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Seneca - Fear

  • Thread starter angellous_evangellous
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
A good quote from Seneca the Younger that I think about often.

Seneca Epistles Book 1

Epistle 4

"You remember, of course, what joy you felt when you laid aside the garments of boyhood and donned the man's toga, and were escorted to the forum; nevertheless, you may look for a still greater joy when you have laid aside the mind of boyhood and when wisdom has enrolled you among men. For it is not boyhood that still stays with us, but something worse, - boyishness. And this condition is all the more serious because we possess the authority of old age, together with the follies of boyhood, yea, even the follies of infancy. Boys fear trifles, children fear shadows, we fear both."​
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1066986 said:
I like it. What do you think of as "trifles" and "shadows"?
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Not sure about "trifles." Shadows is obvious (to me) - the unknown.

I'm using this text as evidence in a study about ancient abortion. While it does not have anything about killing in it, Seneca's distinctions between infant, boy, man, etc (stages of life) is important.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1066993 said:
Why would boys fear "trifles" but not the unknown?
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No. I don't think that the fears leave, which is the point. So the fears of childhood carry on to boyhood and with maturity the same fears become more defined.
 
doppelganger

doppelganger

Through the Looking Glass
angellous_evangellous said:
No. I don't think that the fears leave, which is the point. So the fears of childhood carry on to boyhood and with maturity the same fears become more defined.
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The syntax doesn't make any sense to me then. It's set up as though "boys" fear one, "children" fear the other one, and "we" (by which I assume he means adults) fear both.
 
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angellous_evangellous

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doppelgänger;1067119 said:
The syntax doesn't make any sense to me then. It's set up as though "boys" fear one, "children" fear the other one, and "we" (by which I assume he means adults) fear both.
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It's not syntax but logic that solves the problem.

Anyway, here's more on how we are like children.

Epistle 115
T hen it will be in our power to understand how contemptible are the things we admire - like children who regard every toy as a thing of value, who cherish necklaces bought at the price of a mere penny as more dear than their parents or than their brothers. And what, then, as Aristo says,/a is the difference between ourselves and these children, except that we elders go crazy over paintings and sculpture, and that our folly costs us dearer?

Children are pleased by the smooth and variegated pebbles wich they pick up on the beach, while we take delight in tall columns of veined marble brought either from Egyptian sands or from African deserts to hold up a colonnade or a dining-hall large enough to contain a city crowd; we admire walls veneered with a thin layer of marble, although we know the while what defects the marble conceals.

We cheat our own eyesight, and when we have overlaid our ceilings with gold, what else is it but a lie in which we take such delight? For we know that beneath all this gilding there lurks some ugly wood. Nor is such superficial decoration spread merely over walls and ceilings; nay, all the famous men whom you see strutting about with head in air, have nothing but a gold-leaf prosperity. Look beneath, and you will know how much evil lies under that thin coating of titles.
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1067119 said:
The syntax doesn't make any sense to me then. It's set up as though "boys" fear one, "children" fear the other one, and "we" (by which I assume he means adults) fear both.
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Perhaps boys don't fear darkness because they are boyishly overconfident?
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
A bit more on the topic (growing up)...

118

How can there be an alteration in the peculiar quality of a thing, when each has, in common with the other, the special attribute of being in accord with nature? "Surely because of its magnitude.

It is no new idea that certain objects change as they grow. A person, once a child, becomes a youth; his peculiar quality is transformed; for the child could not reason, but the youth possesses reason. Certain things not only grow in size as they develop, but grow into something else.

Some reply: "But that which becomes greater does not necessarily become different. It matters not at all whether you pour wine into a flask or into a vat; the wine keeps its peculiar quality in both vessels. Small and large quantities of honey are not distinct in taste." But these are different cases which you mention; for wine and honey have a uniform quality; no matter how much the quantity is enlarged, the quality is the same. For some things endure according to their kind and their peculiar qualities, even when they are enlarged.

There are others, however, which, after many increments, are altered by the last addition; there is stamped upon them a new character, different from that of yore. One stone makes an archway - the stone which wedges the leaning sides and holds the arch together by its position in the middle. And why does the last addition, although very slight, make a great deal of difference? Because it does not increase; it fills up.

Some things, through development, put off their former shape and are altered into a new figure. When the mind has for a long time developed some idea, and in the attempt to grasp its magnitude has become weary, that thing begins to be called "infinite." And then this has become something far different from what it was when it seemed great but finite.

In the same way we have thought of something as difficult to divide; at the very end, as the task grows more and more hard, the thing is found to be "indivisible." Similarly, from that which could scarcely or with difficulty be moved we have advanced on and on - until we reach the "immovable." By the same reasoning a certain thing was according to nature; its greatness has altered it into some other peculiar quality and has rendered it a Good.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1067130 said:
That makes sense. I'm still not sure what "trifles" are, since, in the second excerpt you posted, Seneca seems to say children adore what I would normally think of as "trifles."
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I don't know what it is, either. I'll look it up.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1066986 said:
I like it. What do you think of as "trifles" and "shadows"?
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"Trifles" in my opinion are fights between friends or enemies.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
doppelgänger;1067143 said:
Oh, yeah . . . I forgot about that connotation. (forehead slap smiley). Mystery solved.
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ha! I had to read quite a bit to get that.
 
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