Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/178

156 nothing; which were as much as if they advised each one to do as Electra did to her sick brother Orestes, when she said unto him:

Lie still, poor wretch, and keep thy bed. Stir not from thence, and have no dread.

But surely as this were untoward physic for the body, to prescribe for the allaying of pain a medicine that would benumb and stupefy the senses; so. verily he were no better physician for the soul, who to deliver her from trouble and grief, ordained that she should be made idle, slugglish, soft and tender, which, in one word, is as much as to forget all duty and to betray friends, kinsfolk and country. Moreover, a false position it is: That they enjoy tranquillity of life who intermeddle not in much business: for if that were true, women should live in more repose and quietness of mind than men, forasmuch as they keep home and sit still within doors for the most part, and seldom go abroad: but now, although it cannot be denied but that as the poet Hesiodus saith:

Cold Boreas, a wind that blows From northern pole full oft. Doth never pierce the tender skin Of damsel smooth and soft,

yet many heart-griefs, troubles, perturbations, discontentments and cares arising upon jealousy, superstition, pride, ambition, foolish and vain opinions (which are so many as hardly a man is able to number them) find way and entrance even to the secret chambers and cabinets of our fine and dainty dames: And Laertes, who lived apart for the space of twenty years in the country,

With one old woman and no more Who meat and drink set him before,

far from his native country, his own home, from court and kingdom; yet nevertheless he had always dwelling with him sadness of heart, accompanied with languishing, idleness and heavy silence. And more than that, this non-employment in affairs is that which many times hath cast some men into a dumpish melancholy and heaviness of spirit, like to him of whom Homer thus writeth:

Here sat Achilles, swift of foot, by line descended right From Jupiter, though son he were of Peleus worthy knight, And stirr'd not from his fleet in road, but in an angry fit Would neither fight in open field, nor yet in counsel sit: Thus idle he abode so long until his heart within Consum'd, and nothing wish'd he more than battle to begin.