Plutarch's Morals. Plutarch

Plutarch's Morals - Plutarch


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rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_fe4f23cf-1472-5e0f-ba9a-75bc66ad81ba">96 they pay their vows when in pitfalls and snares they trap wolves and bears,

      'For Aristæus first set traps for animals.'

      And Hercules invoked another god, when he was about to shoot at the bird, as the line of Æschylus shows,

      'Night bore me not to be lord of the lyre, Nor to be seer, or healer of diseases, But to conduct the souls of the departed.'

      And yet these duties involve much unpleasantness, whereas we cannot mention a holier work, nor any struggle or contest more fitting for a god to attend and play the umpire in, than the guidance of the young and beautiful in the prosecution of their love-affairs. For there is here nothing of an unpleasant nature, no compulsion of any kind, but persuasion and grace, truly making toil sweet and labour delightful, lead the way to virtue and friendship, and do not arrive at that desired goal without the deity, for they have as their leader and lord no other god than Love, the companion of the Muses and Graces and Aphrodite. For Love 'sowing in the heart of man the sweet harvest of desire,' to borrow the language of Melanippides, mixes the sweetest and most beautiful things together. But perhaps you are of a different opinion, Zeuxippus."

      'What god it is that shakes the fruitful thyrsus?'

      I refer to that love-fury for modest boys and chaste women, which is far the keenest and fiercest passion of all. For have you not observed how the soldier, when he lays aside his arms, ceases from his warlike fury, as the poet says,


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