That We Taste Nothing Pure
The feebleness of our condition is such that things cannot, in their natural simplicity and purity, fall into our use; the elements that we enjoy are changed, and so it is with metals; and gold must be debased with some other matter to fit it for our service. Neither has virtue, so simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics, made the end of life; nor the Cyrenaic and Aristippic pleasure, been without mixture useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience:
From the very fountain of our pleasure, something rises that is bitter, which even in flowers destroys.
---Lucretius
我们无法享受纯净的东西
我们自身条件的弱点,使得那些本质简朴、纯正的东西不能为我们所用。我们所享有的东西,都已在本质上有所改变,例如金属就是如此,纯金必须要掺入其他物质、降低纯度之后,才适用于我们。无论是贵族阶级、皮浪“以及斯多葛派奉为生活目标的简单道德,还是背勒尼学派2和亚里斯提卜听所主张的快乐,如果不混入其他因素,都不会起作用。我们所享受到的快乐和幸福,无一不混合着痛苦与烦恼:
在极度快乐的源泉中,会冒出痛苦的浊流,即使鲜花也能被它摧毁。
——卢克莱修
Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning and complaining in i; would you not say that t is dying of pain?Nay, xhen we frame the image of it in its full excellence, we stuff it with sickly and painful epithets and qualities, languor, softness, feebleness, faintness, morbidezza: a great testimony of their consanguinity and consubstantiality. The most profound joy has more of severity than gaiety, in it. The highest and fullest contentment offers more of the grae than of the merry:
Even felicity, unless it moderate itself, oppresses?
---Seneca
我们的极度快乐中包含着某种呻吟和哀叹;你不认为这种快乐会因痛苦而消失吗?不仅如此,即使我们把它的形象设计得毫无瑕疵,也总会用病态的、痛苦的修饰语来形容它，例如无精打采、软弱无力、萎靡不振、暗淡模糊、弱不禁风等等。这充分证明了快乐与这些修饰语之间的密切关系和共同性。在极度的喜悦中,严肃要多于快乐;在极度的满足中,庄重要多于欢愉。
不适度的幸福甚至会产生痛苦。
——塞涅卡
Pleasure chews and grinds us; according to the old Greek verse, which says that the gods sell us all the goods they give us; that is to say, that they give us nothing pure and perfect, and that we do not purchase but at the price of some evil.
Labour and pleasure, very unlike in nature, associate, nevertheless, by I know not what natural conjunction. Socrates says, that some god tried to mix in one mass and to confound pain and pleasure, but not being able to do it; he bethought him at least to couple them by the tail. Metrodorus said, that in sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure. I know not whether or no he intended anything else by that saying; but for my part, I am of opinion that there is design, consent, and complacency in giving a man's self up to melancholy. I say, that besides ambition, which may also have a stroke in the business, there is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy. Are there not some constitutions that feed upon it?
It is a certain kind of pleasure to weep.
---Ovid
快乐在咀嚼、碾轧着我们。有一句古代希腊的诗句这样说:诸神赐予我们的种种快乐,都是以一定代价售卖给我们的。也就是说,他们不会赐给我们纯粹而完美的快乐,如果想要得到这些快乐,我们必须忍受相应的痛苦。工作与快乐在本质上大相径庭，不过，它们却能在某个我所不知道的自然的接合处上相连。苏格拉底说,某位神明曾试图把痛苦与快乐混为一体,合而为一,但却没能做到,于是决定至少让它们末端相连。梅特罗道吕斯说,悲愁之中掺杂着若干快乐。我不知道他这样说是否别有所指,但对我来说,我相信一个人在忧郁的同时也会有着向往、赞赏和满足的感觉。除此之外,我认为其中也可能蕴含着少许野心。即使在忧郁的怀抱中,依然有某种喜悦而微妙的影子在向我们微笑,使我们感到高兴。有些性格不正是在忧郁的基础上形成的吗?
流泪时会感到某种快乐。
——奥维德
And one Attalus in Seneca says, that the memory of our lost friends is as grateful to us, as bitterness in wine, when too old, is to the palate, and as apples that have a sweet tartness.
Boy, when you pour out old Falernian wine, the bitterest put into my bowl.
---Catullus
Nature discovers this confusion to us; painters hold that the same motions and grimaces of the face that serve for weeping; serve for laughter too; and indeed, before the one or the other be finished, do but observe the painter's manner of handling, and you will be in doubt to which of the two the design tends; and the extreme of laughter does at last bring tears:
No evil is without its compensation.
---Seneca
在塞涅卡的作品中,有一个叫阿塔鲁斯的人说,对亡友的回忆会使我们感到愉快和舒适。这正如陈年老酒的苦味会令人感觉香醇,也像苹果淡淡的酸味能使我们感到甜美一样。
年轻的侍者,别给我斟法勒纳斯产的白葡萄酒,把味道最苦的酒倒入我的碗中。
——卡图鲁斯
大自然向我们揭示了这种混杂的状态。用同样的笔法和面部表情,画家既可画出哭脸,也能画出笑脸。的确,如果在画作完成之前去看画家作画,你会无法确定他画的究竟是哭脸还是笑脸。笑到极点,最后就会流出泪水。
痛苦都是有补偿的。
——塞涅卡
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