[Stoicism] - Dịch Seneca (88): Về nghệ thuật và những ngành học khai phóng

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.    
                                                        
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 88

Chúng chỉ mang lại những kỹ năng có thể được thị trường ưa chuộng, và chúng chỉ hữu dụng khi được dùng để bổ trợ cho sự toàn diện của tâm trí chứ không phải là những ngành để ta hướng về lâu dài. Một người chỉ nên trau dồi chúng cho đến khi tâm trí có khả năng hấp thụ những thứ khác tốt đẹp và quan trọng hơn: chúng chỉ là những ngành học khởi đầu, chứ không thể là những công việc thực sự của tâm trí. 

Nơi đâu hỡi sao Thổ băng giá

và quỹ đạo mà sao Thủy vẽ ra (trích thờ Virgil)

Nhưng nếu bạn nhìn lên hướng mặt trời di chuyển, và những vì sao

lần lượt thứ tự đi theo nó, và bạn

sẽ không bao giờ có thể ngạc nhiên vì những thứ xảy đến ngày mai; bạn sẽ

được an toàn khỏi cuộc phục kích trong đêm thanh (trích thờ Virgil)

Vậy nên, tôi hy vọng vào những điều tốt đẹp nhất, nhưng sẽ chuẩn bị cho những điều tồi tệ nhất.

Việc mong muốn hiểu biết nhiều hơn những kiến thức cho một cuộc sống tốt thực ra cũng là một dạng của sự thiếu kiểm soát và điều độ. 

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 You ask what I think of the liberal arts. I have no special regard
for any of them, nor do I consider any study a good one if its aim
is moneymaking. Th ese are merely marketable skills, useful insofar
as they prepare the mind but not as long-term occupations. One
should stick with them only until the mind is capable of something
more signifi cant: they are our introductory curriculum, not our real
work. 2 It’s obvious why they are called “liberal” studies: because they
are worthy of a free person. But there is only one study that is truly
liberal, and that is the one that liberates a person, which is to say, the
study of philosophy.* It alone is exalted—powerful—great in spirit;
all others are trifl ing and childish. Or do you imagine there can be
anything of value in a study when those who make a profession of
it are utterly scandalous and despicable? Our aim should not be to
learn them but to be done with learning them.
Some have held that the proper question about the liberal arts
is whether they make one a good man. Th at is not something they
claim to do, even—such knowledge is not their aim. 3 Th e literary
studies are concerned with linguistic purity and, if carried further,
with narratives; at most, they extend to the study of poetry. Which
of these subjects paves a road toward virtue? Th e identifi cation of
syllables, the close attention to words and phrases, the memorization
of stories, the rules of versifi cation, the alteration of meters—which
of these calms our fears, removes our greed, curbs our desire? 4 Let’s
pass on to geometry and music: there too, there is nothing that bids
us refrain from fear or from desire. And if we don’t know how to do
that, it’s no use knowing anything else.
<Th e question is>° whether virtue is the subject these people are
teaching. If it is not, then they are not imparting virtue to their pupils—
and if it is, then they are philosophers. Would you like to know
how far they are from making that their aim? Notice how diff erent
all their studies are from one another. If they were all teaching the
same thing, there should be some similarity among them.

5 Unless they manage to persuade you that Homer was a philosopher!
But they invalidate their own arguments: at one moment they
make him a Stoic, who gives his approval to virtue alone and will not
shirk from what is honorable even to gain immortal life; at another
an Epicurean, who praises civic repose while living amid songs and
parties; at another a Peripatetic, who posits three types of goods; at
another an Academic, who says there is no certainty about anything.*
It just goes to show that not one of these philosophies is his, since
they all are—for they are not compatible. But suppose we grant that
Homer was a philosopher: surely he must have become one before
he ever learned any poems. In that case, let’s learn the things that
made Homer wise.
6 But for me to inquire into whether Homer or Hesiod came
fi rst is of no greater relevance than to know how it is that Hecuba
grew old before her time, since she was in fact younger than Helen.
What, I ask you, is the relevance of an inquiry into the relative
ages of Patroclus and Achilles? 7 Do you seek to know the whereabouts
of Ulysses’ wanderings rather than how to rescue us from
our own perpetual wandering? We haven’t time to hear whether
he was beset by a storm between Italy and Sicily or outside the
bounds of the known world (since he couldn’t have traveled so long
in such a narrow strait). No, we ourselves are beset by storms of the
mind every day of our lives, and our vices bring us all the troubles
that Ulysses faced. Th ey are all here: beauty that beguiles the eye,
enemies, savage monsters that delight in human gore, on one side
the Sirens’ song, on the other shipwrecks and perils of every kind.*
Teach me this: how to love my country, my wife, my father; teach
me to reach that honorable destination, though I be shipwrecked
along the way. 8 Why do you seek to know whether Penelope was
unchaste; whether she deceived everyone around her; whether she
suspected that the person she saw was Ulysses before she was told?
Teach me what chastity is, how valuable it is, whether it belongs to
the body or to the mind.
9 I move on to music. You teach me how there can be harmony
between high and low notes, how strings of diff erent pitch can be
concordant: teach me instead how there can be harmony within my
own mind, how my intentions may not be discordant with one another.
You show me which musical modes express sadness: show me instead how to keep from expressing sadness in the midst of
adversity.
10 Th e geometrician teaches me to fi gure the size of a plantation,
but he doesn’t teach me how to fi gure what quantity of wealth
is suffi cient for a human being. He teaches me to do computations,
adapting my fi ngers to the purposes of greed;* but he doesn’t teach
me that such computations are beside the point, that it doesn’t make
one any happier to have accountants wearing themselves out over
one’s income—indeed, that a man who would fi nd it a misfortune
to have to compute his own net worth possesses nothing but superfl
uities. 11 How does it help me to know how to divide up a fi eld if
I don’t know how to divide it with my brother? How does it help
me to fi gure out the precise size of a garden plot down to the tenth
part of a foot if it upsets me that my unruly neighbor is shaving a
little off my land? He teaches me how to keep from losing that strip
near my property line, but what I want to know is how to lose all
my property and yet remain cheerful. 12 “I’m being dispossessed of
land that belonged to my father and my grandfather!” What of it?
Who owned it before your grandfather? Can you even tell me what
nation it belonged to, let alone what individual? You came to it not
as a master but as a tyrant. Whose tenant are you? If you’re lucky, you
are the tenant of the man who will inherit it from you. Th e lawyers
say that no one can establish de facto ownership of public land—but
this that you inhabit and call your own belongs to the public; indeed,
it belongs to the human race.* 13 What exceptional skill! You know
how to measure curved shapes; you can make any fi gure you are given
into a square; you can tell the distances between stars; there is in fact
nothing you cannot measure. If you are such a skilled technician,
measure the human mind! Tell how great it is—how puny it is. You
know whether a line is at a right angle: what use is that to you if you
do not know what is right in life?
14 I come now to the study that prides itself on its familiarity
with the heavens:
where Saturn’s frigid star betakes itself;
what orbits Mercury’s wandering fi re describes.*
What will I gain by knowing such things? Is it just so that I can
worry when Saturn and Mars are in opposition, or when Mercury sets in the evening with Saturn looking on? I should learn instead
that the planets are favorable no matter where they are, and that they
cannot be changed. 15 Th eir movements are ordained by the continuous
and inexorable workings of fate: they travel on fi xed paths and
either determine or signify all the world’s events.* But if they cause
everything to happen, how will it help you to know about what cannot
be altered? And if they signify what will happen, what does it
matter whether you foresee things you cannot avoid? Th ey will happen
whether you know about them or not. 16
But if you look to the hurtling sun, the stars
that follow him in order, never will
tomorrow take you by surprise; you will
be safe from ambush by the cloudless night.*
In fact, I have already taken suffi cient precautions against any such
ambush.
17 “Is it really true that tomorrow will never take me by surprise?
Surely what happens to a person without his knowledge does take
him by surprise.” I do not know what will happen, but I do know
what can happen. I exempt none of that from expectation: I expect it
all; and if I am spared any of it, I count myself fortunate. Tomorrow
does take me by surprise, if it lets me off . Yet even then it does not
surprise me; for just as I know there is nothing that cannot happen to
me, so also I know that none of it is certain to happen. Th us I expect
the best, but prepare for the worst.*
18 You must bear with me if I don’t keep to the regular sequence:
I can’t bring myself to count painters among the practitioners of the
liberal arts, any more than I count statue makers, marble workers,
and all the other ministers of luxury. Likewise, I reject wrestlers and
every sort of knowledge that consists merely of oil and dirt.* Otherwise
I would have to count masseurs, cooks, and all those others
who accommodate their talents to our pleasures. 19 What, pray tell,
is the liberal art of those starving vomiters who keep the body at the
feeding trough while the mind grows feeble for lack of nourishment?
Shall we believe today’s young people when they call that a liberal
arts education? Our ancestors trained them to stand upright, to cast
a spear, to hurl a javelin, to ride a horse, and to handle sword and
shield. Th ey taught their children nothing that had to be learned while reclining. Yet virtue is not taught or nurtured by any of these
skills, either the old or the new. For what is to be gained by handling
a horse, using the reins to restrain and guide its movements, while
passions unrestrained and unbridled run away with the rider? What
is to be gained by vanquishing many opponents in wrestling or boxing,
when the victor is still a victim of anger?
20 “What, then? Do the liberal studies have nothing to off er us?”
Toward some ends they do contribute; but nothing toward virtue. For
even the skills that consist in manual dexterity, which admit openly
to their low status, furnish us with many of life’s basic needs; yet they
bear no relation to virtue. “Why, then, do we train our children in
the liberal arts?” Not because they can ever impart virtue, but because
they prepare the mind to receive virtue. Just as that initial “learning
the letters” (as it used to be called), which imparts to children the
rudiments of learning, does not teach them the liberal arts but does
prepare a place for them, so the liberal arts themselves do not lead the
mind all the way to virtue but do equip it for the journey.
21 Posidonius says there are four kinds of arts: there are the common
and base arts, the arts of the entertainer, the arts of childhood,
and the liberal arts.* Th e common arts are those of workmen, which
consist in manual dexterity and are devoted to furnishing life’s basic
needs. In these there is no attractiveness and no semblance of the
honorable. 22 Th e arts of the entertainer are those concerned with
the pleasures of eye and ear. Among them you may count the engineers
who devise stage fl oors that rise into view unaided, platforms
that soar into the sky without making a sound, and other such extraordinary
contrivances: gaps that open up where there was level
fl oor before, or that close of their own accord, or raised sections that
gradually lower onto themselves. Th ese things are impressive to the
eyes of those who have no familiarity with such matters, who marvel
at every unexpected occurrence since they do not know what causes
it. 23 Th e arts of childhood have some similarity to the liberal arts.
Th ese are the ones the Greeks call “encyclical”; in our language, they
are called “liberal.” But the only arts that are truly liberal—indeed, to
be frank, the only arts that are truly free—are those whose concern
is virtue.
24 One might say, “Philosophy has several parts: the study of
nature is one, ethics is another, and logic is another. In the same way, the whole troop of liberal studies claims a place for itself within
philosophy. When we come to investigate natural questions, we rely
on evidence from geometry; so, being of assistance to philosophy,
geometry must also be a part of philosophy.” 25 Th ere are many things
that assist us without being part of us; indeed, if they were part of
us, they would not be of assistance. Food is of assistance to the body
and yet is not part of the body. Geometry does us a service; it is
necessary to philosophy in the same way as the instrument maker is
necessary to geometry itself. Th e latter is not part of geometry, and
neither is geometry a part of philosophy. 26 Moreover, each of them
has its own defi ned subject matter: the philosopher investigates and
gains knowledge of natural phenomena, while the geometer collects
fi gures and measurements and does calculations based on them. Th e
rationale behind celestial phenomena, their effi cacy and their nature:
these are knowledge for the philosopher; their orbits, epicycles, and
certain apparent movements in which they shift upward or downward
or seem to stand still when in fact no heavenly body can stand
still: these are problems for the mathematical astronomer. 27 Th e
philosopher knows the reason for the images seen in mirrors; the
geometer can tell you how far the object must be from its image and
what shape of mirror produces images of a certain kind. Th e philosopher
will prove that the sun is large; the astronomer will proceed by
empirical methods to fi nd out just how large it is. But in order to
proceed in this way, he must have principles to go on. No art stands
alone if its fundamentals are derived from elsewhere. 28 Philosophy
asks nothing from any other study; it builds its entire edifi ce from
the ground up. Mathematical astronomy is, as it were, an upper story,
built on another’s foundation: it takes its principles from elsewhere,
and it is only with this aid that it gets any further. If it arrived at the
truth on its own—if it were able to grasp the entire nature of the
world—then I would grant that it has a great deal to off er us. For by
dealing with celestial phenomena our minds increase in scope and
gain in elevation.
Th ere is just one way our minds attain their full stature, and that is
by unalterable knowledge of what things are good and what are bad.
But there is no other study that has anything to say on that subject.
29 Let us make a survey of the virtues, one by one. Courage is the
one that scorns every object of fear: everything that frightens us, that drives our freedom beneath the yoke, is met with contempt—
with a challenge—with conquest! Do the liberal studies do anything
to strengthen this? Loyalty is the human heart’s most sacred good,
which no hardship drives toward deceit, no recompense toward treason.
“Burn me,” says loyalty; “cut me, kill me—I will not betray my
own. Th e harder pain presses me for my secrets, the deeper I shall
hide them.” Can the liberal studies fashion such a spirit? Self-control
takes command of our pleasures: some it despises and excludes, others
it moderates, reducing them to healthy limits and never seeking
them for their own sake; for it knows that the best limit on
the objects of desire is to take what you need, not what you want.
30 Kindness forbids one to be arrogant or critical toward one’s associates;
it is gentle and approachable with everyone in word and deed
and feeling; it thinks of every misfortune as its own, and welcomes
every stroke of good fortune mainly to share it with another. Do the
liberal studies teach such conduct? No, no more than they teach us
honesty, temperance and moderation, frugality and thrift; no more
than they teach clemency, which is as sparing of another’s blood as
of its own, knowing that no human being should ever forget the
value of another.
31 “You people say that one cannot attain virtue without the liberal
arts; how is it, then, that you maintain they contribute nothing
to virtue?” Like this: one cannot attain virtue without food either, yet
food has nothing to do with virtue; just as timber does not contribute
anything to a ship even though one cannot make a ship except out of
timber. My point is that you have no reason to think that one thing
contributes to another just because the other cannot come into being
without it. 32 One might also observe that it is in fact possible to
attain wisdom without the liberal studies, for although virtue does
have to be learned, it is not through these that one learns it. What
reason do I have for thinking that someone with no knowledge of
letters will not become wise? Wisdom does not reside in letters. It
imparts facts, not words—and perhaps the memory is more retentive
when it has nothing but itself to rely on.
33 Wisdom is vast and expansive; it needs room. One must learn
about things human and divine, things past and yet to come, things
transitory and things eternal.* One must learn about time—and
see how many questions there are about that alone: fi rst, whether it is a thing in itself; then, whether there is anything that precedes
time, anything timeless. Did time begin along with the world, or,
since something did exist before the world, did time also exist then?
34 Th ere are countless questions to ask just about the mind: Where
does it come from? What is it like? When does it begin to exist, and
how long does it last? Does it migrate from place to place, changing
its dwelling from one animate creature to another, or does it endure
this slavery but once and upon release travel through the universe? Is
it corporeal or incorporeal? What will it do once it has ceased to do
anything through us? How will it use its freedom after it escapes this
dungeon? Or does it forget its former life and begin to know itself at
the moment it is taken from the body and passes on to the heights?
35 No matter what part of things human and divine you take hold
of, you will fi nd a vast number of subjects for inquiry and learning to
wear yourself out with. With so many big questions waiting to occupy
our minds, we must make room for them by evicting those others
that are superfl uous. Virtue will not take up residence within such
narrow confi nes: so large a guest needs elbow room. So let every thing
be driven out, and let the whole heart be open to virtue.
36 “Still, it is delightful to have familiarity with many diff erent
studies.” In that case, let us keep only as much of them as we need.
Or do you think reproach is justifi ed when a person buys useless furnishings
for his home and sets up a display of expensive objects, but
not when someone busies himself with a superfl uous array of literary
studies? Wanting to know more than enough is a form of intemperance.
37 Th e fact is, that way of pursuing the liberal arts makes men
annoying, long-winded, pompous, self-satisfi ed: because they have
learned what they do not need to know, they fail to learn what they
do need. Th e literary scholar Didymus wrote four thousand books.*
I would pity him if he had only read that many needless volumes! In
some, he tries to determine the birthplace of Homer; in others, who
was Aeneas’s real mother; in others, whether Anacreon was more
prone to lust or to drunkenness; in others, whether Sappho was a
whore; and he has other topics as well. If you knew the answers to
such questions, you should try to unlearn them. And you tell me that
life is too short! 38 But among our countrymen too, there are excesses
it would take an axe to clear away. With what expenditure of time,
with what annoyance to others’ ears do we purchase that acclamation, “Such an educated person!” Better we should content ourselves with
a less cultivated title: “Such a good man!”
39 How, then? Am I to scrutinize the histories of all peoples to
fi nd out who was the fi rst to write poetry? Shall I compute how
many years passed between Orpheus and Homer, seeing that there
are no written records? Shall I familiarize myself with the editorial
symbols by which Aristarchus marked up other people’s poems, and
spend my life on syllables?* Shall I linger over the dust of geometry?*
Have I forgotten that salutary counsel, “Conserve your time”? Shall I
learn these things—and what, then, shall I pass over? 40 During the
principate of Gaius Caesar, the literary scholar Apion made a tour of
Greece and was adopted by all those cities in the name of Homer.*
He used to say that after Homer had completed his two themes, both
the Odyssey and the Iliad, he added a preface to his work in which he
took in the entire Trojan War. As proof of this, he alleged that the
fi rst two letters in the fi rst line of the Iliad were put there on purpose
to signify the number of volumes in the work. 41 Th at’s the kind of
thing a polymath has to know! Just think: how much of your time is
taken up by illness, by your business both public and private, by your
daily routines, by sleep? 42 Take the measure of your life: it does not
have room for so many things.
I have been speaking of the liberal arts; but the philosophers have
their own ways of wasting time, their own useless pursuits. Th ey too
descend to the marking out of syllables and the proper meanings of
conjunctions and prepositions. Envying the literary scholars and the
geometers, they have taken over all the superfl uities of those studies,
and in this way have come to know more about speaking properly
than about living. 43 Let me tell you how much harm such excessive
sophistication can do, and how far estranged it is from the truth.
Protagoras claims to be able to speak with equal cogency on either
side of any question—including the question of whether both sides
of every question are capable of being defended!* Nausiphanes claims
that none of the things that appear real are any more real than unreal.*
44 Parmenides says that none of the things that appear to us are
diff erentiated from the One.° Zeno of Elea does away with the entire
debate by declaring that nothing exists at all! Th e Pyrrhonists, the
Megarians, the Eretrians, and the Academics are up to more or less
the same thing: they have introduced that new form of knowledge which knows nothing at all.* 45 Cast them in, all of them, with the
useless crowd of liberal studies! Th e fi rst lot don’t provide me with
any benefi cial form of knowledge; the others don’t even leave me
with any expectation of knowledge. It’s better to learn superfl uous
things than nothing at all. One set does not lift any lamp to direct my
gaze toward the truth; the other gouges out my very eyes! If I believe
Protagoras, there is nothing in the world that is not ambiguous; if I
believe Nausiphanes, the one thing that is certain is that there is no
certainty; if I believe Parmenides, nothing exists but the One; if I
believe Zeno, not even the One. 46 What are we, then? What are all
these things that surround us, feed us, sustain us? Th e entire world
is a shadow, either empty or deceptive. I can hardly say which group
makes me angrier, those who wanted us to know nothing, or those
who did not even leave us the ability to know nothing.

Farewell.

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