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THE CHARACTERS OF THEOPHRASTUS

A Translation, with Introduction

by

CHARLES E. BENNETT
and
WILLIAM A. HAMMOND

Professors in Cornell University






Longmans, Green, and Co.
91 and 93 Fifth Avenue, New York
London and Bombay
1902

Copyright, 1902, by
Longmans, Green, and Co.

All rights reserved

[October, 1902]

The University Press
Cambridge, U. S. A.




                 _To
         THOMAS DAY SEYMOUR
         In Profound Esteem_




_Preface_


This translation of _The Characters_ of Theophrastus is intended not for
the narrow circle of classical philologists, but for the larger body of
cultivated persons who have an interest in the past.

Within the last century only three English translations of _The
Characters_ have appeared; one by Howell (London, 1824), another by Isaac
Taylor (London, 1836), the third by Professor Jebb (London, 1870). All
of these have long been out of print, a fact that seemed to justify the
preparation of the present work.

The text followed has been, in the main, that of the edition published
in 1897 by the _Leipziger Philologische Gesellschaft_. A few coarse
passages have been omitted, and occasionally a phrase necessary to the
understanding of the context has been inserted. Apart from this the
translators have aimed to render the original with as much precision and
fidelity as is consistent with English idiom.

                                                      CHARLES E. BENNETT.
                                                      WILLIAM A. HAMMOND.

ITHACA, N.Y., _August, 1902_.




_Contents_


                                    PAGE

    INTRODUCTION                      xi

    EPISTLE DEDICATORY                 1

    THE DISSEMBLER (I.)[1]             4

    THE FLATTERER (II.)                7

    THE COWARD (XXV.)                 11

    THE OVER-ZEALOUS MAN (IV.)        14

    THE TACTLESS MAN (XII.)           16

    THE SHAMELESS MAN (IX.)           18

    THE NEWSMONGER (VIII.)            21

    THE MEAN MAN (X.)                 24

    THE STUPID MAN (XIV.)             27

    THE SURLY MAN (XV.)               29

    THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN (XVI.)      31

    THE THANKLESS MAN (XVII.)         35

    THE SUSPICIOUS MAN (XVIII.)       37

    THE DISAGREEABLE MAN (XX.)        39

    THE EXQUISITE (XXI.)              41

    THE GARRULOUS MAN (III.)          46

    THE BORE (VII.)                   48

    THE ROUGH (VI.)                   51

    THE AFFABLE MAN (V.)              54

    THE IMPUDENT MAN (XI.)            56

    THE GROSS MAN (XIX.)              58

    THE BOOR (IV.)                    60

    THE PENURIOUS MAN (XXII.)         63

    THE POMPOUS MAN (XXIV.)           66

    THE BRAGGART (XXIII.)             68

    THE OLIGARCH (XXVI.)              71

    THE BACKBITER (XXVIII.)           74

    THE AVARICIOUS MAN (XXX.)         77

    THE LATE LEARNER (XXVII.)         81

    THE VICIOUS MAN (XXIX.)           84

[1] Numerals in parenthesis give the corresponding numbers of the
characters as published in the edition of the Leipziger Philologische
Gesellschaft.




_Introduction_


“What stories are new?” asks Thackeray, subtle observer of men.

[Sidenote: _The Antiquity of Modern Character-Types_]

[Sidenote: _Accidental and Essential Types_]

“All types of all characters march through all fables: tremblers and
boasters; victims and bullies: dupes and knaves; long-eared Neddies,
giving themselves leonine airs; Tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing;
lovers and their trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy.
With the very first page of the human story do not love, and lies too,
begin? So the tales were told ages before Æsop; and asses under lions’
manes roared in Hebrew; and sly foxes flattered in Etruscan; and wolves
in sheep’s clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanscrit, no doubt. The sun
shines to-day as he did when he first began shining; and the birds in the
tree overhead, while I am writing, sing very much the same note they have
sung ever since there were finches. There may be nothing new under and
including the sun; but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it
to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, struggle, love, suffer, until the night
comes and quiet. And then will wake Morrow and the eyes that look on
it; and so _da capo_.” All this is very true; the changes which may be
observed in human nature are small, and the old types of Theophrastus are
all about us nowadays and really look and act much the same as they did
to the eyes of the ancient Peripatetic. Offices and institutions have
somewhat changed, and many character-types due to new vocations have come
into being since then, _e.g._ the newsboy, the bishop, the reporter,
the hotel-clerk, and the jockey. But these are only accidents of
civilization, and the peculiarities of office or the type or professional
character do not touch the vital essence of human nature, although they
may modify its expression.

When one speaks of a coward, one means an intrinsic quality in human
kind which is essentially the same whether found in a hoplite or in a
modern infantryman, but which may express