Plutarch's Morals Part 6

[126] The lines are from Alcaeus. Thus Love was the child of the Rainbow and the West Wind. A pretty conceit.

[127] Greek _iris_.

[128] The mirrors of the ancients were of course not like our mirrors. They were only burnished bronze. Hence the view in them would be at best somewhat obscure. This explains 1 Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Cor. iii. 18; James i. 23.

[129] See Euripides, "Hippolytus," 7, 8.

[130] Here the story unfortunately ends, and for all time we shall know no more of it. Reiske somewhat forcibly says, "Vel lippus videat Gorgus historiam non esse finitam, et multa, ut et alias, periisse."

[131] Like Reiske we condense here a little.

[132] Reading with Reiske [Greek: orthes kai athruptou.]

[133] I read [Greek: ei gar].

[134] See "Iliad," xxiii. 295. Podargus was an entire horse.

[135] See Ovid, "Metamorph." iii. 206-208.

[136] aeschylus, "Toxotides," Fragm. 224.

[137] A very favourite proverb among the ancients. See Plat. "Phaedr." fin. Martial, ii. 43.

[138] Soph. Fragm. 712.

[139] On Lais, see Pausanias, ii. 2. Her Thessalian lover is there called Hippostratus. Her favours were so costly that the famous proverb is said to owe its origin to her, "Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum."

[140] The aegean and Ionian. Cf. Horace, "Odes," i. 7, 2.

[141] On Acro-Corinthus, see Pausanias, ii. 4. The words in inverted commas are from Euripides, Fragm. 921.

[142] On Lais generally, and her end, see Athenaeus, xiii. 54, 55.

[143] See -- I. The Festival of Love was being kept at this very time.

[144] This story is also told by Plutarch, "De Mulierum Virtutibus," -- xx.

[145] Sophocles, Fragm. 741. Quoted again in "On Abundance of Friends," -- iii.

[146] A Delphic word for love. Can it be connected with [Greek: arma]?

[147] Very frequent in Homer, _e.g._, "Iliad," ii. 232; vi, 165; xiii. 636: xiv. 353, etc.

[148] See Lucretius, iv. 1105-1114. I tone down the original here a little.

[149] Homer, "Odyssey," vi. 183, 184. Cf. Eurip.

"Medea," 14, 15.

[150] This means when the moustache and beard and whiskers begin to grow.

[151] The whole story about Harmodius and Aristogiton and how they killed Hipparchus is told by Thucydides, vi. 54-59. Bion therefore practically called these sprouting beards _tyrant-killers_, _tyrannicides_.

[152] "Scriptus igitur hic libellus est post caedem Domitiani."--_Reiske._

[153] Vespasian certainly was not cruel generally. "Non temere quis punitus insons reperietur, nisi absente eo et ignaro aut certe invito atque decepto..... Sola est, in qua merito culpetur, pecuniae cupiditas."--Suetonius, "Divus Vespasia.n.u.s," 15, 16.

CONJUGAL PRECEPTS.

PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO POLLIa.n.u.s AND EURYDICE.

After the customary marriage rites, by which, the Priestess of Demeter has united you together, I think that to make an appropriate discourse, and one that will chime in with the occasion, will be useful to you and agreeable to the law. For in music one of the tunes played on the flute is called Hippothorus,[154] which is a tune that excites fierce desire in stallions to cover mares; and though in philosophy there are many goodly subjects, yet is there none more worthy of attention than that of marriage, on which subject philosophy spreads a charm over those who are to pa.s.s life together, and makes them gentle and mild to one another. I send therefore as a gift to both of you a summary of what you have often heard, as you are both well versed in philosophy, arranging my matter in a series of short observations that it may be the more easily remembered, and I pray that the Muses will a.s.sist and co-operate with Aphrodite, so that no lyre or lute could be more harmonious or in tune than your married life, as the result of philosophy and concord. And thus the ancients set up near Aphrodite statues of Hermes, to show that conversation was one of the great charms of marriage, and also statues of Peitho[155] and the Graces, to teach married people to gain their way with one another by persuasion, and not by wrangling or contention.

-- I. Solon bade the bride eat a quince the first night of marriage, intimating thereby, it seems, that the bridegroom, was to expect his first pleasure from the bride's mouth and conversation.

-- II. In Boeotia they dress up the bride with a chaplet of asparagus, for as the asparagus gives most excellent fruit from a th.o.r.n.y stalk, so the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the first approaches, will make the married state more agreeable and pleasant. But those husbands who cannot put up with the early peevishness of their brides, are not a whit wiser than those persons who pluck unripe grapes and leave the ripe grapes for others.[156] On the other hand, many brides, being at first disgusted with their husbands, are like those that stand the bee's sting but neglect the honey.

-- III. Married people should especially at the outset beware of the first quarrel and collision, observing that vessels when first fabricated are easily broken up into their component parts, but in process of time, getting compact and firmly welded together, are proof against either fire or steel.

-- IV. As fire gets kindled easily in chaff or in a wick or in the fur of hares, but is easily extinguished again, if it find no material to keep it in and feed it, so we must not consider that the love of newly-married people, that blazes out so fiercely in consequence of the attractions of youth and beauty, will be durable and lasting, unless it be fixed in the character, and occupy the mind, and make a living impression.[157]

-- V. As catching fish by drugged bait is easy, but makes the fish poor to eat and insipid, so those wives that lay traps for their husbands by philtres and charms, and become their masters by pleasure, have stupid senseless and spoiled husbands to live with. For those that were bewitched by Circe did her no good, nor could she make any use of them when they were turned into swine and a.s.ses, but she was greatly in love with the prudent Odysseus who dwelt with her sensibly.

-- VI. Those women who would rather lord it over fools than obey sensible men, resemble those people who would rather lead the blind on a road, and not people who have eyesight and know how to follow.

-- VII. Women disbelieve that Pasiphae, a king's wife, was enamoured of a bull, although they see some of their s.e.x despising grave and sober men, and preferring to a.s.sociate with men who are the slaves of intemperance and pleasure, and like dogs and he-goats.

-- VIII. Men who through weakness or effeminacy cannot vault upon their horses' backs, teach them to kneel and so receive their riders.

Similarly, some men that marry n.o.ble or rich wives, instead of making themselves better humble their wives, thinking to rule them easier by lowering them. But one ought to govern with an eye to the merit of a woman, as much as to the size of a horse.

-- IX. We see that the moon when it is far from the sun is bright and glorious, but pales and hides its light when it is near. A modest wife on the contrary ought to be seen chiefly with her husband, and to stay at home and in retirement in his absence.

-- X. It is not a true observation of Herodotus, that a woman puts off her modesty with her s.h.i.+ft.[158] On the contrary, the modest woman puts on her modesty instead, and great modesty is a sign of great conjugal love.

-- XI. As where two voices are in unison the loudest prevails; so in a well-managed household everything is done by mutual consent, but the husband's supremacy is exhibited, and his wishes are consulted.

-- XII. The Sun beat the North Wind.[159] For when it blew a strong and terrible blast, and tried to make the man remove his cloak, he only drew it round him more closely, but when the Sun came out with its warm rays, at first warmed and afterwards scorched, he stripped himself of coat as well as cloak. Most woman act similarly: if their husbands try to curtail by force their luxury and extravagance, they are vexed and fight for their rights, but if they are convinced by reason, they quietly drop their expensive habits, and keep within bounds.

-- XIII. Cato turned out of the Senate a man who kissed his own wife in the presence of his daughter. This was perhaps too strong a step, but if it is unseemly, as indeed it is, for husband and wife in the presence of others to fondle and kiss and embrace one another, is it not far more unseemly in the presence of others to quarrel and jangle? Just as conjugal caresses and endearments ought to be private, so ought admonition and scolding and plain speaking.

-- XIV. Just as there is little use in a mirror adorned with gold or precious stones, unless it conveys a true likeness, so there is no advantage in a rich wife, unless she conforms her life and habits to her husband's position. For if when a man is joyful the mirror makes him look sad, and when he is put out and sad it makes him look gay and smiling from ear to ear, the mirror is plainly faulty. So the wife is faulty and devoid of tact, who frowns when her husband is in the vein for mirth and jollity, and who jokes and laughs when he is serious: the former conduct is disagreeable, the latter contemptuous.[160] And, just as geometricians say lines and surfaces do not move of themselves, but only in connection with bodies, so the wife ought to have no private emotions of her own, but share in her husband's gravity or mirth, anxiety or gaiety.

-- XV. As those husbands who do not like to see their wives eating and drinking in their company only teach them to take their food on the sly, so those husbands who are not gay and jolly with their wives, and never joke or smile with them, only teach them to seek their pleasures out of their company.

-- XVI. The kings of Persia have their wedded wives at their side at banquets and entertainments; but when they have a mind for a drunken debauch they send them away,[161] and call for singing-girls and concubines, rightly so doing, for so they do not mix up their wives with licentiousness and drunkenness. Similarly, if a private individual, l.u.s.tful and dissolute, goes astray with a courtesan or maid-servant, the wife should not be vexed or impatient, but consider that it is out of respect to her that he bestows upon another all his wanton depravity.