Plutarch, How to Profit by One's Enemies
Translated by John Hartcliffe, Fellow of King's College in Cambridge.
Edition by William W. Goodwin, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878.
Annotation of text copyright ©2007 David Trumbull, Agathon Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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¶ Plutarch observes that enmity and ill-will are ever present among
men, and that even friends will fall into quarrels.
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[1] Not to mention, Cornelius Pulcher, your gentle as well as skilful administration
of public affairs, for which goodness and humanity you have gotten an interest
in mankind, we clearly perceive that in your private conversation you have made
a quiet and peaceable way of living your choice and continual practice. By this
means you are justly esteemed a useful member of the commonwealth in general,
and also a friendly affable companion to those who familiarly converse with you,
as being a person free from all sour, rough, and peevish humors. For, as it is
said of Crete, we may by great chance discover one single region of the world
that never afforded any dens or coverts for wild beasts. But through the long
succession of ages, even to this time, there scarce ever was a state or kingdom
that hath not suffered under envy, hatred,
emulation /1/, the love of strife, fierce
and unruly passions, of all others the most productive of enmity and ill-will
among men. Nay, if nothing else will bring it to pass, familiarity will at last
breed contempt, and the very friendship of men doth frequently draw them into
quarrels, that prove sharp and sometimes implacable. Which that wise man Chilo
did well understand, who, when he heard another assert that he had no enemy,
asked him very pertinently whether he had no friend. In my judgment therefore
it is absolutely necessary that a man, especially if he sit at the helm and be
engaged to steer the government, should watchfully observe every posture and motion
of his enemy, and subscribe to Xenophon's opinion in this case; who hath
set it down as a maxim of the greatest wisdom, that a man should make the best
advantage he can of him that is his adversary.
Wherefore, having lately determined to write somewhat on this argument,
I have now gathered together all my scattered thoughts and meditations upon
it, which I have sent to you, digested into as plain a method as I could;
forbearing all along to mention those observations I have heretofore made and
written in my Political Precepts, because I know you have that treatise at
your hand, and often under your eye.
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¶ In chapters three through eleven, Plutarch sets forth
nine ways in which an enemy may be profitable to one.
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There are many things which, when we have obtained them by much labor
and sweat, become nauseous, ungrateful, and directly contrary to our
inclinations; but there are some (you know) who can turn the very indispositions
of their bodies into an occasion of rest and freedom from business. And hard
pains that have fallen upon many men have rendered them only the more robust
through vigorous exercise. There are others who, as Diogenes and Crates did,
have made banishment from their native country and loss of all their goods a
means to pass out of a troublesome world into the quiet and serene state of
philosophy and mental contemplation. So the Stoic Zeno /2/ welcomed the good
fortune, when he heard the ship was broken wherein his adventures were,
because she had reduced him to a torn coat, to the safety and innocence of
a mean and low condition. For as some creatures of strong constitutions eat
serpents and digest them well,—nay, there are some whose stomachs
can by a strange powerful heat concoct shells or stones,—while on
the contrary, there are the weak and diseased, who loathe even bread and wine,
the most agreeable and best supports of human life; so the foolish and
inconsiderate spoil the very friendships they are engaged in, but the wise and
prudent make good use of the hatred and enmity of men.
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(8) As strife, envy, and suspicion can never be completely eradicated
from the human spirit, and those passions, if not contained, are, at least,
better directed toward foes than friends, we may say that
an enemy helps one preserve friendships by deflecting the
spirit of rivalry away from friends and toward its proper object.
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[10] Simonides was wont to say that there was no lark without
its crest /11/; so the
disposition of men is naturally pregnant with strife, suspicion, and envy,
which last (as Pindar observes) is“the companion of empty-brained
men.”Therefore no man can do any thing that will tend more to his own
profit and the preservation of his peace than utterly to purge out of his mind
these corrupt affections, and cast them off as the very sink of all iniquity,
that they may create no more mischief between him and his friends. This
Onomademus, a judicious and wise man, understood well, who, when he was
of the prevailing side in a civil commotion at Chios, gave this counsel to
his friends, that they should not quite destroy or drive away those of the
adverse party, but let some abide there, for fear they should begin to fall
out among themselves as soon as their enemies were all out of the way.
Therefore, if these uneasy dispositions of the mind be spent and consumed
upon enemies, they would never molest or disquiet our friends. Neither
doth Hesiod approve of one potter or one singer's envying another,
or that a neighbor or relation or brother should resent it ill that another
prospers and is successful in the world.
But if there be no other way whereby we may be delivered from emulation,
envy, or contention, we may suffer our minds to vent these passions upon
the prosperity of our enemies, and whet the edge and sharpen the point of
our anger upon them. For as gardeners that have knowledge and experience
in plants expect their roses and violets should grow the better by being
set near leeks and onions,—because all the sour juices of the earth
are conveyed into these, — so an enemy by attracting to himself our
vicious and peevish qualities, may render us less humorsome and more candid
and ingenuous to our friends that are in a better or more happy state than ourselves.
Wherefore let us enter the lists with our enemies, and contend with them for
true glory, lawful empire, and just gain. Let us not so much debase ourselves
as to be troubled and fret at any possessions they enjoy more than we have.
Let us rather carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies
excel us, so that by these motives we may be excited to outdo them in honest
diligence, indefatigable industry, prudent caution, and exemplary sobriety;
as Themistocles complained that the victory Miltiades got at Marathon would
not let him sleep /12/. But whosoever views his adversary exalted far above him
in dignities, in pleading of great causes, in administration of state affairs,
or in favor and friendship with princes, and doth not put forth all his
strength and power to get before him in these things,—this man
commonly pines away, and by degrees sinks into the sloth and misery of
an envious and inactive life. And we may observe, that envy and hatred
do raise such clouds in the understanding, that a man shall not be able
to pass a right judgment concerning things which he hates; but whosoever
with an impartial eye beholds, and with a sincere mind judges, the life
and manners, discourses, and actions of his enemy, will soon understand
that many of those things that raise his envy were gotten by honest care,
a discreet providence, and virtuous deeds. Thus the love of honorable and
brave actions may be kindled and advanced in him, and an idle and lazy course
of life may be contemned and forsaken.
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