Last week I visited a befriended couple with 3 young
children. I played some game with the daughter of 3 and a half and of course I
lost because we had to play according to her rules. A set of rules within a
restricted area of time and/or place is called a game or play. Not only within
games or sports we have such rules, but also outside those fields. In 1938 the
Dutch historian Johan Huizinga published his study Homo Ludens, in which he gave a description of play as an element
of culture. To be sure: he did not mean sports or game, but the concept of play
self as constituent. For instance, negotiations between states have an element
of play or the way a judge and lawyers behave in a court case. Huizinga was
initially trained as a Sanskrit scholar and was well aware of the role of play
and gambling in the Mahabharata and his dissertation was about the role of the vidusaka (jester) in Sanskrit drama, so
his interest in the concept of play may have originated in his initial Ausbilding.
Within a different context St Augustine too pointed to
the concept of play in culture, but for him man was a homo peccans and play is all that which distracts the soul away
from God. He recalls that as a child he
was punished for playing rather than studying. As O’Connel remarks in his
online commentary on the Confessiones,
it never occurs to Augustine that the child's idleness could be anything but
culpable. The focus and the implementation are different, but Augustine draws
the same parallel as Huizinga. But where for Huizinga ludere is a positive constituent of culture, it is for Augustine
something reprehensible. But if reprehensible, how should a teacher deal with
it? Augustine deeply condemns the way teachers dealt with playful children:
namely by hard punishment. Being far from a saintly schoolboy, he often had to
suffer such punishments. He felt such punishments were unjust because adults
often acted in the same way as children, but they called it differently: `maiorum nugae negotia vocantur’ (the
trifles of adults are called business). Indeed he himself bemoans that he too
used what he had learnt as a kind of play while teaching rhetoric before he
turned to religion.
The first sentence is a bit complicated, both in grammar
and chain of thought. Clearly it is an emotional outcry. The idea is I think
thus: is there someone who out of a deep love (praegrandi affectu ) for God considers instruments of torture as
little and at the same time loves those who fear such instruments? How is it than that our parents laugh at us
when we are beaten up by teachers, when at the same time they fear torture from
the state when brought to court?
In the final sentence Augustine points to the fact that
adults show the same emotions when they lose a some trifle dispute as he felt
when beaten at some ball game. In his critique of corporeal punishment of
children as a pedagogical mean Augustine was ways ahead of his time.
Augustinus Confessiones, 1.9.15
estne quisquam, domine, tam magnus animus, praegrandi
affectu tibi cohaerens, estne, inquam, quisquam - facit enim hoc quaedam etiam
stoliditas - est ergo, qui tibi pie cohaerendo ita sit affectus granditer, ut
eculeos et ungulas atque huiuscemodi varia tormenta (pro quibus effugiendis
tibi per universas terras cum timore magno supplicatur) ita parvi aestimet,
diligens eos qui haec acerbissime formidant, quemadmodum parentes nostri
ridebant tormenta quibus pueri a magistris affligebamur? non enim aut minus ea
metuebamus aut minus te de his evadendis deprecabamur, et peccabamus tamen
minus scribendo aut legendo aut cogitando de litteris quam exigebatur a nobis.
non enim deerat, domine, memoria vel ingenium, quae nos habere voluisti pro
illa aetate satis, sed delectabat ludere et vindicabatur in nos ab eis qui
talia utique agebant. sed maiorum nugae negotia vocantur, puerorum autem talia
cum sint, puniuntur a maioribus, et nemo miseratur pueros vel illos vel
utrosque. nisi vero approbat quisquam bonus rerum arbiter vapulasse me, quia
ludebam pila puer et eo ludo impediebar quominus celeriter discerem litteras,
quibus maior deformius luderem. aut aliud faciebat idem ipse a quo vapulabam,
qui si in aliqua quaestiuncula a condoctore suo victus esset, magis bile atque
invidia torqueretur quam ego, cum in certamine pilae a conlusore meo superabar?
animus: person
praegrandis:
huge
stoliditas –atis
(f.): dullness, stubbornness (post cl. Latin word)
sit affectus
granditer: in such an exalted mood
eculeus: a
wooden rack in the shape of a horse
ungula: a claw
to tear the skin open
supplico:
beseech, beg
dilligens:
concessive `though he loves’ (some translations follow the reading deridens, found in one manuscript.
Unfortunately all English online translations do.)
acerbissime:
most strongly
formido: to
fear
quemadmodum:
as for instance
te…deprecabamur: we (as children) beseeched you
quam exigebatur a
nobis: than was demanded from us
pro illa aetate
satis: enough for that age
delectabat:
impersonal `it delighted’
vindicabatur in nos
ab eis qui talia utique agebant: we
were punished by those who did surely the
same things (vindicabatur: impersonal
construction)
vapulo: to be flogged
(note that this word is passive in English!)
pila: ball
impedior: to
hamper
quibus maior
deformius luderem: by which as adult I used to play in a scandalous way
idem ipse: the
very same
quaestiuncula:
a question of no importance
condoctor:
fellow teacher (late Latin)
bilis –is (f.):
bile, anger
Drawing after a fresco at Herculaneum of a boy being punished
at a school.
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