Heh...good quote. I was in chess club in Jr high, playing lots. One day I was about two thirds through a book on chess openings and had a major moment of self reflection: what the hell am I doing, this is really boring. Luckily for me I was introduced to white box original DnD about the same time and that solved that problem...
It would be a lengthy business to mention all the different people who have spent their lives engaged in chess-playing or exercise with ball or the practice of roasting their bodies in the sun. They are not unoccupied when their pleasure form such a busy occupation. No one will doubt that those men are energetic triflers who devote their hours to the study of useless literature - On the Shortness of Life
Mistranslation is unfair. It's a translation that best reflects the spirit of the original. It would be distracting to the modern reader to refer to a game which would be obscure and unfamiliar, when most likely the point of the original text is to invoke a board game which would be universally known among the audience.
> XIII 1. Persequi singulos longum est, quorum aut latrunculi aut pila aut excoquendi in sole corporis cura consumpsere vitam. Non sunt otiosi, quorum voluptates multum negotii habent. Nam de illis nemo dubitabit, quin operose nihil agant, qui litterarum inutilium studiis detinentur, quae iam apud Romanos quoque magna manus est.
>It would be distracting to the modern reader to refer to a game which would be obscure and unfamiliar
I find it far more distracting to find a modern term in an ancient text that I know the author couldn't have known about. It's jarring and anachronistic. I would much rather see the original term. I can make a decision about whether to spend a minute to look it up (and learn something!) or skim over it if the meaning is clear enough.
I have to agree. It was jarring to me to find this in my translation. I think either the original term with a footnote, or perhaps something more generic like “Boardgames”
Considering that we don't have any history of chess until more than 500 years after Seneca's death, in India no less, I think it's fair to say that this is yet another example of "ye olde translationes" editorializing and using too much dynamic equivalence. latrunculi, the word he uses in this sentence at the beginning of chapter XIII, must have referred to a different game.
Plus, I doubt most people would really agree with de brevitate vitae. It's the equivalent of "grind culture" but from the first century. Amusing and interesting but probably not congruent with now most people want to spend their lives. (No shame from me if you do want to live your life that way, but it should just be known that this is far from a neutral perspective.) For a more balanced view of otium (pleasure, relaxation, opposite of negotium, business), I'd recommend the letters of Pliny the Younger.
I dunno. Who is to say it is "too much" dynamic equivalence? Seems to me the grand intent of the quote is preserved for the greater mass of English readers.
This makes me feel unreasonably better about my decision to stop trying to get better at chess. But I do miss those 3-day correspondence games with friends where you slowly get smoked by your better friends over weeks.
Me and my friends play long term board games on boardgamearea.com now. Ticket to Ride, Roll for the Galaxy, It's a Wonderful World, and more. We've usually got at least 2, sometimes many more, going at a time. It's a good time.
