Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II.

‘However, this is a long way from saying that all has been brought into being for nothing. The sea sends up soft exhalations, [Sidenote: E] and delightful breezes in midsummer h...

For the shadowy parts really pass beneath the bright ones which they encircle, and in turn press and are cut off by them; thus light and shade are interwoven throughout, and the...

XVIII. Theocritus broke in, stopping Charon who wanted to say something to Hippostheneidas: ‘Well, Hippostheneidas, [Sidenote: C] nothing has ever struck me as so encouraging fo...

not going on board themselves to share the peril, but appearing from above and delivering men; even so the Gods visit the worlds, now one and now another; drawn on by joy as the...

_Capheisias._ Indeed, Archidamus, since you are so kind as to press for the whole story, it would be my duty to make it, as Pindar[21] says, ‘a call before all business’ to come...

XIX. Cleombrotus spoke next: ‘I have stories of the same [Sidenote: 420] kind which I might tell; but it is enough for our hypothesis that there is nothing which actually contra...

says Euripides;[187] when the soul, warmed and set on fire, rejects the caution which human prudence brings, to avert inspiration, as it so often does, and to quench it.

as Pindar[136] says. And whether he be sun, or lord and father of the sun, lord and father beyond all that is visible, it is not likely that he should deem us modern men unworth...

The mind of kings and generals is made known to outsiders through the senses, by special beacons or proclamation, or calls on the trumpet; and so the divine message reaches few...

XX. ‘Some oracles, however, still run into metres, one of which has made “necessary business”[108] a household word. There is in Phocis a temple of “Hercules Woman-Hater”, where...

[Sidenote: F] as Empedocles says! Earth had nothing to do with heat, water with wind; nothing heavy was found above, nothing light below; without commixture, without affection w...

The mathematical account of the movements of the moon has its history. As we have seen, it was early realized that she revolved round and near the earth in a circular orbit. Soo...

For great natures produce nothing petty; their vehemence and energy cannot rest for very intensity, they toss about on the surge before they settle into their solid and abiding...

II. ‘But there’, said Timon, ‘we shall find a confusion of ideas between what perishes and what does not. Now when we speak of the dead as having “passed away” and being “gone”,...

may be conveniently treated as a group, and assumed to be a collection of those ‘Pythian Dialogues’ which the author sent to his friend Serapion. I and II certainly are so, III...

VIII. Our round had now brought us in front of the statue of Hiero, the tyrant. Most of the stories the stranger knew well, but he good-naturedly lent his ear to them. At last,...

XXI. ‘There are those who think that Apollo and the sun are the same; we hail them and love them for the fair name they give, and it is fitting to do so; for they associate thei...

Galaxidorus said: ‘I am quite ready to listen to Simmias on this subject, Pheidolaus, if he has himself heard Socrates speak about it, and to join you in believing; but as for a...

Lucius replied: ‘These are perhaps the most important points mentioned; but first, if you will, take the additional argument drawn from the shape of the shadow. This is a cone,...

The MSS. have ‘Pandarus’, but ‘Pindar’ is a likely correction. Yet Plutarch cannot have supposed Pindar to have written this iambic line. It is quoted by Aristophanes, _Peace_,...

The Dialogue on _Delay in Divine Punishment_ stands somewhat apart from the others. It deals gravely with grave matters, the ways of Providence with man, and the ‘last things’....

VII. When Theon had done, I think it was Eustrophus of Athens who addressed us: ‘Do you see with what a will Theon backs Dialectic? He has only to put on the lion’s skin! Now th...

The whole Dialogue has been the subject of a careful study by Dr. Max Adler of Vienna (_Dissertationes Vindobonenses_, 1910). Without entering into his general view of the struc...

A few lines about the scholar to whose prolonged labours upon Plutarch we owe so much are only his due. Daniel Wyttenbach was born at Bern, where his father was a divine of good...

VII. Now look with me at the atheist, first when things cross his wishes, and consider his attitude. If he is a decent, quiet person, he takes what comes in silence, and provide...

XXII. When I had spoken thus I remained silent. Olympicus laughed quietly, and said: ‘We are not applauding you, lest we should seem to be letting you off the myth, as though th...

‘But the Author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of whose works he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half; if the other had perished Plutarch would not have been a...

For the self of each of us is not courage, nor fear, nor desire, any more than it is a parcel of flesh and of humours; it is that whereby we understand and think. The soul being...

Lamprias, Plutarch’s brother (also the name of his grandfather); a speaker in the First and Third Pythian Dialogues and in the _Face in the Moon_. Cp. _Sympos._ 2, 2; 4, 5; 9, 15.

XIV. ‘There,’ I said, ‘let all this serve for so many dykes or barriers against those bitter and aggressive assailants! Now, let us go back, and pick up the end of the thread in...

But that we may pass on. Because this unnaturall resemblance of God as an angry Deity in impure minds, should it blaze too furiously, like the Basilisk would kill with its looks...