Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/390

368 assured certainly that we profit in virtue; yea, and so much the rather, if we have in admiration good and virtuous men, not only in their prosperity, but also (like as amorous folk are well enough pleased with the lisping or stammering tongue; yea, and do like the pale colour of these whom for the flower of their youth and beauty they love and think it beseemeth them, as we read of Lady Panthea, who by her tears and sad silence, all heavy, afflicted and blubbered as she was, for the dolour and sorrow that she took for the death of her husband, seized Araspes so as he was enamoured upon her) in their adversity, so as we neither start back for fear, nor dread the banishment of Aristides, the imprisonment of Anaxagoras, the poverty of Socrates, or the condemnation of Phocion, but repute their virtue desirable, lovely and amiable, even with all these calamities, and run directly toward her for to kiss and embrace her by our imitation, having always in our mouth at every one of these cross accidents this notable speech of Euripides:

For we are never to fear or doubt that any good or honest thing shall ever be able to avert from virtue this heavenly inspiration and divine instinct of affection, which not only is not grieved and troubled at those things which seem unto men most full of misery and calamity, but also admireth and desireth to imitate them. Hereupon also it followeth by good consequence, that they who have once received so deep an impression in their hearts, take this course with themselves: That when they begin any enterprise, or enter into the administration of government, or when any sinister accident is presented unto them, they set before their eyes the examples of those who either presently are or heretofore have been worthy persons, discoursing in this manner: What is it that Plato would have done in this case? what would have Epaminondas said to this? how would Lycurgus or Agesilaus have behaved themselves herein? After this sort (I say) will they labour to frame, compose, reform, and adorn their manners as it were before a mirror or looking-glass, to wit, in correcting any unseemly speech that they have let fall, or repressing any passion that hath risen in them. They that have learned the names of the demigods called Idsei Dactyli, know how to use them as counter-charms or preservatives against sudden frights, pronouncing the same one after another readily and ceremoniously; but the remembrance and