Plutarch's Morals

by Plutarch

Overview

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Product Details

BN ID:	2940000746240
Publisher:	B&R Samizdat Express
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

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CONJUGAL PRECEPTS. PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO FOLLUNUS AND E0RYDICE. After the customary marriage rites, by which the Priestess of Demeter has united you together, I think that to make an appropriate discourse, and one that will chime in with the occasion, will be useful to you and agreeable to the law.- For in music one of the tunes played on the flute is called Hippothorus,1 which is a tune that excites fierce desire in stallions to cover mares ; and though in philosophy there are many goodly subjects, yet is there none more worthy of attention than that of marriage, on which subject philosophy spreads a charm over those who are to pass life together, and makes them gentle and mild to one another. I send therefore as a gift to both of you a summary of what you have often heard, as you are both well versed in philosophy, arranging my matter in a series of short observations that it may be the more easily remembered, and I pray that the Muses will assist and co-operate with Aphrodite, so that no lyre or lute could be more harmonious or in tune than your married life, as the result of philosophy and concord. And thus the ancients set up near Aphrodite statues of Hermes, to show that conversation was one of the great charms of marriage, and also statues of Peitho2 and the Graces, to teach married people to gain their way with one another by persuasion, and not by wrangling or contention. § i. Solon bade the bride eat a quince the first night of marriage, intimating thereby, it seems, that the bridegroom was to expect his first pleasure from the bride's mouth and conversation. § II. In Bceotia they dress up the bride with a chapletof asparagus, for as the asparagus givesmost excellent fruit from a thorny stalk, so the bride, by not being too reluctant and coy in the ...