Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals" — John Shaqi
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
of precious sentences, in prose or verse, of authors whose books are
lost; and these embalmed fragments, through his loving selection alone,
have come to be proverbs of later mankind. I hope it is only my immense
ignorance that makes me believe that they do not survive out of his
pages,—not only Thespis, Polemos, Euphorion, Ariston, Evenus, &c., but
fragments of Menander and Pindar. At all events, it is in reading the
fragments he has saved from lost authors that I have hailed another
example of the sacred care which has unrolled in our times, and still
searches and unrolls _papyri_ from ruined libraries and buried cities,
and has drawn attention to what an ancient might call the politeness of
Fate,—we will say, more advisedly, the benign Providence which uses
the violence of war, of earthquakes, and changed watercourses, to save
underground through barbarous ages the relics of ancient art, and thus
allows us to witness the upturning of the alphabets of old races, and
the deciphering of forgotten languages, so to complete the annals of
the forefathers of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
His delight in poetry makes him cite with joy the speech of Gorgias,
“that the tragic poet who deceived was juster than he who deceived not,
and he that was deceived was wiser than he who was not deceived.”
It is a consequence of this poetic trait in his mind, that I confess
that, in reading him, I embrace the particulars, and carry a faint
memory of the argument or general design of the chapter; but he is not
less welcome, and he leaves the reader with a relish and a necessity
for completing his studies. Many examples might be cited of nervous
expression and happy allusion, that indicate a poet and an orator,
though he is not ambitious of these titles, and cleaves to the security
of prose narrative, and only shows his intellectual sympathy with
these; yet I cannot forbear to cite one or two sentences which none who
reads them will forget. In treating of the style of the Pythian Oracle,
he says,—
“Do you not observe, some one will say, what a grace there is in
Sappho’s measures, and how they delight and tickle the ears and
fancies of the hearers? Whereas the Sibyl, with her frantic grimaces,
uttering sentences altogether thoughtful and serious, neither fucused
nor perfumed, continues her voice a thousand years through the favor
of the Divinity that speaks within her.”
Another gives an insight into his mystic tendencies,—
“Early this morning, asking Epaminondas about the manner of
Lysis’s burial, I found that Lysis had taught him as far as the
incommunicable mysteries of our sect, and that the same Dæmon that
waited on Lysis, presided over him, if I can guess at the pilot from
the sailing of the ship. The paths of life are large, but in few are
men directed by the Dæmons. When Theanor had said this, he looked
attentively on Epaminondas, as if he designed a fresh search into his
nature and inclinations.”
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