Making excuses. Seneca, Epistles 3.29.4-8
Seneca
shares his plan for approaching Marcellinus, a friend with some
obnoxious habits that Seneca would like him to lose. He imagines how
the conversation between himself and Marcellinus will go: Marcellinus
will avoid all Seneca's appeals to philosophy by pointing out the
historical existence of morally corrupt philosophers. Seneca will
persist in recommending reform, and the issue of the conversation
will be that Marcellinus is at least no worse, & maybe better,
than before.
Marcellinum
nostrum ego nondum despero; etiam nunc servari potest, sed si cito
illi manus porrigitur. Est quidem periculum ne porrigentem trahat;
magna in illo ingeni vis est, sed iam tendentis in pravum.
Nihilominus adibo hoc periculum et audebo illi mala sua ostendere.
Faciet quod solet: advocabit illas facetias quae risum evocare
lugentibus possunt, et in se primum, deinde in nos iocabitur; omnia
quae dicturus sum occupabit. Scrutabitur scholas nostras et obiciet
philosophis congiaria, amicas, gulam; ostendet mihi alium in
adulterio, alium in popina, alium in aula; ostendet mihi lepidum
philosophum Aristonem, qui in gestatione disserebat: hoc
enim ad edendas operas tempus exceperat. De cuius secta cum
quaereretur, Scaurus ait utique Peripateticus non est. De
eodem cum consuleretur Iulius Graecinus, vir egregius, quid sentiret,
non possum inquit tibi dicere; nescio enim quid de gradu
faciat, tamquam de essedario interrogaretur. Hos mihi circulatores
qui philosophiam honestius neglexissent quam vendunt in faciem
ingeret. Constitui tamen contumelias perpeti: moveat ille mihi risum,
ego fortasse illi lacrimas movebo, aut si ridere perseverabit,
gaudebo tamquam in malis quod illi genus insaniae hilare contigerit.
Sed non est ista hilaritas longa: observa, videbis eosdem intra
exiguum tempus acerrime ridere et acerrime rabere.
Propositum
est aggredi illum et ostendere quanto pluris fuerit cum multis
minoris videretur. Vitia eius etiam si non excidero, inhibebo; non
desinent, sed intermittent. Fortasse autem et desinent,
si intermittendi consuetudinem fecerint. Non est hoc ipsum
fastidiendum, quoniam quidem graviter affectis sanitatis loco est
bona remissio.
I've
not yet lost hope for our Marcellinus. Even now he can be saved, but
helping hands must reach him soon. There is some risk that he may
drag down the one who comes to save him, for his character holds
great power within, though it is currently bent towards wickedness.
Still, I shall brave this danger and dare to show him his faults. He
will do what he always does: summon those sarcastic quips he uses to
coax laughs from even the saddest folk, and make jokes at his own
expense before turning them against us. Everything I mean to say:
he'll get there first. He'll make a thorough study of our schools,
warding off philosophers by cataloguing their vices: gifts,
girlfriends, gluttony. He'll show me masters compromised, caught in
adultery, low taverns, or the court of some powerful lord. He'll show
off that smooth philosopher Ariston (†), who used to give teachings
in a litter. By this means the master made more time for eating! When
someone asked Scaurus what school this splendid fellow belonged to,
he says, “Definitely not the Peripatetics!” The same question was
put to Julius Graecinus, and that excellent man replied, “I cannot
tell you, for I don't even know what rank he achieved”—as though
he were a gladiator. Marcellinus will fling these hacks in my face,
two-bit peddlers who certainly ignored more philosophy than they ever
sold. But I've decided to suffer through the abuse. He might get me
to laugh, and perhaps I shall move him to tears. Or maybe he will
manage to laugh the whole time, and my solace will be the suffering
that accompanies that particular brand of madness. Its good cheer
does not last: watch closely, and you will see the same mad fools go
from laughter to furious despair in the blink of an eye.
My
plan is to approach Marcellinus and show how much better off he'd be
if he made less of an impression on others. Even if I don't succeed
in rooting out his vices, I will inhibit them. They will not cease
all at once, but perhaps they will become less consistent. And they
might even cease, if inconsistency becomes a habit. There is no cause
for annoyance either way, since remission can be as good as a cure to
those seriously afflicted.
---
(†)
Ariston of Chios, a skeptical philosopher who studied with Zeno, the Stoic. Contemporaries—among them Cicero and the praetors Marcus
Aemilius Scaurus and Lucius Julius Graecinus—remember him for his
lack of self-control (cf. Cicero, de Finibus 4.40).
Scaurus' joke hinges on the Greek word peripatetic meaning
ambulatory, referring
to the habit some philosophers had of walking while teaching.