L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits
dress. Some writers think that there is one who bestows a benefit,
one who receives it, and a third who returns it; others say that they
represent the three sorts of benefactors, those who bestow, those who
repay, and those who both receive and repay them. But take whichever
you please to be true; what will this knowledge profit us? What is the
meaning of this dance of sisters in a circle, hand in hand? It means
that the course of a benefit is from hand to hand, back to the giver;
that the beauty of the whole chain is lost if a single link fails, and
that it is fairest when it proceeds in unbroken regular order. In the
dance there is one, esteemed beyond the others, who represents the
givers of benefits. Their faces are cheerful, as those of men who give
or receive benefits are wont to be. They are young, because the memory
of benefits ought not to grow old. They are virgins, because benefits
are pure and untainted, and held holy by all; in benefits there should
be no strict or binding conditions, therefore the Graces wear loose
flowing tunics, which are transparent, because benefits love to be seen.
People who are not under the influence of Greek literature may say that
all this is a matter of course; but there can be no one who would think
that the names which Hesiod has given them bear upon our subject. He
named the eldest Aglaia, the middle one Euphrosyne, the third Thalia.
Every one, according to his own ideas, twists the meaning of these
names, trying to reconcile them with some system, though Hesiod merely
gave his maidens their names from his own fancy. So Homer altered
the name of one of them, naming her Pasithea, and betrothed her to a
husband, in order that you may know that they are not vestal virgins.
[Footnote: i.e. not vowed to chastity.]
I could find another poet, in whose writings they are girded, and wear
thick or embroidered Phrygian robes. Mercury stands with them for the
same reason, not because argument or eloquence commends benefits,
but because the painter chose to do so. Also Chrysippus, that man of
piercing intellect who saw to the very bottom of truth, who speaks
only to the point, and makes use of no more words than are necessary to
express his meaning, fills his whole treatise with these puerilities,
insomuch that he says but very little about the duties of giving,
receiving, and returning a benefit, and has not so much inserted fables
among these subjects, as he has inserted these subjects among a mass of
fables. For, not to mention what Hecaton borrows from him, Chrysippus
tells us that the three Graces are the daughters of Jupiter and
Eurynome, that they are younger than the Hours, and rather more
beautiful, and that on that account they are assigned as companions
to Venus. He also thinks that the name of their mother bears upon the
subject, and that she is named Eurynome because to distribute benefits
requires a wide inheritance; as if the mother usually received her name
after her daughters, or as if the names given by poets were true. In
truth, just as with a 'nomenclator' audacity supplies the place of
memory, and he invents a name for every one whose name he cannot
recollect, so the poets think that it is of no importance to speak the
truth, but are either forced by the exigencies of metre, or attracted by
sweetness of sound, into calling every one by whatever name runs neatly
into verse. Nor do they suffer for it if they introduce another name
into the list, for the next poet makes them bear what name he pleases.
That you may know that this is so, for instance Thalia, our present
subject of discourse, is one of the Graces in Hesiod's poems, while in
those of Homer she is one of the Muses.
IV. But lest I should do the very thing which I am blaming, I will pass
over all these matters, which are so far from the subject that they are
not even connected with it. Only do you protect me, if any one attacks
me for putting down Chrysippus, who, by Hercules, was a great man, but
yet a Greek, whose intellect, too sharply pointed, is often bent and
turned back upon itself; even when it seems to be in earnest it only
pricks, but does not pierce. Here, however, what occasion is there for
subtlety? We are to speak of benefits, and to define a matter which is
the chief bond of human society; we are to lay down a rule of life, such
that neither careless openhandedness may commend itself to us under the
guise of goodness of heart, and yet that our circumspection, while it
moderates, may not quench our generosity, a quality in which we ought
neither to exceed nor to fall short. Men must be taught to be willing
to give, willing to receive, willing to return; and to place before
themselves the high aim, not merely of equalling, but even of surpassing
those to whom they are indebted, both in good offices and in good
feeling; because the man whose duty it is to repay, can never do so
unless he out-does his benefactor; [Footnote: That is, he never comes up
to his benefactor unless he leaves him behind: he can only make a dead
heat of it by getting a start.] the one class must be taught to look
for no return, the other to feel deeper gratitude. In this noblest of
contests to outdo benefits by benefits, Chrysippus encourages us by
bidding us beware lest, as the Graces are the daughters of Jupiter, to
act ungratefully may not be a sin against them, and may not wrong those
beauteous maidens. Do thou teach me how I may bestow more good things,
and be more grateful to those who have earned my gratitude, and how the
minds of both parties may vie with one another, the giver in forgetting,
the receiver in remembering his debt. As for those other follies, let
them be left to the poets, whose purpose is merely to charm the ear and
to weave a pleasing story; but let those who wish to purify men's
minds, to retain honour in their dealings, and to imprint on their minds
gratitude for kindnesses, let them speak in sober earnest and act with
all their strength; unless you imagine, perchance, that by such flippant
and mythical talk, and such old wives' reasoning, it is possible for us
to prevent that most ruinous consummation, the repudiation of benefits.
V. However, while I pass over what is futile and irrelevant I must
point out that the first thing which we have to learn is, what we owe in
return for a benefit received. One man says that he owes the money which
he has received, another that he owes a consulship, a priesthood,
a province, and so on. These, however, are but the outward signs of
kindnesses, not the kindnesses themselves. A benefit is not to be felt
and handled, it is a thing which exists only in the mind. There is
a great difference between the subject-matter of a benefit, and the
benefit itself. Wherefore neither gold, nor silver, nor any of those
things which are most highly esteemed, are benefits, but the benefit
lies in the goodwill of him who gives them. The ignorant take notice
only of that which comes before their eyes, and which can be owned and
passed from hand to hand, while they disregard that which gives these
things their value. The things which we hold in our hands, which we see
with our eyes, and which our avarice hugs, are transitory, they may
be taken from us by ill luck or by violence; but a kindness lasts even
after the loss of that by means of which it was bestowed; for it is
a good deed, which no violence can undo. For instance, suppose that I
ransomed a friend from pirates, but another pirate has caught him and
thrown him into prison. The pirate has not robbed him of my benefit, but
has only robbed him of the enjoyment of it. Or suppose that I have saved
a man's children from a shipwreck or a fire, and that afterwards disease
or accident has carried them off; even when they are no more, the
kindness which was done by means of them remains. All those things,
therefore, which improperly assume the name of benefits, are means by
which kindly feeling manifests itself. In other cases also, we find a
distinction between the visible symbol and the matter itself, as when a
general bestows collars of gold, or civic or mural crowns upon any one.
What value has the crown in itself? or the purple-bordered robe? or the
fasces? or the judgment-seat and car of triumph? None of these things
is in itself an honour, but is an emblem of honour. In like manner,
that which is seen is not a benefit--it is but the trace and mark of a
benefit.
VI. What, then, is a benefit? It is the art of doing a kindness which
both bestows pleasure and gains it by bestowing it, and which does its
office by natural and spontaneous impulse. It is not, therefore, the
thing which is done or given, but the spirit in which it is done or
given, that must be considered, because a benefit exists, not in that
which is done or given, but in the mind of the doer or giver. How great
the distinction between them is, you may perceive from this, that
while a benefit is necessarily good, yet that which is done or given is
neither good nor bad. The spirit in which they are given can exalt small
things, can glorify mean ones, and can discredit great and precious
ones; the objects themselves which are sought after have a neutral
nature, neither good nor bad; all depends upon the direction given them
by the guiding spirit from which things receive their shape. That which
is paid or handed over is not the benefit itself, just as the honour
which we pay to the gods lies not in the victims themselves, although
they be fat and glittering with gold, [Footnote: Alluding to the
practice of gilding the horns of the victims.] but in the pure and holy
feelings of the worshippers.
Thus good men are religious, though their offering be meal and their
vessels of earthenware; whilst bad men will not escape from their
impiety, though they pour the blood of many victims upon the altars.
VII. If benefits consisted of things, and not of the wish to benefit,
then the more things we received the greater the benefit would be. But
this is not true, for sometimes we feel more gratitude to one who gives
us trifles nobly, who, like Virgil's poor old soldier, "holds himself as
rich as kings," if he has given us ever so little with a good will a man
who forgets his own need when he sees mine, who has not only a wish but
a longing to help, who thinks that he receives a benefit when he
bestows one, who gives as though he would receive no return, receives a
repayment as though he had originally given nothing, and who watches for
and seizes an opportunity of being useful. On the other hand, as I said
before, those gifts which are hardly wrung from the giver, or which drop
unheeded from his hands, claim no gratitude from us, however great they
may appear and may be. We prize much more what comes from a willing
hand, than what comes from a full one. This man has given me but little,
yet more he could not afford, while what that one has given is much
indeed, but he hesitated, he put it off, he grumbled when he gave it,
he gave it haughtily, or he proclaimed it aloud, and did it to please
others, not to please the person to whom he gave it; he offered it to
his own pride, not to me.
VIII. As the pupils of Socrates, each in proportion to his means, gave
him large presents, Aeschines, a poor pupil, said, "I can find nothing
to give you which is worthy of you; I feel my poverty in this respect
alone. Therefore I present you with the only thing I possess, myself. I
pray that you may take this my present, such as it is, in good part, and
may remember that the others, although they gave you much, yet left for
themselves more than they gave." Socrates answered, "Surely you have
bestowed a great present upon me, unless perchance you set a small value
upon yourself. I will accordingly take pains to restore you to yourself