Plutarch, De Tranquillitate Animi, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 3

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[3] To those who believe that one quite special kind of life is free from pain, as some do the life of farmers, others that of bachelors, others that of kings, the words of Menander¹ are a sufficient reminder:

I used to think the wealthy, Phanias,

Who have no need to borrow, would not groan

Of nights, nor tossing up and down would cry

Ah, woe is me! but that they slept a sweet

And tranquil sleep.

He then goes on to relate that he observes that even the wealthy fare the same as the poor:

Is there then kinship between life and grief?

Grief’s in a famous life; with a rich life

It stays; with a mean life it too grows old.

But like people at sea² who are cowardly and seasick and think that they would get through this voyage more comfortably if they should transfer from their little boat to a ship, and then again from the ship to a man-of-war; but they accomplish nothing by the changes, since they carry their nausea and cowardice along with them; so the exchange of one mode of life for another does not relieve the soul of those things which cause it grief and distress³: these are inexperience in affairs, unreasonableness, the want of ability or knowledge to make the right use of present conditions. These are the defects which, like a storm at sea, torment rich and poor alike, that afflict the married as well as the unmarried; because of these men avoid public life, then find their life of quiet unbearable; because of these men seek advancement at court, by which, when they have gained it, they are immediately bored.

Through helplessness the sick are hard to please,⁴

for their wives are troublesome, they grumble at the doctor, they are vexed with the bed,

Each friend that comes annoys, that goes affronts,

as Ion⁵ has it. But later, when the disease is over and a sounder disposition supervenes, health returns and makes everything pleasant and agreeable⁶: he that yesterday loathed eggs and delicate cakes and fine bread to-day eats eagerly and willingly of a coarse loaf with olives and water-cress.

De Tranquillitate Animi. 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 Tranquillity of Mind (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. VI. Helmbold, William Clark, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1939 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ εὐθυμίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol III. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 3 focus

[3] τοὺς μὲν γὰρ ἀφωρισμένως ἕνα βίον ἄλυπον νομίζοντας, ὡς ἔνιοι τὸν τῶν γεωργῶν ἢ τὸν τῶν ἠιθέων ἢ τὸν τῶν βασιλέων, ἱκανῶς ὁ Μένανδρος¹ ὑπομιμνήσκει λέγων 466b

ᾤμην ἐγὼ τοὺς πλουσίους, ὦ Φανία, 20

οἷς μὴ τὸ δανείζεσθαι πρόσεστιν, οὐ στένειν

τὰς νύκτας οὐδὲ στρεφομένους ἄνω κάτω

οἴμοι λέγειν, ἡδὺν δὲ καὶ πρᾶόν τινα

ὕπνον καθεύδειν

εἶτα προσδιελθών, ὡς καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους ἑώρα ταὐτὰ 25 πάσχοντας τοῖς πένησιν,

ἆρʼ ἐστί φησὶ συγγενές τι λύπη καὶ βίος;

τρυφερῷ βίῳ σύνεστιν, ἐνδόξῳ βίῳ

πάρεστιν, ἀπόρῳ συγκαταγηράσκει βίῳ.

ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ οἱ δειλοὶ καὶ ναυτιῶντες ἐν τῷ πλεῖν, 5 466c εἶτα ῥᾷον οἰόμενοι διάξειν, ἐὰν εἰς γαῦλον ἐξ ἀκάτου καὶ πάλιν ἐὰν εἰς τριήρη μεταβῶσιν, οὐδὲν περαίνουσι, τὴν χολὴν καὶ τὴν δειλίαν συμμεταφέροντες ἑαυτοῖς· οὕτως αἱ τῶν βίων ἀντιμεταλήψεις οὐκ ἐξαιροῦσι τῆς ψυχῆς τὰ λυποῦντα καὶ ταράττοντα· 10 ταῦτα δʼ ἐστὶν ἀπειρία πραγμάτων, ἀλογιστία, τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι μηδʼ ἐπίστασθαι χρῆσθαι τοῖς παροῦσιν ὀρθῶς· ταῦτα καὶ πλουσίους χειμάζει καὶ πένητας, ταῦτα καὶ γεγαμηκότας ἀνιᾷ καὶ ἀγάμους· διὰ ταῦτα φεύγουσι τὴν ἀγορὰν εἶτα τὴν ἡσυχίαν οὐ 15 φέρουσι, διὰ ταῦτα προαγωγὰς ἐν αὐλαῖς διώκουσι, καὶ παρελθόντες εὐθὺς βαρύνονται.

δυσάρεστον οἱ νοσοῦντες ἀπορίας ὕπο·

² καὶ γὰρ ἡ γυνὴ λυπεῖ καὶ τὸν ἰατρὸν αἰτιῶνται καὶ δυσχεραίνουσι τὸ κλινίδιον, 20 466d

φίλων δʼ ὃ τʼ ἐλθὼν λυπρὸς³ ὃ τʼ ἀπιὼν βαρύς

⁴ ὡς ὁ Ἴων φησίν. εἶτα τῆς νόσου διαλυθείσης καὶ κράσεως ἑτέρας ἐγγενομένης, ἦλθεν ἡ ὑγίεια⁵ φίλα πάντα ποιοῦσα καὶ προσηνῆ. ὁ γὰρ ἐχθὲς ᾠὰ καὶ ἀμύλια καὶ σητάνειον ἄρτον διαπτύων, τήμερον αὐτόπυρον 25 ἐπʼ ἐλαίαις ἢ καρδαμίδι σιτεῖται προσφιλῶς καὶ προθύμως

Translations (1)

Of the Tranquillity of the Mind. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor; Morgan, Matthew, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 3 focus

[3] As for those who think there is one positive state of life, which is always serene, — some fancying it to be of the husbandmen, others of those which are unmarried, and some of kings, — Menander clearly shows them their error in these verses: —

I thought those men, my Phania, always best,

Who take no money up at interest;

Who disengaged from business spend the day,

And in complaints don’t sigh the night away,

Who, troubled, lamentable groans don’t fetch,

Thus breathing out, Ah! miserable wretch!

Those whom despairing thoughts don’t waking keep,

But without startings sweetly take their sleep.

He goes on and observes to us, that the same lot of misfortune falls to the rich as well as the poor: —

These neighbors slender confines do divide, —

Sorrow and human life are still allied.

It the luxurious liver doth infest,

And robs the man of honor of his rest;

In stricter ties doth with the poor engage,

With him grows old to a decrepit age.

But as timorous and raw sailors in a boat, when they grow sick with the working of the waves, think they shall overcome their pukings if they go on board of a ship but there being equally out of order, go into a galley, but are therefore never the better, because they carry their nauseousness and fear along with them; so the several changes of life do only shift and not wholly extirpate the causes of our trouble. And these are only our want of experience, the weakness of our judgment, and a certain impotence of mind which hinders us from making a right use of what we enjoy. The rich man is subject to this uneasiness of humor as well as the poor; the bachelor as well as the man in wedlock. This makes the pleader withdraw from the bar, and then his retirement is altogether as irksome. And this infuseth a desire into others to be presented at court; and when they come there, they presently grow weary of the life.

Poor men when sick do peevishly complain,

The sense of want doth aggravate their pain.

For then the wife grows officious in her attendance, the physician himself is a disease, and the bed is not made easy enough to his mind; even his friend importunes him with his visits: —

He doth molest him when he first doth come,

And when he goes away he’s troublesome,

as Ion expresseth it. But when the heat of the disease is over and the former temperature of the body is restored, then health returns, and brings with it all those pleasant images which sickness chased away; so that he that yesterday refused eggs and delicate cakes and the finest manchets will now snap eagerly at a piece of household bread, with an olive and a few water-cresses.

Notes on the current edition

On Tranquillity of Mind

1. Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 79, Frag. 281 (p. 378 ed. Allinson, L.C.L.); from the Citharistes.

2. The rest of this chapter and the beginning of the next is cited by Stobaeus, vol. iii. p. 249 ed. Hense. It is also imitated by St. Basil, Epistle ii. (vol. i. p. 8 ed. Deferrari, L.C.L.).

3. Cf. Lucretius, iii. 1057 ff.:

commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit

; Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, ii. 13 f.

4. Euripides, Orestes, 232.

5. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. ², p. 743, Frag. 56.

6. Cf. Moralia, 101 c-d.

Plutarch De Tranquillitate Animi 3

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

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