Plutarch, Whether Vice is Sufficient to Cause Unhappiness
Translated by S. White, M.D.
Edition by William W. Goodwin, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878.
Annotation of text copyright ©2006 David Trumbull, Agathon Associates. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
The beginning of the text is wanting.
...
1. He suffers much, who for a dowry has
His body sold,--
as Euripides says; for he gets but small matters by it, and
those very uncertain. But to him who passes not through
much ashes, but through a certain regal pile of fire, being
perpetually short breathed, full of fear, and bathed in
sweat as if he had crossed the seas to and fro, she gives at
last a certain Tantalian wealth, which he cannot enjoy by
reason of the continual turmoil that encumbers him. For
that Sicyonian horse-courser was well advised, who presented
the king of the Achaeans with a swift-footed mare,
That to proud Ilium's siege he might not go,
but stay at home and take his pleasure, wallowing in the
depth of his riches, and giving himself up to an unmolested
ease.
But those who now seem to be without trouble and men
of action do, without being called to it, thrust themselves
headlong into the courts of princes, where they must be
obliged to tedious attending and watching: that they may
gain an horse, a chain, or some such blessed favor.
In the mean time the wife, of joy bereft,
Sits tearing her fair cheeks, the house is left
Imperfect and half built;--
whilst the husband is drawn and hurried about, wandering
amongst others, allured by hopes of which he is often
disappointed, suffering disgrace and shame. But if he
happens to obtain any of those things he so eagerly desires,
after he has been turned about and made dizzy with being
Fortune's sport, he seeks a dismission, and declares those to
be happy who live obscure and safe; whilst they, in the
mean time, have the same opinion of him whom they see
mounted so far above them.
|
|
|
2. So absolutely does Vice dispose of all men, being
such a self-sufficient worker of infelicity, that it has no need
either of instruments or servants. Other tyrants, endeavoring
to render those men miserable whom they punish,
maintain executioners and tormentors, devise searing-irons
and racks, to plague the reasonless soul. But Vice, without
any preparation of engines, as soon as it enters into the
soul, torments and dejects it, filling a man with grief, lamentations,
sorrow, and repentance. For a sign that this
is so, you may observe that many being cut are silent, being
scourged take it patiently, and being racked and tormented
by their lords and tyrants send not forth the least shriek,
since the soul, repressing the voice by reason, restrains and
keeps it in as with the hand; but you will scarce ever be
able to quiet anger or to silence sorrow; nor can you persuade
one that is in a fright to stand still, or one that is
stung with remorse of conscience to forbear exclaiming,
tearing his hair, and smiting his thigh. So much is Vice
more violent than either fire or sword.
|
|
|
3. Cities, when by fixing up of writings they publish
their intentions of building temples or erecting colossuses,
hear the proposals of different artists, contending about the
undertaking of the work, and bringing in their accounts
and models; after which, they choose him who will perform
it best, quickest, and with the least expense. Now
imagine, that we also set forth a proclamation of a purpose
to make a wretched man or a miserable life, and that Fortune
and Vice come with differing proposals to offer their
service for the performance of this design. The one (to
wit, Fortune) is provided with abundance of various instruments
and costly furniture, to render human life miserable
and unhappy. She draws after her robberies, wars, the
murders of tyrants, storms from the sea, and lightnings
from the air. She mixes hemlock, brings in swords, hires
slanderers, kindles fevers, jingles shackles, and builds up
prisons round about; although most of these things are
rather from Vice than Fortune. But let us suppose them
to be all from Fortune; and let Vice, standing naked and
wanting no exterior things against man, ask Fortune how
she will make a man unhappy and faint-hearted.
Fortune, let her say, dost thou threaten poverty? Metrocles
laughs at thee, who sleeping in the winter amongst
the sheep, and in the summer in the porches of the temples,
challenged the kings of the Persians, that wintered in
Babylon and passed the summer in Media, to vie with him
for happiness. Dost thou bring on servitude, bonds, and
the being sold for a slave? Diogenes contemns thee, who
being exposed to sale by pirates, cried out, Who will buy a
master? Dost thou brew a cup of poison? Didst thou
not offer such a one to Socrates? And yet he mildly and
meekly, without trembling or changing either color or
countenance, drank it briskly up; whilst those who survived
esteemed him happy, as one that would not be even
in the other world without a divine portion. Moreover, as
for thy fire, Decius the Roman general prevented it, when,
having caused a great fire to be made in the midst between
two armies, he sacrificed himself to Saturn, according to a
vow made for the aggrandizing of the Romans' dominion.
And amongst the Indians, such chaste wives as are true
lovers of their husbands strive and contend with one another
for the fire, and all the rest sing forth the happiness
of her who, having obtained the victory, is burnt with her
deceased husband. And of the Sages in those parts, there
is not one esteemed a holy and most blessed man, if he did
not, whilst he was yet living and in the perfect enjoyment
of his health and understanding, separate by fire his soul
from his body, and purging away what was mortal, depart
pure out of the flesh.
But thou wilt reduce one from great wealth, a stately
house, a well-furnished table, and abundance of all things,
to a threadbare coat, a wallet, and begging of his daily
food. These things were to Diogenes the beginnings of
happiness, and to Crates of liberty and glory. But thou
wilt, perhaps, fasten one to the cross, or impale him on a
stake. Now what cares Theodorus, whether it is above
or under ground that he putrefies? These were the happy
sepultures of the Scythians /1/; and amongst the Hyrcanians,
dogs --amongst the Bactrians, birds-- do according to the
laws devour the dead bodies of those who have made a
blessed end.
|
|
|
4. Whom then do these things render unhappy? The
unmanly and irrational, the effeminate and unexercised,
with such as retain the foolish and frightful opinions they
received in their infancy. Fortune then does not perfectly
produce infelicity, unless it has Vice to co-operate with it.
For as a thread will cut in sunder a bone that has been
steeped in ashes and vinegar, and as workmen bend and
fashion ivory as they please, after it has been softened and
rendered pliable by beer, when it is otherwise inflexible;
so Fortune, coming upon that which is already ill-affected
of itself and rendered soft by Vice, pierces into it and hollows
it. And as the paroecus, --though hurtful to no
other, nor any way prejudicing those who touch it or bear
it about them,-- if any one who is wounded is but brought
into the place where it is, immediately kills him, being
already by his wound predisposed to receive the deflusion;
so the soul which is to be overthrown by Fortune must
have in itself some ulcer of its own, and some malady within
its flesh, that it may render those accidents which come
from abroad miserable and lamentable.
|
|
|
5. Is then Vice also such that it should stand in need
of Fortune's help for the working of infelicity? By no
means. She does not make the sea swell with storms and
tempests, she besets not the deserts lying at the feet of the
mountains with robbers, she pours not down storms of
hail on the fruitful fields, she raises not up Meletus, Anytus,
and Callixenus, to be calumniators, she takes not away
wealth, she hinders not any from the command of armies,
that she may make men unhappy; but she renders them
rich, abounding in wealth, having great inheritances on
the earth; she bears them company at sea: she sticks
close to them, pining them with lust, inflaming them with
wrath, overwhelming them with superstitions, drawing
them by their eyes...
The rest of the text is wanting.
|
|
|
Here Ends Plutarch's Whether Vice is Sufficient to Cause Unhappiness.
NOTES
/1/
See Herodotus, Histories, IIII, 71.
|