Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/424

402 attendance at their gates; nor to take care and regard whether he who is chosen to succeed us in the government of our province be either hasty and choleric, or otherwise given to oppression and hard dealing: but as Archilochus, making no account at all of the fruitful corn-fields and plenteous vineyards in Thasos, despised and contemned the whole isle because of some other rough, hard, and uneven places in it, giving out thereof in these terms:

even so we, casting our eyes and fixing them upon that part only of exile which is the worst and vilest of the rest, do contemn and make no reckoning of the repose from business, the liberty also and leisure which it doth afford. And yet the kings of Persia be reputed happy, in that they pass their winter time in Babylon, the summer in Media, and the most sweet and pleasant part of the spring at Susse. May not he likewise who is departed out of his own native country during the solemnity of the mysteries of Ceres, make his abode within the city Eleusine; all the time of the Bacchanals, celebrate that feast in Argos; and when the Pythian games and plays are exhibited, go to Delphos; as also when the Isthmian pastimes be represented, make a journey likewise to Corinth? in case he be a man who taketh pleasure in the diversity of shews and public spectacles, if not, then either sit still and rest, or else walk up and down, read somewhat, or take a nap of sweet sleep without molestation or interruption of any man; and according as Diogenes was wont to say, Aristotle dineth when it pleaseth King Philip; but Diogenes taketh his dinner when Diogenes thinketh it good himself, without any business and affairs to distract him, and no magistrate, ruler or captain there was to interrupt his ordinary time and manner of diet. This is the reason why very few of the wisest and most prudent men that ever were have been buried in the countries where they were born; but the most part of them without any constraint or necessity to enforce them, have willingly weighed anchor, and of their own accord sailed to another road or haven to harbour in, and there to lead their life; for some of them have departed to Athens, others have forsaken Athens and gone to other places: for what man ever gave out such a commendation of his own native country, as did Euripides in these verses, in the person of a woman: