SALVE, FESTA DIES

A moonset at sunrise by Tracie Hall

"'Does not a good man consider every day a festival?'  And a very splendid one, to be sure, if we are virtuous.  For the world is the most sacred and divine of temples, and the one most fitting for the gods.  Man is introduced into it by birth to be a spectator:  not of artificial, immobile statues, but of the perceptible images of intelligible essences [that the divine mind, says Plato, has revealed, images which have innate within themselves the beginnings of life and motion:  images] such as the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers whose water always flows afresh, and the earth, which sends forth food for plants and animals alike.  A life which is a perfect revelation, and an initiation into these mysteries, should be filled with tranquility and joy."

     Plutarch, On tranquility of mind 20, 477C, in response to Diogenes, as translated in Pierre Hadot in Philosophy as a way of life, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Malden, MA:  Blackwell Publishing, 1995), 98.  The ellipsis in Hadot I have filled in with the old Loeb translation by W. C. Helmbold.

'Does not a good man consider every day a festival?'  And a very splendid one, to be sure, if we are virtuous.  For the world is the most sacred and divine of temples, and the one most fitting for the gods [(ἱερὸν μὲν γὰρ ἁγιώτατον ὁ κόσμος ἐστὶ καὶ θεοπρεπέστατον)].  Man is introduced into it by birth to be a spectator [(θεατής)]:  not of artificial, immobile statues, but of the perceptible images of intelligible essences [that the divine mind, says Plato, has revealed, images which have innate within themselves the beginnings of life and motion [(οὐ χειροκμήτων οὐδ' ἀκινήτων ἀγαλμάτων . . . , ἀλλ' οἷα νοῦς θεῖος αἰσθητὰ μιμήματα νοητῶν, . . . ἔμφυτον ἀρχὴν ζωῆς ἔχοντα καὶ κινήσεως ἔγηνεν)]:  images] such as the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers whose water always flows afresh, and the earth, which sends forth food for plants and animals alike.  A life which is a perfect revelation, and an initiation into these mysteries, should be filled with tranquility and joy [(ὧν τὸν βίον μύησιν ὄντα καὶ τελετὴν τελειοτάτην εὐθυμίας δεῖ μεστὸν εἶναι καὶ γήθους)].