87. “All these things therefore are said against Pittacus, and the following parts of the ode shew this still more clearly. For he says, ‘Wherefore I shall never, searching for that which cannot be, throw away a portion of my life on an empty impracticable hope, searching for an all-blameless man among us who feed on the fruits of the wide earth. When I have found one, I will inform you;’ he adds. So vehemently, and through the whole of the ode, does he attack the saying of Pittacus. ‘But I praise and willingly love all who do nothing base; but with necessity not even gods contend.’ And this is spoken against that same saying. For Simonides was not so ill informed as to say that he praised those who did no evil willingly, as if there were some who did evil willingly. For I am pretty much of this opinion, that no wise man thinks that any man errs willingly, nor willingly commits base and evil actions, but they well know that all those who do base and evil things, do them unwillingly. 88. Moreover Simonides does not say, that he praises those who do not willingly do evil, but he uses this word ‘willingly’ of himself. For he thought that a good and upright man is frequently compelled to love and praise a certain person; for instance, it often happens to a man to have a perverse mother or father, or country, or something else of the kind. Now depraved men, when any such thing happens to them, are as it were glad to see it, and blaming make known and divulge the depravity of their parents or country, that when they neglect them, men may not accuse or reproach them for their neglect, so that they blame them still more _than they deserve_, and add voluntary to necessary enmity. But the good conceal the faults and compel themselves to praise, and if they are angry with their parents or country from having been injured by them, they pacify themselves and become reconciled, compelling themselves to love and praise their own connections. And I think Simonides also himself frequently considered it right to praise and extol a tyrant, or some one else of the kind, not willingly, but by compulsion. 89. This, too, he says to Pittacus; I, Pittacus, do not blame you on this account, because I am fond of blaming; for ‘it is enough for me if a man is not evil or too helpless, a sane man, acquainted with justice that benefits the state; I will not censure him, for I am not a lover of censure; for the race of fools is infinite;’ so that he who delights in blaming may satiate himself in censuring them. ‘All things are beautiful with which base things are not mingled.’ His meaning in this, is not as if he had said, all things are white with which black is not mingled, for this would be in many ways ridiculous, but that he himself admits of a mean, so as not to blame it. ‘And I do not seek,’ he adds, ‘an all-blameless man, among us who feed on the fruits of the wide earth; when I have found him, I will inform