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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: the style of primitive philosophy. Now there was a saying of Pittacus
which was privately circulated and received the approbation of the wise,
'Hard is it to be good.' And Simonides, who was ambitious of the fame of
wisdom, was aware that if he could overthrow this saying, then, as if he
had won a victory over some famous athlete, he would carry off the palm
among his contemporaries. And if I am not mistaken, he composed the entire
poem with the secret intention of damaging Pittacus and his saying.
Let us all unite in examining his words, and see whether I am speaking the
truth. Simonides must have been a lunatic, if, in the very first words of
the poem, wanting to say only that to become good is hard, he inserted
(Greek) 'on the one hand' ('on the one hand to become good is hard'); there
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