Saturday, March 12, 2022

"the sleeper, who endeavours to obtain sleep through the whole of life"

"my discourse does not bring with it an exhortation to every description of men. For it is not directed to those who are occupied in sordid mechanical arts, nor to those who are engaged in athletic exercises; neither to soldiers, nor sailors, nor rhetoricians, nor to those who lead an active life. But I write to the man who considers what he is, whence he came, and whither he ought to tend, and who, in what pertains to nutriment, and other necessary concerns, is different from those who propose to themselves other kinds of life; for to none but such as these do I direct my discourse. For, neither in this common life can there be one and the same exhortation to the sleeper, who endeavours to obtain sleep through the whole of life, and who, for this purpose, procures from all places things of a soporiferous nature, as there is to him who is anxious to repel sleep, and to dispose everything about him to a vigilant condition. But to the former it is necessary to recommend intoxication, surfeiting, and satiety, and to exhort him to choose a dark house, and

A bed, luxuriant, broad, and soft,---

as the poets say; and that he should procure for himself all such things as are of a soporiferous nature, and which are effective of sluggishness and oblivion, whether they are odours, or ointments, or are liquid or solid medicines. And to the latter it is requisite to advise the use of a drink sober and without wine, food of an attenuated nature, and almost approaching to fasting; a house lucid, and participating of a subtle air and wind, and to urge him to be strenuously excited by solicitude and thought, and to prepare for himself a small and hard bed. But, whether we are naturally adapted to this, I mean to a vigilant life, so as to grant as little as possible to sleep, since we do not dwell among those who are perpetually vigilant, or whether we are designed to be in a soporiferous state of existence, is the business of another discussion, and is a subject which requires very extended demonstrations."

     Porphyry, On abstinence from animal food 1.27, trans. Taylor.  I was put on to this by Bernard Collette-Dučić, "Sommeil, éveil et attention chez Plotin," χώρα:  revue d'études anciennes et médiévales 9/10 (2011/2012):  260 (259-281).

Sleeping through life

"Do not . . . seek to see with mortal eyes [the First] as our account describes it, nor to see that it is in the way in which someone would expect it to be who assumes that all things are perceived by the senses, by which supposition he eliminates that which is most real of all [(τὸ μάλιστα πάντων)].  For the things which one thinks are most real [(μὰλιστα)], are least real [(μὰλιστα οὐκ)]; and the [materially] large has less genuine existence.  But the First [(τὸ πρῶτον)] is the principle of existence and, again, more authentic than substantial reality [(κυριώτερον αὖ τῆς οὐσίας)].  So reverse your way of thinking [((ὥστε ἀντιστρεπτέον τὴν δόξαν)], or you will be left deprived of God, like the people at the festivals who by their gluttony stuff themselves with things which it is not lawful for those going in to the gods to take, thinking that these are more obviously real than the vision of the god for whom they ought to be celebrating the festival, and take no part in the rites within.  Yes, in these our rites also the god, since he is not seen, creates disbelief in his existence in those who think that that alone is obviously real [(ἐναργὲς)] which they see only with the flesh; as if people who slept through their life [(τινες διὰ βίου κοιμώμενοι)] thought the things in their dreams were reliable and obvious [(πιστὰ καὶ ἐναργῆ)], but, if someone woke them up, disbelieved in what they saw with their eyes open and went to sleep again.
     "One must perceive each thing by the appropriate organ [(Χρὴ δὲ βλέπειν ᾧ ἕκαστα δεῖ αἰσθάνεσθαι, No, it is necessary to see each thing by [that by] which it is necessary to perceive [it])], some things with the eyes, others with the ears, and so on.  One must believe, also, that one sees other things with the intellect, and not think that intellectual perception is seeing or hearing, which would be like insisting that the ears should see and that sounds do not exist because they are not visible."

     Plotinus, Enneads V.5 [32].11-12, as trans. A. H. Armstrong (LCL 444, 186-189).  I was put on to this by Bernard Collette-Dučić, "Sommeil, éveil et attention chez Plotin," χώρα:  revue d'études anciennes et médiévales 9/10 (2011/2012):  269 (259-281).  Enneads III.6 [26].6 (LCL 442, 239) is similar, but more strikingly dualistic.