im who does no evil, voluntarily I praise and love;--not even the
gods war against necessity.'

All this has a similar drift, for Simonides was not so ignorant as to
say that he praised those who did no evil voluntarily, as though there
were some who did evil voluntarily. For no wise man, as I believe, will
allow that any human being errs voluntarily, or voluntarily does evil
and dishonourable actions; but they are very well aware that all who do
evil and dishonourable things do them against their will. And Simonides
never says that he praises him who does no evil voluntarily; the word
'voluntarily' applies to himself. For he was under the impression that
a good man might often compel himself to love and praise another, and
to be the friend and approver of another; and that there might be an
involuntary love, such as a man might feel to an unnatural father or
mother, or country, or the like. Now bad men, when their parents or
country have any defects, look on them with malignant joy, and find
fault with them and expose and denounce them to others, under the idea
that the rest of mankind will be less likely to take themselves to task
and accuse them of neglect; and they blame their defects far more than
they deserve, in order that the odium which is necessarily incurred by
them may be increased: but the good man dissembles his feelings, and
constrains himself to praise them; and if they have wronged him and he
is angry, he pacifies his anger and is reconciled, and compels himself
to love and praise his own flesh and blood. And Simonides, as is
probable, considered that he himself had often had to praise and magnify
a tyrant or the like, much against his will, and he also wishes to imply
to Pittacus that he does not censure him because he is censorious.

'For I am satisfied' he says, 'when a man is neither bad nor very
stupid; and when he knows justice (which is the health of states), and
is of sound mind, I will find no fault with him, for I am not given to
finding fault, and there are innumerable fools'

(implying that if he delighted in censure he might have abundant
opportunity of finding fault).

'All things are good with which evil is unmingled.'

In these latter words he does not mean to say that all things are good
which have no evil in them, as you might say 'All things are white which
have no black in them,' for that would be ridiculous; but he means to
say that he accepts and finds no fault with the moderat