Plutarch's Morals · Plutarch
PREFACE.
Plutarch, who was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia, probably about A.D. 50, and was a contemporary of Tacitus and Pliny, has written two works still extant, the well-known _Lives_, and the less-known _Moralia_. The _Lives_ have often been translated, and have always been a popular work. Great indeed was their power at the period of the French Revolution. The _Moralia_, on the other hand, consisting of various Essays on various subjects (only twenty-six of which are directly ethical, though they have given their name to the _Moralia_), are declared by Mr. Paley "to be practically almost unknown to most persons in Britain, even to those who call themselves scholars."[1] _Habent etiam sua fata libelli._ In older days the _Moralia_ were more valued. Montaigne, who was a great lover of Plutarch, and who observes in one passage of his Essays that "Plutarch and Seneca were the only two books of solid learning he seriously settled himself to read," quotes as much from the _Moralia_ as from the _Lives_. And in the seventeenth century I cannot but think the _Moralia_ were largely read at our Universities, at least at the University of Cambridge. For, not to mention the wonderful way in which the famous Jeremy Taylor has taken the cream of "Conjugal Precepts" in his Sermon called "The Marriage Ring," or the large and copious use he has made in his "Holy Living" of three other Essays in this volume, namely, those "On Curiosity," "On Restraining Anger," and "On Contentedness of Mind," proving conclusively what a storehouse he found the _Moralia_, we have evidence that that most delightful poet, Robert Herrick, read the _Moralia_, too, when at Cambridge, so that one cannot but think it was a work read in the University course generally in those days. For in a letter to his uncle written from Cambridge, asking for books or money for books, he makes the following remark: "How kind Arcisilaus the philosopher was unto Apelles the painter, Plutark in his Morals will tell you."[2]
In 1882 the Reverend C. W. King, Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, translated the six "Theosophical Essays" of the _Moralia_, forming a volume in Bohn's Classical Library. The present volume consists of the twenty-six "Ethical Essays," which are, in my opinion, the cream of the _Moralia_, and constitute a highly interesting series of treatises on what might be called "The Ethics of the Hearth and Home." I have grouped these Essays in such a manner as to enable the reader to read together such as touch on the same or on kindred subjects. As is well known, the text of the _Moralia_ is very corrupt, and the reading very doubtful, in many places. In eight of the twenty-six Essays in this volume I have had the invaluable help of the text of Rudolf Hercher; help so invaluable that one cannot but sadly regret that only one volume of the _Moralia_ has yet appeared in the _Bibliotheca Teubneriana_. Wyttenbach's text and notes I have always used when available, and when not so have fallen back upon Reiske. Reiske is always ingenious, but too fond of correcting a text, and the criticism of him by Wyttenbach is perhaps substantially correct. "In nullo auctore habitabat; vagabatur per omnes: nec apud quemquam tamdiu divertebat, ut in paulo interiorem ejus consuetudinem se insinuaret." I have also had constantly before me the Didot Edition of the _Moralia_, edited by Frederic Duebner.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.