progymnasmata: proverb

In continuing with the textbook revision, I am going through the progymnasmata (preliminary exercises). We have a few examples from John Milton, who was raised on these same exercises. I think one of the readers usefully pointed out that the more literary examples come off as a bit stuffy. And while I couldn't bring myself to dispense with Milton, in part because I find some of his stuff is wickedly funny, I decided to add some examples of my own. I'm up to 'proverb' (aka: 'maxim'), and the exercise here is to amplify a proverb--to take it apart and make arguments in its favor. The ancients give very specific advice for how to do this. As I mentioned, Milton's amplification of "In the morning rise up early" is a hoot. It includes phrases like "Can anything be baser than to snore far into the day, and to consecrate, as it were, the chief part of your life to death?" Indeed.

I decided to try my hand at this, and let me tell you, it wasn't easy: just settling on a proverb took me hours. But below is the result. I'm no Milton, but that's exactly the point.

My proverb: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”

[PRAISE OF THE PROVERB/AUTHOR]
Thomas Jefferson penned this wise maxim in his “Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life,” which I believe is one of our country's first Top Ten lists. Jefferson is of course well known for his labors on liberty, and it’s certainly the case that his views on liberty and basic freedom likely informed his views on diligence that motivate this proverb. The virtue of this quotation is what remains unsaid, namely the direct ties to personal freedom. One must work to remain free, or else one risks becoming oppressed by worry resulting from work undone. As an example, once I hit upon this proverb as one to amplify, I nearly let the mere discovery stand as my work for the day. That’s right, I almost put off the amplification until tomorrow. And then deciding not to waste too much time musing over the irony of what I’d nearly done, I set to work expanding the proverb.

[PARAPHRASE AND EXPLANATION]

Jefferson, then, in listing this piece of advice at the very top of his observations on practical living, urges us to tend to business that needs to be tended to and not to defer it just because it’s easy to do so. Of course this maxim is not just appropriate to business matters, or matters of schooling, but personal matters as well, like that phone call to your grandmother, or an overdue lunch with a friend. The main question here is, why delay? Get things done in a timely manner. These days, people write entire books on how to get things done, and they are all expansions of Jefferson's pithy simpler rule-of-thumb.

[PROOF]

Pressing tasks really ought to be handled sooner rather than later, in part because you never know what other matters will arise tomorrow to prevent you from doing that which you deferred in the first place.

 [EXAMPLE]

Consider this scenario: in June of 1776, when a committee appointed by Continental Congress delegated to Jefferson the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence, what if Jefferson, feeling a little overwhelmed by the task, had convinced his friends Madison and Adams to join him at a pub instead? “Oh, I can get started tomorrow,” he might have assured them, “the vote for independence hasn’t even happened yet, anyway.” And then what if the next day Jefferson slept late and woke up with a terrible headache and finding himself unable to focus properly, decided to put off beginning the draft yet another day? Instead, Jefferson set right to work, completing a draft in plenty of time for his colleagues John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and the rest of the committee members to revise it and to present it to the Continental Congress in late June. Had Jefferson not followed his own advice, we might be celebrating Independence Day in mid-August, closer to Thanksgiving, or not at all.

[TESTIMONY]

I say not at all because as Martin Luther, another producer of a timely document, once said, “How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never.’" There's also the famous saying “procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.” And Jefferson’s colleague, Benjamin Franklin, to whom the above proverb is sometimes attributed (most likely because someone put off checking their sources) also said, “you may delay, but time will not.” Perhaps most compellingly, Martin Luther King Jr. makes good use of anti-deferral logic where civil rights are concerned. In "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he writes,

"For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Too true. This testimony confirms the liberty that undergirds Jefferson's proverb. 

 [EPILOGUE]

Now that I have completed this amplification, I will have the afternoon free. Perhaps I will discover something else that can be done today.

 

Comments

[aspasia]

Brava! This edition of ARCS might bring back shaggy dog jokes (ie, "The rolling joint gathers the stoned").
Aspasia

[midmodern scholar]

"Better out than in." Richard Rottman, known to his friends as "Gusher"

[Praise of the Proverb/Author]

TwentyGenny Ricky, as those fabled bartenders of Western New York sometimes called Rick in honor of his near-mythical love for Genny Cream Ale, was well-known for what came out of his mouth, and thus it is no surprise that he coined the words to live by: "better out than in." No one who had the fortune of standing next to "Gusher," as we affectionately called him in the lock-up, had a dry eye or a clean shoe after he'd opened his mouth and set the pearls and swine alike flowing. Indeed, just as it was always some relief to Gusher to bravely show the world what most of us keep deep inside, so too is it a joy to discuss his legacy with you.

[Dave Mazella]

Great job. It's too late for your textbook, but Erasmus's preface to the Apophthegmes has a nice expansion of Diogenes at noonday, searching for a man.

Best,

DM

[dhawhee]

Oooh, good tip, DM. I have other uses for Erasmus, and the pleasing letter is getting a little old, so thanks!