“Thoughtful men–just as bees find honey in thyme, the most bitter and driest plants–extract something fitting and useful to themselves even from the most adverse situations.
It is necessary that we practice and take care of this first, like the man who missed a dog with a stone but struck his step-mother instead and said “That’s not so bad”. For it is possible to change our reception of chance from undesired outcomes. Diogenes was sent into exile? “That’s not so bad!” For he began to become a philosopher after his exile.”
“Human knowledge has countless forms— whether learned in some prophetic art or allotted the Graces’ honor, the wise man certainly flourishes with golden hope.
Another man aims his dabbled bow at boys. Others fortify their hearts in the field Or with herds of cattle. But the future bears ends that make the path of fortune unmeasurable.
This thing is best: to be a noble man envied by many men.
I know something about wealth’s great power: It makes even the most useless man useful.
But why do I pilot my great tongue so and drive off the road? When the moment of victory is appointed for mortals, only then the wise man must…[ ] With flutes [pay back the favor of the gods] And mingle [among those who may envy]
The last few lines of this poem are completely fragmentary. In italics I put in something just to complete the sentence. I think that the reference to flutes probably indicates some ritual celebration, but I also wanted the end to repeat the note of warning about the mutability of fortune. Any other suggestions?
“I cannot answer what you ask me until I hear that you have ended your life well. Someone who is really rich is no more blessed than someone who has enough for just a day unless chance finds them keeping all the fine things and dying well. For many super wealthy people turnout unlucky and many of modest means fare well. The person who is really wealthy but unlucky is ahead of the merely lucky person in two ways but the lucky person has many advantages over the unlucky.
A wealthy person has the resources to do what they want and to hold out when disaster strikes. But a lucky person does not get disabled, sick, avoids suffering, has good children, and keeps looking good. If that person dies well in addition to these other things, well that’s the kind of person you’re looking for. Then someone is worthy of being called blessed.
But don’t call anyone blessed before they’re dead. Just lucky.”
“Chance is also capable of afflicting us with sickness, stripping us of possessions, or bad-mouthing us to people or ruler. But it cannot make a good, brave, or great-souled person a wicked coward with a cheap mind. And chance cannot steal away the mindset which when always with is is of greater use in life than a captain upon the sea.
It is impossible for a captain to calm a rough wave and the wind and equally so to find a harbor when he needs it where he wants it. And he cannot face whatever happens fearlessly and steadfast. But, as long as he he does not forget himself and uses his skill, “he flees the clouded sea / once he has furled the sail to the lower mast”.
Whenever the sea looms over him, he sits in his shaking and trembles. But the mindset of the wise person provides the most calm to his bodily responses, eliminating the conditions of disease with self-control, a wise diet, and measured toils. Even if the cause of suffering comes from the outside there is a passage through the storm if “he endures it well with a light and drawn sailed” as Asclepiades says. But if something unexpected and serious overtakes him and overpowers, well, the harbor is close and he can still swim free of his body as from a ship that will float no more.”
“Thoughtful men–just as bees find honey in thyme, the most bitter and driest plants–extract something fitting and useful to themselves even from the most adverse situations.
It is necessary that we practice and take care of this first, like the man who missed a dog with a stone but struck his stepmother instead and said “That’s not so bad”. For it is possible to change our reception of chance from undesired outcomes. Diogenes was sent into exile? “That’s not so bad!” For he began to become a philosopher after his exile.”
Fearing/loathing stepmothers is a bit of a thing in Ancient Greek Literature:
Callimachus, Epigram 8
“A boy was placing a garland on his stepmother’s grave
Believing that she had softened her ways after death
But the stone leaned and fell and killed the child.
Avoid your stepmother, even in death, first sons!”
“The just man is the least agitated; the unjust full of the most trouble.”
XVII. ῾Ο δίκαιος ἀταρακτότατος, ὁ δ’ ἄδικος πλείστης ταραχῆς γέμων.
“Pleasure for the flesh will not increase once pain from want has been removed, but it can only be varied. The contemplation of these things [which bring pleasure] and their concomitants, however, produces the limit of pleasure for the mind, insofar as it is those very things that also bring the mind the greatest fears.”
“It is not possible that the man who has transgressed one of the laws we have in common—not harming or being harmed—to believe that he will get away with it, even if he already has ten thousand times to the present day. It will be unclear whether or not he will escape right up until he dies.”
“Apollodorus the Epicurian writes in his first book of On the Life of Epicurus that the philosopher turned to the study of philosophy when he noted that his teachers could not explain to him the meaning of Chaos in Hesiod.”
“I cannot conceive what the good is if I separate it from the pleasures of taste, from the pleasures of sex, from the pleasures of sound, or those of beautiful bodies.”
“Therefore I do not suggest that you be indifferent. Rather, you should avoid whatever makes you fear. Whatever can be anticipated through planning, anticipate. Whatever would do you harm, spot it and avoid it long before it happens. In this, confidence and a mind hardened enough to tolerate everything will bring you the greatest aid. Whoever can endure fortune, can also beware of it. Certainly, there are no rolling waves on tranquil waters. Nothing is more pitiful or foolish than fearing things ahead of time! What is this insanity in anticipating your troubles!
Finally, to summarize briefly what I believe and to outline for you those troublemakers and self-abusers—for they are as intemperate in their misfortunes as they were before them. The person suffers more than is needed who suffers before it is needed. This kind of a person does not put his sorrow in perspective for the same reason he does not expect it—because of the same intemperance he imagines that his own happiness will last forever and that whatever he encounters will continue to improve as long as they last. Forgetful of the balance upon which all human affairs are chanced, one safeguards for himself only the consistency of chance.”
Nec ideo praecipio tibi neglegentiam. Tu vero metuenda declina. Quidquid consilio prospici potest, prospice. Quodcumque laesurum est, multo ante quam accidat, speculare et averte. In hoc ipsum tibi plurimum conferet fiducia et ad tolerandum omne obfirmata mens. Potest fortunam cavere, qui potest ferre. Certe in tranquillo non tumultuatur. Nihil est nec miserius nec stultius quam praetimere. Quae ista dementia est malum suum antecedere? Denique ut breviter includam quod sentio, et istos satagios ac sibi molestos describam tibi, tam intemperantes in ipsis miseriis quam sunt ante illas. Plus dolet quam necesse est, qui ante dolet quam necesse est; eadem enim infirmitate dolorem non aestimat, qua non exspectat; eadem intemperantia fingit sibi perpetuam felicitatem suam, fingit crescere debere quaecumque contigerunt, non tantum durare; et oblitus huius petauri, quo humana iactantur, sibi uni fortuitorum constantiam spondet.
Marble Relief on the Copenhagen Sarcophagus, 3rd Century CE
“The just man is the least agitated; the unjust full of the most trouble.”
XVII. ῾Ο δίκαιος ἀταρακτότατος, ὁ δ’ ἄδικος πλείστης ταραχῆς γέμων.
“Pleasure for the flesh will not increase once pain from want has been removed, but it can only be varied. The contemplation of these things [which bring pleasure] and their concomitants, however, produces the limit of pleasure for the mind, insofar as it is those very things that also bring the mind the greatest fears.”
“It is not possible that the man who has transgressed one of the laws we have in common—not harming or being harmed—to believe that he will get away with it, even if he already has ten thousand times to the present day. It will be unclear whether or not he will escape right up until he dies.”
“Apollodorus the Epicurian writes in his first book of On the Life of Epicurus that the philosopher turned to the study of philosophy when he noted that his teachers could not explain to him the meaning of Chaos in Hesiod.”
“I cannot conceive what the good is if I separate it from the pleasures of taste, from the pleasures of sex, from the pleasures of sound, or those of beautiful bodies.”
“Plato likened life to a dice-game in which we need both to throw what is advantageous and to use the dice well after we’ve thrown them. And when we are subject to chance, if we take good advice, this is our task: though we cannot control the toss, we can accept the outcome luck gives us properly and allot to each event a place in which what is good for us helps the most and what was unplanned aggrieves the least.”
And here is the passage Plutarch is drawing on from the tenth book of the Republic (Plato, Republic 604c-d)
“The best way to deliberate about what has happened is just as we might in the fall of dice: to order our affairs in reference to how the dice have fallen where reason dictates the best place would be, and not to stumble forward like children shocked at the outcome wasting time with crying. Instead, we should always prepare our mind towards addressing what has happened as quickly as possible and to redress what has fallen and what ails, erasing lament [lit. threnody] with treatment*.”
“Thoughtful men–just as bees find honey in thyme, the most bitter and driest plants–extract something fitting and useful to themselves even from the most adverse situations.
It is necessary that we practice and take care of this first, like the man who missed a dog with a stone but struck his step-mother instead and said “That’s not so bad”. For it is possible to change our reception of chance from undesired outcomes. Diogenes was sent into exile? “That’s not so bad!” For he began to become a philosopher after his exile.”
