Monday, September 27, 2010

Seneca Letter 84

SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM:

Itenera ista quae segnitiam mihi excutiunt et valitudini meae prodesse iudico et studiis. Quare valitudinem adiuvent vides: cum pigrum me et neglegentem corporis litterarum amor faciat, aliena opera exerceor; studio quare prosint indicabo: a lectionisbus nihil recessi. Sunt autem, ut existimo, necessariae, primum ne sim me uno contentus, deinde ut, cum ab aliis quaesita cognovero, tum et de inventis iudicem et cogitem de inveniendis. Alit lectio ingenium et studio fatigatum, non sine studio tamen, reficit. Nec scribere tantum nec tantum legere debemus; altera res contristabit vires et exhauriet (de stilo dico), altera solvet ac diluet. Invicem hoc et illo commeandum est et alterum altero temperandum, ut quicquid lectione collectum est stilus redigat in corpus. Apes, ut aiunt, debemus imitari, quae vagantur et flores ad mel faciendum idoneos carpunt, deinde quickquid attulere, disponunt ac per favos digerunt et, ut Vergilius noster ait,

. . . liquentia mella
stipant et dulci distendunt nectare cellas.

De illis non satis constat utrum sucum ex floribus ducant qui protinus mel sit, an quae collegerunt, in hunc saporem mixtura quadam et proprietate spiritus sui mutent. Quibusdam enim placet non faciendi mellis scientiam esse illis sed colligendi. Aiunt inveniri apud Indos mel in harundinum foliis, quod aut ros illius caeli aut ipsius harundinis unor dulcis et pinguior gignat. In nostris quodque herbis vim eandem sed minus manifestam et notabilem poni, quam persequatur et contrahat animal huic rei genitum. Quidam existimant conditura et dispositione in hanc qualitatem verti quae ex tenerrimis virentium florentiumque decerpserint, non sine quodam, ut ita dicam, fermento quo in unum diversa coalescunt.
Sed ne ad aliud quam de quo agitur abducar, nos quoque has apes debemus imitari et quaecumque ex diversa lectione congessimus separare (melius enim distincta servantur), deinde adhibita ingenii nostri cura et facultate in unum saporem varia illa libamenta confundere, ut etiam si apparuerit unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen esse quam unde sumptum est appareat. Quod in corpore nostro videmus sine ulla opera nostra facere naturam (alimenta, quae accepimus, quamdiu in sua qualitate perdurant et solida innatant stomacho, onera sunt; at cum ex eo quod erant, mutata sunt, tum demum in vires et in sanguinem transeunt), idem in his quibus aluntur ingenia praestemus, ut quecumque hausimus non patiamur integra esse, ne aliena sint. Concoquamus illa; alioqui in memoriam ibunt, non in ingenium. Adsentiamur illis fideliter et nostra faciamus, ut unum quiddam fiat ex multis, sicut unus numerus fit ex singulis, cum minores summas et dissidentes computatio una comprendit. Hoc faciat animus noster: omnia quibus est adiutus, abscondat; ipsum tantum ostendat quod effecit. Etiam si cuius in te comparebit similitudo quem admiratio tibi altius fixerit, similem esse te volo quomodo filium, non quomodo imaginem. Imago res mortua est.
"Quid ergo? Non intellegetur cuius imiteris orationem, cuius argumentationem, cuius sententias?" Puto aliquando ne intellegi quidem posse, si imago vera sit; haec enim omnibus quae ex quo velut exemplari traxit formam suam impressit, ut in unitatem illa competant. Non vides quam multorum vocibus chorus constet? Unus tamen ex omnibus redditur; aliqua illic acuta est, aliqua gravis, aliqua media. Accedunt viris feminae; interponuntur tibiae. Singulorum illic latent voces, omnium apparent. De choro dico quem veteres philosophi noverant; in commissionibus nostris plus cantorum est quam in theatris olim spectatorum fuit. cum omnes vias ordo canentium implevit et cavea aenatoribus cincta est et ex pulpito omne tibiarum genus organorumque consonuit, fit concentus ex dissionis. Talem animum nostrum esse volo: multae in illo artes, multa praecepta sint, multarum aetatum exempla, sed in unum conspirata.
"Quomodo," inquis, "hoc effici poterit?" Adsidua intentione; si nihil egerimus nisi ratione suadente. Hanc si audire volueris, dicet tibi: Relinque ista iamdudum ad quae discurritur. Relinque divitias, aut periculum possidentium aut onus. Relinque corporis atque animi voluptates; molliunt et enervant. Relinque ambitum; tumida rest est, vana, ventosa; nullum habet terminum, tam sollicita est ne quem ante se videat quam ne quem post se. Laborat invidia et quidem duplici; vides autem, quam miser sit, si is cui invidetur et invidet.
Intueris illas potentium domos, illa tumultuosa rixa salutantium limina? Multum habent constumeliarum ut intres, plus cum intraveris. Praeteri istos gradus divitum et magno adgestu suspensa vestibula; non in parerupto tantum istic stabis, sed in lubrico. Huc potius te ad sapientiam derige tranquillissimasque res eius et simul amplissimas pete. Quaecumque videntur eminere in rebus humanis, quamvis pusilla sint et comparatione humillimorum extent, per difficiles tamen et arduos tramites adeuntur. Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est; at si conscendere hunc verticem libet, cui se fortuna summisit, omnia quidem sub te quae pro excelsissimis habentur, aaspicies, sed tamen venies ad summa per planum. VALE.

SENECA GIVES GREETING TO HIS LUCILIUS:
These journeys, which cast out the sluggishness from me, I judge to be useful for my health and studies. You see how they help my health: since the love of literature makes me lazy and neglectful of my body, I am worked-out by the labor of someone else; I will reveal how they are useful for study: I will recede not at all from the readings. They are, however, as I think, necessary, first lest I am not content with myself alone, then in order that, when I will have thought about the things sought out by others, then may I judge the discoveries and think about the things that will be discovered. The reading nourishes the talents and restores the fatigued from study, not without study. We ought not to only write nor only read; one thing depresses and drains men (I speak about writing), the other will loosen and refresh. Alternatively, it must be gone back and forth from this to that in turns, so that whatever is collected by reading, the stylus may render in form. We should imitate the bees, as they say, which wander and pluck suitable flowers to make honey, then carry whatever, they arrange and distribute through the honeycomb, just as our Virgil said:

. . . they pack close the
liquid honey and fill the storehouse
with sweet nectar.

It is not well established concerning the bees whether they make the juice from the flowers which becomes honey at once, or whether they change anything they have collected into this flavor by means of a certain mixture and the property of their breath. For it is pleasing to the writers that knowledge of honey-making does not belong to the bees, but the knowledge of collecting does. They say that honey is found among the Indians in the leaves of reeds, which either the dew of that sky or the moisture of the sweet, rather rich reed itself produces. Likewise, they say that the same force is in our grass but less manifested and notable, which an animal born for this purpose collects and certain people maintain that the things which bees pluck from the most tender of the greens and flowers are changed into this state by means of arrangement and preservation, not without a certain fermentation, as I might say, by means of which the bees put together different things in one thing.
But let me not be led away to something other than what was being discussed, we should imitate these bees and also separate whatever we have collected from different readings (for things that are separated are preserved better), then to combine with the care and ability of our mind having been applied these various offerings into one flavor, so that even now if it is apparent from where it was acquired, yet it is apparent that it is something other than from where it came. That which we see nature doing in our body without any of our labor (nourishments, which we accept, as long as they endure in their own state and swim as a solid in the stomach, they are burdens; and when they have been changed from that which they were, then at last they cross into energies and into the blood), may we maintain the same thing in these by which our minds are nourished, with the result that we not permit whatever we have taken in to be whole lest they be not part of us. May we consider this well; otherwise they will go into memory, no into the mind. May we welcome these faithfully and may we make them ours, so that something becomes one from many, just as one number is made from each, when one calculation bind together the lesser and differing sums. Let our minds do this: let it hide everything by which it is helped and let it show only that which it has produced. Even if a likeness will be evident in you of someone whom admiration will have fixed rather highly for you, then I wish that you are similar just as a song, not just as an image. An image is a thing for the dead.
"What then? Will it not be understood whose speech, whose argument, whose thoughts you will imitate?" I think that sometimes it cannot be understood, if the copy is real; indeed, this impressed its own form on all from which the image drew just as from some copy, so that these meet in unity. Do you not see how the chorus consists of the voices of many? Nevertheless one chorus is rendered from all the voices; there a certain voice is high, another is low, another is in the middle. Women are added to men; the flutes are introduced. There the voices of each person escape notice, the voices of all are evident. I speak about the chorus which the old philosophers knew; in our celebrations there are more singers than there were spectators in theaters at one time. When the row of singers filled up all the aisles and the arena was surrounded by trumpeters and from the stage sounded every kind of flute and instrument, harmony results from dissonance. I wish our mind was such: many skills in this, much having been taught, many examples from the ages, but many plots in one.
. . .

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Ovid ('Daphne and Apollo' lines 463 - 469, with close reading)

Filius huic Veneris, "Figat tuus omnia, Phoebe,
te meus arcus," ait, "quantoque animalia cedunt
cuncta deo, tanto minor est tua gloria nostra."
Dixit et, eliso percussis aere pennis,
impiger umbrosa Parnasi constitit arce,
eque sagittifera prompsit duo tela pharetra
diversorum operum.


The son of Venus said to him, "Your bow pierces all things, Phoebus,
my bow pierces you, and so much as all animals are inferior
to gods, so your glory is inferior to mine."
So he said, crashing through the air with his beating wings,
he swiftly hunkers down on the shady hilltop of Parnassus,
and from his arrow-bearing quiver he pulls out two weapons
of different purposes.


1. Chiasmus in lines 463 and 464: tuus omnia . . . te meus (all things to you . . . you to me), emphasizes the comparison between Cupid and Apollo
2. Cupid's use of Phoebus in line 463 implies a condescending tone, as though he is only using this name to further taunt and belittle Apollo.
3. The metaphor of Apollo as a mere animal in line 464 emphasizes the point that Cupid is more powerful than Apollo and can do with him as he pleases: . . . quantoque animalia cedunt/ cuncta deo . . .
4. Enjambment between lines 464 and 465: . . . quantoque animalia cedunt/ cuncta deo . . .
5. The use of nostra in line 465 shows that Cupid is setting up Apollo as a sort of lowly 'outsider' among the other gods (lit. " . . . so your glory is inferior to ours.").
6. Synchysis in line 466: . . . eliso percussis aere pennis (. The interlocking word order heightens the imagery and emphasizes the movement going on in this line.
7. The use of pennis is almost a synecdoche. By referring to just a part, or the 'feathers,' Ovid is truly talking about the whole, or the 'wings.'
8. In line 467 Cupid chooses to shoot his arrows from Parnassus, which was a place sacred to the Muses and Apollo. This could be yet another insult to Apollo.
9. Line 468: . . . sagittifera prompsit duo tela pharetra . . . The word order is almost a chiasmus and mirrors the imagery of the arrows inside the quiver.
10. Antithesis between Figat and prompsit (piercing and pulling out).
11. Enjambment between lines 468 and 469: . . . eque safittifera prompsit duo tela pharetra/ diversorum operum.
12. In line 469 diversorum operum foreshadows the difference in affection between Daphne and Apollo. These words also slightly rhyme.
13. The overall tone throughout these lines is mocking and condescending. We get hte sense that Cupid is fed up and has reached his breaking point.

Catullus 5

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis.
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut nequis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.


Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and let us value all the rumors of the
old men and the severe men at a single penny.
Suns are able to rise and to set:
but for us, when our short light has set,
night is one perpetual sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then, when we have made many thousands,
we will mix them up, so that we will not know the number,
so that nobody can cast an evil eye,
when they know the great number of kisses.

Seneca Letter 43

SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM:

Quomodo hoc ad me pervenerit quaeris, quis mihi id te cogitare narraverit quod tu nulli narraveras? Is qui scit plurimum, rumor. "Quid ergo?" inquis. "Tantus sum ut possim excitare rumorem?" Non est quod te ad hunc locum respiciens metiaris; ad istum respice in quod moraris. Quicquid inter vicina eminet magnum est illic ubi eminet. Nam magnitudo non habet modum certum; comparatio illam aut tollit aut deprimit. Navis, quae in flumine magna est, in mari parvula est. Gubernaculum, quod alteri navi magnum, alteri exiguum est.
Tu nunc in provincia, licet contemnas ipse te, magnus es. Quid agas, quemadmodum cenes, quemadmodum dormias, quaeritur, scitur; eo tibi diligentius vivendum est. Tunc autem felicem esse te iudica, cum poteris in publico vivere, cum te parietes tui tegent, non abscondent, quos plerumque circumdatos nobis iudicamus non ut tutius vivamus, sed ut peccemus occultius. Tem dicam ex qua mores aestimes nostros: vix quemquam invenies qui possit aperto ostio vivere. Ianitores conscientia nostra, non superbia opposuit; sic vivimus ut deprendi sit subito adspici. Quid autem prodest recondere se et oculos hominum auresque vitare? Bona conscientia turbam advocat; mala etiam in solitudine anxia atque sollicita est. Si honesta sunt quae facis, omnes sciant; si turpia, quid refert neminem scire, cum tu scias? O te miserum, si contemnis hunc testem! VALE.



SENECA GIVES GREETING TO HIS LUCILIUS:
You may ask how this came to me, who told me that you are thinking this, that which you have told to no one? Rumor is he who knows the most. "What then?" you say. "Am I so great that I am able to excite rumor?" It is not necessary to measure yourself looking back at that place; look back at that place in which you dwell. Whatever stands out among neighboring places is great in that place where it stands out. For greatness does not have a sure limit; comparison either raises or lowers that greatness. A ship which is great in the river is small in the sea. A rudder which is great for one ship, is small for another.
You now are great in the province, although you think little of yourself. That which you do, how you eat, how you sleep, is known and sought; therefore you need to live more attentively. Then, however, judge yourself to be happy when you are able to live in public, when your walls will cover you, not hide you, which we judge to surround us not in order that we live more safely, but that we sin more secretly. I should say this thing from which you judge our morals: you will scarcely find anyone who is able to live with an open door. Our conscience, not our pride puts the guards before the door; so we live in such a way that to be suddenly seen is to be caught. Moreover, what is the use to hide oneself and avoid the eyes and ears of men? A good conscience calls a crowd; a bad conscience is anxious and uneasy even in solitude. If honest things are that which you do, everyone knows; if what you do is disgraceful, which it is important for nobody to know, since you know? Oh, miserable you, if you hate this witness! GOODBYE.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Seneca Letter 5

SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM:

Quod pertinaciter studes et, omnibus omissis, hoc unum agis, ut te meliorem cotidie facias, et probo et gaudeo, nec tantum hortor ut perseveres, sed etiam rogo. Illud autem te admoneo, ne eorum more qui non proficere sed conspici cupiunt facias aliqua quae in habitu tuo aut genere vitae notabilia sint. Asperum cultum et intonsum caput et neglegentiorem barbam et indictum argento odium et cubile humi positum et quicquid aliud ambitionem perversa via sequitur evita. Satis ipsum nomen pilosophiae, etiam si modeste tractetur, invidiosum est; quid si nos hominum consuetudini coeperimus excerpere? Intus omnia dissimilia sint; frons populo nostra conveniat. Non splendeat toga; ne sordeat quidem. Non habeamus argentum in quod solidi auri caelatura descenderit, sed non putemus frugalitatis indicium auro argentoque caruisse. Id agamus, ut meliorem vitam sequamur quam vulgus, non ut contrariam; alioquin quos emendari volumus fugamus a nobis et avertimus. Illud quoque efficimus, ut nihil imitari velint nostri, dum timent ne imitanda sint omnia.
Hoc primum philosophia promittit: sensum commumem, humanitatem et congregationem. A qua professione dissimilitudo nos separabit. Videamus ne ista per quae admirationem parare volumus ridicula et odiosa sint. Nempe propositum nostrum est secundum naturam vivere; hoc contra naturam est: torquere corpus suum et faciles odisse munditias et qualorem adpetere et cibis non tantum vilibus uti sed taetris et horridis. Quemadmodum desiderare delicatas res luxuriae est, ita usitatas et non magno parabiles fugere dementiae. Frugalitatem exigit philosophia, non poenam. Potest autem esse non incompta frugalitas. Hic mihi modus placet: temperetur vita inter bonos mores et publicos; suspiciant omnes vitam nostram, sed agnoscant.
"Quid ergo? eadem faciemus, quae ceteri? Nihil inter nos et illos intererit?" Plurimum. Dissimiles esse nos vulgo sciat qui inspexerit propius. Qui domum intraverit nos potius miretur quam supellectilem nostram. Magnus ille est qui fictilibus sic utitur quemadmodum argento. Nec ille minor est qui sic argento utitur quemadmodum fictilibus. Infirmi animi est pati non posse divitias.
Sed huius quoque diei lucellum tecum communicem, apud Hecatonem nostrum inveni cupiditatum finem etiam ad timoris remedia proficere. "Desines," inquit, "timere, si sperare desieris." Dices: "Quomodo ista tam diversa pariter eunt?" Ita est, mi Lucili: cum videantur dissidere, coniuncta sunt. Quemadmodum eadem catena et custodiam et militem copulat, sic ista quae tam dissimilia sunt pariter incedunt: spem metus sequitur. Nec miror ista sic ire; utrumque pendentis animi est, utrumque futuri exspectatione solliciti. Maxima autem utriusque causa est quod non ad praesentia aptamur, sed cogitationes in longinqua praemittimus. Itaque providentia, maximum bonum condicionis humanae, in malum versa est. Ferae pericula quae vident fugiunt; cum effugere, securae sunt; nos et venturo torquemur et praeterito. Multa bona nostra nobis nocent; timoris enim tormentum memoria reducit, providentia anticipat. Nemo tantum praesentibus miser est. VALE.


SENECA GIVES GREETING TO HIS LUCILIUS:

I esteem and praise that you stubbornly study and do this one thing to the exclusion of all else, so that you may make yourself better daily, and I do not only encourage you to persevere, but also ask a question. However, I warn you about this, not by the custom of those who want to not help but to be observed, to somethings which would be remarkable in your clothing or life. Shun rough clothes and uncut hair and neglected beard and a declared hatred for money and a bed position on the floor and whatever else follows ambition on an evil road.
. . .
Philosophy promises this first: common feeling, human nature and community. From this profession difference will separate us. Let us see that these things through which we wish to draw admiration are ridiculous and hateful. No doubt our intention is to live according to nature; this is against nature: to distort one's body and to hate cleanliness requiring no special effort and to seek filthiness and to use not only plain food, but foul and rough food. Just as to desire delicacies is a thing of luxury, so too is to avoid common things and things easily obtained not at a great price a mark of dementia. Philosophy calls for frugality, not punishment. However, it is possible that frugality is not inelegant. This way of life is pleasing to me: let life be regulated between good morals and public morals; let everyone not only observe our life, but also understand it.
"What then? Will we do the same things which others do? Will nothing be different between us and those people?" Very much. Let he who has looked more closely know that we are different from the mob. Let him who has entered our house wonder at us more than at our furniture. Great is he who uses his earthenware just as silver. He is no less who uses silver just as earthenware. It is not allowed for he of a week mind to posses riches.
Be that as it may, so that I share the small gain of the day with you, in the writings of our Hecato I found that the end of desires also progresses to the end of fear. "You will cease to fear," he said, "if you will have ceased to hope." You will say, "How do these things so different go together?" So it is, my Lucilius: although they seem different, they are joined. Just as the same chain joins both the prisoner and the guard, thus those which are so dissimilar advance together: fear follows hope. I do not wonder that those things go thus; one is of hanging mind, the other is of a worried mind due to expectation of the future. Moreover, the greatest cause of each is because we are not adapted to the present, but we send thoughts into far-off areas. Therefore forethought, the greatest good of the human condition, is turned into an evil. Wild beasts flee the dangers which they see; when they flee, they are secure; we are tormented by both that which is to come and that which has gone by. Our many good things bring harm to us; for the memory of fear brings back torment, forethought anticipates it. No one is so miserable because of current circumstances. GOODBYE.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Seneca Letter 60

SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM:

Queror, litigo, irascor. Etiamnunc optas, quod tibi optavit nutrix tua aut paedagogus aut mater? Nondum intellegis quantum mali optaverint? O quam inimica nobis sunt vota nostorum! Eo quidem inimiciora quo cessere felicius. Iam non admiror si omnia nos a prima puerita mala sequuntur; inter execrationes parentum crevimus. Exaudiant di nostram quoque pro nobis vocem gratuitam.
Quousque poscemus aliquid deos ita quasi nondum ipsi alere nos possimus? Quamdiu sationibus implebimus maginarum urbium campos? Quamdiu nobis populus metet? Quamdiu unius mensae instrumentum multa navigia et quidem non ex uno mari subvehent? Taurus paucissimorum iugerum pascuo impletur; una silva elephantis pluribus sufficit; homo et tarra et mari pascitur. Quid ergo? Tam insatiabilem nobis natura alvum dedit, cum tam modica corpora dedisset, ut vastissimorum edacissimorumque animalium aviditatem vinceremus? Minime. Quantulum est enim quod naturae datur! Parvo illa dimittitur. Non fames nobis ventris nostri magno constat, sed ambitio. Hos itaque, ut ait Sallustius, "ventri oboedientes," animalium loco numeremus, non hominum, quosdam vero ne animalium quidem, sed mortuorum. Vivit is qui multis usui est; vivit is qui se utitur. Qui vero latitant et torpent sic in domo sunt quomodo in conditivo. Horum licet in limine ipso nomen marmori insribas: MORTEM SUAM ANTECESSERUNT. VALE.



SENECA GIVES GREETING TO HIS LUCILIUS:

I complain, I quarrel, I am angry. Even now do you wish for that which your nurse or your guide or your mother chose for you? Do you not yet understand how much evil they wished for? Oh how harmful to us are the wishes of our friends and family. Indeed, the more favorably their prayers have turned out, the more harmful they are. I no longer wonder if all evils follow us from the beginning of boyhood; we have grown among the curses of parents. Let the gods also hear our voice free of everything else on our own behalf instead of our friends' and family's.
For how long will we beg something of the gods thus as if we are not yet able to support ourselves? For how long will we fill the fields of great cities with planting? For how long will the people reap for us? For how long will many ships convey the stuff of one table and certainly not of a single sea? A bull is filled by grazing of the smallest fields; one forest is enough for many elephants; man is nourished by both land and sea. What then? So has nature given such an insatiable belly to us although it gave us such moderate bodies, so that we can surpass the desire of the largest and greediest animals? Not in the least. Indeed how little is that which is given to nature! She is sent away with very little. The hunger of our belly does not hurt us much, but ambition does. Therefore let us count those, just as Sallus said, "who obey stomachs," in the place of animals, not of men, indeed certain ones not even of the living, but of the dead. He who is useful to many people lives; he who makes use of himself lives. Certainly those who are hidden and lethargic are thus in a home as though in a tomb. Perhaps you should inscribe the name of those in the doorway of marble itself: THEY HAD GONE BEFORE THEIR OWN DEATH. GOODBYE.