Sei Shonagon and Seneca
The blog's been tired lately and needs a little pick-me-up, so I'm going to share some of my reading throughout the month of September. Maybe twice a week. Or so.
Today's quotes are from Phillip Lopate's anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, An anthology from the Classical Era to the Present.
Sei Shonagon was a lady of the court in tenth-century Japan. In The Pillow Book she wrote lists like, "Things Which Distract in Moments of Boredom" and "Annoying Things."
Her list of "Hateful Things" made me smile.
"One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone on which one is rubbing one's inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the unstuck, making a nasty, grating sound.
One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears announcing himself in a reedy voice. One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme."
Me too, me too.
On the other hand, Seneca, a stoic who lived in first century Rome writes this about noise,
"I have lodgings right over a public bathhouse. Now imagine to yourself every kind of sound that can make one weary of one’s years. When the strenuous types are doing their exercises, swinging weight-laden hands about, I hear the grunting as they toil away—or go through the motions of toiling away—at them, and the hissings and strident gasps every time they expel their pent-up breath. When my attention turns to a less active fellow who is contenting himself with an ordinary inexpensive massage, I hear the smack of a hand pummeling his shoulders, the sound varying according as it comes down flat or cupped. But if on top of this some ball player comes along and starts shouting out the score, that’s the end! Then add someone starting up a brawl, and someone else caught thieving, and the man who likes the sound of his voice in the bath, and the people who leap into the pool with a tremendous splash. Apart from those whose voices are, if nothing else, natural, think of the hair remover, continually giving vent to this shrill and penetrating cry in order to advertise his presence, never silent unless it be while he is plucking someone’s armpits and making the client yell for him! Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own."
Plucking someone's armpits!
This is why we read the ancients, people.
And then onto philosophical musings on noise,
"There can be absolute bedlam without so long as there is no commotion within, so long as fear and desire are not at loggerheads, so long as meanness and extravagance are not at odds and harassing each other. For what is the good of having silence throughout the neighborhood if one's emotions are in turmoil?
Which is true, but still...the din of that bathhouse every day...
Then, this...
“This is all very well,” you may say, “but isn’t it sometimes a lot simpler just to keep you away from the din?” I concede that, and in fact it is the reason why I shall shortly be moving elsewhere. What I wanted was to give myself a test and some practice. Why should I need to suffer the torture any longer than I want to when Ulysses found so easy a remedy for his companions even against the Sirens?
I could go into musings about the span of a millennium and cultures between these two writers, conjecture about the relative freedom Seneca enjoyed as a man in ancient Rome versus the rigidity of Japanese court life and how these realities played into the writers' concerns and subjects, but I have my own concerns and world today, so I'll leave those musings for another time.
And on that note, I'll get to classwork as I enjoy the sounds of my morning: my fingers on the keyboard, Pepper's soft snores and the distant rumbling of the garbage truck.
Today's quotes are from Phillip Lopate's anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, An anthology from the Classical Era to the Present.
Sei Shonagon was a lady of the court in tenth-century Japan. In The Pillow Book she wrote lists like, "Things Which Distract in Moments of Boredom" and "Annoying Things."
Her list of "Hateful Things" made me smile.
"One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone on which one is rubbing one's inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the unstuck, making a nasty, grating sound.
One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears announcing himself in a reedy voice. One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme."
Me too, me too.
On the other hand, Seneca, a stoic who lived in first century Rome writes this about noise,
"I have lodgings right over a public bathhouse. Now imagine to yourself every kind of sound that can make one weary of one’s years. When the strenuous types are doing their exercises, swinging weight-laden hands about, I hear the grunting as they toil away—or go through the motions of toiling away—at them, and the hissings and strident gasps every time they expel their pent-up breath. When my attention turns to a less active fellow who is contenting himself with an ordinary inexpensive massage, I hear the smack of a hand pummeling his shoulders, the sound varying according as it comes down flat or cupped. But if on top of this some ball player comes along and starts shouting out the score, that’s the end! Then add someone starting up a brawl, and someone else caught thieving, and the man who likes the sound of his voice in the bath, and the people who leap into the pool with a tremendous splash. Apart from those whose voices are, if nothing else, natural, think of the hair remover, continually giving vent to this shrill and penetrating cry in order to advertise his presence, never silent unless it be while he is plucking someone’s armpits and making the client yell for him! Then think of the various cries of the man selling drinks, and the one selling sausages and the other selling pastries, and all the ones hawking for the catering shops, each publicizing his wares with a distinctive cry of his own."
Plucking someone's armpits!
This is why we read the ancients, people.
And then onto philosophical musings on noise,
"There can be absolute bedlam without so long as there is no commotion within, so long as fear and desire are not at loggerheads, so long as meanness and extravagance are not at odds and harassing each other. For what is the good of having silence throughout the neighborhood if one's emotions are in turmoil?
Which is true, but still...the din of that bathhouse every day...
Then, this...
“This is all very well,” you may say, “but isn’t it sometimes a lot simpler just to keep you away from the din?” I concede that, and in fact it is the reason why I shall shortly be moving elsewhere. What I wanted was to give myself a test and some practice. Why should I need to suffer the torture any longer than I want to when Ulysses found so easy a remedy for his companions even against the Sirens?
I could go into musings about the span of a millennium and cultures between these two writers, conjecture about the relative freedom Seneca enjoyed as a man in ancient Rome versus the rigidity of Japanese court life and how these realities played into the writers' concerns and subjects, but I have my own concerns and world today, so I'll leave those musings for another time.
And on that note, I'll get to classwork as I enjoy the sounds of my morning: my fingers on the keyboard, Pepper's soft snores and the distant rumbling of the garbage truck.