Plutarch, De curiositate, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 5

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[5] What escape is there, then, from this vice? By a process of shifting and diverting our inquisitiveness, as has been said,¹ and, if possible, by turning the soul to better and more pleasant subjects. Direct your curiosity to heavenly things and things on earth, in the air, in the sea. Are you by nature fond of small or of great spectacles? If of great ones, apply your curiosity to the sun: where does it set and whence does it rise? Inquire into the changes in the moon, as you would into those of a human being: what becomes of all the light she has spent and from what source did she regain it, how does it happen that

When out of darkness first she comes anew,

She shows her face increasing fair and full;

And when she reaches once her brightest sheen,

Again she wastes away and comes to naught?²

And these are secrets of Nature, yet Nature is not vexed with those who find them out. Or suppose you have renounced great things. Then turn your curiosity to smaller ones: how are some plants always blooming and green and rejoicing in the display of their wealth at every season, while others are sometimes like these, but at other times, like a human spendthrift, they squander all at once their abundance and are left bare and beggared? Why, again, do some plants produce elongated fruits, others angular, and still others round and globular?

But perhaps you will have no curiosity about these subjects since there is nothing evil in them. Yet if your zest for meddling must by all means be for ever feeding and dwelling on depraved things, like a maggot on dead matter, let us escort it to history and supply it with an unstinted abundance of evils. For there you will find

The deaths of men, the shufflings off of life,³

seductions of women, assaults of slaves, slanders of friends, compounding of poisons, envies, jealousies, shipwrecks of households, overthrow of empires. Glut and enjoy yourself and cause no trouble or pain to any of your associates!

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

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

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

Editions (1)

Περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. III. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 5 focus

[5] τίς οὖν ἡ φυγή; περισπασμός, ὡς εἴρηται, καὶ μεθολκὴ τῆς πολυπραγμοσύνης μάλιστα μὲν¹ ἐπὶ τὰ 517d βελτίω καὶ τὰ ἡδίω τρέψαντι τὴν ψυχήν. τὰ ἐν οὐρανῷ πολυπραγμόνει τὰ ἐν γῇ τὰ ἐν ἀέρι τὰ ἐν θαλάττῃ. μικρῶν² πέφυκας ἢ μεγάλων φιλοθεάμων εἰ μεγάλων, ἥλιον πολυπραγμόνει ποῦ³ κάτεισι καὶ πόθεν ἄνεισι· ζήτει τὰς ἐν σελήνῃ καθάπερ ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ 5 μεταβολάς, ποῦ τοσοῦτον κατανάλωσε φῶς πόθεν αὖθις, ἐκτήσατο, πῶς

ἐξ ἀδήλου πρῶτον ἔρχεται νέα

⁴

πρόσωπα καλλύνουσα καὶ πληρουμένη·

χὤταν περ αὑτῆς εὐπρεπεστάτη φανῇ, 10

πάλιν διαρρεῖ κἀπὶ μηδὲν ἔρχεται.

καὶ ταῦτʼ ἀπόρρητʼ ἐστὶ φύσεως, ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἄχθεται 517e τοῖς ἐλέγχουσιν. ἀλλὰ τῶν μεγάλων ἀπέγνωκας; πολυπραγμόνει τὰ μικρότερα, πῶς τῶν φυτῶν τὰ μὲν ἀεὶ τέθηλε καὶ χλοάζει καὶ ἀγάλλεται παντὶ 15 καιρῷ τὸν ἑαυτῶν ἐπιδεικνύμενα πλοῦτον, τὰ δὲ νῦν μέν ἐστιν ὅμοια τούτοις, νῦν δʼ ὥσπερ ἀνοικονόμητος ἄνθρωπος ἐκχέαντʼ ἀθρόως τὴν περιουσίαν γυμνὰ καὶ πτωχὰ καταλείπεται· διὰ τί δὲ τὰ μὲν προμήκεις τὰ δὲ γωνιώδεις τὰ δὲ στρογγύλους καὶ περιφερεῖς 20 ἐκδίδωσι καρπούς. ἴσως δὲ ταῦτʼ οὐ πολυπραγμονήσεις, ὅτι τούτοις οὐδὲν κακὸν ἔστιν. ἀλλʼ εἰ δεῖ 517f πάντως τὸ περίεργον ἐν φαύλοις τισὶν ὥσπερ ἑρπετὸν ἐν θανασίμοις ὕλαις ἀεὶ νέμεσθαι καὶ διατρίβειν, ἐπὶ τὰς ἱστορίας ἀγάγωμεν αὐτὸ καὶ παραβάλωμεν 25 ἀφθονίαν κακῶν καὶ περιουσίαν· ἐνταῦθα γὰρ ἔνεισι

πεσήματʼ ἀνδρῶν κἀπολακτισμοὶ⁵ βίων·⁶

⁷ φθοραὶ γυναικῶν, ἐπιθέσεις οἰκετῶν, διαβολαὶ φίλων, παρασκευαὶ φαρμάκων, φθόνοι, ζηλοτυπίαι, ναυάγιʼ οἴκων,⁸ ἐκπτώσεις ἡγεμονιῶν ἐμπίπλασο καὶ τέρπε σαυτόν, ἐνοχλῶν μηδενὶ τῶν συνόντων μηδὲ λυπῶν. 5

Translations (1)

Of Curiosity, or an Over-Busy Inquisitiveness into Things Impertinent. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Wheeler, Maurice, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 5 focus

[5] But to avoid the danger of this curiosity, divert thy thoughts to more safe and delightful enquiries; survey the wonders of nature in the heavens, earth, the sea, and air; in which thou hast a copious choice of materials for the more sublime, as well as the more easy and obvious contemplations. If thy more piercing wit aspires to the noblest enquiries, consider the greater luminary in its diurnal motion, in what part of heaven its morning beams are kindled, and where those chambers of the night are placed which entertain its declining lustre. View the moon in all her changes, the just representation of human vicissitudes, and learn the causes that destroy and then restore her brightness:—

How from an infant-spark sprung out of night,

She swells into a perfect globe of light;

And soon her beauties thus repaired die,

Wasting into their first obscurity.

These are indeed the great secrets of Nature, whose depth may perhaps amaze and discourage thy enquiries. Search therefore into things more obvious,—why the fruits of plants are shaped into such variety of figures; why some are clothed with the verdure of a perennial spring, and others, which sometime were no less fresh and fair, like hasty spendthrifts, lavish away the bounty of Heaven in one summer’s gayety, and stand naked to the succeeding frosts. But such harmless speculations will perchance affect thee little, and it may be thou hast that malignity in thy temper which, like venomous beasts that cannot live out of stink and putrefaction, must be ever preying upon the follies and miseries of mankind. Peruse therefore the histories of the world, wherein thou shalt find such vast heaps of wickedness and mischiefs, made up of the downfalls and sudden deaths of great men,² the rapes and defilements of women, the treacheries of servants, the falseness of friends, the arts of poisoning, the fatal effects of envy and jealousy, the ruin of families, dethroning of princes, with many other such direful occurrences as may not only delight and satisfy, but even cloy and nauseate thy ill-natured curiosity.

Notes on the current edition

On Being a Busybody

1. In 515 d, supra.

2. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 315, Sophocles, Frag. 787 (871 ed. Pearson); the full quotation may be found in Life of Demetrius, xlv. (911 c-d). Cf. also Moralia, 282 b.

3. Aeschylus, Suppliants, 937; cf. Moralia, 937 f.

Plutarch De curiositate 5

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

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