[Stoicism] - Dịch Seneca (13): Đôi điều về nỗi sợ

Lời tựa:


Như đã giới thiệu trong series, Seneca thực sự là nguồn cảm hứng Stoicism của mình. Đọc Seneca không chỉ là về triết học mà còn là một trải nghiệm nghệ thuật, khi những bài học, triết lý quan trọng được phản ánh qua những hình ảnh quen thuộc, bình dị và đời thường, thể hiện cái tinh tế trong quan sát của một thiên tài với sự từng trải của cuộc đời.
          
Với hy vọng giới thiệu Stoicism đến với các bạn trẻ Việt Nam, xin gửi tới các bạn bản dịch những bức thư quan trọng nhất trong cuốn "Moral Letters to Lucilius", tác phẩm đã làm nên tên tuổi của Seneca và là một trong bộ ba cuốn sách nền tảng của Stoicism. 

Những bức thư đạo đức là tuyển tập các bức thư của triết gia Seneca về Chủ nghĩa Khắc Kỷ, nhằm trang bị cho con người hành trang để đối mặt và mỉm cười trước sóng gió của cuộc đời, đạt được sự bình thản trong tâm trí. Cuốn sách không chỉ về triết học, mà còn về trải nghiệm nghệ thuật, khi những bài học, triết lý quan trọng được phản ánh qua những hình ảnh quen thuộc, bình dị và đời thường, thể hiện cái tinh tế trong quan sát của một thiên tài.
       
Do không phải anh dịch thuật, nên bản dịch này hoàn toàn tập trung vào việc truyền tải thông điệp và hy vọng có thể giúp bạn cảm thấy dễ dàng hơn trong việc tiếp cận với bản tiếng Anh, để có thể thấy cái hay cái đẹp trong việc sử dụng ngôn từ của Seneca (dù thực ra bản tiếng Anh cũng chỉ là một bản dịch). Một anh bạn người Ý của mình đã chia sẻ Seneca được đưa vào chương trình giảng dạy tại Ý như một bậc thầy về việc sử dụng ngôn từ. Vì vậy, xin cam đoan tất cả những gì khiến bạn cảm thấy trúc trắc từ bản dịch là bởi khả năng hạn chế của mình, và rất mong nhận được đóng góp của các cao nhân để bản dịch được hoàn thiện hơn. Sau khi hoàn thành mình sẽ tạo file pdf và chia sẻ free cho mọi người.

Bức thư số 13:

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 You have plenty of spirit, I know. Even before you began to equip yourself with the teachings that bring health and conquer adversity, you felt that you were doing quite well against fortune, and all the more after you came to grips with it and tested your strength. One can never be sure of one’s strength until numerous difficulties have appeared on every side, or indeed until the moment when they have come quite close. That is the way for the true mind to prove itself, the mind that yields to no judgment but its own.

2 Fortune tests the spirit’s mettle. A boxer who has never suffered a beating cannot bring bold spirits to the match. It is the one who has seen his own blood—who has heard his teeth crunch under the fist—who has lost his footing and found himself spread-eagled beneath his opponent—the one who, though forced to yield, has never yielded in spirit, who after falling rises fiercer every time: that is the one who goes to the contest with vigorous hope. 3 Pursuing the analogy: just so has fortune often had the upper hand with you, and yet you have never surrendered: you have jumped up and stood still more boldly on your feet. For courage increases when it meets with a challenge. All the same, accept from me, if you will, some few words to help you strengthen your defenses.

4 More things frighten us, Lucilius, than really affect us, and we are more often afflicted in thought than in fact. I mean this not in a Stoic sense but in a less exalted way. It is, of course, our doctrine that all those things that wring sighs and groans from people are minor matters and not worth thinking about. But let’s skip those great words—although, by all the gods, they are true. My advice to you is this, rather: don’t be miserable before it is time. Those things you fear as if they were impending may never happen; certainly they have not happened yet. 5 Some things, then, torment us more than they should, some sooner than they should; and some torment us that should not do so at all: either we add to our pain, or we make it up, or we get ahead of it.

We are still at odds on that first question, and the case is contested. So let’s put it off for the moment. Something I call minor will be quite serious in your estimation: I am well aware that some people laugh as they are beaten with whips, while others groan when merely slapped. We will investigate later on whether such things have power through their own strength or through our weakness. 6 What I am asking of you now is just this: whenever those around you begin to convince you that you are unhappy, consider what you actually feel rather than what you hear them say. Consult your own endurance; and since you are the best judge of your own aff airs, ask yourself, “Why is it that these people are commiserating with me? On what grounds do they shrink from me, fearing even to come in contact with me, as though misfortune were contagious?” Is there really anything bad in your condition? Or is the reputation worse than the reality? Ask yourself, “Could it be that I am suffering and moaning for no reason? Am I making something bad that is not?” 

7 “How am I to know,” you say, “whether the causes of my anxiety are real or empty?” Here is your measuring stick. We are tormented either by things past, or by things to come, or both. Concerning things present it is easy to make a judgment: if your body is at liberty, and healthy, if you are not in pain from any injury, then we can wait and see what is to come; today is not an issue.

8 “Still, it is to come.” First, find out whether there is firm evidence that trouble is on the way. For all too often we worry about what we merely suspect. Rumor plays tricks on us—rumor, that “brings down the battle,” but brings down the individual even more. Yes, dear Lucilius, we are too quick to give way to opinion. We do not demand evidence of the things that frighten us, or check them out carefully; we quail, and take to our heels, like the army that breaks camp because of a dust cloud kicked up by a herd of cattle, or like people who are terrified by some item of anonymous gossip. 9 In a way, empty causes produce even more trepidation. Real dangers have an inherent limit; anything that arises from uncertainty, though, is given over to conjecture and to unrestrained anxiety. Hence our most pernicious, our most uncontrollable fears are the crazy ones. Our other fears are unreasonable; these are unreasoning. So let us look carefully at the facts.

10 Some evil is probable for the future; it is not proven right off. How many unexpected things have come to pass! How many of our expectations never happen at all! Even if it is to come, what good does it do to anticipate your grief? You will grieve soon enough, when it comes; in the meantime, allow yourself something better. What do you gain by that? Time.

11 Many things will happen that may avert the approaching danger, even if it is nearly at hand, or make it cease, or direct it toward someone else. The fire leaves an escape route; the collapsing building sets some people down gently; the sword is right at the throat, and then drawn back; the one condemned to death survives his executioner. Even bad fortune can be fickle. Perhaps it will happen, perhaps it won’t; certainly it is not happening now. So keep the better things in view.

12 Often when no sign indicates that anything bad is on the way, the mind makes up its own false imaginings. Either it takes some ambiguous utterance and bends it toward the worse, or it supposes that someone is more gravely off ended than he really is, thinking not how angry he is but how much he might be able to do in anger. But if fear goes to its fullest extent, then life is not worth living, and there is no end to our misery. Make use at one point of foresight; at another let mental toughness spurn even an evident danger. If not that, then drive out one fault with another: balance fear with hope. Certain as it may be, no object of fear is more certain than this:

Panic subsides; hope derides.

13 Therefore give careful consideration to hope and fear alike; and whenever the situation remains uncertain, do yourself a favor and give credence to the thing you prefer. If the weight of opinion rests with fear, throw your support the other way. Stop troubling yourself, and reflect often that the majority of human beings become upset and bothered even when nothing bad is either present or definite for the future. For no one resists his own movement, once begun; no one trims his fear to accord with reality. No one says, “My informant is of no account, an empty fellow; he either made it up, or believed someone who did.” We let ourselves be blown about by the breeze, alarmed by ambiguities as though they were confirmed facts. We lose our sense of proportion: the least cause of uneasiness turns right away into fear.

14 I am ashamed to speak this way to you, coddling you with remedies so gentle. Another may say, “Perhaps it won’t come”; for yourself say, “If it comes, so what? We will see which of us wins. Perhaps it is in my interests for it to come, and such a death will bring honor to my life.” It was the hemlock that made Socrates great. Wrest from Cato his sword, his guarantor of liberty, and you take away the greater part of his glory. 15 But I am urging you too much, when what you need is more reminding than urging. We are not pulling you in a different direction from your own nature. You were born to our doctrines. All the more, then: augment your own good; embellish it.

16 My letter will now be at an end if I just put the seal onto it, that is, if I entrust it with some grand saying to convey to you. 

This too is one of the evils of foolishness: it is always beginning to live.

Most excellent Lucilius, ponder the meaning of this saying, and you will understand how disgusting it is that people are so fickle, every day laying new foundations for life, starting on new projects even in the hour of death. 17 Cast your mind about to individual cases: you will think of old men who are preparing themselves more than ever before for a career, for travel, or for business. What is more shameful than an old man making a beginning on life? 

I would not give the author of this saying if it were not one of the less well-known, uncirculated sayings of Epicurus, which I have allowed myself both to praise and to adopt.

Farewell.

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