Vulgar words in Plutarch's Morals (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 72 ~ ~ ~
For the spirit of those who are a spurious and bastard breed is apt to be mean and abject: for as the poet truly says, "It makes a man even of noble spirit servile, when he is conscious of the ill fame of either his father or mother.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 273 ~ ~ ~
If a young ass kicked me would you have me kick it back?"
~ ~ ~ Sentence 336 ~ ~ ~
Some even pimp for them and supply them with prostitutes or even married women, and cut huge slices off the father's savings for old age, if they don't run off with them altogether.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 337 ~ ~ ~
An accursed tribe, feigning friendship, knowing nothing of real freedom, flatterers of the rich, despisers of the poor, drawn to young men by a sort of natural logic,[38] showing their teeth and grinning all over when their patrons laugh,[39] misbegotten brats of fortune and bastard elements in life, living according to the nod of the rich, free in their circumstances, but slaves by inclination, when they are not insulted thinking themselves insulted, because they are parasites to no purpose.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 615 ~ ~ ~
If, however, we ought to give the name of love to this passion, then is it an effeminate and bastard love, and like at Cynosarges,[67] taking us to the woman's side of the house: or rather as they say there is a genuine mountain eagle, which Homer called 'black, and a bird of prey,' and there are other kinds of spurious eagles, which catch fish and lazy birds in marshes, and often in want of food emit an hungry wail: so the genuine love is the love of boys, a love not 'flashing with desire,' as Anacreon said the love of maidens was, nor 'redolent of ointment and sprightly,' but you will see it plain and without airs in the schools of the philosophers, or perhaps in the gymnasiums and wrestling-schools, keenly and nobly pursuing youths, and urging on to virtue those who are well worthy of attention: but that soft and stay-at-home love, spending all its time in women's bosoms and beds, always pursuing effeminate delights, and enervated by unmanly, unfriendly, and unimpassioned pleasures, we ought to condemn as Solon condemned it: for he forbade slaves to love boys or to anoint them with oil, while he allowed them to associate with women.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 628 ~ ~ ~
But indeed, Protogenes, if we look at the real facts of the case, the love for boys and women is really one and the same passion: but if you wish in a disputatious spirit to make any distinction, you will find that this boy-love goes beyond all bounds, and, like some late-born and ill-begotten bastard brat, seeks to expel its legitimate brother the older love, the love of women.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 722 ~ ~ ~
But Hesiod, more naturally in my opinion, makes Love the most ancient of all, so that all things derive their existence from him.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 784 ~ ~ ~
'[107] But this is not perhaps so strange, considering Galba was a buffoon.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 897 ~ ~ ~
[132] For if[133] the man of pleasure, who was asked whether "he was most given to the love of women or boys," and answered, "I care not which so beauty be but there," is considered to have given an appropriate answer as to his erotic desires, shall the noble lover of beauty neglect beauty and nobility of nature, and make love only with an eye to the sexual parts?
~ ~ ~ Sentence 903 ~ ~ ~
But, Daphnæus, let us combat those views which Zeuxippus lately advanced, making Love to be only irregular desire carrying the soul away to licentiousness, not that this was so much his own view as what he had often heard from morose men who knew nothing of love: some of whom marry unfortunate women for their dowries, and force on them economy and illiberal saving, and quarrel with them every day of their lives: while others, more desirous of children than wives, when they have made those women they come across mothers, bid farewell to marriage, or regard it not at all, and neither care to love nor be loved.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,594 ~ ~ ~
As Agis the Argive,[417] when Alexander bestowed great gifts on a buffoon, cried out in envy and displeasure, "What a piece of absurdity!" and on the king turning angrily to him and saying, "What are you talking about?" he replied, "I admit that I am vexed and put out, when I see that all you descendants of Zeus alike take delight in flatterers and jesters, for Hercules had his Cercopes, and Dionysus his Sileni, and with you too I see that such are held in good repute."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,070 ~ ~ ~
But he that has long accustomed himself never to go against his convictions in praising a speaker, or clapping a singer, or laughing at a dull buffoon, will never go to this length, nor say to some impudent fellow in such matters, "Swear on my behalf, bear false witness, pronounce an unjust verdict."
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,109 ~ ~ ~
But Xenocrates knew not the fellow's true character; we on the other hand very often when we know that such and such men are bad, yet give them testimonials and money, doing ourselves injury, and not getting any pleasure for it, as people do get in the company of whores and flatterers, but being vexed and disgusted at the importunity that has upset and forced our reason.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,371 ~ ~ ~
But as it is we not only fly into rages with wife and slaves and friends, as if we were slighted by them, but we also frequently, from forming the same idea of being slighted, fall foul of innkeepers and sailors and muleteers, and are vexed at dogs that bark and asses that are in our way: like the man who was going to beat an ass-driver, but when he cried out he was an Athenian, he said to the ass, "You are not an Athenian anyway," and beat it with many stripes.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,671 ~ ~ ~
And like that person[751] painted as rope-making in Hades and permitting an ass feeding by to eat up the rope as fast as he makes it, so the stupid and thankless forgetfulness of most people comes upon them and takes possession of them, and obliterates from their mind every past action, whether success, or pleasant leisure, or society, or enjoyment, and breaks the unity of life which arises from the past being blended with the present; for detaching to-day from both yesterday and to-morrow, it soon makes every event as if it had never happened from lack of memory.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,167 ~ ~ ~
Ass-driver, story of Athenian, 282.