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As for envy, which is the greatest evil attending the
management of public affairs, it least attacks old age. For
dogs indeed, as Heraclitus has it, bark at a stranger whom
they do not know; and envy opposes him who is a beginner on the very steps of the tribune, hindering his access,
but she meekly bears an accustomed and familiar glory,
and not churlishly or difficultly. Wherefore some resemble
envy to smoke; for it arises thick at first, when the fire
[p. 74]
begins to burn; but when the flame grows clear, it vanishes
away. Now men usually quarrel and contend about other
excellences, as virtue, nobility, and honor, as if they were
of opinion that they took from themselves as much as they
give to others; but the precedency of time, which is properly called by the Greeks Πρεσβεῖον (or the honor of old
age), is free from jealousy, and willingly granted by men
to their companions. For to no honor is it so incident to
grace the honorer more than the honored, as to that which
is given to persons in years. Moreover, all men do not
expect to gain themselves authority from wealth, eloquence,
or wisdom; but as for the reverence and glory to which
old age brings men, there is not any one of those who act
in the management of the state but hopes to attain it.
He therefore who, having a long time contended against
envy, shall when it ceases and is appeased withdraw himself from the state, and together with public actions desert
communities and societies, differs nothing from that pilot
who, having kept his ship out at sea when in danger of
being overwhelmed by contrary and tempestuous waves
and winds, seeks to put into harbor as soon as ever the
weather is grown calm and favorable. For the longer time
there has been, the more friends and companions he has
made; all which he cannot carry out with him, as a
singing-master does his choir, nor is it just to leave them.
But as it is not easy to root up old trees, so neither is it to
extirpate a long-continued practice in the management of
the state, which having many roots is involved in a tangled
mass of affairs, which create more troubles and vexations
to those who retire from them than to those who continue
in them. And if there is any remainder of envy and emulation against old men from former contentions about civil
affairs, they should rather extinguish it by authority, than
turn their backs on it and go away naked and disarmed.
For envious persons do not so much assail those who contend
[p. 75]
against them, as they do by contempt insult over such
as retire.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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