2
The fox in Aesop, Fable 42 ed. Halm; cf.Moralia, 155 b; Babrius, Fable 180 ed. Crusius; Siefert, Plutarchs Schrift Περὶ εὐθυμίας, pp. 27-28. disputing at law with the leopard concerning their claims to variety, ποικιλία when applied to an animal’s skin refers to colour and markings, but when it is applied to the mind it means subtlety or cunning. when the leopard had shown her body with its glossy surface bright and spotted, and the fox’s tawny skin was rough and unpleasant to the eye, But look at me >within, sir judge, said she, And you will find me fuller far than she Of fair variety, cf. Wilamowitz, Hermes, xl. p. 164; Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica, i. p. 304: Plutarch’s words are apparently adapted from an unknown choliambic poet. See also Knox, Choliambica (L.C.L.), p. 350. making manifest the versatility of her character which changes to many forms as necessity arises. Shall we, then, say in our own case, Many of your diseases and affections, O man, your body naturally produces of itself, and it receives also many that befall it from without; but if you lay yourself open on the inside, you will find a storehouse and treasury, as DemocritusDiels, Frag. d. Vorsokratiker 5, vol. ii. p. 172, Frag. 149. says, of all manner of evils and many abnormal states, which do not flow in from outside, but have, as it were, subterranean and earth-born springs, which Vice, being widely diffused and abundantly supplied with those abnormal states, causes to gush forth? And if the diseases in the flesh are detected by the pulse and biliousness, and temperatures and sudden pains confirm their presence, but the evils in the soul escape the notice of most men, they are for this reason worse evils, since they also deprive the sufferer of any awareness of themselves. For although the reason, cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp., iii. 1. if sound, perceives the diseases which affect the body, yet, being itself afflicted with those of the soul, it can form no judgement of its own afflictions, for it is affected in the very part by which it judges; and, of the souls diseases, one must account as first and greatest ignorance, which causes Vice beyond hope of cure to abide with most men, to cling to them through life, and to die with them. For the beginning of the riddance of disease is awareness which leads the ailing part to the use of what will relieve it; but the man who through disbelief in his ailment does not know what he needs, refuses the remedy, even if it be at hand. For it is true of the diseases of the body also that those are worse which are attended by inability to perceive the body’s condition: lethargies, migraine, epilepsies, apoplexies, and those very fevers which, raising inflammation to the pitch of delirium and confounding consciousness, as on a musical instrument, Will touch the heart-strings never touched before. cf. 456 c, supra.
