Plutarch's Morals · Plutarch
PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO PACCIUS.
"If you bring any good I gladly welcome it, But if you fail me little does it trouble me," he can enjoy the present with most zest through his confidence, and absence of fear of the loss of what he has, which would be unbearable. For we may not only admire but also imitate the behaviour of Anaxagoras, which made him cry out at the death of his son, "I knew I had begot a mortal," and apply it to every contingency. For example, "I know that wealth is ephemeral and insecure; I know that those who gave power can take it away again; I know that my wife is good, but still a woman; and that my friend, since a human being, is by nature a changeable animal, to use Plato's expression." For such a prepared frame of mind, if anything happens unwished for but not unexpected, not admitting of such phrases as "I shouldn't have dreamed of it," or "I expected quite a different lot," or "I didn't look for this," abates the violent[753] beatings and palpitations of the heart, and quickly causes wild unrest to subside. Carneades indeed reminds us that in great matters the unexpected makes the sum total of grief and dejection. Certainly the kingdom of Macedonia was many times smaller than the Roman Empire, but when Perseus lost Macedonia, he not only himself bewailed his wretched fate, but seemed to all men the most unfortunate and unlucky of mankind; yet AEmilius who conquered him, though he had to give up to another the command both by land and sea, yet was crowned, and offered sacrifice, and was justly esteemed happy. For he knew that he had taken a command which he would have to give up, but Perseus lost his kingdom without expecting it. Well also has the poet[754] shown the power of anything that happens unexpectedly. For Odysseus wept bitterly at the death of his dog, but was not so moved when he sat by his wife who wept, for in the latter case he had come fully determined to keep his emotion under the control of reason, whereas in the former it was against his expectation, and therefore fell upon him as a sudden blow.
"Which the Achaeans ne'er could rob us of."[757] So that we ought not altogether to abase and lower nature, as if she had no strength or stability against fortune; but on the contrary, knowing that the rotten and perishable part of man, wherein alone he lies open to fortune, is small, while we ourselves are masters of the better part, wherein are situated our greatest blessings, as good opinions and teaching and virtuous precepts, all which things cannot be abstracted from us or perish, we ought to look on the future with invincible courage, and say to fortune, as Socrates is supposed to have said to his accusers Anytus and Melitus before the jury, "Anytus and Melitus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me." For fortune can afflict us with disease, take away our money, calumniate us to the people or king, but cannot make a good and brave and high-souled man bad and cowardly and low and ignoble and envious, nor take away that disposition of mind, whose constant presence is of more use for the conduct of life than the presence of a pilot at sea. For the pilot cannot make calm the wild wave or wind, nor can he find a haven at his need wherever he wishes, nor can he await his fate with confidence and without trembling, but as long as he has not despaired, but uses his skill, he scuds before the gale, "lowering his big sail, till his lower mast is only just above the sea dark as Erebus," and sits at the helm trembling and quaking. But the disposition of a wise man gives calm even to the body, mostly cutting off the causes of diseases by temperance and plain living and moderate exercise; but if some beginning of trouble arise from without, as we avoid a sunken rock, so he passes by it with furled sail, as Asclepiades puts it; but if some unexpected and tremendous gale come upon him and prove too much for him, the harbour is at hand, and he can swim away from the body, as from a leaky boat.
"No one can say, I shall not suffer this or that," for a man can say, "I will not do this or that, I will not lie, I will not play the rogue, I will not cheat, I will not scheme." For this is in our power, and is no small but great help to ease of mind. As on the contrary "The consciousness of having done ill deeds,"[760] like a sore in the flesh, leaves in the mind a regret which ever wounds it and pricks it. For reason banishes all other griefs, but itself creates regret when the soul is vexed with shame and self-tormented. For as those who shudder in ague-fits or burn in fevers feel more trouble and distress than those who externally suffer the same from cold or heat, so the grief is lighter which comes externally from chance, but that lament, "None is to blame for this but I myself," coming from within on one's own misdeeds, intensifies one's bitterness by the shame felt. And so neither costly house, nor quantity of gold, nor pride of race, nor weighty office, nor grace of language, nor eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life, as a soul pure from evil acts and desires, having an imperturbable and undefiled character as the source of its life; whence good actions flow, producing an enthusiastic and cheerful energy accompanied by loftiness of thought, and a memory sweeter and more lasting than that hope which Pindar says is the support of old age. Censers do not, as Carneades said, after they are emptied, long retain their sweet smell; but in the mind of the wise man good actions always leave a fresh and fragrant memory, by which joy is watered and flourishes, and despises those who wail over life and abuse it as a region of ills, or as a place of exile for souls in this world.
Sec. XX. I am very taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was dressing with much display for a feast, "Does not a good man consider every day a feast?" And a very great feast too, if we live soberly. For the world is a most holy and divine temple, into which man is introduced at his birth, not to behold motionless images made by hands, but those things (to use the language of Plato) which the divine mind has exhibited as the visible representations of invisible things, having innate in them the principle of life and motion, as the sun moon and stars, and rivers ever flowing with fresh water, and the earth affording maintenance to plants and animals. Seeing then that life is the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full of ease of mind and joy; not as most people wait for the festivals of Cronos[761] and Dionysus and the Panathenaea and other similar days, that they may joy and refresh themselves with bought laughter, paying actors and dancers for the same.
On such occasions indeed we sit silently and decorously, for no one wails when he is initiated, or groans when he beholds the Pythian games, or when he is drinking at the festival of Cronos:[761] but men shame the festivals which the deity supplies us with and initiates us in, passing most of their time in lamentation and heaviness of heart and distressing anxiety. And though men delight in the pleasing notes of musical instruments, and in the songs of birds, and behold with joy the animals playing and frisking, and on the contrary are distressed when they roar and howl and look savage; yet in regard to their own life, when they see it without smiles and dejected, and ever oppressed and afflicted by the most wretched sorrows and toils and unending cares, they do not think of trying to procure alleviation and ease. How is this? Nay, they will not even listen to others' exhortation, which would enable them to acquiesce in the present without repining, and to remember the past with thankfulness, and to meet the future hopefully and cheerfully without fear or suspicion. [711] Or cheerfulness, or tranquillity of mind. Jeremy Taylor has largely borrowed again from this treatise in his "Holy Living," ch. ii. Sec. 6, "Of Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents." [712] Reading with Salmasius [Greek: kaltios patrikios].
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.