Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/352

330 domestical. The hunter cannot with all his cunning make tame and tractable all the savage beasts of the forest; and therefore they have sought and devised other means and uses to make the best of them; the one finding good in barren and fruitless plants, the other in wild and savage beasts. The water of the sea is not potable, but brackish and hurtful unto us, howbeit, fishes are nourished therewith, and it serveth man's turn also to transport passengers (as in a waggon) into all parts, and to carry whatsoever a man will. When the satyr would have kissed and embraced fire the first time that ever he saw it, Prometheus admonished him and said:

but it yieldeth light and heat, and is an instrument serving all arts, to as many as know how to use it well; semblably, let us consider and see whether an enemy, being otherwise harmful and intractable, or at leastwise hard to be handled, may not in some sort yield as it were a handle to take hold by, for to touch and use him so as he may serve our turn and minister unto us some commodity. For many things there are besides which be odious, troublesome, cumbrous, hurtful, and contrary unto those that have them or come near unto them; and yet you see that the very maladies of the body give good occasion unto some for to live at rest and repose; I mean sequestered from affairs abroad, and the travails presented unto others by fortune, have so exercised them that they are become thereby strong and hardy: and to say more yet, banishment and loss of goods hath been the occasion unto divers, yea, and a singular means to give themselves to their quiet study and to philosophy; like as Diogenes and Crates did in times past. Zeno himself, when news came unto him that his ship wherein he did venture and traffic was split and cast away: Thou hast done well by me, fortune (quoth he), to drive me again to my scholar's weed. For like as those living creatures which are of a most sound and healthful constitution, and have besides strong stomachs, are able to concoct and digest the serpents and scorpions which they devour; nay, some of them there be which are nourished of stones, scales, and shells, converting the same into their nutriment by the strength and vehement heat of their spirits; whereas such as be delicate, tender, soft, and crazy, are ready to cast and vomit if they taste a little bread only, or do but sip of wine; even so foolish folk do mar and corrupt even friendship