
to be insulted with raillery. For to do the latter were to rejoice and
find advantage in their failings, and to do the former were to take
part in them. Therefore ought they so to manage their severities that
they may show a solicitude and concernedness for their brethren and
much discomposure and trouble at their follies. Now he is the fittest
person to school his brother smartly who has been a ready and earnest
advocate in his behalf. But suppose the brother wrongfully charged, it
is fitting he should be obsequious to his parents in all other things
whatsoever, and to bear with their angry humors; but a defence made
before them for a brother that suffers by slander and false accusation
is unreprovable and very good. In all such there is no need to fear
that check in Sophocles,
Curst son! who with thy father durst contend;[25]
for there is allowed a liberty of vindicating a traduced brother. And
where the parents are convinced of their injury, in cases of this kind
defeat is more pleasant to them than victory.
11. But when the father is dead, it is fitting brothers should close
the nearer in affection; immediately in their sadness and sorrow
communicating their mutual love, and, in the next place, rejecting
the suspicious stories and suggestions of servants, discountenancing
their sly methods and subtle applications, and amongst other stories,
adverting to the fable of Jupiter’s sons, Castor and Pollux, whose
love to one another was such that Pollux, when one was whispering to
him somewhat against his brother, killed him with a blow of his fist.
And when they come to dividing their parents’ goods, let them take
heed that they come not with prejudice and contentious resolutions,
giving defiance and shouting the warcry, as so many do. But let them
observe with caution that day above all others, as it may be to them
the beginning either of mortal enmity or of friendship and concord. And
then, either amongst themselves, or, if need be, in the presence of
some common and indifferent friend, let them deal fairly and openly,
allowing Justice (as Plato says) to draw the lot, giving and receiving
what may consist with love and friendship. Thus they will appear to
be sharers only in the care and disposal of these things, whilst the
propriety and enjoyment is free and common to them all. But they that
take an advantage in the controversy, and seize from one another
nurses and children who have been fostered and brought up with them,
prevailing by their eagerness, may perhaps go away with the gain of
a single slave, but they have forfeited in the stead of it the best
legacy their parents could have left them, the love and confidence of
their brothers. I have known some brothers, without the instigation of
lucre, and merely out of a savage disposition, fly upon the goods of
their deceased parents with as much ravine and fierceness as they would
upon the spoil of an enemy. Such were the actions of Charicles and
Antiochus the Opuntians, who divided a silver cup and a garment in two
pieces, as though by some tragical imprecation they had been set on
To share the patrimony with a sword.[26]
Others I have known proclaiming the success of their subtle methods
of fierce and eager and sometimes sly and fallacious reasonings, by
which means they have compassed larger proportion from their deluded
brethren. Whereas their just actions and their kind and humble carriage
had less reproached their pride, but raised the esteem of their
persons. Wherefore that action of Athenodorus is very memorable,
and indeed generally remembered by our countrymen. His elder brother
Xeno in the time of his guardianship had wasted a great part of his
substance, and at last was condemned for a rape, and all that was left
was confiscated. Athenodorus was then but a youth; but when his share
of the estate was given to him, he had that regard to his brother,
that he brought all his own proportion and freely exposed it to a new
division with him. And though in the dividing it he suffered great
abuse from him, he resented it not so much as to repent of what he had
done, but endured with most remarkable meekness and unconcerned ease
his brother’s outrage, that was become notorious throughout all Greece.
12. Solon discoursing about the commonwealth approved of equality, as
being that which would occasion no tumult or faction. But this opinion
appeared too popular; for by this arithmetical method he would have
set up democracy in the room of a far happier government, consisting
with a more suitable (viz., a geometrical) proportion. But he that
advises brethren in the dividing of an estate should give them Plato’s
counsel to the citizens, that they would lay aside self-interest, or,
if they cannot be persuaded to that, to be satisfied with an equal
division. And this is the way to lay a good and lasting foundation of
love and peace betwixt them. Besides that, he may have the advantage
of naming eminent instances. Such was that of Pittacus, who, being
asked of the Lydian king whether he had any estate, replied that he
had twice as much as he wanted, his brother being dead. But since that
not only in the affluence or want of riches he that has a less share
is liable to hostility with him that has more, but generally, as Plato
says, in all inequality there is inquietude and disturbance, and in
the contrary a during confidence; so a disparity among brethren tends
dangerously to discord. But for them to be equal in all respects, I
grant, is impossible. For what through the difference that nature made
immediately betwixt them at the first, and what through the following
contingencies of their lives, it comes to pass that they contract an
envy and hatred against one another, and such abominable humors as
render them the plagues not only of their private families but even
of commonwealths. And this indeed is a disease which it were well
to prevent, or to cure when it is engendered. I would persuade that
brother therefore that excels his fellows in any accomplishments, in
those very things to communicate and impart to them the utmost he can,
that they may shine in his honor, and flourish with his interest. For
instance, if he be a good orator, to endeavor to make that faculty
theirs, accounting it never the less for being imparted. And care ought
to be taken that all this kindness be not followed with a fastidious
pride, but rather with such a becoming condescension and familiarity
as may secure his worth from envy, and by his own equanimity and sweet
disposition, as far as is possible, make up the inequality of their
fortunes. Lucullus refused the honor of magistracy on purpose to give
way to his younger brother, contentedly waiting for the expiration of
his year. Pollux chose rather to be half a deity with his brother than
a deity by himself, and therefore to debase himself into a share of
mortality, that he might raise his brother as much above it. You then
are a happy man, one would think, that can oblige your brother at a
cheaper rate, illustrate him with the honor of your virtues, and make
him great like yourself, without any damage or derogation. Thus Plato
made his brothers famous by mentioning them in the choicest of his
books,—Glauco and Adimantus in that concerning the Commonwealth, and
Antipho his youngest brother in his Parmenides.
13. Besides, as there is difference in the natures and fortunes of
brothers, so neither is it possible that the one should excel the
other in every particular thing. The elements exist out of one common
matter, yet they are qualified with quite contrary faculties. No one
ever saw two brothers by the same father and mother so strangely
distinguished that, whereas the one was a Stoic and withal a wise
man,—a comely, pleasant, liberal, eminent, wealthy, eloquent,
studious, courteous man,—the other was quite contrary to all these.
But, however, the vilest, the most despicable things have some
proportion of good, or natural disposition to it.
Thus amongst hated thorns and prickly briers
The fragrant violet retires.
Now therefore, he who has the eminency in other things, if he yet do
not hinder nor stifle the credit of what is laudable in his brother,
like an ambitious antagonist that grasps at all the applause, but if
he rather yield to him, and declare that in many things he excels him,
by this means takes away all occasion of envy, which being like fire
without fuel, must needs die without it. Or rather he prevents the very
beginnings of envy, and suffers it not so much as to kindle betwixt
them. But he who, where he knows himself far superior to his brother,
calls for his help and advice, whether it be in the business of a
rhetorician, a magistrate, or a friend,—in a word, he that neglects
or leaves him out in no honorable employment or concern, but joins him
with himself in all his noble and worthy actions, employs him when
present, waits for him when absent, and makes the world take notice
that he is as fit for business as himself, but of a more modest and
yielding disposition,—all this while has done himself no wrong, and
has bravely advanced his brother.
14. And this is the advice one would offer to the excelling brother.
The other should consider that, as his brother excels him in wealth,
learning, esteem, he must expect to come behind not him only but
millions more,
Who live o’ th’ offsprings of the spacious earth.
But if he envies all that are so happy, or is the only one in the world
that repines at his own brother’s felicity, his malicious temper speaks
him one of the most wretched creatures in the world. Wherefore, as
Metellus’s opinion was, that the Romans were bound to thank the Gods
that Scipio, being such a brave man, was not born in another city;
so he who aspires after great things, if he miss of his designs for
himself, can do no less than entitle his brother to his best wishes.
But some are so unlucky in estimating of virtuous and worthy actions
that, whereas they are overjoyed to see their friends grow in esteem,
and are not a little proud of entertaining persons of honor or great
opulency, their brother’s worth and eminency is in the mean time looked
upon with a jealous eye, as though it threatened to cloud and eclipse
the splendor of their condition. How do they exalt themselves at the
memory of some prosperous exploits of their father, or the wise conduct
of their great-grandfather, by all which they are nothing advantaged?
But again, how are they daunted and dispirited to see a brother
preferred to inheritances, dignities, or honorable marriage? But we
should not envy any one; but if this cannot be, we ought at least to
turn our malice and rancor out of the family against worse objects, in
imitation of those who ease the city of sedition by turning the same
upon their enemies without. We may say, as Diomedes said to Glaucus:
Trojans I have and friends; you, what I hate,—
Grecians to envy and to emulate.[27]
15. Brothers should not be like the scales of a balance, the one rising
upon the other’s sinking; but rather like numbers in arithmetic,
the lesser and greater mutually helping and improving each other.
For that finger which is not active in writing or touching musical
instruments is not inferior to those that can do both; but they all
move and act, one as well as another, and are assistant to each other,
which makes the inequality among them seem designed by Nature, when
the greatest cannot be without the help of the least that is placed
in opposition to it. Thus Craterus and Perilaus, brothers to kings
Antigonus and Cassander, betook themselves, the one to managing of
military, the other of his domestic affairs. On the other hand, the
men like Antiochus, Seleucus, Grypus, and Cyzicenus, disdaining any
meaner things than purple and diadems, brought a great deal of trouble
and mischief upon one another, and made Greece itself miserable with
their quarrels. But in regard that men of ambitious inclinations will
be apt to envy those who have got the start of them in honor, I judge
it most convenient for brothers to take different methods in pursuit of
it, rather than to vex and emulate one another in the same way. Those
beasts fight and war one with another who feed in one pasture, and
wrestlers are antagonists when they strive in the same game. But those
that pretend to different games are the greatest friends, and ready to
take one another’s parts with the utmost of their skill and power. So
the two sons of Tyndarus, Castor and Pollux, carried the day,—Pollux
at cuffs, and Castor at racing. Thus Homer brings in Teucer as expert
in the bow, whom his brother Ajax, who was best in close fight,
Protected over with a glittering shield.[28]
And amongst those who are concerned in the Commonwealth a general of an
army does not much envy the leaders of the people, nor among those that
profess rhetoric do the lawyers envy the sophisters, nor amongst the
physicians do those who prescribe rules for diet envy the chirurgeon;
but they mutually aid and assert the credit of one another. But for
brothers to study to be eminent in the same art and faculty is all
the same, amongst ill men, as if rival lovers, courting one and the
same mistress, should both strive to gain the greatest interest in her
affections. Those indeed that travel different ways can probably do
one another but little good; but those who carry on quite different
designs, and take several methods in their conversations, avoid envy,
and many times do one another a kindness. As Demosthenes and Chares,
and again Aeschines and Eubulus, Hyperides and Leosthenes, the one
treating the people with their discourses and writings, the others
assisting them by action and conduct. Therefore, where the disposition
of brothers is such that they cannot agree in prosecuting the same
methods of becoming great, it is convenient that one of them should
so command himself as to assume the most different inclinations and
designs from his brother; that, if they both aim at honor, they may
serve their ambition by different means, and that they may cheerfully
congratulate each other on the success of their designs, and so enjoy
at once their honor and themselves.
16. But, besides this, they must beware of the suggestions of kindred,
servants, or even wives, that may work much in a vain-glorious mind.
Your brother, say they, is the great man of action, whom the people
honor and admire; but nobody comes near or regards you. Now a man that
well understood himself would answer, I have indeed a brother that is a
plausible man in the world, and the greatest part of his honor I have
a right to. For Socrates said that he would rather have Darius for his
friend than a Daric. But to a prudent and ingenious brother, it would
be as great a satisfaction to see his brother an excellent orator, a
person of great wealth or authority, as if he had been any or all these
himself. And thus especially may that trouble and discontent, that
arises from the great odds that are betwixt brethren, be mitigated.
But there are other differences that happen amongst ill-constructed
brothers in respect of their age. For, whilst the elder justly claim
the privilege of pre-eminence and authority over the younger, they
become troublesome and uneasy to them; and the younger, growing pert
and refractory, begin to slight and contemn the elder. Hence it is that
the younger, looking upon themselves as hated and curbed, decline and
stomach their admonitions. The elder again, being fond of superiority,
are jealous of their brothers’ advancement, as though it tended to
lessen them. Therefore, as we judge of a kindness that it ought to
be valued more by the party obliged than by him who bestows it, so,
if the elder would be persuaded to set less by his seniority and the
younger to esteem it more, there would be no supercilious slighting
and contemptuous carriage betwixt them. But, seeing it is fitting
the elder should take care of them, lead, and instruct them, and the
younger respect, observe, and follow them; it is likewise convenient
that the elder’s care should carry more of familiarity in it, and
that he should act more by persuasion than command, being readier to
express much satisfaction and to applaud his brother when he does well
than to reprove and chastise him for his faults. Now the younger’s
imitation should be free from such a thing as angry striving. For
unprejudiced endeavors in following another speak the esteem of a
friend and admirer, the other the envy of an antagonist. Whence it is
that those who, out of love to virtue, desire to be like their brother
are beloved; but those again who, out of a stomaching ambition, contend
to be equal with them meet with answerable usage. But above all other
respects due from the younger to the elder, that of observance is
most commendable, and occasions the return of a strong affection and
equal regard. Such was the obsequious behavior of Cato to his elder
brother Caepio all along from their childhood, that, when they came
to be men, he had so much overcome him with his humble and excellent
disposition, and his meek silence and attentive obedience had begot
in him such a reverence towards him, that Caepio neither spake nor
did any thing material without him. It is recorded that, when Caepio
had sealed some writing of depositions, and his brother coming in was
against it, he called for the writing and took off his seal, without
so much as asking Cato why he did suspect the testimony. The reverence
that Epicurus’s brothers showed him was likewise remarkable, and well
merited by his good will and affectionate care for them. They were so
especially influenced by him in the way of his philosophy, that they
began betimes to entertain a high opinion of his accomplishments, and
to declare that there was never a wiser man heard of than Epicurus. If
they erred, yet we may here observe the obliging behavior of Epicurus,
and the return of their passionate respects to him. And amongst later
philosophers, Apollonius the Peripatetic convinced him who said honor
was incommunicable, by raising his younger brother Sotion to a higher
degree of eminence than himself. Amongst all the good things I am
bound to Fortune for, I have that of a kind and affectionate brother
Timon, which cannot be unknown to any who have conversed with me, and
especially those of my own family.
17. There are yet other disturbances that brothers near the same age
ought to be warned of; they are but small indeed at present, but they
are frequent and leave a lasting grudge, such as makes them ready
upon all occasions to fret and exasperate one another, and conclude
at last in implacable hatred and malice. For, having once begun to
fall out in their sports, and to differ about little things, like
the feeding and fighting of cocks and other fowl, the exercises of
children, the hunting of dogs, the racing of horses, it comes to pass
that they have no government of themselves in greater matters, nor
the power to restrain a proud and contentious humor. So the great
men among the Grecians in our time, disagreeing first about players
and musicians, afterward about the bath in Aedepsus, and again about
rooms of entertainment, from contending and opposing one another about
places, and from cutting and turning water-courses, they were grown
so fierce and mad against one another, that they were dispossessed
of all their goods by a tyrant, reduced to extreme poverty, and put
to very hard shifts. In a word, so miserably were they altered from
themselves, that there was nothing of the same but their inveterate
hatred remaining in them. Wherefore there is no small care to be taken
by brothers in subduing their passions and preventing quarrels about
small matters, yielding rather for peace’s sake, and taking greater
pleasure in indulging than crossing and conquering one another’s
humors. For the ancients accounted the Cadmean victory to be no other
than that between the brothers at Thebes, esteeming that the worst
and basest of victories. But you will say, Are there not some things
wherein men of mild and quiet dispositions may have occasion to dissent
from others? There are, doubtless; but then they must take care that
the main difference be betwixt the things themselves, and that their
passions be not too much concerned. But they must rather have a regard
to justice, and as soon as they have referred the controversy to
arbitrament, immediately discharge their thoughts of it, for fear too
much ruminating leave a deep impression of it in the mind, and render
it hard to be forgotten. The Pythagoreans were imitable for this, that,
though no nearer related than by mere common discipline and education,
if at any time in a passion they broke out into opprobrious language,
before the sun set they gave one another their hands, and with them a
discharge from all injuries, and so with a mutual salutation concluded
friends. For as a fever attending an inflamed sore threatens no great
danger to the body, but, if the sore being healed the fever stays,
it appears then to be a distemper and to have some deeper cause; so,
when among brothers upon the ending of a difference all discord ceases
betwixt them, it is an argument that the cause lay in the matter of
difference only, but, if the discord survive the decision of the
controversy, it is plain that the pretended matter served only for a
false scar, drawn over on purpose to hide the cause of an incurable
wound.
18. It is worth the while at present to hear an account of a dispute
between two foreign brothers, not concerning a little patch of land,
nor a few servants or cattle, but no less than the kingdom of Persia.
When Darius was dead, some were for Ariamenes’s succeeding to the
crown as being eldest son; others were for Xerxes, who was born to
Darius of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, in the time of his reign over
Persia. Ariamenes therefore came from Media in no hostile posture,
but very peaceably, to hear the matter determined. Xerxes being there
used the majesty and power of a king. But when his brother was come,
he laid down his crown and other royal ornaments, went and meeting
greeted him. And sending him presents, he gave a charge to his servants
to deliver them with these words: With these presents your brother
Xerxes expresses the honor he has for you; and, if by the judgment
and suffrage of the Persians I be declared king, I place you next to
myself. Ariamenes replied: I accept your gifts, but presume the kingdom
of Persia to be my right. Yet for all my younger brethren I shall have
an honor, but for Xerxes in the first place. The day of determining who
should reign being come, the Persians made Artabanus brother to Darius
judge. Xerxes excepting against him, confiding most in the multitude,
his mother Atossa reproved him, saying: Why, son, are you so shy of
Artabanus, your uncle, and one of the best men amongst the Persians?
And why should you dread the trial, where the worst you can fear is
to be next the throne, and to be called the king of Persia’s brother?
Xerxes at length submitting, after some debate Artabanus adjudged the
kingdom to Xerxes. Ariamenes presently started up, and went and showed
obeisance to his brother, and taking him by the hand, placed him in the
throne. And from that time, being placed himself by Xerxes next in the
kingdom, he continued the same affection to him, insomuch that, for
his brother’s honor engaging himself in the naval fight at Salamis, he
was killed there. And this may serve for a clear and unquestionable
instance of true kindness and greatness of mind.
Antiochus’s restless ambition after a crown was as much to be
condemned; but still we may admire this in him, that it did not totally
extinguish natural affection and destroy the love of a brother. He
went to war with his brother Seleucus for the kingdom, himself being
the younger brother, and having the assistance of his mother. In the
durance of which war Seleucus joins battle with the Galatians and is
defeated; being not heard of for a time, he is supposed to be slain and
his whole army to be slaughtered by the enemy. Antiochus, understanding
it, put off his purple, went into mourning, caused his palace to be
shut up, and retired to lament the death of his brother. But, within
a short time after, hearing that his brother was safe and raising new
forces, he went and offered sacrifices for joy, and commanded his
subjects to do the like and to crown themselves with garlands. But
the Athenians, though they made a ridiculous story about a falling
out amongst the Deities, compensated for the absurdity pretty well in
striking out the second day of their month Boedromion, because upon
that day Neptune and Minerva were at variance. And why should not we
cancel out of our memories, as an unhappy day and no more to be spoken
of, that wherein we have differed with any of our family or relations?
But rather, far be it from us that the feuds of that day should bury
the memory of all that happier time wherein we were educated and
conversed together. For, except nature has bestowed those virtues
of meekness and patience upon us in vain and to no purpose, we have
certainly the greatest reason to exercise them towards our intimate
friends and kindred. Now the acknowledgments of the offender and the
begging pardon for the crime express a kind and amicable nature no
less than the remitting of it. Wherefore it is not for us to slight
the anger of those whom we have incensed through our folly, neither
should they be so implacable as to refuse an humble submission; but
rather, where we have done the wrong, we should endeavor to prevent a
distaste by the earliest and humblest acknowledgments and impetrations
of pardon, and where we have received any, to be as ready and free in
the forgiving of it. Euclides, Socrates’s auditor, was famous in the
schools for his mild return to his raving brother, whom he heard bellow
out threats against him after this manner: Let me perish, if I be not
revenged on you. He answered: And let me perish, if I do not prevail
with you to desist from this passion, and to let us be as good friends
as ever we were. This Euclides spake; but what king Eumenes did was
an act of meekness seldom to be paralleled, and never yet outdone.
For Perseus king of Macedon, being his great enemy, had engaged some
persons to attempt the killing him. In order to which barbarous act
they lay in wait for him at Delphi, and, when they perceived him going
from the sea toward the Oracle, came behind him and set upon him with
great stones, wounding him in the head and neck, till reeling with
his hurt he fell down and was supposed dead. The rumor of this action
dispersed every way, and some friends and servants of his coming to
Pergamus, who were the amazed spectators of the supposed murder,
brought the news. Whereupon Attalus, Eumenes’s eldest brother, a
well-tempered man and one that had showed the greatest affection and
respect to his brother, was proclaimed king, and not only assumed
the crown, but married his deceased brother’s queen, Stratonica. But
intelligence coming a while after that Eumenes was alive and coming
home, he presently laid aside the crown, and putting on his usual
habiliments, went with the rest of the guard to meet and attend him.
Eumenes received him with the most affectionate embrace, and saluted
the queen with honorable respect and much endearment. And not long
after, at his death, he was so free from passion or jealousy against
his brother, that he bequeathed to him both his crown and his queen.
The return of Attalus to his brother’s kindness was ingenuous and very
remarkable. For after his brother’s death he took no care to advance
his own children, though he had many, but provided especially for the
education of Eumenes’s son, and when he came to age, placed the crown
upon his head, and saluted him with the title of king. But Cambyses,
being disturbed only with a dream that his brother was like to reign
over Asia, without any enquiry after farther evidence or ground for his
jealousy, caused him to be put to death. Whereupon the succession went
out of Cyrus’s family into the line of Darius, a prince who understood
how to share the management of his affairs and even his regal authority
not merely with his brothers, but also with his friends.
19. Again, this rule is to be observed, that, whenever any difference
happens betwixt brothers, during the time of strangeness especially
they hold a correspondence with one another’s friends, but by all
means avoid their enemies. The Cretans are herein very observable;
who, being accustomed to frequent skirmishes and fights, nevertheless,
as soon as they were attacked by a foreign enemy, were reconciled and
went together. And that was it which they commonly called Syncretism.
For there are some who, like waters running among loose and chinky
grounds, overthrow all familiarity and friendship; enemies to both
parties, but especially bent upon the ruining of him whose weakness
exposes him most to danger. For every sincere substantial friend joins
in affection with one that approves himself such to him. And you shall
observe, on the other hand, that the most inveterate and pernicious
enemy contributes the poison of his ill-nature to heighten the passion
of an angry brother. Therefore as the cat, in Aesop, out of pretended
kindness asked the sick hen how she did, and she answered, The better
if you were further off; after the same manner one would answer an
incendiary that throws in words to breed discord, and to that end pries
into things that are not to be spoken of, saying: I have no controversy
with my brother nor he with me, if neither of us shall hearken to such
sycophants as you are. I cannot understand why—seeing it is commonly
held convenient for those who have tender eyes and a weak sight to shun
those objects that are apt to make a strong reflection—the rule should
not hold good in morals, and why those whom we would imagine sick of
the trouble of fraternal quarrels and contentions should rather seem
to take pleasure in them, and even seek the company of those who will
only excite them the more and make all worse. How much more prudential
a course would they take in avoiding the enemies of their offended
brethren, and rather conversing with their relations and friends or
even with their wives, and discovering their grievances to them frankly
and with plainness of speech! But some are of that scrupulous opinion,
that brothers walking together must not suffer a stone to lie in the
way betwixt them, and are very much concerned if a dog happen to run
betwixt them; and many such things, being looked upon as ominous,
discompose and terrify them. Whereas none of them all any way tends
to the breaking of friendship or the causing of dissension; but they
are not in the least aware that men of snarling dispositions, base
detractors, and instigators of mischief, whom they improvidently admit
into their society, are the things that do them the greatest hurt.
20. Therefore (this discourse suggesting one thing after another)
Theophrastus said well: If there ought to be all things common amongst
friends, why should not the best of those things, their friends
themselves, be communicated? And this is advice that cannot be too soon
tendered to brethren, for their separate acquaintance and conversation
conduce to the estranging them from one another. For those who affect
divers friends will be apt to delight in them so much as to emulate
them, and will therefore be easily drawn and persuaded by them; for
friendships have their distinctive marks and manners, and there is
no greater argument of a different genius and disposition than the
choice of different friends. Wherefore neither the common table nor
the common recreations nor any other sort of intimacy comprehends so
much of amity betwixt brothers, as to be united in their interest and
to have the same common friends and enemies; for ordinary friendship
suffers neither calumnies nor clashings, but if there be any anger
or discontent, honest and impartial friends make an end of it. For
as tin unites and solders up broken brass, being put to the ends and
attempered to the nature of the broken pieces; so it is the part of a
friend betwixt two brothers, to suit and accommodate himself to the
humors of both, that he may confirm and secure their friendship. But
those of different and uncomplying tempers are like improper notes in
music, that serve only to spoil the consort, and offend the ear with a
harsh noise. It is a question therefore whether Hesiod was in the right
or not when he said:
Let not thy friend become thy brother’s peer.[29]
For one of an even behavior, that freely communicates himself between
both, may by his interest in both contract a firm and happy tie and
engagement of love between brothers. But Hesiod, it seems, spoke
of those he suspected,—the greatest part and the worst sort of
friends,—men of envious and selfish designs. He is wise who avoids
such friends; and if in the mean time he divide his kindness equally
between a true friend and a brother, let him do it with this reserve
always, that the brother have the preference in magistracy and the
management of public affairs, that he have the greater respect
shown him in invitations and in contracting acquaintance with great
persons, and in any thing that looks honorable and great in the eyes
of the people, that the pre-eminence be given to Nature; for in these
instances to prefer a friend does him not so much credit as that base
and unworthy action of lessening and slighting a brother does the
vilifying brother disgrace. But several have given their opinions in
this thing. That of Menander is very well,
No one who loves will bear to be contemned.
This may remind brothers to preserve a tender regard to one another,
and not to presume that Nature will overcome all their slights and
disdain. A horse naturally loves a man, and a dog his master; but, if
they are neglected in what is fitting and necessary for them, they will
grow strange and unmanageable. The body, that is so intimately united
to the soul, if the soul suspend a careful influence from it, will not
be forward to assist it in its operations; it may rather spoil and
cross them.
21. Now as the kind regards of brother to brother are highly
commendable, so may they be expressed to the greater advantage,
when he confines them not wholly to his person, but pays them, as
occasion serves, rather by reflection to his kindred and such as
retain to him; when he maintains a kind and complaisant humor amidst
all contingencies, when he obliges the servile part of the family
with a courteous and affable carriage, when he is grateful to the
physician and good friends for the safe recovery of his brother, and
is ready to go upon any expedition or service for him. Again, it is
highly commendable in him to have the highest esteem and honor for
his brother’s wife, reputing and honoring her as the most sacred of
all his brother’s sacred treasures, and thus to do honor to him;
condoling with her when she is neglected, and appeasing her when
she is angered; if she have a little offended, to intercede and sue
for her peace; if there have been any private difference between
himself and his brother, to make his complaint before her in order
to a reconcilement. But especially let him be much troubled at his
brother’s single state; or, if he be married, at his want of children.
If not married, let him follow him with arguments and persuasions,
to teaze him with rebukes and reproaches, and to do every thing that
may incline him to enter into a conjugal state. When he has children,
let him express his affection and respects to both parents with the
greater ardency. Let him love the children equally with his own, but
be more favorable and indulgent to them, that, if it chance that they
commit some of their youthful faults, they may not run away and hide
themselves among naughty acquaintances through fear of their parents’
anger, but may have in their uncle a recourse and refuge, where they
will be admonished lovingly and will find an intercessor to make
their excuse and get their pardon. So Plato reclaimed his nephew
Speusippus, that was far gone in idleness and debauchery; the young
man, impatient of his parents’ reprehensions, ran away from them, who
were more impatient of his extravagancies. His uncle expressed nothing
of disturbance at all this, but continued calm and free from passion;
whereupon Speusippus was seized with an extraordinary shame, and from
that time became an admirer of both his uncle and his philosophy. Many
of Plato’s friends blamed him that he had not instructed the youth; he
made answer, that he instructed him by his life and conversation, from
which he might learn, if he pleased, the difference betwixt ill and
virtuous actions. The father of Aleuas the Thessalian, looking upon his
son as of a fierce and injurious nature, kept him under with a great
deal of severity, but his uncle received him with as great kindness.
When therefore the Thessalians sent some lots to the oracle at Delphi,
to enquire by them who should be their king, his uncle stole in one
lot privately in the name of Aleuas; the priestess answered from the
oracle, that Aleuas should be king. His father being surprised averred
that there was never a lot thrown in for Aleuas that he knew of; at
last all concluded that some mistake was committed in putting down
the names, whereupon they sent again to enquire of the oracle. The
priestess, confirming her first words, answered:
I mean the youth with reddish hair,
Whom dame Archedice did bear.
Thus Aleuas was by the oracle, through his uncle’s kind policy,
declared king; by which means he surmounted all his ancestors, and
advanced his family into a splendid condition. For it is prudence
in a brother, when he beholds with joy the brave and worthy actions
of his nephews growing great and honorable by their own deserts, to
prompt and encourage them on by congratulation and applause. For to
praise his own son may be absurd and offensive, but to commend the
good actions of a brother’s son, is an excellent thing, and one which
proceeds from no self-interest, nor any other principle but a true
veneration for virtue. Now the very name of uncle (θεῖος) intimates
that mutual beneficence and friendship that ought to be between him and
his nephews. Besides this, we have a precedent from those that are
of a sublimer make and nature than ourselves. Hercules, who was the
father of sixty-eight sons, had a brother’s son that was as dear to
him as any of his own; and even to this time Hercules and his nephew
Iolaus have in many places one common altar betwixt them, and share in
the same adorations. He is called literally Hercules’s assistant. And
when his brother Iphicles was slain in a battle at Lacedaemon, in his
exceeding grief he left the whole of Peloponnesus. Also Leucothea, her
sister being dead, took her infant, nursed him up, and consecrated him
with herself among the deities; from whence the Roman matrons, upon the
festivals of Leucothea (whom they call also Matuta) have a custom of
nursing their sisters’ children instead of their own, during the time
of the festival.
WHEREFORE THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS NOW CEASES TO DELIVER HER ORACLES IN
VERSE.
I. BASILOCLES, PHILINUS.
II. PHILINUS, DIOGENIANUS, THEO, SERAPIO, BOETHUS, INTERPRETERS.
1. BASILOCLES. You have spun out the time, Philinus, till it
is late in the evening, in giving the strangers a full sight of all the
consecrated rarities; so that I am quite tired with waiting longer for
your society.
PHILINUS. Therefore we walked slowly along, talking and
discoursing, O Basilocles, sowing and reaping by the way such sharp and
hot disputes as offered themselves, which sprung up anew and grew about
us as we walked, like the armed men from the Dragon’s teeth of Cadmus.
BASILOCLES. Shall we then call some of those that were
present; or wilt thou be so kind as to tell us what were the discourses
and who were the disputants?
PHILINUS. That, Basilocles, it must be my business to do.
For thou wilt hardly meet with any one else in the city able to serve
thee; for we saw most of the rest ascending with the stranger up to the
Corycian cave and to Lycorea.
BASILOCLES. This same stranger is not only covetous of seeing
what may be seen, but wonderfully civil and genteel.
PHILINUS. He is besides a great lover of science, and studious
to learn. But these are not the only exercises which are to be admired
in him. He is a person modest, yet facetious, smart and prudent in
dispute, void of all passion and contumacies in his answers; in short,
you will say of him at first sight that he is the son of a virtuous
father. For dost thou not know Diogenianus, a most excellent person?
BASILOCLES. I have not seen him, Philinus, but many report
several things of the young gentleman, much like what you say. But,
pray now, what was the beginning of these discourses? Upon what
occasion did they arise?
2. PHILINUS. The interpreters of the sacred mysteries acted
without any regard to us, who desired them to contract their relation
into as few words as might be, and to pass by the most part of the
inscriptions. But the stranger was but indifferently taken with the
form and workmanship of the statues, being one, as it appeared, who had
already been a spectator of many rare pieces of curiosity. He admired
the beautiful color of the brass, not foul and rusty, but shining with
a tincture of blue. What, said he, was it any certain mixture and
composition of the ancient artists in brass, like the famous art of
giving a keen edge to swords, without which brass could not be used
in war? For Corinthian brass received its lustre not from art, but by
chance, when a fire had devoured some house wherein there was both gold
and silver, but of brass the greater plenty; which, being intermixed
and melted into one mass, derives its name from the brass, of which
there was the greater quantity. Then Theo interposing said: But we have
heard another more remarkable reason than this; how an artist in brass
at Corinth, happening upon a chest full of gold, and fearing to have it
divulged, cut the gold into small pieces, and mixed it by degrees with
the brass, till he found the more noble metal gave a more than usual
lustre to the baser, and so transformed it that he sold at a great rate
the unknown mixture, that was highly admired for its beauty and color.
But I believe both the one and the other to be fabulous; for by all
likelihood this Corinthian brass was a certain mixture and temperature
of metals, prepared by art; just as at this day artisans temper gold
and silver together, and make a peculiar and wonderful pale yellow
metal; howbeit, in my eye it is of a sickly color and a corrupt hue,
without any beauty in the world.
3. What then, said Diogenianus, do you believe to be the cause of
this extraordinary color in the brass? And Theo replied: Seeing that
of those first and most natural elements, which are and ever will
be,—that is to say, fire, air, earth, and water,—there is none that
approaches so near to brass or that so closely environs it as air
alone, we have most reason to believe that the air occasions it, and
that from thence proceeds the difference which brass displays from
other metals. Or did you know this even “before Theognis was born,” as
the comic poet intimates; but would you know by what natural quality
or by what virtual power this same air thus colors the brass, being
touched and surrounded by it? Yes, said Diogenianus; and so would
I, dear son, replied the worthy Theo. First then let us endeavor,
altogether with submission to your good pleasure, said the first
propounder, to find out the reason wherefore of all moistures oil
covers brass with rust. For it cannot be imagined that oil of itself
causes that defilement, if when first laid on it is clean and pure.
By no means, said the young gentleman, in regard the effect seems to
proceed from another cause; for the rust appears through the oil, which
is thin, pure, and transparent, whereas it is clouded by other more
thick and muddy liquors, and so is not able to show itself. It is well
said, son, replied the other, and truly; but hear, however, and then
consider the reason which Aristotle produces. I am ready, returned
the young gentleman. He says then, answered the other, that the rust
insensibly penetrates and dilates itself through other liquids, as
being of parts unequal, and of a thin substance; but that it grows
to a consistency, and is, as it were, incorporated by the more dense
substance of the oil. Now if we could but suppose how this might be
done, we should not want a charm to lull this doubt asleep.
4. When we had made our acknowledgment that he had spoken truth, and
besought him to proceed, he told us that the air of the city of Delphi
is heavy, compacted, thick, and forcible, by reason of the reflection
and resistency of the adjacent mountains, and besides that, is sharp
and cutting (as appears by the eager stomachs and swift digestion of
the inhabitants); and that this air, entering and penetrating the brass
by its keenness, fetches forth from the body of the brass much rust
and earthy matter, which afterwards it stops and coagulates by its own
density, ere it can get forth; by which means the rust abounding in
quantity gives that peculiar grain and lustre to the superficies. When
we approved this argument, the stranger declared his opinion, that it
needed no more than one of those suppositions to clear the doubt; for,
said he, that tenuity or subtilty seems to be in some measure contrary
to that thickness supposed to be in the air, and therefore there is no
reason to suppose it; for the brass, as it grows old, of itself exhales
and sends forth that rust, which afterwards, being stopped and fixed by
the thickness of the air, becomes apparent by reason of its quantity.
Then Theo replied: and what hinders but that the same thing may be
thick and thin both together, like the woofs of silk or fine linen?—of
which Homer says:
Thin was the stuff,
Yet liquid oil ran o’er the tissued woof,[30]
intimating the extreme fineness of the texture, yet so close woven that
it could not suffer oil to pass through it. In like manner may we make
use of the subtilty of the air, not only to scour the brass and fetch
the rust out of it, but also to render the color more pleasing and more
azure-like, by intermixing light and splendor amidst the blue.
5. This said, after short silence, the guides began again to cite
certain words of an ancient oracle in verse, which, as it seemed to
me, pointed at the sovereignty of Aegon king of Argos. I have often
wondered, said Diogenianus, at the meanness and ill-contrived hobbling
of the verses which conveyed the ancient oracles into the world. And
yet Apollo is called the chief of the Muses; whom it therefore behooved
to take no less care of elegancy and beauty in style and language, than
of the voice and manner of singing. Besides, he must needs be thought
to surpass in a high degree either Homer or Hesiod in poetic skill.
Nevertheless we find several of the oracles lame and erroneous, as
well in reference to the measure as to the words. Upon which the poet
Serapio, newly come from Athens, being then in company, said: If we
believe that those verses were composed by Apollo, can we acknowledge
what you allege, that they come short of the beauty and elegancy which
adorn the writings of Homer and Hesiod; and shall we not make use of
them as examples of neatness and curiosity, correcting our judgment
anticipated and forestalled by evil custom? To whom Boethus the
geometer (the person who you know has lately gone over to the camp of
Epicurus) said: Have you not heard the story of Pauson the painter?
Not I, replied Serapio. It is worth your attention, answered Boethus.
He, having contracted to paint a horse wallowing upon his back, drew
the horse galloping at full speed; at which when the person that had
agreed with him seemed to be not a little displeased, Pauson fell a
laughing, and turned the picture upside downward; by which means the
posture was quite altered, and the horse that seemed to run before lay
tumbling now upon the ground. This (as Bion says) frequently happens
to propositions, when they are once inverted; for some will deny the
oracles to be elegant, because they come from Apollo; others will
deny Apollo to be the author, because of their rude and shapeless
composure. For the one is dubious and uncertain; but this is manifest,
that the verses wherein the oracles are generally delivered are no way
laboriously studied. Nor can I appeal to a better judge than yourself,
whose compositions and poems are not only written so gravely and
philosophically, but, for invention and elegancy, more like to those of
Homer and Hesiod than the homely Pythian raptures.
6. To whom Serapio: We labor, Boethus, said he, under the distempered
senses both of sight and hearing, being accustomed through niceness
and delicacy to esteem and call that elegant which most delights; and
perhaps we may find fault with the Pythian priestess because she does
not warble so charmingly as the fair lyric songstress Glauca, or else
because she does not perfume herself with precious odors or appear
in rich and gaudy habit. And some may mislike her because she burns
for incense rather barley-meal and laurel than frankincense, ladanon,
and cinnamon. Do you not see, some one will say, what a grace there
is in Sappho’s measures, and how they delight and tickle the ears and
fancies of the hearers? Whereas the Sibyl with her frantic grimaces, as
Heraclitus says, uttering sentences altogether thoughtful and serious,
neither bespiced nor perfumed, continues her voice a thousand years by
the favor of the Deity that speaks within her. Pindar therefore tells
us that Cadmus heard from heaven a sort of music that was neither lofty
nor soft, nor shattered into trills and divisions; for severe holiness
will not admit the allurements of pleasure, that was for the most part
thrown into the world and flowed (as it appears) into the ears of men
at the same time with the Goddess of mischief.
7. Serapio thus concluding, Theo with a smile proceeded. Serapio,
said he, has not forgot his wonted custom of taking an opportunity to
discourse of pleasure. But we, Boethus, believe not these prophetic
verses to be the compositions of Apollo, if they are worse than
Homer’s; but we believe that he supplied the principle of motion,
and that every one of the prophetesses was disposed to receive his
inspiration. For if the oracles were to be set down in writing, not
verbally to be pronounced, surely we should not find fault with the
hand, taking it to be Apollo’s, because the letters were not so fairly
written as in the epistles of kings. For neither the voice, nor the
sound, nor the word, nor the metre proceeds from the God, but from the
woman. God only presents the visions, and kindles in the soul a light
to discover future events; which is called divine inspiration. But in
short, I find it is a hard matter to escape the hands of Epicurus’s
priests (of which number I perceive you are), since you reprove the
ancient priestesses for making bad verses, and the modern prophetesses
for delivering the oracles in prose and vulgar language, which they do
that they may escape being by you called to an account for their lame
and mistaken verses. But then, Diogenianus, I beseech you, said he, in
the name of all the Gods, be serious with us; unriddle this question,
and explain this mystery unto us, which is now grown almost epidemical.
For indeed there is hardly any person that does not with an extreme
curiosity search after the reason wherefore the Pythian oracle has
ceased to make use of numbers and verse. Hold, son, said Theo, we shall
disoblige our historical directors by taking their province out of
their hands. First suffer them to make an end, and then at leisure we
will go on with what you please.
8. Thus walking along, we were by this time got as far as the statue
of Hiero the tyrant, while the stranger, although a most learned
historian, yet out of his complaisant and affable disposition,
attentively leaned to the present relations. But then, among other
things, hearing how that one of the brazen pillars that supported the
said statue of Hiero fell of itself the same day that the tyrant died
at Syracuse, he began to admire the accident. Thereupon at the same
time I called to mind several other examples of the like nature: as
that of Hiero the Spartan, the eyes of whose statue fell out of its
head just before he was slain at the battle of Leuctra;—how the two
stars vanished which Lysander offered and consecrated to the Gods
after the naval engagement near Aegos Potami, and how there sprung of
a sudden from his statue of stone such a multitude of thorny bushes
and weeds as covered all his face;—how, when those calamities and
misfortunes befell the Athenians in Sicily, the golden dates dropped
from the palm-tree, and the ravens with their beaks pecked holes in
the shield of Pallas;—how the crown of the Cnidians which Philomelus,
the tyrant of the Phocians, gave Pharsalia, a female dancer, was the
occasion of her death; for, passing out of Greece into Italy, one day
as she was playing and dancing in the temple of Apollo in the city
of Metapontum, having that crown upon her head, the young men of the
place falling upon her, and fighting one among another for lucre of the
gold, tore the damsel in pieces. Now, though Aristotle was wont to say
that only Homer composed names and terms that had motion, by reason
of the vigor and vivacity of his expressions, for my part I am apt to
believe that the offerings made in this city of statues and consecrated
presents sympathize with Divine Providence, and move themselves jointly
therewith to foretell and signify future events; and that no part of
all those sacred donatives is void of sense, but that every part is
full of the Deity.
It is very probable, answered Boethus; for, to tell you truth, we do
not think it sufficient to enclose the Divinity every month in a mortal
body, unless we incorporate him with every stone and lump of brass; as
if Fortune and Chance were not sufficient artists to bring about such
accidents and events. Say ye so then? said I. Seems it to you that
these things happen accidentally and by hap-hazard; and is it likely
that your atoms never separate, never move or incline this or that way
either before or after, but just in that nick of time when some one of
those who have made these offerings is to fare either better or worse?
Shall Epicurus avail thee by his writings and his sayings, which he
wrote and uttered above three hundred years ago, and shall the Deity,
unless he crowd himself into all substances and blend himself with all
things, not be allowed to be a competent author of the principles of
motion and affection?
9. This was the reply I made Boethus, and the same answer I gave him
touching the Sibyl’s verses; for when we drew near that part of the
rock which joins to the senate-house, which by common fame was the
seat of the first Sibyl that came to Delphi from Helicon, where she
was bred by the Muses (though others affirm that she fixed herself
at Maleo, and that she was the daughter of Lamia, the daughter of
Neptune), Serapio made mention of certain verses of hers, wherein she
had extolled herself as one that should never cease to prophesy even
after her death; for that after her decease she should make her abode
in the orb of the moon, being metamorphosed into the face of that
planet; that her voice and prognostications should be always heard in
the air, intermixed with the winds and by them driven about from place
to place; and that from her body should spring various plants, herbs,
and fruits to feed the sacred victims, which should have sundry forms
and qualities in their entrails, whereby men would be able to foretell
all manner of events to come. At this Boethus laughed outright; but
the stranger replied that, though the Sibyl’s vain-glory seemed
altogether fabulous, yet the subversions of several Grecian cities,
transmigrations of the inhabitants, several invasions of barbarian
armies, the destructions of kingdoms and principalities, testified
the truth of ancient prophecies and predictions. And were not those
accidents that fell out not many years ago in our memories at Cumae and
Puteoli, said he, long before that time the predictions and promises
of the Sibyl, which Time, as a debtor, afterwards discharged and paid?
Such were the breaking forth of kindled fire from the sulphuric wombs
of mountains, boiling of the sea, cities so swallowed up as not to
leave behind the least footsteps of the ruins where they stood; things
hard to be believed, much harder to be foretold, unless by Divine
foresight.
10. Then Boethus said: I would fain know what accidents fall out
which time does not owe at length to Nature. What so prodigious or
unlooked for, either by land or sea, either in respect of cities or
men, which, if it be foretold, may not naturally come to pass at one
season or other, in process of time? So that such a prophecy, to speak
properly, cannot be called a prediction, but a bare speech or report,
or rather a scattering or sowing of words in boundless infinity that
have no probability or foundation; which, as they rove and wander in
the air, Fortune accidentally meets, and musters together by chance, to
correspond and agree with some event. For, in my opinion, there is a
great difference between the coming to pass of what has been said and
the saying of what shall happen. For the discourse of things that are
not, being already in itself erroneous and faulty, cannot, in justice,
claim the honor of after-credit from a fortuitous accident. Nor is it a
true sign that the prophet foretells of his certain knowledge, because
what he spoke happened to come to pass; in regard there are an infinite
number of accidents, that fall in the course of nature, suitable to all
events. He therefore that conjectures best, and whom the common proverb
avers to be the exactest diviner, is he who finds out what shall
happen hereafter, by tracing the footsteps of future probabilities.
Whereas these Sibyls and enthusiastic wizards have only thrown into
the capacious abyss of time, as into a vast and boundless ocean, whole
heaps of words and sentences, comprehending all sorts of accidents and
events, which, though some perchance may come to pass, were yet false
when uttered, though afterwards by chance they may happen to be true.
11. Boethus having thus discoursed, Serapio replied, that Boethus had
rightly and judiciously argued in reference to cursory predictions
uttered not determinately and without good ground. One fairly guessed
that such a captain should get the victory, and he won the field;
another cried that such things portended the subversion of such a
city, and it was laid in ashes. But when the person does not only
foretell the event, but how and when, by what means, and by whom it
shall come to pass, this is no hazardous conjecture, but an absolute
demonstration, and pre-inspired discovery of what shall come to pass
hereafter, and that too by the determined decree of fate, long before
it comes to pass. For example, to instance the halting of Agesilaus,
Sparta, beware, though thou art fierce and proud,
Lest a lame king thy ancient glories cloud;
For then 'twill be thy fate to undergo
Tedious turmoils of war, and sudden woe;
together with what was prophesied concerning the island which the sea
threw up right against Thera and Therasia; as also the prediction of
the war between King Philip and the Romans,
When Trojan race shall tame Phoenicians bold,
Prodigious wonders shall the world behold;
From burning seas shall flames immense ascend;
Lightning and whirlwinds hideous rocks shall rend
From their foundations, and an island rear,
Dreadful to sight and terrible to hear.
In vain shall greater strength and valor then
Withstand the contemned force of weaker men.
Soon after this island shot up out of the ocean, surrounded with flames
and boiling surges; and then it was that Hannibal was overthrown, and
the Carthaginians were subdued by the distressed and almost ruined
Romans, and that the Aetolians, assisted by the Romans, vanquished
Philip King of Macedon. So that it is never to be imagined that these
things were the effects of negligent and careless chance; besides, the
series and train of events ensuing the prodigy clearly demonstrate
the foreknowledge of a prophetic spirit. The same may be said of the
prophecy made five hundred years beforehand to the Romans of the time
when they should be engaged in war with all the world at once; which
happened when their own slaves made war upon their masters. In all this
there was nothing of conjecture, nothing of blind uncertainty, nor
is there any occasion to grope into the vast obscurity of chance for
the reason of these events; but we have many pledges of experience,
that plainly demonstrate the beaten path by which destiny proceeds.
For certainly there is no man who will believe that ever those events
answered accidentally the several circumstances of the prediction;
otherwise we may as well say that Epicurus himself never wrote his book
of dogmatic precepts, but that the work was perfected by the accidental
meeting and interchange of the letters, one among another.
12. Thus discoursing, we kept on our walk; but when we came into the
Corinthian Hall and observed the brazen palm-tree, the only remainder
left of all the consecrated donatives, Diogenianus wondered to observe
several figures of frogs and water-snakes, all in cast work about the
root of the tree. Nor were we less at a stand, well knowing the palm
to be no tree that grows by the water or delights in moist or fenny
places; neither do frogs at all concern or belong to the Corinthians,
either by way of emblem or religious ceremony, or as the city arms; as
the Selinuntines formerly offered to their Gods parsley or smallage
(_selinon_) of goldsmith’s work and of the choicest yellow
metal; and the inhabitants of Tenedos always kept in their temple a
consecrated axe, a fancy taken from their esteem of the crab-fish
that breed in that island near the promontory of Asterium, they being
the only crabs that carry the figure of an axe upon the upper part of
their shells. For as for Apollo, we were of opinion that crows, swans,
wolves, sparrow-hawks, or any other sort of creature, would be more
acceptable to him than despicable animals. To this Serapio replied,
that sure the workman thereby designed to show that the Sun was
nourished by moisture and exhalations; whether it was that he thought
at that time of that verse in Homer
The rising Sun then causing day to break,
Quits the cool pleasure of the oozy lake,[31]
or whether he had seen how the Egyptians, to represent sunrise, paint
a little boy sitting upon a lotus. Thereupon, not able to refrain
laughing, What, said I, are you going about to obtrude your stoicisms
again upon us; or do you think to slide insensibly into our discourse
your exhalations and fiery prodigies? What is this but, like the
Thessalian women, to call down the Sun and Moon by enchantments from
the skies, while you derive their original from the earth and water?
Therefore Plato will have a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with
his root, which is his head, upward. But you deride Empedocles for
affirming that the Sun, being illumined by the reflection of the
celestial light, with an intrepid countenance casts a radiant lustre
back upon the convex of heaven; while you yourselves make the Sun to
be a mere terrestrial animal or water plant, confining him to ponds,
lakes, and such like regions of frogs. But let us refer these things
to the tragical monstrosity of Stoical opinions, and now make some
particular reflections touching the extravagant pieces of certain
artificers, who, as they are ingenious and elegant in some things, so
are no less weakly curious and ambitious in others of their inventions;
like him who, designing to signify the dawn of day-light or the hours
of sunrise, painted a cock upon the hand of Apollo. And thus may
these frogs be thought to have been designed by the artist to denote
the spring, when the Sun begins to exercise his power in the air and
to dissolve the winter congealments; at least, if we may believe, as
you yourselves affirm, that Apollo and the Sun are both one God, and
not two distinct Deities. Why, said Serapio, do you think the Sun and
Apollo differ the one from the other? Yes, said I, as the Moon differs
from the Sun. Nay, the difference is somewhat greater. For the Moon
neither very often nor from all the world conceals the Sun; but the Sun
is the cause that all men are ignorant of Apollo, by sense withdrawing
the rational intellect from that which is to that which appears.
13. After this, Serapio put the question to the Historical Directors,
why that same hall did not bear the name of Cypselus, who was both the
founder and the consecrator, but was called the Corinthians’ Hall?
When all the rest were silent, because perhaps they knew not what
to say; How can we imagine, said I with a smile, that these people
should either know or remember the reason, having been so amused and
thunderstruck by your high-flown discourses of prodigies altogether
supernatural? However we have heard it reported, when the monarchical
government of Corinth was dissolved by the ruin of Cypselus, the
Corinthians claimed the honor to own both the golden statue at Pisa,
and the treasure that lay in that place; which was also by the
Delphians decreed to be their just right. This glory being envied
them by the Eleans, they were by a decree of the Corinthians utterly
excluded from the solemnities of the Isthmian games. This is the true
reason, that never since any person of the country of Elis was admitted
to any trial of skill at those festivals. For as for that murder of the
Molionidae, slain by Hercules near Cleonae, that was not the reason
wherefore Eleans were excluded, as some have vainly alleged; for on
the contrary it had been more proper for the Eleans themselves to have
excluded the Corinthians from the Olympic games, had they any animosity
against them on this account. And this is all that I have to say in
reference to this matter.
14. But when we came into the treasury of the Acanthians and Brasidas,
the director showed us the place where formerly stood the obelisks
dedicated to the memory of the courtesan Rhodopis. Then Diogenianus
in a kind of passion said: It was no less ignominy for this city to
allow Rhodopis a place wherein to deposit the tenth of her gains got
by the prostitution of her body, than to put Aesop her fellow-servant
to death. But why should you be offended at this, said Serapio, when
you have but to cast up your eye, and you may yonder behold the golden
statue of Mnesarete standing between kings and emperors, which Crates
averred to be a trophy of the Grecian intemperance? The young man
observed the statue, and said: But it was Phryne of whom Crates uttered
that expression. That is very true, replied Serapio; for her proper
name was Mnesarete; but Phryne was a nickname, given her by reason of
the yellowness of her complexion, like the color of a toad that lies
among moist and overgrown bushes, called in Greek φρύνη. For many times
it happens that nicknames eclipse and drown the proper names both
of men and women. Thus the mother of Alexander, whose true name was
Polyxena, was afterwards called Myrtale, then Olympias, and Stratonice;
Eumetis the Corinthian was afterwards called from her father’s
name Cleobule; and Herophyle of the city of Erythraea, skilful in
divination, was called Sibylla. And the grammarians will tell you that
Leda herself was first called Mnesionoe, and Orestes Achaeus. But how,
said he, looking upon Theo, can you answer this complaint concerning
Phryne, for being placed in so much state above her quality?
15. In the same manner, and as easily, replied Serapio, as I may
charge and accuse yourself for reproaching the slightest faults among
the Greeks. For as Socrates reprehended Callias for being always at
enmity with perfumes and precious odors, while yet he could endure to
see boys and girls dance and tumble together, and to be a spectator of
the lascivious gestures of wanton mummers and merry-andrews; so, in my
opinion, it is with you that envy the standing of a woman’s statue in
the temple, because she made ill use of her beauty. Yet, though you
see Apollo surrounded with the first-fruits and tenths of murders,
wars, and plunder, and all the temple full of spoils and pillage
taken from the Greeks, these things never move your indignation;
you never commiserate your countrymen, when you read engraved upon
these gaudy donatives such doleful inscriptions as these,—Brasidas
and the Acanthians dedicate these spoils taken from Athenians,—the
Athenians these from the Corinthians,—the Phocians these from the
Thessalians,—the Orneatae these from the Sicyonians,—the Amphictyons
these from the Phocians. Now if it is true that Praxiteles offended
Crates by erecting a statue in honor of his mistress, in my opinion
Crates rather ought to have commended him for placing among the golden
monuments of kings and princes the statue of a courtesan, thereby
showing a contempt and scorn of riches, to which there is nothing
of grandeur or veneration due; for it becomes princes and kings to
consecrate to the God the lasting monuments of justice, temperance,
magnanimity, not of golden and superfluous opulency, which are as
frequently erected to the most flagitious of men.
16. But you forgot, said one of the directors, that Croesus honored
the woman that baked his bread with a golden statue, which he caused
to be set up in this place, not to make a show of royal superfluity,
but upon a just and honest occasion of gratitude, which happened thus.
It is reported that Alyattes, the father of Croesus, married a second
wife, by whom he had other children. This same step-dame, therefore,
designing to remove Croesus out of the way, gave the woman-baker a dose
of poison, with a strict charge to put it in the bread which she made
for the young prince. Of this the woman privately informed Croesus, and
gave the poisoned bread to the queen’s children. By which means Croesus
quietly succeeded his father; when he did no less than acknowledge the
fidelity of the woman by making even the God himself a testimony of
his gratitude, wherein he did like a worthy and virtuous prince. And
therefore it is but fitting that we should extol, admire, and honor
the magnificent presents and offerings consecrated by several cities
upon such occasions, like that of the Opuntines. For when the tyrants
of Phocis had broken to pieces, melted down, and coined into money the
most precious of their sacred donatives, which they spent as profusely
in the neighboring parts, the Opuntines made it their business to
buy up all the plundered metal, wherever they could meet with it;
and putting it up into a vessel made on purpose, they sent it as an
offering to Apollo. And, for my part, I cannot but highly applaud the
inhabitants of Myrina and Apollonia, who sent hither the first-fruits
of their harvests in sheaves of gold; but much more the Eretrians and
Magnesians, who dedicated to our God the first-fruits of their men, not
only acknowledging that from him all the fruits of the earth proceeded,
but that he was also the giver of children, as being the author of
generation and a lover of mankind. But I blame the Megarians, for that
they alone erected here a statue of our God holding a spear in his
hand, in memory of the battle which they won from the Athenians, whom
they vanquished after the defeat of the Medes, and expelled their city,
of which they were masters before. However, afterwards they presented
a golden plectrum to Apollo, remembering perhaps those verses of
Scythinus, who thus wrote of the harp:
This was the harp which Jove’s most beauteous son
Framed by celestial skill to play upon;
And for his plectrum the Sun’s beams he used,
To strike those cords that mortal ears amused.
17. Now as Serapio was about to have added something of the same
nature, the stranger, taking the words out of his mouth, said: I am
wonderfully pleased to hear discourses upon such subjects as these; but
I am constrained to claim your first promise, to tell me the reason
wherefore now the Pythian prophetess no longer delivers her oracles
in poetic numbers and measures. And therefore, if you please, we will
surcease the remaining sight of these curiosities, choosing rather to
sit a while and discourse the matter among ourselves. For it seems to
be an assertion strangely repugnant to the belief and credit of the
oracle, in regard that of necessity one of these two things must be
true, either that the Pythian prophetess does not approach the place
where the deity makes his abode, or that the sacred vapor that inspired
her is utterly extinct, and its efficacy lost. Walking therefore to
the south side of the temple, we took our seats within the portico,
over against the temple of Tellus, having from thence a prospect of
the Castalian fountain; insomuch that Boethus presently told us that
the very place itself favored the stranger’s question. For formerly
there stood a temple dedicated to the Muses, close by the source of the
rivulet, whence they drew their water for the sacrifices, according to
that of Simonides:
There flows the spring, whose limpid stream supplies
The fair-haired Muses water for their hands,
Before they touch the hallowed sacrifice.
And the said Simonides a little lower calls Clio somewhat more curiously
The chaste inspectress of those sacred wells,
Whose fragrant water all her cisterns fills;
Water, through dark ambrosial nooks conveyed,
By which Castalian rivulets are fed.
And therefore Eudoxus erroneously gave credit to those that gave the
epithet of Stygian to this water, near which the wiser sort placed
the temple of the Muses, as guardians of the springs and assistants
to prophecy; as also the temple of Tellus, to which the oracle
appertained, and where the answers were delivered in verses and songs.
And here it was, as some report, that first a certain heroic verse was
heard to this effect:
Ye birds, bring hither all your plumes;
Ye bees, bring all your wax;
which related to the time that the oracle, forsaken by the Deity, lost
its veneration.
18. These things, then said Serapio, seem to belong of right to the
Muses, as being their particular province; for it becomes us not to
fight against the gods, nor with divination to abolish providence and
divinity, but to search for convincement to refel repugnant arguments;
and, in the mean time, not to abandon that religious belief and
persuasion which has been so long propagated among us, from father to
son, for so many generations.
You say very right, said I, Serapio; for we do not as yet despair
of philosophy or give it over for lost, because, although formerly
the ancient philosophers published their precepts and sentences in
verse,—as did Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles,
and Thales,—yet that custom has been lately laid aside by all others
except yourself. For you indeed once more have arrayed philosophy in
poetic numbers, on purpose to render it more sprightly, more charming,
and delightful to youth. Nor is astrology as yet become more ignoble
or less valued, because Aristarchus, Timochares, Aristillus, and
Hipparchus have written in prose, though formerly Eudoxus, Hesiod,
and Thales wrote of that science in verse; at least if that astrology
was the legitimate offspring of Thales which goes under his name.
Pindar also acknowledges his dissatisfaction touching the manner
of melody neglected in this time, and wonders why it should be so
despised. Neither is it a thing that looks like hurtful or absurd,
to enquire into the causes of these alterations. But to destroy the
arts and faculties themselves because they have undergone some certain
mutations, is neither just nor rational.
19. Upon which Theo interposing said: It cannot be denied but that
there have been great changes and innovations in reference to poetry
and the sciences; yet is it as certain, that from all antiquity oracles
have been delivered in prose. For we find in Thucydides, that the
Lacedaemonians, desirous to know the issue of the war then entered
into against the Athenians, were answered in prose, that they should
become potent and victorious, and that the Deity would assist them,
whether invoked or not invoked; and again, that unless they recalled
Pausanias, they would plough with a silver ploughshare.[32] To the
Athenians consulting the oracle concerning their expedition into
Sicily, he gave order to send for the priestess of Minerva from the
city of Erythrae; which priestess went by the name of Hesychia, or
repose. And when Dinomenes the Sicilian enquired what should become
of his children, the oracle returned for answer, that they should all
three be lords and princes. And when Dinomenes replied, But then, most
powerful Apollo, let it be to their confusion; the God made answer,
That also I both grant and promise. The consequence of which was,
that Gelo was troubled with the dropsy during his reign, Hiero was
afflicted with the stone, and the third, Thrasybulus, surrounded with
war and sedition, was in a short time expelled his dominions. Procles
also, the tyrant of Epidaurus, after he had cruelly and tyrannically
murdered several others, put Timarchus likewise to death, who fled to
him for protection from Athens with a great sum of money,—after he had
pledged him his faith and received him at his first arrival with large
demonstrations of kindness and affection,—and then threw his carcass
into the sea, enclosed in a pannier. All this he did by the persuasion
of one Cleander of Aegina, no other of his courtiers being privy to it.
After which, meeting with no small trouble and misfortune in all his
affairs, he sent to the oracle his brother Cleotimus, with orders to
enquire whether he should provide for his safety by flight, or retire
to some other place. Apollo made answer, that he advised Procles to fly
where he had directed his Aeginetan guest to dispose of the pannier, or
where the hart had cast his horns. Upon which the tyrant, understanding
that the oracle commanded him either to throw himself into the sea or
to bury himself in the earth (in regard that a stag, when he sheds his
antlers, scrapes a hole in the ground and hides his ignominy), demurred
a while; but at length, seeing the condition of his affairs grew every
day worse and worse, he resolved to save himself by flight; at which
time the friends of Timarchus, having seized upon his person, slew
him and threw his body into the sea. But what is more than all this,
the oracular answers according to which Lycurgus composed the form of
the Lacedaemonian commonwealth were given in prose. Besides, Alyrius,
Herodotus, Philochorus and Ister, than whom no men have been more
diligent to collect the answers of the oracles, among the many which
they cite in verse, quote several also in prose. And Theopompus, the
most diligent that ever made scrutiny into oracular history, sharply
reprehends those who believed the Pythian oracles were not delivered in
verse at that time; and yet, when he labors to prove his assertion, he
is able to produce but very few, because doubtless the rest even then
were uttered in prose.
20. Yet there are some that now at this day run in verse; one of which
has become notorious above the rest. There is in Phocis a temple
consecrated to Hercules the woman-hater, the chief priest of which is
forbid by the law and custom of the place to have private familiarity
with his wife during the year that he officiates; for which reason
they most commonly make choice of old men to perform that function.
Nevertheless, some time since a young man, no way vicious and covetous
of honor, yet doting upon a new married wife, took upon him the
dignity. At first he was very chaste and temperate, and abstained from
the woman; but soon after, the young lady coming to give him a visit
as he was laid down to rest himself after a brisk dancing and drinking
bout, he could not resist the charming temptation. But then, coming
to himself and remembering what he had done, perplexed and terrified,
he fled to the oracle to consult Apollo upon the crime which he had
committed; who returned him this answer,
All things necessary God permitteth.
But should we grant that in our age no oracles are delivered in verse,
we should be still doubtful about the ancient times, when the oracles
were delivered sometime in verse sometime in prose. Though, whether it
be in prose or verse, the oracle is never a whit the falser or the more
miraculous, so that we have but a true and religious opinion of the
Deity; not irreverently conceiting that formerly he composed a stock
of verses to be now repeated by the prophetess, as if he spoke through
masks and visors.
21. But these things require a more prolix discourse and a stricter
examination, to be deferred till another time. For the present,
therefore, let us only call to mind thus much, that the body makes
use of several instruments, and the soul employs the body and its
members; the soul being the organ of God. Now the perfection of the
organ is to imitate the thing that makes use of it, so far as it is
capable, and to exhibit the operation of its thought, according to
the best of its own power; since it cannot show it as it is in the
divine operator himself,—neat, without any affection, fault, or error
whatsoever,—but imperfect and mixed. For of itself, the thing is to
us altogether unknown, till it is infused by another and appears to us
as fully partaking of the nature of that other. I forbear to mention
gold or silver, brass or wax, or whatever other substances are capable
to receive the form of an imprinted resemblance. For true it is, they
all admit the impression; but still one adds one distinction, another
another, to the imitation arising from their presentation itself; as
we may readily perceive in mirrors, both plane, concave, and convex,
infinite varieties of representations and faces from one and the same
original; there being no end of that diversity.
But there is no mirror that more exactly represents any shape or
form, nor any instrument that yields more obsequiously to the use of
Nature, than the Moon herself. And yet she, receiving from the Sun his
masculine splendor and fiery light, does not transmit the same to us;
but when it intermixes with her pellucid substance, it changes color
and loses its power. For warmth and heat abandon the pale planet, and
her light grows dim before it can reach our sight. And this is that
which, in my opinion, Heraclitus seems to have meant, when he said
that the prince who rules the oracle of Delphi neither speaks out
nor conceals, but signifies. Add then to these things thus rightly
spoken this farther consideration, that the Deity makes use of the
Pythian prophetess, so far as concerns her sight and hearing, as the
Sun makes use of the Moon; for he makes use of a mortal body and an
immortal soul as the organs of prediction. Now the body lies dull and
immovable of itself; but the soul being restless, when once the soul
begins to be in motion, the body likewise stirs, not able to resist
the violent agitation of the nimbler spirit, while it is shaken and
tossed as in a stormy sea by the tempestuous passions that ruffle
within it. For as the whirling of bodies that merely move circularly
is nothing violent, but when they move round by force and tend
downward by nature, there results from both a confused and irregular
circumrotation; thus that divine rapture which is called enthusiasm is
a commixture of two motions, wherewith the soul is agitated, the one
extrinsic, as by inspiration, the other by nature. For, seeing that as
to inanimate bodies, which always remain in the same condition, it is
impossible by preternatural violence to offer a force which is contrary
to their nature and intended use, as to move a cylinder spherically
or cubically, or to make a lyre sound like a flute, or a trumpet like
a harp; how is it possible to manage an animate body, that moves of
itself, that is indued with reason, will, and inclination, otherwise
than according to its pre-existent reason, power, or nature; as (for
example) to incline to music a person altogether ignorant and an utter
enemy to music, or to make a grammarian of one that never knew his
letters, or to make him speak like a learned man that never understood
the least tittle of any science in the world?
22. For proof of this I may call Homer for my witness, who affirms
that there is nothing done or brought to perfection of which God
is not the cause, supposing that God makes use not of all men for
all things alike, but of every man according to his ability either
of art or nature. Thus, dost thou not find it to be true, friend
Diogenianus, that when Minerva would persuade the Greeks to undertake
any enterprise, she brings Ulysses upon the stage?—when she designs to
break the truce, she finds out Pandarus?—when she designs a rout of
the Trojans, she addresses herself to Diomede? For the one was stout of
body and valiant; the other was a good archer, but without brains; the
other a shrewd politician and eloquent. For Homer was not of the same
opinion with Pindar, at least if it was Pindar that made the following
verses:
Were it the will of Heaven, an ozier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough.[33]
For he well knew that there were different abilities and natures
designed for different effects, every one of which is qualified with
different motions, though there be but one moving cause that gives
motion to all. So that the same virtual power which moves the creature
that goes upon all four cannot cause it to fly, no more than he that
stammers can speak fluently and eloquently, or he that has a feeble
squeaking voice can give a loud hollow. Therefore in my opinion it
was that Battus, when he consulted the oracle, was sent into Africa,
there to build a new city, as being a person who, although he lisped
and stammered, had nevertheless endowments truly royal, which rendered
him fit for sovereign government. In like manner it is impossible the
Pythian priestess should learn to speak learnedly and elegantly; for,
though it cannot be denied but that her parentage was virtuous and
honest, and that she always lived a sober and a chaste life, yet her
education was among poor laboring people; so that she was advanced to
the oracular seat rude and unpolished, void of all the advantages of
art or experience. For as it is the opinion of Xenophon, that a virgin
ready to be espoused ought to be carried to the bridegroom’s house when
she has seen and heard as little as possible; so the Pythian priestess
ought to converse with Apollo, illiterate and ignorant almost of every
thing, still approaching his presence with a truly and pure virgin soul.
But it is a strange fancy of men; they believe that the God makes
use of herons, wrens, and crows to signify future events, expressing
himself according to their vulgar notes, but do not expect of these
birds, although they are the messengers and ambassadors of the God, to
deliver their predictions in words clear and intelligible; but they
will not allow the Pythian priestess to pronounce her answers in plain,
sincere, and natural expressions, but they demand that she shall speak
in the poetical magnificence of high and stately verses, like those of
a tragic chorus, with metaphors and figurative phrases, accompanied
with the delightful sounds of flutes and hautboys.
23. What then shall we say of the ancients? Not one, but many things.
First then, as hath been said already, that the ancient Pythian
priestesses pronounced most of their oracles in prose. Secondly, that
those ages produced complexions and tempers of body much more prone
and inclined to poetry, with which immediately were associated those
other ardent desires, affections, and preparations of the mind, which
wanted only something of a beginning and a diversion of the fancy from
more serious studies, not only to draw to their purpose (according to
the saying of Philinus) astrologers and philosophers, but also in the
heat of wine and pathetic affections, either of sudden compassion or
surprising joy, to slide insensibly into voices melodiously tuned, and
to fill banquets with charming odes or love songs, and whole volumes
with amorous canzonets and mirthful inventions. Therefore, though
Euripides tells us,
Love makes men poets who before no music knew,
he does not mean that love infuses music and poetry into men that
were not already inclined to those accomplishments, but that it warms
and awakens that disposition which lay unactive and drowsy before.
Otherwise we might say that now there were no lovers in the world, but
that Cupid himself was vanished and gone, because that now-a-days there
is not one
Who now, true archer-like,
Lets his poetic raptures fly
To praise his mistress’s lip or eye,
as Pindar said. But this were absurd to affirm. For amorous
impatiencies torment and agitate the minds of many men not addicted
either to music or poetry, that know not how to handle a flute or touch
a harp, and yet are no less talkative and inflamed with desire than the
ancients. And I believe there is no person who would be so unkind to
himself as to say that the Academy or the quires of Socrates and Plato
were void of love, with whose discourses and conferences touching that
passion we frequently meet, though they have not left any of their
poems behind. And would it not be the same thing to say, there never
was any woman that studied courtship but Sappho, nor ever any that
were endued with the gift of prophecy but Sibylla and Aristonica and
those that delivered their oracles and sacred raptures in verse? For
wine, as saith Chaeremon, soaks and infuses itself into the manners and
customs of them that drink it. Now poetic rapture, like the raptures of
love, makes use of the ability of its subject, and moves every one that
receives it, according to its proper qualification.
24. Nevertheless, if we do but make a right reflection upon God and his
Providence, we shall find the alteration to be much for the better. For
the use of speech seems to be like the exchange of money; that which is
good and lawful is commonly current and known, and goes sometimes at a
higher, sometimes at a lower value. Thus there was once a time when the
stamp and coin of language was approved and passed current in verses,
songs, and sonnets; for then all histories, all philosophical learning,
all affections and subjects that required grave and solid discussion,
were written in poetry and fitted for musical composition. For what now
but a few will scarce vouchsafe to hear, then all men listened to,
The shepherd, ploughman, and bird-catcher too,[34]
as it is in Pindar; all delighted in songs and verses. For such was
the inclination of that age and their readiness to versify, that they
fitted their very precepts and admonitions to vocal and instrumental
music. If they were to teach, they did it in songs fitted to the harp.
If they were to exhort, reprove, or persuade, they made use of fables
and allegories. And then for their praises of the Gods, their vows,
and paeans after victory, they were all composed in verse; by some,
as being naturally airy and flowing in their invention; by others,
as habituated by custom. And therefore it is not that Apollo envies
this ornament and elegancy to the science of divination; nor was it
his design to banish from the Tripos his beloved Muse, but rather to
introduce her when rejected by others, being rather a lover and kindler
of poetic rapture in others, and choosing rather to furnish laboring
fancies with imaginations, and to assist them to bring forth the lofty
and learned kind of language, as most becoming and most to be admired.
But afterwards, when the conversation of men and custom of living
altered with the change of their fortunes and dispositions, consuetude
expelling and discarding all manner of superfluity rejected also
golden top-knots, and silken vestments loosely flowing in careless
folds, clipped their long dishevelled locks, and, laying aside their
embroidered buskin, taught men to glory in sobriety and frugality
in opposition to wantonness and superfluity, and to place true honor
in simplicity and modesty, not in pomp and vain curiosity. And then
it was that, the manner of writing being quite altered, history
alighted from versifying, as it were from riding in chariots, and on
foot distinguished truth from fable; and philosophy, in a clear and
plain style, familiar and proper to instruct rather than to astonish
the world with metaphors and figures, began to dispute and enquire
after truth in common and vulgar terms. And then it was, that Apollo
caused the Pythian priestess to surcease calling her fellow-citizens
fire-inflaming, the Spartans serpent-devourers, men by the name of
Oreanes, and rivers by the name of mountain-drainers; and discarding
verses, uncouth words, circumlocutions, and obscurity, taught the
oracles to speak as the laws discourse to cities, and as princes speak
to their people and their subjects, or as masters teach their scholars,
appropriating their manner of speech to good sense and persuasive grace.
25. For, as Sophocles tells us, we are to believe the Deity to be
Easy to wise men, who can truth discern;
The fool’s bad teacher, who will never learn.
And ever since belief and perspicuity thus associated together,
it came to pass by alteration of circumstances that, whereas
formerly the vulgar looked with a high veneration upon whatever was
extraordinary and extravagant, and conceived a more than common
sanctity to lie concealed under the veil of obscurity, afterwards men
desirous to understand things clearly and easily, without flowers of
circumlocutions and disguisements of dark words, not only began to
find fault with oracles enveloped with poetry, as repugnant to the
easy understanding of the real meaning, and overshadowing the sentence
with mist and darkness, but also suspected the truth of the very
prophecy itself which was muffled up in so many metaphors, riddles,
and ambiguities, which seemed no better than holes to creep out at and
evasions of censure, should the event prove contrary to what had been
foretold. And some there were who reported that there were several
extempore poets entertained about the Tripos, who were to receive
the words as they dropped roughly from the oracle, and presently by
virtue of their extempore fancy to model them into verses and measures,
that served (as it were) instead of hampers and baskets to convey
the answers from place to place. I forbear to tell how far those
treacherous deceivers like Onomacritus, Herodotus (?), and Cyneso,
have contributed to dishonor the sacred oracles, by their interlarding
of bombast expressions and high-flown phrases, where there was no
necessity of any such alteration. It is also as certain, that those
mountebanks, jugglers, impostors, gipsies, and all that altar-licking
tribe of vagabonds that set up their throats at the festivals and
sacrifices to Cybele and Serapis, have highly undervalued poesy; some
of them extempore, and others by lottery from certain little books,
composing vain predictions, which they may sell to servants and silly
women, that easily suffer themselves to be deluded by the overawing
charms of serious ambiguity couched in strained and uncouth ballatry.
Whence it comes to pass, that poetry, seeming to prostitute itself
among cheats and deluders of the people, among mercenary gipsies and
mumping charlatans, has lost its ancient credit, and is therefore
thought unworthy the honor of the Tripos.
26. And therefore I do not wonder that the ancients stood in need of
double meaning, of circumlocution, and obscurity. For certainly never
any private person consulted the oracle when he went to buy a slave or
hire workmen; but potent cities, kings and princes, whose undertakings
and concernments were of vast and high concernment, and whom it was
not expedient for those that had the charge of the oracle to disoblige
or incense by the return of answers ungrateful to their ears. For the
deity is not bound to observe that law of Euripides, where he says,
Phoebus alone, and none but he,
Should unto men the prophet be.
Therefore, when he makes use of mortal prophets and agents, of whom it
behooves him to take a more especial care that they be not destroyed
in his service, he does not altogether go about to suppress the truth,
but only eclipses the manifestation of it, like a light divided into
sundry reflections, rendering it by the means of poetic umbrage less
severe and ungrateful in the delivery. For it is not convenient that
princes or their enemies should presently know what is by Fate decreed
to their disadvantage. Therefore he so envelops his answers with doubts
and ambiguities as to conceal from others the true understanding of
what was answered; though to them that came to the oracle themselves,
and gave due attention to the deliverer, the meaning of the answer
is transparently obvious. Most impertinent therefore are they who,
considering the present alteration of things, accuse and exclaim
against the Deity for not assisting in the same manner as before.
27. And this may be farther said, that poetry brings no other advantage
to the answer than this, that the sentence being comprised and confined
within a certain number of words and syllables bounded by poetic
measure is more easily carried away and retained in memory. Therefore
it behooved those that formerly lived to have extraordinary memories,
to retain the marks of places, the times of such and such transactions,
the ceremonies of deities beyond the sea, the hidden monuments of
heroes, hard to be found in countries far from Greece. For in those
expeditions of Phalanthus and several other admirals of great navies,
how many signs were they forced to observe, how many conjectures to
make, ere they could find the seat of rest allotted by the oracle! In
the observance of which there were some nevertheless that failed, as
Battus among others. For he said that he failed because he had not
landed in the right place to which he was sent; and therefore returning
back he complained to the oracle. But Apollo answered:
As well as I thou knowest, who ne’er hast been
In Libya covered o’er with sheep and kine;
If this is true, thy wisdom I admire:
and so sent him back again. Lysander also, ignorant of the hillock
Archelides, also called Alopecus, and the river Hoplites, nor
apprehensive of what was meant by
The earth-born dragon, treacherous foe behind,
being overthrown in battle, was there slain by Neochorus the
Haliartian, who bare for his device a dragon painted upon his shield.
But it is needless to recite any more of these ancient examples of
oracles, difficult to be retained in memory, especially to you that are
so well read.
28. And now, God be praised, there is an end of all those questions
which were the grounds of consulting the oracle. For now we repose
altogether in the soft slumbers of peace, all our wars are at an
end. There are now no tumults, no civil seditions, no tyrannies, no
pestilences nor calamities depopulating Greece, no epidemic diseases
needing powerful and choice drugs and medicines. Now, when there is
nothing of variety, nothing of mystery, nothing dangerous, but only
bare and ordinary questions about small trifles and vulgar things, as
whether a man may marry, whether take a voyage by sea, or lend his
money safely at interest,—and when the most important enquiries of
cities are concerning the next harvest, the increase of their cattle,
or the health of the inhabitants,—there to make use of verses,
ambiguous words, and confounding obscurities, where the questions
require short and easy answers, causes us to suspect that the sacred
minister studies only cramp expressions, like some ambitious sophister,
to wrest admiration from the ignorant. But the Pythian priestess is
naturally of a more generous disposition; and therefore, when she is
busy with the Deity, she has more need of truth than of satisfying her
vain-glory, or of minding either the commendations or the dispraise of
men.
29. And well it were, that we ourselves should be so affected. But on
the contrary, being in a quandary and jealousy lest the oracle should
lose the reputation it has had for these three thousand years, and lest
people should forsake it and forbear going to it, we frame excuses to
ourselves, and feign causes and reasons of things which we do not know,
and which it is not convenient for us to know; out of a fond design to
persuade the persons thus oddly dissatisfied, whom it became us rather
to let alone. For certainly the mistake must redound to ourselves,[35]
when we shall have such an opinion of our Deity as to approve and
esteem those ancient and pithy proverbs of wise men, written at the
entrance into the temple, “Know thyself,” “Nothing to excess,” as
containing in few words a full and close compacted sentence, and yet
find fault with the modern oracle for delivering answers concise and
plain. Whereas those apophthegms are like waters crowded and pent up
in a narrow room or running between contracted banks, where we can
no more discern the bottom of the water than we can the depth and
meaning of the sentence. And yet, if we consider what has been written
and said concerning those sentences by such as have dived into their
signification with an intent to clear their abstruseness, we shall
hardly find disputes more prolix than those are. But the language of
the Pythian priestess is such as the mathematicians define a right
line to be, that is to say, the shortest that may be drawn betwixt
two points. So likewise doth she avoid all winding and circles, all
double meanings and abstruse ambiguities, and proceed directly to the
truth. And though she has been obnoxious to strict examination, yet is
she not to be misconstrued without danger, nor could ever any person
to this very day convict her of falsehood; but on the other side, she
has filled the temple with presents, gifts, and offerings, not only of
the Greeks but barbarians, and adorned the seat of the oracle with the
magnificent structures and fabrics of the Amphictyons. And we find many
additions of new buildings, many reparations of the old ones that were
fallen down or decayed by time. And as we see from trees overgrown with
shade and verdant boughs other lesser shoots sprout up; thus has the
Delphian concourse afforded growth and grandeur to the assembly of the
Amphictyons, which is fed and maintained by the abundance and affluence
arising from thence, and has the form and show of magnificent temples,
stately meetings, and sacred waters; which, but for the ceremonies of
the altar, would not have been brought to perfection in a thousand
years. And to what other cause can we attribute the fertility of the
Galaxian Plains in Boeotia but to their vicinity to this oracle, and
to their being blessed with the neighboring influences of the Deity,
where from the well-nourished udders of the bleating ewes milk flows in
copious streams, like water from so many fountain-heads?
Their pails run o’er, and larger vessels still
With rich abundance all their dairies fill.
To us appear yet more clear and remarkable signs of the Deity’s
liberality, while we behold the glory of far-famed store and plenty
overflowing former penury and barrenness. And I cannot but think much
the better of myself for having in some measure contributed to these
things with Polycrates and Petraeus. Nor can I less admire the first
author and promoter of this good order and management. And yet it is
not to be thought that such and so great change should come to pass
in so small a time by human industry, without the favor of the Deity
assisting and blessing his oracle.
30. But although there were some formerly who blamed the ambiguity and
obscurity of the oracle, and others who at this day find fault with its
modern plainness and perspicuity, yet are they both alike unjust and
foolish in their passion; for, like children better pleased with the
sight of rainbows, comets, and those halos that encircle the sun and
moon, than to see the sun and moon themselves in their splendor, they
are taken with riddles, abstruse words, and figurative speeches, which
are but the reflections of oracular divination to the apprehension
of our mortal understanding. And because they are not able to make a
satisfactory judgment of this change, they find fault with the God
himself, not considering that neither we nor they are able by discourse
of reason to reach unto the hidden counsels and designs of the Deity.
OF THOSE SENTIMENTS CONCERNING NATURE WITH WHICH PHILOSOPHERS WERE
DELIGHTED.
BOOK I.
It being our determination to discourse of Natural Philosophy, we
judge it necessary, in the first place and chiefly, to divide the body
of philosophy into its proper members, that we may know what is that
which is called philosophy, and what part of it is physical, or the
explanation of natural things. The Stoics affirm that wisdom is the
knowledge of things human and divine; that philosophy is the exercise
of that art which is expedient to this knowledge; that virtue is the
sole and sovereign art which is thus expedient; and this distributes
itself into three general parts,—natural, moral, and logical. By
which just reason (they say) philosophy is tripartite; of which one
is natural, the other moral, the third logical. The natural is when
our enquiries are concerning the world and all things contained in
it; the ethical is the employment of our minds in those things which
concern the manners of man’s life; the logical (which they also call
dialectical) regulates our conversation with others in speaking.
Aristotle, Theophrastus, and after them almost all the Peripatetics
give the following division of philosophy. It is absolutely requisite
that the complete person be contemplator of things which have a being,
and the practiser of those things which are decent; and this easily
appears by the following instances. If the question be proposed,
whether the sun, which is so conspicuous to us, be informed with a
soul or inanimate, he that makes this disquisition is the thinking
man; for he proceeds no farther than to consider the nature of that
thing which is proposed. Likewise, if the question be proposed,
whether the world be infinite, or whether beyond the system of this
world there is any real being, all these things are the objects about
which the understanding of man is conversant. But if these be the
questions,—what measures must be taken to compose the well ordered
life of man, what are the best methods to govern and educate children,
or what are the exact rules whereby sovereigns may command and
establish laws,—all these queries are proposed for the sole end of
action, and the man conversant therein is the moral and practical man.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS NATURE?
Since we have undertaken to make a diligent search into Nature, I
cannot but conclude it necessary to declare what Nature is. It is very
absurd to attempt a discourse of the essence of natural things, and
not to understand what is the power and sphere of Nature. If Aristotle
be credited, Nature is the principle of motion and rest, in that thing
in which it exists principally and not by accident. For all things
that are conspicuous to our eyes, which are neither fortuitous nor
necessary, nor have a divine original, nor acknowledge any such like
cause, are called natural and enjoy their proper nature. Of this sort
are earth, fire, water, air, plants, animals; to these may be added all
things produced from them, such as showers, hail, thunders, hurricanes,
and winds. All these confess they had a beginning, none of these were
from eternity, but had something as the origin of them; and likewise
animals and plants have a principle whence they are produced. But
Nature, which in all these things hath the priority, is the principle
not only of motion but of repose; whatsoever enjoys the principle of
motion, the same has a possibility to find a dissolution. Therefore on
this account it is that Nature is the principle of motion and rest.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PRINCIPLE AND AN ELEMENT?
The followers of Aristotle and Plato conclude that the elements are
discriminated from a principle. Thales the Milesian supposeth that
a principle and the elements are one and the same thing, but it is
evident that they vastly differ one from another. For the elements
are things compounded; but we do pronounce that principles admit not
of a composition, nor are the effects of any other being. Those which
we call elements are earth, water, air, and fire. But we term those
principles which have nothing precedent to them out of which they are
produced; for otherwise not these themselves, but rather those things
whereof they are produced, would be the principles. Now there are
some things which have a pre-existence to earth and water, from which
they are begotten; to wit, matter, which is without form or shape;
then form, which we call ἐντελέχεια (_actuality_); and lastly,
privation. Thales therefore is very peccant, by affirming that water is
both an element and a principle.
CHAPTER III.
OF PRINCIPLES, AND WHAT THEY ARE.
Thales the Milesian doth affirm that water is the principle whence all
things in the universe spring. This person appears to be the first of
philosophers; from him the Ionic sect took its denomination, for there
are many families and successions amongst philosophers. After he had
professed philosophy in Egypt, when he was very old, he returned to
Miletus. He pronounced, that all things had their original from water,
and into water all things are resolved. His first reason was, that
whatsoever was the prolific seed of all animals was a principle, and
that is moist; so that it is probable that all things receive their
original from humidity. His second reason was, that all plants are
nourished and fructified by that thing which is moist, of which being
deprived they wither away. Thirdly, that that fire of which the sun and
stars are made is nourished by watery exhalations,—yea, and the world
itself; which moved Homer to sing that the generation of it was from
water:—
The ocean is
Of all things the kind genesis.[36]
Anaximander, who himself was a Milesian, assigns the principle of all
things to the Infinite, from whence all things flow, and into the same
are corrupted; hence it is that infinite worlds are framed, and those
vanish again into that whence they have their original. And thus he
farther proceeds, For what other reason is there of an Infinite but
this, that there may be nothing deficient as to the generation or
subsistence of what is in nature? There is his error, that he doth not
acquaint us what this Infinite is, whether it be air, or water, or
earth, or any other such like body. Besides he is peccant, in that,
giving us the material cause, he is silent as to the efficient cause of
beings; for this thing which he makes his Infinite can be nothing but
matter; but operation cannot take place in the sphere of matter, except
an efficient cause be annexed.
Anaximenes his fellow-citizen pronounceth, that air is the principle
of all beings; from it all receive their original, and into it all
return. He affirms that our soul is nothing but air; it is that which
constitutes and preserves; the whole world is invested with spirit
and air. For spirit and air are synonymous. This person is in this
deficient, that he concludes that of pure air, which is a simple body
and is made of one only form, all animals are composed. It is not
possible to think that a single principle should be the matter of all
things, from whence they receive their subsistence; besides this there
must be an operating cause. Silver (for example) is not of itself
sufficient to frame a drinking cup; an operator also is required, which
is the silversmith. The like may be applied to vessels made of wood,
brass, or any other material.
Anaxagoras the Clazomenian asserted Homoeomeries (or parts similar or
homogeneous) to be the original cause of all beings; it seemed to him
impossible that any thing could arise of nothing or be resolved into
nothing. Let us therefore instance in nourishment, which appears simple
and uniform, such as bread which we owe to Ceres, and water which we
drink. Of this very nutriment, our hair, our veins, our arteries,
nerves, bones, and all our other parts are nourished. These things
thus being performed, it must be granted that the nourishment which
is received by us contains all those things by which these parts of
us are increased. In it there are those particles which are producers
of blood, bones, nerves, and all other parts; which particles (as he
thought) reason discovers for us. For it is not necessary that we
should reduce all things under the objects of sense; for bread and
water are fitted to the senses, yet in them there are those particles
latent which are discoverable only by reason. It being therefore
evident that there are particles in the nourishment similar to what is
produced thereby, he terms these homogeneous parts, averring that they
are the principles of beings. Matter is according to him these similar
parts, and the efficient cause is a Mind, which orders all things
that have an existence. Thus he begins his discourse: “All things
were confused one among another; but Mind divided and reduced them to
order.” In this he is to be commended, that he yokes together matter
and an intellectual agent.
Archelaus the son of Apollodorus, the Athenian, pronounceth, that the
principles of all things have their original from an infinite air
rarefied or condensed. Air rarefied is fire, condensed is water.
These philosophers, the followers of Thales, succeeding one another,
made up that sect which takes to itself the denomination of the Ionic.
* * * * *
Pythagoras the Samian, the son of Mnesarchus, from another origin
deduces the principles of all things; it was he who first gave
philosophy its name. He assigns the first principles to be numbers,
and those symmetries resulting from them which he styles harmonies;
and the result of both combined he terms elements, called geometrical.
Again, he enumerates unity and the indefinite binary number amongst the
principles. One of these principles tends to an efficient and forming
cause, which is Mind, and that is God; the other to the passive and
material part, and that is the visible world. Moreover the nature of
number (he saith) consists in the ten; for all people, whether Grecians
or barbarians, reckon from one to ten, and thence return to one
again. Farther he avers the virtue of ten consists in the quaternion;
the reason whereof is this,—if any person reckon from one, and by
addition place his numbers so as to take in the quaternary, he shall
complete the number ten; if he exceed the four, he shall go beyond
the ten; for one, two, three, and four being cast up together make
up ten. The nature of numbers, therefore, if we regard the units,
resteth in the ten; but if we regard its power, in the four. Therefore
the Pythagoreans say that their most sacred oath is by that God who
delivered to them the quaternary.
By th’ founder of the sacred number four,
Eternal Nature’s font and root, they swore.
Of this number the soul of man is composed; for mind, knowledge,
opinion, and sense are the four that complete the soul, from which all
sciences, all arts, all rational faculties derive themselves. For what
our mind perceives, it perceives after the manner of a thing that is
one, the soul itself being a unity; as for instance, a multitude of
persons are not the object of our sense nor are comprehended by us, for
they are infinite; our understanding gives the general notion of _a
man_, in which all individuals agree. The number of individuals is
infinite; the generic or specific nature of all being is a unit, or
to be apprehended as one only thing; from this one conception we give
the genuine measures of all existence, and therefore we affirm that
a certain class of beings are rational and discoursive beings. But
when we come to give the nature of a horse, it is that animal which
neighs; and this being common to all horses, it is manifest that the
understanding, which hath such like conceptions, is in its nature
unity. The number which is called the infinite binary must needs be
science; in every demonstration or belief belonging to science, and in
every syllogism, we draw that conclusion which is the question doubted
of, from those propositions which are by all granted, by which means
another proposition is demonstrated. The comprehension of these we call
knowledge; for which reason science is the binary number. But opinion
is the ternary; for that rationally follows from comprehension. The
objects of opinion are many things, and the ternary number denotes a
multitude, as “Thrice happy Grecians;” for which reason Pythagoras
admits the ternary. This sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by
reason Pythagoras opened his school in Italy; his hatred of the tyranny
of Polycrates enforced him to leave his native country Samos.
Heraclitus and Hippasus of Metapontum suppose that fire gives the
origination to all beings, that they all flow from fire, and in fire
they all conclude; for of fire when first quenched the world was
constituted. The first part of the world, being most condensed and
contracted within itself, made the earth; but part of that earth being
loosened and made thin by fire, water was produced; afterwards this
water being exhaled and rarefied into vapors became air; after all this
the world itself, and all other corporeal beings, shall be dissolved by
fire in the universal conflagration. By them therefore it appears that
fire is what gives beginning to all things, and is that in which all
things receive their period.
Epicurus the son of Neocles, the Athenian, his philosophical sentiments
being the same with those of Democritus, affirms that the principles of
all being are bodies which are perceptible only by reason; they admit
not of a vacuity, nor of any original, but being of a self-existence
are eternal and incorruptible; they are not liable to any diminution,
they are indestructible, nor is it possible for them to receive any
transformation of parts, or admit of any alterations; of these reason
only is the discoverer; they are in a perpetual motion in vacuity,
and by means of the empty space; for the vacuum itself is infinite,
and the bodies that move in it are infinite. Those bodies acknowledge
these three accidents, figure, magnitude, and gravity. Democritus
acknowledged but two, magnitude and figure. Epicurus added the third,
to wit, gravity; for he pronounced that it is necessary that bodies
receive their motion from that impression which springs from gravity,
otherwise they could not be moved. The figures of atoms cannot be
apprehended by our senses, but they are not infinite. These figures
are neither hooked nor trident-shaped nor ring-shaped, such figures as
these being easily broken; but the atoms are impassible, impenetrable;
they have indeed figures proper to themselves, which are discovered
only by reason. It is called an atom, by reason not of its smallness
but of its indivisibility; in it no vacuity, no passible affection is
to be found. And that there is an atom is perfectly clear; for there
are elements which have a perpetual duration, and there are animals
which admit of a vacuity, and there is a unity.
Empedocles the Agrigentine, the son of Meton, affirms that there are
four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, and two powers which bear
the greatest command in nature, concord and discord, of which one is
the union, the other the division of beings. Thus he sings,
Mark the four roots of all created things:—
Bright shining Jove, Juno that giveth life,
Pluto beneath the earth, and Nestis who
Doth with her tears supply the mortal fount.
By Jupiter he means fire and aether, by Juno that gives life he means
the air, by Pluto the earth, by Nestis and the fountain of all mortals
(as it were) seed and water.
Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, and Plato son of Ariston, both
natives of Athens, entertain the same opinion concerning the universe;
for they suppose three principles, God, matter, and the idea. God
is the universal understanding; matter is that which is the first
substratum, accommodated for the generation and corruption of beings;
the idea is an incorporeal essence, existing in the cogitations and
apprehensions of God; for God is the soul and mind of the world.
Aristotle the son of Nichomachus, the Stagirite, constitutes three
principles; Entelecheia (which is the same with form), matter, and
privation. He acknowledges four elements, and adds a certain fifth
body, which is ethereal and not obnoxious to mutation.
Zeno son of Mnaseas, the native of Citium, avers these principles to be
God and matter, the first of which is the efficient cause, the other
the passible and receptive. Four elements he likewise confesses.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW WAS THIS WORLD COMPOSED IN THAT ORDER AND AFTER THAT MANNER IT IS?
The world being broken and confused, after this manner it was reduced
into figure and composure as now it is. The insectible bodies or
atoms, by a wild and fortuitous motion, without any governing power,
incessantly and swiftly were hurried one amongst another, many bodies
being jumbled together; upon this account they have a diversity in
the figures and magnitude. These therefore being so jumbled together,
those bodies which were the greatest and heaviest sank into the lowest
place; they that were of a lesser magnitude, being round, smooth,
and slippery, meeting with those heavier bodies were easily broken
into pieces, and were carried into higher places. But when that force
whereby these variously figured particles fought with and struck one
another, and forced the lighter upwards, did cease, and there was no
farther power left to drive them into superior regions, yet they were
wholly hindered from descending downwards, and were compelled to reside
in those places capable to receive them; and these were the heavenly
spaces, unto which a multitude of these little bodies were whirled,
and these being thus shivered fell into coherence and mutual embraces,
and by this means the heaven was produced. Then a various and great
multitude of atoms enjoying the same nature, as it is before asserted,
being hurried aloft, did form the stars. The multitude of these
exhaled bodies, having struck and broke the air in shivers, forced a
passage through it; this being converted into wind invested the stars,
as it moved, and whirled them about, by which means to this present
time that circulary motion which these stars have in the heavens is
maintained. Much after the same manner the earth was made; for by those
little particles whose gravity made them to reside in the lower places
the earth was formed. The heaven, fire, and air were constituted of
those particles which were carried aloft. But a great deal of matter
remaining in the earth, this being condensed by the forcible driving
of the winds and the breathings from the stars, every little part and
form of it was broken in pieces, which produced the element of water;
but this being fluidly disposed did run into those places which were
hollow, and these places were those that were capable to receive and
protect it; or else the water, subsisting by itself, did make the lower
places hollow. After this manner the principal parts of the world were
constituted.
CHAPTER V.
WHETHER THE UNIVERSE IS ONE.
The Stoics pronounce that the world is one thing, and this they say is
the universe and is corporeal.
Empedocles’s opinion is, that the world is one; yet by no means the
system of this world must be styled the universe, but that it is a
small part of it, and the remainder is idle matter.
What to Plato seems the truest he thus declares, that there is one
world, and that world is the universe; and this he endeavors to evince
by three arguments. First, that the world could not be complete and
perfect, if it did not within itself include all beings. Secondly,
nor could it give the true resemblance of its original and exemplar,
if it were not the one only begotten thing. Thirdly, it could not be
incorruptible, if there were any being out of its compass to whose
power it might be obnoxious. But to Plato it may be thus returned.
First, that the world is not complete and perfect, nor doth it contain
all things within itself. And if man is a perfect being, yet he doth
not encompass all things. Secondly, that there are many exemplars and
originals of statues, houses, and pictures. Thirdly, how is the world
perfect, if any thing beyond it is possible to be moved about it? But
the world is not incorruptible, nor can it be so conceived, because it
had an original.
To Metrodorus it seems absurd, that in a large field one only stalk
should grow, and in an infinite space one only world exist; and that
this universe is infinite is manifest by this, that there are causes
infinite. Now if this world were finite and the causes which produced
it infinite, it is necessary that the worlds likewise be infinite; for
where all causes do concur, there the effects also must appear, let the
causes be what they will, either atoms or elements.
CHAPTER VI.
WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE OF A
DEITY?
The Stoics thus define the essence of a God. It is a spirit
intellectual and fiery, which acknowledges no shape, but is continually
changed into what it pleases, and assimilates itself to all things. The
knowledge of this Deity they first received from the pulchritude of
those things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that
nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that
it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the
world. That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the
figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful
variety of those stars which adorn this world. The world is spherical;
the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being
round itself it hath its parts likewise round. (On this account,
according to Plato, the understanding, which is the most sacred part
of man, is in the head.) The color of it is most beauteous; for it is
painted with blue; which, though little blacker than purple, yet hath
such a shining quality, that by reason of the vehement efficacy of its
color it cuts through such an interval of air; whence it is that at so
great a distance the heavens are to be contemplated. And in this very
greatness of the world the beauty of it appears. View all things: that
which contains the rest carries a beauty with it, as an animal or a
tree. Also all things which are visible to us accomplish the beauty of
the world. The oblique circle called the Zodiac in the heaven is with
different images painted and distinguished:
There’s Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and the Claws;
Scorpio, Arcitenens, and Capricorn;
Amphora, Pisces, then the Ram, and Bull;
The lovely pair of Brothers next succeed.[37]
There are a thousand others that give us the suitable reflections of
the beauty of the world. Thus Euripides:
The starry splendor of the skies,
The wondrous work of that most wise
Creator, Time.[38]
From this the knowledge of a God is conveyed to man; that the sun, the
moon, and the rest of the stars, being carried under the earth, rise
again in their proper color, magnitude, place, and times. Therefore
they who by tradition delivered to us the knowledge and veneration of
the Gods did it by these three manner of ways:—first, from Nature;
secondly, from fables; thirdly, from the testimony given by the laws
of commonwealths. Philosophers taught the natural way; poets, the
fabulous; and the political way is received from the constitutions of
each commonwealth. All sorts of this learning are distinguished into
these seven parts. The first is from things that are conspicuous, and
the observation of those bodies which are in places superior to us. To
men the heavenly bodies that are so visible did give the knowledge of
the Deity; when they contemplated that they are the causes of so great
an harmony, that they regulate day and night, winter and summer, by
their rising and setting, and likewise considered those things which
by their influences in the earth do receive a being and do likewise
fructify. It was manifest to men that the Heaven was the father of
those things, and the Earth the mother; that the Heaven was the father
is clear, since from the heavens there is the pouring down of waters,
which have their spermatic faculty; the Earth the mother, because she
receives them and brings forth. Likewise men considering that the stars
are running (θέοντες) in a perpetual motion, that the sun and moon give
us the power to view and contemplate (θεωρεῖν), they call them all Gods
(θεούς).
In the second and third place, they thus distinguished the Deities into
those which are beneficial and those that are injurious to mankind.
Those which are beneficial they call Jupiter, Juno, Mercury, Ceres;
those who are mischievous the Dirae, Furies, and Mars. These, which
threaten dangers and violence, men endeavor to appease and conciliate
by sacred rites. The fourth and the fifth order of Gods they assign to
things and passions; to passions, Love, Venus, and Desire; the Deities
that preside over things, Hope, Justice, and Eunomia.
The sixth order of deities are those made by the poets; Hesiod, willing
to find out a father for those Gods that acknowledge an original,
invented their progenitors,
Hyperion, Coeus, and Iapetus,
With Creius:[39]
upon which account this is called the fabulous. The seventh rank of
the deities added to the rest are those which, by their beneficence
to mankind, were honored with a divine worship, though they were
born of mortal race; of this sort were Hercules, Castor and Pollux,
and Bacchus. These are reputed to be of a human species; for of all
beings that which is divine is most excellent, and man amongst all
animals is adorned with the greatest beauty, and is also the best,
being distinguished by virtue above the rest because of his intellect:
therefore it was thought that those who were admirable for goodness
should resemble that which is the best and most beautiful.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS GOD?
Some of the philosophers, such as Diagoras the Melian, Theodorus the
Cyrenean, and Euemerus the Tegeatan, did unanimously deny there were
any Gods; and Callimachus the Cyrenean discovered his mind touching
Euemerus in these Iambic verses, thus writing:
To th’ ante-mural temple flock apace,
Where he that long ago composed of brass[40]
Great Jupiter, Thrasonic old bald pate,
Now writes his impious books,—a boastful ass!
meaning books which denote there are no Gods. Euripides the tragedian
durst not openly declare his sentiment; the court of Areopagus
terrified him. Yet he sufficiently manifested his thoughts by this
method. He presented in his tragedy Sisyphus, the first and great
patron of this opinion, and introduced himself as one agreeing with him:
Disorder in those days did domineer,
And brutal power kept the world in fear.
Afterwards by the sanction of laws wickedness was suppressed; but by
reason that laws could prohibit only public villanies, yet could not
hinder many persons from acting secret impieties, some wise persons
gave this advice, that we ought to blind truth with lying disguises,
and to persuade men that there is a God:
There’s an eternal God does hear and see
And understand every impiety;
Though it in dark recess or thought committed be.
But this poetical fable ought to be rejected, he thought, together with
Callimachus, who thus saith:
If you believe a God, it must be meant
That you conceive this God omnipotent.
But God cannot do every thing; for, if it were so, then God could
make snow black, and the fire cold, and him that is in a posture of
sitting to be upright, and so on the contrary. The brave-speaking Plato
pronounceth that God formed the world after his own image; but this
smells rank of the old dotages, old comic poets would say; for how did
God, casting his eye upon himself, frame this universe? Or how can God
be spherical, and not be inferior to man?
Anaxagoras avers that bodies did consist from all eternity, but the
divine intellect did reduce them into their proper orders, and effected
the origination of all beings. Plato did not suppose that the primary
bodies had their consistence and repose, but that they were moved
confusedly and in disorder; but God, knowing that order was better
than confusion, did digest them into the best methods. Both these were
equally peccant; for both suppose God to be the great moderator of
human affairs, and for that cause to have formed this present world;
when it is apparent that an immortal and blessed being, replenished
with all his glorious excellencies, and not at all obnoxious to any
sort of evil, but being wholly occupied with his own felicity and
immortality, would not employ himself with the concerns of men; for
certainly miserable is the being which, like a laborer or artificer,
is molested by the troubles and cares which the forming and governing
of this world must give him. Add to this, that the God whom these men
profess was either not at all existing previous to this present world
(when bodies were either reposed or in a disordered motion), or that
then God did either sleep, or else was in a perpetual watchfulness, or
that he did neither of these. Now neither the first nor the second can
be entertained, because they suppose God to be eternal; if God from
eternity was in a continual sleep, he was in an eternal death,—and
what is death but an eternal sleep?—but no sleep can affect a Deity,
for the immortality of God and alliance to death are vastly different.
But if God was in a continual vigilance, either there was something
wanting to make him happy, or else his beatitude was perfectly
complete; but according to neither of these can God be said to be
blessed; not according to the first, for if there be any deficiency
there is no perfect bliss; not according to the second, for, if there
be nothing wanting to the felicity of God, it must be a useless
enterprise for him to busy himself in human affairs. And how can it be
supposed that God administers by his own providence human concerns,
when to vain and trifling persons prosperous things happen, to great
and high adverse? Agamemnon was both
A virtuous prince, for warlike acts renowned,[41]
and by an adulterer and adulteress was vanquished and perfidiously
slain. Hercules, after he had freed the life of man from many things
that were pernicious to it, perished by the witchcraft and poison of
Deianira.
Thales said that the intelligence of the world was God.
Anaximander concluded that the stars were heavenly Deities.
Democritus said that God, being a globe of fire, is intelligence and
the soul of the world.
Pythagoras says that, of his principles, unity is God; and the perfect
good, which is indeed the nature of a unity, is mind itself; but the
binary number, which is infinite, is a devil, and in its own nature
evil,—about which the multitude of material beings, and this world
which is the object of our eyes, are conversant.
Socrates and Plato agree that God is that which is one, hath its
original from its own self, is of a singular subsistence, is one only
being perfectly good; all these various names signifying goodness do
all centre in mind; hence God is to be understood as that mind and
intellect, which is a separate idea, that is to say, pure and unmixed
of all matter, and not twisted with any thing obnoxious to passions.
Aristotle’s sentiment is, that God hath his residence in superior
regions, and hath placed his throne in the sphere of the universe, and
is a separate idea; which sphere is an ethereal body, which is by him
styled the fifth essence or quintessence. For there is a division of
the universe into spheres, which are contiguous by their nature but
appear to reason to be separated; and he concludes that each of the
spheres is an animal, composed of a body and soul; the body of them is
ethereal, moved orbicularly, the soul is the rational form, which is
unmoved, and yet is the cause that the sphere is actually in motion.
The Stoics affirm that God is a thing more common and obvious, and is
a mechanic fire which every way spreads itself to produce the world; it
contains in itself all seminal virtues, and by this means all things by
a fatal necessity were produced. This spirit, passing through the whole
world, received various names from the mutations in the matter through
which it ran in its journey. God therefore is the world, the stars, the
earth, and (highest of all) the supreme mind in the heavens.
In the judgment of Epicurus all the Gods are anthropomorphites, or have
the shape of men; but they are perceptible only by reason, for their
nature admits of no other manner of being apprehended, their parts
being so small and fine that they give no corporeal representations.
The same Epicurus asserts that there are four other natural beings
which are immortal: of this sort are atoms, the vacuum, the infinite,
and the similar parts; and these last are called Homoeomeries and
likewise elements.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED GENIUSES AND HEROES.
Having treated of the essence of the deities in a just order, it
follows that we discourse of daemons and heroes. Thales, Pythagoras,
Plato, and the Stoics do conclude that daemons are essences which are
endowed with souls; that the heroes are the souls separated from their
bodies, some are good, some are bad; the good are those whose souls are
good, the evil those whose souls are wicked. All this is rejected by
Epicurus.
CHAPTER IX.
OF MATTER.
Matter is that first being which is substrate for generation,
corruption, and all other alterations.
The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras, with the Stoics, are of opinion
that matter is changeable, mutable, convertible, and sliding through
all things.
The followers of Democritus aver that the vacuum, the atom, and the
incorporeal substance are the first beings, and not obnoxious to
passions.
Aristotle and Plato affirm that matter is of that species which is
corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to
receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin
of all other beings. But they that do say that water, earth, air, and
fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but
conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and
atoms are matter do say that matter is without form.
CHAPTER X.
OF IDEAS.
An idea is a being incorporeal, which has no subsistence by itself, but
gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of
its manifestation.
Socrates and Plato conjecture that these ideas are essences separate
from matter, having their existence in the understanding and fancy of
the Deity, that is, of mind.
Aristotle objected not to forms and ideas; but he doth not believe them
separated from matter, or patterns of what God has made.
Those Stoics, that are of the school of Zeno, profess that ideas are
nothing else but the conceptions of our own mind.
CHAPTER XI.
OF CAUSES.
A cause is that by which any thing is produced, or by which any thing
is effected.
Plato gives this triple division of causes,—the material, the
efficient, and the final cause; the principal cause he judges to be the
efficient, which is the mind and intellect.
Pythagoras and Aristotle judge the first causes are incorporeal beings,
but those that are causes by accident or participation become corporeal
substances; by this means the world is corporeal.
The Stoics grant that all causes are corporeal, inasmuch as they are
breath.
CHAPTER XII.
OF BODIES.
A body is that being which hath these three dimensions, breadth,
depth, and length;—or a bulk which makes a sensible resistance;—or
whatsoever of its own nature possesseth a place.
Plato saith that it is neither heavy nor light in its own nature, when
it exists in its own place; but being in the place where another should
be, then it has an inclination by which it tends to gravity or levity.
Aristotle saith that, if we simply consider things in their own nature,
the earth only is to be judged heavy, and fire light; but air and water
are sometimes heavy and sometimes light.
The Stoics think that of the four elements two are light, fire and air;
two ponderous, earth and water; that which is naturally light doth by
its own nature, not by any inclination, recede from its own centre; but
that which is heavy doth by its own nature tend to its centre; for the
centre is not a heavy thing of itself.
Epicurus thinks that bodies are not to be limited; but the first
bodies, which are simple bodies, and all those composed of them, all
acknowledge gravity; that all atoms are moved, some perpendicularly,
some obliquely; some are carried aloft either by direct impulse or with
vibrations.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE LEAST IN NATURE.
Empedocles, precedent to the four elements, introduceth the most minute
bodies which resemble elements; but they did exist before the elements,
having similar parts and orbicular.
Heraclitus brings in the smallest fragments, and those indivisible.
CHAPTER XIV.
OF FIGURES.
A figure is the exterior appearance, the circumscription, and the
boundary of a body.
The Pythagoreans say that the bodies of the four elements are
spherical, fire being in the supremest place only excepted, whose
figure is conical.
CHAPTER XV.
OF COLORS.
Color is the visible quality of a body.
The Pythagoreans called color the outward appearance of a body.
Empedocles, that which is consentaneous to the passages of the eye.
Plato, that they are fires emitted from bodies, which have parts
harmonious for the sight. Zeno the Stoic, that colors are the first
figurations of matter. The Pythagoreans, that colors are of four sorts,
white and black, red and pale; and they derive the variety of colors
from the diversity of the elements, and that seen in animals also from
the variety of food and the air in which they live and are bred.
CHAPTER XVI.
OF THE DIVISION OF BODIES.
The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras grant that all bodies are
passible and divisible unto infinity. Others hold that atoms and
indivisible parts are there fixed, and admit not of a division into
infinity. Aristotle, that all bodies are potentially but not actually
divisible into infinity.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW BODIES ARE MIXED AND CONTEMPERATED ONE WITH ANOTHER.
The ancient philosophers held that the mixture of elements proceeded
from the alteration of qualities; but the disciples of Anaxagoras
and Democritus say it is done by apposition. Empedocles composes the
elements of still smaller bulks, those which are the most minute and
may be termed the elements of elements. Plato assigns three bodies (but
he will not allow these to be elements, nor properly so called), air,
fire, and water, which are mutable into one another; but the earth is
mutable into none of these.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF A VACUUM.
All the natural philosophers from Thales to Plato rejected a vacuum.
Empedocles says that there is nothing of a vacuity in nature, nor any
thing superabundant. Leucippus, Democritus, Demetrius, Metrodorus,
Epicurus, that the atoms are infinite in number; and that a vacuum
is infinite in magnitude. The Stoics, that within the compass of
the world there is no vacuum, but beyond it the vacuum is infinite.
Aristotle,[42] that the vacuum beyond the world is so great that the
heaven has liberty to breathe into it, for the heaven is fiery.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF PLACE.
Plato, to define place, calls it that thing which in its own bosom
receives forms and ideas; by which metaphor he signifies matter, being
(as it were) a nurse or receptacle of beings. Aristotle, that it is
the ultimate superficies of the circumambient body, contiguous to that
which it doth encompass.
CHAPTER XX.
OF SPACE.
The Stoics and Epicureans make a place, a vacuum, and a space to
differ. A vacuum is that which is void of any thing that may be called
a body; place is that which is possessed by a body; a space that which
is partly filled with a body, as a cask with wine.
CHAPTER XXI.
OF TIME.
In the sense of Pythagoras, time is that sphere which encompasses the
world. Plato says that it is a movable image of eternity, or the
interval of the world’s motion. Eratosthenes, that it is the solar
motion.
CHAPTER XXII.
OF THE ESSENCE AND NATURE OF TIME.
Plato says that the heavenly motion is time. Most of the Stoics affirm
that motion itself is time. Most philosophers think that time had no
beginning; Plato, that time had only an ideal beginning.
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF MOTION.
Plato and Pythagoras say that motion is a change and alteration in
matter. Aristotle, that it is the actual operation of that which may be
moved. Democritus, that there is but one sort of motion, and it is that
which is vibratory. Epicurus, that there are two species of motion,
one perpendicular, and the other oblique. Herophilus, that one species
of motion is obvious only to reason, the other to sense. Heraclitus
utterly denies that there is any thing of quiet or repose in nature;
for that is the state of the dead; one sort of motion is eternal, which
he assigns to beings eternal, the other perishable, to those things
which are perishable.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OF GENERATION AND CORRUPTION.
Parmenides, Melissus, and Zeno deny that there are any such things
as generation and corruption, for they suppose that the universe is
unmovable. Empedocles, Epicurus, and other philosophers that combine
in this, that the world is framed of small corporeal particles meeting
together, affirm that corruption and generation are not so properly to
be accepted; but there are conjunctions and separations, which do not
consist in any alteration according to their qualities, but are made
according to quantity by coalition or disjunction. Pythagoras, and all
those who take for granted that matter is subject to mutation, say that
generation and corruption are to be accepted in their proper sense, and
that they are accomplished by the alteration, mutation, and dissolution
of elements.
CHAPTER XXV.
OF NECESSITY.
Thales says that necessity is omnipotent, and that it exerciseth
an empire over every thing. Pythagoras, that the world is invested
by necessity. Parmenides and Democritus, that there is nothing in
the world but what is necessarily, and that this same necessity is
otherwise called fate, justice, providence, and the architect of the
world.
CHAPTER XXVI.
OF THE NATURE OF NECESSITY.
Plato distinguisheth and refers some things to Providence, others to
necessity. Empedocles makes the nature of necessity to be that cause
which employs principles and elements. Democritus makes it to be a
resistance, impulse, and force of matter. Plato sometimes says that
necessity is matter; at other times, that it is the habitude or respect
of the efficient cause towards matter.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF DESTINY OR FATE.
Heraclitus, who attributes all things to fate, makes necessity to
be the same thing with it. Plato admits of a necessity in the minds
and the actions of men, but yet he introduceth a cause which flows
from ourselves. The Stoics, in this agreeing with Plato, say that
necessity is a cause invincible and violent; that fate is the ordered
complication of causes, in which there is an intexture of those things
which proceed from our own determination, so that some things are to be
attributed to fate, others not.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
OF THE NATURE OF FATE.
According to Heraclitus, the essence of fate is a certain reason which
penetrates the substance of all being; and this is an ethereal body,
containing in itself that seminal faculty which gives an original to
every being in the universe. Plato declares that it is the eternal
reason and the eternal law of the nature of the universe. Chrysippus,
that it is a spiritual faculty, which in due order doth manage and rule
the universe. Again, in his book styled the Definitions, that fate is
the reason of the world, or that it is that law whereby Providence
rules and administers every thing that is in the world; or it is that
reason by which all things past have been, all things present are,
and all things future will be. The Stoics say that it is a chain of
causes, that is, it is an order and connection of causes which cannot
be resisted. Posidonius, that it is a being the third in degree from
Jupiter; the first of beings is Jupiter, the second nature, and the
third fate.
CHAPTER XXIX.
OF FORTUNE.
Plato says, that it is an accidental cause and a casual consequence
in things which proceed from the election and counsel of men.
Aristotle, that it is an accidental cause in those things which are
done by an impulse to a certain end; and this cause is uncertain and
unstable: there is a great deal of difference betwixt that which flows
from chance and that which falls out by Fortune; for that which is
fortuitous admits also of chance, and belongs to things practical; but
what is by chance cannot be also by Fortune, for it belongs to things
without action: Fortune, moreover, belongs to rational beings, but
chance to rational and irrational beings alike, and even to inanimate
things. Epicurus, that it is a cause not always consistent, but various
as to persons, times, and manners. Anaxagoras and the Stoics, that it
is that cause which human reason cannot comprehend; for there are some
things which proceed from necessity, some things from Fate, some from
choice and free-will, some from Fortune, some from chance.
CHAPTER XXX.
OF NATURE.
Empedocles believes that Nature is nothing else but the mixture and
separation of the elements; for thus he writes in the first book of his
natural philosophy:
Nature gives neither life nor death,
Mutation makes us die or breathe.
The elements first are mixed, then all
Do separate: this mortals Nature call.
Anaxagoras is of the same opinion, that Nature is coalition and
separation, that is, generation and corruption.
BOOK II.
Having finished my dissertation concerning principles and elements and
those things which chiefly appertain to them, I will turn my pen to
discourse of those things which are produced by them, and will take my
beginning from the world, which contains and encompasseth all beings.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE WORLD.
Pythagoras was the first philosopher that gave the name of κόσμος to
the world, from the order and beauty of it; for so that word signifies.
Thales and his followers say the world is one. Democritus, Epicurus,
and their scholar Metrodorus affirm that there are infinite worlds
in an infinite space, for that infinite vacuum in its whole extent
contains them. Empedocles, that the circle which the sun makes in its
motion circumscribes the world, and that circle is the utmost bound of
the world. Seleucus, that the world knows no limits. Diogenes, that
the universe is infinite, but this world is finite. The Stoics make a
difference between that which is called the universe, and that which is
called the whole world;—the universe is the infinite space considered
with the vacuum, the vacuity being removed gives the right conception
of the world; so that the universe and the world are not the same
thing.