Now I have not told this long story idly or, as some might perhaps infer, with the desire to spin a yarn, but to present an illustration of the manner of life that I adopted at the beginning and of the life of the poor—an illustration drawn from my own experience for anyone who wishes to consider whether in words and deeds and in social intercourse the poor are at a disadvantage in comparison with the rich on account of their poverty, or in every way have the advantage.
And really, when I consider Euripides' words and ask myself whether as a matter of fact the entertainment of strangers is so difficult for them that they can never welcome or succor anyone in need, I find this by no means to be true of their hospitality.
They light a fire more promptly than the rich and guide one on the way without reluctance—indeed, in such matters a sense of self-respect would compel them—and often they share what they have more readily. When will you find a rich man who will give the victim of a shipwreck his wife's or his daughter's purple gown or any article of clothing far cheaper than that: a mantle, for example, or a tunic, though he has thousands of them, or even a cloak from one of his slaves?
Homer too illustrates this, for in Eumaeus he has given us a slave and a poor man who can still welcome Odysseus generously with food and a bed, while the suitors in their wealth and insolence share with him but grudgingly even what belongs to others, and this, I think, is just what Odysseus himself is represented as saying to Antinous when he upbraids him for his churlishness.
Thou wouldst not give a suppliant even salt
In thine own house—thou who, while sitting here,
Fed at another's table, canst not bear
To give me bread from thy well-loaded board.
But granted that such meanness on the suitors' part was in accord with their general depravity, yet how was it with Penelope? Though she was an excellent woman, overjoyed to talk with Odysseus and learn about her husband, Homer does not say that even she gave him a cloak as he sat beside her in a bare tunic, but that she merely promised him one if it turned out that he was telling the truth about Odysseus in saying that he would arrive within the month.
And afterwards, when he asked for the bow, and the suitors, who could not draw it, were angry at him because he had the hardihood to vie with them in prowess, she urged that it be given to him, adding that of course her promise of marriage could not apply to him; but she promised to give him a tunic, cloak, and shoes, if he succeeded in stretching the bow and shooting through the axes; as though he had to bend the bow of Eurytus and become the enemy of all those young men, and perhaps lose his life at their hands then and there, if he was to receive tunic and shoes, or else must produce Odysseus in person, who had not been seen anywhere for twenty years, and within a stated time at that, with the alternative, in case he could do neither, of departing in the same rags out of the presence of the good and prudent daughter royal of Icarius!
Other words of about the same purport Telemachus too addresses to the swineherd regarding Odysseus when he bids the latter to send him to the city as soon as possible that he may beg for alms there, and not to feed him at the steading any longer.
And even if this had been agreed upon between them, yet the swineherd feels no surprise at the treatment and its inhumanity, as though it were the regular procedure to deal with needy strangers thus strictly and meanly and to welcome open-heartedly with gifts and presents only the rich, from whom, of course, the host expected a like return, very much as the present custom is in selecting the recipients of our kindly treatment and preferment; for what seem to be acts of kindliness and favors turn out, when examined rightly, to be loans, and that too at a high rate of interest as a usual thing, if, by heavens, conditions today are not worse than they used to be, just as is the case with every other evil.
Furthermore, I could state in regard to the Phaeacians also and their generosity, in case anyone imagines that their behavior towards Odysseus was neither ungenerous nor unworthy of their wealth, just what motives and reasons induced them to be so open-handed and splendid in their generosity. But what I have said so far about this matter is more than sufficient.
It is certainly clear that wealth does no great service to its owners as regards the entertainment of strangers or otherwise. On the contrary, it is more likely to make them stingy and parsimonious, generally speaking, than poverty is. Even if some man of wealth may be found—one perhaps in a million—who is liberal and magnanimous in character, this by no means conclusively proves that the majority do not become worse in this regard than those whose means are limited.
A poor man, if he be of strong character, finds the little that he has sufficient both to enable him to regain his health when his body has been attacked by an illness not too severe—when, for example, he is visited by the sort of malady that usually attacks hard-working people whenever they overeat—and also to give acceptable gifts to strangers when they come—gifts willingly given that do not arouse the recipient's suspicion or give him offense—perhaps not silver bowls, or embroidered robes, or a four-horse chariot, which were the gifts of Helen and Menelaus to Telemachus.
For the poor man would be unlikely to have such guests to welcome as satraps or kings, for instance, unless they were very temperate and good men in whose eyes no gift is inadequate which is prompted by affection.
But guests that are dissolute and tyrannical they would neither be able, I suppose, to serve acceptably nor, perhaps, would they care to extend such hospitality. For it surely did not turn out any better for Menelaus that he was able to receive the wealthiest prince of Asia as a guest and that nobody else in Sparta was equal to entertaining the son of King Priam. For, mark you, that prince despoiled his home, appropriated his wife as well as his treasures, left the daughter motherless, and sailed away.
And after that Menelaus wasted a great deal of time traveling all over Greece bewailing his misfortunes and begging every king in turn to help him. He was forced also to implore his brother to give his daughter to be sacrificed at Aulis. Then for ten years he sat fighting in Troy-land, where again both he and his brother kept cajoling the leaders of the army. When this was not done, the soldiers would grow angry and on every occasion would threaten to sail for home. Besides, he endured many hardships and dire perils, after which he wandered about and was able to reach his home only after infinite trouble.
Is it not, then, most unfitting to admire wealth as the poet does and regard it as really worth seeking? He says that its greatest good lies in giving to guests and, when any who are used to luxury come to one's house, being in a position to offer them lodging and set such tokens of hospitality before them as would please them most.
And in advancing these views we cite the poets, not to gainsay them idly nor because we are envious for their reputation for wisdom that they have won by their poems; no, it is not for these reasons we covet the honor of showing them to be wrong, but because we think that it is in them especially that we shall find the thought and feeling of men generally, just what the many think about wealth and the other objects of their admiration, and what they consider would be the greatest good derived from each of them.
For it is evident that men would not love the poets so passionately nor extol them as wise and good and exponents of the truth if the poetry did not echo their own sentiments nor express their own views.
Since, then, it is not possible to take each member of the multitude aside and show him his error or to cross-question everybody in turn by saying, "How is it, sir, that you fear poverty so exceedingly and exalt riches so highly?" and again, "What great profit do you expect to win if you happen to have amassed wealth or, let us say, to have turned merchant or even become a king?" Such a procedure would involve infinite trouble and is altogether impracticable.
Therefore, because we must, let us go to their prophets and spokesmen, the poets, with the conviction that we shall find among them the beliefs of the many clearly put and enshrined in verse; and in truth I do not think that we fall very far short of our object in so doing. And our present procedure, I believe, is the usual one even with men wiser than myself.
Indeed, one very great philosopher has expressly contradicted the sentiments contained in these same lines of Euripides, and he is a man whom I think no one would ever accuse of contradicting them and Sophocles' words about wealth in any spirit of captiousness. He objects briefly in the former instance but in more detail in the case of Sophocles, and yet not at great length as we are now doing, since he was not discussing the question ex tempore with an orator's full privilege but was writing in a book. . . .
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