| THE AGES AND THE WRITERS |
ESTIMATION OF CATO THE YOUNGER, 95-46 B.C. |
Classical Age
Our representative writer is Plutarch |
High regard for a man who was better than the times in which he lived.
"His manners were little agreeable or acceptable to the people, and he received very slender marks of their favor...
as Cicero says, for acting rather like a citizen in Plato's commonwealth, than among the dregs of Romulus's posterity, the same thing happening to him...as we observe in fruits ripe before their season, which we rather take pleasure in looking at and admiring, than actually use; so much was his old-fashioned virtue out of the present mode, among the depraved customs which time and luxury had introduced, that it appeared indeed remarkable and wonderful, but was too great and too good to suit the present exigencies, being so out of all proportion to the times...
...Cato's time was, indeed, stormy and tempestuous...
Others were to blame for the result; yet his courage and virtue made it in spite of all a hard task for fortune to ruin the commonwealth, and it was only with long time and effort and by slow degrees, when he himself had all but succeeded in averting it, that the catastrophe was at last effected."
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The Christian Middle Ages
Our representative writer is Dante |
As Cato was the defender of the Roman Republic, likewise, Cato, in Dante's Comedia, is portrayed as the guardian of the seaward approach to the island of Purgatory, rather than in hell as a suicide.
Purgatorio, Cantos 1 and 2. |
Rennaisance
Our representative writer is Shakespeare |
Cato is already dead when the action begins in the play, but his noble spirit lives in Porcia
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em.
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience
And not my husband's secrets?
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