Plutarch's Morals

4 Euripides, "Hippol." 424, 425.

5 Cleophantus is the name given to this lad by other writers.

6 Compare Sophocles, "Œdipus Tyrannus," 112, 113.

7 The Thessalians were very pugnacious. Cf. Isocrates, "Oratio de Pace," p. 316. οἱ μὲν (θετταλοὶ) σφίσιν αύσῖς ἀτοῖς ἀεὶ πολεμοῦσιν.

8 A proverbial expression among the ancients for earliest childhood. See Erasmus, "Adagia."

9 Plato, "Republic," ii. p. 429, E.

10 See Erasmus, "Adagia."

11 It is difficult to know how to render the word παιδαγωγὸς in English. He was the slave who took the boy to school, and generally looked after him from his seventh year upward. Tutor or governor seems the best rendering. He had great power over the boy entrusted to him.

12 Plato, "Clitophon," p. 255, D.

13 Compare Diogenes Laertius, ii. 72.

14 Reading κοιτοφθοροῦντες, the excellent emendation of Wyttenbach.

15 From the heathen standpoint of course, not from the Christian. Compare the advice of Cato in Horace's "Satires," Book i. Sat. ii. 31-35. It is a little difficult to know what Diogenes' precept really means. Is it that vice is universal? Like Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure," Act ii. Sc. ii. 5. "All sects, all ages smack of this vice."

16 He was asked by Polus, see Plato, "Gorgias," p. 290, F.

17 "Hippolytus," 986-989.

18 Cf. Plato, "Cratylus," p. 257, E. ὦ παῖ Ὶππονίκου Ὲρμόγενες, παλαιὰ παροιμἰα, ὃτι χαλεπὰ τὰ καλἀ ἐσιν ὃπη ἔχει μαθεῖν. So Horace, "Sat." i. ix. 59, 60, "Nil sine magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus."

19 "Midias," p. 411, C.

20i.e., occasionally and sparingly.

21 Diogenes Laertius assigns the remark to Aristippus, while Stobæus fathers it on Aristo.

22 A favourite thought with the ancients. Compare Isocrates, "Admonitio ad Demonicum," p. 18; and Aristotle, "Nic. Eth.," iv. 3.

23 "Republic," vii. p. 489, E.

24 A famous Proverb. It is "the master's eye" generally, as in Xenophon, "Œconom." xii. 20; and Aristotle, "Œconom." i. 6.

25 "Works and Days," 361, 362. The lines were favourite ones with our author. He quotes them again, § 3, of "How one may be aware of one's Progress in Virtue."

26 See Pausanias, ix. 9. Also Erasmus, "Adagia."

27 A fragment from the "Protesilaus" of Euripides. Our "It takes two to make a quarrel."

28 See Plutarch's Lysander.

29 Or symposium, where all sorts of liberties were taken.

30 I have softened his phrase. His actual words were very coarse, and would naturally be resented by Ptolemy. See Athenæus, 621, A.

31 See "Iliad," v. 83; xvi. 334; xx, 477.

32 A fragment from the "Dictys" of Euripides.

33 "Republ." v. 463, F. sq.

34 Cf. Shakespeare's "Winter Tale," Act iii. sc. iii. 59-63.

35 As Horace's father did. See "Satires," Book i. Sat. iv. 105-129.

36 What we call black sheep.

37 From Simonides. Cf. Seneca, "Epist." xlix. "Punctum est quod vivimus, et adhuc puncto minus."

38 Reading with Wyttenbach, ὡς ἐκ λογικῆς τέχνης.

39 Like Carker in Dombey.

40 Compare the character of Micio in the "Adelphi" of Terence.

41 This saying is assigned by Diogenes Laertius to Pittacus.

42 Compare Plautus, "Asinaria," i. l. 74. "Argentum accepi: dote imperum vendidi." Compare also our author, "Whether Vice is sufficient to cause Unhappiness," § i.

43 Wyttenbach thinks this treatise is not Plutarch's. He bases his conclusion partly on external, partly on internal, grounds. It is not quoted by Stobæus, or any of the ancients, before the fourteenth century. And its style is not Plutarch's; it has many words foreign to Plutarch: it has "nescio quid novum ac peregrinum, ab illa Plutarchea copia et gravitate diversum leve et inane." Certainly its matter is superior to its manner.