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Book II Chapter 31

Musonius continued

Further, the educated woman should be more courageous than the uneducated one, and the woman who practices philosophy than the woman without that training. Neither fear of death nor reluctance to face hardship should make her put up with anything disgraceful, nor should she cower before anyone because he is nobly born, powerful, wealthy or even, by Zeus, a tyrant.¹⁴⁰³ For she has practiced thinking nobly, regarding death as not bad and life as not a good; likewise, not turning away from hardship or invariably pursuing freedom from it.¹⁴⁰⁴ Hence it is reasonable that this woman should work with her own hands and bear hardship: nursing the children she bears at her own breast, serving her husband with her own hands, and unhesitatingly doing what some regard as servile tasks.¹⁴⁰⁵ Would not such a woman be a great benefit to her husband, an ornament to her kinspeople and a good example to the women who know her?¹⁴⁰⁶

Musonius continued

“But, by Zeus,” some say, “women who attend philosophers must generally be headstrong and brazen, when they abandon staying at home, mix with men, practice arguments, devise subtleties and analyze syllogisms, when they ought to sit at home working wool.”¹⁴⁰⁷ For my part, I would not approve of women who practice philosophy—or even men—abandoning their proper tasks and concerning themselves only with arguments.¹⁴⁰⁸ Whatever arguments they use, I say they should use for the sake of action. For just as a medical argument is of no benefit unless it leads to the health of a human body, so any argument a philosopher possesses or teaches is of no benefit unless it leads to the virtue of a human soul.¹⁴⁰⁹

Musonius continued

Above all, we must examine the teaching that we expect women who practice philosophy to follow. Can it make them brazen, when it declares a sense of shame the greatest good? Can the teaching that advocates the greatest restraint accustom them to live more shamelessly?¹⁴¹⁰ Does it not teach temperance when it shows licentiousness to be the gravest evil? Does it not urge household management when it presents that skill as a virtue?¹⁴¹¹ And philosophers’ teaching urges the woman to accept . . . and to work with her own hands.¹⁴¹²

Xenophon, Memorabilia, Book IV

He said one should learn geometry until ⟨one⟩ could, if ever necessary, take over, hand over or divide land, or mark out work, correctly by measurement.¹⁴¹³ This, he said, was so easy to learn that a person attending to the measurement would both know the extent of the land and leave understanding how it is measured.¹⁴¹⁴ But he disapproved of learning geometry as far as diagrams difficult to understand. He said he could not see what benefit these brought, although he was certainly not inexperienced in them. He said they could consume a person’s life and keep him from many other useful subjects.¹⁴¹⁵

Xenophon continued

He also urged them to gain experience in astronomy, though here too only far enough to recognize the time of night, month and year for journeys, seafaring and guard duty,¹⁴¹⁶ and for other activities carried out by night, in a month or in a year, to be able to use signs, distinguishing the times just mentioned.¹⁴¹⁷ These things too, he said, were easy to learn from night hunters, helmsmen and many others whose business it is to know them.¹⁴¹⁸

Xenophon continued

But he strongly discouraged going so far in astronomy as to learn the objects ⟨not⟩ in the same circuit, and the wandering and unmeasurable stars, and to spend one’s time investigating their distances from the earth, their periods and their causes.¹⁴¹⁹ He said he saw no benefit in these matters either, although he was certainly not unacquainted with them. He said these too could consume a person’s life and prevent many useful pursuits.¹⁴²⁰ In general he discouraged becoming an investigator of heavenly matters—how the god contrives each thing. For he thought neither that these things were discoverable by human beings nor that someone seeking what the gods had not wished to make clear would please them. He said that one occupied with these questions would also risk losing his mind, no less than Anaxagoras did, who took the greatest pride in explaining the gods’ contrivances.¹⁴²¹

Xenophon continued

For while saying that fire and the sun are the same thing, he did not recognize that people readily look at fire but cannot look directly at the sun, and that exposure to the sun darkens their complexions, whereas exposure to fire does not.¹⁴²² Nor did he recognize that nothing growing from the earth can grow well without the sun’s radiance, whereas all such things perish when heated by fire.¹⁴²³ And in saying that the sun is a red-hot stone, he also failed to recognize that a stone in fire neither shines nor endures for long, whereas the sun endures through all time as the brightest of all.¹⁴²⁴

Xenophon continued

He also told them to learn calculation; here, as in the other subjects, he told them to guard against fruitless labor. He himself examined all these matters and went through them with his companions up to the point of usefulness.¹⁴²⁵ He also strongly urged his companions to care for their health, learning as much as possible from those who know, and each paying attention to himself throughout life: what food or drink or kind of exertion benefited him, and how, by using these, he ⟨could⟩ live in the best health.¹⁴²⁶ For he said it was hard for someone who attended to himself in this way to find a doctor who discerned what benefited his health better than he did himself.¹⁴²⁷

Xenophon continued

If, however, someone wanted more help than human wisdom could provide, he advised giving attention to divination.¹⁴²⁸ For, he said, the person who knows the means by which ⟨the⟩ gods give people signs concerning their affairs¹⁴²⁹ is never deprived of the gods’ counsel.¹⁴³⁰

1403.Ἰδιῶτις contrasts here with the woman trained in philosophy. Courage includes refusing disgrace and not cowering before distinctions of birth, power or wealth, even the power of a tyrant.

1404.The negations remain distinct: death is not bad, while life is not a good. The passage does not say that death is good or life bad. Ἐξ ἅπαντος qualifies the pursuit of freedom from hardship, rather than forbidding all relief.

1405.Εἰκὸς makes the inference reasonable or likely. Αὐτουργική describes doing one’s own work, and κακόπαθος bearing hardship. Nursing and service to the husband remain explicit; servile is what some people call these tasks, not an unqualified description by the translator.

1406.The final question names three relationships: husband, relatives connected by birth and women acquainted with her. Κόσμος, ornament, presents her as bringing credit to her family.

1407.Some say introduces an objection, not the teacher’s own verdict. The qualifying ὡς ἐπὶ πολύ, generally, is retained. Ταλασιουργεῖν is working wool; the requirement to sit at home belongs to these objectors’ formulation.

1408.The reply applies the demand for proper work to men as well as women. It rejects abandoning those tasks for argument alone, rather than removing the household responsibilities described in the preceding passage.

1409.The medical comparison makes argument answerable to its practical result: bodily health in medicine and virtue of the soul in philosophy. The reference to action, ἔργα, continues the contrast between useful philosophical teaching and mere verbal activity.

1410.The questions answer the objection about brazen conduct. Αἰδώς is a sense of shame before disgrace; καταστολή denotes restraint or reserve. The argument distinguishes these from the courage praised above.

1411.Σωφρονεῖν is to practice temperance, opposed to ἀκολασία, licentiousness. Οἰκονομική is the skill of managing the household, not economics in its modern sense.

1412.Wachsmuth prints three dots after στέργειν δὲ, leaving the complement of accept missing. The English retains that gap. Proposed supplements in the apparatus are not adopted; the woman’s own work, αὐτουργεῖν, remains explicit after it.

1413.The heading identifies Book IV of Xenophon’s Memorabilia; the unnamed he is Socrates as represented by Xenophon. Supplied ⟨τις⟩ corresponds to ⟨one⟩. The numerical subdivisions and continued labels serve layout only.

1414.The practical applications are receiving, transferring and dividing land, and marking out work. The lesson links knowing a plot’s extent with understanding how its measurement is made.

1415.Διαγράμματα are geometric figures or diagrams. The criticism concerns the usefulness and time required for difficult studies; the narrator explicitly says Socrates was not inexperienced in them.

1416.Ἀστρολογία here concerns practical knowledge of the heavens for recognizing time and guiding the activities listed. The restriction concerns how far this study needs to be pursued.

1417.Τεκμήρια are indications or signs used to identify times. The source names their practical purposes without specifying particular stars, constellations or observational tables.

1418.Νυκτοθηρῶν refers to people who hunt by night, and κυβερνητῶν to helmsmen. These practitioners illustrate the accessible experience on which the recommended learning can draw.

1419.Supplied ⟨μὴ⟩ is reflected by ⟨not⟩. The difficult descriptor ἀσταθμήτους is retained literally as unmeasurable, alongside wandering; the translation does not replace it with a different astronomical category.

1420.The repeated contrast concerns practical benefit and the time absorbed by study. The word here is ἀστρονομία, astronomy, following ἀστρολογία above; the argument continues to discuss knowledge of heavenly bodies.

1421.Εὑρετά, discoverable, is governed by οὔτε, neither: this is Socrates’s reported belief about divine workings. The charge of madness against Anaxagoras belongs to this portrayal, rather than to an independently established biographical diagnosis.

1422.He continues the reference to Anaxagoras in the preceding passage. The comparison contrasts fire and the sun, both in looking at them and in their reported effects on human complexions.

1423.The main text reads αὐγῆς, radiance; the apparatus contrasts this with αὐτῆς in the manuscript L. The growth comparison therefore concerns the sun’s light, not merely the presence of the sun itself.

1424.Διάπυρος describes the stone as heated through, rendered red-hot. The Greek has no article before λίθος in the comparison. These claims form the criticism of Anaxagoras reported in Xenophon’s account; the translation preserves that reasoning.

1425.Λογισμοί are calculations. The limit is usefulness, rather than a rejection of learning the subject. Συνεσκόπει and συνδιεξῄει describe Socrates examining and going through these matters with his companions.

1426.Πόνος here is physical exertion, considered alongside food and drink. Wachsmuth prints ⟨ἂν⟩ supplied from Xenophon’s text; English marks the corresponding ⟨could⟩. Learning from knowledgeable people accompanies attention to one’s own experience.

1427.Ἑαυτοῦ is a genitive of comparison, than himself. The physician is compared with the person who consistently attends to his own condition; the wording keeps that qualification.

1428.The recommendation is conditional on seeking benefit beyond the measure of human wisdom. Divination supplements the human inquiry described above; the passage does not replace that inquiry with it.

1429.Wachsmuth prints the article ⟨οἱ⟩ supplied from Xenophon’s text. English marks it as ⟨the⟩ before gods.

1430.Σημαίνουσιν means give signs or indications. The means of these signs are not enumerated here. The final phrase is counsel of the gods, keeping the divine source of the guidance explicit.