Evil is coeval with
mankind.
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1343-1400) said repeatedly in his widely studied Canterbury Tales, “Love of money is the
root of all evil.” How much can
we alter that statement today, six centuries later?
When Christopher Marlowe
(1564-93) made his unforgettable Doctor Faustus utter the following lines:
Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I’d give them all for Mephistophilis,
he created a character who
would be perfectly at home in our own time with all its plethora of sensual delights.
Now, how evil are sensual delights?
Now, how evil are sensual delights?
“Fair
is foul, and foul is fair,” said Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) witches in Macbeth.
They were expressing something much more than an epigram on
hypocrisy or political chicanery. If we want, we can even apply
the epigram to many of the contemporary sensual delights.
We can apply that witchy
epigram, moreover, to a lot of things today.
The law today, for
example, protects the foul. Even in the
days of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the law wasn’t any better. He said, “Laws are
like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break
through.”
Can you guess
who wrote the following lines?
“The different forms of government make laws, democratic,
aristocratic, or autocratic, with a view to their respective interests; and
these laws, so made by them to serve their interests, they deliver to their
subjects as ‘justice’ and punish as ‘unjust’ anyone who transgresses them…”
Plato wrote
it about 2400 years ago in The Republic.
There has
been no escape from evil for mankind. So
what’s to be done? Should Greek
philosopher, Epictetus (55-135 CE), be my inspiration?
When Epictetus
was a slave, his master used to treat him with consistent cruelty. One day the master chose to entertain himself
by twisting Epictetus’ leg. “If you go
on,” said Epictetus calmly, “you will break my leg.” The master went on, and the leg was
broken. “Did I not tell you,” Epictetus
observed matter-of-factly, “that you would break my leg?”
Men may come and men may go but evil will go on for ever...
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks, Maniparna, for adding that Tennysonian touch to my humble blog.
DeleteEvil permeates us. Period. The only way to get rid of it is to get rid of humankind.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right. And thanks for consoling me :)
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