1、 第第 12 卷卷 普卢塔克比普卢塔克比较列传较列传 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 2/439 总目录总目录 第第 1 卷卷 富兰克林自传富兰克林自传 第第 2 卷卷 柏拉图对话录：辩解篇、菲多柏拉图对话录：辩解篇、菲多篇、克利多篇篇、克利多篇 第第 3 卷卷 培根论说文集及新阿特兰蒂斯培根论说文集及新阿特兰蒂斯 第第 4 卷卷 约翰米尔顿英文诗全集约翰米尔顿英文诗全集 第第 5 卷卷 爱默生文集爱默生文集 第第 6 卷卷 伯恩斯诗歌集伯恩斯诗歌集 第第 7 卷卷 圣奥古斯丁忏悔录圣奥古斯丁忏悔录 第第 8 卷卷 希腊戏剧希腊
2、戏剧 第第 9 卷卷 论友谊、论老年及书信集论友谊、论老年及书信集 第第 10 卷卷 国富论国富论 第第 11 卷卷 物种起源论物种起源论 第第 12 卷卷 普卢塔克比较列传普卢塔克比较列传 第第 13 卷卷 伊尼亚德伊尼亚德 第第 14 卷卷 唐吉坷德唐吉坷德 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 3/439 第第 15 卷卷 天路历程天路历程 第第 16 卷卷 天方夜谭天方夜谭 第第 17 卷卷 民间传说与预言民间传说与预言 第第 18 卷卷 英国现代戏剧英国现代戏剧 第第 19 卷卷 浮士德浮士德 第第 20 卷卷 神曲神曲 第
3、第 21 卷卷 许婚的爱人许婚的爱人 第第 22 卷卷 奥德赛奥德赛 第第 23 卷卷 两年水手生涯两年水手生涯 第第 24 卷卷 伯克文集伯克文集 第第 25 卷卷 穆勒文集穆勒文集 第第 26 卷卷 欧洲大陆戏剧欧洲大陆戏剧 第第 27 卷卷 英国名家随笔英国名家随笔 第第 28 卷卷 英国与美国名家随笔英国与美国名家随笔 第第 29 卷卷 比格尔号上的旅行比格尔号上的旅行 第第 30 卷卷 科学论文集：物理学、化学、科学论文集：物理学、化学、天文学、地质学天文学、地质学 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 4/439 第第 3
4、1 卷卷 切利尼自传切利尼自传 第第 32 卷卷 文学和哲学名家随笔文学和哲学名家随笔 第第33卷卷 古代与现代著名航海与旅行记古代与现代著名航海与旅行记 第第 34 卷卷 法国和英国著名哲学家法国和英国著名哲学家 第第 35 卷卷 见闻与传奇见闻与传奇 第第 36 卷卷 君王论君王论 第第 37 卷卷 17、18 世纪英国著名哲学家世纪英国著名哲学家 第第 38 卷卷 物理学、医学、外科学和地质物理学、医学、外科学和地质学学 第第 39 卷卷 著名之前言和序言著名之前言和序言 第第 40 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从乔叟到格英文诗集（卷）从乔叟到格雷雷 第第 41 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从科林斯到英
5、文诗集（卷）从科林斯到费兹杰拉德费兹杰拉德 第第 42 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从丁尼生到英文诗集（卷）从丁尼生到惠特曼惠特曼 第第 43 卷卷 10001904 第第 44 卷卷 圣书圣书(卷一卷一):孔子孔子 希伯来书希伯来书 基基百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 5/439 督圣经督圣经()第第 45 卷卷 圣书圣书(卷二卷二)基督圣经基督圣经()第第 46 卷卷 伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）第第 47 卷卷 伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）第第 48 卷卷 帕斯卡文集帕斯卡文集 第第 49 卷卷 史
6、诗与传说史诗与传说 第第 50 卷卷 哈佛经典讲座哈佛经典讲座 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 6/439 第第 12 卷卷 普卢塔克比较列传普卢塔克比较列传 INTRODUCTORY NOTE PLUTARCH,the great biographer of antiquity,had not the fortune himself to find a biographer.For the facts of his life we are dependent wholly upon the fragmentary inform
7、ation that he scattered casually throughout his writings.From these we learn that he was born in the small Botian town of Chroneia in Greece,between 46 and 51 A.D.,of a family of good standing and long residence there;that he married a certain Timoxena,to whom he wrote a tender letter of consolation
8、 on the death of their daughter;and that he had four sons,to two of whom he dedicated one of his philosophical treatises.He began the study of philosophy at Athens,travelled to Alexandria and in various parts of Italy,and sojourned for a considerable period in Rome;but he seems to have continued to
9、regard Chroneia as his home,and here he did a large part of his writing and took his share in public service.As a lecturer and teacher of philosophy he achieved considerable repute,and the nature of his doctrine may be gathered from the treatises in which the substance of many of the lectures has be
10、en preserved.His death is placed between 120 and 130 A.D.The ruling passion of Plutarchs life was ethical.His miscellaneous writings are known collectively as his“Morals,”and though they deal with a great variety of themes,the prevailing interest is so strongly centred on conduct that the title is n
11、ot unsuitable.Many of the subjects of his biographies,even,are treated as models of virtue or warnings against vice,and as a rule he was more concerned about portraying character than about the intricacies of political history.The“Parallel Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans”have their name from the a
12、uthors plan of setting side by side a Greek statesman,soldier,百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 7/439 or orator,and a Roman of eminence in the same field,in order to gain illumination from the comparison;and in this way he covered almost the whole history of Greece and Rome from legen
13、dary times to his own day.He collected his facts with care and at the expense of great labor,and for many periods he is the chief,sometimes the only,source of information now accessible.In general,the Greek lives are more learned than the Roman,partly,no doubt,because of the greater difficulty of ge
14、tting information as to Roman affairs when he was writing in Greece,partly because,as she tells us,his mastery of Latin was incomplete.The biographical as distinct from the historical purpose was entirely deliberate.“It must be borne in mind,”he says in his life of Alexander the Great,“That my desig
15、n is not to write histories but lives.And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men;sometimes a matter of less moment,an expression or a jest,informs us better of their characters and inclinations,than the most famous sieges,the greate
16、st armaments,or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.Therefore,as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face,in which the character is seen,than in the other parts of the body,so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls
17、of men,and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives,may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others.”Most of the critical comment passed upon the“Lives”is but an elaboration of these statements of thein author.The proportions and the significance of pol
18、itical events were often hidden from him,but in his portraiture of men he has laid the world under a perpetual debt.The influence of these Lives it is almost impossible to exaggerate.All classes of people have taken delight in them,from kings to shepherds,and it is safe to say that the influence has
19、 always been wholesome.Not only do they supply a mass of in formation,vividly and picturesquely presented,百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 8/439 regarding the leading personalities of some of the greatest periods of the worlds history,but they offer in concrete and inspiring form the
20、 ideals of human character in the antique world incarnated in a series of great heroic figures.Of few books can it be said with such assurance that they will remain a permanent possession of the race.The present translation is that made originally by a group of scholars in the end of the seventeenth
21、 century and published with a life of Plutarch by Dryden.This,usually called the Dryden translation,was revised in 1859 by Arthur Hugh Clough,who corrected it by the standards of modern scholarship,so that it took the place which it still occupies as the best version in English for the purposes of t
22、he general reader.THEMISTOCLES THE birth of Themistocles was somewhat too obscure to do him honor.His father,Neocles,was not of the distinguished people of Athens,but of the township of Phrearrhi,and of the tribe Leontis;and by his mothers side,as it is reported,he was base-born.I am not of the nobl
23、e Grecian race,Im poor Abrotonon,and born in Thrace;Let the Greek women scorn me,if they please,I was the mother of Themistocles.Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of Thrace,but of Caria,and that her name was not Abrotonon,but Euterpe;and Neanthes adds farther that she was of
24、 Halicarnassus in Caria.And,as illegitimate children,including those that were of the half-blood or had but one parent an Athenian,had to attend at the Cynosarges(a wrestling-place outside the gates,dedicated to Hercules,who was also of half-blood amongst the gods,having had a mortal woman for his m
25、other),Themistocles persuaded several of the young men of high birth to accompany him to anoint and exercise themselves together at Cynosarges;an ingenious device for destroying the distinction between the noble and the base-born,and between those of the whole and those of the half 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 H
26、arvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 9/439 blood of Athens.However,it is certain that he was related to the house of the Lycomed;for Simonides records,that he rebuilt the chapel of Phlya,belonging to that family,and beautified it with pictures and other ornaments,after it had been burnt by the Persians.I
27、t is confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehement and impetuous nature,of a quick apprehension,and a strong and aspiring bent for action and great affairs.The holidays and intervals in his studies he did not spend in play or idleness,as other children,but would be always inventing or ar
28、ranging some oration or declamation to himself,the subject of which was generally the excusing or accusing his companions,so that his master would often say to him,“You,my boy,will be nothing small,but great one way or other,for good or else for bad.”He received reluctantly and carelessly instructio
29、ns given him to improve his manners and behavior,or to teach him any pleasing or graceful accomplishment,but whatever was said to improve him in sagacity,or in management of affairs,he would give attention to,beyond one of his years,from confidence in his natural capacities for such things.And thus
30、afterwards,when in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements,he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves highly accomplished,by the somewhat arrogant retort,that he certainly could not make
31、 use of any stringed instrument,could only,were a small and obscure city put into his hands,make it great and glorious.Notwithstanding this,Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras,and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus,contrary to chronology;for Melissus command
32、ed the Samians in their siege by Pericles,who was much Themistocles junior;and with Pericles,also,Anaxagoras was intimate.They,therefore,might rather be credited,who report,that Themistocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian,who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher,but a 百年哈佛
33、50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 10/439 professor of that which was then called wisdom,consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and practical sagacity,which had begun and continued,almost like a sect of philosophy,from Solon;but those who came afterwards,and mixed it with pleadings an
34、d legal artifices,and transformed the practical part of it into a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words,were generally called sophists.Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had already embarked in politics.In the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily balanced;he all
35、owed himself to follow mere natural character,which,without the control of reason and instruction,is apt to hurry,upon either side,into sudden and violent courses,and very often to break away and determine upon the worst;as he afterwards owned himself,saying,that the wildest colts make the best hors
36、es,if they only get properly trained and broken in.But those who upon this fasten stories of their own invention,as of his being disowned by his father,and that his mother died for grief of her sons ill fame,certainly calumniate him;and there are others who relate,on the contrary,how that to deter h
37、im from public business,and to let him see how the vulgar behave themselves towards their leaders when they have at last no farther use of them,his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about upon the sea-shore.Yet it is evident that his mind was early imbued with the keene
38、st interest in public affairs,and the most passionate ambition for distinction.Eager from the first to obtain the highest place,he unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and influential leaders in the city,but more especially of Aristides,the son of Lysimachus,who always opposed him
39、.And yet all this great enmity between them arose,it appears,from a very boyish occasion,both being attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos,asAriston the philosopher tells us;ever after which,they took opposite sides,and were rivals in politics.Not but that the incompatibility 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Ha
40、rvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 11/439 of their lives and manners may seem to have increased the difference,for Aristides was of a mild nature,and ofa nobler sort of character,and,in public matters,acting always with a view,not to glory or popularity,but to the best interests of the state consistentl
41、y with safety and honesty,he was often forced to oppose Themistocles,and interfere against the increase ofhis influence,seeing him stirring up the people to all kinds of enterprises,and introducing various innovations.For it is said that Themistocles was so transported with the thoughts of glory,and
42、so inflamed with the passion for great actions,that,though he was still young when the battle of Marathon was fought against the Persians,upon the skilful conduct of the general,Miltiades,being everywhere talked about,he was observed to be thoughtful,and reserved,alone by himself;he passed the night
43、s without sleep,and avoided all his usual places of recreation,and to those who wondered at the change,and inquired the reason of it,he gave the answer,that“the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep.”And when others were of opinion that the battle of Marathon would be an end to the war,Themist
44、ocles thought that it was but the beginning of far greater conflicts,and for these,to the benefit of all Greece,he kept himself in continual readiness,and his city also inproper training,foreseeing from far before what would happen.And,first of all,the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst th
45、emselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium,he was the only man that durst propose to the people that this distribution should cease,and that with the money ships shouldbe built to make war against the ginetans,who were the most flourishing people in all Greece,and by the number
46、 of their ships held the sovereignty of the sea;and Themistocles thus was more easily able to persuade them,avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians who were at a great distance,and their coming very uncertain,and at that time not much to be feared;but,by a seasonable employment of
47、 the emulation and anger 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 12 卷 普卢塔克比较列传 12/439 felt by the Athenians against the ginetans,he induced them to preparation.So that with this money an hundred ships were built,with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes.And,henceforward,little by little,turning an
48、d drawing the city down towards the sea,in the belief,that,whereas by land they were not a fit match for their next neighbors,with their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command Greece,thus,as Plato says,from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners and seamen tossed about the
49、sea,and gave occasion for the reproach against him,that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield,and bound them to the bench and the oar.These measures he carried in the assembly,against the opposition,as Stesimbrotus relates,of Miltiades;and whether or no he hereby injured the purit
50、y and true balance of government,may be a question for philosophers,but that the deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea,and that thesegalleys restored Athens again after it was destroyed,were others wanting,Xerxes himself would be sufficient evidence,who,though his landforces were stil
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