Complete Works of Plutarch Part 62

And also these words of Euripides:--

Nor is it fitting to be indignant at events, no good comes of it; but when things go wrong, if one bears them right, they do go well.

Again Homer says (I. xxiv. 128):--

How long, my son, wilt thou thy soul consume with grief and mourning?

So Pythagoras:--

Spare thy life, do not wear out thy soul.

Then Homer says (O. xviii. 136):--

For the spirit of men upon the earth is even as their day, that comes upon them from the father of G.o.ds and men.

Archilochus, who imitates other things of Homer, has paraphrased this too, saying:--

Such for mortal men, O Glaucus, son of Leptineus, is their mind, as Zeus directs for a day.

And in other words, Homer says (I. xiii. 730):--

To one the G.o.ds have granted warlike might, While in another's breast all-seeing Jove Hath plac'd the spirit of wisdom and mind Discerning for the common good of all.

By him are states preserved! and he himself Best knows the value of the precious gift.

Euripides has followed this original:--

Cities are well ordered by the instructions of one man.

So, too, a house. One again is mighty in war. For one wise judgment conquers many hands, but ignorance with a crowd brings the most evil.

Where he makes Idomeneus exhorting his comrade, he says (I. xii. 322):--

O friend, if we survivors of this war Could live from age and death forever free, Thou shouldst not see me foremost in the fight, Nor would I urge thee to the glorious field; But since in man ten thousand forms of death Attend, which none may 'scape, then on that we May glory in others' gain, or they on us!

Aeschylus saying after him:--

Nor receiving many wounds in his heart does any one die, unless the goal of life is run. Nor does any one sitting by the hearth flee any better the decreed fate.

In prose, Demosthenes speaks as follows (O. xviii. 9):--

For all mortals, death is the end of life even if one keeps himself shut up in a cell; it is necessary ever for good men to attempt n.o.ble things and bravely to bear whatever G.o.d may give.

Again take Homer (I. iii. 65):--

The gifts of Heav'n are not to be despis'd.

Sophocles paraphrases this, saying:--

This is G.o.d's gift; whatever the G.o.ds may give, one must never avoid anything, my son.

In Homer there are the words (I. i. 249):--

From whose persuasive lips. Sweeter than Honey flowed the stream of speech.

Theocritus said (I. vii. 82):--

Therefore the Muse poured in his mouth Sweet nectar.

How, also, Aratus paraphrased this (I. xviii. 489):--

Sole star that never bathes in th' ocean wave,--

saying:--

The Bears protected from cerulean ocean.

(I. xv. 628):--

They win their soul from death,

is paraphrased:--

He escaped Hades by a small peg.

Let this be enough on this subject.

But civil discourse belongs to the rhetorical art, with which it seems Homer was first to be familiar. If Rhetoric is the power of persuasive speaking, who more than Homer depended on this power? He excels all in eloquence; also in the grasp of his subject he reveals an equal literary power.

And the first part of this art is Arrangement, which he exhibits in all his poetry, and especially at the beginning of his narratives. For he did not make the beginning of the "Iliad" at a distant period, but at the time when affairs were developing with energy and had come to a head. The more inactive periods, which came into past time, he goes over in other places succinctly. The same he did in the "Odyssey," beginning from the close of the times of Odysseus's wanderings, in which it was clearly time to bring in Telemachus and to show the haughty conduct of the suitors. Whatever happened to Odysseus in his wanderings before this he introduces into Odysseus's narrative. These things he prefers to show as more probable and more effective, when said by the one who experienced them.

As therefore all orators make use of introductory remarks to get the benevolent attention of their audience, so our poet makes use of exordiums fitted to move and reach the hearer. In the "Iliad" he first declares that he is about to say how many evils happened to the Achaeans through the wrath of Achilles and the high-handed conduct of Agamemnon; and in the "Odyssey" how many labors and dangers Odysseus encountered and surmounted all of them by the judgment and perseverance of his soul.

And in each one of the exordiums he invokes the Muse that she may make the value of what is said greater and more divine.

While the characters introduced by him are made to say many things either to their relatives or friends or enemies or the people, yet to each he a.s.signs a fitting type of speech, as in the beginning he makes Chryseis in his words to the Greeks use a most appropriate exordium.

First he desires for them that they may be superior to their enemies and may return home, in order that he might gain their kindly feeling. Then he demands his daughter. But Achilles being angered by the threat of Agamemnon combines a speech for the Greeks and for himself, in order to make them more friendly disposed. For, he says, all had proceeded to the war, not on account Of some private enmity, but to please Agamemnon himself and his brother, and he went on to say he had done many things himself and had received a present not from Agamemnon and Menelaus, but from the whole body of the Greeks. Agamemnon replying to him has no difficulty in winning the crowd. For when Achilles says he means to sail back home, on account of the insult he has received, he does not say "go" but "flee," changing what is said abruptly into an attack on Achilles reputation. And his words are:--

I do not exhort you to remain; there are here who value me.

And this was agreeable to his hearers.

And afterward he introduces Nestor, whom he had previously called sweet in speech and a shrewd orator (I. i. 249):--

Whose voice flowed from his tongue sweeter than honey.

There could be no greater praise for an orator. He starts off with an exordium by which he tries to change the minds of the contesting chiefs, bidding them consider by opposing one another they give occasion of joy to their enemies. He goes on to admonish both and to exhort them to give heed to him as their elder. And by telling one to be prudent, he says what gratifies the other. He advises Agamemnon not to take away what has been given to a man who has labored much; Achilles, not to strive with the king who is his superior. And he gives suitable praise to both: to the one as ruling over more people; to the other, as having more prowess. In this way he seeks to moderate them.

Again, in what follows, when Agamemnon saw the dream bearing good hopes to him from Zeus, and exhorting him to arm the Greeks, did he not use rhetorical art speaking to the mult.i.tude, saying the contrary of what he wishes, to try their feeling and to see if they will be disgusted by being compelled to do battle for him. But he speaks to please them.

Another of the men able to influence them bids them stay in their tents, as if the king really wished this. For to those he speaks to he indicates that he desires the contrary. Odysseus taking up these words, and making use of a convenient freedom, persuades the leaders by his mild language; the common people he compels by threats to heed their superiors. Stopping the mutiny and agitation of the crowd, he persuades all by his shrewd words, moderately blaming them for not carrying out what they promised, and at the same time excusing them on the ground that they have been idle for some time and have been deprived of what is dearest to them. He persuades them to remain by the hope of the seer's prophecy.