Chapter IV: Part 4

Now kingship, the most complete and comprehensive form of public activity, is full of cares, labours, and preoccupations. Seleucus, it was said, used to declare that if ordinary people knew what a business it was merely to write and read so many letters, they would not pick up the crown if they found it [Sidenote: B] lying in the street. And the story goes that, when Philip was proposing to encamp in an excellent position, but was told that there was no fodder for the pack-animals, he exclaimed: ‘Good Heavens! what is our life worth, when we are obliged to suit it to the convenience of our asses?’ Ought we then to give the same advice to a king when he has grown old? Bid him lay aside the crown and the purple, take to a cloak and a crutched stick, and live in the country, for fear people should think it officious and unseasonable of him to be reigning when he is grey?

But we have no right to talk in this way about an Agesilaus, or a Numa, or a Darius. Neither then should we compel a Solon [Sidenote: C] to leave the Council of the Areopagus, nor a Cato the Senate, nor yet urge a Pericles to leave popular government to look after itself. It is contrary to reason that in our youth we should bounce upon the platform, spend upon the public all the passionate licence of our ambition, and then, when age arrives and brings the wisdom of experience, desert and betray our public standing like a woman whom we have used at our pleasure.

In Aesop, when the hedgehog wanted to pick off his ticks, the fox would not let him. ‘These are glutted,’ said he, ‘and [Sidenote: D] if you get rid of them, hungry ones will be at you in their place.’ So with public life. If it is perpetually shedding the old men, it will necessarily be plagued with young ones, who are thirsting for notoriety and power but devoid of political sense. How can they be otherwise, if they are to have no elderly statesman to watch and learn from? A ship’s captain is not made by treatises on navigation. He must often have stood upon the quarter-deck and watched the struggle with wave and wind and stormy nights, when

_The sailor on the brine longs sore
For Tyndareus’ twin sons._

And can the handling of a State and the persuading of Assembly [Sidenote: E] or Council be rightly left to a young man because he has read a book or taken down a lecture on statesmanship in the Lyceum? Though he has not taken his stand many a time beside rudder-rope and tiller, leaned first to this side and then to that, while generals and public leaders were pitting their knowledge and experience against each other, and so learned his lesson in the midst of dangers and difficulties? Beyond question, No! For the education and training of the young, if for no other reason, old men should play a public part. A teacher of letters or of music himself reads or plays a passage over first by way of example [Sidenote: F] to his pupils. So the authority on statesmanship must guide a young man, not simply by talking or suggesting from outside, but by the practical administration of public business. It is by deeds as well as by words that he will mould him to the true shape, filled with the breath of life. It is training of this kind—not in the schools where you practise safe forms of wrestling under mannerly professors, but in contests truly Olympian and Pythian—that makes one, as Simonides puts it,

_Keep pace, as with the steed the wearied colt_;

[Sidenote: 791] —Aristeides with Cleisthenes, Cimon with Aristeides, Phocion with Chabrias, Cato with Fabius Maximus, Pompeius with Sulla, Polybius with Philopoemen. It was by attaching themselves when young to older men, by using them as supports to their own growth, by being raised to their standard of statesmanlike achievement, that they acquired the political experience which brought them fame and power.

When certain professors declared that the claim of Aeschines, the Academic philosopher, to have been a pupil of Carneades was contrary to fact, he replied, ‘O yes: I was a disciple of Carneades at the time when age had taken all the fuss and noise [Sidenote: B] out of his teaching and reduced it to practical and serviceable shape.’ With the statesmanship of an old man, however, it is not merely the talking, but the deeds, that lose all ostentation and itch for notoriety. They tell us that, when the iris has grown old and exhausted all crude exuberance of perfume, its fragrance gains in sweetness. So with the views and suggestions of the old. There is no crudeness in them, but always a quality of quiet solidity. For this reason, as I have said, we must have elderly men in public life. Plato speaks of mixing water with neat wine as the bringing of a ‘frenzied god’ to sanity by the [Sidenote: C] ‘chastening of another who is sober’. So when young spirits in the Assembly are a-boil with the intoxication of glory and ambition, we need the old men’s caution to qualify them and to eliminate their mad excess of fire.

There is another consideration. It is an error to suppose that statesmanship is like a voyage or a campaign—carried on for an ulterior object and discontinued when that is attained. Statesmanship is not a public burden, to be borne only so long as needs must. It is the career of a civilized being with a gift for citizenship and society, and with a natural disposition to live a life of public influence, worthy aims, and social helpfulness for as long as occasion calls.

The right course therefore is to _be_ a public man, not to _have_ been one; just as it is right to speak the truth, not to [Sidenote: D] _have_ spoken it; to act honestly, not to _have_ so acted; to love one’s country and fellow-citizens, not to _have_ loved them. Those are Nature’s objects, and where men are not utterly demoralized by idleness and effeminacy, her promptings are such as these:

_Thy sire begat thee for rich use to men_,

and

_Ne’er let us cease from service to mankind._

To urge the plea of ill-health or disablement is to blame disease and injury, not old age. Young men are often sickly, old men often vigorous. It is therefore not the old whom we should discourage, but the incapable. It is the capable whom [Sidenote: E] we should encourage, not the young. Aridaeus was young, and Antigonus old; but while Antigonus annexed nearly the whole of Asia, Aridaeus was like the ‘super’ upon the stage—a king with nothing to say, and a butt for whoever happened to be in power. To demand of the sophist Prodicus or the poet Philetas—who, young though they might be, were thin, sickly, and constantly taking to their beds through ill-health—that they should take up public life, were folly. But it were folly also to hinder old men like Phocion, or Masinissa the African, or the Roman Cato, from holding office or military command. The [Sidenote: F] Athenians being set upon an ill-timed war, Phocion ordered that every man under sixty should take up arms and serve. When this made them angry, he said, ‘There is no hardship. I, who am to be with you in command, am over eighty.’ And of Masinissa Polybius relates that he died when he was ninety, leaving a child of four, of whom he was the father. Shortly before his death he beat the Carthaginians in a great battle, [Sidenote: 792] and the next day was seen in front of his tent eating a loaf of cheap coarse bread. To expressions of surprise he answered that he did so to keep himself in training.

_For like to goodly bronze, it shines in use,
While a house crumbles, if left idle long_,

says Sophocles. We may say the same of that glossy brightness of the mind, to which we owe calculation, memory, and sound judgement.

For the same reason it is said that wars and campaigns make better kings than inactivity. Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, was so thoroughly enervated by long peace and [Sidenote: B] idleness that Philopoemen, one of his intimates, had simply to shepherd him and keep him fat. In fact, the Romans used to inquire of arrivals from Asia, whether ‘the king had any influence with Philopoemen’. It would be hard to find a Roman general more able than Lucullus, so long as he kept his intellect braced with action. But he surrendered himself to a life of inactivity, stayed at home, thought of nothing, and became as lifeless and shrunken as a sponge in a calm. Afterwards, in his old age, he so tamely accepted a certain freedman, Callisthenes, for his keeper, that the man [Sidenote: C] was thought to be bewitching him with spells and drugs, till at last his brother Marcus drove the fellow away and himself took to managing and tutoring him for the short remainder of his life. On the other hand, Darius, the father of Xerxes, used to say that he became his wisest in times of danger; and Ateas the Scythian declared that, when he had nothing to do, he could see nothing to distinguish him from his grooms. When some one asked the elder Dionysius if he had time to spare, he replied: ‘Heaven forbid I ever should!’ Whereas a bow, they tell us, is broken by stringing it tight, a mind is broken by leaving it loose. If a musician gives up listening [Sidenote: D] for pitch, a geometrician the solving of problems, an arithmetician the constant habit of calculation, old age will enfeeble the ability along with the loss of its exercise, although the art in these cases is not a ‘practic’ one, but a ‘theoretic’. In the case of the special ability of the statesman—his caution, wisdom, and justice, together with an experienced knack of hitting the right language at the right time; that is to say, a faculty for creating persuasion—it is kept in good condition by constant speech, action, calculation, and judicial decision. It would be a dire mistake for it to abandon such activities [Sidenote: E] and permit all those important virtues to leak away from the mind. For it naturally means a decline of kindly interest in man and society—a thing which should be without limit or end.

Suppose your father had been Tithonus. Suppose, though he was immortal, old age had made him require close and constant care. You would not, I imagine, have run away and repudiated the task of tending him, talking to him, and helping him, just because you had ‘borne the burden for a long time’. Well, your fatherland—or ‘motherland’ as it is called in Crete—has claims prior to those of parents, and greater. Your country’s life has been a long one, but she is not without old age. She is [Sidenote: F] not sufficient to herself, but is in perpetual need of watchful and considerate help. She therefore grasps at the statesman and holds him back:

_Clutching his garment she stays him, though eager he be for
departure._

You are aware that I have performed my public duty at many a Pythian festival. But you would not say ‘Plutarch, you have done enough in the way of sacrifices, processions, and choruses. You are now in years; it is time to put off your wreath; age entitles you to leave the shrine alone’. Well, look at your own duty in the same way. In the sacred service of the State you are coryphaeus and prophet, and it is not for you to abandon that worship of Zeus, God of State and Assembly, in which you have been so long initiated and are so thoroughly versed.

[Sidenote: 793] Permit me now to leave the arguments for quitting public life, and to examine another point. We must beware of inflicting upon our old age an unbecoming or exacting task, when so many portions of public work are so well suited to that time of life. If it had been proper for us to go on singing all our days, there are at our disposal many keys and modes, or, as the musicians call them, ‘systems.’ Our right course in our old age would have been to cultivate, not a mode both high and sharp, but one combining ease with appropriate character. And since Nature prompts mankind to act and speak—even more [Sidenote: B] than it prompts the swan to sing—until the end, our duty is not to lay action aside, like a lyre of too high a pitch, but to lower the key and adapt it to such forms of public effort as are light, unexacting, and within an old man’s compass. We do not leave our bodies entirely without muscular exercise because we cannot use the spade and the jumping-weights, or hurl the discus, or practise fencing, as we used to do. We swing or walk, and in some cases the breathing is exercised and warmth stimulated by playing a gentle game of ball, or by conversation.

On the one hand, then, do not let us allow ourselves to become [Sidenote: C] stiff and torpid from inactivity. On the other, let us not undertake any and every official position, clutch at any and every kind of public work, and bring such an exposure upon old age that it is driven to exclaim in despair:

_Right hand, how fain art thou to grasp the spear!
How vain thy longing, in thy strengthlessness!_

Even in the prime of strength a man wins no credit if he tries to take on his shoulders the whole pack of public business, and [Sidenote: D] refuses—like Zeus, according to the Stoics—to leave anything to others; if he insinuates himself everywhere and has his finger in everything, through an insatiable greed for notoriety or through jealousy of any one who contrives to get a share of honour and power in the community. But when a man is quite old, then, apart from the discredit, wretchedly hard work is entailed by that itch for office which is always courting every ballot-box, that meddlesomeness which lies in wait for every opportunity of acting on a jury or a committee, that ambition which snaps up every appointment as delegate or proctor. [Sidenote: E] Such work is a heavy tax on an old man, even when people are well-disposed. But the opposite may very well be the case. For young men hate him because he leaves them no opportunities and prevents them from coming to the front; while the rest of the community looks upon his itch for office and precedence with the same disapproval as upon the itch of other old men for money and pleasure.

When Bucephalus was growing old, Alexander, being unwilling to overwork him, used to ride some other horse while reviewing the phalanx and getting it into position before the [Sidenote: F] battle. Then, after giving the word for the day, he changed his mount to Bucephalus, and at once led the charge and tried the fortunes of war. In the same way a sensible public man—in this case handling his own reins—will, when in years, hold aloof from unnecessary effort, leaving more vigorous persons to deal with the minor matters of state, but himself playing a zealous part in great ones.

Athletes keep their bodies from all contact with necessary labours and in perfect trim for useless ones. We, on the contrary, will leave petty little details alone, and will keep ourselves in reserve for matters of moment. No doubt, as Homer says,

_To the young all labours are seemly_,

and the world gives consent and approval, calling them ‘public-spirited’ and ‘energetic’ when they do a large number of little things, and ‘noble’ and ‘lofty-minded’ when they do brilliant and distinguished things. At that time of life there are [Sidenote: 794] occasions when a venturesome aggressiveness is more or less in season and wears a grace of its own. But what when an elderly man consents to perform routine services to the public, such as letting out taxes, or superintending harbours and markets? What when he seizes opportunities of being sent on a mission to some governor or other powerful personage—a position for which there is no necessity, which contains no dignity, and which necessitates time-serving and complaisance? To my mind, my friend, his case is one for regret and commiseration; some may even think it distressingly vulgar.

Not even positions of authority are any longer a suitable [Sidenote: B] sphere for him, unless they are of high rank and importance; such a position, for example, as you now hold in the Presidentship of the Areopagite Council, not to mention the distinguished rank of Amphictyon,[36] which your country has imposed upon you all your life, with its

_Welcome toil and labour sweet to bear._

Even these honours we should not seek, but should make from holding them. We should ask, not for them, but to be excused from them. It should seem, not that we are taking office to ourselves, but that we are surrendering ourselves to office. The Emperor Tiberius used to say that a man over sixty should be ashamed of holding out his wrist to a physician. But he should [Sidenote: C] be more ashamed of holding out his hand to the public in solicitation of its ‘vote and influence’. That situation is as humiliating and ignoble as the contrary is honourable and dignified—I mean when your country chooses you, calls you, and waits for you, and when you come down amidst respect and welcome, a ‘reverend signior’ indeed, to meet your distinction with gracious acceptance.

Similarly with speaking in the Assembly. A man of advanced age should not be perpetually springing upon the platform and crowing back to every cock that crows. Young men are like horses, and he should not, by constantly grappling with [Sidenote: D] them and irritating them, lose control of their respect, or encourage the practice and habit of resistance to the reins. He should sometimes leave them to make a restive plunge for distinction, keeping out of the way and not interfering, unless the matter at stake is vital to the public safety or to decency and honour. In that case he should not wait to be called, but should let some one take him by the hand, or carry him in his chair, and push his way at more than full speed, like Appius Claudius in Roman history. The Romans had been defeated by Pyrrhus in a great battle, and Appius heard that the Senate [Sidenote: E] was listening to proposals for a truce and a peace. This was more than he could bear, and, though blind of both eyes, along he came in his chair through the Forum to the Senate House. He went in, planted himself before them, and said: ‘Hitherto I have been distressed at the loss of my sight; now I could pray to be also unable to hear—that you are meditating so ignoble and disgraceful a transaction.’ Thereupon, partly by reproaches, partly by advice and encouragement, he persuaded them to have [Sidenote: F] immediate recourse to arms and to fight Pyrrhus to a finish for the prize of Italy.

Again, when it became manifest that, in acting the demagogue, Peisistratus was aiming at absolutism, and yet no one ventured to resist or prevent it, Solon brought out his weapons with his own hands, piled them in front of his house, and called upon the citizens to help. And when Peisistratus sent and asked him what gave him the confidence to do so, he replied, ‘My age.’

Things so vital as these, it is true, are rousing enough to fire even the most worn-out of old men, so long as he possesses the breath of life at all. Otherwise he will sometimes, as I have said, be showing good taste if he declines to perform paltry and menial tasks which bring more worry to the doer than good [Sidenote: 793] to the persons for whom they are done. There are also occasions when he will wait for the citizens to call for him, feel the need of him, and come to his house to fetch him. He is wanted, and therefore his appearance on the scene will carry more weight. But for the most part, though present, he will be silent and will leave the younger generation to do the speaking, while he acts as umpire to the match of political ambition. And if it goes beyond bounds, he will offer a mild reproof and courteously put an end to outbreaks of self-assertion, recrimination, or ill-temper. When a motion is wrong, he will reason with and correct the mover, but without blaming him. When it is right, he will commend it without reserve and will cheerfully acquiesce, often surrendering an argumentative victory in order that [Sidenote: B] a young man may get on in the world and be in good heart. In some cases he will supply a deficiency while paying a compliment, like Nestor with his

_No man, I trow, will find fault with thy words among all the
Achaeans:
None say thee nay. Yet not to an end hast thou brought all the
matter.
True ’tis, thou art yet but young, and myself might be thine own
father._

There is a practice still more statesmanlike. One may not merely teach a lesson openly in public by means of a reproval unaccompanied by any sting of humiliation or injury to prestige. Still more may be done in private for persons with good political abilities. We may offer them kindly suggestions and assistance [Sidenote: C] towards the bringing forward of useful arguments and public measures, encourage them to high aims, help them to acquire a distinguished tone of mind, and—as riding-masters do with their horses—see that at first the people shall be gentle and docile for them to mount. And if so be a young man should make a failure, instead of leaving him to despond, we may rouse and comfort him. It was in this way that the spirits and courage of Cimon were revived by Aristeides, and those of Themistocles by Mnesiphilus, when they began by incurring ill-odour and a bad name for forwardness and recklessness. It is also said of Demosthenes that, when he was in great distress at his failure [Sidenote: D] in the Assembly, he was taken to task by a very old man who had heard Pericles, and who told him that he had no right to despair of himself, seeing that he possessed gifts so much like those of that eminent person. So when Timotheus was hissed for his innovations and treated as guilty of an outrage on music, Euripides bade him keep up his courage, since he would soon be dictating to his audience.

At Rome the term of the Vestal Virgins is divided into three stages—one for learning, one for the performance of the ceremonies, and the third for teaching. So with the votaries of [Sidenote: E] Artemis at Ephesus; each is called first a novice, next a priestess, and then a past-priestess. In the same way the complete statesman is during the first part of his public career still engaged in learning the mysteries; during the last part he is engaged in teaching and initiating.

Whereas to superintend the athletics of others is to take no part in them oneself, it is otherwise with those who train a youth in public business and the political arena, and who make sure that for the good of his country he shall

_Be speaker of words and eke doer of deeds._

They perform good service, not in some petty inconsiderable [Sidenote: F] part of public life, but in one to which Lycurgus devoted his first and foremost attention—training the young to give to every old man the same unfailing obedience as to a lawgiver. What had Lysander in his mind, when he declared that the finest form of old age is to be found at Lacedaemon? Did he mean that at Lacedaemon elderly people had the best opportunities of doing nothing, of lending money, of sitting together and playing dice, or of meeting together at an early hour to drink? Surely not. He meant that all persons at that time of life hold, as it were, a magisterial position; that they are, in a sense, public fathers or guardians, who not only look after matters of state, but take active cognisance of everything a young [Sidenote: 796] man may do in connexion with his training-school, his pastimes, or his style of living. Such a position makes them an object of fear to wrong-doers, and of respect and affection to the well-behaved. For young men make a point of cultivating their society, because of the way in which they encourage steadiness and nobility of character by sympathy and approbation and without jealousy.

The last-named feeling is not a becoming one at any time of life. But whereas in the case of a young man it finds plenty of respectable names—‘rivalry’, ‘emulation’, ‘ambition’—in an old man it is a coarse and vulgar sentiment altogether out of place. The aged statesman should therefore be entirely free from jealousy. He should be no malignant old tree, [Sidenote: B] unequivocally snubbing the shoots and checking the growth of plants which spring up beside or beneath it, but should give them a kindly welcome and every opportunity to cling to him and twine about him. He should hold young people upright, lead them by the hand, and foster them, not only by wise suggestion and advice, but by surrendering to them political tasks which bring honour and distinction, or which afford scope for services of an innocent nature and yet welcome and gratifying to the public.

When a task is a stubborn and arduous one, or when it is like a medicine which stings and gives pain at the moment, while its beneficial effects are not produced till afterwards, he [Sidenote: C] should not prescribe it for young people. Instead of subjecting them in their inexperienced state to the uproars of an unreasonable mob, he should himself accept the unpopularity attaching to salutary measures. By this means he will render a youth both more well-disposed and also more zealous in other duties.

Meanwhile it must be remembered that statesmanship does not consist solely in holding office, acting as envoy, shouting loudly in the Assembly, and indulging in a fine frenzy of speeches and motions on the platform. The generality of people may think that these make a statesman, just as they think that talking [Sidenote: D] from a chair and delivering lectures based on books make a philosopher. But they fail to discern the sustained statesmanship or philosophy which is revealed consistently day after day in actions and conduct. As Dicaearchus used to say, the word _peripatein_, ‘walk’, has now come to be used of persons taking a turn in the colonnades rather than of those who are walking into the country or to see a friend. It is the same with acting the statesman as it is with acting the philosopher. For Socrates to play the philosopher there was no arranging of forms, seating himself in a chair, or observing a fixed time—arranged with his associates—for a discussion or discourse. He played the philosopher while joking with you, perhaps, or drinking with you, [Sidenote: E] or possibly campaigning with you, or at market with you, and finally when he was in prison and drinking the poison. He was thus the first to show that life affords scope for philosophy at every moment, in every detail, in every feeling and circumstance whatsoever. Statesmanship should be regarded in the same light. Foolish persons, even if they are Ministers of War, or Secretaries, or platform-speakers, should not be considered as acting the statesman, but as courting the mob, or making a display, or creating dissension, or doing public service because they must. But when a man possesses public spirit and broad interests, and is a keen patriot and a ‘state’s man’ in the literal sense, even if he has never worn official garb, he is playing the statesman all the time. He does so by stimulating men of [Sidenote: F] ability, giving advice to those who need it, lending his help to deliberation, discouraging bunglers, and fortifying persons of sense. And this does not mean that he goes to the Assembly Theatre or Senate House out of pride of place when canvassed or pressed, and, when he gets there, merely puts in an appearance—if he does so—by way of pastime, as he might at a show or entertainment. It means that, even if not present in body, he [Sidenote: 797] is present in spirit; that he asks how the business goes, and is pleased or vexed as the case may be.

Aristeides at Athens and Cato at Rome held few public offices; but they made their whole life a perpetual service to their country. Though Epaminondas won many a distinguished success as commander-in-chief, he is no less famous for what he did in Thessaly at a time when he held no command or office. The generals had plunged the phalanx into a difficult situation. The enemy was attacking them with his missiles, [Sidenote: B] and they were in confusion. Epaminondas was therefore summoned from the ranks, and, after allaying the panic of the army by words of encouragement, he proceeded to make an orderly disposition of the phalanx—which was in a state of turmoil—extricated it with ease, posted it so as to confront the enemy, and compelled him to change his tactics and retire.

Once when King Agis was in Arcadia, and was in the act of leading his army into action in full order of battle, one of the elder Spartans shouted out that he was proposing to ‘mend one error by another’, meaning (as Thucydides says) that ‘his [Sidenote: C] present unseasonable ardour was intended to repair the discredit of his retreat’ from Argos. Agis listened, took the advice, and retired. Menecrates actually had a seat placed for him every day at the doors of the Government Office, and the Ephors frequently rose and consulted him upon questions of the first importance; so great was his reputation for wisdom and shrewdness. The story goes that, when he had completely lost all physical strength and was for the most part confined all day to his bed, upon the Ephors sending for him to the Agora, he got up and set out to walk. As he was toiling slowly along, he met [Sidenote: D] some children on the way, and asked them: ‘Do you know anything more binding than to obey a master?’ Upon their replying, ‘Lack of the power,’ his reason told him that this brought his service to an end, and he turned back home. For though zeal should not fail so long as ability lasts, we must not put pressure upon it when left helpless.

Once more, Scipio, whether in the field or in politics, constantly sought the advice of Gaius Laelius to such an extent as to make some people say of his achievements that Scipio was the actor, but the author was Gaius. And Cicero himself acknowledges that the greatest and finest of the successful measures of his consulship were devised with the help of the philosopher Publius Nigidius.

[Sidenote: E] There is, then, nothing to prevent an aged man from advancing the public good in many a department of statesmanship. He has the best of means thereto: reason, judgement, plain-speaking, and ‘_thought discreet_‘, as the poets say. It is not merely our hands and feet or the strength of our bodies that are part and parcel of the possessions of the State. Most important are the mind and the beauties of the mind—temperance, justice, and wisdom. It is monstrous that, as these come late and [Sidenote: F] slowly to their own, our house and farm and other goods and chattels should get the benefit of them, while, in a public way, to our country and our fellow-citizens, we make ourselves of no further use because of ‘time’. For what time takes away from our powers of active effort is less than what it adds to those of guidance and statesmanship. It is for this reason that, when Hermes is represented in an elderly form, though he has no hands or feet, his virile parts are tense—an indirect way of saying that there is little need for old men’s bodies to be hard at work, so long as their power of reasoned speech is—as it ought to be—vigorous and generative.

Footnote 34:

The text here is corrupt.

Footnote 35:

i.e. Epicurean.

Footnote 36:

Member of a religious council which met at Delphi and represented the
chief states of all Greece.

ADVICE TO MARRIED COUPLES

[Sidenote: 138 B] TO POLLIANUS AND EURYDICE WITH PLUTARCH’S BEST WISHES.

When they were shutting you in your bridal chamber, the ancestral ritual was duly applied to you by the priestess of Demeter. I believe that now, if reason also were to take you in hand and join in the nuptial song, it would prove of some service, and would support the tune as prescribed.

In the musical world they used to call one of the modes for the flute ‘the Horse-and-Mare’, because, apparently, the strains in that key were provocative of union between those animals. Well, philosophy has many excellent sermons to give, but none [Sidenote: C] more worthy of serious attention than that upon marriage. By it she exerts a spell upon those who come together as partners in life, and renders them gentle and tractable to each other. I have, therefore, taken the main points of the lessons which you have repeatedly heard, brought up as you have been in the company of Philosophy. I have arranged them in a series of brief comparisons to make them easier to remember, and am sending them as a present to you both. In doing so I pray that the Muses may graciously lend aid to Aphrodite, since, if it is their province to see that a lyre or a harp shall be in tune, it is no less so to provide that the music of the married home shall be harmonized by reason and philosophy. When people in olden times assigned a seat with Aphrodite to Hermes, it was because [Sidenote: D] the pleasure of marriage stands in special need of reason; when to Persuasion and the Graces, it was in order that the married pair might obtain their wishes from each other by means of persuasion, and not by contention and strife.

THE RULES:

1. Solon bade the bride eat a piece of quince before coming to the bridegroom’s arms—apparently an enigmatical suggestion that, as a first requirement, a pleasant and inviting impression should be gathered from an agreeable mouth and speech.

2. In Boeotia, after veiling the bride, they crown her with a wreath of thorny asparagus. As that plant yields the sweetest eating from among the roughest prickles, so a bride, if the groom does not run away in disgust because he finds her difficult and vexatious at first, will afford him a sweet and gentle companionship. One who shows no patience with the girl’s first [Sidenote: E] bickerings is as bad as those who let the ripe grapes go because once they were sour. Many a young bride is affected in the same way. First experiences disgust her with the bridegroom, and she makes as great a mistake as if, after enduring the sting of the bee, she were to abandon the honeycomb.

3. It is especially at the beginning that married people should beware of quarrel and friction. Let them note how vessels which have been mended will at first easily pull to pieces on the slightest occasion, but as time goes on and they become solid at the seams, it is as much as fire and iron can do to separate [Sidenote: F] the parts.

4. Fire is readily kindled in chaff, dry rushes, or hare’s fur, but quickly goes out unless it gets a further hold upon something capable both of keeping it in and feeding it. So with that fierce blaze of passion which is produced in the newly-married by physical enjoyment. You must not rely upon it nor expect it to last, unless it is built round the moral character, gets a hold upon your rational part, and so obtains a permanent vitality.

5. Doctoring the water is no doubt a quick and easy way of [Sidenote: 139] catching fish, but it renders them bad and uneatable. So when women work artificially upon their husbands with philtres and spells, and control them by the agency of pleasure, they have but crazy simpletons and dotards for their partners. While Circe derived no good from the men she had bewitched, and made no use of them when turned into swine and asses, she found the greatest pleasure in the rational companionship of the wise Odysseus.

6. A woman who is more desirous of ruling a foolish husband than of obeying a wise one, is like a traveller who would rather lead a blind man than follow one who possesses sight and knowledge.

[Sidenote: B] 7. Why should people disbelieve that Pasiphae, though consort to a king, fell in love with an ox, when they see that some women find a strict and continent husband wearisome, and prefer to live with one who is as much a mass of ungoverned sensuality as a dog or a goat?

8. When a rider is too weak or effeminate to vault upon a horse, he teaches the animal itself to bend its legs and crouch. In the same way some men who marry high-born or wealthy women, instead of improving themselves, put indignities upon their wives, in the belief that they will be more easily ruled when humbled. The proper course is, while using the rein, to maintain the dignity of the wife, as one would the full height of the horse.

[Sidenote: C] 9. When the moon is at a distance from the sun, we see it bright and luminous. When it comes near him, it fades and is lost to view. With a properly conducted woman it is the contrary. She should be most visible when with her husband; in his absence she should keep at home and out of sight.

10. Herodotus was wrong in saying that when a woman lays aside her tunic she lays aside her modesty. On the contrary, a chaste wife puts on modesty in its place. Between married persons the token of greatest regard is greatest modesty.

11. If two notes are taken in accord, the lower of the two is [Sidenote: D] the dominant. So, though every action in a well-conducted house is performed by both parties in tune, it will reveal the husband’s leadership and priority of choice.

12. The Sun vanquished the North Wind. When the wind endeavoured to take off the man’s cloak by violence and blowing a gale, he only tightened his mantle the more and held it the closer. But when, after the wind, the sun became hot, the man began to grow warm. When at last he sweltered, he took off not only his cloak but his tunic. The parable applies to the generality of women. When their husbands take violent measures to do away with extravagant indulgence, they show [Sidenote: E] fight and temper; but if you reason with them, they give it up peaceably and practise moderation.

13. Cato expelled from the Senate a man who had kissed his own wife in the presence of his daughter. This, perhaps, was too severe a step. But if—as is the case—it is unseemly to be fondling and kissing and embracing each other in company, it is surely more unseemly to be scolding and quarrelling in company, and, while treating your love-passages as a sacred secret between you and your wife, to make an open display of fault-finding [Sidenote: F] and reproach.

14. A mirror,[37] though decorated with gold and precious stones, is of no use unless it shows you your form true to life. Similarly there is no advantage in a rich wife, if her conduct does not represent that of her husband and harmonize with it in character. If the reflection which it offers is glum when you are joyful, but wears a merry grin when you are gloomy and distressed, the mirror is faulty and bad. A wife is a poor thing and out of place if she is in the dumps when her husband is disposed for frolic or love-making, but is all fun and laughter when he is serious. In the former case she is disagreeable; in [Sidenote: 140] the latter, she slights you. Geometers tell us that lines and surfaces make no movement by themselves, but only in conjunction with the bodies to which they belong. In the same way a woman should be free from peculiar states of mind of her own, but should act as the husband’s partner in his earnestness and his jest, in his preoccupation and his laughter.

15. A man who dislikes to see his wife eating with him, teaches her to satisfy her appetite when she gets by herself. Similarly one who is never a merry companion to her, nor shares in her sport and laughter, teaches her to look for private pleasures apart from him.

[Sidenote: B] 16. When the Persian kings are dining or feasting, their legitimate wives sit at their side. But when they wish to amuse themselves or get tipsy, they send those wives away and summon their minstrel-women and concubines. The practice is a right one, at least to the extent that they do not permit their wives to take part in wanton and licentious scenes. So, if a private man, who lacks self-control or good-breeding in his pleasures, is guilty of a lapse with a common woman or a menial, the wife should not be indignant and resentful, but should reflect that, out of respect for her, he finds some other woman to share his riot and lasciviousness.

[Sidenote: C] 17. When kings are fond of music, they make many musicians; when of learning, learned men; when of athletics, gymnasts. So when the love of a husband is for the person, his wife will be all for dress; when for pleasure, she becomes lewd and wanton; when for goodness and virtue, she shows herself discreet and chaste.

18. When a Lacedaemonian girl was once asked whether she had already embraced a man, she answered, ‘No, indeed; but _he_ has embraced _me_.’ Such, I believe, is the right attitude for a lady—not to shun or dislike caresses, when the husband begins them, nor yet to begin them of her own accord. The one course is bold and immodest, the other disdainful and [Sidenote: D] unaffectionate.

19. The woman ought not to possess private friends, but to share those of the man. But first and greatest are the gods, and it is therefore right for the wife to reverence or acknowledge only those gods who are recognized by the husband. Her street-door should be kept shut to out-of-the-way forms of worship and alien superstitions. No deity finds gratification in ceremonies which a woman performs in secret and by stealth.

20. Plato holds that a community is in a state of blissful well-being when the expressions ‘_mine_’ and ‘_not mine_’ are scarcely ever heard, inasmuch as the citizens enjoy, as far as [Sidenote: E] possible, the common use of everything worth considering. Much more ought such language to be abolished from the married state. In the same way, however, in which medical men tell us that a blow on the left side produces an answering sensation in the right, it is proper for a wife to sympathize with her husband’s concerns and the husband with the wife’s. In this way, just as ropes, when interwoven, lend each other strength, so, through each party reciprocating the other’s goodwill, the partnership will be maintained by both combined. Nature blends us through the body in such a way as to take [Sidenote: F] a portion from each, and by commingling produce an offspring common to both, so that neither can define or distinguish an ‘own’ part from ‘another’s’. The same sort of partnership between married persons should assuredly exist in respect of money also. They should pour it all into a single fund, and blend it in such a way that they never think of one part as ‘own’ and one as ‘another’s’, but treat it all as ‘own’ and none of it as ‘another’s’. And as we call a mixture ‘wine’, though it may contain a greater proportion of water, so the property of the house should be said to belong to the man, even though the wife may contribute the larger share.

21. Helen loved wealth, and Paris loved pleasure: Odysseus was wise, and Penelope discreet. Hence the union of the latter [Sidenote: 141] pair was happy and enviable, while that of the former brought upon Greeks and Asiatics an ‘Iliad of Woes’.

22. When the Roman was admonished by his friends for having divorced a wife who was chaste, rich, and beautiful, he stretched out his shoe and remarked: ‘Yes, and this looks fine and new, but no one knows where it chafes me.’ The wife must not rely upon her dowry, her birth, or her beauty. The matters in which she touches her husband most closely are conversation, character, and companionship. Instead of making these harsh and vexatious day after day, she must render them [Sidenote: B] compatible, soothing, and grateful. Physicians are more afraid of fevers which spring from vague causes gradually accumulating, than of those for which there is a great and manifest reason. So it is these little, continual, daily frictions between man and wife, which the world knows nothing of, that do most to create the rifts which ruin married life.

23. King Philip was once enamoured of a Thessalian woman who was charged with bewitching him. Olympias thereupon became eager to get this person into her power. When, upon presenting herself, she not only turned out to be a handsome woman, but spoke with considerable nobility and good sense, [Sidenote: C] Olympias said: ‘Those calumnies are all nonsense! Your witchcraft lies in yourself.’ How irresistible a thing is a married and lawful wife, if, by treating everything—dowry, birth, philtres, the very girdle[38] of Aphrodite—as lying in herself, she conquers affection by means of character and virtue!

24. On another occasion, when a youthful courtier had married a handsome woman of bad repute, Olympias remarked, ‘The fellow has no judgement; otherwise he would not have married with his eyes.’ Marriage should not be made with the eyes; neither should it with the fingers, as it is in the case of some, who reckon up the amount of the dower, instead of calculating the companionable quality, of the wife they are [Sidenote: D] marrying.

25. To young men who are fond of looking at themselves in the mirror Socrates recommended that the ugly should correct their defects by virtue, while the handsome should avoid spoiling their beauty by vice. It is a good thing for the married woman also, while she is holding the mirror, to talk to herself, and, if she is plain, to ask, ‘And what if I show myself indiscreet?’ if beautiful, ‘And what if I show myself discreet as well?’ The plain woman may pride herself on being loved for her character, and the handsome woman on being loved more for her character than her beauty.

26. When the Sicilian despot sent Lysander’s daughters a set of costly mantles and chains, he refused to accept them. ‘These bits of ornaments,’ said he, ‘will rather take from my [Sidenote: E] daughters’ beauty than set it off.’ Lysander, however, was anticipated by Sophocles in the lines:

_Nay, ’twould not seem, poor fool, to beautify,
But to unbeautify, and prove thee wanton._

As Crates used to say, ‘Adornment is that which adorns,’ and that which adorns is that which adds to a woman’s seemliness. This is not done by gold or jewels or scarlet, but by whatever invests her with the badges of dignity, decorum, and modesty.

27. In sacrificing to Hera as goddess of marriage, the gall is not burned with the other portions of the sacrifice, but is [Sidenote: F] taken out and thrown down at the side of the altar—an indirect injunction of the legislator that gall and anger should have no place in the married state. The austerity of the lady of the house, like the dryness of wine, should be wholesome and palatable, not bitter like aloes or unpleasant like a drug.

28. Xenocrates being somewhat harsh in character, though otherwise a high type of man, Plato recommended him to _sacrifice to the Graces_. Now I take it that a woman of strict morals stands in special need of the graces in dealing with her [Sidenote: 142] husband, so that—as Metrodorus used to say—she may live with him on pleasant terms and not ‘in a temper because she is chaste’. A woman should no more forget to be amiable because she is faithful, than to be neat because she is thrifty. Decorum in a woman is rendered as disagreeable by harshness as frugality is by sluttishness.

29. A wife who is afraid to laugh and joke with her husband for fear of seeming bold and wanton, is as bad as the woman who, from fear of being thought to use ointments on her head, does not even oil it,[39] and, to avoid seeming to rouge her face, does not even wash it. We find that when poets and orators avoid appealing to the vulgar by bad taste and affectation in [Sidenote: B] respect of their diction, they practise every art to attract and stir the hearer with their matter, their treatment, and their moral quality. So the lady of the house, because she avoids and deprecates—as she is quite right to do—extravagant or meretricious demonstration, ought all the more to bring the graces of character and conduct into play in dealing with her husband, thus habituating him to proper ways, but in a pleasurable manner. If, however, a wife shows herself strait-laced and rigidly austere, her husband must put the best face upon it. When Antipater required Phocion to perform an improper and [Sidenote: C] degrading action, he answered, ‘I cannot serve you both as your friend and your toady.’ In the same way, when a woman is staid and strait-laced, our reflection should be, ‘The same woman cannot behave to me as both a wife and a mistress.’

30. By a national custom the Egyptian women wore no shoes, so that they might keep at home all day. In the case of most women, to deprive them of gold-worked shoes, bangles, anklets, purple, and pearls, is to make them stay indoors.

31. Theano, in putting on her mantle, once showed a glimpse of her arm. Upon some one saying, ‘A beautiful forearm!’ she retorted, ‘But not for the public!’ A well-conducted woman will keep, not only her forearm, but her speech, from [Sidenote: D] publicity. She will be as shy and cautious about her utterances to the outside world as if they were an exposure of her person, inasmuch as, when she talks, they are a revelation of feelings, character, and disposition.

32. Pheidias, in representing the Elean Aphrodite with her foot upon a tortoise, meant women to take it as a symbol of home-keeping and silence. A woman should talk either to, or through the medium of, her husband; nor should she resent it if, like a player on the clarinet, she finds a more impressive utterance through another tongue than through her own.

33. When rich or royal persons pay respect to a philosopher, they do honour both to themselves and to him. But when a philosopher pays court to rich people, he is not conferring [Sidenote: E] distinction upon them, but lowering his own. The same is the case with women. By submission to their husbands they win regard; by seeking to govern them they demean themselves worse than the men so governed. Meanwhile it is only right that the husband, in controlling the wife, should not be like an owner dealing with a chattel, but like the mind dealing with the body—sympathetic with the sympathy of organic union. It is possible to care for the body without being a slave to its pleasures and desires, and it is possible to rule a wife and yet do things to please and gratify her.