On Tranquillity of Mind (intro-4)

It is only natural that this essay should have aroused curiosity and speculation about its sources, for Plutarch in the very first paragraph conveys the information that he has rummaged among his note-books (ὑπομνήματα [*]) in great haste for the material necessary to help his friend Paccius to composure in the midst of a busy life. R. Hirzel (Hermes, xiv. 354 if., especially 373 if.) attempted to show that much was drawn from Democritus’s Περὶ εὐθυμίης, some by way of the Stoic Panaetius, who, he thought, naturally opposed the Abderite’s conclusions. R. Heinze (Rheinisches Museum, xlv. 497 ff.) emphasized the relation between De Tranquillitate and De Virtute et Vitio: both go back to a Stoic[*] prototype and De Tranquillitate to a model which has some close relation to the Cynic Bions methods of presentation, that is, probably, to Ariston of Chios.[*] M. Pohlenz[*] (Hermes, xi. 275 if.), on the

other hand, found that the source of the essay was Epicurean,[*] while admitting that Plutarch added a certain amount of original material to fit the personality and circumstances of the friend he was addressing. Finally, G. Siefert[*] (Plutarchs Schrift Περὶ εὐθυμίας, Progr. Pforta, Naumburg, 1908) reverts to Democritus and Panaetius, with particular emphasis on the material illustrative of Panaetius’s lost work to be found in Cicero’s De Officiis and in Seneca: Panaetius, who was following, not the Stoa, but Democritus, is the principal source of Plutarch, practically his only source.

Siefert’s discussion, in particular, is impressive as well as learned; but I would remark that all these authorities may well be right-and wrong. Some of them admit that portions, at least, of the essay were written, or adapted, especially to suit the particular occasion for which the essay was composed. Plutarch himself is not averse to naming authorities here and elsewhere; that he followed exclusively one, or even two, is made very unlikely by his own opening statement and by the very mixed nature of his philosophical terminology.[*]

Theological writers of all ages have made good use of this store-house of moral precepts. Many of the imitations in the works of St. Basil and of St. John Chrysostom will be found listed in the Teubner edition and discussed by Pohlenz (Zeit.f. wiss. Theologie, xlviii. 72-95). Jeremy Taylor, also, in Holy Living, ii. 6, has again made some pleasant borrowings and paraphrases.

Sir Thomas Wyat’s interesting translation of 1528, made from the Latin of Budaeus, has been reprinted, with an excellent introduction from the pen of C. R. Baskervill, by the authorities of the Huntington Library (Harvard University Press, 1931).

The ms. tradition is not good. Many passages are probably hopelessly corrupt and the reconstructions offered in the Teubner text and here are, at the best, make-shifts. The work is No. 95 in the catalogue of Lamprias.

From Plutarch to Parcius,[*] health and prosperity.

It was only very recently that I received your letter in which you urged me to write you something on tranquillity of mind, and also something on those subjects in the Timaeus [*] which require more careful elucidation. And at the same time it chanced that our friend Eros[*] was obliged to sail at once for Rome, since he had received from the excellent Fundanus[*] a letter, which, in his usual style, urged haste. But since I neither had the time I might have desired to meet your wishes nor could I bring myself to let the friend who carne from me be seen arriving at your home with hands quite empty, I gathered together from my note-books those observations on tranquillity of mind which I happened to have made for my own use, believing that you on your part requested this discourse, not for the sake of hearing a work which would aim at elegance of style, but for the practical use in living it might afford; and I congratulate you because, though you have commanders as your friends and a reputation second to none of the forensic

speakers of our day, your experience has not been that of Merops in the play, and because it cannot be said of you, as of him, that

The plaudits of the mob have driven you[*]

from those emotions given us by nature; but you continue to remember what you have often heard, that an aristocratic shoe does not rid us of the gout, nor an expensive ring of a hangnail, nor a diadem of a headache. For what power is there in money or fame or influence at court to help us to gain ease of soul or an untroubled life, if it is not true that the use of them is pleasant to us when we have them and that we never miss them when we have them not?[*] And how else can this be achieved except through reason, which has been carefully trained quickly to hold back the passionate and irrational part of the soul when it breaks bounds, as it often does, and not to allow it to flow away and be swept downstream because it does not have what it wants? Therefore, just as Xenophon[*] advised that in prosperity we should be particularly mindful of the gods and should honour them, so that, when some need comes upon us, we may invoke them with the confidence that they are already well-disposed and friendly; so also with such reasonings as give help in controlling the passions: wise men should give heed to them before the passions arise in order that, being prepared far in advance, their help may be more efficacious. For as savage dogs become excited at every strange cry and are soothed by the familiar voice only, so also the passions of the soul, when they are raging wild, are not easily allayed, unless customary and familiar arguments are at hand to curb the excited passions.

Now he[*] who said, The man who would be tranquil in his mind must not engage in many affairs, either private or public, first of all makes our tranquillity very expensive if it is bought at the price of inactivity; it is as though he advised every sick man:

Lie still, poor wretch, and move not from your bed.[*]

And yet it is true that a state of bodily stupor is a bad remedy for insanity; but no whit better as a physician of the soul is he who would relieve it of its disturbances and distress by prescribing idleness and softness and the betrayal of friends and family and country.[*]

In the next place, it is also false that those who are not occupied with many things are tranquil in mind. For if that were true, women ought to be more tranquil than men, since for the most part they keep at home; but as it is, the North Wind

Blows not through the soft-skinned maid,

as Hesiod[*] says, yet more pain and excitement and despondency than one could enumerate, caused by jealousy and superstitition and ambition and vain imaginings, seep into the women’s quarters. And though Laërtes[*] lived twenty years by himself in the country

With one old woman, who his food and drink

Would place beside him,

and abandoned his birthplace,[*] his home, and his kingship, yet he had grief as an ever-constant companion of his inactivity and dejection. And for some persons, even inactivity itself often leads to discontent, as in this instance:

The swift Achilles, Peleus’ noble son,

Continued in his wrath beside the ships;

Nor would he ever go to council that

Ennobles men, nor ever go to war,

But wasted away his heart, remaining there,

And always longed for tumult and for war.[*]

And he himself is greatly disturbed and distressed at this and says:

But here I sit beside my ships,

A useless burden to the earth.[*]

For this reason not even Epicurus[*] believes that men who are eager for honour and glory should lead an inactive life, but that they should fulfil their natures by engaging in politics and entering public life, on the ground that, because of their natural dispositions, they are more likely to be disturbed and harmed by inactivity if they do not obtain what they desire. But he is absurd in urging public life, not on those who are able to undertake it, but on those who are unable to lead an inactive life; tranquillity and discontent should be determined, not by the multitude or the fewness of one’s occupations, but by their excellence or baseness; for the omission of good acts is no less vexatious and disturbing than the commission of evil acts, as has been said.[*]

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 Menander[*] 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 sea[*] 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 distress[*]: 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,[*]

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 Ion[*] has it. But later, when the disease is over and a sounder disposition supervenes, health returns and makes everything pleasant and agreeable[*]: 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.

Such contentment and change of view toward every kind of life is created by reason when it has been engendered within us. Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus[*] discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, Is it not worthy of tears, he said, that, when the number of worlds is infinite,[*] we have not

yet become lords of a single one? But Crates, though he had but a wallet and a threadbare cloak, passed his whole life jesting and laughing as though at a festival. It was, indeed, burdensome to Agamemnon to be lord of many men:

Agamemnon you shall know, King Atreus’ son,

Whom, beyond all, Zeus cast into a mesh

Of never-ending cares[*];

but Diogenes, when he was being sold at auction,[*] lay down on the ground and kept mocking the auctioneer; when this official bade him arise, he would not, but joked and ridiculed the man, saying, Suppose you were selling a fish? And Socrates,[*] though in prison, discoursed on philosophic themes to his friends; but Phaethon, when he had mounted up to heaven, wept because no one would deliver to him his father’s horses and chariot.

So, just as the shoe is turned with the foot, and not the contrary, so do men’s dispositions make their lives like themselves. For it is not, as someone[*] has said, habituation which makes the best life sweet to those who have chosen it, but wisdom which makes the same life at once both best and sweetest. Therefore let us cleanse the fountain of tranquillity that is in our own selves, in order that external things also, as if our very own and friendly, may agree with us when we make no harsh use of them:

It does no good to rage at circumstance;

Events will take their course with no regard

For us. But he who makes the best of those

Events he lights upon will not fare ill.[*]