“The mind that rushes headlong in its
search for fame,
thinking that is its highest good,
should look upon the spreading regions
of the air,
and then upon the bounded tracts that
are this world.
Then will shame enter it,
that, though fame grows, yet can it
never fill so small a circle.
Proud men! Why will you try in vain
to free your necks from the yoke
mortality has set on them?
Though fame may be wide scattered
and find its way through distant lands,
and set the tongues there talking;
though a splendid house may draw
brilliance from famous names and tales;
yet death regards not any glory,
howsoever great.
Alike he overwhelms the lowly and the
lofty head,
and levels high with low.
Where are Fabricius' bones, that
honorable man?
What now is Brutus? Or unbending Cato?
Their fame survives in this:
it has no more than a few slight letters
showing forth an empty name.
We see their noble names engraved,
and only know thereby that they are
brought to nothing.
You lie then all unknown, and fame can
give no knowledge of you.
But if you think that life can be
prolonged by the breath of mortal fame,
yet when the slow time robs you of this
too,
then there awaits you but a second
death.”
—from
Book 2, Poem 7
In my
own experience, the pull of fame and fortune can have a powerful effect on the
imagination, precisely because it is so often filled with vivid impressions of
feeling important. I may, in theory, understand the innate weakness of such posturing,
but I am tempted nevertheless by the sights and sounds of being praised and
esteemed.
I have
long appreciated the word vainglory,
because its very parts tell me everything I need to know about the danger of a
false pride in honor. Even so, the glory can seem to hide the poison of the vanity.
So it
can help me to confront such appealing images with the contrast of
correspondingly weak and disturbing images, reminders that things are not always
as they at first appear. If I see someone being revered, I can think how
quickly he will be forgotten. If I see a monument raised in his memory, I can
find myself another monument overgrown with weeds. If I see him being glorified
in the media, I can look at a pile of old newspapers used to line a pet cage.
If I see him being driven about in a fancy car, I can imagine only how he might
feel when being driven for the last time in a hearse. When I see him eating at
a sumptuous banquet, I can ponder being food for the worms.
Though I
at first found them frightening, I have actually grown fond of the medieval
tradition of memento mori (“remember
that you will die”), or of depictions of the Dance of Death, or of Flemish vanitas paintings. The point is never to
simply dwell on what is morbid, but to remember what is right and good.
Boethius is here doing much the same.
Not only
will the glory of the world never last, and we will not even be around for what
little of it might linger, but consider also what we make of ourselves when we
pursue this path. All attention is drawn to what is on the outside, at the
expense of what is on the inside. Life is no longer simply about what we choose
to think and do, but about what others think and do. Instead of asking what I
can give, I ask only what I can receive. Contentment succumbs to consumption,
and character falls to charisma.
I sometimes
wonder how much the people around me, who are building up their position and
reputation, actually share in any sort of happiness. They often seem so busy, so
frenzied, and so tired that I suspect they have little time to reflect on who
they are at all, being constantly occupied with who other people think they
are.
Yet I
shouldn’t second-guess others, and I only need to look within myself. I know
that whenever I’ve been enticed by fortune, I may think it will make me more
free, even as I am only selling myself into slavery.
Written in 9/2015
IMAGE: Frans Hals, Young Man with a Skull (c. 1626)
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