Plutarch's Morals. Plutarch
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somewhat of Lemnos—I own it now we are alone—this Ismenodora must be most violently in love." Hereupon Soclarus said, with a sly smile, "You don't think then that this rape and detention was an excuse and stratagem on the part of a wily young man to escape from the clutches of his lovers, and fly of his own volition to the arms of a rich and handsome widow?" "Pray don't say so, Soclarus," said Anthemion, "pray don't entertain any such suspicions of Baccho, for even if he were not by nature most simple and naïve, he would not have concealed the matter from me to whom he divulges all his secrets, especially as he knows that I have always been very anxious he should marry Ismenodora. But as Heraclitus says truly, It is more difficult to control love than anger; for whatever love has a fancy to, it will buy even at the cost of life, money, and reputation. Who lives a more quiet life in our town than Ismenodora? When did ever any ugly rumour attach itself to her? When did ever any breath of suspicion sully her house? Some divine inspiration, beyond human calculation, seems now to have possessed her."
§ xii. Then Pemptides laughed and said, "Of course you know that there is a certain disease of the body called the sacred disease.83 It is no wonder, therefore, if some call the greatest and most insane passion of the soul sacred and divine. However, as in Egypt I once saw two neighbours disputing when a serpent passed by them on the road, both calling it a good omen, but each claiming the blessing as his alone; so seeing lately that some of you drag Love to the men's apartments, while others confine it to the women's side of the house, while all of you regard it as a divine and superlative blessing, I do not wonder, since it is a passion that has such power and honour, that those who ought to banish it from every quarter and clip its wings do themselves add to its influence and power. And hitherto I held my peace, for I saw that the discussion turned rather on private than public interests, but now that we have got rid of Pisias, I would gladly hear from you to what they had an eye who first called Love a god."
§ xiii. Just as Pemptides had left off, and our father was about to answer his question, another messenger came from the town, sent by Ismenodora to summon Anthemion, for the tumult had increased, and there was a difference of opinion between the superintendents of the gymnasium, one thinking they ought to demand the liberation of Baccho, the other thinking they ought not to interfere. Anthemion got up at once and went off. And our father, addressing Pemptides especially, said, "You seem to me, my dear Pemptides, to be handling a great and bold matter, or rather to be discussing things that ought not to be discussed, in asking for a reason in each case for our opinion about the gods. Our ancient and hereditary faith is sufficient, a better argument than which we cannot either utter or find,
'Not e'en if wisdom in our brains resides;'84
but if this common foundation and basis of all piety be disturbed, and its stability and time-honoured ideas be unsettled, it becomes undermined and is suspected by everybody. You have heard, of course, what hot water Euripides got into, when he wrote at the beginning of his 'Melanippe,'
'Zeus, whosoe'er he is, I do not know Except by hearsay,'85
but if he changed the opening line, he had confidence, it seems, that his play would go down with the public uncommonly well,86 so he altered it into
'Zeus the divine, as he is truly called.'87
And what difference is there between calling in question the received opinion about Zeus or Athene, and that about Love? For it is not now for the first time that Love asks for an altar and sacrifices, nor is he a strange god introduced by foreign superstition, as some Attis or Adonis, furtively smuggled in by hermaphrodites and women, and secretly receiving honours not his own, to avoid an indictment among the gods for coming among them under false pretences. And when, my friend, you hear the words of Empedocles,
'Friendship is there too, of same length and breadth, But with the mind's eye only can you see it, Till with the sight your very soul is thralled,'
you must suppose that they refer to Love. For this god is invisible, but to be extolled by us as one of the very oldest gods. And if you demand proofs about every one of the gods, laying a profane hand on every temple, and bringing a learned doubt to every altar, you will scrutinize and pry into everything. But we need not go far to find Love's pedigree.
'See you how great a goddess Aphrodite is? She 'tis that gave us and engendered Love, Whereof come all that on the earth do live.'88
And so Empedocles calls Aphrodite Life-giving,89 and Sophocles calls her Fruitful, both very appropriate epithets. And though the wonderful act of generation belongs to Aphrodite only, and Love is only present in it as a subordinate, yet if he be absent the whole affair becomes undesirable, and low, and tame. For a loveless coition brings only satiety, as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and has nothing noble resulting from it, whereas by Love Aphrodite removes the cloying element in pleasure, and produces harmonious friendship. And so Parmenides declares Love to be the oldest of the creations of Aphrodite, writing in his Cosmogony,
'Of all the gods first Love she did contrive.'
But Hesiod, more naturally in my opinion, makes Love the most ancient of all, so that all things derive their existence from him.90 If we then deprive Love of his ancient honours, those of Aphrodite will be lost also. For we cannot argue that, while some revile Love, all spare Aphrodite, for on the same stage we hear of Love,
'Love is an idle thing and for the idle:'91
and again of Aphrodite,
'Cypris, my boys, is not her only name, For many names has she. She is a hell, A power remorseless, nay a raging madness.'92
Just as in the case of the other gods there is hardly one that has not been reviled, or escaped the scurrility of ignorance. Look, for example, at Ares, who may be considered as it were the counterpart of Love, what honours he has received from men, and again what abuse, as
'Ares is blind, ye women, has no eyes, And with his pig's snout roots up all good things.'93
And Homer calls him 'blood-stained' and 'fickle.'94 And Chrysippus brings a grievous charge against him, in defining his name to mean destroyer,95 thereby giving a handle to those who think that Ares is only the fighting, wrangling, and quarrelsome instinct among mankind. Others again will tell us that Aphrodite is simply desire, and Hermes eloquence, and the Muses the arts and sciences, and Athene wisdom. You see what an abyss of impiety opens up before us, if we describe each of the gods, as only a passion, a power, or a virtue!"
§ xiv. "I see it," said Pemptides, "and it is impious either to make the gods passions, or to do just the contrary, and make the passions gods." "What then?" said my father, "do you consider Ares a god, or only a human passion?" And Pemptides, answering that he looked on Ares as god of the passionate and manly element in mankind, "What," cried my father, "shall the passionate and warlike and antagonistic instincts in man have a god, but the affectionate and social and clubable have none? Shall Ares, under his names of Enyalius and Stratius, preside over arms and war and sieges and sacks of cities, and shall there be no god to witness and preside over, to direct and guide, conjugal affection, that friendship of closest union and communion? Why even those who hunt gazelles and hares and deer have a silvan deity who harks and halloos them on, for