Four Tragedies and Octavia (30 page)
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Authors: Seneca
[
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 â 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 â not so much in fear of scandal as out of his aversion to philosophic theories â 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 â 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I have withdrawn not only from company but from business; and especially from my own business.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 â 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 â 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 â if you think this expresses his point more clearly â 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 â no matter how much it is rewarded by the generosity of fortune, no matter if it be protected or even justified â can remain unpunished, because crime is its own punishment. There remain, of course, also the secondary punishments to harry and dog the criminal â his constant fear, anxiety, and feeling of insecurity.⦠Luck frees many a man from the consequences of sin, but from fear never.
6
ââ¦
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 â 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 â as a sailor tacks before a storm.
8
â
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 attention 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 âwhat 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 â 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.
1
. See
Appendix II
for some translated extracts, chosen mainly for comparison with passages in the plays.
1
. Cf.
Appendix II
, 8.
2
. The legend of Seneca's acquaintance and correspondence with St Paul, and the possibility of his having been directly influenced by Christian teaching, are discussed in C. T. Crutwell's
A History of Roman Literature
(Griffin, 1877).
1
. From Newton's Preface to his edition of
The Tenne Tragedies
, 1581.
2
. From Neville's Preface to his translation of
Oedipus
, 1563.
1
. Acts,
XVIII
. 12 ff.
2
. Cf.
Appendix II
, 3.
1
. Cf.
Appendix II
, 1.
2
. Cf.
Appendix II
, 2.
1
.
Annals
,
XIII
. 2. Grant's translation (Penguin Classics), here and in other quotations.
1
. Tacitus,
Annals
,
XIV
. 53â6.
2
. Cf.
Appendix II
, 9.
1
. F. L. Lucas,
Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy
, Cambridge, 1922.
1
.
Tristia
,
V
. 7.
1
. W. Beare,
The Roman Stage
.
1
. And there will be almost none in my translations; there are few places, in fact, where the action is not implicit in the spoken words.
2
. J. C. Scaliger,
Poetics
, 1. 21, as quoted in English by Malone,
Historical Account of the English Stage:
âAt present in France [
c
. 1556] plays are represented in such a manner that nothing is withdrawn from the view of the spectatorâ¦. The persons of the scene never depart during the representation; he who ceases to speak, is considered as if he were no longer on the stage. But in truth it is extremely ridiculous that the spectator should see the actor listening, and yet he himself should not hear what one of his fellow-actors says concerning him, though in his own presence and within his hearing; as if he were absent, while he is present.' â Note that Scaliger finds the custom strange and absurd; but it may well have been a method used in the performance of Senecan tragedies, and it illustrates the lengths to which anti-realistic stage technique can go.
3
.
NURSE
: What ponderest thou in secret?
1
. Introduction to Newton's
Ten Tragedies of Seneca
(see p. 27).
2
. The authorship of
Octavia
is, of course, extremely doubtful; see p. 38.
1
. Readers to whom the original is not easily accessible may like to have this example of the Latin:
Stet quicunque volet potens
aulae culmine lubrico;
me dulcis saturet quies;
obscuro positus loco
leni perfruar otio;
nullis nota quiritibus
aetas per tacitum fluat.
sic cum transierint mei
nullo cum strepitu dies,
plebeius moriar senex.
illi mors gravis incubat
qui, notus nimis omnibus,
ignotus moritur sibi.
Thyestes
, 391â403
1
. See Appendix I.
1
.
Seneca, His Tenne Tragedies translated into English
, edited by Thomas Newton, 1581. Reprinted with an Introduction by T. S. Eliot, The Tudor Translations, Constable, 1927.
   E. M. Spearing,
The Tudor Translations of Seneca's Tragedies
, Cambridge, 1912.
   Heywood's
Thyestes
is reprinted in
Five Elizabethan Tragedies
, ed. A. K. Mcllwraith, Oxford, 1938.
1
. See Appendix I, 4.
1
. The instances noted, in the appropriate places, in footnotes to my translations, are derived from J. W. Cunliffe (
The Influence of
Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy:
Macmillan, 1893) who cites about twenty quotations.
1
. From this play Cunliffe quotes passages amounting to about 300 lines of translation or paraphrase from Seneca.
1
. âSeneca, let blood line by line and page by page, at length must needs die to our stage' â Thomas Nashe, Preface to Greene's
Menaphon
(1589).
1
. See
Phaedra
, 715. J. A. K. Thompson (
Shakespeare and the Classics
, 1952) finds in
Macbeth
the strongest evidences of direct classical influence and concludes that âShakespeare, before writing
Macbeth
, must have been reading Seneca, being especially struck by the
Hercules Furens.
'
1
. By Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville; acted 1561 by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple at Whitehall before the Queen.
2
.
Apology for Poetry, c
. 1580. The whole passage is printed in Halliday's
A Shakespeare Companion
, Penguin, 1964.
1
. Gascoigne's translation of Dolce's (Italian) version of Euripides'
Phoenissae
; the Countess of Pembroke's translation of Garnier's
Antonius
; Kyd's translation of Garnier's
Cornelia
; the
Meleager
,
Dido
, and
Ulysses
of Dr Gager of Christchurch.
1
. For instance,
The Rape of Lucrece
, 764â77:
O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
   Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator,
   With close-tongu'd treason and the ravisher!
O hateful, vaporous and foggy Night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time;
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
   His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
   Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.
1
.
Inst. Or
.,
X
. 1. 125.
1
. As if outside the supposed time of the play's action, Fury âforesees' the course of the feud which is now coming to a climax.
1
. The âThyestean banquet' has a precedent in the case of Procne (wife of the Thracian king Tereus) who killed and cooked his son Itys in revenge for the king's outrage upon her sister Philomela.