Seneca Moral essays
Seneca: Indeed he shut up 136Lysimachus, who was no less…
Indeed he shut up 136Lysimachus, who was no less his friend than Clitus, in a cage with a lion; yet did this make Lysimachus, who escaped by some happy chance from the lion’s teeth, any gentler when he became a king?
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Seneca’s moral essays. The reading beside it is ours.
Surviving cruelty does not automatically make us gentle. People who were humiliated sometimes become humiliators when they finally have power. A manager repeats the boss they hated. A parent recreates the fear they grew up with. Pain can teach compassion, but only if we stop and learn the right lesson. Otherwise it teaches us that this is simply what powerful people do. When you remember an old injury, ask what it has made you want to become. Do you want to pass it on because it now feels familiar, or end the pattern because you know its cost? Your past may explain why certain reactions are tempting. It does not excuse them. The clearest proof that you have outgrown an injury is not a speech about it. It is the moment you have the chance to inflict the same wound and choose not to.
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