Colection of Poems

What is 'Free'?

Whilst walking through the busy streets of ancient Rome the famous philosopher Seneca saw a bird flying out of the alleyway and into the clear blue above. As the bird soared away into the vast sky, leaving the crowded bustling streets below, the philosopher stopped, as he often did, and contemplated what this meant.

What is Freedom? He asked himself, as he watched a merchant's young child throw grain on the roughly paved streets. The bird returned with its flock, and they converged in a mass on the food that had been freely offered to them.

What in this world is truly free? Seneca wondered, as the boy ran and scattered the gathered birds.

He asked the merchant, who was busy working his stall - trying to drive a high price for his fine quality silks.

"What is freedom?"

The man looked at him like he was crazy. "Freedom is a day off, when I have no work to do and can relax. Freedom is when I can go out and having a good time."

The answer seems lacking, and Seneca asked his second question "What is 'free'?"

The merchant laughed at the mad philosopher before him, presuming him to be a beggar. "Nothing I have on this stall is free, so be off with you."

Seneca crossed the street and asked a young servant girl, hurrying off to market to collect fine fruits for her master's dinner table.

"What is freedom? What is 'free'?"

"Freedom is for when I'm not working," she replied tersely, "I have no free time to talk to you."

There was a fluttering of wings from behind him, as the birds descended upon more fresh grain.

He went to the small boy and crouched down.

"What do you think freedom is?" he asked the child of seven years.

The boy's eyes lit up. "Freedom is doing whatever you want, whenever you want! It's what you give a princess when you save her from a Minotaur! What you win by being a gladiator."

Seneca smiled slightly at the young boy's enthusiasm and excitement. "What would you say is 'free'?"

"Free? My parents handle money - if I want it, they get it for me..."

He trailed off as he watched a slave boy, about his age but half his weight, with his ribs and bruised skin showing through the rags he wore, catch one of the birds that had been pecking at the ground.

"Hey. HEY!" He shouted, a tantrum quickly growing, "I fed them, so that makes the birds mine." The merchant's child threw a hand full of grain at the slave boy.

Some went in his eye and instinctively his hands went to ease the pain, his small quarry flying away from him as he did so.

The merchant had heard the shouts of his son, and upon seeing the slave took out his long thin cane.

"Shoo!" he said, "away with you." Every word punctuated with a strike from the long thin reed.

The boy - still blinded from the corn dust - fell backwards, knocking into the legs of the servant girl who was returning from her errand.

"Away with you, you dirty child," she said, recoiling from him, lest the fruits she had fetched were sullied by his presence.

Eyes red and bleary the child scurried away into the shadows beside the wall, where another huddled shape lay.

Seneca followed the slave boy, and crouched beside him and he had the merchant's child.

"What is freedom?" he asked.

The boy did not answer, but his rusty eyes held Seneca's as one of his hands, red from the canes lashes, softly stroked the hair of the even smaller child who lay unmoving on the cobbled stones next to him.

"What is 'free' to a slave boy?" Seneca muttered, assuming the boy did not understand Latin and expecting no answer as he turned to leave.

In a quiet unused voice, the child behind him coarsely whispered, "only the worst things in life comes free to us."

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Set about 26 AD, this is meant to sound like a story told to children as a moral of some sort... Not that it really sounded like that in the end. It's meant to sound vaguely philosophical and similar to an Aesop's fable. I'll leave you to decide what you think the moral is, and to interpretate some aspects for yourself, but bear in mind that servants were paid people and had family, whereas slaves were simply owned objects.

I randomly got inspired after reading @euphoriaseekers contest entry piece, and ended up writing something with the same line in it "only the worst things in life are free to us" this was not my idea either, but came from @romalina. As much as I'd like to be I am not part of her competition, so if you think this could be considered plagiarism leave a comment, and I will take it down until I have heard from her if it is ok to put it up or not.

Please forgive my writing, but I am very rusty of late.

WFS xxx