[193] Euripides' "Phaethon," which exists only in fragments. Clymene was the daughter of Oceanus, and mother of Phaethon. [194] An allusion to Euripides, "Bacchae," 317, 318. [195] Reading with Reiske [Greek: oudeni logo de], or [Greek: alogos de]. Some such reading seems necessary to comport with the [Greek: ti gar alogoteron] two lines later. [196] Reading [Greek: pareiches] with Xylander. [197] A great craving for sympathy would be the modern way of putting it. [198] See the Fable of AEsop, entitled [Greek: Penthous geras], No. 355. Halme. See also Plutarch's "Consolation to Apollonius," Sec. xix., where the Fable is told at some length. [199] Reading with Reiske [Greek: ouk an eipein phobetheien]. [200] An allusion to Euripides, "Andromache," 930. See Plutarch's "Conjugal Precepts," Sec. xl. [201] The whole subject is discussed in full by Athenaeus, p. 632, F. F. A false quantity we see was a bugbear even before the days of Universities. [202] Homer, "Iliad," v. 646; xxiii. 71. [203] This section is dreadfully corrupt. I have adopted, it will be seen, the suggestions of Wyttenbach. [204] This Consolatory Letter ends rather abruptly. It is probable that there was more of it. THAT VIRTUE MAY BE TAUGHT. Sec. I. As to virtue we deliberate and dispute whether good sense, and justice, and rectitude can be taught: and then we are not surprised that, while the works of orators, and pilots, and musicians, and house-builders, and farmers, are innumerable, good men are only a name and expression, like Centaurs and Giants and Cyclopes, and that it is impossible to find any virtuous action without alloy of base motives, or any character free from vice: but if nature produces spontaneously anything good, it is marred by much that is alien to it, as fruit choked by weeds. Men learn to play on the harp, and to dance, and to read, and to farm, and to ride on horseback: they learn how to put on their shoes and clothes generally: people teach how to pour out wine, how to cook; and all these things cannot be properly performed, without being learned. The art of good living alone, though all those things I have mentioned only exist on its account, is untaught, unmethodical, inartistic, and supposed to come by the light of nature!