XII. Perhaps you ask whom I
would call "the engrossed "? There is no reason for you to suppose
that I mean only those whom the dogs22 that have at length been let in
drive out from the law-court, those whom you see either gloriously crushed in
their own crowd of followers, or scornfully in someone else's, those whom
social duties call forth from their own homes to bump them against someone
else's doors, or whom the praetor's hammer23 keeps busy in seeking gain
that is disreputable and that will one day fester. Even the leisure of some men
is engrossed; in their villa or on their couch, in the midst of solitude,
although they have withdrawn from all others, they are themselves the source of
their own worry; we should say that these are living, not in leisure, but in
busy idleness.24 Would you say that that man is at leisure25
who arranges with finical care his Corinthian bronzes, that the mania of a few
makes costly, and spends the greater part of each day upon rusty bits of
copper? Who sits in a public wrestling-place (for, to our shame I we labour
with vices that are not even Roman) watching the wrangling of lads? Who sorts
out the herds of his pack-mules into pairs of the same age and colour? Who
feeds all the newest athletes? Tell me, would you say that those men are at
leisure who pass many hours at the barber's while they are being stripped of
whatever grew out the night before? while a solemn debate is held over each
separate hair? while either disarranged locks are restored to their place or
thinning ones drawn from this side and that toward the forehead? How angry they
get if the barber has been a bit too careless, just as if he were shearing a
real man! How they flare up if any of their mane is lopped off, if any of it
lies out of order, if it does not all fall into its proper ringlets! Who of
these would not rather have the state disordered than his hair? Who is not more
concerned to have his head trim rather than safe? Who would not rather be well
barbered than upright? Would you say that these are at leisure who are occupied
with the comb and the mirror? And what of those who are engaged in composing,
hearing, and learning songs, while they twist the voice, whose best and
simplest movement Nature designed to be straightforward, into the meanderings
of some indolent tune, who are always snapping their fingers as they beat time
to some song they have in their head, who are overheard humming a tune when
they have been summoned to serious, often even melancholy, matters? These have
not leisure, but idle occupation. And their banquets, Heaven knows! I cannot
reckon among their unoccupied hours, since I see how anxiously they set out
their silver plate, how diligently they tie up the tunics of their pretty
slave-boys, how breathlessly they watch to see in what style the wild boar
issues from the hands of the cook, with what speed at a given signal
smooth-faced boys hurry to perform their duties, with what skill the birds are
carved into portions all according to rule, how carefully unhappy little lads
wipe up the spittle of drunkards. By such means they seek the reputation of
being fastidious and elegant, and to such an extent do their evils follow them
into all the privacies of life that they can neither eat nor drink without
ostentation. And I would not count these among the leisured class either—the
men who have themselves borne hither and thither in a sedan-chair and a litter,
and are punctual at the hours for their rides as if it were unlawful to omit
them, who are reminded by someone else when they must bathe, when they must
swim, when they must dine; so enfeebled are they by the excessive lassitude of
a pampered mind that they cannot find out by themselves whether they are
hungry! I hear that one of these pampered people—provided that you can call it
pampering to unlearn the habits of human life—when he had been lifted by hands
from the bath and placed in his sedan-chair, said questioningly: "Am I now
seated?" Do you think that this man, who does not know whether he is
sitting, knows whether he is alive, whether he sees, whether he is at leisure? I
find it hard to say whether I pity him more if he really did not know, or if he
pretended not to know this. They really are subject to forgetfulness of many
things, but they also pretend forgetfulness of many. Some vices delight them as
being proofs of their prosperity; it seems the part of a man who is very lowly
and despicable to know what he is doing. After this imagine that the
mimes26 fabricate many things to make a mock of luxury! In very truth,
they pass over more than they invent, and such a multitude of unbelievable
vices has come forth in this age, so clever in this one direction, that by now
we can charge the mimes with neglect. To think that there is anyone who is so
lost in luxury that he takes another's word as to whether he is sitting down! This
man, then, is not at leisure, you must apply to him a different term—he is
sick, nay, he is dead; that man is at leisure, who has also a perception of his
leisure. But this other who is half alive, who, in order that he may know the
postures of his own body, needs someone to tell him—how can he be the master of
any of his time?
|