A Stoic Breviary

—Publilius Syrus

IMAGE: Godfried Schalcken, Fortune (c. 1680)

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

IMAGE: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor (1894)

Seeing one of those who were with him, a young man, but feeble of body, named Epigenes, Socrates addressed him. 

Socrates: "You have not the athletic appearance of a youth in training, Epigenes." 

And he: "That may well be, seeing I am an amateur and not in training."

Socrates: "As little of an amateur, I take it, as anyone who ever entered the lists of Olympia, unless you are prepared to make light of that contest for life and death against the public foe, which the Athenians will institute when the day comes. 

"And yet they are not a few who, owing to a bad habit of body, either perish outright in the perils of war, or are ignobly saved. Many are they who for the selfsame cause are taken prisoners, and being taken must, if it so betide, endure the pains of slavery for the rest of their days; or, after falling into dolorous straits, when they have paid to the uttermost farthing of all, or maybe more than the worth of all that they possess, must drag on a miserable existence in want of the barest necessaries until death releases them. 

"Many also are they who gain an evil repute through infirmity of body, being thought to play the coward. Can it be that you despise these penalties affixed to an evil habit? Do you think you could lightly endure them? Far lighter, I imagine, nay, pleasant even by comparison, are the toils which he will undergo who duly cultivates a healthy bodily condition. 

"Or do you maintain that the evil habit is healthier, and in general more useful than the good? Do you pour contempt upon those blessings which flow from the healthy state? 

"And yet the very opposite of that which befalls the ill attends the sound condition. Does not the very soundness imply at once health and strength? Many a man with no other talisman than this has passed safely through the ordeal of war; stepping, not without dignity, through all its horrors unscathed. 

"Many with no other support than this have come to the rescue of friends, or stood forth as benefactors of their fatherland; whereby they were thought worthy of gratitude, and obtained a great renown and received as a recompense the highest honors of the state; to whom is also reserved a happier and brighter passage through what is left to them of life, and at their death they leave to their children the legacy of a fairer starting-point in the race of life. 

"Because our city does not practice military training in public, that is no reason for neglecting it in private, but rather a reason for making it a foremost care. For be you assured that there is no contest of any sort, nor any transaction, in which you will be the worse off for being well prepared in body; and in fact there is nothing which men do for which the body is not a help. 

"In every demand, therefore, which can be laid upon the body it is much better that it should be in the best condition; since, even where you might imagine the claims upon the body to be slightest—in the act of reasoning—who does not know the terrible stumbles which are made through being out of health? 

"It suffices to say that forgetfulness, and despondency, and moroseness, and madness take occasion often of ill-health to visit the intellectual faculties so severely as to expel all knowledge from the brain. 

"But he who is in good bodily plight has large security. He runs no risk of incurring any such catastrophe through ill-health at any rate; he has the expectation rather that a good habit must procure consequences the opposite to those of an evil habit; and surely to this end there is nothing a man in his senses would not undergo. . . . 

"It is a base thing for a man to wax old in careless self-neglect before he has lifted up his eyes and seen what manner of man he was made to be, in the full perfection of bodily strength and beauty. But these glories are withheld from him who is guilty of self-neglect, for they are not wont to blaze forth unbidden." 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.12 

Ἀποκρίνου ἐν καιρῷ 

Give a timely response 

IMAGE: Odilon Redon, Silence (1900) 

Earlier, I mentioned art. Is there such a thing in a concentration camp? It rather depends on what one chooses to call art. 

A kind of cabaret was improvised from time to time. A hut was cleared temporarily, a few wooden benches were pushed or nailed together and a program was drawn up. In the evening those who had fairly good positions in camp—the Capos and the workers who did not have to leave camp on distant marches—assembled there. They came to have a few laughs or perhaps to cry a little; anyway, to forget. 

There were songs, poems, jokes, some with underlying satire regarding the camp. All were meant to help us forget, and they did help. The gatherings were so effective that a few ordinary prisoners went to see the cabaret in spite of their fatigue even though they missed their daily portion of food by going. 

During the half-hour lunch interval when soup (which the contractors paid for and for which they did not spend much) was ladled out at our work site, we were allowed to assemble in an unfinished engine room. On entering, everyone got a ladleful of the watery soup. While we sipped it greedily, a prisoner climbed onto a tub and sang Italian arias. We enjoyed the songs, and he was guaranteed a double helping of soup, straight "from the bottom"—that meant with peas! 

Rewards were given in camp not only for entertainment, but also for applause. I, for example, could have found protection (how lucky I was never in need of it!) from the camp's most dreaded Capo, who for more than one good reason was known as "The Murderous Capo." This is how it happened. 

One evening I had the great honor of being invited again to the room where the spiritualistic séance had taken place. There were gathered the same intimate friends of the chief doctor and, most illegally, the warrant officer from the sanitation squad was again present. The Murderous Capo entered the room by chance, and he was asked to recite one of his poems, which had become famous (or infamous) in camp. He did not need to be asked twice and quickly produced a kind of diary from which he began to read samples of his art. 

I bit my lips till they hurt in order to keep from laughing at one of his love poems, and very likely that saved my life. Since I was also generous with my applause, my life might have been saved even had I been detailed to his working party to which I had previously been assigned for one day—a day that was quite enough for me. It was useful, anyway, to be known to The Murderous Capo from a favourable angle. So I applauded as hard as I could. 

Generally speaking, of course, any pursuit of art in camp was somewhat grotesque. I would say that the real impression made by anything connected with art arose only from the ghostlike contrast between the performance and the background of desolate camp life. 

I shall never forget how I awoke from the deep sleep of exhaustion on my second night in Auschwitz—roused by music. The senior warden of the hut had some kind of celebration in his room, which was near the entrance of the hut. Tipsy voices bawled some hackneyed tunes. Suddenly there was a silence and into the night a violin sang a desperately sad tango, an unusual tune not spoiled by frequent playing. 

The violin wept and a part of me wept with it, for on that same day someone had a twenty-fourth birthday.That someone lay in another part of the Auschwitz camp, possibly only a few hundred or a thousand yards away, and yet completely out of reach. That someone was my wife. 

A snake dwelt in a certain place. No one dared to pass by that way. For whoever did so was instantaneously bitten to death. 

Once a Mahâtman passed by that road, and the serpent ran after the sage in order to bite him. But when the snake approached the holy man he lost all his ferocity, and was overpowered by the gentleness of the Yogin. 

Seeing the snake, the sage said, "Well, friend, do you think to bite me?" 

The snake was abashed and made no reply. At this the sage said, "Hearken, friend, do not injure anybody in future." The snake bowed and nodded assent. 

The sage went his own way and the snake entered his hole, and thenceforward began to live a life of innocence and purity without even attempting to harm anyone. 

In a few days, all the neighborhood began to think that the snake had lost all his venom, and was no more dangerous, and so everyone began to tease him. Some pelted him, others dragged him mercilessly by the tail, and in this way there was no end to his troubles. 

Fortunately, the sage again passed by that way, and seeing the bruised and battered condition of the good snake, was very much moved, and inquired the cause of his distress. 

At this the snake replied, "Holy sir, this is because I do not injure anyone, after your advice. But alas! they are so merciless!" 

The sage smilingly said, "My dear friend, I simply advised you not to bite anyone, but I did not tell you not to frighten others. Although you should not bite any creature, still you should keep every one at a considerable distance by hissing at him." 

Similarly, if you live in the world, make yourself feared and respected. Do not injure anyone, but be not, at the same time, injured by others.