Seize the day? No. Unamuno, Life 5.19
Unamuno
wants to explain why none of the rational methods for motivating life
work for him. He begins with the Epicurean and Stoic positions, which
attempt to explain and motivate our lives in terms of rational
pleasure (thus Epicureans) or rational duty (thus Stoics). In each
case, nature offers the feedback that makes our pleasure or duty
rational, by limiting it. This is mortality, which is precisely what
Unamuno is not prepared to accept emotionally (with his heart),
though he might accept it rationally (with his head). The
unwillingness of the heart to reconcile with the head here makes his
fate, and faith, tragic.
Muchas
y muy variadas son las invenciones racionalistas—más o menos
racionales—con que desde los tiempos de epicúreos y estoicos se ha
tratado de buscar en la verdad racional consuelo y de convencer a los
hombres, aunque los que de ello trataran no estuviesen en sí mismos
convencidos, de que hay motivos de obrar y alicientes de vivir, aun
estando la conciencia humana destinada a desaparecer un día.
La
posición epicúrea, cuya forma extrema y más grosera es la de
«comamos y bebamos, que mañana moriremos», o el carpe
diem horaciano, que podría traducirse por «vive al día»,
no es, en el fondo, distinta de la posición estoica con su «cumple
con lo que la conciencia moral te dicte, y que sea después lo que
fuere». Ambas posiciones tienen una base común, y lo mismo es el
placer por el placer mismo que el deber por el mismo deber.
From
the time of the Epicureans and the Stoics, many and various rational
methods have been devised for searching out comfort in the truth of
reason, and for convincing mankind—against the conviction of our
most rational people—that there are reasonable motives for work and
incentives to life, even though human consciousness is destined to
disappear one day.
The
Epicurean position is not essentially or fundamentally different from
the Stoic. The crudest and most extreme formulation of Epicureanism
is, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!” Horace puts
it a little less coarsely with his carpe diem,
which we might translate as, “Live in the present!” (†)
Stoicism offers a different expression
of the same premise: “Do
that which your moral conscience dictates, and let the future come.”
Pleasure for pleasure's sake
is really the same as duty for duty's sake.
---
(†)
Eat, drink, & be merry is
a biblical formulation that recurs throughout the Old and New
Testaments: cf. Ecclesiastes 8.15; 1 Corinthians 15.32 (Paul omits
the merriment, naturally). Carpe diem ('Seize
the day!') is from the
eleventh Ode published by
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BCE), a Roman lyric poet whose ability
to imitate Greek elegance in Latin earned him a place in the court of
Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Horace
was a follower of Epicurus, whose teachings appear echoed throughout
his poems. Here is the ode
that includes our phrase,
with a free English translation:
Tu
ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di
dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius,
quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter
ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum.
Sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum
loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula
postero.
Do
not ask, Leuconoe
What
end the gods have given thee.
Nor
count the sacred seasons done
Like
ancient Babylonians.
Whenever
Jove delivers fate
Take
that winter, soon or late.
Suffer
what was bound to be
Like
stones that ride the pounding sea.
Taste
what fruit your vines have swelled
Crush
it now! In this brief spell
Prune
the hope that flowers long:
As
we speak, our moment's gone.
Pluck
the day while she's in prime
Don't
await some future time.