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Photographic Archive—Annapolis
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<p>The Greenfield Library photographic archive houses over 5,000 photographs. The photographs in the collection document the history, academic, and community life of St. John’s College. The Library’s mission is to organize and preserve these unique visual materials, and to provide access to this collection. </p>
To learn more about our photographic use policy or to obtain high resolution images, please see the <strong><a title="Photographic Archive Use Policy" href="http://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/libraries/greenfield-library/policies/#photographicarchivepolicy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Library’s Photographic Archive Use Policy</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Photographic Archives" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=7">Items in the Photographic Archive—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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William Kyle Smith, Mrs. Kyle Smith, Roxanna Kieffer, and Miriam Strange at Stringfellow Barr's Formal Lecture "The Beginning of the St. John's Program" in the King William Room, St. John's College, Annapolis
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1 photographic print : b&w
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1972-07
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[Fox, Cecil H.]
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Friday night lecture series
July 1972
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Faculty.
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Registrars.
Smith, William Kyle
Strange, Miriam
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Photographic Archive—Annapolis
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<p>The Greenfield Library photographic archive houses over 5,000 photographs. The photographs in the collection document the history, academic, and community life of St. John’s College. The Library’s mission is to organize and preserve these unique visual materials, and to provide access to this collection. </p>
To learn more about our photographic use policy or to obtain high resolution images, please see the <strong><a title="Photographic Archive Use Policy" href="http://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/libraries/greenfield-library/policies/#photographicarchivepolicy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Library’s Photographic Archive Use Policy</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Photographic Archives" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=7">Items in the Photographic Archive—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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John S. Kieffer, Mr. Leavenworth, and Mrs. Leavenworth at Stringfellow Barr's Formal Lecture "The Beginning of the St. John's Program" in the King William Room, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland
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1 photographic print : b&w
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1972-07
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[Fox, Cecil H.]
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Friday night lecture series
July 1972
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Presidents.
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Deans.
Kieffer, John Spangler.
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jpeg
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The Horses of Achilles
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 9, 2016 by Robert Charles Abbott, Jr. as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Abbott, Robert Charles, Jr.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2016-09-09
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A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online."
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Abbott_Robert_2016-09-09
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1139">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Text
THE HORSES OF ACHILLES
At the end of the Nineteenth Book of the Iliad, Achilles readies himself to avenge
the death of Patrocles. He puts on the armor of Hephaestus, mounts the chariot behind his
two immortal horses, and calls on them in a terrible voice:
Xanthos and Balios, far-famed sons of Podarge!
Take care to return your charioteer in another way
to the company of the Danaans once we quit the field:
do not leave me there dead, as you did Patrocles.
The goddess Hera then gives one of the horses a prodigious, an unheard of gift: the power
to speak. Xanthos claims he and his brother, Balios, were not to blame for the death of
Patrocles, and though they will bring Achilles safely home this time, his death is not far off.
The Furies take back Xanthos’ voice as quickly as it was given. Achilles is deeply shaken by
this ominous reply to his insult, but states his intention to return to the war, and drives the
chariot on.
Xanthos never speaks before this, nor does he or any other animal in the Iliad ever
do so again. In order to understand the significance of this momentary suspension in the
rule of the cosmos we must acquaint ourselves with the nature of those horses who
participated in the Trojan War and the deathless horses of Achilles in particular. Not being
an expert in horsemanship myself, I will permit a few others to guide us, chief among them
Xenophon, the Athenian soldier and friend of Socrates. The lecture is in five parts.
Part One: The Horses
The horses of the Iliad, unlike the dogs who lurk at its edges, are full participants in the war.
Just like human warriors, they are sensitive to boredom, terror, and honor, though they
perceive each in their own equine way. When the Trojans have taken the field, and their
campfires are scattered across it, innumerable and brilliant as the stars, their horses watch
through the endless hours of night for the return of dawn, just as their masters do
(VIII.564). Horses, also like men, can be more or less used to war, as when the newly
arrived Thracian horses are too frightened to walk on the bodies of their masters. And
horses, like men, are capable of overcoming even great weariness and reluctance when
persuaded. Antilochus delivers himself of a complicated speech in the midst of the chariot
race at the end of the poem, calling on his horses with a rhetorical sophistication we might
think appropriate only for human listeners, though he demonstrates thereby the close bond
between warriors and horses, and their sensitivity to honor (XXIII.400).
A fast horse is life. As it did for Nestor, a chariot can rescue the exhausted hero and
carry him to safety (VIII.85). It can also take him where he is needed most. From the
height of the chariot a spear can be thrown or a comrade spotted (IV.306). Not to have
one’s horses nearby can mean death, as it did for Agastrophos, whom Homer calls a fool for
leaving his chariot team with a henchman (XI.340). Dolon, the impetuous Trojan spy,
names the horses of Achilles as the high price for his dangerous night raid into the Greek
camp (X.320). He does not acquire them, and the book ends with Odysseus and Diomedes
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
stealing the horses of King Rhesus, an ally of the Trojans. This strategically unimportant
and morally questionable raid is a symbolic journey into the dark underworld of the battle
to steal something as precious as daylight—hope for the successful outcome of the war.
It is as if the theft of these snow-white horses secures the sunrise, and the book ends with
the bloody, triumphant heroes bathing in the dawn-drenched waters of the sea.
The horses of Achilles did not always belong to him. Poseidon gave them to his
father, Peleus, and he gave them to Achilles when he sailed for Troy. Their father is
Zephyrus—the West Wind, and their mother, Podarge—a harpy (XVI.148). The harpies, or
more literally, “Snatchers,” are winged spirits of the storm, blamed for sudden or
unexplained disappearances. Zephyrus by contrast, is the obliging wind who comes at
Achilles’ request to kindle the funeral pyre of Patrocles. As with many mythological pairings,
these progenitors are opposites but akin: Zephyrus generously comes from afar to help hide
the body of Patrocles in fire, Podarge makes mortals disappear with ill will. The horses are
as swift as their parents, though their names do not reveal this extraordinary inheritance.
Xanthos and Balios refer simply to the color of their coats: Bay and Dapple.
The chariot of Achilles is also drawn by a third horse, Pedasos, who is mortal.
His name is revealing. It is probably derived from the verb πεδάω, to bind with fetters, and
Pedasos would mean something like, “Fettered,” or more figuratively, “Trained.” One also
hears the verb πηδάω in his name, which means, to leap or bound. Both these meanings are
revelatory of his own duel nature: he is bound to the earth by his mortality, but he rises
above his natural station to run with the immortal horses.
Pedasos is killed by a spear which pierces his shoulder, and Automedon hurriedly
cuts him free from the chariot in the chaos of battle. His is a harbinger of Patrocles’ own
death, a mortal severed from godlike Achilles. When Pedasos dies, he screams, and just like
any of the other heroes in the Iliad, blows his life’s breath from his mouth.
No horse can be handled without skill, but the immortal horses require an altogether
formidable rider. Just as a great hero like Achilles is jealous of his freedom to act as he sees
fit, inflexibly proud of his peerless excellence, and easily offended by discourtesy, there is
something correspondingly perilous in the temperaments of Xanthos and Balios. Odysseus
and Apollo agree they are, “difficult horses to ride” (X.401, XVII.76). And being difficult is
not the same as being wild or unbroken. A certain kind of horse might well refuse to be
ridden by an inferior rider, just as a certain kind of person might refuse to be commanded by
an inferior king.
There are other similarities between Achilles and his horses besides their prideful
unwillingness to be led by any but the most excellent guides. Both are accounted in the
catalogue of ships to be the best among the Greeks (II.770). When Achilles finally returns
to the field of battle, he attains the cosmic proportions this ranking promised: his eyes burn
like fire, he shines like the madness-inducing Dog Star, his shield depicts the entire earth,
and he is drawn by immortal horses, swift as the wind. By this time in the poem, Pedasos
and Patrocles are dead; nothing remains to remind him of his human heritage, only Xanthos’
prophecy of his imminent death. The likeness between Achilles and the immortal horses
is in no way better exemplified than at the funerary games. Neither participates. They stand
apart and mourn.
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�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
Part Two: The Charioteer
The immortal horses are more difficult to ride than any other, though it is not to
Achilles their mastery belongs, but rather, to Patrocles (XVII.475). He is their beloved
charioteer (ἡνίοχος), a word which applies peculiarly to him, the greatest charioteer for the
greatest warrior (XXIII.280). Achilles, while watching the funeral games, remembers him
this way:
But I stay here at the side, and my single-foot horses stay with me;
such is the high glory of the charioteer they have lost,
the gentle one, who so many times anointed their manes with
soft olive oil, after he had washed them in shining water.
As Pandaros says to Aeneas, horses carry better the horseman they know best (V.230). “To
know” in this sense entails profound trust and understanding. He goes on to say it is the
longed for voice of the charioteer that calms the terror battle brings on, not the rider’s skill
with the mechanical apparatus of the chariot.
Hector speaks to his own horses with this intent to calm and encourage. He asks
they repay in battle all the care his wife, Andromache, gave them in peace (VIII.185). There
is a likeness between Hector’s speech and Achilles’ insult: Hector demands his horses repay
the special kindness Andromache showed them, just as Achilles accuses his horses of
unjustly not repaying the kindness of Patrocles. In both addresses Patrocles and
Andromache are the horses’ caretakers whose memory should inspire them to excellence.
This is not the only time Patrocles has been implicitly compared to a woman.
In Book Nine, Phoenix tells Achilles an only apparently rambling story meant to
convince him to return to the battle before the Greeks are driven into the sea. It becomes
clear he is not primarily addressing Achilles. Patrocles’ name means “glory of the father,”
and the wife of the angry, recalcitrant hero in Phoenix’s story is Kleopatra, its feminine
equivalent. In the story, Kleopatra is the only person who can persuade her husband,
Meleager, to give up his anger and save the city, just as Patrocles might be the only person
who can convince Achilles to save the Greeks. Gentle and masterful charioteer that he is,
he might be able to persuade spirited Achilles, just as Kleopatra did her husband.
The epithet with which Achilles addresses Patrocles after he has agreed to let him go
into battle is ἱπποκέλευθος. This word is used only three times in the Iliad and exclusively to
characterize Patrocles. It distinguishes his horsemanship from the Trojans’, who are often
referred to as ἱπποδάμοιων, “breakers of horses.” Ἱππόδαμος is derived from the word for
horse, ἳππος, and the verb δαμάζω, which means “to break in, tame; (in mid.) to control
(horses); to bring into subjection (political or matrimonial); to wear out or exhaust; to curb
or restrain; to overcome, overpower, to put an end to, to destroy.” Although the lexicon
suggests this wide-ranging word means something like “bring into order” when it refers to
horses, in its broader sense it hints at the forceful means by which this is accomplished, as
well as the permanent circumstances which ensure the obedience of the horse. The Trojans
do have their horses under control, but rather in the way Xerxes controls his army: always
under threat of the lash.
Patrocles’ epithet, ἱπποκέλευθος on the other hand, has a very different range of
meaning. Its root appears to be κέλευθος, which means “way, road, or path,” and so one
Homeric lexicon defines ἱπποκέλευθος as “one who fares with horses,” while another
suggests, “making the road on a chariot, chariot-fighter.” Lattimore translates it as “rider of
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�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
horses,” and “lord of horses,” the latter of which nicely captures a verbal echo from the verb
κελεῦω, which has the primary meaning, “to command persons, order, bid, enjoin,
give orders or injunctions.” Secondarily, it means “to bid, exhort, charge, urge, recommend,
counsel, invite.” These two resonances in his epithet—κέλευθος and κελεῦω—imply that
Patrocles’ relationship to horses is not one of breaking them to his will, but rather, of
commanding them, as one might command a fellow warrior capable of understanding and
assent. In his horsemanship, the horse is taken to be a thinking being capable of persuasion
and with which one can go somewhere together. Patrocles is ἱπποκέλευθος because he
follows the way of the horse. In the Trojan epithet, ἱππόδαμος, the horse always remains a
potential enemy, defeated, never moving beyond its subjection.
I will turn to Xenophon and a few other horse trainers to show that this
difference—between force and persuasion—is a fundamental concept in horse training, and
that anyone who would fare with horses must make a decision regarding it. The distinction
reaches to the depths of the conflict portrayed in the Iliad.
While Xenophon recommends many means of training the horse one might call
forceful, he is very clear, the final end of horsemanship is for the horse to act always of its
own free will. He means this to be true most of all when the horse is asked to do more
dangerous things than it would ever do in the wild. This is a simple but difficult thought to
accept. How can a rider ride a horse unless it is the rider’s will which rules? Here is
Xenophon in his own words:
For what a horse does under constraint, […] he does without
understanding, and with no more grace than a dancer would show if he
was whipped and goaded. Under such treatment horse and man alike will
do much more that is ugly than graceful. No, a horse must make the
most graceful and brilliant appearance in all respects of his own will with the
help of aids. (The Art of Horsemanship XI.4)
A more modern inheritor of Xenophon’s tradition writes, “The thing you are trying to help
the horse do is to use his own mind. You are trying to present something and then let him
figure out how to get there.” That was the trainer Tom Dorrance on horsemanship, or,
perhaps, on education generally. Dorrance also talks about those riders who don’t “get in
the way of” their horse (p. 17, True Unity: Willing Communication between Horse and Human).
According to these teachers, true horsemanship is not forcing the horse to act, but rather,
allowing the horse to do what he or she is capable of and wills for itself. “You need to be
the horse’s master, but him not the slave, but rather your willing partner.” (p. 51, Dorrance)
Dorrance sums up the relationship between horse and rider as a “true unity of willing
communication,” and later, to be clear he is not describing a monstrous melding of horse
and man, he calls this state of unity, “togetherness.” (p. 11, Dorrance)
We can properly estimate the horsemanship of Patrocles by noting what it enables
him to do with the horses. It is not always true that actions are revelatory of the powers
which enabled them. Mere force, after all, can induce great and terrible effects all on its
own. But in this case, the action in question is so extraordinary that we can look to it as a
true indication of his skill. In order to understand its significance, we must remember the
precarious situation the Greeks find themselves in without Achilles. Nestor proposes a plan
to make up for his absence. First, they will gather and bury their dead in a collective funeral
pyre. Then they will construct a wall, fronted by a moat, lined with wooden stakes meant to
impede and impale the expected Trojan assault. The project will transform the Greeks’
4
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
piratical encampment into a more permanently defensible fort, but also anchor them even
more firmly in their defensive position. The buried warriors are meant to protect them from
their enemies just as much as the wall and moat (VII.327). One might recall the body of
Oedipus buried at Colonus to defend Athens from invasion, or the Spartan theft of Orestes’
bones to ensure their conquest of Arcadia (Herodotus, Inquiries I.67). The Greek
encampment is founded on and preoccupied with the dead, the dark, and past grievances;
Troy is the city of life, and the forgetful forgiveness of Paris’ calamitous theft of Helen; it is
the city of Apollo. In the twilight between Greek darkness and Trojan light lies the plain of
war, the place of heroic action.
When Patrocles finally rides out in defense of his comrades, he turns the tide of the
battle and drives the Trojan flood back into this plain. Many are crushed in the panicked
retreat or trapped in the dust-choked ditch. Patrocles drives the horses straight towards this
grisly chasm, heedless of the danger, and vaults it in one death-defying spring (XVI.380).
Xenophon says in The Cavalry Commander, if it is true a man should wish to fly, then he
should learn to ride a horse, as it is that activity which most closely resembles it (viii.6). This
astonishing physical feat is itself only a mark of an even greater spiritual one. The leap of
Patrocles affirms that though human life may only be safe behind a barrier founded on the
memory of those who have gone before us, it is possible to leap into the living present and
act. While the leap shows us what Patrocles and the horses were capable of, their reaction to
his death reveals the great love which made it possible.
Part Three: The Grave
After the horses hear Patrocles has been killed, they stand still as gravestones and
weep. The verb (πυθέσθην, from πεύθομαι, XVII.427) emphasizes that they do not simply
witness, but hear of and understand what has happened. Patrocles᾽ death is described
elliptically. He falls “in the dust,” (ἐν κονίῃσι) and the horses mimic his collapse by trailing
the full length of their manes in the muck of the battlefield. Their desecration of themselves
anticipates the fate of his dead body, soon to be returned to the earth. The horses bow their
heads to the earth, their tears flow to the ground, and they stand fixed (ἔμπεδον) as a
gravestone. “Ἔμπεδον” recalls the name, Pedasos, the mortal horse whose name means
“fettered,” or as we might hear it now, “earthbound.” Without Patrocles to guide them, the
immortal horses are rooted to the earth, like their dead comrade.
The horses are compared to a gravestone not only because they are still, but because
their immobility means something, in the way a gravestone does. It means they have lost, or
are willing to give up, that essential part of themselves—their speed—out of love for
Patrocles. Rather than run away from his death, in body or in mind, they remain with him.
The word for remain here, μένει, might remind us of the link Socrates makes between
“remaining” and “remembering” in the Meno. The heroes of the Iliad long for immortality in
the form of undying fame and they fear forgetful oblivion. When the carnage Achilles
wreaks is so great the river Scamander rises from his bed in indignation, Achilles fears not
only he will drown, but that he will be forgotten in the depths without a fixed grave marker
to remember him by (XXI.315). Patrocles will not be so forgotten. Homer’s simile makes
the horses’ eloquent immobility his memorial.
Homer notes that the grave in the simile is for either a lord or a lady. This seemingly
inexplicable addition suggests the horses mourn Patrocles as if he were both man and
woman, which is appropriate, given his dual nature. On the one hand, he is the horses’
5
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
gentle charioteer, he sets the bread on the table when the embassy comes to persuade
Achilles, he comforts Briseis when she is first brought to the Greek camp, and he is
compared to Andromache and Kleopatra. On the other hand, he is a great warrior, eager for
glory, the best of the Myrmidons. He kills more warriors in the field than anyone else in the
poem, more than Achilles and Hector combined. The grave of Patrocles is the grave of
mankind, without regard for gender.
One might think after hearing their careless laughter at the end of Book One the
immortals have no cause to mourn, but we see this is not so. Zeus himself weeps tears of
blood when his son Sarpedon dies, and the mourning of the horses gives the king of the
gods another occasion to contemplate the sorrow of immortality (XVI.459). He asks
himself: why did we give you to a mortal man, the most wretched creature on earth? Their
mourning shows that the immortal horses were not made to serve mortals unwillingly, as
Poseidon and Apollo served King Laomedon in building the walls of Troy (VII.445).
Rather, the horses mourn Patrocles for the same reason Zeus mourned Sarpedon: they have
lost, he whom they loved.
The horses refuse to leave Patrocles’ body. Automedon uses every kind of
persuasion: he beats them, he threatens them with a sharp whip, and he pleads with them.
Their refusal is both a testament to their love as well as an indication that the bond which
permitted the great leap over the barrier does not yet extend to Automedon. The epithet
ἱπποκέλευθος implied that the horsemanship of Patrocles depended on persuasion and
willing assent. Without it, the horses are not moved by words, either threatening or pleasing,
nor can they be forced from their place. Their power cannot be harnessed by a mere
breaker of horses.
Hector notices the famous team standing by the body of Patrocles and hopes to add
them to the spoil of Achilles’ armor. Zeus emphatically denies him this. Rather than force
them to return to the ships, however, he puts great strength into their knees so they are
themselves able to overcome their grief and rescue Automedon. When Xanthus and his
brother later stand accused of desertion, he does not tell Achilles it was Zeus who aided
them or that their first reaction to his death was to stay and weep for Patrocles. But we
know that the true reason they left the battlefield was because Zeus gave them the strength
to, just as we know that the true cause of their staying was their love for Patrocles.
Part Four: Justice
We are now in a position to appreciate the depth of Achilles’ insult I recounted at
the beginning of this lecture. His scornful request that the horses make sure to return him
safely back to camp as they did not do for Patrocles insinuates, that when he needed them
most, they failed in their trust. It is as if Achilles sees in their desertion a bitter reminder of
his own abandonment of the army. Without Patrocles, Achilles does not believe in the
willing compliance of the horses, or his power to persuade them. His command is
undermined by its irony: if the horses abandoned Patrocles, why should they not abandon
him as well?
The seriousness of his insult catches the attention of an equally serious power in the
cosmos. That it is the queen of the gods who gives Xanthos the power to speak marks this
occasion as significant in more than the world of horsemanship. Whenever a god acts in the
way Hera does here, their sphere of responsibility has been violated. And a god always and
tirelessly protects that for which it is responsible. Hera gives Xanthos the power to speak
6
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
so he can correct Achilles’ unjust insult. Why this should be any of Hera’s concern is made
clearer by looking to the sorts of things that move her to anger and to action.
Hera is the last word of Book One, just as anger is its first. This is an ominous
intimation of her violent and vocal opposition to the will of Zeus. She is the goddess of the
“reckless word” (VIII.210, 461), and—like Achilles—is often angry. Unlike Athena, she
cannot control her rage, but pours it out in speech. (IV.25) She urges Achilles to call the
many-voiced assembly in Book One. She does this not only to save her warriors from the
arrows of Apollo, but also because of her care for that aspect of just redress which calls for
an accusation to be heard in public. The first and barest aspect of all justice, including its
cruder form in vengeance, is the vocalization “No!” The first word of the Iliad is μῆνιν—
wrath, but the first sound—and the Iliad is a poem one is meant to hear—the first sound is
μή—the negative particle of refusal—no, I will not. The Iliad is replete with negation:
Agamemnon says no, I will not return your daughter; Helen says no, I will not go to bed with
him yet again; Achilles says no, I will not fight. Without the power to protest what has been
said or done, there can be no balanced reconsideration, no appeal to what should have been,
and no fair judgment. The Iliad, by beginning with the momentary vocalization, “No!”
indicates it is a poem with justice, and the possibility for justice, at its heart.
Xanthos’ decisive “no” gives a sharp correction to Achilles’ insult, and although it
cannot reestablish that harmony of horse and rider which existed prior to the death of
Patrocles, his speech does make clear the parameters within which the horses are acting.
Xanthos states that not they but the gods and fate were the causes (ἄιτιοι) of Patrocles’
death, and thereby indicates that one of Patrocles’ killers is the god Apollo and beyond
Achilles’ reach. Xanthos also says it was not through slowness or irresponsibility he and his
brother failed to return their charioteer; they were both capable and willing. Achilles should
not blame the instruments available to him but look to the true causes.
Achilles addresses the horses as “famed sons of the harpy Podarge,” but Xanthos
boasts that he and his brother could run with the West Wind, their more benevolent father.
The supplemented genealogy reminds Achilles that the horses do more than bring death,
they can rescue their rider as well. Their speed is an image of their immortality, which they
can momentarily share with the charioteer they carry. Immediately after his boast, Xanthos
says, but you (αλλά τοι) are destined to be overpowered by a god and a man, as if to say that
even swift Achilles will one day be outrun by death. The phrase Homer uses for
“overpowered” is ἶφι δαμῆναι, “overmastered by force,” and cannot but recall the epithet
ἱππόδαμος, “horse-breaker,” which shares a root, δαμαζω. The horses are too swift to be
mastered, but Achilles will fall prey to force and to death.
What the content of Xanthos’ speech reveals is that the immortal horses could not
have been forced to do anything. Their love for Patrocles was not hampered by indecision,
laziness, poor-timing, weakness, ignorance, or any of the vices which usually keep us from
living up to our noblest form. And the highest form of horsemanship demands that we
believe the horse is in every way capable of and willing to attain the perfection proper to it.
Achilles fails to believe this myth. What he assumes, instead, when he insults the horses, is
that they did not wish to save Patrocles, that their bond of willing communication was a
pretense which shattered at his death. He fails to believe there was anything more than force
at work between them, so when the wielder of that force died, the horses deserted him.
What the fact of Xanthos’ speech reveals to Achilles is that it was not simply force
which guided the horses, but an unbroken, silent communication between horse and
charioteer. The horses have always been able to speak, but only to the right listener. It took Hera’s gift
7
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
to make their voices discernible to Achilles, and to us. This is the meaning of her gift: it is
not a magical or supernatural event, except in so far as it is the revelation of a deep truth.
Hera gives Xanthos the power to speak, but it is the Furies who take it away again
just as suddenly. This makes some immediate sense: a speaking animal is outside the bounds
of nature. But the Furies are more than guardians of order simply. If we can see what their
sphere of responsibility is in the poem, we can explain why they take Xanthos’ voice. But
saying they “take” it is misleading. Rather, Hera and the Furies appear on the scene to
protect that for which they are responsible, and they work together to repair the damage
done by Achilles’ insult.
We know three chief characteristics of the Furies. First, in Book Fifteen we learn
they side with the elder, even among the gods (XV.205). This includes not only the elder
born among siblings, but parents; in other words, they side with who or what came first, or,
put in another way, they side with chronological origins, not consequences, often to the
detriment of who or what follows from them. Phoenix is punished by the Furies for
sleeping with his father’s favorite concubine and thereby dishonoring him (IX.455) and
Athena claims the Furies punish Ares for opposing his mother’s will by assisting the Trojans
(XXI.410). The Furies also punish those who break oaths, that is, those who act as if their
own past promises do not matter in the future (III.278). Finally, we know the special
responsibility of the Furies is to avenge the dead, those who by virtue of fully existing only in
the past can no longer effect the justice due them in the present (XIX.260). In this way, the
Furies are, like Hera, deeply concerned with justice—the way things should be—which can
only be achieved by remembering distant origins in the present. The special responsibility of
the Furies is the honoring of the past in the present, and they punish those crimes which
might disrupt that orderly reverence.
The Furies permit Xanthos to speak because the kind of crime he is accused of
would, if he were guilty of it, demand their punishment. Achilles’ insult has, as it were,
called them up from Hell by claiming that Xanthos and his brother carelessly forgot their
bond with Patrocles and left him behind on the battlefield. The truth, rather, is they
remained with him in mind and body (μένει), and the essence of their relationship with him
in life was an active holding together of origin and consequence, command and response.
The horses were mindful of Patrocles, as he was of them. An audible voice is superfluous in
such a subtle relationship, so the Furies take it away to return Xanthos to his true nature.
Part Five: The Soul
In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates says the soul is like a chariot drawn by two horses—
one, beautiful and high-minded, the other, passionate and dark. They are led by a charioteer,
whose difficult task it is to put these hostile comrades through their psychic paces. Like
Plato, Homer also gives us images of human life constructed out of chariots and horses. It
is these images and not their explication we should remember. I have given you one
possible explication, and only of a single moment, but the living jewel that is the poem can
be turned and seen in a different light. Achilles the warrior, Patrocles the charioteer,
immortal Xanthos and Balios, and mortal Pedasos: they make up an image of the mortal and
immortal bound in friendship—the single-footed, discontinuous thunder of the horses’
hooves harmonizing with the swift, never-ending revolution of the chariot’s wheels. Like
Plato’s, this image evolves. The great leap over the trench becomes the perfect stillness of
the mourning horses; the quiet horsemanship of Patrocles gives way to Achilles’ wrathful
8
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
accusation. And the nightmare image of immortal horses dragging a dead human around the
walls of a sacred city shows a form of life in which Wrath has triumphed and immortal
beings are made to dishonor the shameful weakness of the mortal body.
How are we to understand the immortal horses as elements of an image portraying
the human condition? In other words, what are they to us? The field of Troy is far away
and we no longer hear the voices of the gods whispering over our shoulders, so it may
surprise you to learn there are now in your possession, powers very much like the immortal
horses of Achilles. They were given to you, in one way, by your parents, and in a more
mysterious way, by the gods. They are immortal in the sense that they currently belong to
you, but they recur infinitely in other beings, indifferent to your specific quiddity—what
makes you you. They have a life of their own which will persist long after you have ceased to
be. We do not each possess all of them, though among humans, the inheritance is usually
the same for each of us. Over the ages they have taken various forms, been given many
names, and been counted in different ways: Vision, Touch, the Powers to Move and to
Remain, the Power to Make Another Like Yourself. These are only a few of those who
stand in the Pantheon, though Aristotle insisted that for all their apparent diversity they are
united by one underlying name and desire—soul. The greatest of all the powers he named
νοῦς, or Mind—the power to remake yourself in the image of the world and thereby know
it.
It is true there is no perfectly convincing reason I can give you to think of these
powers as divine gifts—immortal, difficult to master, and not entirely under your control. It
would appear, after all, that you can command these willing servants as you like. They can
be made to turn this way and that, to carry you out of danger, to take you where you want to
go. But perhaps after considering the horsemanship of Patrocles and the mistake of
Achilles, you may reconsider your presumption to think of them as mere instruments and
see them as powers in their own right. You may also remember that these gifts were not
given to you whole and entire, but their use had to be learned through practice, though it is
very easy to forget with what care your mother and father taught you to master the art of
standing, or the long, dark millennia Nature required to train matter into the intricate shape
of an eye. These gifts call for our respect, even our awe, though you may answer that call
how you like. Ἱπποκέλευθος Πάτροκλος answered his horses in a particular way and leapt
the barrier between life and death. There was a harmony between them which hummed
along the web of harness and reins, yoke, bridle, and bit. It was not a conversation you
could hear, but it was a physical manifestation of the λόγος. One of the purposes of your
education here is to train those powers you have been given. They have a logic of their own
which you learn to understand and develop. Seeing, after all, is not as easy as opening your
eyes, and thinking may not be simply putting two and two together.
One might well grow nervous when someone takes mastery to be an educational
touchstone, especially at a college where lectures are by no means the rule. But staying
undecided on the role of true authority risks two serious mistakes—and by true authority I
mean the kind demonstrated in Patrocles’ horsemanship. The first mistake is simply not to
like authority-talk at all. But this is a tacit denial of one of the most fundamental features of
human experience: the astonishing way cause leads to effect, as it so evidently does in our
universe. Time and again, collision determines trajectory, seed blossoms into flower,
and conclusion follows flawlessly upon premise. How do we explain these cosmic
concatenations without first acknowledging that one thing leads another? Another way to
go wrong in thinking about authority is to go so far as to decide it is such a good in itself
9
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
that the whole purpose of education is to subject all one’s powers to the sovereign self.
Sometimes this is mistakenly called freedom. But to what end does the self have all these
gifts at its disposal? Authority alone cannot decide what to do with its powers; it must
consult the powers themselves for direction. Education enables us to acquaint ourselves
with those we possess, to understand their purposes and the way they strengthen or interfere
with each other, and to give them rein to act.
It may not be immediately clear to you what would be different if you believed that
the everyday activities of your existence—eating, looking around, picking things up, tracing
the shape of a magnolia leaf, perhaps—were manifestations of immortal powers given into
your temporary care. And, of course, I cannot, and would not be interested in convincing
you this is necessarily the case. For one thing, the mere shift in your intellectual
commitments would not be enough. You would have to live with the myth, forge a bond
entirely your own in the intermediate space between you and those immortal powers you’ve
been given. That space between is where you cultivate what is uniquely you. Patrocles lives
with the myth that the horses are immortal: the cultivation of his unique bond with them is
based on it. I call it a myth not to disparage it, but to indicate its power to change your life
merely by thinking about it. That is what a myth is: a story you live with, and by letting it repattern your life, a story you live in. As far as he knows, Hector has mortal horses; no one
could convince him otherwise. His myth is different, diminished, and because of its
limitations, he is unable to do with his horses what Patrocles could.
The last word of the Iliad is a now familiar epithet, there used of Hector, ἰππόδαμος.
Hector is a supreme breaker of horses, but when his chariot approaches the black maw
which separates the Greek camp from the Trojan plain, his horses start back in fear, and
even though there are four of them to Patrocles’ three, they are unable to leap its terrifying
distance (XII.50). There is no explicit mention in the Iliad of the defeat of Troy by the
Trojan horse—it is, after all, an Odyssean ruse which wins the war—but the failure of
Hector’s horses to leap the gulf intimates that in spite of their celebrated horsemanship,
a horse will be the downfall of the Trojans. Apart from a clever trick, what does the image
of the wooden horse tell us about the nature of the Trojan failure? We could say the Trojans
were deceived by the Greeks, or, that they did not understand what they were seeing. Their
deception was in truth a failure of horsemanship: they did not see those powers Wisdom had
hidden within the horse.
The excellence of the horses of Achilles is that they need not fear death. They can
outrun it or leap over it. But we, in the end, cannot. Like Pedasos, one day we will each take
a spear to the shoulder and trade our life away. I believe it is a good thing for mortals to
hate death. As a wise person once said, it is by the strength of the soul’s desire for
immortality—for deathlessness—that its health is measured. Immortality is just another way
of saying, being there for it, always, and perfectly. What would Achilles give to be there in the
light of the sun for one more day? —to watch it touch the world, touch the faces of those he
loved? We hear in the Odyssey he would give a great deal, perhaps more than he can afford
to and still remain himself. The desire to remain in the delineating light of day is not only
for the sake of remaining with others, but for remaining our selves. Self-preservation, no
matter how coarsely interpreted, is the spirit’s insistence on the integrity of those clear
boundaries of flesh and blood which outline animal individuality against the indeterminate
many. What are the immortal powers Aristotle enumerates but manifestations of the soul’s
desire to become and be forever itself, immortal and ageless?
10
�The Horses of Achilles
St. John’s College
Robert C. Abbott Jr.
September 9th, 2016
So it is good to desire immortality and to shun death. But Socrates suggests in the Phaedo it
is wise, though very difficult, to learn the art of dying well; that is, to yoke and then unyoke,
when the time comes, the mortal and the immortal parts of us. In a Homeric formulation,
we should learn to put the reins of the immortal horses into the hands of Patrocles.
One of the immortal gifts given to us is the power to speak, and this is perhaps the
most difficult gift to accept, as we often identify our voice as uniquely and always our own.
Your voice is what you try to develop in writing or find through political participation. But
the opening line of the Iliad reminds us that in its highest form, language speaks through us.
Ἄειδε θεά! Sing, Muse! Language is never simply a personal expression; if it were, we
would not know what each other was saying or care we were trying to say it. This does not
mean Homer or we never say what we mean, only that meaning is difficult to achieve. Your
voice is what your breath becomes when you mean something by it, and it takes time and
mastery to effect the full transformation from living life to meaning it. The alchemical
conversion of your breath into your voice is implicit in the Homeric word ψυχή. Ψυχή is
that warm, feather-light quickening at your nose and mouth, a mortal incarnation of the
bright, endless air which spills down from Olympus into the mortal world. We say it means
life’s-breath or soul. It is what flies out of the mouth or a spear wound at death, never to
return. There is, though, a way for it to leave the human body behind without killing it.
Speaking transforms the soul—gives it wings—so it may leap safely past that most animal
and mortal part of us—the sharp barrier of our teeth—and in some proximate way, as the
Voice, experience an immortality and fellowship known only to the gods.
11
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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The Horses of Achilles
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 9, 2016 by Robert Charles Abbott, Jr. as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Abbott, Robert Charles, Jr.
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Annapolis, MD
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2016-09-09
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A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online."
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1078">Audio recording</a>
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Greek
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Abbott_Robert_2016-09-09_Typescript
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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f65ca75353db1dbb8875ba2e7fbe9746
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Photographic Archive—Annapolis
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<p>The Greenfield Library photographic archive houses over 5,000 photographs. The photographs in the collection document the history, academic, and community life of St. John’s College. The Library’s mission is to organize and preserve these unique visual materials, and to provide access to this collection. </p>
To learn more about our photographic use policy or to obtain high resolution images, please see the <strong><a title="Photographic Archive Use Policy" href="http://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/libraries/greenfield-library/policies/#photographicarchivepolicy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Library’s Photographic Archive Use Policy</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Photographic Archives" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=7">Items in the Photographic Archive—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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12.5 x 18 cm.
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Portrait of John S. Kieffer
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1 photographic print : b&w
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1950-1960 [circa]
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Bachrach, Fabian
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Presidents.
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Deans.
St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.). -- Faculty.
Portraits
Kieffer, John Spangler.
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Deans
Honorary Alumni
Presidents
Tutors
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Continuing the Conversation
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Continuing the Conversation is a web and podcast series produced by St. John's College. Episodes 1-20 were released in 2023. <br /><br />More information about the series is available on the Continuing the Conversation page of the St. John's College website: <a href="https://www.sjc.edu/continuing-conversation">https://www.sjc.edu/continuing-conversation</a>.
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2023
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moving image
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English
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Annapolis, Md.
Santa Fe, NM
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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Louis Petrich + Jonathan Badger: Pursuing the Eternal Present is episode 4 of the Continuing the Conversation series and podcast. The episode was published on February 15, 2023.
Does a contemplative life bring us closer to the divine, as Aristotle believed? Is it the highest form of human life or is it self-centered and lived at the expense of others? Can one lead a contemplative life while living in the real world? Philosophers, artists, mystics, and students have long pursued lives of solitude, contemplation, and creative exploration, only to encounter a recurring set of practical obstacles and vexing moral questions. In this episode of Continuing the Conversation, Annapolis host Louis Petrich and tutor Jonathan Badger explore a conversation that honors the pursuit of “the eternal present” in Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence (based on the life of the painter Gauguin), while exploring its attendant questions with equal concern and gravity. This episode also includes conversation on works by Goethe, Rousseau, Thoreau, and Aristotle.
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Petrich, Louis
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)
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Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset), 1874-1965. Moon and sixpence
Solitude in literature
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778. Rêveries du promeneur solitaire
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Film entitled "St. John's College" produced by Fordel Films in 1962. Originally distributed as marketing material, and describes the program and campus.
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Livesey, Michael (Photographed by)
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Darkey, William A.
Klein, Jacob
Weigle, Richard Daniel, 1912-
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<p>The Greenfield Library photographic archive houses over 5,000 photographs. The photographs in the collection document the history, academic, and community life of St. John’s College. The Library’s mission is to organize and preserve these unique visual materials, and to provide access to this collection. </p>
To learn more about our photographic use policy or to obtain high resolution images, please see the <strong><a title="Photographic Archive Use Policy" href="http://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/libraries/greenfield-library/policies/#photographicarchivepolicy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Library’s Photographic Archive Use Policy</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Photographic Archives" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=7">Items in the Photographic Archive—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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Portrait of George Doskow
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1 photographic print : b&w
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Text
Leibniz's Monadology and the Philosophical Foundations of Non-locality in
Quantum Mechanics.
by
J.H. Beall
St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland
Abstract:
One of the most troubling aspects of our understanding of modern physics, generally, and quantum
mechanics, specifically, is the concept of “non-locality.” Non-locality appears in an entire class of
experiments, including the so-called “two-slit” experiment. In these, particles and “quanta” of light can
be emitted and absorbed individually. Yet in the way these particles or quanta traverse the space and
time between emission and absorption, they appear to behave not as point particles, but as though they
were distributed throughout the entire spatial volume and temporal extent of the experiment. That the
phenomenon of non-locality has recently been corroborated over macroscopic distances of the order of
10 kilometers makes these effects all the more remarkable.
In this lecture, I shall review the experiments and arguments that have led to an acceptance of nonlocality in modern physics, and will suggest that the concept of space and time that this understanding
implies is consistent with Leibniz's Monadology, wherein our ideas of space and time are
fundamentally different from those given to us by our intuitions.
�Outline of Lecture:
1. Leibniz's Monadology
Principle of sufficient reason
Leibniz-Clark Correspondence
Leibniz and Newton
2. Quantum Mechanics: An Eternal, Golden Braid
Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect
Rutherford, Bohr, de Broglie, and Heisenberg: an eternal golden braid
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Einstein, Padolski, and Rosen's response to Heisenberg and Bohr
3. Bell's Theorem (or Bell's Inequality)
Bell's work at CERN
a synopsis of Bell's inequality via entangled particles
Bell's untimely death
Henry Pierce Stapp's paper on Bell's Theorem and it's implications
three reasonable demands: locality, causality, and individuality
must abandon one of the three
best option: abandon locality
Experimental foundation:
Stern-Gerlach correlation experiments
and more recent experiments with quanta of light
Professor Carol Alley's indignation
What is the Speed of Quantum Information?” 18 km, 10,000 times speed of light.
“
4. Like shadows on a Cave Wall: Leibniz's ideas of “space” as a kind of answer to the problem of nonlocality
5. Concluding remarks
The coherence of mind—The Emporer's New Mind: Roger Penrose on the unity of cognition
The commonality of experience
The problem and promise of entanglement
�1. Leibniz's Monadology
Principle of sufficient reason
Leibniz-Clark Correspondence
Leibniz and Newton
Leibniz's writings on the philosophical, mathematical, and natural sciences represent a coherent, if
somewhat surprising whole. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the Monadology, the
Discourse of Metaphysics, and the Leibniz-Clark correspondence.
Leibniz begins with the view of God as a maker, a being who makes the world the best possible.
Part and parcel with this view of the world is Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason. It goes
something like this: one monad can only be different from another because of its different character or
qualities. I'll use a modern idea of a monad to illustrate this: an elementary particle like an electron. I
hope my choice will become plausible a bit later when we start the discussion of quantum mechanics.
Is one electron the same as another? If so, if there is NO difference between “this electron” and “that
electron”, then they would be the same, since by the Principle of Sufficient Reason they cannot be
distinguished. But my simply pointing to them is an indication of the differences. “This electron” IS
different from that one, because it has an explicitly different representation that is indicated by my
pointing at them. If I were to insist on a Cartesian representation of this difference, I can make a threedimensional coordinate system with a particular origin and three orthogonal axes, labeled x, y, and z.
Numbering these axes, I can locate “this” electron and distinguish it from “that” electron by the use of
three numbers, x1, y1, and z1, and x2, y2, and z2. I can then say that I have a representation of each of
these two electrons as different, given these two sets of three numbers. I can even represent their
separation of this electron from that electron by a three-dimensional version of the Pythagorean
theorem.
Leibniz makes this explicit several places in his works. For example, in the essay, “On Nature Itself
(pp 164 – 165), he states in arguing against Descartes' reliance on geometry in physics. Given such an
identity or similarity between objects,
… not even an angel could find any difference between its states at different times, nor have any
evidence for discerning whether the enclosed sphere is at rest or revolves, and what law of
motion it follows....Even if those who have not penetrated these matters deeply enough may not
have noticed this, it ought to be accepted as certain that such consequences are alien to the
nature and order of things, and that nowhere are there things perfectly similar (which is among
my [Leibniz's] new and important axioms). (Leibniz's essay, On Nature Itself, paragraph 13)
Of course, electrons have other properties as well: charge, mass, angular momentum (they seem to
spin like tops), magnetic moment (they act like tiny bar-magnets), velocity, momentum, and kinetic
energy, among other things. Each of these qualities or characteristics can also be represented by a
series of numbers or “coordinate expression.” I've always fancied that in a very formal sense an
electron or any other elementary particle (had Leibniz known about them) could be represented as an
aggregation of numbers (or coordinate expressions) related to another monad. This other monad could
also be represented in a similar way. By the Principle of Sufficient Reason, some of these coordinate
expressions are different from the coordinate expressions of all other monads.
The other thing to mention about monads is their unity. They are “simple.” They do not have parts.
�According to Leibniz, they represent a unity of different properties, much like a geometric point that is
the nexus of many geometric lines. Leibniz states that:
Everything is full in nature... And since everything is connected because of the plenitude of the
world, and since each body acts on every other body, more or less, in proportion to its distance,
and is itself affected by the other through reaction, it follows that each monad is a living mirror
or a mirror endowed with internal action, which represents the universe from its own point of
view and is as ordered as the universe itself. Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based
on Reason, paragraph 3.
Some even have the property of being “be-souled.” So look around you. According to Leibniz, you
are sitting among a reasonably large group of monads, each of which is capable of noticing you and
regarding you as separate, individual “beings.”
There is one final thing about monads (among their many interesting properties) that bears on our
discussion of quantum mechanics. As Leibniz says, tt another point, in the Monadology:
The monads have no windows through which something can enter or leave. (Monadology,
paragraph 7)
Monads have no “windows.” Yet each monad is a representation to a greater or lesser extent of
everything else in the Universe because it is linked to all other monads by means of its relation to God.
That is, each monad is a reflection of the entire Universe precisely because it is in some way a
projection of a part of God. The debt Leibniz owes to Plato's Republic for this concept (note that I did
not say image) is nowhere directly acknowledged by Leibniz, but it is manifest. The one quarrel
Leibniz would have with my associating him with the image of the Cave in the Socratic dialog is
simply that it is an image as opposed to something that dwells in the understanding. For Leibniz's God
is, at least to my thinking, a Mathematician, and He, like Dedekind, holds that mathematics has no need
of geometry.
In this conception, then, there is a profound similarity between all of our connections with one another
and with the physical, social, and moral world.
It seems clear, therefore, that Leibniz does not think that space has an actual existence. As he states
explicitly,
As for my own opinion, I have said more than once that I hold space to be something relative,
as time is, that I hold it to be an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions.
(Letters to Clark, Leibniz's Third Paper, Paragraph 4)
This is radically at odds with Newton's Principia, wherein Newton seems to deduce the existence of
absolute space from the existence of absolute (i.e, accelerated) motion. For Newton, space is the
“sensorium of God.”
Let us ponder this for a moment. For Newton, space has an existence. We can look out into the space
before us and hold it in our minds as something, even though we can (as Kant does) in our imaginations
remove all of its contents from the space that holds it. What is left over is space, be it a cubic
centimeter in front of us or volume 100,000 parsecs on a side.
�When Leibniz sees this emptiness, he views it as an actual metaphysical void, something that not even
God can relate to. As such, it is an abomination. Leibniz cannot accept a thing that God cannot act
upon, and the idea of an actual void is such a thing. Since God must be able to act on all creation, a
genuine metaphysical void cannot exist. This is one of the reasons why the Leibniz-Clark
correspondence (Clark was taking Newton's part) makes little headway to change the authors' minds.
The grounds of the conversation are radically different.
It is a worthy anecdote to relate that Leibniz and Newton never acknowledged the other's invention of
the differential and integral calculus. And it is helpful to note that Newton's development of the
calculus relies on geometrical constructions, while Leibniz's relies on an evolution of Descartes'
algebra. Is it true that Leibniz uses sketches of curves and lines for his derivations, in part because we
are visual creatures, but Leibniz's derivations do seem to be less reliant on images of extension.
Thus, for Leibniz, extension has no actual existence. What we interpret as extension, as space, is a
representation given to us by God. It is very likely that the same is true for time in Leibniz's
metaphysics. This separation is like a three-dimensional Pythagorean theorem whose terms are given to
us. What we interpret as a spatial extension is a coordinate interval that we call space, just as temporal
separation is a coordinate expression that we call time. What separates us, what we interpret as
distance, is just a shadow on a Cave wall caused by our origin within a common light. What separates
us from the amber light of ages past is an equivalent coordinate expression whose regularity is provided
by God.
I cannot resist at this point recalling for you the yarn in the Odyssey when the hero is among the
Phaeacians, and Homer brings us back from the story Odysseus is telling into Alkinoos and Arete's
palace hall with it's feast and polished stone floors and torchlight. The momentum of that telescoping
does not stop there, but places us back firmly into the present where we realize that we are reading
words two thousand years old about a story that is a thousand years distant even from that remote past.
Like Leibniz's God, Homer has linked us to the ages, and three millennia are as nought.
One other element of Leibniz's philosophy will prove useful later: Leibniz directly addresses the
problem of a Deity that weaves out our destiny to construct the best of all possible worlds. This Deity
knows everything we are capable of doing, knows all of our potentialities, and further, knows all of our
past.
And since every present state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding
state, the present is pregnant with the future (Monadology, paragraph 22).
Thus, the “Demon” in Laplace's Essay on a Theory of Probability takes its tack from Leibniz. Laplace
says explicitly:
We ought then to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its anterior state and as
the cause of the one which is to follow. Given for one instant an intelligence which could
comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings
who compose it -- an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis-it would
embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of
the lightest atom; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be
present to its eyes. (Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, ch II)
Leibniz seems to recognize the determinism of such a God, but sidesteps the troublesome argument of
�the lack of free will by claiming that God knows all possible predicates of our being, and so chooses
the path which we would follow anyway!
I regard the foregoing comments about Leibniz's Monadology as a preamble to our discussion of the
problem of non-locality in quantum mechanics, especially as the concept of non-locality has been
articulated by interpretations of the work of John Bell, an elementary particle theorist who worked at
CERN before his untimely death in the Fall of 1990. But first, I shall try to provide some background
on the landscape in which Bell developed his certifiably famous theorem.
2. An Eternal, Golden Braid: Quantum Mechanics in Rutherford, Bohr, de Broglie, Heisenberg,
and Einstein
Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect
Rutherford, Bohr, de Broglie, and Heisenberg: an eternal golden braid
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Einstein, Padolski, and Rosen's response to Heisenberg and Bohr
It is surprising at first gloss that of the four papers Einstein published in 1905, the one for which he was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics was not one of the following:
The one on Special Relativity, entitled “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.
Annalen der Physik 17 (1905): 891-921;
nor the one entitled
“Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content?” (the famous E=mc2
paper), in Annalen der Physik 18 (1905);
nor the one on Brownian motion, entitled
“On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the
Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat.” in Annalen der Physik 17 (1905): 549-560.
As an aside, it is worthy of note that this is the 100th anniversary of the publication of the 1915 paper on
General Relativity, and the 150th anniversary of Maxwell's publication of his theory of light as
electromagnetic waves.
The actual phrasing from the Nobel Prize Committee was “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and
especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect." The so-called “photoelectric effect”
paper has a curious title: “Concerning an Heuristic Point of View Toward the Emission and
Transformation of Light.” It was also published in Annalen der Physik 17 (1905): 132-148. It was one
which marked the beginnings of what is now called Quantum Mechanics.
In the paper, Einstein characterizes the wave theory of light in the following manner:
...the energy of a beam of light from a point source (according to Maxwell's theory of light or,
more generally, according to any wave theory) is continuously spread over an ever increasing
volume.
In the next paragraph, Einstein notes that
The wave theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, has worked well in
the representation of purely optical phenomena and will probably never be replaced by any
other theory.
�But in the next paragraph, he states that
It seems to me that the observations associated with blackbody radiation, fluorescence, the
production of cathode rays by ultraviolet light, and other related phenomena connected with the
emission and transformation of light … are more readily understood if one assumes that the
energy of light is discontinuously distributed in space. In accordance with the assumption to be
considered here, the energy of a light ray spreading out from a point source is not continuously
distributed over increasing space but consists of a finite number of energy quanta which are
localized at points in space, which move without dividing, and which can only be produced and
absorbed as complete units.
On the one hand, Einstein allows for a “wave theory” like Maxwell's waves in a luminiferous aether
wherein the light it transmitted, reflected, and refracted. He “heuristically” considers light to be a
particle during light's emission from and absorption into material bodies. It is perhaps ironic that
Einstein was never able to reconcile his conception of the dual nature of light with the equivalent, dual
character of particles as both material bodies and waves, a solution posed by de Broglie to provide an
explanation of Bohr's model for the energy levels of the hydrogen atom.
Of course, this entire “braid” began with efforts to apply models from classical physics that explain
everything from cannonballs to asteroids to planets to the very small structures within matter such as
atoms and elementary particles via Galileo, Thomson, Millikan, and Rutherford.
By way of a truncated outline of the argument, Bohr used the existence of hydrogen spectral lines and
the contemporary work by Planck to explain so-called Blackbody radiation. Planck made the
hypothesis that discrete oscillators in matter had only certain fundamental modes with which they could
vibrate. He asserted that these oscillators were in equilibrium with the thermal radiation from matter
with a particular temperature, and thus explained blackbody radiation. Bohr wondered what the
“Planck oscillators” could be, since the classical picture of an orbiting charge holds that it should
radiate continuously. He hypothesized that his atom settled into quasi-stationary states and emitted and
absorbed radiation during transitions from one energy level to another.
It is likely that everyone in the audience is familiar with Bohr's model from high school science classes
and many popular lectures and books on the subject of science. You Seniors are in the process of
completing this sequence of papers.
In fact, the Bohr model has become a commonplace picture of the atom. But such familiarity hides the
utter strangeness of the concept. The atom is stable for a while, and then is excited or de-excited by the
absorption or emission of light at a specific frequency. These energy levels are Bohr's answer to why
the spectra of light from certain gases contains only certain frequencies. If you sprinkle salt onto the
logs in your fireplace, the resultant light is a brilliant yellow. That yellow light contains only certain
frequencies, frequencies that are as much an indication of the presence of the sodium in salt as your
finger prints are of you as an individual person. We know the constitution of stars precisely because of
this line-spectrum identification of elements, stars that can be hundreds or thousands of light years
distant.
The strangeness of the idea of the Bohr atom bothered de Broglie, who reasoned by a kind of symmetry
derived from Einstein's photoelectric effect paper (wherein light can have a particulate nature, as well
as a wave-like nature) that particles could perhaps have both a discrete nature and also a wave-like
nature. In an immensely clever argument (he won the Nobel Prize for it), de Broglie argued that one
�can calculate the “wavelength” of a particle by assigning it a specific momentum, which implies that it
has an energy. That energy can be used to calculate a characteristic wavelength, E = hν = hc/λ. It is a
stunning triumph for so simple an argument that the wavelengths thus calculated for an electron in the
Bohr orbits for hydrogen is exactly the circumference of the quasi-stationary orbits for electrons in the
hydrogen atom. So the electrons are not exactly particles when they are inside the atom. They also
have wave-like qualities.
Schroedinger was a young assistant professor when de Broglie published his astonishing idea. I have it
on good authority that Schroedinger was assigned the task of giving the journal club lecture at his
university the next week. It's a bit like these Friday night lectures, but less formal and typically they
are on a week-day afternoon. The assignment was something like, “Take a look at de Broglie's paper
and give us a synopsis of it at the journal club next Tuesday.”
Schroedinger had a ski trip planned for that weekend (Friday through Sunday, apparently). Being the
persistent soul that he was, he took a copy of de Broglie's paper and a book on solutions to differential
equations in various coordinate systems (rectilinear, cylindrical, and spherical) with him on the ski trip.
The short version of the story is that he didn't get much skiing done, but he came back well on the way
of inventing wave mechanics, an explanation for the energy levels of atoms as kind of standing waves
in space. His “eureka” moment came when he said to his bewildered ski companions, “I have just fit
the energy levels of the hydrogen atom in a way you would not believe!” The standing waves were
similar to the three-dimensional oscillations of sound waves in a concert hall. But standing waves of
what?
I believe Schroedinger originally thought of the standing waves as waves of charge density. The
electron has wave-like qualities à la de Broglie, and it has charge, so it would make sense as an
extension of de Broglie's hypothesis. But electrons have discrete charges when they are measured by
Millikan in his famous oil-drop experiment. How come we never see fractional charges?
Schroedinger's description of electrons (or any elementary particle, for that matter) was that they are
aggregations of waves that reinforce in a certain region and cancel out everywhere else. This makes
sense in explaining the energy levels of a hydrogen atom, but causes other conceptual problems.
First slide (the Cat – on title page)
Schroedinger's description of a particle as an aggregation of waves of some sort caused Heisenberg to
analyze the behavior of such particles when we try to measure them. If we try to localize the particle as
we do in the act of measurement, we confine it to a narrower region in space. That means we add up
more and more waves. Each wave has a slightly different speed. Schroedinger needed these different
speeds for different wavelengths in order to get the “wave-packet” to behave like a particle. But that
means that the momentum of the particle becomes less certain over time, since, in order to localize the
particle, we need to add more wavelengths, and adding more wavelengths means the velocity (and
therefore the momentum) become more uncertain.
�Slide 2: Slide of wave addition to produce wave-packet goes here
There is actually a calculable limit to the uncertainty in the momentum times the uncertainty in the
position of a particle. It is greater than or equal to Planck's constant. This is of course the Heisenberg
Uncertainty Relation. It says that there is a fundamental, and not simply an experimental, limit to our
knowledge of the location of a particle and its momentum.
Slide 3: Slide of single slit diffraction and its relation to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
�A particularly helpful illustration of the Heisenberg derivation (and one that will be useful to us later in
this lecture can be had by looking at single-slit diffraction of a plane wave. The wave can be a wave of
light, an elementary particle like an electron, or even a water wave. If it originates from a far-distant
source, the wave is essentially a series of parallel troughs and peaks with its propagation direction
perpendicular to those troughs and peaks. When we allow it to approach a screen so that the peaks and
troughs (as seen from above) are parallel to the screen, we can watch the interaction of the barrier with
the oncoming waves. If there is an opening in the barrier that is of the same order as the wavelength of
the waves, a fraction of the waves can pass the barrier. When this happens, a part of the wave front
gets through the barrier, but for some fraction of the waves, the direction of the waves is changed
because of the wavesfront's interference with itself. This interference produces a dispersion of the
wave front that gives its velocity a vertical component. It is important to note what has happened here.
We have limited the wavefront in the vertical direction to a x that is essentially the width of the slit. It
has produced a dispersion in the velocity of the wave in the vertical direction, a v.
In Schroedinger's terms, this dispersion in the velocity of the wave in the vertical direction (that is, in
the same direction as the opening of the slit) is an uncertainty in the velocity. If we consider the wave
as representing the motion of a particle, then the localization of the particle within a delta x produces an
uncertainty in the momentum of the particle of order delta p. This illustration is not entirely fanciful.
In fact, Heisenberg uses it as one of his derivations of the Heisenberg Uncertainty relation.
Furthermore, the smaller the slit, that is, the smaller the uncertainty in position, the greater the
uncertainty in the momentum.
This has led to no end of problems in interpretation. One example of this is the fact that elementary
particles (be they electrons, protons, or photons), when emitted from a source and directed toward a
screen or grid whose spacings are the same size as the wavelengths of the elementary particles, will
show a diffraction pattern on a screen downstream from slits. For the sake of clarity, we will consider
only photons, although the discussion could as well apply to any elementary particle, including
neutrons, protons, electrons, etc.
Let a stream of photons set forth across the chaotic gulf toward a screen. Imagine this as like a scene
from Milton's Paradise Lost as Satan launches himself across the chasm between hell and paradise.
These photons are transmitted and diffracted as though they are electromagnetic waves. When they
reach two slits in the screen, the waves interfere with one another so that there is a very specific pattern
of light and dark lines on the screen downstream from the slits called a “two-slit” pattern.
�Slide 4: Slide on single-slit vs. double-slit pattern here
Suppose we turn down the intensity of the light. Let us make the light exceedingly dim, so that when
we look at the screen or detector, we find only one cell on the screen illuminated or exposed (you
remember photographic film, I trust?) at a time.
Slide 5: Low Light/Flux level slide goes here
What happens next is remarkable. This figure shows the buildup over time of electrons in a two slit
experiment at very low flux levels. We see one quantum at a time arriving . As we watch, the
�diffraction pattern begins to develop. We see the characteristic two-slit pattern. But we have allowed
only one quantum (in this case, electrons) to be emitted at a time. How can we possibly get a two-slit
pattern. Such an experimental apparatus exists. The results from it behave exactly as I have said.
Apparently, the individual light or particle quantum goes through both slits at once. It is spread out
over the entire space of the experimental screen (or more properly, the experimental volume) and then
excites only one element of the detector. If this seems quixotic to you, it is. It is known as “the
problem of measurement” in the vernacular of Shady Bend. The wave function (remember all those
waves adding up to produce the wave packet) is spread out even for a single particle or quantum of
light. The moment before it hits the detector screen, it is everywhere on the screen. At the next instant,
it collapses into a single point. This is known as the “collapse of the wave function.” The collapse is
apparently instantaneous. If these are material particles or quanta of light, they sort themselves into a
single area on the screen instantaneously.
There were many objections to this explanation, not the least of which was that it violates causality.
The wave-packet description of the two-slit experiment requires that the waves instantly collapse to a
single point, after having, a moment in time before, occupied the whole of the experiment.
Bohr and Heisenberg made noble efforts to resolve this apparent contradiction by supposing that the
wave function description of elementary particles was merely a calculation of likelihood or probability.
Since probability is only a likelihood, the collapse of the wave function is merely the result of a
measurement. And like any measurement, once it occurs, the answer is always, “Yes. That's what
happened!”
Einstein would have none of it. His famous quote, “God does not play dice!”, about the so-called
Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics was an indication of his objection to the probability
interpretation of the Psi-function. In his view, there was an underlying causal relation between the
elements of the experiments and their outcomes that was not represented by quantum mechanics (QM).
Yet QM is a remarkably successful theoretical method.
In a paper in response to the probability interpretation of QM, Einstein, Podolski and Rosen (EPR) tried
to show that the uncertainty relation developed by Heisenberg was flawed, and that some variations of
the single or two slit experiment would give an inroad into figuring out precisely what the momentum
and position of the particle would be. One of the thought experiments proposed to measure the
momentum transferred to the screen by the impact of the particle, This (by conservation of
momentum) would allow the particle momentum to be measured exactly, while the position would be
localized to the region within the slit. But when one took into account the uncertainty in the position of
the screen, the Heisenberg Uncertainty limit returned.
A variant of one of the thought experiments used two particles that interacted prior to the slit, and then
had one transfer its momentum to one screen while another's position was determined independently.
Again, by conservation of momentum the second particle's momentum and its position were to be
determined beyond the Heisenberg limit. Each response to EPR by Heisenberg and Bohr led EPR to a
further amplifications of the experimental apparatus. While the correspondence in the scientific
literature led many to accept the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Heisenberg Uncertainty limit,
Einstein was never able to believe the probabilistic nature of Bohr and Heisenberg's interpretation.
Yet the alternative to a probabilistic interpretation was an instantaneous collapse of a physical wave
function. This instantaneous collapse would clearly exceed the speed of light, and thus render it
�difficult to accept, since the limiting speed of the transfer of information in Special Relativity is the
velocity of light. This is one of the fundamental hypotheses of Special Relativity.
This led John Bell to a further analysis of the two slit experiment, and the theoretical development of
Bell's Theorem (or Bell's Inequality), which has allowed many experimental test of locality, causality,
and the predictions of quantum mechanics. It appears to contradict Einstein's hopes for a “hidden
variable” theory, wherein true causality would be returned to the world. Apparently, this is not to be
realized.
�3. Bell's Theorem (or Bell's Inequality)
Bell's work at CERN
a synopsis of Bell's inequality via entangled particles
Bell's untimely death
Henry Pierce Stapp's paper on Bell's Theorem and it's implications
three reasonable demands: locality, causality, and individuality
must abandon one of the three
best option: abandon locality
Experimental foundation:
Stern-Gerlach correlation experiments
and more recent experiments with quanta of light
Professor Carol Alley's indignation
But how does this happen? Bell's theorem is essentially a test of whether or not two particles, once
they interact, can be separated enough so that their states do not influence one another. Remarkably, it
is posed in such a way that it can be implemented as an experimental test.
Schroedinger called this phenomenon, wherein the wave function of two particles becomes joined by
their interaction, an “entanglement” of the wave functions of the particles. And you recall that all
particles have a wave function description that guides or governs their behavior.
This hypothesis bears on EPR's paper. To reiterate, if two particles interact, then the momentum of one
could be determined by inference due to measuring the momentum of the other, since the momentum of
the pair has to be conserved. At the same time, the position of the first particle, for which we inferred
the momentum, could be accurately measured for its position as long as the pair were sufficiently far
apart. Thus, the momentum and position of a particle could be measured at a precision which violated
the Heisenberg uncertainty limit. At this point, EPR could claim that the Heisenberg Uncertainty
relation was merely a practical limit, and that there was some underlying, governing relation which we
simply needed to find, some sort of “hidden variable” that really determined the evolution of the
system.
J.S. Bell was sympathetic to EPR's view. His theorem (called variously Bell's Theorem or Bell's
Inequality) was an attempt to establish whether or not EPR's hypothesis could be tested experimentally.
The experimental setup is remarkably simple, but not trivial. Two particles would be allowed to
interact, to become “entangled,” and then would separate and go off in opposite directions. After a
time, the particles would each be measured to determine their properties. As with the EPR paper, the
hypothesis that their states could no longer interact would produce one result, whereas the hypothesis
that their states were still entangled when they were measured would produce another result.
The next figure shows the results of one of the experimental tests of Bell's Theorem, in this case the
orientation of the polarization of photons measured by two separated systems. The red (straight) line
shows the limit of a “local, realistic” hypothesis, that is, that the results are uncorrelated. Any
experimental result below the diagonal red line indicates a correlation (that is, an entanglement)
between distant particles and their experimental apparatuses. Perhaps most important, the results
predicted by QM show a very close agreement with the data!
In some later experimental tests, groups have tried to estimate the speed of the transmission of the
correlations by changing slightly the timing of the setting of the measuring apparatuses. In a groundbreaking paper entitled “What is the Speed of Quantum Information,” the result of a measurement
�conducted at CERN is that the correlations happen at a velocity at least 10,000 times the speed of light
over a distance of 18 kilometers. I say “at least” because the electronics of the experimental setup
could not measure a faster correlation. So for all intents and purposes, this speed is a lower limit. The
correlations occur effectively instantaneously.
What are we to make of such results? Henry Pierce Stapp's paper, entitled “The S-Matrix Interpretation
of Quantum Theory”, provides a highly recommended discussion of Bell's Theorem, despite the
imposing title. But by way of a friendly warning, it's best to read Section X, Ontological Problems, and
Appendix B, World View, first to get a bit of orientation.
To give you some idea of Stapp's take on Bell's Theorem, I quote from his paper at a point just after he
shows a concise proof of that theorem.
A conclusion that can be drawn from this theorem is that the demands of causality, locality, and
individuality cannot be simultaneously maintained in the description of nature. Causality
demands contingent predictions; locality demands local causes of localized results; individuality
demands specification of individual results, not merely their probabilities.
For a more readable proof of the theorem, Nick Herbert's article, “Quantum Reality” and his account at
http://quantumtantra.com/bell2.html, and in N. Herbert, Am Jour Phys 43, 315 (1975) and in N.
Herbert, New Scientist 111, 41 (1986).
�Slide 6: Bell's Theorem results.
As Stapp puts it:
I can see only three ways out of the problem posed by Bell's theorem.
1. The first is to accept, with Everett, the idea that human observers are cognizant only of
individual branches of the full reality of the world: The full physical world would contain a
superposition of a myriad of interconnected physical worlds of the kind we know. An
individual observer would be personally aware of only one response of a macroscopic
measuring device, but a full account of reality would include all the other possible outcomes on
an equal footing, though perhaps with unequal “weights.”
�2. The second way out is to accept that nature is basically highly nonlocal, in the sense that
correlations exist that violently contradict – even at the macroscopic level – the usual ideas of
the space-time propagation of information. The intuitive idea of the physical distinctness of
physically well-separated macroscopic objects then becomes open to question. And the
intuitive idea of space itself is placed in jeopardy. For space is intimately connected to the
space-time relationships that are naturally expressed in terms of it. If there are, between farapart microscopic events, large instantaneous connections that do not respect spatial separation,
then the significance of space would seem to arise only from the statistical relationships that do
respect it.
3. The third way out is to deny that measurements that “could have been performed, but were
not,” would have had definite results if they had been performed. This way out seems, at first,
to be closest to the spirit of the Copenhagen interpretation. However, it seems to contradict the
idea of indeterminism, which is also an important element of the spirit of the Copenhagen
interpretation. (Henry Pierce Stapp, 1971, Physics Review D, Vol. 3, no. 6, pp 1303-1320).
Some comments are clearly in order here. The third option Stapp articulates bears remarkable
similarities to Laplace's Demon or Leibniz's God as architects of the best of all possible worlds. In that
instantiation of reality, what we choose is exactly what we will. But what we will as a predicate of our
being is completely known by the Deity and determined by it.
The first option is known as Stapp's “many-worlds” interpretation. That option is often mentioned in
the same breath as Schroedinger's Cat.
Slide 7: Picture of Schroedinger's Cat here:
In that interpretation, as Stapp says, the cat is both alive and dead in the multiply unfolding universe of
outcomes. Each point where the quantum hits the screen represents a starting point for a separate
future.
As an interesting aside, we have some hopes of conducting Bell's Theorem type experiments here at St.
John's in a room in the basement appropriately called the Quantum Lab. But of course, no cats will be
allowed therein.
Most people find the second option, non-locality, most “appealing,” if that is the right phrase.
�In the case of the first experimental measurements, conducted with two low-energy neutrons colliding;
then recoiling down separate arms of a vacuum line; and finally having their angular momenta
determined by a Stern-Gerlach apparatus (I will spare you the details), there were (some thirty or forty
years ago) five measurements, four of which agreed with Bell's inequality. Since then, all of the
experimental tests of Bell's theorem have confirmed it.
To emphasize how surprising this has been, I recall a conversation I had with Professor Carol Alley at
the University of Maryland when I was a graduate student there. He is a famous experimental
physicist, one who used a laser to measure the distance to the Moon from a site near Goddard Space
Flight Center during one of the Apollo Lunar Landing missions. As we talked about Bell's theorem,
and it's apparent experimental corroboration, standing in the hallway in the Physics Building at the
University of Maryland, he was clearly quite perplexed that there was any corroboration of the
inequality. As we spoke, his voice was getting louder and louder. Finally, I said to him, “Professor
Alley, you realize that you are shouting at me?” He laughed and said, “Well, it's certainly not you that
I'm shouting at, Jim. It's the idea of this result!”
Left with the options Stapp articulated, which would you abandon: causality, locality, or individuality.
You cannot have all three! Most people, faced with these options, give up locality.
4. Like shadows on a Cave Wall: Leibniz's ideas of “space” as a kind of answer to the problem
of non-locality
It is time to recall one of the things I am attempting in this lecture: to use Leibniz's conceptions of
space and time in the Monadology as a metaphysical foundation for the idea of no-locality in quantum
mechanics.
Let us reiterate the properties of monads. Monads are singular. That is, they have many properties, but
no parts. They have no windows. All their impressions and reflections of the Cosmos come through
their reflection and articulation of the Deity, which they represent in a small part.
Finally, it is likely, based on the experimental results of Bell's Theorem, that our intuitions of space and
time are far removed from the way the Universe actually is.
5. Concluding remarks
The coherence of mind - The Emporer's New Mind: Roger Penrose on the unity of cognition
The commonality of experience
The problem and promise of entanglement
I conclude this lecture with two principal points and some speculations.
First, it was many years ago that Roger Penrose in a book called The Emporer's New Mind, tried to
explain the coherence of mind by the physical effects of non-locality on a relatively small scale – the
electrochemical and quantum mechanical processes in the human brain (cats, also, most likely, since
Penrose is fond of cats). This coherence would require entanglement of the prior physical states of
these electrochemical wave fronts, but this does not seem terribly surprising.
Second, entanglement does not depend simply or perhaps even necessarily on proximity. At a fairly
formal level, entanglement depends on interaction. The entanglement of cognitive processes with the
�experiential world might be sufficient to explain the commonality of experience, a term which I coin
here in this essay, especially given that the correlations persist over manifestly macroscopic differences.
This bears, quite generally, on our ideas of culture, also. As an example, think of how easy or difficult
it can be to change ones entire conception of the world via a single conversation. I thank Mr. William
Braithwaite for the suggestion.
The concept of non-locality thus articulated can extend far beyond the possibility of common
experience to the possibility of kindredness with our common weal. We might not, actually, be
separate spheres, hoping to connect, hoping to touch and know the World. Like shadows on a Cave
Wall, both we as individuals and the rest of the sensible world could actually be sprung from a common
light.
Finally, and this is a bit more speculative, but hardly original, the entire evolution of the history of the
Cosmos has involved some pretty heavy entanglement. We now call it the Big Bang.
This brings us to a further point regarding Leibniz's Deity. God might not have simply said, “Let there
be Light.” God might have actually been that light.
Thank you.
Jim Beall
St. John's College
Annapolis
December 4th, 2015
�
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Leibniz's Monadology and the Philosophical Foundations of Non-Locality in Quantum Mechanics
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Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
Quantum theory
Bell's theorem
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Towards "a new birth of freedom" - Tragedy and comedy, 1786 Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The marriage of Figaro.
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on September 17, 2004 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805. Don Carlos
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Nozze di Figaro.
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Towards "a new birth of freedom" --Tragedy and Comedy, 1786:
Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
Gisela Berns
St. John's College, Annapolis
To the memory of Oskar Seidlin
The year is 1786. In Annapolis, delegates from different states, among them
James Madison from Virginia and Alexander Hamilton from New York, convene to
discuss matters of commerce under the Articles of Confederation, with the possibility for
h
larger issues left open. Like the rehearsal for the performance of a great play, what _ as
come to be called the Annapolis Convention concludes with a recommendation for a
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the following year (Morris, 161-9; Kammen,
19-22). Conscious of the enormity of the task before the Founding Fathers, Madison, in
Federalist 14, asks:
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to
the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration
for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good
sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To
this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the
example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of
private rights and public happiness.
In the same spirit, Friedrich Schiller, in his Prologue to Wallenstein, speaks of the
struggle for freedom at the end of the century as a time where "actuality itself becomes
poetry" and "art, upon its shadow stage I May strive for higher flight, indeed it must, I Or
yield in shame before the stage oflife" (WP, 61-9). That these lines, from 1798, have in
mind not only the French Revolution, of which Schiller, in 1792, had been made an
honorary citizen, but also the American Revolution, is clear from two interesting facts:
one, to this day a large lithograph of the Battle of Bunker Hill hangs at the entry to
l
�Schiller's study in Weimar. The other, in a letter of 1783, possibly meant to confuse the
authorities, Schiller toys with the idea of emigrating to America. Undecided whether,
once there, he would practice medicine, get involved in politics, or teach philosophy, he
concludes: "But tragedies, for that matter, I shall never cease to write - you know my
whole being hangs on it" (To Lempp, June 19, 1783).
Living in political exile, under the constant threat of persecution for his
revolutionary ideas, Schiller, in 1783, turns from the stormy prose of his earlier plays to
the noble iambic pentameters of a dramatic poem in grand style, the tragedy of Don
Carlos. In tune with the political events of the New World, the completion of Schiller's
pan Carlos coincides with the Annapolis Convention of 1786, its first performance in
.
\
Hamburg with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. (An added nice touch: On this date,
September 17, 1787, the Convention came to agree on the new Constitution to be sent to
the States for ratification) (Farrand, 641-9).
*
*
*
Set in the historical world of 16th century Spain, under the iron hand of the
Inquisition, Schiller's Don Carlos presents the clash of two worlds, the world of Philipp
II, despotic ruler over a vast empire, and the world of Don Carlos, his heart aglow with
the dream of liberating mankind from such unnatural rule. Serving the King's world,
Count Lerma represents the court, Duke Alba the military, Domingo the church. The
inspirat)on for the Prince's world, Marquis Posa, his childhood friend, emerges as the
mastermind behind an intricate plot, using all major characters of the play in his grand
cosmopolitan scheme for the creation of a new paradise on earth. Not a historical figure,
Marquis Posa, in the play a knight of Malta, might have been modeled on the Marquis de
Lafayette, in 1776 fighting for the Independence of the United States of America
(Dokumente, 121). Spanning the years between the two friends, Schiller, at the outset of
2
�the play, was more Carlos's, at its completion more Posa's age. In the Prince's appeal to
his father for the command of the army to Flanders: "23 years, I And nothing done for
immortality!" (DC II, 2, 1148-9). Heinrich Heine, in his
T~e
Romantic School, fills out
the picture by speaking of Schiller as "himself that Marquis Posa, who is, at the same
time, prophet and soldier, who fights for what he prophecies, and, under the Spanish
cloak, carries the most beautiful heart that ever loved and suffered in Germany" (Heine,
148). Vowing to use the "portrayal of the Inquisition" to "avenge prostituted mankind"
and "strike to the soul of a type of man the dagger of tragedy, so far, has only grazed"
(Dokumente, 134), Schiller begins and ends his Don Carlos with the title hero in conflict
with the religious authority, at the beginning with Domingo, the King's confessor, to be
present at every tum of the dramatic action, at the end with the Grand Inquisitor, blind to
all human feeling and demanding the death of the King's son in the name of the sacrifice
of God's only son on the cross. (Due to the censorship of Schiller's own time, both the
Grand Inquisitor and Domingo had to be omitted in some of the early performances of
Don Carlos) (Dokumente, 158-63).
One character to heighten the tension between the play's two worlds is Elizabeth
of Valois, the King's young Queen. Once betrothed to Don Carlos and in her heart still
his, she also shares his political dreams and sympathizes with Marquis Posa's plans for
him.
To complicate matters, the King has his eye on Princess Ebo Ii, one of the Queen's
Ladies in Waiting. She, however, is secretly in love with the Prince. Unbeknownst to
Philipp, Domingo, his solicitor, and Alba, his henchman, use the King's love affair to
further their own political ends.
*
*
*
In a discussion of different genres of poetry, Schiller, in his On Naive and
3
�Sentimental Poetry, considers the characteristics of tragedy and comedy and their
relationship to each other. Of the opinion that, in tragedy, a great deal of interest is
created simply by the subject matter that, in comedy, has to be supplied by the art of the
.
.
poet, Schiller reflects:
Not the sphere from which the subject matter is taken, but the forum before which the
poet brings it, makes the same tragic or comic. The tragic poet must beware of calm
reasoning and always interest the heart. The comic poet must beware of pathos and
always entertain the mind. ... If tragedy, therefore, takes off from a more significant
point, one has to concede that comedy heads for a more significant goal and, if it ever
were to reach it, would make all tragedy superfluous and impossible. Its goal is one with
the highest man strives for, to be free of passion, always to look about and into himself
clearly and calmly, to find everywhere more chance than fate and to laugh more about
absurdity than to rage or weep about malice (Schiller, V, 724-6).
*
*
*·
With a comparable constellation of characters, but the one clearly a tragedy, the
other, at least on the face of it, a comedy, Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's
The Marriage of Figaro, both completed in 1786,
in~ite
a closer look at the differences
between them.
Both set in Spain, but Don Carlos in the 16th, The Marriage of Figaro in the 18th
century, Schiller's historical tragedy, affecting the life of mankind as a whole, takes place
at the court of Philipp II, Mozart's comic opera, affecting but a few individual lives, at the
castle of Count Almaviva. Thus, the difference in atmosphere, Don Carlos remote and
grand, The Marriage of Figaro contemporary and intimate, contributes to the one being a
tragedy, the other a comedy. Against the background of these differences of time and
space, the comparability of the two sets of characters appears even more striking. King
Philipp and his Queen have their counterparts in Count Almaviva and his Countess,
Carlos, the young prince, in Cherubino, the young page, Marquis Posa, the political
mastermind, in Figaro, the domestic mastermind, Princess Eboli; the King's favorite, in
4
�Susanna, the Count's favorite, Count Lerma, the court councilor, in Bartolo, the lawyer,
Duke Alba, the defender of the realm, in Antonio, the gardener, and last but not least,
Domingo, the King's confessor, in Basilio, the priest masquerading as the Count's music
master. The only figure in Don Carlos with no counterpart in The Marriage of Figaro is
the Grand Inquisitor.
Given the difference between tragedy and comedy, what this list suggests is
outrageous! How could one ever compare these two sets of dramatic characters? Yet,
that is exactly what I intend to do in this lecture. The result, I hope, will be a deeper
understanding of both tragedy and comedy.
*
*
*
A clue to both Don Carlos and The Marriage ofFigaro, their opening scenes
contain already the whole plot to unfold in the rest of each work. Highlighting its title,
Schiller's Don Carlos, opening in the royal gardens at Aranjuez, presents the title hero in
conversation with Domingo. In his unsuccessful attempt to pry into the Prince's thoughts,
the priest touches on Carlos's troubled relationships with his father, with his new mother,
and with the political world around him. The scene ends with Carlos's dire premonition
of doom and the role of "suspicion's venomed serpent sting" (I, 1, 122-7) in bringing it
about. Highlighting its title, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, opening in a room
between the Count and the Countess's apartments, presents the title hero with Susanna,
the couple to be married, in a lively duet, each singing in the same key, but Figaro's
music more plodding, accompanying his measuriilg the space for their bed, Susanna's
music more fluid, accompanying her showing off her wedding cap. A delightful school
for marriage, this duet, after an orchestral introduction of equal eight measures for both
Figaro and Susanna, has Figaro sing twelve, Susanna only six measures. Trying to get
Figaro's attention, Susanna starts singing his music, but at her speed, only to move him to
5
�switch over to her music. Like in a good marriage, they end up complementing each
other in a merry medley of parallel, oblique, and contrary motion, and yes, they do sing
her music. Even so, there are obstacles. The Count, intent.on seducing Susanna,
Marcellina, Bartolo's old servant, intent on holding Figaro to a marriage contract for his
unpaid debts.
While the opening duet was in G Major, the opera's key of marriage (I, 1), the
duet spelling out the obstacles is in B-flat Major, its key of intrigue (I, 2). In order to get
from G Major to B-flat Major one has to darken G Major tog minor, its parallel minor,
and then to brighten g minor to B-flat Major, its relative Major. The first operation keeps
the tonal center, but changes the key signature, the second operation keeps the key
signature, but changes the tonal center. The intricate musical path from G Major to B-flat
Major, one of the most frequent moves in this opera, points to the weight of the obstacles
to be overcome. Like Schiller's opening of Don Carlos, Mozart's opening of The
Marriage of Figaro ends on a note of warning about the venom of suspicion.
*
*
*
Our glimpse of the intricacies of Mozart's opening duet invites a moment of
reflection on the difference between opera and drama due to the element of music. More
stylized than drama, opera enriches the spoken word by multiple layers of meaning
through the musical elements of melody, counterpoint, and harmony. Within these,
different articulations of time and space, that is, different rhythms, working with or
against different meters, provide added insights into dramatic characters and situations.
Consonance and dissonance, used in various combinations, are powerful means for
underscoring dramatic tension and resolution. The correlation of dramatic themes with
musical keys, separated from and connected with each other through the circle of fifths,
allows for interesting cross-references not only between different dramatic characters, but
6
�Key to the Keys in
Mozart's TheMarriageofFigaro
The opera's overall key is D-Major
�also between different dramatic moments in the operatic plot. The Major or minor mode,
either dominating a whole scene or the one marking critical points within the context of
the other, throw light or shadow over the opera's musical
l~ndscape.
As befits a comic opera, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro is mostly in Major.
The two pieces in minor, the openings to acts three and four, are tinged with comic irony
and thus belie their dark shadows. The opening of act three, at the same time the opening
of the second half of the opera, overlays one line in minor with another in its relative
Major, only to let its parallel Major win out for both lines. We shall come back to the
details of this at a later stage.
*
*
*
Before embarking on the comparison between Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's
The Marriage ofFigaro, a word ought to be said about Beaumarchais's play of the same
. title. A sequel to his The Barber ofSeville, Beaumarchais's The Marriage ofFigaro
provides the opera's dramatic plot. First performed in 1784, the play is a highly charged
attack on the social and political mores of the day. Even more aggressive than Schiller's
vow to "avenge prostituted mankind" and "strike to the soul of a type of man the dagger
of tragedy, so far, has only grazed", Beaumarchais's Preface speaks of the theater as "a
giant that wounds to the death all it strikes." Seeing the vices of human nature disguised
"in a thousand forms under the mask of the ruling mores", he asserts: "to rip off this mask
and show them naked, that is the noble task of the man who devotes himself to the
theater". Labeling his The Marriage ofFigaro as "more infamous and more seditious"
than his The Barber ofSeville, Beaumarchais, sarcastically, exclaims: "Oh, how I regret
-
not having made this moral subject into a rather bloody tragedy" (Beaumarchais, 27, 28,
30).
7
�*
*
*
The difference between Beaumarchais's play and M_ozart's opera is, however, not
only due to the element of music. Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's librettist, certainly follows
the play's main line, but changes its tone from a highly political to a deeply personal one.
Personal thoughts and feelings, brought to the fore by omissions, additions, or simply
alterations of style, create an atmosphere where the characters' expression of themselves
is at least, if not more, important than their dramatic interaction.
With a rather checkered career, from ordained priest in the Veneto, to Court poet
in Vienna, to teacher ofltalian language and literature at Columbia College in New York,
Da Ponte, as librettist of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, adds a nice touch by poking
fun at himself in the figure of Basilio, always played in clerical garb, but with the role of
music master at the castle of Count Alma viva.
*
*
*
To pick up the thread back into our comparison, let us remember that Schiller's
Don Carlos presents us with the conflict between centuries, portrayed in Philipp II and
Marquis Posa, Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro with the conflict between classes,
portrayed in Count Almaviva and Figaro. In the one we are given the political goal of
liberating mankind from the oppressive rule of a mighty monarchy under the iron hand of
the Inquisition, in the other the personal goal of pursuing a marriage without the
interference of a lecherous aristocrat bored with his wife. The one stuff for tragedy, the
other stuff for comedy. A note at the outset: since there are five acts of Schiller's Don
Carlos to be compared with four acts of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, it seems more
fruitful to go back and forth between comparable clusters of scenes rather than to adhere
strictly to the more formal boundary of acts.
8
�Even though both works start early in the morning and end late at night, Don
Carlos starts in a garden and ends in a closed room, The Marriage of Figaro starts in a
closed room and ends in a garden. Implicit in the theme of the garden is, of course, the
story of the Garden of Eden. Imbued with the awareness of Good and Evil, and the selfknowledge arising from it, the theme of forgiveness, in Don Carlos finally denied, in The
Marriage of Figaro finally granted, is a powerful and moving reminder of that story.
A latter day Garden of Eden, complete with the fall of man and God appearing in
judgment, the royal gardens at Aranjuez, reminding the Queen of her native France (I, 3),
. become the setting for a passionate rendezvous with Don Carlos. Not willing to accept
the fate of having lost her to his father, he falls at her feet: "Let them, from here, come
drag me to the scaffold! I One moment, fully lived in paradise I ls not atoned too dearly
for with death" (I, 5, 638-40). The King, arriving shortly thereafter, finds the Queen
alone, without her Ladies in Waiting. Bearing out Carlos's earlier warning about
"suspicion's venomed serpent sting" (I, 1), Philipp, in the presence of his courtiers,
questions his wife's virtue. Alba's staunch: "Like God's own cherub before paradise I
Duke Alba stands before the royal throne" (I, 6, 879-80) only aggravates the emotional
tension of the scene.
Having been caught with Barbarina, the gardener's daughter, Cherubino, the "little
cherub", stumbles in on Susanna to ask the Countess to intercede for him with the
angered Count (I, 6). Flustered by Susanna's presence, the young page, in E-flat Major,
the opera's key of unhappy love, gives voice to the first stirrings of his heart. Aflutter for
all women, he confesses speaking of his love to nature, to the mountains, to the meadows,
to the winds, and finally to himself. Compared to the unhappy rendezvous between Don
Carlos and the Queen, past, present, and future weighing heavily on their hearts, and
presaging tragedy for both of them, this charming interlude between Cherubino and
Susanna is the more charming, as the Countess is not there and, therefore, there are no
constraints on the boy's outpouring of feelings. The transfiguration from Beaumarchais's
9
�prose text to Da Ponte's rhyming verse pulsates with shimmering light in Mozart's
music: the breathless first stanza (the experience oflove) repeated after the second stanza,
climaxing on the word "desire", and the third stanza (the experience of love taken out to
nature and back to the self) trailing off dreamily.
A farcical version of the King's coming upon his wife, with Don Carlos fled from
the scene only minutes before, the Count's coming upon his wife's chamber maid, with
Cherubino taking refuge behind a chair, leads to a series of hilarious moments:
Interrupted in his amorous advances to Susanna by the arrival of Basilio (the nominal
"King" of the place), the Count has to hide behind that same infamous chair, with the
young page barely able to jump into it from behind, the Countess's gown spread there
coming in handy as protective cover. Roused from his hiding place by Basilio's
suspicions about Cherubino and the Countess, the Count, in a dramatic B-flat Major, the
opera's key of intrigue, calls for the boy's dismissal from the castle (II, 7). The
subsequent discovery of Cherubino in the chair, and the Count's realization that the "little
serpent" (p. 96) must have overheard his courting of Susanna, make him convert the boy's
dismissal into a pardon to join the army.
All fired up by Marquis Posa's grand plans for him, Don Carlos vows to ask his
father for the
comm~nd
of the army to Flanders (I, 9). Like a parody of this solemn
scene, both at the end of act I, Figaro's send-off-march for Cherubino, in C-Major, the
opera's key of resolve, makes mockery of the page turned soldier against his will. The
irony is that neither Don Carlos nor Cherubino ever reach their destination. Don Carlos,
because Philipp, suspicious of his motives, denies the Prince's request, Cherubino ,
because Figaro, teeming with intrigue, means for the page, dressed up as Susanna, to go
to a rendezvous with the Count in her stead.
*
*
*
10
�After his unsuccessful audience with the King (II, 2) the Prince follows a secret
invitation to what he mistakes for the Queen's apartment. A counterpoint to his meeting
with the Queen, in the royal gardens, this meeting with Princess Eboli, in the royal palace
(II, 8), comes close to an expulsion from paradise. Believing Carlos to be in love with
herself, the Princess tries to elicit a confession from him, only to have him own his secret
love for another. Disappointed in Carlos's love, and an object of Philipp's lust, Princess
Eboli confides in Domingo, the King's solicitor with her (II, 11 ). The plan hatched
between the two of them, with Duke Alba in the wings, is for her to break into the
Queen's jewelry box in the hope of finding letters there from the Prince (II, 12).
Like a release of the Queen's unspoken sorrow, in act I of Schiller's Don Carlos
(I, 3-4), the Countess's first aria, in act II of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro (II, 10),
strikes a tragic note. Echoing Cherubino's E-flat Major, the Countess calls on the god of
love to restore her loss or to let her die. The orchestral accompaniment's constant
slipping in and out of harmony with her tune painfully expresses the vulnerability of her
feelings.
In his earlier attempt to see the Countess Cherubino had entrusted Susanna with a
canzonetta of his (I, 6). In contrast to the young prince who stumbl.es from one tragic
encounter, with the Queen, to another, with Princess Eboli, the young page, trembling but
happy, gets to sing his canzonetta before the Countess (II, 11). That he is here to be
dressed up in Susanna's clothes to go to a rendezvous with the Count --this brainchild of
Figaro's, of course, taking place in G Major (II, 12)-- will make for uncomfortable, but
also rather comical moments. Like a come-down from tragedy to comedy, Susanna
accompanying Cherubino on the guitar is a comical version of Princess Eboli
accompanying herself on the lute awaiting Don Carlos. A far cry from the hopeless,
wavering harmonies of the Countess's aria, Susanna's playful upward figures on the guitar
fully support the boy's melody. Now part of an intrigue, however innocent, Cherubino's
encomium on the painful bliss of love, is in B-flat Major, the dominant not only of his,
11
�but also the Countess's (II, 10) first aria. Listening to Cherubino's lovely song, the
Countess is lost in her memories of the young Count, from their early days of courtship.
Like the King's appearance in the royal gardens, with Don Carlos barely fled from
the scene (I, 5), the Count's arrival at his wife's locked door, with Cherubino barely
escaped into a closet, unleashes a storm of suspicions (II, 13). Singing in C Major, G
Major, and back to C Major (with Susanna's counterpoint from the sidelines), husband
and wife engage in a battle of wills over the opening of the closet, the Countess
protesting Susanna, the Count suspecting the Countess's lover to hide there. The flare up
of temper is the more ludicrous as the Count, not too long ago, had found himself in the
same compromising situation as Cherubino now (I, 7).
The Count's idea of leaving the room, to fetch some tools for breaking into his
wife's closet, but relocking the doors against any escape, gives Susanna and Cherubino a
· few precious minutes to find a way out. With more than one marriage at stake, their
frantic little duet is sung in a hilariously funny G Major (II, 14). Instead of Don Carlos
fleeing out of the garden, leaving footprints and losing his handkerchief, noticed by the
gardener and later reported back to the King by Duke Alba (III, 3), Cherubino, ready to
jump even into the fire to save the Countess, finally jumps from the balcony into the
garden. A fall indeed, but a fall to undo the Fall!
A follow-up on the King appearing in the gardens of Aranjuez, the confrontation
between Philipp and Elizabeth, coming to demand justice for the break into her jewelry
box and the removal of letters and a medallion of the Prince, ends with her finding them
in the King's possession and, after a deadly argument over her rights, swooning and
bloodying herself in the fall (IV, 9).
Very much in the same vein as these scenes from act IV of Schiller's Don Carlos,
the Finale of act II of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (II, 15), echoing some of the
more menacing strains of the Overture, moves at a high pitch of emotions. With a
noticeable exchange of F Major for G Major, it progresses from E-flat Major (unhappy
12
�love) to B-flatMajor (intrigue) to G Major (marriage) and via C Major (resolve) through
F Major (standing one's ground) to B-flat Major (intrigue) and back to E-flat Major
(unhappy love). As if modeled on the tense altercation between King and Queen:
King: Then blood may flow for all I care -Queen: So far it's come -- oh God!
King:
I know
Myself no more, no longer pay
Respect to custom and the voice
Of nature and the pacts of nations (IV, 9, 3785-9),
the Count, with his sword drawn, is ready to kill the page hiding in his wife's closet.
Demanding the key for it, he threatens the Countess with expulsion from his house. To
an insistent call of horns in the background, the opening of the closet door, revealing
Susanna, throws not only the Count, but also the Countess into confusion.
Shifting from E-flat Major to B-flat Major, this second stage of the Finale brings
the Count down on his knees, asking for his wife's forgiveness. A more genuine version
than his earlier pardon for Cherubino, the Count's confession of guilt, over an altered
seventh chord on E-natural, containing G-flat, giving way to his expression of
repentance, over a plain seventh chord on E-natural, containing G (mm. 303-6, p. 187),
dramatically prepares for the arrival of Figaro and the musicians to play for his wedding
with Susanna. With the move heard most often in this opera, back and forth, Figaro's
arrival, once more, turns the music scene from B-flat Major to G Major.
Taken to task for his anonymous letter about the Count's upcoming rendezvous,
Figaro, echoing his own music from the opening duet with Susanna, but now in a pivotal
C Major, deftly avoids the issue by pointing to the theater practice of ending a farce with
a wedding. The sublime trio of Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess, begging the Count to
fulfill their wishes, is undercut by his counterpoint, calling for Marcellina to insist on her
marriage contract from Figaro.
To make matters worse, the gardener, showing up with a crushed flower pot,
13
�bitterly complains about the fall of a man from the balcony. To save the day, Figaro,
exchanging F Major for G Major, claims to have jumped from there himself and, in the
fall, musically expressed by a painful chromatic descent, to have sprained his ankle. An
ironic reminder of Figaro's earlier F Major stunt (I, 3), offering to teach his master to
dance, the Count cries out: "Enough of this dance!" (mm. 581-2, p. 211).
Yet, like Don Carlos, fleeing out of the garden, Cherubino, falling into the garden,
had lost something. Now in B-flat Major, Figaro, with a bit of help from the women,
identifies the papers found in the garden, as Cherubino's commission still in need of the
official seal.
Returning, once more, to E-flat Major, the Finale comes to a furious climax, with
Marcellina, Bartolo, and Basilio joining the Count in his opposition to Figaro, Susanna,
and the Countess, over the contested marriage contract between Marcellina and Figaro.
Providing no way out, on either side, the first half of the opera ends with all the voices in
unison on E-flat, and all the instruments, except for the flute and the clarinet, on E-flat or
G. The flute and the clarinet, with their B-flat, the dominant of E-flat, seem rather weak
over and against the clamor of all the others on E-flat and G. Translated from the musical
into the moral language of the opera: "Intrigue", however dominant throughout, is likely
to get lost in the final struggle of "unhappy love" for the fulfillment of "marriage".
*
*
*
Bearing out Schiller's claim that the tragedy of Don Carlos would have to tum on "the
situation and the character of King Philipp" (Dokumente, 142), the King, after the
judgment of his wife in the royal gardens (I, 6) and the rejection of his son in the royal
palace (II, 2), more and more emerges as a tragic figure. An older Carlos , warped in the
harsh school of political life, he feels exploited by schemers like Alba and Domingo (II,
10-13; III, 3-4). Appealing to Providence for a human being, for a friend that would give
14
�him truth, Philipp, in the center of act III, which, at the same time, is the center of the
play as a whole, comes upon the name of Marquis Posa, specially noted for his services
to the crown (III, 5).
In a riveting sequence of scenes, Medina Sidonia, the admiral returning from the
loss of the Armada, is shunned by all the courtiers except Don Carlos (III, 6). The King's
entry, ignoring his son, but after a long silence, pardoning the admiral with: "God is over
me -- I've sent you I To contend with men, not storms and rocks -- I You're welcome in
Madrid" (III, 7, 2878-81 ), presents us with a moving answer to his own appeal. A variant
to his earlier rejection of Don Carlos, asking for the command of the army to Flanders:
"You speak like one within a dream. This office I Requires a man and not a youth -- "
countered by the Prince's: "Requires merely a human being, father" (II, 2, 1174-6),
Philipp's overlooking his son who, together with himself, seems to be the only human
being in the room (III, 7), constitutes the tragic core of the play.
Farthest from their conscious mind: "You see two hostile stars that through I The
course of time do touch but once I In shattering head-on collision I And then forever flee
apart" (I, 2, 541-5), this kinship between father and son, nevertheless, shows itself in
many ways. Both Philipp and Carlos lay claim not only to the love of the same woman,
but also to the friendship of the same man. Throughout the play, in crucial moments of
decision or recognition, they both use the same characteristic formulations.
Called to a special audience with Philipp, Marquis Posa, envisioning himself as
sculptor to impart life to the rough stone, reflects on the opportunity of using the King for
his own political purposes (III, 9). With Philipp as strangely impressionable listener, the
Knight paints a picture of mankind, free from oppression and ready to govern itself:
"Man, sure, is more than you supposed. I The bonds of his long slumber he shall break I
And once again demand his holy right." (III, 10, 3186-8). Despite the revolutionary tone
of Posa's political panegyric, the King is captured by the spectacle of a man who
fearlessly speaks his mind. That, in the end, he will insist on employing him as spy for
15
�both the Queen and the Prince is sad proof of an inhuman world under the iron hand of
the Inquisition (III, 10).
With his eyes on the future of mankind, and his own role in bringing it about,
Marquis Posa, losing sight of the present, plays a dangerous game. Using Don Carlos
and the Queen, but also, unbeknownst to them, the King, as pawns in his grand plan for
the liberation of Flanders, the Knight betrays his own ideals (IV, 3-6; 12-13). On his first
introduction, the Queen had welcomed him with:
Many courts
You've come to in your travels, chevalier,
And many countries and men's customs you
Have seen -- and now, they say, you have a mind
Within your fatherland to .settle for yourself,
A greater prince in your own quiet walls
Than is King Philipp on his throne -- a free man,
A philosopher!" (I, 4, 512-9).
True to the first part, the invocation of Homer's Odyssey (Od. I, 1-3, (Berns, Greek
Antiquity, 21 and 115, note 4), but not to the second, the closing myth of Plato's Republic
(Rep. X, 620c-d), Posa's cosmopolitan moves smack of the idealist who, for the sake of
his cause, turns fanatic and ruthlessly tramples over lives (Schiller, Briefe iiber Don
Carlos; Seidlin, 34-40).
Acting like a god, accountable to no one but himself, Posa, now the King's trusted
minister, shares his plans neither with the Prince (IV, 6) nor fully with the Queen (IV, 3).
In his growing desperation, Carlos confides in Princess Eboli and, in the act of asking her
for access to the Queen (IV, 15), is arrested by the Knight himself (IV, 16). Confronted
with the choice of killing Eboli or sacrificing himself, Posa, after a moment's hesitation,
chooses the latter (IV, 17).
In his farewell to the Queen (IV, 21 ), he counters her "I fear you play a risky
game" with "I've lost it... I've lost it for myself1' (IV, 21, 4213-7). A tell-tale sign of the
difference between the two friends, Carlos, on hearing of Posa's influence with the King,
16
�had uttered: "Now I have lost him ... I have I Lost him. Oh! Now I am all forsaken" (IV,
13, 3973, 3977-8). His mournful: "He loved me, loved me dearly ... That I I know. Yet
should not millions, should I The fatherland not be more dear to him than one?" (IV, 13,
3963-8) will resurface in Philipp's reaction to Posa's betrayal of himself: "I've loved him,
loved him dearly ... like a son .. .This youth I For me brought up a new, more glorious
morning ... I He was my first, my very first love .. ." (V, 9, 5048-52).
Planning for the Prince to escape that very night, Posa, in his farewell to the
Queen, entrusts her with his legacy for him. With more and more overtones from the
Passion of Christ, he describes his vision of a future paradise on earth, a world worthy to
have died for. The Queen's rejoinder: "No! No! I You threw yourself into this deed I You
call sublime ... A thousand hearts I May break, but what is that to you, as long I As you
may feed your pride?" (IV, 21, 4379-87) leaves him utterly stunned. Too late, his last
words to her: "My Queen! -- Oh God! but life is beautiful" (IV, 21, 4393-4) throw a new,
richer light into the soul of this stem idealist.
Hoping to confound the King, long enough for Carlos to escape, Posa had written
to William of Orange, confessing his love for the Queen and his fear of being discovered
before he could get away to Brussels (V, 3, 4672-96). Well aware of the King's order to
intercept all letters to Flanders (II, 15, 2465-8), he had counted on Philipp's belief in the
villainy of human nature (V, 3, 4676-8). What he did not know, however, is the King's
reaction. As if in answer to Carlos's earlier: "Oh, force those eyes I That never yet shed
tears, to learn to do so, I While you still have time, or else -- or else I You may need to
make up for it in some I Dark hour to come" (II, 2, 1080-3, MacDonald, 337), Philipp, on
learning of Posa's betrayal, is said to have wept (IV, 23). This scene, in perfect symmetry
to Carlos's warning, is the more breathtaking, as it is witnessed but from outside the
closed doors of the King's chamber. The stupor of the courtiers assembled there, is
broken by Princess Eboli, rushing in, demanding to tell the King the truth about the
Prince's letters (IV, 24). With Alba and Domingo gaining the upper hand, however, the
17
�truth comes too late.
*
*
*
Compared to the tragic figure of the King, in Schiller's Don Carlos, the figure of
the Count, in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, is no more than a comic braggadocio.
While Philipp's affair with Princess Eboli remains off-stage, in the hands of Domingo (II,
10-13), the Count, taking things out of Basilio's hands, courts Susanna more and more
openly (I, 2, rec., pp. 38-40; 6, rec., pp. 76-77; III, sc. 2, pp. 249-50; 16, rec., p. 257). In
striking contrast to Figaro and Susanna's G Major duet, at the beginning of the opera (I,
1), the duet between the Count and Susanna, at the beginning of the opera's second half
(III, 16), overlays the Count's a minor with Susanna's C Major, both using the same key
signature, but different tonal centers. A rare event in this opera, the Count's minor,
already undercut by Susanna's Major, is openly contradicted by her text, however much it
rhymes with his. Their final agreement on a rendezvous, in a triumphant A Major, the
opera's key of selfish passion, uses the Count's tonal center, but a new key signature for
both of them. To make matters worse, it is further compromised by Susanna's utterly
. confusing "Yes!" and "No!" answers to the Count's arixious questions.
Reminiscent of Philipp, brooding over suspicions, roused by the Prince's letters
(III, 1-4; 1O; IV, 7-10), Alma viva, by himself, vents his innermost feelings (III, 17).
Singing in D Major, the key ofrevenge, but also the overall key of the opera, the Count,
in a stormy recitative and aria, echoing the more majestic strains of the Overture, rages
about the audacity of his servant, up-staging him in a conquest of love. A match for each
other, his fury recalls Figaro's earlier posturing in F Major, the opera's key of standing
one's ground. Professing a more playful art form than Posa who, in anticipation of his
audience with the King (III, 10), had envisioned himself as sculptor, imparting life to the
rough stone (III, 9), Figaro, reacting to Susanna's news about the Count's intentions, had
18
�vowed to teach his master to dance to his music (I, 3). Unlike Posa's visionary plan for
rebellion (IV, 3), Figaro's fancy of overturning all machines by using the art of "punching
here and teasing there" sounds like fun as well.
A farcical variant to Philipp's distraught remark about Count Lerma, the old court
councilor, likely to find his wife in his son's embrace (III, 2, 2518-44 ), Figaro's discovery
of Bartolo and Marcellina, the old councilor and his former servant, to be his parents (III,
sc. 5, pp. 271-2; 18) barely avoids the fate of Oedipus and gives rise to an incredulous
merry-go-round with the terms "mother" and "father" throughout the different voice
ranges (III, 18). The sextet, like Figaro's earlier and Susanna's later arias, in F Major,
clears the way not only for the marriage of the young, but also of the old couple. Much
toned down from Beaumarchais's play, where Marcellina's bitter harangue over men's
exploitation of women still meets with Bartolo's sarcasms, Mozart's opera, even though in
g minor, falling short of G Major, brings the case to a more or less satisfactory conclusion
(p. 295). One by one protesting their happiness, the scene ends with a flourish of
dissonances gloating over the Count's defeat (mm. 17-9, p. 296).
Apprised of the Count's offer of a dowry for Susanna's favors, the Countess, once
more, laments the loss of her love (III, 19). Transcending her earlier E-flat Major, the
opera's key of unhappy love (II, 10), to C Major, its key of resolve, this beautiful aria, at
first, C Major encompassing a core of emotions moving from g minor to G Major,
reminisces about the past. But, unlike the Queen, who, in her rendezvous with the
Prince, had evaded his insistent questions concerning her love (I, 5, 712-20), the
Countess, in the final part of the aria, trusts her hope in the future. A reflection of the
Count's a minor overlaid by Susanna's C Major (III, 16), the Countess, after an initial
wavering between C Major and c minor, on the words "to change the ungrateful heart",
twice overshoots her C Major triad, landing on A, only to cadence with that triad, the A
yielding to the dominant G, and finally, on the word "heart", coming home to a
triumphant C.
19
�A happier version ofPrincess Eboli's theft of letters from the Queen, the Countess
and Susanna, together, write a letter, secretly to be given to the Count during Figaro and
Susanna's wedding (III, 20). Superseding Figaro's plot of sending Cherubino, dressed up
as Susanna, to the rendezvous, the Countess has decided to take on that role herself. At
the rallying point for the opera's finish, the little duet between the Countess and Susanna,
an exquisite moment of friendship, has one goal, the Count's change of heart, and
therefore one music, though still in B-flat Major, the opera's key of intrigue (III, 20).
Stating time and place for the rendezvous in the garden, the Countess leads, Susanna
follows. After gradually closing the gaps between giving and taking dictation, the two
women, on the words: "well, and the rest he'll understand", start singing together. With a
partial reversal of roles, but now overlapping in the process, Susanna and the Countess
read over their letter. By singing the same music, but in staggered lines, that is, in
different places at the same time, or in the same place at different times, they, as it were,
enact the rendezvous with the Count.
Compared to Princess Eboli's desperate attempt to open the King's eyes to the
truth about the letters she stole from the Queen (IV, 24), Susanna's slipping the letter,
written together with the Countess, into the Count's hands during the wedding ceremony,
intends to do exactly the opposite. Adding to the contrast, Marquis Posa's lie about his
love for the Queen, confided in a letter meant to be delivered into the King's hands, will
be the cause of the Knight's murder (V, 3), Figaro dancing with Susanna and laughing
about the Count pricking his finger on the needle used to seal the letter, in the end, will
teach the schemer not to consider himself fool-proof (III, 22). Sung in C Major, the
opera's key ofresolve, the wedding ceremony, at the end of act III, officially seals the
marriages of Figaro and Susanna as well as Bartolo and Marcellina, but leaves the
problems between the Count and the Countess unresolved.
*
*
*
20
�After the Prince's precipitous arrest, in act IV of Schiller's Don Carlos, Marquis
Posa visits him in prison to account for his action (V, 1). Shocked by Carlos's
assumption of having been sacrificed for the greater political cause, Posa, too late,
realizes his arrogance in using a friend like a pawn in a game. With a pentameter, short
by one foot, he confesses: "My edifice I Collapses -- I forgot your heart" (V, 1, 4524-5).
In counterpoint to Posa, it is Carlos who, all through the play, speaks and acts most often
from the heart. Reminiscent of the pathos of Christ, in the garden of Gethsemane:
"Come, let us sit down -- I I'm weary and feel weak" (V, 3, 4114-5, cf. Matthew 26, 38),
the Knight outlines his plans for the Prince's escape, to fight for the cause of humanity
from Flanders. A conclusion to Carlos's earlier: "Now I have lost him," (IV, 13, 3973)
referring to his friend, and Posa's: "I've lost it.. .I've lost it for myself'(IV, 21, 4214-7),
referring to his political power play, their exchange in prison:
Carlos:
God! Then I'm lost!
Marquis: You, why you?
Carlos :
Unhappy man, and you
Are lost with me. This monstrous
Fraud my father can't forgive.
No! That he never will forgive!
Marquis :
Fraud?
Who would tell him
It was fraud?
Who, can you ask?
Carlos:
Myselfl
(V, 3, 4701-8)
leads to the Knight's solemn: "Prepare yourself for Flanders! I Your calling is the
kingdom. I To die for you was mine" (V, 3, 4717-9). Carlos's:
No!No! ...
I want to take you to him.
Ann in arm we'll go to him.
Father, I'll say, a friend has done this
For his friend. It'll move him. Trust me!
He's not without humanity, my father.
Yes, sure, it'll move him.
21
�His eyes will shed warm tears, and you
And me he will forgive -- (V, 3, 4718-28)
is answered by a shot through the prison's wrought-iron door and Posa's death. Part of
the tragedy is that neither Posa nor Carlos know that the King, to the awestruck horror of
his courtiers, did weep -- but at the discovery of the Knight's betrayal of himself. (IV,
23).
*
*
*
At the start of act IV, the last act of Mozart's opera, to be mostly compared with
act V, the last act of Schiller's dramatic poem, Barbarina, the gardener's daughter, in love
with Cherubino, but here on an errand for the Count, laments the loss of the pin that had
sealed Susanna's letter (IV, 23). In confirmation of the rendezvous, later that night, the
seal was supposed to be returned to the letter writer. Sung in f minor, the darkest key in
the opera, and the only other minor besides the Count's a minor, at the start of act III, the
opening of the opera's second half, the little girl's "I've lost it..." bewails more than the
loss of that unfortunate pin. Echoing the Countess's earlier "Where are the beautiful
moments ... " (III, 19) Barbarina's sobbing "ah, who knows where it might be" is set in
mock tragic style. Compared to the tragic loss Marquis Posa and Don Carlos mourn, this
is, at best, tragicomedy. Figaro, coming upon the scene with Marcellina and being told of
the Count's commission, quickly finds a pin in Marcellina's bonnet and sends the girl on
her way. His reaction to the disturbing news: "Mother -- I am dead .. .I am dead, I say"
(rec. p. 342) not only sounds like a comical take-off on Marquis Posa's death, but also
like a re-enactment of the scene between Achilleus and Thetis, in book I of Homer's Iliad
(I, 348 ff.). Outdoing Achilleus, who complains to his mother about Agamemnon having
taken his girl, Figaro is angered with Susanna as well as with the Count. In Bartolo's
phrase, from his earlier revenge aria (I, 4), Marcellina's "the case is serious" (p. 342)
22
�advises Figaro of his right to be on his guard and entertain suspicions, but no more. Her
use of" a right", recalling the Count's "right of the first night" to be acted on presently
with Susanna, has an ominous ring in this opera. Yet, the fact that Bartolo's aria, in D
Major, was in its overall key as well, suggests caution in taking the theme of revenge too
narrowly.
A late repercussion of Beaumarchais's play, Marcellina's aria in act IV, defending
Susanna against Figaro's suspicions, pits the free and easy lovemaking of animals against
the cruelty of men (IV, 24). A revision of her cat fight duet with Susanna, in A Major,
five numbers from the beginning of the opera, this aria, in G Major, five numbers from its
end, not only makes G Major, the opera's key of marriage, triumph over A Major, its key
of selfish passion, but also adds a human touch by letting Marcellina express her feelings
in coloraturas reminiscent of Handel, the style in vogue when she was young. Her
insistent rhyme between "liberty", for the animals, and "cruelty", for men, whether true to
life or not, hints at the tragedy hidden behind the comedy.
Unaware of the women's change of plan, from Cherubino to the Countess,
dressed-up as Susanna, to go to the rendezvous with the Count, Figaro swears to take
revenge for all husbands (I, 26 cf. p.343). With an aria in E-flat Major, the opera's key of
unhappy love, and the call of horns in the background, the newly-wed husband rails
against the heartlessness of women.
As if to give the lie to this tirade, Susanna, in F Major, the opera's key of standing
one's ground, sings a beautiful aria about her expectation of the fulfillment of love.
Unlike Princess Eboli who, after her theft of letters from the Queen, and her affair with
the King, had been punished with exile to a nunnery, Susanna, after writing a letter
together with the Countess, changing clothes with her, and fooling the Count about
agreeing to a rendezvous, revels in the loveliness of the evening (IV, 27). Reminiscent of
Cherubino's first song (I, 6), his heart aflutter for all women, and speaking of his love not
only to nature, but also to himself, Susanna's aria, describing the romantic resonance
23
�between herself and the balmy night, more maturely, is meant for but one beloved. Even
so, I suspect that her words have more to do with her own feelings than with Figaro.
*
*
*
In his devastation over the betrayal of Marquis Posa, the one man from whom he
expected truth (V, 9), the King is further crushed by his son's confession that he and Posa
were friends, nay brothers: "Yes, Sire, we two were brothers, brothers by I A nobler bond
than nature's crafting" (V, 4, 4791-2). Taunting Philipp with his paltry attempt at
friendship with a man in love with the whole of mankind, Carlos exclaims:
Oh no -- that was no man for you!
That he himself knew well, when he
Rejected you with all your crowns.
This finely stringed lyre broke
Within your iron hand. You could
Do naught but murder him (V, 4, 4816-20).
With a deeper understanding of Posa's character than Carlos could fathom, Philipp's
disappointed love turns to savage hatred: "Let him have died a fool. And let his fall I
Bring down his century with his friend ... I He sacrificed me to his idol, mankind, I Let
mankind, therefore, pay for him" (V, 9, 5075 - 86).
No match for these dark scenes with the King, in act V of Schiller's Don Carlos,
the Count's flare-up of temper, vowing to be revenged on Figaro for upstaging him in a
conquest of love, lies as far back as the early scenes in act III of Mozart's The Marriage
of Figaro (III, 17). In keeping with tragedy, Schiller's play, towards the end, turns darker
and darker, in keeping with comedy, Mozart's opera lighter and lighter.
A farcical counterpart to Domingo, the King's confessor, present at every turn of
the dramatic action, Basilio, the meddling priest, masquerading as music master at the
castle of Count Alma viva, finally gets to confide his own personal Credo (IV, 25).
Rather unmusical, with plain quarter notes stalking all over the place, and cheap sound
24
�effects thrown in here and there, his aria, no surprise, is in B-flat Major, the opera's key
of intrigue. Created in the image of Mozart's learned librettist, Basilio recounts a
dantesque scene, where Lady Flemma, his Muse (alias Vergil) presented him with the
smelly hide of a donkey to ward off the vicissitudes of life, be they stormy weather to
hide from, or wild beasts to repel with the nasty cover. That cover I take to be Basilio's
clerical garb.
Emerging from the cover of Domingo, the Grand Inquisitor, at the end of
Schiller's Don Carlos, asserts his authority (V, 10-11 ). A perverted form of Teiresias, the
blind prophet in Sophocles's Antigone (Berns, "Idealism us'', 71-2; "Idealism", 51-2), who
urges Kreon to restore the dead to the dead and the living to the living, the Grand
Inquisitor demands the dead to be called back to the living and the living to be
surrendered to the dead. In his outrage over the murder of Marquis Posa, a sacrifice to
mere passion rather than the greater glory of the church, the Grand Inquisitor condemns
Philipp's illicit involvement with this heretic. The reason behind the summons of the
Grand Inquisitor had been the King's indecision whether to let Carlos escape or have him
die. His question: "Can you create for me a new religion I That would defend the bloody
murder of a child?" (V, 10, 5265-6) the old priest silences with: "To expiate eternal
justice I The son of God died at the cross" (V, 10, 5267-8). Philipp's retort: "I outrage I
Nature -- this mighty voice as well I You want to stifle?" elicits only: "Before the faith I
No voice of nature counts" (V, 10, 5270-4). The King's final: "He is my only son - for
whom I Pray, have I gathered?" meets with the Grand Inquisitor's inhuman: "For
moldering decay rather than I Freedom" (V, 10, 5276-8).
In order to facilitate his escape, the Queen had asked Carlos for a final farewell, in
which she could impart Marquis Posa's legacy to him. Midnight approaching, he _
was
supposed to come in the mask and monk's attire of Charles V, whose ghost the guards
had seen more than once and let pass reverently (V, 6; 9). As if in keeping with his
earlier notion of political life as a masked ball, the masks of conventional inequality
25
�belying the natural equality of the faces hidden beneath (I, 9), Carlos had agreed to play
this role chosen for him by the Queen. Their meeting, holding each other in a solemn
embrace, comes to a close with the Prince reaching for his i:nask. In the background,
without their notice, the King, together with the Grand Inquisitor and some of the
courtiers, had entered the dark room. The Prince's: "I go to challenge Philipp I To open
combat... I Let this have been my last I Deceit" is answered by Philipp's: "It is your last!"
and the Queen's dead faint in Carlos's arms (V, 11, 5361-6). The play ends with the
King's (coldly and quietly to the Grand Inquisitor): "Cardinal! I've done my part. Do
you do yours".
*
*
*
Even though both works start early in the morning and end late at night, Schiller's
Don Carlos starts in a garden and ends in a closed room, Mozart's The Marriage of
Figaro starts in a closed room and ends in a garden. Beginning and ending in D Major,
the key of revenge, but also the overall key of the opera, the Finale of act IV is, at the
same time, the Finale of the work as a whole (IV, 28). With a symmetrical sequence of D
Major, G Major, E-flat Major, B-flat Major, G Major, D Major, yet with the middle
apparently disturbed, the Finale of act IV, gives us a panoramic review of the opera. Two
by two, its major characters pass before our eyes, with the others hidden in the shadows
of the garden, ready to emerge at more or less opportune moments.
Instead of Don Carlos, asking Princess Eboli for access to the Queen, and, in the
r
process, being arrested by Marquis Posa (IV, 15-16), Cherubino, on his way to Ba_barina,
stumbles in on Susanna, or so he thinks, sitting in the evening breeze under the pine trees,
as agreed upon in the famous rendezvous letter. The lady sitting there is, of course, the
Countess, dressed up as Susanna. Unlike Don Carlos who, at the end, appears in the
mask of Charles V, the historical exponent of the Holy Roman Empire, Cherubino, at the
26
�end, is himself again. Even when dressed up as a girl, at various points in the opera (II,
12; III, 21 ), it was never his face that was disguised. Deathly afraid that the Count would
find her in this compromising situation and still tum the co!11edy, in Beaumarchais's
words, into" a rather bloody tragedy", the Countess tries to repel the amorous advances of
the young page who, taking her for Susanna, complains: "And why can I not do what the
Count, shortly, will do with you?" (p. 384). In hilarious, multiple confusion, the kiss
meant for Susanna, is intercepted by the Count showing up at this moment, the slap in the
face to pay for it, by Figaro, sticking his head in to see what is going on. Different from
the tragic consequences of Princess Eboli stepping in for the Queen, or Marquis Posa for
Don Carlos, the Countess, stepping in for Susanna, or Figaro for Cherubino, has
uncomfortable, but never more than comic consequences.
Changing from D Major, the overall key of the opera, to G Major, its key of
marriage, the dalliance between the Count and the Countess, the husband taking his
wife's soft skin for that of her chambermaid and meaning to further his affair by slipping
a diamond ring on her finger, is more heartrending than apparent to either eye or ear.
With a drastic switch from G Major to E-flat Major, the opera's key of unhappy
love, the scene turns to Figaro musing on his role of the new Vulcan of the century, lying
in wait to catch Venus and Mars in his net. Coming upon Susanna, dressed up as the
Countess, he means to lead her to the compromising scene as well. Doing better than the
Count, with his wife's soft skin, Figaro catches on to Susanna's voice, but, for the fun of
it, takes advantage of the dark and proceeds to court his lady. After a sally of slaps in the
face from Susanna's hand, and his confession of having recognized her voice, their E-flat
Major, happily, but still cautiously, slips into B-flat Major. As if in answer to the Count's
earlier: "What is this comedy?", meaning Figaro's appearance with the musicians to play
for the wedding (I, 8, p. 100), the young couple, expressing their newly won delight in
each other, finish with a frolicking "Let's put an end to this comedy, my darling" (p. 411).
For the last time returning from B-flat Major to G Major, Figaro's act of
27
�shamelessly courting the Countess is stopped in its track by the irate Count. Deaf to the
entreaty of the whole cast, emerging from the bushes, he, with a dozen savage "No"s,
bluntly refuses any pardon for Figaro. More genuinely thai:i in the Finale of act II, the
Count is brought to his knees by the quiet voice of the Countess, once more speaking in
her own person. His plea for forgiveness, with an unstable rising 6th, from
'5' to .~
followed by an even more unstable rising 7th, from S'to ~is answered by her stable
I\
A
rising fifth, from 1 to 5, which, even more stable for being sung twice, comes to a
cadence on words reminiscent of the marriage vow.
Compared to Schiller's Don Carlos, where the only moment of forgiveness,
Philipp's pardon for Medina Sidonia, the admiral returning from the loss of the armada, is
tucked away in the very center of the dramatic poem (III, 7), Mozart's The Marriage of
Figaro, from act to act, presents us with more and more genuine forms of it. A touching
reminder of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Cherubino, cursed by the Count as "little
serpent" (p. 96), but made fun of by Basilio as "little cherub of love" (p. 79), in the end, is
openly paired with Barbarina, the little girl who wanted him for a husband, and in return
for the favor, promised the Count to love him like her kitten (III, 21, rec.). In contrast to
the close of Schiller's Don Carlos, with the Queen in the arms of Don Carlos, in a dead
faint, and the King collaborating with the Grand Inquisitor, all the characters in Mozart's
The Marriage ofFigaro, except for Basilio, by the Finale, are paired more or less
happily. Basilio, a far cry from Domingo, grown to monstrous height in the figure of the
Grand Inquisitor, at the end of the opera, simply has melted into the crowd. Count and
Countess reunited, at least for now, the confusion felt by everyone gives way to a
sublimely beautiful chorus of universal contentment.
Very different from the last scene of Schiller's Don Carlos, where the icy silence,
surrounding the Grand Inquisitor, fills the dark room more and more with horror, the last
scene of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro erupts into a happy rush of revelers, off to a
grand feast, the fireworks in the background lighting up the night over the dark garden.
28
�A moment of suspense, the transition between the solemn G Major of the Count and
Countess's reunion and the exuberant D Major of the happy crowd at the end, once more
reminds us of the pain lived through to reach this point.
W~th
a halting descent,
pianissimo and in unison, except for the flute and the oboe, hovering above, a dominant
7th chord on A, over the words "this day", lands us in d minor instead of D Major. A
scream of dissonances, however fleeting, an inverted 9th chord on G-sharp, the seventh
degree of A, highlights the grammatical link "of' in "this day a/torments, of caprices,
and of madness", expressed again in a tensed minor. The completion of the sentence:
"only love can end in happiness and joy" finally allows for the transition from the darker
d minor to the brighter D Major.
Like the effect of a Deus ex machina, in Greek tragedy, forcing a solution to
unsolvable human predicaments, this transition makes for the happy ending, but does not
do away with the painful personal and political problems of the opera. A skeptical
reminder of the contrary to fact condition in Schiller's: "If comedy ever were to reach its
goal, it would make all tragedy superfluous and impossible," the all-too-happy rush from
the dark garden to the lit up castle, musically expressed in hurtling towards a cadence,
has a hollow ring to it. Knowing full well that "his whole being" was set on "writing
tragedies", Schiller himself (with the possible exception of Wallenstein's Camp) never
wrote a comedy. More in tune with Socrates's notion, at the end of Plato's Symposium,
that a poet of tragedies should be able to write comedies as well, Mozart, in this comic
opera, subtitled "The Mad Day", lets the serious shine through the ludicrous, and thus
creates a sublime version of that rare marriage between tragedy and comedy.
A lecture (with music) delivered September 17, 2004 at St. John's College, Annapolis,
Maryland.
29
�REFERENCES
Schiller, Friedrich. 1974 5 . Samtliche Werke, ed. Gerhard Fricke und Herbert G. Gopfert,
Hanser, Milnchen.
_ _ _ .Don Carlos, Vol. II, pp. 7'.'"219.
_ _ _ . Briefe iiber "Don Carlos", Vol. II, pp. 225-67.
____ . Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, Vol. V, pp. 694-780.
Schiller, Friedrich. 1976. Don Carlos, Erlauterungen und Dokumente, ed. Karl
Pornbacher, Reclam, Stuttgart.
Schiller. 1998. Five Plays, translation by Robert David MacDonald, absolute classics,
London.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 1979. The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro) in Full
Score, Dover, New York.
Beaumarchais. 1977. Le Mariage de Figaro, ed. Pol Gaillard, Bordas, Paris.
Heine, Heinrich. Die romantische Schule (1833), in Samtliche Werke, Vol. VII, Hesse,
Leipzig.
(Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own.)
30
�Berns, Gisela N. 1985. Greek Antiquity in Schiller's "Wallenstein", Studies in the
Germanic Languagers and Literatures, Vol. 104, Universitv of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill.
- - - -. 1990. "Moderner und antiker 'Idealismus': Schiller's Don Carlos und
Sophokles' Antigone", in Zeitschrift far deutsche Philologie, Vol. 109,
Sonderheft: "Schiller Aspekte neuerer Forschung", ed. Norbert Oeller, pp.
41-76. (An earlier English version: '"Idealism'; Ancient and Modem:
Sophocles' Antigone and Schiller's Don Carlos", in The St. John's Review,
Vol. 39, Number 3 (1989-90), pp. 51-9.
Jamison Allenbrook, Wye. 1983. Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro and
Don Giovanni, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 71-94.
Farrand, Max, ed. 1966. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. II, Yale
University Press, New Haven.
Kammen, Michael, ed. 1986. The Origins of the American Constitution, A Documentary
History, Penguin, New York.
Morris, Richard B. 1985. Witnesses at the Creation: Hamilton, Madison, Jay and the
Constitution, New American Library, New York.
Seidlin, Oskar. 1960. "Schiller, Poet of Politics'', in A Schiller Symposium, ed. Leslie
Willson, University of Texas, Austin, pp. 31-48.
31
�NOTES
For the deepest commentary on Don Carlos see Schiller, Briefe iiber Don Carlos, and
Oskar Seidlin, "Schiller Poet of Politics".
For a beautiful, comprehensive study of Mozart's The Marriage ofFigaro, see Wye
JamisonAllanbrook.
32
�
Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
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Original Format
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paper
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
33 pages
Dublin Core
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Title
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Towards "a new birth of freedom" - Tragedy and comedy, 1786 Schiller's Don Carlos and Mozart's The marriage of Figaro.
Description
An account of the resource
Typescript of a lecture delivered on September 17, 2004 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Creator
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Berns, Gisela N.
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2004-09-17
Rights
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St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Relation
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1080">Audio recording</a>
Language
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English
Identifier
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Bib # 74317
Subject
The topic of the resource
Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805. Don Carlos
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791. Nozze di Figaro.
Tragedy
Comedy
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/50e88d199c529ac41487bf8d699c11e1.mp3
aaa30ff6feb7f52b3200cacf8a1a071a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
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cassette tape
Duration
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00:54:21
Dublin Core
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Creator
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Berns, Gisela N.
Title
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Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1974-03-08
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 8, 1974 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Bib # 10010
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lucretius Carus, Titus. De rerum natura
Philosophy, Ancient
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1088" title="Typescript">Typsecript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/85233522209e0e3022e9839d9581c500.mp3
08acffa698eaeb5673dc0c31d4cd8509
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
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formallectureseriesannapolis
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
audiocassette
Duration
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01:21:45
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
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Berns, Gisela N.
Title
A name given to the resource
Schiller's Drama: Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1982-02-26
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on February 26, 1982, by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEC_Berns_Gisela_1982-02-26_ac
Subject
The topic of the resource
Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805--Criticism and interpretation
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
sound
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College has been given permission to make this item available online.
Format
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mp3
Relation
A related resource
<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1089">Typescript</a>
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/5a000f7802f4341cb5b151e0cfd5e5c5.pdf
0209ceed633dacf966acfee5cfc02c77
PDF Text
Text
't'!MF. AMP NATURE
IN LlTCRET!US
1
"DE RERUM NATUR!\ 11
GiselA. B�rns ·
· St.
·r
John's ColJP�e
...
Annapolis,
MarylRn�
�Revised version of R lecture,
�1ven
at
March
1974.
St.
John's College,
Translations of the Latin quotes
appended
at
the end.
�1
I:
In bno'k one of •n�
a.
niscnssion or
.
'T'hemP.
r e ru m
.
n.'l tnr::t" , · 1 n th� context of
thin.rr:�, Lucre-
properti�s ann accinents of
tius �ef1 nes time as a�ciitent
of
motion ( 1., IJ,t;Q-82):
tempus item pe:r- se non est,
serl rebus ah fpt=;iS
con'3equitnr sP.nsus, transactum qntd s1. t in n0vo,
tnm qu�e res 1..nstet, quid porro deind� sequrttur;
nee ner se quAmquam temptl's sentir� f'at�ndumst
��r.1otum ab rernm motu placid::1que qulete.
{1, 459-63)
'rh� ttoro distinguishable aspects of time are:
net'cn,�nce on motion a'ld rest of
thin�s, aml
�P.n'"'n�ence on human perception.
Epicurus
fh I
�, u G �
w
.
S
,
.a
A
han {1e fi nfht time as
s/s K«-T�7:e1·r:ll<-?.
::tn:v
mot.ion"2.
"�n'1�1t�" f.ln.d
as
·�
J
1) its
2)
. �c<.'ll"z;"o(. 6'c...dll(.
I
tn t.ucretius• df"fi.n1t.ton,
1. ts
in his l'TOrl{
cert::tin mea!-':!lrinf""
.1
I
rLS
.
·
.
Tte�
I
I
l.(.tv·"t�·f.l-()5 ""'
n�rc�rtton of
.
hm-mv0r,
l•rh�rn
"s�ntire"• l'ther� "fe�l:tnr:.. "ta.'kes·the place of
,
or
11 a c�rtnt�
1m11� tl;rr-P. t�rm�:
"tf'":'mnnG11, •aetnl=l", 118.P,rum", 1V"'0M to lJr
.
1Yl �t��h n Nrty t:hat 11tP.mpuR" t1enot0� th .... r.ost Flht::t:"'JC:t,
11RP'VI�m11 t'l-10 mo�t concr�t.; !'l�pe�t of ti.11e, while· "nt=-t.""r;" �rw('rs
r- ..1th, !ll,rd:rnct arid concrete mc1ni n.n;.
n ... .... f'l
?p�n. H�rc. 1413, Pr. 55, A. BA'PI('-.\'?.7,1, eel. and. c0rnm. , T1
concPtto del tempo nella fisj ca r1tom:t�t icll, Epimn ,.n. i.n !!!P.M.
..
u. T>11'1'V')()'m�, Genova, 1959, 25-59, p.
JR.
��t')mp'1�t.l�! tn
r.t')mmntnt
(l�(�):
l1l1f"' Of h001{ r1Vf"'
A.
t.r.mrortl
rot:"
rum�" "t�un
"�tc ,T01V�l1'h. 'lr>t�.R
roll tn� t imP. rh'ln.r-:r:r: thr> t 1 m"!1
· n r ·:th1Yif':�."
Tn th�
·
1)
thr:-�"
P.r.tm.sr, two
of thi.s
<1our��
·
r,p�ce,
t1.m�
of time, ·h�bmrm
'
afl motion and.
for
common .r:rourH1
·Lncret inA 1
-
\•- .
-�
�
�nd thC' phi l.o.r.:o
...,
The
Aef!m�
.
·'
their youth,
.
.
be
transformed
bP.h·u�en sp:r:ttially extenncd
phor1cA.11y as spnce of time
as sp.-"l.ce,
1;.
of time
"-
,.,
.. .
·"·
depf')rHi.ence
to
'
..
A
.
of time
their mn.turity and
on bottle:=:
1 nto
a
tn motion
corre!1ponot:mce
motion a.nd tim0. 1 expressed. meta(cf.
w�th
6, JOO-J; 11 326-?).
most p.'lra
doxlclllly from the 't>�holc of time t o the point of time,
th11r: mtrrorr; thr'l �urn
of thinr;£ 1
Th(>.
mere_ qm1ntitative meani:n�,
a
·l"Fll1f':E'!!l from infinitely r;reat to infinitely :-::mall,
r:nm(>.,
1� thP.
in mnn.ller or 1:-trr;l')r nmo1mts of t l rr.r:-,
or.thinr;s hi:\ve-their times,
space
l-Jhn.t
2)
spn.ce rnnl"('r. from .r:rm�rfil
A.s
;.
...
0
thro1ir:h
ar;
from quantitative to qualitative mnrm\n�:
th1 nt:1'r.: h'O'!pp(-)n in time,
th�ir old F.l'(e.
And
timP.
!lccirt.ent of motion?3
f!s
of t 1me
accm\nt
A.niJ
to p'1T't1cu1A.r,.
force?
time ns
this poetic v1.el'r of timP.
nh1. en) .rtofini tion or 1 t
notion
1.n 'th� conncct1 on hetw��m
Nha.t
thra� . d1f.ferent"mP.t:'lphors
�
r�lntPd -quf'stlonr.: Nil.J.
.
nhl?YS
th�
same
nnd not
and.
th0
1..nf1.n1.te mnttcr .1nfin1.tely in motion throutr,h i'nf1 n1tc
JTi'or
a moT'e extensive study of the eptcurean <1oncept of time,
my Diss., G. NECK, Das Problem n11r Zeit im Epikuretsmus,
Heinelber�, 1 964, ch. 1, �eitbe��iff. pp._ 14-?4.
r.f.
·
�J
��
r:natHL.
n
Time
as
Gpnee-,
is mor:tly conr.�1.vr!d 1r1tth
how�ver,
q1inltt�t1.ve n.r; well as qnn'rltitative mcan1n�.
only hapr.>en in time, in
smaller or lnrr:er nmmmts
t.h�'>Y n.lso hAve theiJ;" times,.their
and th�lr
old a�c.
The
youth,
not
of timn,
their maturity
most strlkin� example
is th(' account of the birth
for
this u�ar:e
'
(2, 1105-6), p-rowth (2, 110.5-30,
1120-1, 1123, 112?), maturity (2, 1130), decay (2, 1131-
esp.
71�, esp.
l�)
Th1nr:n
11'31-?,
of our worl�;
nl'3.tnro;..
If
\'7e
111�5), and death
at the end.
or the
(2, 1.1.50, 1166, 11()9, 11?2second book of
.•ne
rerum
keep in mind that time had been defined ns
accident. of motiot:L and that,
in the expression space of timr-:,
1 t hA(1. be en substituted metaphortcally for the spnco measured
th:roup;}1 by .m ot ion ,
..
.
tative .. meanin�
lienee
ann
.
. .
the coincidence of quantitative and qua1i-
of time has to be understood a s
between·a phase in
th e
but now
.
'"
.
-r :•
this
pha�e of the motion,
expresse� as phase of the movlnr;
accin.ent time for
the
p
corres on-
the mot i on of a body through space,
space of time,depending on
The safeguardin�
a
•
condition
body
for this
in motion :l.s
body
itself.
suhs.t1tut1on of the
the
occurrence
of'
.
�In thA eni curenn 1.mder-standinr; of tnfini te matt�r infini.tely
in motion throup:h inf i nit e spacA, t.tme, be1.nr; an act:!id.0l'Jt of
motion, 1s ::tlso inf1nit�.
The p."lrarlox 11t.rhole of t ime" han to
hA tF.�1u�n as a con���ston to man • s d e s i re to compreh�nd the
object of his thoua;ht and �peAch (cf. my Diss., op. cit.,
pp� 17-lJ.O; for the t h n m e of infinity in all 1 ts differ-ent
.'l.�n�cts '\ cf. R. 1-TONDOT...FO,. I�' 1.nfini to n8l pensiP.rO dell 1
nnt:ich1tA. clnssic:::t, Fi.rem>:e 1956).
The other Jk'lradox "point
nf. t:l ml'.'11 has to n.o with the connection of continuity and
infinitP. divisibility of time (cf. my Diss., op. cit.,
pp. 10-20, 39-L�O; cf. J. MAtT, Zum Problem des InfinitesimaL"'n
bel den antiken Atomlsten, Berlin 19.54).
l
�4
mot J.on
lnN�:
1n accorflnncP 1'11. th fi x:eo
rloceo rHct1.s, '1.i.tn quRequ0 cre_.'lta.
1'n0'l0l"f:' �tnt., 1.n eo qun.m �it nul"rll"A :n���ssnm
nee vnlidnn alennt aevi·rccctnltct"c le_n;0n.
v
(5� 56-A,
'rh�se 1m'1s,
th0 1:1t'1S Of time,
of
determine
lie of a body
f
phases, within
phnSP.S
the
in moion.t
bony, at
motion
example
time a.ppen.rs most
The perception of differ
natl.Jrally
where
o the
t
in connection l'TJ.th
,qt .times the hoavenly
other times the time d.etermineit -by it, is seen in
(�,
692;
1,
31 1 ;
.5t 1183-.5).
::�b�ms from the account of
orce:
f
11sic
The.other most striking
man
nnd combines all three m(,'!taphors of
1 s·
c u l t :ura. l development,
t ime,
time as space,
volvend.a a e tas commutat tempera rermn,"
rolling time changes the times of thinGs�
The naturn.l or cnltur,:1l
1)
thr�o aspects:
change of things
the different
the
nynnmic
be t;r-1-spcd
cau_o;ht,
A.r:
"rollin,:, time,"
in
the nature of
tiMe,
and J)
of the development
phases
t h ings ,
is
cause of
as
different phnscs
1'volvendn n�tas, 11
chanr;e,
inherent
times
of
things."
in
inthc metaphor force
reco!VliZerl,
as 11volv(mda af!tas commuta.t tempera rcrttm,"
time chan,n;es the
the meta-
-"tlr.-tcs of thinr:s,"
motion of time,
the
•
1172
tn
of the succession of
the metaphor
ts
''thu�
2,
can
"tempora. rerum," ets
character
motton
(5, 1276; cf.
determined quantitativoly and qualitatively by
phor spaceof t me 'as
i
?.)
sp.,.ces
to time a.s not only space for motion,·
he motiOVl. of heavenly bOdies,
t
are
d 1. fferent
Also motion it se l f .
Motion of
R:nn.
Of
r:ometimes
lietie of a movinrr body,· leads
f
m
he
t
s�?.nond metaphor or t:\me,
but
the
of natur0,
2,302)
time, \'lhich·quantitatively and qualitatively dintinr;uishnhle
mnke up the
ent
called the laws
soetieFl
m
m
cf.
as
''
of
rollinr;
This me ns that the Nhole
a
�5
. phcnomP.non chiln.oop,
hoin�,
nnn
�tme
irt 1. ts
�rrnct,
��
mirrored
is
f or c e
thrPo n spccts:
as
ti�e.
to bo th� one metnphor most
sncms
from the epicurean understanding of time
Tt., nevertheless,
Lucretius'
"Ne
then 11time,
,
utterly destroys,
sir;ht"
( 1, 225).
first,
from
that
shows
a1..ray,
caused
as it l'lere,
as ar;e td thdraNs them from our
(2,69�70} a:nd "if time
q·notes
Chant:,e appears to be
pe�ceive all th1.nr,s flat�
it takes
accidr-mt of motion.
inherent in thln.rr.s and c.'J.used hy the force o�
lnn� lRnse of time,
a�e,
As
remote
the one which occurs most frequently in
"De rerum natura."
both by forces
time:
is
mone of
�aur:n,
11a�e,
in
seems
to effect
throup.;h a.�e"
•
in the
st{';ht"
whatsoever, throut;h
The con)parison of th� two
the
lon� lapse
chanrr,e
of t ime11 ,
in thin:';s.
'f'hP space of tirrie wh ich has to be measured throw;h by thir.r;s
subject to
chan�e is �onceived as having chAnging influence on
them:
omnta enim debet, mortal! corpore quaA sunt,
tnflnita aetas consumpse ante acta dicsque.
quon si in eo �patio atque ante a�ta netate fuere
e qutbus haec rerum consistit.snmma refectn,
1.mrnortali sunt n atu ra praedita certe.
(1, 2J2-6; cf.
551-64)
This po�erful influerice, �ometimes called "the forces of
rneA.s1a"eless time"
( 5, 377-9),
irnnf-l�t on thin�s,
as
also as R. particular
time as
"ante
force of time,
to
ls
not only seen as a r;enerc:tl
11infinita aetas,"
as
impact,
in successive
,.;raspable
"infinite time,"
acta dies,''" as "the r;one by da:,r.
11
but
moments of
The destructive
appears t o be so st ron � that th in �s are imagi neo
suffer under· the "torments o f ·time":
Denique non lapides quoque vincl cernis ab aevo,
non altas turris ruere et put e j cer e saxa,
r
�OP.lHhl":t nP.Hm �imu}:l.Cl":lf}ll�- fA:=:8:::t fntj :1Ci
nrotollP.l"e firiis
por-:t-:e nnqu0 a(lverims natur.'lP. foeclP.l".'l· nit1?
c'l0'111.Clu,.. non monimenta virum rliln:rsa. vi<icmu�,
(quaerP.re pronorro, s ihi cumque scnescere credas,
non ruere avolr,o� silices a montibus altis
nee va.l ioas aevi v ires perferre p!l t iq1te
fini ti ?
ncqw:- enim cn.d.erent avolsa repente,
ex inf1n1to quae tempore pertolerassent
omnia tormenta aeta.tis, privata fra�ore.
.
.
- nrm
._
�Ac sRnctum numen fati
:
)
( 5, )06•17)
l'f'lhe force. of rollinp.;- time chang1rp::· the. times of thinp;s .
( _t;, 1 ?7i1)
is
finRlly spoken -of as chan�inp; the nature of
the WOl"lC'l:
1"111tnt . en1.rn munni nc'lt1.1ram tot ius aetas .•
ex nliC''lH� nl.ius status exci.pore 0mni11 c'l.eb0t
omnir-t mi�rant,
nee ma-n c t nlla sui sim\.lis rAs:
omnln commut::tt natura 8t vertere �Or,'it.
n�mque a1iun. rmtrcsc it et n evo nobile lal'l,cr,net,
norro al1un (sue) crescit et (P.) contempti�'o exit.
�tc lt";'i tur muncH naturam tot ius n.et�s
mut � t , et ex aliO terrnm s tatu s CXCipit altAr,
quod potu it nequeat, posstt quod non tulit nntc.
(5, 82A-36)
II:
In
· · ·· .
order to
1)
Devel opment
clarify the con·nection beb1een the
thr�e different metaphors. of time'
ann
discover tht� �om
2)
mon r:round for the poetic view of time and the philosophinnl
�efinition of it ,
we will have to consider the relation of
t ime to nature , the key · te rm in Lucr et i us
'
"De
rerum
natura."
Inextricably connected with change of thin�s,
ti�� .1n motion of time throur:h·
s
lite
or
a_p;ainst n.nture
( 2,
space
297-307;
of thin.�;s, whether �rm.,.th or decay,
both:
t i me and nature:
.•
force of
of time cannot act out
cf.
5, )06-10).
- ·
occurs under the
Chanr:e
laws
of
�7
rloc�o diet i n, quo '1Ut'li1C1U0 cre�.tn
sint, in eo qunm sit r h r rr.t re n�n/3ssum
nee val1das valeant nevi rescindere lP.�en.
foec
h'!rA
·
(5, 56-8; cf. 2, )02)
Hhnt.rloes it mean to speak of time, ch�n�in� the nrltur� of
the
whole world.,
of time,
chanp:inp:
:8ptcurus,
anct to
.
1-torld
of nature,
darinr; to rr,o heyond
break open
to be, what
c om e
thinr:s,
all
t.he nature of the whole world
(1, l,f..-77), cttme h::tck
Crln
�lterinr:,
the·
t ir;ht
locks of the r;n. t e n
out of
bei.nr:,
of
victoriously Nith th� kno'tiTlP.nr:e of
cannot,
.
finally how each thine has
totality of be in� and non-beinc.;,
f';'Oinr;
(5, 828-36)?
the flam inc; Nails of the
.
pm1er c:lefined and. it s deep-set boundary mnrk."
.the
n..rr:.�in,
and,
rm.tur-e
11\•rhn.t
it::::
�ratnr�,5 ns
of comin� into bein�,
is matter in motion throur;h SIJc'lCe
21), which hrinr.; s forth hirth ann death
( 1, hl9-·
of thin,o;s: .. .
Nnn� nr,-e 1 quo motu ,cr,enitalia m:1teriaL
corporA. r�r: vt:t.roiaf: P:1 ,ry.ant: f:eni tnr:qne resol vnnt
0t f111:1. vi facerc id �op:anh1r
r.tt ol_l i s
r���ibi mobilitFt� map.-nnn per in::l'Y'\h rrten.nd1. •
PX'f'Ptliam:
tu te nJr.t1.r: prn.ehr.rp mP.m""nto.
n::tm r.r>rte non 1nt�r :1e �t l rn.tn r.0hn�1"et
T:'l."'lh')riP.s, q110n1Am mlnnt rP.m q,,·:rnq'lf" v1t1P.mns 1
f't. f11Jfi.Rl lonr:inqvo fln�r"' OIT!nir-1 CP.rni!T!\1� n.r>vo
P.X
CUlisquf' Vetl.lStr-ttP.!Tl �ubti,_lCPT'e Tl0'itr1.� 1
r.nrr t��P.'Y'\ 1.ncolumts vtt10.atur spmmn. mn,,er0
l"):r-')nt,.,.,..oa qn 1.8, quae �.ecedunt cor1)or� en jrpH� 1
,, ..... ,c r�.br.nnt Mi nnnnt, ·CP.l,., veY!er� :111ro:n:l TIP t'!onn�t.
11.1.., ��:rv��f'.�rP J A.t
fl1'1rf'C'f'cn.,.,. co�mt,
,.,�r. l"P'110rnntur ibi.
slc r e rn M �nnm�. novntm-
quilf'qur>
O
haP� co'Yltrn
1 ntPr �e m0rt<=�.les Mlltn:=� \·i.vFnt.
i. r�.e ��ntes, n 1 iae m1 n'.ll1Yl b.J r •
j "11jll0 hrovi. rmnt io mutnntur s��cl.n a rd. nnntl :rr:
,..t 111l�.st cnrsores vita.P. 1c=tmpnnn. tr::�r'!,1r1t-..
.
�..-�mn,.,,..,
"�
et
, , r�P :-:c11n t
a1
(?, �?-70)
0n
t"lc hn.�is of thls creattve. . and n.ostructive form�,
.
�nd
nr:1t11r0.
('P0"' n �"'0mn.,..,...henr:i.vP. stuny of the 00!1C'f'nt nf ,,...,t:n:rn. 111
V1��nt.i11!i 1 "D') rcrnm nn.t.J,r-r-�:,11 �f. Y . • sllj,L'!"'/'.�PT, St-.�1dirm ::":1Jr.1
nl-. � 1 1'1ronh l �r.h�n N� tnrhen-,:ri ff der P.grner- rni t hC!r>onderr.r
I>
h
�
Pf."!T"l�lrr:i.chtlr:un� (ler, T.ukrez, Archiv fur Re�ifff1f;€'!SchichtP.,
7, 1Q(?, 140-284
�H
thi�
llf..
..
1mr:rr t:>��'ion m L n;h t he,
of tho truth
thnt, nn.tltrr- only expl io:ttcs th0 hi flo on oh�rr-:��
t0r'i�ttr.� of mAtter.
hnNe,r'"'r,
Lucr�tiw� nev0r tire� of rr:-m1rHnn.•--:
tn rl�fin.i te
or "n:"lrt� f'l.�blr'�e,"
··Matter in m ot inn thl"Ollrrh �p1r.�
wnys
"p::tcts
of
r,rooNth
llnr'l ·decay
t
a
resul f:s,
fact whi0h
or nf!.turc":
.I"J. U.'l !'r'onter quo nun� in motu r>rtn�i pi(lrum
onrpora ::;1_mt, in eodem ante a�tn aetntr· fuere
r--t nm:t hn.l"'c n0mper stmtli ration" fP'Y'rntur
pf: qn!:i� �onsuerint r:1r;n1 ..;ir;nenh1r er'!nf'm
r.onr'licione et erurtt et cret.:c.ent: vlr:tuo vGlohunt,
qnn.nt11m cuique datum est per focclera :nnturni.
( 2. 297-302)
't'hP. _pr"oblcmatic
w::ty"
and
t1,e
er
of expressions
"such .·things as have been wont
be bron.�ht
that·
c ha ra ct
to birth under
"honds of
experi.mentation of
nature"
likn
to
"in
a
come to
the same condition"
similar
being,
ind.icates,
will
hO\ITcver,
provid.e no More than a 'framework for
matter in
m ot i on . through spa.ce:
cert e neque consilio primordia rerum ,
oroine se r.uo quaequ� sa�n�i mente 1ocarunt
·
rH',� quos lJ..ltA.P.qne (darf:mt rnotvs pepir:ere profecto)
sP.d quia mnlta modis muJ.tts mutn.t<:!. pe� omne
�x i11fini to v�xa.ntur -perci ta plne;is,
onme C'l'enu.s JT!otus et coetus exncri11nd.o
tannem del.reniunt in tal:l.s c:UspositurR.f.:,
qualibus haec rerum consistit summa creatn,
et mn l t os etiam magnos servata per. :-:tnnor'lt F:0.mel in motus coniectast convl':'_ntf?ntls' J
.
effictt ut largis . avidum mare fluminis tmn 1 s. . .
.
(1, 102i- :n; of. 5,
nam
·
�·lhat
can
be
the
too faulty t o
criterion for
abl�
to
in a
"convenient mov�ments"
world
be crea ted. by r;ods (5, 1B7-2J4) and continually
P-nrrar:ed in a l'lar' between
r0neated
ln_6,1�2)
l ife and death
The
( 2, 569-80)?
example o� nat ure trying (5, 837-924), but
bei�� nn
cre at e monsters (1, 199-2QL�; -2, 700-29) suggests
"conVP-l"lient movements"
.
must mean stability of growth,
that
.
maturity
�9
n.n�
�r-�r1.y.
'•rhat.
The formuln for nn.tnro:
not,
c:::m
finR.11y how
ann
it� <'!cep.;..Get boundary
thf>
account of
"certain matter,"
1 nto be1 nr: and. n:oint';
214-).
out of
1s
�1ost. compactly. it
motus, ordo,
cnch thi nr: hns
mark''
positura,
position and shapes of
is explicaten ln
"certain times"
as
as
matter" (2,
realfty
min� uncovers
Olll"'
in
ve ·the
"meetinp:s,
1020-2;
cf.
1,
ordr=>r,
675-8}.
process
The
of rr;co(�-
our
Bf')nr.c-s
of motion and ref:t of thinr;s; · this rP.'1] i ty,
ntoms censr;J.ess1y
as
as deceptive appearance,
an� e�tahlishing the conditions
venien.t
·
motions,
simple stability:
The true res t however,
motion.
( 1, 159-
"materia! concursus,
orn0r of these terms follows the ord.er of tho
-ncr�ci
to bn,
responsible for thinr:s cominr.
stated
nition from complex mobility to
r.rmn
its pm-11er dnfinl"!d
(1, 75-7)
beinf: at
fi�;ttrae,"
cnn
11Nhnt
underlyin� that restlesGness
for the
achievement of
"con-
movements" is to be found in the "shBpe" of atoms.
That
"shape" of atoms bears special importanne for the ::nnture
of
thinp; can be
a
seen from 1 ts central
the hook about motion and rest:
motirm and. rest in
trc:1.tm0.nt
terms of
turn
p:ivcs Nay to
in atom�
body and minc'l
{ 2,
a
11
shape"
730-1361-J., 856-990).
of atoms
nyi:n.r;
1").-"J.l rs
(21
but noN not
(motion ann.
rme bP-in� "shape"
(2, 6?.-JJ?) leacln
( 2,
333-729),
Hhich
•
•
ln tei'ms of atoms,
COrro"'!SpOndil1[':
but,
in terms of compounds,
991-117L�)
a po::;iti·t,rc
The Fir.ale describes the ::urn
1 n the three main pa rt s Of the bOOl< 1
tothA Pl"'ooemium,
n nn
(2, 1-61),
ne.1;ative treatment of colour and fcclin/3'
of t'-lin,r,;r, in motion and rest,
rl.�.
After the Prooemi mn about
of motion and rest in termr: of a.to�s
over into the dJ r;cussion of
in
position in boo k t\.'10,
of
worlds bcin0 born
Thus, hool< hro s hol'l s
rest), gronped. around
•
of atoms,
a
one
a
syr:1mctry of
{rest):
the
the pairs b ei n� motion and r e s t
in
�10
terms of compounds b1.
ro�t:
th e
in terms
of atoms· in the first and_
The special importance of
book.
·nature
Prooemtuni nnd Ffria le,
birth
�escrintion of the
·
third
shape
of
of a thing is shown in a·quote
and mot.i.on :md
mr-:tin part::; of
ofatoms forth�
book five,
from thn
bur world:
of
�"d·nova temnost:1.s '}naedam mol�sque coorta.
d 1 ff,t("ere inde lo�i partes coepcre :nnr·esqun
'"�tlm nnri bus ·hmf""i r
'
e
s l":t cliscludere muYlnmn
mr.mhrnl']ue divldere
magna s disponerc pnrtes.
omnir;enis e.'prlncipiis, discordia qnorum
lntr.rvalla vias conc xu s poniiera. plap;as
r.oncursus ·motus
ia mfsc�ns
propter d.lssimilis formas varin�qne fir;urns,
quod non omnia sic· potcrant �onhmct�- rn::mere
nee motus inter sese dare convenir.ntiG, ...
-·
r:!f.
·
9t
·
tnrha.bat proel
·
(5, 4J6-h5;
.
Diffnrently from platonic or aristotelian
Nhr.rc shape
for-
.q,
< ELcfos
thin,;,
"mnt0:ri.a:t
ln
the
concur,,�,
>J/IX.
�
li ' (..
.·
J
Or
I
motui,
ordo;
The inquiry
of Lucretius•
shape ()�
or
a.ll the factor:-;,
positura, fic;urnc,"
their p.:'l.rt in determininr.; ·the appearance
III.
uiace thour,h,
mcn:r.c
f'-Oe 'f ?') )
cpiCUI'(!rtfl contPxt,
Lnt1-lt-2)
of
a
plny
thin�.
Recapitutation
into the· mean in�
"De rerum natura",
of
"nature,"
the key t��=r
aim�d at clarifying th� r0ln
tion of nature and time,
and consequently the relation of the
philosophtcR-1 definitlon.
and
the poetic
met11_phorn of tim0.
The relation of nature and time be com e s espe�ially poi�
n.'lnt
in a passar,e from book o:r: e, i>Thcre both con�epts, tim� and
nature,
are. coupled
into one: .
Postremo quae cumque dies naturaque rebus
paulatim tribuit moderatim crescere cogens,
�l1
ocu l o ru m a c i e r. c ont r:;n t a t u 0 r1. ,
porro qune . cumqn e a evo mA. c i equ 0 r; �;1 r:. s cunt ;
n e e , m:lre qu� e impend ent , v e r: c o s ::rl 0 saxa p� r c s a
qn :t t:l C'pl oqu e a m t t t:1nt i n tempore c crnc r c po s s i s ,
c orpor i bu s cne cis i r; i tur natur.:1 p;er i.t r e s .
( 1 , 322-8 ; c f . 628- )1�)
· m 1 l ln !)o t e c t
nee
·
·
If
ment ,
at
c on s i de r s ;
one
" �rhat ever
be,T, inn i n s and end of th i s
first ,
day and na t ur e adds
i s r � s tated in ·
11 by bod i e s
( cf . 2 , 127..;:B ;
129 ; · 132 -llH ) .
nat nrc "
r o rcc ,
t o t h i n ,n; s
.
Th€7 double forc c;
" natu re , 11
us
'' boi! i e s uns e en , '' · in ord e r t o effect
t i me ••. · and " thr ough
pre s en t s
" n a;r and
inr: the o t h e r
C hanr_�e of
chanrr,e .
t ime ::mn_ o c cay , "
" D ay ,
both f rom l'li th i n and from '\'T i t h out .
ccmt " clay and nature , "
l it t le by l i t t l e "
un s e en t h en natt.1 re t reat s t h i n rr,f-l "
c orres pond s t o one force ,
th in r:Y.s occurs " in
i t s elf
11
n�.ture ,
s ince
it
is
ch ang e
the
of
be f o!' e
" nature ,
appearances
us r e f l e ct about the permanen c e of be inr;·.
impiyinr:
a s ma l l ,
un i t of t ime ,
o c curs
in sma l l · s t eps ,
sum of t h in�s .
by t h e
in ' th� s u m of t h inr;s ,
s c;:�. l e
is
of nature ,
erni.nr� t he world ,
th� world ,
a n a c c lc'l. e nt
t o the
t h e same truth :
defineo
di es
,
11
i s h e ld
of
the
in ba lanc e
re f l e c t inr.: chanr;e w i t h
As
such ,
creat lve and d e s truc t ive powe r ,
law s of
therefore ,
"
the part s
o f mot i on .
grm'lt h and d e cay ,
der ived from t h e movement s
" rh1.;r ann. nature , "
the forc e '
it
s inc e nature c ompreh enn s the Nhole
the.
of me�nings from
T i me ,
s in c e
chanr;e of th ines
cont in1,1al l y a l t e ri n g
laws o f nature .
c on-
The t erm " d:1y , "
The sum of . things , h owever ,
permanent
i s P.n �. c c i d�nt
o f t h e fac t that
11
1 :::; ,
wh i ch make s
quant itat i ve ly and. qua l i tat i v e ly
rem incl s us
t h at
in the double
l t i s t he force o f t ime wh i ch make s u s r e f l e c t about
of
� t , te
of at om s .
repre s ent s
" day , 11
s tand :J
two
gov
d e t er m t n inrr,
u n i e s natura qu e ,
a s pe c t s o f' one and
f or the
changeable a spe ct
�12
of appearan c e s , · the m ea su rahl e actual i zat.ion of · in fin.i te
.
.
·
m:'l. t t � r in i n f i n t t e mot on throt�eh inf ini t e s p. � ;
'lc
i
" n:itnre , "
· fj rm laNs
infin i t e
s tands. for the un ch�n�eable a spect
nat1i ra : "
be i n
r;
t
,
he
i
s pace . 6
three a spec t s
The three met aphors - of t im e :
of nat ure :
i :n t er�hAn,�l'!ab i l i
An� Rcc 1.1lcnt ,
cnrno� wt th
�Y
mat t·e r ,
between
explA ins
mot i on ,
of
corre s pond t o the
- The
and s p.-=tc e .
natur e and t ime ,
chnn�e than w1 th pcrmnn�nce ,
·
·
cay and deat h ,
_
force
betwenn suhs tanc�
i t s e l f throu �h mnn 1 s bP. 1 nr: mor�
t irne , than with nature
with
"
of in f i n te mat te}" in in f in i te mot t on throu�h
mot i on of t ime • and r:: pa. ce of · tlme ,
t i me ,
of
.
.
m,orc
and thA-refore
S i m i larly , ·_ b i rth ann
con -
r;r owt h ,
de
a r e not pre s ented equa l ly und er . the influen c e
o f nature and t ime , but bi rth and growth more under t h e 1. n
f1uence of nature ,
of
time .
its
with
de cay and
neat h
more unde r-
the influenoe
· Once 1 1. f e . has be� , man s eems to be m o s t c oncerned
·mean in·r.:ful compl e t ion and therefore with t ime effe c t in,
chan e t oward s ·that end. .
�
The, re lat i on of t i m e and nature ,
ph i cal poem ,
t erms ,
can be gra sped
in Lucret i u s •
ph i l os o
:ln . another c omparabl e pa i r of
in the re l at i on of . 11 fortune " · and 11 nature . •
· Subs equent
�A'qX , i.n h i s n i ss .. , D tfferen ?. . fl.er d emol � r 1. t l s c h<"n u n d
1..., , "� 1 � ch cm N�t,.tr.nh i l o s onh t � ( M�rrA 1 , 1 , F'ran trf'prt · a . M .
1 0 -:::! 7 ,- 1 ..:.. ')? ) , T"!1 t. h �r. htwi l 1 innt:1y port. .,..a .y� th i � � nnn0c t 1 o"' of
"1 � t1 l r'0 rmrl t 1 mP. : 11 n t e � l l S:\J"11 � fY!1fH� i: ?. tl'Ylf': . i st 0 ie hl n � � ;'1., :"' � 1 ,,.rT.'o"T"' . ii t:"-r Jl':r:ml<'ret �n 1Tatm · • -· di e Z ei t ihre ald:u o � e Fo'Y"m
Di �
": 0 1 t r'f...... rr:� f";�n i st. n a s Fen·� r r'f e s He r: rms , n�f' i U e F.rsche innn.�
0•·r i � VPl"� ehr-t un� i h r n 0n S tenmel iter Abhti.n n:j ":k8 i t tmd H e
·
� 0"1 l0 si l!k�i t
aufclr1'fckt . 11 ( n:o . · 1�2- 3 )
tti\R:X i n · c �ptn re of th o;
0 r- � t'l!n t: l ."l.l:1 ; thou�h , lacks s upnort from \<Tork l:�r: l·Ti th t: h e t. P. xt s
N"'l i r. l't Nnn l n. h ave prev!"lnten h i m from i d cnt i fy1 np: 'Rp i cnru n 1 '1 nd
L1 1 �r,.t:l n s ' . not i on of time , ann led h i m t o i" oticP. t he , · crHci n l
c o -0:v:t st�nce o f n.e f ini t i on and metaph qrs of t i me i n Lucrct t u s >
t-rorl-:- .
4v .
en�
•
•
•
·
•
•
�RR
the
�overn in�
( 5 , 77 ) , t h �n
f i r r-: t na t u r e
rp t o t e � dl"'� cr ihe ,
T he � on t e xt ,
world .
an
t h:'\t
prov i o e s
fortune " :
nnture det erm tne s
S i m i ln.rly �
the
� l �nr
it
t h e een err.t.l laws · of
the
No.rln ,
po s s ibl e w i th i n t h o s e
relat i on of nature and. t i me ,
aml r�.c c i n ent , was s h own t o c on s i s t i n the re l ::tt
.
1 on of
t hrou Fr,h
The conn ect i on bctl·reen the t h re e
of na tu r e ,
pe ct s
behmen
d ence
forc e ,
fo!'ce
the
unde!" the
expl icat es
r;round for
a.e f i n i t i on ,
metaphors of
three
under . the
is
t i me R S f orce ,
ln mot i on of . t i Me
fo�
there f ore , . bec omes t h e key
the three
of
mat t e r ,
m on
t ime .
of
the
i ndi c at e s
pa i r s
aspect . of nature ,
a s pe c t of
mat, e r ,
t
t ime ,
the
spe c lal
chan{!e<'lble .
a
nd
t he common
m o t i on , and
of
�
groun
space ,
t i me
of
The fa ct t hrt t
a s t im e expl i c,a t e s na t u r e
the po e t i c viel-t
c orre s pon
impo rt anc e of
the pe r�anent ,
the
,
is
the
c om
and i t s ph i lo s oph i cal
.
for the m e taph o r i c a l use
and
as
conne ct i on ·
one t o one
The
t ime .
·
mnt' t � r·
and f o r c e
of t i me
l:nm .
of sub s tan c e
in m o t i on throur;h space
space
h1.t t
to nnt11ri"'l ,
framework for " �ovcrn i n �
the
only t h e part i cular move s ,
f ortur P.
��k c �
however ,
equa} n o r r i va l forc e
thr:� t; f ortune is n f) i t h c r
" �overnin� nnt u re "
fortun� ( 5 , J O? ) ,
de f in i t i on as
its
of
ac c i
den t o f mot i on .
'T"hP-mA ,
Dev e l opment ,
ann.
.to lm� erRt:=m rl h ow t tme ,
ac c i d ent ,
�"11 th l'l � tnre ,
of t h e world ,
th�
�s
th8 subs tance
be c omn s
d oe s
not ,
h m'l�ver ,
vThi ch
th i. s subs t i tut i on takes place ,
c on � i n �rtn.�T,
the
d e p�l"ln en c e
s e c on d.
aspect
mean to
e s R::ty t r i. ed
intt"?. rchnnr:eab l c
�1.1h s t i tu t i on of th e o.ef i n it i on by m e·taphors
1 m n ers tanrl " h ow "
its
of th i s
Recapi tulat i on
also
of
e n ta i l e d
t ime .
under stand
To
11 Nh�.r "
a que s t i on t o be ansi'mred by
of Lu c re t i u s
on human percept i on .
1
d e f i n i t i on of t ime ,
�r u m�>�t of T.l l �rr.t 1 u s ' f1 P.f 1 n l t i on
"''-1 n f i r r. t
��n�n� Pn c P
on
mot t on ami
r� r: t
Ntl f.l
t l r:'l'� ' r.
of t h j nt,_;!C :
t. � mpns i t �m p�r ::: 0. n on � s t , r. r n rP.hu n ah i p� :t �
c nn r: � q, t i tiu• s �'l"l stt s , trrmsac t n m qq i.� s i t i n :v: v o ,
tnm q1 1ae ros 1 nf1 t �t , 'l.U io. porro n P- lnn c r-:cqu-:1. tu r ;
n r- c !)�r s e quer!'iquam · tempus s r-mt l rc · fl'lt endum s t
� em otum ab rerum motu plac id.aque qu i At P. .
·
-
'T'he S t:! c on d as pe ct .
( 1 , h.59 - fl ) }
t i me ' s d�pe!lden c e on hum�n pr:!rcept i on ,
imnl t e s both man ' s awarene s s and. man ' s- ""v�lua t i on of t t rne .
M::l.n 1 s
of t i me , . com inP-:
::\Narfm� s s
� t �mr-: . from
hetl'leen
rea lms i s iTIA.n 1 s d1 f ferent
1
·
, 1 0 08;,.9 ; 2 , '3 07 ) ,
(5,
R2B - J 6 ) ,· and
t'lrilln�
TT1 0 re
-
th rough
{ 2 , 5fl9 - 8 0 ) , i s
n e::t th
a lways
h�mG\n nnt u r � .
t ou�h c on
�
of t i m e ,
wh r! t h e r
7.
c on s tant cyc l e of
the
( 2 , JOJ ,
lt fe
and
�:'!me and always not the
wh ere deve lopment
R ame
in time eventual l y mean s
t i me s e ems t o he c om e more a nrl
the more . one m oves
from t h e part s t o thq
8
?r. f . P . n�JA. GY , Proc c R s ann Value :
rr � Ph " , A A , 1957 , l�L�-2t1 .
0
, "
, where the, sum .. of .thinp.:s
the
back t o the he r;inninp; ,
ne_p;l i ,cr.ibl e ,
l•Th o l e .
wh o l e
the s e tlfro ,
evaluat i on
· nature or human nature · t s · concernen .
· ,
- · 1\fi t h in nat u rP , :1s a
trwm s e l V P- �
well a s · t h i nrrs of
th in�s of nature n s
'T'hP. rPa s on for d i s t fngu i s h inp;
"'V>. c tert ,
from · 11 t h in�s
An epi cur0an d i l emma ,
J,�OP.'\ RDI , TJA. p: ine R t ra , 11 . 292-? :
" c o s i 0 () 1 1 1 -u omo
i l"l"l"' fl. l""::l. , e d P. l l 1 etad:t ch 1 e i ch lnma ant i ch e , e fiel seguir che
f�.YJ.V1.o f! r.mo r;l i avi 1 ne not i , sta n11tura oenor vert:'te , anz l
p�occ n � p�r s i lun�o cammino , che s emhrn a tar " . cf . S . BORRA ,
� n1 r i t i e f orme affini in Luc rez i o e Leopa rd i � Bol ogna ,
· ·r f .
19 )4 .
11 .
'
1
�1.·ii t.h :l t1 t. h n
At
c on t � xt
of nn.tur� :
qun r. i · 1. nn � :l.nqn o · f 1 u e r e
omn i !"t
�ern t mu r.
n.ev o
o�•J l i s qn c v e t u s t a t e rr. subd u c t:: re n o r. t r i s .
c1 i in tnmen incolum i s v i dr"at 1 1 r s u r'Hna man e re pronte :rr-m qu i a , qw1e d e c� rl u n t cor�or!:l cn l qu e ,
1 mn i-1 n h0.1 m t m innunt , quo vennre anr:m i n e (lon�nt .
· i l lr:t r-; en e- s c ore , at ha e c c on t rn. flor� r: c e r e cor,unt ,
n.ric remoran t i t r i b l ; s i c r e rum summa novatur
s emper , et . . i n t er se mo rta l e s mu tu� v i �Jnt .
m.t r;e s cnn t a l i a e p:ent e s , al i ae m i nuun t u r ,
i nrtu n brevi s pnt i o mut an tu r n r-� e c l a rm i mnntum
et q11a s i cu r s o r e s v i t a l 1ampaci::.t t rnd unt .
ex
·
( � , 69 -79 ;
Th i s i na t ff erence · df 'tlme and. nature ,
man c ont ent of l i fe ,
.of . 1 1. fe :
cf .
w i t h re s pe c t
) , 9 71 )
t o any hu
move s man t o re s i s t nature for the
sake
9
Qu od ( s i
i am rerum i F.;n orem pr i mord i a quae s int ,
h oc tame,., ex i ns i s ca e l i rat i on i bu s rm s l m
conf i rmare a l i i sque e x rebus redCi e re mn l t i s ,
nflCJl l P. quam nob i s ci i v i n i tn s e s s e r.mratam
t ant a s tat prae d i ta cu l pa .
na t u rn m rerum :
pr inc i ni o qw = tn t u m cae l i t e ,:;i t i mnetus i np;en s ,
inn � av i d a m JX rtcm mont e s s i lvneque ferarum
'l
:r}o ss fl dere , t �nent rU TIA S · va s t :18qu e palude s
et mar0 , quon l �t e t err�rum cl l. s t :i. net orn s .
1 n c'i n n u :1. s porro nrope pn rt i s - fArv i 0 u s nrd or
n.c'i s i nuus que r:e l i casus morta l i hu s a u f e rt .
quod super e s t :=t.rv i , tamen id na tnra sua · v i
s ent i.bus obducat , n i v l s . humana rc s i s tat
vi t n i cau sa. va l id ·o c onsue.t a b i nenti
in�emere et- t e rram pre s s i s pro s c ind ere rtra t r i s .
.
)
·.
( 5 :;
The d i f f e r ence betwe en the de s cript i on of
cry i np.: in 1 t s he l ple s sne s s
la.r�e ly t a ken care
mAan
(5,
of by na t u re
re s i �at i on be fore nat ure
f o r ilevel opment
.
t o �ff l rm
..
•
.
.
:
222-7 ) ,
,
195- 109 )
the newborn c h i
ld ,
and t he youn� ani mR �_ s ,
hers e l f ( 5 ,
2 2 8-34 ) ,
does not
but rec ov1i t i on of t he ne�d
i n t h e ca ? e of man :
" One
s o small are t he trace s
..
th int; I fe e l abl e
of nature
left ,
wh i ch
9"'or a more extens i v e s tudy of the e p i curean v i eN of man t s
e xne r i ence of t ime , cf . my D i s s . , op . c i t . , ch . 3 , Z e i t e r.
fahrun� , pp . 140-9 .
�t
rr>rt. � n..,., �on J r! n ot di�pe l for u n ,
f"rom l i v 1 n o:
m !'l.n
a
th�t. n ot h tnr; n tn t'J �rs
l i fe l•rorthy of �od � "
{ J , 3 19-22 ) .
t o ov e rc ome . tbe 1.no i ff e rence of
on� 1
man 1 s
�
· the
l i. fP.t ime ,
t n :-r l.t: of"
t hourrh r e. latcrl ,
rorm s :
detachment from t �mpor3.l th ings t•ri th in h i s ol'm
o t h er
man
1 i f� by s e e int-:. h i ms elf
of h i r- 01'1!1 nat ure
IT'-'ln .
Th i s ·
t i me nnd nn.t u re , l'T i t h
.
takes on two ,
t o human- l i fe ,
r � � pP.ct
1H l
a. �
1 s o.vP.rconi inr: t hP. t f'mpora l i ty of h t s
as
p.: rt or mn.!lk ind , a11n. the o evcl opm0.nt
"l
fi vP of " ne rernm
·
of
part of th e d evel opment of the natur�
_d e s cript i on of the dev e l opment . o f
Lu cre t iu s '
n P. t u ra "
c omr>l t cat ed. s tate � �nt of
.
m·m
end s Joti t h
( 5 , 92.5-lh57 ) ,
th�
man ,
a
in
bo 9�
rather
'princj.:Ole� nf chrmee : 1 0 .
.
.
c t i mpin;rn.e s i mu l e xperiP.n t i n m ent. 1 :=:
'f'rt.n lrl t 1 m docu i t p�o .e t empt i m :prC"'jl"efJ :\. P.nt t r.-; .
s i c nnnm · qu i cqu i ft paula t im prot. r:1 h i t
rat i oque in lu m ini s eri;'3i t ora � ;
, , r;u s
n.P.tl'l.s
in : mcd.ium
.
.
1\ r:-
rt.
f 1. r R t
.
.
qu ote from book fou r shm·rs
. ..-.
1.mpP. J.1. inr:
force . t ol'mrd-s
h"! t:11 � � f'r u': e 'of both ,
Rlt.l , R J)2 ) .
. ( 5 , 1 1-1-52 -.5 )
('4., 822-5-? L
pro�r.r"' B S ,
" u s �J s " ,
" pr::J.ct i c e "
mer-t n s
�ot i on and !'"--'-'!. �t t on
1-t- , R ) l , R 3 5 ,
( cf .
" i mni r;rn� e x:nnri ent i a nent l s "
� im:l. lnrly ,
th�
rn e n 11 �
: �·: .
t: '1 Yl c � of h.n man rea s on - in the pro cP � t: o f ch�n.� e .
1 h 1 o r of
t h i A s t n.tcment
t h � r i. r !1 t t\·10 l i n e s :
-� ,.,n " ,
!l.r�
" aeta s " and
re p�nt
" r�t 1 o " ,
" reas on "
the p:J tt ern o f
" t ime " ana
coupleO. .a s . f orc c � t m;1ard s pro�:re s s ,
nJ. n c � of · " p:l'a.ct i �c , "
1 0 ::-' or
of prin c i.pl 0 s
Th e las t t'·ro
in t h e place of
" t j me "
" r�n
i n thr!
" the experien c e
more ext ens ivP s twly o f the eni eurcan unfl crs tann 1 n f" of
'· '
t i m e :1. !1 f orce of o.eve l opmcnt , iri .natuPo - or h i s t ory ., c f � . my
f) f � s- � , op . c it . , ch . 2 , Z e i t funkt i on , pp . 75-139 .
n.
�'
I'
of t!-1 � c."'l. r;rn"'
m inr! . "
" rr-� l � f:' S u p , "
s upp l an t ,
t h e ore t i. �.'!:\ 1 verb ,
Two prr:I c t i cn. J. v e rh s ,
in the
" t au �ht , 11
las t
nu t 11
l ines , th e
two
" b ri n?.: r:
m o re
f i rs t
f r om the
t No l i n e s
,
r�.nd
and
thw :; e ffe c t · A balance _o f the ory and pra c t i c e
in b o t h prirt � .
ThP. c omna r i s on b e t l>re e n t h e t wo
t h e i n t e rc hn.n ge
part s
nhl l i t y between na t u r e and. t i me
� P�t ,
d i s m1 s s ed �a�l i er
· of t h e deve l opment of
l•rh 1 ch
is s e en ,
human nature ,
onc e unde r the
H e re ,
t o t h e role of t i m e ,
inf lu ence
nnrsues
of change ,
of hum9:n a ct i on
has an ad ned i n i t i at ive
t h e worln
lies
i n the c on t e xt
the p r o c e s s
human m ind or human re::1 s on .
the l'TOrld of nature and
s on •
be tween sub s t an c e anfl a c c i
( 5 , 828-36 ) .
1 mrler the i n f lu ence of t ime ,
ca s e s :
,
r e ca l l s
,
one�
in b o t h
The d i ffe ren ce be tween
of human nature ,
wi t h re s p e c t
in that man , on a c c ount of h i s rea-
end. s and make s
c h o t c e s wi t h a v i m'l to ends :
s i c v o lvend.a aetas commv tat t e mnora rer,l m .
in pr et i o , f i t nul l o d.eni.qu e honore ;
"90rro a l iud s u c c ed i t e t ( e ) cont empt 1 bu s e x it
inque (U e s maf;i s adpe t i tur f l oretque repertum
laud ibus et m i ro e s t mort al i s int er h onore .
( 5 ' 1276-8 0 )
f'l1 1 od fu i t
I n a d d i t i on t o the blind mechani sm of atoms , wh i ch ,
realm of natur e ,
effect s change ,
The
the
s tA.tement of princ i p l e s ,
n ev e l opment ,
u s u s et
end.s
in the
man ' s cho i c e , e xpre s s ed in
appre c iat i on or c ontempt , ' be c ome s
mP.l"l t .
.
rnain fac tor of develo!l
i n the d e s c r ipt i on of rJ:::-.n 1 s
with a ra t h e r amb t r:u ou s c l i max :
imni grae s irnu l e xperi ent in ment i s
p8_,, lat im doCl.l i t pe<'ietempt i m proF;re d i ent i s .
s i c unum qu i cqu id. priu l at im protrah j t aeta s
in m e d i u m rat i oque in lum in i s e r i. �i t ora s ;
nrtmque a l id e x a l i o c lare s c e re cord e v i debant ,
a. r t i bu s a.d s u m mum don e e venere cacumen .
( 5 , 1452-7 )
The d i ff i cu l t y of h ow to int erpret
t l v e ly ,
a s hi s t or i cal ful f ilment of
11 cacumen11 ,
t he
e i t h e r pos i
m
deve lop ent o f human
�lA
nature
( cf .
J , 3 1 9 - ?. 2) , or ne�n t lvn ly , as
noint b �twAen p.;rowt h anit decay •
.
natural tu rn i nr.:
inrt i c at e s the ii i fferenc�
in evaluat i on of t i m e , wh ethe r nature as a wh ole ,
wi thin natur� iR concerned .
nature
t i on of a
r;:tther lat e stage in the
t n�r l l i c l i fe . ( 5 ,
1 379- 1415 ) ,
t i on s from the d e s cript ion
1 1 fe
The fact tha t
( 2 , 1 -hl )
'·
surr.�ests
development
or hum;1n
.thf) des crip
of man , . th�
contai n s word for �orord
rep� t i
of the ep! curel\11. att i tu d e t ol-mrd s
how important t i me and · h i s t o r i ca l
o eve lopment of. hu mnn nat ure are for th� . ach i evP.ment of t h e
T h e - wi s dom ,
h i c!:he � t · w1srl.om .
acqui red ove r a lon� s pac e of
time , from pr1m1 t i ve man t o �pi curu n ( .5 ,
t o cons i s t in a more and.
natu re and.
human
na t ur e
cosmns ,
as world ,
la'<T nnd
randomnes s .
�rtf.lbles
him
1 1-fA "
w i th in nature :
int e l l i p: i ble
Rhown
as
With the pas sin!'_; of
chaoti c environment , bu t
in c au s e ::: ann
eff e c t s ,
in
Man 1 s experience w i t h nat u re not only
to cont rol ann
( cf . 5 , 19 5-234 ) , but
�t !!tnff inl': of h imself and
on h i s cont rol
is
more art i ctJlat e un<'l erf}t;andinp; of
t im e , nature appears not any more
A.s
92 5-:-1L�57) �
change na tu r e " for the sn ke
of.
als o re f l e c t s btick on h :\. s unn er
h i s rel::tt l on
to other
men ,
that t s ,
a.nn chan�e of human nnt u re . wi t h in nn.ture . ll
. ..
.
.
.
r. ontr-ol �n� chnn o:-e of nat 1 1 re an, human natur� l'li t h 'i :n nA.tl l re
1 � � · h ol'r�v�r- , not thP. �a.m0. tl s t}le mnre. rnon ern. 11 0.on'}u e s t o r
n nt:m"e 11 •
� onqu 0 s t of :n.1lb.tl)'e , a s , for i n r.: tnnc e , P . B�.�o:n en.
vi � i ons i t , . � �pe!1.fk:: on the 11 closer and purer l e�r:ue betHP en
th e s r:> tNo f:=tcu lt.i� s , the �x-perl ment�.l 11nn the ra t. i o:nn.l ( �nch
rH" h�.s r.. � ver- ye t ber-m mn.cte ' � ( Nov . Orp; . ,, . 1 , !\ph . 9 5 ) ; " For
thP m"'.t t. Ar i:n hn-no. l s no m(!re . f� l :t c i ty of f:: peou l r-1 t t on ; hnt
t.,P r"I"}A 1 hn s i r.. � � � o:n o fortunes · of the hvmA.n ra ce , Rnt1. :1. 1 1.
nnw�r of opel"::l.t i on .
For mA.n 1 ::: hut the ::l � rvRnt .9.nc' t int ·'! r -
pr-�t.P.T' ' or nature : \'lhat he <'t oe s and wh at he 1qlows i s . on l y
'IITl-t � t h e hns obs erved o.f n�ture 1 s ord e r i n fl)ct o r i n th nn,o;h t ;
.
11
·
�l <)
1,
( cr.
rf:'ll i": on ,
n
P.mnh � � t s· on
reveal s
n:tb t�A
in the i r
mot 1 (\n
t h r m H th
of P;rmr t h ,
ha s
or
" hum:tn
ra l l s
the diffe renc� bo tNe en nature and h u man
re spec� ive
t h f.'
s t ab i l i t y
In hnman natu't"e , man , hnv l n r::
law s of a l l compound bod i e s ,
On the
only ha s t o c h oo s e the
mnt t n r in
" conveni ent m ovemen t s , "
mAtnr it;y anrl d e cay .
under
In nature ,
d e v e l opment :
space effects
l aws o f. p:rowth and d e cay .
h f'.'! not
" human minrl "
in an.<'U t i on t o hl l m:tn ac t i on an d t i me , a s prin c l pl � �
o f ch �.l, r�o ,
hot1 :v ,
The
119-22 ) .
o t h e r hann .
s t eps
that i s
the
hav i ng rea s on ,
of h i s growth , but he
t o f ind l i m i t s , . f o r bod. i ly as 't're l l a s
a
s p i. r i t ual need s ,
i t s whi ch w i l l ke e p h im w i t h i n " c onveni en t �ovement s , "
al�y
l i m
that i s
b0.yont1. th 1 � h e knows not h ing ann can d o not h i n.� .
For the chn in
of f'!:l 1 J s e s cB.nn ot. hy any f o r c e he l o o s en or hrol�cn , nor c:tn
nR: t H re be c omman cl ed excn pt by be inr,: obeyed .
fl.nd s o t h o s e tl;Tin
oh j r> ct. � , hu man l<nowl ed �e and humR-n '!'JOWe r , n o rea l ly meet in one ;
nnn i t i s froM i .o:n oran c e of c:J.u s e s that opern t i on fai l s " ( �rov .
Or� . , D i s t r i b . Op . , s ect . 6 ) .
n r mean i t t o be a h i s t ory not
on l �r of' n FJ.ture f'ree and at larr,e ( t'lhen she i s left to h r� r mm
cour � e and n oe s h e r wo rk her own Nay ) . .
hut much more o f n2.
tnrP. 1. m n er con s t ra int ancl v e xed ; that i s t o say , �rh en hy r-trt
r-tno t ho hnnil. o f man she i s forced out o f her natura.l s t a t � ,
A.nrl s qu l". ezen a11d. m oulr'l en: " Orov . Orp: . , D i s tr th . Op . , s e c t . 3 ,
c f . 1 , A nh ' s • 1 -11- ) ; " On a r: i v en horly , to g-enP-ra t e and s n ne -r i n
d H ce. ::t n eN nature or ne1'1 natu.res · l s t he Nork R-nd n. i m of h' lfTl"l.n
'V'�'""' r .
O f r3. rd ven nat1 1 re t o n t ::>r�over t h e f o rm , t h e tru " � m� c i
f i c r'l t -r r " rcn c e , or n1ltnre - en�en n e r ing n n t u re , o r � O'Jrc0 of
P.JT!:).n�.t. l on , . . . is t h e work ann a i m of humf.J.n 1m<nT l e n p.:c '' ( N ov . Orr; .
?. , A nl-l . l ) .
T h ou ,�h BA con qu ot A s Lucre t :t u s ' pra i s e of Epi <'l l T'U S a s
rl:l � cove re r o f t h e n�. tu re of t h i n�:1 ( N ov . Orr; . , 1 , A ph . 1 ?. 9 ) ,
ann t hour:h Lu c re t in s speaks , in t h e Rccotm t of mr:tn 1 s d evf'lop
mcn t. , of t h 0 co opera t t o:n of 11 p�a c t i c e anrl th e oxne r t en c r.l of t: h e
�n rrPr m i nr:'! 11 ( 5 , l?ln-AO ; anrt m y Dis s . , op . c i t . , pp . 111�- R ) �
h e l'TOn l n never , l i. ke Ba con , s p�ak o f man ' s " end cnvor t o " S t n-hl i sh
�net exb�11n t h � pm-;cr f\nd dom i. n i. on o f the humnn r.1. c e 1. t s b 1 f over
th� nn j vr> r :< r " ( il ov . Or.r; . , . 1 , A :oh . 1 ?9 ) .
i
Bn. � on • s v 1 G i on of t h P.
11 f" r.'ln 1 'Y'� of ma 1 1 ov e r thinr;r: " ( Nov . Orr: . � T , 1\ nh . 1 2 9 ) rr s t � m:
t r. r-- �nnnor d. t i on that he hil s 11 ri s tn.b l i. :.hen forever a t ru e · .<: n•l
ln.,·r fn l Pl.., rr i F! p;r:> br> bm en the emp l r t c::J. l 1lnd t h e ra t 1 ona l fn c. 1 .1 1 ty ,
t: h 0 1 m 1 d nil nnd i 11-s tn.rred c'U vorc e and S "'! TJ."l. r(l t i on of '•Th i ch h : � �
t h rrwm tnto c on f1 1 R i on :o�. lJ. t h e affn. i P :_:! o f th8 h1.lm� n fa1'1 i. 1;r " ..
( �! rw . Oro; . , In s t �n t . r1ar;nn. , PrP. f :; ; cf . 1 , .ll. ph .· 9 5 ; cf L . �,-;:P.P') ,
.'�. n i. � t rorlu ct l on t o the pol i t i cn. l pl1 i l o s ophy of F . Bacon , D t � r: . �
C11 1 c-=trr,o 1957 , ch � 7 , The C on que s t of •Nn.tu re ) .
·
.
.
�,., ; t'1 i n
{ cf .
th� frrmc1-ror.-k o f
hu mn.n
· 5 , J.ltJ0- 5 ; 2 , 1 -6-1 ) �
�ur·u � ,
ove r the o l ii
i.tr,
fn l f 1 1rrtc.n t
t h e pr:J z c l>Th i ch e l cvat n s !\pi
is
( r!f . - 1 , 6 ?. -?9 ; 3 ,
t h e new r:od of culture
ft , 1. -lr.? ) ,
in
Th i s wi sdom ' t o lmm-1 t h n. l i m i t :.
nnt\1rc
!lnpropr l ::t t � for · man 1 r.
ri.ntnro
r:o<'l s , C�res �
on l �,r d cn.lt w i t h bod i ly nn cd s
( 5,
Rncchu8 rmrl
1�3 0 ; 5 , 1-90 ;
Pcrculc � ,
Nh o
To l�ON t h e l l m :t t �
· 1- 51� ) .
annrorrr :J n. t P. f or humn.n nat u re m ean� t o know the 1 i m t t s for c on
t r o l l tr1 � rino
�1-,n.nr:inp;
l'lA. ture and nn.ture as
.
pro s pe c t
The
?4 ;
2,
. e sn .
in book
re s pe c t
sake o f 1 1 fe , "
both
hu man
a : l>lh.o l e . ·
..
of the death
of human nat u re
refle c t
than w i th
" f or the
ll J l -2 ), wh i.ch will
d eve l opment
mak� man
nature
,
Of
t
our na u ral world
set an
en
d
( 2 , 1105-
t o nny h i s t o r i c<t l
whether pos i t i �e or ner;at i vc , l 2
on t i me more w i t h respect. · t o
to the l i fe o f . mank i nd .
his
ot-m l i fe
A s Lucre t ius
c la i ms
t hree :
i l lud. in h i s rebu s v i de o f irrriare pot e s se ,
usqw� a<'leo naturarum ve s t i p;ia l inqu i
nP.rvola , quae nequ eHt rat j_ o dene ll e re n ob i. s ,
l � t n ih i l i npf'?rl_ i at d i p:na m n. i s n e r;ere v i tam .
( J ; 3 19 -22 )
1? � �1-- olarr-: wi cl e l y d t. s a.c:r:rne about the po� t t i v e
0 1� rt e ,n:n t i v 0.
evn. l n at i on o f man ' s h i � t or i c a l d ev P. l opmr.m t hy t; h 0 F:})lc11 rr�an s .
l!f" l th (:' J"' t h e s i mply
n iUJi'FB TDA , I l f i!Ja] e 0 0 ]
V l ihro el i J,l l cr�z l o , F.pi cu ren in mP m . H . B i P'norJn , GP.novn. 1 0 .� 9 ,
1 ?�"Ll r)5 ; 'P . I<'LT�Tf1.'Jt;;R , Ph i l o s onh :l P. und J) i c h t Jmn s t �.m !�nn e 0 P. s 2 .
P.u ch � s n � s
80 , J 9 52 , J�Jl ; I. .,R 0'!3 TN , S u r ln
c ol1.c0'!"lt 1
e p1.curvmn� nn
R evue d e m�Jtap�y s iqu P. � t
�o��l e , 2 1 , 1 9 16 ,
n o� t h e �imply
r'r'T�;\l T . T.<1. m orale n 1 'En i cure et s e s r.q nnort s n.ve c . l e s r! oc t r i ne s
�O.Ylt 0l"lnQrninc s , Par i s 192 7 )
v i eN
fi o j'u s t :t c e t o t h e
e n 1 �nrean al>rarene s s .of th e prqbl emat i c char::1.c i;( er o f humar-.
11 T) r- n n-re r.; s " .
A.nprecJat i on or both a s pe ct s , pe s s i m i s t i c nr.n
ont 1 m i s i t c ( F . f1. IAfi.! COTT I , L 1 ott im1 s mo re la.t t v o ne l 11 l)e re rum
natura '' rl.i Ln �rez i o , Tortno 1960 ; R . MONDOL:PO , La c omprens i on e
<h� l s ol"p:e t t o umano nell 1 ant i chita c la s s i ca , Fi renz e , 19 58 ; my
D i s s . , on . c it . , pp . l Jl-9 ) , s e em s to c om e closest to the t ruth .
p� ss l m ir: t i c ( P.
on
�u;rez ! Hermes ,
.
pror:r??� ,
6�7-719 ) ,
opt 1 m i st i c ( � . � .
seems t o
An
�.
Tn �
on�
nP!"l.th .
t h in:� t h �
Th e
·
r:.oo :::
.
ano
at om s ,
bool< �
cosm of worlds ,
.
fou �,
i�
t i mo ::m �
th e books n.hou t
t wo , the boolm ab ou t thA m i r, ro�o�m
one ann.
f i ve nnd s i x ,
t he books ahou t
the
s h O\'l'S mn.n ' s s pe c ial po $ i t i n w i h in
o
t
mR.r.�o
thP.:
sum
be in� i n t h e c n e r betwe en m i cro c os m and macroco s m ,
e t
o f th in�s :
h P.
are n ot conc nrn cd. abou t
por, i t i on o b oo k s three and
f
T.0-n , hP-b·mcn b oks
o
of
'
i s :::tt t h e same t i m e part
of the cyc l e of t i me and nature and.
Mf!:tt 1 s
able t o detach h i m s e l f from i t o acc unt of h i s ' rea s on .
n
o
m i nd and. s ou l enable h i m t o be a
ware of t i me ,
tl.:l e mAa su rable as p c o nature .
e t
f
.
.
role wi tl1 in tJ aturA ,
A \'r.;lre
t o be awa re of
of nature and t 1me 1 s
man becom e s aware of death ,
more so t h :1.n
sJn,ce . the end t o t h e fulfi lment of hum�n nat u re
of ; pir .tl ,
t
m ore s i � i f i cant than the beginning of i t s prom i s e .
is
The ex
hortat i on o person i f i ed nat u r e t
f
o overc m t he fear of de a t h ,
oe
in t h e Fin l o h ok three ,
ae
f o
in mo re gen r l t e rms ,
e a
f
ea of t h e
r
e xh rtat i n t ov e rcome t h
o
o
o
e
the P.n�. o . mo i on .
f
t
pl i c i tly ,
means ,
book abou t m t i n and r s ,
o o
e t
end of t ime ,
The Proo m ium of b o t w ,
e
ok
o
im
the
pra i s ed the task of the epi curean
ph i l osohe r to gain res o er m t i on t h roug
p
t
v
o
h
enabl in� h i m
and ,
the power of � ind ,
t o evaluat e t h e needs of body and m ind ,
an d . t here
fore t
o set
l i m i t s for h i m s e l f in a cr. ord ance wi th human nature
( 2 , 1-61 ) .
Th e f ct t ha
a
t b ok thr
o
ee e xpla in st h e na ure
t
mind and
one , at
s oul
in
in mot i on th rour,h
t e rm s of bod i e s
lea� , wond r abmlt
t
e
r:a i.n r e s t o e r m ot i on and t
v
the
chance s
h e l"e fore
tm•rard s t im e w i c h w uld rend.e r i
h
o
t
l i fe RS · i t appears t o be ' � 6r ihe
the � 1 nale of b o t re e, nat u re ,
ok h
t h e nnc han�eab le aspect o f
v oid ,
of t h e m i nd ,
tot ake on
make s
ever t o
an at t i tude
as ne,g l i t�ible for one
i i fe
o f
'3 1_nr:le
of t he sum of t h i � g s .
In
a lways pre s ent and repre s �n t i n
being , t r i e s · t o
c onvince man ,
that
�t lM� ,
n l1 r
1
n�vel"' pre s ent , n e t ther a s
wholP.
n6t- i n i t r::
r�:nrP- s �n t inr: th� c han,n;enbl� aspe c t of.
n � .�u. �i.bl� a.s fl\r
as
humAn life i s .
ncc io.ent of mat ter .
a c'c l �.ent
of
in
fo rc e of t i me ,
t i. m e :
man
means that
the poet i c me taphors
and. s pa c e. of t tme ,
m ot i on of. t i m e ,
chan �in� th e nature of the wh ol e · 1'10rld 11
a l t erin[",' a l l thi ngs "
on
are there fore not
the same leve l , but one ,
,
An
.1 n
or fina l ly •
to he reihtcP.d t o i t s ph i l o s oph ical d efini t 1 on .
"'T'imP.
In oth ':! r \•roro r-:
t hRt t i me i s on ly
mot i on throu r:h space ;
Thi s
nature .
ap:oearnnc e s , i r:
c.onc o rn ed .
p(!T'S On i f i. � d nn.t u rc tr1. e s t o C OnV 1. riCC
p:1.r t � ,
of
are
( 1 , 1�59 - 6 ) ) .
r.m d " nature
int erchan �eable
terms
subsumed under t h e o t h e r ,
t ime ,
n.:
"l.ture .
rm tnt en i m mund i nnttir::t!'l t ot iu s a r:> t n s
�l i oque n l i u s st�tus exc i n�re omn ia d ehf:'t
" "=' � !TI�ne t ulla s11 i s im tl i s r0 � :
omn i a n i rrr�nt ,
ornni � c o!"!m1.1 tr:1.t nat u r-A- ,_t vert ,qyoe C O '"': i.t .
n ,.rnqn e A.l. 1 uo pn t rP,:;ctt et nevn �.e'!J i l e l:1r:�uet ,
110""1"'0 �.l i n n ( mw ) c r0 � c i t e t ( f) ) cont 0mpt i.bu s e xi t .
s i c i r: i tnr mnnn. i n a tu rn.m t ot i u � a.ot �. s
� , tRt , et e x al to t nrram statu s c xc 1 p i t n lt e r ,
r:J.n on . notn i t :n equeat , po s s tt quod n on t n J ; t :1.n t e .
��
( 5 , 82A-Jh )
� tm n �.rl. �r
to
th� s;rmme t-r-y of
it 1. r. cn s s :J. on About
a1
s hane of at oms \Ora �
t. Ari n � al l th 1 nr:;s "
�'1 , ' "· 1 1 �r
�ff�cted. hy
n n"'l�n t rl. t nn.tu r� "
111"! -r . p . 9 above .
book b-To 13
i � framed by
both .
( 831
in
,
Nhel"A
th e c �� t :r."1 l
rmrroundnd
by t h e d i t:l -
f':hf' ll � c ount of " t i m f' ehn.n-
'T'he c �ntr::t l pos i t i o� of " om11 l::1
R?.8-36 )
..
.
.
.
ann. the comprehr-m s i ve
-
ch.'!racte
�' '1
nn '!':nr1 r1 t ot 1 n � "
·.
·R 1·l ,... '"" '"' f-! t
" mntat rm 1. m mnnrH nA.t1 1 r'1.m t ot i u r: n e t :"l � "
1.n
hm·rP.v0.Y. , thn.t t t m e :t s on ly
1
the appn.rrmt ,
!' 1 '11"l. l l;r �11 rn·m ln the c ent er of Ln oret :i.ur: 1
of
nn.turc ,
t;h l') :ro�t .
t. r.inmph of Prooerr: ium fou r
t � felt e1ven r.torc i f -one i s aNa.re of i t s
H i T.lDO l :Jrto:::
( 73-87 ) .
th e po s s e s s i on of
th!'YJ
There ,
H t ppol�r t o s ,
fi"UJ 'feo 5'0 v'?
by t each inP;:l. l-1- , . reveled
f l m·rers
to Artemi s ,
v i oJ..qt e TTlead.m'l ,
snr i :n o:t i me
wat e red
bee . l5
hy·
A ! dos
F:u r i p i d e t 1
fancJ'i n,o;
h i mGe l f in
vers i on of the
and 1 ov.c s
own brow .
Ln cre t ius and t h e Mu s e s ,
na ture ra ther
a
l<Treath of
or ,
been
2 1 -7 ) .
an
i. n
i ma�c ,
the
poet ,
l ov e s t o approac:h rm<t
to
pluck fl ovre rs and
to
Th e re lat i on of H i p:pol;rt o s
a l t ered t o
th e re lat i on o f
more poignant ly ,
of t 'l1 e poet and ,;enu s , . the eond.e s s over h i s
l h'P or
_by
and v :l. s i ted only by the
of t h e Hus e � ,
nnd h i s �odd e s s A rt em i s h a s
( 1,
9 2 1 � 50 )
s ou rce ,
a pos s e s s ion
In Lucre t ius '
wreath for h i s
of th in rr,s "
] ,
( cf.
in h i s ded.:i. cat i on of
t o o r inl{ from virr; i n s prin�s ,
::\
,
t: h 0. d� t fj cn.t i on
fl m-rers wh ich were plu cked from
t ravers ing path le s s f l e ld s
B e ek
t h P. pP.r::: nn i. f t r:�
aYJn. t h � Pro o�?.mium of book fon r ,
'J'hP.
hu t. t h.1. t
11 ])0 rern m n"'.t u r.., " ,
tn th e h'1 lancr> of the Ti' i n:l] e of book t h rP. e ,
t i on of'
1
The fa ct that
t o t h e re lat i on
poem 11 0n the nature
th e wrent h ,
h mt�ever ,
is
tud�r o f t h P. ph i l o s op'-1 ical i mpJ. i cat i ons of t h i s key
c f . m;r '' N ..,mos n.:n rl Phys i s " , An tnt: erpretnt i on of
l\u r i nide s 1 H i nnolyt os , HerM e s , · 1 0 1 , 1973 , 16 5-87 .
n
nrt� s 8. �('} ,
�
1 .5Por
n · c omprehens l ve int e rpretat i on of th i s pa s sa .o;e , 0 s pe c i a l l �
1.t � s�rmhol ,_ oal mean in� , cf . C . S EGA L , T h e Tra.n:P.n y o f th e H inno
lyt os ; 'l"he \>Ta t ers of Ocean and the Unt ou ch ed M eati m'l , HS C P , 70 ,
196 5 ; 11 7-69 .
�ne i ther ror th� Mn � � � n or VP.nu s ,
has � miv�th in� t o · <lo ·
ldth
bn t for- tt:te poe t h i m!=:elf ,
·
h i s pos s e s s i on of a t cach in�: , . a
tea�li 1. n.rr, n ot only about Venus ,· but about Venu s _ and Mars ,
two -rm-rers repre s entat ive of creat i on and d e s t ru c t i on ,
t or;eth<"r ,
forin the wh o l e of " the nature of" th ingr-f. "
0mpnas t � on
t eac h inP," as r e a s on for
1. J ln� tri ou s wreat h
that
csw 'f_eoGJ v-, ,
t i on i s evem s tronp;e:r s i pc e Lucret iu s •
.. '
" th e whole natu�e of · th inn;-s • .
i s a r:ift by
. Th i s oppos i
t eac}'l ing cla i ms t o be
The
i mar;e of_ th e
v is i t ed by the sprinp;t im� bee ,
lat e meaclo1>r ,
The
_
seekinr: thn
nat u re ra t he r thA.n A.n Ftch i eventent by t each l ne .
a.bont
the noet speaks of h i m s e l f and h i s l i s t eners as
·; ·
There ,
" be e s
flmt�ery �lade s , feedirtg on · all thy gold�n l'IOrds " ,
( 3 , 9-1 7 ) .
pas sar�e s ,
Hlppo l y t o s and the
r,uc:re t i u s 1
" De rerum natura " ,
in th�
a t eachine ,
cons idered worthy of eternal · l i fe
one from Eu r ipide s '
inv i o-
in the
i s u s ed
_
Pro oemlnm of book three l�i th reference to Epicuru s .
the
\·rh i ch ,
1 s d iamet r i cally oppos ed. to the Eu:r t p i rl ean
v i el..r t hat v i rtue ,
H ippoly t os '
the po e t ' s
the
Thour:h the tNo
one
from
s eem t o s tat e oppo s i t e vi et'ls ,
the
out c ome of the Euripidean play pro ve s H ippolyt os ' v i ew to be
at leA.st insuff i c i ent , if not fal s e .
The s t ronr;es t conclu s i on
t o he d ral'm from ·the play would. he that man can hav e no meaning·
ful relat i on wi t h · the divine ,
a conclu s i on wh ich l eads more or
l e s s d i rec t ly t o Lucre t iu� •· pr id e in
from t h P. t i r:h t knot s of ro l i p; i on"
T n the
o f " D� rP.rum
Prooemium . �'f
nat ur� "
as
b oo k . one ,
well
fr e e .i np; the minds of men
6-7).
t h e ber;innin� of · the 1>1h o l e
a s t he bep;i nn ing· o f i ts first .
half , V�nus was ha. f ed as r.;odd.e s s
i
(4,
"
f"OVerninr; nature , ·
( orit.P.rinr: the sacri f i ce of Iph igene i� oy Agamemnon )
P.xampl� for re l igi on and i t s act s aga in s t na ture
whi l e
Di <lha
s t ood a s
( 1 , 62-79 ) .
�Jn
t h � P1"" o oem i u m
hn l f of
of hpok
r mir ,
"De r�rum n n t. n rn " ,
D i ann ;
t. n f" pn. r; s .<:t p:P. f r om Eu r 1 p i r=J e s '
ani'. v t rtne , as a r: i ft ,
�:n n.chi nvement ,
( 3 , 1 '3 )
t in s ,
is
by n.a t u re ,
s e c on r'!
.
in t h e trrln s f ormnt ton of
H i p:polyt o s ,
b y t ea c h i n r,- .
t. h ou r:h t o f Ji:pi curu s 1
t h 0 bc n: inn tnp: o f t h e
is r8 j e c t c n.
for V nn,,H3 ,
i s ne � l e c t c d f or v i r tue ,. · R. s
Th i s ,
.i n turn ,
mean s that
t e a c h i n r: be tnr: w o r t hy o f e t ern a l
of fame
c ont i nu e r'!. by the . e xpec tR.t i on
of h oney . l 6
surround inp.;-
Th e pra i s e
of
the cu:r
l i fe
for Lu cre
\'rho t rans f orm ed th� ph i l o s oph i ca l t e a ch i n � in t o
n o P t i c t eRchinp; ,
the
a
wormwood vrit h a t ou c h
of
t eachin,o; r.:lt h e r than
riF.t t u r e
as
s ou rcP. of v irtue l 0. ave s on e l'li t h t h e qu e s t i on whe t her nat u re ,
i n� i f fe ren t
to
he
t oward s man and t he fulf i l lment of h i s l i fe , i s
m e r e l y s tud i e·rt. or whe ther man
nn � 1 re f or the sake of l i fe "
is
suppos ed
( 5 , 206 -9 ) .
t o " re s i s t
The Prooemium
of
book tNo , t h e book about m ot i on a.nd. r e s t , bef, l n s \'Ti t h a c on .:.
s i d e rat i on of the
life
S l•Te etn e s s . o f · wa t c h i n� the r� s t le s sne s s
cau s ed by e lemen t s
of nature ( th e
s h i pNre c k )
of
and h umo!ln
l f'1tn th r0 s pe c t t o t h e re lat i on b e h 1ceri t h e p.'ls sar:,e of Eu r- i p j de s I
H inno1yt os ( 73 - 8 7 ) a nd t h e two oc currence s of t h e s n m e t h nmn
' " D e rn :rum na t urrt11 { 1
9 2 1 - 50 ; h , 1 - 2 5 ) , I \-;ouJ/l
· i n I.n0r e t iu s
SUf"!"'0 S t th.<tt t h e f i r r: t h R l f .( 7 3 - 8 1 � of tho Eur i pi n E"'an pa � s n r,A
i s t r0.n t 0t1 i n the f i r s t Luc r e t ian ver r; i o·n ( 1 , 9 2 1 - 5 0 ) , ��h U 0
t 'I1 P. s 0 c ond ha l f ( 82 - 7 ) of i t i s fl ea 1 t \·r i t h , '11-Tl11:�:n i t o c cu r s t h e
r: '::' c onr'i t i me ( 1�- , 1 - ? 5 ) .
The re<t s on for t h i s dJ s t r l bu t l on c n n
he fonnfl t n the m o r e t h e ore t i c:l l a s pe c t of Eu :r i p i d A S ' H i pp o l y
t, , s , 7 J - R 1 r-t�1r. T..ucr0 t iu s 1 " De re rum nat1 1 rn." ; 1 , 9? 1 - ) 0 ( " :1 u �
TJP. l" :-: n � � i s or.Jn P m l1 n t u rr:tm rr:•rnm ft1 18. c on s t n t �� omptn f i r:urn " ,
1 , Ohf1-_50 ) , .'1 nrl t r e m o r e p�act t c:'l. l a s pe c t o f Eu r i 1) i o e s 1 H i p:;o 1 y
t 0� , P2 - 7 , ann. Lucre t i u s ' " D n rerum nat u ra " , 1r. , 1 - 2 5 ( " d urn }!Pr
.
s '8 i ci s omnr>m nn t nrnm r.e r1.1 m a c percn t i s u t i l i tn. t em " , l� , ? lt - 5 ) .
('. f . my " �J o n o s and Phys i s " , o:p . c1 t . , 165-9 : for t h e s i r;n i. f t �.'"l n c c
o f t'l1r-- c on t o x t f or the d l f f e renc e o f t h e . tNo Lu c rc t i an p:1. ::: ; :1.r/� S ,
c f . r. . S TRAUSS , tT o t e s on Lu c r e t i u s , Liberal i sm Anc i ent and JV' nf!. .
. .
� rn . rr��·T York , 196 8 , p .
113 .
�?. (
nn tnr0.
( �h � ·nn t t l� ) ,
''lh i l e <me n e l f
'T'h c � n t r:h t of swcetne � s ,
t P. � ch 1 n� of Fp i curn s
t"J ou�h ,
rA �t ( ? , 1 - f> ) .
i r: a t
i s :l�h i �v0.r'!. t 1-tr 0n rrh th �
( ?. , 7 - 19 ) , throu r-:h t h e t � <t �h i n;"': "l.hnn t::
t h e nrtturo of t h i n.n:r: , wh i ch wl l l re � cu0 on� fr0m thP. r � :� t
l � r: s n ('> s s of hum:::tn
l i fe
in :::t l l i t r: v :.\r i ou s wny r. .
whnther nA.ture i s
only t o he c6nt empln t e r1 or fo1 1 rr,h t fir;n. t n � t
for t he s ::tke o f l i fe i s never openly answered
" De rl"rum n!itnra " . ·
T he fact
to a c1 tp of wormwood whi ch
rv aronnci
t he
.
.
The
·.
f':Oes throu�h
On a. smaller s oa l e ,
s c riJ')t i on o f l i fe ,
n
�rt
of first
the des cript i on of
the
.
work .
l i fe ,
' bookn ,
has
eve ryt h i n� wort h l iv ing for ,
of
it .
and th e swe et Prooem iw
has
in
i t s c nunt er
the d e s cr i pt i on of the
fr om _ me re l i f e to thn h i r;l"
T h e fact that the c enter of the s i x
t h e t op;et h e rne s s of the F i nale of book three and t h e
l..e t s
R. r t e l' t h � h i t t er wormwood ,
o f cleath ,
thre e ,
c ount er�
i t s coun t e rpa.r t i n the bi t t e r F ina le
d e s cript i on of the h i ghfl st ach i evem ent
Pr ooP.miurn o f book four ,
sweP-t .
has i t s
sw� P.t
the sweet Prooemium of book one , . the rl e
i n the b i t ter F inale of book s i x ,
. est 'rle vel opment
The
of book s i x , . th e de s cr i pt i on of o. cath
the t ea ch in� about t h e nature o f t h in�s ,
ru in of
l i k cn�o
honey and t h en
whol e of Lu cre t iu s •
the d e s c r i pt i on of d ea th ,
of book three ,
l i fe ,
i�
'
Finale
in the b i t t e r
of book fou r ,
t h e t ea chinr,-
Sl-Te et ened. hy th e honey of pn� t .,
s equence
the
:Prooemium of book ona ,
Pr- �t
'l
is
i n Lu crct i n n 1
cup ' s r i m ·ve i l s t he anst'ler even more t han t h e ;
T>ros e t each inp- �. id .
wormwooo
that
Thf"! rtn , � t t nn
u s tas t e ,
fo.r once ,
m i �h t mean tha t even the hi t t n rn c s s
i f und e r s t ooci i n epi curean: t e rm s ,
The
t h e sNect h on ;::
can b e c ons i n ered
:·
themat.-ic ... ; s.equence of death , _ in the. F i nale o f book
�.
.
.
.
and fam e ,
•'
-��
.�
in the P·rooerpium of .book four ,
s e em s
to ref l e
�nnt. onl y th� n e c � s n r-try c m1n n c t 1 on of nnt u re nncl t 1.me ,
wh t �h
1 � a lwtys thP. . same
wh t ch i s al\.,a.y s d i fferent
th e
importan� � of
of t i me ,
ne R s
( anr't r� fers t o the p::t. s t ) ,
( and
r e fe r s
nnrl
t o t h e .future ) ,
t ime . oyer aml aga in s t na tu re .
of trH 1 t
t h n t.
bu t a l s o
Mnn • s awlr P-
w t t h ont t h e awarene s s . of nature , . d. 1 s t ort s h l s
v i eN of t h e r e lat i on o f m o t i on and re s t wi t h in t h e sum of
th in�s .
hr-mo ,
Mnn ' s awarene s s anci eva luat i on of t i m e ,
c on s t i t ut e s his
cruc 1.al n ot
the wh o l e ,
ano
m-1arene s s
on t h e other
o f natur.e , · and i s t h ere fore
only for h i s und e rs t and int:r, of h i m s e l f a s part
but a l s o o f t h e wh o l e
the poet ' s v o i c e
mark ' the
i t s elf .
T h e fa ct
c ent er of Lu c re t i u s '
of
that na t u re ' s
work ,
bears
out the everlas t inp.: t en� i on between nat ure , . encompa s s in."; al l ,
and man ,
s t riving t o encompas s nature .
�2A
A pn�mc H x
rr rn'1. s lnt: t on s
�-
1:
p.
4:
p.
nn .
5:
5-6 :
1,
of the La-t 1. n
quotes :
4 59 - � 3 : -
'Rvr:m s o t i mP e x i s t s not by t t s e l f , hu t from .
t'h \n",s t 'l1 am s e lv � � come s a fe � 1 1 n f\ , '"hat w:1 s
hr-on r;ht t o a c l o:=:1 A i n t j me p� s t , then 't'rhat i. s
nr0f-l �nt · n m'l , a:n.n fu rther �rhat i s r,oi nr: t o be
And :\ t mn s t b e av owed. t ha t n o man
h �rPnft � r .
f � e l s t im� by 1t s P. l f n.p:1 rt from t he mot i on
an d qu i �t re s t. of t h i nr;s .
.'5 , .56-R :
I tPnch , hy \'rha.t ] �N all t h 1.np:s are cr()a. t A<'l ,
nnd how t he�,. mu s t n � �c1 s Abi fl.e by 1 t , ann how
th e;v are not s tron� e:non�h t o break t h rour:h
th� powerfu l st�tut A $ o� t i me .
1 , �32-��
Por inf in ite . t-i me :and . the day that has p;one by
f1l1J � t neefl s have d ev oured r-t l l t h i n.�s · that are of
mortal body . . . Bttt \'lhab:�ver ha s been i n .that s pace
::md r:on e by t i me , out of Nh 1. ch th i s sum of
th i. nr:s c on s i n t s anr'f. 1 s repl r.n i shed , is c ertainly
�n.fl owP-d w i th i mmortal natu l"t! .
5 , 306-17 :
o\ cr�.in , fl.o y ou not beh olfl s t rme s t o o vanqu i nh�fl
�;... t i me , h i .�h t ol'm rs fall in;:. in ru i n s , n.nfl rc ckn
crumhl tnr; m·m�"., �hri nes nn� i mn,-:e s of the [':O� s
�rm'li'1r.t; l'1'0nry rmfl. l-torn , \>Th i l e the i r s� crP d pr� s 0:n� r-
�.�.vm ot f'!'OJ o�.n:- t h P bou.nn a.Y"i. P. s o f fn.t: P. n or s t ru :r.c). t:
::�.�� l n � t +: r.e l m·m of nnt urP. ?
.1\ f"'r-t i n , n o 1·YA.
n0t � � n.
!1 t on � � t 0r-n • 1 p from h i r:;h mo� mt.ains ru � h 1 n,cr h�ac l on c: ,
1u1 .,ble t o br ook or b"'ar t h � s t ern s t.renr:th of a
J. i m l t: e� t l me ?
For· infl��rt t h ey l·:ou l C! n o t - b�r �urld �n l y
t 0Y"TJ n -p n11 r'f fa. l l h P. :J r'fJ on.� , i f frorn t i m e �ver1 a s t. i nr�
f:'he�,. h rvl he1 fl. 011t n;:n. i n s t a l l the t orm �nt s of" t i ��
Ni. th ou t l)r�"lkin� .
•
n.
h�
5 , R?.� -3� �
•
•
t. t m � ch�.n r:e s the n n t. n rf'! of t h e \'t]'lole l>�Ol"1 d
� ,... � on "' r. t::t t e � f t E' r :.:n nther m, , �t ,., r: � rl r. nvert.nlrP.
� 1 1 thin�!1 , nor fl. o� � a.n�rth tno: tlh i c1 P. l i 1rP. i t r- � l r :
n l 1 th i n r;s chn;n p-r t �1 .." i."r n h.':' � r> , '"t:t.tnre a 1 t o r rl f\ 1 1
·
th tnr':s r-tnn r.:rms t"rn tn � t h �:-:1 t o h.trn .
For on0 tl" � '\"":
�ob=: m·ray an" r:roNR f:=t. 1. , t r.Jna fe�ble ,,Ft th ::t.�� �
t herA on anoth �r .r;rm·rs up Rnrt i nsuC's f�orn :l. t p1n �c
of s c orn .
So th�n t j me chn� p:e !:l the nature of th e
r:- ."1 ,..
��··n o1 0 . ,.•n-r-1cl ,
n.n � . on 0 F: b") t. n. n f t. r .... f11"1 0t h � r rw ,- rtal-:· r> �
t. h (' r:-n.rth , r. o t.h. 'l t 1. t c q,.n1. ot h P � r nlv-. t i t ;, hl ,
hn t. c n n h�:lr Nh :1.t t t d i. cl n ot o f oln .
p.
5,
7:
5h-R :
J t: R !"! �h , h�r '!Arhn t 1 a.w { t h r.: };'3.\'T of nn.tn :r-0 ) � 1 1
+: h l n r-:s nrr� r.rr.::1te� , �ml h oN t h r.:y mu� t n r.r.: rl �
:'1h 1.� f." h�, i t , nn d h oN t h A y o.re n ot r-: t T' on r� r.non�h
t o hret:tk t l'rrov r:h t.h r JV'I�·rr.:rfn l r. tnb 1.t r r. o f t 1 :n e .
n.
?,
7:
� ? - 7� :
C i"'f.'� nr.M , T \'r 1 1 1 un f o 1 rl hy l!T}! n t r:l 0Vf"' Jnl"'rt t tr n
�"' r f."� t. 1 v � h o� 1 f"' r. of m�t t n T' hP�('t. � i v r r s R t h 1 n�r ,
n 11 r1 - hrenk u n t. h o !"l r- t h:1.t � r-e hr.[':ot t rm , h �.r N'l-) � t fnrr. r
t. h "" Y 'lrr (� m1 s t rr.1 i nf'� t o � o t h i s , rnvl \·rh nt '7 0 1 oc 1 t.:{
l s nn:no :i :ntP.n t h P m fm• mnv h 1,i; t h ron rr:h t h f' rn l r;n ty
vo1 � :
0 o �rou rcmn.rr:bnr t o ;r.l vr. yonr rrd.. n� t o my word r. .
Ti'C'r i n v�T'Y t ruth , mn.t t e r d. o e s not c 1 r�avl?' r. l 0s r.:
!')n.. �ln�d t o i t se l f , s in('r.: w� s c r. 0ach ' t h tn.r:. ):reM 1 P r.: s ,
nnn · l're pr:o:rce :\ ve a l l th il'l[':G f 1 oN n �·�':"l �r , n � i t l!TP. r c. , i n
t.h c l ontr lap n P. o f t. 1 me , a s a r:c N i. thil r:nrs th�=>m
from our s i r:h t :
rmn yet th� 1.m i vr;rsr: i!'l ::; r �?n t o
rAmA. in uml i m i n t s he n , j_ m.-l S Ml.t ch · o.n a l 1 hod i e s that
� Pprt.rt from Anyth inr; 1 f' P. S f'm t1·1a t f rom wh i ch t h �y
:pn � s ::n'lay , ann b1 e s r-: 1111 th tl'l.cre:l ci e t hat t o wh 1 ch
thP.y have come ; they c ons t ra i n t h A former t o �rmor
olCl. and t h e J at t er nr:a i n t o f l ourt s h , and yet th ey
nh i d e :n o t with i t .
Thus th e sum rif th i n �s i s �ver
be in!"'; repleni s h ed. , n.nn. m ortn 1 s l i ve on e and al1 bJr
r:o;ive- and tal::e .
S orne rac e s wax and others wane , and i n
n s h or t spa c e the t ri b e s of · l i v :t n � th inr:� are chan sed ;
�.nrl 1 i ke runners hanrt on the t orch of 1 i fe .
p.
n.
A:
2 , 297- 3 02 :
The hof! t e s of the f i rs t -be�inn :i.n?:s in t h e rJ.r,o s
prt s t mo\red Ni th the same mot i. on <i s noN , and h e re:tftP.r
't1i l l he borne for ever in a s i m t 1ar 't'lay ; such things
�s have berm l.'Tn!'lt to c ome t o be in.r.; td l 1 be hroup;h t to
b i rth u ncler the same cond i t i on , 1d ll exi s t and grow
ann be s tronr; , inasmuch as i s gran t ed t o each by t he
bond.s of nB. ture .
B:
1,
·
10?1-31 : .
'F'or in very t ru t h , not by d.e n 1 r;n o i n t h e f i r s t
h0.rr1 nn i n �� of th 'i 'Ylf: S place t h � m s 0 lv e s ench in
th e i r orrl.er wi th for� s e e inr; mi nn , nor ind e ed. d i d
t n �;r make r.om1x1 ct wha t . moveml3nt e a. ch � h ou l d
r> t n rt , hnt becau s e · m;:my of them s h i ft inr,: i n
mari.y way s thron.�;h ov t t h e v.rorld a re harri ed and
bu ffet ed by b 1 m·rs from l t mf t 1 e s s t ime ; by t ry ing
movements and un i ons - of every k ind , at las t
th e y fal l int o s uch d i spos i t ons a s thos e ,
�') 0
Nh�rP-hy ou r wor ld o f t h i nr:n i s � rcnt cn n. n � hoJ.d rr
. t o'"':�th �r .
Ann i t t o o , prc � c rven from hnrrn th rour;h
m.·1 ny ,. a m t n:hty cyc l e of yen ros , whrm on c P. i t h :'l s
hr!rm n<'lf:t i n t o. con vcn i rmt movernrm t ::t , hr 1 n�s 1 t
·"l ho1 t t thnt :rivers replen l sh the !';reP.it y s e a
-�
•
p.
10 :
•
•
5 , 43�-45 :
the b i rt h of thP. t•rorlcl } n s o rt of
fr� sh�form�d . � t orm , a ma � n r:at he re_d to�ethcr of
f t :r s t -be,..;i nninr:s of every ldnd , . wh oso d i s cord
\·1.1- n wn.r;tn.� ,.,�:r ani'! confound. i np; i nt e r - s pac e s , path s ,
tnterlr-t.c in.o;s , wP- i r:h t s , bl mu:: , mc e t inr;n , n'Yl.rl mo t i ons ,
hPcnn s e mdnr: to th e i r un1 1 ke forms A.nd varl ous
�hn.nP.s , al l thinp:s \'U�re unable to remain � n un i on ,
R � they do n ow , and t o �1ve an d rc ce ivP.· c onven i en t
movem�nt s .
'T'h'm ( at
pn .
10-11 :
p.
' 14 :
p.
'15 :
1. ,
' 322.;.8 :
IA � t-ly ,
whatevm" day Find n�ture -a � d � - t o th ings
1 :\ tt-le :by l i t tle , impe ll i nP: t h em _ t o P.;row. in
nn e proporti on , the s t ra inin � . s i eh t of the eye
c�Yl. never behold , nor a�a i n wh erever thin�s
f"'rO't� old. t hrou�h t ime and d.e cay .
N o r where rocks
OVP.r-hang.. the sea , devou red by th� th in �R.lt
spray , c
�u ld you see t..rhat they lose in t i me .
By
bod i e s uns een then nature t reats th inp.:s .
1 , 459-6 3 :
;F.ven s o t j_me . e xi s t s not by 1 t s e l f , · bu t
from th 1n�s themA elves co me s a fee ling ,
l>�hrtt llfa s brour;:ht to a c l o s e in t i.rn e pa s t ,
then what i s pre s ent now , and furt her what
Ana i t mu s t be
i s p;oinr: to be hereafter .
avo�red t hat no\'r mr.'ln fe e l s t l me by i t s e l f a
part from the m o t i on ann qu i et re s t of th ings .
2,
fi9�79 :
nerce i ve al l th in�s f l ol'r a1-1R y ,
1 n the l on .n: l�pse of t i me , <:'. S ar;e
'ole
t:t �
it
vrA re ,
tfi thn rr::n·r s t h eM
fr>om our a i 0:h t : · and y e t the univerAe i � s e en t o
rcm:::t in · ·und1 m i n.is'hP.n , inasmuch a s a l l bod i e s that
n �na:rt from A.nyth inr: , l e s �en that from Wh i ch t h r.>y
p.'-l s � aNay , ann ble s s ' w i th increase that t o wh i ch
t h ey have come ; t h ey cons t rn i. n the f o rm e r t o gr"0\'1
oln anfl th� l at t e r._ a�a in to flouri Ah , and �ret the�,r
::t h i_d e _ n ot wi th i t..
Thu� the m.tm of th ing-s i s p·1.r-�r
b0 1 n r: rcpl <m i shen anQ. mortal s l i ve one .nnd. all by
S om � - rac e s W<:tX and o t hers wane , and
�:tve anri _ take .
j_n a sh ort space the t ribe s of" l i v inr: thi ner; a.re
chan.r:;ed , anii l i ke runne-rs }land on the
t orch of- l ife .
_
�'3 1
p.
15 :
5 , 1� � - 1 00 :
B n t 0v �11 ,.r.'lrl t. h 1!": thn t: T V.n.:\•T n n t 1'Tl,.t t n rc
t � !" f l r� t. -1)�",f"': 1 '1n t n :'"':� of t h t n ,rr r: , t.h1.1 r: n1 .1 � 11 n t
l r·H:: t T \<'Y 01 1 1 r'f rlrl rr t o r� ff t rm fr0m t h 0. ,, r. r-:r
wn ',' S of h rnvnn , _ :'1n n t o shm·r from m�n�r o t h t"! r fnct �
th:'1t th(' \·mrl t'l ,m � T1 c v 0 r nn n f' f o r 1 1 r: h�r r.l i v 1 nc
n cn,r r. r :
!1 0 ·fT' rr>rtt hrc t h ,.. fan l t s Nh .: rnw i. t h
i. t r: t ::m r'l. r: f'nr'J motcl't .
T n t. h 0 f i rr: t !'l1 rt r. 0 , of
n 1 1 thf.lt the s l{y eovorc in j tr: mJ r:ht�r
m mr r. m Pn t , a f!T'Nlt P""-rt ts pos :1 e r: fl en by r;rc cdy
monnt a i n s n ncl fore s t s fu l l of \•t i l d bc::u� t s ,
-rn rt rocks and vns ty mn r s h c G hol n , nnd t h 0
s r-- ::t thn.t k0 c n s t h e sh nrc s o f i t s l nnn s f n. r
ap::t rt .
He l l - n i p.:h hto part s of t h e s e land s are
r obbed from m o rta l s by s c orch i nf.i heat , and
c on r: t r.m t l y- fal l inr, fro s t .
Ev en t h e lanr'l t hat
is l e ft , nn ture wou l d s t i l l cover wi t h brambl e s
by h er m•m pm>te r , bu t t ha t man • r: power r e s i s t s
fo r t h e s ake o f l i fe .
p.
16 :
5,
,
1 45 2 - 5 :
'Pra c t i � e and. th erewi th t h e e xpor1 cncP. of t h e
e:1r.;er m i nc'J taur:ht t h e m l i t t l e b y l t t t l e , a s th�y
went forNard s t ep hy s t e p .
S o , l i t t l e by l i t t le ,
t !. me brirf(i:s � out each -s�everaT -thi'h� lrit o · v l ew , a·nd.
r�a s on rat s e s i t up int o the c oa s t s of 1 1 e;ht .
-
p.
17 :
5,
127� - 80 :
5,
1452-7 :
Thu s ro l l i n� t ime chan�c s t h e t i m e s o f t h i n�s .
':That l'Ta s of . value , be c ome s i n t u rn . of n o 'IIT Orth ;
R.nr! t h en another t h 1 nr: ri s e s up r:md l eave s i t s
pl�ce of s corn , and i s s ow;ht m ore and more .
ea ch day , and when f ound bl os s om s i n t o fame ,
A!l.ri i s of wondrous h on ou r amon g men .
p.
17 :
'Prnct i ce rmd th erew i t h t h e 0.xpe r i en 0 e o f t h e
ea n;er m i nd t au �h t them l i tt l e by 1 i t t le , a s t h ey
l'Te'!1 t forwA-rd s t ep by s t e p .
S o , l i t t l e by l i t t l e ,
t :t mr?. br in!Ys out each s ev e ral th tne int o v i ew and
r�a. s on ra i s e s i_t up 1 n t o the c oFt s t s of l i.r:h t
For
t h e y saw one t h i nf{ a f t e r ano t h e r grow c l E!ar i n
t he l r h eart , unt i l by their art s t hey rea ched t he
.
h i g:he s t point .
p.
20 :
3,
3 19 -22 :
On e th in,:; I feel able t o aff i rm
s o sma l l rtre the
t ra c � s of d i fferent nature s l e ft , wh i ch r e as on c ou ld
not di s pel for u s , t ha t not h i ng h inders u s from
l i v in� a l i f e worthy of god s .
.
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.
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p.
22 :
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For t 1!11 P- chnnr;o s t h n nnture of the t'lh olc l·mrlr'L
ann .one s t.'lte · a f t " r ; m other mn s t needs ov� r tnkP.
nl l th in�s . nor d o c s anyth in� ah idn l ike i t s e l f :
a l l th inr:s c han rt:e thc i. r n.bon.c , nnt urP. a l t e r 5 a l l
th 1 n �s ann constl"a inn t h�m t o tu rn .
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rnt: s al'l:J.Y and ,;rows faint and . feebl� ltTi t h ar;� ,
thet'eon n.nother �r ow s up and- i s sues from i t plane
of � corn�
S o t hen t i me chari�e s the nature or the
wh ole w or ld , and one s tate after another overtake s
the eartl1 , s o that i t Qannot bear what it d id ,
bu t can bear what it did not of old .
�
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Time and nature in Lucretius' De rerum natura
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Friday night lecture
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GISELA BERNS
A lecture delivered at St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland
February 26, 1982
�lchiller's DramaFulfillment of History
and Philosophy in Poetry
GISELA BERNS
A lecture delivered at St. John's College
Annapolis, Maryland, Febrpary 26, 1982
�Schiller's Drama
Fulfillment of History
and Philosophy in Poetry
n
lllJ
onight, I shall speak on a poet whom I have loved from early on.
As Shakespeare in English speaking countries, Schiller, in German speaking countries, is first read in school. This means that everyone
knows him as a classic whose poems and plays are the sources for many of
the most famous formulations in the German language. For a long time,
inadequate translations kept Schiller from being appreciated in English
speaking countries. Now, however, with good new translations of his
dramatic and major philosophical work 1 available, there is no reason why
the noble voice of this passionately rational poet should not reach and
touch the hearts and minds of readers in America.
After a brief introduction about Schiller as contemporary of the
Founding Fathers of this country, a sketch of his life 2 and work shall show
in what sense he understood poetry to be a fulfillment of history and
philosophy.
In a letter of 1783, the young Schiller writes to a friend:
I cannot stand it any longer. Surely, I find a number of excellent people
everywhere and , perhaps, could still settle at some place, but I have to get
away, I want to go to America , and this shall be my farewell letter .. .. I
have already obtained exact information about my trip . But, you will ask,
what to do there? That, time and circumstances shall tell . I have not
neglected my medical profession - also I probably could teach philosophy
there as professor - maybe also get involved in politics - perhaps even
none of all of these . But tragedies, for that matter, I shall never cease to
write-you know my whole being hangs on it. 3
With a promise of news from America and greetings to his old friends,
Schiller bids farewell. Whether this plan was meant seriously, or whether
it was merely a manoeuvre to deceive the authorities about his movesthe fact remains that he would have felt at home in America.
Forced into the Duke of Wiirttemberg's military academy, where the
promising sons of the country were educated towards various professions,
Schiller had spent his young years, from age thirteen to twentyone, in an
atmosphere of oppressive regimentation. Forbidden to read or write
St. Johns Lecture Series
1
�poetry, he had finally risked his life in a dangerous flight to f.reedom. All
his plays - from The Robbers (started at the time of the Declaration of Independence) to William Tell (finished at the time of Jefferson's first
presidency)-deal with one theme: the problem of freedom. Focusing on
great revolutionary ideas like the conflict between nature and convention, .·
explored in The Robbers and in Intrigue and Love, or on great revolutionary figures of history like Piesco, Don Carlos, Wallenstein, Mary
Stuart, T}Je Maid of Orleans, and William Tell, all of Schiller's plays,
even The·Bride of Messina, modeled on the Oedipus story, wrestle with
the problem of freedom.
In recognition of this historical role, Schiller, in 1793, was awarded
honorary citizenship of the French Revolution (the fact that the document
did not reach him till 1798, long after its signer, Danton, had himself
become a victim of that revolution, Schiller always considered an ironic
reminder of the problematic nature of freedom).
Another consequence of Schiller's concern for freedom was the disappearance of plays like William Tell and Don Carlos from the German
theater under Hitler. As 0. Seidlin, in his article Schiller: Poet of Politics,
reports:
A quarter of a century ago, when darkness descended upon Schiller's native
country, a darkness that was to engulf all of mankind in the shortest possible time, a theater in Hamburg produced one of Schiller's great dramatic
works, Don Carlos . It is the play which culminates in the stirring climax of
its third act, the confrontation scene between King Philip of Spain and the
Marquis Posa, the powerful verbal and intellectual battle between the
rigid and autocratic monarch, contemptuous of mankind and gloomily
convinced that only harsh and tyrannical suppression can preserve peace
and order in his vast empire, and the young, enthusiatic advocate of
revolutionary principles, who demands for his fellow citizens the untrammeled right to happiness, the possibility of unhampered self-development
and self-realization of every individual . The scene rises to its pitch with
Marquis Posa's brave challenge flung into the king's face: "Geben Sie Gedankenfreiheitl -Do give freedom of thought!" When this line, one of the
most famous in all German dramatic literature, resounded from the Hamburg stage in the early years of Hitler's terror, the audience under the
friendly protection of darkness burst out, night after night, into
tumultuous applause. So dangerous and embarrassing to the new rulers
proved a single verse of the greatest German playwright, who by then had
been dead for fully a hundred and thirty years, that the management of the
theater was forced to cut out the scandalous line. But the audience, knowing their classic well enough even if it was fed to them in an emasculated
version, reacted quickwittedly: from that evening on they interrupted the
performance by thunderous applause at the moment when Marquis Posa
should have uttered his famous plea on the stage - and did not . After these
incidents the play was withdrawn from the repertoire altogether. 4
A similar story, I heard from my German literature teacher who was present at a Don Carlos performance in Berlin, where Marquis Posa's request
for freedom of thought made the audience, in dramatic silence, rise to
their feet like one man.
A contemporary of the Founding Fathers of this country, inspired by
the ideal of human freedom, and set on writing tragedies (no matter what
profession he would have taken up in this New World), Schille~~ight
2
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�have given us that sorely missing drama on the American Revblution.
Such a drama (as H. Jantz, in his article William Tell and the American
Revolution 5 , suggests) could have been written either from the British
point of view (something like Aeschylus' Persians) or from the American
point of view (something like Schiller's William Tell) . In more than one
prominent place, Schiller's proud formulations recall Hamilton's statement in Federalist One:
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the
people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question , whether societies of men are really capable or not of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they
are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident
and force. If there be anv truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriet}· bt> regarded as the era in which that decision is to
be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view,
deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.
At the beginning of his poem The Artists, a panoramic history of mankind, written in 1789, Schiller speaks of man as "the ripest son of time,
free through reason, strong through laws", standing "at the close of the
century" in "noble, proud manliness." In a similar vein, Madison, in
Federalist Fourteen, asks :
Is it not the glory of the people of America, that , whilst they have paid a
decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have
not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to
overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their
own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly
spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the
example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater,
in favor of private rights and public happiness . Had no important step
been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could
not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did
not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment,
have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils,
must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms
which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for
America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new
and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no
parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe.
Mindful of his own call to the artists to "preserve and rekindle the dignity
of mankind," Schiller, in the Prologue to Wallenstein, proclaims:
Now at this century's impressive close,
As actuality itself is turned
To art, as we see mighty natures locked
In struggle for a goal of lofty import,
As conflict rages for the great objectives
Of man, for masterdom, for freedom, now
Art is allowed assay of higher flight
Upon its shadow-stage; indeed it must be,
Lest it be put to shame by life's own stage.6
In order to appreciate this "higher flight" of Schiller's art, let us take a
look at his life and work.
St. John's Lecture Series
3
�Schiller's life, from 1759 to 1805, was, except for his early childhood
and the beginning years of his marriage, a never ending struggle. First
against a tyrannical ruler, later . against poverty and prejudice, finally
against a fatal illness which racked the last fifteen years of his short life. A
struggle it was, this life of Schiller's, but what a glorious struggle! A
testimony to man's ability to overcome or, in Wallenstein's proud words,
to the conviction that "it is the mind which builds itself the body. "7
Schiller's father , by his own report, offered a prayer on the occasion of
Schiller's birth:
And you, Being of all beings! You I begged, after the birth of my only son,
that you would add to his strength of mind what I, for want of education,
could not reach . s
Still a child , Schiller had set his heart on studying theology . The
Duke's interference not only separated Schiller from his family , hut also
made it impossible for him to pursue the desired studies . After a year of
broad general education in Sciences and Humanities, with strong emphasis on philosophy, Schiller took up, at first, the study of law, later,
since he deemed it "bolder" and "more akin to poetry", the study of
medicine. One theme, again and again to be explored in his poetry, he
first thought through in his dissertation which, a cross between medicine
and philosophy, bears the title On the Connection between Mans Animal
and Spiritual Nature .
The great breakthrough of his passion for poetry came after Schiller,
at age sixteen, had been introduced to Shakespeare. Emboldened by his
love for Shakespeare, he was obsessed with the idea of writing a play that
would expose all the evils of conventional society. At the same time filled
with admiration for the ancient heroes of Plutarch, and the modern sentiments of Rousseau , Schiller, for years, feverishly and passionately,
worked on his Robbers. The performance of The Robbers, in 1781 , at the
famous theater of Mannheim, made Schiller, in one day, gain immortal
fame and lose his homeland. Hailed by one reviewer as the coming "German Shakespeare"9 , he was ordered by the Duke, under penalty of arrest,
to stop writing anything hut medical works. With the help of a young
musician, Schiller, in disguise, fled to Mannheim where he hoped to find
the needed support for his poetic existence. Instead, he had to spend
months in hiding, working on his Piesco and Intrigue and Love, before
the authorities accepted him even there. While Intrigue and Love, a
"bourgeois tragedy", scourges the injustices perpetrated by the nobility
against the lower classes (as in the heartrending scene about the forced
recruitment of troops to be sold to the British for the Revolutionary War
in America), The Conspiracy of Piesco at Genoa , a "republican tragedy",
for the first time, strikes a theme that, in one or another form, rings
through all of Schiller's subsequent plays. As A. Lincoln, later, formulated it in his Perpetuation speech:
Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should
undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing
beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such
belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think
you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?Neverl Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto
4
Schillers Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�unexplored. - It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon-the qionuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory
enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any
predecessor, however illustrious. H thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if
possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or
enslaving freemen. 10
After the "Storm and Stress" of The Robbers, Piesco, and Intrigue and
Love, Schiller, in 1787, reached a first classical height with Don Carlos.
Not only through his change from rhythmic prose to measured verse, but
even more so through his sovereignty in dealing with the theme, the conflict between revolutionary idealism and imperialistic realism. While
Schiller's earlier plays paint good and evil in stark, clashing colors, Don
Carlos, more subtly, portrays them in their haunting complexity. The
conflict between Philip II of Spain, despotic ruler of the catholic world,
and Marquis Posa, idealistic fighter for freedom, interwoven with the
story of Don Carlos, his desperate love for the queen, and his selfsacrificing friendship for Marquis Posa, appears the more tragic, as it
shows the human situation in all its agony of heart and mind. More than
one great writer after Schiller, struck by the tragic beauty of Don Carlos,
has integrated parts of it into their work, so Dostoyevsky, with the
"Grand Inquisitor" scene in The Brothers Karamazov, so Th. Mann, with
the burning admiration of Tonio Kroger for the breath-taking scene in
Don Carlos, where the king is said to have wept. A scene to which Mann,
in his late Essay on Schiller, confesses to have "early given his homage" 11 •
As a preparation for Don Carlos, Schiller had occupied himself more
and more with historical studies which, in 1788, resulted in a substantial
History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands from the Spanish Rule. In
recognition of this comprehensive, dramatically written work, the
University of Jena, in 1789, offered him a professorship. Besides lecturing
on Universal History and Aesthetics, he devoted himself to his second
major historical work, the History of the Thirty Years War, later to
become the basis for his monumental trilogy on Wallenstein, the imperial
general of the Thirty Years War.
The summer before settling in Jena, Schiller had met Charlotte v.
Lengefeld, his future wife, in whose circle of family and friends the young
poet, every evening read from Homer and the Greek tragedians. Filled
with a kind of Grecomania, Schiller threw himself into translating
Euripides' lphigeneia in Aulis, an activity from which he hoped to gain
classical purity and simplicity. In a letter to the sisters v. Lengefeld,
Schiller writes:
My Euripides still gives me much pleasure, and a great deal of it also
stems from its antiquity. To find man so eternally remaining the same, the
same passions, the same collisions of passions, the same language of passions. With this infinite multiplicity always though this unity of the same
human form. 12
In the spirit of those days, Schiller composed a long melancholy poem, entitled The Gods of Greece. A lament about the vanishing of beauty and
nobility from the modern world, it rings out:
Als die Gotter menschlicher noch waren,
Waren Menschen gottlicher.
St. John's Lecture Series
5
�When the gods still were more human,
Men were more godlike.
Together with his subsequent study of Kant, this immersion in Greek
antiquity became crucial for Schiller's Aesthetic Writings. .
A terrible illness of Schiller's, in 1791, resulted in the rumor of his
death. When a circle of admirers in Denmark, months later, discovered
that Schiller was still alive, they prevailed upon the Duke of SchleswigHolstein-Augustenburg to ease the burden of the poet's daily existence
and, for a few years, bestow a pension on him . In his acceptance letter,
full of joy over the unexpected freedom to devote himself to the "formation of his ideas'', Schiller writes:
Serenely I look to the future- and if the expectations of myself should
prove to have been nothing but sweet illusions with which my oppressed
pride took revenge on fate, I for one shall not lack the determination to
justify the hopes two excellent citizens of our century have placed in me .
Since my lot does not allow me to act as benefactor in their way, I shall ,
nevertheless, attempt it in the only way that is given to me - and may the
seed they have spread unfold in me into a beautiful blossom for mankind. 13
With the same mail, Schiller ordered Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
Earlier that year, in the throes of his illness, he had begun to read the
Critique of Judgement and had come to the conclusion that nothing short
of a thorough understanding of Kant's philosophical system would satisfy
him. For.three years, a long time in so short a life as Schiller's, he studied
Kant and wrote his own philosophical essays: On Tragic Art, On Grace
and Dignity, On the Sublime, On the Aesthetic Education oj Man, and
On Naive and Sentimental Poetry . On the Aesthetic Educatio;1 of Man he
wrote, as a gesture of gratitude, in the form of letters to the Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg. In order to appreciate the role of
philosophy in Schiller's drama, let us take a closer look at two of his philosophical essays, On the Aesthetic Education of Man and On Naive and
Sentimental ·Poetry.
In his letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller sketches out
a history of mankind from a state of nature to a state of civilization , where
the progress of the species towards a folfillment of human nature depends
on the fragmentation of nature in the individual. This view of history,
reminiscent to some extent of Rousseau 's Second Discourse, is complemented, however, by Schiller's hope that the totality of our nature,
destroyed by art in the process of civilization, might be restored by a
higher art. Far from romantic longing for a "Golden Age" of nature,
Schiller exclaims:
I would not like to live in a different century and have worked for a different one. One is as much a citizen of one's time as one is a citizen of one's
country . 14
Anticipating an objection to his concern about aesthetic education at the
time of social and political revolutions, Schiller claims that the "path to
freedom" leads through "the land of beauty" . 15 Implied in this is the claim
that the contemplation of beauty, because of its mediation between the
senses and reason, might be able to prepare man for the challenge of
freedom. Looking back to the beginnings of civilization , Schiller states:
Nature does not start any better with man than with the rest of her
6
Schiller '.s Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philp.sophy in Poetry
�works : she acts for him, where he cannot yet act himself as free int~lli
gence. But it is just this which makes him human that he does not stop at
what mere nature made him to be,, but possesses the power through reason
to retrace the steps which she anticipated with him , to transform the work
of compulsion into a work of free choice and to elevate the physical necessity to a moral one. 16
Deeply conscious of the challenge,
that the physical society, in time, may not cease for a moment, while the
moral one, in the idea, forms itself, that for the sake of man's dignity his existence may not be endangered,1 7
Schiller strives for a model of humanity that would combine the natural
beauty of the Greeks with the historical self-consciousness of the Moderns.
Anticipating much of Hegel's philosophy of history, both in perspective
and in formulation, Schiller portrays man's historical development as
progress from a naturally to a rationally given form 18 of humanity. Paying
homage to this kinship in thought, Hegel chooses two lines from Schiller's
early poem Friendship as Finale of his Phenomenology of the Spirit. The
slight change he makes in speaking of "Geisterreich" ("realm of spirits")
rather than "Seelenreich" ("realm of the soul") points, I think, to a crucial
difference between Hegel and Schiller. Concerned, more than the philosopher, about the fragmentation of human nature in the individual for the
sake . of a greater differentiation of it in the species, the tragic poet
exclaims:
But can it be that man should be fated to neglect himself for any end?
Should nature, through her ends, be able to rob us of a perfection which
reason, through hers, prescribes for us? It, therefore, must be false that the
development of the single faculties necessitates the sacrifice of their totality; or even if the law of nature tended there ever so much , it must be up to
us to restore, by a higher art, this totality of our nature which art has
destroyed . 19
Aiming at a balance between reason and the senses, Schiller (who, in
1793, was rereading both Kant's Critique of Judgement and Homer's
Iliad) uses a Homeric simile:
Reason herself will not battle directly with this uncouth power that resists
her weapons and, as little as the son of Saturn in the Iliad, descend, acting
herself, to the gloomy theater. But from the midst of the fighters she
chooses the most worthy, attires him, as Zeus did his grandson, with divine
weapons and, through his victorious force, effects the great decision. 20
This use of Achilles as a symbol of noble, and sometimes tragic, beauty is
only one of many in Schiller's work. In his poem The Gifts of Fortune,
Schiller extols the honor bestowed on Achilles by the gods, in his poem
Nenia, their lament over him at his death. The idea, symbolized by
Achilles, of truth manifesting itself in beauty, and therefore speaking to us
through the senses as well as reason, implies a new appreciation of the
senses:
The path to divinity, if one can call a path what never leads to its destination, is opened up for man in his senses.21
Clearly in answer to Plato's Republic, Schiller regards "the priority of the
sensuous drive" in man's experience "the clue to the whole history of
human freedom." 21 In a highly dialectical sequence of steps, Schiller leads
St. Johns Lecture Series
7
�from the synthesis of the senses and reason in man's contemplation of
beauty to the synthesis of the material and formal drive in man's play
drive to, finally, the synthesis of .t he physical and moral necessity in man's
aesthetic freedom. Aware of the fact that aesthetic freedom , as a state of
being, is only an ideal, but that , as momentary balance between the
senses and reason, it is part of our human experience, Schiller states one of
the most provocative sentences of his work:
Man plays only where, in the full sense of the word, he is man: and he is
fully man only where he plays . 23
The freedom of the aesthetic state, resulting from a balance between the
necessity of the moral as well as physical state, Schiller considers the
"highest of all legacies, the legacy of humaniti' :
It, therefore, is not only poetically permitted, but philosophically
right , if one calls beauty our second creator . For although she only makes
our humanity possible and, for the rest, leaves it up to our free will how far
we want to actualize it, she shares this trait with our original creator ,
nature, who likewise provided us with only the capacity for humanity , but
left the use of it to our own determination of will. 24
Like, before him, Plato and, after him, Hegel , Schiller conceives of man's
development from a natural to a moral being in terms of an analogy between the individual and the species. But where both Plato and Hegel insist on the sovereignty of reason over the senses, Schiller claims that "the
path to the head has to be opened through the heart", for the individual as
well as for the species 25 :
The dynamic (or natural) state can only make society possible by overcoming nature through nature; the ethical (or moral) state can only make
society necessary by subjecting the single to the general will; the aesthetic
state alone can make society actual , because it consummates the will of the
whole through the nature of the individual. 28
The reason for this Schiller sees in the fact that "beauty alone we enjoy, at
the same time, as individual and as species, that is, as representatives of
the species".
Many interpreters of Schiller's aesthetic theories have wondered
whether, in the end, Schiller considers the aesthetic or the moral state the
highest form of humanity. This is a dilemma which, like Meno's opening
question about virtue, cannot be answered directly . In terms of what is
achieved, the moral state presents a pinnacle of human perfection; in
terms of how it is achieved, the aesthetic state presents an ideal comparable only to the life of the Olympian gods. In that sense, Schiller concludes his letters:
But does such a state of beautiful semblance exist, and where is it to be
found? As need, it exists in every finely tuned soul, as reality, one might
find it, like the pure 'church and the pure republic, only in a few select
circles, where not mindless imitation of the ways of others, but inherent
beautiful nature guides human behavior, where man goes through the
most complex situations with bold simplicity and calm innocence, and
neither finds it necessary to offend another's freedom in order to assert his
own, nor to throw away his dignity in order to exhibit grace. 27
This combination of Grace and Dignity, representative of an ideal of
humanity to be found among the Greeks but lost in modern times, Schiller
8
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�sees preserved in Greek works of art:
Mankind has lost its dignity, but art has saved and preserved it in significant stones; truth lives on in semblance, and out of the copy the original
shall be reconstituted. 28
·
Addressing himself to the task of the artist, Schiller exclaims:
The artist certainly is the .son of his time , hut woe to him if, at the same
time, he is its pupil or even its favorite. Let a beneficent deity snatch the
suckling betimes from his mother"s breast , nourish him with the milk of a
better age and allow him to reach maturity under a far off Grecian sky.
Then , when he has become a man, let him return, a stranger, to his own
century; yet, not in order to please it with his appearance, but terrible as
Agamemnon's son , in order to purify it. The material he certainly will take
from the present , but the form from a nobler time, yes, from beyond all
time, borrowed from the absolute unchangeable unity of his being.24
This comprehensive task of the artist, to span the whole history of
human civilization in an attempt to give mankind its fullest possible expression, Schiller discusses more specifically in On Naive and Sentimental
Poetry . Understanding the poets as "preservers and avengers of nature'',
he distinguishes between two types, the Naive poet as "being nature", the
Sentimental poet as "seeking nature". Expressive of two states of
mankind, Naive poetry of a union, Sentimental poetry of a separation
between man and nature, both forms of poetry, in different ways, show a
perfection of art: Naive poetry, as "imitation of reality'', by fulfilling a
finite goal, Sentimental poetry, as "presentation of the ideal", by striving
for an infinite goal. Schiller's terms Naive and Sentimental might sound
confusing at first. They certainly do not mean what they mean today. The
Naive poet, like a god behind his work, lets the world speak for itself. In
that sense, Schiller considers not only Homer, but also Shakespeare and
Goethe Naive poets. The Sentimental poet, on the other hand, an intellectual presence in his work, reflects on the world he portrays . In that sense,
Schiller considers most modern poets, including himself, Sentimental
poets. Striving for an ideal of poetry, Schiller raises the question, whether
and how far, in the same work of art, classical individuality might be
combined with modern ideality. The fulfillment of this task, to "individualize the ideal" and "idealize the individual", in Schiller's eyes,
would not only constitute "the highest peak of all art", but also serve as
that "higher art" which, in the letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man,
was expected to restore the totality of human nature, destroyed by art in
the process of civilization .
Understanding On Naive and Sentimental Poetry "so to speak" a5 "a
bridge to poetic production"30 , Schiller enters into a new period of poetry,
divided between philosophical poems, ballads and historical dramas. In a
letter of 1793, he writes to Count von Schimmelmann:
I have, at the same time, the intention, in this way to reconcile myself with
the poetic Muse whom, through my falling away to the historic Muse (a
fall indeed) I have grossly offended. If I should succeed in regaining the
favor of the god of poetry, I hope to hang up in his temple the spoils which
I have labored to obtain in the realm of philosophy and history, and to
dedicate myself to his service forever. 31
St. Johns Lecture Series
9
�To a letter of Countess von Schimmelmann's, in 1795, Schiller graciously
replies:
You wish, in your letter, that I continue in the poetic path which I have
entered. Why should I not, if you find it worth your while to encourage me
in it. Also by heeding your advice I only follow the inclination of my heart.
From the beginning, poetry was the highest concern of my soul, and I only
left it for a time in order to return to it richer and worthier. All paths of the
human spirit end in poetry, and the worse for it, if it lacks the courage to
lead them to this goal .32
Encouraged by his friendship with Goethe, Schiller, for the last ten years
of his life devoted himself to poetry. This friendship which, to judge from
their many letters, became a constant source of inspiration for both of
them, had started with a famous conversation in July of 1794. On the way
home from a convention of the Society of Natural Science in Jena, Goethe
had presented his Metamorphosis of Plants to Schiller who, still a Kantian, had retorted: "But that is not an experience, that is an ideal" To
which Goethe, with courteous irony, had replied: "I certainly should be
' glad to have ideas without my knowing and even to see them with my
eyes." In a follow up letter to this conversation, Schiller draws the sum of
the difference between the two of them:
Your spirit, to an extraordinary degree, works intuitively, and all your
thinking powers seem to have compromised on the imagination, so to
speak, as their common representative . ... My mind works really more in
a symbolizing way, and thus I am suspended, as a kind of hybrid, between
concept and imagination, between rule and feeling, between technical
head and genius . This, especially in former years, has given me a rather
awkward appearance, in the field of speculation as well as in the art of
poetry; for, usually , the poet overtook me where I was supposed to
philosophize, and the philosophical spirit where I wanted to write poetry.
Even now, it happens to me often enough that imagination disturbs my
abstractions and cold reason my poetry. If I can master these two forces to
the point that, through my freedom, I can assign each one its limits, a
beautiful fate shall still await me . . . .33
Another relationship, crucial for Schiller's understanding of himself with
respect to the Ancients, was his friendship with W. v. Humboldt, the
great scholar in classical languages and literatures . In a letter of 1795,
Humboldt writes:
I believe I can justify this seemingly paradoxical sentence that you, on the
one hand, are the direct opposite of the Greeks, since your products exhibit
the very character of autonomy; and that, at the same time, you, among
the moderns, again are closest to them . since your products, after Greek
ones, express necessity of form; only that you draw it from yourself, while
the Greeks take it from the aspect of external nature, which is likewise
necessary in its form. Wherefore also, Greek form resembles more the object of the senses, yours more the object of reason, even though the former,
finally, also rests on a necessity of reason, and yours, of course, also speaks
to the senses. 34
After the completion of his Bride of Messina, in 1803, Schiller reminds
Humboldt of this earlier exchange of theirs:
My first attempt of a tragedy in strict form will give you pleasure; you will
be able to judge from it, whether as contemporary of Sophocles I might
10
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�have been able to carry off a prize. I have not forgotten that you called me
the most modern of all newer poets and, therefore, thought me in opposition to everything that could be called ancient .3s
In an introduction to the publication of their correspondence, 25 years
after Schiller's death, Humboldt reminisces:
What every observer had to notice in Schiller, as characteristically defining°, was that, in a higher and more pregnant sense than perhaps ever in
anyone else, thought was the element of his life. Continual authentic intellectual activity left him almost never, and only yielded to the more
violent attacks of his bodily illness. It seemed to him relaxation, not strain.
This showed itself especially in conversation for which Schiller seemed
most truly born. He never sought for a significant topic of discourse, he left
it more to chance to bring up the subject matter, but from each he led the
conversation to a more general perspective, and after a few exchanges one
found oneself in the middle of a mind-provoking discussion. He always
treated the thought as a result to be reached together, always seemed to
need the interlocutor, even if one remained conscious of receiving the idea
merely from him . . . Moving above his subject matter with perfect
freedom, he used every sideline which offered itself, and so his conversation was rich in words that carry the feature of happy creations of the moment. The freedom, however, did not curtail the investigation. Schiller
always held on to the thread which had to lead to its end. 36
Schiller's gift for friendship which, throughout his life, moved
him, whether face to face or in letters, to engage in conversation,
found its early expression in a letter of April 1783:
In this wonderful breath of the morning, I think of you, friend- and of
my Carlos . . . I imagine-Every poetic work is nothing but an enthusiastic friendship or Platonic love for a creation of our head .. . If we
can ardently feel the state of a friend, we will also be able to glow for our
poetic heroes. Not that the capacity for friendship and Platonic love would
simply entail the capacity for great poetry - for I might be very able to feel
. a great character without being able to create it. But it should be clear that
a great poet has to have, at least, the capacity for the highest friendship,
even if he has not always expressed it. 37
Schiller's return to poetry, and to dramatic poetry in particular,
begins with a work which stands out in many ways. In the center between
his four earlier and four later plays, Schiller's Wallenstein, his only
trilogy, surpasses the others both in subject matter and in poetic form.
Like the Republic among Plato's Dialogues, Wallenstein, among Schiller's
plays, in one dramatic poem of epic dimensions, encompasses all the
earlier and later themes. In order to appreciate its universality, let us first
conclude our sketch of Schiller's life and work.
Alternating. between a stricter and looser dramatic form, Schiller, in
the last five years of his life, completed Mary Stuart, a "tragedy" about
the Scottish queen and Elizabeth I, The Maid of Orleans, a "romantic
tragedy" about Joan of Arc and her mysterious fight for France, The Bride
of Messina, a "tragedy with choruses", modeled on the Oedipus story, and
finally William Tell, a "drama" about the Swiss fight for independent
unity. Of these later four plays, like the earlier ones focusing on the problem of freedom in connection with the conflict between natural herolsm
and conventional authority, only William Tell is not a tragedy. Written
St. John's Lecture Series
11
�as a New Year's present for 1895 (the opening year of Tolstoy's Wai: and
Peace), William Tell portrays a "new birth of freedom" out of the strength
of a people willing to fight for "the proposition that all men are created
equal". The fact that Tell, though a leader figure, does not presume any
power beyond the limits of republican government, avoids the abyss of
tragedy. That William Tell should be Schiller's last finished, but not his
last play seems to fit this "greatest adventurer of the history of the spirit'',
as H.v.Hofmannsthal calls him. 38 Besides two dramatic works of which
we have extensive fragments, there are about twelve titles of prospective
plays in Schiller's work plan. In addition to his own plays, Schiller, at the
end of his life, still completed two translations which, diametrically opposed to each other, show the range of his dramatic sensibility: the one, in
1801, Shakespeare's Macbeth, the other, in 1805, Racine's Phedre. One
story from the last few days of his life seems to me more revealing than
many a learned comment on his life and work: Bothered by the sight of a
newspaper, edited by a writer he had a very low opinion of, Schiller
begged:
Please, take it out right away, so I can truthfully say I have never seen it.
Give me fairy and knights' tales-there, indeed, lies the matter for
everything great and beautiful. 39
In the Second Part of Goethe's Faust,
early in the Classical
Walpurgisnacht, Faust inquires of the centaur Chiron whom, among the
heroes of his time, he thought to be the greatest. Not satisfied with
Chiron's answer, Faust prods: "Of Hercules you want to make no mention?" To which Chiron replies: "01 do not rouse my longing ... I" Remembering Hercules as "a born king", Chiron claims that neither song
nor marble will ever be able to express his magnificence. In his Essay on
Schiller40 , Th. Mann suggests that with this scene, echoing Schiller's poem
Ideal and Life which culminates in the transfiguration of Hercules,
Goethe paid a final homage to their friendship.
Faust's infatuation with Greek antiquity and his search for Helen as a
symbol of beauty has to be understood in connection with Goethe's and
Schiller's admiration for Homer and their aesthetic theories about a possible union between the natural grace and dignity of the Greeks and the
historical self-consciousness of the Moderns. Entranced by this ideal
which, in the late 1790s, was one of the main topics of their correspondence, both Goethe and Schiller produced works with Homeric
overtones: Goethe his Hermann and Dorothea, Schiller his Wallenstein.
Under the names of the nine Muses, starting with Calliope, the Muse
of epic poetry, and ending with Urania, the Muse of philosophical poetry,
the nine Cantos of Hermann and Dorothea present the whole realm of
poetic expression. Set against the historical background of the French
Revolution, the story of Hermann and Dorothea, together with the different modes of poetry evolving from each other, seems to be a modern
version of Homer's Shield of Achilles. The Muse of epic poetry, however,
not only governs the First Canto, but her spirit pervades the poem as a
whole: Homeric meter, Homeric diction, Homeric epithets and episodes,
though softened from herioc to idyllic tone, echo Iliad as well as Odyssey
in every line of Goethe's poem.
12
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�Schiller's Wallemtein, on the other hand, a monumental trilogy about
the imperial general of the Thirty Years War, presents itself as a modern
historical drama. An account of .the last few days of Wallenstein's life,
culminating in his treason and, finally, his assassination, it confronts us
with the issue of war and peace as symbol of the tragic situation of man.
Disregarding religious and political interests, Wallenstein, a new Caesar,
claims to be the only one able to unify Europe. Though noble in itself, this
ideal, in the hands of lesser men, turns into a treacherous weapon which,
in the end, is responsible for W~llenstein's tragic fall.
Like the Divided Line in Plato's Republic, Schiller's Wallenstein,
divided into the poet's Prologue and three plays, leads from the realm of
the visible to the realm of the intelligible, from the realm of imagination
and opinion to the realm of understanding and thought. Preceded by a
Prologue about the intricate relationship of life and history to art and
nature, the Wallenstein trilogy presents us first with Wallenstein's·
"shadow image", emerging from the opinions of his soldiers, then with his
"public self", surrounded by his family and his generals, and finally with
his "private self', suspended between the freedom of his heaven bound
reflections and the n~ity of his earthbound actions.
Even in the context of Schiller's History of the Thirty Years War, an
account of the confrontation betw'*'n the forces of the Emperor, defending Catholicism, and the forces of Gustav Adolf of Sweden, fighting for
Protestantism, the rise and fall of W~lenstein in the service of the
Emperor strangely reminds one of the fatJ' of the Homeric Achilles. The
historical figures and events of the Thirty Years War seem to fit the poetic
panorama of Homer's Iliad, where the natural enmity between Agamemnon, the ruler, and Achllles. the hero, almost outweighs their national enmity against Hector~ whose humanity encompasses both their natures.
Ending his account of W,.Jlensteln's ·role in the Thirty Years War, Schiller
states:
·
Thus Wallenstein, at the age of fffty, ended his action-filled and extraordinary life; raised by love of honor, felled by lust for honor, with all
his failings still great and admirable, unsurpmable if he had kept within
bounds. The virtues of the ruler and hero, prudence, justice, firmne$ and
courage, tower In his character c:oloaally; but he lacked the gentler virtues
of the man, which grace the hero and gain love for the ruler. 41
In answer to this Epilogue of the historian, the Prologue of the poet
promises:
Blurred by the favor and the hate of parties
His image waven within history.
But art shall now bring him more humanly
And closer to your eyes and to your heart.
For art, which binfls and Umlts everything,
Brings all extremes IN!ck to the sphere of nature.••
In the Preface to his Bride oj Mealna, Schiller speab of the relationship of
historical truth to poetic ~rqth or, as he calls it in On Tragic Art, to the
truth of nature:
Nature itself is only a spiritual idea, which never falls into the senses.
Under the cover of the appearances It lies, but it itself never rises to ap-
St. John 8 Lecture Set;ea
13
�pearance. Only the art of the .ideal is favored, or rather shouldered with
the task to grasp this spirit of the whole and to bind it into bodily form.
Even this (type of art] can never bring it before the senses, yet through her
creative force before the power of the imagination, and thereby be more
true than all reality and more real than all experience. From this it follows
by itself that the artist cannot use a single .element from reality as he finds
it, that his work must be ideal in all its parts, if it is supposed to have reality
as a whole and agree with nature.
Striving for a form of art that would be true both to historical reality and
to nature, Schiller, in his Wallenstein, surrounds the modern world of the
Thirty Years War with a mythical horizon of Homeric overtones. In a letter of 1794, in which he tells Korner of;'.'writing his treatise on the Naive
and, at the same time, thinking about the plan for Wallenstein," Schiller
confesses:
In the true sense of the word, I enter a path wholly unknown to me, a
path certainly untried, for in poetic matters, dating back three, four years,
I have put on a completely new man . 43 ·
Reaching for the truth of nature by combining Naive and Sentimental
poetry, Schiller integrates Homer's "imitation of nature" into his own
"presentation of the ideal". In his advice.-to Goeth. who, at the time of
e
Schiller's work on Wallenstein, was engaged in his Achilleis, an epic poem
about the death of Achilles, Schiller suggests:
Since it is certainly right that no Iliad is possible after the Iliad, even if
there were again a Homer and again a Greece, I believe I can wish you
nothing better than that you compare your Achilleis, as it exists now in
your imagination, only with itself, and in Homer only seek the mood,
without really comparing your task with his .. . . For it is as impossible as
thankless for the poet, if he should leave his homeground altogether and
actually oppose himself to his time. It is your beautiful vocation to be a
contemporary and citizen of both poetic worlds, and exactly because of this
higher advantage you will belong to neither exclusively. 44
Like catalysts in the process of establishing an ideal mode of poetic expression, the echoes of Homer's Iliad in Schiller's Wallenstein accentuate its
modernity.
A major change from the History of the Thirty Years War, Schiller's
Wallenstein, following Homer's Iliad, begins in the middle of the war.
But where Homer, in the first seven lines of the Iliad, describes the wrath
of Achilles, and the fateful clash between Achilles and Agamemnon,
Schiller, in the Prologue to Wallenstein discusses the role of art, and art's
relationship to history and nature. Befitting the ancient epic poem,
Homer's description centers on Zeus and the fulfillm~nt of his will; befitting the modern dramatic poem, Schiller's discussio11 centers on the
phenomenon of the great historical personality.
·
Both Homer's Iliad and Schiller's Wallenstein, with the Catalogue of
Ships and the first play of the trilogy, exhibit the army and its various
elements in a set picture. But where the Catalogue of Ships, preceded by
an invocation to the Muse, merely lists the leaders of the Trojan war,
Wallenstein s Camp (the model for Brecht'.s Mother Courage), depicts the
dissolution of life in the state of war which, (as a state of nature in the
14
Schillers Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy iQ Poetry
�midst of the state of society), perverts all human values.
Both Homer's Iliad, in the center of its first half, and Schiller's
Wallenstein, in the center of its central play, The Piccolomini, show the
most tender human relationship exposed to the harsh reality of war. But
where Homer, in the parting of Hector from wife and child on the wall of
Troy, focuses on the conflict between family and society, Schiller, in the
love scenes between Max and Thekla, focuses on the conflict between individuals and society. A poetic expression of Kant's Moral Law, founded
on nothing but their hearts, love creates an island of freedom in the sea of
historical necessity.
Both Homer and Schiller, with the Shield of Achilles and the chalice of
the banquet at Pilsen, use the detailed description of an artifact to
highlight the world view implicit in each poem. But where the scenes on
the shield depict human life within the timeless order of nature and,
therefore, are self-explanatory, the scenes on the chalice require an explanation not only for their reference to a specific moment in human history, but also for their use of allegory in portraying that moment.
Where Homer, in the First Book of the Iliad, tells of Achilles' meeting
with Thetis, and of her visit to Zeus on Olympus, Schiller, in the opening
scene of Wallenstein's Death, the last play of the trilogy, shows Wallenstein, concentrating on the long expected moment of the conjunction between the planets Venus and Jupiter. The change of perspective, from
trusting in divine powers that are moved by will and fate to relying on
heavenly bodies that move in accordance with universal laws, does not affect the hopes and the despair that either of them occasion.
Both Homer and Schiller, with dramatic suspense, portray their
heroes in thoughtful solitude. But where Homer paints the rich scene of
Achilles sitting before his tent, in the company of Patroclos, and singing
about the glory of men to the sound of his lyre, Schiller presents Wallenstein absorbed in a monologue, reflecting on the relationship of freedom
and necessity in human nature. Unlike Achilles' song which, in the
creative process, unites freedom and necessity, Wallenstein's reflection, in
the form of a syllogism with invalid premisses, denies such a union and is
left with the fragments of abstract thought. Achilles' restful repose conveys the harmony of his song as much as Wallenstein's restless stopping
and starting the disharmony of his reflection.
A striking change from the History of the Thirty Years War is Schiller's ·
modeling the friendship between Wallenstein and Max, the only nonhistorical character in the play, on the friendship between Achilles and
Patroclos in Homer's Iliad. Both Homer and Schiller, in the poetic constellation of their characters and plots, make friendship, a middle ground
between a natural and a conventional bond, the turning point for
tragedy. Like the death of Patroclos for Achilles, the death of Max brings
Wallenstein closer to realizing the tragic connection between freedom
and necessity, borne out in the problematic relationship of nature and
convention.
The modern complexity of Schiller's Wallenstein, over and against the
relative simplicity of Homer's Iliad, shows itself in content as well as in
St. John's Lecture Series
15
�form. Expressive of the fragmentation of human nature in the course of
history, Schiller's abstract language lends itself to portraying characters
that are torn between action and reflection. Striving for a new totality of
human nature, some of Schiller's characters parallel more than one of
Homer's characters: So Max, both Patroclos and Hector; so Thekla, both
Briseis and Andromache. This double role of the modern characters is the
more significant, as it obliterates the enmity between Greeks and Trojans
and thus points to an individuality which, viable or not, transcends the
political nature of man. Complementary to the parallels of characters,
parallels of plots create a maze of poetic affinities between the ancient
epic and the modern tragic poem. Discontinuous and staggered, the
parallels of plots seem to point not only to the fragmentation of human
nature in modern times, but also to a new totality made possible through
history.
Intent on exploring the complementation of time and timelessness in
the work of art, Schiller and Goethe, in their letters during the years of
Schiller's work on Wallenstein, discuss the relationship of tragic to epic
poetry. Perceiving them as complementary art forms, Schiller defines
tragedy, standing under the category of causality, as the capture of
"singular extraordinary moments of mankind", and epic poetry, standing
under the category of substantiality, as the depiction of the "permanent,
persistent whole" thereof. 45 In harmony with Aristotle's notion of tragedy
as more comprehensive than epic poetry4 6 , Schiller changes his early plans
for an epic poem about the Thirty Years War, centering on Gustav Adolf,
to his final ones for a dramatic poem, centering on Wallenstein. Immersed in his task of translating Euripides, in Schiller's eyes a poet on the
way from Naive to Sentimental poetry, Schiller, in 1789, had written to
Korner:
Let me add further that in getting better acquainted with Greek plays
I, in.the end, abstract from them what is true, beautiful and effective and,
by leaving out what is defective, I therefrom shape a certain ideal through
which my present one shall be corrected and wholly founded . 47
In a letter to Goethe, in which he speaks of "sketching out a detailed
scenario for Wallenstein'', Schiller remarks:
I find the more I think about my own task and about the way the
Greeks dealt with tragedy that everything hinges on the art of inventing a
poetic fable. 48
Schiller's Wallenstein and Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis, which Schiller
had translated in 1788, apparently follow the same poetic fable. In both
dramas, the leader of the army orders members of his family to join him at
his camp. In both, the political reasons for this move are disguised as personal reasons. In both, the heroic action of a youth close to the leader interferes with his plans and finally causes tragedy and death . In the comparison with Homer's Iliad, the main parallels were drawn between the
Emperor and Agamemnon, Wallenstein and Achilles, and Max and
Patroclos. In the comparison with Euripides' lphigeneia in Aulis,
however, the main parallels would have to be drawn between Wallenstein and Agamemnon, Max and Achilles, and Thekla and Iphigeneia.
16
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�The fundamental theme of Schiller's Wallenstein, the necessary connection between nature and convention, emerges in the "living shape" •9 of
Wallenstein. presenting. in one modern historical figure, Achilles, the archetype of the natural hero. and Agamemnon, the archetype of the conventional ruler.
In the 26th letter 011 the Ae.~thl'fic Edrt<'afion of Man, Schiller comments on the sovereign power of the artist:
With unlimited fn>edom he can fit togt-thcr what nature separated, as long
as lw can somehow think it togetht•r. and separate what nature connected,
as long as he can only detach it in his mind. Here nothing ought to be
sacred to him but his own law. as long as he only watches the marking
which divides his province from the existence of things or realm of nature.
True to the reality of history, Schiller presents Wallenstein in a modern
historical drama, set in the world of the Thirty Years War. Separating
what nature connected, Schiller abstracts from features of the historical
Wallenstein which would disqualify him for being a tragic hero. True to
the reality of poetry, where the historical characters, as poetic figures,
become symbolic beings, Schiller presents Wallenstein in a dramatic
poem, surrounded by a mythical horizon. Fitting together what nature
separated, Schiller strikes parallels, respectively, between one historical
and more than one mythical character, and between one historical and
more than one mythical plot. The fact that the poetic figure of Wallenstein reflects the archetypes from Homer and Euripides in a cross between
naturally opposed, but artistically complementary characters demonstrates both the fragmentation and the striving for a new totality of
human nature in the course of history. By reflecting the Iliad as well as
the pregnant moment before the Iliad, Schiller's Wallenstein, a living example of the unity of time and timelessness, opens up a perspective from
history to epic as well as tragic poetry. With his integration of Greek "imitation of nature" into his own "presentation of the ideal", Schiller seems to
point to the fulfillment of an ideal in which art and nature would meet
again.
To a letter in which Korner had suggested a few changes in the plot of
Wallenstein, Schiller replies with unusual sharpness:
A product of art, insofar as it has been designed with artistic sense, is a living work, where everything hangs together with everything, where
nothing can be moved without moving everything from its place. 50
Correlation of everything with everything can be detected in more than
one element of Schiller's dramatic poem: the polarity of characters sus.tains the symmetry of plots which, in concentric circles of scenes and acts,
form the whole of the trilogy. Corresponding to the three parts of the Prologue, the three plays of Wallenstein explore the relationship between
nature and art, portrayed in the life of individuals, representative of the
life of mankind. Schiller's integration of characters and plots from Greek
epic and tragic poetry into his modern historical drama contributes to the
symbolic nature of his poetic figures and poses the question of the relationship between Ancients and Moderns, fully discussed in his
philosophical writings. The correspondence between dramatic characters
St. Johns Lecture Series
17
�and aesthetic principles ties together life and art by interpretir{g them in
terms of history, understood in the light of .nature.
The evidence of such comple.x relationships between the various
elements of Schiller's Wallenstein certainly proves it to be a "product of
art", but does it prove it to be a "living work?" In a long painstaking letter
about Wallenstein , W .v. Humboldt writes to his friend:
We often talked with each other about this poem, when it was scarcely
more than sketched out. You considered it the touchstone with which to
test your poetic capacity. With admiration, but also with apprehension, I
saw how much you bound up in this task .. . . Such masses no one ever has
set in motion; such a comprehensive subject matter no one ever has chosen ;
an action, the motivating springs and consequences of which, like the roots
and branches of a tremendous tree-trunk, lie so far spread out and dispersed in such diverse forms, no one ever has presented in one tragedy. 51
In a letter to Korner , Schiller confesses:
None of my old plays has as much purpose and form as my Wallenstein
already has; but, by now, I know too well ~hat I want and what I have to
do that I could make the task so easy for myself.52
In the light of his notion of the poets as "preservers" and "avengers" of
nature, Schiller, in the letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, compares the artist to Agamemnon's son who returns to the house of his
fathers in order to avenge the past on the present. Understanding him as a
contemporary and citizen of more than one world, Schiller advises the artist to take the material for his work from the present, but the form from
"a nobler time, yes, from beyond all time, borrowed from the absolute,
unchangeable unity of his being". In compliance with his own advice,
Schiller takes the material for his Wallenstein from modern history, but
the form from a blend of Naive and Sentimental poetry, explicated in the
aesthetic theories of his philosophical writings . Fully aware of the artificial nature of such a process, Schiller, nevertheless, expects to achieve
an ideal of poetry in which history and philosophy would contribute to
the vindication of nature. The fact that no one, for now almost two hundred years, has seen that Schiller's Wallenstein, in appearance the most
modern of his dramas, in substance is also the one where Naive and Sentiµiental poetry blend most completely, should be enough of an indication
that history and philosophy, though indispensable for Schiller's work, are
only means towards a higher goal: their fulfillment in poetry. To end with
Schiller's own words 53 :
All paths of the human spirit end in poetry, and the worse for it if it lacks
the courage to lead them there . The highest philosophy ends in a poetic
idea, so the highest morality, the highest politics. The poetic spirit it is to
which all three owe their ideal and which to approximate is their highest
perfection.
18
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy in Poetry
�1.
3!J.
40
41.
42 .
Translations of dramatic works, by C . E. Passage, Wallenstein, 1958; Don Carlos, 1959; Mary
Stuart , The Maid of OrleaflB, 1961: The Bride of Messina, William Tell, Demetrius, 1962; Intrigue and Love, 1971; Ungar, New York; by F . J . Lamport, The Robbers and Wallenstein,
Penguin, 1979.
Translations of philosophical works, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, by R. Snell,
Ungar, New York, 1954; by E . M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby, dual language edition with
extensive introduction and commentary, Oxford, 1967: On Naive and Sentimental Poetry and
On the Sublime, by J. A. Elias, Ungar, New York, 1966.
The main sources for my account of Schiller's life are: F. Burschell, F. Schiller, In
Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1958; C.v . Wilpert, SchillerChronlk, Sein Leben und Schaffen, Kroner, Stuttgart, 1958. Given the format of a public lecture, references to secondary literature, except for a few places, have been kept ·out of the
account.
To Lempp (?),Jun. 19, 1783.
0 . Seidlin, "Schiller, Poet of. Politics", in A Schiller Symposium, ed. L. Willson, U. of Texas,
Austin, 1960, pp. 31-48.
·
H. Jantz, "William Tell and the American Revolution", in A Schiller Symposium, op . cit ., pp.
65-81.
Wallemtei11 , Prol .. II. 61-69 (tran<lation hy C . E . Pas.<age: "great objectives", my correction).
Wallen.otein'.• Death, III. 13, I. 1813.
F . Burschell . F. Schiller. op . cit ., p . 7.
C.v. Wilpert. Schiller-Chronik, op . cit .. p. 41.
A. Lincoln. "The Perpetuation of our Political ln<titutions'', Address Before the Young Men's
Lyceum of Springfield. Illinois, Jan . 27, 1838.
Th. Mann, Ver.mch Ober Schiller. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M .. 1955, p. 35 (cf. La•t E..•ays , translation hy R. and C . Win<ton . Knopf. New York, 1966. p. 29. but without this personal reference).
To Ch . and C. v. Lengefeld. Dec. 4. 17R8.
To Baggesen. Dec. 16. 1791.
On fhe Ae..thetic Ed1wati1m of Ma11 . Letter 2.
Ibid .. Letter 2.
/bit/ .. Letter 3.
Ibid .. Letter 3.
Ibid .. Letter 6.
Ibid .. Letter 6.
Ibid .. Letter 8.
Ibid., Letter 11.
Ibid .. Letter 20.
Ibid .. Lettt'r 15.
Ibid .. Letter 21.
Ibid .. Letter 8.
Ibid .. Letter 27.
Ibid .. Letter 27.
/hit/ .. Letter 9.
Ibid .. Letter 9.
To Korner. Sep. 12. 1794 .
To E.v. Schimmelmann. Jul. 13. 179.1.
To C.v . Schimmelmann. No\' , 4. 1795.
To Goethe. Aug . .11. '1794.
To Schiller. No\'. 6. 1795.
To Humholdt. Feh. 17. lll0.1 .
Ober Schiller rmtl tle11 Gang .<ei11er Gei.ttt'"n1tu:ick/1mg. 1830, in Werke , II, ed. A. F1itner/K .
Giel . Wis.•en<chaftliche Buchitesellschaft. Darm<tadt , 1969, pp. 361-362.
To Reinwald. Apr. 14, 17R3, quoted from F . Burschell, F. Schiller. op cit ., pp . 47-48 .
Hofmannsthal. "Schiller". in Arisgeu:iihlle Werke. II, Erzahlungen und Aufsiitze, Fischer,
Frankfurt a .M.. 1957, p . 40R.
<)uo!L'd from F. Rur.chell . f. Schiller, op. cit .. Jl. 166.
Th. Mann. "Es.<a\· on Schiller" in La.ti E.""Y"· op. cit .. pp. 81-84.
Schiller. lli"tory ~f thi• 1'hirty Year.t War. End of Book IV.
Wal/1•n"fein. Prol., II. 102-107 (translation hy C. E. Pas.<age: "within" , "heart", my
4.1 .
44 .
45 .
To Korner. Sep. 4, 1794.
To Goethe. Ma\· IR. 179R.
To Cnethc. Ap~. 25. 1797: Aufo! . 24. 179R.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
R.
9.
IO .
11.
12.
1.1.
14 .
15.
16.
17.
IA.
19.
20 .
21.
22 .
23 .
24 .
25 .
26.
27 .
2R .
2!J .
30.
31.
32.
33.
34 .
35.
.36.
37 .
.1R .
H
,,.,
t·orre<:tions) .
St. John'.\· Lecture Series
19
�46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
20
To Goethe, May 5, 1797.
To Korner, Mar. 9, 1789.
To ~the, Apr . 4, 1797.
On the Aesthetic Education of Man , Letter 15.
To Korner, Mar . 24, 1800.
·
To Schiller, Sep. 1800.
To Korner , Nov . 28 , 1796.
To C.v . Schimmelmann, Nov . 4, 1795 .
Schiller's Drama - Fulfillment of History and Philosophy i11 Poetry
�
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Schiller's drama : fulfillment of history and philosophy in poetry
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1982-02-26
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on February 26, 1982 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805.
German literature
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Annapolis, MD
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Friday night lecture
Tutors
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Text
NOMOS AND PHYSIS
(An interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytos}
Gisela Berns
St. John's College, Annapolis
The na_
tural order of presentation might seem to be reversed in a title which focuses on Nomos and Physis as ·two
related aspects of one and the same theme. Is not Physis
(Nature) an
indispens~ble
ground for Nomos (Convention) and
therefore a key to its unders,tanding? The
· the seemingly natural order can be found
arising from
~uripides'
play
~ippolytos,
rea~on
~n
the
for reversing
suggcs~ion,
that, in the case
of man, Nomos is as indispensable an end for Physis as Physis
is an
indispens~ble
ground for Nomos, that Physis provides
the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and that
therefore Nornos comes to be the key to· a final understanding
of man's Physis.
II
Immediately following Aphrodite's prologue (1-57); the
play presents Hippolytos, offering
a wreath
of ·f lowers· to
Artemis (58-87). In th_ dedication of the wreath, preceeded
e
by an enthusiastic hymn to the goddess's beauty and exaltedness (58-72), Hippolytos reflects on the'possession of
�-2"olllcppoodvn" and its connection to his companionship with
Artemis.
'
"ooL
tdv6~
.
lcLµQvo,,
'
1lcxtov otlcpavov it &xnpdtou
1
6lo101.va, xooµ~aa' cplpw,
lv&' o~tc 101.µ~v &t1.ot cplpBcLV Sot~
o~t'
nl&l 1111 a(6npo,, &11' axnpatov
µllt.OOa lELµQv' npt.V~V 6t.lPX£Tat.
al6~' 6~ 1otaµCaLOL xnxcdcL 6~&00~''
.. ,
.
'
,;,
'-'to owcppovctv c1.lnxcv tt.!; ta xavt. ac ,
_,
QA).'
I
Wf(An
6l0101,VQ, XP00la!; x&µn,
'
I
\
ava6nµa 6lta1. _ xc1.po'
-'· µ cS v w 1. yap ; £• o t' t.
T o0 t
•
&10.
c~acSoo,
•
.I
c µ o '1. y &:; p a '
.
Bp o T Gh.1 •
'
'
.f
'
.I
•
001. XQL tuVCLPI. XaL loyoL, aµc1.Soµa1.,
#
\ .f
x~uwv
\
~
J!
µcv auu,.,, oµµa 6
0
;i_
0
,I
oux opwv to oov.
0
I
-
\
The dedication unfolds in two parts. Each part begins with an
appeal to the goddess and ends with a reflection, the first
one on the possession of "owcppoodvn" ,_ the second one on Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis. Both parts, though they correspond to each other in structure, differ from each other in
tone: the second one · applies to Hippolytos personally what
the first one elaborates in general.
In the first part of the dedication, Hippoiytos claims
�-3-
that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for
the possession of "aw,poadvn". This claim is
~xpressed
iri
·three, increasingly abstract statements: first a description,
then a poetic image and finally a philosophical discussion.
The description of the inviolate meadow, where the flowers
for Hippolytos' wreath were gathered, distinguishes not only
· between flock and iron on the one hand, and the roaming bee 1
on the other hand, but also implies a·distinction between the
flock, something in nature, and the iron, something from nature,
developed by art into something again.s t nature i tne sickle.
This increase in supposed violation of the meadow, inherent
in the sequence of examples which are set off from the example of the bee, has two opposite effects: its immediate .
effect, supported by a grammatical
"a~>.'"
(76), is separation.
Furthermore, the repetition of the watchword
"ax~patov"
(73; . 76) ·
ties the example of the bee rhetorically to Hippolytos' offering of the wreath, and sets them both off from the examples
of flock and iron. Yet the · interp.o sition of those examples,
implying violation, between the examples, implying no violation but rather fulfillment, suggests at the same time a
separation between Hippolytos'
offe~
and. the example of the
bee. This more subtle effect is to be weighed carefully, since
the description of the roaming bee carries ove+ into the
poetic image of
"al6111~"·
The extension of the one into the
other is grammatically effected by the implicit continuation
�-4of the direct object
11
A£ l.).JiiiV) ax~patov" (76). In keeping with
the ambiguous character of the link between Hippolytos'-offer
and the example of the bee before, the granunatical conjunction
\
.
"6t"
(78) between the example of the bee and the image of
"at6c)s" can at the same time be understood to connect and to
separate. Furthermore, the image of "al6<.3,", gardening the
inviolate meadow, contains in itself a strange alloy of .wild
and tamed nature, of nature and culture, and therefore seems
to question Hippolytos' claim that only nature and divine allotment can truly account for the possession of "awcppoa~vri",
the theme of the final discussion of the dedication's first
part. Mentioning the gathering of flowers
~n
the end of this
philosophical discussion however suggests, that there is one
continuous interpretation of Hippolytos' offer, which is consecutively exp-ressed in des~riptive, poeti'c, · and philosophical
language. The key term in Hippolytos' philosophical conclusion
. \
is "To awippovetv" (80). Like the center of two concentric
circles, it.is surrounded by two pairs of correlated terms:
"ev tf,\ ,,Soe1." and "er>.rixev" in the inner circle,
\.
~ri6ev"
and
"To~' xaxoto1. o'
opposition between the
11
'
61.oaM'tov
06" in the outer circle. The
accept~nce
of 'the 'bee and the rejection
of flock and iron from the initial .d escription repeats itself
.
. \
in this final stage of the argument as the rejection of "to
01.1>1ppovetv" as
"61.oaxt~v",
against the acceptance of
correlated with "Tot' xaxoto1."
11 't'~
oooqipovetv" as "ev T~ ftfoe1.",
correlated with "eC>.rixev". The opposition is emphasized rhe-
�-5-
torically through closeness to the center and affirmative
statement for what is accepted, remoteness from the center
apd negative statement for what is rejected. Grammatically,
an
"a>.>.'"
(79), like an echo of the one above, which isolated
the example of the bee from those before, isolates the inner
circle from the outer one. The connectiQn between the poetic
image of "at6~i;" and the philosophical discussion about . "T~
owq>povttv" is controversial. The two possible constructions
are: one --"'at6~i;' gardens with river dew for those to whom
it is not taught, but in their nature· allotted to be 'owcppwv'
with respect to all things all the time, for those to pluck,
but for the base it is not right;" the other --"'ot6~i;'
gardens with river dew; for those to whom it is not taught
but in their nature allotted to be
'a~cppwv'
with respect to
all things ali the time, f9r .tho$e to pluck, but for the base
it is not . right." In both . readings, the sentence structure is
highly complex: In . the first reading, where "at6~i;" is supposed to "garden for those, to whom it is not taught but in
I
their nature allotted to be
'o~cpp(l)v'
things all the time, for those to
with respect to all
pluck~ ·
the repetition of
the indirect object, once in relative, o·n ce in demonstrative
form, seems to overstress the connection between "at6~i;" and
"T~ awcppove:tv." At the same time however, the iength of the
relative clause separates the repeated terms more than appears
natural. In the second reading, where
11
·•at6~s;' gardens with
river dew; for those, to whom it is not taught but in their
�-6-
nature allotted to .be
'a~•pwv'
with respect to all things
ba~e
all the time, for those to pluck, but for the
it is not
right", the lack of any_grammatical relation between the
first sentence and the
followi~g
relative complex poses the
problem as to the connection between "at 6~ s" and
In addition to that, _
the necessity to supply
"to\ho1.s; opl1ca601." from
"ou
11
"t ~
a <1Hp p ov £ t
v" •
-&lµ1.s;" for
.&lµ1.s;" predicated for "xaxota1.",
makes the whole relative clause with its discussion of "t~
aw,povctv" rather suspect. 2
The problematic character of the.dedication's first part
will become clearer through an analysis of the second part
and the correlation of the two in their respective three
levels. The introduction of the second appeal to the . goddess
by "aA.A.' 11 echoes those passages from the dedication's ,·first
:
part that stated the basis
f~r
acceptance·and thus prepares
the _ground for the more personal character of the second
part. The _goddess, now addressed as friend, is bidd.e n to
accept a gift that previously was only offered. The justification
ftxc1.p~s; cuac~oOs;
im~gined
&10
11
recalls the po~tic image of "a[6~s;",
as . gardening the sacred meadow. The account of Hippoly-
tos' companionship, closely linked through "y~p" to the mention-'
i~g
of his piety, seems to correspond to the discussion of
\
"To awq>povetv" in the dedication's first part. ·1n keeping
with the positive and 'more personal character of the second
part, _the emphasis, indicated by the order of discussion, is
now rather on the supernatural gift than on the natural en-
�-7-
dowment. The correlation of "iv
t~
9t1a&1.tt and "tC>.nxtv" from
above, which centered around "t~ O(l)cppovetv", seems to reappear in the correlation of "yip as" and ~Tl>.os 6~ 1i~µ<1;a1.µ • ~al:tP
eCou",
nptcl\Jnv
which center around the description of Hippoly-
tos' and the goddess's companionship • . 'l'here
is . nothi~g
in
the second part that corresponds explicitly to. the negative
references in the first part, though the "i:ots xaxotoi. 6'
ou "
seems to be implicit in Hippolytos' exclusive chosenness, the
"61.6axt~v µn6~v" in his wish for concord between the beginning and the end of his life (a notion, that is supported
rhetorically by the position . of "tt'>.os" at the beginning of
the statement and contrasted. granunatically with "6~" from the
implications mentioned). The central account of Hippolytos'
devotion to Artemis is puzzling in so far : as it describes a
companionship'. which is characterized by the exchange of ">._ yo 1.",
&
the mortal hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of the
immortal partner. This detail beqomes significant, if one
recalls that the rational aspect of "T~ owcppovttv" had been
que•tioned, if not deniedJin the first part's negation of
\
.
and its correlation with "JC.a>eotai.." Apart from the
fact that "01.11cppoo~"Vn" is to be expla.i ned etymologically 3 as
"61..6axtov"
"thinking sane thoughts" or "saving
one'~ .
good sense" and
therefore implies a rational aspect, the question arises
whether the
excha~ge
of
11
.A.&yo1." can base itself merely on
divine. gift, allotted to one in his nature 4 , or whether the
�-8-
. qualification "xA.Jwv
\
µEV
\
au6f\', !µµa 6 'OUX
.
'
op&'rv TO OOV 11
does
not suggest that Bippolytos lacks insight 5 into the nature
of his companionship as well as of the virtues connected with
it.
Ju~ging
from the correlation between the two parts of the
dedication, Bippolyltos understands "t~ awcppovttv", meaning
chastity6, to be aided by "f&L6~~". meaning shame, and both
to be equated with "tua~tltLa'~, mea~ing pious devotion to Artemis. 'l'he lack of insight, supposedly indicated by Bippolytos'
not seeing the
e~e
of the goddess., vould pertain to three· :
related aspects of his - understandin,g:.First, the meanin,g of
the virtues
.
11
.
\
.
at6c3,, To awcppovttv, tuallitLa": second, their
origin; and third, their interrelation. The fact that Hippolytos understands the meaning of these virtues exclusively in
terms of his companionship with Artemis 7 , determines at the
same time thei,r origin and interrelation •. Yet the ambiguity
'
of. grammatical and rhetorical links in the dedication's first,
more. general, part seemed to question the interrelation between
the virtues and therefore also their meaning and .their origin.
The
unarnb~guous
character of the
~orresponding
gra.mniatical
links .in the dedication's second, more personal, part only
reinforces the impression that
Bippolyto~
the complexity inherent in both the
\
of "to
has
ineani~g
~ost s~ght
of
and the origin
G~fPOV&tv".
III
'l'he issue in question might be articulated most clearly
by considering some philosophic texts, which are concerned
�-9-
with the relationship between "at6~'" and "awcppoa\SvJl", the
terms most problematically related in this
cruci~l pass~ge
of Euripides' Hippolytos. One might object to the attempt to
clarify a dramatic statement through the analysis of a philosophic text. The objection however can be met by the fact,
that Euripides himself employs philosophical language in such
a way that it becomes an integral part of the drama.
In Plato's Charmides,,a dialogue about "owcppoodvtln, we
are {>resented with a .number of definitions that are discarded,
one after the other, as insufficient.·Though all insufficient
in themselves, their order of presentation fJ:'.om a less ra·tional
to a more rational understanding
sugge~ts
the possibility .that .
.
"
all of them play a part in a definition which, though never
.
.
.
reached, might comprehend "ow9poodvn" as ~whole.a S~gnifi
cantly for
ou~
purpose,
Ch~rmides,
in his'second attempt,
defines "awcppoodvn" ·as tt~~ep at6~'" (160e). The refutation,
which is based on a very inappropriate quote from Homer, ends
with the assertion that "at6~i;" is neither good nor bad (l6la-b)
and therefore fails to define "oll>11,i:>ool1~1l,., admittedly something. good. The questionable character of the refutation reveals itself in two aspects, which are borne out by the drama
of the dialogue: When Socrates, after comparing Charmides to
a beautiful statue (154c) , first asked him whether he posaessed
11
awq1poa1'vn 11 (158b), Charmides blushed and looked even
more beautiful than before, since his shame became his youth
(158c). Tracing out this apparent connection between
11 at6~'"
�-10-
and "01.11,pood"n", Charmides pronounces his second definition
after courageously looking into himself (160e)., an act that
later will supply the basis for one of the highest definitions
of "01.111ppoad"n" (167a). A closer examination of Socrates'
- or~ginal
question (158b-c) will provide us with an answer,
as to why Charmides' second definition was nevertheless refuted.
Socrates considered first, whether Charmides was by nature
sufficiently endowed for
11
011>1ppoo1Svn" (158b), then, whether·
he was already sufficiently
"a~fp11>v"
(158b), and finally asked
him, whether he would say that he participated sufficiently
in "ow1ppoadvn" (158c). The stress on a natural presupposition
that, oz.i .the one hand, is
fic~ent
nec~ssary,
on the other hand insuf-
in itself, explains the statement that "at6~c" is
neither. good nor bad (16lb). The comparison of Charmides to
a beautiful statue ·might point to the fact that he possesses
"a1.111ppoo .~vn"
only in the static form of its natural presuppo-
sition9.
The last chapter of book IV of Aristotle's Niccmachean.
Ethics deals with the same problem in a more elaborate form.
"At6~'" is not considered a virtue, · because it has to do with
the body (1128b 14-15) and therefore . is rather a
a
"ltL~"
"~d~o~"
than
(ll28b 10-11). Concerned with the same issue, Aris-
totle.' s Eudemian Ethics (1234a 24-35) provides the criterion
for the distinction between
''11d~n"
and "ltt1., 0
:
the former
are "!vtu 'lpoaLplatw'" (1234a 25-26). This however does 1'ot
mean that there is no connection between the two: _he "11d-&n",
t
�-11bei~9 "tpua1.xcl 11 , can be understood as leadi~9 into, "ipua1.xal
&peTaC", which are distinguished from "apeTa\" proper thr~ugh
the latter's being "lltT~ fPpov!faew'" (1234a 28-30). The example
of ''at
6..,, .. ,
/
leading into
"011Hpp oa.Svn",
is commented on in pa- ·
renthesis, that for that reason people define "awcppoadvn" in
this genus, namely "at6~s;" (l234a 3.2-33). The difference
.
'
'
'
between "fPU<H xa" apt Ta 1." and "ape T<H" . proper is made even
more explicit in book VI of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
by calling the latter "apeTa~ xdp1.a1. 11 .(ll44b 3-4) 10 • Now
applied to virtue in. general, the passage in book VI not only
.
'.
· tries to clarify the similarity ("1&01. yap 6ox£t lxaaTa Tiav
~-&ii>\I U1t.dpxe1.v cpdat1. t(l)s;", 1144b 4-5) and dissimilarity (xa~.
y~p 1a1.al xal ~np(o1.' at tpua1.~al U1tdpxoud1. l~&L,, &11" &v~u
voO SlaJh:pa\ ipa(vovTa1. oi'oai.", 1144b 8-9; _.,cf. H.A. 588a 17-
589a 9) between the two forµis , of virtue, b'ut also. understands
their distinction to be based on a highly rational principle.·
While the two passages from the Eudemian Ethics spoke successively of
11
1tpoa(peat.s:"
(E.E., 1234a 25-26) and "cppdvnai.s;"
(B.E., 1234a 28-30), the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics
speaks of "vous;" (N.E., ll44b 8-9). Significantly for our
purpose, the example illustrating the lack of "voOs;" shows a
man of strong body (the natural presupposition), who lacks
s~ght;.
(the rational component) and. is therefore likely to
fall heavily (ll44b 10-12; cf. lll4b l-25). As the passage
frQm the Eudemian Ethics warned of confounding virtue with
its natural presupp6sition (e.g. defining "awtppbadvn" as
�-1211
at6ws;"), so the passage from the Nicomachean Ethics warns of
confounding it with its rational component (ll44b 17-36) and
suggests that it be understood as "oux av£U
tppOV~C7£ws;"
(1144b
20-21).
The fullest treatment of the question is to be found at
the beginning of book II of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics:
11
.tt
Out
•
.t
.If
\
.f
•
'
•
I
apa lpu0£L OUT£ wapa 'uOLV £YYLYVOVTQL QL apttaL,
•
t
alla
'
•£fUX&OL \.l~V nµtv oltaa~aL auTas;, T£A£LOU\.llVOL$; 6~ OL~ Ton
l~ous;"
(1103a 24-26). What in the passages quoted above was
. distinguished as '11 aptta\ 1pu0Lxa\ 11 and ·"cip£·ta\ xdp1..cu", is here
articulated in terms of "odvaµLs;" and "cvlpytLa" (ll03a 26-28).
'l'he difference between the two stages has to be bridged by
"l~os;" and "6L-6aoxal{a 11 (1103~ 14-18), their proportion depending on whether the virtue is "n~hx~" or "6Lavont1ox~",
though the aspect . of teaching - and learning,
~·:hich
is illustrated
by. examples from "tlxv11" (1103a 31-34 1 ll03b 8-13), seems to
become more and more relevant even for.the moral virtues
(1103a 31-1103b 2, 1103b 13-22), for instance "aw1ppoadv11"
(1103b 1-2, cf. llOSa 17-llOSb 18). If matters were different,
Aristotle ' points out, there would be no need for teaching,
.
.
· but we all would be either good or ba. (1103b 12..;.14).
d
In such a case, as Plato's Protagoras remarks (323a-324d),
one would never praise nor blame a · man ·for the presence or
absence of a virtue, since only nature or fortune would be
responsible for it. Significantly for our purpose, the passage
directly preceding this one, Protagoras' Prometheus_ myth
�-13-
tella about how Zeus sent Hermes with the. gift of "aL6~'" and
"6C•ll" .(322c) to all men in order to prevent the threat of
their mutual destruction. What the myth, appropriately for a
d~vine.
gift, called "ato~s" and "6(xn", the following dis-
cu~sion
about political virtue calls a11uppoa.Sv11" and "61.xcua.Svn"
(323a ff.), representing the addition of a rational component
in an ending indicative for abstract nouns.11
The one feature which is common to all the texts, quoted
in this excursus, is the rejection of exclusivity in the
account of virtue, be it .by teaching,
~Y
training, by nature,
·or in any other way (Plato, Meno, 70a). The last possibility
most me~ni~gfully would con\bine all three ways~ 12
'l'he one passage that not only brings
lthis·· whole '~.discus'sion
into focus, but also opens up new perspectives to be followed
up in the analysis of Euripides' Bippolytos, is the fundamental
definition of man in the opening pages of Aristotle's Politics
(1253a 1-39): "tavcp~v, St1. ••• 6 &v~p~•o' tdac1. ~ol1.t1.x~v
~;o~"
(1253a 2-3). The "'dat1.", which is replaced, in
thee~
laboration on the definition, by "61.~ ,do1.v" and in that form
set off from "61.~ Tdxnv" (1253a 3-4) ·, states man's being political as inherent .necessity and differentiates thus the
species "man" from others within the same . genus "animal".
.
.
Bei~9
'
political, on the other hand, does not seem to be an
exclusive differentia, s'ince
~t
applies to other animals as
well. (Significantly for our purpose, the examples chosen are·
the bee and
herdi~g
animals, thus linking together the two
�-14stro?gly contrasted in Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis.
~f
Hippolytos' acceptance of the bee against the rejection
the flock might be seen in the l~ght of Socrates' myth in the
Phaedo (82b), where those who possess "awippoadvn" without
philosophy and
in
thinki~gwill,
a later life, take on the
form of other political animals like the bee).
Th~
difference,
which girll'es the differentia "q)\fo£1. 1ol.LT .1.lCdv", added to the
genus "tijlov", differentiati?g power, is a difference of degree
("61.dt1.
6i
1ol.1.T1.lC~V
o &v8pC11•os
tll'ov xcfons i ~d -~'t~ll~
.:,.:a.\ · •1:1\>'t~S
&y&l.aCou t'ou µa~l.ov, 6~l.ov", 1253a 7-~; cf. H.A. 588a l7-
589a 9), based on man's exclusive possession of tt>.&yos" (">.&yov ·
6~ µ&vov av8p(l)IOS lxt1. TWV '~(l)V", 1253a
.
II
\
\ .
fY
• \ \
. -
ta µEV ouv QAAa tll>V
,.
If
t~~\I
.
. A \
•
·
\
µuAl.OTa µEv
9-io, cf. 1332b 3-8
ill
ty
_f .
,u~EI. '
ill
l';y,
.
'
µ1.lCpa
~
' ' c '
'
1;V&.C1 lCa.&. Tot' t;-&£01.v; av-&p(l)IOS 6£ lCal. . l. _Sy..,1 µ&vos yap
.
6'
t;XEI.
A&yov' WOT£ 6ct Ta0Ta au~,wvc?v aAl.~l.01.s. ~o>.>.~ y~p nap~ TO~!;
'
\
'
.
\
\
l81.dµous lCat. Tnv ,da1.v 1pdttoua1. 61.a tov
~&yov,
·'
Eav 1c1.aema1.v
ch.All)!> f)(e1.v all.tt.ov."). This natural possession of "l.dyos"
(1253a 9) allows for universalization with respect to the
sensation and expression of pleasure and pain, shared in by
~ll
animals (1253a 10-14). While the sensation and expression
of what is pleasant and painful is always occasioned by and
bound to some particular occurrence, Which involves one individual and takes .place in one present time, the possession
of "l.cSyoi;" allows foruniversalization of both through the
notion· of what is convenient and harmful (1253a 14-15) This
�-15notion, that is based on
abstracti~g
.from a particular present
as well as from a particular individual, leads over into the
notion of just and unjust, good and bad (1253a 15-18). The
connection between the two prominent forms of the dif f erentia
'
"tdoe1. 1tOA1.·ri.xov" and
11
.
Adyov cxov" has to be gathered from
the contrasting examples of the
be~st
that is unable to, and
the. 9od who does not need to share in the notions of just and
unjust, . good a~d bad (1253a 27-29) 13 • The reference to man's
being the best of animals, if and when perfected, the worst,
if and when disassociated from "vc5µos:" and "6(x""
(1253~
31-33),
. suggests, in contrast to either beast or. god, the capability
for perfection on the basis of having "Adyos:". The difference
in
wordi~g
.
between "being political" and· "having AcSyos:" mig)lt
point to the likely 'f act that having "Adyo.s:" potentially makes
for
bei~g poli~ioal
bei~9
actually,.but that
political actu-
ally .makes for having "A6yos:" actually. The difference between
bei~g
and
havi~g
would .become apparent in the possible lack
of having "Adyos:" actually, in the possible failure of man to
.
'
use his natural .weapons for the intended purpose: "9pdvna1.'''
\
.
.
.
and "apetn" (1253a 34-35), a failure .that would cause him to
remain
11
UVOO 1.fh<ITOS:
\
JC.CU
ayp 1.chCITOS:
4Vt:U
mp etl\S:"
(125Ja 35-36) •
IV
The thematic passage (73-87) from Euripides' Hippolytos,
if it is seen in the light of this and the above discussions, .
seems to be concerned with one fundamental problem: the connection between Physis and ' Nomos • . Hippolytos' rejection of
�. -16\
""to awcpp ovctv" as "ch 6aM "tov" can be interpreted as a rejection
of the natural weapons, with which man is born and which are
intended for the perfection of his nature, i.e. for the perfection of Physis through Nomos. Hippolytos' fault then would
lie in his failure to recognize the fact, that what is natural
for all animals is narrower in content than what is natural
for man, the only animal which is by nature endowed with the
possession of
"Adyo~"
"A&yo~"·
His failure to
rec~gnize
the role of
in human nature leads him to neglect the fact that
.in the case
of
man NomoS is as indispensci.ble an. end for Physis
as Physis is an indispensdble ground for Nomos, that Physis
provides the potentialities, Nomos the actuality of man, and
that therefore·Nomos comes to be the key to a 'f inal understanding
of man's Phys is. Hippolytos' wish for concord between the be-.
. ginning and the end of his life reminds one of the description
of Charmides as a beautiful statue, a description which indicates Charmides' insufficient possession of
following
an~lysis
"awq>p
oa\S.vn". The
of the play will attempt to show that the
play can be interpreted as a development of the thematic passage we have been concerned with. Indications_ given so far by
Euripides as to the insufficiency of Bippolytos' view of himself and of human nature can be detected in .content as well
as in form: in content - from his
bei~g
together preferably
with beasts and a_ goddess; in form - from the grammatical and
rhetorical analysis of Hippolytos' dedication to Artemis, which
revealed the implicitly ·contradictory character of the ex- .
�. -17-
notion that "T~ a111q>pov&tv" is allotted to
plicitly stated
one in his nature by divine gift. The fact that the paradigms
for acceptance in Bippolytos • dedication,
t~e
example of th.e
bee, visiting, and the image of "atof.11'"• . 9ardeni~g the sacred
meadow, imply a fulfillment of ·natural potentialities_- questions .
Bippolytos' understanding of the origin ot
11
T~ ac.1Hppovctv". · ...
\
Moreover , that "a t 6111 s " . and " T' a (.I) cp p o v e: t" " • equated with " ·c uo l Bc 1. a" ,
o
seem to be at the same time grammatically disconnected and very
closely connected, questions their relation
meani~g.
·of the
i~9
as well as their
The climax of Hippolytos' dedication in the description
excha~ge
of. ").cSyo1." with Artemis, Bippolytos only hear-
the . voice but not seeing the eye of the:. goddess, reminds .
one ()f Aristotle's example of 'the man with strong body, but
without sight, who is likely to fall
heavi~y.
Aphrodite's
characterization of the · rel~tionship between Hippolytos and
Artemis as
seen in the
"µc(l;t11 BpoTc(as 1pocncawv 0µ1.).(a!;"
l~ght
(19), if it is
of the Aristotelian simile, would suggest
that Hippolytos' hearing the voice but not seeing the eye of
the goddess symbolizes his failure to appreciate the role of
"Adyo'" in man's nature and the li.J<elihood .of his fall for . that
reason~
The failure to appreciate the role of
").dy()!;"
in man's
nature would show itself in the failure to appreciate the ways
in which man's nature, perfected by convention, overcomes
nature simply (cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1253a 31-33) 14 •
�·-18-
v
In
the prologue, Aphrodite proclaims her
vengefuln~ss
towards anyone who dares to affront her with "µlya cppov£tv" (6).
Hippolytos' companionship with Artemis, yet even more his
der!Jgatory attitude towards herself ("Alyct. xax(a'tnv 6a1.µcfvwv
1t£q>uxlva1. 1511 , 13), strike her as falling beyond any human
bounds ("µcCtw BpoTc(a, 1poo1ealilv
0µ1.A(a~",
19). Artemis, in
turn, refers to the fatal revenge
Aphrodi~e
takes on Hippoly-
tos by accusing her of wrath over his "01.111ppoodv11" ( "K1hp 1. ~ •••
aei>ppovoOv'tL tixae'to, 1400-1402). When Hippolytos finally X'.eal-
.izes, which divine power destroyed him, he expresses his recognition with a verb that represents the neutral component of
.
'
6~
6aCµov"
n µ'
&1~A&acv",
1401). Between t.he two characteri-
zations of HipP:olytos, as "µ,ly11 cppov&iv" by 'A phrodite, as
"a1A>1ppovGv" by Artemis, stands, like the fulcrum of a balance,
Phaedra's prediction: "awcppovctv
µa.e~oc'ta1."
(730-731). This
prediction appears to be in striking contrast to Hippolytos'
own
.
understandi~g
.,
.
\
'
\
.
of nyo a11><ppovctv" as "µ11 61.oax't&v", where
"61.6axtov" was rather correlated with "xaxoto1.'' (79-81). In
accordance with this notion, Hippolytos' claim to
.b~
"or!cpp(l)v"
se~ond
revolves around the task to prove or disprove, in the
half of the play, whether he is base natured or not ("ct xax~,
~lcpux' &v~p", 1031, 1075, 1191; cf. lb71 "ct 6~ xaxcf' · ye
cp a (vo µ a ~ 6 o H ii\
t £
a o ("
~
, l lf. 5 2 " b>
cp ( 1. 't a .e
, w
s
y £ vva t
o ~ € xcp a ( v ti
\
1la'tpC "). Together with the thematic discussion of "'to awcppovctv"
�.
.
'
as "µn
-19.
61.6c:un~v",
the triad "µlya ,poviiiv" - "awq>povctv ·
µae!fac-ra1." - "awqipovwv" s:u9gests the question whether the
center separates or mediates between the two opposite characterizations. Before being able to answer this crucial question
one would have to explore three related aspects: first, the
broader context of Hippolytos' rejection of teaching in the
\
.
·.
case of "To Oll)q>povetv", second, the internal and external
causes behind this rejection, and third the meaning of Hippolytos' predicted
learni~g
to be
"a~eppwv".
The last consideration,
concerning itself initially with the relation between teaching
and learning (cf. Plato, Meno, 70a}, will be decisive for the
final discussion of Hippolytos as
tr~gic
hero.
In the scene (88-120), which follows Hippolytos' initial
address to Artemis, his old servant involve's him in a conversation that aim~ at questioning his exclusive devotion to one
. goddess. At first, the cautious question is, whether the "vcfµos"
of "cu1tpoanyop(11" (95), established among men (91) and supposedly ("eCu:p", 98) following the
"v~µo1."
of the gods, has
obliging force even where there is no inclination, as in the
case of Hippolytos towards Aphrodite (106,113). The old serlord changes. significantly _
from
"!vat" (88) to "1at" (107) 16 in order to indicate that. Hippoly-
vant•~
appeal to his
yo~ng
tos' attitude of mind ("To~s vlou~ y~p oo \.IL\.lnTlov q>povouvTas
o~Tws",
114-115) has to be accounted for with his youthful
(118) immaturity and therefore to be fo:rgiven (117). The final
postulate of superior wisdom on the part of the immortals (120)
�-20-
does not promise fulfillment, since both, · Aphrodite directly .
(99, 103), Hippolytos indirectly.(93, 94), . are charactel;';i.Z~d
by one and the same epithet; ''a ell\> cf, n • Aphrodite' s enmity
17
~gainst
Hippolytos in her prologue was not so much provoked
by his companionship with Artemis, as by his haughtiness,,
which expressed itself ·in derogator:v statements about .herself
(13, cf • .~, 330-342, especially 333-334). Bis attitude
appears uniquel~ provocative, in that
he
alone of the citizens
of'l'roezen (12) does not acknowledge Aphrodite's claim to .all
pervadi~g
fame (1-2, cf. 103, 445, 1268-1281). In acqordance
.w ith the emphasis on what she is called or said to be (2, 13),
her qualification
"µ&vo~
1tOAt.Tiv" recognizes the worship of
the gods to be .a public matter·, closely · tied in, ·w ith 'the· ''-..J4...a;o ""
of the "'lcH" '". In contradistinction to that, Hippolytos ·' ,
stresses not sq much the
ou~st.anding
posi t:i:on he has
amo~g
the citizens as among all mortals (84). This abstraction of
himself from conventions, bound to time and place,. and understanding himself as mortal in relationship to immortals, shows
a radicality that, goes both beyond and against the "v&µo'" in
question: beyond, in so far as it tolerates no compromisel 8
of principles; against, because through this lack. of tolerance
his attitude points to the meaningless superficiality of a
"vcSµos;" which is indifferent to the principles i'nvolved. Hippoly-
tos• · answer to the old servant's challenge to conform to the
1
"vcSµos;". of "cu1poanyop (a" with respect to Aphrodite;
• '
'
'
autnv ayvo'
al
~v
"11:pcfolll~ev
•
I
•
aa1a,oµac." (102, cf. 113), indicates that one
�-21cannot, at least not uncompromisingly (104), worship at the
same time Artemis and Aphrodite •. (The close connection between
19
the two goddesses , Artemis being not only the goddess of
but also of childbirth, completing, as it were,
vi~ginity,
the work of Aphrodite, does not render their incompatibility
less striking).
The sequence of the first two scenes, Aphrodite's prologue
and Bippolytos •. address to Artemis, presented, ·as thesis and
antithesis, the principles o1 the play. The third scene, the
conversation between Hippolytos and the old servant,
poi~ts,
· as to a synthesis, · to a possible though improbable untragic
solution. The fact that Bippolytos' only reply to the old
'
servant's final exhortation ("·uµata1.v,
xpe~v",
">' '
c.i
•.
'!tat, o<uµ&v(l)v xpt\a-&a1.
107) is in turn an exhortation to .his fellow hunters
. (108-112) is
("xpe~v",
u~derlined
by
~epeati~g
an expression of necessity
107, 110); the old servant speaks of the necessity
to use the gifts of the_ gods, Bippolytos of the necessity to
have his horses prepared for exercise. The insistence on necessity in both cases, one implying immortal, the other mortal
will, appears to hint ironically toward Hippolytos' terrible
end, the destruction through his own horses. Hippolytos' last,
con~mpuous
.I
.
•
\
,,
~
"
.
'
\
\ .f
1 ine ( "tnv .c:rnv 6e Ku11p1.v 'ltQAA • ey(I) xa1.pe1.v 1\e;yw,
120), together with
his
n~gative
attitude towards
acquiri~g
"aw<ppoalSvri" through teaching, defies the old servant's hope
that his young lord may mature and come to his right senses
("vouv lxw" oaov a~ 6£t", 105). The question, which arises
�-22· from the unity of these three introductory scenes, is, whether
the appearance of debunking .the
tho~gh
H
\I cfµ
o s;"
of
"£
u po o ray op 'a" ,
even ·
it
it involves incompatible principles, is compatible with
the possession of "a.wippood\lra", claimed by Hippolytos, and
whether his attitude towards
11
\ldµos;"
in. general is significant
for the truth oi: untruth of his notion about the origin of
VI
Th~
"vdµos;" of "tultpoonyop(a", which was discussed in
the final scene of the introduction, comes to be treated more
specifically in the conversation between the nurse and Hippolytos (601-668) , on the one hand, and Hippolytos and Theseus
,
'.
(902-1101), on the other hand. The two conversations are. grouped
.around Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos, "awcppo\lttv µa-&!fot-rcu"
.
(731), and spe1:1 out what Hippolytos' .rejection of the "vdµos;",
specifically what his rejection of Aphrodite, means in a broader
context: Rejecting Aphrodite, on the one hand, means rejecting
family, on the other, rejecting political society, the one
being the basis for the other and both an expression of man's
· 11
,do 1. , .. ., represented
thro~gh
"vdµo1. 11 .; This representation has
its roots in the possession of
11
).dyos;", which enables man to
perfect his nature from potentialities to actuality. As a
speculation, one might say that a rejection of Aphrodite, the
. 90. dess that initiates, even if unintentionally, family and
d
political society, means, even if seemingly the opposite, a
rejection of
th~
perfecting role of "A&yos;" with' respect ·
�-23-
to human nature. Seen in this light, Hippolytos' negative
. attitude towards Aphrodite leads directly to his denial ~f
\
.
"To ow,povttv" as "61.6axT&v", as result of a process of per-
fection rather than as a gift allotted to one in his nature.
The correlation of the two aspects of Hippolytos' rejection,
the rejection of family and political society, suggests itself
both in form and in content: In form, the synunetry of the play
(with Aphrodite and Artemis providing 'the frame 20 and Phaedra's
prediction the center) .• keeps the two scenes
be~ween
the nurse ·
and Hippolytos and Bippolytos and Theseus in balance. In con•
. tent, both are inextricably related through their exchange of
roles: In the earlier scene, which points toward the rejection
of family, Hippolytos accuses , and condemns, and Phaedra, . through
the nurse, is accused and conde..mned. In the later
scene~
which
points toward ;the rejection of political society, Phaedra,
thro~qh
Theseus, accuses and condemns, and Hippolytos is accused
and condemned.
· aippolytos' condemnation of women as universal evil (608, . 616,
629, 632, 651, 6.66), with its ironic c6nclusion "~ vdv TL' aoT~'
OWtPOVttv 61.6atdTw, A x&µ• ~dtw Tatcr6' l~tµBa(v&l.V
a&\n (667-
668), ix:onic 21 if seen in the light of his rejection of teachi~g
'
as source for "-ro awcppovetv" (79-81), shows a fundamental flaw
in his understanding of human natu:t:"e: . His
ju~qement
women are alike in nature, ruled by passions,
~heir
that all
passions
served by reason; his suggestion to surround women with mute
beasts rather than servants in order to avoid corruption through
�-24exchapge of . words (645-648); and his absurd recommendation to
buy one's children rather than to continue the human race
thro~gh
women (616-624), all three attest to his .failure to
appreciate the role of ''A&yo'" in man's nature. Judging all
women to be alike in nature makes .him misjudge Phaedra through
the nurse, Phaedra's nobility
thro~gh
the nurse's vulgarity,
Phaedra's reference to the Nomos as criterion for the struggle
of reason over -the passions
thro~gh
the nurse's reference · to ·
Physis as criterion for the triumph of the passions over reason.
Towards the end of the conversation between .Phaedra and the
·nurse, the nurse had tried to persuade Phaedra of the senselessness of . fighting against love, a drive that is natural to all
creatures of all elements, including the gods (437-439, 447458). Only to have been
different decrees and
b~gotten
diffe~ent .
("tpuTe~e1.'1",
460) under
gods would, in the nurse's
eyes, justify Phaedra's uneasiness with respect to these
"v&µo1." (459-461). Phaedra's attitude, on the other hand,
points to the essential distinction between all creatures of
all elements, including the gods, and man: his not being
fixed in his nature by universal powers but being responsible
for the fulfillment of it on the basis of having "A&yos" 22 •
Hippolytos' absurd recommendation to buy one's children
accordipg to financial ability in th_ temples of the gods
e
would be a solution to the problem of continuing the human
race without..women, but it also would be a way to avoid all ·
responsibilities that family life naturally imposes on men:
�.-25-
Responsibilities between husband . and wife, between parents
and children, that form .men in their fulfillment of human
nature, in their perfecting themselves and eac;h other through
"v~µo1. 11 ,
bringing to actuality the
potenti~lit;ies.
.
'~cpda1.!;".
of
.
Despite manifest disagreement between the riurse and Hippolytos,
.
'
.
.
there is a strong resemblance in their fundamental vd.~w' of ·
.
.
human nature. Though the nurse acceptsandllippolytos rejects .·
.
.
the triumph of . the passions over reason, both . presuppose that ·
man's nature is fixed and therefore not to be . altered by education. The nurse takes her standard from all creatures of
all elements, including the gods, Hippolytos his from most
men, close to -beasts, and himself, clo.s e to gods~ Yet
this
similarity in form between the· nurse's .a'rt.d Hippolytos' view
should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in ·content between the
two. Hippolytos' intoleranc~ of baseness arid his radical 2.3 .
understanding of morality not only separate. him from the
nurse, but also bring
him close to Phaedra. Both Phaedra and
'
Hippolytos are driven into tragic conflict by the moral choice 24
between violating a sacred "vdµos" (in the case of Phaedra the
"vdµos" of yielding to suppliants, in the case of Hippolytos
the "v&µos" of keeping one's oath) and saving themselves from
shame and death. The fact, that both preserve the "v&llos"
rather than their own lives, becomes the stepping stone to
tragedy for both of them. Yet this similarity in character
between Hippolytos and Phaedra should not obfuscate the dissimilarity in tragedy between the two, shown by _the difference
�. -26. of their deaths. Phaedra is conscious of her fault and the,ref.ore ·kills herself., while Hippolytos is not conscious of his
and therefore is killed. The ,similarity a,nd . dissimilarity
between Hippolytos and ·Phaedra appears to be ..mos.t ambiguous
in Phaedra's central prediction for Hippolytos . "tn~ v&aou o~ .;
ti\a6l µoc. xoc.vfh l.IEtaax~v owcp·povetv µa-&rto£tac." (73d-7. 31) ·~
.
.
.
.
Judging from the correlation of the .s cenes. dire·c tly · surrounding
this prediction, the sickness alluded to seems to be Hippolytos' misjudgement of Phaedra, followed by Theseus' misjudge.. ment of Hippolytos • . Both .involve
a self-contradiction:
Phaedra
contradicting her love with hate, Hippolytos contradicting
his hate with love, though the one is a true, the ' othei:- ori:l,.y
an alleged self-contradiction. The question which carries
over into the sec.a nd ,E>art of the play is,·
way Phaedra•s :prediction "a(l)cppov£tv
wh~ther
µa.e~attac."
and in ·What
1
will come to
be fulfilled.
The discovery of Phaedra's note drives Theseus into ·blind
and unrelenting accusation of Hippolytos (790-1101). Theseus'
conviction of Hippolytos' guilt, in full support of Phaedra's
charge, springs from his knowledge of young men in general
(967-970), from the knowledge that they are ruled by passions,
letting their passions be served by reason (920, 926, 936,
951, 957). This
misjudgement of Hippolytos uses against him
the same argument (916-920) he himself had used in his misjudgement of Phaedra (616-668, cf. 921-922, 79..:.91): the impossibility of teacl)ing anyone to think aright and be, "awcppw\1 11 who
�-27\
is by nature "xaMos;" (94.2 , 945, 949, 959, 980). Hippolytos'
attempt to clear himself . from. . guilt (933 cf. · 73l) ' and to
.
.
Lute Theseus by demonstrating that he is
sup~rior
re-
not only . to·
the · ways of young men, .but to the ways of ·men .i n general (994-:
1001), makes him even more· suspect in the :eyes of Theseus. A
man, who claims to be a companion of the gods and a,t tpe . same
time rejects the most natural and sacred ways of men · (to have
'.
.
.. .
.
a family and to participate in political· society), has to be
suspect (949), or else the gods or the most natural .and sacred
ways of men,
s anctione~
by the gods, would be suspect. This
however is a thought Theseus is not willing to embark on (951).
Hippolytos' desire to be first in the "ay~v" rather th. n in
a
the
"lt~AH"
(1016-1017) shows a lack of commitment that reminds
one of his .recomntendation . to buy one's ch_ldren in . tlw, temples •
i
of the gods r~ther than to depend on women for the con.tin~ation
of the human race (618-624). Both instances could be .excused
by the fact that Hippolytos is the son of an Amazon and therefore by nature averse to Aphrodite and family life, and the
son of an Amazon by Theseus before The's eus' marriage to Phaedra
and therefore by convention excluded from political ieadership.
Yet, far from excusing himself, Hippolytos judges his lack of
commitment to the most natural and sacred ways of men to prove
his freedom from all human passions, which in his view are
nothing but all too human. The reason why his acclaimed bei.n g
"a~q>pCA>v"
(994-1001) - (by hipiself and by Artemis) - is accused
as being "µlya cppovwv" - (by Aphrodite and in one or the other
�-28-
form by all characters of the play) - can
be
found most openly
in his boasting about it (73-87, 102, 994-1001, 1100, 1364..,.
..
1365), as if · it were something to be recko.n ed t,o· himself rather
than to nature and fortune or to · nature and god-:~Jiven fate,· as
he himself professes (78-81). The difference in judgement
.
.
be~
.
tween the goddesse$ provides the frame for a deeper search into
the meaning of "T~ owcppove:tv"~ provoked by thecenter line
"ow1ppovti:v µa-&nae:ta
tos~
L", which seems ·t o contradict not only Hippoly.,..
understanding of himself but also his understanding Of
llippolytos• understanding
~f
himself apparently remains the
same throughout the whole play.: he sees himself as
11
th~
rrios:t:
ow1ppwv" of all mortals (994-1001). Afte.I'.. being banned from his
homeland,. and ready to' depart from it
with
his horses (which at
the beginning of the play he had ordered to be prepared for exer- ·
cise)
(110-112), Hippolytos appeals to Zeus as witness of his
innocence: " ZtD,
·
~
µ11M£T
• ttnv
•
• xoxos
\
£L
i
l 9ux • avnp ••• "
• '
c1 1 91- · ,
·
1193). In the following account of his .death, which might be
understood as Zeus' answer, one aspect comes to be pointed out
as most tetrible: that Hippolytos,
t ~o
was so familiar with
horses (1219-1220); cf. 110-112), should have been killed by his
own _horses, frightened by the appearance of the godsent bull
out of the sea (1204, 1218, 1229, 1240). Even in the last
scene, in the
presenc~
of Artemis and Theseus, the fatal race
of his horses rouses Hippolytos to a more heartre·nding ·1ament
(1355-J..357) than the fatal curse of his father (1348-1349,
�-29-
.1362-1363, 1378). The self- defending reappeal to Zeus, which
refers to his being · outstandingly
"ot:·µvoi;", "~£o<H~1tTwp"
and
"owcppoalSvt1 nav"ta& uitt:pox~v" (1365-1366) . reminds . one of the
early scene with the old servant who exhorted Hippolytos to
behave more in accordance with the "voµos" of men and . gods.
The analysis of Hippolytos' i=ejection of the "voµos" of
"&6•poonyop(a" and of his natural and bonventional disposition
towards such rejection will receive decisive clue.s from considering the circumstances of his death.
Hippoly.tos' confrontation with the bull recails Theseus'
encounter with the Minotaur .':'he significant difference between
the two events can be seen in the nature of the man as well
as in the nature of the beast. Theseus, on the one hand, represents himself, l1is family and his city. He is lead through
the labyrinth with the help of Ariadne, who had fallen in
love with him and had given him the famous thread of Daedalus.
The beast, Theseus finally conquers, is a monster with the
head of a bull and the body of a man. Hippolytos, on the other
hand, is without responsibility for either family or city, the
one by nature, the other by convention. In addition to that,
he is banned from his homeland and therefore represents solely
himself. The lack of experience in family and political life
results in a lack of judgement about man and human nature.
This lack of judgement made him spurn the thread he could
have received from Phaedra, had he learned to be "owqipwv" ,
in other words had he learned to have respect for the labyrinth
�-30-
of human nature. The symmetry of the play, with Aphrodite and
Artemis providing the frame and Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos the center, suggests not only, as mentioned earlier, the
correspondence of the scenes between the nurse and Hippolytos,
and Hippolytos and Theseus, but also the correspondence of the
scenes between Phaedra and the nurse and the description of
Hippolytos' encounter with the bull. The development of the
scenes between Phaedra and the nurse from a mad alternating between the passions and reason (198-266) to a clear account of
reason and the passions as warring powers in man's soul (373-430),
is answered in the description of Hippolytos' encounter with the
bull by a development from self-control to a complete loss of
control; in other words, to a complete getting lost irt the labyrinth of human nature. Unaccustomed to that labyrinth and to the
hidden crossways between and the deviations of the rassions and
reason, the beast Hippolytos is finally, though indirectly, conquered by is not a monster, half beast, half man, but wholly
beast, ·Lhough of monstrous size 25 • Hippolytos' complete rejection
of the passions, which he thinks renders himself above man and
human nature, results in a complete ignorance about then and
.,
therefore in an extreme vulnerability with respect to them. The
fact that he was not killed by the bull, but by his own horses 26 ,
frightened by the bull, shows a lack in his understanding of
himself as a man, a failure to appreciate the interrelation
of the powers that make up human nature. The picture of Hippolytos in his chariot 27 , losing control over his horses, frightened
by the bull, reminds one of the picture Plato paints of the
�-31human soul
Hippolytos, as charioteer, represents the con-
trolli~g elern~nt
of reason; the horses, tied to the chariot,
represent the spirited element, in the case of Hippolytos
usually under control, but able to be swayed either by reason
or the passions; the bull, rising out of the sea, represents
the passions, frightening the spirited elemeni and finally
overriding the control of reason. The·fact that the bull comes
out of the sea, the element always and everywhere in flux, ·
might be a symbol for the difficulty of understanding the
nature of the passions. The fact that Hippolytos' horses,
frightened by the appearance .of the bull out of the sea, race
across the land and throw their master against the rocks, the
hardest form of the firm element, the earth, might be a symbol
for Hippolytos' uncompromising rigour. The circumstances of
~ippolytos'
death bear out the implications that contradicted
the explicit statement of the thematic passage about "t~
awcppovc~v"
in the beginning of the play: The fulfillment of
natural potentialities, implicit in the example of the bee,
visiting, and the image of "at6ws", gardening the
~acred
meadow,
together with the ambiguity about the connection between "a.t.S~s"
and "t~ awcppove:i:\I", between the natural presupposition of
'
"aw,poadvn" and "awcppoadvn" itself, suggested that Hippolytos'
explicit statement about "t~ . awcppove:tv", its not being taught
or to be taught, but being allotted to one in his nature, was
highly questionable. The circumstances of Hippolytos' death
seem to reaffirm the questionability of that statement. The
�-32-
complexity of human nature, represented by the complex of
charioteer, horses and bull, would suggest that virtue has
its origin not simply in nature but also in training and
teaching. Hippolytos' rejection of the two latter stages of
development and the wish for concord between the beginning
and the end of his
life means a rejection of the natural
weapons towards "qip&vna1.s;" and "apE-r~" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a
34-35) and results somehow in remaining "avoa1.1hcnos; xai
ayp 1.chatos; &.veu
ap £Ti\s;"
(Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 35-36)
I
rather than fulfilling human nature and becoming truly
"autapx~s;" (Aristotle, Pol., 1253a 1, 25-29). In terms of the
thematic passage at the beginning of the play this would mean
that Hippol.y tos posses!R.s"a l 6ws;", the natural presupposition
of "t~ owq>pov&tv", but b~cause he rejects training and teaching~
does not possess "t~ owqipovetv", as he claims. His overestimating the divine makes him underestimate the human, a trait
that marks both his way of life and his notions about life.
A reason for that seems to be his awareness of the fact that
where\{er human affairs are concerned, there is rarely the
possibility to adhere to principles, but more often the necessity to
concede to compromises. This awareness, one could
say, of the difference between Physis and Nomos, distinguishes
Hippolytos from most men; yet it is this distinction from most
men which illudes him about himself and what it means to be
a man.
The fact that Hippolytos is killed in the end without
�-33-
ever having acknowledged the presence of any flaw in his nature
(a fact that contrasts strikingly with Phaedra's recognition
of her guilt followed by suicide) raises
centna.1.ll.ne "owqipovttv
µa-&~atta1."
a question
about the
which acts like the fulcrum
of a balance, both parts of the play representing the s. ales
c
in correspondence to each other. One aspect to be accounted
for in this context is the discrepancy between Hippolytos and
Phaedra in their connecting or disconnecting
"aw1ppoa~vn 11
with
either teaching or learning2 8 • The question which arises from
this discrepancy is whether Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos
11
awqip ovt t v JJa.&tfat ta 1. 11 (731} is in contradiction to his
own understanding of "t~ owqipovttv" as something not taught
or not to be taught, in other words whether his denial of
teaching allows nevertheless for learning. Learning without
teaching would take place, if Hippolytos, out of his own
nature 29 , were capable of developing his natural potentialities
to the actuality ·of being fully a man, in which case the
"tl>.os:" of his life would be, as he wished for, truly in
concord with its beginning. Yet Hippolytos' repeated selfappraisai 30 as the most "awqipwv" among mortals reminds one
rather of
Aristotl~'s
description of those that by talking
and philosophizing about "acucppoa\1vn" believe that they are
"awcppwv", while they resemble the sick that only listen to
the physician without following his precepts (N.E., llOSb 918). Hippolytos' life, which is spent in the concern for the
hunt and in the company of horses, dogs, a small circle of
�-34friends and supp'?sedly the goddess of the hunt, seems to
leave little room for learning, in the sense of comprehending
the nature of man. Yet the disillusionment with his .. horses,
followed by the disillusionment with his _goddess, ~t the end
31
of the play , opens up the possibility for a final fulfillment
of Phaedra's prediction for Hippolytos. The disillusionment
with his goddess (1440 ff.) significantly is expressed in
terms that resemble the earlier description of Hippolytos'
companionship with Artemis (85-86). There Hippolytos spoke
of exchanging
11
A&yo1." with the goddess, here of obeying her
">i.&yo1.", there he spoke of hearing the voice but not seeing
the eye of the goddess, here of darkness touching his eyes an indication that his believing himself in the friendship of
Artemis was, at least from a final point of view, an illusion.
The problem of a friendship, either with beasts or gods,
arises out of the difference of their natures with respect to
man 32 • Beast as well as god, the one unable to share in a companionship which is based on the possession of ">.c!yo!;"; the
other not in need of it on account of his "a \n dp XE:" a" 3 3, are
fixed in their natures (cf. 13, "itlcpuxa") below and above man
and therefore no fitting partners for human friendship. Human
friendship, on the other hand, flourishing most and most ,stable
where it is based on equality, has as its highest goal the
perfection of the friends through each others company, though
the perfection has to stay within the limits of remaining
human. Hippolytos' death in the company of his father, after
�-35beasts as well as gods have deserted him, might be understood
as a fulfillment of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipov£tv
µaa~ottai".
His pity for and forgiveness of his father 34 seem to be motivated by respect for human suffering (1405, 1407, 1409) and
therefore to display a
"awq>poo~vn"
that is much broader then
the one Hippolytos prided himself on throughout the play,
a "owq>poothn" which was to be understood exclusively in terros
of his devotion to Artemis. Nevertheless, the fact that his
forgiveness occurs only after the appearance of Artemis and
. in obedience to her (1435-1436, 1442-1443, 1449, 1451), makes
one wonder whether a
11
au1cppoouvn" ordered by divine intervention
can be truly regarded as "owqipoouvn". In Aeschylus' words: it
makes one wonder whether Hippolytos' "awqipov£tv" at the end of
the play not only comes to .o ne who is unwilling to accept it,
but also comes as
(Aischylos,
~-'
11
lta-&c1.
µciao!;" and therefore as
"xapc.~
l3L'a1.o~"
174-183). The question left at the end of this
analysis concerns the divergence of judgement between the goddesses, "irlya cppovwv" by Aphrodite, "crwcppovwv" by Artemis, con-
••t
cerns the exact meaning of Aphrodite's
6"
Et,
(µ'
(21), which accounts for Hippolytos' violent death
~µapt~xe"
("tLiawp~ooµaL
'I111to>.otov f:.v tij6' TJJJEP'}", 21-22).
VII
'
· Racine, in his preface to his "Phedre", justifies changes
he made in the character of Hirpolytos with the fact that
already the ancients had reproached Euripides for having presented Hippolytos
11
commc un philosophe exempt de toute imper.-
fection: ce qui faisait que la mort de ce jeune prince causait
�-36-
beaucoup plus d'indignation que de
piti~"
Cf4). This charac-
terization of the Euripidean Hippolytos seems to be .at the
same time right. and wrong. Like a philosopher, HippQlytos does
not feel himself bound by a particular, commonly accepted
"vdµo!;", the worship of Aphrodite. The philosopher's reason
for feeling himself superior to any
par~icular
"vdµos", is.
the recognition, that all particular "vdµoi.", compared to
the ground they stem from, compared to "qnfo 1. s", are only t'fa.n s~eht
~~ct, depend in their coming into and going out of
being on accidents of time and place. Nevertheless, the philospher recognizes the inherent necessity in man's nature to
develop particular "v&µo1.", that is he recognizes the necessary
connection between "qnfo 1. s;" and "v&iro s" 35 • Unlike a philosopher,
Hippolytos rejects the worship of Aphrodite in the name of
the worship of Artemis, which means merely to supplant one
particular, commonly accepted "v&iros" by another particular,
though uncommonly accepted "v&µo!;". The rejection of the worship of Aphrodite in the name of the worship of Artemis seems,
at first sight, to be a rejection of the passions in the name
of something purer. The ways, in which the worship of Artemis
expresses itself,
by
~Lre,
on the other hand, certainly tainted
passion: chasing and killing animals as a hunter does not
attest to a nature that would be divested of all animalistic
feelings. In Racine's opinion not being tempted by Aphrodite
was enough ground for having Hippolytos resemble a philosopher,
cxempt from all imperfection. He consequently not only changed
�-37\
the title of his play to "Phedre", but also believed that he
should give Hippolytos nquelque faiblesse" (~4), meaning "la
passion qu'il ressent
malgr~
lui pour Aricie" (§4) •. Thus Racine,
in a Christian rather than classical spirit, takes away the
rea~
son for Hippolytos' only flaw: his feeling of superiority over
all human beings on the basis of being . by nature not tempted by
Aphrodite. The more radical "faiblesse" Hippolytos suffers from
in Euripides' play is, that he does not recognize that his by natu:
and convention being predisposed to live a life dedicated to the
worship of Artemis and therefore not being tempted by Aphrodite,
is in itself not enough reason for being better than all men.
His understanding of "owq>poauvn" as something allotted to one in
his nature leads him to restrict its meaning mainly to chastity
(87) and therefore to mistake what man is by nature potentially
for what man is by nature actually. The fact that man is an
animal, but an animal which has
11
>.ciyo'" and is political, ne-
cessitates the perfection of human nature through the development of
"ldyoE" in the society of other men, which means a
perfection on the basis of nature through training and teaching, the latter two more or less depending on the former.
The basic flaw in Hippolytos' understanding of himself and
man in general seems to consist in his failure to recognize
that in the case of man "vdµo, 11 ,
through
~hich
expresses itself
the . development of ">. oyo s;", is as indispensollle an
end for "qnfo1.!:" as "qnfo1.!;" .is .=\n indispensable ground for "v&µos;",
that "cpuol.!; 11 provides the potentialities, "voµo!;" the actuality
�-38-
of man, and that therefore "vo1.1os" comes to be the key to a
final understanding of man's
11 ,~aLs 1136
• It is for this failure
that Hippolytos is not a philosopher but a tragic hero. Seen
in the light of Phaedra's prediction: "awqipovti:v 1.1aencre:TaL",
his constant failure to recognize any flaw in his nature (1455)
makes his death fall short of being truly a "nd8e:L µdOos", of
representing a
"xaPLS
SCcuos" rather than mere "BCa" without
"xapLs". This aspect of the play, and of Euripidean plays in
general, is demonstrated most harshly through the presence of
gods, that if they are gods, ought to be wiser than men, but
that far from it, only set and clear the stage of human tragedy without ever redeeming it. What Goethe in his Song of the
Harper expresses unambiguously:
"You"-meaning . the "heavenly forces:r __
"into life lead us ahead,
You let the wretched become guilty,
Then you deliver him to grief,
For all guilt is revenged on earth"
)
this feeling of the tragic situation of man, Euripides expresses ambiguously with the Deus ex machina, with immortals
apparently solving conflicts, which for mortals remain unsolved and unsolvable. This, I think, is part of what Aristotle
(Poetics, 1453a 29-30) 37 means, when he speaks of Euripides
as the most tragic of the poets.
�-39-
NOTES
1. For the symbolism, involved in the image of the bee cf.
'Knox, "The Hippolytos of Euripides
Yale Classical
Studies, 13, 1952, p.28. It might be interesting to compare
F. Bacon, Novum Organum, I, Aph. 95,. and its elaboration in
J. Swift, The Battle of the Books, Prose Writings of Swift~
ed. w. Lewin, London, 1886, · p. 178. ·
B~M.W.
11
,
2. For the philological controversy over 11. 78-81 cf. w.s.
Barrett, Euripides, Hippolytos, Oxford, 1964, pp. 172-175.
tnv
"lv.ae:v 11a\
owQlpocnSvn'J
TOUT,., ltpooayoptlSoµ"£Vti;i 0v6µat1., w~ o~i;ovoav 't~V fP0\11'\0I.'#."
3. cf. Aristotle, N.E., VI, 1140b 11-12
4. H. North's ("Sophrosyne, Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint
in Greek Literature", Cornell Studies in Classical Philolo ,
Vol. XXXV, Ithaca, N.Y •., 9 , pp.
.assertion: wit
regard to the origin of vJ.rtue, ·inclqding sophrosyne, Euripides
is firmly of opinion that physis plays the chief role" disr~gards the fact that the one pronouncing the theory in question .
is killed at the end of the tragedy. Euripidean fra9ments like
Fr. 807 (Nauck) "µly1.otO\I °!p' 7iv ;, rpuo1.s;•t~ Y~P Max~v ouot\s;
tplcpwv
xpncnav &v ~e:Cn ltott" do not have to be interpreted
with H. North, following E.R. Dodds ("Euripides the Irrationalist",
The Classical Review, 43, 1929, p. 99) as attesting to the
"moral impotence of reason", but can be understood as a claim
to nature as a necessary but not necessarily sufficient source
of virtue. The fact that in the case of man reason is a part
of nature makes the claim to nature as chief source of virtue
rather ambiguous. Dodds' (op. cit., p. 99} "Euripides• characters do not merely enunciate these principles, they also illustrate them", meaning "the victory of irrational impulse·
over reason in a noble but unstable being" ought to make one
cautious in separating them out as "their authors thoughts"
(op. cit., p. 98; cf. "The At6~~ of Phaedra and the Meaning
of the Hippolytos", The Classical Review, 39, 1925, p. 103),
expressing "systematic irrationalism" ("Euripides the Irrationali~t", p. 103), opposed to "Socratic intellectualism" ("The
At6ws; of Phaedra", p. 103).
·
co
5. cf. 1004-1005; for an elaboration on the distinction between
hearing and seeing with respect to "the quest for the first
things" cf. L. Strauss, Natural . Right and Historl, Chicago,
1953, Ch. III, "The Origin of the Idea of Natura Right"
pp. 86-89.
.
6. For a discussion of the different meanings of "awrppoo~v11"
in Euripidean tra,gedy cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 68-84.
�-40-
7. Plato's Euthyphro explores this question with respect to
"&6crletLa": The original definition of "t~ oaLov" as "t~
~&ocpi.>.b;" (7a) appears to be insufficient on the basis of
differences among the gods as to their likes and dislikes (7b~
Se). The amendment of· this insufficient definition to "t~ ·
!aLov" as "t &v ~dvtts o~ ~to\ cpLAoOaLv" (9e) is o~ly an intermediary step on the way towards a more fundamental inquiry
into the nature of "T~ oaLov". The follow up of the crucial
question, '/Jhether "t~ oaLov" is 11 001.ov" because it is "-&toqi1.>.~s"
or whether it is "-&tocpL>..~s" because it is "001.ov", in the
discussion of "t~ 001.ov" a~ "µlpos Toi) . 61.xa(ouft (12a-e) points
to a more universal definition which goes beyond the scope
of th~ dialogue.
8. cf. H. North, op.cit., pp. 153-158.
9. For a comparable relationship between "ato~~" and "owcppoo'1vl'l"
cf. Xenophon,~, II, 1, 22, and H. North, op.cit., p. 92.
10. cf. F. Dirlmeier, Aristoteles, Mikomachische Ethik,Darmstadt,
1969, note 138, 9, pp. 471-472 and "Der cpJotL - Charakter der
Arete" in "Die Oikeiosislehre Theophrasts", Philologus, Suppl.
30, l, Leipzig, 1937, pp. 39-46.
11. Therefore, "owcppooi1vn" does not seem to me to be synonymous
with "ato~~", as H. North, op.cit. p. 87, claims.
12. For the same disjunctive question cf. Aristotle, N.E.,
ll79b 20 ff.; Pol., 1332a 38-b 11 and H. North, op.ci~p.
208; related to "tu&cuµov(a" on the basis of "aptTn", cf.
Aristotle, N.E., 1099b 9-llOOa 9, E.E., 1214a 14 ff •• For a
discussion of acquisition and loss()f""11 crwq>poovvn" cf. Xenophon,
Mem., I, 2, 21-23; Cyl., VII, 5, 75 and H. North, op.cit.,
pp. 123-132, especial y p.131, with the discussion of Cyr.,
III, 1, 16-17, the problem of "ow,poavwn" as "na.enµa" or
"µa-&niia".
13. For the exclusion of the lower animals and the gods from
considerations of virtue cf. Aristotle, N.E., ll49b 27-llSOa
1, ll78b 8-18 and H. North, op.cit., p. 2'05andnote 30 ibid ••
14. For a harmonious view of "v&µos" and "'tcri.:.!;" cf. Euripides,
Bacchae, 11. 890-896 and E.R. Dodds, Conunentary, adhuc,
2.
ed., Oxford, · 1960, pp. 189-190; Ion, 11. 642-644; cf. Philemon,
fr. B7(K).
-
15. Ironically enough, Hippolytos' notion of a fixed nature
is answered with fatal revenge by a goddess> the only k~nc;L of beLnq,. to
whom it truly applies. Of course, the judgement "xaxLoTnv
O
oaLµovwv", with its implicit hybris of mortal judgement over
immortal nature, carries more weight than the otherwise true
notion of a fixed nature in the case of gods.
�-41-
16. Comparably, the nurse changes her usual address to Phaedra
from "'lat" or "tlxvov" to "6la1to1.v''~ where Phaedra has shown
moral strength (433) or at least moral indignation (695).
\
17. For the ambiguity 9f 11 a£µvoc" as epithet of Aphrodite as
well as Hippolytos cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p·. 187.
18. Cf,; B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22.
19. cf. B.M.W. Knox,
op.~i t.,
p. 28.
20. cf. B.M.W. Knox,
op.cit~,
P• 29.
21. I doubt whether this is simply a "good sententious peroration", cf. w.s. Barrett, op.cit., p. 286.
22. cf. Philemon, fr. 87(K}:
"t( ioTt Ilpoµnitds, ~v Alyoua' ~µas 1tAdaa1.
xal ~!Ala 1tdvta . tlat Tot £ µ~v enp(oi.s
l6wx'
£xdat~ xat~ ylvo~ µ(av ~~01.v;
&1tavT£S ot Alovtls tta~v &Ax1.µ01.,
6c1.1ol 1tdA1.v £tns 1dvtcs tto~v oL Aayw.
•
•
•
• ' ,
•
\
•
_f
OUM EOT
QAWltn~ n
µEV £1.pWV Tij ~u0£1.
no' au~lxaatos, aAl' edv Tpi.aµup(as
&A~ltcxds TLS auvaydy~, uCav ~oai.v
a~ata1aowv · S~cta1. tpditov e' lva •
• p
\
\
,
\
•
\
nµwv 6' oaa xai. Ta awµaT • • \ Tov api.~µov
EOTL
xa~· £vds, 1ooodtou5 loti. xa\ 1pd1ous t6ttv."
'
\
.
23. cf. E.R. Dodds, "The At6ws of Phaedra", p. 103.
24. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 15 "The fact that the moral
alternatives are represented by r-ilence and speech is not
merely a brilliant device which connects and contrasts the
situations of the different characters, it is also an emphatic
statement of the universality of the action. It makes the play
an ironical comment on a fundamental idea, the idea that man's
power of speech, \.'hi ch distinguishes him from the other animals,
is the faculty which gives him the conception and power of
moral choice in the first place."
25. For the significance of the bull in Greek mythology cf.
E.R. Dodds, Euripides, "Bacchae", 2. ed., Oxford, 1960, p. XX;
ll. 920-922 and note pp. 193-194.
· 26. cf. the etymology of the name Hippolytos, either to be
analyzed as "Breaking in horses" or as "Broken by horses".
27. For the symbolism involved in the image of the charioteer
cf. H. North, op.cit . , pp. 380-381, especially note 3.
�-4228. cf. Plato, Meno, 70a.
29. cf. Xenophon, On Hunting, I, 11; XII; XIII, 4, lSff •• For
great parts of it, this treatis~ oi Xenophon :3oun<ls like a
· commentary on Euripides' Hippolytos, attempting . to demonstrate
that hunting is the best preparation for "awq>pocn5vnn and that
it is best to be taught "itap~ aihns; Ti'i' q?lfo&ws;" (XIII, 4).
30. cf. F. Bacon's interpretation of a similar myth in The
Wisdom of the Ancients, IV, "Narcissus 11 or "Self-Love", The
Works of F. Bacon, ud. Spedding, Ellis, Heath, Vol. VI, pp.
705-706.
31. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p. 22, referring to Euripides,
Hippolytos 11. 141, 1451.
32. cf. Homer, Od., IX, 105-566; both,the Cyclops and Hippolytos, are representatives of the same phenomenon, the "choA1.s;",
though the Cyclops on the side of the beast, Hippolytos on
the side of the god.
33. cf. Aristotle~ Pol., 1253a 28 with N.E., 1158b 29-1159a 12;
E.E., 1238b 18;27; l24'4b 1-22; 1245b 14=rg-and F. Dirlmeier,
op.cit., note 180, 3, pp. 520-521; cf. Plato, Lysis, 214e215c; Euthyphro, 14e 9-15a 10.
34. cf. B.M.W. Knox, op.cit., p.31. "The play ends with a
human act which is at last a free and meaningful choice, a
choice made for the first time in full knowledge of the nature
of human life and divine government, an act which does not
frustrate its purpose. It is an act of forgiveness, something
possible only for human beings, not for gods but for their
tragic victims. It is man's noblest declaration of independence
and it is made possible by man's tragic position in the world.
Hippolytos' forgiveness of his father is an affirmation of
purely human values in an inhuman universe."
35. cf. Leo Strauss, op.cit., pp. 151-153.
36. cf. Leo Strauss, op cit., p. 145. "In the language of
Aristotle, one could say that the relation of virtue to human
nature is comparable to that of act and potency, and the act
cannot be determined by starting from the potency, but, on
the contrary, the potency becomes known by looking back to it
from the act."
37. cf. G.E. Lessing' s remark in the "4.9·th-· piece of.. the
"Hamburgische Dramaturgie": "Aristoteles hatte unstreitig
mehrere Eigenschaf ten im Sinne, welchen zu Folqe er ihm
diesen Charakter erteilte", and his speculations about the
passage in question.
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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42 pages
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Berns, Gisela N.
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Nomos and physis: an interpretation of Euripides' Hippolytus
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1971-03-05
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on March 5, 1971 by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 52998
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Annapolis, MD
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text
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pdf
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/b74bf35c334a162a42928e47386f7ae9.mp3
f7bdef759725120258278cae0bb1e5b4
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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01:07:55
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Getting Things Together Again in Kant
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2000-04-14
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 14, 2000, by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804
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Annapolis, MD
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mp3
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<a title="Typescript" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1090">Typescript</a> (Entitled "Getting things together again in Kant")
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/3b17ec861fe2011b7cd4c8b9eddd702e.mp3
84e818fc14a536120af88dffe491cf8b
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Aristotle and Adam Smith on justice: cooperation between ancients and moderns
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1994-03-18
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on March 18, 1994 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 10323
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Aristotle
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790
Justice
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Annapolis, MD
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sound
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mp3
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a45d671434cddc4ab796efb3ba5aaf8d.mp3
95a54f5ef733704a45c93ca7630471d9
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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00:54:01
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
Title
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Religion, enlightenment, and the American character
Date
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1985-04-12
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on April 12, 1985 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Bib # 13510
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Religion
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College
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Putting Things Back Together Again in Kantl
by Laurence Berns
(St. John's College, Annapolis)
Any study, including the study of philosophy, usually begins with
making distinctions, refining differences. With a comprehensive, precise,
philosopher, a philosopher with a system, like Kant, it seems as if one
could spend a lifetime just trying to work out the distinctions, without
ever coming around to bring together the things that have been
distinguished, that have been separated in thought. I would like in this
talk to try to account for how some of the major factors distinguished by
Kant come together and cooperate within the wholes that they constitute.
The lecture divides into two basic parts.
Experience and the sciences based on experience, according to
Kant, are based on two primary sources, sense intuition and conceptual
thought. Concepts without intuitions, he argues, are empty, and intuitions
without concepts are blind. How do they come together? The contrast
with Aristotle's treatment should be revealing. The fundamental
question behind this first part is: how to account for the cognition we do
experience, how to account for the partial intelligibility of our world?
The realm of nature, natural science and experience, according to
Kant, is determined strictly by necessary laws of cause and effect. The
realm of morality, on the other hand, proceeds in accordance with laws of
freedom. Like parallel lines, it would seem, the two realms never meet.
Kant speaks of the great gulf that separates these domains, that
"completely cuts off the domain of the concept of nature under the one
legislation, and the domain of the concept of freedom under the other
legislation, from any influence that each ... might have had on the other.''2
The question then naturally raises itself: how are the realm of nature and
the realm of morality related or connected in one and the same world?
lA lecture delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, April 14, 2000.
2 Critique of Judgment, Pluhar translation, (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1987), Introduction,
IX, p. 35.
1
�In his long and difficult book, the Critique of Judgment, Kant
develops the concept of purposiveness, especially the purposiveness of
nature, that in some way is intended to bridge the gap between nature and
morality. I am not able at this time to do more than touch on that subject.
The purposiveness that Kant talks about is not found in nature, but
supplied by the reflective judgment of the investigator whenever the
investigator comes across phenomena like those of living organized beings
for which the laws of mechanical cause and effect do not seem adequate. A
purpose is defined by Kant as an effect that is possible only through the
concept of that effect, the concept that is itself the cause of the effect. Like
Thomas Aquinas, Kant argues that ends in nature only make sense when
they are thought of as intended by some intelligence. The intending
intelligence can be either in the being effecting the purpose or not. The
innumerable complexes of purposive activities operative throughout
nature, especially in animate nature, in beings not intending them,
require some other being that does intend them, namely, God.3 Teleology,
Kant argues, finds its consummation in theology. But, unlike Thomas, for
Kant this God is not to be assumed to have objective reality. The idea of
such a being is produced by us in order to satisfy the subjective needs of
our cognitive faculties. These purposive laws are to make sense of the
phenomena as if some intelligent cause, a God, had made them.
The realm of the reflective judgment also contains Kant's analysis
of the aesthetic judgment, the account of the beautiful and the sublime.
The pleasure derived from an object judged beautiful comes from
reflection on the free and harmonious play of one's own faculties of
imagination and understanding in its judging.
The reflective judgment sometimes seems to be a judgment that
possessing an indeterminate particular is on the search for the universal
or universal law under which the particular could be subsumed, which, if
found, would transform it into a determinate judgment. It evidently plays
a key role in a very important subject not extensively discussed by Kant,
concept formation. In his Logic he speaks of concept formation as based
3Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 40, A.3, and Q. 1, A.2. Cf. also I, Q. 2, A.3. Critique of
Judgment, §§ 75 and 76.
2
�on three logical operations of the understanding: comparison, reflection
and abstraction,
the essential general conditions of generating any concept
whatsoever. For example, I see a fir, a willow and a linden. In
comparing them with one another I notice they are different
from one another in respect of trunk, branches, leaves and the
like; further, however, I reflect only on what they have in
common, trunk, branches and leaves and [then] I abstract from
their size, shape, and so forth; thus I gain a concept of a tree.4
In this context reflection would seem to be the power in the Kantian
system that comes closest to the noesis, or intellectual intuition, of Plato
and Aristotle.
The gap between nature and morality also raises another question
which is both a theoretical and practical question, namely, how do nature
and morality coexist in one and the same human being?
Almost everyone who aspires to be generally educated in
philosophy reads Kant's The Foundations [Grounding] of a Metaphysics of
Morals, usually after reading his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics or
selections from The Critique of Pure Reason. His Metaphysics of Morals is
much less read. One is almost bound, it seems to me, to get a distorted
picture of Kant's moral philosophy from reading the Foundations alone. In
the Foundations Kant clarifies the ultimate principle of morality, the
categorical imperative, by distinguishing it from what others claim are the
sources of moral principle. The source of moral principle, he argues, is not
nature, not divine revelation, not moral sense or feeling, not pleasure. The
discussion usually takes the form of arguing why those plausible
alternatives are to be ruled out as sources of moral worth. Kant's view
appears as a noble, but narrow, inflexible, formalism: "so act that the
maxim of your action can be made into a universal law "-period.
The chief difficulty for those who have read only the Critiques and
the Foundations is to see how Kant applies the categorical imperative. In
ethical and political matters the meaning of principles usually does not
become clear until one sees how they work out in practice. The
4 See Critique of Judgment, Introduction (2),§4; and Logi,k, (Jiische), AK IX, 94-95; Logic,
English translation by Hartman and Schwarz, (Bobs-Merril, 1974), 100-01.
3
�Metaphysics of Morals is devoted entirely to working out how the
categorical imperative is applied within the varying circumstances of
human life. Despite the formalism, it reveals Kant to be a deep, wideranging student of human nature, who is very much aware of the
importance for morality of the sources that he rejects as ultimate sources
of morality. In the second part of this talk I propose to illustrate how, in
the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant tries to make sense out of morality; in
part by showing how the moral law comes together with some of the
alternative principles that were rejected in the Foundations.
I
Most discussions of Kant begin with his modifications and
deepening of doctrines inherited from Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke,
Berkeley, Hume and others whose philosophies can be associated with
modern mathematical physics. By emphasizing those modifications, the
premises which these thinkers all share, in particular those premises
formed in opposition to the classical Platonic-Aristotelian approach, are
taken for granted, and as a consequence, are both insufficiently questioned
and thereby insufficiently clarified.
If there is genuine knowledge, must not that which the knower has
be in some way the same as that which constitutes the object known? In
the Meno [72c] Socrates speaks of the form [eidos] as that through which
things are what they are and that towards which one looks in order to give
an account of what they are. Aristotle speaks of how in sense perception
the sense is receptive of the forms of sensible things without their
material just as the wax receives the mark of the signet ring without the
iron or the gold.5 As Joe Sachs put it, "the same form that is at work
holding together the perceived thing is also at work on the soul of the
perceiver."6
5De Anima, 424a 17-21. Aristotle joins Plato's Socrates' "second sailing", taking "refuge
in speeches [eis tous logous] to look in them for the truth about the beings" [Phaedo, 99C100A], by coming around to concentrate on the form [eidos] "according to speech" [kata
ton logon]. See Physics, 193a 31 and Posterior Analytics, lOOa 1-3, and the whole of
chapter 19 of Book II.
6Aristotle's Metaphysics, translated by Joe Sachs, (Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press,
1999), liii-liv.
4
�On the basis of what evidently lies in both prephilosophic and
philosophic experience, and on the supposition that genuine knowledge is
possible for human beings, Plato and Aristotle and their followers argue
that human beings are endowed by nature with two interconnected kinds
of intuition or insight, sense intuition and intellectual intuition [nous]
which open themselves correspondingly to two kinds of forms, sensible and
intelligible forms, the forms implicit in human speech as well as the forms
of sense experience. According to the analyses of Plato and Aristotle the
intelligible forms are understood to be primarily responsible for the way
the world and things are as they are. And accordingly they become objects
of the highest kind of inquiry, the study which came to be called
metaphysics.
The great early modern opponents of the classical tradition and its
medieval offshoots seemed to regard this presupposition of harmony
between the mind and discourse of human beings and the nature of things
as a na'ive, if not gullible, optimism. Nature is not a kind mother, she
deceives us: the cognitive equipment she endows us with conceals rather
than reveals the true character of things.
Bacon, in the first Book of his New Organon, especially his
treatment of the Idols of the Mind, devotes himself to "the refutation of
the natural human reason." That refutation includes a refutation and
account of those philosophies, especially the philosophies of Plato and
Aristotle, that "idolize" or even "idolatrize" natural human reason.7 The
continuity of his great project with that of Bacon is acknowledged by Kant
through his choice of a long excerpt from the Novum Organum as the
epigraph to The Critique of Pure Reason.
Thomas Hobbes was unrivaled for the lucidity with which he
stated his opposition to classical thought. In his The Elements of Law
(Natural and Politic)8 we read "whatsoever accidents or qualities our
senses make us think there be in the world, they be not there, but are
seeming and apparitions only." What we are led to think are the
characteristics of things in themselves are rather the effects upon
7Cf. Laurence Berns, "Francis Bacon and the Conquest of Nature", Interpretation 7, No.
1 (1978), pp. 1-12, especially note 5.
8Editor, Ferdinand Tonnies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), chap.
Il.10.
5
�ourselves of causes or things which in themselves are utterly unknown to
us. As for intelligibles, universals, Hobbes tells us that there is "nothing
in the world Universal but Names; for the things named, are every one of
them Individual and Singular."9 He often criticizes Aristotle for
mistaking discourse about our thoughts and the ordering of our thoughts
for discourse about things in themselves. Traditional metaphysics from
this point of view is absorbed by logic, if not by psychology.
Kant continued and developed this critique. We cannot know
things in themselves, he argues. Science, the study of nature, is concerned
only with what appears to us, with what lies in our experience and, as far
as we can know, lies only in our experience. We are led by nature to think
that what is present in our experience is of, or refers to, things that exist
independently of our experience. And when we speak about our experience,
especially in our use of common nouns, we speak as if we possessed a
power to intuit intellectually the intelligible natures of things in
themselves. But, Kant asserts, sense intuition is the only intuition
available to us, there is no such thing as intellectual intuition for human
beings. To emphasize both the denial and the temptation at the same
time, he defines the word noumenon (which he and his readers knew in
Greek means object of nous, object of intellectual intuition) negatively, as
a word to refer to that which we can in no way know, an unknowable x, the
unknowable thing in itself.
Kant seems to have never given an explicit and direct refutation of
the intellectual intuition he so emphatically rejects. Years ago I was
puzzling about this with the distinguished Kant scholar, Lewis Beck, and
Beck finally said that he guessed Kant must have thought that he has
given us everything valid that intellectual intuition was thought to have
supplied and with more adequate explanations of its grounds. Beck was
referring in part to the fact that although, according to Kant, we cannot go
beyond phenomena to things in themselves, we can have objective,
universal and necessary judgments about them, that is, about the
phenomena that constitute our experience. We can accept Hume's critique
and starting point without the burden of his skepticism. In fact, Kant
argues, objectively valid natural science, mathematics and moral law,
9Leviathan, chap. 4.
6
�now, on his basis, can be more adequately grounded than they have ever
been before. Kant's categories, the pure a priori concepts that ground
experience, his substitutes for Platonic and Aristotelian ideas or forms,
have no special purely intellectual objects of their own; they are valid and
meaningful only in application to human experience, meaning sense
experience. Reason, the ultimate source of understanding, and its
concepts is not intuitive, for Kant, but legislative: it provides rules for the
meaningful organization of sense experience, these rules we call concepts.
Despite these fundamental oppositions, there is a deep stratum of
concurrence in Kant's approach and the Platonic-Aristotelian approach:
both find the meaningfulness of ordinary sense experience fundamentally
dependent on what is primarily at home in thought, even in logic. Kant
might be thought of as, in his own way, joining Socrates' taking refuge in
the logoi.10 The same function of the mind that in discourse determines a
certain kind of judgment, as a category provides the necessary conditions
o. meaningfulness that determine particular objects, as objects of sense
f
experience.
Thus Kant can say paradoxically that ''Reason prescribes to
nature its laws." He must also have been thinking about how Newton in
his Principia presents mathematical reason prescribing its laws to
nature: that is, after working out different general mathematical force
laws for bodies traveling in different kinds of geometric orbits (in Book I),
some 200 or so pages later (in Book III) he determines the astronomical
"System of the World" in a few pages by simply setting down the
observational data, the phenomena, and seeing to which of those force
laws they conform. (As every history of these matters makes clear the
actual discoveries of the mathematical laws were made very much in
interaction with observations of the things governed by them.)
But Kant spoke of his critical philosophy and Newton's procedure
as part of the more general Copernican intellectual revolution of modern
science. Let us take the most important example: we see the sun rise,
move across the heavens and set each day. The Copernican hypothesis
accounts for the apparent daily movement of the sun by the rotation of the
earth, or more generally, by the activity and movement of the observer.
lOsee note 5, below and the Critique of Pure Reason, B 105 or A 79, B 107, and B 370.
7
�Kant accounts for the meaningfulness of sense experience in terms of its
conformity to the rules set by our own conceptual activity. Hitherto, he
argues, it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to
objects, but he reverses the priority by asking whether it is not rather that
we attain knowledge of objects when those objects, sense objects, conform
to the conditions that our concepts and understanding set for all objects of
experience. Experimental science too is seen as part of this intellectual
revolution: in the experiment reason approaches nature with fixed laws in
mind, and then creates conditions that would never occur in nature's own
ordinary course in order to force nature to answer reason's own questions
about which laws prevail.
I spoke earlier of how Kant cut off intellectual intuition as one
route from experience to things experienced as things in themselves; but
what about gaining access to the things themselves that are sensed
through sense intuition, the one kind of intuition that Kant asserts we do
possess? That avenue is cut off by Kant's notion of what it is that we
receive through our senses. Following Hume, Kant agrees that what our
senses present to us are impressions, or as later writers who follow this
approach say, sense data; not sense objects, but sensations, mere matter
for sense objects.11 Sensation for Kant is not yet sense intuition. For
sense intuition of sense objects to occur, the matter must be ordered or
formed into appearances and experience. The formative or ordering power
does not come from the object formed, but lies in the mind a priori, that is,
independently of all sensation or experience. "(T]he form of all appearance
must altogether lie ready for the sensations a priori in the mind; and
hence that form must be capable of being examined apart from all
sensation."12 The form of outer objects of experience is Space, the form of
inner objects of experience is Time. Space presents no properties or
relations of things in themselves; "it is the subjective condition of
sensibility under which alone outer intuition is possible for us."13 As the a
llTo what extent does this depend on Kant's "Boscovichian" ~eduction of material
"solids" to tensions of forces, especially repulsive and attractive forces? See his
Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaften, Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science, especially chapter 2 on dynamics, "Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der
Dynamik", AK IV, 496-535.
l2The Critique of Pure Reason, B 34.
l3Jbid. B 42
8
�priori form of inner sense, Time is the condition of possibility for any
intuition or experience of simultaneity or succession. If, as we shall
shortly see, all experience itself depends upon synthesizing activities of
the subjects of experience, taking place in time, then time is the subjective
condition of possibility for all intuition, for all experience and for all
cognition. "Time is the formal condition a priori for all appearances in
general."14
How, according to Kant, are intuition and concept brought together
to produce experience and knowledge? The crucial link is the imagination.
The pure imagination, Kant tells us, is
a basic power of the human soul which underlies a priori all
cognition. By means of pure imagination we link the manifold
of intuition, on the one hand, with the ... necessary unity of
pure apperception [the source of the categories], on the other
hand. By means of this transcendental function of the
imagination the two extreme ends, namely sensibility and
understanding, must necessarily cohere; for otherwise
sensibility would indeed yield appearances, but would yield no
objects of an empirical cognition, and hence no experience.
Actual experience consists in [1] apprehension of appearances,
[2] their association (reproduction), and thirdly their recognition;
in this third [element] (which is the highest of these merely
empirical elements of experience), such experience contains
concepts, which make possible the formal unity of experience
and with it all objective validity (truth) of empirical cognition.
Now these bases of the recognition of the manifold, insofar as
they concern merely the form of an experience as such, are the
categories.15
Kant also spoke about the difference between the "two extreme
ends", sensibility and thought, as the difference between receptivity, the
receptivity of blind sense impressions and spuntaneity, the source of all
thinking (transcendental apperception). The two are defined in opposition
to one another. Understanding, the ability to think an object of sensible
intuition is our spontaneity of cognition, that is, the ability opposite to
receptivity, the ability to produce mental presentations by ourselves, to go
14/bid. B 46, 49-50.
15Critique of Pure Reason, Pluhar translation, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), A 124-25.
Emphasis supplied.
9
�through, take up and combine mental presentations in acts of synthesis.
"By synthesis, in the most general sense of the term,'' he says, "I mean the
act of putting various presentations with one another and of comprising
their manifoldness in one cognition." Spontaneity, he asserts, is the basis
of the three-fold synthesis that brings sense intuition and conceptual
thought together. The three syntheses are called, 1) the synthesis of
apprehension in intuition, 2) the synthesis of reproduction in imagination,
and 3) the synthesis of recognition in the concept.
The first two syntheses are, if I understand them, under the aegis
of what Kant calls the productive imagination.16
What the first synthesis, of apprehension, accomplishes is the
taking together of the received impressions as existing in one ("my")
consciousness in time. The individual becomes conscious of a unity of
intuition in him or her self, as existing "in me." It is only when the
received appearances are apprehended and combined within a definite
consciousness that Kant will call them perceptions.
The next stage, the synthesis of reproductive imagination, depends
upon an association of perceptions brought together so as to produce an
image of an object. This depends on a power of the mind "to call over"
[herilberzurufen] a preceding perception to a subsequent perception to form
a series of perceptions. The objective ground of the association, Kant says,
is the affinity of appearances in the unity of apperception. A non-Kantian
might be tempted to ask, "Is this a surreptitious glance at the outlawed
thing in itself?" But, Kant argues, this process depends on the unity of
consciousness of original apperception and is an a priori synthesis,
thereby traceable to the action of the productive imagination.17
The third synthesis, synthesis of recognition in a concept, is more
familiar to everyone who has read about the pure concepts of the
understanding, the categories. Here there is·a recognition that the
manifold of former syntheses is a unity of syntheses according to a rule,
that is, according to a concept. We have now reached the pole of thought.
16Jbid. A 118. It can be argued that the second synthesis, as its name suggests, is not
under the productive but only the reproductive imagination. Imagination, in general, is
defined in the Critique of Pure Reason, B 151, as "the power of presenting an object in
intuition even without the object's being present." In the B edition the synthesis of
apprehension is called the figurative synthesis.
17Jbid. A 122 and 123.
10
�We now recognize the former syntheses of appearances, associated
perceptions and finally an image as unified according to a rule, a category,
under which they are subsumed and validated as conforming to the
conditions of possibility of an object of experience.
At the end of this account Kant is satisfied that he can now say:
Hence the order and regularity in the appearances that we call
nature are brought into them by ourselves; nor indeed could
such order and regularity be found in appearances, had not we,
or the nature of our mind, put them into appearances
originally .18
There are two other important accounts of imagination mediating
between sense and understanding that I can only mention briefly. Kant's
transcendental deduction of the categories culminates in his discussion of
the schematism. A schema is not an image, but a product of the power of
imagination, a rule of synthesis for the imagination that governs the
production of images that then will be suitable for subsumption under
concepts.
Another most important function of imagination is its provision of
a priori intuition, the foundation of mathematical knowledge, according to
Kant. Kant, like Newton and Hobbes, defines mathematical objects
operationally rather than theoretically as Euclid mostly does. A line is
what is generated by the path of a moving point, rather than a breadthless
length. The intuition is a priori, because we, through our imaginations
supply it, it is not derived from experience. In mathematics concepts are
constructed, that is the universals, the concepts, are operative as rules of
construction for the a priori images. The universal is found in the
particular .19 Construction of concepts is defined by Kant as the
18Jbid. A 125.
19Euclid, I.32, the proof that the three angles of any triangle equal two right angles,
provides a beautiful example: As soon as you supply the line parallel to one of the sides
of the triangle, (keeping in mind what you have just learned about equalities between
interior, exterior and alternate angles) the conclusion jumps out at you. See Critique of
Pure Reason, B 744-45. In B 745 this notion of a priori intuition is shown to embrace
also the "symbolic constructions" of algebra. Cf. Jacob Klein: "A new kind of
generalization, which may be termed 'symbol-generating abstraction,' leads directly to
the establishment of a new universal discipline, namely 'general analytic,' [algebra],
which holds a central place in the architectonic of the 'new' science." Greek M athmatical
Thought and the Origin of Algebra, translated by Eva Brann, (Cambridge, Mass.: MI.T.
11
�production and exhibition a priori, that is, in pure imagination, of the
intuition which corresponds to the concept. Because in his mind the
geometer produces a circle with every radius exactly equal, "he can
demonstrate by means of a circle which he draws with his stick in the
sand, no matter how irregular it may turn out to be, the attributes of a
circle in general, as perfectly as if it had been etched on a copper plate by
the greatest artist." The production in pure imagination of the intuition
corresponding to the concept Kant calls schematic in contrast to the
merely empirical intuition on paper or drawn in the sand.20
In the middle of Kant's account of the three-fold synthesis we have
just gone through a curious and revealing footnote appears.
That the imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception
itself has, I suppose, never occurred to any psychologist. This is
so partly because this power has been limited by psychologists to
reproduction only, and partly because they believed that the
senses not only supply us with impressions, but indeed also
assemble these impressions and thus bring about images of
objects. But this undoubtedly requires something more than
our receptivity for impressions, namely, a function for their
synthesis.21
This criticism of what is evidently a premodern notion of
perception seems to beg the question by assuming that what the senses
supply are atomistic impressions, which then would require some other
power to assemble them into representations of sensible things. Sensible
things, as Kant knows, are what most people think they are perceiving
through their senses. Kant was familiar with Aristotle's logic, but
Press, 1968), available now in a Dover Edition reprint, p. 125. Cf. pp. 117-25, 163-78
and 192-211.
20ttenry E. Allison, The Kant-Eberhard Controversy, (Baltimore-London: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1973), p.111, especially Kant's note. (AK VIII, 191-92) Kant's way of
conceiving the object of mathematics is elaborately contrasted with the classical Greek
way in David Lachterman's The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity, (New
York and London: Routledge, 1989). Lachterman develops and builds on Jacob Klein's
Greek Mathmatical Thought and the Origin of Algebra; and "The World of Physics and
the 'Natural' World" in Jarob Klein: Lectures and Essays, edited by R. B. Williamson and
E. Zuckerman, (Annapolis: St. John's College Press, 1985), pp. 1-34.
21Critique of Pure Reason, (Pluhar), A 120.
12
�evidently not with DeAnima.22 Aristotle's account of these matters
seems to be much simpler, it remains very close to the ordinary and
general experience in which they are found. AB Joseph Owens put it, he
"lets things speak for themselves." Aristotle and Kant, it seems to me,
are considering pretty much the same phenomena, however differently
they account for them.
In the beginning of his Metaphysics Aristotle speaks of how all
animals by nature come into being with sensation and how, for some,
memory emerges from sensation which makes them more intelligent and
able to learn. He assumes that, of course, memory presupposes
imagination. An animal remembers by recalling an image of something
which has been perceived in the past and is no longer present, Kant's
reproductive imagination. And so, he, Aristotle, goes on,
the other animals live by imaginings and memories, but have
little share in experience, but the human race lives also by art
and reasoning. Experience arises out of memory for human
beings; for many memories of the same thing bring the capacity
for one experience to completion. And experience seems to be
almost like knowledge, or science, and art; and knowledge and
art come about from experience for human beings.
Experience is the link between memory and science and art. Experience,
then, arises from memories, when many memories of the same thing are
linked together in a unity: for example, this cured Smith, it also cured
Jones, and Green and Quinn, therefore it should cure Collins as well. The
doctor, thinking about Collins's illness is led by something to call up the
images of those former patients and their cures. The intelligible character
[ennoema]23 of the illness of the patient before him recalls that same
intelligible character he had noticed in the illnesses of Jones, Smith and
so on. The intelligible character of the illness is at work both in and
through the perceived patient before him and in the doctor's mind, as well
as in and through the images recalled of past patients.
22Nor with Thomas Aquinas' commentary on De Anima and what he wrote on
perception and imagination in his own name, cf. Summa Theologiae, I, Q. 84, AA 6 and
especially 7 and Q. 85, A 1.
23Metaphysics, 981a 6.
13
�Aristotle has a name for the kind of human imagination that
works together, that is, cooperates, with thought: he calls it rational
[logistike] imagination. It is distinguished from the kind of imagination
that human beings share with the other animals, sensible imagination.24
Let us recall, however, that experience is cognition of individuals. The
intelligible form is working away in the linkage and the unity of
experience, but it, so to speak, has not come into its own yet. In science
and art when one can say this kind of medicine cures this kind of illness,
the intelligibility of the form that was at work in experience is explicitly
and fully recognized in speech as a universal. This culminating
contemplation of the form as a universal is described by Aristotle in a way
that at first seems strange, he describes it as a coming to rest of the soul
out of its normal and natural disorder. But it is not the rest of inertia, it
is the very active and untroubled calm of natural fulfillment, the
gratifying fulfilling of a potency that was there from the beginning.25
The Kantian account is more technical and impressive. It tells us
about all sorts of processes that remained hidden until Kant explicated, or
invented, them. The imagination plays a larger role than it does for
Aristotle. The sense-data, for Kant, must first be assembled or
synthesized by the imagination before we can recognize them as
constituents of sense objects. The Kantian account describes a world, that
in its intelligible essentials is of our own making.
The Aristotelian account sticks much more closely to given
experience, the causal factors it invokes almost seem to be extrapolations
from the descriptions.26 It finds intelligibility, perhaps even intelligence,
in things and the natural world. We are instructed not so much to grasp or
construct it, as to open ourselves to it.
II
24De Anima, 433b 29-31.
25Aristotle, Physics, 247b 5-18 and Posterior Analytics, lOOa 6.
26Aristotle does distinguish objects of sense that are proper to a sense, like the visible
to sight, the audible to hearing, from incidental sense objects like "the white thing [that]
is the son of Diares". [De Anima, 418a 7-26] What that colored thing is, is incidental to
its simply being colored. But for human beings primary sense experience usually
includes the what that is part of what constitutes the object of perception as a sensible
thing.
14
�Freedom in the sense of autonomy, self-legislation, is the
fundamental principle of Kantian morality. Rousseau, whom Kant speaks
of as a kind of Newton of the moral world27, was perhaps the first to define
freedom as self-legislation, but the idea is already implicit in Hobbes's
theory of sovereignty and the social contract. We must obey the sovereign,
Hobbes argues, because each of us through the social contract has agreed
to allow his will to represent each of our wills. He is our representative.
His legislation, because of the social contract, is, legally considered, our
own self-legislation. Hobbes also formulated the more general principle
underlying this conception: "there being no Obligation on any man, which
ariseth not from some Act of his own; for all men equally are by Nature
Free."28 Obligation seems to be something like a contract with oneself.
This becomes even more explicit in Rousseau's doctrine of the
general will. Freedom in society consists in uniting oneself with all the
,.rest under the general will that declares the law, while at the same time
remaining free, that is, self-legislating, in so far as one has contributed to
the making of that law, either by taking part in the legislative assembly
oneself, or taking part in the election of legislators. The process that
makes the will general also makes it moral. Being compelled to express
one's will in such a form that it can become a general law, so that it can
coincide with the wills of all the others, moralizes the will. For example, I
don't like to pay taxes. If I generalize my desire into a law that no one
ought to pay taxes, I am compelled to see that then the police, public
schools, courts, the enforcement of contracts, and so on, would all
disappear. The irrationality of my original desire becomes manifest.
This idea is fully developed as a moral principle in Kant's doctrine
of the categorical imperative: so act that the maxim of your action can
become a universal law. The truly free or moral person, according to Kant,
bows only to the moral will or practical reason within him or her self, and
not to any standard coming from without.
The standard of autonomy, self-legislation, is opposed by
heteronomy, legislation by another. The two most powerful and prominent
27Ernst Cassirer, Rousseau, Kant and Goethe, Harper Torchbooks, (Harper and Row,
1963), p. 18.
28Leviathan, chapter 21.
15
�forms of heteronomy that are to be dethroned are the standard of nature
derived from philosophy and the standard of God derived from Biblical
revelation. Pure practical reason is the only source of moral law.
Anything, therefore, empirical or sensual in origin is disqualified as a
source or standard of moral worth: that rules out moral sense, moral
feeling and pleasure. It also rules out happiness as a standard, happiness
being understood by Kant as a kind of sum of satisfaction of empirical
desire, or as he puts it, of inclination. The rational principle of
heteronomy, the concept of perfection, at least does not, as the empirical
principles do, undermine morality, but by its emptiness and vagueness is
"altogether incapable of serving as its foundation."29 With this glance at
certain programmatic aspects of the Grounding [Foundations] of a
Metaphysics of Morals, we can now turn to the Metaphysics of Morals.
The book is divided into two parts that correspond to the
traditional division between political philosophy and ethics, the doctrine
of right and the doctrine of virtue. Duties of right are defined as externally
enforceable obligations, the external enforcer being a just, lawful, or rightprotecting political order. Duties of virtue, ethical duties, are internal
obligations. Duty is a necessitation or constraint of free choice through the
law. The constraint in ethical duties, then, is "self-constraint through the
representation of the law alone, for only so can that necessitation (even if it
is external) be united with freedom of choice."30 Free choice is not
indeterminate, free choice is that choice that can be determined by pure
reason.31 And just to wrap this up: throughout both parts of the book
"obligation" refers to "the necessity of a free action under a categorical
imperative of reason."32
But before we enter into some of the substance of the book, it is
time to clear up one fundamental point. Kant frequently speaks of the
29Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AK IV, 443.
30AK. VI, 380.
31This appears to be an echo, or variant, of Spinoza's conception of freedom.
Everything, according to Spinoza, is determined: freedom is the ability of the best
human beings to be determined by clear and distinct ideas. (If we are not determined
in our actions by clear and distinct ideas, we will be determined solely, or mainly, by
natural causes like instincts, emotions and inclinations.) For Spinoza and German
Idealism, as a whole, see Leo Strauss, Spinoza's Critique of Religfon, (New York:
Schocken Books, 1965), Preface, pp. 15-17.
32AK VI ' 222 .
16
�unbridgeable gap between the domain of sensible empirical nature and
the domain of moral freedom, as our earlier quote illustrated. Those
statements turn out to be only provisional, to help us get clear about
where our different principles are coming from. Freedom is a kind of
causality. Although the natural causality of the sensible world cannot
determine the subject as a moral, supersensible, being,
yet the reverse is possible (not ... with regard to our cognition
of nature, but ... with regard to the consequences that the
concept of freedom has in nature); ... this possibility is
contained in the very concept of a causality through freedom,
whose effect is to be brought about in the world ....
Those effects manifest themselves as appearances in the world of sense.33
This causality of freedom is another way of talking about how pure
reason becomes practical: This can only happen when reason makes the
individuals' maxims (subjective principles of action) fit for becoming
universal law. And further, since we human beings are under the sway of
nature's causality as well as freedom's, that power of reason can be
exercised, Kant says, only by its prescribing the moral law in the form of
imperatives that command or prohibit absolutely.34 A divine being, with
no countervailing natural tendencies to oppose pure practical reason, acts
in accordance with the moral law as a matter of course, with no need for
any imperatives, any commands.
Since my general aim here is to illustrate how Kant's sensible
natural realm and supersensible moral realm come together in one and
the same world, I will concentrate on the doctrine of virtue. Because that
is where those sources of morality rejected in the Foundations as ultimate
principles of morality are done justice to, as important factors in moral
life.
An end, Kant explains, is an object of free choice, the object of
some action, and is thereby empirical. The traditional, or classical,
procedure of clarifying the rank order of one's ends and then setting one's
personal maxims of duty in terms of the rank order of those ends, violates
33See AK V, 195 and the note on 195 and 196.
34AK VI, 213-14; Mary Gregor translation (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp . 1314.
17
�the concept of duty according to Kant. Duty with its categorical ought is
rooted in pure reason alone, and thereby must be in control of the maxims
by which one sets one's ends. The ends to be sought in ethics then are ends
that are also duties.
Although both nature and the concept of perfection seem to have
been ruled out as fundamental moral standards in the Foundations, in
section viii of the doctrine of virtue we find the end that is also a duty to
cultivate one's own natural perfection. AB Kant also says in the
Foundations, ends that are necessary and objective ends for every rational
being, that is, ends in themselves, can serve as moral laws. Rational
nature, he declares, is an end in itself. It follows that human beings, being
rational natures, are obliged in their own person or in the person of
another to always treat humanity as an end, not a means. The end of
humanity in our own persons is linked to the duty to make ourselves
worthy of humanity by cultivating our natural capacities to realize the
ends set forth by our reason. Then Kant goes on, "That is to say, the
human being has a duty to cultivate the raw abilities of his nature by
which the animal first raises itself into a human being."
Happiness, we remember, was also excluded from moral goals, but,
Kant declares, the happiness of others is an end that is also a duty. The
argument here is rather interesting, it seems to ground itself on
universalizing a not very exalted natural and selfish principle. The reason
why we have
a duty to be beneficent is this: since our self-love cannot be
separated from our need to be loved (helped in case of need) by
others, we therefore make ourselves an end for others; and this
maxim can never be binding except through its qualification as a
universal law, and hence through our will also to make others
our ends. The happiness of others is therefore an end that is
also a duty.
Shortly thereafter Kant again puts his prodigious deductive power
in the service of his good sense by qualifying this duty. "How far it should
extend depends ... on what each person's true needs are in view of his
sensibilities, and it must be left to each to decide this for himself." For to
promote the happiness of another at the sacrifice of one's own happiness
18
�(one's own true needs) would be in itself a self-conflicting maxim, if one
made it into a universal law.35
In the light of the Foundations, section xii of the Metaphysics of
Morals is especially interesting: outlawed feeling and pleasure come into
their own. The subject is those "moral endowments" resting on feeling
that are required to prepare the mind to receive concepts of duty and to act
on them. There are duties to cultivate these right dispositions of feeling.
Moral feeling is "the susceptibility to pleasure or displeasure
merely from the consciousness that our action is either in agreement with
or is contrary to the law of duty." Shortly thereafter a remarkable
statement follows : "for all consciousness of obligation depends on this
feeling." It is this feeling that makes us aware of the constraint that lies
of
in the concept _ duty. There is no duty to have or acquire it, because every
human being (as a moral being) already has it. The obligation can "only
be to cultivate it and, through wonder at its inscrutable [unerforschlichen
cnot to be searched into] source, to strengthen it"36 To lack it is to be
morally dead. Kant continues, in appropriately passionate language, "and
if, (to speak in medical terms) the moral life-force could no longer excite
this feeling, then humanity would dissolve (as it were by chemical laws)
into mere animality and be mixed irretrievably with the mass of other
natural beings. "37
The other great source of heteronomy, both the Foundations and
The Critique of Practical Reason tell us, is the biblical God of revelation.
Kant ends the Metaphysics of Morals by speaking of religion as an integral
part of the general doctrine of duties, but says that considered as a
doctrine of duties to God it lies outside the boundaries of pure moral
philosophy. The necessity for religion is stated quite clearly: "we cannot
very well make obligation (moral constraint) intuitive for ourselves
without thereby thinking of another's will, namely God's (of which reason
in giving universal laws is only the spokesman)." This duty with regard to
God, he goes on, is really a duty to the idea we ourselves make of such a
being, it is really a duty of a human being to him or her self, "for the sake
35AK. VI, 391-94; Gregor translation, 154-56.
36AK. VI, 399-400.
37Mary Gregor translation, p. 160.
19
�of strengthening the moral incentive in our own lawgiving reason."38 Kant
hints that if we would really like to follow up this subject, we could
consider his book Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, where the
agreements between pure practical reason and the teachings of history
and revelation are explored. That book, like the Metaphysics of Morals, is
one of those rare places where Kant describes human beings as we know
them, whole human beings who are at one and the same time natural and
moral beings.
It may be fitting to end this talk with some brief remarks about
Kant's discussion of religion. The Critique of Pure Reason established,
according to Kant, that we have no knowledge. positive or negative,
concerning the existence of God. Religion, Kant argues, is unambiguously
subordinated to morality, to moral reason. "Pure moral legislation,
through which the will of God is primordially engraved in our hearts, is not
only the unavoidable condition of all true religion whatsoever, but is also
that which really constitutes such religion." True religion, he argues, "is a
purely rational affair."39 Religion within the limits of reason alone
establishes what in the absence of knowledge we are obliged to believe, in
order to strengthen our capacities to obey the moral law.
Kant had trouble getting his book on religion printed. Permission
to publish was withheld because of opposition from officials of the
theological faculties at the universities. Morals and religion, they argued,
fell under the jurisdiction of the theological faculty, not the faculty of
philosophy to which Kant belonged. (This jurisdictional issue was
probably not the deepest ground for their opposition.) Kant had argued as
early as The Critique of Pure Reason that moral theology in answer to the
question "What may I hope?" was an indispensable part of philosophy.
After a few years of rejection by some censors and acceptance by others,
Kant did get his Religion ... book published.· But the practical and
theoretical questions connected with the affair evidently led him to write
what became a part of his last book, The Confiict of the Faculties.
38Jbid., 229·30.
39Die Religi.on innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, Religion within the Limits of
Reason Alone, AK VI, 104; Der Streit der Fakultiiten, AK VII, 67, The Confl,ict of the
Faculties, (New York: Abaris, 1979), translated by Mary Gregor, p.123.
20
�I bring this talk to a close with Kant's comments in that book on
the traditional idea that philosophy is the handmaid of theology, He
grants theology's "proud claim", but raises the question: Is she, however,
the handmaid that walks behind bearing her gracious mistress's train, or
the torchbearer that walks ahead to light the path?40
40AK VII, 28.
21
�
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Berns, Laurence, 1928-
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Putting things back together again in Kant
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2000-04-14
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Typescript of a lecture delivered on April 14, 2000 by Laurence Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804
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<a title="Audio recording" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1084">Audio recording</a> (Entitled "Gettings things back together again in Kant")
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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