How To Profit By One's Enemies (4-5)

Moreover, as a supplement to this take the declaration of Diogenes,[*] which is thoroughly philosophic and statesmanlike: How shall I defend myself against my enemy ? By proving yourself good and honourable. Men are much distressed when they see their enemies’ horses winning renown or their dogs gaining approval. At the sight of a well-tilled field or a flourishing garden they groan. What, think you, would be their state of mind if you were to show yourself to be an honest, sensible man and a useful citizen, of high repute in speech, clean in actions, orderly in living,

Reaping the deep-sown furrow of your mind From which all goodly counsels spring? [*]

Pindar [*] says,

The vanquished are bound In the fetters of silence profound,

not absolutely or universally, however, but only those who realize that they are outdone by their enemies in diligence, goodness, magnanimity, kindly deeds, and good works. These are the things which, as Demosthenes [*] puts it, retard the tongue, stop the mouth, constrict the throat, and leave one with nothing to say.

Be thou unlike the base; this thou canst do. [*]

If you wish to distress the man who hates you, do not revile him as lewd, effeminate, licentious, vulgar, [*] or illiberal, but be a man yourself, show self-control, be truthful, and treat with kindness and justice those who have to deal with you. And if you are led into reviling, remove yourself as far as possible from the things for which you revile him. Enter within the portals of your own soul, look about to see if there be any rottenness there, lest some vice lurking somewhere within whisper to you the words of the tragedian:

Wouldst thou heal others, full of sores thyself ? [*]

If you call your enemy uneducated, strive to intensify in yourself the love of learning and industry; if you call him a coward, rouse even more your selfreliance and manliness; if you call him unchaste and licentious, obliterate from your soul whatever trace of devotion to pleasure may be lurking there unperceived. For there is nothing more disgraceful or painful than evil-speaking that recoils upon its author. So reflected light appears to be the more troublesome in cases of weak eyesight, and the same is true of censures that by the truth are brought back upon the very persons who are responsible for them. For as surely the north-east wind [*] brings the clouds, so surely does a bad life bring revilings upon itself.

As often as Plato [*] 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 [*]

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 [*] 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.[*]

Domitius remarked to Crassus, Did you not weep at the death of a lamprey [*] 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 [*] puts it,

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