Sunday, October 15, 2017

 

Bread and Circuses

Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563), Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (tr. Harry Kurz):
Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.

Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, "Long live the King!" The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.

Les theatres, les jeus, les farces, les spectacles, les gladiateurs, les bestes estranges, les medailles, les tableaus et autres telles drogueries c'estoient aus peuples anciens les apasts de la servitude, le pris de leur liberté, les outils de la tirannie: ce moien, ceste pratique, ces alleschemens avoient les anciens tirans pour endormir leurs subjects sous le joug. Ainsi les peuples assotis trouvans beaus ces passetemps amusés d'un vain plaisir qui leur passoit devant les yeulx, s'accoustumoient a servir aussi niaisement, mais plus mal que les petits enfans, qui pour voir les luisans images des livres enluminés aprenent a lire.

Les rommains tirans s'adviserent ancore d'un autre point de festoier souvent les dizaines publiques abusant ceste canaille comme il falloit, qui se laisse aller plus qu'a toute autre chose au plaisir de la bouche. Le plus avisé et entendu d'entr'eus n'eust pas quitté son esculée de soupe pour recouvrer la liberté de la republique de Platon. Les tirans faisoient largesse d'un quart de blé, d'un sestier de vin, et d'un sesterce; et lors c'estoit pitié d'ouir crier Vive le roi: les lourdaus ne s'avisoient pas qu'ils ne faisoient que recouvrer une partie du leur, et que cela mesmes qu'ils recouvroient, le tiran ne le leur eust peu donner, si devant il ne l'avoit osté à eus mesmes.



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