_Damasippus, in a conversation with Horace, proves this paradox of the
Stoic philosophy, that most men are actually mad_.
You write so seldom, as not to call for parchment four times in the
year, busied in reforming your writings, yet are you angry with
yourself, that indulging in wine and sleep you produce nothing worthy to
be the subject of conversation. What will be the consequence? But you
took refuge here, it seems, at the very celebration of the Saturnalia,
out of sobriety. Dictate therefore something worthy of your promises;
begin. There is nothing. The pens are found fault with to no purpose,
and the harmless wall, which must have been built under the displeasure
of gods and poets, suffers [to no end]. But you had the look of one that
had threatened many and excellent things, when once your villa had
received you, free from employment, under its warm roof. To what purpose
was it to stow Plato upon Menander? Eupolis, Archilochus? For what end
did you bring abroad such companions? What? are you setting about
appeasing envy by deserting virtue? Wretch, you will be despised. That
guilty Siren, Sloth, must be avoided; or whatever acquisitions you have
made in the better part of your life, must with equanimity be given up.
May the gods and godnesses, O Damasippus, present you with a barber for
your sound advice! But by what means did you get so well acquainted with
me? Since all my fortunes were dissipated at the middle of the exchange,
detached from all business of my own, I mind that of other people. For
formerly I used to take a delight in inquiring, in what vase the crafty
Sisyphus might have washed his feet; what was carved in an unworkmanlike
manner, and what more roughly cast than it ought to be; being a
connoisseur, I offered a hundred thousand sesterces for such a statue; I
was the only man who knew how to purchase gardens and fine seats to the
best advantage: whence the crowded ways gave me the surname of
Mercurial. I know it well; and am amazed at your being cured of that
disorder. Why a new disorder expelled the old one in a marvelous manner;
as it is accustomed to do, when the pain of the afflicted side, or the
head, is turned upon the stomach; as it is with a man in a lethargy,
when he turns boxer, and attacks his physician. As long as you do
nothing like this, be it even as you please. O my good friend, do not
deceive yourself; you likewise are mad, and it is almost "fools all," if
what Stertinius insists upon has any truth in it; from whom, being of a
teachable disposition, I derived these admirable precepts, at the very
time when, having given me consolation, he ordered me to cultivate a
philosophical beard, and to return cheerfully from the Fabrician bridge.
For when, my affairs being desperate, I had a mind to throw myself into
the river, having covered my head [for that purpose], he fortunately was
at my elbow; and [addressed me to this effect]: Take care, how do any
thing unworthy of yourself; a false shame, says he, afflicts you, who
dread to be esteemed a madman among madmen. For in the first place, I
will inquire, what it is to be mad: and, if this distemper be in you
exclusively, I will not add a single word, to prevent you from dying
bravely.
The school and sect of Chrysippus deem every man mad, whom vicious folly
or the ignorance of truth drives blindly forward. This definition takes
in whole nations, this even great kings, the wise man [alone] excepted.
Now learn, why all those, who have fixed the name of madman upon you,
are as senseless as yourself. As in the woods, where a mistake makes
people wander about from the proper path; one goes out of the way to the
right, another to the left; there is the same blunder on both sides,
only the illusion is in different directions: in this manner imagine
yourself mad; so that he, who derides you, hangs his tail not one jot
wiser than yourself. There is one species of folly, that dreads things
not in the least formidable; insomuch that it will complain of fires,
and rocks, and rivers opposing it in the open plain; there is another
different from this, but not a whit more approaching to wisdom, that
runs headlong through the midst of flames and floods. Let the loving
mother, the virtuous sister, the father, the wife, together with all the
relations [of a man possessed with this latter folly], cry out: "Here is
a deep ditch; here is a prodigious rock; take care of yourself:" he
would give no more attention, than did the drunken Fufius some time ago,
when he overslept the character of Ilione, twelve hundred Catieni at the
same time roaring out, _O mother, I call you to my aid_. I will
demonstrate to you, that the generality of all mankind are mad in the
commission of some folly similar to this.
Damasippus is mad for purchasing antique statues: but is Damasippus'
creditor in his senses? Well, suppose I should say to you: receive this,
which you can never repay: will you be a madman, if you receive it; or
would you be more absurd for rejecting a booty, which propitious Mercury
offers? Take bond, like the banker Nerius, for ten thousand sesterces;
it will not signify: add the forms of Cicuta, so versed in the knotty
points of law: add a thousand obligations: yet this wicked Proteus will
evade all these ties. When you shall drag him to justice, laughing as if
his cheeks were none of his own; he will be transformed into a boar,
sometimes into a bird, sometimes into a stone, and when he pleases Into
a tree. If to conduct one's affairs badly be the part of a madman; and
the reverse, that of a man well in his senses; brain of Perillius
(believe me), who orders you [that sum of money], which you can never
repay, is much more unsound [than yours].
Whoever grows pale with evil ambition, or the love of money: whoever is
heated with luxury, or gloomy superstition, or any other disease of the
mind, I command him to adjust his garment and attend: hither, all of ye,
come near me in order, while I convince you that you are mad.
By far the largest portion of hellebore is to be administered to the
covetous: I know not, whether reason does not consign all Anticyra to
their use. The heirs of Staberius engraved the sum [which he left them]
upon his tomb: unless they had acted in this manner, they were under an
obligation to exhibit a hundred pair of gladiators to the people, beside
an entertainment according to the direction of Arrius; and as much corn
as is cut in Africa. Whether I have willed this rightly or wrongly, it
was my will; be not severe against me, [cries the testator]. I imagine
the provident mind of Staberius foresaw this. What then did he moan,
when he appointed by will that his heirs should engrave the sum of their
patrimony upon his tomb-stone? As long as he lived, he deemed poverty a
great vice, and nothing did he more industriously avoid: insomuch that,
had he died less rich by one farthing, the more Iniquitous would he have
appeared to himself. For every thing, virtue, fame, glory, divine and
human affairs, are subservient to the attraction of riches; which
whoever shall have accumulated, shall be illustrious, brave, just--What,
wise too? Ay, and a king, and whatever else he pleases. This he was in
hopes would greatly redound to his praise, as if it had been an
acquisition of his virtue. In what respect did the Grecian Aristippus
act like this; who ordered his slaves to throw away his gold in the
midst of Libya; because, encumbered with the burden, they traveled too
slowly? Which is the greater madman of these two? An example is nothing
to the purpose, that decides one controversy by creating another. If any
person were to buy lyres, and [when he had bought them] to stow them in
one place; though neither addicted to the lyre nor to any one muse
whatsoever: if a man were [to buy] paring-knives and lasts, and were no
shoemaker; sails fit for navigation, and were averse to merchandizing;
he every where deservedly be styled delirious, and out of his senses.
How does he differ from these, who boards up cash and gold [and] knows
not how to use them when accumulated, and is afraid to touch them as if
they were consecrated? If any person before a great heap of corn should
keep perpetual watch with a long club, and, though the owner of it, and
hungry, should not dare to take a single grain from it; and should
rather feed upon bitter leaves: if while a thousand hogsheads of Chian,
or old Falernian, is stored up within (nay, that is nothing--three
hundred thousand), he drink nothing, but what is mere sharp vinegars
again--if, wanting but one year of eighty, he should lie upon straw, who
has bed-clothes rotting in his chest, the food of worms and moths; he
would seem mad, belike, but to few persons: because the greatest part of
mankind labors, under the same malady.
Thou dotard, hateful to the gods, dost thou guard [these possessions],
for fear of wanting thyself: to the end that thy son, or even the
freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up? For how little will each day
deduct from your capital, if you begin to pour better oil upon your
greens and your head, filthy with scurf not combed out? If any thing be
a sufficiency, wherefore are you guilty of perjury [wherefore] do you
rob, and plunder from all quarters? Are you in your senses? If you were
to begin to pelt the populace with stones, and the slaves, which you
purchased with your money; all the: very boys and girls will cry out
that you are a madman. When you dispatch your wife with a rope, and your
mother with poison, are you right in your head? Why not? You neither did
this at Argos, nor slew your mother with the sword, as the mad Orestes
did. What, do you imagine that he ran? mad after he had murdered his
parent; and that he was not driven mad by the wicked Furies, before he
warmed his sharp steel in his mother's throat? Nay, from the time that
Orestes is deemed to have been of a dangerous disposition, he did
nothing in fact that you can blame; he did not dare to offer violence
with his sword to Pylades, nor to his sister Electra; he only gave ill
language to both of them, by calling her a Fury, and him some other
[opprobrious name], which, his violent choler suggested.
Opimius, poor amid silver and gold hoarded up within, who used to drink
out of Campanian ware Veientine wine on holidays, and mere dregs on
common days, was some time ago taken with a prodigious lethargy;
insomuch that his heir was already scouring about his coffers and keys,
in joy and triumph. His physician, a man of much dispatch and fidelity,
raises him in this manner: he orders a table to be brought, and the bags
of money to be poured out, and several persons to approach in order to
count it: by this method he sets the man upon his legs again. And at the
same time he addresses him to this effect. Unless you guard your money
your ravenous heir will even now carry off these [treasures] of yours.
What, while I am alive? That you may live, therefore, awake; do this.
What would you have me do? Why your blood will fail you that are so much
reduced, unless food and some great restorative be administered to your
decaying stomach. Do you hesitate? come on; take this ptisan made of
rice. How much did it cost? A trifle. How much then? Eight asses. Alas!
what does it matter, whether I die of a disease, or by theft and rapine?
Who then is sound? He, who is not a fool. What is the covetous man? Both
a fool and a madman. What--if a man be not covetous, is he immediately
[to be deemed] sound? By no means. Why so, Stoic? I will tell you. Such
a patient (suppose Craterus [the physician] said this) is not sick at
the heart. Is he therefore well, and shall he get up? No, he will forbid
that; because his side or his reins are harassed with an acute disease.
[In like manner], such a man is not perjured, nor sordid; let him then
sacrifice a hog to his propitious household gods. But he is ambitious
and assuming. Let him make a voyage [then] to Anticyra. For what is the
difference, whether you fling whatever you have into a gulf, or make no
use of your acquisitions?
Servius Oppidius, rich in the possession of an ancient estate, is
reported when dying to have divided two farms at Canusium between his
two sons, and to have addressed the boys, called to his bed-side, [in
the following manner]: When I saw you, Aulus, carry your playthings and
nuts carelessly in your bosom, [and] to give them and game them away;
you, Tiberius, count them, and anxious hide them in holes; I was afraid
lest a madness of a different nature should possess you: lest you
[Aulus], should follow the example of Nomentanus, you, [Tiberius], that
of Cicuta. Wherefore each of you, entreated by our household gods, do
you (Aulus) take care lest you lessen; you (Tiberius) lest you make that
greater, which your father thinks and the purposes of nature determine
to be sufficient. Further, lest glory should entice you, I will bind
each of you by an oath: whichever of you shall be an aedile or a
praetor, let him be excommunicated and accursed. Would you destroy your
effects in [largesses of] peas, beans, and lupines, that you may stalk
in the circus at large, or stand in a statue of brass, O madman,
stripped of your paternal estate, stripped of your money? To the end,
forsooth, that you may gain those applauses, which Agrippa gains, like a
cunning fox imitating a generous lion?
O Agamemnon, why do you prohibit any one from burying Ajax? I am a king.
I, a plebeian, make no further inquiry. And I command a just thing: but,
if I seem unjust to any one, I permit you to speak your sentiments with
impunity. Greatest of kings, may the gods grant that, after the taking
of Troy, you may conduct your fleet safe home: may I then have the
liberty to ask questions, and reply in my turn? Ask. Why does Ajax, the
second hero after Achilles, rot [above ground], so often renowned for
having saved the Grecians; that Priam and Priam's people may exult in
his being unburied, by whose means so many youths have been deprived of
their country's rites of sepulture. In his madness he killed a thousand
sheep, crying out that he was destroying the famous Ulysses and
Menelaus, together with me. When you at Aulis substituted your sweet
daughter in the place of a heifer before the altar, and, O impious one,
sprinkled her head with the salt cake; did you preserve soundness of
mind? Why do you ask? What then did the mad Ajax do, when he slew the
flock with his sword? He abstained from any violence to his wife and
child, though he had imprecated many curses on the sons of Atreus: he
neither hurt Teucer, nor even Ulysses himself. But I, out of prudence,
appeased the gods with blood, that I might loose the ships detained on
an adverse shore. Yes, madman! with your own blood. With my own
[indeed], but I was not mad. Whoever shall form images foreign from
reality, and confused in the tumult of impiety, will always be reckoned
disturbed in mind: and it will not matter, whether he go wrong through
folly or through rage. Is Ajax delirious, while he kills the harmless
lambs? Are you right in your head, when you willfully commit a crime for
empty titles? And is your heart pure, while it is swollen with the vice?
If any person should take a delight to carry about with him in his sedan
a pretty lambkin; and should provide clothes, should provide maids and
gold for it, as for a daughter, should call it Rufa and Rufilla, and
should destine it a wife for some stout husband; the praetor would
take power from him being interdicted, and the management of him would
devolve to his relations, that were in their senses. What, if a man
devote his daughter instead of a dumb lambkin, is he right of mind?
Never say it. Therefore, wherever there is a foolish depravity, there
will be the height of madness. He who is wicked, will be frantic too:
Bellona, who delights in bloodshed, has thundered about him, whom
precarious fame has captivated.
Now, come on, arraign with me luxury and Nomentanus; for reason will
evince that foolish spendthrifts are mad. This fellow, as soon as he
received a thousand talents of patrimony, issues an order that the
fishmonger, the fruiterer, the poulterer, the perfumer, and the impious
gang of the Tuscan alley, sausage-maker, and buffoons, the whole
shambles, together with [all] Velabrum, should come to his house in the
morning. What was the consequence? They came in crowds. The pander makes
a speech: "Whatever I, or whatever each of these has at home, believe it
to be yours: and give your order for it either directly, or to-morrow."
Hear what reply the considerate youth made: "You sleep booted in
Lucanian snow, that I may feast on a boar: you sweep the wintry seas for
fish: I am indolent, and unworthy to possess so much. Away with it: do
you take for your share ten hundred thousand sesterces; you as much; you
thrice the sum, from whose house your spouse runs, when called for, at
midnight." The son of Aesopus, [the actor] (that he might, forsooth,
swallow a million of sesterces at a draught), dissolved in vinegar a
precious pearl, which he had taken from the ear of Metella: how much
wiser was he [in doing this,] than if he had thrown the same into a
rapid river, or the common sewer? The progeny of Quintius Arrius, an
illustrious pair of brothers, twins in wickedness and trifling and the
love of depravity, used to dine upon nightingales bought at a vast
expense: to whom do these belong? Are they in their senses? Are they to
be marked With chalk, or with charcoal?
If an [aged person] with a long beard should take a delight to build
baby-houses, to yoke mice to a go-cart, to play at odd and even, to ride
upon a long cane, madness must be his motive. If reason shall evince,
that to be in love is a more childish thing than these; and that there
is no difference whether you play the same games in the dust as when
three years old, or whine in anxiety for the love of a harlot: I beg to
know, if you will act as the reformed Polemon did of old? Will you lay
aside those ensigns of your disease, your rollers, your mantle, your
mufflers; as he in his cups is said to have privately torn the chaplet
from his neck, after he was corrected by the speech of his fasting
master? When you offer apples to an angry boy, he refuses them: here,
take them, you little dog; he denies you: if you don't give them, he
wants them. In what does an excluded lover differ [from such a boy];
when he argues with himself whether he should go or not to that very
place whither he was returning without being sent for, and cleaves to
the hated doors? "What shall I not go to her now, when she invites me of
her own accord? or shall I rather think of putting an end to my pains?
She has excluded me; she recalls me: shall I return? No, not if she
would implore me." Observe the servant, not a little wiser: "O master,
that which has neither moderation nor conduct, can not be guided by
reason or method. In love these evils are inherent; war [one while],
then peace again. If any one should endeavor to ascertain these things,
that are various as the weather, and fluctuating by blind chance; he
will make no more of it, than if he should set about raving by right
reason and rule." What--when, picking the pippins from the Picenian
apples, you rejoice if haply you have hit the vaulted roof; are you
yourself? What--when you strike out faltering accents from your
antiquated palate, how much wiser are you than [a child] that builds
little houses? To the folly [of love] add bloodshed, and stir the fire
with a sword. I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed
Hellas, threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad? Or will you
absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him
for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that
have an affinity in signification?
There was a certain freedman, who, an old man, ran about the streets in
a morning fasting, with his hands washed, and prayed thus: "Snatch me
alone from death" (adding some solemn vow), "me alone, for it is an easy
matter for the gods:" this man was sound in both his ears and eyes; but
his master, when he sold him, would except his understanding, unless he
were fond of law-suits. This crowd too Chrysippus places in the fruitful
family of Menenius.
O Jupiter, who givest and takest away great afflictions, (cries the
mother of a boy, now lying sick abed for five months), if this cold
quartan ague should leave the child, in the morning of that day on which
you enjoy a fast, he shall stand naked in the Tiber. Should chance or
the physician relieve the patient from his imminent danger, the
infatuated mother will destroy [the boy] placed on the cold bank, and
will bring back the fever. With what disorder of the mind is she
stricken? Why, with a superstitious fear of the gods.
These arms Stertinius, the eighth of the wise men, gave to me, as to a
friend, that for the future I might not be roughly accosted without
avenging myself. Whosoever shall call me madman, shall hear as much from
me [in return]; and shall learn to look back upon the bag that hangs
behind him.
O Stoic, so may you, after your damage, sell all your merchandise the
better: what folly (for, [it seems,] there are more kinds than one) do
you think I am infatuated with? For to myself I seem sound. What--when
mad Agave carries the amputated head of her unhappy son, does she then
seem mad to herself? I allow myself a fool (let me yield to the truth)
and a madman likewise: only declare this, with what distemper of mind
you think me afflicted. Hear, then: in the first place you build; that
is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you
imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and
strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you
less ridiculous than him? What--is it fitting that, in every thing
Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him and so much his
inferior, should vie with him? The young ones of a frog being in her
absence crushed by the foot of a calf, when one of them had made his
escape, he told his mother what a huge beast had dashed his brethren to
pieces. She began to ask, how big? Whether it were so great? puffing
herself up. Greater by half. What, so big? when she had swelled herself
more and more. If you should burst yourself, says he, you will not be
equal to it. This image bears no great dissimilitude to you. Now add
poems (that is, add oil to the fire), which if ever any man in his
senses made, why so do you. I do not mention your horrid rage. At
length, have done--your way of living beyond your fortune--confine
yourself to your own affairs, Damasippus--those thousand passions for
the fair, the young. Thou greater madman, at last, spare thy inferior.
* * * * *