diff --git "a/json/Second Temple/Philo/On Joseph/English/merged.json" "b/json/Second Temple/Philo/On Joseph/English/merged.json" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/json/Second Temple/Philo/On Joseph/English/merged.json" @@ -0,0 +1,424 @@ +{ + "title": "On Joseph", + "language": "en", + "versionTitle": "merged", + "versionSource": "https://www.sefaria.org/On_Joseph", + "text": { + "Introduction": [ + "ON JOSEPH (DE IOSEPHO) INTRODUCTION TO DE IOSEPHO", + "The place of this treatise in the series, as well as the remarkable contrast between the character of Joseph as here represented and the Joseph of the allegorical commentary, have been discussed in the General Introduction to this volume. The treatise after a few words about the preparation given by the shepherd’s craft for government tells the story of Joseph’s dream, his brothers’ jealousy, their sale of him to the merchants who in turn sold him to Potiphar and the false report which they made to Jacob (1–27). It contains the first two of the set speeches which are a distinguishing feature of the treatise, viz. Reuben’s remonstrance (17–21) and Jacob’s lamentation (23–27). The allegorization which follows treats a few scattered points and not the story as a whole. That politicians have to deal with institutions which are conventional rather than natural is indicated by Joseph’s name of “Addition” (to Nature), that they must be resourceful by his coat of many colours, that they are often a prey to vanity by the false story that wild beasts had devoured him, that they are often bought and sold by the two sales (28–36); and it is to be noted that though the main purpose of the treatise is to show the ideal statesman, these mostly deal with the baser side of political life. When the story is resumed it relates his history in Potiphar’s house till his imprisonment, in the course of which we have the eloquent but rather absurd remonstrance of Joseph to Potiphar’s wife (37–53). The subjoined allegories are much more relevant than the earlier ones to the substance of the story and to the higher side of the politician. We may see the spiritual barrenness of the multitude and its tendency to cater for pleasure in Potiphar, the eunuch and cook, its demands on the statesman in Potiphar’s wife and the refusal of the true statesman to cringe in Joseph’s rejections of her overtures (54–79). In 80–124 the story is carried on through Joseph’s life in prison, his interpretation of the dreams and his release and exaltation. Then from 125–147 follows what is not so much an allegory in the proper sense as a meditation on the thought that all life is a dream and the task of a true statesman is to discover and set forth the truths which lie behind this dream. After this we have a few more definitely allegorical interpretations of some of the incidents of Joseph’s exaltation as illustrating the attitude of the democracy to the politician, and an attempt to show that the different treatment by Pharaoh of the cook (Potiphar), the butler and the baker represent the different ways in which the body-loving mind regards luxuries and necessities (148–156). From this point onwards to the end the story runs on continuously through the adventures of Joseph and his brethren as it appears in Genesis with, of course, much amplification both of incidents and speeches." + ], + "": [ + [ + "ON JOSEPH that is, the life of the statesman
[1] The factors which produce consummate excellence are three in number: learning, nature, practice. And these names are represented in three of the wise men to whom Moses gives the senior place. Since I have described the lives of these three, the life which results from teaching, the life of the self-taught and the life of practice, I will carry on the series by describing a fourth life, that of the statesman. This name again has its representation in one of the patriarchs who, as Moses shews, was trained to his calling from his earliest youth.", + "[2] This training was first given to him at about the age of seventeen by the lore of the shepherd’s craft,  which corresponds closely to the lore of statesmanship. And therefore I think the order of poets often speaks of kings as shepherds of peoples,  for success in shepherding will produce the best king, since through the charge of flocks which deserve less thought and care he has been taught the charge of the noblest flock of living creatures—mankind.", + "[3] And, just as to the future leaders in wars, or in commanding armies, practice in the hunting-field is most necessary, so to those who hope to superintend a state nothing is so suitable as shepherding, which gives practice in the exercise of authority and generalship. ", + "[4] So his father, observing in him a noble spirit which rose above ordinary conditions, rendered to him high admiration and respect, while his love for this child of his later years—and nothing conduces to affection more than this—exceeded his love for his other sons. And being himself a lover of excellence, by special and exceptional attentions he fostered the fire of the boy’s nature, in the hope that it would not merely smoulder but burst rapidly into flame." + ], + [ + "[5] But envy, which is ever the enemy of high success, in this case too set to work and created division in a household where every part had been happily flourishing, and stirred up the many brethren against the one. They displayed ill-will to Joseph as a counterpoise to his father’s goodwill, and equalled his love with their hatred.  They did not, however, proclaim that hatred aloud, but kept it a secret among themselves, and thus it naturally grew to greater bitterness. For emotions which are cooped up and find no vent become more violent because expression is stifled.", + "[6] Joseph in the simple innocence of his nature had no notion of the enmity which was lurking in his brothers’ hearts, and, believing them to be friendly, told them a significant dream which he had seen. “I thought,” he said, “that harvest-time was with us, and that we had all come to the plain to gather in the crops. We had taken our sickles and were reaping, when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood bolt upright, while yours, as though at a signal, rushed up in astonishment and did homage to mine with every mark of honour.”", + "[7] His brothers, being men of keen intelligence, skilful at interpreting symbols and thus by probable conjectures discovering the obscure, replied: “Do you think that you will be our lord and king? For that is what you hint at in this lying vision.” And their hatred, ever finding some new ground to augment it, was still more kindled against him.", + "[8] He, suspecting nothing, a few days after saw and told his brothers another dream even more astounding than the former. In this he dreamt that the sun and moon and eleven stars came and did him homage. This caused surprise to his father, who laid up the matter in his mind and carefully watched to see what the outcome would be.", + "[9] But, fearing that the boy had made a serious mistake,  he chid him severely, saying, “You seem to mean by the sun your father and by the moon your mother and by the eleven stars your eleven brothers. Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers shall do you homage? Let no such thought ever enter your mind, my son, and let the memory of what you saw insensibly fade away. For the idea of hoping and eagerly expecting to gain dominion over your family is very odious in my judgement, and I think that all who care for equality and justice between kinsfolk must agree.”", + "[10] Then, dreading lest continued association should breed disturbance and broils among the brothers through the grudge which they bore against the dreamer for his visions, Jacob sent them away to tend the sheep, but kept him at home for such season as should prove needed. He knew that time is said to be the physician of the distempers and ailments of the soul and is able to remove grief, to quench anger and to heal fear, for time relieves everything, even what is naturally hard to cure.", + "[11] But when he guessed that they would have ceased to harbour enmity in their hearts, he sent him partly to salute his brothers and partly to bring him word how it fared with themselves and the flocks under their charge." + ], + [ + "[12] This journey proved to be the source of great evil and great good, both exceeding anything that could have been expected. For Joseph, in obedience to his father’s commands, went to his brethren, but they, when they saw him coming afar off, talked to each other, and their language was very sinister. They did not even deign to speak of him by his name, but called him the dream-driveller and the vision-monger and similar terms. Their anger reached such a pitch that they plotted by a majority, though not unanimously, to murder him, and in order to avoid detection they determined to throw his dead body into a very deep pit in the ground. In that region there are many such, made to hold the rain-water.", + "[13] And they were only deterred from committing that most accursed of deeds, fratricide, by the exhortation of the eldest among them, to which they reluctantly yielded. He urged them to keep their souls clear from the abominable act, and merely to throw him into one of the deep pits, thinking to contrive some means for saving him and hoping when they had gone away to take him up and send him to their father quite unharmed.", + "[14] When they had agreed to this, Joseph approached and saluted them, but they caught hold of him as though he were an enemy in battle and stripped him of his coat. They then let him down by ropes into the open depths. His coat they dyed red in the blood of a kid, and sent it to his father with the story that wild beasts had made away with him." + ], + [ + "[15] Now it chanced that day that some merchants belonging to a caravan which was wont to carry wares from Arabia to Egypt were travelling that way. To these they sold their brother, after hauling him up, the leader in this plan being the fourth eldest brother. He, I imagine, feared that Joseph might be treacherously murdered by the others who were inflamed with such merciless wrath against him, and therefore", + "[16] advised them to sell him and thus substitute the lesser evil of slavery for the greater evil of death. The eldest brother had not been present at the sale. When he looked down into the pit and did not see the boy whom he had left there a short time before, he cried aloud and shouted, rent his garments and rushed up and down like a madman, beating his hands together and tearing his hair.", + "[17] “Tell me,” he cried, “what has become of him. Is he alive or dead? If he is no more, shew me his dead body, that I may weep over the corpse and thus make the calamity seem lighter. If I see him lying here I shall be comforted. Why do we still bear a grudge to the dead? Envy cannot fasten on the departed. But if he is alive where on earth has he gone? In whose charge is he kept?", + "[18] Tell me, for you cannot suspect me as well as him that you should refuse me your confidence.” When they said that he had been sold, and shewed the price that had been paid, “A fine bargain you have made,”  he said. “Let us divide the profits. We have competed with slave-dealers for the prize of wickedness; let us wear the crown, and glory that we surpass them in cruelty, for their designs are aimed against aliens, ours against our nearest and dearest.", + "[19] A great and novel reproach has been brought about, a far-famed disgrace. Our fathers left behind in every part of the world records of their noble conduct; we shall leave behind us beyond all retrieving the scandal of our faithlessness and inhumanity. For, when deeds of grave import are done, the rumours of them reach everywhere, causing admiration where they are praiseworthy, censure and contumely when they are guilty.", + "[20] How will our father receive the report of the event? Thrice blessed he was and thrice happy, and ye have made his life with us  intolerable. Which will he pity most, the sold for his enslavement or the sellers for their cruelty? Surely us far more than him, since it is less grievous to suffer wrong than to do it.  The former is assisted by two mighty forces, pity and hope; the latter has no part in either, and in the judgement of all comes off the worst.", + "[21] But why do I lament thus wildly? It were better to hold my peace, lest I too come in for a share in some horrible fate. For ye are exceedingly savage of temper and merciless, and the fierceness in each heart is still in full blast.”" + ], + [ + "[22] When his father heard, not the truth that his son had been sold, but the lie that he was dead and had seemingly been devoured by wild beasts, the words that he heard and the sight that he saw fell like a blow on his ears and eyes. For Joseph’s tunic had been brought to him rent and marred and stained scarlet with much blood. Collapsing under his great emotion, he lay for a great while with closed lips, not even able to lift his head, so utterly did the calamity afflict and break him down.", + "[23] Then, suddenly pouring forth tears like a fountain, he watered his cheeks and chin and breast and his own raiment, while bitterly wailing, and uttered such words as these: “Child, it is not your death which grieves me, but the manner of it. If you had been buried in your own land, I should have comforted and watched and nursed your sick-bed, exchanged the last farewells as you died, closed your eyes, wept over the body as it lay there, given it a costly funeral and left none of the customary rites undone.", + "[24] Nay, even if it had been on foreign soil, I should have said to myself: ‘Man, be not downcast that nature has recovered the forfeit that was her due.’  Separate countries concern the living: every land is the tomb of the dead.  Death comes early to none, or rather it comes early to all, for few are the years of the longest-lived compared with eternity.", + "[25] And, indeed, if you needs must have died by violence or through premeditation, it would have been a lighter ill to me, slain as you would have been by human beings, who would have pitied their dead victim, gathered some dust and covered the corpse. And then if they had been the cruellest of men, what more could they have done but cast it out unburied and go their way, and then perhaps some passer-by would have stayed his steps, and, as he looked, felt pity for our common nature and deemed the tendance of burial to be its due. But, as it is, you have become, in common phrase, a rich banquet for savage carnivorous beasts who have found my own flesh and blood to their taste, and feasted thereon.", + "[26] I am long trained in the athletics of adversity, drilled by many a random stroke of misfortune, a wanderer, a stranger, a serf, a thrall, my very life and soul a mark for the malice of those by whom I should least have been so treated. Many desperate calamities I have seen and heard: thousands of them have I experienced myself, but trained to moderate my feelings at such I remained unmoved. But none was more unbearable than this event which has overturned and destroyed the strength of my soul.", + "[27] For what sorrow could be greater or more pitiful? My son’s raiment has been conveyed to me, his father, but not a part of him, not a limb, not a tiny fragment. But, while he has been utterly made away with beyond even any possibility of burial, his raiment too would not have been sent to me at all save to remind me of my sorrow, and to make his sufferings live again as calamities constant and indelible to myself.” Thus did he bewail. But the merchants sold the boy in Egypt to one of the king’s eunuchs who was his chief cook. " + ], + [ + "[28] After this literal account of the story, it will be well to explain the underlying meaning, for, broadly speaking, all or most of the law-book is an allegory. The kind of character then here under discussion is called in the Hebrew “Joseph,” but in our language is “addition of a lord,” a most significant title well suited to the thing which it indicates, since polity as seen in the various peoples is an addition to nature who is invested with a universal lordship. ", + "[29] For this world is the Megalopolis or “great city,”  and it has a single polity and a single law, and this is the word or reason of nature, commanding what should be done and forbidding what should not be done. But the local cities which we see are unlimited in number and subject to diverse polities and laws by no means identical, for different peoples have different customs and regulations which are extra inventions and additions.", + "[30] The cause of this is the reluctance to combine or have fellowship with each other, shewn not only by Greeks to barbarians and barbarians to Greeks, but also within each of them separately in dealing with their own kin. And then we find them alleging causes for this which are no real causes, such as unfavourable seasons, want of fertility, poverty of soil or how the state is situated, whether it is maritime or inland or whether it is on an island or on the mainland and the like. The true cause they never mention, and that is their covetousness and mutual mistrusts, which keep them from being satisfied with the ordinances of nature, and lead them to give the name of laws to whatever approves itself as advantageous to the communities which hold the same views.", + "[31] Thus naturally particular polities are rather an addition to the single polity of nature, for the laws of the different states are additions to the right reason of nature, and the politician is an addition to the man whose life accords with nature." + ], + [ + "[32] Further, he is quite properly said to assume a coat of varied colours,  for political life is a thing varied and multiple, liable to innumerable changes brought about by personalities, circumstances, motives, individualities of conduct, differences in occasions and places.", + "[33] The pilot is helped to a successful voyage by means which change with the changes of the wind, and does not confine his guidance of the ship to one method. The physician does not use a single form of treatment for all his patients, nor even for an individual if the physical condition does not remain unaltered, but he watches the lowering and the heightening of the strain, its alternations of fullness and emptiness and all the changes of symptoms,  and varies his salutary processes, sometimes using one kind and sometimes another.", + "[34] And so too the politician must needs be a man of many sides and many forms. He must be a different man in peace from what he is in war, another man as those who venture to oppose him are few or many, resisting the few with vigorous action but using persuasion in his dealings with the many, and when danger is involved he will, to effect the common good, outstrip all others in his personal activity, but when the prospect is one of labour merely he will stand aside and leave others to serve him.", + "[35] Again it is rightly said that this person is sold, for when the would-be popular orator mounts the platform, like a slave in the market, he becomes a bond-servant instead of a free man, and, through the seeming honours which he receives, the captive of a thousand masters.", + "[36] Again, he is also represented as the prey of wild beasts, and indeed the vainglory which lies in ambush and then seizes and destroys those who indulge it is a savage beast.  Once more his purchasers sell him again, for politicians have not one but a multitude of masters who buy them one from another, each waiting to take his turn in the succession, and those who are thus sold again and again like bad servants change their masters, because, capricious and fitful in character as they are and ever hankering after novelty, they cannot endure their old lords." + ], + [ + "[37] Enough on this subject also. To resume the story, when the youth had been brought to Egypt and as I have said placed with the eunuch as his master, he gave proof in a few days of his nobility of character and nature, and therefore he received authority over his fellow-servants and the charge of the whole household; for his owner had already observed many signs that everything which he said or did was under God’s directing care.", + "[38] So, while in outward appearance it was his purchaser who appointed him steward of his household, in fact and reality it was nature’s  doing, who was taking steps to procure for him the command of whole cities and a nation and a great country. For the future statesman needed first to be trained and practised in house management; for a house is a city compressed into small dimensions, and household management may be called a kind of state management, just as a city too is a great house and statesmanship the household management of the general public. ", + "[39] All this shews clearly that the household manager is identical with the statesman, however much what is under the purview of the two may differ in number and size. The same holds with sculpture and painting, for the good statuary or painter, whether the works which he produces are many and of colossal size or few and smaller, is the same man exhibiting the same skill." + ], + [ + "[40] But while he was winning a high reputation in household affairs, his master’s wife made him the object of her designs, which were prompted by licentious love; for wrought up to madness by the beauty of the youth, and putting no restraint upon the frenzy of her passion, she made proposals of intercourse to him which he stoutly resisted and utterly refused to accept, so strong was the sense of decency and temperance which nature and the exercise of control had implanted in him.", + "[41] And, since, as she fed the fire of lawless lust till it burst into a blaze, her constant efforts to gain him as constantly failed, at last in an accession of passion she was fain to employ violence. She caught hold of his outer garment and powerfully drew him to her bed by superior force, since passion which often braces even the weakest gave her new vigour.", + "[42] But he shewed power which was more than a match for the untoward situation and burst into speech with a frankness worthy of his race. “What,” he said, “are you forcing me to? We children of the Hebrews follow laws and customs which are especially our own.", + "[43] Other nations are permitted after the fourteenth year to deal without interference with harlots and strumpets and all those who make a traffic of their bodies, but with us a courtesan is not even permitted to live, and death is the penalty appointed for women who ply this trade.  Before the lawful union we know no mating with other women, but come as virgin men to virgin maidens. The end we seek in wedlock is not pleasure but the begetting of lawful children.", + "[44] To this day I have remained pure, and I will not take the first step in transgression by committing adultery, the greatest of crimes. For even if I had always hitherto lived an irregular life, drawn by the appetites of youth and following after the luxury of this land, I ought not to make the wedded wife of another my prey. Who does not thirst for the blood of the adulterer? For while men are accustomed to differ on other matters they are all and everywhere of one mind on this; they count the culprits worthy of a multitude of deaths, and deliver them unjudged into the hands of those who have discovered their guilt.", + "[45] But you in your extravagance would impose upon me a third pollution when you bid me not only commit adultery but also defile my mistress and my master’s wife. You cannot think that for this purpose I came into your house, to decline the duties which a servant should render and play like a drunkard and a sot with the hopes of the master who bought me by debasing his bed, his household and his kin.", + "[46] Indeed I am called on to honour him not only as a master but further as a benefactor. He has entrusted to me all his belongings and nothing at all great or small has been withdrawn from me save you, his wife. Is it well that I should requite him for this by doing what you urge me to do? A fine gift this would seem to be, a suitable return for preceding favours!", + "[47] The master found me a captive and an alien, and has made me by his kindnesses a free man and a citizen as far as he can do it. Shall I, the slave, deal with the master as though he were an alien and a captive? What would be my inward feelings if I agreed to this unholy act? What my looks when I face him, iron-hearted though I be? No, conscience will take hold of me and not suffer me to look him straight in the face  even if I can escape detection. And that cannot be, for there are thousands to sit in judgement on my secret doings who must not remain silent;", + "[48] not to mention that, even if no other knows of it or reports the knowledge which he shares with me, all the same I shall turn informer against myself through my colour, my look, my voice, convicted as I said just now by my conscience. And even if no one denounce me, have we no fear or respect for justice, the assessor of God, justice who surveys all our doings?” " + ], + [ + "[49] Thus he spoke long and wisely, but she remained deaf to it all. For lust is powerful to becloud even the keenest of the senses. And seeing this he fled leaving in her hands the garments which she had grasped.", + "[50] This action of his gave her the opportunity to invent a story and devise charges against the youth to punish him. When her husband came in from the market she put on the air of a chaste and modest woman who regards licentious practices with the utmost indignation. “You brought to us,” she said, “a Hebrew lad as servant, who has not only corrupted your soul when you lightly and thoughtlessly entrusted your household to him, but has had the audacity to dishonour my body.", + "[51] For not content with taking merely the women who were his fellow-servants, so utterly lewd and lascivious has he shown himself, he has attempted to violate me by force, me his mistress. The proofs of his insane depravity are clear and evident, for when in my great agitation I cried aloud and called those who were indoors to my aid, he was so scared at my unexpected action  that he left his garment behind and fled in fear of arrest.” This garment she showed and made as though she were proffering a proof of her tale.", + "[52] Joseph’s master, believing this to be true, ordered him to be carried away to prison, and in this he committed two great errors. First he gave him no opportunity of defence, and convicted unheard this entirely innocent person as guilty of the greatest misconduct. Secondly, the raiment which his wife produced as left by the youth was a proof of violence not employed by him but suffered at her hands. For if force were used by him he would retain his mistress’s robe, if against him he would lose his own.", + "[53] But his master may perhaps be pardoned for his gross ignorance, since his days were spent in a kitchen full of blood and smoke and cinders, where the reason even more, or at least no less, than the body lives amid confusion and has no chance of quietly retiring into itself." + ], + [ + "[54] Moses has now set before us three characteristics of the statesman, his shepherd-craft, his household-management, his self-control. We have dealt with the two first, but the last-named has quite as much bearing on statesmanship.", + "[55] While in all the affairs of life self-mastery is a source of profit and safety, it is particularly so in affairs of state, as those who will may learn from plentiful and obvious examples.", + "[56] Who does not know the misfortunes which licentiousness brings to nations and countries and whole latitudes of the civilized world on land and sea? For the majority of wars, and those the greatest, have arisen through amours and adulteries and the deceits of women, which have consumed the greatest and choicest part of the Greek race and the barbarian also, and destroyed the youth of their cities. ", + "[57] And, if the results of licentiousness are civil strife and war, and ill upon ill without number, clearly the results of continence are stability and peace and the acquisition and enjoyment of perfect blessings." + ], + [ + "[58] We should now, however, in due course show the lessons revealed to us by this story. The purchaser of the subject of our examination is said to be a eunuch; rightly so, for the multitude which purchases the statesman is in very truth a eunuch, possessing to all appearance the organs of generation but deprived of the power of using them, just as those who suffer from cataract have eyes but lack the active use of them and cannot see.", + "[59] How then does the multitude resemble eunuchs? It is because the multitude is unproductive of wisdom, though it seems to practise virtue. For when a mixed crowd of heterogeneous persons comes together, it says what is right, but it thinks and does the opposite. It prefers the spurious to the genuine, because it is under the dominion of appearances and does not practise what is truly excellent.", + "[60] And, therefore, also, paradoxical though it be, this eunuch is mated with a wife. For the multitude woos desire as a man woos a woman, and makes her his medium in all that he says and does, and takes her as his counsellor in all things great and small, whether decency sanctions them or not, and is wont to pay little heed to the promptings of reason.", + "[61] Very aptly too does Moses call him a chief cook; for, just as the cook is solely occupied in endlessly providing superfluous pleasures for the belly, so is the multitude, considered as politicians, in choosing what charms and pleases the ears, and thus the tension of the understanding is relaxed and the sinews of the soul, so to speak, unstrung.", + "[62] As for the difference between cooks and physicians, it is a matter of common knowledge.  The physician devotes all his energies solely to preparing what is wholesome, even if it is unpalatable, while the cook deals with the pleasant only and has no thought of what is beneficial.", + "[63] Now in a democracy, physicians are represented by laws, and those who rule in accordance with the law, members of councils and juries who consider the safety and security of the common weal and are proof against flattery; cooks by the swarming crowd of younger spirits, for they do not care what will be beneficial but only how they may reap pleasure for the moment." + ], + [ + "[64] And like a licentious woman the desire of the multitudes makes love to the statesman. “Forward,  lad,” she says, “forward, to my mate, the multitude. Forget your own old ways, the habits, the words, the actions in which you were bred. Obey me, wait on me and do all that gives me pleasure.", + "[65] The stern, strict, uncompromising friend of truth, stiff and solemn and inflexible in all his dealings, who clings to the beneficial only and pays no court to his audience, is to me intolerable.", + "[66] And I will collect any number of charges against you to produce before my husband, the multitude, your master. For hitherto you have seemed to me to act as if at liberty and you are quite unaware that you have become the slave of a despotic master. But if you had known that independence may be quite properly possessed by the free man, but is denied to the slave, you would have schooled yourself to abandon your self-will and to look to me, Desire, his wife, and do what may please me as the best way to secure his favour.”" + ], + [ + "[67] Now the true statesman knows quite well that the people has the power of a master, yet he will not admit that he is a slave, but regards himself as a free man and shapes his activities to please his own soul. He will frankly say, “I have never learned to cringe to the people, and I will never practise it. But since the leadership and charge of the state is put into my hands I will know how to hold it as a good guardian or an affectionate father, guilelessly and sincerely without the dissimulation which I hate.", + "[68] Being thus minded, I will not be found cloaking and hiding anything as a thief might do, but I will keep my conscience clear as in the light of the sun, for truth is light. I will fear none of the tyrant’s menaces, even though he threaten me with death, for death is a less evil than dissimulation.", + "[69] And why should I submit to it? For, though the people be a master, I am not a slave, but as highly-born as any, one who claims enrolment among the citizens of that best and greatest state, this world.", + "[70] For when neither presents nor appeals nor craving for honours nor desire for office nor spirit of pretentiousness nor longing for reputation, nor incontinence, nor unmanliness, nor injustice, nor any other creation of passion and vice can subdue me, what domination is still left for me to fear?", + "[71] Clearly, it can only be that of men, but men, while they assume the sovereignty of my body, are not sovereigns of the real I. For I take my title from the better part, the understanding within me, and by that I am prepared to live with little thought of the mortal body, the shell-like growth which encases me. And, though some may maltreat it, yet, if I be free from the hard masters and mistresses within, I shall suffer no affliction, since I have escaped the cruellest tyranny of all.", + "[72] If then I have to serve on a jury, I will give my verdict without favouring the rich because of his abundant wealth, or the poor through pity of his misfortunes, but drawing a veil over the dignity or the outward appearance of the litigants I will in all honesty award what shall appear just.", + "[73] If I act as a councillor I will introduce such proposals as are for the common good, even if they be not agreeable. If I speak in the general assembly I will leave all talk of flattery to others and resort only to such as is salutary and beneficial, reproving, warning, correcting in words studied to shew a sober frankness without foolish and frantic arrogance.", + "[74] He who does not gladly receive improving advice must to be consistent censure parents and guardians and teachers and all persons in charge, because they reprimand and sometimes even beat their own children or orphan-wards or pupils, though really it is against all morality to call such treatment evil-speaking or outrage instead of friendliness and benevolence.", + "[75] For it were a quite unworthy thing that I, the statesman, to whom are committed all the interests of the people, should, in planning for their benefit, shew myself inferior to anyone who practises the physician’s art.", + "[76] He cares not how brilliant is the good fortune, as men hold it, which attends his patient or that he is high-born or wealthy or the most glorious king or despot of his time, but devotes himself to one object only, to save him to the best of his ability, even if he must use cautery or surgery, and he applies the fire or the knife, he the subject to his ruler, he the so-called slave to his master.", + "[77] And I, who am called to attend not on a single person but on the whole state afflicted by the more powerful distempers which its inbred lusts have produced, what ought I to do? Shall I sacrifice the future welfare of all and minister to the cares of this man and that man with flattery utterly slave-like and unworthy of the free? I would rather lie dead than with some pleasant words conceal the truth and disregard real welfare.", + "[78] As the tragedian says:", + "So then come fire, come sword. 
Burn me, consume my flesh, drink my dark blood,
Take fill of me; for sooner shall the stars
Go ’neath the earth, and earth go up to sky
Than thou shalt from these lips hear fawning word.", + "[79] When the statesman stands thus aloof from all passions, from pleasure, from fear, from pain, from desire, with the spirit of a true man, the despot-people cannot away with him, but takes him and chastises as an enemy its friend and well-wisher. And thus it lays upon itself rather than on its victim the greatest of punishments, indiscipline, whereby it fails to learn the lesson of submission to government, that lesson most excellent and of life-long profit, which he who learns learns also how to govern." + ], + [ + "[80] Having sufficiently discussed these matters, let us proceed to the next. The youth who had been brought into disgrace with his master by the false charges of a lovesick woman, charges which were the counterpart of those to which she was liable herself, was carried away to gaol without even any opportunity of making his defence. In the prison he displayed such a wealth of virtue that even the vilest of the inmates were astounded and overawed, and considered that they had found in him a consolation for misfortunes and a defence against future ills.", + "[81] Everyone knows how full of inhumanity and cruelty gaolers are; pitiless by nature and casehardened by practice, they are brutalized day by day towards savagery, because they never even by chance see or say or do any kindness, but only the extremes of violence and cruelty.", + "[82] Just as men of well-built physique, if they add to this athletic training, grow sinewy and gain irresistible strength and unequalled robustness, so, whenever any uncivilized and unsoftened nature adds practice to its harshness, it becomes doubly impervious and inaccessible to the kindly and humane emotion of pity. For,", + "[83] even as those who consort with the good are improved in character by the pleasure they take in their associates, so those who live with the bad take on some impression of their vice. Custom has a wonderful power of forcing everything into the likeness of nature.", + "[84] Gaolers then spend their days with footpads, thieves, burglars, men of violence and outrage, who commit rape, murder, adultery and sacrilege, and from each of these they imbibe and accumulate something of their villainy, out of which miscellaneous amalgam they produce a single body of evil, a fusion of every sort of pollution." + ], + [ + "[85] But nevertheless one of this kind, tamed by the nobility of the youth, not only allowed him some security from violence and hardship, but gave him the command of all the prisoners; and thus while he remained nominally and for the sake of appearance the keeper of the gaol, he resigned to Joseph the actual office, which thus became the source of no small benefit to those who were in confinement.", + "[86] Thus even the place, as they felt, could not rightly be called a prison, but a house of correction. For instead of the tortures and punishments which they used to endure night and day under the lash or in manacles or in every possible affliction, they were rebuked by his wise words and doctrines of philosophy, while the conduct of their teacher effected more than any words.", + "[87] For by setting before them his life of temperance and every virtue, like an original picture of skilled workmanship, he converted even those who seemed to be quite incurable, who as the long-standing distempers of their soul abated reproached themselves for their past and repented with such utterances as these: “Ah, where in old days was this great blessing which at first we failed to find? See, when it shines on us we behold as in a mirror our misbehaviour and are ashamed.”" + ], + [ + "[88] While they were thus growing in goodness, two eunuchs of the king were brought in, the chief butler and the chief baker, both of them accused and condemned for dereliction of duties. Joseph paid the same attention to them as to the others, in his earnest wish to raise if possible those under him to the level of those who were innocent of offence.", + "[89] And after no long time on visiting the prisoners he saw that they were full of depression and dejection, even more than before, and, guessing from their extreme sadness that something unusual had befallen them, he asked the reason.", + "[90] When they answered that they had had dreams which filled them with sore trouble and distress because there was no one to interpret them, he said to them: “Cheer up, and tell me these dreams, for their meaning will be known, if God wills, and He does will to unveil what is hidden to those who desire the truth.”", + "[91] Then the chief butler spoke first and said: “I dreamt that I saw a great vine, an exceedingly fine stalk growing from three roots. It was thriving and covered with grapes as in the height of the vintage season, and from a cluster which was turning ripe black I plucked some grapes and squeezed them into the royal cup, and when it had plenty of liquor I brought it to the king.”", + "[92] Joseph paused for a little, and then said: “Your vision is an announcement to you of good fortune and the recovery of your former office. The three roots of the vine denote three days, after which the king will remember you and send for you from this place. He will then grant you free pardon, and allow you to take your old post, and to confirm you in the office you will act as butler and offer the cup to your master.” The chief butler rejoiced on hearing this." + ], + [ + "[93] The chief baker, for his part, approved the interpretation, and, thinking that he himself had had a lucky dream, though in reality it was very much the reverse, and misled by the comforting hopes of the other, proceeded as follows: “I too had a dream. I thought I was carrying three baskets—full of bakemeats—on my head, the uppermost full of all the different kinds which are regularly provided for the use of the king, for the delicacies produced by the caterers for the king’s table are varied and elaborate. Then birds flew down and snatched them from my head, and gobbled them insatiably until all was consumed and nothing of the provisions was left.” Joseph replied:", + "[94] “I could have wished that this vision had never been seen by you, or, if seen, had remained unmentioned, or, if its story were told, that at least it should have been told far away from my ears to prevent my hearing it. For no one shrinks more than I from being a messenger of ill-tidings. I sympathize with those in misfortune, and kindly affection makes me feel as much pain as the actual sufferers.", + "[95] But the interpreters of dreams must needs tell the truth, since they are prophets expounding divine oracles, and I will therefore speak without reserve; for, while veracity is best in all matters, in dealing with God’s messages, anything else is profanity. ", + "[96] The three baskets are symbols of three days. When these have passed, the king will order you to be impaled and beheaded, and the birds will feast upon your flesh until you are entirely devoured.”", + "[97] The baker, as might be expected, was confounded and upset, having the appointed day before his eyes and mentally anticipating its pangs. But, when the three days had passed, came the king’s birthday, when all the inhabitants of the country held festive gatherings, and particularly those of the palace.", + "[98] So, while the dignitaries were banqueting, and the servants were regaling themselves as at a public feast, the king remembered the eunuchs in the prison and bade them be brought to him. And, when he saw them, he ratified what had been forecast in the interpretation of the dreams, by ordering one to be beheaded and impaled and the other to be restored to his former office." + ], + [ + "[99] But, when he was reconciled to his master, the chief butler forgot him who had predicted the reconciliation and alleviated all the misfortunes which befell him; perhaps because the ungrateful are always forgetful of their benefactors, perhaps also in the providence of God Who willed that the happy events which befell the youth should be due to God rather than to man.", + "[100] For after two years the future of his country for both good and ill was revealed to the king when dreaming, in two visions with the same significance, repeated in order to carry stronger conviction.", + "[101] He dreamt that seven oxen came up from the river, fat and well covered with flesh and fair to look upon, and browsed beside the banks. After them seven others, mere skeletons, and fleshless, so to speak, and loathsome in appearance, came up and browsed with the former seven. Then suddenly the better seven were devoured by the worse, and yet these after swallowing the others shewed not the smallest increase in bulk of belly but were even more, or at least not less, shrunken.", + "[102] The king awoke and then slept again, and was beset by another vision. He thought that seven ears of wheat had sprung out of a single stalk. They were very equal in size and grew and throve and rose to a considerable height, fine and strong. Then seven others sprang up near them, thin and feeble, which overran and swallowed up the stalk which bore the good ears.", + "[103] After seeing this the king remained sleepless for the rest of the night, kept awake by the thoughts which pricked and stung him. At dawn he sent for his wise men and told them the vision,", + "[104] and when no one could make any likely conjecture which could give a clue to the truth, the chief butler came forward and said: “Master, we may hope to find the man whom you seek. When I and the chief baker had offended, we were by your orders cast into prison where there was a Hebrew servant of the chief cook, to whom we two told the dreams which we had seen, and he interpreted them so exactly and skilfully that all that he had predicted happened to each of us, to him the penalty which he suffered, to me my admission to your clemency and favour.”" + ], + [ + "[105] The king on hearing this bade them hasten and summon the youth. They obeyed, but first they had him shaven and shorn, for in his confinement the hair had grown long and thick on his head and chin. Then they put on him a bright and clean raiment instead of his filthy prison clothes, and smartened him in other ways and thus brought him to the king.", + "[106] The king, judging him by his appearance to be a man of free and noble birth, for the persons of those whom we see exhibit characteristics which are not visible to all, but only to those in whom the eye of the understanding is quick to discern, said: “My soul has a prophetic inkling that my dreams will not for ever remain veiled in obscurity, for in this youth there are signs and indications of wisdom. He will reveal the truth, and as light disperses darkness his knowledge will disperse the ignorance of our wizards.” So he told him the dreams.", + "[107] Joseph, nothing awed by the high dignity of the speaker, spoke to him with frankness combined with modesty, rather as a king to a subject than as a subject to the king. “God has given you,” he said, “warning of all that He is about to do in the land. But do not suppose that the two visions are two dreams. There is one dream repeated, though the repeating is not superfluous, but given to convince you more firmly of its trustworthiness.", + "[108] For both the seven fat oxen and the seven well-grown and flourishing ears indicate seven years of abundance and prosperity, while the seven oxen that came up after, thin and loathly, and the seven blasted and shrunken ears mean seven other years of famine.", + "[109] The first period of seven years, then, will come bringing a large and plentiful wealth of crops, while the river each year, with its rising waters, turns the fields into pools and the plains have a fertility never known before. But after this will come in its turn another period of seven years of the opposite kind, bringing severe dearth and lack of the means of living, with the river ceasing to overflow and the fields to get their fatness, so that men will forget the former prosperity and every trace of the old abundance will be blotted out.", + "[110] Such are the facts which appear from the interpretation, but I also hear the promptings  of the divine voice, devising safeguards for the disease, as we may call it; and famine in cities and localities  is the severest of diseases, and we must provide means of weakening it lest it grow to full strength and devour the inhabitants.", + "[111] How, then, shall it be weakened? What is left over from the harvest of the seven years of abundance after the necessary allowance for feeding the multitudes, which perhaps will be a fifth, should be stored in the city and villages, without transporting the crops to a distance, but keeping them in the places where they have been produced, to encourage the inhabitants.", + "[112] And the crops should be brought in just as they are in the sheaves, without threshing them or purging them in any way,  for four reasons. First, that being thus under shelter they will last longer without spoiling; secondly, that every year when they are threshed and winnowed they will serve as a reminder of the prosperous time, for we always find that imitation  of our real blessings has brought a repetition of the pleasure;", + "[113] thirdly, the grain cannot even be reckoned when it is contained in ears and sheaves, and therefore is an uncertain and incalculable quantity. This will prevent the minds of the inhabitants from being prematurely depressed, when they see that the grain, which is a known quantity,  is being gradually consumed. On the contrary, they will have courage, nourished on a food which is better than corn, since hope is the best of nourishments, and take more lightly the heavy scourge of want. Fourthly, to provide a store of fodder for the cattle when the bran and chaff are separated through the purging of the grain.", + "[114] And to take charge of all this you must appoint a man of the utmost prudence and good sense and well-approved all round, one who will be competent, without exciting hatred or open resistance, to make the preparations here described without giving the multitude any idea of the coming famine. For it would be a grievous thing if they should faint in anticipation and lose heart through lack of hope.", + "[115] And, if anyone asks the reason for these measures, he should be told that, just as in peace we must exercise forethought in preparing for war, so, too, in years of plenty must we provide against dearth. Wars and famines and times of adversity in general are uncertain, and we must stand ready to meet them, not wait till they have come and look for the remedy when nothing is available.”" + ], + [ + "[116] The king having heard both his interpretation of the dreams, so exactly and skilfully divining the truth, and his advice to all appearance most profitable in its foresight for the uncertainties of the future, bade his companions come closer to him so that Joseph might not hear, and said: “Sirs, shall we find another man such as this, who has in him the spirit of God?”", + "[117] When they with one accord praised and applauded his words, he looked at Joseph who was standing by, and said: “He whom you bid us seek is near at hand, the man of prudence and sense is not far distant. He for whom according to your advice we should look is yourself, for I think that God is with you in the words you speak. Come, then, and take the charge of my house, and the superintendence of all Egypt.", + "[118] And no one will condemn me for hastiness, for I am not actuated by self-confidence, that passion so hard to cure. Great natures take no long time to prove themselves, but by the massiveness of their power force others to give them a rapid and immediate acceptance; and the facts of the case do not admit of delay and procrastination, since the needs of the time urge us on to make the necessary preparations.”", + "[119] He then appointed him viceroy of the kingdom, or rather, if the truth be said, king, reserving indeed to himself the name of the office, but resigning to him the actual sovereignty and doing everything else that might give the young man honour.", + "[120] So, then, he bestowed on him the royal seal and put upon him a sacred robe and a golden necklace, and setting him on his second chariot bade him go the round of the city with a crier walking in front who proclaimed the appointment to those who did not know of it.", + "[121] He also gave him another name in the language of the country, based on his art of dream interpretation, and betrothed him to the most distinguished of the ladies of Egypt, the daughter of the priest of the Sun. These events happened when he was about thirty years old.", + "[122] Such is the latter end of the pious; though they be bent they do not altogether fall, but arise and stand upright firm and strong, never to be brought low any more.", + "[123] For who would have expected that in a single day the same man would turn from slave to master, from a prisoner to the highest of dignitaries, that the gaoler’s underling would be the king’s vice-regent and lodge in the palace instead of the gaol, thus winning the foremost place of honour instead of the lowest of dishonour?", + "[124] But nevertheless these things have happened and will often happen when God so wills. Only there must be some live coal of nobility smouldering in the soul, which is sure, if it be fanned into flame, to blaze into light." + ], + [ + "[125] But since it is our purpose to examine the more allegorical meaning after the literal, I must say what is needful on that also. Perhaps some of the more thoughtless will laugh at my words; but I will say quite plainly that the statesman is most certainly an interpreter of dreams, not one of the parasites, nor one of the praters who shew off their cleverness for hire and use their art of interpreting the visions given in sleep as a pretext for making money; but one who is accustomed to judge with exactness that great general universal dream which is dreamt not only by the sleeping but also by the waking. ", + "[126] This dream in veriest truth is human life: for, just as in the visions of sleep, seeing we see not, hearing we hear not, tasting and touching we neither taste nor touch, speaking we speak not, walking we walk not, and the other motions which we make or postures we adopt we do not make or adopt at all, but they are empty creations of the mind which without any basis of reality produces pictures and images of things which are not, as though they were, so, too, the visions and imaginations of our waking hours resemble dreams. They come; they go; they appear; they speed away; they fly off before we can securely grasp them;", + "[127] let every man search into his own heart and he will test the truth of this at first hand, with no need of proof from me, especially if he is now advanced in years. This is he who was once a babe, after this a boy, then a lad, then a stripling, then a young man, then a grown man and last an old man.", + "[128] But where are all these gone? Has not the baby vanished in the boy, the boy in the lad, the lad in the stripling, the stripling in the youth, the youth in the man, the man in the old man, while on old age follows death? ", + "[129] Perhaps, indeed, each of the stages, as it resigns its rule to its successor, dies an anticipatory death, nature thus silently teaching us not to fear the death which ends all, since we have borne so easily the earlier deaths:—that of the babe, of the boy, of the lad, of the stripling, of the man, who are all no more when old age has come." + ], + [ + "[130] And the other things of the body are they not dreams? Is not beauty but for a day, withering before it flowers; health insecure because of the infirmities that lie ready to attack it; strength an easy victim of the diseases which arise from numberless causes; accuracy of senses unstable and easily upset by the onset of some little humour?", + "[131] As for the external goods, who does not know their uncertainty? Magnificent fortunes have often been dissolved in a single day. Multitudes who have won the first place with the highest honour have passed over to the unglorious lot of the unmeritable and obscure. The greatest kings have seen their empires overthrown when occasion gives a slight turn to the scale.", + "[132] What I say is vouched for by Dionysius of Corinth, who was the tyrant of Sicily, but when he fell from power fled to Corinth and there this great sovereign became a teacher of the rudiments. ", + "[133] Another witness is Croesus, the king of Lydia, wealthiest of monarchs, who hoped to overthrow the empire of the Persians, and not only lost his own as well but was taken prisoner and on the point of being burnt alive.", + "[134] That these are dreams is attested not only by single men, but by cities, nations, countries, by Greeks, by the world of the barbarians, by dwellers on the mainland, by dwellers on islands, by Europe, by Asia, by West, by East.  For nothing at all anywhere has remained in the same condition; everywhere all has been subject to changes and vicissitudes.", + "[135] Egypt once held the sovereignty over many nations, but now is in slavery. The Macedonians in their day of success flourished so greatly that they held dominion over all the habitable world, but now they pay to the tax-collectors the yearly tributes imposed by their masters.", + "[136] Where is the house of the Ptolemies, and the fame of the several Successors  whose light once shone to the utmost boundaries of land and sea? Where are the liberties of the independent nations and cities, where again the servitude of the vassals? Did not the Persians once rule the Parthians, and now the Parthians rule the Persians? So much do human affairs twist and change, go backward and forward as on the draught-board.", + "[137] Some picture for their future a long and unlimited run of luck, and the outcome is great calamity, and when they press eagerly to secure what they think to be their heritage of good they find terrible misfortunes, while on the contrary when they expect evil what they meet with is good.", + "[138] Athletes mightily proud of the strength and muscle and robustness of their bodies, hoping for undoubted victory, have often failed to pass the test and been excluded from the arena, or if admitted, have been vanquished, while others who despaired of taking even the second place have won the first prize and worn the crown.", + "[139] Some who embarked in summer, the safe sailing season, have been shipwrecked; others who sailed in winter, expecting to be capsized, have reached the harbour in security. Of merchants, some hurry to what seems certain gain, and little know the disasters that await them. Again, when they reckon that they will suffer loss, they win great profits.", + "[140] Thus fortunes are uncertain either way, and human affairs swing as on a scale with unequal weights, carried lightly up or pressing the balance down, and terrible is the uncertainty and vast the darkness which envelops the events of life. We flounder as though in deep sleep, unable to compass anything by accurate reasoning or to grasp it vigorously and firmly, for all are like shadows and phantoms.", + "[141] And as in processions the front part passes on and is lost to sight, and in the winter torrents the stream in its course speeds past us and by its violence and rapidity outstrips our observation, so too the events of life rush along past us, and though they make a show of remaining do not stay even for a moment, but are ever swept away.", + "[142] And those who are awake, who in the uncertainty of apprehension differ nothing from the sleeping, deceive themselves and think that they are capable of discerning differences in the nature of things by incontrovertible processes of reason. Each sense impedes their attainment of knowledge, seduced whether by the sights it sees or by the sounds it hears, or by varieties of flavours, or by scents of different quality, to which it turns aside and is dragged along with them, and prevents the soul as a whole from standing erect and advancing without stumbling as along a high road. And thus the senses produce the confusion of high with low and great with small, and all that is akin to inequality and irregularity, and the soul’s sight swims perforce in the great dizziness which they create." + ], + [ + "[143] Since, then, human life is full of this vast confusion and disorder and uncertainty also, the statesman must come forward, and, like some wise expounder of dreams, interpret the day-time visions and phantoms of those who think themselves awake, and with suggestions commended by reason and probability shew them the truth about each of these visions: that this is beautiful, that ugly, this just, that unjust, and so with all the rest; what is prudent, courageous, pious, religious, beneficial, profitable, and conversely what is unprofitable, unreasonable, ignoble, impious, irreligious, deleterious, harmful, selfish. ", + "[144] And he will give other lessons, such as, This is another’s, do not covet it; This is your own, use it but do not misuse it; You have abundance of wealth, give a share to others, for the excellence of wealth consists not in a full purse but in succouring the needy; Your possessions are small, be not jealous of the rich, for envious poverty gets pity from none; You have high reputation and have received honour, be not arrogant; Your fortunes are lowly, let not your spirits sink also; All goes with you as you would have it, be prepared for change; You have made many a trip, hope for a better time, for with men things turn to their opposite;", + "[145] The sun and moon and the whole heaven stand out in such clear and plain distinctness because everything there remains the same and regulated by the standards of truth itself moves in harmonious order and with the grandest of symphonies; while earthly things are brimful of disorder and confusion and in the fullest sense of the words discordant and inharmonious, because in them deep darkness reigns while in heaven all moves in most radiant light, or rather heaven is light itself most pure and unalloyed.", + "[146] And indeed if one be willing to look into the inner realities he will find that heaven is an eternal day, wherein there is no night or any shadow, because around it shine without ceasing unquenchable and undefiled beams of light.", + "[147] And the same difference that there is here in people when asleep and when awake exists in the universe as a whole between the heavenly and the earthly, for the former is kept in unsleeping wakefulness by active forces which do not err or stumble and go always aright, but the earthly life is sunk in sleep, and even if it wake up for a little is dragged down again and falls asleep, because it can see nothing steadily with its soul but wanders and stumbles about darkened as it is by false opinions which compel it to dream, and thus never catching up with realities it is incapable of apprehending anything firmly and securely." + ], + [ + "[148] Again there is a symbolic meaning in saying that Joseph mounts on the king’s second chariot, and the reason is this. The statesman takes a second place to the king, for he is neither a private person nor a king, but something between the two. He is greater than a private person but less than a king in absolute power, since he has the people for his king, and to serve that king with pure and guileless good faith is the task he has set before him.", + "[149] He rides, too, aloft seated on a chariot, raised on high both by the affairs he handles and the multitude around him, especially when everything great and small goes as he would have it, when from none comes any counterblast or opposition, and under the safe pilotage of God all is well with the voyage.", + "And the ring which the king gives is the clearest sign of the good faith which the king-people places in the statesman and the statesman in the king-people.", + "[150] The golden chain around his neck seems to indicate both high fame and punishment, for while affairs of state fare well in his hands he is proud and dignified and honoured by the multitude, but when disaster befalls him, not indeed of his set purpose which would imply guilt, but by chance which is a venial matter, he is all the same dragged down to the dust by the decoration round his neck, and as he falls you may almost hear his master say: “I gave you this neck circlet both as a decoration when my business prospers and as a halter when it goes amiss.” " + ], + [ + "[151] I have heard, however, some scholars give an allegorical exposition of this part of the story in a different form. It was as follows. The king of Egypt, they said, was our mind, the ruler of the land of the body in each of us over which he is invested with kingly power.", + "[152] When this mind becomes enamoured of the body, its efforts are expended on three things which it deems most worthy of its care and trouble, bread, meat and drink; and, therefore, it provides three offices to provide for these, a chief baker, a chief butler and a chief cook, for the first presides over the food, the second over the drink, the third over the seasoning which adds relish to the actual meat.", + "[153] All are eunuchs, since the lover of pleasure is barren of all the chief necessities, temperance, modesty, self-restraint, justice and every virtue; for no two things can be more hostile to each other than virtue is to pleasure, which makes the many disregard what alone deserves their care, satisfy their unbridled lusts and submit to whatever those lusts command.", + "[154] So, then, the chief cook is not haled to prison and meets with no maltreatment, because the extra seasonings he prepares are not of the most indispensable kind and are not pleasure, but incitements to pleasure, which kindle only to be quenched. Not so with the other two whose business lies with the miserable belly, namely the chief baker and the chief butler. For the most essential of the needs of life are food and drink, and those who take charge of them are naturally held to deserve praise if they treat the charge as worthy of their care, but anger and punishment if they neglect it.", + "[155] The punishment also differs in the two cases because the usefulness of the two differs, being absolutely vital in regard to bread-food, less so in regard to wine, for men can live without strong liquor by drinking fresh water,", + "[156] and therefore it is possible to make terms of reconciliation with the chief butler as an offender in a less important matter. Not so with the chief baker who, being guilty in what is all-important, is the object of an anger which demands his life. For death is the consequence of lack of bread-food, and therefore the offender in this is properly put to death by hanging, suffering what he has made others to suffer, for indeed he has hanged and racked the starving man with hunger." + ], + [ + "[157] So much for this.  To continue the story, Joseph, thus appointed viceroy to the king and promoted to the superintendence of Egypt, took a journey to make himself known to all the people of the country. He visited the nomes,  as they are called, city by city, and made his presence very welcome to those who saw him, not only through the benefits which they received from him, but through the remarkable and exceptional charm of his appearance and his general deportment.", + "[158] When the first seven years of plenty came, as his reading of the dreams had predicted, he employed the ‹local› prefects and others who served him in providing for the public needs to collect a fifth part of the fruits every year, and the quantity of sheaves which he amassed surpassed anything within the memory of men. The clearest proof of this is that it was impossible even to count them, though some persons who were interested in it spent a vast amount of labour in making elaborate calculations.", + "[159] But when the seven years during which the plains bore plentifully were ended, the famine began and spread and grew till Egypt could not hold it. It overran successively the cities and countries which lay in its path to the utmost limits of east and west, and rapidly made itself master of the whole civilized world round Egypt.", + "[160] In fact, it is said that never did so great a scourge fall upon the whole community. In this it resembled what the medical schools call herpes, which attacks every part and spreads in successive stages like a fire over the whole framework of the festering body.", + "[161] Accordingly from each city the most approved persons were chosen and sent to Egypt, for already the story of Joseph’s foresight in storing up abundance of food against a time of dearth had penetrated to every quarter.", + "[162] He first ordered all the stores to be thrown open, thinking that he would thus increase the courage of those who saw them, and, so to speak, feed their souls with comforting hopes before he fed their bodies. Afterwards, through the commissioners of victualling he sold to those who wished to buy, still always forecasting the after-time and keeping a keener eye on the future than on the present." + ], + [ + "[163] In these circumstances, his father, too, as the necessities of life were now growing scarce, little knowing his boy’s good fortune, sent ten of his sons to buy corn, but kept at home the youngest, the uterine brother of the king’s viceroy.", + "[164] The ten came to Egypt and had an interview with their brother, thinking him to be a stranger, and awestruck at his dignified position bowed to him in the old-fashioned way, and thus at the very outset brought his dreams to fulfilment. ", + "[165] He, seeing those who had sold him, immediately recognized them all, though none of them recognized him. It was not God’s will to reveal the truth as yet, for cogent reasons which were best at the time kept secret, and therefore He either changed and added grandeur to the appearance of the regent or else perverted the understanding of the brothers from properly apprehending what they saw.", + "[166] Then, though, young as he was, promoted to so high a command, invested with the first office after the king, looked up to by east and west, flushed with the vigour of his prime and the greatness of his power, with the opportunity of revenge in his hands, he might well have shewn vindictiveness, he did not do so. He bore up firmly against his feelings, and, keeping them under the management of his soul, with a carefully considered purpose, he feigned disfavour and with looks and voice and the rest of his demeanour counterfeited indignation. “Sirs,” he said, “your intentions are not peaceful. You have been sent as spies by one of the king’s enemies, to whom you have agreed to render this base service thinking that you would escape detection. But no treacherous action passes undetected, however profound the obscurity in which it is shrouded.”", + "[167] The brothers attempted to defend themselves, and maintained that the charges had no foundation of fact. They had not been sent, they said, by ill-disposed persons, and they themselves had no hostility to the people of the country and could never have brought themselves to undertake such employment, being men of peaceful nature who had learned almost from infancy to value a steady and quiet life under a father of scrupulous conduct and highly favoured by God. “This father has had twelve sons, the youngest of whom has stayed at home, being not of an age to travel. Ten are we whom you see before you here, and the twelfth has passed away.”" + ], + [ + "When he heard this and found himself spoken of as dead by those who had sold him, what do we suppose were the sensations of his soul?", + "[168] Though he gave no utterance to the emotion which he felt, yet inwardly he was consumed by the secret fire which their words had kindled. In spite of this, he said, assuming a very impressive air,  “If it is true that you have not come to spy out the land, do you as a proof of good faith to me abide here for a short time and let your youngest brother be summoned hither by letter.", + "[169] But, if you are anxious to depart for the sake of your father who will perhaps be alarmed at his long separation from you, let all the rest set off but one remain to serve as a hostage until you return with the youngest. And any disobedience in this will entail the extreme penalty of death.”", + "[170] Thus he threatened with grim looks, and giving to all appearance signs of great anger took his departure. But they, filled with gloom and depression, began to reproach themselves for their plot against their brother. “That wrong we did,” they said, “is the cause of our present evil plight. Justice, the surveyor of human affairs, is now devising our downfall. For a little while she kept quiet, but now is awake and shews her implacable and inexorable nature to those who deserve punishment.", + "[171] And who deserves it more than we, who mercilessly disregarded the prayers and supplications of our brother, though he had committed no offence, but merely in family affection recounted to us as his intimates the visions of his sleep, in resentment for which, with unparalleled brutality and savagery, we wrought what truth forces us to admit were unholy deeds?", + "[172] And, therefore, let us expect to suffer this, and even more than this, we who though almost alone among men we owe our title of nobly-born to the surpassing virtues of father, grandfather and ancestors, have shamed our kin and hastened to load ourselves with infamy and disgrace.”", + "[173] The eldest of the brothers, who originally opposed them when they were forming their plot, said: “Remorse for what is done is useless. I proved to you the enormity of the crime and begged and exhorted you not to give way to your wrath, but when you should have accepted my advice you let your evil counsels have their way.", + "[174] And so we are reaping the rewards of our self-will and impiety. The plot we hatched for him is under inquisition, but the inquisitor is no man but God or the word or law of God.”" + ], + [ + "[175] As they talked thus quietly, since an interpreter was acting for them,  the brother whom they had sold heard what they said, and, overcome by his emotion and on the point to weep, turned aside to avoid discovery and let the tears stream warm and fast. Then, somewhat relieved, he wiped them from his face, turned round and bade the second eldest of the brothers to be bound in the sight of them all. This brother corresponded to himself, for the second of a large number corresponds to the last but one as the eldest does to the last.", + "[176] But perhaps too he thought that that brother had the greatest responsibility for the wickedness, since he might be almost called the officer of the company and the ringleader of their spite. For if he had ranged himself with the eldest when he counselled kindness and humanity, being, though younger than he, older than the others, the wrongdoing might well have been stopped. For the two highest in position and honour would have been united in sentiment and purpose on the question, and this of itself would have had great weight to turn the scale. As it was,", + "[177] he left the mild, the better, side, and deserted to the cruel and savage side, and being appointed their leader so encouraged his fellow-malefactors that they played out without flinching the criminal contest. It was for this reason, I think, that he alone of them all was put in bonds.", + "[178] As the others were now preparing for their journey homewards, the regent ordered the corn-factors to fill all their sacks, thus treating them as guests, and secondly to place secretly in the mouth of each sack the price which had been paid, without giving information of this repayment to the recipients, and thirdly to bestow an additional bounty, namely a special stock of provisions sufficient for the journey, so that the corn purchased might be brought to its destination undiminished.", + "[179] The brothers journeyed on, pitying as was natural the one whom they left in bonds, and no less depressed at the thought of their father, how he would again hear of misfortune and feel that every journey diminished and curtailed his wealth of children. “Indeed,” they said, “he will not even believe that he has been put in bonds, but think that bonds are a pretext to cloak death, since those who have once received a blow often find themselves brought up against the same calamity.” As they thus talked, evening overtook them, and when they had unloaded their beasts, though these were relieved, they themselves felt the burden of their cares weigh heavier on their souls. For when the body takes rest the mind receives clearer visions of adversities and is grievously afflicted and oppressed thereby." + ], + [ + "[180] One of them, loosing a particular sack, saw at its mouth a purse nearly full of silver, and, counting it, found that the exact price which he had paid for the corn had been restored to him. Filled with astonishment, he told his brothers, who, suspecting that it was not a gift but a trap, were dismayed.", + "[181] And though they fain would have examined all the sacks, so great was their fear of pursuit that they started off and hurried on with all speed, and racing along with hardly a pause for breath made a short matter of accomplishing a journey of many days.", + "[182] Then grouped around  their father they embraced him, weeping the while, and kissed him as he clung to each and folded them passionately in his arms, though his soul already had a boding of some calamity. For he took note of them as they approached and greeted him, and, thinking that the son who was actually left behind was playing the laggard, he blamed him for his slowness and kept looking to the different approaches in his eagerness to see the number of his children complete.", + "[183] And, seeing his agitation when no one else appeared from outside, they said: “In calamity, to learn the truth is less painful than to doubt. He who has learned the truth may find the way to safety; the ignorance of doubt produces the perplexity which finds no path. Listen, then, to a story, which, painful though it be, must needs be told.", + "[184] The brother who was sent with us to buy corn and has not returned is alive—you must cast from your mind the worse fear of his death—but, though alive, he remains in Egypt with the regent of the land, who, either on some accusations laid by others, or on his own suspicions, charged us with being spies. We made all the defence which the occasion called for.", + "[185] We told him of you, our father, and the brothers who were absent from our company, how one of them was dead and the other was abiding with you, who, as we said, was still quite young and therefore on account of his age kept at home. But when we thus laid bare without concealment all the facts about our family we made no headway in removing his suspicion. He told us that the only proof which he would accept of the truth of our assertions was that the youngest son should be sent to him, and that to ensure this he detained the second son as pledge and security for the other.", + "[186] This command is painful beyond everything, but is laid upon us less by him who issued it than by the needs of the time, which we must perforce obey to get those provisions which Egypt alone supplies to people who are hard pressed by famine.”" + ], + [ + "[187] Their father gave a deep groan, and said: “Whom should I lament for first? My youngest but one, who was not the last but the first to be placed on the list of unfortunates, or the second eldest who won the second prize of evils, bonds in place of death, or the youngest who, if he does go, will go on a journey of truly evil omen, unlessoned by the misfortunes of his brothers? While I, divided limb by limb and part by part, since the child is part of its parent, am like to survive childless, I who but lately was held to be the father of a fine and numerous family.”", + "[188] His eldest son then said: “I give you my two sons, my only children, as hostages. Slay them if I do not restore to you in safety the brother whom you will entrust to my hand, whose coming to Egypt will procure us two very great gains, first the clear proof that we are not spies or enemies, secondly the power to recover our brother from bondage.”", + "[189] The father was much distressed, and said that he knew not what to do, since of the two full brothers one was already dead and the other left desolate and alone would dread the journey and suffer a living death through fright recalling the horrors which had befallen his precursor. When he thus spoke, they put forward the fourth in age, the most courageous of them all, a man princely in nature and powerful of speech, and persuaded him to act as spokesman of what they all thought.", + "[190] This was, that, since the necessaries of life were running short, as the first stock of corn which they had brought was exhausted and the stress of the famine pressed hard upon them, they should set out to buy more corn but would not do so if their youngest brother stayed behind, since the ruler of the land had forbidden them to appear without him.", + "[191] Their father, reckoning in his wisdom that it was better to surrender one to the mercy of an obscure and dubious future than that many should suffer the undoubted destruction which the stress of famine, that fatal scourge, would inflict upon the whole household,", + "[192] said: “Nay, if the call of necessity is stronger than my wishes, I must yield, for haply it may be that nature has some better gift in store, which as yet she refuses to reveal to our mind.", + "[193] Take, then, the youngest as you propose, and depart, but not in the same fashion as before, for on the former occasion when you were unknown and had not met with any fatal disaster you only needed money to pay for the corn, but now you must take presents also for three reasons, to propitiate the governor and chief victualler to whom you say you are known, to hasten the delivery of the prisoner with a considerable ransom, and to remedy the suspicion that you are spies as much as you can.", + "[194] Take, then, samples of all the products of our land, firstfruits, as it were, and a double sum of money, to make good what was restored to you on your former visit, perhaps through someone’s oversight, and also enough for purchasing the corn.", + "[195] Carry with you, further, my own prayers which I offer to the God of our salvation that you, as strangers in the land, may be well-pleasing to the inhabitants, and also may return in safety and restore to your father the sureties which he has been forced to pledge, even his sons, both him who before was left behind in bondage and the one whom you now take with you, the youngest so inexperienced in life.”" + ], + [ + "[196] They set off, and hastened to Egypt. On their arrival a few days afterwards the governor saw them and was greatly pleased. He bade the steward of his household prepare a sumptuous meal and bring them in to partake of his salt and board. Conducted thus,", + "[197] with no knowledge of what was intended, they were scared and perturbed, guessing that they were to be libelled as thieves for having filched the price of the corn which they had found in the sacks on the first occasion. Then they approached the steward and made their defence, clearing their consciences of a matter on which no one was venturing to charge them, and at the same time they produced and shewed him the money which they had brought for repayment.", + "[198] But he raised their courage with kind and friendly words. “No one,” he said, “is so impious as to libel the bounties of God Whose mercy I invoke. For He has poured treasure into your sacks, thereby providing not only sustenance but wealth to spend as you need it.”", + "[199] Thus encouraged, they proceeded to set out in order the gifts they had brought from home, and when the master of the house arrived they offered them to him. He asked them how they were, and whether the father of whom they spoke before still lived, in answer to which they said nothing about themselves but told him that their father was alive and well.", + "[200] Joseph invoked a blessing on him and pronounced him most favoured by God, and then, when, looking round, he saw Benjamin, his own mother’s son, he could not contain himself, but, overcome by emotion, turned aside before he could be observed, and hastened, nominally on some pressing business, as the time for disclosure had not come, into a corner of the house and there burst into weeping and let the tears stream forth." + ], + [ + "[201] Then he washed his face, and, reason prevailing over his troubled feelings, approached his guests and led them to the feast, having first restored the prisoner who had been detained as hostage for the youngest. Other Egyptian dignitaries feasted with them.", + "[202] The method of entertainment followed in each case ancestral practice,  since he strongly disapproved of neglecting old customs, particularly at a festivity where the pleasures outnumber the disagreeables.", + "[203] When the guests were seated, arranged by his commands in order of age, as at that date it was not the custom to recline at convivial gatherings, they were surprised to find that the Egyptians affected the same fashions as the Hebrews, and were careful of order of precedence, and knew how to discriminate between younger and older in the honours which they paid them. ", + "[204] “It may be,” they said, “that in other times the style of life in this country was less civilized, until this man, when put over the state, introduced good order not only in the important matters which give rise to success in peace and war, but in those regarded as less important which mainly belong to the lighter side of life. For festivities demand cheerfulness and have no room for the over-grave and austere guest.”", + "[205] While they thus quietly descanted in his praise the tables were brought in, not over-sumptuously laden,  because their host, on account of the famine, disliked the thought of luxury while others were suffering want; and they themselves had the sound sense to include in their eulogies this also, that he had shunned the odious fault of tasteless display. He had preserved, they said, the attitude both of a sympathizer with the needy and of the host at a feast, had set himself in the mean between the two and escaped censure on either count.", + "[206] The arrangements, then, did not offend good taste, but were suitable to the occasion, and any deficiency was made good by the constant signs of kind feeling shewn in toasts and good wishes and invitations to take refreshment, things which to liberal and cultured temperaments give more pleasure than all the preparations of food and drink provided by the lovers of high feasting for themselves and others, who make a parade of what is unworthy of care and attention with the ostentation natural to men of little mind." + ], + [ + "[207] On the next day at dawn he sent for the steward of the house and bade him fill with corn all the sacks which the men had brought, and again put the purchase-money in purses at the mouths of the sacks, and also to place in that of the youngest his finest piece of silver, the cup out of which he was accustomed to drink himself.", + "[208] The steward readily carried out his orders without anyone else being present, and they, knowing nothing of these secret doings, set off in high spirits at all their good fortune so far beyond their hopes.", + "[209] What they had expected was to find themselves the victims of a false charge of stealing the money which had been restored to them, to fail to recover their brother who was left as hostage and perhaps also in addition to lose the youngest who might be forcibly detained by the governor who had urged his coming.", + "[210] What had happened surpassed their most sanguine wishes. Instead of being subjected to accusation, they had been made partners in the board and salt which men have devised as the symbols of true friendship. They had recovered their brother inviolate without any intervention or entreaty. They were bringing, too, the youngest safe and sound to his father, and while they had escaped the suspicion of being spies they were taking with them a rich abundance of food and moreover had comfortable prospects for the future. “For if provisions should chance to fail,” they reasoned, “we shall leave home not in extreme fear as before but with joyful hearts, knowing that we shall find in the governor of the country not a stranger but a personal friend.”" + ], + [ + "[211] While they were in this mood, and their souls occupied with these reflections, a sudden and unexpected discomfiture overtook them. For the steward, by order of his master, with a considerable body of servants, appeared in pursuit waving his hands and beckoning to them to halt.", + "[212] And when he arrived, all eagerness and panting hard, “You have set the seal,” he said, “to the earlier charges made against you. You have returned evil for good and once more set your feet in the same path of iniquity. You have filched the price of the corn and committed in addition a still worse crime, for villainy grows if it receives condonation.", + "[213] You have stolen the finest and most valuable of my master’s cups in which he pledged you, you, who were so exceedingly grateful, so exceedingly peace-loving, you who did not so much as know the meaning of ‘spy,’ you who brought double money to pay what was due before, apparently as a trap and snare to serve you in your quest for still more plunder. But wickedness does not prosper in the long run; it is ever scheming to remain hid but is detected in the end.”", + "[214] While he continued in this strain, they stood paralysed and speechless, suddenly seized by those most painful inflictions, grief and fear, so that they could not even open their mouths. For the onset of unexpected ills can render even eloquent speakers mute.", + "[215] Yet, unnerved as they were, they did not wish their silence to be construed as a sign that their conscience convicted them, and therefore they replied: “How shall we defend ourselves, and to whom? You will be our judge, you who are also our accuser, who from your experience of us should rather be the advocate did others arraign us. Could it be that after bringing in repayment the money we found in our sacks though no one challenged us, we completely changed our characters, so as to requite our entertainer by mulcting and robbing him? No, we have not done so, and may no such thought ever enter our mind.", + "[216] Let whoever of the brothers is proved to have the cup be put to death, for death is the penalty at which we assess the crime if it really has been committed, for several reasons. First, because covetousness and the desire for what is another’s is against all law; secondly, because to attempt to injure benefactors is a most unholy deed; thirdly, because to those who pride themselves on their high lineage it is a most shameful reproach if they do not shrink from ruining the prestige of their ancestors by deeds of guilt. And since, if any one of us has committed this theft, he is liable on all these counts, let him die since his deed deserves a thousand deaths.”" + ], + [ + "[217] With these words they pulled the packs from off their beasts, and bade him search with all diligence. He, who knew well that the cup was lying in the sack of the youngest son, since he had secretly put it there himself, tricked them by beginning his examination with the eldest, and continued in regular order according to their age, as each produced and shewed his sack, until he reached the last. When the object of the search was actually found in his possession, a wail arose from the whole body at the sight. They rent their clothes and wept and groaned, mourning for the death which awaited the brother who was still alive, and no less for themselves and their father who foretold the misfortunes which would befall his son and had therefore for a time refused to consent to their wish that their brother should travel with them.", + "[218] Downcast and confounded they returned by the same road to the city, appalled at the event and attributing it to a malicious plot and not to the covetousness of their brother. Then, when brought before the governor, they shewed their brotherly good feeling by their genuine emotion.", + "[219] For, falling in a body at his knees, as though they were all guilty of the theft, a charge the mere mention of which was an outrage, they wept, they besought him, they put themselves at his disposal, they volunteered to submit to enslavement, they called him their master and themselves his slaves of any and every kind, outcasts,  household bred or purchased in the market; no servile name did they leave unsaid.", + "[220] But he, to try them still further, assumed a very severe  air and said: “I trust that I may never act thus, and send so many to captivity for the sin of one. For what good reason is there for including in the penalties those who had no share in the offence? He yonder, who alone did the deed,", + "[221] let him suffer for it. Now, I am told that before you entered the city  death was the sentence you too approved for the guilty person, but as I am ever inclined for the moderate and humaner course I reduce the punishment and sentence him to slavery instead of death.”" + ], + [ + "[222] This stern decision had greatly distressed them, utterly dejected as they were by the false accusations made against them, when the fourth in age, who combined boldness and courage with modesty and practised frankness of speech without effrontery, approached him and said: “My lord, I pray you not to give way to wrath, nor, because you have been appointed to the second post after the king, to condemn before you have heard our defence.", + "[223] When you asked us at our first visit of our brother and father, we answered, ‘Our father is an old man, aged not so much by years as by repeated misfortunes, whereby as in a training-school he has been continually exercised amid labours and sufferings which have tried him sore. But our brother is quite young, the idol and darling of his father, because he is the child of his later years, the only one left of the two that their mother bore, since the elder has died a violent death.", + "[224] Now when you bade us bring that brother here, and threatened that if he did not arrive we should not even be admitted again to your presence, we departed in dejection, and, when we got home, only with reluctance told your orders to our father.", + "[225] He at first opposed them in his great fear for the boy, but, when necessaries grew scarce and yet none of us dared to come and buy corn without the youngest because of the stern warning you had given, he was with difficulty persuaded to send the boy with us. Many a time did he blame us for admitting that we had another brother. Many a time did he pity himself for the coming separation from the boy, for he is but a child and without experience, not only of life in a foreign land, but of city  life in general.", + "[226] Then, since such are our father’s feelings, how can we return to him? How can we look him in the face without the boy? He will suffer the saddest of deaths on merely hearing that he has not returned, and we shall be called murderers and parricides by all the spiteful people who gloat over such misfortunes.", + "[227] And the chief stream of obloquy will be directed against me, for I pledged myself with many forfeits to my father, and declared that I received the boy as a deposit which I would restore when it was demanded from me. But how can I restore it, unless you yourself are propitiated? I pray you to take pity on the old man, and realize the miseries which he will suffer if he does not recover him whom he unwillingly entrusted to my hand.", + "[228] But do you exact the penalty for the wrongs which you believe yourself to have received. I will willingly pay it. Write me down your slave from this day onwards. I will gladly endure what the newly-bought endure if you will spare the child.", + "[229] This boon, if indeed you grant it, will be a boon not to the boy himself but to one who is not here present, whom you will relieve of his cares, the father of all these many suppliants. For suppliants we are who have fled for refuge to your most august right hand, which we pray may never fail us.", + "[230] Take pity, then, on the old age of one who has spent all his years labouring in the arena of virtue. The cities of Syria he won over to receive and honour him, though his customs and usages were strange to them and very different, and those of the country alien to him in no small degree. But the nobility of his life, and his acknowledged harmony of words with deeds and deeds with words, prevailed so that even those whom national feelings prejudiced against him were brought over to his ways.", + "[231] Such is the gratitude which you will earn, and what greater could be earned? For what greater boon could a father have than the recovery of a son of whose safety he has despaired?”" + ], + [ + "[232] All this and what had gone before was intended to test what feeling they shewed under the eyes of the governor to his own mother’s son. For he feared that they might have had that natural estrangement which the children of a stepmother often shew to the family of another wife who was no less esteemed than their own mother.", + "[233] This was the reason why he accused them of spying, and questioned them on their kin in order to know whether that brother was alive and had not been the victim of a plot, and also why he detained one when he let the others depart after agreeing to bring the youngest, whom he greatly yearned to see and thus shake off the trouble which weighed on him so heavily.", + "[234] This again was why, though when he came to join them and seeing his brother felt just a little relieved, he after inviting them to the hospitality of his board entertained his mother’s son on a richer scale than the rest,  but meanwhile observed each of them to judge from their looks whether they still cherished some secret envy.", + "[235] Finally it was for the same reason that when he saw how pleased and overjoyed they were at the honour paid to that brother and thus had established by two testimonies that there was no smouldering enmity, he devised this third testimony, namely to pretend that the cup had been stolen, and charge the theft to the youngest. For this would be the clearest way of testing the real feeling of each, and their attachment to the brother thus falsely accused.", + "[236] On all these grounds he was now convinced that there was no factious conspiracy to undo his mother’s family, and also considering what had happened to himself he came to the conclusion that his experiences were probably due not so much to their conspiring as to the providence of God Who beholds distant events and sees the future no less than the present." + ], + [ + "[237] So then, overcome by family affection, he hastened to conclude his reconciliation. And that no reproach might attach to the brothers for their action he judged it best that no Egyptian should be present at the first recognition.", + "[238] Instead he bade all the staff to withdraw, and then suddenly shedding a flood of tears and beckoning to them with his right hand to approach nearer so that no one else could by chance hear him, he said: “I am going to reveal to you a matter which has been shrouded in darkness and long time hidden, and I do so while you and I are all alone. The brother whom you sold into Egypt is I myself, whom you see standing beside you.”", + "[239] When, astonished and staggered at the unexpected news, they stood rooted to the spot mute and speechless with eyes cast to the ground as though drawn by some compelling force, “Be not downcast,” he continued, “I forgive and forget all what you did to me. Do not ask for any other advocate.", + "[240] Of my own free, unbidden judgement I have voluntarily come to make my peace with you. In this I have two fellow-counsellors, my reverence for our father, which is chiefly responsible for the favour I shew you, and the natural humanity which I feel to all men, and particularly to those of my blood.", + "[241] And I consider that the cause of what has happened is not you but God, Who willed to use me as His servant, to administer the boons and gifts which He deigns to grant to the human race in the time of their greatest need.", + "[242] You can have a clear proof of this in what you see. All Egypt is committed to my hands, and I hold the first place of honour with the king, and though I am young, and he my elder, he honours me as a father. I have waiting on my will not only the inhabitants of the land, but most of the other nations, whether subject or independent, for because of the dearth they all need me at the head.", + "[243] Silver and gold are stored in my keeping alone, and, what is more necessary than these, the means of sustenance, which I distribute and parcel out to those who ask, according to their necessary requirements, so that they have no superfluities which might serve for luxury nor lack of what may satisfy actual want.", + "[244] But I have told you all this, not because I plume and pride myself thereon, but that you may perceive that no man could have caused such greatness to come to one who was a slave and afterwards a prisoner—for I was once in bonds under a false charge—but He Who turned my condition of extreme calamity into one of unequalled and exalted good fortune was God to Whom all things are possible.", + "[245] Since I am so disposed, fear no more, but cast aside your heaviness of heart and take a cheerful courage in its stead. It would be well that you should hasten to our father, and first of all give him the good tidings that you have found me, for rumours travel fast in all directions.”" + ], + [ + "[246] The brothers, letting their tongues run freely, ceased not to sound his praises point by point. Each one had a different theme, one his readiness to forgive, one his family affection, one his prudence, while all united in praising his piety in attributing to God the success which crowned his career and abandoning all resentment at the unwelcome experiences which had attended its distressing opening and earliest stages. They praised also the pre-eminent self-restraint of his modest reticence.", + "[247] He had passed through all these vicissitudes, yet neither while in slavery did he denounce his brothers for selling him nor when he was haled to prison did he in his despondency disclose any secret, nor during his long stay there make any revelations of the usual kind, since prisoners are apt to descant upon their personal misfortunes.", + "[248] He behaved as though he knew nothing of his past experiences, and not even when he was interpreting their dreams to the eunuchs or the king, though he had a suitable opportunity for disclosing the facts, did he say a word about his own high lineage. Nor yet, when he was appointed to be the king’s viceroy and was charged with the superintendence and headship over all Egypt, did he say anything to prevent the belief that he was of obscure and ignoble station, whereas he was really a noble, no slave by birth, but the unfortunate victim of the ruthless conspiracy of those who should have been the last to treat him so.", + "[249] In addition there was a great outflow of praise of his fairness and kind behaviour, for they knew the arrogance and gross rudeness of other governors, and admired the absence of obtrusiveness and blustering. They remembered how directly he saw them on their former expedition, though he might have put them to death or at the very least  refused to provide them with food against the famine, so far from taking vengeance he treated them as worthy of his favour and gave them the victuals for nothing by bidding the price to be restored to them.", + "[250] In fact the story of their conspiracy and selling of him to slavery was so completely unknown and remained so secret that the chiefs of the Egyptians rejoiced to hear that the brothers of the governor had now for the first time come to visit him. They invited them to share their hospitality and hastened to bring the good news to the king, and universal joy reigned everywhere, no less than if the fields had borne fruit and the famine had been changed into abundance." + ], + [ + "[251] When the king learned that his viceroy had a father and that his family was very numerous, he urged that the whole household should leave its present home, and promised to give the most fertile part of Egypt to the expected settlers. He therefore gave the brothers carts and wagons and a great number of beasts laden with provisions, and an adequate body of servants, that they might bring their father safely.", + "[252] When they arrived home and told the story of their brother, so incredible and beyond anything he could have hoped for, he gave no heed to them at all, for, however worthy of credit the speakers might be, the extravagance of the tale did not allow him to assent to it readily.", + "[253] But, when the old man saw the equipments suited for an occasion of the kind, and that the lavish supplies of all that was needed agreed with the story they told him of his son, he praised God that He had filled the seeming gap in his house.", + "[254] But joy also straightway begat fear in his soul at the thought of leaving his ancestral way of life. For he knew how natural it is for youth to lose its footing and what licence to sin belongs to the stranger’s life, particularly in Egypt where things created and mortal are deified, and in consequence the land is blind to the true God. He knew what assaults wealth and renown make on minds of little sense, and that left to himself, since his father’s house supplied no monitor to share his journey, alone and cut off from good teaching, he would be readily influenced to change to alien ways.", + "[255] Such were his feelings when He Whose eye alone can see the invisible soul took pity, and in his sleep at night appeared to him and said, “Fear not to go to Egypt. I Myself will guide thee on the road and make the journey safe and to thy pleasure. Further, I will restore to thee the son for whom thou hast so greatly yearned,  who once was thought dead, but now, after many years, is found not only alive but a ruler of that great country.” Then, filled with high hopes, he hastened at dawn to set forth rejoicing.", + "[256] But his son when he heard it, informed of all by the scouts who watched the road, proceeded with all speed to meet his father when he was not far from the boundary. And when the two met at the place called the Heroes’ City  they laid their heads upon each other’s neck and while the tears smeared their raiment lingered long in embraces of which they could not take their fill, and, when at last they brought themselves to cease therefrom, pressed onwards to the king’s court. When the king beheld him,", + "[257] overcome by his venerable appearance, he welcomed him with all modesty and respect, as though he were the father not of his viceroy but of himself. And, after the usual, and more than the usual, courtesies had passed, he gave him a portion of land, rich of soil and very fruitful. And, learning that the sons were graziers who had much substance of cattle, he appointed them keepers of his own, and put into their charge flocks and herds innumerable of goats and oxen and sheep." + ], + [ + "[258] Now the young man’s honesty was exceedingly great, so much so that, though the times and state of affairs gave him very numerous opportunities for gaining wealth, and he might have soon become the richest of his contemporaries, his reverence for the truly genuine riches rather than the spurious, the seeing rather than the blind, led him to store up in the king’s treasuries all the silver and gold which he collected from the sale of corn and refuse to appropriate to himself a single drachma, contented with nothing more than the gifts with which the king repaid his services.", + "[259] The excellence with which he managed Egypt, as though it were a single household, and also the other famine-stricken lands and nations was beyond all words, and he dispensed the lands and food as was suitable, looking not only to present profit but also to future advantage.", + "[260] Accordingly, when the seventh year of dearth came, having now reason to hope for plentiful harvests, he sent for the farmers and gave them barley and wheat as seed, and at the same time, to ensure that no one should embezzle it instead of putting it in the fields, he appointed men of high merit as inspectors and supervisors to watch the sowing.", + "[261] Many years after the famine his father died, and his brothers, attacked by misgivings and fears that he might still harbour malice and wreak his vengeance on them, approached him with their wives and families and made earnest supplication.", + "[262] But he, moved to tears, said: “The occasion might well raise misgivings in those whom conscience rather than others convicts of intolerable misdoing. My father’s death has awakened the old fear which you felt before our reconciliation, with the idea that I gave you my pardon only to save my father from sorrow. But time does not change my character, nor, after promising to keep the peace with you, will I ever violate it by my actions.", + "[263] I was not watching for the hour of vengeance repeatedly delayed, but I freely granted you immunity from punishment once for all, partly no doubt influenced, for I must tell the truth, by respect for my father, but partly by the goodwill which I cannot but feel towards you.", + "[264] And, even if it were for my father’s sake that I acted with this kindness and humanity, I will continue in the same now that he is gone. In my judgement, no good man is dead, but will live for ever, proof against old age,  with a soul immortal in its nature no longer fettered by the restraints of the body.", + "[265] But why should I mention that father who is but a creature? We have the uncreated Father, the Imperishable, the Eternal, “Who surveys all things and hears all things,”  even when no word is spoken, He Who ever sees into the recesses of the mind, Whom I call as witness to my conscience, which affirms that that was no false reconciliation.", + "[266] For I,—do not marvel at my words,—belong to God  Who converted your evil schemes into a superabundance of blessings. Rid yourselves, then, of fear, since in the future greater advantage will fall to your share than you enjoyed while our father was still alive.”" + ], + [ + "[267] With such words he encouraged his brothers, and by his actions he confirmed his promises, leaving nothing undone which could shew his care for their interests.", + "But, after the famine, when the inhabitants were now rejoicing in the prosperity and fertility of the land, he was honoured by them all, who thus requited the benefits which they had received from him in the times of adversity.", + "[268] And rumour, floating into the neighbouring states, filled them with his renown. He died in a goodly old age, having lived 110 years, unsurpassed in comeliness, wisdom and power of language.", + "[269] His personal beauty is attested by the furious passion which a woman conceived for him; his good sense by the equable temper he shewed amid the numberless inequalities of his life, a temper which created order in disorder and concord where all was naturally discordant; his power of language by his interpretations of the dreams and the fluency of his addresses and the persuasiveness which accompanied them, which secured him the obedience, not forced but voluntary, of every one of his subjects.", + "[270] Of these years he spent seventeen up to adolescence in his father’s house, thirteen in painful misfortunes, the victim of conspiracy, sold into slavery, falsely accused, chained in a prison, and the other eighty as a ruler and in complete prosperity, a most admirable supervisor and arbiter in times both of famine and plenty, and most capable of presiding over the requirements of both." + ] + ], + "Appendix": [ + "APPENDIX TO DE IOSEPHO", + "§ 3. στρατηγίας. It should perhaps be noted that the papyri (see L. & S. 1935) shew that στρατηγός was in common use as the title of a civil as well as military governor of a nome in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. But this hardly justifies its use as an antithesis to στρατηγός in the military sense.", + "§ 20. Less grievous to suffer wrong than to do it. This thought, which is, of course, one of the leading ideas of the Republic, is expressed in almost the same words as here Gorgias 469 c ἐλοίμην ἂν μᾶλλον ἀδικεῖσθαι ἢ ἀδικεῖν, ibid. 508 B ἀληθῆ ἄρα ἦν τὸ εἶναι τὸ ἀδικεῖν τοῦ ἀδικεῖσθαι, ὅσῳπερ αἴσχιον, τοσούτῳ κάκιον, and so again 509 c.", + "§ 28. Addition to nature. This idea of the superfluousness of the laws of the different states, which follows naturally on the Stoic doctrine of the law of nature, is expressed in the view attributed to Zeno by Plutarch, ἵνα μὴ κατὰ πόλεις μηδὲ κατὰ δήμους οἰκῶμεν, ἰδίοις ἕκαστοι διωρισμένοι δικαίοις, ἀλλὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἡγώμεθα δημότας καὶ πολίτας (S. V. F. i. 262). Compare also Chrysippus’s exposure of the ridiculous varieties in laws and customs, ibid. iii. 322.", + "§ 38. Statesmanship the household management of the general public. Compare the opening of Plato’s Politicus, particularly 259 c ἐπιστήμη μία περὶ πάντʼ ἐστὶ ταῦτα· ταύτην δὲ εἴτε βασιλικὴν εἴτε πολιτικὴν εἴτε οἰκονομικήν τις ὀνομάζοι μηδὲν αὐτῷ διαφερώμεθα. The idea is combated by Aristotle at the beginning of the Politics, but admitted by him of monarchy iii. 10.2 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ οἰκονομικὴ βασιλεία τις οἰκίας ἐστίν, οὕτως ἡ βασιλεία πόλεως … οἰκονομία.", + "§ 48. Seneca in his Phaedra has some fairly close parallels to these sections, put into the mouth of Hippolytus. Thus in 145 ff., supposing the crime remains undetected, “Quid ille qui mundum gerit?” Then 159 ff.:", + "sed ut secundus numinum abscondat favor
coitus nefandos utque contingat stupor
negata magnis sceleribus semper fides,
quid poena praesens, conscius mentis pavor
animusque culpa plenus et semet timens?", + "Considering the likeness of the themes, Philo may very possibly have had in mind some similar passage in the earlier and lost Hippolytus of Euripides, or the lost play of Sophocles on the same subject, on which Seneca’s play is based. It may be observed that the phrase ὀρθοῖς ὄμμασιν in 47 occurs in Sophocles, Oed. Tyr. 1385 in the same sort of context:", + "τοιάνδʼ ἐγὼ κηλῖδα μηνύσας ἐμὴν
ὀρθοῖς ἔμελλον ὄμμασιν τούτους ὁρᾶν;", + "See on this subject Dr. Martin Braun, Griechischer Roman und hellenische Geschichtsschreibung.", + "§ 62. Cooks and physicians. Another reminiscence of the Gorgias, where medicine is shewn as standing in the same relation to cookery as justice and legislation bear to the “flattery” of rhetoric, 464 D ff., also 500 B and 501 A.", + "§§ 125–147. Arnim in his Quellenstudien zu Philo von Alexandria discusses these sections in a chapter headed “Philo und Aenesidem.” In the first part of this chapter he deals with the reproduction of the “Tropes of Aenesidemus” in De Ebr. 171–205, and also with the close connexion of the philosophy of that sceptic with that of Heracleitus. His best, though not his only point, is the resemblance of the treatise of Plutarch De E apud Delphos, chap. xviii., a chapter in which Heracleitus is twice cited, and which is supposed to be Heracleitean throughout, to §§ 127–129 of De Iosepho. In both the same point is made that each successive stage of life from childhood to old age brings the death of the previous stage, and the same inference is drawn that we need not fear the final death.", + "However this may be, it should be noted that in the De Iosepho we do not find the same type of scepticism as in De Ebr., if indeed it can be called scepticism at all. Human life is a “dream,” it is “full of confusion, disorder, and uncertainty,” and men, as a whole, are incapable of knowledge, but the dream is interpreted by the true statesman. The same interpreter can give adequate guidance on moral questions, and though this is not perhaps opposed to the principles of the sceptics, who admitted probability as supplying a rule of conduct, it is very different from the view expressed in De Ebr. 197, that only the foolish will assert positively that any particular thing is just or prudent or honourable.", + "§ 168. βαθεῖ ἤθει. The exact meaning of this phrase is obscure. Cohn translates in tiefer Bewegung, Mangey profunda solertia. But neither of these fits in well with any sense of ἦθος known to me. The combination occurs again in Quod Omn. Prob. 144, where to illustrate the advisability of answering threats mildly the story is told of the slave-musician Antigenidas that when one of his rivals in a rage threatened to buy him, he replied, βαθεῖ ἤθει, “then I shall be able to teach you to play the flute.” There perhaps the phrase = “very wittily,” a sense which ἤθει or ἐν ἤθει certainly sometimes bears; or it may mean “very mildly,” cf. τοῖς ἐν ἤθει καὶ μετὰ παιδιᾶς λεγομένοις, Plutarch, De Poet. Aud. 20 E, and ἐν ἤθει καὶ μετʼ εὐνοίας προσφέρεσθαι τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι, ibid. De Adul. 73 E. But this last does not suit our passage, for though Joseph’s words are milder than in his first speech, they are described as angry threats in § 170. For the rendering suggested in the footnote, it may be argued that ἦθος in dramatic criticism often denotes the mood or air which the speaker or writer assumes. The fullest treatment known to me of the numerous shades of meaning which the word has is to be found in Rutherford’s Chapter in the History of Annotation, see index, s.v. ἦθος.", + "§ 219. προβλήτους. The absence of any legal reference is not fatal to the suggestion made in the footnote, as if the owner’s title was not disputed, there would be no need in law for differentiation according to the method in which it had been acquired.", + "I would suggest also for consideration προκλήτους, i.e. “who had been offered for examination by torture.” No example of the word is cited, but it would be naturally formed from πρόκλησις, the regular term for an offer or challenge of the kind. It would not, however, so well account for the variants προσβλήτους and προσηλύτους." + ] + }, + "versions": [ + [ + "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1935", + "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI" + ] + ], + "heTitle": "על יוסף", + "categories": [ + "Second Temple", + "Philo" + ], + "schema": { + "heTitle": "על יוסף", + "enTitle": "On Joseph", + "key": "On Joseph", + "nodes": [ + { + "heTitle": "הקדמה", + "enTitle": "Introduction" + }, + { + "heTitle": "", + "enTitle": "" + }, + { + "heTitle": "הערות", + "enTitle": "Appendix" + } + ] + } +} \ No newline at end of file