ed Eurynome because to distribute benefits
requires a wide inheritance; as if the mother usually received her name
after her daughters, or as if the names given by poets were true. In
truth, just as with a 'nomenclator' audacity supplies the place of
memory, and he invents a name for every one whose name he cannot
recollect, so the poets think that it is of no importance to speak the
truth, but are either forced by the exigencies of metre, or attracted by
sweetness of sound, into calling every one by whatever name runs neatly
into verse. Nor do they suffer for it if they introduce another name
into the list, for the next poet makes them bear what name he pleases.
That you may know that this is so, for instance Thalia, our present
subject of discourse, is one of the Graces in Hesiod's poems, while in
those of Homer she is one of the Muses.

IV. But lest I should do the very thing which I am blaming, I will pass
over all these matters, which are so far from the subject that they are
not even connected with it. Only do you protect me, if any one attacks
me for putting down Chrysippus, who, by Hercules, was a great man, but
yet a Greek, whose intellect, too sharply pointed, is often bent and
turned back upon itself; even when it seems to be in earnest it only
pricks, but does not pierce. Here, however, what occasion is there for
subtlety? We are to speak of benefits, and to define a matter which is
the chief bond of human society; we are to lay down a rule of life, such
that neither careless openhandedness may commend itself to us under the
guise of goodness of heart, and yet that our circumspection, while it
moderates, may not quench our generosity, a quality in which we ought
neither to exceed nor to fall short. Men must be taught to be willing
to give, willing to receive, willing to return; and to place before
themselves the high aim, not merely of equalling, but even of surpassing
those to whom they are indebted, both in good offices and in good
feeling; because the man whose duty it is to repay, can never do so
unless he out-does his benefactor; [Footnote: That is, he never comes up
to his benefactor unless he leaves him behind: he can only make a dead
heat of it by getting a start.] the one class must be taught to look
for no return, the other to feel deeper gratitude. In this noblest of
contests to outdo benefits by benefits, Chrysippus encourages us by
bidding us beware lest, as the Graces are the daughters of Jupite