Plutarch's Morals Part 44

"All handicraftsmen go into the street, Ye that with fan-shaped baskets worship Ergane, Zeus' fierce-eyed daughter;"[953]

for Ergane[954] and Athene, and not Fortune, do the trades regard as their patrons. They do indeed say that Nealces,[955] on one occasion painting a horse, was quite satisfied with his painting in all other respects, but that some foam on the bridle from the horse's breath did not please him, so that he frequently tried to rub it out; at last in his anger he threw his sponge (just as it was, full of colours) at the picture, and this very wonderfully produced exactly the effect he desired. This is the only fortunate accident in art that history records. Artificers everywhere use rules and weights and measures, that none of their work may be done at random and anyhow. And indeed the arts may be considered as wisdom on a small scale, or rather as emanations from and fragments of wisdom scattered about among the necessities of life; as the fire of Prometheus is riddled to have been divided and scattered about in all quarters of the world. For thus small particles and fragments of wisdom, breaking up as it were and getting divided into pieces, have formed into order.

-- V. It is strange then that the arts do not require fortune to attain to their ends, and yet that the most important and complete of all the arts, the sum total of man's glory and merit, should be so completely powerless. Why, there is a kind of wisdom even in the tightening or slackening of chords, which people call music, and in the dressing of food, which we call the art of cooking, and in cleaning clothes, which we call the art of the fuller, and we teach boys how to put on their shoes and clothes generally, and to take their meat in the right hand and their bread in the left, since none of these things come by fortune, but require attention and care. And are we to suppose that the most important things which make so much for happiness do not call for wisdom, and have nothing to do with reason and forethought? Why, no one ever yet wetted earth with water and then left it, thinking it would become bricks by fortune and spontaneously, or procured wool and leather, and sat down and prayed Fortune that it might become clothes and shoes; nor does anyone getting together much gold and silver and a quant.i.ty of slaves, and living in a s.p.a.cious hall with many doors, and making a display of costly couches and tables, believe that these things will const.i.tute his happiness, and give him a painless happy life secure from changes, unless he be wise also. A certain person asked the general Iphicrates in a scolding way who he was, as he seemed neither a heavy-armed soldier, nor a bowman, nor a targeteer, and he replied, "I am the person who rule and make use of all these."

-- VI. So wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty. What is it then? It is what can use all these well, and that by means of which each of these things becomes pleasant and esteemed and useful, and without which they are useless; and unprofitable and injurious, and a burden and disgrace to their possessor. So Hesiod's Prometheus gives very good advice to Epimetheus, "not to receive gifts from Olympian Zeus but to send them back,"[956]

meaning external things and things of fortune. For as if he urged one who knew nothing of music not to play on the pipe, or one who knew nothing of letters not to read, or one who was not used to horses not to ride, so he advised him not to take office if he were foolish, nor to grow rich if he were illiberal, nor to marry if likely to be ruled by his wife. For success beyond their merit is to foolish persons a cause of folly, as Demosthenes said,[957] and good fortune beyond their merit is to those who are not sensible a cause of misfortune.[958]

[946] A line from Chaeremon.

[947] Better known as Paris.

[948] "Oedipus Tyrannus," 110, 111. Wyttenbach compares Terence, "Heauton Timorumenos," 675. "Nil tam difficilest, quin quaerende investigari possiet."

[949] Soph., Frag. 723.

[950] aeschylus, Fragm. 180. Reading [Greek: antidoula]

with Reiske and the MSS.

[951] Euripides, "aeolus," Fragm. 27.

[952] Homer, "Odyssey," viii. 246, 247.

[953] Soph., Frag. 724.

[954] "The Worker." Generally a t.i.tle of Athene, as Pausanias, i. 24; iii. 17; v. 14; vi. 26; viii. 32; ix.

26. Gataker thinks [Greek: kai ten] should be expunged.

Hercher omits [Greek: kai ten 'Athenan] altogether.

[955] So Hercher after Madvig. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.,"

x.x.xV. 36, 20.

[956] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 86, 87.

[957] "Olynth.," i. 23.

[958] The whole of this essay reminds one of the well-known lines of Juvenal, twice repeated--namely, x.

365, 366; and xiv. 315, 316:--

"Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia; nos te, Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam caeloque locamus."