calamity prostrate in the command of a ship? Clearly not a private person, for the private person is always prostrate; as therefore no one can throw down a man who is lying on the ground, but sometimes one may throw down one who is standing upright, so as to make him lie on the ground, but not one already lying there, so an irresistible calamity may sometimes prostrate a skilful man, but never one who is always unskilful; and a violent storm bursting on a pilot may make his skill of no avail, and a bad season befalling a farmer may make his skill of no avail, and the same with a physician: for it befals a good man to become evil, as is also testified by another poet, who says, ‘A good man is sometimes evil, and sometimes good:’ but it does not befal the evil to become so, but he must needs always be so. So that when an irresistible calamity prostrates a skilful, wise, and good man, it is not possible for him not to be evil; but you say, Pittacus, that it is difficult to be good; but the difficulty is to become good, though it is possible, but impossible to be so. 86. ‘For every man who fares well is good, but evil if he fares ill.’ What then is faring well with respect to literature? and what makes a man good in literature? Clearly the being instructed in it. What faring well makes a good physician? Clearly the being instructed in the art of curing the sick. ‘And evil if he fares ill.’ Who then would become an evil physician? Clearly he to whom it happens first to be a physician, and then a good physician; for he may become an evil physician. But we who are ignorant of the medical art, can never by faring ill become either physicians, or builders, or any thing else of the kind; but whoever cannot become a physician by faring ill, clearly cannot become an evil physician. Thus also a good man may sometime or other become evil, either from length of time, or labour, or disease, or some other accident, for this alone is a faring ill, to be deprived of knowledge, but the evil man can never become evil, for he is always so; but if he is to become evil, it is necessary for him first to become good. So that this part of the ode tends to this, that it is not possible to be a good man, so as to continue good; but that it is possible to become good, and for the same person to become evil: ‘and they are for the longest time best whom the gods love.’