Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/430

408 country by force of arms, as himself testifieth a little after in these words:

Much like also be the speeches of his mother, lamenting in this wise:

whom it had become and behoved rather to rejoice and be glad in heart, when she heard that her son was so highly advanced and married into so royal an house; but in taking grief and sorrow herself that there was no wedding torch lighted, and that the river Ismenus afforded no water to bathe in at his wedding; as if new-married bridegrooms could not be furnished either with fire or water in the city Argos; she attributeth unto exile the inconveniences which more truly proceed from vanity and folly.

But some man will say unto me; That to be banished is a note of ignominy and reproach: true it is indeed, but among fools only, who think likewise that it is a shame to be poor, to be bald, to be small of stature, yea, and to be a stranger forsooth, a tenant, inmate or alien inhabitant: For certes, such as will not suffer themselves to be carried away with these vain persuasions, nor do subscribe thereto, esteem and have in admiration good and honest persons, never respecting whether they be poor, strangers and banished or no: Do we not see that all the world doth honour and reverence the temple of Theseus as well as Parthenon and Eleusinium, temples dedicated to Minerva, Ceres and Proserpina? and yet was Theseus banished from Athens; even that Theseus by whose means the same city was first peopled, and is at this day inhabited; and that city lost he which he held not from another, but founded first himself. As for Eleusis, what beauty at all would remain in it, if we dishonour Eumolpus and be ashamed of him who removing out of Thracia, instituted at first among the Greeks the religion of sacred mysteries, which continueth in force and is observed at this day? what shall we say of Codrus, who became king of Athens? whose son, I pray you, was he? was not Melanthius his father a banished man from Messina? Can you chuse but