Plutarch's Morals Part 34

[741] Words of Agamemnon to the House Porter. Euripides, "Iphigenia in Aulis," 17-19.

[742] "Iliad," xviii. 105, 106.

[743] See Pausanias, x. 24.

[744] Pindar, Fragm., 258. Quoted "On Moral Virtue," -- xii.

[745] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 61; "Odyssey," vi. 130.

[746] A famous breed of dogs from the island Melita, near Dalmatia. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," iii. 26, extr. -- 30; x.x.x. 5, extr. -- 14.

[747] That _Non omnia possumus omnes_.

[748] Pindar, "Isthm.," i. 65-70.

[749] Hesiod, "Works and Days," 25. Our "two of a trade seldom agree."

[750] An allusion to "Iliad," xxiv. 527-533.

[751] Ocnus. See Pausanias, x. 29.

[752] So Wyttenbach, who reads [Greek: Hos de touton].

[753] Reading [Greek: oia] with Reiske.

[754] Homer to wit.

[755] The soul.

[756] The reading here is rather doubtful. That I have adopted is Reiske's and Wyttenbach's.

[757] "Iliad," v. 484.

[758] Euripides, "Bacchae," 498. Compare Horace, "Epistles," i. xvi. 78, 79.

[759] Reading with Dubner [Greek: argian]. Reiske has [Greek: atonian].

[760] Euripides, "Orestes," 396.

[761] The _Saturnalia_ (as the Romans called this feast) was well known as a festival of merriment and license.

ON ENVY AND HATRED.

-- I. Outwardly there seems no difference between hatred and envy, but they seem identical. For generally speaking, as vice has many hooks, and is swayed hither and thither by the pa.s.sions that hang on it, there are many points of contact and entanglement between them, for as in the case of illnesses there is a sympathy between the various pa.s.sions. Thus the prosperous man is equally a source of pain to hate and envy. And so we think benevolence the opposite of both these pa.s.sions, being as it is a wish for our neighbour's good, and we think hate and envy identical, for the desire of both is the very opposite of benevolence. But since their similarities are not so great as their dissimilarities, let us investigate and trace out these two pa.s.sions from their origin.

-- II. Hatred then is generated by the fancy that the person hated is either bad generally or bad to oneself. For those who think they are wronged naturally hate those who they think wrong them, and dislike and are on their guard against those who are injurious or bad to others;[762] but people envy merely those they think prosperous. So envy seems illimitable, being, like ophthalmia, troubled at everything bright, whereas hatred is limited, since it settles only on what seems hostile.

-- III. In the second place people feel hatred even against the brutes; for some hate cats and beetles and toads and serpents. Thus Germanicus could not bear the crowing or sight of a c.o.c.k, and the Persian magicians kill their mice, not only hating them themselves but thinking them hateful to their G.o.d, and the Arabians and Ethiopians abominate them as much. Whereas we envy only human beings.

-- IV. Indeed among the brutes it is not likely that there should be any envy, for they have no conception of prosperity or adversity, nor have they any idea of reputation or want of reputation, which are the things that mainly excite envy; but they hate one another, and are hostile to one another, and fight with one another to the death, as eagles and dragons, crows and owls, t.i.tmice and finches, insomuch that they say that even the blood of these creatures will not mix, and if you try to mix it it will immediately separate again. It is likely also that there is strong hatred between the c.o.c.k and the lion, and the pig and the elephant, owing to fear. For what people fear they naturally hate. We see also from this that envy differs from hatred, for the animals are capable of the one, but not of the other.

-- V. Moreover envy against anyone is never just, for no one wrongs another by his prosperity, though that is what he is envied for; but many are hated with justice, for we even think others[763] worthy of hatred, if they do not flee from such, and are not disgusted and vexed at them. A great indication of this is that some people admit they hate many, but declare they envy n.o.body. Indeed hatred of evil is reckoned among praiseworthy things; and when some were praising Charillus, the nephew of Lycurgus and king of Sparta, for his mildness and gentleness, his colleague said, "How can Charillus be good, who is not even harsh to the bad?" And so the poet described the bodily defects of Thersites at much length, whereas he expressed his vile moral character most shortly and by one remark, "He was most hateful both to Achilles and Odysseus."[764] For to be hated by the most excellent is the height of worthlessness. But people deny that they are envious, and, if they are charged with being so, they put forward ten thousand pleas, saying they are angry with the man or fear him or hate him, suggesting any other pa.s.sion than envy, and concealing it as the only disorder of the soul which is abominable.

-- VI. Of necessity then these two pa.s.sions cannot, like plants, be fed and nourished and grow on the same roots; for they are by nature different.[765] For we hate people more as they grow worse, but they are envied only the more the more they advance in virtue. And so Themistocles, when quite a lad, said he had done nothing remarkable, for he was not yet envied. For as insects attack most ripe corn and roses in their bloom, so envy fastens most on the good and on those who are growing in virtue and good repute for moral character. Again extreme badness intensifies hatred. So hated indeed and loathed were the accusers of Socrates, as guilty of extreme vileness, by their fellow-citizens, that they would neither supply them with fire, nor answer their questions, nor touch the water they had bathed in, but ordered the servants to pour it away as polluted, till they could bear this hatred no longer and hung themselves. But splendid and exceptional success often extinguishes envy. For it is not likely that anyone envied Alexander or Cyrus, after their conquests made them lords of the world.

But as the sun, when it is high over our heads and sends down its rays, makes next to no shadow, so at those successes that attain such a height as to be over its head envy is humbled, and retires completely dazzled.

So Alexander had none to envy him, but many to hate him, by whom he was plotted against till he died. So too misfortunes stop envy, but they do not remove hatred. For people hate their enemies even when they lie prostrate at their feet, but no one envies the unfortunate. But the remark of one of the sophists of our day is true, that the envious are very p.r.o.ne to pity; so here too there is a great difference between these two pa.s.sions, for hatred abandons neither the fortunate nor unfortunate, whereas envy is mitigated in the extreme of either fortune.

-- VII. Let as look at the same again from opposite points of view. Men put an end to their enmity and hatred, either if persuaded they have not been wronged, or if they come round to the view that those they hated are good men and not bad, or thirdly if they receive a kindness. For, as Thucydides says, the last favour conferred, even though a smaller one, if it be seasonable, outweighs a greater offence.[766] Yet the persuasion that they have not been wronged does not put an end to envy, for people envy although absolutely persuaded that they have not been wronged; and the two other cases actually increase envy; for people look with an evil eye even more on those they think good, as having virtue, which is the greatest blessing; and if they are treated kindly by the prosperous it grieves them, for they envy both their will and power to do kindnesses, the former proceeding from their goodness, the latter from their prosperity, but both being blessings. Thus envy is a pa.s.sion altogether different from hatred, seeing that what abates the one pains and exasperates the other.

-- VIII. Let us now look at the intent of each of these pa.s.sions. The intent of the person who hates is to do as much harm as he can, so they define hatred to be a disposition and intent on the watch for an opportunity to do harm. But this is altogether foreign to envy.[767] For those who envy their relations and friends would not wish them to come to ruin, or fall into calamity, but are only annoyed at their prosperity; and would hinder, if they could, their glory and renown, but they would not bring upon them irremediable misfortunes: they are content to remove, as in the case of a lofty house, what stands in their light.

[762] [Greek: allos] MSS. Wyttenbach [Greek: allon].

Malo [Greek: allois].

[763] So Wyttenbach.

[764] Homer, "Iliad," ii. 220.

[765] So Wyttenbach. The reading in this pa.s.sage is very doubtful.

[766] Thucydides, i. 42.

[767] Reading [Greek: apestin holos. Oi gar phthonountes]. What can be made of [Greek: pollous]

here?

HOW ONE CAN PRAISE ONESELF WITHOUT EXCITING ENVY.

-- I. To speak to other people about one's own importance or ability, Hercula.n.u.s, is universally declared to be tiresome and illiberal, but in fact not many even of those who censure it avoid its unpleasantness.

Thus Euripides, though he says,

"If words had to be bought by human beings, No one would wish to trumpet his own praises.

But since one can get words _sans_ any payment From lofty ether, everyone delights In speaking truth or falsehood of himself, For he can do it with impunity;"

yet uses much tiresome boasting, intermixing with the pa.s.sion and action of his plays irrelevant matter about himself. Similarly Pindar says, that "to boast unseasonably is to play an accompaniment to madness,"[768] yet he does not cease to talk big about his own merit, which indeed is well worthy of encomium, who would deny it? But those who are crowned in the games leave it to others to celebrate their victories, to avoid the unpleasantness of singing their own praises. So we are with justice disgusted at Timotheus[769] for trumpeting his own glory inelegantly and contrary to custom in the inscription for his victory over Phrynis, "A proud day for you, Timotheus, was it when the herald cried out, 'The Milesian Timotheus is victorious over the son of Carbo and his Ionic notes.'" As Xenophon says, "Praise from others is the pleasantest thing a man can hear,"[770] but to others a man's self-praise is most nauseous. For first we think those impudent who praise themselves, since modesty would be becoming even if they were praised by others; secondly, we think them unjust in giving themselves what they ought to receive from others; thirdly, if we are silent we seem to be vexed and to envy them, and if we are afraid of this imputation, we are obliged to heap praise upon them contrary to our real opinion, and to bear them out, undertaking a task more befitting gross flattery than honour.

-- II. And yet, in spite of all this, there are occasions when a statesman may venture to speak in his own praise, not to cry up his own glory and merit, but when the time and matter demand that he should speak the truth about himself, as he would about another; especially when it is mentioned that another has done good and excellent things,[771] there is no need for him to suppress the fact that he has done as well. For such self-praise bears excellent fruit, since much more and better praise springs from it as from seed. For the statesman does not ask for reputation as a reward or consolation, nor is he merely pleased at its attending upon his actions, but he values it because credit and character give him opportunities to do good on a larger scale. For it is both easy and pleasant to benefit those who believe in us and are friendly to us, but it is not easy to act virtuously against suspicion and calumny, and to force one's benefits on those that reject them. Let us now consider, if there are any other reasons warranting self-praise in a statesman, what they are, that, while we avoid vain glory and disgusting other people, we may not omit any useful kind of self-praise.

-- III. That is vain glory then when men seem to praise themselves that they may call forth the laudation of others; and it is especially despised because it seems to proceed from ambition and an unseasonable opinion of oneself. For as those who cannot obtain food are forced to feed on their own flesh against nature, and that is the end of famine, so those that hunger after praise, if they get no one else to praise them, disgrace themselves by their anxiety to feed their own vanity. But when, not merely content with praising themselves, they vie with the praise of others, and pit their own deeds and actions against theirs, with the intent of outs.h.i.+ning them, they add envy and malignity to their vanity. The proverb teaches us that to put our foot into another's dance is meddlesome and ridiculous; we ought equally to be on our guard against intruding our own panegyric into others' praises out of envy and spite, nor should we allow others either to praise us then, but we should make way for those that are being honoured, if they are worthy of honour, and even if they seem to us undeserving of honour and worthless, we ought not to strip them of their praise by self-laudation, but by direct argument and proof that they are not worthy of all these encomiums. It is plain then that we ought to avoid all such conduct as this.

-- IV. But self-praise cannot be blamed, if it is an answer to some charge or calumny, as those words of Pericles, "And yet you are angry with such a man as me, a man I take it inferior to no one either in knowledge of what should be done, or in ability to point out the same, and a lover of my country to boot, and superior to bribes."[772] For not only did he avoid all swagger and vainglory and ambition in talking thus loftily about himself, but he also exhibited the spirit and greatness of his virtue, which could abase and crush envy because it could not be abased itself. For people will hardly condemn such men, for they are elevated and cheered and inspired by n.o.ble self-laudation such as this, if it have a true basis, as all history testifies. Thus the Thebans, when their generals were charged with not returning home, and laying down their office of Boeotarchs when their time had expired, but instead of that making inroads into Laconia, and helping Messene, hardly acquitted Pelopidas, who was submissive and suppliant, but for Epaminondas,[773] who gloried in what he had done, and at last said that he was ready to die, if they would confess that he had ravaged Laconia, and restored Messene, and made Arcadia one state, against the will of the Thebans, they would not pa.s.s sentence upon him, but admired his heroism, and with rejoicing and smiles set him free. So too we must not altogether find fault with Sthenelus in Homer saying,