{"id":2421,"date":"2023-07-30T14:20:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T14:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=2421"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:22:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:22:35","slug":"seneca-unknown-cumbria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/30\/seneca-unknown-cumbria\/","title":{"rendered":"Seneca and an unknown Cumbrian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seneca and an unknown Cumbrian…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cNothing can be more fatall to us than the rendering ourselves slaves to popular vogue\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Checking a volume of estate\/manorial records, in Carlisle Archives last summer, I discovered someone, back in 1690, had used the book to write nine pages of lengthy advice on \u2018how to be happy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the unknown scribe\u2019s own prescription, but rather his (I think it\u2019s safe to assume \u2018his\u2019) translation of \u2018On the Happy Life<\/em>\u2019. Which was written by Seneca the Younger around the year 58 AD, for his older brother Gallio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist (4 BC – 65 AD). What did this Roman \u2018do for us\u2019? Well, many of his quotes<\/a> are worth linking to as pretty sound advice some 2,000 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 333 years ago, a Cumbrian who had access to estate records decided to use one volume to translate the work into English for himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus elle est belle, moins elle est fid\u00e8le\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an old French saying about translations that the more beautiful they are, the less faithful, and; the more faithful they are, the less beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how our unknown Cumbrian\u2019s translation holds up in comparison to others \u2013 is it accurate? Is it \u2018beautiful\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I\u2019ve transcribed the first page or so. (It would be long and tedious to copy all nine pages!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have copied the spelling as it is in the book \u2013 the English of the new reign of King William III and Queen Mary II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seneca translated by a 17th century Cumbrian<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Julie 24, 1690<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seneca of a Happie Life<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter the first<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All men my dear Gallio would live happilee, but are in the dark as to the way that would promote their soe doing. And for him that misses the way to it att first, the further he goes and the more he pursues it, the more remote he is from obtaining it, speed in the prosecution removing him still further from what he seeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must therefore first propose some certain end and object of our desires and then studie the readiest way to attain them. And if the road be direct, wee shall in the progresse off it understand daylie the advances wee make, to the end with a naturall inclinations drive us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whilst wee wander irregularlie, distracted by the direction and call of our passions moving us uncertainli, our short and frail life, how laborious lie __ ever it be spent, is worn out in a continuall succession of errors and mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us therefore consider not only whither but by what way we would goe. Let us provide a Guid practised and experienced in the road. Since the order to be observed in the journey extremelie differs from what is observed in other voyages, ffor in those, the common track and the ordinarie information off the inhabitants secures us from wandring, but here the most practised and open the road may mislead us. And therefore let us avoid the imitation of the flocks and \u2014- heards of \u2014-, which consider not where they would goe. But onlie that others have gone before them. Nothing can be more fatall to us than the rendering ourselves slaves to popular vogue<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seneca and an unknown Cumbrian… \u201cNothing can be more fatall to us than the rendering ourselves slaves to popular vogue\u2026\u201d Checking a volume of estate\/manorial records, in Carlisle Archives last summer, I discovered someone, back in 1690, had used the book to write nine pages of lengthy advice on \u2018how to be happy\u2019. It wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSeneca and an unknown Cumbrian - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Seneca wrote some sound advice 2,000 or so years ago. 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