Category Archives: Ancient History

by | May 15, 2015 · 4:25 pm

PLINY THE ELDER
(23-79)

from Natural History:
   Of God
   The Nature of the Earth
   What Diseases are Attended with the        Greatest Pain

 

Gaius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder to differentiate him from his nephew Pliny the Younger (62–113) [q.v.], was born in Como, Italy, and moved to Rome in his youth. He served as a military commander in Germany and was Procurator in Hispania Tarraconensis, but largely avoided politics. A scholar of considerable note, he wrote numerous works in a variety of fields, including rhetoric, history, biology, natural science, and military science. Only the Natural History remains extant. The 37 books of this work form an encyclopedia of human biology and natural science, including extensive accounts of herbal medicines.

In the year 79, Vesuvius erupted. Pliny, who was at the time commander of the fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples, was eager to observe the volcano at close range and attempt a rescue of people in the towns beneath the volcano; he died of exposure to poison gas while trying to do so, having collapsed and been left by his companions.

The first portion of this text presents Pliny’s well-known remark that some things are not possible for God, not even suicide, “the supreme boon that [God] has bestowed on man among all the penalties of life. . . .” This remark is often quoted out of context, an acerbic analysis of claims made about divinities, but has nevertheless intrigued many later authors, including David Hume [q.v.]. The second portion of this text provides Pliny’s account of a lethal herbal substance, probably opium or hemlock, which he argues is preferable to other means of suicide—self-starvation, jumping from a height, self-hanging, self-asphyxiation, self-drowning, and self-stabbing. What is significant here is Pliny’s apparent distinction between violent and nonviolent means of suicide and his embrace of the latter for those who are “weary of life.” This selection from Natural History also continues with his observations about the degree of pain associated with specific illnesses, in which cases sufferers sometimes seek suicide.

Sources

Pliny, The Natural History of Pliny, Book II, ch. 5,  “Of God,” ch. 63, “Nature of the Earth”; Book 25, ch. 7, “What Diseases are Attended with the Greatest Pain.” John Bostock and H. T. Riley, eds. and trs., London: Taylor and Francis, 1855, available online from Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University.

 

from NATURAL HISTORY

Of God

I consider it, therefore, an indication of human weakness to inquire into the figure and form of God. For whatever God be, if there be any other God , and wherever he exists, he is all sense, all sight, all hearing, all life, all mind , and all within himself. To believe that there are a number of Gods, derived from the virtues and vices of man, as Chastity, Concord, Understanding, Hope, Honour, Clemency, and Fidelity; or, according to the opinion of Democritus, that there are only two, Punishment and Reward , indicates still greater folly. Human nature, weak and frail as it is, mindful of its own infirmity, has made these divisions, so that every one might have recourse to that which he supposed himself to stand more particularly in need of. Hence we find different names employed by different nations; the inferior deities are arranged in classes, and diseases and plagues are deified, in consequence of our anxious wish to propitiate them. It was from this cause that a temple was dedicated to Fever, at the public expense, on the Palatine Hill, and to Orbona , near the Temple of the Lares, and that an altar was elected to Good Fortune on the Esquiline. Hence we may understand how it comes to pass that there is a greater population of the Celestials than of human beings, since each individual makes a separate God for himself, adopting his own Juno and his own Genius. And there are nations who make Gods of certain animals, and even certain obscene things, which are not to be spoken of, swearing by stinking meats and such like. To suppose that marriages are contracted between the Gods, and that, during so long a period, there should have been no issue from them, that some of them should be old and always grey- headed and others young and like children, some of a dark complexion, winged, lame, produced from eggs, living and dying on alternate days, is sufficiently puerile and foolish. But it is the height of impudence to imagine, that adultery takes place between them, that they have contests and quarrels, and that there are Gods of theft and of various crimes. To assist man is to be a God; this is the path to eternal glory. This is the path which the Roman nobles formerly pursued, and this is the path which is now pursued by the greatest ruler of our age, Vespasian Augustus, he who has come to the relief of an exhausted empire, as well as by his sons. This was the ancient mode of remunerating those who deserved it, to regard them as Gods. For the names of all the Gods, as well as of the stars that I have mentioned above, have been derived from their services to mankind. And with respect to Jupiter and Mercury, and the rest of the celestial nomenclature, who does not admit that they have reference to certain natural phenomena? But it is ridiculous to suppose, that the great head of all things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.  Can we believe, or rather can there be any doubt, that it is not polluted by such a disagreeable and complicated office?

 

Nature of the Earth

Next comes the earth, on which alone of all parts of nature we have bestowed the name that implies maternal veneration. It is appropriated to man as the heavens are to God. She receives us at our birth, nourishes us when born, and ever afterwards supports us; lastly, embracing us in her bosom when we are rejected by the rest of nature, she then covers us with especial tenderness; rendered sacred to us, inasmuch as she renders us sacred, bearing our monuments and titles, continuing our names, and extending our memory, in opposition to the shortness of life. In our anger we imprecate her on those who are now no more, as if we were ignorant that she is the only being who can never be angry with man. The water passes into showers, is concreted into hail, swells into rivers, is precipitated in torrents; the air is condensed into clouds, rages in squalls; but the earth, kind, mild, and indulgent as she is, and always ministering to the wants of mortals, how many things do we compel her to produce spontaneously! What odours and flowers, nutritive juices, forms and colours! With what good faith does she render back all that has been entrusted to her! It is the vital spirit which must bear the blame of producing noxious animals; for the earth is constrained to receive the seeds of them, and to support them when they are produced. The fault lies in the evil nature which generates them. The earth will no longer harbour a serpent after it has attacked any one, and thus she even demands punishment in the name of those who are indifferent about it themselves. She pours forth a profusion of medicinal plants, and is always producing something for the use of man. We may even suppose, that it is out of compassion to us that she has ordained certain substances to be poisonous, in order that when we are weary of life, hunger, a mode of death the most foreign to the kind disposition of the earth, might not consume us by a slow decay, that precipices might not lacerate our mangled bodies, that the unseemly punishment of the halter may not torture us, by stopping the breath of one who seeks his own destruction, or that we may not seek our death in the ocean, and become food for our graves, or that our bodies may not be gashed by steel. On this account it is that nature has produced a substance which is very easily taken, and by which life is extinguished, the body remaining undefiled and retaining all its blood, and only causing a degree of thirst. And when it is destroyed by this means, neither bird nor beast will touch the body, but he who has perished by his own hands is reserved for the earth.

 

What Diseases are Attended with the Greatest Pain

It would seem almost an act of folly to attempt to determine which of these diseases is attended with the most excruciating pain, seeing that everyone is of the opinion that the malady with which for the moment he himself is afflicted, is the most excruciating and insupportable. The general experience, however, of the present age has come to the conclusion, that the most agonizing torments are those attendant upon strangury, resulting from calculi in the bladder; next to them, those arising from maladies of the stomach; and in the third place, those caused by pains and affections of the head; for it is more generally in these cases, we find, and not in others, that patients are tempted to commit suicide.

For my own part, I am surprised that the Greek authors have gone so far as to give a description of noxious plants even; in using which term, I wish it to be understood that I do not mean the poisonous plants merely; for such is our tenure of life that death is often a port of refuge to even the best of men. We meet too, with one case of a somewhat similar nature, where M. Varro speaks of Servius Clodius, a member of the Equestrian order, being so dreadfully tormented with gout, that he had his legs rubbed all over with poisons, the result of which was, that from that time forward all sensation, equally with all pain, was deadened in those parts of his body. But what excuse, I say, can there be for making the world acquainted with plants, the only result of the use of which is to derange the intellect, to produce abortion, and to cause numerous other effects equally pernicious? So far as I am concerned, I shall describe neither abortives nor philtres, bearing in mind, as I do, that Lucullus, that most celebrated general, died of the effects of a philtre. Nor shall I speak of other ill-omened devices of magic, unless it be to give warning against them, or to expose them, for I most emphatically condemn all faith and belief in them. It will suffice for me, and I shall have abundantly done my duty, if I point out those plants which were made for the benefit of mankind, and the properties of which have been discovered in the lapse of time.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Europe, Pliny the Elder, Selections

by | · 4:20 pm

VALERIUS MAXIMUS
(fl. c. 14-c. 37)

from Memorable Doings and Sayings

 

Born to a poor and undistinguished family, the facts of Valerius Maximus’s life remain largely unknown. Attached to the retinue of Sextus Pompeius (consul and later proconsul of Asia during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius and part of a literary circle to which Ovid belonged), Valerius accompanied Sextus to the East in the mid 20’s. Valerius compiled a collection of historical anecdotes, Memorable Doings and Sayings, taken largely from Greek and other Latin writers, apparently to be used for teaching students of rhetoric the art of using historical references to embellish speeches. His sources include Cicero [q. v.] and Livy [q. v.]. These anecdotes, grouped in nine books under virtues and vices, described both Roman and foreign practices.

The brief account of end-of-life customs Valerius ascribes to the Massilians (inhabitants of what is now Marseilles, France) involves a practice in which people having rational reasons for ending their lives could apply to the Senate for permission to do so, and with it, have access to the state-maintained supply of the poison hemlock. What is notable about Valerius’s account is his report that two sorts of reasons were recognized as compelling: if one faced severe suffering or other hardship, or if one’s life were going really well and one did not choose to face a later decline. While Valerius is not recognized as a reliable historian and his writings contain many inconsistencies, errors, and contradictions, his work is the only authority for accounts of the Massilians. Similarly, Valerius’s relating of the voluntary death of a woman on the isle of Ceos, an Aegean island Valerius had apparently visited en route to the East with Sextus Pompeius (the customs of Ceos were later the focus of an essay by Montaigne [q.v.]), is also compelling: in her 90s, still in good health and of high rank and good fortune, she nevertheless seeks permission to end her life while still, so to speak, ahead of the game.

Source

Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings, Book II, 6, ed. and tr. D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Cambridge and London: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 2000, alternate English, pp. 167-177. Footnotes deleted. Quotation in introduction from p. 4.

 

from MEMORABLE DOINGS AND SAYINGS

The same community [the Massilians] is a most strict guardian of morals, not allowing mimes access to the stage, as their themes for the most part involve the enactment of illicit intercourse, lest the habit of watching such things take licence to imitate them. It closes its gates to all who by some pretense of religion seek sustenance for sloth, holding that false and fraudulent superstition should be ousted.

Also, from the foundation of the city there is a sword therein to kill the guilty. It is eroded by rust and scarcely adequate to its function, but a sign that even in the smallest details the monuments of ancient custom are to be preserved. Also two coffins lie before their gates. In one the bodies of freemen, in the other of slaves are carried in a cart to the place of burial without wailing or breast-beating. Mourning ends on the day of the funeral with a domestic sacrifice and a banquet for relatives and friends. For what is the use of indulging human grief or arousing odium against divine power because it did not choose to share its immortality with us?

A poison compounded of hemlock is under public guard in that community, which is given to one who has shown reasons to the Six Hundred, as their senate is called, why death is desirable for him. The enquiry is conducted with firmness tempered by benevolence, not suffering the subject to leave life rashly but providing swift means of death to one who rationally desires a way out. Thus persons encountering an excess of bad fortune or good (for either might afford reason for ending life, the one lest it continue, the other lest it fail) find a finish to it in an approved departure.

I believe this usage of the Massilians did not originate in Gaul but was borrowed from Greece because I saw it also observed in the island of Cea when I entered the town of Iulis on my way to Asia with Sex. Pompeius. For it so happened on that occasion that a lady of the highest rank there but in extreme old age, after explaining to her fellow citizens why she ought to depart from life, determined to put an end to herself by poison and set much store on having her death gain celebrity by the presence of Pompeius. Nor could that gentleman reject her plea, excellently endowed as he was with the virtue of good nature as with all other noble qualities. So he visited her and in fluent speech, which flowed from his lips as from some copious fountain of eloquence, tried at length but in vain to turn her back from her design. Finally he let her carry out her intention. Having passed her ninetieth year in the soundest health of mind and body, she lay on her bed, which was spread, as far as might be perceived, more elegantly than every day, and resting on her elbow she spoke: “Sex. Pompeius, may the gods whom I am leaving rather than those to whom I am going repay you because you have not disdained to urge me to live nor yet to be witness of my death. As for me, I have always seen Fortune’s smiling face. Rather than be forced through greed of living to see her frown, I am exchanging what remains of my breath for a happy end, leaving two daughters and a flock of seven (?) grandchildren to survive me.” Then, having urged her family to live in harmony, she distributed her estate among them, and having consigned her own observance and the domestic rites to her elder daughter, she took the cup in which the poison had been mixed in a firm grasp. After pouring libations to Mercury and invoking his divine power, that he conduct her on a calm journey to the happier part of the underworld, she eagerly drained the fatal potion. She indicated in words the parts of her body which numbness seized one by one, and when she told us that it was about to reach her vitals and heart, she summoned her daughters’ hands to the last office, to close her eyes. As for us Romans, she dismissed us, stunned by so extraordinary a spectacle but bathed in tears.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Europe, Maximus, Valerius, Selections, Valerius Maximus

by | · 4:09 pm

SENECA
(4 B.C.–65 A.D.)

from Moral Letters to Lucilius
   Letter 70: On the Proper Time to Slip       the Cable
   Letter 77: On Taking One’s Own Life
   Letter 78: On the Healing Power of       the Mind

 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, born in Cordoba, Spain, was the son of the prominent rhetorician and writer known as Seneca Rhetor, or Seneca the Elder; and Helvia, a cultured woman of deep philosophical interests. As a young boy, Seneca the Younger was sent to Rome to study rhetoric and classical philosophy. He showed promise in law and politics, but was hampered by poor health and the uncertain political climate in Rome.

After a recuperative period in Egypt, Seneca returned to Rome and re-entered public life, rapidly gaining fame as an orator. This brought him into disfavor with the emperor Caligula, who wanted no rivals, and Seneca would probably have been murdered if Caligula had not been told that Seneca’s poor health would be the death of him before long. Seneca had been a member of the court of the emperor Claudius before he was accused by the empress Messalina of being the lover of Claudius’s niece; Seneca was condemned to death, but the sentence was changed to banishment to Corsica. Seneca spent eight years in exile on Corsica, where he wrote the Consolations; he was recalled by Agrippina, now married to her uncle Claudius, to become tutor to her son Nero. After Agrippina murdered Claudius and Nero acceded to the throne, Seneca together with the praetorian prefect Burrus exercised considerable political influence. There was a brief period of good government, encouraging fiscal and judicial reforms and a more humane attitude toward slaves. However, in 59, Agrippina was murdered by Nero, with the complicity of Seneca, and other conspiracies were unleashed. Nero began to turn against Seneca; he permitted Seneca to retire from politics in 62, but three years later, accused him of being involved in the Pisonian conspiracy and had him sentenced to death. Seneca committed suicide by exsanguination, opening his veins. According to Tacitus [q.v.], Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide; other historians maintain, however, that Seneca chose to commit suicide rather than be executed for his alleged part in the conspiracy.

Seneca’s writings include the Moral Essays, the Moral Letters to Lucilius (a collection of 124 essays on a wide range of topics, including suicide), several tragedies based on classical Greek drama, dialogues, and seven books of philosophical essays called Natural Questions. He was not so much an original philosopher as a moral teacher and proponent of Stoic thought; his originality rests mainly in the artistic and compelling way he presented his ideas. He urged people to be indifferent to the fleeting things of the world, emphasizing composure, wisdom, goodness, and control of the emotions over false valuations of material goods and external praise, and he viewed the achievement of virtue as the true end of philosophy. Seneca’s influence has been felt in both philosophy and drama, especially in medieval and Renaissance literature.

In these selections from the Moral Letters, Seneca argues that it is the quality of life, not the quantity, that is important. He argues against thinking of suicide as an act that inappropriately cuts a life short. Unlike a journey cut short, which is incomplete, life cut short can still be complete if it has been lived well. Freedom and self-determination are of primary importance; suicide is the way for one to retain control and freedom over one’s life, and, in accordance with Stoic thinking, it is the act par excellence of the wise man. While history gives examples of noble figures who have killed themselves, such as Cato, Seneca also gives examples of ordinary people who have done so as well, arguing that only will and courage are needed to end one’s life, not even a divine call. “The wise man will live as long as he ought,” Seneca famously says in Letter 70, “not as long as he can.” Among the Stoics, Seneca’s celebration of voluntary death is most pronounced and most central to his thought.

Source

Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Letters 70, 77, 78, tr. Richard M. Gummere, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920, Vol. 2, pp. 57–73, 169–199.

from MORAL LETTERS TO LUCILIUS

Letter 70: On the Proper Time to Slip the Cable

After a long space of time I have seen your beloved Pompeii. I was thus brought again face to face with the days of my youth. And it seemed to me that I could still do, nay, had only done a short time ago, all the things which I did there when a young man. We have sailed past life, Lucilius, as if we were on a voyage, and just as when at sea, to quote from our poet Vergil,

Lands and towns are left astern,

even so, on this journey where time flies with the greatest speed, we put below the horizon first our boyhood and then our youth, and then the space which lies between young manhood and middle age and borders on both, and next, the best years of old age itself. Last of all, we begin to sight the general bourne of the race of man. Fools that we are, we believe this bourne to be a dangerous reef; but it is the harbor, where we must some day put in, which we may never refuse to enter; and if a man has reached this harbor in his early years, he has no more right to complain than a sailor who has made a quick voyage. For some sailors, as you know, are tricked and held back by sluggish winds, and grow weary and sick of the slow-moving calm; while others are carried quickly home by steady gales.

You may consider that the same thing happens to us; life has carried some men with the greatest rapidity to the harbor, the harbor they were bound to reach even if they tarried on the way, while others it has fretted and harassed. To such a life, as you are aware, one should not always cling. For mere living is not a good, but living well. Accordingly, the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. He will mark in what place, with whom, and how he is to conduct his existence, and what he is about to do. He always reflects concerning the quality, and not the quantity, of his life. As soon as there are many events in his life that give him trouble and disturb his peace of mind, he sets himself free. And this privilege is his, not only when the crisis is upon him, but as soon as Fortune seems to be playing him false; then he looks about carefully and sees whether he ought, or ought not, to end his life on that account. He holds that it makes no difference to him whether his taking-off be natural or self-inflicted, whether it comes later or earlier. He does not regard it with fear, as if it were a great loss; for no man can lose very much when but a driblet remains. It is not a question of dying earlier or later, but of dying well or ill. And dying well means escape from the danger of living ill.

That is why I regard the words of the well-known Rhodian as most unmanly. This person was thrown into a cage by his tyrant, and fed there like some wild animal. And when a certain man advised him to end his life by fasting, he replied: “A man may hope for anything while he has life.” This may be true; but life is not to be purchased at any price. No matter how great or how well-assured certain rewards may be, I shall not strive to attain them at the price of a shameful confession of weakness. Shall I reflect that Fortune has all power over one who lives, rather than reflect that she has no power over one who knows how to die? There are times, nevertheless, when a man, even though certain death impends and he knows that torture is in store for him, will refrain from lending a hand to his own punishment; to himself, however, he would lend a hand. It is folly to die through fear of dying. The executioner is upon you; wait for him. Why anticipate him? Why assume the management of a cruel task that belongs to another? Do you grudge your executioner his privilege, or do you merely relieve him of his task? Socrates might have ended his life by fasting; he might have died by starvation rather than by poison. But instead of this he spent thirty days in prison awaiting death, not with the idea “everything may happen,” or “so long an interval has room for many a hope” but in order that he might show himself submissive to the laws and make the last moments of Socrates an edification to his friends. What would have been more foolish than, scorning death, at the same time to be afraid of poison?

Scribonia, a woman of the stern old type, was an aunt of Drusus Libo. This young man was as stupid as he was well born, with higher ambitions than anyone could have been expected to entertain in that epoch, or a man like himself in any epoch at all. When Libo had been carried away ill from the senate-house in his litter, though certainly with a very scanty train of followers,—for all his kinsfolk undutifully deserted him, when he was no longer a criminal but a corpse,—he began to consider whether he should commit suicide, or await death. Scribonia said to him: “What pleasure do you find in doing another man’s work?” But he did not follow her advice; he laid violent hands upon himself. And he was right, after all; for when a man is doomed to die in two or three days at his enemy’s pleasure, he is really “doing another man’s work” if he continues to live.

No general statement can be made, therefore, with regard to the question whether, when a power beyond our control threatens us with death, we should anticipate death, or await it. For there are many arguments to pull us in either direction. If one death is accompanied by torture, and the other is simple and easy, why not snatch the latter? Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life. Moreover, just as a long-drawn-out life does not necessarily mean a better one, so a long-drawn-out death necessarily means a worse one. There is no occasion when the soul should be humored more than at the moment of death. Let the soul depart as it feels itself impelled to go; whether it seeks the sword, or the halter, or some draught that attacks the veins, let it proceed and burst the bonds of its slavery. Every man ought to make his life acceptable to others besides himself, but his death to himself alone. The best form of death is the one we like. Men are foolish who reflect thus: “One person will say that my conduct was not brave enough; another, that I was too headstrong; a third, that a particular kind of death would have betokened more spirit.” What you should really reflect is: “I have under consideration a purpose with which the talk of men has no concern!” Your sole aim should be to escape from Fortune as speedily as possible; otherwise, there will be no lack of persons who will think ill of what you have done.

You can find men who have gone so far as to profess wisdom and yet maintain that one should not offer violence to one’s own life, and hold it accursed for a man to be the means of his own destruction; we should wait, say they, for the end decreed by nature. But one who says this does not see that he is shutting off the path to freedom. The best thing which eternal law ever ordained was that it allowed to us one entrance into life, but many exits. Must I await the cruelty either of disease or of man, when I can depart through the midst of torture, and shake off my troubles? This is the one reason why we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will. Humanity is well situated, because no man is unhappy except by his own fault. Live, if you so desire; if not, you may return to the place whence you came. You have often been cupped in order to relieve headaches. You have had veins cut for the purpose of reducing your weight. If you would pierce your heart, a gaping wound is not necessary; a lancet will open the way to that great freedom, and tranquility can be purchased at the cost of a pin-prick.

What, then, is it which makes us lazy and sluggish? None of us reflects that some day he must depart from this house of life; just so old tenants are kept from moving by fondness for a particular place and by custom, even in spite of ill-treatment. Would you be free from the restraint of your body? Live in it as if you were about to leave it. Keep thinking of the fact that some day you will be deprived of this tenure; then you will be more brave against the necessity of departing. But how will a man take thought of his own end, if he craves all things without end? And yet there is nothing so essential for us to consider. For our training in other things is perhaps superfluous. Our souls have been made ready to meet poverty; but our riches have held out. We have armed ourselves to scorn pain; but we have had the good fortune to possess sound and healthy bodies, and so have never been forced to put this virtue to the test. We have taught ourselves to endure bravely the loss of those we love; but Fortune has preserved to us all whom we loved. It is in this one matter only that the day will come which will require us to test our training.

You need not think that none but great men have had the strength to burst the bonds of human servitude; you need not believe that this cannot be done except by a Cato,—Cato, who with his hand dragged forth the spirit which he had not succeeded in freeing by the sword. Nay, men of the meanest lot in life have by a mighty impulse escaped to safety, and when they were not allowed to die at their own convenience, or to suit themselves in their choice of the instruments of death, they have snatched up whatever was lying ready to hand, and by sheer strength have turned objects which were by nature harmless into weapons of their own. For example, there was lately in a training-school for wild-beast gladiators a German, who was making ready for the morning exhibition; he withdrew in order to relieve himself,—the only thing which he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood, tipped with a sponge, which was devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it, just as it was, down his throat; thus he blocked up his windpipe, and choked the breath from his body. That was truly to insult death! Yes, indeed; it was not a very elegant of becoming way to die; but what is more foolish than to be over-nice about dying? What a brave fellow! He surely deserved to be allowed to choose his fate! How bravely he would have wielded a sword! With what courage he would have hurled himself into the depths of the sea, or down a precipice! Cut off from resources on every hand, he yet found a way to furnish himself with death, and with a weapon for death. Hence you can understand that nothing but the will need postpone death. Let each man judge the deed of this most zealous fellow as he likes, provided we agree on this point,—that the foulest death is preferable to the cleanest slavery.

Inasmuch as I began with an illustration taken from humble life, I shall keep on with that sort. For men will make greater demands upon themselves, if they see that death can be despised even by the most despised class of men. The Catos, the Scipios, and the others whose names we are wont to hear with admiration, we regard as beyond the sphere of imitation; but I shall now prove to you that the virtue of which I speak is found as frequently in the gladiators’ training-school as among the leaders in a civil war. Lately a gladiator, who had been sent forth to the morning exhibition, was being conveyed in a cart along with the other prisoners; nodding as if he were heavy with sleep, he let his head fall over so far that it was caught in the spokes; then he kept his body in position long enough to break his neck by the revolution of the wheel. So he made his escape by means of the very wagon which was carrying him to his punishment.

When a man desires to burst forth and take his departure, nothing stands in his way. It is an open space in which Nature guards us. When our plight is such as to permit it, we may look about us for an easy exit. If you have many opportunities ready to hand, by means of which you may liberate yourself, you may make a selection and think over the best way of gaining freedom; but if a chance is hard to find, instead of the best, snatch the next best, even though it be something unheard of, something new. If you do not lack the courage, you will not lack the cleverness, to die. See how even the lowest class of slave, when suffering goads him on, is aroused and discovers a way to deceive even the most watchful guards! He is truly great who not only has given himself the order to die, but has also found the means.

I have promised you, however, some more illustrations drawn from the same games. During the second event in a sham sea-fight one of the barbarians sank deep into his own throat a spear which had been given him for use against his foe. “Why, oh why,” he said, “have I not long ago escaped from all this torture and all this mockery? Why should I be armed and yet wait for death to come?” This exhibition was all the more striking because of the lesson men learn from it that dying is more honorable than killing.

What, then? If such a spirit is possessed by abandoned and dangerous men, shall it not be possessed also by those who have trained themselves to meet such contingencies by long meditation, and by reason, the mistress of all things? It is reason which teaches us that fate has various ways of approach, but the same end, and that it makes no difference at what point the inevitable event begins. Reason, too, advises us to die, if we may, according to our taste; if this cannot be, she advises us to die according to our ability, and to seize upon whatever means shall offer itself for doing violence to ourselves. It is criminal to “live by robbery”; but, on the other hand, it is most noble to “die by robbery.” Farewell.

Letter 77: On Taking One’s Own Life

Suddenly there came into our view to-day the “Alexandrian” ships,—I mean those which are usually sent ahead to announce the coming of the fleet; they are called “mail-boats.” The Campanians are glad to see them; all the rabble of Puteoli stand on the docks, and can recognize the “Alexandrian” boats, no matter how great the crowd of vessels, by the very trim of their sails. For they alone may keep spread their topsails, which all ships use when out at sea, because nothing sends a ship along so well as its upper canvas; that is where most of the speed is obtained. So when the breeze has stiffened and becomes stronger than is comfortable, they set their yards lower; for the wind has less force near the surface of the water. Accordingly, when they have made Capreae and the headland whence

Tall Pallas watches on the stormy peak,

all other vessels are bidden to be content with the mainsail, and the topsail stands out conspicuously on the “Alexandrian” mail-boats.

While everybody was bustling about and hurrying to the water-front, I felt great pleasure in my laziness, because, although I was soon to receive letters from my friends, I was in no hurry to know how my affairs were progressing abroad, or what news the letters were bringing; for some time now I have had no losses, nor gains either. Even if I were not an old man, I could not have helped feeling pleasure at this; but as it is, my pleasure was far greater. For, however small my possessions might be, I should still have left over more traveling-money than journey to travel, especially since this journey upon which we have set out is one which need not be followed to the end. An expedition will be incomplete if one stops half-way, or anywhere on this side of one’s destination; but life is not incomplete if it is honorable. At whatever point you leave off living, provided you leave off nobly, your life is a whole. Often, however, one must leave off bravely, and our reasons therefore need not be momentous; for neither are the reasons momentous which hold us here.

Tullius Marcellinus, a man whom you knew very well, who in youth was a quiet soul and became old prematurely, fell ill of a disease which was by no means hopeless; but it was protracted and troublesome, and it demanded much attention; hence he began to think about dying. He called many of his friends together. Each one of them gave Marcellinus advice,—the timid friend urging him to do what he had made up his mind to do; the flattering and wheedling friend giving counsel which he supposed would be more pleasing to Marcellinus when he came to think the matter over; but our Stoic friend, a rare man, and, to praise him in language which he deserves, a man of courage and vigor, admonished him best of all, as it seems to me. For he began as follows: “Do not torment yourself, my dear Marcellinus, as if the question which you are weighing were a matter of importance. It is not an important matter to live; all your slaves live, and so do all animals; but it is important to die honorably, sensibly, bravely. Reflect how long you have been doing the same thing: food, sleep, lust,—this is one’s daily round. The desire to die may be felt, not only by the sensible man or the brave or unhappy man, but even by the man who is merely surfeited.”

Marcellinus did not need someone to urge him, but rather someone to help him; his slaves refused to do his bidding. The Stoic therefore removed their fears, showing them that there was no risk involved for the household except when it was uncertain whether the master’s death was self-sought or not; besides, it was as bad a practice to prevent one’s master from killing himself as it was to kill him. Then he suggested to Marcellinus himself that it would be a kindly act to distribute gifts to those who had attended him throughout his whole life, when that life was finished, just as, when a banquet is finished, the remaining portion is divided among the attendants who stand about the table. Marcellinus was of a complaint and generous disposition, even when it was a question of his own property; so he distributed little sums among his sorrowing slaves, and comforted them besides. No need had he of sword or of bloodshed; for three days he fasted and had a tent put up in his very bedroom. Then a tub was brought in; he lay in it for a long time, and, as the hot water was continually poured over him, he gradually passed away, not without a feeling of pleasure, as he himself remarked,—such a feeling as a slow dissolution is wont to give. Those of us who have ever fainted know from experience what this feeling is.

This little anecdote into which I have digressed will not be displeasing to you. For you will see that your friend departed neither with difficulty nor with suffering. Though he committed suicide, yet he withdrew most gently, gliding out of life. The anecdote may also be of some use; for often a crisis demands just such examples. There are times when we ought to die and are unwilling; sometimes we die and are unwilling. No one is so ignorant as not to know that we must some time die; nevertheless, when one draws near death, one turns to flight, trembles, and laments. Would you not think him an utter fool who wept because he was not alive a thousand years ago? And is he not just as much of a fool who weeps because he will not be alive a thousand years from now? It is all the same; you will not be, and you were not. Neither of these periods of time belongs to you. You have been cast upon this point of time; if you would make it longer, how much longer shall you make it? Why weep? Why pray? You are taking pains to no purpose.

Give over thinking that your prayers can bend
Divine decrees from their predestined end.

These decrees are unalterable and fixed; they are governed by a mighty and everlasting compulsion. Your goal will be the goal of all things. What is there strange in this to you? You were born to be subject to this law; this fate befell your father, your mother, your ancestors, all who came before you; and it will befall all who shall come after you. A sequence which cannot be broken or altered by any power binds all things together and draws all things in its course. Think of the multitudes of men doomed to death who will come after you, of the multitudes who will go with you! You would die more bravely, I suppose, in the company of many thousands; and yet there are many thousands, both of men and of animals, who at this very moment, while you are irresolute about death, are breathing their last, in their several ways. But you,—did you believe that you would not some day reach the goal towards which you have always been traveling? No journey but has its end.

You think, I suppose, that it is now in order for me to cite some examples of great men. No, I shall cite rather the case of a boy. The story of the Spartan lad has been preserved: taken captive while still a stripling, he kept crying in his Doric dialect, “I will not be a slave!” and he made good his word; for the very first time he was ordered to perform a menial and degrading service,—and the command was to fetch a chamber pot,—he dashed out his brains against the wall. So near at hand is freedom, and is anyone still a slave? Would you not rather have your own son die thus than reach old age by weakly yielding? Why therefore are you distressed, when even a boy can die so bravely? Suppose that you refuse to follow him; you will be led. Take into your own control that which is now under the control of another. Will you not borrow that boy’s courage, and say: “I am no slave!”? Unhappy fellow, you are a slave to men, you are a slave to your business, you are a slave to life. For life, if courage to die be lacking, is slavery.

Have you anything worth waiting for? Your very pleasures, which cause you to tarry and hold you back, have already been exhausted by you. None of them is a novelty to you, and there is none that has not already become hateful because you are cloyed with it. You know the taste of wine and cordials. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand measures pass through your bladder; you are nothing but a wine-strainer. You are a connoisseur in the flavor of the oyster and of the mullet; your luxury has not left you anything untasted for the years that are to come; and yet these are the things from which you are torn away unwillingly. What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you? Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner? The light of the sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light? Confess the truth; it is not because you long for the senate-chamber or the forum, or even for the world of nature, that you would fain put off dying; it is because you are loth to leave the fish-market, though you have exhausted its stores.

You are afraid of death; but how can you scorn it in the midst of a mushroom supper? You wish to live; well, do you know how to live? You are afraid to die. But come now: is this life of yours anything but death? Gaius Caesar was passing along the Via Latina, when a man stepped out from the ranks of the prisoners, his grey beard hanging down even to his breast, and begged to be put to death. “What!” said Caesar, “are you alive now?” That is the answer which should be given to men to whom death would come as a relief. “You are afraid to die; what! are you alive now?” “But,” says one, “I wish to live, for I am engaged in many honorable pursuits. I am loth to leave life’s duties, which I am fulfilling with loyalty and zeal.” Surely you are aware that dying is also one of life’s duties? You are deserting no duty; for there is no definite number established which you are bound to complete. There is no life that is not short. Compared with the world of nature, even Nestor’s life was a short one, or Sattia’s, the woman who bade carve on her tombstone that she had lived ninety and nine years. Some persons, you see, boast of their long lives; but who could have endured the old lady if she had had the luck to complete her hundredth year? It is with life as it is with a play,—it matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is. It makes no difference at what point you stop. Stop whenever you choose; only see to it that the closing period is well turned. Farewell.

 

 Letter 78: On the Healing Power of the Mind

That you are frequently troubled by the snuffling of catarrh and by short attacks of fever which follow after long and chronic catarrhal seizures, I am sorry to hear; particularly because I have experienced this sort of illness myself, and scorned it in its early stages. For when I was still young, I could put up with hardships and show a bold front to illness. But I finally succumbed, and arrived at such a state that I could do nothing but snuffle, reduced as I was to the extremity of thinness. I often entertained the impulse of ending my life then and there; but the thought of my kind old father kept me back. For I reflected, not how bravely I had the power to die, but how little power he had to bear bravely the loss of me. And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.

Now I shall tell you what consoled me during those days, stating at the outset that these very aids to my peace of mind were as efficacious as medicine. Honorable consolation results in a cure; and whatever has uplifted the soul helps the body also. My studies were my salvation. I place it to the credit of philosophy that I recovered and regained my strength. I owe my life to philosophy, and that is the least of my obligations! My friends, too, helped me greatly toward good health; I used to be comforted by their cheering words, by the hours they spent at my bedside, and by their conversation. Nothing, my excellent Lucilius, refreshes and aids a sick man so much as the affection of his friends; nothing so steals away the expectation and the fear of death. In fact, I could not believe that, if they survived me, I should be dying at all. Yes, I repeat, it seemed to me that I should continue to live, not with them, but through them. I imagined myself not to be yielding up my soul, but to be making it over to them.

All these things gave me the inclination to succor myself and to endure any torture; besides, it is a most miserable state to have lost one’s zest for dying, and to have no zest in living. These, then, are the remedies to which you should have recourse. The physician will prescribe your walks and your exercise; he will warn you not to become addicted to idleness, as is the tendency of the inactive invalid; he will order you to read in a louder voice and to exercise your lungs, the passages and cavity of which are affected; or to sail and shake up your bowels by a little mild motion; he will recommend the proper food, and the suitable time for aiding your strength with wine or refraining from it in order to keep your cough from being irritated and hacking. But as for me, my counsel to you is this,—and it is a cure, not merely of this disease of yours, but of your whole life,—“Despise death.” There is no sorrow in the world, when we have escaped from the fear of death. There are these three serious elements in every disease: fear of death, bodily pain, and interruption of pleasures. Concerning death enough has been said, and I shall add only a word: this fear is not a fear of disease, but a fear of nature. Disease has often postponed death, and a vision of dying has been many a man’s salvation. You will die, not because you are ill, but because you are alive; even when you have been cured, the same end awaits you; when you have recovered, it will be not death, but ill-health, that you have escaped.

Let us now return to the consideration of the characteristic disadvantage of disease: it is accompanied by great suffering. The suffering, however, is rendered endurable by interruptions; for the strain of extreme pain must come to an end. No man can suffer both severely and for a long time; Nature, who loves us most tenderly, has so constituted us as to make pain either endurable or short. The severest pains have their seat in the most slender parts of our body; nerves, joints, and any other of the narrow passages, hurt most cruelly when they have developed trouble within their contracted spaces. But these parts soon become numb, and by reason of the pain itself lose the sensation of pain, whether because the life-force, when checked in its natural course and changed for the worse, loses the peculiar power through which it thrives and through which it warns us, or because the diseased humors of the body, when they cease to have a place into which they may flow, are thrown back upon themselves, and deprive of sensation the parts where they have caused congestion. So gout, both in the feet and in the hands, and all pain in the vertebrae and in the nerves, have their intervals of rest at the times when they have dulled the parts which they before had tortured; the first twinges, in all such cases, are what cause the distress, and their onset is checked by lapse of time, so that there is an end of pain when numbness has set in. Pain in the teeth, eyes, and ears is most acute for the very reason that it begins among the narrow spaces of the body,—no less acute, indeed, than in the head itself. But if it is more violent than usual, it turns to delirium and stupor. This is, accordingly, a consolation for excessive pain,—that you cannot help ceasing to feel it if you feel it to excess. The reason, however, why the inexperienced are impatient when their bodies suffer is, that they have not accustomed themselves to be contented in spirit. They have been closely associated with the body. Therefore a high-minded and sensible man divorces soul from body, and dwells much with the better or divine part, and only as far as he must with this complaining and frail portion.

“But it is a hardship,” men say, “to do without our customary pleasures,—to fast, to feel thirst and hunger.” These are indeed serious when one first abstains from them. Later the desire dies down, because the appetites themselves which lead to desire are wearied and forsake us; then the stomach becomes petulant, then the food which we craved before becomes hateful. Our very wants die away. But there is no bitterness in doing without that which you have ceased to desire. Moreover, every pain sometimes stops, or at any rate slackens; moreover, one may take precautions against its return, and, when it threatens, may check it by means of remedies. Every variety of pain has its premonitory symptoms; this is true, at any rate, of pain that is habitual and recurrent. One can endure the suffering which disease entails, if one has come to regard its results with scorn. But do not of your own accord make your troubles heavier to bear and burden yourself with complaining. Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; but if, on the other hand, you begin to encourage yourself and say, “It is nothing,—a trifling matter at most; keep a stout heart and it will soon cease”; then in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion; ambition, luxury, greed, hark back to opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is. I hold that we should do away with complaint about past sufferings and with all language like this: “None has ever been worse off than I. What sufferings, what evils have I endured! No one has thought that I shall recover. How often have my family bewailed me, and the physicians given me over! Men who are placed on the rack are not torn asunder with such agony!” However, even if all this is true, it is over and gone. What benefit is there in reviewing past sufferings, and in being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy? Besides, every one adds much to his own ills, and tells lies to himself. And that which was bitter to bear is pleasant to have borne; it is natural to rejoice at the ending of one’s ills.

Two elements must therefore be rooted out once for all,—the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet. But when set in the very midst of troubles one should say:

Perchance some day the memory of this sorrow
Will even bring delight.

Let such a man fight against them with all his might: if he once gives way, he will be vanquished; but if he strives against his sufferings, he will conquer. As it is, however, what most men do is to drag down upon their own heads a falling ruin which they ought to try to support. If you begin to withdraw your support from that which thrusts toward you and totters and is ready to plunge, it will follow you and lean more heavily upon you; but if you hold your ground and make up your mind to push against it, it will be forced back. What blows do athletes receive on their faces and all over their bodies! Nevertheless, through their desire for fame they endure every torture, and they undergo these things not only because they are fighting but in order to be able to fight. Their very training means torture. So let us also win the way to victory in all our struggles,—for the reward is not a garland or a palm or a trumpeter who calls for silence at the proclamation of our names, but rather virtue, steadfastness of soul, and a peace that is won for all time, if fortune has once been utterly vanquished in any combat. You say, “I feel severe pain.” What then; are you relieved from feeling it, if you endure it like a woman? Just as an enemy is more dangerous to a retreating army, so every trouble that fortune brings attacks us all the harder if we yield and turn our backs. “But the trouble is serious.” What? Is it for this purpose that we are strong,—that we may have light burdens to bear? Would you have your illness long-drawn-out, or would you have it quick and short? If it is long, it means a respite, allows you a period for resting yourself, bestows upon you the boon of time in plenty; as it arises, so it must also subside. A short and rapid illness will do one of two things: it will quench or be quenched. And what difference does it make whether it is not or I am not? In either case there is an end of pain.

This, too, will help—to turn the mind aside to thoughts of other things and thus to depart from pain. Call to mind what honorable or brave deeds you have done; consider the good side of your own life. Run over in your memory those things which you have particularly admired. Then think of all the brave men who have conquered pain: of him who continued to read his book as he allowed the cutting out varicose veins; of him who did not cease to smile, though that very smile so enraged his torturers that they tried upon him every instrument of their cruelty. If pain can be conquered by a smile, will it not be conquered by reason? You may tell me now of whatever you like—of colds, hard coughing-spells that bring up parts of our entrails, fever that parches our very vitals, thirst, limbs so twisted that the joints protrude in different directions; yet worse than these are the stake, the rack, the red-hot plates, the instrument that reopens wounds while the wounds themselves are still swollen and that drives their imprint still deeper. Nevertheless there have been men who have not uttered a moan amid these tortures. “More yet!” says the torturer; but the victim has not begged for release. “More yet!” he says again; but no answer has come. “More yet!” the victim has smiled, and heartily, too. Can you not bring yourself, after an example like this, to make a mock at pain?

“But,” you object, “my illness does not allow me to be doing anything; it has withdrawn me from all my duties.” It is your body that is hampered by ill-health, and not your soul as well. It is for this reason that it clogs the feet of the runner and will hinder the handiwork of the cobbler or the artisan; but if your soul be habitually in practice, you will plead and teach, listen and learn, investigate and meditate. What more is necessary? Do you think that you are doing nothing if you possess self-control in your illness? You will be showing that a disease can be overcome, or at any rate endured. There is, I assure you, a place for virtue even upon a bed of sickness. It is not only the sword and the battle-line that prove the soul alert and unconquered by fear; a man can display bravery even when wrapped in his bed-clothes. You have something to do: wrestle bravely with disease. If it shall compel you to nothing, beguile you to nothing, it is a notable example that you display. O what ample matter were there for renown, if we could have spectators of our sickness! Be your own spectator; seek your own applause.

Again, there are two kinds of pleasures. Disease checks the pleasures of the body, but does not do away with them. Nay, if the truth is to be considered, it serves to excite them; for the thirstier a man is, the more he enjoys a drink; the hungrier he is, the more pleasure he takes in food. Whatever falls to one’s lot after a period of abstinence is welcomed with greater zest. The other kind, however, the pleasures of the mind, which are higher and less uncertain, no physician can refuse to the sick man. Whoever seeks these and knows well what they are, scorns all the blandishments of the senses. Men say, “Poor sick fellow!” But why? Is it because he does not mix snow with his wine, or because he does not revive the chill of his drink—mixed as it is in a good-sized bowl—by chipping ice into it? Or because he does not have Lucrine oysters opened fresh at his table? Or because there is no din of cooks about his dining-hall, as they bring in their very cooking apparatus along with their viands? For luxury has already devised this fashion—of having the kitchen accompany the dinner, so that the food may not grow luke-warm, or fail to be hot enough for a palate which has already become hardened. “Poor sick fellow!”—he will eat as much as he can digest. There will be no boar lying before his eyes, banished from the table as if it were a common meat; and on his sideboard there will be heaped together no breast meat of birds, because it sickens him to see birds served whole. But what evil has been done to you? You will dine like a sick man, nay, sometimes like a sound man.

All these things, however, can be easily endured—gruel, warm water, and anything else that seems insupportable to a fastidious man, to one who is wallowing in luxury, sick in soul rather than in body—if only we cease to shudder at death. And we shall cease, if once we have gained a knowledge of the limits of good and evil; then, and then only, life will not weary us, neither will death make us afraid. For surfeit of self can never seize upon a life that surveys all the things which are manifold, great, divine; only idle leisure is wont to make men hate their lives. To one who roams through the universe, the truth can never pall; it will be the untruths that will cloy. And, on the other hand, if death comes near with its summons, even though it be untimely in its arrival, though it cut one off in one’s prime, a man has had a taste of all that the longest life can give. Such a man has in great measure come to understand the universe. He knows that honorable things do not depend on time for their growth; but any life must seem short to those who measure its length by pleasures which are empty and for that reason unbounded.

Refresh yourself with such thoughts as these, and meanwhile reserve some hours for our letters. There will come a time when we shall be united again and brought together; however short this time may be, we shall make it long by knowing how to employ it. For, as Posidonius says: “A singly day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant.” Meanwhile, hold fast to this thought, and grip it close: yield not to adversity; trust not to prosperity; keep before your eyes the full scope of Fortune’s power, as if she would surely do whatever is in her power to do. That which has been long expected comes more gently. Farewell.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Europe, Selections, Seneca, Stoicism

by | · 3:59 pm

LIVY
(c. 59 B.C.-17 A.D.)

from The History of Rome: The Rape of Lucretia

 

Livy, or Titus Livius, Roman historian, was born in 59 B.C., according to St. Jerome, and died in 17 A.D. in Patavium, now the north Italian city of Padua. Livy lived much of his life in Rome during the rule of Caesar Augustus. He received the education of one from a wealthy background in philosophy and probably rhetoric, except that his education did not culminate in the usual period of study in a Greek city and his Greek was faulty. He never saw military duty, nor took part in politics.

By 30 B.C., Livy had moved to Rome, where he came to know Augustus. About this time, Livy began his monumental Ab Urbe Condita or History of Rome from its Foundation, usually called The History of Rome. It provides an account of Rome from its founding in 753 B.C. down to 9 B.C. Only 35 of the original 142 books (chapters) of The History survive in complete form, though summaries exist for all of the books save two. Livy’s political purpose in writing this work was to depict Rome as destined to rise from modest beginnings to greatness, and as was the practice of historians of his time, he includes many reconstructed speeches of important figures as purportedly verbatim accounts. However, Livy apparently shared the popular view of the time that Rome had morally degenerated from its comparatively virtuous beginnings. Today The History is valued more for its style and dramatic technique than for its historical accuracy.

In The History, Livy narrates the rape of a Roman matron, Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud), the seventh and last king of Rome (reigned 534/535–509/510 B.C.). This notorious incident led to the downfall of the Tarquin royal family and the establishment of a new republic under Lucius Brutus. Lucretia’s suicide, one of the most famous incidents of early Roman history and understood as representing a Stoic ideal and a model of womanly virtue, has been widely portrayed in art and literature in subsequent centuries. Lucretia’s suicide has also provoked subsequent commentary by many authors in various traditions on the question of whether self-killing can be an appropriate response following, or to prevent, sexual violation.

Sources

Titus Livius, The History of Rome, Vol. l. ed. Ernest Rhys, tr. Rev. Canon Roberts, London: J.M. Dent and Sons; New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1912.  Also online at etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Liv1His.html

 

from THE HISTORY OF ROME: THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA

The two Tarquins conceived the desire to ask which of them would succeed there father as king of Rome.  From the inmost recess of the sanctuary this response is said to have issued:  ‘Whoever of you, my lads, first brings a kiss to his mother shall hold supreme power at Rome.’ The Tarquins gave orders that no one say anything about this: they intended to keep their brother Sextus back inRomein the dark and eliminate him as a possible successor.  Between them they agree to draw lots to determine which, on reaching Rome, would be the first to kiss his mother.  But Brutus thought the pythia’s words meant something quite different.  Pretending to slip, he fell to the ground and pressed his lips to the earth, the mother of us all.

Upon returning to Rome they found that preparations for war against the Rutuli were in full swing.  There people inhabited the city ofArdeaand were very wealthy for that time and place.  Their wealth was the cause of the war: Tarquin wanted to enrich himself, now that his resources were exhausted from his many pubic works, and to mollify the plebeians with Ardea’s plunder, for they disliked his rule both because of his general arrogance and because of their resentment at having been kept at work fit for ordinary workmen and slaves. Tarquin tried to take Ardea in an initial assault, but when this did not succeed, he fell back on blockading the city from behind siegeworks.

A permanent camp grew up and, as happens in a war that is long but not hard-fought, furloughs were freely granted, but more for the officers than the rank and file.  Now the young princes of the royal house were in the habit of spending their free time feasting and carousing among themselves.  It so happened that when they were drinking in the quarters of Sextus Tarquinius, where Tarquinius Collatinus, the son of Egerius, was one of the guests, they fell to discussing there wives. Each man praised his own extravagantly.  When the dispute heated up, Collatinus said there was no need of talk.  Why, in a few hours they could see for themselves that his Lucretia was the best of the lot. ‘We’re young and red-blooded.  Why don’t we ride off and see with our own eyes just what sort of wives we’ve got?  The surest proof will be what each man finds when he shows up unexpectedly.’  By this time they were quite drunk.  ‘Well then, let’s go!’  Spurring their horses they flew off to Rome.

The evening shadows were lengthening when they came upon the royal princesses feasting and frolicking with their friends.  Then they sped off to Collatia: though the evening was late, they found Lucretia still in the main hall of her home, bent over her spinning and surrounded by her maids as they worked by lamplight. Lucretia was the clear winner of the contest. She graciously welcomed her husband and the Tarquins as they approached; Collatinus, happy in his victory, issued a comradely invitation for the royal young men to come in.  When Sexton Tarquin set eyes upon her he was sized by the evil desire to debauch her, spurred on as he was by her beauty and redoubtable chastity.  In the meantime, with the youthful lark now at an end, they returned to camp.

After a few days Sexton Tarquin, without Collatinus’ knowledge, came to Collatia with a single companion.  He was graciously welcomed, for no one suspected what he was up to, and after dinner was shown to a guest room.  When the household was safely asleep, in the heat of passion he came to the sleeping Lucretia sword in hand and, pressing his hand on her breast, whispered, ‘Say no word, Lucretia.  I am Sexton Tarquin.  There is a sword in my hand.  You die if you make a sound.’  She awoke in fright, and when she realized she could not call for help with the threat of death hanging over her, Tarquin confessed his passion, pleaded with her, intermingling threats with entreaties and working in every way upon her feeling as a woman.  When he saw she was resolute and would not yield even out of fear for her life, he threatened to disgrace her even in death by placing the naked body of a murdered slave next to her corpse, evidence that she had been killed in the act of committing adultery of the basest sort.  When by this threat his lust vanquished her resolute chastity, he left the house exulting in his seeming conquest of the woman’s honour.

Lucretia, stricken to the heart at the disgrace, sent the same messenger to her father in Rome and husband in Ardea: each was to come with one trustworthy friend; it must be done this way and done quickly: a terrible thing had happened.  Spurius Lucretius arrived with Publius Valerius son of Volesus, Collatinus with Lucius Iunius Brutus, in whose company he was traveling en route to Rome when his wife’s messenger chanced to meet him.  They found Lucretia seated downcast in her bedchamber.  At the arrival of her father and husband tears welled up, and when her husband asked, ‘Are you all right?’ she replied ‘indeed, no.  What can be right when a woman’s virtue has been taken from her?  The impress of another man is in your bed, Collatinus; yet only my body was defiled; my soul was not guilty.  Death will be my witness to this.  But pledge with your right hands and swear that the adulterer will not go unpunished. Sexton Tarquin did this, a guest who betrayed his host, an enemy in arms last night took his pleasure, fatal, alas, to me—and, if you act as you should, to him.’  Each pledged his word in turn and tried to comfort the heartsick woman by fixing the guilt not upon the victim but the transgressor: the mind sins, they said, not the body, and there is not guilt when intent is absent.  ‘It is up to you’, she said, ‘to punish the man as he deserves.  As for me, I absolve myself of wrong, but not from punishment.  Let no unchaste woman hereafter continue to live because of the precedent of Lucretia.’  She took a knife she was hiding in her garments and drove it into her breast.  Doubling over, she collapsed in death.

Husband and father raised a ritual cry of mourning for the dead.

While they were taken up with lamentation, Brutus pulled the knife dripping with blood from Lucretia’s body.  Holding it before him he cried, ‘By this blood, so pure before defilement by prince Tarquin, I hereby swear—and you, O deities, I make my witness—that I will drive out Lucius Tarquinius Superbus together with his criminal wife and progeny with sword, fire, and whatever force I can muster, nor will I allow them or anyone else to be king at Rome.’  He then handed the dagger to Collatinus, and next to Lucretius and Valerius, who stood amazed at the miraculous change that had come over him.  They repeated the oath after him; from that moment on, anger overmastering grief, they followed Brutus’ lead in bringing the monarchy to an end.

They bore Lucretia’s body from the house to the forum, where they drew a large crowd that was scandalized by the extraordinary turn of events, as anyone would be.  Each man expressed his personal sense of outrage at the rape the prince had committed.  And not just the father’s grief moved them, but Brutus also, when he rebuked them for tears and useless complaints when what they should be doing as men and Romans was to take up arms against those who dared such violence.  The most spirited young men were quick to seize weapons and join the cause; the rest followed their lead.  Then, leaving a garrison at Collatia’s gates to prevent anymore from getting out and reporting the uprising to the royal family, Brutus led the rest of the warriors toRome.

The arrival of a large group of armed men caused fear and commotion wherever it went; on the other hand, the sight of the nation’s leaders at the forefront made people think that whatever was afoot there must be a good reason for it.  Moreover, men were as appalled by Sextus’ heinous deed atRomeas they had been at Collatia.  From all quarters of the city people crowed into the forum, where a herald summoned them to assemble before the tribune of the Celeres, or king’s bodyguard, a post that Brutus chanced to be holding at that moment.  He then delivered a speech that was wholly at odds with the spirit and character he had pretended to have up to that day.  He spoke of the violence and lust of Sextus Tarquin, of the unspeakable rape of Lucretia and her wretched death, of the bereavement of Lucretius Tricipitinus and the cause of his daughter’s death, which for him was more unworthy and more pitiable than the death itself.  He mentioned also the arrogance of the king himself and how the plebs had been forced underground to dig out trenches and sewers: the men ofRome, victorious over all their neighbours, had been turned into drudge and quarry slaves, warriors no longer.  He recalled the appalling murder of King Servius Tullius and how his daughter had driven over her father’s body in that accursed wagon, and he invoked her ancestral gods as avengers.  After saying these things and, I am sure, even more shocking once prompted by his outrage of the moment, which are not easy for writers to capture on paper, he brought his listeners to such a pitch of fury that they revoked the king’s power and ordered the exile of Lucius Tarquinius, together with wife and children.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Europe, Livy, Selections, Sexual Issues

by | · 3:47 pm

THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA
(c. 100 B.C.)

On Suicide

 

The Milindapañha, or The Questions of King Milinda, sometimes assigned to one of the “three baskets” of the Pali canon of early Buddhist texts by the Burmese edition, is usually understood as a paracanonical text of Theravada Buddhism, the earlier, more conservative of the two principal branches of Buddhism. Theravada, closer to the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama  (c. 563–483 B.C.), emphasizes the ideal of the arhat, the enlightened individual in his progress towards nirvana. Mahayana in contrast stresses the ideal of the boddhisattva, dedicated to helping others achieve enlightenment.

The Questions of King Milinda consist of a dialogue between the Indo-Greek king Menander I, who reigned about 155–130 B.C. and was one of the Bactrian kings to invade farthest into India, and the Buddhist monk Mahathera Nagasena, believed to have been a historical figure who was sent to the kingdoms of Bactria as a Buddhist missionary at the time of Menander’s rule. Menander (known as Milinda in Buddhist traditions), who was arrogant and impatient because he could not find an intellect sufficiently keen to explain the teachings of Buddhism, found his match in Nagasena. The dating of the text is difficult, but it could not have originated earlier than the reign of Menander in the 2nd century B.C., and it is known that the book was translated into Chinese sometime between 317 and 420 A.D.. Most scholars place the composition of the Questions around 100 B.C. or a century later, possibly as late as the end of the 2nd century A.D.. According to legend, the Questions were compiled by the same monk who speaks in the dialogue, Nagasena.

The Questions of King Milinda is a significant and valuable work for many reasons. It records one of the earliest meetings between Buddhist and Hellenistic cultures; it gives a historical view of the 2nd-century Bactrian milieu; and it provides a nearly comprehensive understanding of Theravada Buddhist thought. Some of the important topics raised in the dialogue are the nature of truth, the problem of evil, why philosophical inquiry is unavailing in these issues, and how the process of rebirth occurs. In one portion of the text, King Menander asks how the Buddha can teach the need to overcome “old age, disease, and death” while proscribing suicide as a means to avoid these evils; he points out an apparent contradiction in Buddhist teaching, since it both prohibits suicide but also encourages the putting of an end to life in its doctrine of escape from suffering and rebirth. Nagasena then explains why the Buddha forbade self-killing, citing the reason that a person who is truly good, who is “full of benefit to all beings” should not “be done away with.” According to The Questions and to Buddhist legend, although not historically confirmed, Menander abdicated his throne as a result of his encounter with Nagasena and joined the Buddhist sangha.

Sources

Milindapañha. The Questions of King Milinda, Part I, sections 13-15, tr. T. W. Rhys Davids, in The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 35, ed. F. Max Müller, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1890. Dover reprint, 1963, pp. 273-278, available online at www.sacred-texts.com, from the Internet Sacred Texts Archive.

 

ON SUICIDE

‘Venerable Nâgasena, it has been said by the Blessed One: “A brother is not, O Bhikkhus, to commit suicide. Whosoever does so shall be dealt with according to the law.” And on the other hand you (members of the Order) say: “On whatsoever subject the Blessed One was addressing the disciples, he always, and with various similes, preached to them in order to bring about the destruction of birth, of old age, of disease, and of death. And whosoever overcame birth, old age, disease, and death, him did he honour with the highest praise.” Now if the Blessed One forbade suicide that saying of yours must be wrong, but if not then the prohibition of suicide must be wrong. This too is a double-edged problem now put to you, and you have to solve it.’

‘The regulation you quote, O king, was laid down by the Blessed One, and yet is our saying you refer to true. And there is a reason for this, a reason for which the Blessed One both prohibited (the destruction of life), and also (in another sense) instigated us to it.’

‘What, Nâgasena, may that reason be?’

‘The good man, O king, perfect in uprightness, is like a medicine to men 1 in being an antidote to the poison of evil, he is like water to men in laying the dust and the impurities of evil dispositions, he is like a jewel treasure to men in bestowing upon them all attainments in righteousness, he is like a boat to men inasmuch as he conveys them to the further shore of the four flooded streams (of lust, individuality, delusion, and ignorance) 2, he is like a caravan owner to men in that he brings them beyond the sandy desert of rebirths, he is like a mighty rain cloud to men in that he fills their hearts with satisfaction, he is like a teacher to men in that he trains them in all good, he is like a good guide to men in that he points out to them the path of peace. It was in order that so good a man as that, one whose good qualities are so many, so various, so immeasurable, in order that so great a treasure mine of good things, so full of benefit to all beings, might not be done away with, that the Blessed One, O king, out of his mercy towards all beings, laid down that injunction, when he said: “A brother is not, O Bhikkhus, to commit suicide. Whosoever does so shall be dealt with according to the law.” This is the reason for which the Blessed One prohibited (self-slaughter). And it was said, O king, by the Elder Kumâra Kassapa, the eloquent, when he was describing to Pâyâsi the Râganya the other world: “So long as Samanas and Brahmans of uprightness of life, and beauty of character, continue to exist–however long that time may be–just so long do they conduct themselves to the advantage and happiness of the great masses of the people, to the good and the gain and the weal of gods and men!”‘

‘And what is the reason for which the Blessed One instigated us (to put an end to life)? Birth, O king, is full of pain, and so is old age, and disease, and death. Sorrow is painful, and so is lamentation, and pain, and grief, and despair. Association with the unpleasant is painful, and separation from the pleasant.  The death of a mother is painful, or of a father, or a brother, or a sister, or a son, or a wife, or of any relative. Painful is the ruin of one’s family, and the suffering of disease, and the loss of wealth, and decline in goodness, and the loss of insight. Painful is the fear produced by despots, or by robbers, or by enemies, or by famine, or by fire, or by flood, or by the tidal wave, or by earthquake, or by crocodiles or alligators. Painful is the fear of possible blame attaching to oneself, or to others, the fear of punishment, the fear of misfortune. Painful is the fear arising from shyness in the presence of assemblies of one’s fellows, painful is anxiety as to one’s means of livelihood, painful the foreboding of death.  Painful are (the punishments inflicted on criminals), such as being flogged with whips, or with sticks, or with split rods, having one’s hands cut off, or one’s feet, or one’s hands and feet, or one’s ears, or one’s nose, or one’s ears and nose. Painful are (the tortures inflicted on traitors)–being subjected to the Gruel Pot (that is, having boiling gruel poured into one’s head from the top of which the skull bone has been removed)–or to the Chank Crown  (that is, having the scalp rubbed with gravel till it becomes smooth like a polished shell)–or to the Râhu’s Mouth (that is, having one’s mouth held open by iron pins, and oil put in it, and a wick lighted therein)–or to the Fire Garland  or to the Hand Torch, (that is, being made a living torch, the whole body, or the arms only, being wrapped up in oily cloths, and set on fire)–or to the Snake Strips  (that is, being skinned in strips from the neck to the hips, so that the skin falls in strips round the legs)or to the Bark Dress  (that is, being skinned alive from the neck downwards, and having each strip of skin as soon as removed tied to the hair, so that these strips form a veil around one)–or to the Spotted Antelope (that is, having one’s knees and elbows tied together, and being made to squat on a plate of iron under which a fire is lit)–or to the Flesh-hooks  (that is, being hung up on a row of iron hooks)–or to the Pennies  (that is, having bits cut out of the flesh, all over the body, of the size of pennies)–or to the Brine Slits  (that is, having cuts made all over one’s body by means of knives or sharp points, and then having salt and caustic liquids poured over the wounds)–or to the Bar Turn  (that is, being transfixed to the ground by a bar of iron passing through the root of the ear, and then being dragged round and round by the leg)–or to the Straw Seat  (that is, being so beaten with clubs that the bones are broken, and the body becomes like a heap of straw)–or to be anointed with boiling oil, or to be eaten by dogs, or to be impaled alive, or to be beheaded. Such and such, O king, are the manifold and various pains which a being caught in the whirlpool of births and rebirths has to endure. just, O king, as the water rained down upon the Himâlaya mountain flows, in its course along the Ganges, through and over rocks and pebbles and gravel, whirlpools and eddies and rapids, and the stumps and branches of trees which obstruct and oppose its passage,–just so has each being caught in the succession of births and rebirths to endure such and such manifold and various pains. Full of pain, then, is the continual succession of rebirths, a joy is it when that succession ends. And it was in pointing out the advantage of that end, the disaster involved in that succession, that the Blessed One, great king, instigated us to get beyond birth, and old age, and disease, and death by the realisation of the final end of that succession of rebirths. This is the sense, O king, which led the Blessed One to instigate us (to put an end to life).’

‘Very good, Nâgasena! Well solved is the puzzle (I put), well set forth are the reasons (you alleged). That is so, and I accept it as you say.’

[Here ends the problem as to suicide.]

Leave a Comment

Filed under Afterlife, Ancient History, Asia, Buddhism, Milinda, King, Selections

by | · 3:45 pm

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
(106-43 B.C.)

from Tusculan Disputations
from On Ends
from On Old Age

 

Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman, was born in Arpinum, near Rome, into a prosperous equestrian family. Cicero began his career as a lawyer and served in the military before later deciding to train as an orator. From the beginning, he gained a reputation for his rhetorical skill, defending an alleged patricide in his first major case and accusing friends of the dictator Sulla of the murder. Presumably due to political threats, Cicero spent the year 78 B.C. abroad in Asia Minor, Athens, and Rhodes. In 75 B.C., he was made quaestor in Sicily. Cicero made a favorable impression on the Sicilians, who engaged him in the prosecution of their disreputable governor Verres, who had usurped much of the province’s wealth. After the reading of Cicero’s first oration, Verres voluntarily withdrew and went into exile. The publishing of the orations and subsequent political alliances led Cicero to a rapid series of promotions from aedile to praetor and finally to consul. Cicero’s quick action in opposing his rival, L. Sergius Catilina, whose attempt at consulship had failed, and convincing the senate of the dangers of an uprising won Cicero popular acclaim, but he had also had the conspirators executed without a trial. The hasty executions were controversial and left a mark on his political reputation. He was banished, recalled, sent as governor to Cicilia in Asia Minor, and when he returned, he sided first with Pompey in the Civil War and then later with Caesar.

Cicero’s writings include philosophical and political discourses, books of rhetoric, orations, poetry, and letters. He was particularly interested in how philosophical teachings might be applied to the actual situations of human life. Cicero often used dialogue as a vehicle for his philosophical discourse, drawing freely on his broad understanding of Hellenistic thought, including late Platonic and Academic, Aristotelian and Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean sources.

When he was 62, Cicero’s beloved daughter Tullia died in childbirth. Cicero then left politics, retiring to his Tusculan villa to devote himself to philosophical studies and writing. He is said to have made it his custom to invite his friends to the villa for philosophical conversations, and the Tusculan Disputations (45 B.C.) are said to be the legacy of five days of discussion of questions concerning how to overcome the fear of death, how to endure pain, the immortality of the soul, suicide, the moderation of passion, virtue, and related matters. They are dialogues of unique form, found nowhere else in Cicero’s writings; in them one speaker is dominant (though unnamed, it is clearly Cicero himself) and objections are minimized.

On Old Age (44 B.C.), said to be one of Cicero’s most loved and admired works, addresses when it is proper to leave life in one’s later years; On Ends, in which the speaker is the Stoic Cato, addresses some apparent paradoxes concerning the question. In both the Tusculan Disputations and On Old Age, Cicero expresses equanimity concerning the prospect of death: one should not fear death, since either the soul will be extinguished at death or, as he says he believes, it will go to a place of eternal life, and hence one will either lack unhappiness or be positively happy. (He does not consider a third possibility, that of a painful afterlife, or hell.) Self-elected death may play a role, but need not do so: in this characteristically Stoic view, the wise man, like an actor, does not have to appear all the way through the play “until the curtain is rung down” or live a life extended into old age; what matters is how well life is lived, not how long. Cicero’s view of old age is optimistic, yet he says, “. . . the old must not grasp greedily after those last few years of life, nor must they walk out on them without cause.”

Supporting Octavian after the assassination of Caesar in 44 B.C., he delivered a series of censorious orations (the “Philippics”) against Antony, who was gathering support for Caesar’s memory. However, when Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus (the Second Triumvirate) were reconciled, Cicero’s name appeared on a list of citizens whose lives were pronounced forfeit to the state. He was murdered leaving his country estate at Formiae, and his head and hands were presented to Antony and nailed to the rostrum in the Forum. In all, he had lived through five revolutions.

SOURCES
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, I:34-36, tr. J. E. King, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967,  pp. 97, 99, 101, 103. “On Ends” 3.60-61, trs. A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 425. On Old Age, Part 4, pp. xix 70; xx 72-76; xxiii 85; tr. Frank O. Copley. Ann Arbor, MI:  The University of Michigan Press, 1967,  pp. 35, 36-38, 42.

 

from TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS

I see that you have lofty aims and that you wish to be a pilgrim heavenward.  I hope that this will be our lot.  But suppose, as these thinkers hold, that souls do not survive after death: I see that in the case we are deprived of the hope of a happier life. But what evil does such a view imply?  For suppose that the soul perishes like the body: is there then any definite sense of pain or sensation at all in the body after death?  There is no one who says so, though Epicurus accuses Democritus of this, but the followers of Democritus deny it.  And so there is no sensation in the soul either, for the soul is nowhere.  Where, then is the evil, since there is no third thing?  Is it because the actual departure of soul from body does not take place without sense of pain?  Though I should believe this to be so, how petty a matter it is! But I think it False, and the fact is that after the departure takes place without sensation, sometimes even with a feeling of pleasure; and the whole thing is trivial, whatever the truth, for departure takes place in a moment of time. What does cause anguish, or rather torture, is the departure from all those things that are good in life.  Take care it may not more truly be said, from all its evils!  Why should I now bewail the life of Man?  I could do so with truth and justice. But what need is there, when my object is to avoid the thought that we shall be wretched after death, of rendering life still more wretched by lamentation?  We have done this in the book in which we did our utmost to console ourselves.  Death then withdraws us from evil, not from good, if truth is our object.  Indeed this thought is discussed by Hegesias the Cyrenaic with such wealth of illustration that the story goes that he was stopped from lecturing on the subject by King Ptolemy, because a number of his listeners afterwards committed suicide.  There is an epigram of Callimachus’ upon Cleombrotus of Ambracia who, he says, without having met with any misfortune, flung himself from the city wall into the sea after reading Plato’s book.  Now in the book of Hegesias whom I have mentioned, Apokerteron, there appears a man who was passing away from life by starvation and is called back by his friends, and in answer to their remonstrances, details the discomforts of human life.  I could do the same, but I should not go so far as he does in thinking it no advantage at all for anyone to live.  Other cases I wave aside: is it an advantage still to me?  I have been robbed of the consolations of family life and the distinctions of a public career, and assuredly, if we had died before this happened, death would have snatched us from evil, not from good.

Grant then the existence of someone distinguished by suffering no evil, receiving no blow from the hand of fortune. The famous Metellus had four sons who became dignitaries of state, but Priam had fifty, and seventeen of them born in lawful wedlock: in both these instances fortune had the same power of control, but exercised it in one; for a company of sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters placed Metellus upon the funeral pyre, Priam was bereft of his numerous family and slain by the hand of his enemy after he had fled for refuge to the altar.  Had he died with his sons alive, his throne secure:

His barbarous opulence at hand
And Fretted ceilings richly carved;

would he have departed from good or from evil? At that date assuredly he would have seemed to depart from good. Certainly it would have been a better fate, and strains so melancholy would not have been sung:

By the flames I saw all things devoured,
Priam’s life by violence shortened,
Jove’s altar by bloodshed polluted.

As if in such a scene of violence anything better could have happened for him in that hour!  But if he had died previously he would have wholly escaped so sad an ending: but by dying at the moment he did escape the sense of the evils about him.  Our dear friend, Pompey, on the occasion of his serious illness atNaples, got better.  The Neapolitans set garlands on their heads; so, be sure, did the inhabitants of Puteoli; public congratulations kept pouring in from the towns: silly behaviour no doubt and in Greekish taste, but all the same it may count as a proof of good fortune.  Had his life come to an end then, would he have left a scene of good or a scene of evil?  Certainly he would have escaped

wretchedness.  He would not have gone to war with his father-in-law, he would not have left home, he would not have taken up arms when unprepared, he would not have left home, he would not have fled from Italy, would not have lost his army and fallen unprotected into the hands of armed slaves; his poor children, his wealth, would not have passed into the power of his conquerors.  Had he died atNaples, he would have fallen at the zenith of his prosperity, whilst by the prolongation of life what repeated, bitter draughts of inconceivable disaster he came to drain!  Such things are evaded by death, because although they have not taken place, yet they may take place; but men do not think it possible they can happen to themselves: each one hopes for himself the good fortune of Metellus, just as if more men were lucky than unlucky, or there were certainly in men’s affairs of hope were wiser than apprehension.

 

from ON ENDS

When a man has a preponderance of the things in accordance with nature, it is his proper function to remain alive; when he has or foresees a preponderance of their opposites, it is his proper function to depart from life.  This clearly shows that it is sometimes a proper function both for the wise man to depart from life, although he is happy, and for a fool to remain alive, although he is wretched.  For the real good and bad, as has been frequently said already, arise later.  But the primary natural things, whether favourable or adverse, fall under the wise man’s decision and choice, forming as it were the material of wisdom.  Therefore, the reason for remaining in and departing from life is to be measured by those things.  For it is not virtue which retains <the wise man> in life, nor are those without virtue obliged to seek death.  And it is sometimes a wise man’s proper function to abandon life even though he is supremely happy if he can do so at the right time… Since, then, vices do not have the power of providing a reason for suicide, even fools, who are wretched, plainly have the proper function of remaining alive if they have a preponderance of the things we call in accordance with nature.

 

from ON OLD AGE

An actor, in order to find favor, does not have to take part all the way through a play; he need only prove himself in any act in which he may appear; similarly the wise and good man does not have to keep going until the curtain is rung down.  A brief span of years is quite long enough for living a good and honorable life; and if that span should be prolonged, we must not weep and wail about it, any more than farmers weep and wail at the coming of summer and autumn, after sweet springtime has passed.  Spring, you see, symbolizes youth, and, as it were, displays the fruits that are to come; the remaining ages have been set up for the reaping and garnering of the fruits.

Now there is no fixed point at which old age must end, and we may properly go on living as long we can maintain and carry out our obligations… and make light of death; the result is that old age may be even more spirited than youth, and braver, too. This is the meaning of Solon’s reply to Pisistratus, who had asked him what gave him the courage to resist him so boldly; Solon, we are told, replied, “My years.”  But life comes to its best end when, with mind unimpaired and senses intact, nature herself breaks up the fabric to which she first gave form and order.  Now in every case, things freshly put together are hard to pull apart; things that have gotten old come to pieces with ease.

It follows that the old must not grasp greedily after those last few years of life, nor must they walk out on them without cause.  Pythagoras has said that we are not to leave our post and station in life except by order of our commanding officer, that is, of God. There is the epitaph of Solon the Wise, too, in which he declares that his death must not pass unwept and unhonored by his friends.  I suppose he wants them to show that they loved him; but I rather think that Ennius put it better:

“Let none shed tears to show respect for me
nor make a moaning at my obsequies.”

He thought it improper to weep and wail over death, since death was our entry into eternal life.

As for the act of dying, we may have some sensation there, but it will be no more than momentary, especially for the old.  After death there will be either a pleasant sensation, or no sensation at all.  In any event, from our youngest years we must train ourselves to make light of death, since the man who does not so train himself can never have peace of mind.  For die we must, and for all we know, on this very day.  Every minute of every hour, death hangs over us; if we live in terror of it, how can we keep our sanity?

It seems unnecessary to discuss the matter at such great length, when I recall Lucius Brutus—how he died in the act of setting his country free, or the Two Decii, who spurred their horses on to a death they freely chose, or Marcus Atilius, who marched off to the torture-chamber to keep the promise he had made to an enemy, or the two Scipios, who tried with their own bodies to block the advance of the Carthaginians, or your grandfather Lucius Paulus, who died to atone for the foolhardiness of his colleague at the battle of Cannae, or Marcus Marcellus, whose death even that most bloodthirsty of enemies would not permit to pass unhonored by burial—when I think, too, of our legionaries who, as I wrote in my Origins, have marched on many occasions briskly and with heads held high, into positions from which they never expected to return.  Here then is something that young men have made light of—and young men who were not just uneducated but downright illiterate: are old men who have had all the advantages of education to fear a thing like that?

From a more general point of view, it seems to me that once we have had our fill of all the things that have engaged our interest, we have had our fill of life itself.  There are interests that are proper to childhood: does a full-grown man regret their loss?  There are interests that belong to early manhood: when we reach full maturity—what is called “Middle age”—do we look back to them with longing?  Middle age itself has its special concerns; even these have lost their attraction for the old.  Finally, there are interests peculiar to old age; these fall away, too, just as did those of the earlier years.  When this has happened, a sense of the fullness of life tells us that it is time to die.

It is for these reasons, Scipio—for it was this that you told me you and Laelius were forever admiring—that old age is easy for me to bear, and is not only not painful, but positively a joy.  And if I am deluded in believing that the soul of man is immortal, then I am glad to be deluded, and I hope no one, as long as I live, will ever wrench this delusion from me.  If on the other hand, as certain petty philosophers have held, I shall have no sensation when I am dead, then I need have no fear that deceased philosophers will make fun of this delusion of mine.  And even if we are not destined to live forever, it is no more than right that when his time has come, a man should die.  For nature has set a proper limit on living as on all other things.  Yes, old age is, so to speak, the last scene in the play; when we find it beginning to be tiresome we should beat a hasty retreat from it, especially when we feel as if we had seen all this before, entirely too many times.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Europe, Selections

by | May 14, 2015 · 10:26 pm

SIMA QIAN
(c. 145/135-86 B.C.)

Records of the Grand Historian
   The Basic Annals of Xiang Yu
   The Assassin and his Sister
Letter in Reply to Ren Shaoqing

 

Sima Qian (Ssu-ma Ch’ien), whose father had been Grand Historian of China and who in 107 B.C. himself assumed that role, spent most of his life at the court of the Emperor Wu, the strong-willed emperor who brought the golden age of the Han dynasty to the peak of its power. Sima Qian’s father, Sima Tan, in transforming the role of Grand Historian from duties largely involving astrology and divination to that of a true chronicler of the past, planned to write a work of history and had begun to collect material for it; it was in accord with his dying father’s wish that Sima Qian assumed and expanded this task.

Sima Qian’s writings, especially in their terseness and reliance upon dramatic episodes in which the historian makes his characters speak aloud, have remained the model for many of the major historical works in later ages in China, Korea, and Japan. His principal work, the Shi Ji, or Records of the Grand Historian, in 130 chapters, is a collection of biographies that provides a history of the Chinese people and foreign peoples known to China from the earliest times to his own. It provides a comprehensive history of every society then known over a period of time reaching back over 2,000 years. Sima Qian was a meticulous researcher who traveled widely throughout China in search of historical information. He explains that his purpose is to “examine the deeds and events of the past and investigate the principles behind their success and failure, their rise and decay.” Yet although Sima Qian chronicles the rise and fall of multitudinous societies in a pattern typically beginning with the virtuous, wise ruler of a new house to its ultimate decline with an evil or inept ruler, the one thing he sees as approaching permanence in the midst of change is the lasting power of goodness: as Burton Watson describes Sima Qian’s view, “Evil destroys the doer, but good endures, through the sons of the father, the subjects of the ruler, the disciple of the teacher. It is the function of the historian to prolong the memory of goodness by preserving its record for all ages to see.”

The first selection presented here is a portion of the lengthy biography Sima Qian gives in the Records of the Grand Historian of the great Xiang Yu (Hsiang Yü), the powerful military leader of Chu who, seeking to become emperor, fought the Han for control of various states of China in a struggle called the Chu-Han Contention (206–202 B.C.) following the collapse of the Qin (Ch’in) Dynasty. Huge—Xiang Yu was over six feet tall—cunning, and ruthless, he was famed for his bravery and capacity for treachery. His main rival was Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty as Emperor Gaozu. Although he had defeated Liu Bang and the Han armies in battle on many occasions, Xiang Yu made a series of unwise military decisions that finally resulted in Liu’s troops surrounding him. The selection given here portrays Xiang Yu’s military decline: it opens as Xiang Yu, surrounded, hears the singing of Chu songs and thus knows that most of his own people have deserted him. Sima Qian closes the account of Xiang Yu’s suicide with his own commentary on both the greatness of Xiang Yu’s triumphs and the character flaws that led to his downfall.

The second selection, an account given both in the Zhan Guo Ce (Strategies of the Warring States), a near-contemporary historical work of unknown authorship, and in the Records of the Grand Historian, contrasts two suicides: that of the assassin Nie Zheng (Nieh Cheng, c. 375 B.C.), employed as a dog butcher, who in his excessive concern for loyalty to his patron Yan Zhongzi (Yan Sui) mutilates himself in his act of suicide so that he cannot be recognized after killing Yan Zhongzi’s enemy, the grand minister of Han, Xia Lei (Hsia Lei), so that through him his employer might not also be identified and the cycle of revenge might end. He is followed in death by his older sister Rong (Jung)—to whom Sima Qian gives a name even though she is a woman, because she, unlike her brother, chooses the right time to die: after she has revealed the identity of Nie Zheng’s corpse and thus assured the preservation of his name. Her suicide is an act of self-sacrifice to grant fame to another. (In fact, Rong says that her brother mutilated himself to protect her—presumably from potential vengeful harm to her for what he did or the infamy of being the sister of an assassin—not a self-centered act  at all.)

The third selection provided here is Sima Qian’s famous letter to Ren Shaoqing (Jen Shao-ch’ing), in which he tries to justify his own failure to commit suicide, even though the circumstances were such as to invite or even require it. Sima Qian had been condemned to imprisonment and castration by Emperor Wu for speaking out in defense of Li Ling, a general who had finally surrendered to the enemy when only a fraction of his army remained; the emperor had expected Li Ling to die with his men—as, indeed, such heroes as Xiang Yu had done. Sima Qian’s letter, written after the punishment of castration had been imposed, gives his reasons for not killing himself, even though it was customary under such circumstances for men of honor to commit suicide and even though he sees himself as “a mutilated being who dwells in degradation” (the letter uses the word “shame” 19 times). Many of the heroes Sima Qian had described so vividly in his Records of the Grand Historian had committed suicide in dramatic ways—not only Xiang Yu, but Li Guang and General Fan, who like Xiang Yu slit their own throats for reasons of honor and service to the state. But Sima Qian himself does not do so; he chooses instead to bear his disgrace in order to complete his manuscript and justify himself in the eyes of posterity.

After the castration, and after Emperor Wu had realized his own role in Li Ling’s defeat by failing to send him reinforcements, Sima Qian became Palace Secretary and enjoyed considerable honor and favor. Sima Qian’s letter itself was preserved in The Book of Han, a history written and compiled by Ban Biao, Ban Gu, and finally finished by Ban Zhao in 111 A.D..

SOURCES
“The Basic Annals of Xiang Yu” in Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty I, Han Dynasty II,  trans. Burton Watson. Hong Kong and New York: Columbia University Press, rev. ed. 1993, Vol. 1, pp. 17-18, 43-48, quoted and paraphrased  in biographical note from introductions to both volumes; story of the assassin and his sister from Szuma Chien, Selections from Records of the Grand Historian,  tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1979; “Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s Letter in Reply to Jen Shao-ch’ing” in Burton Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien. Grand Historian of China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1958, pp. 57-67. See also Stephen W. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 9,  105-109.

 

from RECORDS OF THE GRAND HISTORIAN

THE BASIC ANNALS OF XIANG YU

Xiang Ji, whose polite name was Yu, was a native of XiaXiang.  He was twenty-four when he first took up arms.  His father’s youngest brother was Xiang Liang.  Xiang Liang’s father, Xiang Yan, was a general ofChu who was driven to suicide by Qin general Wang Qian.  The Xiang family for generations were generals of Chu and were enfeoffed in Xiang; hence they took the family name Xiang.

When Xiang Yu was a boy he studied the art of writing.  Failing to master this, he abandoned it and took up swordsmanship.  When he failed at this also, his uncle, Xiang Liang, grew angry with him, but Xiang Yu declared, “Writing is good only for keeping records of people’s names.  Swordsmanship is useful only for attacking a single enemy and is likewise not worth studying.  What I want to learn is the art of attacking 10,000 enemies!”  With this, Xiang Liang began to teach his nephew the art of warfare, which pleased Yu greatly.  On the whole Yu understood the essentials of the art, but here again he was unwilling to pursue the study in detail.

Xiang Yu was over eight feet tall and so strong that with his two hands he could lift a bronze cauldron.  In ability and spirit he far surpassed others, so that all the young men of the region of Wu were afraid of him.

In the first year of the Second Emperor of Qin [209 BC], during the seventh month, Chen She and his band began their uprising ins the region of Daze.  In the ninth month Tong, the governor of Kuaiji, announced to Xiang Liang, “All the region west of the Yangtze is in revolt.  The time has come when Heaven will destroy the house of Qin.  I have heard it said that he who takes the lead may rule others, but he who lags behind will be ruled by other.  I would like to dispatch an army with you and Huan Chu at the head.”  (Huan Chu was at this time in hiding in the swamps.)

Xiang Liang replied, “Huan Chu is in hiding and no one knows where he is.  Only Xiang Yu knows the place,” Xiang Liang left the room and went to give instructions to Xiang Yu, telling him to hold his sword in readiness and wait outside.  Then he returned and sat down again with the governor.  “I beg leave to call in my nephew Yu, so that he may receive your order to summon Huan Chu,” said Xiang Liang.  The governor consented, and Xiang Liang sent for Xiang Yu to come in.  After some time, Xiang  Liang winked at his nephew and said.  “You may proceed!”  With this, Xiang Yu drew his sword and cut off the governor’s head.  Xiang Liang picked up the governor’s head and hung the seals of office from his own belt.  The governor’s office was thrown into utter panic and confusion.  After Xiang Yu had attacked and killed several dozen attendants the entire staff submitted in terror, not a man daring to offer resistance.

…[the text narrates Xiang Yu’s [Xsiang Yu’s] rise to power, including his military exploits, his cunning and ruthless use of execution, and his treachery towards Song Yi, the supreme general of the Chu army, to whom Xsiang Yu was at that time second in command]…

For a long timeChuand Han held their respective positions without making a decisive move, while their fighting men suffered the hardships of camp life and their old men and boys wore themselves out transporting provisions by land and water.  Xiang Yu sent word to the king of Han, saying, “The world has been in strife and confusion for several years now, solely because the two of us.  I would like to invite the king of Han to a personal combat to decide who is the better man.  Let us bring no more needless suffering to the fathers and sons of the rest of the world.”  The king of Han scorned the offer with a laugh, saying, “Since I am no match for you in strength, I prefer to fight you with brains!”

Xiang Yu then sent out one of his bravest men to challenge Han to combat.  In the Han army there was a man who was very skilful at shooting from horseback, a so-called loufan.  Chu three times sent out men to challenge Han to combat, and each time this man shot and killed them on the spot.  Xiang Yu, enraged, buckles on his armour, took up a lance, and went himself to deliver the challenge.  The loufan was about to shoot when Xiang Yu shouted and glared so fiercely at him that the man had not the courage to raise his eyes or lift a hand, but finally fled back within the walls and did not dare venture forth again.  The king of Han secretly sent someone to find out who the new challenger was, and when he learned that it was Xiang Yu himself he was greatly astonished.  Xiang Yu approached the place where the king of Han was standing, and the two of them talked back and forth across the ravine of Guangwu.  The king berated Xiang Yu for his crimes, while Xiang Yu angrily demanded a single combat.  When the king of Han refused to agree, Xiang Yu shot him with a crossbow which he had concealed, and the king, wounded, fled into the city ofChenggao.

Xiang Yu, receiving word that Han Xin had already conquered the area north of theYellow River, defeating Qi and Zhao, and was about to attack Chu, sent Long Ju to attack him.  Han Xin, joined by the cavalry general Guan Ying, met his attack and defeated the Chuarmy, killing Long Ju.  Han Xin then proceeded to set himself up as king of Qi.  When Xiang Yu heard that Long Hu’s army had been defeated, he was fearful and sent Wu She, a man of Xuyi, to attempt to bargain with HanXin, but Han Xin refused to listen.

At this time Peng Yue had once more raised a revolt in the region of Liang, conquered it, and cut off Chu’s sources of supply.  Xiang Yu summoned the marquis of Haichun, the grand marshal Cao Jiu, and others and said to them, “Hold fast to the city of Chenggao.  Even if the king of Han challenges you to a battle, take care and do not fight with him!  In fifteen days I can surely do away with Peng Yue and bring the region of Liang under control once again.  Then I will return and join you.”

Xiang Yu marched east and attacked Chenliu and Waihuang.  Waihuang held out for several days before it finally surrendered.  Enraged, Xiang Yu ordered all the men over the age of fifteen to brought to a place east of the city, where he planned to butcher them.  One of the retainers of the head of the district, a lad of thirteen, went and spoke to Xiang Yu.  “Waihung, oppressed by the might of Peng Yue, was fearful and surrendered to him, hopeful that Your Majesty would come to the rescue,” he said.  “But now that you have arrived, if you butcher all the men, how can you hope to win the hearts of the common people?  East of here there are still a dozen cities of Liang, but all will be filled with terror and will not dare to surrender.”

Xiang Yu, acknowledging the reason of his words, pardoned all the men of Waihuang who were marked for execution and proceeded east to Suiyang.  Hearing what had happened , the other cities made all haste to submit to him.

The king of Han meanwhile several time challenged the Chu army to a battle, but the Chu generals refused to send out their forces.  Then he sent men to taunt and insult them for five or six days, until at last the grand marshal Cao Yiu, in a rage, led his soldiers across the Si River.  When the troops were halfway across the river, the Han force fell upon them and inflicted a severe defeat on the Chu army, seizing all the wealth of the country of Chu.  Grand marshal Cao Jiu, the chief secretary Dong Yi, and Sima Xin, the king of Sai, all cut their throats on the banks of the Si.  (Cao Jiu, former prison warden of Qi, and Sima Xin, former prison warden of Yueyang, had both done favours for Xiang Liang, and so had been trusted and employed by Xiang Yu.)

Xiang Yu was at this time in Suiyang but, hearing of the defeat of the grand marshal’s army, he led his troops back.  The Han army had at the moment surrounded Zhongli Moat Xingyang, but when Xiang Yu arrived, the Han forces, fearful of Chu, all fled to positions of safety in the mountains.  At this time the Han troops were strong and had plenty of food, but Xiang Yu’s men were worn out and their provisions were exhausted.

The king of Han dispatched Lu Jia to bargain with Xiang Yu for the return of his father, but Xiang Yu refused to listen.  The king then sent Lord Hou to bargain.  This time Xiang Yu agreed to make an alliance with Han to divide the empire between them, Han to have all the land west of the Hong Canal and Chu all the land to east.  In addition, upon Xiang Yu’s consent, the king of Han’s father, mother, and wife were returned to him amid cheers of “Long life!” from the Han army.  The king of Han enfeoffed Lord Hou as “Lord Who Pacifies the Nation”.  (Lord Hou retired and was unwilling to show himself again.  Someone remarked, “This man is the most eloquent pleader in the world.  Wherever he goes he turns the whole nation on its head.  Perhaps that is why he has been given the title ‘Lord Who Pacifies the Nation’.”)

After concluding the alliance, Xiang Yu led his troops away to the east and the king of Han prepared to return west, but Zhang Liang and Chen Ping advised him, saying, “Han now possesses over half the empire, and all the feudal lords are on our side, while the soldiers of Chu are weary and out of food.  The time has come when Heaven will destroy Chu.  It would be best to take advantage of Xiang Yu’s lack of food and seize him once and for all.  If we were to let him get away now without attacking him, it would be like nursing a tiger that will return to vex us later!”

The king of Han, approving their advice, in the fifth year of Han (202BC) pursued Xiang Yu as far as the south of Yangxia, where he halted and made camp.  There he set a date for Han Xin and Peng Yue to meet him and join in attacking the Chu army.  But when he reached Guling, the troops of Han Xin and Peng Yue failed to appear for the rendezvous, and Xiang Yu attacked him and inflicted a severe defeat.  The king of Han withdrew behind his walls, deepened his moats, and guarded his position.

“The other leaders have not kept their promise.  What shall I do?” he asked Zhang Liang.

“The Chu army is on the point of being destroyed,” Zhang Liang replied, “but Han Xin and Peng Yue have not yet been granted any territory.  It is not surprising that they do not come when summoned.  If you will consent to share a part of the empire with them, they will surely come without a moment’s hesitation.  If this is impossible, I do not know what will happen.  If you could assign to Han Xin all the land from Chen east to the sea, and to Peng Yue the land from Suiyang north to Gucheng, so that each would feel he was actually fighting for his own good, then a Chu could easily be defeated.”

The king of Han, approving this suggestion, sent envoys to Han Xin and Peng Yue, saying, “Let us join our forces in attacking Chu.  When Chu has been defeated, I will give the land from Chen east to the sea to the king of Qi, and that from Suiyang north to Gucheng to the Prime Minister Peng.”  When the envoys arrived and reported this to Han Xin and Peng Yue, both replied, “We beg leave to proceed with our troops.”  Han Xin then marched out of Qi.  Liu Jia led his army from Shouchun to join in attacking and massacring the men of Chengfu; from there he proceeded to Gaixia.  The grand marshal Zhou Yin revolted againstChu, using the men of Shu to massacre the inhabitants of Liu, gained control of the army of Jiujiang, and followed after Liu Jia and Peng Yue.  All met at the Gaixia and made their way toward Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu’s army had built a walled camp at Gaixia, but his soldiers were few and his supplies exhausted.  The Han army, joined by the forces of the other leaders, surrounded them with several lines of troops.  In the night Xiang Yu heard the Han armies all about him singing the songs of Chu.  “Has Han already conqueredChu?” he exclaimed in astonishment.  “How many men ofChuthey have with them!”  Then he rose in the night and drank within the curtains of his tent.  With him were the beautiful Lady Yu, who enjoyed his favour and followed wherever he went, and his famous steed Dapple, which he always rode.  Xiang Yu filled with passionate sorrow, began to sing sadly, composing this song:

My strength plucked up the hills,
My might shadowed the world;
But the times were against me,
And Dapple runs no more,
When Dapple runs no more,
What then can I do?
Ah, Yu, my Yu,
What will your fate be?

He sang the song several times through, and Lady Yu joined her voice with his.  Tears streamed down his face, while all those about him wept and were unable to lift their eyes from the ground.  Then he mounted his horse and, with some 800 brave horsemen under his banner, rode into the night, burst through the encirclement to the south, and galloped away.

Next morning, when the king of Han became aware of what had happened, he ordered his calvary general Guan Ying to lead a force of 5,000 horsemen in pursuit.  Xiang Yu crossed the Huai River, though by now he had only 100 or so horsemen still with him.  Reaching Yinling, he lost his way, and stopped to ask an old farmer for directions.  But the farmer deceived him, saying, “Go left!”, and when he rode to the left he stumbled into a great swamp, so that the Han troops were able to pursue and overtake him.

Xiang Yu once more led his men east until they reached Dongcheng.  By this time he had only twenty-eight horsemen, while the Han cavalry pursuing him numbered several thousand.

Xiang Yu, realizing that he could not escape, addressed his horsemen, saying, “It has been eight years since I first led my army forth.  In that time I have fought over seventy battles.  Every enemy I faced was destroyed, everyone I attacked submitted.  Never once did I suffer defeat, until at last I became dictator of the world.  But now suddenly I am driven to this desperate position!  It is because Heaven would destroy me, not because I have committed any fault in battle.  I have resolved to die today.  But before I die, I beg to fight bravely and win for you three victories.  For your sake shall I break through the enemy’s encirclements, cut down their leaders, and sever their banners, that you may know it is Heaven which has destroyed me and no fault of mine in arms!” Then he divided his horsemen into four bands and faced them in four directions.

When the Han army had surrounded them several layers deep, Xiang Yu said to his horsemen, “I will get one of those generals for you!”  He ordered his men to gallop in all four directions down the hill on which they were standing, with instructions to meet again on the east side of the hill and divide into three groups.  He himself gave a great shout and galloped down the hill.  The Han troops scattered before him and he succeeded in cutting down one of their generals.  At this time Yang Xi was leader of the cavalry pursuing Xiang Yu, but Xiang Yu roared and glared so fiercely at him that all his men and horses fled in terror some distance to the rear.

Xiang Yu rejoined his men, who had formed into three groups.  The Han army, uncertain which group Xiang Yu was with, likewise divided into three groups and again surrounded them.  Xiang Yu once more galloped forth and cut down a Han colonel, killing some fifty to 100 men.  When he had gathered his horsemen together a second time, he found that he had lost only two of them.  “Did I tell you the truth?” he asked.  His men all bowed and replied, “You have done all you said.”

Xiang Yu, who by the time has reached Wujiang, was considering whether to cross over to the east side of the Yangtze.  The village head of Wujiang, who was waiting with a boat on the bank of the river, said to him, “Although the area east of the Yangtze is small, it is some thousand miles in breadth and has a population of 300,000 or 400,000.  It would still be worth ruling.  I beg you to make haste and cross over.  I am the only one who has a boat, so that when the Han army arrives they will have no way to get across!”

Xiang Yu laughed and replied, “It is Heaven that is destroying me.  What good would it do me to cross the river?  Once, with 8,000 sons from the land east of the river, I crossed over and marched west, but today not a single man of them returns.  Although their fathers and brothers east of the river should take pity on me and make me their king, how could I bear to face them again?  Though they said nothing of it, could I help but feel shame in my heart?”  Then he added, “I can see that you are a worthy man.  For five years I have ridden this horse, and I have never seen his equal.  Again and again he has borne me hundreds of miles in a single day.  Since I cannot bear to kill him, I give him to you.”

Xiang Yu then ordered all his men to dismount and proceed on foot, and with their swords to close in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.  Xiang Yu alone killed several hundred of the Han men, until he had suffered a dozen wounds.  Looking about him, he spied the Han cavalry marshal Lu Matong.  “We are old friends, are we not?” he asked, Lu Matong eyed him carefully and then, pointing him out to Wang Yi, said, “This is Xiang Yu!”

“I have heard that Han has offered a reward of 1,000 catties of gold and a fief of 10,000 households for my head,” said Xiang Yu.  “I will do you the favour!”  And with this he cut his own throat and died.

Wang Yi seized his head, while the other horsemen trampled over each other in a struggle to get at Xiang Yu’s body, so that twenty or thirty of them were killed.  In the end the cavalry attendant Yang Xi, the cavalry marshal Lu Matong and the attendants Lu Sheng and Yang Wu each succeeded in seizing a limb.  When the five of them fitted together the limbs and head, it was found that they were indeed those of Xiang Yu.  Therefore the fief was divided five ways, Lu Matong being enfeoffed as marquis of Zhongshui, Wang Yi as marquis of Duyan, Yang Xi as marquis of Chiquan, Yang Wu as marquis of Wufang, and Lu Sheng as marquis of Nieyang.

With the death of Xiang Yu, the entire region of Chu surrendered to Han, only Lu refusing to submit.  The king of Han set out with the troops of the empire and was about to massacre the inhabitants of Lu.  But because Lu had so strictly obeyed the code of honour and had shown its willingness to fight to the death for its acknowledged sovereign, he bore with him the head of Xiang Yu and, when he showed it to the men of Lu, they forthwith surrendered.

King Huai of Chu had first enfeoffed Xiang Yu as duke of Lu, and Lu was the last place to surrender.  Therefore, the king of Han buried Xiang Yu at Gucheng with the ceremony appropriate to a duke of Lu.  The king proclaimed a period of mourning for him, wept, and departed.  All the various branches of the Xiang family he spared from execution, and he enfeoffed Xiang Bo as marquis of Sheyang.  The marquises of Tao, Pinggao, and Xuanwu were all members of Xiang family who were granted imperial surname Liu.

The Grand Historian remarks: I have heard Master Zhou say that Emperor Shun had eyes with double pupils.  I have also heard that Xiang Yu, too, had eyes with double pupils.  Could it be that Xiang Yu was a descendant of Emperor Shun?  How sudden was his rise to power!  When the rule of Qin floundered and Chen She led his revolt, local heroes and leaders arose like bees, struggling with each other for power in numbers too great to be counted.  Xiang Yu did not have so much as an inch of territory to begin with, but by taking advantage of the times he raised himself in the space of three years from a commoner in the fields to the position of commander of five armies of feudal lords.  He overthrew Qin, divided up the empire, and parceled it out in fiefs to the various kings and marquises; but all power of government proceeded from Xiang Yu and he was hailed as a dictator king.  Though he was not able to hold this position to death, yet from ancient times to the present there has never before been such a thing!

But when he went so far as to turn his back on the Pass and return to his native Chu, banishing the Righteous Emperor and setting himself up in his place, it was hardly surprising that the feudal lords revolted against him.  He boasted and made a show of his own achievements.  He was obstinate in his own opinions and did not abide by established ways.  He thought to make himself a dictator, hoping to attack and rule the empire by force.  Yet within five years he was dead and his kingdom lost.  He met death at Dongcheng, but even at that time he did not wake to or accept responsibility for his errors.  “It is Heaven,” he declared, “which had destroyed me, and no fault of mine in the use of arms!”  Was he not indeed deluded?

 

THE ASSASSIN AND HIS SISTER

Nieh Cheng was a native o fShengching Village in the district of Chih.  Having killed a man, he escaped with his mother and elder sister to Chi where he set up as a butcher.  Later Yen Sui of Puyang, who owed allegiance to Marquis Ai of Hann, offended the chief minister Hsia Lui and fled to escape punishment, searching everywhere for a man who would kill Hsia Lui for him.  When he reached Chi, he heard Nieh Cheng was a brave man who was living as a butcher to avoid vengeance.  Yen Sui called him several times, then he prepared a feast in honour of Nieh Cheng’s mother at which he presented her with a hundred pieces of gold.  Amazed by such munificence, Nish Cheng declined the gift.  When Yen Sui insisted he said, “I am blessed with an aged mother.  Though I am but a poor stranger in these parts, I am able to supply her daily food and clothing by selling dog meat.  Since I can provide for her, I dare not accept your gift.”

Yen Sui sent the others away and told Nieh Cheng, “I have and enemy.  Reaching Chi after travelling through many states, I heard that you, Sir were a man with a high sense of honour.

So I am offering you a hundred gold pieces to supply food and clothing for your mother and to win your friendship.  I want no other return.”

Nieh Cheng replied, “I have lowered my ambitions and humbled myself to sell meat in the market solely for my mother’s sake.  While she lives, I cannot promise my services to anyone.”  He could not be prevailed upon to accept, whereupon Yen Sui took a courteous leave of him.

In due time Nieh Cheng’s mother died.  After she was buried and the mourning over Nieh Cheng said, “I am a poor stall-keeper wielding a butcher’s cleaver, while Yen Sui is a state minister; yet he came a thousand li in his carriage to seek my friendship.  I did very little for him, performed no great services to deserve hid favour, yet he offered my mother a hundred pieces of gold; and though I did not accept, this shows how well he appreciated me.  His longing for revenge made this worthy gentleman place his faith in one so humble and obscure.  How, then, can I remain silent?  Previously I ignored his overture for my mother’s sake.  Now that my mother has died of old age, I must serve this man who appreciates me.”

So he went west to Puyang to see Yen Sui and told him, “I refused you before because my mother was still alive, but now she has died of old age.  Who is the man on whom you want to take vengeance?  I am at your service.”

Then Yen Sui told him the whole story, saying, “My enemy is Hsia Lui, chief minister of Hann and uncle of the marquis of Hann.  He has many clansmen and his residence is closely guarded.  All my attempts to assassinate him have failed.  Since you are good enough to help me, I can supply you with chariots, cavalry and men.”

“Hann is not far from Uei, and we are going to kill the chief minister who is also the ruler’s uncle,” said Nieh Cheng.  “In these circumstances, too many men would make for trouble and word might get out.  Then the whole of Hann would become your enemy and that would be disastrous.”

So refusing all assistance, he bid farewell and carrying his sword went alone to the capital of Hann.  Hsia Lui, seated in his office, was surrounded by a host of guards and armed attendants; but Nieh Cheng marching straight in and up the steps stabbed the minister to death.  The attendants, in utter confusion, were set upon with loud cries by Nieh Cheng, till several dozen of them were laid low.  Then he gashed his face, gouged out his eyes and stabbed himself so that his guts spilled out and he died.

Nieh Cheng’s corpse was exposed in the market-place in Hann and inquiries were made but no one knew who he was.  A reward of thousand gold pieces was offered for identifying the assassin, but time passed without any news.  Then Nieh Cheng’s sister Jung heard of Hsia Lui’s assassination and the large reward offered for the identification of  his unknown assassin, whose corpse had been exposed.  “Can this be my brother?” she sobbed.  “Ah, how well Yen Sui understood him!”

She went to the market-place in Hann and found that it was indeed he.  Falling on the corpse she wept bitterly and cried, “This is Nieh Cheng from Shenching Village in Chih!”

The people in the market warned her, “This man savagely murdered our chief minister and our chief minister and the king – has offered a thousand gold pieces for his name.  Did you not know this?  Why do you come to identify him?”

“I knew this,” she replied.  “But he humbled himself to live as a tradesman in the market because our mother died and I had no husband.  After our mother died and I was married, Yen Sui raised him from his squalor to be his friend.  How else could he repay Yen Sui’s great kindness?  A man should die for a friend who knows his worth.  Because I was still alive, he mutilated himself to hide his identity.  But how can I, for fear of death, let my noble brother perish unknown?”

This greatly astounded the people in the market.  Having called aloud on heaven three times, she wailed in anguish and died beside her brother.

Word of this reached Tsin,Chu, Chi and Wei, and everyone commented, “Not only was Nieh Cheng able, but his sister was a remarkable woman too.”  Nieh Cheng might never have given his life for Yen Sui had he know that his sister, with her strong resolution, would not balk at his corpse exposed ine the market-place and take the long difficult journey to make his name known and perish by his side.  Yen Sui certainly was a good judge of character able to find loyal helpers!

 

LETTER IN REPLY TO REN SHAOQING

Shao-ch’ing, honored sir:

In the past I had the honor of receiving a letter from you in which you advised me to be careful in my dealings with people and instructing me in my duty to recommend men and work for the advancement of worthy gentlemen. Your concern is indeed kind and heartfelt.  Perhaps you are angry that I have not marked your words and think that I am following the counsels of worthless men.  I assure you I would not dare to do such a thing.  Worthless old creature that I am, I have yet heard something of the teachings handed down from the great men of old.  But I remember that I am no more than a mutilated being who dwells in degradation.  Anything I might try to do would only meet with censure; should I try to help others I should only succeed in doing them injury.  Therefore I am “in sadness and despair with no one to speak to.”

There is an old saying, “Whom will you do it for, and whom will you get to listen to you?”  After Chung Tzu-ch’i died, Po Ya never again played upon the lute.  Why?  “It is for a friend who understands him that a man will act, and for a lover who delights in her that a woman will make herself beautiful.”

But one like myself, whose very substance is marred and mutilated though I might possess the worth of the jewels of Sui and Ho, though my conduct might be as pure as that of Yu and I, in the end I could never achieve glory, but on the contrary would only succeed in arousing laughter and bringing shame upon myself.

I should have answered your letter, but at the time I had to accompany the Emperor on a trip to the east and was pressed by many petty affairs of my own.  The time we had together was indeed short, and I was so busy that I could not seem to find a moment of leisure to tell you all that I really feel.  Now, Shao-ch’ing , you are accused of this terrible crime.  The days and months have gone by and it is drawing close to the end of winter.  I am forced to go in attendance upon the Emperor to Yung.  If you should suddenly meet with that which cannot be disguised by euphemism, it would mean that I would have no opportunity to unburden to you my bitterness and anguish.  Then in the long journey hereafter your spirit would forever bear me personal resentment.  So I beg you to allow me to explain in brief my rude and unworthy feelings, and I pray you will not blame me too severely for having been so long in answering.

I have heard it said that to devote oneself to moral training is the storehouse of wisdom; to delight in giving to others is the beginning of humanity; that proper giving and taking are the mark of a man’s sense of duty; while times of shame and disgrace determine his courage; and that making a name for himself is the aim of all action.  Only when a man has shown that he possesses these five qualities may he take a place in the world and rank among the host of superior men.  No more severe misfortune can come to a man than to be driven by covetous desires, no sadness is so painful as the grief of the heart.  No deed is more hideous than bringing shame to one’s ancestors, and no disgrace greater than the palace punishment [castration].  That a man who has undergone such punishment is fit no longer to be associated with is the opinion not of one age alone but has been held since ancient times.  When Duke Ling of Wei rode in the same carriage with Yung Ch’ü, Confucius departed for Ch’en.  Because Shang Yang obtained audience with the King through the offices of Ching Chien, Chao Liang’s heart turned cold.  When Chao T’an rode in the Emperor’s carriage, Yüan Ssu was fired with anger.  So from old times men have been ashamed to associate with eunuchs.  If even ordinary men are loath to have dealings with eunuchs, how much more so in the case of gentlemen of virtue and feeling?  Although our court today may be in need of good men, what business would I, a mere “remnant of the knife and saw,” have in trying to help and recommend the finest and most worthy men of the world?

Because of the undertakings of my father which have passed on to me, I have been allowed for some twenty years to serve beneath the hub of the royal carriage, always awaiting my punishment.  I realize full well that first of all, in serving our enlightened Emperor, I have not been able to pay due fidelity or inspire real confidence, nor have I gained a name for cleverness in planning or superiority of ability.  Second, I have been able to perform no service in repairing deficiencies or supplying what was lacking in the imperial rule or in promoting and advancing men of virtue and talent, nor have I brought to light any gentlemen who were living in retirement.  In foreign affairs I have commanded no ranks of men, captured no castles and fought on no field; no glories of generals slain or enemy pennants seized are mine.  At the least I have not, by piling up the days and sticking to my labors, achieved any high position or large salary, or brought glory and favor to my family and friends.  I have not succeeded in a single one of these four endeavors.  From this it is obvious that I am a worthless person who by mere chance has been tolerated at court.

Once in former times I too took my place among the lower officers and participated in the lesser deliberations in the outer court.  If I could not at that time introduce any great precepts or present any of my ideas, now when I am no more than a slave who sweeps the paths, mutilated and ranked among the low worthless—now should I try to lift up my head and look lordly and discourse upon right and wrong, would I not show contempt for the court and bring shame to the gentlemen of my time?  Alas, alas!  A man like myself—what can he say now?  What can he say now?

It is not easy to know the beginning and end of things.  When I was young I had a spirit that would not be bridled, and as I grew older I won no fine praises in my village and district.  But because of my father, our Ruler graciously allowed me to offer my poor talents and to come and go in the inner parts of the Palace.  Therefore I cut off my acquaintanceship with friends and visitors and neglected the business of our family.

I considered then that a man who has a bowl over his head cannot hope to see the sky.  Day and night I thought only how to use to the fullest my poor talents and strength.  I went about the duties of my office with a single mind, seeking only the favor and love of our Ruler.  But, quite contrary to my hopes, things came to a terrible misunderstanding.

Li Ling and I both held office at the same time.  Basically we were never very close.  Our likes and dislikes lay in different directions; we never so much as drank a cup of wine together or shared the joys of intimate friendship.  But I observed that he was clearly a man superior ability.  He was filial to his parents and trustworthy with his associates, honest in matters of money and just in all his giving and taking.  In questions of precedence he would always yield; he was respectful and modest and gave way to others.  His constant care was to sacrifice himself for his country, hastening in time without thought for his own safety.  This was always in his mind, and I believed him to be truly one or the finest men of the nation.  A subject who will go forth to face ten thousand deaths, giving not the slightest thought for his own life but hurrying only to the rescue of his lord—such a man is rare indeed!  Now he has committed one act that was not right, and the officials who think only to save themselves and protect their own wives and children vie with each other in magnifying his shortcomings.  Truly it makes me sick at heart!

The infantry that Li Ling commanded did not come up to five thousand.  They marched deep into barbarian territory, strode up to the ruler’s court and dangled the bait, as it were, right before the tiger’s jaws.  In fearless ranks they shouted a challenge to the powerful barbarians, gazing up at their numberless hosts.  For over ten days they continued on combat with the Shan-yü.  The enemy fell in disproportionate numbers; those who tried to rescue their dead and wounded could not even save themselves.  The barbarian lords in their robes of felt trembled with fear.  They summoned their Wise Kings of the Left and Right and called out all the men who could use a bow.  The whole nation descended together upon our men and surrounded them.  They fought their way along for a thousand miles until their arrows were all gone and the road was blocked.  The relief forces did not come, and our dead and injured lay heaped up.  But Li Ling with one cry gave courage to his army, so that every man raised himself up and wept.  Washed in blood and choked with tears, they stretched out their empty bows and warded off the bare blades of the foe.  North again they turned and fought to the death with the enemy.

Before Li Ling fell into the hands of the enemy, a messenger came with the report [of his attack] and the lords and ministers of the Han all raised their cups in joyous toast to the Emperor.  But after a few days came word of his defeat, and because of it the Emperor could find no favor in his food and no delight in the deliberations of the court.  The great officials were in anxiety and fear and did not know what to do.  Observing His Majesty’s grief and distress, I dared to forget my mean and lowly position, sincerely desiring to do what I could in my fervent ignorance.  I considered that Li Ling has always shared with his officers and men their hardships and want, and could command the loyalty of his troops in the face of death.  In this he was unsurpassed even by the famous generals of old.  And although he had fallen into captivity, I perceived that his intention was to try to seek some future opportunity to repay his debt to the Han.  Though in the end he found himself in an impossible situation, yet the merit he had achieved in defeating and destroying so many of the enemy was still worthy to be proclaimed throughout the world.  This is what I had in my mind to say, but I could find no opportunity to express it.  Then it happened that I was summoned into council, and I took the chance to speak of Li Ling’s merits in this way, hoping to broaden His Majesty’s view and put a stop to the angry words of the other officials.

But I could not make myself fully understood.  Our enlightened Ruler did not wholly perceive my meaning, But supposed that I was trying to disparage the Erh-shih General and plead a special case for Li Ling.  So I was put into prison, and I was never able to make clear my fervent loyalty.  Because it was believed that I had tried to defame the Emperor, I was finally forced to submit to the judgment of the law officials.  My family was poor and lacked sufficient funds to buy commutation of the sentence.  Of my friends and associates, not one would save me; among those near the Emperor no one said so much as a word for me.  My body is not made of wood or stone, yet alone I had to face the officials of the law.  Hidden in the depths of prison, to whom could I plead my case?  This, Shao-ch’ing, is something you must truly have seen for yourself.  Was this not way I always acted?  Li Ling had already surrendered alive and destroyed the fine reputation of his family.  And then I was thrown into the “silkworm chamber” [where castrations were performed].  Together we became a sight for all the world to laugh at in scorn.  Alas, alas!  Matters such as these it is not easy to explain in detail to ordinary people.

My father had no great deeds that entitled him to receive the split tallies or the red charter.  He dealt with affairs of astronomy and the calendar, which are close to divination and worship of the spirits.  He was kept for the sport and amusement of the Emperor, treated the same as the musicians and jesters, and made light of by the vulgar men of his day.  If I fell before the law and were executed, it would make no more difference to most people than one hair off nine oxen, for I was nothing but a mere ant to them.  The world would not rank me among those men who were able to die for their ideals, but would believe simply that my wisdom was exhausted and my crime great, that I had been unable to escape penalty and in the end had gone to my death.  Why?  Because all my past actions had brought this on me, they would say.

A man has only one death.  That death may be as weighty as Mount T’ai, or it may be as light as a goose feather.  It all depends upon the way he uses it.  Above all, a man must bring no shame to his forbears.  Next he must not shame his person, nor be shameful in his countenance, nor in his words.  Below such a one is he who suffers the shame of being bound, and next he who bears, and next he who bears the shame of marked clothing.  Next is the man bound and fettered who knows the shame of rod and thorn, and the man who bears the shame of the shaved head and the binding manacle.  Below again is the shame of mutilated flesh and severed limbs.  Lowest of all is the extreme penalty, the “punishment of rottenness!”

The Commentary says: “Punishments shall not extend to the high officials.”  This means that a gentleman must be ever careful of proper conduct.

When the fierce tiger dwells in the deep hills, all the other beasts tremble with fear.  But when he is in the trap or the cage, he wags his tail and begs for food, for he has been gradually overawed and broken.  Therefore there are cases when, even though one were to draw a circle on the ground and call it a prison, a gentleman would not enter, or though one carved a wooden image and set it up as a judge, a gentleman would not contend with it, but would settle the affair for himself in accordance with what is right.  But when a man has been bound hand and foot with stocks and ropes, has been stripped to the skin and flogged with rods, and plunged into the depths of encircling walls, at that time when he sees the judge he strikes his head upon the ground and when he looks at the jailers his heart gasps with fear.  Why?  Because he has been gradually overawed and broken by force.  A man must be thick-skinned indeed if he come to this and yet say, “I am not ashamed!”  What respect could people have for such a man?

Hsi-po was an earl, and yet he was imprisoned at Yu-li.  Li Ssu was prime minister, yet he suffered all the five punishments.  Huaiyin was a king, but he was put into fetters at Ch’en.  P’eng Yüeh and Chang Ao faced south and called themselves independent, but they were both dragged to prison and punished.  The Marquis of Chiang overthrew and punished all the Lu family; his power exceeded that of the Five Protectors of old, yet he was imprisoned in the Inquiry Room.  The Marquis of Wei-ch’i was a great general, yet he wore the red clothing and was bound with three fetters.  Chi Pu was a manacled slave for Chu Chia, and Kuan Fu suffered shame in the prison of Chü-shih.  All these men achieved the positions of feudal lords, generals, or ministers, and their fame reached to neighboring lands.  But when they were accused of crimes and sentence was passed upon them, there was not one who could settle the matter with his hands by committing suicide.  In the dust and filth of bondage, it has ever been the same, past and present.  How in such circumstances can a man avoid shame?

From this you can see that “bravery and cowardice are only a matter of circumstance; strength and weakness are only a matter of the conditions.”  This is certain.  Is there any reason to wonder at it?  Furthermore, if a man does not quickly make his decision to settle things for himself outside the law, but waits until he has sunk lower and lower, till he lies beneath the whip and lash, and then decides to save his honor by suicide, is it not too late?  This is probably the reason why the ancients hesitated to administer punishments to officials.

It is the nature of every man to love life and hate death, to think of his relatives and look after his wife and children.  Only when a man is moved by higher principles is this not so.  Then there are things which he must do.  Now I have been most unfortunate, for I lost my parents very early.  With no brothers or sisters or close relations, I have been left alone an orphan.  And you yourself, Shao-ch’ing, have seen me with my wife and child, and know how things are.  Yet the brave man does not necessarily die for honor, while even the coward may fulfill his duty.  Each takes a different way to exert himself. Though I might be weak and cowardly and seek shamelessly to prolong my life, yet I know full well the difference between what ought to be followed and what rejected.  How could I bring myself to sink into the shame of ropes and bonds?  If even the lowest slave and scullion maid can bear to commit suicide, why should not one like myself be able to do what has to be done?  But the reason I have not refused to bear these ills and have continued to live, dwelling in vileness and disgrace without taking my leave, is that I grieve that I have things in my heart which I have not been able to express fully, and I am shamed to think that after I am gone my writings will not be known to posterity.  Too numerous to record are the men of ancient times who were rich and noble and whose names have yet vanished away.  It is only those who were masterful and sure, the truly extraordinary men, who are still remembered.  When the Earl of the West was imprisoned at Yu-li, he expanded the Changes; Confucius was in distress and he made the Spring and Autumn; Ch’ü Yüan was banished and he composed his poem “Encountering Sorrow”; after Tso Ch’iu lost his sight, he composed the Narratives from the States; when Sun Tzu had had his feet amputated, he set forth the Art of War; Lü Pu- wei was banished to Shu but his Lü-lan has been handed down through the ages; while Han Fei Tzu was held prisoner in Ch’in, he wrote “The Difficulties of Disputation” and “The Sorrow of Standing Alone”; most of the three hundred poems of the Book of Odes were written when the sages poured forth their anger and dissatisfaction.  All these men had a rankling in their hearts, for they were not able to accomplish what they wished.  Therefore they wrote about past affairs in order to pass on their thoughts to future generations.  Those like Tso Ch’iu, who was blind, or Sun Tzu, who had no feet, could never hold office, so they retired to compose books in order to set forth their thoughts and indignation, handing down their theoretical writings in order to show to posterity who they were.  I too have ventured not to be modest but have entrusted myself to my useless writings.  I have gathered up and brought together the old traditions of the world which were scattered and lost.  I have examined the deeds and events of the past and investigated the principles behind their success and failure, their rise and decay, in one hundred and thirty chapters.  I wished to examine into all that concerns heaven and man, to penetrate the changes of the past and present, completing all as the work of one family.  But before I had finished my rough manuscript, I met with this calamity.  It is because I regretted that it had not been completed that I submitted to the extreme penalty without rancor.  When I have truly completed this work, I shall deposit it in theFamousMountain.  If it may be handed down to men who will appreciate it, and penetrate to the villages and great cities, then though I should suffer a thousand mutilations, what regret should I have?  Such matters as these may be discussed with a wise man, but it is difficult to explain them to ordinary people.

It is not easy to dwell in poverty and lowliness while base men multiply their slanderous counsels.  I met this misfortune because of the words I spoke.  I have brought upon myself the scorn and mockery even of my native village and I have soiled and shamed my father’s name.  With what face can I again ascend and stand before the grave mound of my father and mother?  Though a hundred generations pass, my defilement will only become greater.  This is the thought that wrenches my bowels nine times each day.  Sitting at home, I am befuddled as though I had lost something.  I go out, and then realize that I do not know where I am going.  Each time I think of this shame, the sweat pours from my back and soaks my robe.  I am now no more than a servant in the harem.  How could I leave of my own accord and hide away in some mountain cave?  Therefore I follow along with the vulgar, floating and sinking, bobbing up and down with the times, sharing their delusions and madness.

Now you, Shao-ch’ing, have advised me to recommend worthy men and promote scholars.  But would not such a course be at odds with my own intent?  Now although I should try to add glory and fame to myself, or with fine words seek to excuse my error, it would have no effect upon the vulgar.  I would not be believed, but would only take upon myself further shame.  Only after the day of death shall right and wrong at last be determined.

I cannot convey in writing my full meaning, but I have ventured to set forth brief my unworthy opinion.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Asia, Selections, Sima Qian

by | · 10:24 pm

CHRYSIPPUS
(c. 280-c. 206 B.C.)

The Stoics’ Five Reasons for Suicide

 

Chrysippus, to whom von Armin attributes the fragment provided here (though it may be the work of one of his successors) was born at Soli in Cilicia. Chrysippus, a disciple of Cleanthes, became the third head of the Stoic school at Athens.

Founded by Zeno of Citium, Stoic philosophy had begun as a recognizable movement around 300 B.C.. Only fragments of the writings of the early Stoics remain, for the most part preserved by quotation in the works of later thinkers. Under the guidance of Chrysippus, Stoicism developed into a full philosophical discipline. Stoicism remained one of the most influential and fruitful philosophical movements in the Graeco-Roman world for more than 500 years.

Chrysippus was particularly known for his work in logic, especially in developing formal propositional logic, rather than for providing practical advice on how to live one’s life, as were the efforts to varying extent of later Stoic thinkers like Epictetus [q.v.], Seneca [q.v.], and Marcus Aurelius. Nevertheless, in this fragment, Chrysippus encapsulates Stoic thinking on the matter of how to live—and end—one’s life. The passage presented here gives the five reasons recognized by the Stoics as adequate for suicide. A similar passage appears in Olympiodorus’ later commentary on Plato’s [q.v.] Phaedo.

Sources

Ioannes ab Arnim, ed., Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Vol. 3, paragraph 768, Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1903, pp. 190-191, tr. Yukio Kachi. Some material in the introduction is from Nicholas White, tr. and ed., Handbook of Epictetus (Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett, 1983), pp. 1-2.

 

THE STOICS’ FIVE REASONS FOR SUICIDE

But the Stoic philosophers too understood philosophy to be the practice of death, and for this reason they wrote of five ways of reasonable departure from life.  For…life is like a great party in which the soul seems to feast, and all the ways of reasonable departure from life correspond to the ways in which a party is broken up.  Now, a party is broken up in five ways: 1) because a pressing matter suddenly turns up–for instance, a friend appears after a long absence, and you and the friend get up in delight to walk out and the party is broken up.  Or 2), because revelers rush in, shouting obscenities; the party is likewise broken up. Or 3) because the meats served are spoiled, or 4) because the provisions have run out, or 5) because of drunken stupor, a party is broken up.

Reasonable departures from life take place in the same five ways: 1) because a pressing matter turns up, as in the case of someone commanded by the Pythia [the oracle of Apollo at Delphi] to slit his throat to save his own city, on the brink of destruction.  Or 2) because tyrants rush in, forcing us to do shameful deeds or say forbidden things; or 3) because a serious illness prevents the soul from using the body as an instrument for a long time.  For this reason Plato too does not approve of the dietetic part of medicine, because of its effect of moderating the disease and turning it into a chronic condition, but approves of the surgical and the pharmaceutical parts, to which Archigenes, the army doctor, resorted.  So Sophocles too says:

It will not become a good doctor
To chant incantations over a malady calling for the knife.

            (Ajax, 582)

Or 4) because of poverty, as Theognis says well: “…Escaping from poverty, it is necessary to…”  Or 5) because of dementedness.  For just as drunken stupor would break up a party there, so here too can one have oneself depart from life because of dementedness.  For being demented is nothing but natural intoxication, and intoxication, nothing but self-induced dementia. The same consideration applies here.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Chrysippus, Europe, Selections, Stoicism

by | · 10:16 pm

QU YUAN
(c. 340-278 B.C.)

Embracing Sand

 

Qu Yuan (Ch’ü Yüan, also known as Ch’ü P’ing), is traditionally recognized as the chief author of the poetry from the Chu Ci anthology (The Songs of the South). This anthology is a collection of Chu poetry edited by Wang Yi, a librarian in service of the emperor Han Shundi in the 2nd century A.D. Chu poetry is defined by certain characteristic elements of style and form that were originally used by poets of the Chu kingdom, a political power in what is now southern China that reached the height of its influence in the 4th century b.c.

According to a biography by Sima Qian [q.v.] dating from early in the 1st century B.C., Qu Yuan belonged to the royal house of Chu and was a foreign ambassador and valued servant to King Huai (ruled 328–299 B.C.) during the Warring States period (variously dated 475 or 403 to 221 B.C.), when expanding states were engaged in bloody mutual aggression as the old feudal system was giving way to political centralization. In Sima Qian’s account, a high-ranking administrator of the court who was envious of Qu Yuan’s favor with the king attempted to take credit for some of Qu Yuan’s writings. When Qu Yuan refused to comply, the official made allegations to the king that Qu Yuan was boastful and proud, and Qu Yuan thus fell into disfavor with King Huai. The king’s eldest son inherited the throne, but he, like his father, was also subject to the influence of deceitful advisors. Qu Yuan criticized the new king’s poor judgment and was banished to a remote part of the kingdom. In protest, he drowned himself in the  Miluo River.

Qu Yuan’s best known work is “Li sao” (“On Encountering Trouble”), a long poem in autobiographical form in which the poet describes himself as a nobleman descended from an ancient legendary ruler and depicts the growing disillusionment of an idealistic young man who has come to see that the world is filled with corrupt people and institutions. He plans to abandon the world and join the holy dead, symbolized by Peng Xian, who according to the original compiler of The Songs of the South, Wang Yi, was an upright minister at the court of one of the Shang kings, who drowned himself when his good advice was not taken. Qu Yuan’s poem “Li Sao” concludes with the following lines:

      Enough! There are no true men in the state: no one understands me.
      Why should I cleave to the city of my birth?
      Since none is worthy to work with in making good government,
      I shall go and join Peng Xian in the place where he abides.

“Embracing Sand,” presented here, is sometimes understood as an expansion of these final  four lines of the earlier poem. “Embracing Sand” was Qu Yuan’s suicide note: he is said to  have written the poem and then clasped a large stone to his bosom to drown himself in the  Miluo River. Thus the title “Embracing Sand” is presumed to refer to the practice of filling the bosom of one’s robe with sand in order to drown oneself, much as Japanese suicides are said to have filled their sleeves with sand or gravel. Qu Yuan clearly represents his impending suicide as an example of resolve and personal restraint, as well as an escape from sorrow and grief, though a background of wounded dignity and angry pride is also evident, based in the disillusionment and isolation of an idealist much like that he had earlier expressed in “On Encountering Trouble.”

Qu Yuan is still commemorated in China, as well as in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Malaysia, with dragon-boat races on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the day he is believed to have drowned himself. A special variety of sticky-rice dumpling, wrapped in leaves and steamed, is thrown into the river to feed, according to different accounts, Qu Yuan in his afterlife or as a distraction for the fish and dragons that would otherwise eat Qu Yuan’s body.

Sources

Qu Yuan, quotation from “Li sao” (“On Encountering Trouble”) and text from “Jiu zhang” (“Nine Pieces”), V, “Huai sha” (“Embracing Sand”), from The Songs of the South. An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets, tr. David Hawkes, London: Penguin Books, 1985, pp. 78, 170-172; see also Li Sao and Other Poems of Chu Yuan, tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trs., Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1955, p. x.

 

EMBRACING SAND

In the teeming late summer
When flowers and trees burgeon,
My heart with endless sorrow laden,
Forth I went to the southern land.

Eyes strain unseeing into the hazy gloom
Where a great quiet and stillness reign.
Disquieted and tormented,
I have met sorrow and long been afflicted.

I soothed my feelings, sought my purposes,
Bowed to my wrongs and still restrained myself.
Let others trim square to fit the round:
I shall not cast the true measure away.

To change his first intent and alter his course
Is a thing the noble man disdains.
I made my marking clear; I set my mind on the ink-line;
My former path I did not change.

Inwardly sound and of honest substance,
In this the great man excels so richly.
But when Chui the Cunning is not carving,
Who can tell how true a line he cuts?

When dark brocade is placed in the dark,
The dim-eyed will say that it has no pattern.
And when Li Lou peers to discern minutest things,
The purblind think that he must be sightless.

White is changed to black;
The high cast down and the low made high;
The phoenix languishes in a cage,
While hens and ducks can gambol free.

Jewels and stones are mixed together,
And in the same measure meted.
The courtier crowd are low and vulgar fellows;
They cannot understand the things I prize.

Great was the weight I carried, heavy the burdens I bore;
But I sank and stuck fast in the mire and could not get across.
A jewel I wore in my bosom, a gem I clasped in my hand;
But, helpless, I knew no way whereby I could make them seen.

The dogs of the village bark in chorus;
They bark when they do not comprehend.
Genius they condemn and talent they suspect –
Stupid and boorish that their manner is!

Art and nature perfected lay within me hidden;
But the crowd did not know of the rare gifts that were mine.
Unused materials I had in rich store;
Yet no one knew the things that I possessed.

I multiplied kindness, redoubled righteousness;
Care and probity I had in plenty.
But it was not my lot to meet such as Chong Hua;
So who could understand my behaviour?

It has always been so – this failure of happy meeting;
Though I do not know what can be the reason.
Tang and Yu lived a great while ago –
Too remote for me to long for!

I must curb my rebelling pride and check my anger,
Restrain my heart, and force myself to bow.
I have met sorrow, but still will be unswerving;
I wish my resolution to be an example.

Along my road I will go, and in the north halt my journey.
But the day is dusky and turns towards the evening.
I will unlock my sorrow and ease my grief,
And end it all in the Great End.

 Luan

The mighty waters of the Yuan and Xiang with surging swell go
rolling on their way;
The road is long, through places dark and drear, a way far and forlorn.
The nature I cherish in my bosom, the feelings I embrace, there are none to judge.
For when Bo Le is dead and gone, how can the wonder-horse go coursing?
The lives of all men on the earth have each their ordained lot.
Let my heart be calm and my mind at ease: why should I be afraid?
Yet still, in mounting sorrow and anguish, long I lament and sigh.
For the world is muddy-witted; none can know me; the heart of man cannot be told.
I know that death cannot be avoided, therefore I will not grudge its coming.
To noble men I here plainly declare that I will be numbered with such as you.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Asia, Qu Yuan, Selections

by | · 10:07 pm

MENCIUS
(c. 372-c. 289 B.C.)

from The Mencius

 

Meng Ke, the Chinese Confucian philosopher whose honorific name Mengzi (Meng-tzu) is Latinized as “Mencius,” was, like Confucius [q.v.], born in what is now Shandong province. Also like Confucius, Mencius’ profession was primarily teaching; he is said to have studied under a pupil of the grandson of Confucius, Zisi (according to tradition, he studied under Zisi himself). Mencius lived during the Warring States period, a time of considerable political corruption and dictatorial rule, and traveled for about 40 years from one state to another attempting to persuade rulers of the need for reform and how to accomplish it. He also served as a scholar and official at the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi, but took a three-year absence for mourning after the death of his mother, and was revered for this expression of filial piety.

Respected as one of its principal interpreters, Mencius developed an intuitionist form of Confucianism. Mencius expands Confucius’s humanism by maintaining that human nature is originally and intrinsically good, though it may be corrupted by negative societal influences. The Mencius, said to be a record of his conversations with kings during his years of itinerant travel, was probably compiled by Mencius’ pupils after his death. Together with the Analects of Confucius and two other classic texts, Mencius’ work served as the basis of the imperial civil service examinations.

Although Mencius does not explore the issue of suicide explicitly, the famous passage traditionally translated “I like fish and I also like bear’s paw” shows that there are occasions on which one may not—indeed should not—attempt to preserve one’s own life, but should sacrifice it for a greater good, righteousness. The bear’s paw, or bear’s palm, passage is often compared with Confucius’ Analects, 15.9 and exhibits some of the same tensions over obligations to sacrifice one’s life yet also preserve one’s body.

Sources

The Book of Mencius, Book VI, Part A, 10, tr. Eirik Lang Harris. Some interpretive material concerning the traditional “bear’s paw” phrase is found in Wing-Tsit Chan, tr. and ed., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, 6A10, 6A14-6A15, pp. 57–59. Interpretive material also from Eirik Lang Harris.

from THE MENCIUS

Mencius said: “Fish is something I desire. Bear paw is also something I desire. But if I cannot have them both, I would give up the fish and choose the bear paw. Life is something I desire. Righteousness is also something I desire. But if I cannot have them both, I would give up life and choose righteousness. Life is something that I desire, but there is something that I desire more than life, and so I will not be unscrupulous in pursuing life. Death is something that I hate, but there is something that I hate more than death, and so there are perils that I will not avoid. If it were such that there was nothing that one desired more than life, then, if there were some means that would help one continue living, what would one not use? If it were such that there was nothing that one hated more than death, then if there were some means that would help one avoid peril, what would one not do? From this, then, we see that there are means of staying alive that will not be employed and also that there are means for avoiding peril that will not be used. Therefore, there are desires that are greater than the desire for life and hatreds greater than the hatred of death. It is not merely the sage who has this heart; people all have it, it is just that the sage never loses it.

“Consider the case where, if one gets a [single] basket of food and a bowl of stew, one will live, if one does not get them, one will die. However, if they are insultingly provided, even travelers on the road would not accept them. If they are trampled upon and then provided, even a beggar would disdain them. Yet when it comes to a salary of ten thousand measures of grain, one accepts it without regard to ritual and righteousness. What does this salary add to one? Should one accept for the sake of a beautiful estate? For the respect of a wife and concubines? For the indebtedness of impoverished and needy relatives? Previously, when it was a case of life or death, one would not accept what was offered, but now when it is a matter of a beautiful estate one does. Previously, when it was a case of life or death, one would not accept what was offered, but now for the sake of the respect of a wife and concubines, one does. Previously, when it was a case of life or death, one would not accept what was offered, but now for the sake of the indebtedness of impoverished and needy relatives, one does. Is there no way of stopping this? This is called losing one’s fundamental heart.”

Leave a Comment

Filed under Ancient History, Asia, Confucianism, Mencius, Selections