Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 8

Now what I have to say next is, I imagine, apparent to every man and perhaps often remarked—that dyeing and perfumery, along with the dressing of men's and women's hair—nearly the same for both sexes today—and practically all adorning, not only of clothing, but even of the hair and skin by the use of alkanet, white lead, and all kinds of chemicals in the attempt to counterfeit youthfulness, make a spurious image of the person. 

And further, the decorating of the roofs, walls, and floor of houses, now with paints, now with precious stones, here with gold and there with ivory, and, again, with carving of the walls themselves—that as for these occupations, the best thing would be that cities should admit none of them at all, but that for us in our present discussion the next best thing would be to rule that none of our poor should adopt any such trade; for we are at present contending against the rich as if with a chorus, and the contest is not for happiness—that is not the prize set before poverty, or before wealth either, but is the especial reward of virtue alone—no, it is for a certain manner of life and moderation therein. 

Furthermore, we shall not permit our poor to become tragic or comic actors or creators of immoderate laughter by means of certain mimes, or dancers or chorus men either. We except, however, the sacred choruses, but not if they represent the sorrows of Niobe or Thyestes by song or dance. Nor shall the poor become harpers or flute players contending for victory in the theaters, even if we shall offend certain distinguished cities by so doing, cities such as Smyrna or Chios, for example, and, of course, Argos too, for not permitting the glory of Homer and Agamemnon to be magnified, at least so far as we can help it. 

Perhaps the Athenians also will have a grievance because they believe that we are disparaging their poets, tragic and comic, when we deprive them of their assistants, claiming that there is nothing good in their calling. It is likely that the Thebans too will be resent­ful, on the ground that indignity is being offered their victory in flute-playing which was awarded them by Greece. They cherished that victory so dearly that when their city had been destroyed—almost as it remains today except for a small part, the Cadmea, which is still inhabited—they cared nothing for the other things that had disappeared, for the many temples, many columns and inscriptions, but the Hermes they hunted out and set up again because the inscription about the contest in flute playing was engraved upon it. 

Greece awarded to Thebes the victory in playing on flute pipes. 

And now in the middle of the old marketplace stands this one statue surrounded by ruins. But we shall have no fear of any of these people nor of those who will charge us with disparaging the things which the Greeks cherish as most important, but shall declare that all such activities have no place with self-respecting or free men, holding that many evils are due to them, the greatest of which certainly is shamelessness, that overweening pride on the part of the populace, for which arrogance would be a better name. 

Neither should our poor become auctioneers or proclaimers of rewards for the arrest of thieves or runaways, shouting in the streets and marketplace with great vulgarity, or scriveners who draw up contracts and summonses or, in general, documents that have to do with trials and complaints, and claim knowledge of legal forms; nor must they be learned and clever pettifogging lawyers, who pledge their services to all alike for a fee, even to the greatest scoundrels, and undertake to defend unblushingly other men's crimes, and to rage and rant and beg mercy for men who are neither their friends nor kinsmen, though in some cases these advocates bear a high report among their fellow citizens as most honorable and distinguished men. 

No, we shall allow none of our poor to adopt such professions but shall leave these to the other sort. For though some of them must of necessity become handcraftsmen, there is no necessity that they should become tongue-craftsmen and law-craftsmen.

Still, if any of the occupations of which I have been speaking, and shall yet speak, seem to have their useful place in our cities as they do in these now existing, such as perhaps the registering of judgments and contracts, and perhaps certain proclamations, it is not now the place for us to determine how and by whom these needs shall be met with the least harm. For we are not at present mapping out the form of government that would be best, or better than many, but we did set out to discuss poverty and to show that its case is not hopeless, as the majority think, but that it affords many opportunities of making a living that are neither unseemly nor injurious to men who are willing to work with their hands. 

Indeed, it was with that very premise that we were led to tell that quite lengthy tale at the beginning about life among farmers and hunters, and to speak now about city occupations, defining those that are befitting and not harmful to men who are not to live on the lowest plane, and those which degrade the men who are employed in them. 

Further, if much that I have said is, in general, serviceable in molding public policy and assisting in a proper choice, then there is the greater reason for pardoning the length of my discourse, because I have not dragged it out in idle wandering or talk about useless things. For the study of employments and trades and, in general, of the life fitting or otherwise for ordinary people has proved to be, in and of itself, worthy of a great deal of very careful research. The hearer should therefore not be annoyed at digressions even if they do seem excessively long, if only they are not about trivial or unworthy or irrelevant things, since the speaker has not abandoned the real theme of the whole provided he treats of the matters that are essential and pertinent to philosophy. 

Probably if we imitated the hunter in this we should not go far astray. When he picks up his first trail and, following it, all at once comes upon another that is clearer and fresher, he does not hesitate to follow up this latter and then, after bagging his game, goes back to the first trail. 

Neither should we, perhaps, find fault with a man who set out to discuss the just man and justice and then, having mentioned a city for the sake of illustration, expatiated at much greater length on the constitution of a state and did not grow weary until he had enumerated all the variations and the kinds of such organizations, setting forth very clearly and magnificently the features characteristic of each; even though he does find critics here and there who take him to task for the length of his discussion and the time spent upon "the illustration, forsooth!" 

But if the criticism be that his remarks on the state have no bearing on the matter in hand and that not the least light has been thrown on the subject of investigation which led him into the discussion at the start—for these reasons, if for any, it is not altogether unfair to call him to task. 

So if we too shall be found to be expounding matters that are not pertinent or germane to the question before us, then we might be found guilty of prolixity. But, strictly speaking, it is not fair on other grounds to commend or to criticize either length or brevity in a discourse. . . . 

Vivekachudamani 16-34

THE FOUR PERFECTIONS 

He is ripe to seek the Self who is full of knowledge and wisdom, reason and discernment, and who bears the well-known marks. 

He is ready to seek the Eternal who has Discernment and Dispassion; who has Restfulness and the other graces. 

Four perfections are numbered by the wise. When they are present there is success, but in their absence is failure. 

First is counted the Discernment between things lasting and unlasting. Next Dispassion, the indifference to self-indulgence here and in paradise. Then the Six Graces, beginning with Restfulness. Then the longing for Freedom. 

A certainty like this—the Eternal is real, the fleeting world is unreal—this is that Discernment between things lasting and unlasting. 

And this is Dispassion—a perpetual willingness to give up all sensual self-indulgence—everything lower than the Eternal, through a constant sense of their insufficiency. 

Then the Six Graces: a steady intentness of the mind on its goal—this is Restfulness.

And the steadying of the powers that act and perceive, each in its own sphere, turning them back from sensuality—this is Self-control. 

Then the raising of the mind above external things—this is the true Withdrawal. 

The enduring of all ills without petulance and without self-pity—this is the right Endurance. 

An honest confidence in the teaching and the Teacher—this is that Faith by which the treasure is gained. 

The intentness of the soul on the pure Eternal—this is right Meditation, but not the indulgence of fancy. 

The wish to untie, by discernment of their true nature, all the bonds woven by unwisdom, the bonds of selfishness and sensuality—this is the longing for Freedom. 

Though at first imperfect, these qualities gradually growing through Dispassion, Restfulness, and the other graces and the Teacher's help will gain their due. 

When Dispassion and longing for Freedom are strong, then Restfulness and the other graces will bear fruit. 

But when these two—Dispassion and longing for Freedom—are lacking, then Restfulness and the other graces are a mere appearance, like water in the desert. 

Chief among the causes of Freedom is devotion, the intentness of the soul on its own nature. Or devotion may be called intentness on the reality of the Self. 

Let him who possesses these Perfections and who would learn the reality of the Self, approach the wise Teacher, the Higher Self, from whom comes the loosing of bonds; who is full of knowledge and perfect; who is not beaten by desire, who really knows the Eternal; who has found rest in the Eternal, at peace like a fuelless fire; who is full of selfless kindness, the friend of all that lives. Serving the Teacher with devotion and aspiration for the Eternal, and finding harmony with him, seek the needed knowledge of the Self. 

IMAGE: Raja Ravi Varma, Adi Shankara with Disciples (c. 1904) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.37

M. If, then, honor and riches have no value, what is there else to be afraid of? 
 
Banishment, I suppose; which is looked on as the greatest evil. Now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the people, I have just now declared how contemptible it is. But if to leave one’s country be miserable, the provinces are full of miserable men, very few of the settlers in which ever return to their country again. 
 
But exiles are deprived of their property! What, then! Has there not been enough said on bearing poverty? But with regard to banishment, if we examine the nature of things, not the ignominy of the name, how little does it differ from constant travelling! In which some of the most famous philosophers have spent their whole life, as Xenocrates, Crantor, Arcesilas, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, Panaetius, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Posidonius, and innumerable others, who from their first setting-out never returned home again. 
 
Now, what ignominy can a wise man be affected with (for it is of such a one that I am speaking) who can be guilty of nothing which deserves it? For there is no occasion to comfort one who is banished for his deserts. Lastly, they can easily reconcile themselves to every accident who measure all their objects and pursuits in life by the standard of pleasure; so that in whatever place that is supplied, there they may live happily. Thus what Teucer said may be applied to every case:
 
“Wherever I am happy is my country.” 
 
Socrates, indeed, when he was asked where he belonged to, replied, “The world;” for he looked upon himself as a citizen and inhabitant of the whole world. 
 
How was it with T. Altibutius? Did he not follow his philosophical studies with the greatest satisfaction at Athens, although he was banished? Which, however, would not have happened to him if he had obeyed the laws of Epicurus and lived peaceably in the republic. 
 
In what was Epicurus happier, living in his own country, than Metrodorus, who lived at Athens? Or did Plato’s happiness exceed that of Xenocrates, or Polemo, or Arcesilas? Or is that city to be valued much that banishes all her good and wise men? 
 
Demaratus, the father of our King Tarquin, not being able to bear the tyrant Cypselus, fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, settled there, and had children. Was it, then, an unwise act in him to prefer the liberty of banishment to slavery at home? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.37 
 
I have often wondered if exile could still be a fitting form of punishment, though I’m not sure how it would work in our far more crowded world. We seem to be rather fond of locking people up if they don’t play nice, when it can be argued that firmly asking them to leave is both just and effective. If you tell me I read too much history, I will politely suggest we don’t read nearly enough. 
 
It doesn’t help, of course, to have a nostalgic and melancholic personality, fueled, over the years, by tragic tales of brooding Jacobites forever cast out from their native land. Perhaps you will at least grant me that banishment is a far more gentlemanly sentence than being left to rot in a cage? 
 
Yet a Greek or a Roman would still find this a terrible price to pay, for what is a man if he is ripped from his native soil? How is the tree to survive without its roots? Even in our day and age, when people tend to change their locations almost as often as they acquire new lovers, homesickness can cripple the toughest among us. The pain of it is slow and subtle, but it is sharp and certain. 
 
Cicero was hardly one of the Stoics, but he had no difficulty in enlisting their arguments to support a truth held in common by all the Wisdom Traditions: our happiness if measured by our character, and not by our circumstances. While pain, sometimes quite severe, will accompany any form of loss, it is our nature to seek out the true and the good, and to enlist all conditions, whether or not they happen to be convenient, in service to the virtues. Any obstacle to the body becomes another opportunity for the soul. 
 
And so exile is yet another one of those aspects of fortune, like pleasure, money, or fame, that is meant to be transformed into something greater. If others choose to shun me, that is on them, and I should not define myself by their opinions. If I choose to succumb to grief, that is on me, and I need only correct my opinion to restore my serenity. This will be as easy, or as difficult, as I allow it to be. 
 
If I have indeed committed a wrong, then I rightly deserve the penalty, which I should accept as a chance to humbly pay my debts. If I am convinced that I have committed no wrong, then the disservice done to me is now just a further occasion to prove my worth, to act with even greater dignity in the face of iniquity. If I understand my place within the whole, I know why wisdom can suffer no harm, and why ignorance is always bereft of benefits. 
 
It is easy to go with the flow of entitlement and resentment, yet it is a real test of conscience to offer love in the face of hatred. When I am struggling with the challenge of being evicted, of being told I am no longer welcome, I can think of the countless witnesses, whether celebrated or unsung, who refused to let their worth be bound to a single place, or to sell their loyalties for comforts. They saw their travels as adventures, not as burdens. 
 
What can they take away from me? Everything expect my integrity, which is entirely beyond their reach. Where is my true home? It is to be found wherever I can practice the virtues, in the city or in the wilderness. Can I be happy among strangers? The genuine citizens of the world will recognize and respect one another whenever they meet, whatever the color of their flags, even as the bigots continue to hide behind their walls. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Briton Riviere, An Exile of the '45 (c. 1880) 

Dhammapada 407

Him I call indeed a Brahmana from whom anger and hatred, pride and envy have dropped like a mustard seed from the point of a needle. 

Bach 2, Christ lag in Todesbanden

Johann Sebastian Bach, Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4, Netherlands Bach Society 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 37

Being asked if the wise eat cakes, "Yes," Diogenes said, "cakes of all kinds, just like other men." 

Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy." 

He was begging of a miserly man who was slow to respond; so he said, "My friend, it's for food that I'm asking, not for funeral expenses." 

Being reproached one day for having falsified the currency, he said, "That was the time when I was such as you are now; but such as I am now, you will never be." 

To another who reproached him for the same offense he made a more scurrilous repartee. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.56 

IMAGE: Carlo Dolci, Diogenes (c. 1650) 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 77

Furthermore, the wise man does all things well, just as we say that Ismenias plays all airs on the flute well. 

Also, everything belongs to the wise. For the law, they say, has conferred upon them a perfect right to all things. 

It is true that certain things are said to belong to the bad, just as what has been dishonestly acquired may be said, in one sense, to belong to the state, in another sense to those who are enjoying it. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.125 

Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 7

Now so much for the life of the farmer, the hunter, and the shepherd. Perhaps I have spent more time on this theme than I should have done, but I desired to show in some way or other that poverty is no hopeless impediment to a life and existence befitting free men who are willing to work with their hands, but leads them on to deeds and actions that are far better and more useful and more in accordance with nature than those to which riches are wont to attract most men. 

Well then, it would now be our duty to consider the life and occupations of poor men who live in the capital or some other city, and see by what routine of life and what pursuits they will be able to live a really good life, one not inferior to that of men who lend out money at excessive rates of interest and understand very well the calculation of days and months, nor to that of those who own large tenement houses and ships and slaves in great numbers! 

For the poor of this type suitable work may perhaps be hard to find in the cities, and will need to be supplemented by outside resources when they have to pay house rent and buy everything they get, not merely clothes, household belongings, and food, but even the wood to supply the daily need for fire, and even any odd sticks, leaves, or other most trifling thing they need at any time, and when they are compelled to pay money for everything but water, since everything is kept under lock and key, and nothing is exposed to the public except, of course, the many expensive things for sale. 

It will perhaps seem hard for men to subsist under such conditions who have no other possession than their own bodies, especially as we do not advise them to take any kind of work that offers for all kinds indiscriminately from which it is possible to make some money. So perhaps we shall be forced in our discussion to banish the respectable poor from the cities in order to make our cities in reality cities "well-inhabited," as Homer calls them, where only the prosperous dwell, and we shall not allow any free laborer, apparently, within the walls. 

But what shall we do with all these poor people? Shall we scatter them in settlements in the country as the Athenians are said to have been spread all over Attica in early times and again later when Pisistratus became tyrant? That mode of life did not prove disadvantageous to the Athenians of that time, nor did it produce a degenerate breed of citizens either, but men in every way better and more temperate than those who later on got their living in the city as ecclesiasts, jurymen, and clerks—a lazy and at the same time ignoble crowd. 

It will not, therefore, cause any great and dire peril if all these respectable poor shall become by any end and every means rustics, but nevertheless I think that even in the city they will not fail to make a living. 

But let us see what the variety and nature of the occupations are which they are to follow in order to live in what we believe is the proper way and not be often compelled to turn to something unworthy because they are out of work. The occupations and trades in the city, if all are taken into consideration, are many and of all kinds, and some of them are very profitable for those who engage in them, if one thinks of money when he says "profitable." But it is not easy to name them all separately on account of their multitude, and equally because that would be out of place here. 

Therefore, let this brief criticism and praise of them suffice: all which are injurious to the body by impairing its health or by preventing the maintenance of its adequate strength through their inactive or sedentary character, or which engender in the soul either turpitude or illiberality or, in general, are useless and good for nothing since they owe their origin to the silly luxury of the cities—these cannot properly be called trades or occupations at all. 

For Hesiod, a wise man, would never have commended all occupations alike if he had thought that any evil or disgraceful thing was entitled to that name—so where any of these evils, be it what it may, is attached to these activities, no self-respecting and honorable man should himself have anything to do with them or know anything about them or teach them to his sons, for he knows that he will not be what either Hesiod or we mean by "workman" if he engages in any such business, but will incur the shameful reproach of being an idler living on disgraceful gains and hear himself bluntly called sordid, good for nothing, and wicked. 

But, on the other hand, where the occupations are not unbecoming to those who follow them and create no evil condition in their souls nor injure their health by indu­cing, among other diseases, physical weakness in particular, sluggishness, and softness on account of the almost complete lack of exercise, and, further, enable one to make a satisfactory living—the men who engage zealously and industriously in any of these will never lack work and a living from it, nor will they give the rich any justification for calling them the "poor class," as is their wont; on the contrary, they will be rather purveyors to the rich and lack practically nothing that is necessary and useful. 

Now without describing in detail each and every occupation, but simply offering a general outline, let us mention in these two classes the kinds we do not approve of, giving our reasons, and the kinds we urge men to undertake without hesitation. 

Let them pay no heed to those idle objectors who are wont often to sneer obviously not only at a man's occupation when it has nothing at all objectionable in it, but even at that of his parents, when, for instance, his mother was once on occasion someone's hired servant or a harvester of grapes, or was a paid wet nurse for a motherless child or a rich man's, or when his father was a schoolmaster or a tutor. 

Let them, I say, feel no shame before such persons but go right ahead. For if they refer to such things, they will simply be mentioning them as indications of poverty, evidently abusing and holding up poverty itself as something evil and unfortunate, and not any of these occupations. 

Therefore, since we maintain that to be poor is no worse and no more unfortunate than to be rich, and perhaps no less advantageous to many, the sneer at one's occupation ought not to give any greater offense than the sneer at one's poverty. 

You see, if, without mentioning the thing with which they found fault, they had to bring up and denounce the things it caused from day to day, they would have a great many more and really disgraceful things caused by the possession of wealth to bring up, and not least of all what in Hesiod is adjudged the greatest shame, namely, the charge of idleness, and exclaim, "Sir, never a delver did the gods make thee, nor a plowman," adding, "In vain hast thou hands; soft and tender are they like those of the suitors." . . . 

Songs of Innocence 7

The Chimney Sweeper (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. 
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lambs back, was shaved, so I said,
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black. 

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.36

M. Let us inquire, then, if obscurity, the want of power, or even the being unpopular, can prevent a wise man from being happy. Observe if popular favor, and this glory which they are so fond of, be not attended with more uneasiness than pleasure. 
 
Our friend Demosthenes was certainly very weak in declaring himself pleased with the whisper of a woman who was carrying water, as is the custom in Greece, and who whispered to another, “That is he—that is Demosthenes.” What could be weaker thanthis? and yet what an orator he was! But although he had learned to speak to others, he had conversed but little with himself. 
 
We may perceive, therefore, that popular glory is not desirable of itself; nor is obscurity to be dreaded. “I came to Athens,” saith Democritus, “and there was no one there that knew me.” This was a moderate and grave man who could glory in his obscurity. 
 
Shall musicians compose their tunes to their own tastes? And shall a philosopher, master of a much better art, seek to ascertain, not what is most true, but what will please the people? Can anything be more absurd than to despise the vulgar as mere unpolished mechanics, taken singly, and to think them of consequence when collected into a body? 
 
These wise men would condemn our ambitious pursuits and our vanities, and would reject all the honors which the people could voluntarily offer to them; but we know not how to despise them until we begin to repent of having accepted them. 
 
There is an anecdote related by Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, of Hermodorus, the chief of the Ephesians, that he said “that all the Ephesians ought to be punished with death for saying, when they had expelled Hermodorus out of their city, that they would have no one among them better than another; but that if there were any such, he might go elsewhere to some other people.” 
 
Is not this the case with the people everywhere? Do they not hate every virtue that distinguishes itself? What! Was not Aristides (I had rather instance in the Greeks than ourselves) banished from his country for being eminently just? 
 
What troubles, then, are they free from who have no connection whatever with the people? What is more agreeable than a learned retirement? I speak of that learning which makes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature and the Universe, and which even while we remain in this world discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.36 
 
I can categorize the many diversions in any way I wish, but what they all share in common is a turning away from our essence to a fixation on accidents. When I am unwilling to fulfill my human calling, I seek to replace it with a dazzling array of amusements and trinkets, hoping they will somehow fill the void and drown out the silence. I call myself liberated when I am bound by gratification, and I claim to be a professional when I am entranced by busywork. 
 
While I may think that a craving for fame only entraps the those consumed by the most extreme vanity, we are all tempted to define ourselves by recognition, whether big or small. If I have no confidence in being myself, for my own sake, it feels so much easier to rely on the approval of others, to find security in the herd. If my worth flows from popular opinion, I fear that is a sign of weakness, not of strength. 
 
Like Demosthenes, we get caught up in playing a game, mistaking image for integrity. We weave an elaborate web of deception, which is compounded by assuming that impressing ever more people will increase our significance, and so the performance grows ever more intricate, and ridiculous, by the day. In such a setting, which of us still has the courage to be like Democritus, to become indifferent to the superficial moods of the crowd? 
 
Praise will come, and praise will go, and as much as we may prefer to be celebrated, renown can be one possible consequence of honor, but it can never be the cause of honor. If it happens to come, accept the compliment as an encouragement to live well, and if it happens to go, also take that rejection as an encouragement to live well. How foolish to suggest that a man becomes noble by suddenly winning the favor of ten thousand base followers! 
 
While I here run the grave risk of sounding like a snob, it simply needs to be said: nothing has ever become true, or good, or beautiful because some majority granted it their support. A flourishing democracy would require that the many choose to follow the virtues, just as a flourishing monarchy would require that the one chooses to follow the virtues; we are just as much in danger of the mob as we are of the tyrant. 
 
Indeed, where the frenzied masses gather together, it is so easy for the one to surrender his will to the pressures of conformity. A carefully informed conscience is the sole remedy, and that can only happen at the level of individual judgment, from the bottom up, and never from the top down. I am immediately suspicious when I am told to comply to the fashion of the hour, simply because I know how fickle our passions can be, especially when crammed into confined spaces. 
 
There is no shame in being a rhetorician, or even a politician, as long as one can first be a philosopher. Have you ever felt like Hermodorus, shunned for not being exactly the same as everyone else? Of course you have, and that has been a wonderful gift, the key to discovering your own peace of mind. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Eugene Delacroix, Demosthenes Declaiming by the Seashore (1859) 

Cosmos 20

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 183

Fortune has no lawful control over men's morals. 

IMAGE: Francesco Rosaspina, Allegory of Fortitude (c. 1820) 

Weirdness

Michael Leunig 79

Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 6

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. . . . 

Maxims of Goethe 75

Scholars are generally malignant when they are refuting others; and if they think a man is making a mistake, they straightway look upon him as their mortal enemy. 

IMAGE: Guido Reni, Cupids Fighting Putti (c. 1625) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.35

M. They report of Timotheus, a famous man at Athens, and the head of the city, that having supped with Plato, and being extremely delighted with his entertainment, on seeing him the next day, he said, “Your suppers are not only agreeable while I partake of them, but the next day also.” Besides, the understanding is impaired when we are full with overeating and drinking. 
 
There is an excellent epistle of Plato to Dion’s relations, in which there occurs as nearly as possible these words: “When I came there, that happy life so much talked of, devoted to Italian and Syracusan entertainments, was noways agreeable to me; to be crammed twice a day, and never to have the night to yourself, and the other things which are the accompaniments of this kind of life, by which a man will never be made the wiser, but will be rendered much less temperate; for it must be an extraordinary disposition that can be temperate in such circumstances.” 
 
How, then, can a life be pleasant without prudence and temperance? Hence you discover the mistake of Sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the Assyrians, who ordered it to be engraved on his tomb, 
 
“I still have what in food I did exhaust; 
But what I left, though excellent, is lost.” 
 
“What less than this,” says Aristotle, “could be inscribed on the tomb, not of a king, but an ox?” He said that he possessed those things when dead, which, in his lifetime, he could have no longer than while he was enjoying them. 
 
Why, then, are riches desired? And wherein does poverty prevent us from being happy? In the want, I imagine, of statues, pictures, and diversions. But if anyone is delighted with these things, have not the poor people the enjoyment of them more than they who are the owners of them in the greatest abundance? For we have great numbers of them displayed publicly in our city. 
 
And whatever store of them private people have, they cannot have a great number, and they but seldom see them, only when they go to their country seats; and some of them must be stung to the heart when they consider how they came by them. 
 
The day would fail me, should I be inclined to defend the cause of poverty. The thing is manifest; and nature daily informs us how few things there are, and how trifling they are, of which she really stands in need. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.35 
 
While my college was expert at putting on grand airs, its culture had become hopelessly vulgar, so my social life during those four years involved searching for some genuine friends I would never find. The ritual of partying, in a gaudy 1980’s style, would define the entire week, and it quickly proved tiresome. Despite what Animal House had promised me, the constant pursuit of booze and sex turned out to not be so fulfilling after all. There was much intelligence, and a great deal of money, but also a dearth of conscience to give it any meaning and purpose. 
 
The Greeks had their elaborate banquets, and my neighbors have lately been inviting me on their boisterous pub crawls, and I’m afraid I no longer find the appeal in either of them. I am hardly prudish, though I am slowly learning to be prudent; I am admitting to myself that temperance need not be a dirty word. Beyond any lofty moralizing, there is the practical insight that pleasure can just as easily be a curse as it can be a blessing, for happiness requires carefully taking a few steps back. 
 
I recall the odd claim of a good night being the one you couldn’t remember, yet even Epicurus would tell me why the best night is the one that never ceases to bring joy. I wonder how much of the craze for gratification is more about hiding from our humanity than embracing it, a surrender rather than of a victory, slavery instead of liberation. It will be far too late once my feasting becomes like that of Belshazzar. The writing is on the wall. 
 
The danger is not in pleasure, but in pleasure divorced from understanding. It is not in luxury, but in luxury lacking charity. It is not in wealth, but in wealth without character. It is not in fame, but in fame devoid of responsibility. Aristotle was quite right to condemn Sardanapalus, who abandoned the life of a man in favor of the life of a beast, and whose various proclamations about the merits of decadence sound so awfully familiar to my modern ears. 
 
And although we may prize beautiful things, where do we get the idea that owning them makes them any more beautiful, or clinging to such things on the outside makes us any better on the inside? Boethius argued much the same, when he explained how our possessions are quite accidental to our true worth: “They do not become valuable by reason that they have come into your wealth, but you have desired to count them among your wealth, because they seemed valuable.” 
 
If it is there for all to enjoy, the title makes no difference, and if it must be hidden away from prying eyes and greedy hands, where is the enjoyment in that? Whenever I have found myself with a craving for property, I have also, deep down inside, known it to be a pathetic substitution, a compensation for what I lack in character. The problem isn’t so much if anyone else will find out, as it is how long I can keep deceiving myself. 
 
Cicero was far from being a poor man, and he thankfully did not play the hypocritical game, like those fat churchmen, of praising poverty while living it large. He was, however, fully aware why his circumstances had nothing to do with his virtues, and therefore they did not determine his happiness. Riches and standing have served us well if they can help us to perceive why we don’t really need them. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Belshazzar's Feast (c. 1635) 

Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 5

Now he had hardly ended when we were at the huts, and laughing I said, "But you have hidden from your fellow-citizens one thing, the fairest of your possessions." "What is that?" said he. "This garden," I replied, "very pretty indeed with all its vegetables and trees." "There was not any then," he said; "we made it afterwards." 

Then we entered and feasted the rest of the day, we reclining on boughs and skins that made a high bed and the wife sitting beside her husband. But a daughter of marriageable age served the food and poured us a sweet dark wine to drink; and the boys prepared the meat, helping themselves as they passed it around, so that I could not help deeming these people fortunate and thinking that of all the men that I knew, they lived the happiest lives.⁠ 

And yet I knew the homes and tables of rich men, of satraps and kings as well as of private individuals; but then they seemed to me the most wretched of all; and though they had so appeared before, yet I felt this the more strongly as I beheld the poverty and free spirit⁠ of the humble cottagers and noted that they lacked naught of the joy of eating and drinking, nay, that even in these things they had, one might almost say, the better of it. 

We were almost already well enough supplied when that other man entered, accompanied by his son, a prepossessing lad who carried a hare. The latter on entering commenced to blush; and while his father was welcoming us, he himself kissed the maiden and gave her the hare. The child then ceased serving and sat down beside her mother while the boy served in her stead. 

"Is she the one," I enquired of my host, "whose tunic you took off and gave to the shipwrecked man?" "No," said he with a smile, "that daughter was married long ago and already has grown‑up children. Her husband is a rich man living in a village." 

"And do they help you when you need anything?" I enquired. "We do not need anything," replied the wife, "but they get game from us whenever we catch any, and fruit and vegetables, for they have no garden. Last year we borrowed some wheat just for seed, but we repaid them as soon as harvest time was come." 

"Tell me," said I, "do you intend to marry this girl also to a rich man that she too may lend you wheat?" At this the two blushed, the girl as well as the boy. 

"She will have a poor man for a husband," said the father, "a hunter like ourselves," and with a smile he glanced at the young man. And I said, "But why do you not give her away at once? Must her husband come from some village or other?" 

"I have an idea," he replied, "that he is not far off; nay, he is here in this house, and we shall celebrate the marriage when we have picked out a good day." "And how do you determine the good day?" said I. And he replied, "When the moon is not in a quarter;⁠ the air must be clear too, and the weather fine." 

And then I said, "Tell me, is he really a good hunter?" "I am," cried the youth; "I can run down a deer and face the charge of a boar. You shall see tomorrow, stranger, if you wish it." 

"And did you catch this hare?" said I. "Yes," he replied, laughing—"with my net during the night, for the sky was very beauti­ful, and the moon was never so big before." Then the two men laughed, not only the girl's father but his also. As for him, he felt ashamed and became silent.

Then the girl's father said, "Well, my boy, it is not I who am delaying you, but your father is waiting until he can go and buy a victim, for we must sacrifice to the gods." At this point the girl's younger brother interrupted, saying, "Why, this fellow got a victim long ago. It is being fattened in there behind the hut, and a fine animal it is." 

"Is it really so?" they asked him, and he said "Yes." "And where did you get it?" they enquired. "When we caught the wild sow that had the young ones, they all escaped but one. They ran more swiftly than the hare," he added. "One, however, I hit with a stone, caught, and covered with my leather jerkin. I exchanged it in the village and got a young pig for it. Then I made a sty out behind and raised it." 

"So that is the reason why your mother would laugh," exclaimed the father, "when I used to wonder on hearing the pig grunt, and you were using the barley so freely." "Well," he replied, "the chestnuts⁠ were not enough to fatten her,⁠ supposing she had been willing to eat nuts without anything else. But if you wish to see her, I will go and fetch her in." And they bade him do so. 

So he and the boys were off at once on the run full of glee. Meanwhile the girl had risen and brought from another hut some sliced sorb apples, medlars, winter apples, and swelling clusters of fine grapes, and placed them on the table after wiping off the stains from the meat with leaves and putting some clean fern beneath. 

Then the boys came in laughing and full of fun, leading the pig, and with them followed the young man's mother and two small brothers. They brought white loaves of wheaten bread, boiled eggs in wooden platters, parched chickpeas. 

After the woman had greeted her brother and her niece, his daughter, she sat down beside her husband and said, "See, there is the victim which that boy has long been feeding for his wedding day, and everything else is ready on our side. The barley and wheaten flour have been ground; only perhaps we shall need a little more wine. This too we can easily get from the village." 

And close beside her stood her son, glancing at his future father-in‑law. He smiled at the lad and said, "There is the one who is holding things up. I believe he wants to fatten the pig a bit more." The young man replied, "Why, she is ready to burst with fat." 

And wishing to help him, I said, "take care that your young man doesn't get thin while the pig gets fat." "Our guest speaks well," said the mother, "for he has already grown thinner than I have ever seen him before; and I noticed a short time ago that he was wakeful in the night and went out of the hut." 

"The dogs were barking," the young man interrupted, "and I went out to see." "No, you did not," said she, "but you were walking around distraught. So don't let us permit him to be tortured any longer." 

And throwing her arms about the girl's mother she kissed her; and the latter, turning to her husband, said, "Let us do as they wish." This they decided to do and said, "Let us have the wedding the day after tomorrow." 

They also invited me to stay over,  and I did so gladly, at the same time reflecting on the character of weddings and other things among the rich, on the matchmakers, the scrutinies of property and birth, the dowries, the gifts from the bridegroom, the promises and deceptions, the contracts and agreements, and, finally, the wranglings and enmities that often occur at the wedding itself. . . .