DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.69192#0130
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Temperance was supposed to inspire men
With a resolution of curbing their, desires and
appetites.
Cicero says, the going through troubles and difficulties out of
judgment and choice. The poets seem to make the character os
Virtus too rigid, Luc. vi. v. 254. Stat.Theb. x. v. 646. vii. v.
53. They generally oppose Virtus to Voluptas, and talk of the
two different paths of life. The path of Virtue is described as
leading through difficulties and troubles to glory and happiness,
-and the path of pleasure as leading through gaieties and enjoy-
ments, to misery and diflionour, Juv. sat. x. v. 364. The firft,
they say, notwithftanding the hardfliips attending it, is to be
chosen for the sake of the end. As the determining this choice
is the most important thing to every man, we find it ihadowed
forth by the poets and moralists of all ages. Pythagoras used to
point out the paths of life, in a hieroglyphical way, by the make
of the Greek letter UpsilonY. The generality, he says, took
the broad road to.,the left, and the virtuous, the narrow line to the
right. Cebes has given more at large an excellent picture of hu-
man life. Silius introduces a choice, where he is speaking of
Scipio Africanus, the greatest man Rome ever bred. He makes
Virtus and Voluptas appear to young Scipio, whilst he is rumi-
nating whether he fliould ssing himself into the war, or retire
into the country. He hears their speeches, is determined by Vir-
tus, and pursues a course of good and great actions. The poet’s
description would make an admirable picture. See Sil. xv. V.
130. This choice is plainly taken from that of Hercules in Xe-
nophon, one of the noblefl: lessons of antiquity, and of which
our author has given a transsation in Polymetis, p. 157. These
choices are much more common than has been imagined. Thus
the stories of Ulysses and Circe, and of the same hero and the
Syrens, were of this kind. Horace seems to allude to both, 1. i.
od. 17. v. 20. and 1. i. ep. 2. v. 26. The choice, or judgment
of Paris, seems to be the Asiatic way of telling the same story.
The goddesses of Wisdom, Pleasure, and Power, plead before Paris
in his youth: he prefers Pleasure, to his own and his coun-
try’s definition, Ovid. Her. ep. xvi. v. S3. Lucian, in his first
book,
Temperance was supposed to inspire men
With a resolution of curbing their, desires and
appetites.
Cicero says, the going through troubles and difficulties out of
judgment and choice. The poets seem to make the character os
Virtus too rigid, Luc. vi. v. 254. Stat.Theb. x. v. 646. vii. v.
53. They generally oppose Virtus to Voluptas, and talk of the
two different paths of life. The path of Virtue is described as
leading through difficulties and troubles to glory and happiness,
-and the path of pleasure as leading through gaieties and enjoy-
ments, to misery and diflionour, Juv. sat. x. v. 364. The firft,
they say, notwithftanding the hardfliips attending it, is to be
chosen for the sake of the end. As the determining this choice
is the most important thing to every man, we find it ihadowed
forth by the poets and moralists of all ages. Pythagoras used to
point out the paths of life, in a hieroglyphical way, by the make
of the Greek letter UpsilonY. The generality, he says, took
the broad road to.,the left, and the virtuous, the narrow line to the
right. Cebes has given more at large an excellent picture of hu-
man life. Silius introduces a choice, where he is speaking of
Scipio Africanus, the greatest man Rome ever bred. He makes
Virtus and Voluptas appear to young Scipio, whilst he is rumi-
nating whether he fliould ssing himself into the war, or retire
into the country. He hears their speeches, is determined by Vir-
tus, and pursues a course of good and great actions. The poet’s
description would make an admirable picture. See Sil. xv. V.
130. This choice is plainly taken from that of Hercules in Xe-
nophon, one of the noblefl: lessons of antiquity, and of which
our author has given a transsation in Polymetis, p. 157. These
choices are much more common than has been imagined. Thus
the stories of Ulysses and Circe, and of the same hero and the
Syrens, were of this kind. Horace seems to allude to both, 1. i.
od. 17. v. 20. and 1. i. ep. 2. v. 26. The choice, or judgment
of Paris, seems to be the Asiatic way of telling the same story.
The goddesses of Wisdom, Pleasure, and Power, plead before Paris
in his youth: he prefers Pleasure, to his own and his coun-
try’s definition, Ovid. Her. ep. xvi. v. S3. Lucian, in his first
book,