Part 13

"There is just one of all these occupations which devolve upon you," I added, "you may not find so altogether pleasing. Should any one of our household fall sick, it will be your care to see and tend them to the recovery of their health."

"Nay," she answered, "that will be my pleasantest of tasks, if careful nursing may touch the springs of gratitude and leave them friendlier than before."

And I (continued Ischomachus) was struck with admiration at her answer, and replied: "Think you, my wife, it is through some such traits of forethought seen in their mistress-leader that the hearts of bees are won, and they are so loyally affectioned towards her that, if ever she abandon her hive, not one of them will dream of being left behind; but one and all must follow her."

Al. "will suffer her to be forsaken."

And my wife made answer to me: "It would much astonish me (said she) did not these leader's works, you speak of, point to you rather than myself. Methinks mine would be a pretty guardianship and distribution of things indoors without your provident care to see that the importations from without were duly made."

Or, "ridiculous."

"Just so," I answered, "and mine would be a pretty importation if there were no one to guard what I imported. Do you not see," I added, "how pitiful is the case of those unfortunates who pour water in their sieves for ever, as the story goes, and labour but in vain?"

"As laughable an importation."

Or, "how pitiful their case, condemned, as the saying goes, to pour water into a sieve." Lit. "filling a bucket bored with holes." Cf. Aristot. "Oec." i. 6; and for the Danaids, see Ovid. "Met." iv. 462; Hor. "Carm." iii. 11. 25; Lucr. iii. 937; Plaut. "Pseud." 369. Cp. Coleridge:

Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.

"Pitiful enough, poor souls," she answered, "if that is what they do."

"But there are other cares, you know, and occupations," I answered, "which are yours by right, and these you will find agreeable. This, for instance, to take some maiden who knows naught of carding wool and to make her proficient in the art, doubling her usefulness; or to receive another quite ignorant of housekeeping or of service, and to render her skilful, loyal, serviceable, till she is worth her weight in gold; or again, when occasion serves, you have it in your power to requite by kindness the well-behaved whose presence is a blessing to your house; or maybe to chasten the bad character, should such an one appear. But the greatest joy of all will be to prove yourself my better; to make me your faithful follower; knowing no dread lest as the years advance you should decline in honour in your household, but rather trusting that, though your hair turn gray, yet, in proportion as you come to be a better helpmate to myself and to the children, a better guardian of our home, so will your honour increase throughout the household as mistress, wife, and mother, daily more dearly prized. Since," I added, "it is not through excellence of outward form, but by reason of the lustre of virtues shed forth upon the life of man, that increase is given to things beautiful and good."

"By reason of the flower on the damask cheek."

Al. "For growth is added to things 'beautiful and good,' not through the bloom of youth but virtuous perfections, an increase coextensive with the life of man." See Breit. ad loc.

That, Socrates, or something like that, as far as I may trust my memory, records the earliest conversation which I held with her.

VIII

And did you happen to observe, Ischomachus (I asked), whether, as the result of what was said, your wife was stirred at all to greater carefulness?

Yes, certainly (Ischomachus answered), and I remember how piqued she was at one time and how deeply she blushed, when I chanced to ask her for something which had been brought into the house, and she could not give it me. So I, when I saw her annoyance, fell to consoling her. "Do not be at all disheartened, my wife, that you cannot give me what I ask for. It is plain poverty, no doubt, to need a thing and not to have the use of it. But as wants go, to look for something which I cannot lay my hands upon is a less painful form of indigence than never to dream of looking because I know full well that the thing exists not. Anyhow, you are not to blame for this," I added; "mine the fault was who handed over to your care the things without assigning them their places. Had I done so, you would have known not only where to put but where to find them. After all, my wife, there is nothing in human life so serviceable, nought so beautiful as order.

"Vetus proverbium," Cic. ap. Columellam, xii. 2, 3; Nobbe, 236, fr. 6.

Lit. "so that you might know not only where to put," etc.

Or, "order and arrangement." So Cic. ap. Col. xii. 2, 4, "dispositione atque ordine."

"For instance, what is a chorus?--a band composed of human beings, who dance and sing; but suppose the company proceed to act as each may chance--confusion follows; the spectacle has lost its charm. How different when each and all together act and recite with orderly precision, the limbs and voices keeping time and tune. Then, indeed, these same performers are worth seeing and worth hearing.

Or, "declaim," {phtheggontai}, properly of the "recitative" of the chorus. Cf. Plat. "Phaedr." 238 D.

"So, too, an army," I said, "my wife, an army destitute of order is confusion worse confounded: to enemies an easy prey, courting attack; to friends a bitter spectacle of wasted power; a mingled mob of asses, heavy infantry, and baggage-bearers, light infantry, cavalry, and waggons. Now, suppose they are on the march; how are they to get along? In this condition everybody will be a hindrance to everybody: 'slow march' side by side with 'double quick,' 'quick march' at cross purposes with 'stand at ease'; waggons blocking cavalry and asses fouling waggons; baggage-bearers and hoplites jostling together: the whole a hopeless jumble. And when it comes to fighting, such an army is not precisely in condition to deliver battle. The troops who are compelled to retreat before the enemy's advance are fully capable of trampling down the heavy infantry detachments in reserve.

Reading {agleukestaton}, or, if with Breit, {akleestaton}, "a most inglorious spectacle of extreme unprofitableness."

Or, "whose duty (or necessity) it is to retire before an attack," i.e. the skirmishers. Al. "those who have to retreat," i.e. the non-combatants.

Al. "are quite capable of trampling down the troops behind in their retreat." {tous opla ekhontas} = "the troops proper," "heavy infantry."

"How different is an army well organised in battle order: a splendid sight for friendly eyes to gaze at, albeit an eyesore to the enemy. For who, being of their party, but will feel a thrill of satisfaction as he watches the serried masses of heavy infantry moving onwards in unbroken order? who but will gaze with wonderment as the squadrons of the cavalry dash past him at the gallop? And what of the foeman? will not his heart sink within him to see the orderly arrangements of the different arms: here heavy infantry and cavalry, and there again light infantry, there archers and there slingers, following each their leaders, with orderly precision. As they tramp onwards thus in order, though they number many myriads, yet even so they move on and on in quiet progress, stepping like one man, and the place just vacated in front is filled up on the instant from the rear.