[Stoicism] - Dịch Seneca (79): Về chút "quả ngọt" trên con đường trui rèn bản thân vinh quang này!

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. 

Bức thư số 79

Bất kể trong cuộc sống hay với cái chết, việc gìn giữ những phẩm cách luôn có được phần thưởng của mình, bao lâu mà một người còn thực sự theo đuổi nó vì chính nó, chứ không phải với những thứ trang trí giả tạo; khi mà một người có thể trung thành với nó trong bất cứ hoàn cảnh nào, dù đột ngột hay có chuẩn bị trước. Bất cứ một sự giả vờ nào đều sẽ mất đi toàn bộ giá trị. Chỉ một vài người có thể bị lừa bởi những bộ mặt được ngụy trang, dù nó hoàn hảo đến đâu. Trong khi sự thật thì luôn luôn không thay đổi, mọi giả dối đều rất dễ lung lay. Hãy thử nghĩ đến những lời nói dối, và bạn sẽ thấy chúng phớt thoảng đến thế nào.

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 I am looking forward to a letter from you describing what new
information you have discovered on your sailing trip around Sicily;
and in particular, some defi nite facts about Charybdis itself.* For I
am well aware that Scylla is only a promontory, and not especially
dangerous to navigation; Charybdis, though, I would like to have
described to me in writing. Is it like the Charybdis of legend? If you
happen to have made any observations—and it is well worth the
trouble—then fi ll me in. Is there only one wind that makes it billow
up, or does every squall stir up the sea in the same way? And is it
true that anything that is drawn into the whirlpool there at the strait
is carried many miles underwater until it surfaces near the beach at
Taormina?
2 If you write to me on these points, my next request will be a
bold one: climb Etna too, in my honor. Some say that the summit of
that mountain is being eaten away and is gradually diminishing in elevation. Th is is an inference from the fact that it used to be visible
from further out at sea; but that might not be because the height of
the peak is diminishing but because its fi res are becoming fainter,
spewing out less violently and in lesser amounts, as is the smoke during
the day. Neither explanation is implausible. It could be that the
mountain is shrinking, being consumed from within day by day; but
it could also be that it remains the same, since the fi re is not burning
the mountain itself but welling up from some recess deep within the
earth. In that case, the actual peak is not its source of supply but only
a channel. 3 In Lycia there is a famous district, called by the inhabitants
Hephaestion, where there are a number of holes in the ground
surrounded by harmless fl ames that do no damage to the vegetation.
Th e area is grassy and fertile, for the fl ames do not burn anything but
merely fl icker lazily in one place. 4 But let’s save those inquiries until
after you have written to me about the others. How far is it from
the crater to the patches of snow? Th ey are well sheltered from the
heat—even in summer they do not melt.
No, don’t charge this eff ort you are making to my account. In your
fevered state, you’d have done it anyway, even if no one had requested
it. 5 How much would I have to pay to keep you from touching
on Mount Etna in your poem—Etna, the hallowed theme of every
poet! Was Ovid prevented from writing about it just because Virgil
had already covered it? Was Cornelius Severus deterred by either of
them?* Anyway, it is fertile ground for everyone. Th e earlier writers
have not, I think, exhausted the possibilities; rather, they have opened
up the way. 6 It makes a big diff erence whether you take up a spent
subject or one that has merely been treated before. A topic grows
over time; invention does not preclude inventiveness. Besides, the
last to come has the best of it: the words are all laid out for him, but
a diff erent arrangement lends them a fresh appearance. Not that he
takes them up as belonging to someone else: they are public property.
7 If I know you at all, you are absolutely drooling over Etna, wishing
to write something great to equal your predecessors. For modesty
does not permit you to hope that you might surpass them. So great
is your respect for those who have gone before that if the opportunity
should arise for you to defeat them, I think you would rather curb
your talent.
8 One of the good things about wisdom is that no one can be beaten at it by another except during the ascent. Once you reach
the heights, everything is on a level; there is no room for increase; it
is a stopping point. Does the sun increase in size? Does the moon
wax beyond the full? Th e level of the oceans does not rise; the world
maintains its shape and its condition. 9 Whatever has attained its
proper stature cannot exceed itself; everyone, therefore, who becomes
wise will be on an equal footing. Each individual among them will
have his own gifts: one will be more genial, another more quickwitted;
one more fl uent in his orations, another more elegant; but
our concern is with the source of their happiness, and that is the
same in all. 10 Whether Mount Etna could ever collapse onto itself,
whether that lofty peak, visible far out at sea, is shrinking from the
constant force of its fi res, I do not know. What I do know is that
no fl ame, no devastation will ever bring down the exalted nature of
virtue. Th is is the one greatness that knows no diminishment. It can
neither be heightened nor reduced; its magnitude is fi xed, like that
of the heavenly bodies.*
Let us endeavor to advance ourselves to that condition. 11 Much
of the work has already been done. No, not much, if truth be told:
merely being better than the worst is not goodness. Does a man boast
of his eyesight just because he is able to tell that it is daytime? When
the bright sun cuts through his fading vision, he is relieved to have
escaped the darkness for a while, but he does not yet have the benefi t
of that light. 12 We will have no reason to congratulate ourselves
until our weltering in the dark is over and our mind emerges not to
squint at the brightness but to gaze full upon the light of day; to be
restored to heaven from whence it came; to claim the place that is its
birthright. Its origins summon it upward. It will be there even before
it is released from this prison-house, as soon as it sheds its faults and
fl ashes upward, pure and light, toward godlike contemplation.*
13 Dearest Lucilius, how glad I am that we are doing this—that
we are pressing on in this direction with all our strength, even if few
people ever know; even if no one knows. Glory is the shadow of
virtue; it accompanies virtue even when it is not wanted.* But just
as a shadow sometimes goes before, sometimes behind, so is it with
glory: sometimes it is out ahead, presenting itself to view; sometimes
it falls the other way and is all the greater for coming later, when
envy has receded. 14 How long a time was Democritus thought to be insane!* How narrowly Socrates escaped oblivion! How many
years was Cato unknown to his country! It rejected him and did not
understand him until it had lost him. Th e innocence and courage of
Rutilius would never have come to light but for the injustice done to
him; once wronged, he became a beacon.* Surely he must have been
grateful for the chance to embrace his life in exile.
I have been speaking of those on whom adverse fortune conferred
distinction; for many, though, their moral progress became
known only after they were gone. And how many more have not been
greeted by renown so much as exhumed by it! 15 Look at Epicurus:
it is not only educated people who are amazed at him but even the
ignorant masses; yet his existence was unknown even in Athens, in
whose environs he had sequestered himself. Hence in one of his
letters, after a hymn of gratitude remembering his friendship with
Metrodorus (who had died many years before), he remarked at the
end that amid such great blessings, it never did either of them any
harm that Greece, that well-known land, not only failed to recognize
them but scarcely even heard of them. 16 Surely, then, he must have
been discovered only after he had ceased to exist; surely it was only
then that his reputation became illustrious. Metrodorus too admits in
one of his letters that he and Epicurus were not very well known, but
says that those who were willing to follow in their footsteps would
have a great name prepared for them.*
17 No instance of virtue lies hidden forever. If it has remained so
for a time, it has lost nothing: though buried for a while in oblivion,
suppressed by the resentment of its own generation, a day will come
that will make it famous. One who thinks only of his contemporaries
is born for but a few. Th ere are many thousands of years to come,
many thousands of peoples: look to them. Even if all those who live
with you are silent because of jealousy, others will come who will
judge your merits with neither malice nor favoritism. If fame is any
reward for virtue, then that reward will never perish. To be sure, the
speeches of posterity will be nothing to us; yet those speeches will
attend us unawares.
18 In life or in death, the pursuit of virtue never goes unrewarded,
as long as one has followed it in earnest, not with hairstyle and
makeup but with a character that is the same on the surprise visit as
on the planned occasion. Pretense is of no avail. Few are deceived by the face that is just painted on: one’s true identity goes right to the
core. Deceits have nothing solid about them. A lie is a tenuous thing,
and on close inspection, transparent.

Farewell.

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