The Thomas Kalb Translation of the Very Long Latin Quotation of Seneca From Page 399 of Volume I of Fr. Frederick Copleston's A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Hit page 400 of Frederick Copleston's A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY today. 

Only 4,944 pages to go!

And it's been a pretty wonderful experience thus far. Every day (I have pledged to read for at least 15 minutes per diem) I read something that makes me think, usually deeply, and I often find my answers / ideas on The Big Questions shifting a bit, which is pretty fuckin' awesome & exciting.

Father Copleston doesn't always make this stuff easy, though. 

Case in point . . . on page 399 there was a long quotation--it took up most of the page--from Seneca. In Latin. No translation anywhere.

I tried to Google the first sentence or so, and I came up with a couple of hits . . . all of them in Latin, and none of them gave me a way to translate the findings into English. So I took a deep breath and went to a Latin to English translation page and started copying bits of the Latin. And quickly found that it would only let me do about one half of a line at a time. So that was a bit tedious. But I kept at it, and eventually got through the whole thing.

"My" translation is a bit rough, and there are some inexplicable bits therein, but at least I've got a taste of the water Copleston was leading me to. I fail to comprehend why he does this, though--and he does it A LOT. Untranslated Latin . . . untranslated Greek--which is even harder to puzzle out, as the alphabet is different, so I usually just sigh and keep going on that; fortunately, the Greek is usually just a word or two. But what the fucking fuck, man? 

ANYway, here's my rough translation--just in case you want it. Or need it.

What is important in the affairs of men? It is not in the red of the sea or the divisions of the sea which have stabbed him to the oppression of the signs of the earth, nor the absence of the shore, seeking the unknown, in the ocean, but to the soul to have seen all, and where there is no greater victory, vice mastered. The Numberless, who are the people that have cities under their control, very few, who called himself. What is important? To make an effort above the threats and promises of fortune, nothing worthy of her to have to think, that you hope for. What is important? To be able to endure adversity with a glad mind. Whatever happened to him, just as though you may wish is happening to you. What is important? Calamities in mind the strong and defiant, imxorie not only against, but even an enemy, not eager for danger, nor shy, fortune was not to wait for who knows how but the making thereof, the fearless inconfurusque either of them about, either is he who was struck with the splendor of confusion that neither of this. What is important? Not to admit in the soul of evil plans into hands to heaven, to seek no good, because as you may pass, one must give some to lose their desire to be unopposed desirable, sound mind and others are also highly regarded mortals, even if the house adtulent case to look like a boat that arrived. What is important? On casual high spirits, to be mindful that if you are lucky you know this is not going to happen for a long time, whether it be unhappy, you should know that this is not you, if you do not think so. What is important? The outer lips ones. The right to the situation occurs oft ichthyosaurs, but by right of nature. Book, moreover, is the one who has escaped slavery. To do so severe slavery this is inevitable and continuous, day and night, without a break, and without pressing or supplies.

. . . easy to shake off slavery of which the gravest is to serve to himself. If you stop searching so much of yourself prospers to demand if you stop payment report, if the eyes and the nature and age and will be set even if they sayHow mad? What breathe? Why sweat? What is the land? What is the forum? There is not a lot of work for a long time, neither.

Ex post translatione, as I was attempting to shake things into place a bit, I became aware of several problems I could not see when I was in the trench. First off, Copleston's text does not indicate omissions, but the text he quotes is not a whole cloth bit from Seneca. He has either left bits out of one section (without indicating that he's done so with ellipses) or he's quilted bits from at least two different works. Either is fair game . . . IF you tell the reader that that's what you're doing. So I don't understand the motivation there. At any rate . . . I realized that in order to have any prayer of doing a proper translation, I was going to have to go back and have another go at it.

Sigh.

The things we do for the love of Truth.

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new translation:

What is most important in the affairs of men? have stabbed him in the red of the sea, on the shore of the seas with his fleets, not, neither, nor to the oppression of the land of the absence of
seeks to err on the high seas is unknown, but to have seen that there is no greater victory was subdued your vices, many of the people who have cities under their control, very few, that is. What is important? to make an effort on threats and promises of fortune;
nothing worth what you hope for. For what shall it [worthy of] this way, that you will, for? cut it off from the human to the divine way of life, how often, who, in no other way than those whose eyes are in his thick, somewhat blur the shadow with the bright sun from the back. What is important? be happy to

endure adversity whatever happens just as though you wanted it to happen (you should also For to will, according to a decree of God, if you'd know that all things are to be done: to weep, to groan, to complain and to rebel). What is the main?


After that I had to cut the search sections down a bit, but still managed to get bigger chunks than I'd been able to coax out of the translator on my first go at it. And of course that made a difference. Here's what I got:

in the very lips, and a soul, that will I seek after, this is the reason why it is not so the right of a free man, but by right of nature, for he is a free man, those who had escaped during the night, and by day and this is the inescapable, pressing constantly and we have added, without a period of

THEN

Without provisions to do so severe slavery as easy to shake off if you stop there you require, I will return if you stop payment if you look at the age and the nature and place, even if they have the

THEN

you have said: For what am I a fool? What do I yearn? what sweat? Why do we seek and the forum? Before long, it is necessary that do not for a long time.

And after all of that I went back to do some more fine tuning, and I found translations of two big chunks of the whole thing. I discovered that indeed Copleston had left a big chunk out of this text without indicating that he had done so. It consists of section 10 (most of it--it starts a little bit into that section) through 12, then skips to 16 through 17 . . . not Seneca, Nat. Quaest., III, Praef., 10-17 as the footnote indicates, which is probably why I had such a hard time tracking that shit down. (When I searched for it under the footnote information I could only come up with hits in Latin.) 

And of course that was both gratifying and frustrating, as it took me a lot of time to type that Latin shit into the translator and what came out didn't always make a hell of a lot of sense . . . and then I find that 60% of the work had already been done by a professional. But (1) hey, what else was I going to do this morning? and (2) I really didn't do such a bad job of it, all in all, so that was kind of cool.

So here's the part that I haven't (so far . . . and I'm about to quit) found a professional translation for:

many of the people who have cities under their control, very few, that is. What is important? to make an effort on threats and promises of fortune;
nothing worth what you hope for. For what shall it [worthy of] this way, that you will, for? cut it off from the human to the divine way of life, how often, who, in no other way than those whose eyes are in his thick, somewhat blur the shadow with the bright sun from the back. What is important? be happy to

endure adversity whatever happens just as though you wanted it to happen (you should also For to will, according to a decree of God, if you'd know that all things are to be done: to weep, to groan, to complain and to rebel).

Here's how I think that goes in a more proper fashion:

Very few of the rulers of this world have been able to achieve the greatest of victories: to control their own vices.

What is most important in life?
To make an effort to defy the threats and promises of Fortune, even if you find that what you had hoped for is not worth what it seemed to be worth.

You will find that when you step out of the Cave into the sunlight, your perceptions will shift from the human perspective to the divine, and you will then see the realities of which you previously saw only the shadows.

What is most important in life?
To be happy to endure adversity, acting as if whatever happens to you is what you wanted to happen. After all, if what happens to you is according to the will of God, should you not refrain from weeping and complaining? What you experience is part of a larger plan which you are incapable of perceiving, after all, so trust that God will not cause you to suffer unnecessarily. 

I tried to do a real translation there, hence not only did I try to make sense of the language, but I also pulled in ideas that Seneca seemed to be alluding to (such as Plato's Cave Allegory) or ideas which were parallel to what the text was giving me (e.g. God's will trumping the human perspective). 

So . . . I like it. I wish I could put it together with the rest of the text quoted by Copelston, but it's copywrited stuff. But it's out there if you want it. And now the missing piece is as well.

Thanks for your support.

P.S. The first part of the Copleston Seneca quote can be found on page 102 of Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome by Matthew B. Roller, and the second part (the end--what comes after my translation) can be found on the website entitled "The Mind Is a Metaphor of the World of Objects" (at metaphors.iath.virginia.edu). It's on the page on which they explore this quotation from Seneca--

"He is the true freeman who has escaped from bondage to self. That slavery is constant, from it there is no deliverance."

--which is part of the Copleston quote. In order to fully explicate it, the website has a METAPHOR IN CONTEXT section after the quote which gives sections 15 - 17 in their entirety both in Latin and in English. How badass is that? I am going to have to go back and explore that website--I think it's run by my kind of people. Or person.