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| Lucius Annaeus Seneca On the Shortness of Life IntraText CT - Text |
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| 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the midst of solitude, although they have withdrawn from all others, they are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? |
22 Apparently watch-dogs that were let in at nightfall, and caught the engrossed lawyer still at his task. 23 Literally, "spear," which was stuck in the ground as the sign of a public auction where captured or confiscated goods were put up for sale. 24 Cf. Pliny, Epistles, i. 9. 8: "satius est enim, ut Atilius noster eruditissime simul et facetissime dixit, otiosum esse quam nihil agere." 25 For the technical meaning of otiosi, "the leisured," see Seneca's definition at the beginning of chap. 14. 26 Actors in the popular mimes, or low farces, that were often censured for their indecencies. |
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