Yet since, however, through our folly we have
grown accustomed to live with eyes fixed on everyone
else rather than on ourselves, and since our nature
contains much envy and malice and does not rejoice
so much in our own blessings as it is pained by those
which other men possess, do not look only at the
splendour and notoriety of those you envy and wonder
at, but open and, as it were, draw aside the gaudy
curtain of their repute and outward appearance,
and get inside them, and you will see many disagreeable things and many things to vex them there.
Thus, when that renowned Pittacus,
1 whose fame
for bravery and for wisdom and justice was great,
was entertaining some guests, his wife entered in a
rage and upset the table ; his guests were dismayed,
but Pittacus said, ‘Every one of us has some
trouble. He that has only mine is doing very well
indeed.’
This man's held happy in the market-place,
But when he enters home, thrice-wretched he :
His wife rules all, commands, and always fights.
His woes are more than mine, for mine are none!2
Many such evils attend wealth and repute and kingship, evils unknown to the vulgar, for ostentation
hinders the vision.
O happy son of Atreus, child of destiny,
Blessed with a kindly guardian spirit!3
[p. 205]
Such felicitation comes from externals only - for his
arms and horses and far-flung host of warriors; but
against the emptiness of his glory the voice of his
sufferings cries out in protest from the very heart :
The son of Cronus, Zeus, entangled me
In deep infatuation,4
and
I envy you, old man ;
I envy any man whose life has passed
Free from danger, unknown and unrenowned.5
By such reflections also, then, it is possible to reduce
the violence of our fault-finding with fate, fault-finding which, through admiration of our neighbours'
lot, both debases and destroys our own.
