Epictetus, the Moirai, and Control: A Poem

Epictetus

What we cannot control, he said

We mustn't fear nor tacit dread

For its becoming, good or ill

Transcends the limits of our will

What we must rather do, he states

Is line our will up with the Fates

And let their hands our lives unfold

And bask serene in peace untold

But let us not in vain pretend

That there is little we can lend

For there is Power in our soul

And there are things we do control

-jwm

Of the Poem (A Brief Note):

Epictetus was a Stoic philosopher whose works I've known for nearly two decades. He was born around 55 AD, in what is now modern day Turkey, and espoused and delineated a philosophical system of ethics that reaches as far back as Zeno of Citium, but whose system of ethics was heavily influenced by Cleanthes and Chrysippus.

Much like Socrates (who in the Stoic tradition was the quintessential ethical standard), Epictetus regarded the pursuit of philosophical contemplation and reason as something intrinsically practical, as a way of actually understanding life and living it in order to attain its highest treasure: Happiness.

It would be overkill for this particular post to review the system of ethics held by the Stoics. Suffice it to say, however, that Epictetus constantly warns that there are things that are in staunch (and sometimes brutal) control of external forces, and that, if we want to achieve anything resembling a happy and content life, we ought to allow Fate to reside over those things.

So when thunderstorms come, or illnesses arise, or death or the conflagration of the world unfolds, we must not shrink beneath them in fear, but rather know that though these things be, there are things that we in fact do have control over- namely, the way we view events, how we respond to them both emotionally and intellectually, what we ought to fear and what not. In short, the interiors of our mental states, which neither thunderstorm, nor illness, nor even death have the power to assail. Hence the poem.

As a side note, while it is true that the ancients believed in the Moirai (i.e. the Fates), it doesn't follow that the Stoics did. However, they most certainly believed that, while we have free will, the universe and all in it are still governed by Fate.

Poetic Fragment- Cleanthes

Conduct me Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,
Wherever your decrees have fixed my lot.
I follow cheerfully; and, did I not,
Wicked and wretched, I must follow still.

-Cleanthes

Of the Poem (Quote):

This is a quote by Cleanthes that Epictetus employs in one of his works, the Enchiridion.

Despite the fatalistic imports, I love this quote and apply it with Providence in mind. Indeed, despite the pantheistic philosophical perspective endorsed by them, I love the Stoics (especially Epictetus).

Poetic Parameters:

Stanza: Quatrain
Meter: Pentameter
Rhyme Scheme: x.a.a.x. (where 'x' represents unrhymed lines- essentially an Italian quatrain)

Note: I've studied philosophy for roughly 17 years, and I find it incredible, each day, how closely connected and influenced I was by poetry through my philosophical studies- and this without my complete awareness of the matter.

A Few Single Stanza/Poems

Speaking of single stanza poems, here’s a few that I think are pretty good (poet’s names included):



Infinity

To the ever-rising sun
There is no time, no age-
Tomorrow yesterday are one;
That which was as is to be
Doth with now as one become.
From whence we glean infinity.

Edwin A. Ackerman





Memory

Memory is a fragile thing;
A bee’s honey, and its sting.

Violet Wiggins Newton




Night is so Long

A strip of void fastened to my window frame,
And one assertive star;
Chasing me, purging me in its white flame,
Where all tomorrows are.

Mary Caluori





Friends

Some are true;
Others are not.
They’ll either love you,
Or what you’ve got.

Bea Myers



Stoic True*

Although you’ve read Chrysippus through-
And studied Epictetus too-
This doesn’t make you Stoic true,
Until you do what Stoics do.

John W. May





Hilltop Chapel

Those barless prison walls of Delta camp
Were not as frightening as one would deem.
Indeed, there I received the Spirit’s stamp,
And on hilltop chapel seen angels gleam.

Johm W. May




Bunky

With a crumpled ear and a crooked tail
And a stripped coat, like they wear in jail,
I may not amount to so very much
But still I’d like to make it clear:
I’ve earned my bed and board for life;
I caught a mouse . . . last year!

Billie Marie Crabb

****

It delights me through- this thing that bothered me a little in the past- to know that the idea of a single subject (a subject that could easily fill volumes) can be so beautifully conveyed in so short a poem. Not that I hadn’t known this before, but to see it reinforces the knowledge that it’s so.



* For the pronunciation of Chrysippus and Epictetus

A Stoic Found

The swing that breaks the dang’ling bag
Sends candy bouncing all around:
They rush and rush and push and fuss,
And knock each other to the ground.
No thoughts of others, only self
Where skewed desires all abound-
It rushes, pushes, and it kicks,
For candy does it punch and pound.

The seeking of it hardly stops
When all the revelry and sound
Diminish by the quiet yard
Where some young kid is candy crown’d;
What festers is a bitter taste-
A blight from loss, a wound profound,
‘Til vengeance from ambition breeds
A stronger greed that knows no bound.

But see how there that candy lay
Beside my foot, that fell inbound,
How that I have but little care,
Just peace that would the gods astound.
‘What is to thee indifferent shun’
These Stoic principles expound.
And so I’m freed from all their greed,
A slave to no one’s candy mound.

-jwm


Of the Poem:

Yeats' poem, the Song of Wandering Aengus, inspired the general structure behind this poem above. In his poem Yeats uses three stanzas, each containing eight lines (called an octet). Each line is done in a tetrameter (that is, eight syllables), and his rhyme scheme is x.a.x.a.x.b.x.b. for each stanza.

The stanza type in this poem is the same, and I hoped to achieve the same meter; but rather than Yeats' x.a.x.a.x.b.x.b rhyme scheme, I wanted to have an x.a.x.a.x.a.x.a. all the way through (this is what made doing this particular poem enjoyable).

The hardest part was achieving a single idea in each stanza as well as Yeats did. Still, I’m happy with the results.

The subject matter of the poem derives from the Discourses of Epictetus, Book IV, Chapter VII. In it he uses an analogy- children scrambling for figs and nuts- to show how ridiculous our behaviors become when we place intrinsic value in something whose value is at best a matter of indifference. Here's a segment from that chapter:

A man scatters dried figs and nuts: the children seize them and
fight with one another; men do not, for they think them to be a
small matter. But if a man should throw about shells, even the
children do not seize them. Provinces are distributed: let children
look to that. Money is distributed: let children look to that.
Praetorships, consulships are distributed: let children scramble for
them, let them be shut out, beaten, kiss the hands of the giver, of
the slaves: but to me these are only dried figs and nuts. What then?
If you fail to get them, while Caesar is scattering them about, do not
be troubled: if a dried fig come into your lap, take it and eat it;
for so far you may value even a fig. But if I shall stoop down and
turn another over, or be turned over by another, and shall flatter
those who have got into chamber, neither is a dried fig worth the
trouble, nor anything else of the things which are not good, which the
philosophers have persuaded me not to think good.

I imagine a modern day Stoic (perhaps another Epictetus) chiding those who would embrace conflict to achieve an end whose value is less than indifferent, who exchange integrity of soul for so trivial a thing. The fact that they would set up embattlements and wage warfare for these things only serves as testimony to their level of dilapidation. He warns elsewhere: Mischief is a great mystery to those who inflict it, O thief.

The voice concludes with a brief awareness of its placid state in relation to its environment of greed, and considers whence its state of peace.

Italian Quatrain

I see the rolling thunderous approach
As loam emanates from cemented ground;
I see synapsing clouds devoid of sound,
And am jubilantly without reproach.

-jwm

Of the Poem:

Friends and I hiked Mount Sherman last June. The night prior to the hike, when we arrived at the hotel, there on the horizon was a cloud that resembled what I might imagine the aftermath of a nuclear blast to be. It was beautiful (picture above). The following week while it rained I was studying Epictetus (a Stoic philosopher), and read:

"Remember God. Invoke him for your aid and protector, as sailors do Castor and Pollux, in a storm. For what storm is greater than that which arises from these perilous semblances, contending to overturn our reason? Indeed, what is the storm itself, but a semblance? For do but take away the fear of death, and let there be as many thunders and lightnings as you please, you will find that to the reason all is serenity and calm..."

The idea for, and imagery of, the above quatrain emerged from these two events. It's because Epictetus was a Roman citizen that I decided to render this quatrain Italian. I know it's just a stanza, but it's riddled with the perfect amount of Stoic symbolism.