Plutarch, De capienda ex inimicis utilitate, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 5

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[5] As often as Plato ¹ found himself in the company of persons whose conduct was unseemly, he was wont to say to himself, Is it possible that I am like them ? But if the man who reviles another’s ² life will at once carefully inspect his own, and readjust it by directing and turning it aside into the opposite course, he will have gained something useful from this reviling, which, otherwise, not only gives the impression of being useless and inane, but is so in fact.

Now most people laugh if a man who is bald or hump-backed reviles and jeers at others for being in such case; for it is altogether ridiculous to indulge in reviling and jeering at anything that affords to another the opportunity for a caustic retort. For example, Leo ³ of Byzantium, being reviled by a humpback for the weakness of his eyes, said, You reproach me with that which can happen to any man, while you bear on your back the mark of God’s wrath! Do not therefore ever revile an adulterer when you yourself are given to unnatural lust, nor a profligate when you yourself are stingy.

Own kin are you of her who slew her spouse

are the words of Alcmeon to Adrastus. What then does Adrastus say ? He reproaches the speaker with a shameful deed which is not another’s but all his own:

But you yourself slew her who gave you birth.⁴

Domitius remarked to Crassus, Did you not weep at the death of a lamprey ⁵ which was being kept for you in a fish-pond ? And the other replied, Did you not bury three wives and not shed a tear ? The man who is going to indulge in reviling need not be smart and loud-voiced and aggressive, but he must be irreproachable and unimpeachable. For upon nobody does the divine power seem so to enjoin the precept, Know thyself, as upon him who purposes to censure another, so that such persons may not, by saying what they want to say, have to hear what they do not want to hear. For a person of this type, as Sophocles ⁶ puts it,

By babbling thoughtless talk is wont to hear Against his will the words he willing speaks.

De capienda ex inimicis utilitate. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

How To Profit By One's Enemies (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. II. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πῶς ἄν τις ἀπ’ ἐχθρῶν ὠφελοῖτο Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 5 focus

[5] ὁ μὲν οὖν Πλάτων ὁσάκις ἀσχημονοῦσιν ἀνθρώποις παραγένοιτο, πρὸς αὑτὸν εἰώθει λέγειν μή που ἄρʼ¹ ἐγὼ τοιοῦτος; ὁ δὲ λοιδορήσας τὸν 15 ἑτέρου βίον ἂν εὐθὺς ἐπισκοπῇ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ καὶ μεθαρμόττῃ πρὸς τοὐναντίον ἀπευθύνων καὶ ἀποστρέφων, ἕξει τι χρήσιμον ἐκ τοῦ λοιδορεῖν, ἄλλως ἀχρήστου καὶ κενοῦ δοκοῦντος εἶναι καὶ ὄντος. οἱ μὲν οὖν πολλοὶ γελῶσιν, ἄν τις ὢν φαλακρὸς ἢ 20 88f κυρτὸς ἑτέρους εἰς ταῦτα λοιδορῇ καὶ σκώπτῃ· γελοῖον δʼ ὅλως ἐστὶ τὸ λοιδορεῖν καὶ σκώπτειν ὁτιοῦν ἀντιλοιδορηθῆναι δυνάμενον, ὡς Λέων ὁ Βυζάντιος ὑπὸ κυρτοῦ λοιδορηθεὶς εἰς τὴν τῶν ὀμμάτων ἀσθένειαν ἀνθρώπινον ἔφη πάθος ὀνειδίζεις, ἐπὶ τοῦ 25 νώτου φέρων τὴν νέμεσιν οὐκοῦν μηδὲ μοιχὸν λοιδορήσῃς, αὐτὸς ὢν παιδομανής· μηδʼ ἄσωτον, αὐτὸς ὢν ἀνελεύθερος.

ἀνδροκτόνου γυναικὸς ὁμογενὴς ἔφυς

πρὸς τὸν Ἄδραστον ὁ Ἀλκμέων. τί οὖν ἐκεῖνος; οὐκ ἀλλότριον ἀλλʼ ἴδιον αὐτῷ προφέρων ὄνειδος 89a

σὺ, δʼ αὐτόχειρ γε μητρὸς ἣ σʼ ἐγείνατο

5 πρὸς τὸν Κράσσον ὁ Δομίτιος οὐ σὺ μυραίνης ἐν ζωγρείῳ σοι τρεφομένης εἶτʼ ἀποθανούσης ἔκλαυσας; καὶ ὁ ἕτερος οὐ σὺ τρεῖς γυναῖκας ἐκκομίσας οὐκ ἐδάκρυσας; οὐκ εὐφυᾶ δεῖ τὸν λοιδορησόμενον εἶναι καὶ μεγαλόφωνον καὶ ἰταμόν, ἀλλʼ ἀλοιδόρητον 10 καὶ ἀνέγκλητον οὐδενὶ γὰρ οὕτως ἔοικε προστάττειν ὁ θεὸς ὡς τῷ μέλλοντι ψέγειν ἕτερον τὸ γνῶθι σαυτόν, ἵνα μὴ λέγοντες ἃ θέλουσιν ἀκούωσιν ἃ μὴ θέλουσι; φιλεῖ γὰρ ὁ τοιοῦτος κατὰ τὸν Σοφοκλέα⁴ 15 89b

γλῶσσαν ἐκχέας μάτην

ἄκων ἀκούειν οὓς ἑκὼν εἴπῃ λόγους

Translations (1)

How a man may receive advantage and profit from his enemies. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor; Hartcliff, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 5 focus

[5] Insomuch that Plato, when he was in company with any persons that were guilty of unhandsome actions, was wont thus to reflect upon himself and ask this question, Am I of the like temper and disposition with these men? In like manner, whosoever passes a hard censure upon another man’s life should presently make use of selfexamination, and enquire what his own is; by which means he will come to know what his failings are, and how to amend them. Thus the very censures and backbitings of his enemy will redound to his advantage, although in itself this censorious humor is a very vain, empty, and useless thing. For every one will laugh at and deride that man who is humpbacked and baldpated, while at the same time he makes sport with the natural deformities of his brethren; it being a very ridiculous unaccountable thing to scoff at another for those very imperfections for which you yourself may be abused. As Leo Byzantinus replied upon the humpbacked man, who in drollery reflected on the weakness of his eyes, You mock me for a human infirmity, but you bear the marks of divine vengeance on your own back.

Wherefore no man should arraign another of adultery, when he himself is addicted to a more bestial vice. Neither may one man justly accuse another of extravagance or looseness, when he himself is stingy and covetous. Alcmaeon told Adrastus, that he was near akin to a woman that killed her husband; to which Adrastus gave a very pat and sharp answer,—Thou with thy own hands didst murder thy mother.¹ After the same sarcastical way of jesting did Domitius ask Crassus whether he did not weep for the death of the lamprey that was bred in his fish-pond; to which Crassus makes this present reply,—But have I not heard that you did not weep when you carried out three wives to their burial.

Whence we may infer that it behooves every man who takes upon him to correct or censure another not to be too clamorous or merry upon his faults, but to be guilty of no such crime as may expose him to the chastisement and reproach of others. For the great God seems to have given that commandment of Know thyself to those men more especially who are apt to make remarks upon other men’s actions and forget themselves. So, as Sophocles hath well observed, They often hear that which they would not, because they allow themselves the liberty of talking what they please.

Notes on the current edition

How to Profit By One's Enemies

1. This remark of Plato is cited also in the Moralia, 40 D, 129 D, and 463 E.

2. Plutarch, Moralia, 823 b, and Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Adespota, No. 75. c This remark of Plato is cited also in the Moralia, 40 d, 129 d, and 463 e.

3. Cf. 633 C, for a slightly different version of the story.

4. From the Alcmaeon of Euripides; cf. Nauck, T.G.F., Adespota, No. 358. Quoted also in Moralia 35 D.

5. Crassus’s pet eel was famous. Plutarch speaks of it twice elsewhere: Moralia, 811 A and 976 A. Of other writers, Aelian, De natura animal. viii. 4, contains the most interesting account of it.

6. Two lines of a longer quotation from an unknown play; cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Sophocles, No. 843.

Plutarch De capienda ex inimicis utilitate 5

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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