Πῶς δεῖ τὸν νέον ποιημάτων ἀκούειν.

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İngilizce İngilizce Yunanca

13 Plainly, then, two great advantages accrue to those who accustom themselves carefully to peruse works of poetry: the first is conducive to moderation, that we do not odiously and foolishly reproach anybody with his fortune; while the second is conducive to magnanimity, that when we ourselves have met with chances and changes we be not humiliated or even disturbed, but bear gently with scoffings and revilings and ridicule, having especially before us the words of Philemon: There’s naught more pleasing or in better taste Than having strength to bear when men revile.From the Epidicazomenus of Philemon; cf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag. ii. p. 484. But if anybody is plainly in need of reprehension, we should reprehend his faults and his giving way to emotion, after the fashion in which Adrastus of the tragedy, when Alcmaeon said to him, You are the kin of her who slew her spouse,Nauck, Trag.Graec. Frag., Adesp. No. 358; again quoted by Plutarch, Moralia, 88 F. replied And you have murdered her who gave you birth. Ibidem. For just as those who scourge the clothes do not touch the body,Plutarch says (Moralia, 173 D) that Artaxerxes (Longhand) ordained that nobles who had offended should lay off their clothes, and their clothes should be scourged instead of their bodies. Considerable corroborative evidence is cited by Wyttenbach in his note on Moralia, 565 A. so those who scoff at misfortune or low birth, do but vainly and foolishly assail externals, never touching the soul or even such matters as really need correction and stinging reproof.