Seneca, On the Happy Life 57: A Conqueror or a Captive?

. . . What, then, is the upshot of all this? It is that I prefer to have to regulate joys than to stifle sorrows. The great Socrates would say the same thing to you.

 "Make me," he would say, "the conqueror of all nations. Let the voluptuous car of Bacchus bear me in triumph to Thebes from the rising of the sun. Let the kings of the Persians receive laws from me. Yet I shall still feel myself to be a man even at the very moment when all around salute me as a god.

“Straightway, connect this lofty height with a headlong fall into misfortune. Let me be placed upon a foreign chariot that I may grace the triumph of a proud and savage conqueror. I will follow another's car with no more humility than I showed when I stood in my own.”

What then? In spite of all this, I would rather be a conqueror than a captive. I despise the whole dominion of Fortune, but still, if I were given my choice, I would choose its better parts. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)

I would indeed gladly choose pleasure over pain, comfort over suffering, but I can only free myself from slavery to preferences when I begin to see that all of my circumstances should be in the service of right action. Give me what is easier, but I should be just as willing, and just as proud, to face what is harder.

I have long been in awe and wonder at the Gospel scene of the Agony in the Garden. I imagine people of many faiths and cultures can surely appreciate both the pain and difficulty of such a decision, as well as the love and humility of the choice that was made. From Matthew 26:36-39:

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go yonder and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

My own struggles have never been about the redemption of humanity, but they have been hard enough to bear. I made poor choices about attachments, and paid many years of consequences for them. They were life-defining mistakes. I often wish none of it had ever happened, but I then also realize that the pain was what led to the only things that are now good within me. Give me contentment over loss, but not at the expense of my soul.

As much as I might like to be driving the chariot of a conquering king, can I still learn to be a decent and happy man if I am paraded about as a vanquished captive? Can I be humble and righteous both in victory and in defeat?

Kipling always said it so well:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same. . . 

Written in 6/2004

Image: Eugene Delacroix, The Triumph of Bacchus (1861)