Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 · Plutarch
PLUTARCH WISHETH ALL HEALTH TO HIS PACCIUS.
1. It was late before I received your letter, wherein you make it your request that I would write something to you concerning the tranquillity of the mind, and of those things in the Timaeus which require a more perspicuous interpretation. At the same time a very urgent occasion called upon our common friend and companion Eros to sail directly to Rome; that which quickened him to a greater expedition was a dispatch he received from Fundanus, that best of men, who, as his custom is, always enjoins the making haste. Therefore, wanting full leisure to consummate those things justly which you requested, and being on the other side unwilling to send one from me to your dear self empty handed, I have transcribed my commonplace book, and hastily put together those collections which I had by me concerning this subject; for I thought you a man that did not look after flourishes of style and the affected elegance of language, but only required what was instructive in its nature and useful to us in the conduct of our lives.
And I congratulate that bravery of temper in you, that though you are admitted into the confidence of princes, and have obtained so great a vogue of eloquence at the bar that no man hath exceeded you, you have not, like the tragic Merops, suffered yourself to be puffed up with the applause of the multitude, and transported beyond those bounds which are prescribed to our passions; but you call to mind that which you have so often heard, that a rich slipper will not cure the gout, a diamond ring a whitlow, nor will an imperial diadem ease the headache. For what advantage is there in honor, riches, or an interest at court, to remove all perturbations of mind and procure an equal tenor of life, if we do not use them with decency when they are present to our enjoyment, and if we are continually afflicted by their loss when we are deprived of them? And what is this but the province of reason, when the sensual part of us grows turbulent and makes excursions, to check its sallies and bring it again within the limits it hath transgressed, that it may not be carried away and so perverted with the gay appearances of things.
The virgins’ tender limbs are kept from cold; Not the least wind to touch them is so bold;[71] but nevertheless we see that grief and troubles and discontentments, arising from jealousy or superstition or vain opinions, flow as it were with a torrent into the apartments of the females. And though Laertes lived twenty years in the fields secluded from the world, and Only a toothless hag did make his bed, Draw him his drink, and did his table spread,[72] though he forsook his house and country, and fled from a kingdom, yet grief with his sloth and sadness still kept him company. There are some to whom idleness hath been an affliction; as for instance,— But raging still, amidst his navy sat The stern Achilles, steadfast in his hate; Nor mix’d in combat, nor in council join’d; But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind: In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul.[73] And he himself complains of it, being mightily disturbed, after this manner:— I live an idle burden to the ground.[74]
Hence it is that Epicurus adviseth those who aspire to glory not to stagnate in their ambition, but be in perpetual motion, and so obey the dictates of their genius in managing the commonwealth; because they would be more tormented and would suffer greater damages by idleness, if they were disappointed of that they were in the eager pursuit of. But the philosopher is absurd in this, that he doth not excite men who have abilities to qualify themselves for charges in the government, but only those who are of a restless and unquiet disposition. For the tranquillity and perturbation of the mind are not to be measured by the fewness or multitude of our actions, but by their beauty or turpitude; since the omission of what is good is no less troublesome than the commission of evil. 3. As for those who think there is one positive state of life, which is always serene,—some fancying it to be of the husbandmen, others of those which are unmarried, and some of kings,—Menander clearly shows them their error in these verses:— I thought those men, my Phania, always best, Who take no money up at interest; Who disengaged from business spend the day, And in complaints don’t sigh the night away, Who, troubled, lamentable groans don’t fetch, Thus breathing out, Ah! miserable wretch! Those whom despairing thoughts don’t waking keep, But without startings sweetly take their sleep.
He goes on and observes to us, that the same lot of misfortune falls to the rich as well as the poor:— These neighbors slender confines do divide,— Sorrow and human life are still allied. It the luxurious liver doth infest, And robs the man of honor of his rest; In stricter ties doth with the poor engage, With him grows old to a decrepit age. But as timorous and raw sailors in a boat, when they grow sick with the working of the waves, think they shall overcome their pukings if they go on board of a ship, but there being equally out of order, go into a galley, but are therefore never the better, because they carry their nauseousness and fear along with them; so the several changes of life do only shift and not wholly extirpate the causes of our trouble. And these are only our want of experience, the weakness of our judgment, and a certain impotence of mind which hinders us from making a right use of what we enjoy. The rich man is subject to this uneasiness of humor as well as the poor; the bachelor as well as the man in wedlock. This makes the pleader withdraw from the bar, and then his retirement is altogether as irksome. And this infuseth a desire into others to be presented at court; and when they come there, they presently grow weary of the life.
Look upon Agamemnon, Atreus’s son, What mighty loads of trouble he hath on. He is distracted with perpetual care; Jove that inflicts it gives him strength to bear.[76] Diogenes, when he was exposed to sale in the market and was commanded to stand up, not only refused to do it, but ridiculed the auctioneer, with this piece of raillery: What! if you were selling a fish, would you bid it rise up? Socrates was a philosopher in the prison, and discoursed with his friends, though he was fettered. But Phaeton, when he climbed up into heaven, thought himself unhappy there, because nobody would give him his father’s chariot and the horses of the sun. As therefore the shoe is twisted to the shape of the foot and not in the opposite way, so do the affections of the mind render the life conformable to themselves. For it is not custom, as one observed, which makes even the best life pleasant to those who choose it, but it must be prudence in conjunction with it, which makes it not only the best for its kind, but sweetest in its enjoyment. The fountain therefore of tranquillity being in ourselves, let us cleanse it from all impurity and make its streams limpid, that all external accidents, by being made familiar, may be no longer grievous to us, since we shall know how to use them well.
Let not these things thy least concern engage; For though thou fret, they will not mind thy rage. Him only good and happy we may call Who rightly useth what doth him befall.[77] 5. For Plato compared our life to a game at dice, where we ought to throw for what is most commodious for us, but when we have thrown, to make the best of our casts. We cannot make what chances we please turn up, if we play fair; this lies out of our power. That which is within our power, and is our duty if we are wise, is to accept patiently what Fortune shall allot us, and so to adjust things in their proper places, that what is our own may be disposed of to the best advantage, and what hath happened against our will may offend us as little as possible. But as to men who live without measures and with no prudence, like those whose constitution is so sickly and infirm that they are equally impatient both of heats and colds, prosperity exalts them above their temper, and adversity dejects them beneath it; indeed each fortune disturbs them, or rather they raise up storms to themselves in either, and they are especially querulous under good circumstances. Theodorus, who was called the Atheist, was used to say, that he reached out his instructions with the right hand, and his auditors received them with their left hands. So men of no education, when Fortune would even be complaisant to them, are yet so awkward in their observance, that they take her addresses on the wrong side. On the contrary, men that are wise, as the bees draw honey from the thyme, which is a most unsavory and dry herb, extract something that is convenient and useful even from the most bitter afflictions.
6. This therefore let us learn and have inculcated upon us; like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, Not so bad. So we may often turn the direction of what Fortune obtrudes upon us contrary to our desires. Diogenes was driven into banishment, but it was “not so bad” for him; for of an exile he became a philosopher. Zeno of Citium, when he heard that the only ship he had left was sunk by an unmerciful tempest, with all the rich cargo that was in her, brake out into this exclamation: Fortune, I applaud thy contrivance, who by this means hast reduced me to a threadbare cloak and the piazza of the Stoics. What hinders then but that these examples should be the patterns of our imitation? Thou stoodst candidate for a place in the government, and wast baulked in thy hopes; consider that thou wilt live at ease in thy own country, following thy own affairs. Thou wast ambitious to be the confidant of some great person, and sufferedst a repulse; thou wilt gain thus much by it, that thou wilt be free from danger and disembarrassed from business. Again, hast thou managed any affairs full of intricacy and trouble?
Hot water doth not so much cherish the soft members of the body, as Pindar[78] expresseth it, as glory and honor joined with power sweeten all our toils and make labor easy. Hast thou met with any unfortunate success? Hath calumny bit, or envy hissed at thee? There is yet a prosperous gale, which sits fair to convey thee to the port of the Muses and land thee at the Academy. This Plato did, after he made shipwreck of the friendship of Diogenes. And indeed it highly conduceth to the tranquillity of the mind, to look back upon illustrious men and see with what temper they have borne their calamities. For instance, doth it trouble thee that thou wantest children? Consider that kings of the Romans have died without them,—had kingdoms to leave, but no heirs. Doth poverty and low condition afflict thee? It is put to thy option, wouldst thou not rather of all the Boeotians be Epaminondas, and of all the Romans Fabricius? But thy bed is violated, and thy wife is an adulteress. Didst thou never read this inscription at Delphi?— Here am I set by Agis’ royal hand, Who both the earth and ocean did command.
Who bitter choler cleanse and scour With drugs as bitter and as sour,— thou dost let other men’s enormities sour thy blood; which is highly irrational. For, even in matters of private management, thou dost not always employ men of wit and address, which are the most proper for such an execution, but sometimes those of rough and crooked dispositions; and to animadvert upon them for every peccadillo thou must not think belongs to thee, nor is it easy in the performance. But if thou makest that use of them, as chirurgeons do of forceps to pull out teeth or ligatures to bind wounds, and so appear cheerful whatever falls out, the satisfaction of thy mind will delight thee more than the concern at other men’s pravity and malicious humor will disturb thee. Otherwise, as dogs bark at all persons indifferently, so, if thou persecutest everybody that offends thee, thou wilt bring the matter to this pass by thy imprudence, that all things will flow down into this imbecility of thy mind, as a place void and capable of receiving them, and at last thou wilt be filled with nothing but other men’s miscarriages.
For if some of the philosophers inveigh against compassion which others’ calamities affect us with, as a soft affection (saying, that we ought to give real assistance to those in distress, and not to be dejected or sympathize with them), and if—which is a thing of higher moment—they discard all sadness and uneasiness when the sense of a vice or a disease is upon us, saying that we ought to cure the indisposition without being grieved; is it not highly consonant to reason, that we should not storm or fret, if those we have to do with are not so wise and honest as they should be? Let us consider the thing truly, my Paccius, lest, whilst we find fault with others, we prove partial in our own respect through inadvertency, and lest our censuring their failings may proceed not so much from a hatred of their vices as from love of ourselves. We should not have our passions moved at every provocation, nor let our desires grow exorbitant beyond what is just; for these little aversions of our temper engender suspicions, and infuse moroseness into us, which makes us surly to those who precluded the way to our ambition, or who made us fall into those disastrous events we would willingly have shunned. But he that hath a smoothness in his nature and a talent of moderation can transact and converse with mankind easily and with mildness.
8. Let us recapitulate therefore what we have said. When we are in a fever, every thing that we taste is not only unsavory but bitter; but when we see others relish it without any disgust, we do not then lay the blame either upon the meat or drink, but conclude that only ourselves and the disease are in fault. In like manner we shall cease to bear things impatiently, if we see others enjoy them with alacrity and humor. And this likewise is a great promoter of the tranquillity of the mind, if, amongst those ill successes which carry a dismal appearance, we look upon other events which have a more beautiful aspect, and so blend them together that we may overcome the bad by the mixture of the good. But although, when our eyes are dazzled with too intense a splendor, we refresh our sight by viewing something that is green and florid, yet we fix the optics of our minds upon doleful objects, and compel them to dwell upon the recital of our miseries, plucking them perforce, as it were, from the consideration of what is better. And here we may insert that which was said to a pragmatical fellow, handsomely enough:— Why so quick sighted others’ faults to find, But to thy own so partially art blind? ’Tis malice that exasperates thy mind.
But why, my friend, art thou so acute to discern even thy own misfortunes, and so industrious to renew them and set them in thy sight, that they may be the more conspicuous, while thou never turnest thy consideration to those good things which are present with thee and thou dost enjoy? But as cupping-glasses draw the impurest blood out of the body, so thou dost extract the quintessence of infelicity to afflict thyself. In this thou art no better than the Chian merchant, who, while he sold abundance of his best and most generous wine to others, called for some that was pricked and vapid to taste at supper; and one of his servants asking another what he left his master doing, he made this answer, that he was calling for bad when the good was by him. For most men leave the pleasant and delectable things behind them, and run with haste to embrace those which are not only difficult but intolerable. Aristippus was not of this number, for he knew, even to the niceness of a grain, to put prosperous against adverse fortune into the scale, that the one might outweigh the other. Therefore when he lost a noble farm, he asked one of his dissembled friends, who pretended to be sorry, not only with regret but impatience, for his mishap: Thou hast but one piece of land, but have I not three farms yet remaining? He assenting to the truth of it: Why then, saith he, should I not rather lament your misfortune, since it is the raving only of a mad man to be concerned at what is lost, and not rather rejoice in what is left? Thus, as children, if you rob them of one of their play-games, will throw away the rest, and cry and scream; so, if Fortune infest us only in one part, we grow fearful and abandon ourselves wholly to her attacks.
9. But somebody will object to me, What is it that we have? Rather, What is it that we have not? One is honorable, the other is master of a family; this man hath a good wife, the other a faithful friend. Antipater of Tarsus, when he was upon his death-bed and reckoning up all the good events which had befallen him, would not omit a prosperous voyage which he had when he sailed from Cilicia to Athens. Even the trite and common blessings are not to be despised, but ought to take up a room in our deliberations. We should rejoice that we live, and are in health, and see the sun; that there are no wars nor seditions in our country; that the earth yields to cultivation, and that the sea is open to our traffic; that we can talk, be silent, do business, and be at leisure, when we please.
They will afford us greater tranquillity of mind present, if we form some just ideas of them when they are absent; if we often call to our remembrance how solicitous the sick man is after health, how acceptable peace is to put out a war, and what a courtesy it will do us to gain credit and acquire friends in a city of note, where we are strangers and unknown; and contrariwise, how great a grief it is to forego these things when we once have them. For surely a thing does not become great and precious when we have lost it, while it is of no account so long as we possess it; for the value of a thing cannot be increased by its loss. But we ought not to take pains to acquire things as being of great value, and to be in fear and trembling lest we may lose them, as if they were precious, and then all the time they are safe in our possession, to neglect them as if they were of no importance. But we are so to use them that we may reap satisfaction and gain a solid pleasure from them, that so we may be the better enabled to endure their loss with evenness of temper. But most men, as Arcesilaus observed, think they must be critics upon other men’s poems, survey their pictures with a curious eye, and examine their statues with all the delicacy of sculpture, but in the meanwhile transiently pass over their own lives, though there be some things in them which will not only detain but please their consideration. But they will not restrain the prospect to themselves, but are perpetually looking abroad, and so become servile admirers of other men’s fortune and reputation; as adulterers are always gloating upon other men’s wives and contemning their own.
10. Besides, this is a thing highly conducing to the tranquillity of the mind, for a man chiefly to consider himself and his own affairs. But if this always cannot take place, he should not make comparisons with men of a superior condition to himself; though this is the epidemical frenzy of the vulgar. As for instance, slaves who lie in fetters applaud their good fortune whose shackles are off; those who are loosed from their bonds would be free men by manumission; these again aspire to be citizens; the citizen would be rich; the wealthy man would be a governor of a province; the haughty governor would be a king, and the king a God, hardly resting content unless he can hurl thunderbolts and dart lightning. So all are eager for what is above them, and are never content with what they have. The wealth of golden Gyges has no delight for me. Likewise,— No emulation doth my spirits fire, The actions of the Gods I don’t admire. I would not, to be great, a tyrant be; The least appearances I would not see.
But one of Thasis, another of Chios, one of Galatia, and a fourth of Bithynia, not contenting themselves with the rank they enjoyed amongst their fellow-citizens, where they had honor and commands, complain that they have not foreign characters and are not made patricians of Rome; and if they attain that dignity, that they are not praetors; and if they arrive even to that degree, they still think themselves ill dealt with that they are not consuls; and when promoted to the fasces, that they were declared the second, and not the first. And what is all this but ungratefully accusing Fortune, and industriously picking out occasions to punish and torment ourselves? But he that is in his right senses and wise for his own advantage, out of those many millions which the sun looks upon, Who of the products of the earth do eat,[79] if he sees any one in the mighty throng who is more rich and honorable than himself, he is neither dejected in his mind nor countenance, nor doth he pensively sit down deploring his unhappiness, but he walks abroad publicly with an honest assurance. He celebrates his own good genius, and boasts of his good fortune in that it is happier than a thousand other men’s which are in the world. In the Olympic games you cannot gain the victory choosing your antagonist. But in human life affairs allow thee to excel many and to bear thyself aloft, and to be envied rather than envious; unless indeed thou dost match thyself unequally with a Briareus or a Hercules. Therefore, when thou art surprised into a false admiration of him who is carried in his sedan, cast thy eyes downward upon the slaves who support his luxury.
When thou art wondering at the greatness of Xerxes crossing the Hellespont, consider those wretches who are digging through Mount Athos, who are urged to their labor with blows, blood being mixed with their sweat; call to mind that they had their ears and noses cut off, because the bridge was broken by the violence of the waves; think upon that secret reflection they have, and how happy they would esteem thy life and condition. Socrates hearing one of his friends crying out, How dear things are sold in this city! the wine of Chios costs a mina, the purple fish three, and a half pint of honey five drachms,—he brought him to the meal-shop, and showed him that half a peck of flour was sold for a penny. ’Tis a cheap city, said he. Then he brought him to the oil-man’s, and told him he might have a quart of olives for two farthings. At last he went to the salesman’s, and convinced him that the purchase of a sleeveless jerkin was only ten drachms. ’Tis a cheap city, he repeated. So, when we hear others declare that our condition is afflicted because we are not consuls and in eminent command, let us then look upon ourselves as living not only in a bare happiness but splendor, in that we do not beg our bread, and are not forced to subsist by carrying of burthens or by flattery.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.