Simonides' Poem

I will try to explain to you my opinion about this poem of Simonides.

There is a very ancient philosophy which is more cultivated in Crete and Lacedaemon than in any other part of Hellas, and there are more philosophers in those countries than anywhere else in the world.

This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny; and they pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking, and not by valour of arms; considering that if the reason of their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practising their wisdom.

This secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and are always in training, and wear short cloaks; for they imagine that these are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the other Hellenes.

When the Spartans want to unbend and hold free conversation with their wise men, and are no longer satisfied with mere secret intercourse, they drive out all these laconizers, and any other foreigners who may happen to be in their country.

They they hold a philosophical seance unknown to foreigners.

They themselves forbid their young men to go out into other cities—in this they are like the Cretans—in order that they may not unlearn the lessons which they have taught them. And in Lacedaemon and Crete not only men but also women have a pride in their high cultivation.

Hereby you may know that I am right in attributing to the Lacedaemonians this excellence in philosophy and speculation: If a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse and full of meaning, with unerring aim; and the person with whom he is talking seems to be like a child in his hands.

Many of our own age and of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics; they are conscious that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering such expressions.

Examples were:

1. Thales of Miletus
2. Pittacus of Mitylene
3. Bias of Priene
4. Our own Solon
5. Cleobulus the Lindian
6. Myson the Chenian
7. Chilo the Spartan

All these were lovers and emulators and disciples of the Spartan culture.

Their wisdom was of this character:

• It consisting of short memorable sentences, which they severally uttered.
• They met together and dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as the first-fruits of their wisdom, the far-famed inscriptions, which are in all men’s mouths—‘Know thyself,’ and ‘Nothing too much.’

This Spartan brevity was the style of primitive philosophy.

Pittacus says: ‘Hard is it to be good.’

This was privately circulated and approved by the wise.

Simonides wanted the fame of wisdom. he overthrew this saying as if he had won a victory over some famous athlete, he would carry off the palm among his contemporaries.

He composed the entire poem with the secret intention of damaging Pittacus and his saying.

Let us all unite in examining his words, and see whether I am speaking the truth.

Simonides must have been a lunatic, if, in the very first words of the poem, wanting to say only that to become good is hard, he inserted (Greek) ‘on the one hand’ (‘on the one hand to become good is hard’).

There would be no reason for the introduction of (Greek), unless you suppose him to speak with a hostile reference to the words of Pittacus. Pittacus is saying ‘Hard is it to be good,’ and he, in refutation of this thesis, rejoins that the truly hard thing, Pittacus, is to become good, not joining ’truly’ with ‘good,’ but with ‘hard.’

Not, that the hard thing is to be truly good, as though there were some truly good men, and there were others who were good but not truly good (this would be a very simple observation, and quite unworthy of Simonides); but you must suppose him to make a trajection of the word ’truly’ (Greek), construing the saying of Pittacus thus (and let us imagine Pittacus to be speaking and Simonides answering him):

‘O my friends,’ says Pittacus, ‘hard is it to be good,’ and Simonides answers, ‘In that, Pittacus, you are mistaken; the difficulty is not to be good, but on the one hand, to become good, four-square in hands and feet and mind, without a flaw—that is hard truly.’

This way of reading the passage accounts for the insertion of (Greek) ‘on the one hand,’ and for the position at the end of the clause of the word ’truly,’ and all that follows shows this to be the meaning. A great deal might be said in praise of the details of the poem, which is a charming piece of workmanship, and very finished, but such minutiae would be tedious.

The general intention of the poem, which is certainly designed in every part to be a refutation of the saying of Pittacus.

For he speaks in what follows a little further on as if he meant to argue that although there is a difficulty in becoming good, yet this is possible for a time, and only for a time. But having become good, to remain in a good state and be good, as you, Pittacus, affirm, is not possible, and is not granted to man; God only has this blessing; ‘but man cannot help being bad when the force of circumstances overpowers him.’

Now whom does the force of circumstance overpower in the command of a vessel?—not the private individual, for he is always overpowered;

As one who is already prostrate cannot be overthrown, and only he who is standing upright but not he who is prostrate can be laid prostrate, so the force of circumstances can only overpower him who, at some time or other, has resources, and not him who is at all times helpless.

The descent of a great storm may make the pilot helpless, or the severity of the season the husbandman or the physician; for the good may become bad, as another poet witnesses:—

‘The good are sometimes good and sometimes bad.’

But the bad does not become bad; he is always bad. So that when the force of circumstances overpowers the man of resources and skill and virtue, then he cannot help being bad. And you, Pittacus, are saying, ‘Hard is it to be good.’ Now there is a difficulty in becoming good; and yet this is possible: but to be good is an impossibility—

‘For he who does well is the good man, and he who does ill is the bad.’

But what sort of doing is good in letters? and what sort of doing makes a man good in letters? Clearly the knowing of them. And what sort of well-doing makes a man a good physician? Clearly the knowledge of the art of healing the sick. ‘But he who does ill is the bad.’

Who becomes a bad physician?

Clearly he who is in the first place a physician, and in the second place a good physician.

He may become a bad one also: but none of us unskilled individuals can by any amount of doing ill become physicians, any more than we can become carpenters or anything of that sort; and he who by doing ill cannot become a physician at all, clearly cannot become a bad physician.

In like manner, the good may become deteriorated by time, or toil, or disease, or other accident (the only real doing ill is to be deprived of knowledge), but the bad man will never become bad, for he is always bad.

If he were to become bad, he must previously have been good. Thus the words of the poem tend to show that on the one hand a man cannot be continuously good, but that he may become good and may also become bad; and again that

‘They are the best for the longest time whom the gods love.’

All this relates to Pittacus, as is further proved by the sequel. He adds:

‘Therefore I will not throw away my span of life to no purpose in searching after the impossible, hoping in vain to find a perfectly faultless man among those who partake of the fruit of the broad-bosomed earth: if I find him, I will send you word.’

(this is the vehement way in which he pursues his attack upon Pittacus throughout the whole poem):

‘But him who does no evil, voluntarily I praise and love;—not even the gods war against necessity.’

All this has a similar drift, for Simonides was not so ignorant as to say that he praised those who did no evil voluntarily, as though there were some who did evil voluntarily.

No wise man, as I believe, will allow that any human being errs voluntarily, or voluntarily does evil and dishonourable actions.

ut they are very well aware that all who do evil and dishonourable things do them against their will. And Simonides never says that he praises him who does no evil voluntarily;

The word ‘voluntarily’ applies to himself. For he was under the impression that a good man might often compel himself to love and praise another, and to be the friend and approver of another; and that there might be an involuntary love, such as a man might feel to an unnatural father or mother, or country, or the like.

Bad men, when their parents or country have any defects, look on them with malignant joy, and find fault with them and expose and denounce them to others, under the idea that the rest of mankind will be less likely to take themselves to task and accuse them of neglect;

They blame their defects far more than they deserve, in order that the odium which is necessarily incurred by them may be increased:

But the good man dissembles his feelings, and constrains himself to praise them; and if they have wronged him and he is angry, he pacifies his anger and is reconciled, and compels himself to love and praise his own flesh and blood.

Simonides, as is probable, considered that he himself had often had to praise and magnify a tyrant or the like, much against his will, and he also wishes to imply to Pittacus that he does not censure him because he is censorious.

‘For I am satisfied’ he says, ‘when a man is neither bad nor very stupid; and when he knows justice (which is the health of states), and is of sound mind, I will find no fault with him, for I am not given to finding fault, and there are innumerable fools’

(implying that if he delighted in censure he might have abundant opportunity of finding fault).

‘All things are good with which evil is unmingled.’

In these latter words he does not mean to say that all things are good which have no evil in them, as you might say ‘All things are white which have no black in them,’ for that would be ridiculous; but he means to say that he accepts and finds no fault with the moderate or intermediate state.

(‘I do not hope’ he says, ’to find a perfectly blameless man among those who partake of the fruits of the broad-bosomed earth (if I find him, I will send you word); in this sense I praise no man. But he who is moderately good, and does no evil, is good enough for me, who love and approve every one’)

(and here observe that he uses a Lesbian word, epainemi (approve), because he is addressing Pittacus,

‘Who love and APPROVE every one VOLUNTARILY, who does no evil:’ and that the stop should be put after ‘voluntarily’); ‘but there are some whom I involuntarily praise and love.

You, Pittacus, I would never have blamed, if you had spoken what was moderately good and true.

But I do blame you because, putting on the appearance of truth, you are speaking falsely about the highest matters.’—And this, I said, Prodicus and Protagoras, I take to be the meaning of Simonides in this poem.