Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/157

Rh whereby they may be seen. And therefore it is, that a busy fellow and curious meddler doth more good to his enemies than to himself; for their faults he discovereth and bringeth to light, to them he sheweth what they ought to beware of, and what they are to amend: but all this while he overseeth, or rather seeth not the most things that are done at home, so deeply amused he is and busy in spying what is amiss abroad, Howbeit, wise Ulysses would not abide to speak and confer with his own mother, before he had inquired of the prophet those things for which he went down into hell; and when he had once heard them, then he turned to his mother and other women also, asking what was Tyro? what was Chloris? and what was the occasion and cause that Eperaste came by her death?

Who knit her neck within a deadly string, And so from beam of lofty house did hing.

But we, quite contrary, sitting still in supine idleness and ignorance, neglecting and never regarding that which concerneth ourselves, go to search into the genealogy and pedigrees of others; and we can tell readily that our neighbours' grandfather was no better than a base and servile Syrian; that his nurse came out of barbarous Thracia; that such an one is in debt, and oweth three talents, and is behindhand besides and in arrearages for non-payment of interest for the use thereof.

Inquisitive also we are in such matters as these: From whence came such a man's wife? what it was that such a one and such a one spake when they were alone together in an odd comer? Socrates was clean of another quality; he would go up and down inquiring and casting about what were the reasons wherewith Pythagoras persuaded men to his opinion. Aristippus likewise, at the solemnity of the Olympian games, falling into the company of Ischomachus, asked of him, what were the persuasions that Socrates used to young folk, whereby they became so affectionate unto him; and after he had received from him some small seeds (as it were) and a few samples of those reasons and arguments, he was so moved and passionate therewith, that presently his body fell away, he looked pale, poor and lean, until he having sailed to Athens in this wonderful thirst and ardent heat, had drunk his fill at the fountain and wellhead itself, known the man, heard his discourses and learned his philosophy; the sum and effect whereof was this: That a man should first know his own maladies, and then the means to be cured and delivered of them. But some there be who