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130 Pages
Page 113
To us are held out prizes whereof the marvelous number and splendour are beyond the power of words to tell. Will it be possible for those who are fast asleep, and live a life of indulgence, to seize them without an effort? [682] If so, sloth would have been of great price, and Sardanapalus would have been esteemed especially happy, or even Margites, if you like, who is said by Homer to have neither ploughed nor dug, nor done any useful work,--if indeed Homer wrote this. Is there not rather truth in the saying of Pittacus, [683] who said that "It is hard to be good ?"...
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We must not be the slaves of our bodies, except where we are compelled. Our best provision must be for the soul. We ought by means of philosophy to release her from fellowship with all bodily appetites as we might from a dungeon, and at the same time make our bodies superior to our appetites. We should, for instance, supply our bellies with necessaries, not with dainties like men whose minds are set on cooks and table arrangers, and who search through every land and sea, like the tributaries of some stern despot, much to be pitied for their toil. Such men are really suffering pains as intolerable as the torments of hell, carding into a fire, [684] fetching water in a sieve, pouring into a tub with holes in it, and getting nothing for their pains. To pay more than necessary attention to our hair and dress is, as Diogenes phrases it, the part either of the unfortunate or of the wicked. To be finely dressed, and to have the reputation of being so, is to my mind quite as disgraceful as to play the harlot or to plot against a neighbour's wedlock. What does it matter to a man with any sense, whether he wears a grand state robe, or a common cloak, so long as it serves to keep off heat and cold? In other matters necessity is to be the rule, and the body is only to be so far regarded as is good for the soul."
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[682] Lit., who sleep with both ears, to seize with one hand (idiom for sleeping soundly. cf. Aul. Gell. ii. 23, who quotes ep' amphoteran katheudein from Menander).
[683] Of Mitylene, cf. Arist., Pol. III. xiv. 9, and Diog. Laert. I. iv., who mentions Simonides' quotation of the maxim of the text ,'Andra agathon alatheos genesthai chalepon, to Pittakeion.
[684] eis pur xainontes, i.e. labouring in vain. cf. Plat., Legg. 780 c. The ordinary rendering to "flog fire," adopted by Erasmus (Adag. Chil. i., Centur. iv.), seems wrong. cf. Bekker on the phrase in Plato.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=113
