So too the most thoughtful individuals, he says, who have the best reputation for wisdom, regard pleasure as the greatest good. Thus Simonides (PMG 584) says the following:
For without pleasure, what mortalPindar (fr. 126), offering advice to Hieron, the ruler of Syracuse, says:
lifestyle or what tyranny
is desirable?
Without this, not even the life of the gods is worth having.
Do not let not let pleasure fade from your lifestyle; a pleasant lifeHomer as well claims [Odyssey 9.5-8] that joy and having a good time is the height of happiness, when feasters are listening to a bard, and full tables are set beside them.
is far and away the best possession a man can have.
καὶ οἱ φρονιμώτατοι δέ, φησίν, καὶ μεγίστην δόξαν ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ ἔχοντες μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν τὴν ἡδονὴν εἶναι νομίζουσιν, Σιμωνίδης μὲν οὑτωσὶ λέγων·
τίς γὰρ ἁδονᾶς ἄτερ θνα-Πίνδαρος παραινῶν Ἱέρωνι τῷ Συρακοσίων ἄρχοντι·
τῶν βίος ποθεινὸς ἢ ποί-
α τυραννίς; |
τᾶσδ᾽ ἄτερ οὐδὲ θεῶν ζηλωτὸς αἰών.μηδ᾽ ἀμαύρου (φησί) τέρψιν ἐν βίῳ· πολύ τοικαὶ Ὅμηρος δὲ τὴν εὐφροσύνην καὶ τὸ εὐφραίνεσθαι τέλος φησὶν εἶναι χαριέστερον, ὅταν δαιτυμόνες μὲν ἀοιδοῦ ἀκουάζωνται, παρὰ δὲ πλήθωσι τράπεζαι.
φέριστον ἀνδρὶ τερπνὸς αἰών.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Summum Bonum
Athenaeus 12.512 c-d = Heracleides of Pontus, fragment 55 Wehrli (tr. S. Douglas Olson):