LP0066 - Vice & Virtue - Herculean work ethic, from Xenophon's Memorabilia

Legendary Passages #0066 - Vice & Virtue - Herculean work ethic, from Xenophon's Memorabilia. Last time, we heard snippets from the life of Heracles. This time we focus on him as a youth, deciding what sort of man he shall become. This is a dialogue between Socrates and Aristippus, with a few quotations as well. Aristippus asks if there is any difference between hardships chosen, and those imposed. Socrates claims that self-imposed hardships build character, and toil is far superior to laziness. Quoting from Prodicus, the figure of Vice tempts Hercules with ease and delights. Then the manifestation of Virtue offers him respect and self-worth. Next time, The Protidian Gate of Thebes. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1177 Vice & Virtue, a Legendary Passage, from Xenophon's Memorabilia, translated by H. G. Dakyns. 2.1.21–34 Ar. But, Socrates, to return to your pupil educated in the royal art, which, if I mistake not, you hold to be happiness: how, may I ask, will he be better off than others who lie in evil case, in spite of themselves, simply because they suffer perforce, but in his case the hunger and the thirst, the cold shivers and the lying awake at nights, with all the changes he will ring on pain, are of his own choosing? For my part I cannot see what difference it makes, provided it is one and the same bare back which receives the stripes, whether the whipping be self-appointed or unasked for; nor indeed does it concern my body in general, provided it be my body, whether I am beleaguered by a whole armament of such evils of my own will or against my will—except only for the folly which attaches to self-appointed suffering. Soc. What, Aristippus, does it not seem to you that, as regards such matters, there is all the difference between voluntary and involuntary suffering, in that he who starves of his own accord can eat when he chooses, and he who thirsts of his own free will can drink, and so for the rest; but he who suffers in these ways perforce cannot desist from the suffering when the humour takes him? Again, he who suffers hardship voluntarily, gaily confronts his troubles, being buoyed on hope —just as a hunter in pursuit of wild beasts, through hope of capturing his quarry, finds toil a pleasure—and these are but prizes of little worth in return for their labours; but what shall we say of their reward who toil to obtain to themselves good friends, or to subdue their enemies, or that through strength of body and soul they may administer their households well, befriend their friends, and benefit the land which gave them birth? Must we not suppose that these too will take their sorrows lightly, looking to these high ends? Must we not suppose that they too will gaily confront existence, who have to support them not only their conscious virtue, but the praise and admiration of the world? And once more, habits of indolence, along with the fleeting pleasures of the moment, are incapable, as gymnastic trainers say, of setting up a good habit of body, or of implanting in the soul any knowledge worthy of account; whereas by painstaking endeavour in the pursuit of high and noble deeds, as good men tell us, through endurance we shall in the end attain the goal. So Hesiod somewhere says: Wickedness may a man take wholesale with ease, smooth is the way and her dwelling-place is very nigh; but in front of virtue the immortal gods have placed toil and sweat, long is the path and steep that leads to her, and rugged at the first, but when the summit of the pass is reached, then for all its roughness the path grows easy. And Ephicharmus bears his testimony when he says:     The gods sell us all good things in return for our labours. And again in another passage he exclaims: Set not thine heart on soft things, thou knave, lest thou light upon the hard. - And that wise man Prodicus delivers himself in a like strain concerning virtue in that composition of his about Heracles, which crowds have listened to. This, as far