NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Homiletical.cration 677 practices the harp or flute. Certainly not Polydamas, who before his contests atthe Olympic games used to make chariots at full speed stand still, and so kept up hisstrength. 678 Milo, too, could not be pushed off his greased shield, but, pushed as he was,held on as tightly as statues fastened by lead. 679 In one word, training was the preparationfor these feats. Suppose they had neglected the dust and the gymnasia, and had given theirminds to the strains of Marsyas or Olympus, the Phrygians, 680 they would never have woncrowns or glory, nor escaped ridicule for their bodily incapacity. On the other handTimotheus did not neglect harmony and spend his time in the wrestling schools. Had hedone so it would never have been his lot to surpass all the world in music, and to have attainedsuch extraordinary skill in his art as to be able to rouse the soul by his sustained and seriousmelody, and then again relieve and sooth it by his softer strains at his good pleasure. Bythis skill, when once he sang in Phrygian strains to Alexander, he is said to have roused theking to arms in the middle of a banquet, and then by gentler music to have restored him tohis boon companions. 681 So great is the importance, alike in music and in athletics, in viewof the object to be attained, of training.…. . . . . . . . . . .To us are held out prizes whereof the marvelous number and splendour are beyond thepower of words to tell. Will it be possible for those who are fast asleep, and live a life of indulgence,to seize them without an effort? 682 If so, sloth would have been of great price,and Sardanapalus would have been esteemed especially happy, or even Margites, if you like,who is said by Homer to have neither ploughed nor dug, nor done any useful work,—if indeedHomer wrote this. Is there not rather truth in the saying of Pittacus, 683 who said that “It ishard to be good ?”…. . . . . . . . . . .677 i.e. wrestling and boxing together.678 Paus. VI. v. cf. Pers., Sat. i. 4.679 Paus. VI. xiv.680 Marsyas, the unhappy rival of Apollo, was said to be a native of Celænæ in Phrygia. Olympus was a pupilof Marsyas (Schol. in Aristoph. Eq. 9). By Plutarch (Mus. xi.) he is called ἀρχηγὸς τῆς ῾Ελληνικῆς καὶ καλῆςμουσικῆς. cf. Arist., Pol. VIII. v. 16.681 cf. Cic., Legg. ii. 15, Plutarch, De Mus. There are two Timothei of musical fame, one anterior to Alexander.It will be remembered that in Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast “the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy,” afterthe “Lydian measure” had “soothed his soul to pleasures.”682 Lit., who sleep with both ears, to seize with one hand (idiom for sleeping soundly. cf. Aul. Gell. ii. 23,who quotes ἐπ᾽ ἄμφοτέραν καθεύδειν from Menander).683 Of Mitylene, cf. Arist., Pol. III. xiv. 9, and Diog. Laert. I. iv., who mentions Simonides’ quotation of themaxim of the text ῎Ανδρα ἀγαθὸν ἀλαθέως γενέσθαι χαλεπὸν, τὸ Πιττάκειον.119