Silenus

Plato in the Symposium has Alcibiades, reputedly the most handsome man in Greece, rebuke the looks of Socrates, comparing him to a satyr.

I say that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus.

You yourself will not deny, Socrates, that your face is like that of a satyr.

Is he not like a Silenus in this? To be sure he is, his outer mask is the carved head of the Silenus.

Of course, Alcibiades only points out the outward ugliness of Socrates in order to contrast it with his beautiful mind, but that is of no concern for the purposes of this video.

In other ancient sources too, Socrates is called ugly.

No, says Schopenhauer.

The ancient Greek wisdom of Silenus is correct.

In Greek mythology, Silenus was the companion and mentor of the wine god Dionysus.

According to legend, he was captured one day by King Midas.

Eager to learn from the wisdom of a god, he asked Silenus, What is the best in life? After a silence and further goading from the king, Silenus answered, It's better if you don't know, but since you insist, the best thing is not to be born at all, and the second best thing is to die early.

Schopenhauer approvingly quotes this piece of ancient Greek wisdom and lavishes metaphors on us on the evils of life.

It's a business that does not cover its costs.

Or, more precisely, the possibly even older question, is life worth living? Can we find redemption in suffering? Can we find something worth living for, knowing that suffering and death are inevitable? Is life, as Schopenhauer claimed, a business that cannot cover its expenses? Or is life, in spite of it all, in spite of the vanity of existence, the ephemeral nature of being, the relentless passage of time, and the ultimate infinity of death, worth living after all? The pessimistic Schopenhauer thought that it would be better if nothing existed at all.

And he loves to quote the ancient Greek wisdom of Silenus, who knew that the best thing is to never have been born, and the second best thing is to die early.

The suffering of the world, of existence itself, is so great and insurmountable the possible blessings of life so few in number and so weak in strength that they cannot possibly overcome all the sufferings of life life schopenhauer says is a very uneven trade but as the greeks came up with the homeric adage that nothing suffers more than man and that it's best to die early those very same greeks also invented the myth of prometheus the story of a titan who in defiance of the gods granted the helpless race of humanity the gift of fire of intelligence of civilization and of art and he bore his punishment willingly knowing what would happen and he let himself be chained against the rock for all eternity Prometheus uncovered a deep truth about the human condition.

He dove headfirst into the first philosophical problem that mankind ever asked itself.

Or

shall I choose Silenus?

My cellars are stocked with vintage wine.

Bacchus? You mock me, lady.

Young ladies take their notions of our sex from the novels written by their own, and compared with the monstrosities that masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare literature, Pythagoras's plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were fair average specimens of humanity.

In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to—by the way, they do not say which Greek god it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to—it might be hump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even drivelling Silenus, the god of abstruse mysteries.

He resembles the whole family of them, however, in being a blackguard.

and perhaps this is what is meant.

Conscious of the truth he has once seen, man now sees everywhere only the horror or absurdity of existence.

Now he comes to know the wisdom of the sylvan god, Silenus.

It nauseates him.

The god Silenus was a companion and tutor of Dionysus.

The wisdom of Silenus, which often accompanies Dionysian wisdom, is that it would have been better to never have been born at all.

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche conveys this idea in Silenus' words.

O miserable, ephemeral race, children of chance and suffering, why do you compel me to say to you what would be most beneficial for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly unreachable.

Not to be born, not to be, to be nothing.

In the first book, we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the memorabilia of Xenophon.

In the earliest dialogues of Plato and in the Apology, he is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously.

But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates.

He acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupters of the world.

Your calm, your attention, your honesty, your freedom from other people's approval.

On the outside, you may look like a Silenus.

If you carry gods inside, people will end up finding them.

Look at what the six principles have in common.

First, which of the six principles you find hardest.

And second, which impressed you most.

Socrates barefoot on the ice, Cato standing firm under the stones in the forum, or the image of the Silenus full of gods.

Read what others are writing and reply to them.

From whence it is that the gods play the fool with a greater liberty and more content to themselves doing all things carelessly, as says Father Homer, that is to say, without anyone to correct them.

For what ridiculous stuff is there which that stump of the fig tree, Priapus, does not afford them? What tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his polt foot, another with his smudged muzzle, another with his impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops' hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics, while Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are all well witted with nectar.

Besides, what should I mention that these gods do when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can hardly refrain laughter.

But in these matters to a better we remembered Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take as whispering that which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.