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Now both this and miny other excellences are obscured by vice, as a thicket springs up beside seeds planted in a garden. Or are we to say that man has no natural love for himself just because many men cut their throats or hurl themselves from precipices? And OedipusSophocles, Oedipus Rex, 1276-1277. Smote his eyes with a brooch and at each blow The bloody eye-balls wet his beard; and HegesiasPhilosopher of Cyrene, early third century b.c. cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp., i. 34. 83; Valerius Maximus, viii. 9, Ext. 3. by the eloquence of his reasoning persuaded many of his hearers to starve themselves to death. In many a guise the gods appear.From the stock lines at the end of the Alcestis, Andromache, Helen, and Bacchae of Euripides; cf.Moralia, 58 a.
