Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius: A Revaluation

Abstract

Invenio tamen translationes verborum ut non temerarias ita quae periculum sui fecerint; invenio imagines, quibus si quis nos uti vetat et poetis illas solis iudicat esse concessas, neminem mihi videtur ex antiquis legisse, apud quos nondum captabatur plausibilis oratio: illi, qui simpliciter et demonstrandae rei causa eloquebantur, parabolis referti sunt, quas existimo necessarias, non ex eadem causa qua poetis, sed ut inbecillitatis nostrae adminicula sint, ut et dicentem et audientem in rem praesentem adducant. (Ep. 59.6) I find metaphors in your writing, but not uncontrolled and so self-defeating. I find there the use of images. If anyone denies us the right to employ images in our prose by decreeing that they are allowed only in poetry, then he seems to me unfamiliar with our early prose authors whose language was not yet governed by the need to please good opinion. In expressing themselves naturally with a direct view to proving their point, they are full of these forms of comparison. I consider such devices indispensable, but not for the same reasons as do the poets. They work as a buttress for human weakness and they are effective in engaging both author and audience with the central issue at hand.

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