Four Tragedies and Octavia
Page 26
Proper to princes, that our state exacts;
Our subjects not alone to bear, but praise our acts.
PANDULFO: O but that prince, that worthful praise aspires,
From hearts, and not from lips, applause desires.
PIERO: Pish!… True praise the boon of common men doth ring,
False only girts the temple of a king.
(cf. Thyestes, 205–18, and Octavia, 440–60)
25 From the same:
No matter whither, but from whence, we fall.
(cf. Thyestes, 925)
26 From Ben Jonson’s Sejanus (acted 1603):
Thou lost thyself, child Drusus, when thou thoughtst
Thou couldst outskip my vengeance; or outstand
The power I had to crush thee into air.
Thy follies now shall taste what kind of man
They have provoked, and this thy father’s house
Crack in the flame of my incensed rage,
Whose fury shall admit no shame or mean.
Adultery! It is the slightest ill
I will commit. A race of wicked acts
Shall flow out of my anger, and o’erspread
The world’s wide face, which no posterity
Shall e’er approve, nor yet keep silent: things
That for their cunning, close, and cruel mark,
Thy father would wish his: and shall, perhaps,
Carry the empty name, but we the prize.
(cf. Thyestes, 44–8,192–5)
27 From the same:
TIBERIUS: Long hate pursues such acts.
SEJANUS: Whom hatred frights,
Let him not dream of sovereignty.
TIBERIUS: Are rights
Of faith, love, piety, to be trod down,
Forgotten, and made vain?
SEJANUS: All for a crown.
The prince who shames a tyrant’s name to bear,
Shall never dare do anything, but fear;
All the command of sceptres quite doth perish,
If it begin religious thoughts to cherish:
Whole empires fall, sway’d by those nice respects;
It is the license of dark deeds protects
Ev’n states most hated, when no laws resist
The sword, but that it acteth what it list.1
28 From the same:
Still dost thou suffer, heaven! Will no flame,
No heat of sin, make thy just wrath to boil
In thy distemper’d bosom, and o’erflow
The pitchy blazes of impiety,
Kindled beneath thy throne! Still canst thou sleep,
Patient, while vice doth make an antick face
At thy dread power, and blow dust and smoke
Into thy nostrils! Jove! will nothing wake thee?
(cf. Phaedra, 671)
29 From Ben Jonson’s Catiline (acted 1611):
GHOST OF SYLLA: Dost thou not feel me, Rome? not yet; is night
So heavy on thee, and my weight so light?
Can Sylla’s ghost arise within thy walls,
Less threatening than an earthquake, the quick falls
Of thee and thine?…
What sleep is this doth seize thee so like death,
And is not it? Wake, feel her in my breath:
Behold, I come, sent from the Stygian sound,
As a dire vapour that had cleft the ground,
To ingender with the night, and blast the day;
Or like a pestilence that should display
Infection through the world; which thus I do –
[The curtain draws, and Catiline is discovered in his study]
Pluto be at thy counsels, and into
Thy darker bosom enter Sylla’s spirit!
All that was mine, and bad, thy breast inherit…
What all the several ills that visit earth,
Brought forth by night with a sinister birth,
Plagues, famine, fire, could not reach unto,
The sword, nor surfeits; let thy fury do;
Make all past, present, future ill thine own;
And conquer all example in thy one.
(cf. Thyestes, Act I, and Oedipus, 591)
30 From the same:
Is there a heaven and gods? And can it be
They should so slowly hear, so slowly see?
Hath Jove no thunder?…
What will awake thee, heaven? What can excite
Thine anger, if this practise be too light?
(cf. Phaedra, 671)
31 From Chapman’s Conspiracy of Byron (1608):
LA BROSSE: Forbear to ask me, son;
You bid me speak what fear bids me conceal.
BYRON: You have no cause to fear, and therefore speak.
LA B.: You’ll rather wish you had been ignorant
Than be instructed in a thing so ill.
BYR.: Ignorance is an idle salve for ill;
And therefore do not urge me to enforce
What I would freely know; for, by the skill
Shown in thy aged hairs, I’ll lay thy brain
Here scatter’d at my feet, and seek in that
What safely thou mayst utter with thy tongue,
If thou deny it.
LA B.: Will you not allow me
To hold my peace? What less can I desire?
If not, be pleased with my constrained speech.
BYR.: Was ever man yet punish’d for expressing
What he was charged? Be free, and speak the worst.
(cf. Oedipus, 509–29)
APPENDIX II
PASSAGES TRANSLATED FROM SENECA’s PROSE WORKS
1 We can carry nothing out (Ad Marciam, X):
All the adventitious ornaments which surround us – our children, high positions, wealth, spacious apartments, corridors thronged with crowds of waiting clients, a distinguished high-born or beautiful wife – all these and other possessions, being dependent on the uncertain and changeable whim of chance, are only so much borrowed furniture. Not one of them has been given us outright. Our stage has been furnished with borrowed properties, due to be returned to their owners; some must go back tomorrow, some the day after, very few will remain in our hands till the end of our time. We are not therefore to regard ourselves as living among our own possessions; we have only been given the loan of them. We have the use of these things, but only for as long as the lender chooses. It is for us to see that we keep them in good order, since they are only ours for a limited time, and to hand them back, when called upon to do so, without complaint. It is only a bad debtor that finds fault with his creditor. It follows that our love for our relatives – both our juniors whom in the course of nature we should wish to survive us, and those who even by their own choice would wish to precede us to the grave – should be tempered by the reflection that we have been given no guarantee of their immortality, or even of their longevity. We need constantly to remind ourselves to bestow on them our love as upon possessions destined to vanish, or indeed already vanishing from our sight. Whatever gifts of Fortune you may be lucky enough to enjoy, you enjoy them only by the permission of their owner. Enjoy by all means the company of your children while you can, and in turn give them the enjoyment of your society; drain every source of pleasure while it lasts, and without procrastination. Tonight is not to be depended on; no, that is too great an allowance – this hour is not to be depended on. Make haste; you are being pursued; this fellowship will soon be broken up; this happy companionship must come to an end, its noisy gaiety be silenced. Destruction is the universal law; do you not know, poor mortals, that life is a race to dissolution?
2 Consolations in exile (Ad Helviam matrem, VIII):
Against the mere inconvenience of a change of residence – setting aside any other disadvantages of banishment – there is ample compensation (in the opinion of the learned Varro) in the fact that, wherever we go, the same natural world is open for our enjoyment. Marcus Brutus suggests a different consolation: for him it is enough that the exile
can always take with him the strength of his own character. Either of these sentiments, taken separately, may seem insufficient consolation for the exile; but the force of both combined must be granted to be considerable. For how little, we should ask ourselves, have we lost, when we may take with us into any new place of residence our two most desirable possessions – our contact with universal nature, and our own character? It was, I am sure, the very intention of the creator of the world, whoever he was – whether the omnipotent God, or an incorporeal reason capable of an immense creative design, or a divine spirit of life breathing its purposes alike into all things great and small, or a blind necessity, an inevitable chain of linked causes and effects – it was the intention of the creator that none but a man’s most worthless possessions should ever pass into the control of another man. All that is most valuable to a man lies beyond the reach of other men’s power. Such possessions can neither be given nor taken away. The universe around us, that most grand and elaborate work of nature, and the mind which can contemplate and marvel at it (and which is itself a most wonderful part of it), are our own everlasting property and will remain ours as long as we ourselves remain alive. Let us therefore go on our way, wherever it may lead us, fearlessly, with eager and uplifted heart. Let us fare to whatever land we must; no place on the face of the earth can be a place of exile, for there is no place on earth that has nothing to say to man. Stand where we may, and raise our eyes from the ground to the sky, the works of God will always be at the same distance from the works of man, no nearer and no farther. After all, as long as my eyes are not parted from that sight, of which they can never have enough; as long as I may look upon the sun and the moon, may gaze upon the other heavenly constellations, may ponder on their rising and setting and study the causes of their various motions fast or slow – how some are fixed, some not venturing far afield but turning in their own restricted orbits, some newly bursting into light, some drawing a trail of spent fire behind them, as though in a dying fall, or tracing a long arc of light across immense distances; as long as I can have these for my companions and thus share, so far as man may, in the life of the heavenly bodies, and as long as I still have a mind to devote to the contemplation of my fellow-beings on high – how can it matter what ground I tread under my feet?
3 Early influences (Ep., 108):
I well remember that when I used to listen to Attalus [one of his tutors] inveighing against the follies and misfortunes of life, I would be filled with pity for the whole human race and look upon him as a man standing on a pinnacle of superhuman excellence. He did indeed describe himself as a king, but he seemed more than that to me, if he was able to criticize the conduct of kings. And when he set about commending poverty, and showing that whatever was for all practical purposes superfluous was only so much useless baggage and a burden to the bearer, I was ready to go straight out of the classroom to a life of poverty. If he castigated the pleasures of life, when he advocated bodily purity and simple living, and when he praised the conscience innocent not only of illicit delights but of all superfluous ones – I was at once ready to discipline my appetites. With the result that some of these disciplines remain with me to this day; I adopted all these precepts with great enthusiasm in the first place, and later, when I entered into public life, I retained a certain number of my good intentions. For instance, I have never touched oysters or mushrooms in the whole of my life (and really, these things are not food but just titillations to make people eat when they have already eaten more than enough – beloved by gluttons and over-eaters – something that slips down easily, and as easily comes up again!). From the same source I derived my lifelong abstention from perfumes – the best smell a body can have is no smell; and from bathing – to stew and weaken the body by perspiration always seemed to me a harmful and effete habit. Some other indulgences which I rejected have now returned to me; but I can say that wherever I abandoned an abstinence I have preserved a moderation, almost amounting to abstinence – perhaps more difficult to achieve than abstinence; there are some things which it is easier to give up altogether than to use with moderation.…
[The Pythagorean teaching of Sotion converted him to vegetarianism] Under this influence I began to abstain from animal food, and after a year’s trial I found it not only an easy but an agreeable system. I believed it made my mind more alert – but I wouldn’t now take my oath that it actually did. Why did I give it up? Well, my early years coincided with the beginning of Tiberius’s reign, and about that time there was some ado about certain religious rites of foreign origin, in which abstinence from some kinds of animal food was involved. So, at my father’s request – not so much in fear of scandal as out of his aversion to philosophic theories – I returned to my normal habits. And I can’t say he had much difficulty in persuading me to adopt a more satisfying diet! Another thing that Attalus used to recommend was a hard pillow; and that is the kind I still use in my old age – one which doesn’t show the slightest depression after use.
4 Writing in retirement (Ep., 8):
I have withdrawn not only from company but from business; and especially from my own business. I am now engaged on posterity’s business – writing a few things which may possibly be of use to it. I am putting on paper some of the salutary precepts which, like efficacious medical prescriptions, I have found useful in my own disorders and which have, if not entirely cured, at least prevented them from spreading.
5 Guilty conscience (Ep., 97):
On the other hand, even the most depraved characters retain some sense of good, are not blind to their own depravity but prefer to ignore it – as is shown by the fact that they always try to conceal their crimes and even if the crimes are successful will enjoy the fruits while suppressing the facts of their misconduct. A good conscience is ready to come into the open and be seen by all, but wickedness is afraid even of the dark. Epicurus put it very well when he said: a guilty man may escape notice, but he cannot depend on escaping notice. Or – if you think this expresses his point more clearly – concealment is little comfort to the sinner, because, though concealment may be his luck, it cannot restore his confidence. True enough: crime can be kept hidden, but it cannot be enjoyed without fear. Looked at in this way, I don’t think Epicurus’s view is at variance with ours; because (as we say) the chief and greatest punishment that sinners suffer is the fact that they have sinned; no crime – no matter how much it is rewarded by the generosity of fortune, no matter if it be protected or even justified – can remain unpunished, because crime is its own punishment. There remain, of course, also the secondary punishments to harry and dog the criminal – his constant fear, anxiety, and feeling of insecurity.… Luck frees many a man from the consequences of sin, but from fear never.
6 ‘…but thinking makes it so’ (Ep., 96):
Are you going to complain and protest against any misfortune, and not see that the only misfortune lies in your readiness to complain and protest? The way I look at it is that the one and only disastrous thing that can happen to a man is that he should be capable of thinking any occurrence in nature to be a disaster. The day when I find that I cannot endure something, will be the day when I can no longer endure myself.
7 Never provoke the powerful (Ep., 14):
I think one should take care to avoid giving offence. It may be the people, whom we should fear to offend; it may be, in a state so organized as to give power primarily to a senate, the most influential men of that order; it may be an individual, who holds power for the people and over the people. Not that one should be friends with all these people all the time – that would indeed be difficult; but at least one can avoid making enemies of them. A wise man will never provoke the wrath of the powerful; rather he will keep out of its way – as a sailor tacks before a storm.
8 ‘God is within you’ (Ep., 41):
It is not necessary to raise one’s hands to heaven; there is no need to request a verger to give us access to the ear of an image, as though that would secure a closer attenti
on to our petitions. God is near you, with you always, within you. There is, I am sure, a divine spirit within us, which keeps watch and ward over all that is good or bad within us. As we treat him, so he will treat us. No man is good without the presence of God; who can rise above the accidents of fate except by his help? From him comes the prompting to high and noble deeds. In every good man there dwells ‘what god we know not, but a very god’ [quoting Virgil, Aeneid, VIII. 352].
9 Thinking of death (Ep., 70):
When external circumstances threaten a man with death, should he take his death into his own hands, or wait until it comes to him? One cannot lay down a general rule; there is much to be said on both sides. But if it is a choice between a painful death under torture and a simple easy death, who shall say that a man should not make an end of himself? As I would select a ship on which to make a voyage, or a house to live in, so I would choose the way to end my life.… The law of nature never did anything better than when it prescribed one way of entry into life but many ways out of it. Is there any reason why I should wait to suffer the cruelty of illness or of man, when I might make my own escape from the threats that encompass me and cut loose from all adversity?
10 Everlasting light (Ep., 102):
Some day nature will reveal to you all her secrets; this darkness will be dispelled and glorious light break in upon you. Think of the marvel of that light, in which the light of all the stars is added together – a perfect light, without a shadow of darkness. The whole expanse of heaven will be one pure radiance; the distinction of day and night is only a property of our lower atmosphere. When, totally translated, you look upon the infinite light, which you now perceive only dimly through the slits of your eyes, you will know that life has been to you but darkness. Already, even at a distance, that light is something which you marvel at; what will you think of the divine light when you are in its very presence? This is a thought to banish from one’s mind all that is sordid, mean, or cruel; to assure us that the gods watch over everything that happens; to bid us earn their goodwill, prepare to meet them, and keep the image of eternity before our eyes.