Complete Works of Plutarch Part 59

The suitors seeing the beggar laying on the ground (O. xviii. 100):--

But the proud wooers threw up their hands, and cried outright for laughter.

But in more trivial matters the difference of moderation appears.

Odysseus though loving his wife, and seeing her lamenting on his account, contains himself (O. xix. 211):--

His eyes kept steadfast between his eyelids as it were horn or iron.

But the suitors who were in love with her when they saw her (O. xviii.

212):--

And straightways the knees of the wooers were loosened, and their hearts were enchanted with love, and each one uttered a prayer that he might be her bedfellow.

Such is the poet's treatment of the powers and pa.s.sions of the soul.

Although there are various things said by the philosophers about the chief end of virtue and happiness, it is agreed by all that virtue of the soul is the greatest of goods. But the Stoics consider that virtue by itself is sufficient for happiness, taking the cue from the Homeric poems in which he has made the wisest and most prudent man on account of virtue despising trouble and disregarding pleasure. As to the first point in this way (O. iv. 242):--

Now all of them I could not tell or number, so many as were the adventures of the patient Odysseus. He bruised himself with unseemly stripes and cast a sorry covering over his shoulders, and in the fashion of a servant he went into the wide-wayed city of the foemen.

And as to the second, i.e. (O. ix. 29):--

Vainly Calypso, the fair G.o.ddess, would fain have kept me with her in her hollow caves longing to have me for her lord.

Circe of Aia would have stayed me in her halls, longing to have me for her lord. But never did they prevail upon my heart within my breast.

Especially does he expound his opinion of virtue in the pa.s.sages in which he makes Achilles not only brave but most beautiful in form, and swiftest of foot, and most ill.u.s.trious in birth and distinguished in race and aided by the chiefest of the G.o.ds; and Odysseus understanding and firm in soul--in other respects not enjoying an equal fortune.

His stature and aspect not conspicuous, his parentage not altogether noteworthy, his country obscure, hated by a G.o.d who was all but first.

None of these things prevented him from being famous, from gaining the chief good of the soul.

But the Peripatetic School think the goods of the soul have the pre-eminence, such as prudence, fort.i.tude, temperance, justice.

Afterward are those of the body, such as health, strength, beauty, swiftness; and there are besides external goods such as reputation, n.o.bility, wealth. For they think any one worthy of praise and admiration if he, fortified by the protective virtues of the soul, holds out against evils in the midst of sufferings, disease, want, unforeseen accidents, but that this situation is not a desirable nor a happy one.

For not only the possession of virtue do they think good, but its use and its activity. And these distinctions Homer directly showed, for he always makes the G.o.ds (O. viii. 325):--

The givers of good things,--

these things also men pray the G.o.ds to furnish them, as being plainly neither useless to them nor indifferent, but advantageous to happiness.

What the goods are men aim at, and through which they are called happy, he declares in many places. But all of them together were centred in Hermes (I. xxiv. 376):--

Blessed are thy parents in a son so grac'd, In face and presence, and of mind so wise.

He bears witness to his beauty of body, his intelligence, and his lineage. Separately he takes them up (I. vi. 156):--

On whom the G.o.ds bestowed The gifts of beauty and of manly grace, And Zeus poured out lordly wealth,--

for this, too, is a gift of G.o.d (O. vi. 188):--

For Zeus himself gives prosperity to mortals.

Sometimes he esteems honor a good (I. viii. 540):--

Would that I might be adored as Athene and Apollo.

Sometimes good fortune in children (O. iii. 196):--

So good a thing it is that a son of the dead should be left.

Sometimes, too, the benefit of one's family (O. xiii. 39):--

Pour ye the drink offering, and send me safe on my way, and as for you, fare ye well. For now I have all my heart's desire,--an escort and loving gifts. May the G.o.ds of heaven give me good fortune with them and may I find my n.o.ble wife in my home, and my friends unharmed while ye, for your part, abide here, and make glad your gentle wives and children, and may the G.o.ds vouchsafe all manner of good and may no evil come, nigh the people.

That in a comparison of goods valor is better than wealth, he shows in the following (I. ii. 872):--

With childish folly to the war he came, Laden with stress of gold; yet naught availed His gold to save him from the doom of death.

And (O. iv. 93):--

I have no joy of my lordship among these my possessions.

And that intelligence is better than beauty of form (O. viii. 169):--

For one man is feebler than another in presence, yet the G.o.ds crown his words with beauty.

It is evident that bodily excellence and external things he considers as good, and that without these virtue alone is not sufficient for happiness he declares in the following way. He created two men who attained to the height of virtue, Nestor and Odysseus, different indeed from one another, but like one another in prudence and valor and power of eloquence. He has made them not at all equal in fortune, but on the side of Nestor he has placed the G.o.ds (O. iv. 208):--

Right easily is known that man's seed for whom Cronion weaves the skein of luck at bridal and at birth, even as now hath he granted prosperity to Nestor forever, for all his days, that he himself should grow into smooth old age in his halls, and his sons moreover should be wise and the best of spearsmen.

But Odysseus, though shrewd and clever and prudent, he often calls unfortunate. For Nestor goes back home quickly and safely, but Odysseus wanders about for a long time and endures constantly innumerable sufferings and dangers. So it is a desirable and blessed thing if fortune is at hand helping and not opposing virtue.

How the possession of virtue is of no use unless it accomplishes something, is evident from the pa.s.sages where Patroclus complains to Achilles and says (I. xvi. 31):--

Whoe'er may hope in future days by thee To profit, if thou now forbear to save The Greeks from shame and loss.

So he speaks to him because he makes his virtue useless by inactivity.

Achilles himself deplores his inactivity (I. xviii. 104:):--

But idly here I sit c.u.mb'ring the ground, I, who amid the Greeks no equal own In fight,--

for he laments because though possessing virtue he does not make use of it; but being indignant with the Greeks (I. i. 490):--

No more he sought The learned council, nor the battlefield; But wore his soul away, and only pined For the fierce joy and tumult of the fight.

And so Phoenix admonished him (I, ix. 433):--

To teach thee how to frame Befitting speech, and mighty deeds achieve.

After his death he is indignant at that inertia, saying (O. xi. 489):--

Rather would I live upon the soil as the hireling of another with a lordless man who had no great livelihood, than bear sway among the dead that are no more.