Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/207

Rh the year a feast and holy day? yes verily, and if we be wise we should think all days double feasts and most solemn gaudy-days: for surely this world is a right sacred and holy temple, yea, and most divine, beseeming the majesty of God, into which man is inducted and admitted at his nativity, not to gaze and look at statues and images cut and made by man's hand, and such as have no motion of their own, but to behold those works and creatures which that divine spirit and almighty power in wonderful wisdom and providence hath made and shewed unto us sensible; and yet (as Plato saith) representing and resembling intelligible powers, from whence proceed the beginnings of life and moving, namely, the sun, the moon, the stars; what should I speak of the rivers which continually send out fresh water still; and the earth which bringeth forth nourishment for all living creatures, and yieldeth nutriment likewise to every plant?

Now if our life be the imitation of so sacred mysteries, and (is it were) a profession and entrance into so holy a religion of all others most perfect, we must needs esteem it to be full of contentment and continual joy: neither ought we (as the common multitude doth) attend and wait for the feasts of Saturn, Bacchus, or Minerva, and such other high days wherein they may solace themselves, make merry and laugh, buying their mirth and joy for money, giving unto players, jesters, dancers, and such-like their hire and reward for to make them laugh. In which feasts and solemnities we use to sit with great contentment of mind, arrayed decently according to our degree and calling (for no man useth to mourn and lament when he is professed in the mysteries of Ceres, and received into that confraternity; no man sorroweth when he doth behold the goodly sights of the Pythian games; no man hungereth or fasteth during the Saturnals): what an indignity and shame is it then that in those feasts which God himself hath instituted, and wherein (as a man would say) he leadeth the dance, or is personally himself to give institution and induction, men should contaminate, pollute and profane as they do, dishonouring their life for the most part, with weeping, wailing, sighing and groaning, or at the leastwise in deep thoughts and pensive cares.

But the greatest shame of all other is this; that we take pleasure to hear the organs and instruments of music sound pleasantly; we delight to hear birds singing sweetly; we behold with right goodwill beasts playing, sporting, dancing and skipping featly; and contrariwise, we are offended when they howl, roar, snarl, and gnash their teeth, as also when they shew a