Kitap 4
11
It was in the quality of a young man who loved beauty, that Polemo was touched by the discourses of Xenocrates. For he entered with some incentives to the study of beauty, though he sought in the wrong place. And, indeed, Nature has not made the very brutes dirty which live with man. Does a horse wallow in the mire; or a good dog? But swine, and dirty geese, and worms, and spiders, which are banished to the greatest distance from human society. Will you, then, who are a man, choose not to be even one of the animals that are conversant with man; but rather a worm or a spider? Will you not bathe sometimes, be it in whatever manner you please? Will you never use water to wash yourself? Will you not come clean, that they who converse with you may have some pleasure in you? But will you accompany us, in your uncleanness, even to the temples, where all unclean ways are forbidden?
11
What, then; would anybody have you adorn yourself to the utmost? By no means, except in those things where our nature requires it,—in reason, principles, actions; but in our persons only so far as neatness requires; so far as not to give offence. But if you hear that it is not right to wear purple, you must go, I suppose, and roll your cloak in the mud, or tear it. But how can I have a fine cloak? You have water, man; wash it. What an amiable youth is here! How worthy this old man to love and be loved! A fit person to be trusted with the instruction of our sons and daughters, and attended by young people as occasion may require,—to read them lectures from a dunghill! Every deterioration takes its origin from something human; but this almost dehumanizes a man.
Of taking pains.
