§14ὅτι δʼ ἕκαστος ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὰ τῆς εὐθυμίας καὶ τῆς δυσθυμίας ἔχει ταμιεῖα, καὶ τοὺς τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν πίθους οὐκ
ἐν Διὸς οὔδει
κατακειμένους ἀλλʼ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ κειμένους, αἱ διαφοραὶ τῶν παθῶν δηλοῦσιν.
That each person has within themselves the storehouses of cheerfulness and dejection, and that the jars of good and evil things are laid up not "on the floor of Zeus" but in the soul, is shown by the differences in our emotions.
οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀνόητοι καὶ παρόντα τὰ χρηστὰ παρορῶσι καὶ ἀμελοῦσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ συντετάσθαι πρὸς τὸ μέλλον ἀεὶ ταῖς φροντίσιν, οἱ δὲ φρόνιμοι καὶ τὰ μηκέτʼ ὄντα τῷ μνημονεύειν ἐναργῶς ὄντα ποιοῦσιν ἑαυτοῖς·
For the foolish overlook and neglect even present blessings because they are always stretched toward the future by their worries, while the wise, by remembering, make even what is no longer existing clearly present to themselves.
τὸ γὰρ παρὸν τῷ ἐλαχίστῳ τοῦ χρόνου μορίῳ θιγεῖν παρασχὸν εἶτα τὴν αἴσθησιν ἐκφυγόν, οὐκέτι δοκεῖ πρὸς ἡμᾶς οὐδʼ ἡμέτερον εἶναι τοῖς ἀνοήτοις·
For the present, after permitting us to touch it for the smallest fraction of time and then escaping our perception, no longer seems to the foolish to concern us or to be ours.
ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ ὁ ἐν Ἃιδου ζωγραφούμενος σχοινοστρόφος ὄνῳ τινὶ·
But just as the rope-maker painted in Hades allows a donkey feeding beside him to consume what he is weaving, so the unfeeling and ungrateful forgetfulness of the majority of people, taking up and feeding upon every action, success, pleasant leisure, social intercourse, and enjoyment, and blotting them out, does not allow life to become a unified whole when the past is woven together with the present.
παρίησιν ἐπιβοσκομένῳ καταναλίσκειν τὸ πλεκόμενον, ὅτῳ τῶν πολλῶν ἀναίσθητος καὶ ἀχάριστος ὑπολαμβάνουσα λήθη καὶ κατανεμομένη πρᾶξίν τε πᾶσαν ἀφανίζουσα καὶ κατόρθωμα καὶ σχολὴν ἐπίχαριν καὶ συμπεριφορὰν καὶ ἀπόλαυσιν, οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν βίον ἕνα γενέσθαι, συμπλεκομένων τοῖς παροῦσι τῶν παρῳχημένων ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ ἕτερον τὸν ἐχθὲς ὄντα τοῦ σήμερον καὶ τὸν αὔριον ὁμοίως οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν τῷ σήμερον διαιροῦσα, πᾶν τὸ γιγνόμενον εὐθὺς εἰς τὸ ἀγένητον τῷ ἀμνημονεύτῳ καθίστησιν.
Instead, by separating yesterday's existence from today's, and likewise tomorrow's as not being the same as today's, it immediately consigns everything that happens to non-existence through lack of memory.
οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐν ταῖς σχολαῖς τὰς αὐξήσεις ἀναιροῦντες ὡς τῆς οὐσίας; ἐνδελεχῶς ῥεούσης, λόγῳ ποιοῦσιν ἡμῶν ἕκαστον ἄλλον ἑαυτοῦ καὶ ἄλλον οἱ δὲ τῇ μνήμῃ τὰ πρότερον μὴ στέγοντες μηδʼ ἀναλαμβάνοντες ἀλλʼ ὑπεκρεῖν ἐῶντες, ἔργῳ ποιοῦσιν ἑαυτοὺς καθʼ ἡμέραν ἀποδεεῖς καὶ κενοὺς καὶ τῆς αὔριον ἐκκρεμαμένους, ὡς τῶν πέρυσι καὶ πρῴην καὶ χθὲς οὐ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὄντων οὐδʼ ὅλως αὐτοῖς γενομένων.
For while those in the schools who deny growth on the ground that substance is continuously flowing make each of us in theory different from ourselves and ever another, those who through lack of memory do not retain or recover past events but allow them to flow away, in practice make themselves daily deficient and empty, hanging upon tomorrow, as if the events of last year, the day before yesterday, and yesterday did not concern them or had not happened to them at all.
§15καὶ τοῦτʼ οὖν τὴν εὐθυμίαν ἐπιταράσσει κἀκεῖνο μᾶλλον, ὅταν, ὥσπερ αἱ μυῖαι τῶν λείων τόπων ἐν τοῖς κατόπτροις ἀπολισθάνουσι ταῖς δὲ τραχύτησι προσέχονται·
Therefore, this also disturbs our cheerfulness, but that other thing even more, when, just as flies slide off the smooth parts of mirrors but cling to the rough places and scratches, so humans, flowing away from cheerful and pleasant things, entangle themselves in the memories of unpleasant ones.
καὶ ταῖς ἀμυχαῖς, οὕτως ἄνθρωποι τῶν ἱλαρῶν καὶ προσηνῶν ἀπορρέοντες ἐμπλέκωνται ταῖς τῶν ἀηδῶν ἀναμνήσεσι μᾶλλον δʼ ὥσπερ ἐν Ὀλύνθῳ τοὺς κανθάρους λέγουσιν, εἴς τι χωρίον ἐμβάλλοντας ὃ καλεῖται
κανθαρώλεθρον,
ἐκβῆναι μὴ δυναμένους ἀλλʼ ἐκεῖ στρεφομένους καὶ κυκλοῦντας ἐναποθνῄσκειν, οὕτως εἰς τὴν τῶν κακῶν μνήμην ὑπορρυέντες ἀνενεγκεῖν μὴ θέλωσι μηδʼ ἀναπνεῦσαι.
Or rather, as they say of the beetles in Olynthus, that when they throw themselves into a certain place called "Kantharolethron," they are unable to get out, but by turning and wheeling there they die, so humans, slipping into the memory of evils, are unwilling to raise themselves up or take a breath.
δεῖ δʼ ὥσπερ ἐν πινακίῳ χρωμάτων ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ τῶν πραγμάτων τὰ φαιδρὰ καὶ λαμπρὰ προβάλλοντας, ἀποκρύπτειν τὰ σκυθρωπὰ καὶ πιέζειν· ἐξαλεῖψαι γὰρ οὐκ ἔστι παντάπασιν οὐδʼ ἀπαλλαγῆναι.
But we must, just as on a tablet of colors, put forward the bright and luminous things of our affairs in the soul, and conceal and suppress the gloomy ones; for to erase them entirely is impossible, and we cannot get rid of them.
παλίντονος γὰρ ἁρμονίη κόσμου, ὅκωσπερ λύρης καὶ τόξου· καὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων καθαρὸν οὐδὲν οὐδʼ ἀμιγές.
"For the harmony of the world is back-stretched, like that of the lyre and the bow," and there is nothing pure or unmixed in human affairs.
ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ ἐν μουσικῇ βαρεῖς φθόγγοι καὶ ὀξεῖς ἐν δὲ γραμματικῇ φωνήεντα καὶ ἄφωνα γράμματα, μουσικὸς δὲ καὶ γραμματικὸς οὐχ ὁ θάτερα δυσχεραίνων καὶ ὑποφεύγων ἀλλʼ ὁ πᾶσι χρῆσθαι καὶ μιγνύναι πρὸς τὸ οἰκεῖον ἐπιστάμενος· οὕτω καὶ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀντιστοιχίας ἐχόντων (ἐπεὶ κατὰ τὸν Εὐριπίδην· "
οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο χωρὶς ἐσθλὰ καὶ κακά,
ἀλλʼ ἔστι τις σύγκρασις, ὥστʼ ἔχειν καλῶς
"
), οὐ δεῖ τοῖς ἑτέροις ἐξαθυμεῖν οὐδʼ ἀπαγορεύειν ἀλλʼ ὥσπερ ἁρμονικοὺς ἀμβλύνοντας ἀεὶ τοῖς κρείττοσι τὰ φαῦλα καὶ τὰ χείρονα τοῖς χρηστοῖς ἐμπεριλαμβάνοντας, ἐμμελὲς τὸ τοῦ βίου μῖγμα ποιεῖν καὶ οἰκεῖον αὑτοῖς.
But just as in music there are low notes and high notes, and in grammar there are vowels and voiceless letters, and the musician or grammarian is not the one who dislikes and avoids one of the two, but the one who knows how to use both and mix them for the appropriate purpose; so too, since affairs have their counter-balances (for according to Euripides: "Good and evil cannot exist apart, but there is a certain mixing, so that things go well"), we must not lose heart or give up on account of the other, but like musicians, always softening the bad with the better, and including the worse in the good, make the mixture of life harmonious and suited to ourselves.
οὐ γάρ, ὡς ὁ Μένανδρός φησιν,
"
ἅπαντι δαίμων ἀνδρὶ συμπαραστατεῖ
εὐθὺς γενομένῳ, μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ βίου
ἀγαθός,
"
ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον, ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, διτταί τινες ἕκαστον ἡμῶν γιγνόμενον παραλαμβάνουσι καὶ κατάρχονται μοῖραι καὶ δαίμονες·
For it is not as Menander says, "A divine spirit stands by every man immediately upon his birth, a good guide of life, "but rather, as Empedocles says, two opposing fates and spirits receive each of us as we are born and take charge of us: "There were Chthonie and far-seeing Heliope, bloody Strife and stately Harmony, beauty Callisto and ugliness Aischre, rapid Thoosa and slow Denaie, lovely Truth and dark-fruited Uncertainty.
"
ἔνθʼ ἦσαν Χθονίη τε καὶ Ἡλιόπη ταναῶπις,
δῆρίς θʼ αἱματόεσσα καὶ Ἁρμονίη θεμερῶπις,
Καλλιστὼ τʼ Αἴσχρη τε Θόωσά τε Δηναίη τε,
νημερτής τʼ ἐρόεσσα μελάγκαρπός τʼ Ἀσάφεια. "
"