~by
David Aiken~
 |
| They that go down to sea: Gloucester, MA |
Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.7.1.1. [Phrontisterion translation]. Imagine that you are on a sea voyage and
that your ship has put in at harbor for a layover; [imagine, further,] that you
left the ship (2) to go on shore to refresh yourself. Now, all the while you
happened to be collecting (3) sea-snail shells and cuttlebones for yourself during the stopover,
you also needed (4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be
constantly on your guard (5) for when the captain summons to re-embark. Because
whenever he calls to board, (6) you need to drop all the things you picked up
along the way. It is in this way that, although your arms were full with all
the things you had collected, by getting rid of it all, you will not be thrown
into distress about the possibility of being left behind by the ship, (7) and
become agitated like sheep, which then start bleating and carrying on.
It is just like that in life, as well—nothing shall
prevent us from substituting, instead of (8) sea-snail shells and cuttlebones,
a bride and young child (9). And when the captain summons us to re-board ship?
(10) Return to the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along
the way— not (11) having always been
constantly on your guard; and not
being too far away from the (12) ship, especially if you happen to be an old
man. This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid being found
wanting.
2 “Ench”, 1.7.1.1
Kaqa¿per e˙n plw◊ø touv
ploi÷ou kaqormisqe÷ntoß ei˙ e˙xe÷lqoiß uJqreu/sasqai, oJdouv me«n pa¿rergon
kai« 3
kocli÷dion aÓnale÷xhØ
kai« bolba¿rion, teta¿sqai de« dei√ 4 th\n dia¿noian e˙pi« to\ ploi√on kai« sunecw◊ß
e˙pistre÷fesqai, mh/ pote oJ kubernh/thß kale÷shØ, ka·n kale÷shØ, 6 pa¿nta e˙kei√na
aÓfie÷nai, iºna mh\ dedeme÷noß e˙mblhqhvøß 7 wJß ta» pro/bata: ou¢tw kai« e˙n tw◊ø
bi÷wˆ, e˙a»n didw◊tai aÓnti« 8 bolbari÷ou kai«
koclidi÷ou gunaika¿rion kai« paidi÷on, 9 oujde«n kwlu/sei: e˙a»n de« oJ kubernh/thß
kale÷shØ, tre÷ce 10 e˙pi«
to\ ploi√on aÓfei«ß e˙kei√na a‚panta mhde« e˙pistrefo/menoß. e˙a»n de« ge÷rwn
h™øß, mhde« aÓpallaghvøß pote touv 12 ploi÷ou makra¿n, mh/ pote kalouvntoß e˙lli÷phØß.
The seventh
chapter of Epictetus’ Enchiridion is
a parable, a moral tale about navigation on the waters of life. The central
metaphor of this Stoic vision of human reality is that we are, one and all, seafaring
souls, embarked on an ocean voyage. The perception of ourselves as wayfarers in
life—as land-walkers, is not quite entirely accurate according to Epictetus,
because that representation only seeks to embrace the traveler, but fails to
give us any interesting and relevant insight into the traveler’s environment.
Epictetus sketches out for us a fuller truth with his image of the seafaring
life, which embodies both the traveler and the world of his journey.
We are seafarers. The ship in this
metaphor is the philosophical state of mind, an attitude toward life and living
that one can cultivate once one has correctly understood the nature of human reality.
And the sea upon which the ship navigates is the true, Heraclitan nature of
World—a shifting, eternally flowing reality. Terra firma, in the form of a temporary landfall in Epictetus’
fable, is a lost, very occasional, and impermanent harbor layover—an idea that
should have a much smaller place in our philosophical imagination, because it
holds no ground of permanence for us, either literal or metaphorical.
Because this narrative is in essence a teaching
parable, we must be attentive to the fact that there are actually two levels of
interpretation: the basic or literal story line, which obviously serves as the vehicle
for the second level of meaning: the intended ‘lesson’ or moral-of-the-story.
§ Internet Translations of 2 “Ench”,
1.7.1.1. There dwells little or no trace of
Epictetus and his Stoic thinking in the various internet translations of this
seventh chapter of the Manual, either
in meaning or in philosophical sensibility. Each of the readily available English
translations of Ch. 7, including that of Carter (1750), Higginson (1865),
Matheson (1916), Walton (1997) [resource link], Long (1888), is a non-text. Print editions intended
for scholarly and student audiences are scarcely better, with the same language
errors occurring in Nicholas White’s translation for Hackett Publishing (1983), and Hard and
Gill’s 2014 translation for
Oxford World’s Classics. In addition to creating nothing more than assembled-grammatical
associations that entirely miss Epictetus’ imaginative, as well as
philosophical meaning and teaching intent, there are also important inaccuracies
in language comprehension. The most significant translation bloopers occur in
lines 6-7, and concern how our assembled translators under- or (mis-under)stood
and rendered the ‘sheep’ simile.
Furthermore, the non-English language internet
translations of Chapter 7 of the Enchiridion,
e.g., in French, Italian, and German, rival their English counterparts only in circumlocution
and philosophical vacuousness, and reflect the exact same translation errors. They
are equally non-texts. One may therefore well assume that, generally speaking, none
of the various versions of Epictetus’ Enchiridion
that are readily available online, are actual and thoughtful translations from
Epictetus’ Greek, but are rather superficial re-workings grounded in other European-language
translations.
The model for this might be something like
the Baynes 1950 rendering of the Chinese classic I Ching: Or, Book of Changes, which
is really a translation of Richard Wilhelm’s original, early 20th
century German translation. It is entirely conceivable, therefore, that at
least some of Epictetus’ original Greek thinking, such as this parable from Enchiridion § 7, has never been truly
available for reflection to any, or to very few indeed, Western audiences.
Ms.
Carter, whose translation can be found on the MIT Classics site, renders this seventh segment of The Enchiridion in the following way:
7. Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you
go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking
up a shellish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention
ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call
on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep.
So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you
are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain
calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding
none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship:
lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in
time.
The
Thomas Wentworth Higginson translation of this segment at Project Gutenberg remains consistently
approximative:
As in a voyage, when
the ship is at anchor, if you go on shore to get water, you may amuse yourself
with picking up a shellfish or a truffle in your way, but your thoughts ought
[20] to be bent toward the ship, and perpetually attentive, lest the captain
should call, and then you must leave all these things, that you may not have to
be carried on board the vessel, bound like a sheep; thus likewise in life, if,
instead of a truffle or shellfish, such a thing as a wife or a child be granted
you, there is no objection; but if the captain calls, run to the ship, leave
all these things, and never look behind. But if you are old, never go far from
the ship, lest you should be missing when called for.
§ Some Comments on Vagaries of Language.
Following the order of Epictetus’ words is
relatively straightforward in this passage, whence the general consensus in sentence
structuring among the various “translations.” This, notwithstanding several
noticeable translating whoppers on the part of both Ms. Carter and Mr.
Higginson around lines 6-7. On the level of simple language, however, the parallelisms
at the heart of Epictetus’ narrative remain mostly implicit and never quite
make it into the realm of the explicit, either in the Greek text or in the
translations. Yet these parallelisms are of fundamental importance to the sense
and purpose of the narrative. But because they remain structurally inchoate, it
seems to suggest that our once and former slave had been dipping rather heavily
into the rum punch prior to orating on this particular occasion. Either that,
or the modestly motivated student note-taker, traditionally thought to be Arrian, was sitting in the far back of the class checking
his primeval version of Facebook, and lending only half an ear to this lecture.
To palliate the unfocused ‘suggestiveness’ of this 7th chapter of
Epictetus’ text, Phrontisterion departed
from a literal rendering strategy, and instead, with the purpose of clarifying
both the culture and story-line of this section, amplified more aggressively its
translation.
§ Parables, Similes and Metaphors
Chapter 7 of Epictetus’ Manuel is a didactic story, or parable. A Greek word meaning a comparison or analogy,
here in this simple narrative Epictetus uses parable to illustrate a general
philosophical principle. According to the wiki-definition of parable,
The defining characteristic of
the parable is the presence of a subtext suggesting how a person should behave
or what he should believe. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for
proper conduct in one's life, parables frequently use metaphorical language
which allows people to more easily discuss difficult or complex ideas. Parables
express an abstract argument by means of using a concrete narrative which is easily
understood.
As our wiki-source states, parables often use
other figures of speech, such as simile and metaphor, as image-vehicles to make
their point. Simile is a simple comparison that uses as or like; and for
Epictetus this occurs specifically in line 7, where he tells us to avoid
becoming agitated like sheep, which then start bleating and carrying on. ‘Like’ identifies
the simile.
Metaphor,
on the other hand, while quite similar to the simile, is trickier sometimes to
identify because it does not use as or like. In this section of the Manual, the metaphor is introduced in
lines 8-9 just following the simile in line 7: It is just like that
in life, as well—nothing shall prevent us from substituting, instead of (8)
sea-snail shells and cuttlebones, a bride and young child (9).
Homer
was perhaps the most famous metaphorist of the ancient Greek world; and, as
imitation has always been the sincerest form of flattery, it should not
surprise us to find Epictetus using this strategy to make his philosophical
points in the Enchiridion. This
entire parable, for example, is not to be understood literally, but rather on a
parallel plane—metaphorically. The sea is the shifting reality of Life and
World; the ship is the vessel of right thinking and philosophical-mindedness;
the stop-over for water and sea-shells, is the illusion of stability where
there is, in truth, only change and motion and transformation, which is also the
cause of our anxiety, advises Epictetus, if we are consumed by the fear of being
left behind in terms of the truth of World. The sea-faring traveller is the
individual cast loose on the waters of the Life-Journey, which is framed in by
Beginnings and Endings.
§ Caveat--of Captains and Gods in Epictetus’
Metaphor.
To the Western imagination, swollen with
the authoritarian father-figure motif of the Freudian imaginaire inseparably fused with the Christian all-knowing male
deity, the most obvious association one might be tempted to make with respect
to Epictetus’ ship captain, the kubernetes
[oJ kubernh/thß] of our text, who
appears first in lines 4-5 and then again in lines 9, is with a God figure.
(4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be
constantly on your guard (5) for when the captain summons to re-embark. Because
whenever he calls to board, (6) you need to drop all the things you picked up
along the way; And when the captain summons us to re-board ship? (10) Return to
the ship. […] This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid being
found wanting.
But,
heaven forfend! (mh ge÷noito; me
genoito), to
borrow from the Apostle Paul. Such an infelicitous association is predictable, however,
due to the pivotal power and
authority that the function of ‘captain’ embodies in the Western imagination; and
notwithstanding the hermeneutical anachronism, in translation emphases and
interpretations of Epictetus’ metaphor, one must anticipate this tendency.
Yet the role of the kubernetes in this parable is perfectly
extraneous to the intent of Epictetus’ philosophical life-lesson, which is
entirely unconcerned about W/who might be steering the ship, or whether the
ship is even being specifically guided. It is only the language of the metaphor
itself, of a sailing ship, that needed a ship’s ‘captain’; otherwise it would
have been a puzzling, if not completely lame and unbelievable comparison. Even
a child knows that ships have captains… otherwise, who does the calling back to
the ship? Who the sailing? Who oversees the loading and unloading? Who yells
out ‘ahoy there, matey’ or gives the order for the bad guys to ‘walk the
plank’? So, the captain has narrative necessity in order to round out the
metaphor of our text; but he is philosophically irrelevant to Epictetus’
‘moral-of-the-story’. That said, the language of ‘being summoned’ in
conjunction with the idea of ‘captain’, remains hermeneutically suggestive, and
is therefore misleading, to most classical Western thought.
The verb ‘to call or to summon’
someone, kaleo [κᾰλέω], first occurs in our parable in line 5, and
is traditional and straightforward. The aorist form of the verb here [kale÷shØ] invites the listener to understand the
summoning as a punctual event, and not a process. Other than that, one
naturally understands from the narrative sweep that the captain has shouted out
the ‘all aboard’ for all and sundry, and that the disembarked passengers are
expected to stop whatever they are doing and hightail it back to the ship.
Epictetus’ emphasis is not so much on the fact of the summons, but rather on
its unexpected timing (line 8; and the kalouvntoß, of line 12, as the penultimate idea of the story)—it
is predictable that there will be a summons, but because we are not Masters of
the Summons, we do not know, nor is it ever made clear to us, just when we will
be summoned to ‘take the low road’. Unlike the wayfaring shade of Loch Lomond, we are here tasked
to be philosophically prepared for the summoning; but of a ‘Scotland’ at
journey’s end, there is no word.
§ Equivalencies.
Sea-snail shells and cuttlebones of line 3 is
narratively equivalent to bride and young child of line 8; and Epictetus summarily refers to
both of these groups of ‘things’, and by extension, to all things in general, as
panta ekeina [pa¿nta e˙kei√na], “all
those things.” This expression in
Greek makes use of a remote demonstrative pronoun, which emphasizes that the
things in question are remote to us—not these
things, but those things. The use of
‘proximity’ language is strongly suggestive of an attitude of a wise, and
philosophically important detachment that should characterize our thinking
about this world full of things. This language does not seek to reduce any
specific thing’s value or interest—we are not being invited to be dismissive of
seashells, or of wife or child. Epictetus is, however, gently reminding us that
none of our relationships, to any- and every-[thing] around us, is permanent.
We are just traveling through this world as suppliants; and all the world’s
things are on (very) temporary loan to us.
§ Parallel Infinitives.
The
impersonal verbal construct, dei [dei]
in line 3, creates both the fundamental phrase as well as the entire argument
structure for the text. The radical phrase is, you also needed (4) to keep your attention riveted [teta¿sqai de« dei√
4 th\n dia¿noian]. Dei [dei] has the sense of ‘one needs/it is necessary’, and this
impersonal verb determines all the sequential or second verbs, i.e., the infinitival
structure, for the remainder of the first paragraph: line 3 (teta¿sqai dei) + line 4 ((dei)… e˙pistre÷fesqai) + line 6 ((dei)… pa¿nta e˙kei√na aÓfie÷nai).
Written
out long-hand, the entire infinitive sequence looks like this: “you also needed
(4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be constantly on your guard
(5) for when the captain summons to re-embark. Because whenever he calls
to board, (6) you need to drop all the things you picked up along the way;”
§ Other Parallelisms in Structure.
Argument in any text is comprehensible when
the structure of the language is apparent. This normally becomes manifest in
the use and quality of the verbs, especially in ancient Greek. We saw this
already, for example, with the parallel infinitives (lines 4, 5, and 6), each
of which hangs off the ‘you need to’ or ‘it is necessary’, dei [dei], in line 3. “You … needed (4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be … on your guard (5)
for when the captain summons to re-embark. Because whenever he calls to board,
(6) you need to drop all the things you picked up along the way.”
However, another way to structure a text easily is through negations, which is
important to note in the later development and application of Epictetus’ simile
in lines 10-12, with mede + mede + me [mhde + mhde + mh/ (pote)]. The text reads: (10) Return to the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up
along the way— not
(11) having always been constantly on your guard; and not being too far away from the (12) ship, especially if you happen to be
an old man. This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid [mh/… e˙lli÷phØß] being found wanting.
§ Errors in Translation.
Now, given the metaphorical big-picture, we certainly
understand Epictetus’ philosophical point here, and that the precise nature of
the things our sea-wanderer collects is profoundly irrelevant to the general
idea of collecting ‘stuff’ in life. We also understand Epictetus’ focus on the
idea that the seafarer wants desperately to hang on to all the stuff he amasses
in the course of his life, and that this distracts the seafarer from an
appropriate philosophical frame-of-mind with respect to ‘stuff’ in general. That
said, from a language point of view, the ‘stop-over’ holds an additional interest
for the interpreter.
On the question of what types of things our
metaphorical seafarer is collecting on-shore during the imaginary layover,
Epictetus speaks in lines 3 and 8 of koxlidion
and bolbarion [kocli÷dion … kai« bolba¿rion], which Ms. Carter renders as a shellfish, or an onion, and Mr.
Higginson as shellfish or a truffle.
There is general consensus on this translation, with Long providing the
additional nuance of some bulb; however, White goes the
extra mile to give us a small shellfish
and a vegetable.
According to the LSJ dictionary of the Thesaurus
Linguae Graecae, koxlidion [kocli÷dion], is a diminutive of koxlos [κόχλος], which is a shell-fish with a spiral shell. The
shell of the conch could be used as a trumpet, for example, and the fishy bit, apparently,
was used for making purple dye. Alternatively, the reference of koxlos as a land snail (escargot?) is
attested in Aristotle. Phrontisterion
therefore translated the diminutive koxlidion
as sea-snail shells.
The term bolbarion [bolba¿rion] suffered a
similarly, and quasi unanimously, disfiguring fate at the hands of our internet
and print translators, who seem to think that it makes sense here to create
meaning etymologically—tracing through to the English the non-diminutive bolbos [bolboς], which means "plant with round swelling on underground stem," through the Latin bulbus, meaning bulb, bulbous root,
onion, and onward to its translational destiny as bulb, truffle, vegetable… and
non-sense. According to the TLG, Bolbarion [bolba¿rion] is a small cuttlefish that, apparently, has a strong
smell. According to our wiki-source:
Cuttlefish or cuttles are marine animals of the
order Sepiida. They belong to
the class Cephalopoda, which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses.
Cuttlefish have a unique internal shell, the cuttlebone. Despite their name,
cuttlefish are not fish but molluscs.
Phrontisterion therefore translated the diminutive bolbarion
in line 3 as cuttlebones. That said,
because
of the strangeness of the word to English-language ears, and for the sheer
pleasure of the exercise, we can continue to learn from our wiki-source about
the origins of ‘cuttle’ in English:
The 'cuttle' in 'cuttlefish'
comes from the Old English name for the species, cudele, which may be cognate with the Old Norse koddi ('cushion') and the Middle Low
German Kudel ('rag'). The
Greco-Roman world valued the cuttlefish as a source of the unique brown pigment
the creature releases from its siphon when it is alarmed. The word for it in
both Greek and Latin, sepia,
now refers to a brown pigment in English.
§ Existential Tourism.
Like tourists, travelers tend to
accumulate stuff en route, e.g.,
maps, souvenirs, foreign coins, old tickets, and other keepsakes. It seems to
be the nature of the beast; and the only harm is, generally, stuff-overload;
not enough pockets; and baggage weight surcharge. Epictetus uses the image of
one who gets off the boat at the stop-over, and wanders off to go collect some
memorabilia like (3) sea-snail shells and
cuttlebones. The verb Epictetus uses for ‘collecting’ is analekxe [aÓnale÷xhØ], from which we get in English the plural noun ‘analects’,
as in The Analects of Confucius, which refers to the collection of the ideas and sayings of this mid-6th
century BC Chinese sage. Epictetus uses this verb in the middle voice—so,
gathering up stuff for myself, which has some interesting and fun imagery—from
collecting materials from books, like an old library rat, to the woodpecker who
goes around collecting worms, insects, and other critters, by drumming his head
against trees!
So,
the traveling life is one of amassing stuff over the course of time—clothes,
books, furniture, plates, scraps of paper, and all the stuff that fills our
drawers, closets, garages, and attics. Again, Epictetus has no opinion in this
fable about whether what we collect is interesting or not-interesting; his
basic assumption is only that it is a human fact that we are gatherers, and
that given enough traveling time we will manage to accumulate a lot of stuff.
So, he wishes to remind us of this fact: that we accumulate stuff, and that at
a certain point all that stuff will begin to weigh us down and hinder our
movements, both physically and psychologically. And he points out that, because
acquisitions and other forms of ‘stuff’—from seashells to wives and children—are
only on short-term loan from Life and World, and impossible to keep for the
long term, we must therefore remain alert to the fact that we are only borrowers
and that we must, at some point, return what we have borrowed. Epictetus
encourages us to adopt this as a voluntary frame of mind, rather than to
deceive ourselves and, at the last minute, to be coerced by the reality of
World, at which point we are forced to relinquish hold in fear and anger—bleatingly.
For
Epictetus, then, the appropriate philosophical disposition toward the foraging
& collecting habits of homo sapiens
analecta, is one of appreciation and remittance. He expects us psychologically
and, in due course, quite literally, to voluntarily ‘drop’ from our hands and
minds what we have so painstakingly collected during our short layover. Epictetus
encourages us to be constantly ready and willing to give back to the world
(Line 6, aÓfie÷nai and Line 10, aÓfei«ß) what the world has
so temporarily shared with us. When we are called back to the ship, the desirable
philosophical ‘action’ or state of mind is … (6) to drop all the things you picked up along the way; (10) Return to
the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along the way.
Our
verb here translated as ‘drop everything’, is aphienai [ἀφιέναι], which also has
lots of fun images associated with it—from discharging missiles (which North
Korea seems to enjoy doing these days, although in Epictetus’ mind the
‘missiles’ were certainly bolts or arrows instead of launched ICBMs), to
letting things fall from your grasp; from the legalese usage of acquitting of a
charge or engagement, to remitting a charge to someone; from disbanding an army
or fleet, to granting a divorce. Other images in this panoply include:
releasing a debtor; being released from duty; to get rid of something; to give
up the ghost (a childhood favorite of mine); to leave alone, and to neglect.
At
the conclusion of his parable, after the reader has been encouraged in lines 6
& 10 to have a ‘drop everything’ (aphienai
; ἀφιέναι) state-of-mind toward the World and
things of the World, Epictetus gives us, in lines 11 and 12, the two reasons
why we should cultivate this seafaring frame-of-mind—in order that, no matter
your age, (1) you should never be too far
away from the ship; and so that (2) whenever
you receive the summons (to weigh anchor), you will avoid being found wanting.
And when the captain
summons us to re-board ship? (10) Return to the ship, having returned all the
things you gathered up along the way—not
(11) having always been constantly on your guard; and not being too far away from the (12) ship, especially if you happen
to be an old man. This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid
being found wanting.
e˙a»n de« oJ kubernh/thß
kale÷shØ, tre÷ce 10 e˙pi«
to\ ploi√on aÓfei«ß e˙kei√na a‚panta mhde« e˙pistrefo/menoß. e˙a»n de« ge÷rwn
h™øß, mhde« aÓpallaghvøß pote touv 12 ploi÷ou makra¿n, mh/ pote kalouvntoß e˙lli÷phØß.
To
be found wanting (line 12, and the
very last idea of this text) is the aorist passive subjunctive, 2nd
singular verb, apallages (ἀπαλλαγῇς), which has the various senses of setting free;
releasing; getting rid of; being delivered or removed from; and discharging.
Textually, this verb is intentionally juxtaposed with the preceding uses of aphienai (ἀφιέναι)
in lines 6 & 10. Obviously, because Epictetus puts this verb in the passive
voice, and because it is describing the fellow being left behind on the shore
instead of the seashells that the fellow had been collecting but needed to drop
when the boarding call was announced, we are given to understand that when it
comes time to count heads on the ship and the count comes up short, in this
sense we are found to be too far away from the ship. We are well and truly left
behind—we are “dropped.” Interestingly, in the passive voice this verb also has
the sense of departing from life or dying; to be divorced; to be acquitted; to
escape; giving up the pursuit of. All of these meanings tend to confirm the
metaphorical level of interpretation and translation.
Additionally,
however, we also discover that apallages
(ἀπαλλαγῇς) compliments the final verb in Epictetus’ text, which
is in the phrase that immediately follows—
you will avoid being found wanting (ellipes;
ἐλλίπῃς = aor subj act 2nd sg). The use of ellipes
provides a certain ambiguity to our understanding of being forgotten, stranded,
left behind, by also having among its usages the sense of falling short;
leaving undone; or failing, failing in duty. Epictetus wants us to remember
that the ship is not just a vessel of planks and that we are not just chatting
about sailing protocols and best practices for ship passengers—e.g., deck
shoes, sun glasses, sailing cap, wind-breaker. Rather, the ship represents the
philosophical frame of mind; and when we are found wanting, both in the sense
of being absent from that attitude or mentality, and in the sense of having
failed in our lives generally to board the ship of the philosophical life of
the mind, and thus failing in a human duty to be mindful about the sea of Life
and World, then we have also missed what it means to be fully, thoughtfully, intelligently
human.
So, homo sapiens analecta ‘gathers up’ lots of stuff on his journey
through the world, and he gets himself all tangled up [dedeme÷noß] in the great skein of World and its networks of things.
This is only natural; it is, in effect, the nature of reality and our
experience of it. But Epictetus wants to encourage us to remain aware that, one
fine day—sooner or later—we will be summoned to remit every-(thing) back to the
world; this is the only price we must pay for the use of the world’s things.
Similarly, along with all of the World’s other
things, we are also gathered up in nets
as well, and we, also, must be eventually
remitted back to whence we come. The Stoic captain in the metaphor is the rota fortunae, or the ever-turning Wheel of life and
chance.
§ Remembering Where We Have Come From.
Let us remember our journey so far: In the
seventh chapter of the Enchiridion,
Epictetus has riddled for us a parable about navigating on the oceans of World
& Life. The essential metaphor is that we are itinerants who find ourselves
on an ocean voyage. The sea
represents the unstable and variable nature of World, shifting and eternally in
motion, always different, always mysterious and unpredictable. The ship in the metaphor is the
philosophical life of the mind; because it is only when we think rightly about
our circumstantial situation, that we are at least able to conduct ourselves
well on our journey. Terra firma, in
the form of a landfall in the course of the voyage, happens occasionally; but
it is only a temporary layover in Epictetus’ metaphor. So, popular expressions
like standing on ‘solid ground’ or ‘having our feet firmly planted on the
ground’, are deceptive conceptualizations for the Human Animal. It may be true
to say that such sayings express an attitude toward the life of the mind that
seems, at first blush, to be desirable human psychology. However, because the metaphor of ‘solid ground’, i.e.,
the harbor layover in Epictetus’ parable, really just represents a temporary
event, and does not therefore invite us to develop longer term strategies about
living that actually correspond to the heaving and surging circumstances of our
human experience of the World, these populist expressions actually reflect an
erroneous philosophical understanding
and conceptualization of Reality. The only ‘fixed’ reality about the Human
Condition is its fluidity, its fundamental capriciousness. This is the essence
of Epictetus’ Stoic metaphor of Life & World: we are not land-lubbing
wayfarers; we are seafarers.
Because we are here in the world of
parable, we also need to recognize that there are two levels of interpretation
to this story. The lowest level is the literal storyline about journeys on
sailing ships and temporary layovers and walking and collecting shells on
beaches; but this conceit is to be jettisoned just as soon as we arrive at the
second level—the intended ‘lesson’ or moral-of-the-story, which is about
correctly visualizing the ebb and flow of a humanity that comes and goes in the
course of living and dying, and adopting an appropriate philosophical attitude
toward that inescapable and all-too-human condition.
§ Philosophical Parallel: Buddhism
As the Bard has been so often quoted to
say: a “rose by any other name….”; so also, the call to philosophical Awareness, which one finds so plentifully articulated
in Epictetus, is not unique to our Stoic freedman. What we might call
philosophical Awareness in Epictetus, is called Right Mindfulness or Thorough
Awareness (Samma-Sati) in Buddhism [link], and is the 7th
practice emphasized on Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path to enlightenment. It is
suggestive that the Buddha’s thinking about Right Mindfulness expresses both aspects of
Epictetus’ teaching in this parable from Ch. 7 of the Enchiridion: 1) that our metaphor for understanding human reality
should be accurate, i.e., that we are seafarers and not wayfarers, and 2) that
as a result, because all the various strands that weave us into the web of
World seem naturally to hinder us from ‘seeing’ accurately the ‘I-world’
relationship, it must also be understood that World itself is the source of
innumerable obstacles that impede us from ‘responding’ correctly,
philosophically, to the various events that punctuate the course of our
transient journey through the human condition.
never be absent minded, being conscious of
what one is doing; this […] encourages the mindfulness about impermanence of
body, feeling and mind, as well as to experience the five aggregates (skandhas), the five hindrances, the
four True Realities and seven factors of awakening.
Again,
it is suggestive to note the similarity in our two sages in their idea of
‘hindrance’. For the Buddha, hindrances represent an obstacle to concentration
or mental focus (jhana), and come in
the form of sensory desire, ill-will, sloth-and-torpor, restlessness-and-worry,
and doubt. Uniformly, these hindrances have mental or thinking consequences,
such as dullness of mind, inability to calm the mind, and lack of conviction (i.e.,
confusion, or a divided mind). Similarly, some 600 years after the death of
Buddha Epictetus would conclude that, in our thinking and imagining, we get all
tangled up in the stuff of the world, which makes us lose our focus on the
ship, which, we remember, is the philosophical life of the mind. When we lose
that mental focus, he says, which captains us toward an awareness of our
seafaring reality, we get thrown into distress about the possibility of being
left behind by the ship, (7) and become agitated like sheep, which then start
bleating and carrying on.
Philosophically speaking, both Buddha and Epictetus could have meandered through
the following reflection, because
the disposition and thinking is identical in both of our thinkers;
historically, however, this text is attributed to the Buddha:
And what, monks, is right mindfulness? Herein, a monk dwells
contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending and mindful,
having put away covetousness and grief concerning the world. He dwells
contemplating feelings in feelings ... states of mind in states of mind ...
phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending and mindful, having put
away covetousness and grief concerning the world. (Word
of the Buddha,
p. 61.)
§ Philosophical Parallel: The Early Jesus
Movement
Although
Epictetus originally hailed from Rome, which places him historically in the epicenter of the burgeoning Jesus revolution—the instigator of that movement, the
Apostle Paul, was executed just outside Rome (in Ostia) between 62-67 AD—there is no direct historical evidence that Epictetus had
knowledge of the teachings of Jesus or of Paul. Nor is it likely that he had
knowledge of any specific New Testament documents, although none of these
conclusions are absolutely to be excluded. Let us recall that Epictetus
flourished around AD 50 – 135; Jesus from around c. 4 BC – c. 30/33 AD. Despite the limited
likelihood of an historical overlap between these different personalities,
there are certainly suggestive philosophical intersections one might consider.
In the Christian New Testament’s Gospel
of Matthew, for example, there are Kingdom
of Heaven parables, which represent an indisputable history of ideas interest to our search for parallels to Epictetus’
thinking in the Enchiridion.
In
all likelihood, the Gospel of Matthew
was composed prior to the fall of the second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which
occurred in AD 70 under the military leadership of the Roman commander and
future emperor, Titus [viz. Titus Flāvius Caesar Vespasiānus Augustus],
although scholarly opinion accepts dates for the Temple’s destruction ranging
from pre-70 AD to between AD 80-90. That said, even if one cannot necessarily demonstrate
a direct historical link between the Stoic Epictetus and the nascent Christian
thought tradition of the period, there are certainly some recurring thematic
elements that suggest, perhaps if nothing more, a certain zeitgeist or shared
ethos in the ethical-philosophical literature of the period. This ‘framing’ would
be entirely consistent with Stoicism’s approach to philosophy, which is not per se a doctrinally-framed system, such as Kantianism or
Utilitarianism or Pragmatism. F.C. Grant (271) is correct when he concludes
from his study that, “We find Stoicism to be (…) not a system, either ethical or theological
or metaphysical, speculatively; but a mood, an attitude, a spirit tending
religiously…(271).”
In Matthew’s gospel, for example, there is
a particular parable, which is traditionally called the Parable of the
Unforgiving or Unmerciful Servant. And one thematic that surfaces from the
history of ideas approach to our translating activity in Epictetus’ Enchiridion, is the philosophical notion
of returning… restoring… and remitting.
We
recall from Epictetus’ parable that the seafarer who dwells in the appropriate
philosophical frame of mind, is always prepared (6) to drop all the things you picked up along the way; (10) Return to
the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along the way. Epictetus’
clear assumption in this parable is that Homo
Sapiens Analecta is a hunter-gatherer and hoarder, and that this amassing
and hoarding activity hinders HSA from perceiving, maybe, but certainly from comprehending
the truth and relevance of our fundamental reality as ocean-going migrants.
In
response to the ‘hoarder’ mentality, Epictetus expresses the idea of ‘dropping
everything’, using the verb aphienai
[ἀφιέναι], which is intended to give us the
general impression that we need to jettison post
haste whatever hot potato we have latched onto—from just dropping the damn thing,
to full-bore tossing, to returning something to its rightful owner (give up or
hand over to), to leaving something alone (in the first place)—just passing it
by. According to Epictetus, this is the appropriate philosophical attitude to
have for all those who are just passing through the World, whether one is
thinking of sea-snail shells and
cuttlebones, or a bride and young
child.
One
finds this same thematic of returning… restoring… and remitting [aphienai: ἀφίημι; ἀφιέναι], at the core
of the Parable of the Unforgiving or Unmerciful Servant in the Gospel of Matthew. Now, Phrontisterion will leave to others the
work of interpreting to and for religion, i.e., in terms of Christian morality,
this parable and laying out its various applications. We have to remember,
however, that, as with Epictetus’ parable, we are also reading Jesus’ parable
on a second level, seeking to discover its more complex, metaphorical, &
philosophical truth. Our parable is found in Matthew 18.21-34, and because it
is lengthy, we will consider it line-by-line.
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
21 Then Peter came to
Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive [ἀφίημι]
my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Although the exact
form of the verb is obviously different from Epictetus’ aphienai [ἀφιέναι], the verb translated by the English ‘forgive’, is actually the
same dictionary form, or lemma—ἀφίημι. This use, however, would seem to give a
whole new sense to the mental images one can bring to ‘forgiveness’, perhaps as
the idea of ‘leaving something
alone’ (in the first place)—just passing it by. In this sense, to forgive might
be equivalent to ‘ignore’.
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore,
the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his
servants.
24 As
he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was
brought to him.
25 Since
he was not able to pay [ἀποδοῦναι], the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that
he had be sold to repay the debt [ἀποδοθῆναι].
26 “At
this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged,
‘and I will pay back everything.’ [ἀποδώσω].
In terms of the
servant who ‘was not able to pay’ in lines 25-26, Jesus uses the verb apodidwmi [ἀποδίδωμι], in lieu of Epictetus’ aphiemi [ἀφίημι]. In Epictetus, we remember that aphienai [ἀφιέναι] means
everything from discharging bolts or arrows, to letting things fall from your grasp;
from the more legal language of acquitting of a charge or engagement, to
remitting a charge to someone; from disbanding an army or fleet of ships, to
granting a divorce; from releasing a
debtor; being released from duty; to getting rid of something; to giving up
the ghost; to leave alone, and, finally, to neglect. In this Jesus parable,
however, the entire significance of the conversation
hinges on the absolutely clear distinction between the two terms—apodidwmi [ἀποδίδωμι] versus aphiemi
[ἀφίημι].
So, even though the two terms also seem to have some relative proximity in
meaning, apodidwmi seems more usually
to refer to a money-type exchange: to give up or back; to restore; to return;
in Homer, to render what is due; to pay, as debts, penalties, submission,
honor; to give him back his insult, i.e., to make atonement for the insult. In
Mt. 18.25, the meaning is obviously in the sense of paying off debt
equivalency: wife and children = 10,000 bags of gold.
27 The
servant’s master took pity on him, canceled [ἀφῆκεν]
the debt and let him go.
In line 27, Jesus says that the debt is dropped like
our proverbial hot potato, using again, as in line 21, a form of aphiemi [ἀφίημι].
28 “But
when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a
hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you
owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His
fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I
will pay it back.’
30 “But
he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he
could pay the debt.
In lines 28-30, the
language reverts to ‘pay it back’ or reimburse the debt, apodidwmi [ἀποδίδωμι].
31 When
the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told
their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then
the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled [ἀφῆκά σοι]
all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
In line 32, Jesus says that the debt was dropped like
the proverbial hot potato, again reverting to a form of aphiemi [ἀφίημι].
33 Shouldn’t
you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
34 In
anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should
pay back [ἀποδῷ] all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly
Father will treat each of you unless you forgive [ἀφῆτε] your brother or sister from your heart.”
And, finally, in line
34, Jesus again comes back to a form of apodidwmi
[ἀποδίδωμι], and delivers up his rather striking
conclusion to this Kingdom of Heaven parable in line 35, using, this time, aphiemi [ἀφίημι].
§ Compulsion.
By being mindful—by keeping the true
nature of World right in the front of your mind, and by being psychologically
willing and prepared to ‘drop’ the trappings of World when we get our summons
in the mail, Epictetus suggests that during our layover in the labyrinth of
time we can avoid the feeling and pressure of knowing that one day, eventually,
we will be compelled ‘to drop’
everything when the time comes for dropping: (6) you need to drop all the things you picked up
along the way. It is in this way that, although your arms were full with all
the things you had collected, by getting rid of it all, you will not be thrown
into distress about the possibility of being left behind by the ship, (7) and
become agitated like sheep, which then start bleating and carrying on.
Now,
there are actually two contrasts evident here in Epictetus’ thinking. The first
is clearly between doing an action freely or doing that action under
compulsion. The ‘action’ in question, in this case ‘dropping’ everything—i.e.,
the things of our life, which hinder us whether we realize it or not—must and
will be done by us in any event. The second contrast concerns our proximity to the
spirit of philosophy, which is metaphorically embodied by the ship and the
ship’s captain in this text. It is important that, whatever the enticement, we
should never stray too far away from the philosophical mind/ship, because when
we are too far away from our psychological port of call, like sheep when they
are frightened, we become stressed and anxious about the possibility of being left behind, and so we begin bleating and
fussing and making a scene. The encouragement to tarry close-by to Lady
Philosophy, a Stoic lesson regained with great distress and anxiety by Boethius (480-524 AD) in his Consolation of Philosophy, becomes especially critical when we are
older and the entanglements in the skein of World have had such a long time to
work their hampering effects. So, whether or not, per the Bard, ‘parting is
such sweet sorrow’, a parting there will be.
Which
brings us to the interesting and very concise conclusion to Epictetus’
admonition in line 12— (10) Return to the
ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along the way—and not (11)
having always been constantly on your guard; and not being too far away from
the (12) ship, especially if you happen to be an old man. This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid being found
wanting [pote kalountos + me…
ellipes [pote kalouvntoß + mh/… e˙lli÷phØß].
Imagine
that you are having the ‘oh-sheit’ moment of your life—stranded on the shore,
watching your ship leave without you, no way back. There will never be another
ship; you are cut off. Your departure has happened. In this sense, you have
well and truly been left behind, which is one of the meanings of Epictetus’
final verb: ellipse, which carries
with it the sense of being left behind in a race. So, this meaning obviously works very well when we
are talking on the first level, about departing ships and someone being left
behind. But at the second, metaphorical level, Epictetus is really talking
‘through’ the ship (hence meta-phor)
about the psychological ship of the not-so-philosophically minded seafarer.
Following out the implications of the metaphor, ellipse has the extended sense of, to
leave undone; to fail in duty; to fall short or short of; to be inferior to; to not have something; to be
surpassed, overwhelmed.
For Epictetus, this moral story is not about
the life of the body sailing upon the oceans of World. Rather, it is about
whether our body is being carried along, captained, as it were, by a
philosophically sound life of the mind. If not, how very superficial our life
will have been. And if there is no sound life of the mind, especially if you
happen to be an old man, insists Epictetus,
how terrible to be found wanting… bleating and complaining like an
irretrievably lost sheep, that has neither power over and nor understanding of
what the world wants from it.
§ Twistings, Turnings, and Other Conversions.
For
antiquity, the idea of ‘conversion’ is extremely rich in implications and
ramifications, both in terms of Stoic philosophy and, later, of the Christian religion.
The classic study of the question in antiquity is, of course, Arthur Darby
Nock’s Conversion (Oxford University
Press, reprint 1972). In “An Existential Moment,” Phrontisterion gave the following
description for the process of conversion:
The
individual Turns Away From one path, and Turns Toward (con + vertere) a new
path – there is a changing of the mind, which has application to my actions. So
in all its various contexts, conversion is an ordering of the mind around a
philosophical anchor, a very deliberate turning toward a different fundamental
and organizing idea or principle.
In the New Testament, the most common
occurrences of ‘conversion’ are attributed to Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and of the Acts of the Apostles, and are found
primarily in the latter text: Acts 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19; 26:18, 20.
Predictably, Luke’s images are almost all referencing a turn to God or to the
Lord; the one interesting exception, for its metaphorical potential, is found
in Acts 26:18, which speaks about turning from the darkness to the light.
On this question of conversion, our passage of
interest from Chapter 7 of Epictetus’ Enchiridion
is from lines 4 and 11.
Now, all the while you happened to be collecting (3)
sea-snail shells and cuttlebones for yourself during the stopover,
you also needed (4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be
constantly on your guard (5) for
when the captain summons to re-embark. […] Return to
the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along the way—and not (11) having
always been constantly on your guard;
In line 4 of Epictetus’ parable we learn
that being constantly on your guard during a temporary stopover, listening for
the all-aboard to sound, is an inevitable psychological state-of-mind during
extended journeys, given the predictably transient nature of lay-overs. But in
line 11 we understand that a more desirable, indeed a philosophical disposition
of mind, is where we do not have to remind
ourselves that, for this special and very brief occurrence, we must be
constantly on our guard. The mind that is philosophically prepared does not
have to be constantly turning around, as does the seafarer who is unprepared
for the call to re-board ship, because our attention never strays too far from
the inevitability of the up-coming call to board, and we have been attentive to
never get too far away from our anchor, which is the philosophical awareness of
our seafaring situation.
Our
verb, which translates the idea of conversion, and which Phrontisterion translates as ‘to be on guard’, is epistrephesthai [e˙pistre÷fesqai, in the middle-passive voice], actually means to turn
about or around. And among the various images associated with this verb in the
classical literature, there is (in the active voice): to wheel about; of ships,
to put about; of a wild boar who turns on the hunter; of a recurring illness. Equally,
epistrephesthai has the sense of
turning or converting from an error, to correct, or to cause to repent. In the
middle-passive voice, this verb has the sense of
constantly turning around, as if to look behind yourself, as the lion does when
retreating to assure its withdrawal; to go back- and forwards (as if
undecided?); to wander over the earth, with the collateral sense of observing,
studying it (so, in Hesiod); of the revolving sun; to turn the mind towards, to
pay attention to, to regard; and, finally, of conduct, to behave.
So,
Epictetus encourages us to an attitude of “conversion,” which is to say, to a
long-term disposition of mental awareness, attentiveness, and forethought
concerning the nature of our seafaring condition on the waters of Life &
World. Then, when the odd layover or landfall eventually does come along, we
are not surprised at an otherwise commonplace event of the seafaring life, and
we should certainly be available and willing, both physically and
psychologically (=philosophically), to disembark, to have a good look around,
and to collect a shell or two for our own good pleasure. Philosophically,
reasons Epictetus, we must not allow ourselves to be surprised by the World, to
become distressed like sheep at events they have neither anticipated nor
desired, but which yet follow from perfectly ordinary occurrences that belong
to the ebb and flow of Life & World. There should be no surprise for us,
because the philosophical imagination is precisely a training and a readiness
for the eventualities of the seafaring existence. Which brings us to the
question of sheep.
§ About Sheep, Anxiety, and Repentance.
It is comforting when folks are able and
willing to work toward some kind of consensus; in fact, Western democracies are
built upon such a bedrock idea. With this in mind, while it might normally
bring us comfort to know that the various internet translations are unanimous
in their rendering of lines 6-7 of Epictetus’ sheep simile in, unfortunately,
in this instance the consensus is absolute nonsense. Ms. Carter renders the
consensus for the sheep simile in Ch. 7 as follows: you must then immediately leave all these things [you have collected],
otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep (6 pa¿nta e˙kei√na
aÓfie÷nai, iºna mh\ dedeme÷noß e˙mblhqhvøß 7 wJß ta» pro/bata:).
Now, according to those in the know [link], sheep are very social animals, which is also quite possibly what makes
them such wonderful metaphorical illustrations for vulnerability, stress and
anguish. Apparently, they must,
always have visual
contact with other sheep [, which] will prevent excess stress when moving or
handling them. According to animal behaviorists, a group of five sheep is
usually necessary for sheep to display their normal flocking behavior. A sheep
will become highly agitated if it is separated from the rest of the flock.
So, in
addition to being extremely social in nature, sheep are also quite anxious,
individually timid, and prone to distress when isolated. This contemporary,
animal behaviorist viewpoint is supported of course by the very best in ancient
epic poetry. As the metaphorical embodiment of timidity and anxiety, for
example, sheep have pride of place in Homeric literature. We have only to
recall the return of Odysseus to his home after such a long foreign absence,
who discovers that his house and home has been squandered by a large number of
suitors. These suitors, thinking Odysseus long dead, seek to force-win
Penelope’s hand by consumption and attrition of the family’s wealth. Athena has
disguised Odysseus as an old, feeble man, and in Odyssey 19 he instructs his
son, Telemachus, in the ersatz-sheep attitude he must have and the words he
must say in order to deceive the suitors:
[1] So goodly Odysseus was left behind in the hall, planning with
Athena's aid the slaying of the wooers, and he straightway spoke winged words
to Telemachus: “Telemachus, the weapons of war thou must needs lay away within
[5] one and all, and when the wooers miss them and question thee, thou must
beguile them with gentle words, saying: ‘Out of the smoke have I laid them,
since they are no longer like those which of old Odysseus left behind him, when
he went forth to Troy, but are all befouled, so far as the breath of fire
has reached them. [10] And furthermore
this greater fear has a god put in my heart, lest haply, when heated with
wine, you may set a quarrel afoot among you, and wound one another, and so bring
shame on your feast and on your wooing. For of itself does the iron draw a man
to it.’” So he spoke, and Telemachus hearkened to his dear father, [15]
The
specific bit that interests us is from Odyssey
19 is line 10: And furthermore this greater fear has a god put in my heart [πρὸς δ᾽ ἔτι καὶ τόδε μεῖζον ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ἔβαλε δαίμων], because it is precisely here that one finds an intersection between
Homer and Epictetus 7, 6-7.
Our verb of interest in both passages (Odyssey + Enchiridion) is emballw [ἐμβάλλω], which, as the
internet translation consensus has so consensually agreed, has the fundamental
sense of ‘throwing in’, with a superb illustration of ‘falling into Achilles’
hands (Il. 14.258). Things, as well as people, can be ‘thrown to or into’: food
can be thrown to someone or put into their hands; a petition can be handed in,
or submitted; as a pledge can be given. This verb has the sense of, to throw
upon or against; to inflict; to strike fear into someone; to impose. Or, to put
one’s back into it; to set a broken or dislocated limb; to graft onto a tree,
or simply to plant; to insert a word or letter; to pay, to contribute; to
invade or to attack; to strike a ship with the ram; to dash against them; to
lay oneself to the oars; to draw lot’s; to put on board ship; to be dashed
against (passive voice).
Given the variety of possible meanings and
usages, it is not difficult to see why the internet consensus consented in the
very literal direction of you will be thrown into the ship
(like sheep), especially as this passive verb is also intimately linked to the
preceding, and very physical image of being all tangled up [iºna mh\ dedeme÷noß e˙mblhqhvøß], which has the
additional virtue of also being perfectly passive. The wonderfully literal
image for dedemenos [dedeme÷noß from δέω] is to be all bound
up and caught in nets, like Ares, when Hephaistos catches him in his wife’s
(Aphrodite’s) bed—the story is told by Homer in Odyssey 8 (and esp. line 352).
However, to transfer this passive sense to
the translation of Epictetus’ parable only yields a non-sensical text. Instead
of creating literal nonsense out of
this passive construction, both verbs also have potential metaphorical significance for Epictetus. For emballw
[ἐμβάλλω], the Greek dictionaries suggest, for example, another “frequent” usage
for this verb, which renders in the sense of metaphor: to be thrown into strife in terms of
thinking; to be confused. Likewise, we need not translate dedemenos [dedeme÷noß] as a passive, which throws interpreters
and readers upon the very literal horns of a dilemma of meaning, in addition to
producing meaningless internet translations; its form is (either) middle or
passive; and translated reflexively (middle), the sense would yield—to get all
tangled up in your stuff; your arms were full with
all the things you had collected. Hence Phrontisterion’s translation:
(6) you need to drop all the things you picked up
along the way. It is in this way that, although your
arms were full with all the things you had collected, by getting rid of
it all, you will not be thrown into distress about
the possibility of being left behind by the ship, (7) and become agitated like
sheep, which then start bleating and carrying on [6 pa¿nta e˙kei√na
aÓfie÷nai, iºna mh\ dedeme÷noß e˙mblhqhvøß 7 wJß ta» pro/bata:].
Epictetus uses the fear and trembling of
sheep as a simile for the mind that is unprepared to accept and to act upon the
fleeting truth about human reality, a mind that is divided, that goes forward and
backward, because it is unsettled and undecided. And yet there is no avoiding
World forever. For Epictetus, better to accept philosophically and coolly,
rather than under compulsion and bleatingly. The English and Elizabethan
dramatist, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), gives us exactly the same
philosophical moral-of-the-story, but changes the décor to correspond to his
Christianized thought-world, and gives the bleating sheep a name—Doctor
Faustus. There must come the moment when the piper gets paid for playing his
tune:
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that
true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
O,
it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn
to air,
Or
Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
[Thunder and lightning.]
O
soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
Earlier
in our study of this parable, we already considered the case of homo sapiens analecta, the great collector who does not cease from accumulating stuff on
his seafaring roving through time & world, so much so that he gets himself
all tangled up [dedeme÷noß] in the boundless “skein
of World and its networks of things.” The thought that accumulating stuff is
burdensome, and that it hinders us from ‘seeing’ clearly the fluid nature of
our reality, is not unique to Epictetus; it is also shared by the Cynic
philosophers of antiquity, as well as by other thought traditions, both
philosophical and religious. The gist of the idea is relatively
straightforward: stuff is not the problem; but its accumulation tricks us into
thinking that we are wayfarers on dry land, that our reality is terra firma, when in truth we are
seafarers who can never really gather much or stay for long because the tide is
going out. Everything must be remitted, including the remitter.
Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.7.1.1. [Phrontisterion translation]. Imagine that you are on a sea voyage and
that your ship has put in at harbor for a layover; [imagine, further,] that you
left the ship (2) to go on shore to refresh yourself. Now, all the while you
happened to be collecting (3) sea-snail shells and cuttlebones for yourself during the stopover,
you also needed (4) to keep your attention riveted on the ship, to be
constantly on your guard (5) for when the captain summons to re-embark. Because
whenever he calls to board, (6) you need to drop all the things you picked up
along the way. It is in this way that, although your arms were full with all
the things you had collected, by getting rid of it all, you will not be thrown
into distress about the possibility of being left behind by the ship, (7) and become
agitated like sheep, which then start bleating and carrying on.
It is just like that in life, as well—nothing shall
prevent us from substituting, instead of (8) sea-snail shells and cuttlebones,
a bride and young child (9). And when the captain summons us to re-board ship?
(10) Return to the ship, having returned all the things you gathered up along
the way—and not (11) having always
been constantly on your guard; and not
being too far away from the (12) ship, especially if you happen to be an old
man. This way, whenever you receive the summons, you will avoid being found wanting.
2 “Ench”, 1.7.1.1
Kaqa¿per e˙n plw◊ø touv ploi÷ou kaqormisqe÷ntoß ei˙ e˙xe÷lqoiß
uJqreu/sasqai, oJdouv me«n pa¿rergon kai« 3 kocli÷dion aÓnale÷xhØ kai« bolba¿rion,
teta¿sqai de« dei√ 4 th\n
dia¿noian e˙pi« to\ ploi√on kai« sunecw◊ß e˙pistre÷fesqai, mh/ pote oJ
kubernh/thß kale÷shØ, ka·n kale÷shØ, 6 pa¿nta e˙kei√na aÓfie÷nai, iºna mh\ dedeme÷noß
e˙mblhqhvøß 7
wJß ta» pro/bata: ou¢tw
kai« e˙n tw◊ø bi÷wˆ, e˙a»n didw◊tai aÓnti«
8
bolbari÷ou kai«
koclidi÷ou gunaika¿rion kai« paidi÷on, 9 oujde«n kwlu/sei: e˙a»n de« oJ kubernh/thß
kale÷shØ, tre÷ce 10 e˙pi«
to\ ploi√on aÓfei«ß e˙kei√na a‚panta mhde« e˙pistrefo/menoß. e˙a»n de« ge÷rwn
h™øß, mhde« aÓpallaghvøß pote touv 12 ploi÷ou makra¿n, mh/ pote kalouvntoß e˙lli÷phØß.
References
and Further Readings:
· St. Paul and Stoicism, by Frederick
Clifton Grant. The Biblical World, Vol. 45, No. 5 (May, 1915), pp. 268-281.
· Education or Conversion: Epictetus and the Gospels, by J. N. Sevenster. Novum Testamentum, Vol. 8, Fasc. 2/4 (Apr. – Oct, 1966), pp.
247-262.
Comparative
internet translations: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/33pm1d/enchiridion_translations_comparison/
On
another note and just for the pleasure of it: From Winston
Churchill’s, My Early Life: “Such Was My First Introduction to the Classics.”
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