Envy as Cancer

Envy as Cancer

Invidus alterius macrescit rebus optimis. (Horace, Epistles, 1. 2. 57). Envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride (Superbia), Envy (Invidia), Lust (Luxuria), Gluttony (Gula), Greed (Avaritia), Wrath or Anger (Ira) and Sloth (Acidia). Envy is like a cancer that eats away at the vitals of the soul. View it as a sickness that distorts your vision of reality. Let people enjoy their gifts that are either God-given or attained by hard work. Their gifts should be sources of inspiration to spur you on.

Others may admire your gifts which you may not even realize you have because you may be so convulsed with your own envy of others. Instead of losing your peace of mind, use your talents for improving yourself. Why this mania at pulling down others? If you have this disease, consider how irrational these feelings are that could put you in an early grave.

Rather than envying someone like Mozart, why not enjoy his music and allow yourself to be enthralled by its beauty? Bask in the wonder that there exist such exceptional human beings, be humbled and grateful that you are blessed with the gift of hearing to be moved so profoundly and saddened that such a genius died so young. Ask yourself what you can do to develop your gifts. This would be much more productive than torturing yourself.

Caeca invidia est, nec quicquam aliud scit quam detractare virtutes. Blind envy can only belittle the merits of others (Livy, History of Rome, 38. 49. 5). Aesop tells a fable about *Juno and the Peacock: The peacock made a complaint to Juno that, while the nightingale pleased every ear with his song, he himself no sooner opened his mouth than he became a laughingstock to all who heard him. The Goddess, to console him, said, “But you far excel in beauty and in size. The splendor of the emerald shines in your neck and you unfold a tail gorgeous with painted plumage.”*

“But for what purpose have I,” said the bird, “this dumb beauty so long as I am surpassed in song?’ “The lot of each,” replied Juno, “has been assigned by the will of the Fates — to thee, beauty; to the eagle, strength; to the nightingale, song; to the raven, favorable, and to the crow, unfavorable auguries. These are all contented with the endowments allotted to them.”

Livy (59 BCE — 17 CE) Read as much of Livy’s History of Rome as you can while you’re young and still have the power of being moved by ideals that can change your life for the better. He is an unforgettable experience if you like reading about noble characters. His dramatic passages will remain with you forever. Livy was the schoolmaster of Rome for generations, and his stories were again read, perhaps even with greater relish, after many of them were rediscovered fourteen hundred years later during the Renaissance. He was a moralist who used his gifts of storytelling to instill in the Romans a deep and abiding patriotism that made them proud of their heritage.

After sixty years of turbulent civil wars, his readers were hungry for the old-fashioned virtues which always disappear during time of war when a society breaks down amidst widespread carnage and destruction, especially when it lasts for three generations when there are comparatively few men around and many grieving women. His stories and the lessons they teach went a long way toward stabilizing the Romans after decades of bloodshed, as well as helping to inspire in them as a people a deep sense of moral purpose and civic solidarity.

The early books of his History of Rome are particularly compelling for their wondrous tales and patriotic deeds. But read them not so much as history but as pious legends, parables, stories designed to awaken pride in the Roman past and to dramatize the heroic nature of those early Romans who set a glowing example for generations to come when character, discipline, and decency were needed to forge a new nation under Caesar Augustus.

These ancient heroes and heroines have always captivated young readers who find it easy to identify with these unique individuals as they aspired toward perfection. If you are among those who feel this fervor, you already cultivate this love of the exceptional and should try to keep this rare gift alive.

Perhaps even now you endeavor to dedicate your life to such an ideal, something rare and beautiful in this Ironic Age that believes in nothing but self-promotion. Those of you interested in history might at some future time find Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy an intriguing commentary on how many of Livy’s stories embody invaluable political lessons relevant to any age. And then there will still be Plutarch’s Lives waiting in the wings to inspire you to keep this flame alive in a world that wants to snuff it out.

Aliena nobis, nostra plus aliis placent. We envy others while others envy us more (Publilius Syrus, Maxims, 28). What other reason could you have in envying others than being unable to accept that they have a skill which you yourself lack? Why not use their example as an incentive to acquire that skill? Consider if someone envied your gifts and disparaged them? “Why should my attainments make them envious,” you may ask, “since I got to where I am by hard work?”

Quem fama semel oppressit vix restituitur. It is hard to restore someone whom slander has crushed. (Publilius Syrus, Maxims, 572). Remember Cassio’s loss of reputation because of Iago’s envy and how he poisoned Othello’s mind against Cassio? Iago has always been seen as the embodiment of pure malignancy. Passed over for a lieutenancy that has gone to Cassio, he sets out to ruin both him and Othello. The master of innuendo, indirection, and death by a thousand cuts (see Othello, III, 3), Iago then turns Othello against his wife Desdemona, whom Othello murders and then commits suicide, all because Iago was passed over for a job. Envy had become his life’s sole purpose that destroys him as well, leaving his wife Emilia to fathom the full horror of the man she married.

Frank Breslin is a retired high-school teacher in the New Jersey public school system.