Plutarch's Moralia (Holland)/Essay 15
OF ENVY AND HATRED
THE SUMMARY
[In this brief treatise concerning envy and hatred, Plutarch, after he hath shewed in general terms that they be two different vices, and declared withal the properties of the one and the other, proveth this difference by divers reasons and arguments ranged in their order: he discovereth the nature of envious persons and malicious; and sheweth by a proper similitude that the greatest personages in the world be secured from the claws and paws of envious persons, and yet for all that, cease not to have many enemies. And verily it seemeth that the author began this little work especially for to beat down envy, and that the infamy thereof might so much more appear, in comparing and matching it with another detestable vice, the which notwithstanding he saith is less enormous than it.]
It seemeth at the first sight that there is no difference between envy and hatred, but that they be both one. For vice (to speak in general) having (as it were) many hooks or crotchets, by means thereof as it stirreth to and fro, it yieldeth unto those passions which hang thereto many occasions and opportunities to catch hold one of another, and so to be knit and interlaced one within the other; and the same verily (like unto diseases of the body) have a sympathy and fellow-feeling one of another's distemperature and inflammation: for thus it cometh to pass, that a malicious and spightful man is as much grieved and offended at the prosperity of another as the envious person: and so we hold that benevolence and goodwill is opposite unto them both, for that it is an affection of a man wishing good unto his neighbour: and envy in this respect resembleth hatred, for that they have both a will and intention quite contrary unto love: but forasmuch as no things be the same, and the resemblances between them be not so effectual to make them all one, as the differences to distinguish them asunder; let us search and examine the said differences, beginning at the very source and original of these passions.
Hatred then, is engendered and ariseth in our heart upon an imagination and deep apprehension that we conceive of him whom we hate, that either he is naught and wicked in general to every man, or else intending mischief particularly unto ourselves: for commonly it falleth out, that those who think they have received some injury at such an one's hand, are disposed to hate him, yea, and those whom otherwise they know to be maliciously bent and wont to hurt others, although they have not wronged them, yet they hate and cannot abide to look upon them with patience; whereas ordinarily they bear envy unto such only as seem to prosper and to live in better state than their neighbours: by which reckoning it should seem that envy is a thing indefinite, much like unto the disease of the eyes ophthalmia, which is offended with the brightness of any light whatsoever; whereas hatred is determinate, being always grounded upon some certain subject matters respective to itself, and on them it worketh. Secondly, our hatred doth extend even to brute beasts; for some you shall have who naturally abhor and cannot abide to see cats nor the flies cantharides, nor toads, nor yet snakes and any such serpents. As for Germanicus Cæsar, he could not of all things abide either to see a cock or to hear him crow. The sages of Persia called their Magi, killed all their mice and rats, as well for that themselves could not away with them but detested them, as also because the god (forsooth) whom they worshipped had them in horror. And in truth, all the Arabians and Ethiopians generally hold them abominable. But envy properly is between man and man; neither is there any likelihood at all that there should be imprinted envy in savage creatures one against another; because they have not this imagination and apprehension, that another is either fortunate or unfortunate, neither be they touched with any sense of honour or dishonour; which is the one thing that principally and most of all other giveth an edge and whetteth on envy; whereas it is evident that they hate one another, they Dear malice and maintain enmity, nay, they go to war as against those that be disloyal, treacherous, and such as are not to be trusted: for in this wise do eagles war with dragons, crows with owls, and the little nonnet or tit-mouse fighteth with the linnet, insomuch, as by report, the very blood of them after they be cilled will not mingle together; and that which is more, if you seem to mix them, they will separate and run apart again one from the other: and by all likelihood, the hatred that the lion hath to the cock, and the elephant also unto an hog, proceedeth from fear: for lightly that which creatures naturally fear, the same they also hate; so that herein also a man may assign and note the difference between envy and hatred, for that the nature of beasts is capable of the one but not of the other. Over and besides, no man deserveth justly to be envied: for to be in prosperity and in better state than another, is no wrong or injury offered to any person; and yet this is it for which men be envied; whereas contrariwise, many are hated worthily, such as those whom in Greek we call άξιομισήτους, that is to say, worthy of public hatred, as also as many as do not fly from such, detest them not nor abhor their company. And a great argument to verify this point may be gathered from hence, namely, in that some there be who confess and take it upon them that they hate many; but no man will be known that he envieth any: for in truth, the hatred of wicked persons and of wickedness is commended as a quality in men praiseworthy. And to this purpose serveth well that which was said of Charillus, who reigned in Sparta, and was Lycurgus his brother's son, whom, when there were certain that commended for a man of mild behaviour and of a relenting and gentle nature: And how can it be (quoth he who was joined with him in the royal government) that Charillus should be good, seeing he is not sharp and rigorous to the wicked? And the poet Homer, describing the deformity of Thersytes his body, depainted his defects and imperfections in sundry parts of his person, and by many circumlocutions; but his perverse nature and crooked conditions he set down briefly and in one word, in this wise:
Worthy Achilles of all the host
And sage Ulysses, he hated most;
for he could not chuse but be stark naught and wicked in the highest degree, who was so full of hatred unto the best men.
As for those who deny that they are envious, in case they be convinced manifestly therein, they have a thousand pretences and excuses therefore, alleging that they are angry with the man, or stand in fear of him whom indeed they bear envy unto, or that they hate him, colouring and cloaking this passion of envy with the veil of any other whatsoever for to hide and cover it, as if it were the only malady of the soul that would be concealed and dissembled. It cannot chuse, therefore, but that these two passions be nourished and grow as plants of one kind, by the same means, considering that naturally they succeed one the other: howbeit, we rather hate those that be given more to lewdness and wickedness, and we envy such rather who seem to excel others in virtue. And therefore Themistocles (being but a youth) gave out and said that he had done nothing notable, because as yet he was not envied: for like as the flies cantharides settle principally upon that wheat which is the fairest and come to full perfection; and likewise stick unto the roses that are most out, and in the very pride of their flowering; even so envy taketh commonly unto the best-conditioned persons, and to such as are growing to the height of virtue and honour: whereas contrariwise, the lewdest qualities that be, and wicked in the highest degree, do mightily move and augment hatred: and thereupon it was that the Athenians had them in such detestable hatred, and abhorred them so deadly, who by their slanderous imputations brought good Socrates their fellow-citizen to his death, insomuch as they would not vouchsafe either to give them a coal or two of fire, or light their candles, or deign them an answer when they asked a question; nay, they would not wash or bathe together with them in the same water, but commanded those servitors in the bains which were called Parachytae, that is to say, drawers and laders of water into the bathing vessels, to let forth that as polluted and defiled wherein they had washed; whereupon they seeing themselves thus excommunicate and not able to endure this public hatred which they had incurred, being weary of their lives, hung and strangled themselves.
On the contrary side, it is often seen that the excellency of virtue, honour and glory, and the extraordinary success of men is so much, that it doth extinguish and quench all envy. For it is not a likely or credible matter that any man bare envy unto Cyrus or Alexander the Great, after they were become the only ords and monarchs of the whole world: but like as the sun, when he is directly and plumb over the head or top of anything, auseth either no shadow at all, or the same very small and hort, by the reason that his light overspread eth round about; even so, when the prosperity of a man is come to the highest point and have gotten over the head of envy, then the said envy retireth and is either gone altogether, or else drawn within a little room by reason of that brightness overspreading it: but contrariwise the grandence of fortune and puissance in the enemies doth not one jot abbreviate or allay the hatred of their evil-willers; and that this is true may appear by the example of Alexander above named, who had not one that envied him, but many enemies he found, and those malicious, and by them in the end he was traitorously forlayed and murdered.
Semblably, adversities may well stay envy and cause it cease, but enmity and hatred they do not abolish; for men never give over to despite their enemies, no, not when they are brought low and oppressed with calamities; whereas you shall not see one in misery envied. But most true is that saying found of a certain sophister or great professor in our days: That envious persons of all other be ever pitiful and delight most in commiseration: so that herein lieth one of the greatest differences between these two passions; that hatred departeth not from those persons of whom it hath once taken hold, neither in the prosperity nor adversity of those whom they hate; whereas envy doth avoid and vanish away to nothing upon extremity as well of the one as the other.
Over and besides, we may the better discover the difference also of them by the contraries: for hatred, enmity, and malice cease presently so soon as a man is persuaded that he hath caught no harm nor sustained injury by the party; or when he hath conceived an opinion that such as he hated for their lewdness are reformed and become honest men; or thirdly, if he have received some pleasure or good turn at their hand: for evermore the last favour that is shewed (as Thucydides saith), though it be less than many others, yet if it come in season and a good time, is able to do out a greater offence taken before. Now of these three causes before specified, the first doth not wash away envy; for say that men were persuaded at the first that they received no wrong at all; yet they give not over for all that to bear envy still: and as for the two later, they do irritate and provoke it the rather: for such as they esteem men of quality and good worth, those they do eye-bite more than before, as having virtue the greatest good that is; and notwithstanding that they do reap commodity and find favour at their hands who prosper more than they, yet they grieve and vex thereat, envying them still both for their good mind to benefit them, and for their might and ability to perform the same; for that the one proceedeth from virtue, and the other from an happy estate, both which are good things.
We may therefore conclude that envy is a passion far different from hatred, since it is so that wherewith the one is appeased and mollified, the other is made more exasperate and grievous. But let us consider a little in the end the scope and intention as well of the one as the other: Certes, the man that is malicious purposeth fully to do him a mischief whom he hateth; so that this passion is defined to be a disposition and forward will to spy out an occasion and opportunity to wait another a shrewd turn; but surely this is not in envy: for many there be who have an envious eye to their kinsfolk and companions, whom they would
not for all the good in the world see either to perish or to fall into any grievous calamity; only they are grieved to see them in such prosperity, and would impeach what they can their power, and eclipse the brightness of their glory; marry, they would not procure nor desire their utter overthrow, nor any distresses remediless or extreme miseries; but it would content and suffice them to take down their height, and as it were the upmost garret or turret of an high house which overlooketh them.