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IntroductionLife of PlutarchPlutarch, the author of the Greek original of this work, was born at Chæronea in Bœotia about the middle of the first century after Christ; the time of his death is unknown, but it may be placed with probability in the reign of Hadrian, about the year 125. He came of an ancient family of pure Hellenic descent, rich in traditions, and true to a high standard of character. Lamprias, his grandfather, was a great teller of stories; with him and with his father Nearchus the boy's early years were passed. At Athens he studied philosophy and rhetoric, and was an insatiable enquirer into science as then understood, history, legend, and all kinds of antiquarian lore. He travelled in Greece, Italy, and Egypt; in Italy he had public business to do, and he also in Domitian's time lectured there on philosophy. He preferred, however, to hold aloof from politics, filling the office of priest, and archon or mayor of his native town. His tastes lay in study and in cultivated society; he had a happy life and many friends. His Works
Plutarch
wrote a large number of works; some have perished, but
those which remain form a library of interesting and
profitable reading. There is hardly a subject on which
he has not written His most famous work, however, is the collection of Lives of Famous Men , fifty in number. Forty-six of these are arranged in pairs, wherein he made a comparison between typical great men of the Greek and Roman races. Thus the Roman Cicero is set against the Greek Demosthenes, and at the end of the lives a detailed comparison is made between them. The same plan is followed with the remaining pairs. Historically these Lives are of great value, not only because Plutarch drew on numbers of historians whose works are now lost, but because he was careful about little personal details which are often left out of account. Plutarch did this because he knew that a man's character is often revealed by trivial acts and sayings; and character, not history, was his theme. Plutarch was not a critical historian, and he is not always accurate, but the general impression of the portraits in his great gallery is vivid and true. Few works have been more popular, and few better deserve their popularity. His own nobility of nature has stamped his work, and the Lives of Plutarch ought to form part of all liberal education. North's TranslationThe translation which is here reprinted is hardly less notable than the original work. Sir Thomas North, the translator, was born about 1535, and died early in the seventeenth century. He may have studied at Cambridge university, and he was a member of Lincoln's Inn. He was a justice of the peace, and a practical man of war, for in the Armada year he was captain of three hundred men of Ely: and he could himself wear and wield the arms and armour which Plutarch's heroes were accustomed to use. In 1557 he translated Guevara's Golden Book , a free version of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, under the title of the Diall of Princes ; he also translated the famous eastern story-book of Baarlam and Josaphat under the title of the Morall Philosophie of Doni (1570). But his chief work was the translation of Plutarch's Lives from the French of Amyot. This translation has its faults. It is sometimes far from the Greek, as having been rendered at second-hand; sometimes North has misunderstood the French, as when he renders la presqu'isle de la Peloponnèse by "the Isle Presqua". But it has shining virtues in the magnificence of the vocabulary and the noble cadences of the rhythm, partly due to the equal magnificence of Amyot, but partly the common heritage of Elizabethan prose. In translations the Elizabethans were at their best; their exuberant fancy was kept in bounds by the original, and the style gained in strength without losing in richness. But above this the book has a further importance in being one of the sources of Shakespeare's plays. From North's Plutarch , Shakespeare got the dry bones for his Coriolanus , Julius Cæsar , and Antony and Cleopatra , and in some cases he transfers to the plays phrases, sentences, even whole speeches almost unchanged. The modern reader may at first be ill at ease amongst North's long periods and irregular syntax. He will, however, find that the strangeness is due not to faults on North's part but chiefly to ignorance on his own. Since the days of Macaulay we have become used to short crisp sentences, which are admirably clear, each by each, but have no other merit; while they have the faults of monotony in the rhythm and of obscuring the logical connection of the thoughts. North requires a sustained effort of the mind; but that given, he satisfies the understanding no less than his noble cadences satisfy the ear. His irregularities are idiomatic, and are true English no less than the constructio ad sensum is true Latin, and more than the stereotyped propriety of modern style. The TextThe present edition is reprinted from the first edition of the original, published in 1579, which in correctness is superior to those which followed it. A few omissions have been made, and one or two mistakes have been corrected. |
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