PAGE 9
On Education
by
[10] See Erasmus, “Adagia.”
[11] It is difficult to know how to render the word [Greek: paidagogos] in English. He was the slave who took the boy to school, and generally looked after him from his seventh year upward. Tutor or governor seems the best rendering. He had great power over the boy entrusted to him.
[12] Plato, “Clitophon,” p. 255, D.
[13] Compare Diogenes Laertius, ii. 72.
[14] Reading [Greek: koitophthorountes], the excellent emendation of Wyttenbach.
[15] From the heathen standpoint of course, not from the Christian. Compare the advice of Cato in Horace’s “Satires,” Book i. Sat. ii. 31-35. It is a little difficult to know what Diogenes’ precept really means. Is it that vice is universal? Like Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” Act ii. Sc. ii. 5. “All sects, all ages smack of this vice.”
[16] He was asked by Polus, see Plato, “Gorgias,” p. 290, F.
[17] “Hippolytus,” 986-989.
[18] Cf. Plato, “Cratylus,” p. 257, E. [Greek: o pai Hipponikou Hermogenes, palaia paroimia, oti chalepa ta kala estin ope echei mathein]. So Horace, “Sat.” i. ix. 59, 60, “Nil sine magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus.”
[19] “Midias,” p. 411, C.
[20] i.e., occasionally and sparingly.
[21] Diogenes Laertius assigns the remark to Aristippus, while Stobaeus fathers it on Aristo.
[22] A favourite thought with the ancients. Compare Isocrates, “Admonitio ad Demonicum,” p. 18; and Aristotle, “Nic. Eth.,” iv. 3.
[23] “Republic,” vii. p. 489, E.
[24] A famous Proverb. It is “the master’s eye” generally, as in Xenophon, “Oeconom.” xii. 20; and Aristotle, “Oeconom.” i. 6.
[25] “Works and Days,” 361, 362. The lines were favourite ones with our author. He quotes them again, Sec. 3, of “How one may be aware of one’s Progress in Virtue.”
[26] See Pausanias, ix. 9. Also Erasmus, “Adagia.”
[27] A fragment from the “Protesilaus” of Euripides. Our “It takes two to make a quarrel.”
[28] See Plutarch’s Lysander.
[29] Or symposium, where all sorts of liberties were taken.
[30] I have softened his phrase. His actual words were very coarse, and would naturally be resented by Ptolemy. See Athenaeus, 621, A.
[31] See “Iliad,” v. 83; xvi. 334; xx, 477.
[32] A fragment from the “Dictys” of Euripides.
[33] “Republ.” v. 463, F. sq.
[34] Cf. Shakespeare’s “Winter Tale,” Act iii. sc. iii. 59-63.
[35] As Horace’s father did. See “Satires,” Book i. Sat. iv. 105-129.
[36] What we call black sheep.
[37] From Simonides. Cf. Seneca, “Epist.” xlix. “Punctum est quod vivimus, et adhuc puncto minus.”
[38] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: hos ek logikes technes.]
[39] Like Carker in Dombey.
[40] Compare the character of Micio in the “Adelphi” of Terence.
[41] This saying is assigned by Diogenes Laertius to Pittacus.
[42] Compare Plautus, “Asinaria,” i. l. 74. “Argentum accepi: dote imperum vendidi.” Compare also our author, “Whether Vice is sufficient to cause Unhappiness,” Sec. i.
[43] Wyttenbach thinks this treatise is not Plutarch’s. He bases his conclusion partly on external, partly on internal, grounds. It is not quoted by Stobaeus, or any of the ancients, before the fourteenth century. And its style is not Plutarch’s; it has many words foreign to Plutarch: it has “nescio quid novum ac peregrinum, ab illa Plutarchea copia et gravitate diversum leve et inane.” Certainly its matter is superior to its manner.