Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Edited with an Introduction by C. B. Macpherson, Penguin Books, 1985.

Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governes the Worls) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. … Art goes yet further, imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man. For by Art is created the great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latin CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, … (Introduction, 81)

For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration. (Introduction, 83)

For my part, when I consider, that in Dreames, I do not often, nor constantly think of the same Persons, Places, Objects, and Actions that I do waking; nor remember so long a trayne of coherent thoughts, Dreaming, as at other times; And because waking I often observe the absurdity of Dreames, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking Thoughts; I am well satisfied, that being awake, I know I dreame not; though when I dreame, I think my selfe awake. (Part I, Chapter 2, 90)

…as water upon a plain Table is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger. (Part I, Chapter III, 94)

Such are Commonly the thoughts of men, that are not onely without company, but also without care of any thing; though even then their Thoughts are as busie as at other times, but without harmony; as the sound which a Lute out of tune would yeeld to any man; or in tune, to one that could not play. (Part I, Chapter III, 95)

Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compasse whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner, as one would sweep a room, to find a jewell; or as a Spaniel ranges the field, till he find a sent; or as a man should run over the Alphabet, to start a rime. (Part I, Chapter III, 96-7)

To these Uses, there are also foure correspondent Abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they register for their conceptions, that which they never conceived; and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be their will, which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures, some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve an enemy, it is but an abuse of Speech, to grieve him with the tongue, unlesse it be one whom wee are obliged to govern; and then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend. (Part I, Chapter IV, 102)

But the use of words in registering our thoughts, is in nothing so evident as in Numbering. A naturall foole that could never learn by heart the order of numeral words, as one, two, and three, may observe every stroak of the Clock, and nod to it, or say one, one, one; but can never know what houre it strikes. (Part I, Chapter IV, 104)

For True and False are attributes of Speech, not of Things. And where Speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood. Errour there may be, as when wee expect that which shall not be; or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be charged with Untruth. /
Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to remember what every name he uses stands for; and to place it accordingly; or else he will find himselfe entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in Geometry, (which is the onely Science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind,) men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call Definitions; and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. (Part I, Chapter IV, 105)

Out of all which we may define, (that is to say determine,) what that is, which is meant by this word Reason, when wee reckon it amongst the Faculties of the mind. For REASON, in this sense, is nothing but Reckoning (that is, Adding and Subtracting) of the Consequences of generall names agreed upon, for the marking and signifying of our thoughts; I say marking them, when we reckon by our selves; and signifying, when we demonstrate, or approve our reckonings to other men. (Part I, Chapter V, 111)

The Latine Tongue has two words, whose significations approach to those of Good and Evill; but are not precisely the same; And those are Pulchrum and Turpe. Whereof the former signifies that, which by some apparent signes promiseth Good; and the later, that, which promiseth Evil. But in our Tongue we have not so generall names to expresse them by. But for Pulchrum, we say in some things, Fayre; in others Beautifull, or Handsome, or Gallant, or Honourable, or Comedy, or Amiable; and for Turpe, Foule, Deformed, Ugly, Base, Nauseous, and the like, as the subject shall require; All which words, in their proper places signifie nothing els, but the Mine, or Countenance, that promiseth Good and Evil. So that of Good there be three kinds; Good in the Promise, that is Pulchrum; Good and Evil, as the end desired, which is called Jucundum, Delightfull; and Good as the Means, which is called Utile, Profitable; and as many of Evil: for Evill, in Promise, is that they call Turpe; Evil in Effect, and End, is Molestum, Unpleasant, Troublesome; and Evill in the Means, Inutile, Unprofitable, Hurtfull. (Part I, Chapter VI, 121)

In a good Poem, whether it be Epique, or Dramatique; as also in Sonnets, Epigrams, and other Pieces, both Judgement and Fancy are required: But the Fancy must be more eminent; because they please for the Extravagancy; but ought not to displease by Indiscretion. /
In a good History, the Judgement must be eminet; because the goodnesse consisteth, in the Method, in the Truth, and in the Choyse of the actions that are most profitable to be known. Fancy has no place, but onely in adorning the stile. /
In Orations or Prayse, and in Invectives, the Fancy is praedominant; because the designe is not truth, but to Honour or Dishonour; which is done by noble, or by vile comparisons. The Judgement does but suggest what circumstances make an action laudable, or culpable. /
In Hortatives, and Pleadings, as Truth, or Disguise serveth best of the Designe in hand; so is the Judgement, or the Fancy most required./
In Demonstration, in Councell, and all rigorous search of Truth, Judgement does all; except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened by some [136] apt similitude; and then there is so much use of Fancy. But for Metaphors, they are in this case utterly excluded. For seeing they openly professe deceipt; to admit them into Councell, or Reasoning, were manifest folly. (Part I, Chapter VIII, 137)

Dejection, subjects a man to causelesse fears; which is a Madnesse commonly called MELANCHOLY, apparent also in divers manners; as in haunting of solitudes, and graves; in superstitious behaviour; and in fearing some one, some another particular thing. (Part I, Chapter VIII, 140)

If some man in Bedlam should entertaine you with sober discourse; and you desire in taking leave, to know what he were, that you might another time requite his civility; and he should tell you, he were God the Father; I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his Madnesse. (Part I, Chapter VIII, 141)

Again, that Madnesse is nothing else, but too much appearing Passion, may be gathered out of the effects of Wine, which are the same with those of the evil disposition of the organs. For the variety of behaviour in men that have drnuk too much, is the same with that of Mad-men: some of them Raging, others Loving, others Laughing, all extravagantly, but according to their severall domineering Passions: For the effect of the wine, does but remove Dissumulation; and take from them the sight of the deformity of their Passions. For, (I believe) the most sober me, when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind, would be unwilling the vanity and Extravagance of their thoughts at the same time should be publiquely seen: which is a confession, that Passions unguided, are for the most part mere Madnesse. (Part I, Chapter VIII, 142)

There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera, a City of the Greeks, at the acting of the Tragedy of Andromeda, upon an extream hot day: whereupon, a great many of the spectators falling into Fevers, had this accident from the heat, and from the Tragedy together, that they did nothing but pronounce Iambiques, with the names of Perseus and Andromeda; which together with the Fever, was cured, by the comming on of Winter: And this madnesse was thought to proceed from the Passion imprinted by the Tragedy. (Part I, Chapter VIII, 142)

Covetousnesse of great Riches, and ambition of great Honours, are Honourabel; as signes of power to obtain them. Covetousnesse, and ambition, of little gaines, or preferments, is Dishonourable. /
Nor does it alter the case of Honour, whether an action (so it be great and difficult, and consequently a signe of much power,) be just or unjust: for Honour consisteth onely in the opinion of Power. Therefore the ancient Heathen did not thinke they Dishonoured, but greatly Honoured the Gods, when they introduced them in their Poems, committing Rapes, Thefts, and other great, but unjust, or unclean acts: In so much as nothing is so much celebrated in Jupiter, as his Adulteries; nor in Mercury, as his Frauds, and Thefts: of whose praises, in a hymne of Homer, the greatest is this, that being born in the morning, he had invented Musique at noon, and before night, stolne away the Cattell of Apollo, form his Herdsmen. (Part I, Chapter X, 156)

So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, that he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes, or abroad by Wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of Fame form new Conquest; in others, of ease and sensuall pleasure; in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind. (Part I, Chapter XI, 161)

Desire of Ease, and sensuall Delight, disposeth men to obey a common Power: Because by such Desires, a man doth abandon the protection might be hoped for from his own Industry, and labour. (Part I, Chapter XI, 162)

Desire of Knowledge, and Arts of Peace, enclineth men to obey a common Power: For such Desire, containeth a desire of leasure; and consequently protection from some other Power than their own. (Part I, Chapter XI, 162)

To have received from one, to whom we think our selves equall, greater benefits than ther is hope to Requite, disposeth to counterfeit love; but really secret hatred; and puts a man into the estate of a desperate debtor, that in declining the sight of his creditor, tacitely wishes him there, where he might never see him more. For benefits oblige; and obligation is thraldome; and unrequitable obligation is thralldome; and unrequitable obligation perpetuall thraldome; which is to ones equall, hatefull. But to have received benefits form one, whom we acknowledge for superiour, enclines to love; because the obligation is no new depression: (Part I, Chapter XI, 162-3)

To have done more hurt to a man, than he can or is willing to expiate, enclineth the doer to hate the sufferer. For he must expect revenge, or forgivenesse; both which are hatefull. (Part I, Chapter XI, 163)

Thirdly, whereas there is no other Felicity of Beasts, but the enjoying of their quotidian Food, Ease, and Lustes; as having little, or no foresight of the time to come, for want of observation, and memory of the order, consequence, and dependance of the things they see; Man observeth how one Event hath been produced by another; and remembreth in them Antecedence and Consequence; And when he cannot assure himselfe of the true causes of things, (for the cause of good and evill fortune for the most part are invisible,) he supposes causes of them, either such as his own fancy suggesteth; or trusteth to the Authority of other men, such as he thinks to be his friends, and wiser than himselfe. (Part I, Chapter 12, 169)

Againe, men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deale of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. For every man looketh that his compainion should value him, at the same rate he sets upon himselfe: And upon all signes of contempt, or undervaluing, naturally endeavours, as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power, to keep them in quiet, is far enough to make them destroy each other,) to extort a greater value from his contemners, by dommage; and from others, by the example. (Part I, Chapter XIII, 185)

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man. For WARRE, consisteth not in [185] Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foule weather, lyeth not in a showre or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many dayes together: So the nature of War, consisteth not in actually fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE. /

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solidarity, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. (Part I, Chapter XIII, 186)

Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when taking a journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he [186] locks his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and publicke Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall bee done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, when he locks his dores; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse mans nature in it. The Desires, and other Passion of man, are in themselves no Sin. No more are the Actions, that proceed form those Passion, till they know a Law that forbids them: which till Lawes be made they cannot know: nor can any Law be made, till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it. /

It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places, where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small Families, the concord whereof dependeth on naturall lust, have no government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before. (Part I, Chapter XIII, 187)

The Passions that encline men to Peace, are Feare of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them. (Part I, Chapter XIII, 188)

…if there be no Power erected, or not great enough for our security; every man will and may lawfully realy on his own strength and art, for caution against all other men. And in all places, where men have lived by small Families, to robbe and spoyle one another, has been a Trade, and so farre from being reupted against the Law of Nature, that the greater spoyles they gained, the greater was their honour; and men observed no other Lawes therein, but the Lawes of Honour; that is, to abstain from cruelty, leavy to men their lives, and instruments of husbandry [not various enough…] And as small Familyes did then; so now do Cities and Kingdomes which are but greater Families (for their own security) enlarge their Dominions, upon all pretences of danger, and fear of Invasion, or assistance that may be given to Invaders, endeavours as much as they can, to subdue, or weaken their neighbours, by open force, and secret arts, for want of other Caution, justly; and are remembered for it if after ages with honour. (Part II, Chapter XVII, 224)

I Authories and give up my Right of Governing my selfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner. This done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of the great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence. (Part II, Chapter XVII, 227)

And in him consisteth the Essence of the Common-wealth; which (to define it,) is One Person, of whose Acts a great Multitude, by mutuall Covenants one with another, have made themselves every one the Author, to the end he may use the strength and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their Peace and Common Defence. (Part II, Chapter XVIII, 228)

Thirdly, because the major part hath by consenting voice declared a Soveraigne; he that dissented must now consent with the rest; that is, be contented to avow all the actions he shall do, or else justly be destroyed by the rest. For if he voluntarily entered into the Congregation of them that were assembled, he sufficiently declared thereby his will (and therefore tacitely covenanted) to stand to what the major part should ordayne: and therefore if he refuse to stand thereto, or make Protestation against any of their Decrees, he does contrary to his Covenant, and therefore unjustly. And whether he be of the Congregation, or not; and whether his consent be asked, or not, he must either submit to their decrees, or be left in the condition of warre he was in before; wherein he might without injustice be destroyed by any man whatsoever. (Part II, Chapter XVIII, 232)

For he that doth any thing by authority from another, doth therein no injury to him by whose authority he acteth: But by this Institution of a Common-wealth, every particular man is Author of all the Soveraigne doth; and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his Soveraigne, complaineth of that whereof he hisemlf is Author; (Part II, Chapter XVIII, 232)

When the Representative is One man, then is the Commonwealth a MONARCHY: when an Assembly of All that will come together, then it is a DEMOCRACY, or Popular Common-wealth: when an Assembly of a Part onely, then it is called an ARISTOCRACY. (Part II, Chapter XIX, 239)

But when the impediment of motion, is in the constitution of the thing it selfe, we use not to say, it wants the Liberty; but the Power to move; as when a stone lyeth still, or a man is fastned to his bed by sicknesse. /
And according to this proper, and generally receive meaning of the word, A FREE-MAN, is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindred to doe what he has a will to. But when the words Free, and Liberty, are applied to any thing but Bodies, they are abused; for that which is not subject to Motion, is not subject to Impediment: (Part II, Chapter XXI, 262)

The Athenians, and Romanes were free; that is, free Common-wealths: not that any particular men had the Libertie to resist their own Representative; but that their Representative had the Libertie to resist, or invade other people. There is written on the Turrets of the city of Luca in great characters at this day, the word LIBERTAS; yet no man can thence inferred, that a particular man has more Libertie, or Immunitie from the service of the Commonewealth there, than in Constantinople. Whether a Commonwealth be Monarchicall, or Popular, the Freedome is still the same. (Part II, Chapter XXI, 266)

And because the Athenians were taught (to keep them from desire of changing their Government,) that they were Freemen, and all that lived under Monarchy were slaves; therefore Aristotle puts it down in his Politiques, (lib.6.cap.2) In democracy, Liberty is to be supposed: for ‘tis commonly held, that no man is Free in any other Government. And as Aristotle; so Cicero, and other Writers have grounded their Civill doctrine, on the opinions of the Roman, who were taught to hate Monarchy, at first, by them that having deposed their Soveraign, shared amongst them the Soveraignty of Rome; and afterwards by their Successors. And by reading of these Greek, and Latine Authors, men form their childhood have gotten a habit (under a false shew of Liberty,) of favouring tumults, and of licentious controlling the actions of their Soveraigns; and again of controlling those controllers, with the effusion of so much blood; as I think I may truly say, there was never any thing do deerly bought, as these Western parts have brought the learning of the Greek and Latine tongues. (Part II, Chapter XXII, 268)

How fallacious it is to judge of the nature of things, by the ordinary and inconstant use of words, appeareth in nothing more, than in the confusion of Counsels, and Commands, arising from the Imperative manner of speaking in them both, and in may other occasions besides. For the words Doe this, are the words not onely of him that Commandeth; but also of him that giveth Counsell; and of him that Exhorteth; and yet there are but few, that see not, that these are very different things; or that cannot distinguish between them, when they perceive who it is that speaketh, and to whom the Speech is directed, and upon what occasion. But finding those phrases in mens writings, and being not able, or not willing to enter into a consideration of the circumstances, they mistake sometimes the Precepts of Counsellours, for the Precepts of them that Command; and sometimes the contrary; according as it best agreeth with the conclusions they would inferred, or the actions they approve. To avoyd which mistakes, and render to those termes of Commanding, Counselling, and Exhorting, their proper and distinct significations, I define them thus. (Part II, Chapter XXV, 302)

A Sinne, is not onely a Transgression of a Law, but also any Contempt of the Legislator. For such Contempt, is a breach of all his Lawes at once. [335] …A CRIME, is a sinne, consisting in the Committing (by Deed, or Word) of that which the Law forbiddeth, or the Omission of what it hath commanded. So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime. To intend to steale, or kill, is a sinne, though it never appeare in Word, or Fact: for God that seeth the thoughts of man, can lay it to his charge: but till it appear by some ting done, or said, by which the intention may be argued by a humane Judge, it hath not the name of Crime: (Part II, Chapter XXVII, 335-6)

And that such as have a great, and false opinion of their own Wisedome, take upon them to reprehend the actions, and call in question the Authority of them that govern, and so to unsettle the Lawes with their publique discourse, as that nothing shall be a Crime, but what their own designes require should be so. It happeneth also to the same men, to be prone to all such Crimes, as consist in Craft, and in deceiving of their Neighbours; because they think their designes are too subtile to be perceived. These I say are effects of a false presumption of their own Wisdome. (Part II, Chapter XXVII, 341-2)

And as to Rebellion in particular against Monarchy; one of the most frequent cause of it, is the Reading of the books of Policy, and Histories of the antient Greeks, and Romans; … In summe, I cannot imagine, how anyting can be more prejudiciall to a Monarchy, than the allowing of such books to be publikely read, without present applying such correctives of discreet Masters, as are fit to take away their Venime: … (Part II, Chapter XXIX, 369-70)

But for such as have strong bodies, the case is otherwise: they are to be forced to work; and to avoyd the excuse of not finding employment, there ought to be such Lawes, as may encourage all manner of Arts; as Navigation, Agriculture, Fishing, and all manner of Manifacture that requires labour. The multitude of poor, and yet strong people still encreasing, they are to be transplanted into Countries not sufficiently inhabited: where neverthelesse, they are not to exterminate those they find there; but constrain them to inhabit closer together, and not range a great deal of ground, to snatch what they find; but to court each little Plot with art and labour, to give them their sustenance in due season. And when all the world is overcharged with Inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is Warre; which provideth for every man, by Victory, or Death. (Part II, Chapter XXX, 387)

I have derived the Rights of Soveraigne Power, and the duty of Subjects hitherto, from the Principles of Nature onely; … But in that I am next to handle, which is the Nature and Rights of a CHRISTIAN COMMON-WEALTH, whereof there dependeth muich upon Supernaturall Revelations of the Will of God; … Neverthelesse, we are not to renounce our Senses, and Experience; nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our naturall Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed Saviour; and therefore not to be folded up in the purchase of Justice, Peace, and true Religion. For though there be many things in Gods Word above Reason; that is to say, which cannot by naturall reason be either demonstrated, or confuted; yet there is nothing contrary to it; but when it seemeth so, the fault is either in our unskillful Interpretatio, or erroneous Ratiocination. /
Therefore, when any thing therein written is too hard for our examination, wee are bidden to captivate our understanding to the Words; and not to labour in sifting out a Philosophicall truth by Logick, of such mysteries as are not comprehensible, nor fall under any rule of naturall science. For it is with the mysteries of our Religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the vertue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect. (Part III, Chapter XXXII, 409-410)

George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres

George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres; From the Original Edition of 1573, 2nd Edition, Ed. Ruth Loyd Miller, Kennikat Press Corporation, Port Washington, New York, 1975

What wonder seemeth then? When stares stand thicke in skies,
If such a blasing starre have power to dim my dazzled eyes?

(Fayre Bersabe the bright once bathing in a Well, … 123)


I must confesse these dazzled eyes of myne
Did wincke for feare, when I first viewd thy face:
But bold desire, did open them agayne,
And bad mee looke till I had lookt to long,
I pitied them that did procure my payne,
And lov’d the lookes that wrought me all the wrong:
And as the Byrd once caught (but works her woe)
That strives to leave the lymed twigges behind:
Even so the more I strave to parte thee fro,
The greater grief did growe within my minde:
Remediles then must I yeeld to thee,
And crave no more, thy servant but to bee

(Of thee deare Dame, three lessons would I learne, 124)


What may be sayd, where truth cannot prevayle:
What plea may serve, where will it selfe is Judge?
What reason rules, where right and reason fayle:
Remediles then must the giltlesse trudge:
And seeke out care, to be the carving knyfe,
To cut the thred that lingreth such a life.

(A Cloud of care hath covred all my coste, 128)


And lo, my Lady of hir wonted grace,
First lent hir lippes to me (as for a kisse:)
And after that hir bodye to embrace,
Wherein dame nature wrought nothing amisse.

(That selfe same day, and of that day that hower, 132)


The thirstie mouth thinkes water hath good taste,
The hungrie jawes, are pleas’d, with ech repaste:
Who hath not prov’d what dearth by warres doth growe,
Cannot of peace the pleasaunt plenties knowe.

(What state to man, so sweete and pleasaunt were, 136)


I could not though I would: good Lady say not so,
Since one good word of your good wil might soone redresse my wo,
Where would is free before, there could can never faule:
For profe, you see how gallies passe where ships can beare no sayle,
The weary mariner when skies are overcast,
By ready will doth guyde his skill and wins the haven at last,
The pretty byrd that sings with pricke against hir brest,
Doth make a vertue of hir need, to watche when others rest.

(I could not though I would: good Lady say not so, 138)


Wherefore if you desire to see my true love spilt,
Commaund and I will slea my self, that yours may be the gilt.
But if you have no power to say yoru servaunt nay,
Write thus: I may not as I would, yit must I as I may.

(I could not though I would: good lady say not so, 138)


A hundredth sonnes (in course but not in kind)
Can witnesse well that I possess no joye:
The fear of death which fretteth in my mynd
Consumes my hart with dread of darke anoye.
And for eche sonne a thousand broken sleepes,
Devide my dreames with fresh recourse of cares:
The youngest sister sharpe hir sheare she kepes,
To cut my thred and thus my life it weares.
Yet let such days, such thousand restlesse nightes,
Spit forth their spite, let fates eke showe their force:
Deathes daunting dart where so his buffets lights,
Shall shape no change within my friendly corse:
But dead or live, in heaven, in earth, in hell
I wilbe thine where so my carkase dwell.

(complete, 147)

He wrote to the same friend from Founteine belle eau in Fraunce, this Sonet in commendation of the said house of Fountaine bel’eau.

Not stately Troy though Priam yet did live,
Could now compare Founteine bel’eau to passe:
Nor Syrriane towers, whose loftie steppes did strive,
To clymbe the throne where angry Saturne was.
For outward shew the ports are of such price,
As skorne the cost which Cesar spilt in Roome;
Such works within as stayne the rare devise,
Which whillome he Apelles wrought on tome.
Swift Tiber floud which fed the Romayne pooles,
Puddle to this where Christall melts in streames,
The pleasaunt place where Muses kept their schooles,
(Not parcht with Phoebe, nor banisht form his beams)
Yeeld to those Dames, nor sight, nor fruite, nor smell,
Which may be thought these gardens to excel.

(Complete, 148)


And yet in all that choyce a worthy Romaine Knight,
Antonius who conquered proude Egypt by his might.
Not all to please his eye, but most to ease his minde,
Chose Cleopatra for his love, & left the rest behinde.
A wondrous thing to read, in all his victory,
He snapt but hir for his owne share, to please his fantasie.
She was not faire God wot, y[e] country breeds none bright,
Well maye we judge hir skinne the soyle, bycause hir
teeth were white.
Percase hir lovely lookes, some praises did deserve,
But brown I dare be bold she was, for so y[e] sole did serve.
And could Antonius forsake the fayre in Roome?
To love this nutbrowne Lady best, was this an equall doome?
I dare wel say dames there, did beare him deadly grudge,
His sentence had bene shortly sayed, if Faustine had bene judge.
For this I dare avow, (without vaunt be it spoke)
So brave a knight as Antony, held al their necks in yoke.

(If men may credite give, to true reported fames, 150-151)


The garments gay, the glittering golden gite,
The tysing talk which floweth from Pallas pooles:
The painted pale, the (too much) red made white,
Are smyling baytes to fishe for loving fooles.

(The thriftless thred which pampred beauty spines, 154)


The rootes of rotten Reedes is swelling seas are seene:
And when ech tyde hath toste his worst, they grow agein full greene.
Thus much to please my self, unpleasantly I sing:
And shrich to ease my mourning minde, in spye of envies sting.

(Despysed things may live, although they pyne in payne:, 169)


I see no sight on earth, but it to Chaunge enclines:
As little clowds oft overcast, the brightest sunne that shines.

(Despysed things may live, although they pyne in payne:, 169)


Then like the Larke that past the night
In heavy sleepe with cares opprest:
Yit when shee spies the pleasaunt light,
She sends sweete notes from our hir brest.
So sing I now because I think
How joyes approach, when sorrowes shrink.
/
And as faire Philomeme ageine
Can watch and singe when other sleepe:
And taketh pleasure in hir payne,
To wray the woo that makes his weepe.
So sing I now for to bewray
The lothsome life I lead always.
/
The which to thee (deare wench) I write,
That know’st my mirth but not my moane:
I pray God graunt thee deepe delight,
To live in joyes when I am gone.
I cannot live, it will not be:
I dye to think to part from thee.

(Amid my Bale I bath in blisse, 170-1)


Such is the fruite that growes on gadding trees,
Such kind of mell most moveth busie Bees.

(This Apuleius was in Affricke borne, 185)


A simple soule much like my selfe, did once a serpant find.
Which (almost dead for colde) lay moiling in the myre
When he for pittie toke it up and brought it to the fyre.
No soner was the Snake, cured of hir grief,
But straight she sought to hurt the man, that lent hir such relief.
Such Serpant seemeth thou, such simple soule am I,
That for the weight of my good will, am blamd without cause why.

(The cruell hate which boyles within thy burning brest, 187)


I will now deliver unto you so many more of Master Gascoignes Poems as have come to my hands, who hath never beene dayntie of his doings, and therefore I conceale not his name: but his word or posie he hath often changed and therefore I will deliver his verses with such sundrie posies as I received them. (192)


Quod Beautie, no, it sitteth not,
A Prince hir selfe to judge the cause:
Here is oure Justice well you wote,
Appointed to discusse our lawes:
If you will guiltlesse seeme to goe,
God and your countrey quitte you so.

(Gascoignes araignement, 193-4)


These rustie walles whome cankred yeares deface,
The comely corps of seemely Zouche enclose,
Whose auncient stocke derived from worthie face,
Procures hir prayse, wher so the carkas goes:

(These rustie walles whome cankred yeares deface, 196)


What fits I feele? what distance? what delayes?

(note the meter. ‘Gascoignes passion’, 197)


Divorce me now good death, from love and lingring life,
That one hath ben my concubine, that other was my wife.
In youth I lived with love, she had my lusty dayes,
In age I thought with lingering life to stay my wandering wayes,
But now abused by both, I come for to complaine
To thee good death, …

(Gascoignes libell of Divorce, 199)


The common speech is, spend and God will send,
But what sends he? a bottell and a bagge,
A staffe, a wallet and a wofull ende,

(The common speech is, spend and God will send, 207)

Francis Bacon, The Essays

Francis Bacon, The Essays, Penguin Classics, Edited with an Introduction by John Pitcher, London, 1985.

The poet Ben Jonson, not an easy man to please, declared that no one every spoke ‘more neatly, more pressly [precisely], more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness’ in his speech than Bacon. His ‘hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss’ and the ‘fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end’. [‘Explorata: or Discoveries’, in Ben Jonson: the Complete Poems, ed. George Parfitt, Penguin, 1975, p. 401.] (23)

Tracing back through the published sequence of Essays, form the final edition in 1625 to the one in 1612 and then to the first versions in 1597, we find everywhere a perceptible thinning out of the prose between this or that observation or maxim. In 1597 and 1612, Of Suitors begins ‘Many ill matters are undertaken, and many good matters with ill minds’, but in 1625 the alliterative doubling on many, matters and minds, and the single fulcrum of undertaken is changed into something very fancy indeed: /
Many ill matters and projects are undertaken, and private suits do putrefy the public good. Many good matters are undertaken with bad minds; I mean not only corrupt minds, but crafty minds that intend not performance. (26)

In 1625, the Essays are like an expanding universe, moving outwards, filling space so as to be able to join up within what is irreconcilable matter: the conjunctions striven for are impossible, but the words continue to flow in. so much so, in some instances, that the prose can become heavily literary, or even flatulent. (27)

[1625] What is truth? said jesting Pilate, [in John 18.37, Jesus declares that he has come into the world to bear witness to the truth, to which Pilate replies ‘What is truth?’ : jesting, or scoffing, is Bacon’s addition] and would not stay for an answer. (Of Truth, 61)

This same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixtureof a lie doth ever add pleasure. (Of Truth, 61)

One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum [The wine of devils (St Augustine calls poetry the ‘wine of error’; St Jerome, the ‘food of devils’)] because it filleth the imagination and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. (Of Truth, 62)

But is it not the lie that passeth through the mind but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, … (Of Truth, 62)

Certainly the contemplation of death as the wages of sin and passage to another world is holy and religious, but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. (Of Death, 64)

Groans and convulsions and a discoloured face, and fiends weeping, and blacks and obsequies and the like show death terrible. (Of Death, 64)

But above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is Nunc dimittis [Now let (your servant) depart (in peace), Luke 2.29], when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: Extinctus amabitur idem [The same man (envied while alive) will be loved once he is dead, Horace, Epistles, II, 1.14] (Of Death, 66)

Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. (Of Unity in Religion, 69)

For as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people. Let that be left unto the Anabaptists and other furies. [Protestant sectarians who had radical views on the equality of men, and whose history had been violent.] (Of Unity in Religion, 70)

Nay rather, vindicative persons live the life of witches, who, as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate. (Of Revenge, 73)

…that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; [For the earthen pot, not in Apollodorous, see R. S. Peterson, Imitation and Praise in the Poems of Ben Jonson, New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 131-3. In The Wisdom of the Ancients, Bacon explains the hidden meaning of the story like this: ‘The voyage of Hercules especially, sailing in a pitcher to set Prometheus free, seems to present an image of God the Word [Christ] hastening in the frail vessel of the flesh to redeem the human race’. See below, p. 276] lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh thorough the waves of the world. (Of Adversity, 74)

…the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. (Of Adversity, 75)

For men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret, without swaying the balance on either side. (Of Simulation and Dissimulation, 77)

Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take, for then they are most flexible. And let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, thenit is good not to cross it: but generally the precept is good, Optimum elige, suave et facile illud faciet consuetude. [Choose what is best, and habit will make it pleasant and easy (a saying ascribed to the followers of Pythagoras, in Plutarch, On Exile, 8 (Moralia, 602b)] (Of Parents and Children, 80)

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune [i.e. has placed himself at a disadvantage, since he must do nothing which may jeopardize the well-being of his wife and children, the hostages who prosper or suffer according to his good or bad fortunes.], for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. (Of Marriage and Single Life, 81)

Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects, for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. (Of Marriage and Single Life, 81)

Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; (Of Marriage and Single Life, 82)

For envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep home: Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus. [No one is inquisitive without being malevolent as well, Platuus, Stichus, I.3.54] (Of Envy, 84)

The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures: as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts and give alms to dogs and birds; (Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, 97)

Therefore, to avoid the scandal and the danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the errors of an habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies, for that is but facility or softness, which taketh an honest mind prisoner. (Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, 97)

Such men in other men’s calamities are, as it were, in season [At their happiest],… (Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, 97)

…that make it their practice to bring men to the bough [i.e. to hang themselves], and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as Timon had [Timothy of Athens, known as the Misanthrope, announced that since he was going to cut down a tree in his garden on which many had hanged themselves, would-be suicides should use it at once.] (Of Goodness and Goodness of Nature, 98)

As for nobility in particular persons, it is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay, or to see a fair timber-tree sound and perfect: how much more to behold an ancient and noble family which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time. For new nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time. Those that are first raised to nobility are commonly more virtuous but less innocent than their descendants—for there is rarely any rising but by a commixture of good and evil arts. (Of Nobility, 100)

Shepherds of people had need know the calendars of tempests in state; (Of Seditions and Troubles, 101)

For when the authority of princes is made but an accessory to a cause, and that there be other bands that tie faster than the band of sovereignty, kings begin to be put almost out of possession. (Of Seditions and Troubles, 102)

[In Bacon’s day, an atheist was not necessarily someone who denied the existence of God, but someone who identified the creative principles of the universe with God. Note 4, page 109, Of Atheism]

For none deny there is a God but those for whom it maketh [It seems to be an advantage to believe] that there were no God. (Of Atheism, 109)

And, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism and not recant; whereas if they did truly think that there were no such things as God, why should they trouble themselves? (Of Atheism, 109)

But the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must needs be cauterized in the end. (Of Atheism, 109)

They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body, and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise magnanimity, and the raising of human nature. For take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is in stead of a god, or melior natura [a better nature, from Ovid, Metamorphoses, I.21] , which courage is manifestly such as that creature, without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain… Therefore, as atheism is in all respects hateful, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty. (Of Atheism, 110)

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him: for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. (Of Superstition, 111)

Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. Therefore atheism did never peturb states, for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time Augustus Caesar) were civil times. (Of Superstition, 111)

The causes of superstition are: pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; (Of Superstition, 112)

And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little words, so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of petty observances. (Of Superstition, 112)

There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best if they go furthest from the superstition formerly received: therefore care would be had (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done, when the people is the reformer. (Of Superstition, 112)

It is a strange thing that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; (Of Travel, 113)

If you will have a young man … travel… Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less as the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one city or town, let him change his lodging form one end and part of the town to another, (Of Travel, 114)

And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answer than forwards to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country. (Of Travel, 114)

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear. (Of Empire, 115)

Greek Political Oratory

Greek Political Oratory, Selected and Translated with an Introduction by A. N. W. Saunders, Penguin Classics, London, 1970.

Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily… Gorgias’ claim to fame as an orator seems to have rested on skill in expression rather than on exposition or treatment of his matter. His influence is said to have extended in particular to Thucydides and Isocrates. The only continuous passage of his which survives is itself part of a funeral oration. It must be granted that it is tiresomely overloaded with symmetrical antitheses, and does not suggest great oratory. Nonetheless it can readily be understood that this style explains some of the peculiarities of the speeches which Thucydides includes in his narrative, and also the smoother antithetical method of Isocrates. (10)

Antiphon and … Thucydides… given to brevity, symmetry and antithesis. These are characteristics which probably seemed to both writers to offer a method of bringing prose to the literal level of poetry. (11)

It is said that Pericles was the first to deliver a written speech in court, and it must be assumed that written speeches in the Assembly were a later habit. Pericles is described by the comic poets, Eupolis and Aristophanes, who refer to his lightning speed and persuasiveness. But we have no record of his speeches except Thucydides’ versions, … (11)

Isaeus, who enjoyed a special reputation as an expert in the composition of law-court speeches, particularly in cases of inheritance. Perhaps it is partly because of such narrow and individual aims that Plato regards oratory with such evident distaste and disparages it in a number of places. He calls it an art of spell-binding, and criticized its lengthy irrelevance, … (12)

Isocrates… was full of talent, as Plato makes Socrates describe him in [13] a celebrated passage at the end of the Phaedrus, and had wide views about the Greek world and particularly his native Athens. But he lacked the voice and the robust temperament needed for active oratory. He therefore found his own niche as a teacher, and communicated his ideas as written pamphlets. But he did not practise either activity on the same lines as his predecessors. He was a teacher of rhetoric, yet one who was neither a mere theorist nor a mere exponent of technique, and therefore departed from the practice of writing speeches for imaginary situations, like Antiphon, because he regarded contact with real and vital questions as important. Yet he did not seek to achieve it by speaking. He was a sophist, as a man who took fees for teaching oratory. But in an early discourse he makes a strong protest against sophists for making extravagant claims which they can never fulfil, for being oblivious of practical aims and for bringing discredit on genuine teachers—charges little different from Plato’s. What he sought to instill into his pupils he called ‘philosophy’; but it was not what Plato meant by the word. He regarded the Platonic pursuit of truth as too un-practical, indeed as humanly unattainable, while Plato grouped him with the Sophists, regarding them as tamperers with the truth rather than seekers of it. (13-14)

Isocrates… He did not go quite as far as Cicero was to do in depicting the orator as the ideally cultivated individual. But he did regard rhetoric not solely as a means to a practical end, success at law, but as a development of human [power] … (14-15)

Yet never, or never until it was too late, do Isocrates’ aspiration appear to have been taken seriously. This was not principally because they did not appeal enough to Philip, nor because of the rise of Demosthenes, who took a different view. Better to say that it was due to the political state of fourth-century Greece, … (16)

Not that Demosthenes was greatly successful. Indeed he is generally regarded as the patriot who could never induce a declining state to surmount self-seeking and revert to action. This is not wholly true. He was too great an orator to be always unsuccessful, even though the times were against him too. (17)

Great oratory is not solely a matter of style, but also of character. Whatever else Demosthenes was, he was a man of courage. He must have felt at his best when he was wrestling with difficulty: with his own temperament and physique, with his financial troubles after the early death of his father, with acquaintances who found him [17] tiresome, pompous and self-righteous (which he probably was) as well as with an inert and complacent Assembly. (18)

The translator can only attempt a faint suggestion of this Thucydidean style, which is perhaps due to intense feeling packed into an antithetical style derived from Gorgias. … Lysias, … But his most marked characteristic [19] is his straightforward ease of statement, and the essay On Style follows Cicero in stressing his ‘charm’. (20)

But Cicero points out, and we should remember, that Isocrates wrote with a view not to the ‘thrust and parry of the courts, but to give pleasure to the ear’. It is a polished style in which the antithesis he had learnt from Gorgias is ironed out, though it is still at times perceptible, and in which period succeeds period ‘with no less regularity than the hexameters in the poetry of Homer’, avoiding even hiatus as an undesirable roughness. It is thus a style of more beauty than strength, reflecting perhaps Isocrates’ personality and his own praise of a style which is as artistic as that of poetry. (20)

Thucydides: Pericles’ Funeral Speech… It is not to be supposed genuine in the sense of giving the ipsissima verba of Pericles. There have been editors who have claimed to find in it an individuality distinct from other speeches in the work. But this is probably wishful thinking. The momentous, impressive style, and the tortuous sentences, are those of Thucydides. (31)

Their deeds in war, which won them each of these possessions, … all this you know, and since I do not wish to speak of it at length, I will omit it. But the way of life whose practice led to these achievements and the form of state and character which made them great, these I will [33] describe, (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 33-34)

The constitution by which we live does not emulate the enactments of our neighbours. It is an example to others father than an imitation of them. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 34)

Liberty marks both our public politics and the feels which touch our daily life together. We do not resent a neighbour’s pursuit of pleasure, nor cast on him the burden of ill will, which does no injury but gives pain to witness. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 34)

We are seekers of beauty, but avoid extravagance, of learning, but without unmanliness. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 35)

We do not win friendship from benefit received, but form service rendered. Lasting friendship comes rather from the doer of a benefit, who through good will towards the receiver keeps the debt in being; the debtor’s gratitude is blurred by the knowledge that it is not free service he will repay, but a debt. And we alone do good less from calculation of advantage than from the trust that is born of freedom without thought of the future. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 35)

We have no further need of a Homer to praise us, or any other poet whose words give transient pleasure, but the real truth will discredit their account. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 36)

When they failed to gain their hopes, they did not therefore think they should deprive the city of their merit, but gave it freely as their finest offering to her banquet. As citizen they gave their lives for the good of all, (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech 37)

It is not men in misfortune, without new hope of success, who should most justly be unsparing of their lives, but men before whom, if they still live, there looms the opposite change and the greatest reverse in the case of failure. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech, 37)

So for their parents who are here I have not so much grief as comfort. [37]… You must endure in the hope of other children, those of you who are still of an age to have them. In your private life the newcomers will make for forgetfulness of those who have gone, and for the state it will be a double gain, in making good the loss and adding to her security. For deliberations made in equality and justice are only possible between men who have an equal power to offer their children to the risk of danger. Those among you who are post the best of life should regard as gain your happiness in the greater part of it. Remember than what remains will be short, and be consoled by your lost ones’ high renown. The quest for honour alone is unging, and in the unproductive time of life it is not gain that brings pleasure, as some say, but honour. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech 38)

Now, therefore, weep your last for your own, and so depart. (Thucydides, Pericles’ Funeral Speech 38)

Lysias: Against Eratosthenes: … Lysias was the younger son of Cephalus of Syracuse, well known as a foreigner resident in Athens… (Against Eratosthenes, 39)

There is no difficulty in opening this prosecution, gentlemen. The difficulty will be to bring it to an end. The nature and the number of the charges are due to the character and the quantity of the facts. Invention could never exaggerate their heinousness, nor veracity reach the end of the list. The prosecutor would collapse or the time run short. We seem likely to find in this case the reverse of the normal experience. Normally the prosecution needs to explain the grounds for hostility to the defendants. But in this case it is the defendants whose hostility to Athens needs explaining, and the ground for such outrageous conduct towards the state. I do not claim that I am free of personal reasons for animosity, but that everyone has abundant cause for it on private and public grounds alike. Personally, gentlemen, I have never before conducted a case for myself or for anyone else, but I have been forced by the circumstances to prosecute Eratoshtenes. In fact I have been frequently troubled by the fear that inexperience may render inadequate and incompetent my presentation of the case for my brother and myself. I will try, however, to explain it from the beginning as best I can. (Lysias: Eratosthenes, 43)

Andocides is best known for his connexion with the mysterious incidents which occurred in Athens in the summer of 415 B.C., just before the great expedition to Sicily set sail. The fleet was on the point of departure, when it was learned that during the night the images of Hermes in the streets had been defaced. A further report said that a party of people, including one of the leaders of the expedition, Alcibiades, had conducted parody of performances of the Mysteries, the sacred rituals of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, … Andocides, a member of an old, distinguished and wealthy family, with political, perhaps oligarchic, interests, was among a [61] number denounced as implicated in these affairs. … he went into exile in Cyprus. He also visited other parts of the Greek world, and acquired some considerable wealth. He made several attempts to return to Athens, but without success, … Andocides won his case, and continued in Athens as a politician, … (62)

The preparation my opponents undertook and the eagerness they showed to injure me in every respect, right or wrong, from the first moment I arrived in this city, is something you realize for the most part, and I need go to no length about it. What I shall ask of you, gentlemen, is my rights, which are as easy for you to grant as they are valuable for me to receive. And the first thing I want you to keep in mind is that I am here under no compulsion either in the form of bail or of physical force. I trusted in justice and in your integrity to determine rightly and not allow me to be wrongfully done to death by my antagonists, but to preserve me in accordance with justice, with Athenian law, and with the oaths you swore before embarking on the vote you are going to make. (Andocides: On the Mysteries, 63)

Isocrates was born in 435 B.C., and died at the age of ninety-eight. He was well educated, and early in his life came under the influence of the leading intellectuals of the period of the early Sophists, in particular of Gorgias, and he is mentioned in the Phaedrus of Plato (279a) as a follower of Socrates and a young man of very great promise. Financial difficulties during the Peloponnesian War made it necessary for him to earn his living, and after a period of writing speeches for use by litigants in the courts, he turned to teaching, … He published a number of works which were oratorical in form, but were not intended to be delivered, but to be read. He describes in the Philip (81) his reasons for giving up practical oratory and preferring to affect the course of the political world partly by his teaching and partly by such essays as these. (99)

The Panegyricus, published in or after 380 B.C., was ostensibly devoted to one of Isocrates’ main themes, the unification of the Greek world. For this he looks to a reconciliation of Athens and Sparta. But much of the treatise concerns the fitness of Athens for the leadership of Greece, and its general praise of Athens affords some interesting comparisons with the Funeral Oration of Pericles. It is the more remarkable because Athens, though in part recovered from her collapse in 404 B.C., was still far form her old wealth and greatness in a world dominated by Sparta, whose disastrous policy is much emphasized. The Panegyricus thus refers for the most part to events after the Peloponnesian War… (99)

The institution of festivals [The Panegyricus was written as though for a Pan-Hellenic festival, though it was never delivered at one.] which include athletic competitions has often led me to feel surprise at the large rewards offered for mere physical successes, which the unselfish endeavour of men who have set their whole being to work for the benefit of others receives no recognition, though they merit the greater consideration. Athletic physique might be doubled without any benefit to others, while the public spirit of a single individual may bring profit to all who care to participate in it. Nonetheless I have not been discouraged or reduced to inactivity. In the assurance that the repute my words will win me is sufficient reward I come here to advocate a policy of war outside the bounds of Greece, and unity within. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 101)

I am aware that many who claim to be men of intelligence have coe forward to deal with this subject. But I make a double claim to it, first in the hopes of establishing such a distinction from them that mine will be thought the first word on the subject, and secondly in the initial belief that the best oratory is that which deals with the greatest themes and combines a display of the speaker’s powers with the interests of his audience, as this does. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 101)

In addition, favourable circumstances still hold, so that the subject has not yet become obsolete. … But as the nature of the theme is such as to allow numerous variations of treatment, to make it possible to increase or diminish the prominence of different aspects, to use a novel approach to early instances or see the new in the light of the old, there is no cause to avoid ground already explored, but rather to attempt to improve on previous approaches to it. Past history is indeed a common legacy. But to make appropriate use of it, to take a right attitude to its details and documents it fully requires real soundness of thought. And this, I think, is where the greatest advance can be made in any art, not least in the culture which comes through oratory. It demands that we shall value and give credit, not to the first in the field, but to the best performance, not to an original choice of subject, but to the ability to outdistance all rivals. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 101-2)

There is some tendency to criticize speeches which are too highly elaborated for the ordinary man. Such critics make the great mistake of viewing a very elaborate discourse in the same light as a speech in a private suit, as though both should have the light as a speech in a private suit, as though both should have the same character. They do not realize that one kind aims at accuracy, the other at display, that their own eye is on simplicity, but that the power to command perfection in oratory would be incompatible with a simple style. There is no difficulty in seeing that they give their approval within their own familiar understanding. I am not concerned with them so much as with the view that will reject any looseness of expression and will irritably demand qualities in my work which will not appear in any other. To this I will speak a bold word in self-defence before embarking on my theme. In general, opening passages are designed to mollify the audience and make excuse for the discourse which is to follow, by claiming either hasty preparation or the difficulty of finding words to match the greatness of the subject. I take the opposite approach, and declare that, if I fail to do justice to my subject, to my reputation and to the length, not only of the time now occupied by it, but of my whole life, I ask for no sympathy, but ridicule and contempt. I deserve it in the fullest measure, if I have no more than ordinary qualifications for so lofty an undertaking. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 102)

It is easy to lead Athens to this view, but Sparta is still hard to influence, having taken up on herself the false idea of supremacy as her heritage. But a demonstration that this priority is ours of right rather than their may induce them to pursue the general advantage instead of standing on precise legal claims. /
This should have been the starting point for the other speakers, who should not have introduced discussion of points of agreement before dealing with controversial issues. (Isocrates: Panegyrics, 103)

The total of the benefits we have conferred on others can most properly be reckoned by a systematic account of the history of Athens from the beginning . … First, then, it was be means of our country that the first need of man’s nature was provided. … When Demeter arrived in this district in her wanderings after the rape of Persephone, she showed favour to our forbears for benefits received which can only be mentioned to the initiated, and conferred two gifts which surpass all others, the cultivation [104] of crops, which brought a higher form of life than that of the animals, and the mysteries, which gave their initiates more enviable hopes both for the conclusion of this life and for all eternity. It has come about that this city of ours was endowed not merely with the love of the gods, but with love for mankind, and consequently, having such wonderful things in her control, did not grudge them to others, but allowed all to participate in them. We still perform these mysteries annually, and the state gave instruction about the practices conveyed to man and their development and value. These are facts which, with a little information added, no one could call in question. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 104-5)

…it was Athens who observed that most of the world was in the hands of non-Greek people, while the Greek states were confined to a small territory, and led by shortage of living space into conspiracy and internal strife, and decimated by starvation or war. She refused to acquiesce in these circumstances, and dispatched leaders into the Greek cities, who took over the most poverty-stricken, established themselves in command of them, fought and defeated the non-Greek inhabitants and founded communities on all the islands, securing the preservation of their followers and the remaining population alike. … dispossessed non-Greek people and brought such prosperity to the Greeks. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 106)

…gave honour to skill in words, which is the desire and the envy of all. She realized that… were the province of the well-ordained mind: … (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 108)

Let no one suppose me ignorant of the many services performed by Sparta for the Greek cause in those great days. But this is a reason to give still greater praise to Athens: that with such rivals to emulate she yet outdid them. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 113)

[Athenian ancestors] They knew that for men of high breeding there is no need of many written words, since agreement in a few principles will bring accord in private and in public alike. So deep-set in their thought was the community, that even their dissensions arose, not in dispute as to which party should destroy the other and control the state, but which should be first to bring benefit to the whole. … They made their word more sure than an oath is in our time, and expected to abide by an agreement as binding beyond avoidance. The did not take pride in power so much as credit for restraint, demanding in themselves the same attitude towards inferiors as they received from superiors, since they thought of their individual towns as their own abode, but of Greece as the fatherland of all. /

It was by adopting ideas such as this, and by training the young in these habits of thought, that they raise so fine a generation in those who fought against the invaders from Asia, that neither thinker nor poet could reach the height of what they accomplished. And this may well be pardoned. It is as hard to praise men of outstanding merit as men of none. If these last have no actions worthy of praise, the first can engender no fitting [114] praise to match their actions… Continuously, then, our ancestors and those of Sparta were in contention with each other, but at that time it was contention for the prize of honour, and they held themselves not in enmity but rivalry. They did not seek the enslavement of Greece, … (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 114-115)

Instead, when a campaign is intended against Persia, who ought to be given the leadership of it? … Surely it should go to the country which abandoned its own land for the safety of the rest, which in ancient times founded most other states, and later rescued them from the most signal disasters. It would be outrageous treatment if, after shouldering the greatest burden of hardship, we were expected to receive less than our share of honour, if, after standing in the front line, we were compelled to follow in the rear of other states. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 118)

Such has been our character, and such the proofs we have given of our freedom from rapacity. Yet we are unjustifiably accused by participants in the decarchies, who did violence to their own countries, made the atrocities of their predecessors look trivial and left no room for further extremes in the history of wickedness… (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 120)

No Athenian inflicts such cruelty on his slaves as the Persian punishment of free men. But the greatest misery of their subjects is the compulsion to join in the fight for slavery against the cause of freedom, and to endure the prospect of defeat which will cause their instant destruction or a success which will plunge them further into slavery in the future. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 123)

Let it not be supposed to be due to ill will that I make a somewhat brusque reference to these subjects after a prelude promising reconciliation. My intention in speaking in this way is not to defame Sparta in the eyes of others so much as to put a check on her, in so far as my discourses is able, and to put an end to her present attitude. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 124)

There could never arise either an outstanding general or a good solider in a regime like this, where the bulk of the population is utterly incapable of sustaining discipline or facing danger, and lacks the toughness needed for war after an upbringing more suited to servility than that of servants with us. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 128)

They spend their time showing arrogance towards one class and subservience towards another, in the fashion most calculated to demoralize humanity. Physically their wealth has made them over self-indulgent, while psychologically their monarchical constitution makes them degraded and cringing, … (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 129)

Possibly my own simplicity may come in for ridicule, if I lament the sorrows of men in the circumstances of the present, … I am surprised that leading statesmen in the Greek cities think a lofty attitude suitable, though they have always been incapable of either speech or reflection to mitigate such a situation. If they deserved their reputation they should abandon all else, and introduce and discuss the subject of the expedition against Persia. (Isocrates: Panegyrics, 132)

However, I think a different approach will show more clearly the dishonour we have undergone and the rapacity of Persia. The whole world beneath the stars consists of two parts, called Asia and Europe, and the King has appropriated half of it under the treaty, as though he were making a division with Zeus instead of a settlement with men. He has compelled us to have this inscribed on stone and erected in public temples, … (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 134)

It is a disgrace to expect in private to think of foreigners as servants, and in public to allow so many of our allies to be slaves to them; a disgrace that at the rape of a single woman the Greeks of the Trojan wars should join the victims of wrong in such universal indignation as to refuse any compromise till they had razed the presumptuous offenders’s city to the ground, while we exact no combined retribution for the insult to the whole Greek race, though we have the power to make our very dreams realities. This is the only war which is in fact preferable to peace. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 135)

I think there will be far fewer who wish to stay at home than those who desire to be on the march. Who is there, young or old, who will be so inert as not to desire a part in this army, led by Athens and Sparta and gathered for the freedom of the allied Greeks, sent out by all Greece for retribution on Persia? (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 135)

By now I no longer feel the same as at the beginning of my oration. I was then of opinion that I should be able to find words to fit my subject. But I cannot attain to its magnitude. Much of my intention of the good fortune which would be ours, if we could change the present war among ourselves to a war against the mainland, and transfer the wealth of Asia to Europe. (Isocrates: Panegyricus, 136)

You must not be surprised, Philip, if I do not begin with the thesis which is to be put before you and will follow immediately, but with one in which I discussed Amphipolis. (Isocrates: Philip, 139)

However, I set [140] aside these difficulties, and was ambitious enough in my old age to hope to combine what I had to say to you with a conclusive demonstration to my own pupils that to disturb general assemblies with addresses presented to the entire crowd of participants is in fact to address no one. (Isocrates: Philip, 140-1)

Indeed I regard even my project as likely to need both these, because I intend to urge you to take the lead in a movement for Greek unity and in the campaign against the non-Greek world. Persuasion will be desirable in dealing with the Greeks, and compulsion of practical use against the others. This aim covers the whole discourse. (Isocrates: Philip, 141)

If the gods granted you a choice of the pursuit or activity in which you would spend your life, there is no other, in my submission, which you could prefer to this. … And no one of even moderate intelligence could fail to urge you to a plan of action which would bring a double harvest of outstanding pleasure and inextinguishable honour. (Isocrates: Philip, 151)



…the greatest of Greek orators began his career at an early age. Yet he was not physically robust, and was thought unsociable, puritanical and perhaps self-righteous. If so, he overcame the diffidence which this reputation implies by a strong determination, which must have been characteristic of a man who is said to have improved his vocal delivery by declaiming on the shore with pebbles in his mouth. (169)

In my opinion, gentlemen, both parties are wrong, both the supporters of Arcadia and those of Sparta. Their accusation and misrepresentations make them appear actual members of the states they support instead of Athenians. Such proceedings may be the proper function of the visiting delegations, but a balanced discussion of the facts with a reasoned view of Athenian interests and without bias is what is demanded in a discussion of policy by our own speakers. As it is, take away known personalities and Attic speech, and I think that most people would take one party to be Arcadian and the other Spartan. (Demosthenes: For Megalopolis, 173)

I should very much like to ask speakers who declare their dislike of Thebes or of Sparta whether it is a dislike based in either case on a liking for Athens and her interests, or on a liking for Sparta or Thebes, as the case may be. If the later, no support should be given to either. They are out of their senses. If they say, ‘for Athens’, why enhance the other two? I assure you that it is possible to bring Thebes down without increasing the strength of Sparta. Indeed it is far easier. How this is so, I will try to explain. (Demosthenes: For Megalopolis, 173)

In a debate on so important a question, gentlemen, freedom must, I think, be extended to every participant. I personally have never considered it difficult to find the best ideas to present to you—to be candid I think they are in your minds already. The difficulty is to induce you to carry them out. A motion voted and carried is still as far from execution as before. (Demosthenes: On the Liberty of Rhodes, 180)

Were it a new question, gentlemen, which lay before us, I should wait until most of the regular speakers had made their contribution, and if I were satisfied with the views expressed, I should add nothing; if not, I should try to voice my own. But as it is the reconsideration of a subjection frequently discussed by speakers before, I hope I may be pardoned for speaking first. Had my opponents urged the rights policy in the past, this discussion would be superfluous. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 188)

Why mention this? To set this fact firmly before your minds, gentlemen, that if you are awake, you have nothing to fear, if you close your eyes, nothing to hope for. To prove this I point to two things, the past power of Sparta, which we defeated by sheer attention to business, and the present aggression of Macedon, which alarms us because our attitude is wrong. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 188)

When are we to act? What is to be the signal? When compulsion drives, I suppose. Then what are we to say of the present? In my view the greatest compulsion that can be laid upon free men is their shame at the circumstances in which they find themselves. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 189)

‘Philip is dead’, comes one report. ‘No, he is only ill’, from another. What difference does it make? Should anything happen to Philip, Athens, in her present frame of mind, will soon create another Philip. This one’s rise was due less to his own power than to Athenian apathy. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 190)

Yet why is it, do you suppose, that the festivals of the Panathenaea and the Dionysia always take place at the correct time, whether the task of managing them is allotted to experts or laymen—and these are things which run into greater expense than any military expedition, … The reason is that the festivals are regulated by law. … But in the military field and in preparation for it there is no order, no organization, no precise control. The result is this. It is not till the news of the actual emergency comes that we appoint commanders. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 195)

The war against Philip exactly resembles the methods of an untaught foreigner in the boxing ring. If he is hit, he hugs the place, and if you hit him somewhere else, there go his hands again. He has not learnt, and is not prepared, to defend himself or look to his front. So it is with the policy of Athens. (Demosthenes: Philippic I, 196)

You would give a great deal, I fancy, gentlemen, for a clear understanding where your interest is likely to lie in the affairs under consideration. This being so, you should be ready to pay keen attention to such proposals as are made. (Opening, Demosthenes: Olynthiac I, 199)

As it is, our refusal to seize the fleeting moment, and our assumption that the future will look after itself, have effectively turned Philip into the greatest monarch who has ever appeared in Macedonia. Now at last we have our opportunity in Olynthus. It has come to us unsought, and it is the greatest in our history. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac I, 200)

If we are to abandon Olynthus too, and Philip is to become its master, what is to prevent him, I should like to know, from moving wherever he chooses? Do any of us reckon and fully realize the methods which have brought Philip from initial weakness to his present stature? … Why point this out now? It is to bring to your knowledge and realization two tings: first the disaster of squandering your interests one by one, and secondly the restless activity which is Philip’s life and which never allows him to rest on his laurels. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac I, 201)

A long account of the power of Macedon as a means to urge Athenians to their duty I regard as a mistake, for this reason. Anything that can be said to this effect increases Macedonian prestige and damages this country. … But there are subjects apart form this which are of greater value to put before this assembly, and which on a true reckoning constitute a damaging charge against him. These I shall try to present. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac II, 205)

I should emphatically agree that Philip was an object for our fear and our wonder, if what I saw were a power based upon right. But long and full consideration shows the truth. His first success was at the expense of our own folly, … There is not a state which has tried to make use of him without falling victim to his duplicity. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac II, 206)

He should owe his destruction to the same forces, now that his invariable self-interest has been proved against him. This is the point to which Philips’s fortunes have been brought, and I challenge any speaker to prove to me, or rather to this assembly, either that my contention is false, … Never, gentlemen, never can a lasting power be founded on broken promises and lying words. [un-Machiavellian] Such [206] empires stand for one short hour. They may blossom with fair hopes, but time finds them out, and they fade and die. In a house, in a ship, in any structure, it is the foundation which most needs strength. So it is too with the actions of men’s lives, which must be founded on truth and justice. And this is not true of the achievements of Macedon. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac II, 206)

As to his paid soldiers and his corps d’elite, who have the reputation of being a superbly welded military force, I have it from an irreproachable informant, who has been in that country, that they are no more than ordinary. Men of military experience, I was told are discarded by a selfish leader who wants all the credit himself, because his ambition is as outstanding as anything else about him. On the other hand men of restraint and integrity in other field, who cannot endure a life of drunkenness and debauchery and indecent dancing, are rejected and passed over by a man like Philip. The rest of his entourage are bandits and flatterers, capable of taking part in drunken revelry which I hesitate to describe. This is clearly true, because the outcasts of our society, who were thought lower than mere street-entertainers, creatures like the slave, Callias, who do comic performances and write low song at the expense of others to get a laugh, these are the people he likes and keeps around him. (Cf. Cicero’s Philippic.) (Demosthenes: Olynthiac, 208)

…what this country has been doing in all this length of time. You know the answer. She has passed it in procrastination, in optimism, in recrimination, condemnation and yet more optimism. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac, 209)

Le me summarize our requirements: universal money contribution according to means, universal service in detachment till all have served, universal freedom to speak and a choice of policy not confined to that of one or two particular politicians. Carry this out, and instead of immediate applause for the last speaker, bestow it on yourself for a general improvement in the whole position. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac, 211)

This present moment, beyond all others, demands deep consideration. It is not present policy that I regard as the main difficulty. My problem is how to address this meeting. The evidence of my own eyes and ears convinces me that this lack of grip upon affairs is more a failure of will than of intelligence. I beg you therefore to tolerate directness on my part. You must consider the truth of what I say with the aim of improvement in the future. You must realize that it is the ingratiating method of certain speakers which has brought our whole position to so low an ebb. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac III, 212)

Nor must it escape you that a vote is valueless without the will to carry it out whole-heartedly. If measure passed had power in themselves to compel us to action, or to bring the substance of them into reality, we should not have a history of numerous enactments and little or no action, nor would Philip so long have defied restraint. (Demosthenes: Olynthiac III, 214)

The result is inevitable, I suppose, and perhaps right. We each succeed best in the field of our greatest activity and interest, Philip in the field in the field of action, Athens in that of words. (Demosthenes: Philippic II, 228)

I now wish to make a candid appraisal of the present situation of the country and our activities and our conduct of affairs. We are not willing to pay money contributions, not prepared to serve in the forces, unable to keep from public spending. [i.e. the Theoric Fund] (Demosthenes: On the Chersonese, 235)

The worst feature of the past is the best basis for future hope. What feature? The fact that it is complete and total dereliction of duty on our part which has brought us to this position. If it followed a period of exemplary conduct by the people of Athens, there would be no hope of improvement. But in fact it is the neglect and inertia of Athens which Philip has worsted. She has not been defeated. She has never stirred a finger. (Demosthenes: Philippic III, 250)