Perspective

Dio Chrysostom, A Libyan Myth 2

Now this myth, which has not been invented for a child's benefit to make it less rash and ungovernable, but for those whose folly is greater and more complete, may perhaps, now that we have brought it into this context,⁠ be able to show adequately the character of the passions, that they are irrational and brutish and that, by holding out the enticement of some pleasure, they win over the foolish by guile and witchery and bring them to a most sad and pitiable end. 

These things we should always keep before our eyes to deter us—even as those terrifying images deter children when they want food or play or anything else unseasonably—whenever we are in love with luxury, or money, or sensual indulgence, or fame, or any other pleasure, lest, coming too near to these unscrupulous passions, we be seized by them for the most shameful destruction and ruin conceivable. 

And, indeed, to interpret the rest of the myth in this way would not be a difficult task for a clever man who perhaps has more time at his disposal than he should have.

For this is what they add to the myth. A certain king of Libya attempted to destroy this breed of animals, angered as he was at the destruction of his people. And he found that many of them had established themselves there, having taken possession of a dense wild wood beyond the Syrtis. 

So he mustered a mighty host and found their dens. For they were not difficult to detect owing to the trails left by their serpents' tails and to the terrible stench that emanated from the dens. He thus surrounded them on all sides and hurled fire in upon them, so that, being cut off, they perished with their young. 

As for the Libyans, they fled with all haste from the region, resting neither night nor day, until, thinking they had gained a great start, they halted for rest beside a certain river. But those of the creatures who had been away hunting, as soon as they learned of the destruction of their dens, pursued the army to the river, and finding some asleep and others exhausted by the toil, destroyed them one and all. 

At that time, then, the task of destroying this brood was not completed by the king. Later, however—so the story continues—Heracles, while clearing the whole earth of wild beasts and tyrants, came to this place too, set it on fire, and when the creatures were escaping from the flames, slew with his club all that attacked him, and with his arrows those that tried to run away.

Now perhaps the myth is an allegory to show that, when the majority of men try to clear the trackless region of their souls, teeming with savage beasts, by rooting out and destroying the brood of lusts in the hope of then having got rid of them and escaped, and yet have not one this thoroughly, they are soon afterwards overwhelmed and destroyed by the remaining lusts; but that Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, carried the task through to  completion and made his own heart pure and gentle or tame; and that this is what is meant by his taming, that is, civilizing the earth.

Would you care, then, to have me gratify the younger people among you by giving a brief additional portion of the myth? For they believe so thoroughly in it and are so convinced of its truth as to assert that one of this brood appeared to the oracle of Ammon under the escort of a strong force of cavalry and archers. 

They saw what seemed to be a woman, reclining on a pile of sand; she wore a sheepskin thrown over her head after the manner of the Libyan women, but displayed her bosom and breasts and lay with her head thrown back. They supposed that she was one of the professional harlots from some village who was on her way thither to join their company. 

Accordingly, a certain two young men, greatly taken with her appearance, approached her, one outstripping the other. When the creature seized this one, she dragged him into a hole in the sand and devoured him. 

The other young man, rushing past her, saw this and cried aloud so that the rest of the party came to his assistance. But the creature hurled itself at the young man with the snake part foremost, and after killing him disappeared with a hissing sound. 

They add that the body was found rotten and putrefying, and that the Libyans who were acting as guides permitted no one to touch the body lest all should perish. 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.10.1

Chapter 10: How the acts appropriate to a man are to be discovered from the name he bears. 
 
Consider who you are. First, a Man; that is, one who has nothing more sovereign than will, but all else subject to this, and will itself free from slavery or subjection. 
 
Consider then from what you are parted by reason. You are parted from wild beasts, you are parted from sheep. 
 
On these terms you are a Citizen of the Universe and a part of it, not one of those marked for service, but of those fitted for command; for you have the faculty to understand the Divine governance of the Universe and to reason on its sequence. 
 
What then is the calling of a citizen? To have no personal interest, never to think about anything as though he were detached, but to be like the hand or the foot, which, if they had the power of reason and understood the order of Nature, would direct every impulse and every process of the will by reference to the whole. 
 
That is why it is well said by philosophers that “if the good man knew coming events beforehand he would help on nature, even if it meant working with disease, and death and maiming”, for he would realize that by the ordering of the Universe this task is allotted him, and that the whole is more commanding than the part and the city than the citizen. 
 
“But seeing that we do not know beforehand, it is appropriate that we should hold fast to the things that are by nature more fit to be chosen; for indeed we are born for this." 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.10 
 
Though Plato was only engaged in a logical exercise when he defined mas as a featherless biped, Diogenes was quite right to ridicule such a preposterous idea. 
 
And yet this is essentially what we propose under our supposedly “scientific” notion of human nature, where we reduce the person to no more than a highly evolved animal, a complex biological machine. The rational, however, is not merely an advanced form of the sensitive, and to be made for consciousness is in a completely different realm than being bound to an appetite for gratification.
 
Through a discovery of the reasons why, the mind can contain within itself the meaning and purpose in our world, and thereby freely participate in the order of Providence. I have it within my power to move beyond the confines of my flesh, becoming selfless by joining my own good with the good of everything that moves around me. It is easy to be cynical about the prospect of genuine love, but then I remember how it is the scope of understanding that makes it possible. 
 
Over the last few weeks, I have found myself feeling awfully self-absorbed, so a passage about the liberation that comes from the simple act of comprehension is a blessed relief. We are all, at one point or another, burdened with a sense of restlessness, of lacking direction, which can ultimately only be overcome by a clarity of awareness about our place within the whole. Free from the diversion of fleeting impressions, there is no longer a “mine” versus a “yours”, to be replaced by a harmony of “ours”. 
 
A true citizen does far more than vote and pay taxes; he learns to gladly give of himself without conditions, secure in the knowledge that every contribution made to the whole is significant. His passport bears the stamp of the whole Universe, not just of a single nation. Far from being cold and uncaring, the intellect turns out to be the very means for the closest intimacy between all creatures. 
 
If we had a certain foresight about the pattern of events, or even the slightest preview of the Divine Plan, we would surely have a far greater confidence in the importance of playing our distinct parts. Yet we are beings who are intended to change and to grow through time, so an informed conscience is the best motivation for constancy. 
 
If I have done anything with mindfulness and goodwill, I can be assured of its efficacy, although I may not be present to see the fullness of the grand design unfold. 

—Reflection written in 8/2001 

IMAGE: Friedrich Georg Weitsch, Plato's School (1797) 

Dio Chrysostom, A Libyan Myth 1

To develop a Libyan myth⁠ and to fritter away one's industry upon such a subject is not a promising undertaking—indeed not, since these themes do not incline the most able men to imitation. 

Nevertheless, we must not refrain because of their contempt from dallying with such themes. For perhaps we ourselves should derive no small benefit if the myth in some way were given the right turn and became a parable of the real and the true. 

Now when one employs his powers to such an end, he suggests to me the farmer's treatment of plant life, when it is success­ful. Sometimes by grafting cultivated and fruit-bearing scions on wild and barren stocks and making them grow there, he changes a useless and unprofitable plant into a useful and profitable one. 

And in just the same way, when some useful and edifying moral is engrafted on an unprofitable legend, the latter is saved from being a mere idle tale. Perhaps, too, those who composed these tales in the first place composed them for some such purpose, using allegory and metaphor for such as had the power to interpret them aright. 

So much by way of prelude to my ode, as someone has said. It still remains to recite and sing the ode itself, that is, the myth which tells to what we may best liken the human passions. 

Once upon a time, so runs the story, there was a dangerous and savage species of animal whose main haunt was in the uninhabited regions of Libya. For that country even to this day seems to produce all sorts of living creatures, reptiles as well as other kinds. 

Now among them was the species with which this story has to deal. It had a body that, in general, was a composite thing of the most incongruous parts, an utter monstrosity, and it used to roam as far as the Mediterranean and the Syrtis in search of food. For it hunted both the beasts of prey such as the lion and the panther, even as those hunt the deer and the wild asses and the sheep, but took the most delight in catching men; and this is why it used to come near the settlements even as far as the Syrtis. 

The Syrtis is an arm of the Mediterranean extending far inland, a three days' voyage, they say, for a boat unhindered in its course. But those who have once sailed into it find egress impossible; for shoals, crosscurrents, and long sand bars extending a great distance out make the sea utterly impassable or troublesome. For the bed of the sea in these parts is not clean, but as the bottom is porous and sandy it lets the sea seep in, there being no solidity to it. 

This, I presume, explains the existence there of the great sandbars and dunes, which remind one of the similar condition created inland by the winds, though here, of course, it is due to the surf. The surrounding country is very much the same—a lonely stretch  of sandy dunes. However that may be, if shipwrecked mariners came inland or any Libyans were compelled to pass through or lost their way, the beasts would make their appearance and seize them. 

The general character and appearance of their body were as follow: the face was that of a woman, a brief woman. The breast and bosom, and the neck, too, were extremely beautiful, the like of which no mortal maid or bride in the bloom of youth could claim, nor sculptor or painter will ever be able to reproduce. The complexion was of dazzling brightness, the glance of the eyes aroused affection and yearning in the souls of all that beheld. 

The rest of the body was hard and protected by scales, and all the lower part was snake, ending in the snake's baleful head. Now the story does not say that these animals were winged like the sphinxes—nor that they, like them, spoke or made any sound whatever except a hissing noise such as dragons make, very shrill—but that they were the swiftest of all land creatures, so that no one could ever escape them. 

And while they overcame other creatures by force, they used guile with man, giving them a glimpse of their bosom and breasts and at the same time they infatuated their victims by fixing their eyes upon them, and filled them with a passionate desire for intercourse. 

Then the men would approach them as they might women, while they on their part stood quite motionless, often dropping their eyes in the manner of a decorous woman. But as soon as a man came within reach they seized him in their grasp; for they had clawlike hands too, which they had kept concealed at first. 

Then the serpent would promptly sting and kill him with his poison; and the dead body was devoured by the serpent and the rest of the beast together. 

IMAGE: Isobel Lilian Gload, The Kiss of the Enchantress (c. 1890) 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 183

Favorinus tells us how Epictetus would also say that there were two faults far graver and fouler than any others—inability to bear, and inability to forbear, when we neither patiently bear the blows that must be borne, nor abstain from the things and the pleasures we ought to abstain from. 

“So,” he went on, “if a man will only have these two words at heart, and heed them carefully by ruling and watching over himself, he will for the most part fall into no sin, and his life will be tranquil and serene.” 

He meant the words [Greek: Anechou kai apechou]—“Bear and Forbear.” 

IMAGE: Giorgio Vasari, Patience (c. 1550) 

Birds for My Mother 8

IMAGE by Danny Green 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 267

As on the troubled surface of rolling waters the moon shines in broken images, so on the unsettled mind of a worldly man, engrossed in Mâyâ, the perfect God shines with partial light only. 

IMAGE: Ivan Aivazovsky, Sea View by Moonlight (1878) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.4

What is the good of expounding these doctrines any more than those of another school? Sit down now and discourse on the doctrines of Epicurus, and you will soon discourse more effectively than Epicurus himself. 
 
Why then do you call yourself a Stoic, why do you deceive the world, why being a Hellene do you act the Jew? Do you not see in what sense a man is called a Jew, in what sense a Syrian, in what an Egyptian? 
 
When we see a man trimming between two faiths we are wont to say, “He is no Jew, but is acting a part”, but when he adopts the attitude of mind of him who is baptized and has made his choice, then he is not only called a Jew but is a Jew indeed. 
 
So we also are but counterfeit “baptists”, Jews in name only, but really something else, with no feeling for reason, far from acting on the principles we talk of, though we pride ourselves on them as though we knew them. 
 
So, being unable to fulfil the calling of Man we adopt that of the Philosopher, a heavy burden indeed! It is as though one who could not lift ten pounds were fain to lift the stone of Ajax! 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.9 
 
I am weary of fretting over the many affectations I see around me, and so, as I am sure Epictetus intended, I choose to reflect on what I can do to improve my own integrity. Even as I can’t help but notice how rarely a fellow puts his money where his mouth is, let his poor example serve as an inspiration to something better, not as a grievance over something worse. 
 
From the context of this section, I suspect that Epictetus is conflating Jews and Christians here, though one could just as easily substitute any other creed or school, and the problem would be much the same. After years of working for the Church, I must confess that the vast majority of the “faithful” will abandon the teachings of the Gospel as soon as they confront some worldly inconvenience; in this they are hardly different from most disciples, who make their excuses once the going gets tough. 
 
The pious cheerleaders will cry foul, but deep in their hearts they know it to be true. I should not be discouraged, or even surprised, when we consistently fail at rising to the virtues, because a creature of free judgment can just as readily follow evil instead of good, and because excellence demands effort, while mediocrity comes easy. It isn’t that only a few are capable, but rather that only a few are willing; scarcity simply makes character all the more precious. 
 
If I preach the Gospel, I am a fraud unless I can practice the love of God and the love of neighbor. If I profess Stoic principles, I am a charlatan unless I can be truly indifferent to the whims of fortune. While the priest may seek his luxuries, and the professor may pursue his fame, I can gladly let them have their reward. I, in turn, will strive to be consistent in what I say and what I do, so that, however else I fall short, I will at least have lived in good faith. 
 
The philosopher who postures and bickers is concerned with the title, not with the task. Keep the company of gentle saints over brash salesmen, and revere the reticent sage instead of the flamboyant scholar. 

—Reflection written in 7/2001 

IMAGE: Jusepe de Ribera, Two Philosophers (1612) 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 14

Luca Giordano, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1696) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.3

Of course any one of us can discourse for the moment on what is good and what is bad: as thus, “Of things that are, some are good, some bad, some indifferent; good are virtues and things that have part in virtues; evil are the opposite; indifferent are wealth, health, reputation.” 
 
And then if some loud noise disturbs us while we are speaking or one of the bystanders laughs at us, we are put out of countenance. Philosopher, where are those principles you were talking of? Whence did you fetch them forth to utter? From the lips and no further. 
 
These principles are not your own: why do you make a mess of them? Why do you gamble with things of highest moment? 
 
It is one thing (to use an illustration) to put bread and wine away into a store-cupboard, and another thing to eat. What you eat is digested and distributed, and is turned into sinews, flesh, bones, blood, complexion, breath. What you store away you have at hand and can show to others at will, but it does you no good except for the mere name of having it. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.9 
 
Over the years, I have parroted countless profound maxims, and I have thought myself worthy for quoting from a vast library of venerable sources. Far less common, however, were the times when I actually turned words into deeds, such that there was quite a bit of talking with very little doing. It can’t be called wisdom if it doesn’t transform me into a different man that I was before. 
 
A pithy summary of Stoic ethics, like the one above, is useless without a wholehearted commitment to daily practice. I claim that virtue alone is good for me, but I remain envious of my neighbor’s new car. I insist that the soul is what matters, though I despair about the aches and pains in my body. I advise others to be content with their integrity, even as I scheme for a promotion at work. 
 
The worst part is when I am seething with rage at the hypocrisy around me, when all the while my own insincerity betrays me: there would be no anger if I had first put myself in order. It is both deeply embarrassing, and also completely necessary, to admit this to oneself. If done right, the public displays will cease, and the private conversion will be the only proof required. 
 
I recently had a sort of epiphany during a heated philosophical debate, as clever insults were being hurled about the room. I wondered why these folks were being so petty, until I realized how I was myself a participant, just by egging them on. I felt sick to my stomach, and I quietly left the room. Later, I somehow managed to keep my mouth shut when a colleague accused me of being a coward for not taking sides. True principles are not subject to stubborn factions. 
 
I need to be careful when I acquire new books, mindful of becoming a hoarder instead of a learner. Yes, while they can look good on the shelf, and I can impress my sophisticated friends by citing arcane passages, the contents of a fine volume must be absorbed into my very character, and they must express themselves in an increase of my power to understand and to love. Give the book to someone more deserving if it will merely serve as an ornament. 
 
There is a certain kind of grasping man who obsessively buys expensive works of art, and then he locks them away in a dusty room. I do not wish to become that sort of man. 

—Reflection written in 7/2001 

IMAGE: David Teniers the Younger, The Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels (c. 1650) 

Birds for My Mother 7

Stoic Snippets 266

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.7 

IMAGE: Anonymous (after Hans Holbein the Younger), Portrait of Sir Brian Tuke with Death (c. 1540) 

Netherlandish Proverbs 7

"To bell the cat." 

To carry out a dangerous or impractical plan. 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.2

What makes a complex proposition be what it is? It must fulfil its promise: it keeps its character only if the parts it is composed of are true. 
 
What makes a disjunctive proposition? It must fulfil its purport. 
 
Is not the same true of flutes, lyre, horse, and dog? Is it surprising then that man too keeps or loses his nature on the same principle? 
 
Each man is strengthened and preserved by the exercise of the functions that correspond to his nature, the carpenter by carpentering, the grammarian by studies in grammar. If a man gets the habit of writing ungrammatically, his art is bound to be destroyed and perish. 
 
In the same way the modest man is made by modest acts and ruined by immodest acts, the man of honor keeps his character by honest acts and loses it by dishonest. 
 
So again, men of the opposite character are strengthened by the opposite actions: the shameless man by shamelessness, the dishonest by dishonesty, the slanderous by slander, the ill-tempered by ill-temper, the miser by grasping at more than he gives. 
 
That is why philosophers enjoin upon us “not to be content with learning only, but to add practice as well and then training”. 
 
For we have acquired wrong habits in course of years and have adopted for our use conceptions opposite to the true, and therefore if we do not adopt true conceptions for our use we shall be nothing else but interpreters of judgements which are not our own. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.9 
 
Aristotle offers a similar argument about isolating our human function in his Nicomachean Ethics, passages I have always gone over in detail with my students, though I fear that they usually give me a glazed expression, confused about the prospect of employing reason in the realm of morality. They are accustomed to treating right and wrong as a matter for sentiment alone, comfortably subjective and conveniently vague. 
 
We live in especially odd times, when there has never been more precision in engineering, chemistry, or accounting, and yet we remain so sloppy at crafting a conscience. While a man can describe his trade in the greatest detail, he is tongue-tied when it comes to explaining his most basic values. What a relief it is to finally learn that a refined understanding is the key to coping with raw emotions! 
 
How am I to desire the good, if I do not first know what is good? The purpose of anything is revealed by grasping its identity, such that the mechanic is acquainted with the workings of an engine, and the writer is fluent in the meaning of words, and the sage is informed on the powers of the soul. Not all of us need to fix cars, and not all of us will write poetry, but all of us are called to human excellence. 
 
We become good by exercising the virtues, which bring us into harmony with Nature. Now as much as the intellectual would like to believe that pondering a truth is sufficient, it is only practice that can make perfect. Some habits will raise us up, and other habits will also bring us down, and it is sound judgement that allows us to discern the critical difference. 
 
Whenever a change of behavior seemed too difficult for me to make, it was always because of my own entrenched tendencies, not because the undertaking itself was impossible. I can attribute any improvements in my character to a patient diligence, where each repetition, however insignificant it initially seems, is a worthy contribution to the whole. 
 
The musician commits to the tedium of playing his scales, and the soldier submits to the drudgery of following his drills. They are willing to endure the discipline of their arts for the sake of noble ends, secure in the knowledge that the ideal only becomes real through constancy. 

—Reflection written in 7/2001 

IMAGE: Edwin Austin Abbey, Baron Steuben Drilling American Troops at Valley Forge (c. 1910) 

A Psalm of Life

"A Psalm of Life" 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)  

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

   Life is but an empty dream! 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 

   And the grave is not its goal; 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

   Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

   Is our destined end or way; 

But to act, that each to-morrow 

   Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 

   And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 

   Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world’s broad field of battle, 

   In the bivouac of Life, 

Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 

   Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! 

   Let the dead Past bury its dead! 

Act,—act in the living Present! 

   Heart within, and God o’erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us 

   We can make our lives sublime, 

And, departing, leave behind us 

   Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

   Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

   With a heart for any fate; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 

   Learn to labor and to wait.

IMAGE: H. Winthrop Peirce, Footprints on the Sands of Time (1892)