Plutarch: Praising Oneself without Being Envied

Plutarch, Lancaster (T) · Living the Life Series · 18 pages

From Plutarch's Morals in the Goodwin edition, in Lancaster's translation, eighteen pages, opened by a train of thoughts listing the whole argument. The running head states the theme: envy begins with jealousy and ends up as malice. An epigraph runs that the sandal tree has snakes and the lotus tank alligators.

The essay is unusually practical for a moral treatise, because it accepts from the start that the thing it is regulating cannot simply be forbidden. An arrogant boaster is universally condemned — and yet, it says, there are times when a man may fitly praise himself. Four such occasions are given: when he must vindicate his worthy acts against maligners, with Pericles, Pelopidas and Epaminondas cited as instances; when he is grappling with ill-fortune; when he has been treated ungratefully; and when he is unjustly accused of evil acts. The techniques for doing it without provoking envy are then set out, and they are all forms of indirection: praising others of similar character so as to praise oneself by implication; giving the credit of one's good actions to Fortune or to God; admitting partial wrong in one's own character or conduct; speaking well of oneself where it is plainly for the advantage of others, or where it will silence an insolent and blustering man, or where evil conduct is being praised and the company's attention can be drawn to a worthier example. The closing counsels pull the other way and are the more emphatic for it: in general we should avoid talking about ourselves, since the habit engenders boasting and leads to the disparagement of others; and we should hear our own praises uttered with modesty and caution, or incur disgrace.

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