Complete Works of Plutarch Part 71

Such contrarieties as these are easily solved, if (as I said) we teach youth to judge aright and to give the better saying preference. But if we chance to meet with any absurd pa.s.sages without any others at their heels to confute them, we are then to overthrow them with such others as elsewhere are to be found in the same author. Nor must we be offended with the poet or grieved at him, but only at the speeches themselves, which he utters either according to the vulgar manner of speaking or, it may be, but in drollery. So, when thou readest in Homer of G.o.ds thrown out of heaven headlong one by another, or G.o.ds wounded by men and quarrelling and brawling with each other, thou mayest readily, if thou wilt, say to him,--

Sure thy invention here was sorely out, Or thou hadst said far better things, no doubt; ("Iliad," viii. 358.)

yea, and thou dost so elsewhere, and according as thou thinkest, to wit, in these pa.s.sages of thine:--

The G.o.ds, removed from all that men doth grieve, A quiet and contented life do live.

Herein the immortal G.o.ds forever blest Feel endless joys and undisturbed rest.

The G.o.ds, who have themselves no cause to grieve, For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.

(Ibid. vi. 138; "Odyssey," vi. 46; "Iliad," xxiv, 526.)

For these argue sound and true opinions of the G.o.ds; but those other were only feigned to raise pa.s.sions in men. Again, when Euripides speaks at this rate,--

The G.o.ds are better than we men by far, And yet by them we oft deceived are,--

may do well to quote him elsewhere against himself where he says better,--

If G.o.ds do wrong, surely no G.o.ds there are.

So also, when Pindar, saith bitterly and keenly,

No law forbids us anything to do, Whereby a mischief may befall a foe,

tell him: But, Pindar, thou thyself sayest elsewhere,

The pleasure which injurious acts attends Always in bitter consequences ends.

And when Sophocles speaks thus,

Sweet is the gain, wherein to lie and cheat Adds the repute of wit to what we get,

tell him: But we have heard thee say far otherwise,

When the account's cast up, the gain's but poor Which by a lying tongue augments the store.

And as to what he saith of riches, to wit:--

Wealth, where it minds to go, meets with no stay; For where it finds not, it can make a way; Many fair offers doth the poor let go, And lose his talent because his purse is low; The fair tongue makes, where wealth can purchase it, The foul face beautiful, the fool a wit:--

against this the reader may set in opposition divers other sayings of the same author. For example,

From honor poverty doth not debar, Where poor men virtuous and deserving are.

Whate'er fools think, a man is ne'er the worse If he be wise, though with an empty purse.

The comfort which he gets who wealth enjoys, The vexing care by which 'tis kept destroys.

And Menander also somewhere magnifies a voluptuous life, and inflames the minds of vain persons with these amorous strains,

The glorious sun no living thing doth see, But what's a slave to love as well as we.

But yet elsewhere, on the other side, he fastens on us and pulls us back to the love of virtue, and checks the rage of l.u.s.t, when he says thus,

The life that is dishonorably spent, Be it ne'er so pleasant, yields no true content.

For these lines are contrary to the former, as they are also better and more profitable; so that by comparing them considerately one cannot but either be inclined to the better side, or at least flag in the belief of the worse.

But now, supposing that any of the poets themselves afford no such correcting pa.s.sages to solve what they have said amiss, it will then be advisable to confront them with the contrary sayings of other famous men, and therewith to sway the scales of our judgment to the better side. As, when Alexis tempts to debauchery in these verses,

The wise man knows what of all things is best, Whilst choosing pleasure he slights all the rest.

He thinks life's joys complete in these three sorts, To drink and eat, and follow wanton sports; And what besides seems to pretend to pleasure, If it betide him, counts it over measure,

we must remember that Socrates said the contrary, to wit: that they are bad men who live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. And against the man that wrote in this manner,

He that designs to encounter with a knave, An equal stock of knavery must have,

seeing he herein advises us to follow other vicious examples, that of Diogenes may well be returned, who being asked by what means a man might revenge himself upon his enemy, answered, By becoming himself a good and honest man. And the same Diogenes may be quoted also against Sophocles, who, writing of the sacred mysteries, caused great grief and despair to mult.i.tudes of men:--

Most happy they whose eyes are blest to see The mysteries which here contained be, Before they die! For only they have joy.

In th' other world; the rest all ills annoy.

This pa.s.sage being read to Diogenes, What then! says he, shall the condition of Pataecion, the notorious robber, after death be better than that of Epaminondas, merely for his being initiated in these mysteries?

In like manner, when one Timotheus on the theatre, singing of the G.o.ddess Diana, called her furious, raging, possessed, mad, Cinesias suddenly interrupted him, May thy daughter, Timotheus, be such a G.o.ddess! And witty also was that of Bion to Theognis, who said,--

One cannot say nor do, if poor he be; His tongue is bound to th' peace, as well as he.

("Theognis," vss. 177, 178.)

How comes it to pa.s.s then, said he, Theognis that thou thyself being so poor pratest and gratest our ears in this manner?

Nor are we to omit, in our reading those hints which, from some other words or phrases bordering on those that offend us, may help to rectify our apprehensions. But as physicians use cantharides, believing that, though their bodies be deadly poison, yet their feet and wings are medicinal and are antidotes to the poison itself, so must we deal with poems. If any noun or verb near at hand may a.s.sist to the correction of any such saying, and preserve us from putting a bad construction upon it, we should take hold of it and employ it to a.s.sist a more favorable interpretation. As some do in reference to those verses of Homer,--

Sorrows and tears most commonly are seen To be the G.o.ds' rewards to wretched men:--

The G.o.ds, who have no cause themselves to grieve, For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.

("Odyssey," iv. 197; "Iliad," xxiv. 526.)

For, they say, he says not of men simply, or of all men, that the G.o.ds weave for them the fatal web of a sorrowful life, but he affirms it only of foolish and imprudent men, whom, because their vices make them such, he therefore calls wretched and miserable.

Another way whereby those pa.s.sages which are suspicious in poets maybe transferred to a better sense may be taken from the ordinary use of words, which a young man ought indeed to be more exercised in than in the use of strange and obscure terms. For it will be a point of philology which it will not be unprofitable to him to understand, that when he meets with [Greek omitted] in a poet, that word means an EVIL DEATH; for the Macedonians use the word [Greek omitted] to signify DEATH. So the Aeolians call victory gotten by patient endurance of hardships [Greek omitted] and the Dryopians call daemons [Greek omitted].

But of all things it is most necessary, and no less profitable if we design to receive profit and not hurt from the poets, that we understand how they make use of the names of G.o.ds, as also of the terms of Evil and Good; and what they mean by Soul and Fate; and whether these words be always taken by them in one and the same sense or rather in various senses, as also many other words are. For so the word [Greek omitted]

sometimes signifies a MATERIAL HOUSE, as, Into the high-roofed house; and sometimes ESTATE, as, My house is devoured. So the word [Greek omitted] sometimes signifies life, and sometimes wealth. And [Greek omitted] is sometimes taken for being uneasy and disquieted in mind, as in

[Greek omitted] ("Iliad," v. 352.)

and elsewhere for boasting and rejoicing, as in

[Greek omitted] ("Odyssey," xviii. 333.)