The words covered in this article are countenance, expedient and expediency, mitigate and unmitigated, entreaty and entreat, cornucopia, and copious. A previously done words that will reoccur today is caprice.
In Day 21, you have learnt of several examples of how Caligula wielded his absolute powers with terrifying unpredictability and ruthlessness. I quoted from his biography written by Suetonius Tranquillus and from the essay Of Anger written by the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger.
Today, I will share another chilling anecdote from Seneca’s essay, but let us first discuss the GRE words you will encounter in that excerpt:
Countenance
The noun countenance means appearance, especially the expression of the face.
Expedient
The adjective expedient means practically convenient; appropriate to the given circumstance or in self-interest even if at the cost of principle.
The noun form of the word is expediency.
Mitigate
To mitigate (something negative, such as pain or a punishment) means to decrease in intensity, or to soften or make more bearable.
The adjective unmitigated means not reduced in intensity, without any relief at all. A life of unmitigated poverty, for example, is one in which there is no breathing room, not even a little break from the challenges brought by a lack of money; difficulties just keep coming at the poor person one after the other.
Renaissance philosopher Erasmus once said,
“Power without goodness is unmitigated tyranny, and without wisdom it is destruction, not government.”
These words certainly apply well to Caligula.
Entreaty
The verb entreat means to ask for something in a very sincere or begging manner. A request that is made with such sincerity or humility is called an entreaty (noun).
We are now ready for Seneca’s excerpt. Remember that Gaius Ceaser was the proper name of Caligula.
“Often it is better to pretend not to have received an injury than to avenge it. The wrongs of the powerful must not only be borne but borne with a cheerful countenance: they will repeat the wrong if they think they have inflicted it . . .
Every one knows the saying of the old courtier, who, when some one asked him how he had achieved the rare distinction of living at court till he reached old age, replied,
“By receiving wrongs and returning thanks for them.”
It is often so far from expedient to avenge our wrongs, that it will not do even to admit them.
Gaius Caesar, offended at the smart clothes and well-dressed hair of the son of Pastor, a distinguished Roman knight, sent him to prison. When the father begged that his son might suffer no harm, Gaius, as if reminded by this to put him to death, ordered him to be executed, yet, in order to mitigate his brutality to the father, invited him that very day to dinner.
Pastor came with a countenance which betrayed no ill will.
Caesar pledged him in a glass of wine and set a man to watch him. The wretched creature went through his part, feeling as though he were drinking his son’s blood; the emperor sent him some perfume and a garland, and gave orders to watch whether he used them: he did so.
On the very day on which he had buried, nay, on which he had not even buried his son, he sat down as one of a hundred guests, and, old and gouty as he was, drank to an extent which would have been hardly decent on a child’s birthday; he shed no tear the while; he did not permit his grief to betray itself by the slightest sign; he dined just as though his entreaties had gained his son’s life.
You ask me why he did so?
He had another son. . . had he only feared for himself, the father would have treated the tyrant with scorn but love for his son quenched his anger. . . He appeared to be in good spirits and to have forgotten what had been done that day: he would have lost his second son had he proved an unacceptable guest to the murderer of his eldest.”
Of Anger – Book 2 Section 33, by Seneca the Younger
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You may find it interesting to learn that Caligula, a man whose mind jumped about as unpredictably as a goat from one cruel idea to another, also feared that he looked like a goat. His biographer Suetonius tells us that the capricious tyrant was tall, had a balding head and excessive body hair. Touchy about these goat-like features, he made it a capital offense to mention a goat in his presence.
You have already learnt in Day 20 that the word caprice comes from the Latin caper, which means goat’, and that the astrological sign Capricorn is represented by a sea-goat because ‘Capricorn’ literally means ‘horned like a goat.’
Latin caper, goat + cornū, horn, head => ‘horned like a goat.’
The word ‘unicorn’ literally means ‘one-horned’ and refers to a mythological animal that looks like a horse and has a single horn on its forehead. A GRE word that comes from the Latin root cornū is cornucopia.
Cornucopia
The Latin word copia means ‘profusion, plenty’, and so cornucopia literally means ‘the horn of plenty.’
As per Greek mythology, when Zeus – the king of Greek gods – was an infant, he was nursed and mothered by a goat named Amaltheia, who fed him with her milk. Once, while playing with her, he accidently broke off one of her horns. Turning this into an opportunity to express his gratitude to the devoted goat, Zeus blessed the horn and gave it to her, promising that the horn would instantly overflow with abundance of whatever its owner desired.
The Latin root word copia, which means ‘profusion, plenty’ leads to the GRE word copious.
Copious
The adjective copious means abundant, plenty. Example phrases: ‘copious rainfall’ and ‘copious notes.’
The word ‘copy’ too comes from the same Latin root. To ‘copy’ means to make copious by making many imitations of the work.
That’s it for today. Here are a few more usage examples for the words you have learnt today.
- Politicians usually value expediency over principle.
- Many people see Mumbai as a cornucopia, a city that satisfies every wish.
- Mr. Rochester humbly entreated god to give him strength to lead henceforth a purer life than he had till then done.
- “Other vices can be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more plainly it boils forth.” Seneca
- We can never eliminate risk; we have to find ways to mitigate it.
- Short of cash and unable to defend its continental coastline, Russia thought it expedient to sell Alaska to America.
- The widow earned everybody’s sympathy by shedding copious tears over her husband’s dead body. Even the police officers started doubting their belief that she had killed him.
- What child has ever lived who did not believe that his grandpa’s pocket was a cornucopia for all his desires, that whatever he wished would not come out of that pocket?
- “Love must not entreat or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract.” Hermann Hesse
- Broken by heavy losses in the summer crop, farmers desperately hoped to get good yields in the winter crop to mitigate partially their huge financial setback.
- “A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, my wife was torn away from me, my daughter is going away with my mother, my father has gone away from his father, my earliest friends – where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a waterspray. The law of life. No sense in battling against it….” R.K. Narayan (The English Teacher)
- “No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.” Theodore Roosevelt
- The Supreme Court said that while sentencing a man to death, the judge must prepare a balance sheet of mitigating and aggravating circumstances and declare capital punishment only in the rarest of rare cases where the mitigating factors are significantly overweighed by the aggravating ones.