Seneca

“ Would not every man wish to lay aside anger when he sees that it begins by injuring himself? When men employ anger as the most powerful of agents, consider it to be a proof of power, and reckon a speedy revenge among the greatest blessings of great prosperity, would you not wish me to warn them that he who is the slave of his own anger is not powerful, nor even free? Would you not wish me to warn all the more industrious and circumspect of men, that while other evil passions assail the base, anger gradually obtains dominion over the minds even of learned and in other respects sensible men? ”

“ Do you imagine that those things which are loathed are not punished, or do you suppose that any punishment is greater than the hate of all men? It is a punishment not to dare receive a benefit from anyone, not to dare to bestow one, to be, or to fancy that you are a mark for all men's eyes, and to lose all appreciation of so excellent and pleasant a matter. Do you call a man unhappy who has lost his sight, or whose hearing has been impaired by disease, and do you not call him wretched who has lost the power of feeling benefits? ”

“ Yet what is more savage against them than anger? Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin: the former loves society, the latter estrangement. The one loves to do good, the other to do harm; the one to help even strangers, the other to attack even its dearest friends. The one is ready even to sacrifice itself for the good of others, the other to plunge into peril provided it drags others with it. Who, then, can be more ignorant of nature than he who classes this cruel and hurtful vice as belonging to her best and most polished work? Anger, as we have said, is eager to punish ”

“ Here was peace in the very midst of the storm: here was a soul worthy of eternal life, which used its own fate as a proof of truth, which when at the last step of life experimented upon his fleeting breath, and did not merely continue to learn until he died, but learned something even from death itself. No man has carried the life of a philosopher further. I will not hastily leave the subject of a great man, and one who deserves to be spoken of with respect: I will hand thee down to all posterity, thou most noble heart, chief among the many victims of Gaius. ”

“ Why, Marcia, when you saw him while yet young displaying the wisdom of age, with a mind that could rise superior to all sensual enjoyments, faultless and without a blemish, able to win riches without greediness, public office without ambition, pleasure without extravagance, did you suppose it would long be your lot to keep him safe by your side? Whatever has arrived at perfection, is ripe for dissolution. Consummate virtue flees away and betakes itself out of our sight, and those things which come to maturity in the first stage of their being do not wait for the last. ”

“ But do "liberal studies" [26] strengthen this virtue? Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart; it is forced into betrayal by no constraint, and it is bribed by no rewards. Loyalty cries: "Burn me, slay me, kill me! I shall not betray my trust; and the more urgently torture shall seek to find my secret, the deeper in my heart will I bury it!" Can the "liberal arts" produce such a spirit within us? Temperance controls our desires; some it hates and routs, others it regulates and restores to a healthy measure, nor does it ever approach our desires for their own sake. ”

“ Spare thy menacing words, who art already enraged enough; spare further threats. Tone down thy anger,—it is best to adapt thyself to time and opportunity.
MEDEA.
Fortune can rob us of our riches, but not of our mental attributes. But, hark! Who is knocking?—The hinges of the palace-door are creaking,—Here is Creon himself, puffed up with all his pompous pride and power!
CREON—MEDEA.
Creon urges Medea to depart from his Kingdom into exile with all haste: she, with difficulty, obtains the delay of one day. ”

“ I have spared one man because of his great place, another on account of his insignificance: when I could find no reason for showing mercy, I have had mercy upon myself. I am prepared this day, should the gods demand it, to render to them an account of the human race." You, Caesar, can boldly say that everything which has come into your charge has been kept safe, and that the state has neither openly nor secretly suffered any loss at your hands. You have coveted a glory which is most rare, and which has been obtained by no emperor before you, that of innocence. ”

“ So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave? Would you not rather have your own son die thus than reach old age by weakly yielding? Why therefore are you distressed, when even a boy can die so bravely? Suppose that you refuse to follow him; you will be led. Take into your own control that which is now under the control of another. Will you not borrow that boy's courage, and say: "I am no slave!"? Unhappy fellow, you are a slave to men, you are a slave to your business, you are a slave to life. For life, if courage to die be lacking, is slavery. ”

“ It makes a great difference whether any one bestows a benefit upon us for his own sake, or whether he does so partly for his own sake and partly for ours. He who looks only to his own interests, and who does us good because he cannot otherwise make a profit for himself, seems to me to be like the farmer who provides winter and summer fodder for his flocks, or like the man who feeds up the captives whom he has bought in order that they may fetch a better price in the slave market, or who crams and curry-combs fat oxen for sale ”

“ No one who has ever applied himself to philosophy ever becomes completely wicked; his mind becomes so deeply coloured with it, that its tints can never be entirely spoiled and blackened. In the next place, I ask whether this man of yours be ferocious merely in intent, or whether he breaks out into actual outrages upon mankind? You have instanced the tyrants Apollodorus and Phalaris; if the bad man restrains their evil likeness within himself, why should I not return his benefit to him, in order to set myself free from any further dealings with him? ”

“ Aegisthus: The fatal day which I was born to see,
Toward which I've ever looked with dread, is here.
Why dost thou fear, my soul, to face thy fate,
And turn away from action scarce begun?
Be sure that not thy hand is ordering
These dire events, but the relentless gods. 230
Then put thy shame-bought life in pawn to fate
And let thy heart drain suffering to the dregs.
To one of shameful birth death is a boon.
⁠ [Enter Clytemnestra.]
Thou comrade of my perils, Leda's child,
Be with me still in this; and thy false lord, 235
This valiant sire, shall pay thee blood for blood. ”

“ Sometimes, as a result of noble conduct, one wins great joy even in a very short and fleeting space of time; and though none of the fruits of a deed that has been done will accrue to the doer after he is dead and removed from the sphere of human affairs, yet the mere contemplation of a deed that is to be done is a delight, and the brave and upright man, picturing to himself the guerdons of his death, – guerdons such as the freedom of his country and the deliverance of all those for whom he is paying out his life, – partakes of the greatest pleasure and enjoys the fruit of his own peril. ”

“ The culpability of each of us is great, do not hesitate for long, if there be any difference in our guilt, let it be mine, which shall be adjudged the greater! Select me, send through my breast, the flaming fires of thy three-forked lightning if as a father I only wish to bury my sons and deliver them over to "fire" at last? I myself must be burnt, if nothing moves the Gods, and no deity is willing to search out the wicked for punishment with his lightnings, let eternal night remain to us, and hide these tremendous crimes with its prolonged darkness! ”

“ What is the duty of a good man? To submit himself to fate: it is a great consolation to be swept away together with the entire universe: whatever law is laid upon us that thus we must live and thus we must die, is laid upon the gods also: one unchangeable stream bears along men and gods alike: the creator and ruler of the universe himself, though he has given laws to the fates, yet is guided by them: he always obeys, he only once commanded. "But why was God so unjust in His distribution of fate, as to assign poverty, wounds, and untimely deaths to good men?" ”

“ Are you affected by the thought that he appears to have been deprived of great blessings just at the moment when they came crowding upon him? after thinking how much he has lost, call to mind how much more he has ceased to fear: anger will never more wring his heart, disease will not crush him, suspicion will not disquiet him, the gnawing pain of envy which we feel at the successes of others will not attend him, terror will not make him wretched, the fickleness of fortune who quickly transfers her favours from one man to another will not alarm him. ”

“ It is by no means desirable that one should merely strive to accumulate property without any love of virtue, or do nothing but hard work without any cultivation of the intellect, for these things ought to be combined and blended together; and, similarly, virtue placed in leisure without action is but an incomplete and feeble good thing, because she never displays what she has learned. Who can deny that she ought to test her progress in actual work, and not merely think what ought to be done, but also sometimes use her hands as well as her head, and bring her conceptions into actual being? ”

“ May virtue never come to such a pass, that reason should fly for aid to vices! The mind can find no safe repose there, it must needs be shaken and tempest-tossed if it be safe only because of its own defects, if it cannot be brave without anger, diligent without greed, quiet without fear: such is the despotism under which a man must live if he becomes the slave of a passion. Are you not ashamed to put virtues under the patronage of vices? Then, too, reason ceases to have any power if she can do nothing without passion, and begins to be equal and like unto passion ”

“ Even as a stranger is grateful to one who shows him the way about an unknown city, so is a searcher after the causes of what he sees in the heavens to one of his own family who can explain them to him. He will delight in gazing deep down upon the earth, for it is a delight to look from aloft at what one has left below. Bear yourself, therefore, Marcia, as though you were placed before the eyes of your father and your son, yet not such as you knew them, but far loftier beings, placed in a higher sphere. ”

“ I can more easily pardon one who wishes to give his enemy a wound than one who wishes to give him a blister: for the latter is not only bad, but petty-minded. Whether you are thinking of extreme or slighter punishments, how very short is the time during which either your victim is tortured or you enjoy an evil pleasure in another's pain? This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practise humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to anyone. ”

“ Who is there so poor, so uncared for, born to sorrow by so unkind a fate, as never to have felt the vast generosity of the Gods? Look even at those who complain and are discontented with their lot; you will find that they are not altogether without a share in the bounty of heaven, that there is no one upon whom something has not been shed from that most gracious fount. Is the gift which is bestowed upon all alike, at their birth, not enough? However unequally the blessings of after life may be dealt out to us, did nature give us too little when she gave us herself? ”

“ Clemency, then, makes princes safer as well as more respected, and is a glory to empires besides being their most trustworthy means of preservation. Why have legitimate sovereigns grown old on the throne, and bequeathed their power to their children and grandchildren, while the sway of despotic usurpers is both hateful and shortlived? What is the difference between the tyrant and the king—for their outward symbols of authority and their powers are the same — except it be that tyrants take delight in cruelty, whereas kings are only cruel for good reasons and because they cannot help it. ”

“ This is what a father, however hungry, could never sacrifice to his voracity—My very entrails are working round and round within me, and without any means of exit, my misery is struggling in my inside, and is seeking some way out of its imprisonment! Give me thy sword, brother, it has plenty of my blood on it already. I shall effect a way out for my children! Shall the sword be denied to me? My breast shall then resound, with self-inflicted blows! (In the midst of the blows) Oh! miserable man, that I am, stay my hand, let me spare the Manes of my sons! Whoever saw such abominable wickedness? ”

“ Those who are able to conceal their feelings may indulge them more freely; but you are not free to have any secrecy: your fortune has set you in so brilliant a position, that nothing which you do can be hid: all men will know how you have borne this wound of yours, whether you laid down your arms at the first shock or whether you stood your ground. Long ago the love of Caesar raised you, and your own literary pursuits brought you, to the highest rank in the state: nothing vulgar, nothing mean befits you: yet what can be meaner or more womanish than to make oneself a victim to grief? ”

“ Who comes from Argos thirsting for the fray,
And they who from the citadel of Thebes 445
Come down to battle. Friend and foe, alike,
Attack this womb of mine which brothers bore
Unto my husband. Rend me limb from limb,
And scatter me abroad upon the plain.
I bore you both—will you lay down your arms?
Or shall I say from whom I bore you, too?
Give me your hands while still they are unstained. 450
'Till now 'twas all unwittingly you sinned;
'Twas fortune's crime, who ever 'gainst our peace
Delights to plot. But this impiety
Is done with fullest knowledge of your sin. ”

“ Reflect that the dead suffer no evils, that all those stories which make us dread the nether world are mere fables, that he who dies need fear no darkness, no prison, no blazing streams of fire, no river of Lethe, no judgment seat before which he must appear, and that Death is such utter freedom that he need fear no more despots. All that is a phantasy of the poets, who have terrified us without a cause. Death is a release from and an end of all pains: beyond it our sufferings cannot extend: it restores us to the peaceful rest in which we lay before we were born. ”

“ When so many thousands of Cimbri and Teutones poured over the Alps, what was it that caused them to perish so completely, that no messenger, only common rumour, carried the news of that great defeat to their homes, except that with them anger stood in the place of courage? and anger, although sometimes it overthrows and breaks to pieces whatever it meets, yet is more often its own destruction. Who can be braver than the Germans? who charge more boldly? who have more love of arms, among which they are born and bred, for which alone they care, to the neglect of everything else? ”

“ Do you like to look at your money-bags lying in the corner? it is for these that men shout till their eyes start from their heads, that the law-courts ring with the din of trials, and that jurymen brought from great distances sit to decide which man's covetousness is the more equitable. What shall we say if it be not even for a bag of money, but for a handful of coppers or a shilling scored up by a slave that some old man, soon to die without an heir, bursts with rage? ”

“ Nay, put away the sword from thy right hand,
And give me heart again. Reveal to me
The cause that forces thee to flee from life.
Phaedra: Alas, great Theseus, by thy kingly power,
And by thy children's souls, by thy return, 870
And by my ashes, suffer me to die.
Theseus: What cause compels thy death?
Phaedra: ⁠The fruit of death
Would perish if I let its cause be known.
Theseus: None else shall hear it save myself alone.
Phaedra: A chaste wife fears her husband most of all.
Theseus: Speak out; I'll hide thy secret in my heart. ”

“ Life is full of misfortunes; our path is beset with them: no one can make a long peace, nay, scarcely an armistice with fortune. You, Marcia, have borne four children: now they say that no dart which is hurled into a close column of soldiers can fail to hit one,—ought you then to wonder at not having been able to lead along such a company without exciting the ill-will of Fortune, or suffering loss at her hands? "But," say you, "Fortune has treated me unfairly, for she not only has bereaved me of my son, but chose my best beloved to deprive me of." ”

“ She, therefore, abides by her purpose when it has once been formed; whereas anger is often overcome by pity: for it possesses no firm strength, but merely swells like an empty bladder, and makes a violent beginning, just like the winds which rise from the earth and are caused by rivers and marshes, which blow furiously without any continuance: anger begins with a mighty rush, and then falls away, becoming fatigued too soon: that which but lately thought of nothing but cruelty and novel forms of torture, is become quite softened and gentle when the time comes for punishment to be inflicted. ”

“ XXXII. Let different qualities in different people keep us from quarrelling with them: let us fear to be angry with some, feel ashamed of being angry with others, and disdain to be angry with others. We do a fine thing, indeed, when we send a wretched slave to the workhouse! Why are we in such a hurry to flog him at once, to break his legs straightway? we shall not lose our boasted power if we defer its exercise. Let us wait for the time when we ourselves can give orders: at present we speak under constraint from anger. ”

“ Why gleam the constellations in the sky,
And flash their wonted glories to the world? 50
Be pitchy black the night, and let the day
Fall fainting from the heavens and be no more.
Embroil thy household gods, rouse murderous hate,
And all the palace fill with Tantalus.
Adorn the lofty columns; let the door's,
With verdant laural decked, proclaim their joy;
Let torches gleam in celebration meet 55
Of thy return—then let the Thracian crime
Be done again, but triply hideous.
Why stays the uncle's hand in idleness?
Not yet Thyestes weeps his murdered sons. ”

“ Pillage is the universal law: unhappy creatures, know you not that life is but a flight? If you grieve for the death of your son, the fault lies with the time when he was born, for at his birth he was told that death was his doom: it is the law under which he was born, the fate which has pursued him ever since he left his mother's womb. We have come under the dominion of Fortune, and a harsh and unconquerable dominion it is: at her caprice we must suffer all things whether we deserve them or not. ”

“ Though all unguarded, is from danger free;
For poverty alone may be at peace.
And this I hold: the mightiest king is he,
Who from the lust of sovereignty is free. 470
Tantalus: But if some god a kingdom should bestow,
It is not meet for mortal to refuse:
Behold, thy brother bids thee to the throne.
Thyestes: He bids? 'Tis but a cloak for treachery.
Tantalus: But brotherly regard oft times returns
Onto the heart from which it has been driven;
And righteous love regains its former strength. 475
Thyestes: And dost thou speak of brother's love to me? ”

“ No hopes indeed hath Troy, if such her hopes.
So low the Trojans lie, there's none so weak
That he need fear our power. Doth lofty thought
Of mighty Hector nerve his boyish heart?
What valor can a fallen Hector stir?
When this our Troy was lost, his father's self
Would then have bowed his lofty spirit's pride;
For woe can bend and break the proudest soul. 745
If punishment be sought, some heavier fate
Let him endure; upon his royal neck
Let him support the yoke of servitude.
Must princes sue in vain for this poor boon?
Ulysses: ⁠Not I, but Calchas doth refuse thy prayer. ”

“ O Phlegethon, hemmed round with waves of fire,
Let me be left to suffer.
⁠Ye, whoe'er
By fate's decrees are doomed to punishment,
Whoe'er thou art who 'neath the hollowed cave 75
Dost lie, in constant fear lest even now
The cavern's mass shall fall upon thy head;
Whoever fears the gaping, greedy jaws
Of lions, and in helpless horror looks
Upon the advancing furies' cruel lines;
Whoe'er, half burned, their threat'ning lurches shuns:
Oh, listen to the voice of Tantalus 80
Fast speeding to your realm; believe the words
Of one who knows, and love your punishment. ”

“ My child, all sense of thee,
Who art a parcel of my impious deeds,
In my unhappiness I would have fled. 230
But now my crime sticks fast within my heart,
And threatens ever to break out afresh;
For what my blinded eyes have spared to me,
Is through my ears poured in upon my soul.
Oh, why do I not plunge this darkened life
Into the eternal shadow-world of Dis?
Why do I longer hold my spirit here? 235
Why be a burden to the upper world,
And wander still among the living men?
What evil yet remains? ”

“ But never a day was without its grief,
Never a night but renewed our woe.
Then on with the wailing and on with the blows;
And thou, poor fate-smitten queen, be our guide, 80
Our mistress in mourning; we'll obey thy commands,
Well trained in the wild liturgy of despair.
Hecuba: ⁠Then, trusty comrades of our fate,
Unbind your tresses and let them flow
Over your shoulders bent with grief,
The while with Troy's slow-cooling dust 85
Ye sprinkle them. Lay bare your arms,
Strip from your breasts their covering;
Why veil your beauty? Shame itself 90
Is held in captive bonds. ”

“ The household of a foreign king protects;
O'er many seas, by many chances driven,
Thou'rt still a wanderer. It was not mine
With stately train to lead thee to thy bride, 505
With my own hand to deck the festal halls,
And with sacred fillets wreathe thy wedding torch.
The father of thy bride no wedding gifts,
No wealth of gold, has given, no fields, no towns;
Thy only gift is war. A foeman's son 510
Hast thou become, far from thy native land,
An alien household's guest, driven from thine own,
Committed to another's interests,
A sinless exile. ”

“ Thyestes: No realm on earth can stand divided power.
Tantalus: Should he, who can be happy, still be sad? 445
Thyestes: Believe me, son, 'tis by their lying names
That things seem great, while others harsh appear
Which are not truly so. When high in power
I stood, I never ceased to be in fear;
Yea, even did I fear the very sword
Upon my thigh. Oh, what a boon it is
To be at feud with none, to eat one's bread 450
Without a trace of care, upon the ground!
Crime enters not the poor man's humble cot ”

“ The thunderbolts, and her who brandished them.
I've braved the terrors of the god of war;
With my sole arm I fronted Hector, huge,
Nor did the darts of Phoebus frighten me.
Those gods, together with their Phrygians, 550
I set at naught; and shall I quake at thee?
Thou hurl'st with weakling's hand another's bolts:
But what if Jove himself—"
When madly thus he dared blaspheme the gods,
Great Neptune with his trident smote the rock,
And whelmed its tottering bulk beneath the sea. 555
So, falling with its fall, the madman lies
By earth and fire and billows overcome. ”

“ Thou dost avoid the light. Or wouldst thou flee
This noble palace and thy native land?
Thy native land, although thou livest still,
Is dead to thee. Wouldst from thy sons escape, 210
And from thy mother? From the sight of all
Has fate removed thee; and whatever death
From any man can take, thy life has taken.
Art weary of the kingdom's press and stir?
At thy command thy former courtier throng
Has vanished.—Whom, O father, dost thou flee? 215
Oedipus: Myself I flee, I flee this heart of mine,
Full of all crimes; I flee this hand, this sky,
These gods ”

“ Nurse: ⁠But oft doth love put reins on stubborn souls,
And all their hatred to affection turns. 575
Behold thy mother's realm of warlike dames;
Yet even they the sway of passion know.
Of this thy birth itself is proof enough.
Hippolytus: My comfort for my mother's loss is this,
That now I'm free to hate all womankind.
Nurse: ⁠As some hard crag, on every side unmoved, 580
Resists the waves, and dashes backward far
The opposing floods, so he doth spurn my words.
But hither Phaedra comes with hasty step,
Impatient of delay. What fate is hers? ”

“ Whose gods, I think, will free me from my guilt,
Though I am self-condemned; these guilty hands 935
Will Pluto cleanse for me. Then, on thy banks,
O Lethe, with my memory clean I'll stand,
A grieving shade, awaiting him I love.
But thou, who rulest o'er the world of gloom,
Prepare some toil for me, some dreadful toil;
For this my fault outweighs all other sins
That heart of man has ever dared to do.
Nay, Juno's self was never bold enough 940
To rob the grieving world of Hercules. ”

“ No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die.
The man whose evils can no farther go
Is safely lodged. Who of the gods, think'st thou, 200
Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot
Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou,
Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live.
But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast
No taint of sin has come. And all the more,
My father, art thou free from taint of sin,
Because, though heaven willed it otherwise, 205
Thou still art innocent. What is there now
Which has so maddened thee, which goads thy heart
To fresh outbursts of grief? ”

“ This woman is a greater curse than she.
Phaedra: I clearly see the destiny of my house:
We follow ever what we should avoid.
But I have given over self-control;
I'll follow thee through fire, through raging sea, 700
O'er ragged cliffs, through roaring torrents wild—
Wherever thou dost go, in mad pursuit
I shall he borne. Again, O haughty one,
I fall in suppliance and embrace thy knees.
Hippolytus: Away from my chaste body with thy touch
Impure! What more? She falls upon my breast! 705
I'll draw my sword and smite as she deserves. ”