The Characters of Theophrastus A Translation, with Introduction · Theophrastus
THEOPHRASTUS TO POLYCLES:
Many a time ere now I have stopped to think and wonder,—I fancy the marvel will never grow less,—why it is that we Greeks are not all one in character, for we have the same climate throughout the country, and our people enjoy the same education. I have studied human nature a long time, my dear Polycles, for I have lived nine and ninety years;[6] I have conversed with many men of divers characters, and have been at great pains to observe both good and bad. I have fancied, therefore, I ought to set down in writing how men live and act. I shall describe their characters, each after its kind, and show you their besetting weaknesses. I dare say, Polycles, our children will be the better, if we leave them memorials of this sort; and as they study these patterns of good[7] and ill, they will elect, I think, to live and hold communion with men of the highest type. In this way they will strive to maintain the level of the highest. I turn now to my task. Yours it is to follow me and see if what I say is true. I begin my book with a description of the _Dissembler_, omitting any preface and details about the word. And first of all I shall lay down a definition of dissembling, and with this in view shall describe the dissembler in his character and manner of life, exhibiting in such clearness, as I can, his various traits.
Flattery is a cringing sort of conduct that aims to promote the advantage of the flatterer. The flatterer is the kind of man who, as he walks with an acquaintance, says: “Behold! how the people gaze at you! There is not a man in the city who enjoys so much notice as yourself. Yesterday your praises were the talk of the Porch. While above thirty men were sitting there together and the conversation fell upon the topic: ‘Who is our noblest citizen?’ they all began and ended with your name.” As the flatterer goes on talking in this strain he picks a speck of lint from his hero’s cloak; or if the wind has lodged a bit of straw in his locks, he plucks it off and says laughingly, “See you? Because I have not been with you these two days, your beard is turned gray. And yet if any man has a beard that is black for his years, it is you.” While his patron speaks, he bids the rest be silent. He sounds his praises in his hearing and after the patron’s speech gives the cue for applause by “Bravo!” If the patron makes a stale jest, the flatterer laughs and stuffs his sleeve into his mouth as though he could not contain himself.[8]
If they meet people on the street, he asks them to wait until master passes. He buys apples and pears, carries them to his hero’s house and gives them to the children, and in the presence of the father, who is looking on, he kisses them, exclaiming: “Bairns of a worthy sire!” When the patron buys a pair of shoes, the flatterer observes: “The foot is of a finer pattern than the boot”; if he calls on a friend, the flatterer trips on ahead and says: “_You_ are to have the honor of his visit”; and then turns back with, “I have announced you.” Of course he can run and do the errands at the market in a twinkle. Amongst guests at a banquet he is the first to praise the wine and, doing it ample justice, he observes: “What a fine cuisine you have!” He takes a bit from the board and exclaims: “What a dainty morsel this is!” Then he inquires whether his friend is chilly, asks if he would like a wrap put over his shoulders, and whether he shall throw one about him. With these words he bends over and whispers in his ear. While his talk is directed to the rest, his eye is fixed on his patron. In the theatre he takes the cushions from the page and himself adjusts them for the comfort of the master. Of his hero’s house he says: “It is well built”; of his farm: “It is well tilled”; and of his portrait: “It is a speaking image.”
When the trumpeter sounds the signal for a fresh onset, he exclaims as he sits in his tent: “Plague take him! He won’t let the poor fellow get to sleep with his eternal bugling.” Then, staining himself with blood from the other’s wound, he meets the troops as they return from battle, and pretending to have been in the thick of the fight, he exclaims, “I’ve saved a comrade!” And then he takes his demesmen and tribesmen into the tent, and assures each one of them that he himself brought the wounded man to the tent with his own hands. [9] Apparently the reference is to the Samothracian mysteries, initiation in which was thought to ensure protection at sea in time of danger. [10] “The sight of a sword wounds him more sensibly than the stroke, for before that comes hee is dead already.” Earle’s _Micro-cosmographie_, “The Coward.” IV _The Over-zealous Man_ (Περιεργία) Over-zealousness is an excess in saying or doing,—with good intentions, of course. The over-zealous man is one who gets up in public and engages to do things which he cannot perform. In cases where no doubt exists in the mind of anyone else, he raises some objection—only to be refuted. At a banquet, he forces the servants to mix more wine than the guests can drink. If he sees two men in a quarrel, he strives to part them though he knows neither one. Leaving the main road he leads his friends upon a by-path and presently cannot find his way. He accosts his commander and inquires when he is going to draw up the troops for battle, and what orders he intends to issue for day after to-morrow.
He goes and tells his father that his mother is already asleep in her chamber. If the doctor gives instructions that no wine be given a patient, he administers “just a little,” on the plea that he wants to set the sufferer right. And when a woman dies, he has carved on the tombstone her husband’s name, and her father’s and her mother’s, along with the woman’s own name and her native place, and adds: “Worthy people, all of them.” In court, as he takes the oath, he remarks to the bystanders, “I have done this many a time before.” V _The Tactless Man_ (Ἀκαιρία) Tactlessness is the faculty of hitting a moment that is unpleasant to the persons concerned. The tactless man is the sort of person who selects a man’s busy hour to go and confer with him. He serenades his sweetheart when she has a fever. If an acquaintance has just lost bail-money on a friend, he hunts him up and asks him to be his surety. After a verdict has been rendered he appears at the trial to give evidence. At a wedding where he is a guest he declaims against womankind. When a friend has just finished a long journey he invites him to go for a walk. He has a faculty for fetching a higher bidder for an article after it has been sold; and in a group of companions he gets up and explains from the beginning a story which the others have just heard and have completely understood. He is anxious to give himself the trouble to do what nobody wants done, and yet what nobody likes to decline.
When men are in the midst of religious offerings and are making outlay of money, he goes to collect his interest. If he happens to be standing by when a slave is flogged, he tells the story of how he once flogged a slave, who then went away and hanged himself. If he is arbitrator in a dispute, he sets both contestants by the ears just at the moment when they are ready to settle their differences. When he wants to dance he takes a partner who is not yet merry. VI _The Shameless Man_ (Ἀναισχυντία) Shamelessness may be defined as contempt for decency, joined with meanness of purpose. Your shameless fellow is one who robs a man and then returns to borrow money of him. He sacrifices a victim to the gods, and instead of making his supper from it, he salts the meat down and then gets a meal at the house of a friend. He calls a servant, and, taking bread and meat from the table, says in a voice that all can hear: “Try that, Tibios!” When he goes to market, he reminds the butcher of all the patronage he has given him, and as he stands by the scales, throws in an extra piece, if he can, or if not, a soup-bone. If he secures these, he rests content. If he fails, he snatches a piece of tripe from the bench and makes off with it laughing. He buys theatre tickets for friends that are staying in town and goes along with them to the performance, but does not contribute his share of the expense; and the next day you’ll find him taking his children and their tutor, too.
When anybody has found a bargain in any line, he demands to have a share. He goes to the neighbors and borrows barley, or sometimes even bran, and actually endeavors to make those who lend him these articles deliver them at his house. A favorite trick of his is to march up to the tubs in a private bath-house, draw a bucket of warm water, dash it over his head, despite the loud protests of the attendant, and then say, as he leaves: “That’s a good bath; no thanks to you!” VII _The Newsmonger_ (Λογοπολιία) Newsmaking is the concoction of false stories of what people say and do, at the gossip’s caprice. The newsmonger is one who straightway strikes an attitude and assumes a smiling air when he meets a friend, and asks: “Where have you been? What news? How is the situation? Have you any fresh word about it?” and then going straight on, he asks: “Is there no later report? Well! the current rumors are good.” And without letting his friend reply, he keeps right on: “What! you haven’t heard a word about it! Then I think I have a feast of news for you.” He always has in readiness some unheard-of soldier or a slave belonging to one Asteus, a piper, or Lycon, an obscure contractor, just back from the battle-field; and it is from one of these that he has heard the tidings. The authorities for his reports are of the sort that you can never get hold of. Such are the men he quotes when he tells how Polyperchon and the king carried the day and Cassander was taken prisoner.
If anybody asks: “Do _you_ believe this?” he replies, “Why the story is noised all about the city, is constantly gaining ground, and the whole population is of one mind; everybody is agreed about the battle; it must have been a regular Death’s feast.” He reads a proof of it too in the faces of men in authority; for they all wear a changed look. He says he overheard that a man had come from Macedonia who knows the whole history of the battle, and that he has been concealed now five days in a house with the authorities. There is a convincing pathos in his voice—you can imagine it!—as he tells his story and exclaims: “Luckless Cassander![11] ill-starred hero! Lo! the fickleness of fortune! Vain it was that he rose to power. But what I say is strictly between ourselves.” Then he trips off and repeats the story to every man in town. [11] Cassander, the son of Antipater (died 319 B.C.) became involved in a struggle with Polyperchon, whom Antipater on his deathbed had appointed regent. Cassander met with many reverses, but finally (301 B.C.) secured undisputed possession of Macedonia and Greece. VIII _The Mean Man_ (Μικρολογία) Meanness is undue sparing of expense. The mean man is the sort of person who will go to a creditor’s house and demand a half-penny interest before the month is up. At dinner he counts the glasses each guest drinks, and amongst his fellow banqueters he pours the smallest offering to Artemis.
He counts up the price a friend pays for a cheap purchase, exclaiming that it takes his last penny. If a servant breaks a pot or plate he deducts its value from his rations. If his wife has lost a three-farthing piece, he turns the furniture, beds, and cupboards round and round, and hunts between the boards of the floor. When he has anything to sell he puts the price so high that the buyer gets no bargain. He permits no one to take a fig from his garden or to cross his field, or even pick up an olive or a date that has fallen to the ground. He examines his boundary marks every day to see that they have not been touched. And he is always ready in case of default to use the right of seizure and to collect compound interest. When he gives a banquet to his townsmen he cuts the meat in small pieces and sets a portion before each guest. He goes to market, but buys nothing. He forbids his wife to lend salt or a lamp-wick or a pinch of cummin, marjoram, or meal, a fillet or a sacrificial wafer, observing that these trifles make a large sum in the course of a year. In a word, one may see that the mean man’s money chest is mouldy from being unopened, the key rusty, his cloak too scant to reach his thigh; that he uses a mean little oil jar, has his hair cropped to the scalp; he does not wear his boots until midday, and charges the fuller to use plenty of earth on his coat to keep it from soon getting soiled again.
IX _The Stupid Man_ (Ἀναισθησία) Stupidity one may define as sluggishness in what a man says or does. The stupid man computes a sum, sets down the total, and then asks his neighbor: “How much does it all make?” When he is defendant in a suit and should go to court, he forgets all about it and puts off to his farm. When he goes to a play at the theatre he is the only spectator that is left behind on the benches asleep. He gets up in the night to go out, after he has gorged himself, and is bitten by the neighbor’s dog. He takes a thing and puts it away, but when he comes to look for it he cannot find it. If the death of a friend is announced to him that he may go to the funeral, with a sorrowful air and tears in his eyes he says: “Thank God!” When he goes to receive payment of a debt, he takes witnesses with him. In the winter season he quarrels with his slave because cucumbers have not been provided. He forces his children to wrestle and to run until they fall into a fever. When he is roughing it in the country and himself cooks the vegetables, he puts salt in the pot twice and so makes the dish impossible. When it rains and others declare that the sky is darker than pitch, he exclaims: “How sweet it is to consider the stars!” And if he is asked, what is the mortality of the city,—how many bodies have passed through the Sacred Gates,—he replies: “Would that you and I had as many.”
X _The Surly Man_ (Αὐθάδεια) Surliness is sullen rudeness of speech. The surly man is one who, when you ask him, “Who is that gentleman?” retorts “Don’t bother me!” and when you greet him on the street refuses to return your salutation. When he has anything for sale, he will not tell the purchaser what he charges, but instead inquires, “How much do I get for it?” When one would show him some attention and sends him a gift for the holidays, he says he is not in need of presents. He accepts no excuse when by accident you smutch his clothes, or push against him in a crowd, or chance to tread upon his foot. If you ask for his contribution to some object, he refuses to make one, though afterwards he may bring it around, declaring, however, that he’s throwing the money away. Sometimes he stumbles in the street, and then he curses the stone that tripped him up. And he’s not a man to tarry many minutes for a friend who has an appointment with him. Singing, declamation, and dancing are amusements for which he has no taste; and it’s exactly like him to refuse to join even in prayer to the gods. XI _The Superstitious Man_ (Δεισιδαιμονία) Superstition is a crouching fear of unseen powers. The superstitious man is the sort of person who begins the day only after he has sprinkled himself, washed his hands with holy water, and taken a sprig of laurel in his mouth. If a weasel cross his path, he will not go a step further until some one else has crossed, or until he has thrown three stones over the way. If he sees a snake in his house, he prays to Sabazius[12] (provided it is a copperhead) or, if it be a sacred serpent, he straightway builds a shrine upon the spot.
As he passes by the consecrated stones at the cross-roads, he pours oil on them from his flask, falls on his knees, and prays before he goes further. If a mouse should gnaw through a leather flour-bag, he goes to the seer and asks what he shall do. If the seer bids him give the bag to the cobbler to be sewn up, he pays no heed to him, but goes his way and offers up the bag as a holy sacrifice. He is given to purifying his house often by religious rites and insists it is haunted by Hecate. When he takes a walk and hears an owl hoot, he is terrified and cries out: “Athena! thine is the power!” and so walks on. He will not step on a grave, nor go up to a corpse, nor to a woman in confinement, but says it is not well to risk pollution. He orders his domestics to mull the wine on the fourth and seventh of the month, while he goes out and buys myrtle, incense, and holy cakes; on his return he spends the livelong day in crowning the images of Hermaphroditus. When he has had a vision, he goes to the soothsayer, the seer, or the augur, to ask to what god or goddess he must pray. He goes to the Orphic mysteries to be initiated into them. You will be sure to find him amongst the people who frequent the beach to besprinkle themselves. Every month he goes there with his wife, or if his wife is busy, then with the nurse and children.
If he observes any one at the cross-roads crowned with garlic, on his return he washes himself from head to foot, summons a priestess, and gives orders to celebrate rites of purification either with an onion or a small dog. Whenever he sees a madman or an epileptic, he shakes with terror and spits in his bosom. [12] A Thracian and Phrygian deity, whose worship was introduced at Athens in the fifth century. Sabazius represented the active powers of nature, and hence was often identified with Dionysus. XII _The Thankless Man_ (Μεμψιμοιρία) Thanklessness is an improper criticism of what one receives. The thankless man, when a friend has sent him something from his table, says to the servant who brings it, “He grudged me a dish of soup and a cup of wine, I suppose, and so wouldn’t invite me to dinner.” When his sweetheart kisses him, he says, “I wonder if you really do love me so in your heart.” He blames Zeus, not for raining, but for not raining before. When he picks up a purse in the street, he says, “But I never found a treasure!” If he secures a slave at a bargain after long dickering with the owner, he says, “I imagine I haven’t got much at this price.” To the person who brings the glad tidings that a son is born to him, he retorts, “If you only add, ‘And half your fortune’s gone,’ you’ll hit it.”
When he wins his case in court and secures a unanimous verdict, he abuses his attorney for having omitted many points in his brief. When his friends make him up a purse, and wish him joy, “Why so?” he exclaims. “Is it because I shall have to pay you all back and be grateful into the bargain, as though you had done me a favor?” XIII _The Suspicious Man_ (Ἀπιστία) Suspicion is a kind of belief that everybody is fraudulent. The suspicious man is the sort of person who sends a servant to market and then sends another to watch him and find out the price he pays. When he carries the money himself, he sits down every hundred yards and counts it over. After he is in bed he asks his wife whether she locked the chest and shut the cupboard, and whether the hall-door bolt was pushed well in. If she answers “Yes!” he gets up, nevertheless, and lights a lamp; naked and barefoot he goes around and examines everything. Even then he finds it hard to go to sleep. When he goes to collect interest, he takes witnesses along, lest his debtors deny the claims. He has his cloak dyed, not by the best workman, but by the fuller who can furnish good security. If any one asks the loan of a wine-set, he prefers not to lend it; but if a member of his family or a near relative wants it, he makes the loan; yet he scarcely does so until he has had it assayed and weighed and has received a guarantee for its safe return. He orders his footman not to fall behind him, but to go in front so that by watching him he may prevent his running away. If a purchaser has bought goods of him and says: “Charge the amount to me; I have no time now to send the money,” he replies: “Do not trouble yourself about it; when you have finished your business, I will go with you and get my pay.”
XIV _The Disagreeable Man_ (Ἀηδία) Disagreeableness we may define as a kind of conduct which is annoying, although it may not be injurious. The disagreeable man will go to a friend and wake him out of a sound sleep to have a talk with him. He detains passengers who are on the point of embarking; others who have come to see him he bids wait until he has taken his walk. He takes the baby from its nurse, chews its food for it and feeds it, dandles it on his knee while he cooes to it and calls it “Papa’s little rascal!” At table he tells the company how he once took hellebore and was physicked through and through, and how his bile was blacker than the soup on the table. And he asks before the family: “I say, mammy, what day was it when you were confined and I was born?” He says he has cool cistern water at his house and a garden full of tender vegetables; that his cook is a perfect _chef_, and that his house is a regular hotel, for it is always full of company, and his guests are like leaky sieves,—do the best he can, it is impossible to fill them. When he gives a dinner he exhibits his jester and shows him off before the company. To enliven his guests over their cups, he says that further pleasures have been arranged for them.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.