Plutarch, De Virtute Morali, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 6

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[6] But since a mean¹ is capable of various interpretations (for that which is a compound is a mean between the simple uncompounded substances, as grey is of white and black; and that which contains and is contained is a mean between the contained and the container, as eight of twelve and four; and that which partakes of neither of the extremes is a mean, as the indifferent is a mean between good and bad), in none of these ways can virtue be called a mean, for it is not a mixture of the vices, nor, encompassing what falls short of due measure, is it encompassed by that which is in excess of it; nor is it entirely exempt from the impulses of the passions, wherein are found excess and deficiency. But it is a mean, and is said to be so, in a sense very like that which obtains in musical sounds and harmonies. For there the mean or mese, a properly-pitched note² like the neti and the hypatê,³ escapes the sharp highness of the one and the heavy deepness of the other; so virtue, being an activity and faculty concerned with the irrational, does away with the remissions and overstrainings of the impulse and its excesses and defects altogether, and reduces each passion to moderation and faultlessness. So, for instance, they declare courage⁴ to be a mean between cowardice and rashness, of which the former is a defect, the latter an excess, of the spirited part of the soul; so, likewise, liberality is a mean between parsimony and prodigality, and gentleness between insensibility and cruelty; and temperance itself and justice are means, the latter distributing to itself in contracts neither more nor less than what is due, the former ever regulating the desires to a mean between lack of feeling and intemperance.

In this last instance, indeed, the irrational seems, with particular clearness, to allow us to observe the difference between itself and the rational, and to show that passion is essentially quite a different thing from reason. For self-control⁵ would not differ from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, as regards the pleasures and desires, if it were the same part of the soul that we naturally use for desiring as for forming judgements. But the fact is that temperance belongs to the sphere where reason guides and manages the passionate element, like a gentle animal obedient to the reins, making it yielding in its desires and willingly receptive of moderation and propriety; but the self-controlled man, while he does indeed direct his desire by the strength and mastery of reason, yet does so not without pain, nor by persuasion, but as it plunges sideways and resists, as though with blow and curb, he forcibly subdues it and holds it in, being the while himself full of internal struggle and turmoil. Such a conflict Plato⁶ portrays in his simile of the horses of the soul, where the worse horse struggles against his better yoke-fellow and at the same time disconcerts the charioteer, who is ever forced to hold out against him and with might and main to rein him in,

Lest he let fall from his hands the crimson thongs,

as Simonides⁷ has it. That is the reason why they do not account self-control even a virtue⁸ in the absolute sense, but less than virtue. For it is not a mean which has been produced by the harmony of the worse with the better, nor has the excess of passion in it been eliminated, nor has the desiderative part of the soul become obedient and compliant to the intelligent part, but is vexed and causes vexation and is confined by compulsion and, though living with reason, lives as in a state of rebellion against it, hostile and inimical:

The city reeks with burning incense, rings

Alike with prayers for health and cries of woe⁹

even so is the soul of the self-controlled man because of its lack of consistency and its conflict. And on the same grounds they hold that incontinence also is something less than a vice, but that intemperance is a full-fledged vice. For intemperance possesses both an evil passion and an evil reason; under the influence of the former, it is incited by desire to shameful conduct; under the influence of the latter, which, since its judgement is evil, is enlisted with the desires, intemperance loses even the perception of its errors. But incontinence,¹⁰ with the aid of reason, preserves its power of judgement intact, yet by its passions, which are stronger than its reason, it is swept along against its judgement. That is why incontinence differs from intemperance, for in it reason is worsted by passion, whereas with intemperance reason does not even fight; in the case of incontinence reason argues against the desires as it follows them, whereas with intemperance reason guides them and is their advocate; it is characteristic of intemperance that its reason shares joyfully in the sins committed, whereas with incontinence the reason shares in them, but with reluctance; with intemperance, reason is willingly swept along into shameful conduct, whereas with incontinence, it betrays honour unwillingly.

So also the difference between them is not less manifest in their words than in their actions. These are, for instance, the sayings of intemperate persons:

What pleasure can there be, what joy, without

The golden Aphrodite? May I die

When things like these no longer comfort me.¹¹

And another says,

To eat, to drink, to have one’s way in love¹²:

All other things I call accessory,

as though with all his soul he were acquiescing in pleasures and were being subverted thereby. Not less than these does he¹³ who says

Leave me to die, for that is best for me,

have his judgement suffering with the same ailment as his passions.

But the sayings of incontinence are otherwise and different:

A mind I have, but Nature forces me¹⁴;

and

Alas I from God this evil comes to men

When, knowing what is good, they do it not¹⁵;

and

The spirit yields and can resist no more,

Like anchor-hook in sand amid the surge.¹⁶

Here not inaptly the poet terms an anchor-hook in sand that which is not under the control of reason, nor firmly fixed, but surrenders its judgement to the loose and soft part of the soul. Very close to this imagery are also those famous lines¹⁷:

I, like some ship, am tied by ropes to shore,

And when winds blow, our cables do not hold.

For here the poet calls cables the judgements which resist shameful conduct and then are broken by passion, as by a great gust of wind. Truly the intemperate man is swept along to his pleasures by his desires with sails full-spread and delivers himself over to them and steers his course directly thither; whereas the course of the incontinent man zigzags here and there, as he strives to emerge from his passion and to stave it off and is yet swept down and shipwrecked on the reef of shameful conduct. Just as Timon¹⁸ used to lampoon Anaxarchus:

The Cynic might of Anaxarchus seemed

Steadfast and bold, wherever he wished, to spring;

Well did he know the truth, they said, and yet

Was bad: for Nature smote him with desire

And led him back from truth - ’twas Nature’s dart,

Before whom trembles many a Sophist heart.

For neither is the wise man continent, though he is temperate, nor is the fool incontinent, though he is intemperate. For the wise man takes pleasure in what is honourable, but the fool is not vexed by shamefulness. Incontinence, therefore, is the mark of a sophistic soul, which has, indeed, reason, but reason which cannot stand firm by its own just decisions.

De Virtute Morali. Plutarch. William Clark Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1939.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

On Moral Virtue (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. VI. Helmbold, William Clark, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1939 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τῆς ἠθικῆς ἀρετῆς Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol IΙI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 6 focus

[6] ἐπεὶ δὲ πολλαχῶς τὸ μέσον ʽ καὶ γὰρ τὸ κεκραμένον τῶν ἀκράτων μέσον, ὡς λευκοῦ καὶ μέλανος 5 444e τὸ φαιόν· καὶ τὸ περιέχον καὶ περιεχόμενον τοῦ περιεχομένου καὶ περιέχοντος, ὡς τῶν δώδεκα καὶ τεττάρων τὰ ὀκτώ· καὶ τὸ μηδετέρου τῶν ἄκρων μετέχον, ὡς ἀγαθοῦ καὶ κακοῦ τὸ ἀδιάφορον̓, τούτων μὲν οὐδενὶ τῶν τρόπων ἡ ἀρετὴ προσρητέα 10 μεσότης. οὔτε γὰρ μῖγμα τῶν κακιῶν ἐστιν οὔτʼ ἐμπεριέχουσα τοὔλαττον ἐμπεριέχεται τῷ πλεονάζοντι τοῦ προσήκοντος· οὔτʼ ἀπήλλακται παντάπασι τῶν παθητικῶν ὁρμῶν, ἐν αἷς τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ τὸ ἧττον 444f ἐστι. γίγνεται δὲ μεσότης καὶ λέγεται μάλιστα τῇ 15 περὶ φθόγγους καὶ ἁρμονίας ὁμοίως· ἐκείνη τε γὰρ ἐμμελὴς οὖσα φωνὴ καθάπερ ἡ νήτη καὶ ὑπάτη, τῆς μὲν τὴν ὀξύτητα τῆς δὲ τὴν βαρύτητα τὴν ἄγαν διαπέφευγεν · αὕτη¹ τε κίνησις οὖσα καὶ δύναμις περὶ τὸ ἄλογον, τὰς ἐκλύσεις καὶ τὰς ἐπιτάσεις καὶ ὅλως 20 445a τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ τὸ ἧττον ἐξαιρεῖ τῆς ὁρμῆς, εἰς τὸ μέτριον καὶ ἀναμάρτητον καθιστᾶσα τῶν παθῶν ἕκαστον. αὐτίκα τὴν μὲν ἀνδρείαν μεσότητά φασιν εἶναι δειλίας καὶ θρασύτητος, ὧν ἡ μὲν ἔλλειψις ἡ δʼ ὑπερβολὴ τοῦ θυμοειδοῦς ἐστι· τὴν δʼ ἐλευθεριότητα 25 μικρολογίας καὶ ἀσωτίας, πραότητα δʼ ἀναλγησίας καὶ ὠμότητος· αὐτήν τε σωφροσύνην καὶ δικαιοσύνην, τὴν μὲν περὶ τὰ συμβόλαια μήτε πλέον νέμουσαν αὑτῇ τοῦ προσήκοντος μήτʼ ἔλαττον, τὴν 445b δʼ εἰς τὸ μέσον ἀπαθείας καὶ² ἀναισθησίας καὶ ἀκολασίας ἀεὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας καθιστᾶσαν. ἐν ᾧ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα δοκεῖ τὸ ἄλογον τῆς πρὸς τὸ λογικὸν διαφορᾶς αὑτοῦ³ παρέχειν κατανόησιν, καὶ δεικνύειν τὸ 5 πάθος ὡς ἕτερόν τι κομιδῇ τοῦ λόγου ἐστίν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν διέφερε σωφροσύνης ἐγκράτεια, καὶ ἀκολασίας ἀκρασία περὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς καὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας, εἰ ταὐτὸν ἦν τῆς ψυχῆς ᾧ ἐπιθυμεῖν ᾧ τε κρίνειν πέφυκε. νῦν δὲ σωφροσύνη μέν ἐστιν, οὗ τὸ παθητικὸν ὥσπερ 10 εὐήνιον θρέμμα καὶ πρᾶον ὁ λογισμὸς ἡνιοχεῖ καὶ μεταχειρίζεται, περὶ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας χρώμενος⁴ ὑπείκοντι καὶ δεχομένῳ τὸ μέτριον καὶ τὸ εὔσχημον ἑκουσίως· ὁ δʼ ἐγκρατὴς ἄγει μὲν ἐρρωμένῳ τῷ λογισμῷ καὶ κρατοῦντι τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν, ἄγει δʼ οὐκ 15 445c ἀλύπως οὐδὲ πειθομένην ἀλλὰ πλαγίαν καὶ ἀντιτείνουσαν, οἷον ὑπὸ πληγῆς καὶ χαλινοῦ καταβιαζόμενος καὶ ἀνακρούων, ἀγῶνος ὢν ἐν ἑαυτῷ καὶ θορύβου μεστός· οἷον ὁ Πλάτων⁵ ἐξεικονίζει περὶ τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς; ὑποζύγια, τοῦ χείρονος πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον 20 ζυγομαχοῦντος ἅμα καὶ τὸν ἡνίοχον διαταράττοντος, ἀντέχειν ὀπίσω καὶ κατατείνειν ὑπὸ σπουδῆς ἀναγκαζόμενον ἀεὶ

μὴ βάλῃ φοίνικας ἐκ χειρῶν ἱμάντας

κατὰ Σιμωνίδην.⁶ ὅθεν οὐδʼ ἀρετὴν αὐτοτελῆ ἀξιοῦσι 25 τὴν ἐγκράτειαν ἀλλʼ ἔλαττον⁷ ἀρετῆς εἶναι· μεσότης γὰρ οὐ γέγονεν ἐκ συμφωνίας τοῦ χείρονος πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον οὐδʼ ἀνῄρηται τοῦ πάθους τὸ ὑπερβάλλον, 445d οὐδὲ πειθόμενον οὐδʼ ὁμολογοῦν τῷ φρονοῦντι τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν ἀλλὰ λυποῦν καὶ λυπούμενον 5 καὶ καθειργόμενον ὑπʼ ἀνάγκης ὥσπερ ἐν στάσει δυσμενὲς καὶ πολέμιον συνοικεῖ·

πόλις δʼ ὁμοῦ μὲν θυμιαμάτων γέμει,

⁸

ὁμοῦ δὲ παιάνων τε καὶ στεναγμάτων

ἡ τοῦ ἐγκρατοῦς ψυχὴ διὰ τὴν ἀνωμαλίαν καὶ τὴν 10 διαφοράν. κατὰ ταὐτὰ δʼ οἴονται καὶ τὴν ἀκρασίαν ἔλαττόν τι κακίας εἶναι παντελῆ δὲ κακίαν τὴν ἀκολασίαν. αὕτη μὲν γὰρ ἔχουσα καὶ πάθος φαῦλον καὶ λόγον, ὑφʼ οὗ μὲν ἐξάγεται τῷ ἐπιθυμεῖν πρὸς 445e τὸ αἰσχρόν, ὑφʼ οὗ δὲ τῷ κακῶς κρίνειν προστιθεμένου 15 ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν ἀποβάλλει τῶν ἁμαρτανομένων. ἡ δʼ ἀκρασία τῷ μὲν λόγῳ σῴζει τὴν κρίσιν ὀρθὴν οὖσαν, τῷ δὲ πάθει φέρεται παρὰ τὴν κρίσιν ἰσχύοντι τοῦ λόγου μᾶλλον. ὅθεν διαφέρει τῆς ἀκολασίας· ὅπου μὲν γὰρ ἡττᾶται τοῦ 20 πάθους ὁ λογισμὸς ὅπου δʼ οὐδὲ μάχεται, καὶ ὅπου μὲν ἀντιλέγων ἕπεται ταῖς· ἐπιθυμίαις ὅπου δʼ ὑφηγεῖται συναγορεύων, καὶ ὅπου μὲν ἡδομένῳ κοινωνεῖν 445f ὑπάρχει τῶν ἁμαρτανομένων ὅπου δʼ ἀχθομένῳ, καὶ ὅπου μὲν ἑκὼν φέρεται πρὸς τὸ αἰσχρὸν ὅπου 25 δὲ προδίδωσιν ἄκων τὸ καλόν· ὡς τοῖς πραττομένοις ὑπʼ αὐτῶν, οὐχ ἧττον δὲ καὶ τοῖς λεγομένοις ἔνεστιν ἡ διαφορὰ κατάδηλος· ἀκολάστων μὲν γὰρ αἵδε φωναὶ

ʼτίς δὲ χάρις, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ⁹ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης;

τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι.¹⁰

καὶ ἕτερος 5

ʼτὸ φαγεῖν τὸ πιεῖν τὸ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης τυγχάνειν,

τὰ δʼ ἄλλα προσθήκας ἅπαντʼ ἐγὼ καλῶ 446a

φησίν, ὥσπερ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς ψυχῆς συνεπινεύων ταῖς ἡδοναῖς καὶ ὑπερειπόμενος. οὐχ ἧττον δὲ τούτων ὁ εἰπών 10

ἔα μʼ ἀπολέσθαι· τοῦτο γάρ μοι συμφέρει

¹¹ τὴν κρίσιν ἔχει τῷ πάθει συννοσοῦσαν. αἱ δὲ τῆς ἀκρασίας ἕτεραι καὶ διαφέρουσαι

γνώμην ἔχοντὰ μʼ ἡ φύσις βιάζεται·

¹² καί 15

αἰαῖ, τόδʼ ἤδη¹³ θεῖον ἀνθρώποις κακόν,

¹⁴

ὅταν τις εἰδῇ τἀγαθὸν χρῆται δὲ μή·

καὶ

εἴκει¹⁵ γὰρ ἤδη θυμὸς οὐδʼ ἔτʼ ἀντέχει,

¹⁶

θινῶδες ὡς ἄγκιστρον ἀγκύρας σάλῳ 20

θινῶδες ἄγκιστρον οὐ φαύλως λέγων τὸ μὴ κάτοχον τοῦ λογισμοῦ μηδʼ ἀραρός, ἀλλὰ μανότητι τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ μαλακίᾳ προϊέμενον τὴν κρίσιν. οὐ πόρρω 446b δὲ τῆς εἰκόνος ταύτης κἀκεῖνα εἴρηται

ναῦς ὥς τις ἐκ μὲν γῆς ἀνήρτημαι βρόχοις,

¹⁷

πνεῖ δʼ οὖρος, ἡμῖν δʼ οὐ¹⁸ κρατεῖ τὰ πείσματα

πείσματα γὰρ λέγει τὰς ἀντεχούσας κρίσεις πρὸς τὸ αἰσχρόν, εἶθʼ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ πνεύματος πολλοῦ ῥηγνυμένας 5 τοῦ πάθους. τῷ γὰρ ὄντι πλησίστιος μὲν ἐπὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς ὁ ἀκόλαστος ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν φέρεται καὶ δίδωσιν ἑαυτὸν καὶ συγκατευθύνει· πλάγιος δʼ ὁ ἀκρατής, οἷον ἐξαναφέρειν γλιχόμενος καὶ διωθεῖσθαι τὸ πάθος, ὑποσύρεται¹⁹ καὶ περιπίπτει περὶ 10 τὸ αἰσχρὸν ὡς Ἀνάξαρχον ἐσίλλαινε Τίμων

ἐν δὲ τὸ θαρσαλέον τε καὶ ἐμμανὲς ὅππη ὀρούσαι 446c

φαίνετʼ Ἀναξάρχου κύνεον μένος ὃς²⁰ ῥα καὶ εἰδώς,

ὡς φάσαν,²¹ ἄθλιος ἔσκε, φύσις δέ μιν ἔμπαλιν ἦγεν

ἡδονοπλήξ, ἣν πλεῖστοι ὑποτρείουσι σοφιστῶν.

15 οὔτε γὰρ ὁ σοφὸς ἐγκρατὴς ἀλλὰ σώφρων, οὔθʼ ὁ ἀμαθὴς ἀκρατὴς ἀλλʼ ἀκόλαστος ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἥδεται τοῖς καλοῖς ὁ δʼ οὐκ ἄχθεται τοῖς αἰσχροῖς. σοφιστικῆς οὖν ψυχῆς ἡ ἀκρασία, λόγον ἐχούσης οἷς ἔγνωκεν ὀρθῶς ἐμμένειν μὴ δυνάμενον. 20

Translations (1)

Of Moral Virtue Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. III. Goodwin, William W., editor; Matthew, Morgan translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 6 focus

[6] Now mean and mediocrity may be differently understood. For there is one mean which is compounded and made up of the two simple extremes, as in colors, gray, of white and black; and another, where that which contains and is contained is the medium between the containing and the contained, as, for instance, the number eight, between twelve and four. And a third sort there is also, which participates of neither extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent. But in none of these ways can virtue be said to be a mean, or mediocrity. For neither is it a mixture of vices, nor, comprehending that which is defective and short, is it comprehended by that which runs out into excess; nor yet is it exempt from the impetuosity and sudden efforts of the passions, in which excess and defect do properly take place. But moral virtue properly doth consist in a mean or mediocrity (and so it is commonly taken), most like to that which there is in our Greek music and harmony. For, whereas there are the highest and lowest musical notes in the extremities of the scale called nete and hypate; so likewise is there in the middle thereof, between these two, another musical note, and that the sweetest of all, called mese (or mean), which does as perfectly avoid the extreme sharpness of the one as it doth the over-flatness of the other. And so also virtue, being a motion and power which is exercised about the brutal and irrational part of the soul, takes away the remission and intention—in a word, the excess and defect—of the appetites, reducing thereby every one of the passions to a due mediocrity and perfect state of rectitude.

For example, fortitude is said to be the mean between cowardice and rashness, whereof the one is a defect, as the other is an excess of the irascible faculty; liberality, between sordid parsimony on the one hand, and extravagant prodigality on the other; clemency between insensibility of injuries and its opposite, revengeful cruelty; and so of justice and temperance; the former being the mean between giving and distributing more or less than is due in all contracts, affairs, and business between man and man, and the latter a just mediocrity between a stupid apathy, touched with no sense or relish of pleasure, and dissolute softness, abandoned to all manner of sensualities.

And from this instance of temperance it is, that we are most clearly given to understand the difference between the irrational and the rational faculties of the soul, and that it so plainly appears to us that the passions and affections of the mind are quite a distinct thing from reason. For otherwise never should we be able to distinguish continence from temperance, nor incontinence from intemperance, in lust and pleasures, if it were one and the same faculty of the soul wherewith we reason and judge, and whereby we desire and covet. Now temperance is that whereby reason governs and manages that part of the soul which is subject to the passions (as it were some wild creature brought up by hand, and made quite tame and gentle), having gained an absolute victory over all its appetites, and brought them entirely under the dominion of it. Whereas we call it continence, when reason has indeed gained the mastery over the appetites and prevailed against them, though not without great pains and trouble, they being perverse and continuing to struggle, as not having wholly submitted themselves; so that it is not without great difficulty able to preserve its government over them, being forced to retain and hold them in, and keep them within compass, as it were, with stripes, with the bit and bridle, while the mind all the time is full of nothing but agony, contentions, and confusion. All which Plato endeavors to illustrate by a similitude of the chariot-horses of the soul, the one whereof, being more unruly, not only kicks and flings at him that is more gentle and tractable, but also thereby so troubles and disorders the driver himself, that he is forced sometimes to hold him hard in, and sometimes again to give him his head,

Lest from his hands the purple reins should slip,

as Simonides speaks.

And from hence we may see why continence is not thought worthy to be placed in the number of perfect virtues, but is taken to be a degree under virtue. For there is not therein produced a mediocrity arising from a symphony of the worst with the better, nor are the excesses of the passions retrenched; nor yet doth the appetite become obedient and subservient to the reasonable faculties, but it both makes and feels disorder and disturbance, being repressed by violence and constraint, and (as it were) by necessity; as in a sedition or faction in a city or state, the contending parties, breathing nothing but war and destruction and ruin to one another, do yet cohabit together (it may be) within the compass of the same walls; insomuch that the soul of the incontinent person, with respect to the conflicts and incongruities therein, may very properly be compared to the city,

Where all the streets are filled with incense smoke,

And songs of triumph mixed with groans resound.

And upon the same grounds it is, that incontinence is held to be something less than vice also, but intemperance to be a complete and perfect vice, for therein not the appetite only but reason likewise is debauched and corrupted; and as the former incites and pushes forward the desires and affections to that which is evil, so this, by making an ill judgment, is easily led to consent and agree to the soft whispers and tempting allurements of corrupt lusts and passions, and soon loseth all sense of sin and evil. Whereas incontinence preserves the judgment, by the help of reason, right and sound; but yet, by irresistible force and violence of the passions, is even against judgment drawn away. Moreover, in these respects following it differeth also from intemperance:—inasmuch as reason in that is overpowered by passion, but in this it never so much as struggleth; the incontinent person, after a noble resistance, is at last forced to submit to the tyranny of his lusts, and follow their guidance, while the intemperate approves them, and gladly goes along with and submits to them; one feels remorse for the evil he commits, while the other prides in lewdness and vice. Again, the one wilfully and of his own accord runs into sin; while the other, even against his will, is forced to abandon that which is good.

And this difference between them is not to be collected only from their actions, but may as plainly also be discovered by their words. For at this rate do intemperate persons use to talk:

What mirth in life, what pleasure, what delight,

Without content in sports of Venus bright?

Were those joys past, and I for them unmeet,

Ring out my knell, bring forth my winding-sheet.

And thus says another:

To eat, to drink, to wench are principal,

All pleasures else I accessories call;

as if from his very soul he were wholly abandoned and given up to pleasures and voluptuousness, and even over whelmed therein. And much of the same mind was he, and his judgment was as totally depraved by his passions, who said,

Let me, ye dull and formal fops, alone,

I am resolved, ’tis best to be undone.

But quite another spirit do we find running through the sayings of the incontinent:

Blame Nature only for it, blame not me,

Would she permit, I then should virtuous be,

says one of them. And again,

Ah! ’tis decreed by Fate. We know, ’tis true,

We know those virtues, which we ne’er pursue.

⁴

And another,

What will my swelling passions’ force assuage?

No more can I sustain this tempest’s rage,

Than anchor’s fluke, dropt on loose ground, a storm;

where not improperly he compares the fluke of an anchor dropped in loose ground to that ill-grounded, feeble, and irresolute reason, which by the vanity, weakness, and luxury of the mind is easily brought to forsake the judgment. And the like metaphor has the poet made use of happily enough in these verses:

To us, in ships moored near the shore who lie,

Though strong the cables, when the winds rise high

Cables will prove but small security;

where by the cables the poet means the judgment opposing itself against all that is evil or dishonest, which is, however, oftentimes disturbed and broken by violent and sudden gusts of the passions. For, indeed, the intemperate are borne away directly and with full sail to their pleasures; to them they deliver up themselves entirely, and thither it is they bend their whole course. While the incontinent, indirectly only, as endeavoring to sustain and repel the assaults of the passions and withstand their temptations, either is allured and as it were slides into evil, or else is plunged violently into it whether he will or no. As Timon, in his bitter way of raillery, reproaches Anaxarchus,

When first the dogged Anaxarchus strove

The power of virtue o’er his mind to prove,

Firm though he seemed, and obstinately good,

In vain th’ impulse of temper he withstood.

Nature recoiled, whatever he could do;

He saw those ills, which yet he did pursue;

In this not single, other sophists too

Felt the same force, which they could ne’er subdue.

And neither is a wise man continent, but temperate; nor a fool incontinent, but intemperate; the one taking true pleasure and delight in good, the other having no displeasure against evil. And therefore incontinence is said to be found only in a mind which is sophistical (or which barely makes a show of being governed and directed by prudence), and which has indeed the use of reason, but in so weak and faint a manner, that it is not able to persevere in that which it knows to be right.

Notes on the current edition

On Moral Virtue

1. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 6. 4-9 (1106 a 24).

2. cf. Moralia, 1007 e ff., 1014 c, and 451 f, infra.

3. The highest and lowest sounds of the heptachord; presumably the mesê is the fourth note of a scale of seven.

4. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ii. 7. 2-4 (1107 a 33); Stobaeus, Eclogae, ii. 7. 20 (vol. ii. p. 141 ed. Wachsmuth).

5. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, vii. 9. 6 (1151 b 33).

6. Phaedrus, 253 c ff.

7. Frag. 17 (ed. Bergk and ed. Diehl); Frag. 48 (ed. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, ii. p. 311).

8. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, iv. 9. 8 (1128 b 33): it is rather a mixture of virtue and vice.

9. Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 4-5; quoted also in Moralia, 95 c, 169 d, 623 c.

10. cf. Moralia, 705 c-e.

11. Mimnermus, Frag. 1, vv. 1-2 (ed. Bergk and ed. Diehl); Edmonds, Elegy and Iambic, i. p. 89.

12. Alexis, Frag. 271 ed. Kock, vv. 4-5; the whole fragment is quoted in Moralia, 21 d.

13. Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 450, ades. 217.

14. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2 p. 634, Euripides, Frag. 840 = Aeschylus, Frag. 262 ed. Smyth (L.C.L.).

15. Euripides, Frag. 841; quoted also in Moralia, 33 e. Cf. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, vii. 19, in the King James Version; Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 21: video meliora proboque, | deteriora sequor.

16. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 911, ades. 379; quoted also in Moralia, 782 d. Some ascribe this and the following quotation to Euripides.

17. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 911, ades. 380.

18. Frag. 9 (ed. Wachsmuth, p. 106); portions are quoted again in Moralia, 529 a and 705 d; Cf. also Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker 5, ii. p. 238.

Plutarch De Virtute Morali 6

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers