Complete Works of Plutarch Part 73

Evil is soon acquired; for everywhere There's plenty on't and t'all men's dwellings near; (Hesiod, "Works and Days," 287.)

and sometimes some evil accident or misfortune, as when Homer says,

Sore evils, when they haunt us in our prime, Hasten old age on us before our time.

("Odyessy," xix. 360.)

So also in the word [Greek omitted], he would be sorely deceived who should imagine that, wheresoever he meets with it in poets, it means (as it does in philosophy) a perfect habitual enjoyment of all good things or the leading a life every way agreeable to Nature, and that they do not withal by the abuse of such words call rich men happy or blessed, and power or glory felicity. For, though Homer rightly useth terms of that nature in this pa.s.sage,--

Though of such great estates I am possest, Yet with true inward joy I am not blest; (Ibid. iv. 93.)

and Menander in this,--

So great's th' estate I am endowed withal: All say I'm rich, but none me happy call;--

yet Euripides discourseth more confusedly and perplexedly when he writes after this manner,--

I do not want a happy life that is tedious; And, man, why praisest thou Th' unjust beat.i.tude of tyranny?

(Euripides, "Medea," 598; "Phoenissae," 549.)

except, as I said, we allow him the use of these words in a metaphorical and abusive meaning. But enough hath been spoken of these matters.

Nevertheless, this principle is not once only but often to be inculcated and pressed on young men, that poetry when it undertakes a fict.i.tious argument by way of imitation, though it make use of such ornament and ill.u.s.tration as suit the actions and manners treated of, yet disclaims not all likelihood of truth, seeing the force of imitation, in order to the persuading of men, lies in probability. Wherefore such imitation as does not altogether shake hands with truth carries along with it certain signs of virtue and vice mixed together in the actions which it doth represent. And of this nature is Homer's poetry, which totally bids adieu to Stoicism, the principles whereof will not admit any vice to come near where virtue is, nor virtue to have anything to do where any vice lodgeth, but affirms that he that is not a wise man can do nothing well, and he that is so can do nothing amiss. Thus they determine in the schools. But in human actions and the affairs of common life the judgment of Euripides is verified, that

Virtue and vice ne'er separately exist, But in the same acts with each other twist.

(From the "Aeolus" of Euripides.)

Next, it is to be observed that poetry, waiving the truth of things, does most labor to beautify its fictions with variety and multiplicity of contrivance. For variety bestows upon fable all that is pathetical, unusual, and surprising, and thereby makes it more taking and graceful; whereas what is void of variety is unsuitable to the nature of fable, and so raiseth no pa.s.sions at all. Upon which design of variety it is, that the poets never represent the same persons always victorious or prosperous or acting with the same constant tenor of virtue;--yea, even the G.o.ds themselves, when they engage in human actions, are not represented as free from pa.s.sions and errors;--lest, for the want of some difficulties and cross pa.s.sages, their poems should be dest.i.tute of that briskness which is requisite to move and astonish the minds of men.

These things therefore so standing, we should, when we enter a young man into the study of the poets, endeavor to free his mind from that degree of esteem of the good and great personages in them described as may incline him to think them to be mirrors of wisdom and justice, the chief of princes, and the exemplary measures of all virtue and goodness. For he will receive much prejudice, if he shall approve and admire all that comes from such persons as great, if he dislike nothing in them himself, nor will endure to hear others blame them, though for such words and actions as the following pa.s.sages import:--

Oh! would to all the immortal powers above, Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove!

That not one Trojan might be left alive, And not a Greek of all the race survive.

Might only we the vast destruction shun, And only we destroy the accursed town!

Her breast all gore, with lamentable cries, The bleeding innocent Ca.s.sandra dies, Murdered by Clytemnestra's faithless hand:

Lie with thy father's wh.o.r.e, my mother said, That she th' old man may loathe; and I obeyed:

Of all the G.o.ds, O father Jove, there's none Thus given to mischief but thyself alone.

("Iliad," xvi. 97; "Odyssey," xi. 421; "Iliad," ix, 452; Ibid. iii, 365.)

Our young man is to be taught not to commend such things as these, no, nor to show the nimbleness of his wit or subtlety in maintaining argument by finding out plausible colors and pretences to varnish over a bad matter. But we should teach him rather to judge that poetry is an imitation of the manners and lives of such men as are not perfectly pure and unblameable, but such as are tinctured with pa.s.sions, misled by false opinions, and m.u.f.fled with ignorance; though oftentimes they may, by the help of a good natural temper, change them for better qualities.

For the young man's mind, being thus prepared and disposed, will receive no damage by such pa.s.sages when he meets with them in poems, but will on the one side be elevated with rapture at those things which are well said or done, and on the other, will not entertain but dislike those which are of a contrary character. But he that admires and is transported with everything, as having his judgment enslaved by the esteem he hath for the names of heroes, will be unawares wheedled into many evil things, and be guilty of the same folly with those who imitate the crookedness of Plato or the stammering of Aristotle. Neither must he carry himself timorously herein, nor, like a superst.i.tious person in a temple, tremblingly adore all he meets with; but use himself to such confidence as may enable him openly to p.r.o.nounce, This was ill or incongruously said, and, That was bravely and gallantly spoken. For example, Achilles in Homer, being offended at the spinning out that war by delays, wherein he was desirous by feats of arms to purchase to himself glory, calls the soldiers together when there was an epidemical disease among them. But having himself some smattering skill in physic, and perceiving after the ninth day, which useth to be decretory in such cases, that the disease was no usual one nor proceeding from ordinary causes, when he stands up to speak, he waives applying himself to the soldiers, and addresseth himself as a councillor to the general, thus:--

Why leave we not the fatal Trojan sh.o.r.e, And measure back the seas we cross'd before?

(For this and the four following quotations, see "Iliad," i. 59, 90, 220, 349; ix, 458.)

And he spake well, and with due moderation and decorum. But when the soothsayer Chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most potent among the Grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not with like wisdom and moderation,

Not e'en the chief by whom our hosts are led, The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head;

in which speech he declares his low opinion or rather his contempt of his chief commander. And then, being farther provoked, he drew his weapon with a design to kill him, which attempt was neither good nor expedient. And therefore by and by he repented his rashness,--

He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid; Then in the sheath returned the shining blade;

wherein again he did rightly and worthily, in that, though he could not altogether quell his pa.s.sion, yet he restrained and reduced it under the command of reason, before it brake forth into such an irreparable act of mischief. Again, even Agamemnon himself talks in that a.s.sembly ridiculously, but carries himself more gravely and more like a prince in the matter of Chryseis. For whereas Achilles, when his Briseis was taken away from him,

In sullenness withdraws from all his friends, And in his tent his time lamenting spends;

Agamemnon himself hands into the ship, delivers to her friends, and so sends from him, the woman concerning whom a little before he declared that he loved her better than his wife; and in that action did nothing unbecoming or savoring of fond affection. Also Phoenix, when his father bitterly cursed him for having to do with one that was his own harlot, says,

Him in my rage I purposed to have killed, But that my hand some G.o.d in kindness held; And minded me that, Greeks would taunting say, Lo, here's the man that did his father slay.

It is true that Aristarchus was afraid to permit these verses to stand in the poet, and therefore censured them to be expunged. But they were inserted by Homer very aptly to the occasion of Phoenix's instructing Achilles what a pernicious thing anger is, and what foul acts men do by its instigation, while they are capable neither of making use of their own reason nor of hearing the counsel of others. To which end he also introduceth Meleager at first highly offended with his citizens, and afterwards pacified; justly therein reprehending disordered pa.s.sions, and praising it as a good and profitable thing not to yield to them, but to resist and overcome them, and to repent when one hath been overcome by them.

Now in these instances the difference is manifest. But where a like clear judgment cannot be pa.s.sed, there we are to settle the young man's mind thus, by way of distinction. If Nausicaa, having cast her eyes upon Ulysses, a stranger, and feeling the same pa.s.sion for him as Calypso had before, did (as one that was ripe for a husband) out of wantonness talk with her maidens at this foolish rate,--

O Heaven! in my connubial hour decree This man my spouse, or such a spouse as he!

("Odyssey," vi. 254.)

she is blameworthy for her impudence and incontinence. But if, perceiving the man's breeding by his discourse, and admiring the prudence of his addresses, she rather wisheth to have such a one for a husband than a merchant or a dancing gallant of her fellow-citizens, she is to be commended. And when Ulysses is represented as pleased with Penelope's jocular conversation with her wooers, and at their presenting her with rich garments and other ornaments,

Because she cunningly the fools cajoled, And bartered light words for their heavy gold; ("Odyssey," xvii, 282.)

if that joy were occasioned by greediness and covetousness, he discovers himself to be a more sordid prost.i.tuter of his own life than Poliager is wont to be represented on the stage to have been, of whom it is said,--

Happy man he, whose wife, like Capricorn, Stores him with riches from a golden horn!

But if through foresight he thought thereby to get them the more within his power, as being lulled asleep in security for the future by the hopes she gave them at present, this rejoicing, joined with confidence in his wife, was rational. Again, when he is brought in numbering the goods which the Phaeacians had set on sh.o.r.e together with himself and departed; if indeed, being himself left in such a solitude, so ignorant where he was, and having no security there for his own person, he is yet solicitous for his goods, lest

The sly Phaeacians, when they stole to sea, Had stolen some part of what they brought away; (Ibid. xiii. 216.)

the covetousness of the man deserved in truth to be pitied, or rather abhorred. But if, as some say in his defence, being doubtful whether or no the place where he was landed were Ithaca, he made use of the just tale of his goods to infer thence the honesty of the Phaeacians,--because it was not likely they would expose him in a strange place and leave him there with his goods by him untouched, so as to get nothing by their dishonesty,--then he makes use of a very fit test for this purpose, and deserves commendation for his wisdom in that action. Some also there are who condemn that pa.s.sage of the putting him on sh.o.r.e when he was asleep, if it really so happened, and they tell us that the people of Tuscany have still a traditional story among them concerning Ulysses, that he was naturally sleepy, and therefore a man whom many people could not freely converse with. But if his sleep was but shammed, and he made use of this pretence only of a natural infirmity, by counterfeiting a nap, to hide the strait he was in at the time in his thoughts, betwixt the shame of sending away the Phaeacians without giving them a friendly collation and hospitable gifts, and the fear he had of being discovered to his enemies by the treating such a company of men together, they then approve it.

Now, by showing young men these things, we shall preserve them from being carried away to any corruption in their manners, and dispose them to the election and imitation of those that are good, as being before instructed readily to disapprove those and commend these. But this ought with the most care to be done in the reading of tragedies wherein probable and subtle speeches are made use of in the most foul and wicked actions. For that is not always true which Sophocles saith, that

From evil acts good words can never come.

For even he himself is wont to apply pleasant reasonings and plausible arguments to those manners and actions which are wicked or unbecoming.

And in another of his fellow-tragedians, we may see even Phaedra herself represented as justifying her unlawful affection for Hippolytus by accusing Theseus of ill-carriage towards her. And in his Troades, he allows Helen the same liberty of speech against Hecuba, whom she judgeth to be more worthy of punishment than herself for her adultery, because she was the mother of Paris that tempted her thereto. A young man therefore must not be accustomed to think anything of that nature handsomely or wittily spoken, nor to be pleased with such colorable inventions; but rather more to abhor such words as tend to the defence of wanton acts than the very acts themselves.

And lastly, it will be useful likewise to inquire into the cause why each thing is said. For so Cato, when he was a boy, though he was wont to be very observant of all his master's commands, yet withal used to ask the cause or reason why he so commanded. But poets are not to be obeyed as pedagogues and promulgators of laws are, except they have reason to back what they say. And that they will not want, when they speak well; and if they speak ill, what they say will appear vain and frivolous. But nowadays most young men very briskly demand the reason of such trivial speeches as these, and inquire in what sense they are spoken:--

It bodes ill, when vessels you set up, To put the ladle on the mixing-cup.

Who from his chariot to another's leaps, Seldom his seat without a combat keeps.

(Hesiod "Works and Days," 744; "Iliad," iv. 306.)