Seneca: DE CONSOLATIONE

1. Nisi te, Marcia, scirem tam longe ab infirmitate muliebris animi quam a ceteris uitiis recessisse et mores tuos uelut aliquod antiquum exemplar aspici, non auderem obuiam ire dolori tuo, cui uiri quoque libenter haerent et incubant, nec spem concepissem tam iniquo tempore, tam inimico iudice, tam inuidioso crimine posse me efficere ut fortunam tuam absolueres. Fiduciam mihi dedit exploratum iam robur animi et magno experimento adprobata uirtus tua.

1. Unless I knew, Marcia, that you have withdrawn as far from the infirmity of the womanly mind as from the other vices, and that your character is looked upon as some ancient exemplar, I would not dare to go to meet your grief, to which even men gladly cling and brood; nor would I have conceived the hope, at so iniquitous a time, with so inimical a judge, under so invidious a charge, that I could bring it about that you should acquit your fortune. Confidence has been given me by your strength of spirit already tested and by your virtue approved by great experiment.

2. Non est ignotum qualem te in persona patris tui gesseris, quem non minus quam liberos dilexisti, excepto eo quod non optabas superstitem. Nec scio an et optaueris; permittit enim sibi quaedam contra bonum morem magna pietas. Mortem A. Cremuti Cordi parentis tui quantum poteras inhibuisti; postquam tibi apparuit inter Seianianos satellites illam unam patere seruitutis fugam, non fauisti consilio eius, sed dedisti manus uicta, fudistique lacrimas palam et gemitus deuorasti quidem, non tamen hilari fronte texisti, et haec illo saeculo quo magna pietas erat nihil impie facere.

2. It is not unknown how you conducted yourself in the person of your father, whom you loved no less than your children, except in this, that you did not wish him a survivor. Nor do I know whether you even did wish it; for great pietas permits itself certain things against good custom. The death of A. Cremutius Cordus, your parent, you restrained as much as you could; after it became apparent to you that among the Sejanian satellites that single escape of servitude lay open, you did not favor his counsel, but, conquered, you gave your hands (i.e., yielded), and you poured out tears openly, and though indeed you swallowed your groans, yet you did not cloak them with a cheerful brow; and in that age, when great pietas prevailed, to do these things was to do nothing impiously.

3. Vt uero aliquam occasionem mutatio temporum dedit, ingenium patris tui, de quo sumptum erat supplicium, in usum hominum reduxisti et a uera illum uindicasti morte ac restituisti in publica monumenta libros quos uir ille fortissimus sanguine suo scripserat. Optime meruisti de Romanis studiis: magna illorum pars arserat; optime de posteris, ad quos ueniet incorrupta rerum fides, auctori suo magno inputata; optime de ipso, cuius uiget uigebitque memoria quam diu in pretio fuerit Romana cognosci, quam diu quisquam erit qui reuerti uelit ad acta maiorum, quam diu quisquam qui uelit scire quid sit uir Romanus, quid subactis iam ceruicibus omnium et ad Seianianum iugum adactis indomitus, quid sit homo ingenio animo manu liber. 4. Magnum mehercules detrimentum res publica ceperat, si illum ob duas res pulcherrimas in obliuionem coniectum, eloquentiam et libertatem, non eruisses: legitur, floret, in manus hominum, in pectora receptus uetustatem nullam timet; at illorum carnificum cito scelera quoque, quibus solis memoriam meruerunt, tacebuntur.

3. But when in truth some occasion was given by the change of times, you brought back into the use of men the genius of your father, on account of which punishment had been exacted, and you vindicated him from a true death and restored to the public monuments the books which that most brave man had written with his own blood. You have deserved most excellently of Roman studies: a great part of them had burned; most excellently of posterity, to whom the uncorrupted credibility of events will come, credited in great measure to its author; most excellently of the man himself, whose memory thrives and will thrive as long as it is of price that the Roman be known, as long as there shall be anyone who wishes to revert to the deeds of the ancestors, as long as there shall be anyone who wishes to know what a Roman man is, what a man is who—when the necks of all have now been subdued and driven to the Sejanian yoke—remains indomitable, what a man is who is free in genius, spirit, and hand. 4. By Hercules, a great detriment the commonwealth would have incurred, if you had not dragged him forth from oblivion on account of two most beautiful things—eloquence and liberty: he is read, he flourishes, received into the hands of men, into their hearts he fears no antiquation; but the crimes too of those executioners, by which alone they earned remembrance, will soon be hushed.

5. Haec magnitudo animi tui uetuit me ad sexum tuum respicere, uetuit ad uultum, quem tot annorum continua tristitia, ut semel obduxit, tenet. Et uide quam non subrepam tibi nec furtum facere adfectibus tuis cogitem: antiqua mala in memoriam reduxi et, ut scires hanc quoque plagam esse sanandam, ostendi tibi aeque magni uulneris cicatricem. Alii itaque molliter agant et blandiantur, ego confligere cum tuo maerore constitui et defessos exhaustosque oculos, si uerum uis magis iam ex consuetudine quam ex desiderio fluentis, continebo, si fieri potuerit, fauente te remediis tuis, si minus, uel inuita, teneas licet et amplexeris dolorem tuum, quem tibi in filii locum superstitem fecisti.

5. This magnitude of your spirit forbade me to look back to your sex, forbade me to your countenance, which the continuous sadness of so many years, as once it drew its veil over it, now holds. And see how I do not creep up on you nor think to make a theft upon your affections: I have brought ancient ills back into memory and, in order that you might know that this wound too is to be healed, I have shown you the scar of a wound equally great. Let others, then, deal softly and flatter; I have resolved to grapple with your grief and to check your tired and exhausted eyes, which, if you would have the truth, now flow more from custom than from yearning; I will restrain them, if it can be done, you yourself favoring your own remedies; if not, even unwilling, though you may hold and embrace your sorrow, which you have made to survive for yourself in the place of a son.

6. Quis enim erit finis? Omnia in superuacuum temptata sunt: fatigatae adlocutiones amicorum, auctoritates magnorum et adfinium tibi uirorum; studia, hereditarium et paternum bonum, surdas aures inrito et uix ad breuem occupationem proficiente solacio transeunt; illud ipsum naturale remedium temporis, quod maximas quoque aerumnas componit, in te una uim suam perdidit. 7. Tertius iam praeterit annus, cum interim nihil ex primo illo impetu cecidit: renouat se et corroborat cotidie luctus et iam sibi ius mora fecit eoque adductus est ut putet turpe desinere.

6. For what end, indeed, will there be? All things have been tried in superfluity, in vain: the addresses of friends are wearied, the authorities of great men and of men related to you; studies, a hereditary and paternal good, pass by deaf ears with a consolation ineffectual and scarcely advancing to a brief occupation; that very natural remedy of time, which composes even the greatest hardships, has lost its force in you alone. 7. Now a third year passes by, while meanwhile nothing of that first onset has fallen: grief renews and corroborates itself daily, and now has made for itself a right of delay, and has been brought to such a point that it deems it shameful to cease.

Quemadmodum omnia uitia penitus insidunt nisi dum surgunt oppressa sunt, ita haec quoque tristia et misera et in se saeuientia ipsa nouissime acerbitate pascuntur et fit infelicis animi praua uoluptas dolor. 8. Cupissem itaque primis temporibus ad istam curationem accedere; leniore medicina fuisset oriens adhuc restringenda uis: uehementius contra inueterata pugnandum est. Nam uulnerum quoque sanitas facilis est, dum a sanguine recentia sunt: tunc et uruntur et in altum reuocantur et digitos scrutantium recipiunt, ubi corrupta in malum ulcus uerterunt.

Just as all vices settle in deeply unless, while they are rising, they are suppressed, so these sad and wretched things too,
and raging against themselves, at the last are fed by acerbity, and pain becomes the depraved pleasure of an unhappy mind.
8. I should have wished, therefore, in the earliest times to approach that cure; the force, still arising, ought to have been checked
by a gentler medicine: more vehemently must one fight against things inveterate. For even the healing of wounds is easy,
while they are recent with blood: then they are both cauterized and drawn up from the depth, and admit the fingers of those probing,
but when they have turned, the ulcer has been corrupted into ill.

Non possum nunc per obsequium nec molliter adgredi tam durum dolorem: frangendus est.

I cannot now, by compliance nor gently, approach so hard a grief: it must be broken.

II.

1. Scio a praeceptis incipere omnis qui monere aliquem uolunt, in exemplis desinere. Mutari hunc interim morem expedit; aliter enim cum alio agendum est: quosdam ratio ducit, quibusdam nomina clara opponenda sunt et auctoritas quae liberum non relinquat animum ad speciosa stupentibus. 2. Duo tibi ponam ante oculos maxima et sexus et saeculi tui exempla: alterius feminae quae se tradidit ferendam dolori, alterius quae pari adfecta casu, maiore damno, non tamen dedit longum in se malis suis dominium, sed cito animum in sedem suam reposuit.

1. I know that all who wish to admonish someone begin from precepts and end in examples. It is expedient that this custom be changed for the meantime; for one must deal with one person in one way, with another in another: reason leads some, to others illustrious names and an authority must be opposed which does not leave the mind free, for those who are stupefied by showy things. 2. I will set before your eyes two very great examples both of your sex and of your age: of one woman who surrendered herself to be borne by grief, of another who, affected by an equal mischance, with greater loss, nevertheless did not grant to her evils a long dominion over herself, but quickly restored her spirit to its own seat.

3. Octauia et Liuia, altera soror Augusti, altera uxor, amiserunt filios iuuenes, utraque spe futuri principis certa: Octauia Marcellum, cui et auunculus et socer incumbere coeperat, in quem onus imperii reclinare, adulescentem animo alacrem, ingenio potentem, sed frugalitatis continentiaeque in illis aut annis aut opibus non mediocriter admirandae, patientem laborum, uoluptatibus alienum, quantumcumque inponere illi auunculus et, ut ita dicam, inaedificare uoluisset laturum; bene legerat nulli cessura ponderi fundamenta. 4. Nullum finem per omne uitae suae tempus flendi gemendique fecit nec ullas admisit uoces salutare aliquid adferentis, ne auocari quidem se passa est; intenta in unam rem et toto animo adfixa, talis per omnem uitam fuit qualis in funere, non dico non [est] ausa consurgere, sed adleuari recusans, secundam orbitatem iudicans lacrimas mittere. 5. Nullam habere imaginem filii carissimi uoluit, nullam sibi de illo fieri mentionem.

3. Octavia and Livia, the one the sister of Augustus, the other his wife, lost their sons in youth, each certain in the hope of a future princeps: Octavia [lost] Marcellus, upon whom both his uncle and father-in-law had begun to lean, on whom to recline the burden of imperium, a young man lively in spirit, powerful in talent, yet with a frugality and continence, in those years and with those resources, remarkably to be admired, patient of labors, alien to pleasures, one who would bear whatever his uncle might have wished to impose on him and, so to speak, to build upon him; he had well laid foundations that would yield to no weight. 4. She made no end, through all the time of her life, of weeping and groaning, nor did she admit any voices bringing something health-giving; she did not even allow herself to be called away; intent on one thing and fastened with her whole mind, such through her whole life was she as at the funeral, I do not say that she did not dare to rise, but she refused even to be lifted up, judging it a second bereavement to dismiss her tears. 5. She wished to have no image of her dearest son, no mention of him to be made to her.

Oderat omnes matres et in Liuiam maxime furebat, quia uidebatur ad illius filium transisse sibi promissa felicitas. Tenebris et solitudini familiarissima, ne ad fratrem quidem respiciens, carmina celebrandae Marcelli memoriae composita aliosque studiorum honores reiecit et aures suas aduersus omne solacium clusit. A sollemnibus officiis seducta et ipsam magnitudinis fraternae nimis circumlucentem fortunam exosa defodit se et abdidit.

She hated
all mothers, and at Livia she raged most of all, because the felicity promised to herself seemed to have passed over to that woman’s son.
Most familiar with darkness and solitude,
not even looking toward her brother, she rejected poems composed for celebrating the memory of Marcellus
and other honors of study, and she closed her ears against every
solace. Withdrawn from solemn offices, and detesting even the fortune too brightly surrounding her brother’s magnitude,
she buried herself and hid herself.

Adsidentibus liberis, nepotibus lugubrem uestem non deposuit, non sine contumelia omnium suorum, quibus saluis orba sibi uidebatur.

With her children and grandchildren sitting beside her, she did not lay aside the mourning dress, not without contumely to all her own, to whom, though they were safe, she seemed bereft.

III.

1. Liuia amiserat filium Drusum, magnum futurum principem, iam magnum ducem; intrauerat penitus Germaniam et ibi signa Romana fixerat ubi uix ullos esse Romanos notum erat. In expeditione decesserat ipsis illum hostibus aegrum cum ueneratione et pace mutua prosequentibus nec optare quod expediebat audentibus. Accedebat ad hanc mortem, quam ille pro re publica obierat, ingens ciuium prouinciarumque et totius Italiae desiderium, per quam effusis in officium lugubre municipiis coloniisque usque in urbem ductum erat funus triumpho simillimum.

1. Livia had lost her son Drusus, a great future princeps, already a great general; he had entered deep into Germany and there had planted the Roman standards where it was scarcely known that there were any Romans. He had died on campaign, the very enemies, while he was ill, escorting him with veneration and mutual peace, and not daring to wish for what was expedient. Added to this death, which he had met for the republic, was the vast longing of the citizens and the provinces and of all Italy, throughout which, the municipalities and colonies pouring forth into the duty of mourning, the funeral was led all the way to the city, most similar to a triumph.

2. Non licuerat matri ultima filii oscula gratumque extremi sermonem oris haurire; longo itinere reliquias Drusi sui prosecuta, tot per omnem Italiam ardentibus rogis, quasi totiens illum amitteret, inritata, ut primum tamen intulit tumulo, simul et illum et dolorem suum posuit, nec plus doluit quam aut honestum erat Caesare aut aequum saluo. Non desiit denique Drusi sui celebrare nomen, ubique illum sibi priuatim publiceque repraesentare, libentissime de illo loqui, de illo audire: cum memoria illius uixit, quam nemo potest retinere et frequentare qui illam tristem sibi reddidit.

2. It had not been permitted to the mother to take the last kisses of her son and to draw in the welcome speech of his final lips; after a long journey having accompanied the remains of her Drusus, through so many burning pyres throughout all Italy, as if so many times she were losing him, agitated, yet as soon as she brought him into the tomb, she laid down both him and her own sorrow, nor did she grieve more than either was honorable under Caesar or fitting while he was safe. She did not cease, finally, to celebrate the name of her Drusus, to re-present him to herself everywhere, both privately and publicly, most gladly to speak of him, to hear of him: she lived with the memory of him, which no one can retain and frequent who has rendered it sad to himself.

3. Elige itaque utrum exemplum putes probabilius. Si illud prius sequi uis, eximes te numero uiuorum: auersaberis et alienos liberos et tuos ipsumque quem desideras; triste matribus omen occurres; uoluptates honestas, permissas, tamquam parum decoras fortunae tuae reicies; inuisa haerebis in luce et aetati tuae, quod non praecipitet te quam primum et finiat, infestissima eris; quod turpissimum alienissimumque est animo tuo in meliorem noto partem, ostendes te uiuere nolle, mori non posse. 4. Si ad hoc maximae feminae te exemplum adplicueris moderatius, mitius, non eris in aerumnis nec te tormentis macerabis: quae enim, malum, amentia est poenas a se infelicitatis exigere et mala sua ~non~ augere!

3. Choose therefore which example you think more probable. If you wish to follow that former one, you will remove yourself from the number of the living: you will abhor both others’ children and your own and even him whom you long for; you will meet as a sad omen for mothers; honest, permitted pleasures you will cast aside as though little decorous to your fortune; odious you will cling to the light and toward your age, because it does not hurl you headlong as soon as possible and finish you, you will be most hostile; and what is most disgraceful and most alien to your mind on its better, well-known side, you will show yourself to be unwilling to live, unable to die. 4. If to this you apply the example of the greatest woman more moderately, more gently, you will not be in hardships nor will you waste yourself with torments: for what, in the name of misfortune, madness is it to exact penalties from oneself for ill-fortune and to ~not~ increase one’s evils!

Quam in omni uita seruasti morum probitatem et uerecundiam, in hac quoque re praestabis; est enim quaedam et dolendi modestia. Illum ipsum iuuenem, dignissimum qui te laetam semper nominatus cogitatusque faciat, meliore pones loco, si matri suae, qualis uiuus solebat, hilarisque et cum gaudio occurrit.

As in your whole life you have kept the probity of morals and modesty, in this matter too you will display them; for there is a certain modesty even of grieving. That very youth, most worthy to make you glad whenever he is named and thought upon, you will place in a better place, if to his mother, as he used to when alive, he meets cheerful and with joy.

IV.

1. Nec te ad fortiora ducam praecepta, ut inhumano ferre humana iubeam modo, ut ipso funebri die oculos matris exsiccem. Ad arbitrium tecum ueniam: hoc inter nos quaeretur, utrum magnus dolor esse debeat an perpetuus. 2. Non dubito quin Iuliae Augustae, quam familiariter coluisti, magis tibi placeat exemplum: illa te ad suum consilium uocat.

1. Nor will I lead you to stronger precepts, to bid you to bear human things in an inhuman manner, to dry up a mother’s eyes on the very funeral day. I will come with you to an arbitration: this will be inquired between us, whether grief ought to be great or perpetual. 2. I do not doubt that the example of Julia Augusta, whom you cultivated so familiarly, pleases you more: she calls you to her counsel.

Illa in primo feruore, cum maxime inpatientes ferocesque sunt miseriae, consolandam se Areo, philosopho uiri sui, praebuit et multum eam rem profuisse sibi confessa est, plus quam populum Romanum, quem nolebat tristem tristitia sua facere, plus quam Augustum, qui subducto altero adminiculo titubabat nec luctu suorum inclinandus erat, plus quam Tiberium filium, cuius pietas efficiebat ut in illo acerbo et defleto gentibus funere nihil sibi nisi numerum deesse sentiret. 3. Hic, ut opinor, aditus illi fuit, hoc principium apud feminam opinionis suae custodem diligentissimam: 'usque in hunc diem, Iulia, quantum quidem ego sciam, adsiduus uiri tui comes, cui non tantum quae in publicum emittuntur nota, sed omnes sunt secretiores animorum uestrorum motus, dedisti operam ne quid esset quod in te quisquam reprenderet; nec id in maioribus modo obseruasti, sed in minimis, ne quid faceres cui famam, liberrimam principum iudicem, uelles ignoscere. 4. Nec quicquam pulchrius existimo quam in summo fastigio conlocatos multarum rerum ueniam dare, nullius petere; seruandus itaque tibi in hac quoque re tuus mos est, ne quid committas quod minus aliterue factum uelis.

She, in the first fervor,
when miseries are at their most impatient and ferocious, presented herself to be consoled by Areus, the philosopher
of her husband, and confessed that that thing had profited her much, more
than the Roman people, whom she did not wish to make sad by her sadness, more than
Augustus, who, one prop withdrawn, was staggering and was not to be inclined by the lamentation of his own,
more than Tiberius her son, whose pietas made it so that in that bitter
funeral bewailed by the nations he felt that nothing was lacking to himself except the number. 3.
Here, as I think, this was the approach to her, this the beginning with a woman the most diligent guardian
of her own reputation: 'Up to this day, Julia, so far as indeed I know, a constant companion
of your husband, to whom not only the things that are sent forth into the public
are known, but all the more secret motions of your souls, you have taken pains
that there be nothing which anyone might reprove in you; nor have you observed that only in greater matters
but in the smallest, lest you do anything for which you would wish Fame, the freest judge of princes, to grant pardon. 4. And I consider nothing more beautiful than that those placed on the highest
summit grant pardon of many things, to ask it of none; therefore your own custom must be preserved by you in this matter also, lest you commit anything which you would wish had been done less or otherwise.

1. Deinde oro atque obsecro ne te difficilem amicis et intractabilem praestes. Non est enim quod ignores omnes hos nescire quemadmodum se gerant, loquantur aliquid coram te de Druso an nihil, ne aut obliuio clarissimi iuuenis illi faciat iniuriam aut mentio tibi. 2. Cum secessimus et in unum conuenimus, facta eius dictaque quanto meruit suspectu celebramus; coram te altum nobis de illo silentium est.

1. Then I beg and beseech that you not show yourself difficult to friends and intractable. For you are not unaware that all these do not know how to comport themselves, whether they should speak anything before you about Drusus or nothing, lest either oblivion of that most illustrious young man do him an injury, or mention do you. 2. When we have withdrawn and come together as one, we celebrate his deeds and words with the consideration he merited; in your presence, there is for us a deep silence about him.

Cares itaque maxima uoluptate, filii tui laudibus, quas non dubito quin uel inpendio uitae, si potestas detur, in aeuum omne sis prorogatura. 3. Quare patere, immo arcesse sermones quibus ille narretur, et apertas aures praebe ad nomen memoriamque filii tui; nec hoc graue duxeris ceterorum more, qui in eiusmodi casu partem mali putant audire solacia. 4. Nunc incubuisti tota in alteram partem et oblita meliorum fortunam tuam qua deterior est aspicis.

Thus you are deprived of the greatest delight, the praises of your son, which I do not doubt that you would prolong, even at the expenditure of life, if power be given, for all time. 3. Wherefore allow—nay, summon—conversations by which he may be recounted, and offer open ears to the name and memory of your son; nor consider this burdensome, after the fashion of the rest, who in a case of this sort think it part of the evil to hear consolations. 4. Now you have leaned wholly to the other side and, forgetful of the better things, you look at your fortune in that respect in which it is the worse.

Non conuertis te ad conuictus filii tui occursusque iucundos, non ad pueriles dulcesque blanditias, non ad incrementa studiorum: ultimam illam faciem rerum premis; in illam, quasi parum ipsa per se horrida sit, quidquid potes congeris. Ne, obsecro te, concupieris peruersissimam gloriam, infelicissima uideri. 5. Simul cogita non esse magnum rebus prosperis fortem se gerere, ubi secundo cursu uita procedit: ne gubernatoris quidem artem tranquillum mare et obsequens uentus ostendit, aduersi aliquid incurrat oportet quod animum probet.

You do not turn yourself toward the convivial companionship
of your son and his pleasant encounters, not toward the boyish and sweet blandishments, not
toward the increments of his studies: you press that ultimate aspect of affairs; upon that, as if
it were too little horrible in itself, you heap whatever you can. Do not, I beseech you,
covet the most perverse glory, to seem most unfortunate. 5. At the same time consider
that it is no great thing to bear oneself brave in prosperous matters, when life proceeds with a favorable course:
not even a calm sea and an obedient wind display the pilot’s art; something adverse must be met,
to prove the spirit.

6. Proinde ne summiseris te, immo contra fige stabilem gradum et quidquid onerum supra cecidit sustine, primo dumtaxat strepitu conterrita. Nulla re maior inuidia fortunae fit quam aequo animo.' Post haec ostendit illi filium incolumem, ostendit ex amisso nepotes.

6. Therefore
do not lower yourself; nay rather, fix a stable step and bear whatever burdens have
fallen upon you, frightened only by the first crash. Nothing makes the envy of Fortune
greater than an equable mind.' After this she showed to her a son safe,
she showed grandchildren from the one lost.

VI.

1. Tuum illic, Marcia, negotium actum, tibi Areus adsedit; muta personam — te consolatus est. Sed puta, Marcia, ereptum tibi amplius quam ulla umquam mater amiserit — non permulceo te nec extenuo calamitatem tuam: si fletibus fata uincuntur, conferamus; 2. eat omnis inter luctus dies, noctem sine somno tristitia consumat; ingerantur lacerato pectori manus et in ipsam faciem impetus fiat atque omni se genere saeuitiae profecturus maeror exerceat. Sed si nullis planctibus defuncta reuocantur, si sors inmota et in aeternum fixa nulla miseria mutatur et mors tenuit quidquid abstulit, desinat dolor qui perit.

1. Your business there, Marcia, was transacted, Areus sat beside you; change your persona — he consoled you. But suppose, Marcia, that there has been snatched from you more than any mother has ever lost — I do not soothe you nor do I attenuate your calamity: if fates are conquered by tears, let us muster them; 2. let every day pass amid mournings, let sadness consume the night without sleep; let hands be thrust upon the lacerated breast, and let an assault be made upon the very face, and let grief, about to proceed into every kind of savagery, exercise itself. But if by no beatings are the dead called back, if lot unmoved and fixed for eternity is changed by no misery, and death holds whatever it has carried off, let the grief cease which is wasted.

3. Quare regamur nec nos ista uis transuersos auferat. Turpis est nauigii rector cui gubernacula fluctus eripuit, qui fluuitantia uela deseruit, permisit tempestati ratem; at ille uel in naufragio laudandus quem obruit mare clauum tenentem et obnixum.

3. Therefore let us be governed, nor let that force carry us off askew away. Disgraceful is the pilot of a ship from whom the waves have snatched the helm, who has deserted the drifting sails, has permitted the vessel to the tempest; but that man even in shipwreck is to be praised, whom the sea has overwhelmed, holding the helm and striving in resistance.

VII.

1. 'At enim naturale desiderium suorum est.' Quis negat, quam diu modicum est? Nam discessu, non solum amissione carissimorum necessarius morsus est et firmissimorum quoque animorum contractio. Sed plus est quod opinio adicit quam quod natura imperauit.

1. 'But indeed it is a natural desiderium for one’s own.' Who denies it, so long as it is moderate? For at a departure, not only at the loss of the dearest, there is a necessary pang and a contraction of even the most steadfast spirits. But what opinion adds is more than what nature has enjoined.

2. Aspice mutorum animalium quam concitata sint desideria et tamen quam breuia: uaccarum uno die alteroue mugitus auditur, nec diutius equarum uagus ille amensque discursus est; ferae cum uestigia catulorum consectatae sunt et siluas peruagatae, cum saepe ad cubilia expilata redierunt, rabiem intra exiguum tempus extinguunt; aues cum stridore magno inanes nidos circumfremuerunt, intra momentum tamen quietae uolatus suos repetunt; nec ulli animali longum fetus sui desiderium est nisi homini, qui adest dolori suo nec tantum quantum sentit sed quantum constituit adficitur.

2. Look at how stirred-up the desires of mute animals are, and yet how brief: the lowing of cows is heard for a day or two, nor is that wandering and frenzied running-about of mares any longer; wild beasts, after they have followed the tracks of their cubs and ranged through the woods, after they have often returned to plundered lairs, extinguish the madness within a short time; birds, with great screeching, have roared around their empty nests, yet within a moment, quiet, they resume their flights; and to no animal is the longing for its offspring long save to man, who is present to his own pain and is affected not as much as he feels but as much as he has determined.

3. Vt scias autem non esse hoc naturale, luctibus frangi, primum magis feminas quam uiros, magis barbaros quam placidae eruditaeque gentis homines, magis indoctos quam doctos eadem orbitas uulnerat. Atqui quae a natura uim acceperunt eandem in omnibus seruant: apparet non esse naturale quod uarium est. 4. Ignis omnes aetates omniumque urbium ciues, tam uiros quam feminas uret; ferrum in omni corpore exhibebit secandi potentiam.

3. That you may know, moreover, that this is not natural—to be broken by griefs—first, the same bereavement wounds women more than men, barbarians more than the men of a placid and erudite people,
the unlearned more than the learned. And yet the things which have received force from nature
keep the same in all: it appears that that which is variable is not natural.
4. Fire will burn citizens of all ages and of every city, both men and
women; iron will exhibit in every body the power of cutting.

Quare? quia uires illis a natura datae sunt, quae nihil in personam constituit. Paupertatem luctum ambitionem alius aliter sentit prout illum consuetudo infecit, et inbecillum inpatientemque reddit praesumpta opinio de non timendis terribilis.

Why? Because powers have been given to them by nature, which establishes nothing with respect to the person. Poverty, grief, ambition—one man feels these one way, another another way, according as custom has infected him; and a presumed opinion that things not to be feared are terrible makes him feeble and impatient.

VIII.

1. Deinde quod naturale est non decrescit mora: dolorem dies longa consumit. Licet contumacissimum, cotidie insurgentem et contra remedia efferuescentem, tamen illum efficacissimum mitigandae ferociae tempus eneruat. 2. Manet quidem tibi, Marcia, etiamnunc ingens tristitia et iam uidetur duxisse callum, non illa concitata qualis initio fuit, sed pertinax et obstinata; tamen hanc quoque tibi aetas minutatim eximet: quotiens aliud egeris, animus relaxabitur.

1. Then, what is natural does not decrease by delay: a long day consumes pain. Even if most contumacious, rising up daily and effervescing against remedies, nevertheless time, that most efficacious means of mitigating ferocity, enervates it. 2. It remains indeed to you, Marcia, even now a vast sadness, and now it seems to have formed a callus, not that agitated kind such as it was at the beginning, but pertinacious and obstinate; yet time also will remove this from you little by little: as often as you do something else, the mind will be relaxed.

3. Nunc te ipsa custodis; multum autem interest utrum tibi permittas maerere an imperes. Quanto magis hoc morum tuorum elegantiae conuenit, finem luctus potius facere quam expectare, nec illum opperiri diem quo te inuita dolor desinat! ipsa illi renuntia.

3. Now you yourself are keeping watch over yourself; but it makes much difference whether you allow yourself to mourn or you command yourself. How much more does this befit the elegance of your manners, to make an end of mourning rather than to await it, and not to wait for that day on which, with you unwilling, grief will cease! Dismiss it yourself.

IX.

1. 'Vnde ergo tanta nobis pertinacia in deploratione nostri, si id non fit naturae iussu?' Quod nihil nobis mali antequam eueniat proponimus, sed ut immunes ipsi et aliis pacatius ingressi iter alienis non admonemur casibus illos esse communes. 2. Tot praeter domum nostram ducuntur exequiae: de morte non cogitamus; tot acerba funera: nos togam nostrorum infantium, nos militiam et paternae hereditatis successionem agitamus animo; tot diuitum subita paupertas in oculos incidit: et nobis numquam in mentem uenit nostras quoque opes aeque in lubrico positas. Necesse est itaque magis corruamus: quasi ex inopinato ferimur; quae multo ante prouisa sunt languidius incurrunt.

1. 'Whence, then, such pertinacity in the deploration of ourselves, if that is not
done by nature’s command?' Because we set before ourselves no evil before it happens,
but, as though we ourselves were immune and had entered upon the road more peaceably than others, we are not admonished
by others’ cases that those occurrences are common. 2. So many funeral processions are led past our house:
we do not think about death; so many bitter funerals: we revolve in mind the toga of our infants,
the soldiery, and the succession to a paternal inheritance; so much sudden poverty of the rich
falls upon our eyes: and it never comes into our mind that our own wealth likewise is placed equally on slippery ground.
It is necessary therefore that we collapse the more: we are borne, as if by the unforeseen; things long foreseen
come upon us more languidly.

3. Vis tu scire te ad omnis expositum ictus stare et illa quae alios tela fixerunt circa te uibrasse? Velut murum aliquem aut obsessum multo hoste locum et arduum ascensu semermis adeas, expecta uulnus et illa superne uolantia cum sagittis pilisque saxa in tuum puta librata corpus. Quotiens aliquis ad latus aut pone tergum ceciderit, exclama: 'non decipies me, fortuna, nec securum aut neglegentem opprimes.

3. Do you wish to know that you stand exposed to every blow and that the missiles which have fixed others have quivered around you? Just as if you were to approach some wall, or a place besieged by many enemies and steep in ascent, half-armed, expect a wound, and reckon those stones flying from above, together with arrows and javelins, as poised against your body. Whenever someone has fallen at your side or behind your back, cry out: 'you will not deceive me, Fortune, nor will you overwhelm me while secure or negligent.

Scio quid pares: alium quidem percussisti, sed me petisti. 4. Quis umquam res suas quasi periturus aspexit? Quis umquam uestrum de exilio, de egestate, de luctu cogitare ausus est?

I know what you are preparing: another indeed
you have struck, but me you aimed at. 4. Who ever looked upon his own possessions as though about to perish? Who among you has ever dared to cogitate about exile, about poverty, about mourning?

Quis non, si admoneatur ut cogitet, tamquam dirum omen respuat et in capita inimicorum aut ipsius intempestiui monitoris abire illa iubeat? 'Non putaui futurum.' 5. Quicquam tu putas non futurum quod [multis] scis posse fieri, quod multis uides euenisse? Egregium uersum et dignum qui non e pulpito exiret:

Who does not, if he is admonished to think, reject it as a dire omen and bid those things go upon the heads
of his enemies or of the untimely monitor himself? 'I did not think
it would be.' 5. Do you think anything will not be which you know [for many] can come to pass,
which you see has happened to many? An excellent verse and worthy not from the pulpit
to come forth:

cuiuis potest accidere quod cuiquam potest!

Whatever can befall anyone can befall anyone!

Ille amisit liberos: et tu amittere potes; ille damnatus est: et tua innocentia sub ictu est. Error decipit hic, effeminat, dum patimur quae numquam pati nos posse prouidimus. Aufert uim praesentibus malis qui futura prospexit.

That man lost his children: and you can lose them; he was condemned: and your innocence is under the blow. Error deceives here, effeminates, while we suffer what we never foresaw that we could suffer. He takes away the force from present evils who has foreseen the future.

10.

1. Quidquid est hoc, Marcia, quod circa nos ex aduenticio fulget, liberi honores opes, ampla atria et exclusorum clientium turba referta uestibula, clarum , nobilis aut formosa coniux ceteraque ex incerta et mobili sorte pendentia alieni commodatique apparatus sunt; nihil horum dono datur. Conlaticiis et ad dominos redituris instrumentis scaena adornatur; alia ex his primo die, alia secundo referentur, pauca usque ad finem perseuerabunt. 2. Itaque non est quod nos suspiciamus tamquam inter nostra positi: mutua accepimus.

1. Whatever this is, Marcia, which around us shines from adventitious sources—children, honors, wealth, ample atria and vestibules crammed with the throng of shut‑out clients, a renowned , a noble or beautiful spouse, and the rest that hang upon an uncertain and mobile lot—are another’s property and the apparatus of a loan; none of these is given as a gift. With contributed instruments, destined to return to their owners, the stage is adorned; some of these will be taken back on the first day, others on the second; few will persevere to the end. 2. Therefore there is no reason for us to look up to them as though placed among our own: we have received them on loan.

Vsus fructusque noster est, cuius tempus ille arbiter muneris sui temperat; nos oportet in promptu habere quae in incertum diem data sunt et appellatos sine querella reddere: pessimi debitoris est creditori facere conuicium. 3. Omnes ergo nostros, et quos superstites lege nascendi optamus et quos praecedere iustissimum ipsorum uotum est, sic amare debemus tamquam nihil nobis de perpetuitate, immo nihil de diuturnitate eorum promissum sit. Saepe admonendus est animus, amet ut recessura, immo tamquam recedentia: quidquid a fortuna datum est, tamquam exempto auctore possideas.

The use and the usufruct are ours, the time of which he, the arbiter of his own munus, regulates; it is for us to have at the ready the things that were given for an uncertain day and, when summoned, to render them back without complaint: it is the mark of the worst debtor to heap invective upon the creditor. 3. Therefore all our own—both those whom we wish, by the law of birth, to survive us, and those whose own most just votum is to go before—thus we ought to love, as though nothing about their perpetuity, nay, nothing about their long duration had been promised to us. The mind must often be admonished to love as things that are about to withdraw, indeed as though withdrawing: whatever has been given by Fortune, possess as though the author were removed.

4. Rapite ex liberis uoluptates, fruendos uos in uicem liberis date et sine dilatione omne gaudium haurite: nihil de hodierna nocte promittitur — nimis magnam aduocationem dedi — nihil de hac hora. Festinandum est, instatur a tergo: iam disicietur iste comitatus, iam contubernia ista sublato clamore soluentur. Rapina rerum omnium est: miseri nescitis in fuga uiuere.

4. Seize
pleasures from your children, give yourselves in turn to your children to be enjoyed, and without delay
draw in every joy: nothing is promised about tonight — I have granted too great an adjournment —
nothing about this very hour. We must make haste; we are pressed from behind:
already that retinue will be scattered, already those cohabitations, the outcry once raised, will be dissolved. It is a rapine of all things: wretches, you do not know how to live on the run.

5. Si mortuum tibi filium doles, eius temporis quo natus est crimen est; mors enim illi denuntiata nascenti est; in hanc legem genitus , hoc illum fatum ab utero statim prosequebatur. 6. In regnum fortunae et quidem durum atque inuictum peruenimus, illius arbitrio digna atque indigna passuri. Corporibus nostris inpotenter contumeliose crudeliter abutetur: alios ignibus peruret uel in poenam admotis uel in remedium; alios uinciet — id nunc hosti licebit, nunc ciui; alios per incerta nudos maria iactabit et luctatos cum fluctibus ne in harenam quidem aut litus explodet, sed in alicuius inmensae uentrem beluae decondet; alios morborum uariis generibus emaceratos diu inter uitam mortemque medios detinebit.

5. If you grieve for your son dead, the charge lies against the time when he was born; for death was proclaimed to him as he was being born; he was begotten under this law, this fate was attending him straight from the womb. 6. We have come into the kingdom of Fortune, indeed a hard and unconquered one, to suffer at her arbitration things worthy and unworthy. She will abuse our bodies wantonly, contumeliously, cruelly: some she will sear with fires applied either for punishment or for remedy; others she will bind — now it will be permitted to an enemy, now to a fellow citizen; others she will toss naked over uncertain seas, and, after they have struggled with the waves, she will not even cast them out onto the sand or the shore, but will store them away in the belly of some immense beast; others, long emaciated by various kinds of diseases, she will detain for a long time in the middle between life and death.

Vt uaria et libidinosa mancipiorumque suorum neglegens domina et poenis et muneribus errabit.

As a changeable and libidinous mistress, negligent of her slaves, will err both in punishments and in gifts.

XI.

11.

1. Quid opus est partes deflere? tota flebilis uita est: urgebunt noua incommoda, priusquam ueteribus satis feceris. Moderandum est itaque uobis maxime, quae inmoderate fertis, et in multos dolores humani pectoris dispensanda.

1. What need is there to bewail the parts? all life is lamentable: new incommodities will press upon you before you have made enough satisfaction to the old. Therefore a measure must be set upon yourselves most of all—you who bear things immoderately—and the of the human breast must be dispensed among many pains.

Quae deinde ista suae publicaeque condicionis obliuio est? Mortalis nata es mortalesque peperisti: putre ipsa fluidumque corpus et causis [morbos] repetita sperasti tam inbecilla materia solida et aeterna gestasse? 2. Decessit filius tuus, id est decucurrit ad hunc finem ad quem quae feliciora partu tuo putas properant.

What then is this forgetfulness of her own and the common condition? You were born mortal and you have borne mortals: you yourself, a putrid and fluid body and subject to recurring causes [diseases], did you hope that so feeble a material had carried things solid and eternal?
2. Your son has departed, that is, has run down to this end to which those whom you deem happier in your childbirth hasten.

Hoc omnis ista quae in foro litigat, in theatris <plaudit>, in templis precatur turba dispari gradu uadit: et quae diligis, ueneraris et quae despicis unus exaequabit cinis. 3. Hoc uidelicet * * * illa Pythicis oraculis adscripta <uox>: nosce te. Quid est homo? quolibet quassu uas et quolibet fragile iactatu.

This, all that crowd which litigates in the forum,
in the theaters, prays in the temples, goes with an unequal step:
and those whom you love and venerate and those whom you despise one ash will make equal. 3. This,
viz., that assigned to the Pythian oracles: know
yourself. What is man? a vessel for any shaking, and fragile at any tossing.

Non tempestate magna ut dissiperis opus est: ubicumque arietaueris, solueris. Quid est homo? inbecillum corpus et fragile, nudum, suapte natura inerme, alienae opis indigens, ad omnis fortunae contumelias proiectum, cum bene lacertos exercuit, cuiuslibet ferae pabulum, cuiuslibet uictima; ex infirmis fluidisque contextum et lineamentis exterioribus nitidum, frigoris aestus laboris inpatiens, ipso rursus situ et otio iturum in tabem, alimenta metuens sua, quorum modo inopia <deficit, modo copia> rumpitur; anxiae sollicitaeque tutelae, precarii spiritus et male haerentis, quod pauor repentinus aut auditus ex inprouiso sonus auribus grauis excutit, sollicitudinis semper sibi nutrimentum, uitiosum et inutile.

No great tempest is needed for you to be scattered: wherever you are butted, you will be undone. What is man? a feeble and fragile body, naked, by its own nature unarmed, needing another’s aid, cast out to all the insults of fortune; even when he has well exercised his arms, fodder for any beast, victim for anyone; composed out of infirm and fluid things, and sleek by exterior lineaments, intolerant of cold, heat, and toil, destined again by mere stagnation and idleness to go into wasting; fearing its own foods, by the lack of which it is burst; under anxious and solicitous guardianship, with a precarious and ill-adhering breath, which a sudden fear or a sound heard unexpectedly, heavy to the ears, shakes out; always for itself a nourishment of solicitude, faulty and useless.

4. Miramur in hoc mortem, quae unius singultus opus est? Numquid enim ut concidat magni res molimenti est? odor illi saporque et lassitudo et uigilia et umor et cibus et sine quibus uiuere non potest mortifera sunt; quocumque se mouit, statim infirmitatis suae conscium, non omne caelum ferens, aquarum nouitatibus flatuque non familiaris aurae et tenuissimis causis atque offensionibus morbidum, putre causarium, fletu uitam auspicatum, cum interim quantos tumultus hoc tam contemptum animal mouet, in quantas cogitationes oblitum condicionis suae uenit!

4. Do we marvel at death in this, which is the work of a single sob? Is it, then, a matter of great exertion that he should collapse? smell to him and taste and weariness and wakefulness and moisture and food, and the things without which he cannot live, are death-bringing; wherever he has moved himself, at once conscious of his own feebleness, not able to bear every sky, unaccustomed to the novelties of waters and to the blowing of an unfamiliar breeze, and diseased by the most slender causes and affronts, a putrid casualty, having inaugurated his life with weeping, while meanwhile what tumults this so contemptible animal stirs up, into what thoughts, forgetful of his condition, he comes!

5. Inmortalia, aeterna uolutat animo et in nepotes pronepotesque disponit, cum interim longa conantem eum mors opprimit et hoc quod senectus uocatur paucissimorum circumitus annorum.

5. Immortal, eternal things he turns over in his mind, and he arranges for grandsons and great-grandsons, while meanwhile death overwhelms him as he attempts long-lasting undertakings, and this which is called old age is the circuit of very few years.

XII.

12.

1. Dolor tuus, si modo ulla illi ratio est, utrum sua spectat incommoda an eius qui decessit? Vtrum te in amisso filio mouet quod nullas ex illo uoluptates cepisti, an quod maiores, si diutius uixisset, percipere potuisti? 2. Si nullas percepisse te dixeris, tolerabilius efficies detrimentum tuum; minus enim homines desiderant ea ex quibus nihil gaudi laetitiaeque perceperant.

1. Your grief, if indeed there is any reason to it, does it look to its own inconveniences or to that of him who has departed? Which is it that moves you in your lost son: that you took no pleasures from him, or that you could have perceived greater ones if he had lived longer? 2. If you say that you have perceived none, you will render your loss more tolerable; for men miss less those things from which they had perceived nothing of joy and gladness.

Si confessa fueris percepisse magnas uoluptates, oportet te non de eo quod detractum est queri, sed de eo gratias agere quod contigit; prouenerunt enim satis magni fructus laborum tuorum ex ipsa educatione, nisi forte ii qui catulos auesque et friuola animorum oblectamenta summa diligentia nutriunt fruuntur aliqua uoluptate ex uisu tactuque et blanda adulatione mutorum, liberos nutrientibus non fructus educationis ipsa educatio est. Licet itaque nil tibi industria eius contulerit, nihil diligentia custodierit, nihil prudentia suaserit, ipsum quod habuisti, quod amasti, fructus est. 3. 'At potuit longior esse, maior.' Melius tamen tecum actum est quam si omnino non contigisset, quoniam, si ponatur electio utrum satius sit non diu felicem esse an numquam, melius est discessura nobis bona quam nulla contingere.

If you have confessed to having perceived great pleasures, you ought not to complain about that which has been detracted, but to give thanks for that which befell; for sufficiently great fruits of your labors have come forth from the very education, unless perhaps those who with the highest diligence nurture puppies and birds and the frivolous delights of the mind enjoy some pleasure from the sight and touch and the coaxing blandishment of mute creatures, while for those nourishing children the very education is the fruit of the education. Even if, therefore, his industry contributed nothing to you, his diligence guarded nothing, his prudence suggested nothing, the very thing which you had, which you loved, is a fruit. 3. ‘But it could have been longer, greater.’ Nevertheless, it has gone better with you than if it had not happened at all, since, if a choice be posited whether it is more advisable to be happy not for long or never, it is better that goods destined to depart should befall us than that none should befall.

Vtrumne malles degenerem aliquem et numerum tantum nomenque filii expleturum habuisse an tantae indolis quantae tuus fuit, iuuenis cito prudens, cito pius, cito maritus, cito pater, cito omnis officii curiosus, cito sacerdos, omnia tamquam properans? Nulli fere et magna bona et diuturna contingunt, non durat nec ad ultimum exit nisi lenta felicitas: filium tibi di inmortales non diu daturi statim talem dederunt qualis diu effici <uix> potest.

Would you rather have had some degenerate person, who would fill out only the number and the name of a son, or one of so great a natural endowment as yours was, a young man quickly prudent, quickly pious, quickly a husband, quickly a father, quickly meticulous in every duty, quickly a priest, doing everything as if in haste? To almost no one do both great goods and long duration befall; nor does felicity endure or reach the ultimate end unless it is slow: a son whom the immortal gods were not going to grant to you for long, they straightway gave such as can scarcely be brought about even in a long time.

4. Ne illud quidem dicere potes, electam te a dis cui frui non liceret filio: circumfer per omnem notorum, ignotorum frequentiam oculos, occurrent tibi passi ubique maiora. Senserunt ista magni duces, senserunt principes; ne deos quidem fabulae immunes reliquerunt, puto, ut nostrorum funerum leuamentum esset etiam diuina concidere. Circumspice, inquam, omnis: nullam miseram nominabis domum quae non inueniat in miseriore solacium.

4. You cannot even say this, that you were chosen by the gods as one to whom it was not permitted to enjoy a son: carry your eyes around through every crowd of the known and the unknown, there will everywhere meet you those who have suffered greater things. Great leaders have felt these things, princes have felt them; not even the gods have fables left immune, I suppose, so that there might be an alleviation of our funerals, in that even divine things collapse. Look around, I say, all: you will name no house so wretched that it does not find solace in one more wretched.

5. Non mehercules tam male de moribus tuis sentio ut putem posse te leuius pati casum tuum, si tibi ingentem lugentium numerum produxero: maliuolum solacii genus est turba miserorum. Quosdam tamen referam, non ut scias hoc solere hominibus accidere — ridiculum est enim mortalitatis exempla colligere - sed ut scias fuisse multos qui lenirent aspera placide ferendo.

5. Not, by Hercules, do I think so poorly of your morals as to suppose you could more lightly
endure your mischance, if I were to bring forward for you an immense number of mourners: a malevolent
kind of solace is a throng of the wretched. Yet I will relate some, not that you may know
this is wont to happen to human beings — for it is ridiculous to collect examples of mortality
- but that you may know that there have been many who would soften hardships by bearing them placidly.

6. A felicissimo incipiam. L. Sulla filium amisit, nec ea res aut malitiam eius et acerrimam uirtutem in hostes ciuesque contudit aut effecit ut cognomen illud usurpasse falso uideretur, quod amisso filio adsumpsit nec odia hominum ueritus, quorum malo illae nimis secundae res constabant, nec inuidiam deorum, quorum illud crimen erat, Sulla tam felix. Sed istud inter res nondum iudicatas abeat, qualis Sulla fuerit — etiam inimici fatebuntur bene illum arma sumpsisse, bene posuisse: hoc de quo agitur constabit, non esse maximum malum quod etiam ad felicissimos peruenit.

6. I shall begin from the most felicitous. L. Sulla lost his son, nor did that thing either crush his malice and his most sharp virtue against enemies and fellow-citizens, or make it seem that he had usurped that cognomen falsely, which, his son having been lost, he assumed, fearing neither the hatreds of men, at whose misfortune those all too favorable affairs subsisted, nor the envy of the gods, at whose charge it was—Sulla so fortunate. But let that pass among matters not yet adjudicated, of what sort Sulla was — even enemies will confess that he took up arms well, laid them down well: this, which is at issue, will stand fast, that it is not the greatest evil which also comes to the most felicitous.

XIII.

13.

1. Ne nimis admiretur Graecia illum patrem qui in ipso sacrificio nuntiata filii morte tibicinem tantum tacere iussit et coronam capiti detraxit, cetera rite perfecit, Puluillus effecit pontifex, cui postem tenenti et Capitolium dedicanti mors filii nuntiata est. Quam ille exaudisse dissimulauit et sollemnia pontificii carminis uerba concepit gemitu non interrumpente precationem et ad filii sui nomen Ioue propitiato. 2. Putasne eius luctus aliquem finem esse debere, cuius primus dies et primus impetus ab altaribus publicis et fausta nuncupatione non abduxit patrem?

1. Lest Greece admire too much that father who, when the death of his son was announced in the very sacrifice, ordered only the flute-player to be silent and removed the crown from his head, and duly completed the rest, the pontiff Pulvillus has accomplished as much, to whom, as he was holding the doorpost and dedicating the Capitol, the death of his son was announced. He pretended not to have heard it, and he took up the solemn words of the pontifical chant, his groan not interrupting the prayer, and with Jove propitiated at the name of his son. 2. Do you think his grief ought to have any end, whose first day and first onset did not draw the father away from the public altars and from the auspicious nuncupation?

Dignus mehercules fuit memorabili dedicatione, dignus amplissimo sacerdotio, qui colere deos ne iratos quidem destitit. Idem tamen, ut redit domum, et inpleuit oculos et aliquas uoces flebiles misit; sed peractis quae mos erat praestare defunctis ad Capitolinum illum redit uultum.

By Hercules, he was worthy of a memorable dedication, worthy of a most ample priesthood, in that he did not desist from honoring the gods, not even when angered. The same man, however, when he returned home, both filled his eyes with tears and sent forth some plaintive words; but, when the rites had been performed which it was the custom to render to the deceased, he returned to that Capitoline look.

3. Paulus circa illos nobilissimi triumphi dies quo uinctum ante currum egit Persen [incliti regis nomen] duos filios in adoptionem dedit, quos sibi seruauerat extulit. Quales retentos putas, cum inter commodatos Scipio fuisset? Non sine motu uacuum Pauli currum populus Romanus aspexit.

3. Paulus, around those days of that most noble triumph when he drove Perseus, [the name of the renowned king], bound before his chariot, gave two sons into adoption, and the whom he had kept for himself he reared. Of what quality do you suppose those retained were, since among those lent out was Scipio? Not without emotion did the Roman people look upon Paulus’s empty chariot.

Contionatus est tamen et egit dis gratias quod compos uoti factus esset; precatum enim se ut, si quid ob ingentem uictoriam inuidiae dandum esset, id suo potius quam publico damno solueretur. 4. Vides quam magno animo tulerit? orbitati suae gratulatus est.

Nevertheless he addressed the assembly and gave thanks to the gods that he had been made in possession of his vow fulfilled;
for he had prayed that, if anything had to be paid to Envy on account of the enormous victory, it should be discharged at his own rather than at the public loss. 4. Do you see with how great a spirit he bore it?
He congratulated himself on his bereavement.

Et quem magis poterat permouere tanta mutatio? solacia simul atque auxilia perdidit. Non contigit tamen tristem Paulum Persi uidere.

And whom could so great a mutation move more?
He lost at once both solaces and aids.
Yet it did not befall Perses to see Paulus sad.

XIV.

14.

1. Quid nunc te per innumerabilia magnorum uirorum exempla ducam et quaeram miseros, quasi non difficilius sit inuenire felices? Quota enim quaeque domus usque ad exitum omnibus partibus suis constitit, in qua non aliquid turbatum sit? Vnum quemlibet annum occupa et ex eo magistratus cita, Lucium si uis Bibulum et C. Caesarem: uidebis inter collegas inimicissimos concordem fortunam.

1. Why should I now lead you through innumerable examples of great men and seek the wretched, as if it were not more difficult to find the happy? For what household, each and every one, has stood firm with all its parts right to the end, in which something has not been disturbed? Seize any one year you please and from it summon the magistrates— Lucius Bibulus, if you wish, and Gaius Caesar: you will see, between colleagues most inimical, a concordant fortune.

2. L. Bibuli, melioris quam fortioris uiri, duo simul filii interfecti sunt, Aegyptio quidem militi ludibrio habiti, ut non minus ipsa orbitate auctor eius digna res lacrimis esset. Bibulus tamen, qui toto honoris sui anno inuidiam collegae domi latuerat, postero die quam geminum funus renuntiatum est processit ad solita imperatoris officia. Quis minus potest quam unum diem duobus filiis dare?

2. L. Bibulus, a better rather than a braver man, had two sons killed at the same time, indeed held up to mockery by an Egyptian soldier, so that the deed was no less worthy of tears because of the very bereavement than because of its perpetrator. Nevertheless Bibulus, who for the whole year of his office had lain hidden at home to the discredit of his colleague, on the day after the double funeral was reported went out to the usual duties of a commander. Who can do less than to give one day to two sons?

Tam cito liberorum luctum finiuit qui consulatum anno luxerat. 3. C. Caesar cum Britanniam peragraret nec oceano continere felicitatem suam posset, audit decessisse filiam publica secum fata ducentem. In oculis erat iam Cn. Pompeius non aequo laturus animo quemquam alium esse in re publica magnum et modum inpositurus incrementis, quae grauia illi uidebantur etiam cum in commune cresceret.

So quickly did he end the mourning for his children, he who had mourned his consulship for a year. 3. C. Caesar, while he was traversing Britain and could not confine his felicity within the ocean, hears that his daughter has died, drawing the public fates along with her. Already Cn. Pompeius was before his eyes, not about to bear with an even mind that anyone else should be great in the republic, and about to impose a measure upon the increments, which seemed burdensome to him even when they grew for the common good.

Tamen intra tertium diem imperatoria obit munia et tam cito dolorem uicit quam omnia solebat.

Nevertheless, within the third day he discharges the imperatorial duties and so quickly he conquered grief as he was accustomed to conquer everything.

XV.

15.

1. Quid aliorum tibi funera Caesarum referam? quos in hoc mihi uidetur interim uiolare fortuna ut sic quoque generi humano prosint, ostendentes ne eos quidem qui dis geniti deosque genituri dicantur sic suam fortunam in potestate habere quemadmodum alienam. 2. Diuus Augustus amissis liberis, nepotibus, exhausta Caesarum turba, adoptione desertam domum fulsit: tulit tamen tam fortiter quam cuius iam res agebatur cuiusque maxime intererat de dis neminem queri.

1. Why should I recount to you the funerals of other Caesars? whom in this matter Fortune meanwhile seems to violate, so that even thus they may be of benefit to the human race, showing that not even those who are said to be born from gods and to beget gods have their own fortune in their power in the way they have another’s. 2. The deified Augustus, his children and grandchildren lost, the stock of Caesars exhausted, by adoption shored up a house left deserted: nevertheless he bore it so bravely, as one whose cause was now being tried and to whom it most especially mattered that no one complain about the gods.

3. Ti. Caesar et quem genuerat et quem adoptauerat amisit; ipse tamen pro rostris laudauit filium stetitque in conspectu posito corpore, interiecto tantummodo uelamento quod pontificis oculos a funere arceret, et flente populo Romano non flexit uultum; experiendum se dedit Seiano ad latus stanti quam patienter posset suos perdere.

3. Tiberius Caesar lost both the one whom he had begotten and the one whom he had adopted; nevertheless he, before the Rostra, lauded his son and stood in view with the body set out, with only a veil interposed to keep the pontiff’s eyes away from the funeral, and, while the Roman people wept, he did not alter his countenance; he gave himself to be tried by Sejanus, standing at his side, as to how patiently he could lose his own.

4. Videsne quanta copia uirorum maximorum sit quos non excepit hic omnia prosternens casus, et in quos tot animi bona, tot ornamenta publice priuatimque congesta erant? Sed uidelicet it in orbem ista tempestas et sine dilectu uastat omnia agitque ut sua. Iube singulos conferre rationem: nulli contigit inpune nasci.

4. Do you see what a great abundance of the greatest men there is, whom this casualty, prostrating all things, did not spare, and in whom so many goods of spirit, so many ornaments had been heaped up, publicly and privately? But plainly this tempest goes in a cycle and without selection devastates all things and acts with them as with its own. Bid each individual render an account: it has befallen no one to be born with impunity.

XVI.

16.

1. Scio quid dicas: 'oblitus es feminam te consolari, uirorum refers exempla.' Quis autem dixit naturam maligne cum mulierum ingeniis egisse et uirtutes illarum in artum retraxisse? par illis, mihi crede, uigor, par ad honesta, libeat , facultas est; dolorem laboremque ex aequo, si consueuere, patiuntur. 2. In qua istud urbe, di boni, loquimur?

1. I know what you say: 'you have forgotten that you are consoling a woman; you recount examples of men.' But who has said that Nature has dealt malignly with the talents of women and has drawn their virtues into a narrow compass? Equal to them, believe me, is the vigor, equal the capacity for honorable things, if only they wish ; they endure pain and toil on equal terms, if they have grown accustomed. 2. In what city, good gods, are we saying this?

in qua regem Romanis capitibus Lucretia et Brutus deiecerunt: Bruto libertatem debemus, Lucretiae Brutum; in qua Cloeliam contempto et hoste et flumine ob insignem audaciam tantum non in uiros transcripsimus: equestri insidens statuae in sacra uia, celeberrimo loco, Cloelia exprobrat iuuenibus nostris puluinum escendentibus in ea illos urbe sic ingredi in qua etiam feminas equo donauimus. 3. Quod tibi si uis exempla referri feminarum quae suos fortiter desiderauerint, non ostiatim quaeram; ex una tibi familia duas Cornelias dabo: primam Scipionis filiam, Gracchorum matrem. Duodecim illa partus totidem funeribus recognouit; et de ceteris facile est, quos nec editos nec amissos ciuitas sensit: Tiberium Gaiumque, quos etiam qui bonos uiros negauerit magnos fatebitur, et occisos uidit et insepultos.

in which Lucretia and Brutus cast down the king from above Roman heads: to Brutus we owe liberty, to Lucretia Brutus; in which Cloelia, with both the enemy and the river despised, on account of distinguished audacity we all but enrolled among the men: seated upon her equestrian statue on the Sacred Way, in the most celebrated place, Cloelia reproaches our young men, as they mount the cushion, for entering thus into that city in which we even presented women with a horse. 3. And if you wish examples to be brought forward to you of women who have stoutly felt the loss of their own, I will not seek them door by door; from one family I will give you two Cornelias: first, the daughter of Scipio, the mother of the Gracchi. She recognized twelve births with just so many funerals; and as for the others it is easy, those whom the commonwealth sensed neither when they were brought forth nor when they were lost: Tiberius and Gaius—whom even one who has denied that they were good men will admit were great—she saw both slain and unburied.

Consolantibus tamen miseramque dicentibus 'numquam' inquit 'non felicem me dicam, quae Gracchos peperi.' 4. Cornelia Liui Drusi clarissimum iuuenem inlustris ingenii, uadentem per Gracchana uestigia inperfectis tot rogationibus intra penates interemptum suos, amiserat incerto caedis auctore. Tamen et acerbam mortem filii et inultam tam magno animo tulit quam ipse leges tulerat. 5. Iam cum fortuna in gratiam, Marcia, reuerteris, si tela quae in Scipiones Scipionumque matres ac filias exegit, quibus Caesares petit, ne a te quidem continuit?

While people were consoling her and calling her wretched, she said, 'never will I say that I am not happy, I who bore the Gracchi.' 4. Cornelia had lost Livius Drusus, a most renowned young man of illustrious genius, going along Gracchan footprints, with so many rogations unfinished, slain within his own household, the author of the murder unknown. Nevertheless she bore both the bitter and unavenged death of her son with as great a greatness of spirit as he himself had carried his laws. 5. Now that you have returned into favor with Fortune, Marcia, has she not refrained even from you, if the darts which she drove against the Scipios and the mothers and daughters of the Scipios, with which she assails the Caesars, did not hold back from you either?

Plena et infesta uariis casibus uita est, a quibus nulli longa pax, uix indutiae sunt. Quattuor liberos sustuleras, Marcia. Nullum aiunt frustra cadere telum quod in confertum agmen inmissum est: mirum est tantam turbam non potuisse sine inuidia damnoue praeteruehi?

Life is full and hostile with various contingencies, from which for no one is there long peace,
scarcely are there truces. You had reared four children, Marcia. They say no missile falls in vain
which has been sent into a crowded column: is it a wonder that so great a throng could not have been
borne past without envy and damage?

6. 'At hoc iniquior fortuna fuit quod non tantum eripuit filios sed elegit.' Numquam tamen iniuriam dixeris ex aequo cum potentiore diuidere: duas tibi reliquit filias et harum nepotes; et ipsum quem maxime luges prioris oblita non ex toto abstulit: habes ex illo duas filias, si male fers, magna onera, si bene, magna solacia. In hoc te perduc ut illas cum uideris admonearis filii, non doloris. 7. Agricola euersis arboribus quas aut uentus radicitus auolsit aut contortus repentino impetu turbo praefregit sobolem ex illis residuam fouet et in amissarum semina statim plantasque disponit; et momento (nam ut ad damna, ita ad incrementa rapidum ueloxque tempus est) adolescunt amissis laetiora.

6. 'But fortune was more iniquitous in this, that she not only snatched away sons but chose.' Never, however, would you say that injustice divides equally with the more powerful: she left you two daughters and their grandchildren; and the very one whom you mourn most, forgetful of her former harshness, she did not take away in toto: you have from him two daughters—if you bear it ill, great burdens; if well, great consolations. Bring yourself to this point, that when you see them you are reminded of your son, not of your sorrow. 7. A farmer, when trees are overthrown—either which the wind has torn up by the roots or a contorted whirlwind, with sudden onset, has snapped—cherishes the remaining offspring from them and straightway sets seeds and shoots in the of those lost; and in a moment (for as toward losses, so toward increases time is rapid and swift) they grow up more luxuriant than those lost.

8. Has nunc Metili tui filias in eius uicem substitue et uacantem locum exple et unum dolorem geminato solacio leua. Est quidem haec natura mortalium, ut nihil magis placeat quam quod amissum est: iniquiores sumus aduersus relicta ereptorum desiderio. Sed si aestimare uolueris quam ualde tibi fortuna, etiam cum saeuiret, pepercerit, scies te habere plus quam solacia: respice tot nepotes, duas filias.

8. Now substitute in his stead these, the daughters of your Metilius,
and fill the vacant place, and lighten the one sorrow with a doubled solace. Indeed
such is the nature of mortals, that nothing pleases more than what has been lost: we are more unfair
toward what remains, through longing for what has been snatched away. But if you are willing to reckon how
greatly Fortune, even when she was raging, spared you, you will know that you have more
than consolations: look upon so many grandchildren, two daughters.

Dic illud quoque, Marcia: 'mouerer, si esset cuique fortuna pro moribus et numquam mala bonos sequerentur: nunc uideo exempto discrimine eodem modo malos bonosque iactari.'

Say this also, Marcia: 'I would be moved, if fortune were to each according to his morals and evils never followed the good: now I see, with the distinction removed, the bad and the good being tossed in the same way.'

XVII.

17.

1. 'Graue est tamen quem educaueris iuuenem, iam matri iam patri praesidium ac decus amittere.' Quis negat graue esse? sed humanum est. Ad hoc genitus es, ut perderes ut perires, ut sperares metueres, alios teque inquietares, mortem et timeres et optares et, quod est pessimum, numquam scires cuius esses status.

1. 'Yet it is a grave thing to lose the young man whom you have reared, now for mother now for father a protection and an ornament.' Who denies that it is grave? But it is human. For this you were begotten: that you might lose and that you might perish, that you might hope and fear, that you might disquiet others and yourself, that you might both fear death and desire it, and, what is worst, that you might never know what your status would be.

2. Si quis Syracusas petenti diceret: 'omnia incommoda, omnes uoluptates futurae peregrinationis tuae ante cognosce, deinde ita nauiga. Haec sunt quae mirari possis: uidebis primum ipsam insulam ab Italia angusto interscissam freto, quam continenti quondam cohaesisse constat; subitum illo mare inrupit et

2. If someone, to one making for Syracuse, should say: 'First learn beforehand all the inconveniences, all the voluptuities of your future peregrination, then so set sail. These are the things you may marvel at: you will see first the island itself cut off from Italy by a narrow strait, which is agreed once to have cohered with the continent; the sea suddenly broke in there and

Hesperium Siculo latus abscidit.

it cut off the Hesperian side from the Sicilian.

Deinde uidebis (licebit enim tibi auidissimum maris uerticem stringere) stratam illam fabulosam Charybdin quam diu ab austro uacat, at, si quid inde uehementius spirauit, magno hiatu profundoque nauigia sorbentem. 3. Videbis celebratissimum carminibus fontem Arethusam, nitidissimi ac perlucidi ad imum stagni, gelidissimas aquas profundentem, siue illas ibi primum nascentis inuenit, siue inlapsum terris flumen integrum subter tot maria et a confusione peioris undae seruatum reddidit. 4. Videbis portum quietissimum omnium quos aut natura posuit in tutelam classium aut adiuuit manus, sic tutum ut ne maximarum quidem tempestatium furori locus sit.

Then you will see (for it will be permitted to you to skirt the most greedy vortex of the sea) that fabled Charybdis lying there, which, so long as it is free from the south wind, yet, if anything blows more vehemently from that quarter, swallows vessels with a great and deep gulf. 3. You will see the spring Arethusa, most celebrated in songs, of a pool most shining and pellucid to the bottom, pouring forth the chilliest waters, whether it finds those waters first being born there, or has given back a river that slipped into the lands, intact beneath so many seas and preserved from commixture with the worse wave. 4. You will see the most quiet harbor of all those which either nature has placed for the tutelage of fleets or the hand (of man) has aided, so safe that there is no place even for the fury of the greatest tempests.

Videbis ubi Athenarum potentia fracta, ubi tot milia captiuorum ille excisis in infinitam altitudinem saxis natiuus carcer incluserat, ipsam ingentem ciuitatem et laxius territorium quam multarum urbium fines sunt, tepidissima hiberna et nullum diem sine interuentu solis. 5. Sed cum omnia ista cognoueris, grauis et insalubris aestas hiberni caeli beneficia corrumpet. Erit Dionysius illic tyrannus, libertatis iustitiae legum exitium, dominationis cupidus etiam post Platonem, uitae etiam post exilium: alios uret, alios uerberabit, alios ob leuem offensam detruncari iubebit, arcesset ad libidinem mares feminasque et inter foedos regiae intemperantiae greges parum erit simul binis coire.

You will see where
with the power of Athens broken, where that native prison had enclosed so many thousands of captives in rocks hewn to an infinite height, the huge city itself and a territory more spacious than the borders of many cities, the warmest winters, and no day without the intervention of the sun. 5. But when you have come to know all these things, a heavy and insalubrious summer will corrupt the benefits of the winter sky. There will be Dionysius there as tyrant, the ruin of liberty, justice, and laws, desirous of domination even after Plato, desirous of life even after exile: he will burn some, he will scourge others, he will order others to be beheaded for a slight offense; he will summon to lust males and females, and among the foul herds of royal intemperance, it will be too little to couple merely in twos at once.

Audisti quid te inuitare possit, quid absterrere: proinde aut nauiga aut resiste.' 6. Post hanc denuntiationem si quis dixisset intrare se Syracusas uelle, satisne iustam querellam de ullo nisi de se habere posset, qui non incidisset in illa sed prudens sciensque uenisset?

You have heard what might invite you, what might deter you: therefore either sail or hold back.' 6. After this announcement, if someone had said that he wished to enter Syracuse, could he have a sufficiently just complaint against anyone except himself, since he had not fallen into it by chance but had come prudently and knowingly?

Dicit omnibus nobis natura: 'neminem decipio. Tu si filios sustuleris, poteris habere formosos, et deformes poteris. Fortasse multi nascentur: esse aliquis ex illis tam seruator patriae quam proditor poterit.

Nature says to all of us: 'I deceive no one. You, if you raise children, you will be able to have well-formed ones, and you will be able to have deformed ones. Perhaps many will be born: someone among them could be as much a preserver of the fatherland as a betrayer.

7. Non est quod desperes tantae dignationis futuros ut nemo tibi propter illos male dicere audeat; propone tamen et tantae futuros turpitudinis ut ipsi maledicta sint. Nihil uetat illos tibi suprema praestare et laudari te a liberis tuis, sed sic te para tamquam in ignem inpositurus uel puerum uel iuuenem uel senem; nihil enim ad rem pertinent anni, quoniam nullum non acerbum funus est quod parens sequitur.' Post has leges propositas si liberos tollis, omni deos inuidia liberas, qui tibi nihil certi spoponderunt.

7. There is no reason for you to despair that they will be of such distinction that no one will dare to speak ill of you on account of them; yet set before your mind also that they will be of such turpitude that they themselves are curses. Nothing forbids that they render to you the last offices and that you be praised by your children, but prepare yourself as if you were about to place upon the fire either a boy or a youth or an old man; for the years are irrelevant to the matter, since there is no funeral not bitter which a parent follows. After these laws have been set forth, if you raise children, you free the gods from all reproach, who pledged you nothing certain.

XVIII.

18.

18. hanc imaginem agedum totius uitae introitum refer. An Syracusas uiseres deliberanti tibi quidquid delectare poterat, quidquid offendere exposui: puta nascenti me tibi uenire in consilium. 2. 'Intraturus es urbem dis hominibus communem, omnia complexam, certis legibus aeternisque deuinctam, indefatigata caelestium officia uoluentem.

18. this image, come now, refer the entry of the whole life. Or, if you were considering visiting Syracuse, I set forth for you whatever could delight, whatever could offend: suppose that, as you are being born, I come to you for counsel. 2. 'You are about to enter a city common to gods and men, encompassing all things, bound by fixed and eternal laws, rolling on the indefatigable offices of the celestials.

Videbis illic innumerabiles stellas micare, uidebis uno sidere omnia inpleri, solem cotidiano cursu diei noctisque spatia signantem, annuo aestates hiemesque aequalius[que] diuidentem. Videbis nocturnam lunae successionem, a fraternis occursibus lene remissumque lumen mutuantem et modo occultam modo toto ore terris imminentem, accessionibus damnisque mutabilem, semper proximae dissimilem. 3. Videbis quinque sidera diuersas agentia uias et in contrarium praecipiti mundo nitentia: ex horum leuissimis motibus fortunae populorum dependent et maxima ac minima proinde formantur prout aequum iniquumue sidus incessit.

You will see there innumerable
stars twinkling, you will see all things filled by a single star, the sun by its daily course
marking the spans of day and night, and by its yearly one dividing summers and winters more evenly;
you will see the nocturnal succession of the moon, borrowing a gentle and relaxed light
from its brotherly encounters, and now hidden, now threatening the lands with its whole face,
changeable by accessions and losses, always unlike what is nearest. 3. You will see five stars pursuing diverse
paths and striving in contrariety to the headlong world: upon the slightest motions of these the fortunes of peoples depend,
and both the greatest and the least are formed accordingly, as a just or unjust star has advanced.

Miraberis collecta nubila et cadentis aquas et obliqua fulmina et caeli fragorem. 4. Cum satiatus spectaculo supernorum in terram oculos deieceris, excipiet te alia forma rerum aliterque mirabilis: hinc camporum in infinitum patentium fusa planities, hinc montium magnis et niualibus surgentium iugis erecti in sublime uertices; deiectus fluminum et ex uno fonte in occidentem orientemque diffusi amnes et summis cacuminibus nemora nutantia et tantum siluarum cum suis animalibus auiumque concentu dissono; 5. uarii urbium situs et seclusae nationes locorum difficultate, quarum aliae se in erectos subtrahunt montes, aliae ~ripis lacu uallibus pauidae~ circumfunduntur; adiuta cultu seges et arbusta sine cultore feritatis; et riuorum lenis inter prata discursus et amoeni sinus et litora in portum recedentia; sparsae tot per uastum insulae, quae interuentu suo maria distinguunt. 6. Quid lapidum gemmarumque fulgor et [inter] rapidorum torrentium aurum harenis interfluens et in mediis terris medioque rursus mari ~terret~ ignium faces et uinculum terrarum oceanus, continuationem gentium triplici sinu scindens et ingenti licentia exaestuans?

You will marvel at the gathered clouds and the waters of falling rain and the slant lightnings and the crash of the sky. 4. When, sated with the spectacle of supernal things, you lower your eyes to the earth, another form of things will receive you, wondrous in another way: here the outpoured plain of fields stretching into the infinite, there the peaks erected on high, with mountains rising with great and snowy ridges; the descents of rivers, and streams diffused from one source into west and east, and on the highest summits woods nodding, and so great an expanse of forests with their animals and with the dissonant concert of birds; 5. the varied sites of cities and nations secluded by the difficulty of their places, of which some withdraw themselves into upraised mountains, others are surrounded ~by the banks, the lake, the valleys, timorous~; the crop aided by cultivation, and groves in their ferity without a cultivator; and the gentle coursing of rills among meadows, and pleasant bays, and shores receding into a harbor; so many islands scattered through the vastness, which by their intervention distinguish the seas. 6. What of the sheen of stones and gems, and the gold of swift torrents flowing [between] the sands, and, in the midst of lands and again in the midst of the sea, the torches of fires ~terrify~, and the Ocean, the bond of the lands, cleaving the continuity of the nations with a triple gulf and surging with immense license?

7. Videbis hic inquietis et sine uento fluctuantibus aquis innare [et] excedenti terrestria magnitudine animalia, quaedam grauia et alieno se magisterio mouentia, quaedam uelocia et concitatis perniciora remigiis, quaedam haurientia undas et magno praenauigantium periculo efflantia; uidebis hic nauigia quas non nouere terras quaerentia. Videbis nihil humanae audaciae intemptatum erisque et spectator et ipse pars magna conantium: disces docebisque artes, alias quae uitam instruant, alias quae ornent, alias quae regant. 8. Sed istic erunt mille corporum, animorum pestes, et bella et latrocinia et uenena et naufragia et intemperies caeli corporisque et carissimorum acerba desideria et mors, incertum facilis an per poenam cruciatumque.

7. You will see here on waters restless and heaving without wind creatures swimming [and] animals exceeding terrestrial magnitude, some heavy and moving themselves under another’s mastery, some swift and more nimble than stirred oarings, some drawing in the waves and blowing them out to the great peril of those sailing before; you will see here ships seeking lands which they have not known. You will see nothing unattempted by human audacity, and you will be both a spectator and yourself a great part of the endeavoring: you will learn and you will teach arts, some which instruct/equip life, others which adorn it, others which rule it. 8. But there will be in that place a thousand plagues of bodies and souls, both wars and latrociny and poisons and shipwrecks and the intemperance of sky and of body and the bitter longings for the dearest, and death—uncertain whether easy or through punishment and torment.

Delibera tecum et perpende quid uelis: ut ad illa uenias, per illa exeundum est.' Respondebis uelle te uiuere. Quidni? immo, puto, ad id non accedes ex quo tibi aliquid decuti doles!

Deliberate with yourself and weigh what you will: that you may come to
those things, through those things one must pass.' You will answer that you wish to live. Why not? Nay rather, I suppose, you will not accede to that, since you ache at having anything shaken off from you!

Viue ergo ut conuenit. 'Nemo' inquis 'nos consuluit.' Consulti sunt de nobis parentes nostri, qui, cum condicionem uitae nossent, in hanc nos sustulerunt.

Live therefore as is fitting. 'No one,' you say, 'consulted us.' Our parents were consulted about us, who, since they knew the condition of life, raised us into this.

XIX.

19.

1. Sed ut ad solacia ueniam, uideamus primum quid curandum sit, deinde quemadmodum. Mouet lugentem desiderium eius quem dilexit. Id per se tolerabile esse apparet; absentis enim afuturosque dum uiuent non flemus, quamuis omnis usus nobis illorum conspectu ereptus sit; opinio est ergo quae nos cruciat, et tanti quodque malum est quanti illud taxauimus.

1. But so that I may come to solaces, let us see first what must be cared for, then in what manner. What moves the mourner is the desire for him whom he loved. This appears in itself to be tolerable; for we do not weep for those who are absent and will be absent so long as they live, although all use of them their sight has been snatched from us; opinion, therefore, is what torments us, and each evil is of just so much value as we have appraised it.

In nostra potestate remedium habemus: iudicemus illos abesse et nosmet ipsi fallamus; dimisimus illos, immo consecuturi praemisimus. 2. Mouet et illud lugentem: 'non erit qui me defendat, qui a contemptu uindicet.' Vt minime probabili sed uero solacio utar, in ciuitate nostra plus gratiae orbitas confert quam eripit, adeoque senectutem solitudo, quae solebat destruere, ad potentiam ducit ut quidam odia filiorum simulent et liberos eiurent, orbitatem manu faciant.

In our power we have the remedy: let us judge them to be absent and let us ourselves deceive ourselves; we have dismissed them—nay, as those about to follow, we have sent them on ahead. 2. It also moves the mourner: 'there will be no one to defend me, to vindicate me from contempt.' That I may use a consolation least plausible but true: in our commonwealth orphanhood confers more favor than it takes away, and to such an extent does solitude in old age, which used to destroy, lead to power that certain men simulate hatreds of their sons and forswear their children, manufacturing orphanhood by their own hand.

3. Scio quid dicas: 'non mouent me detrimenta mea; etenim non est dignus solacio qui filium sibi decessisse sicut mancipium moleste fert, cui quicquam in filio respicere praeter ipsum uacat.' Quid igitur te, Marcia, mouet? utrum quod filius tuus decessit an quod non diu uixit? Si quod decessit, semper debuisti dolere; semper enim scisti moriturum.

3. I know what you say: 'my detriments do not move me; for he is not worthy of solace who takes it ill that a son has departed from him like a chattel, for whom it is free to regard anything in the son besides the son himself.' What, then, moves you, Marcia? Is it that your son has departed, or that he did not live long? If because he departed, you ought always to have grieved; for you always knew he would die.

4. Cogita nullis defunctum malis adfici, illa quae nobis inferos faciunt terribiles, fabulas esse, nullas imminere mortuis tenebras nec carcerem nec flumina igne flagrantia nec Obliuionem amnem nec tribunalia et reos et in illa libertate tam laxa ullos iterum tyrannos: luserunt ista poetae et uanis nos agitauere terroribus. 5. Mors dolorum omnium exsolutio est et finis ultra quem mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in illam tranquillitatem in qua antequam nasceremur iacuimus reponit. Si mortuorum aliquis miseretur, et non natorum misereatur.

4. Think that the departed is affected by no evils, that those things which make the infernal regions terrifying for us are fables,
that no darkness hangs over the dead, nor prison, nor rivers blazing with fire,
nor the river Oblivion, nor tribunals and defendants, and—in that freedom so unbounded—
any tyrants again: poets have toyed with these things and have driven us with empty terrors. 5. Death is the release of all pains and the end beyond which our evils do not
pass, which puts us back into that tranquillity in which we lay before we were born.
If someone pities the dead, let him pity the not-born as well.

Mors nec bonum nec malum est; id enim potest aut bonum aut malum esse quod aliquid est; quod uero ipsum nihil est et omnia in nihilum redigit, nulli nos fortunae tradit. Mala enim bonaque circa aliquam uersantur materiam: non potest id fortuna tenere quod natura dimisit, nec potest miser esse qui nullus est. 6. Excessit filius tuus terminos intra quos seruitur, excepit illum magna et aeterna pax: non paupertatis metu, non diuitiarum cura, non libidinis per uoluptatem animos carpentis stimulis incessitur, non inuidia felicitatis alienae tangitur, non suae premitur, ne conuiciis quidem ullis uerecundae aures uerberantur; nulla publica clades prospicitur, nulla priuata; non sollicitus futuri pendet [et] ex euentu semper ~in certiora dependenti~. Tandem ibi constitit unde nil eum pellat, ubi nihil terreat.

Death
is neither a good nor an evil; for that can be either good or evil which is something;
but that which is itself nothing and reduces all things into nothing delivers us over to no Fortune.
For evils and goods are occupied about some matter: Fortune cannot hold that which Nature has dismissed,
nor can he be miserable who is no one. 6. Your son has gone beyond the boundaries within which service is rendered;
a great and eternal peace has received him: he is not assailed by fear of poverty, not by the care of riches,
not by the goads of lust rending souls through pleasure, he is not touched by envy of another’s felicity,
nor is he pressed by his own; not even by any revilings are his modest ears beaten; no public disaster is foreseen,
none private; not anxious about the future he hangs [and] from the outcome always ~depending on more certain things~.
At length he has settled there whence nothing may drive him, where nothing may terrify.

XX.

20.

1. O ignaros malorum suorum, quibus non mors ut optimum inuentum naturae laudatur expectaturque, siue felicitatem includit, siue calamitatem repellit, siue satietatem ac lassitudinem senis terminat, siue iuuenile aeuum dum meliora sperantur in flore deducit, siue pueritiam ante duriores gradus reuocat, omnibus finis, multis remedium, quibusdam uotum, de nullis melius merita quam de iis ad quos uenit antequam inuocaretur. 2. Haec seruitutem inuito domino remittit; haec captiuorum catenas leuat; haec e carcere educit quos exire imperium inpotens uetuerat; haec exulibus in patriam semper animum oculosque tendentibus ostendit nihil interesse infra quos quis iaceat; haec, ubi res communes fortuna male diuisit et aequo iure genitos alium alii donauit, exaequat omnia; haec est post quam nihil quisquam alieno fecit arbitrio; haec est in qua nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec est quae nulli non patuit; haec est, Marcia, quam pater tuus concupit; haec est, inquam, quae efficit ut nasci non sit supplicium, quae efficit ut non concidam aduersus minas casuum, ut seruare animum saluum ac potentem sui possim: habeo quod appellem. 3. Video istic cruces ne unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas: capite quidam conuersos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt; uideo fidiculas, uideo uerbera, et ~membris singulis articulis~ singula ~docuerunt~ machinamenta: sed uideo et mortem.

1. O ignorant of their own evils, for whom death is not praised and expected as nature’s best invention, whether it encloses felicity, or repels calamity, or sets a limit to the satiety and lassitude of an old man, or leads down the youthful age in its flower while better things are hoped for, or calls back childhood before the harsher steps; to all the end, to many the remedy, to certain ones the wish, of none better deserving than of those to whom it comes before it was invoked. 2. This remits servitude with the master unwilling; this lightens the chains of captives; this leads out of prison those whom a powerless command had forbidden to go forth; this shows to exiles, ever stretching mind and eyes toward their fatherland, that it makes no difference beneath whom one lies; this, where fortune has ill-divided common things and, with equal right at birth, has bestowed one man upon another, makes all things level; this is that after which no one has done anything by another’s arbitrament; this is that in which no one has felt his own lowliness; this is that which has been open to no one not; this is, Marcia, what your father longed for; this is, I say, what brings it about that to be born is not a punishment, what brings it about that I do not collapse against the threats of chances, that I can keep my spirit safe and self-potent; I have that which I may call upon. 3. I see there crosses, not of a single kind even, but fashioned differently by different men: some suspend men turned headfirst toward the ground, others have driven a stake through the privities, others have stretched the arms upon a patibulum; I see torture-cords, I see scourges, and ~for each single limb, for each joint~ separate ~they have devised~ contrivances: but I also see death.

Sunt istic hostes cruenti, ciues superbi: sed uideo istic et mortem. Non est molestum seruire ubi, si dominii pertaesum est, licet uno gradu ad libertatem transire. Caram te, uita, beneficio mortis habeo.

There are there blood-stained enemies, haughty citizens: but I see there death as well. It is not troublesome to serve where, if dominion has become wearisome, it is permitted by a single step to pass over into liberty. I hold you dear, life, by the benefit of death.

4. Cogita quantum boni opportuna mors habeat, quam multis diutius uixisse nocuerit. Si Gnaeum Pompeium, decus istud firmamentumque imperii, Neapoli ualetudo abstulisset, indubitatus populi Romani princeps excesserat: at nunc exigui temporis adiectio fastigio illum suo depulit. Vidit legiones in conspectu suo caesas et ex illo proelio in quo prima acies senatus fuit — quam infelices reliquiae sunt!

4. Consider how much good a timely death has, how to many it has harmed to have lived longer. If ill health had carried off Gnaeus Pompeius, that ornament and firmament of the empire, at Naples, he would have departed as the undisputed leader of the Roman people; but now the addition of a brief span of time drove him down from his own height. He saw legions cut down before his eyes, and from that battle in which the first line was the Senate — how unhappy the remnants are!

— ipsum imperatorem superfuisse; uidit Aegyptium carnificem et sacrosanctum uictoribus corpus satelliti praestitit, etiam si incolumis fuisset paenitentiam salutis acturus; quid enim erat turpius quam Pompeium uiuere beneficio regis? 5. M. Cicero si illo tempore quo Catilinae sicas deuitauit, quibus pariter cum patria petitus est, concidisset, liberata re publica seruator eius, si denique filiae suae funus secutus esset, etiamtunc felix mori potuit. Non uidisset strictos in ciuilia capita mucrones nec diuisa percussoribus occisorum bona, ut etiam de suo perirent, non hastam consularia spolia uendentem nec caedes locatas publice nec latrocinia, bella, rapinas, tantum Catilinarum.

— that the commander himself survived; he saw the Egyptian executioner, and he made over his sacrosanct body to a henchman of the victors, even if he had been unhurt he was going to do repentance for his preservation; for what was more shameful than for Pompey to live by a king’s favor? 5. M. Cicero, if at that time when he avoided Catiline’s daggers, by which he was attacked together with the fatherland, he had fallen, with the commonwealth freed, its savior—if finally he had followed his daughter’s funeral—could even then have died happy. He would not have seen blades drawn against citizens’ heads, nor the goods of the slain divided to their assassins, so that they even perished at their own expense, nor the auction-spear selling consular spoils, nor murders let out publicly, nor brigandage, wars, rapine—so many Catilines.

6. M. Catonem si a Cypro et hereditatis regiae dispensatione redeuntem mare deuorasset uel cum illa ipsa pecunia quam adferebat ciuili bello stipendium, nonne illi bene actum foret? Hoc certe secum tulisset, neminem ausurum coram Catone peccare: nunc annorum adiectio paucissimorum uirum libertati non suae tantum sed publicae natum coegit Caesarem fugere, Pompeium sequi.

6. If the sea had swallowed M. Cato as he was returning from Cyprus and from the dispensation of the royal inheritance, or along with that very money which he was bringing as stipend for the civil war, would it not have gone well for him? This at least he would have carried with him: that no one would dare to sin in Cato’s presence: now the addition of a very few years forced a man born for liberty, not his own only but the public’s, to flee Caesar, to follow Pompey.

Nihil ergo illi mali inmatura mors attulit: omnium etiam malorum remisit patientiam.

Nothing, therefore, of evil did an untimely death bring him: it even remitted the endurance of all evils.

XXI.

21.

1. 'Nimis tamen cito perit et inmaturus.' Primum puta illi superfuisse — comprende quantum plurimum procedere homini licet: quantum est? Ad breuissimum tempus editi, cito cessuri loco uenienti inpactum hoc prospicimus hospitium. De nostris aetatibus loquor, quas incredibili celeritate ~conuoluit~? Computa urbium saecula: uidebis quam non diu steterint etiam quae uetustate gloriantur.

1. 'Yet he perishes too quickly and immature.' First, suppose that there had remained to him — comprehend how much at the most it is permitted a human being to proceed: how much is it? For the briefest time born, soon to yield place to the one coming, we foresee this makeshift lodging. I speak of our ages, which with incredible swiftness ~has rolled them up~? Compute the centuries of cities: you will see how not long even those which boast of antiquity have stood.

Omnia humana breuia et caduca sunt et infiniti temporis nullam partem occupantia. 2. Terram hanc cum urbibus populisque et fluminibus et ambitu maris puncti loco ponimus ad uniuersa referentes: minorem portionem aetas nostra quam puncti habet, si omni tempori comparetur, cuius maior est mensura quam mundi, utpote cum ille se intra huius spatium totiens remetiatur. Quid ergo interest id extendere cuius quantumcumque fuerit incrementum non multum aberit a nihilo?

All human things are brief and caducous, and occupy no part of infinite time. 2. We place this earth, with its cities and peoples and rivers and the ambit of the sea, in the place of a point, when referring it to the universe: our age has a portion smaller than that of a point, if it be compared to all time, whose measure is greater than that of the world, since the latter so often remeasures itself within the span of the former. What, then, does it matter to extend that which, whatever its increment may have been, will not be far from nothing?

Vno modo multum est quod uiuimus, si satis est. 3. Licet mihi uiuaces et in memoriam traditae senectutis uiros nomines, centenos denosque percenseas annos: cum ad omne tempus dimiseris animum, nulla erit illa breuissimi longissimique aeui differentia, si inspecto quanto quis uixerit spatio comparaueris quanto non uixerit. 4. Deinde sibi maturus decessit; uixit enim quantum debuit uiuere, nihil illi iam ultra supererat.

In one mode, what we live is much, if it is enough. 3. You may
name for me men of long life and senectitude handed down to memory, you may reckon hundreds
and tens of years: when you have sent your mind out to all time, there will be no
difference of the shortest and the longest age, if, upon inspecting how great a
span one has lived, you compare it with how much he has not lived. 4. Then, mature for himself, he
departed; for he lived as much as he ought to live, nothing further now remained for him.

Non una hominibus senectus est, ut ne animalibus quidem: intra quattuordecim quaedam annos defetigauit, et haec illis longissima aetas est quae homini prima; dispar cuique uiuendi facultas data est. Nemo nimis cito moritur, quia uicturus diutius quam uixit non fuit. 5. Fixus est cuique terminus: manebit semper ubi positus est nec illum ulterius diligentia aut gratia promouebit.

Not one single senescence belongs to human beings, as neither indeed to animals: certain creatures it has wearied out within fourteen years, and this is for them the longest age which for man is the first; to each a disparate faculty of living has been given. No one dies too swiftly, because he was not going to live longer than he lived. 5. A fixed terminus is set for each: it will always remain where it has been placed, nor will diligence or favor promote it any further.

Sic habe, te illum [ulterius diligentiam] ex consilio perdidisse: tulit suum

Hold it thus, that you have lost him [further diligence] by counsel: he has taken what was his due.

metasque dati peruenit ad aeui.

and he has reached the turning-posts of the allotted age.

6. Non est itaque quod sic te oneres: 'potuit diutius uiuere'. Non est interrupta eius uita nec umquam se annis casus intericit. Soluitur quod cuique promissum est; eunt uia sua fata nec adiciunt quicquam nec ex promisso semel demunt. Frustra uota ac studia sunt: habebit quisque quantum illi dies primus adscripsit.

6. There is not, therefore, reason for you to burden yourself thus: 'he could have lived longer.' There is not
his life interrupted, nor does chance ever interpose itself by years. That which is
promised to each is discharged; the fates go their own way and neither add anything nor from the promise
once subtract. Vows and endeavors are in vain: each will have as much as to him
the first day has ascribed.

Ex illo quo primum lucem uidit iter mortis ingressus est accessitque fato propior et illi ipsi qui adiciebantur adulescentiae anni uitae detrahebantur. 7. In hoc omnes errore uersamur, ut non putemus ad mortem nisi senes inclinatosque iam uergere, cum illo infantia statim et iuuenta, omnis aetas ferat. Agunt opus suum fata: nobis sensum nostrae necis auferunt, quoque facilius obrepat, mors sub ipso uitae nomine latet: infantiam in se pueritia conuertit, pueritiam pubertas, iuuenem senex abstulit.

From that moment when he first saw the light he entered upon the journey of death and came nearer to his fate, and those very years which were being added to adolescence were being subtracted from his life. 7. In this error we all are involved, that we think none but the old and already inclining are verging toward death, whereas toward that point infancy at once and youth, every age, bears. The fates do their work: they take from us the sense of our own death, and that it may creep up the more easily, death lies hidden under the very name of life: boyhood converts infancy into itself, puberty (converts) boyhood, the old man has carried off the young man.

Incrementa ipsa, si bene computes, damna sunt.

The very increments, if you compute rightly, are losses.

XXII.

22.

1. Quereris, Marcia, non tam diu filium tuum uixisse quam potuisset? Vnde enim scis an diutius illi expedierit uiuere, an illi hac morte consultum sit? Quemquam inuenire hodie potes cuius res tam bene positae fundataeque sint ut nihil illi procedente tempore timendum sit?

1. Do you complain, Marcia, that your son did not live as long as he could have? Whence indeed do you know whether it would have been more expedient for him to live longer, or whether by this death provision has been made for him? Can you find anyone today whose affairs are so well positioned and founded that he should have nothing to fear as time advances?

Labant humana ac fluunt neque ulla pars uitae nostrae tam obnoxia aut tenera est quam quae maxime placet, ideoque felicissimis optanda mors est, quia in tanta inconstantia turbaque rerum nihil nisi quod praeterit certum est. 2. Quis tibi recipit illud fili tui pulcherrimum corpus et summa pudoris custodia inter luxuriosae urbis oculos conseruatum potuisse tot morbos ita euadere ut ad senectutem inlaesum perferret formae decus? Cogita animi mille labes; neque enim recta ingenia qualem in adulescentia spem sui fecerant usque in senectutem pertulerunt, sed interuersa plerumque sunt: aut sera eoque foedior luxuria inuasit coepitque dehonestare speciosa principia, aut in popinam uentremque procubuerunt toti summaque illis curarum fuit quid essent, quid biberent.

Human affairs totter and flow, nor is any part of our life so liable or so tender as that which most pleases; and therefore for the most fortunate death is to be desired, because in such great inconstancy and throng of things nothing is certain except what has passed. 2. Who guarantees to you that that most beautiful body of your son—kept with the highest custody of modesty under the eyes of a luxurious city—could have so escaped so many diseases as to carry the adornment of his beauty uninjured into old age? Think of a thousand stains of the soul; for upright natures have not carried into old age the promise of themselves that they made in youth, but for the most part have been overturned: either late, and therefore the fouler, luxury has invaded and began to dishonor the fair beginnings, or they have pitched headlong into the cookshop and the belly, and the sum of their cares was what they would eat, what they would drink.

3. Adice incendia ruinas naufragia lacerationesque medicorum ossa uiuis legentium et totas in uiscera manus demittentium et non per simplicem dolorem pudenda curantium; post haec exilium (non fuit innocentior filius tuus quam Rutilius), carcerem (non fuit sapientior quam Socrates), uoluntario uulnere transfixum pectus (non fuit sanctior quam Cato): cum ista perspexeris, scies optime cum iis agi quos natura, quia illos hoc manebat uitae stipendium, cito in tutum recepit. Nihil est tam fallax quam uita humana, nihil tam insidiosum: non mehercules quisquam illam accepisset, nisi daretur ignorantibus. Itaque si felicissimum est non nasci, proximum est, puto, breui aetate defunctos cito in integrum restitui.

3. Add fires,
ruins, shipwrecks, and the lacerations by physicians who pick bones from the living and thrust their whole hands into the entrails, and, not with simple pain, treat the pudenda;
after these, exile (your son was not more innocent than Rutilius), prison
(he was not wiser than Socrates), a breast pierced by a voluntary wound
(he was not holier than Cato): when you have looked closely at these things, you will know that it goes best with those whom Nature, because this stipend of life awaited them, quickly received into safety.
Nothing is so fallacious as human life, nothing so insidious: by Hercules, no one would have accepted it, if it were not given to the ignorant.
Therefore, if it is happiest not to be born, the next thing, I think, is that those who have died in a short age are quickly restored to wholeness.

4. Propone illud acerbissimum tibi tempus, quo Seianus patrem tuum clienti suo Satrio Secundo congiarium dedit. Irascebatur illi ob unum aut alterum liberius dictum, quod tacitus ferre non potuerat Seianum in ceruices nostras ne inponi quidem sed escendere. Decernebatur illi statua in Pompei theatro ponenda, quod exustum Caesar reficiebat: exclamauit Cordus tunc uere theatrum perire.

4. Set before yourself that most bitter time, when Sejanus gave your father as a congiary to his client Satrius Secundus.
He was enraged at him on account of one or another more freely spoken remark, because he had not been able to bear in silence that Sejanus was not merely being imposed upon our necks but was actually ascending them.
A statue was being decreed for him to be set up in the theater of Pompey, which, burned, Caesar was rebuilding: then Cordus exclaimed that truly the theater was perishing.

5. Quid ergo? non rumperetur supra cineres Cn. Pompei constitui Seianum et in monumentis maximi imperatoris consecrari perfidum militem? ~Consecratur~ subscriptio, et acerrimi canes, quos ille, ut sibi uni mansuetos, omnibus feros haberet, sanguine humano pascebat, circumlatrare hominem ~etiam illum imperiatum~ incipiunt.

5. What then? would one not burst that, over the ashes of Cn. Pompey, Sejanus should be set up, and that in the monuments of the greatest imperator a perfidious soldier should be consecrated? ~It is consecrated~ an inscription, and the fiercest dogs, which he used to feed with human blood so that, tame to himself alone, they might be savage to all, begin to bark around the man, ~even that one invested with imperium~.

6. Quid faceret? Si uiuere uellet, Seianus rogandus erat, si mori, filia, uterque inexorabilis: constituit filiam fallere. Vsus itaque balineo quo plus uirium poneret, in cubiculum se quasi gustaturus contulit et dimissis pueris quaedam per fenestram, ut uideretur edisse, proiecit; a cena deinde, quasi iam satis in cubiculo edisset, abstinuit.

6. What was he to do? If he wished to live,
Sejanus had to be entreated; if to die, his daughter—each inexorable: he resolved
to deceive his daughter. Having used the bath so that he might expend more strength, into his bedroom
he betook himself as if he were going to have a taste, and, the boys dismissed, he threw certain things through the window,
so that it might seem he had eaten; then he abstained from dinner, as if he had already eaten enough in the bedroom,
he had eaten, he abstained.

Altero quoque die et tertio idem fecit; quartus ipsa infirmitate corporis faciebat indicium. Complexus itaque te, 'carissima' inquit 'filia et hoc unum tota celata uita, iter mortis ingressus sum et iam medium fere teneo; reuocare me nec debes nec potes.' Atque ita iussit lumen omne praecludi et se in tenebras condidit. 7. Cognito consilio eius publica uoluptas erat, quod e faucibus auidissimorum luporum educeretur praeda.

On the second day too and on the third he did the same; and on the fourth, the very weakness of his body gave indication. Embracing you, then, he said, 'dearest daughter, and this one thing, kept concealed through the whole life, I have entered upon the journey of death and I now hold almost the middle of it; you neither ought nor are able to call me back.' And so he ordered all light to be shut out and hid himself in darkness. 7. Once his counsel was known, there was public delight, because the prey was being led out from the jaws of the most ravenous wolves.

Accusatores auctore Seiano adeunt consulum tribunalia, queruntur mori Cordum, ut interpellarent quod coegerant: adeo illis Cordus uidebatur effugere. Magna res erat in quaestione, an mortis <ius> rei perderent; dum deliberatur, dum accusatores iterum adeunt, ille se absoluerat. 8. Videsne, Marcia, quantae iniquorum temporum uices ex inopinato ingruant?

At the instigation of Sejanus the accusers approach the consuls’ tribunals, they complain
that Cordus is dying, so as to interrupt what they had coerced: so greatly did Cordus seem to them
to be escaping. A serious matter was under question, whether by the death of the accused they would lose the right;
while deliberation is going on, while the accusers approach again, he had absolved himself. 8.
Do you see, Marcia, how great the vicissitudes of unjust times burst in unexpectedly?

Fles, quod alicui tuorum mori necesse fuit? Paene non licuit!

Do you weep that it was necessary for one of your own to die? It was scarcely permitted!

XXIII.

23.

1. Praeter hoc quod omne futurum incertum est et ad deteriora certius, facillimum ad superos iter est animis cito ab humana conuersatione dimissis; minimum enim faecis, ponderis traxerunt. Ante quam obdurescerent et altius terrena conciperent liberati leuiores ad originem suam reuolant et facilius quicquid est illud obsoleti inlitique eluunt. 2. Nec umquam magis ingenis cara in corpore mora est; exire atque erumpere gestiunt, aegre has angustias ferunt, uagi per omne, sublimes et ex alto adsueti humana despicere.

1. Besides this, that every future thing is uncertain and more certain toward the worse,
the easiest road to the supernal gods is for souls quickly dismissed from human conversation;
for they have drawn along the least of dregs, of weight. Before they harden and conceive more deeply
earthly things, set free, lighter, they fly back to their origin and more easily
wash away whatever that is of the worn and smeared-on. 2. Nor is the stay in the body ever dearer to natures;
they are eager to go out and burst forth, they can scarcely bear these straits,
roving through all things, lofty and from on high accustomed to look down on human things.

Inde est quod Platon clamat: sapientis animum totum in mortem prominere, hoc uelle, hoc meditari, hac semper cupidine ferri in exteriora tendentem.

Hence it is that Plato proclaims: that the mind of the wise man projects wholly toward death, this to will, this to meditate; ever carried by this longing, tending toward the things outside.

3. Quid? tu, Marcia, cum uideres senilem in iuuene prudentiam, uictorem omnium uoluptatium animum, emendatum, carentem uitio, diuitias sine auaritia, honores sine ambitione, uoluptates sine luxuria adpetentem, diu tibi putabas illum sospitem posse contingere? Quicquid ad summum peruenit, ab exitu prope est.

3. What? You, Marcia, when you saw an old man’s prudence in a young man, a mind victor
over all pleasures, amended, lacking vice, riches without avarice,
honors without ambition, seeking pleasures without luxury, did you think for long
that he could be granted to you safe and sound? Whatever has reached the summit, from the exit
is near.

Eripit se aufertque ex oculis perfecta uirtus, nec ultimum tempus expectant quae in primo maturuerunt. 4. Ignis quo clarior fulsit, citius extinguitur; uiuacior est, qui cum lenta ac difficili materia commissus fumoque demersus ex sordido lucet; eadem enim detinet causa, quae maligne alit. Sic ingenia quo inlustriora, breuiora sunt; nam ubi incremento locus non est, uicinus occasus est.

Perfected virtue snatches itself away and carries itself off from the eyes, nor do those things await the last time which have ripened at the first. 4. The brighter a fire has shone, the sooner it is extinguished; longer-lived is that which, when joined with slow and difficult material and plunged in smoke, shines out of the sordid; for the same cause both holds it back and grudgingly nourishes it. Thus, the more illustrious the talents, the briefer they are; for where there is no place for increment, a setting is near.

5. Fabianus ait, id quod nostri quoque parentes uidere, puerum Romae fuisse statura ingentis uiri; sed hic cito decessit, et moriturum breui nemo prudens non ante dixit; non poterat enim ad illam aetatem peruenire, quam praeceperat. Ita est: indicium imminentis exitii nimia maturitas est; adpetit finis ubi incrementa consumpta sunt.

5. Fabianus says, that which our parents also saw, that there was at Rome a boy of the stature of a huge man; but he quickly departed, and no prudent person failed to foretell beforehand that he would soon die; for he could not arrive at that age which he had anticipated. So it is: excessive maturity is an indication of imminent ruin; the end approaches where the increments have been consumed.

XXIV.

24.

1. Incipe uirtutibus illum, non annis aestimare; satis diu uixit. Pupillus relictus sub tutorum cura usque ad quartum decimum annum fuit, sub matris tutela semper. Cum haberet suos penates, relinquere tuos noluit et in materno contubernio, cum uix paternum liberi ferant, perseuerauit.

1. Begin to estimate him by his virtues, not by his years; he lived long enough. A ward left under the care of tutors up to the fourteenth year, he was under his mother’s tutelage always. When he had his own Penates, he was unwilling to leave yours, and in maternal companionship he persevered, though children scarcely endure the paternal roof.

Adulescens statura, pulchritudine, certo corporis robore castris natus militiam recusauit, ne a te discederet. 2. Computa, Marcia, quam raro liberos uideant quae in diuersis domibus habitant; cogita tot illos perire annos matribus et per sollicitudinem exigi, quibus filios in exercitu habent: scies multum patuisse hoc tempus, ex quo nil perdidisti. Numquam e conspectu tuo recessit; sub oculis tuis studia formauit excellentis ingeni et aequaturi auum, nisi obstitisset uerecundia, quae multorum profectus silentio pressit.

A youth in stature,
in beauty, with a sure strength of body, born for the camp, he refused military service,
so as not to depart from you. 2. Compute, Marcia, how rarely those who dwell in diverse houses see their children;
consider that so many years perish for mothers and are exacted through solicitude, for those who have their sons in the army:
you will know how much this time has stood open, from which you have lost nothing. He never withdrew from your sight;
under your eyes he shaped studies with an excellent talent and one destined to equal his grandfather, had not modesty stood in the way,
which has pressed the progress of many into silence.

3. Adulescens rarissimae formae in tam magna feminarum turba uiros corrumpentium nullius se spei praebuit, et cum quarundam usque ad temptandum peruenisset improbitas, erubuit quasi peccasset, quod placuerat. Hac sanctitate morum effecit, ut puer admodum dignus sacerdotio uideretur, materna sine dubio suffragatione, sed ne mater quidem nisi pro bono candidato ualuisset. 4. Harum contemplatione uirtutum filium gere quasi sinu!

3. A youth
of most rare beauty, in so great a throng of women corrupting men, to no one
did he offer himself as a hope; and when the improbity of certain ones had gone even to attempting,
he blushed, as if he had sinned, for having pleased. By this sanctity of morals he brought it about,
that, though quite a boy, he seemed worthy of the priesthood, with maternal suffrage without a doubt,
but not even a mother would have prevailed except for a good candidate. 4. By the contemplation
of these virtues, bear your son as if in your bosom!

Nunc ille tibi magis uacat, nunc nihil habet, quo auocetur; numquam tibi sollicitudini, numquam maerori erit. Quod unum ex tam bono filio poteras dolere, doluisti; cetera, exempta casibus, plena uoluptatis sunt, si modo uti filio scis, si modo quid in illo pretiosissimum fuerit intellegis. 5. Imago dumtaxat fili tui perit et effigies non simillima; ipse quidem aeternus meliorisque nunc status est, despoliatus oneribus alienis et sibi relictus.

Now he has more leisure for you, now he has nothing by which he may be called away; never will he be for you a cause of anxiety, never a cause of sorrow. The one thing you could grieve over in so good a son, you have grieved; the rest, exempt from accidents, are full of pleasure, if only you know how to make use of a son, if only you understand what in him has been most precious. 5. Only the image of your son perishes, and an effigy not very similar; he himself indeed is eternal and now of a better status, despoiled of alien burdens and left to himself.

Haec quae uides circumdata nobis, ossa neruos et obductam cutem uultumque et ministras manus et cetera quibus inuoluti sumus, uincula animorum tenebraeque sunt. Obruitur his, offocatur, inficitur, arcetur a ueris et suis in falsa coiectus. Omne illi cum hac graui carne certamen est, ne abstrahatur et sidat; nititur illo, unde demissus est.

These things which you see surrounding us—the bones, the sinews, the overlaid skin and visage, the ministering hands, and the rest with which we are enveloped—are the bonds of souls and a darkness. By these it is overwhelmed, suffocated, infected; it is kept away from the true and its own, and cast into false things. Its whole contest is with this heavy flesh, lest it be dragged away and sink; it strives toward that whence it was sent down.

Ibi illum aeterna requies manet ex confusis crassisque pura et liquida uisentem.

There eternal rest awaits him, beholding the pure and liquid out of the confused and crass.

XXV.

25.

1. Proinde non est quod ad sepulcrum fili tui curras; pessima eius et ipsi molestissima istic iacent, ossa cineresque, non magis illius partes quam uestes aliaque tegimenta corporum. Integer ille nihilque in terris relinquens sui fugit et totus excessit; paulumque supra nos commoratus, dum expurgatur et inhaerentia uitia situmque omnem mortalis aeui excutit, deinde ad excelsa sublatus inter felices currit animas. Excepit illum coetus sacer, Scipiones Catonesque, interque contemptores uitae et ueneficio liberos parens tuus, Marcia.

1. Therefore there is no reason for you to run to your son’s sepulcher; the worst of him, and what was most burdensome to himself, lie there—bones and ashes—no more parts of him than garments and other coverings of bodies. He, intact and entire, leaving nothing of himself on earth, fled and wholly departed; and having tarried a little above us, while he is purged and shakes off the clinging vices and all the sediment of mortal age, then lifted to the heights he runs among the happy souls. The sacred company received him—Scipios and Catos—and, among the despisers of life and freed from its witchcraft, your parent, Marcia.

2. Ille nepotem suum — quamquam illic omnibus omne cognatum est — applicat sibi noua luce gaudentem et uicinorum siderum meatus docet, nec ex coniectura sed omnium ex uero peritus in arcana naturae libens ducit; utque ignotarum urbium monstrator hospiti gratus est, ita sciscitanti caelestium causas domesticus interpres. Et in profunda terrarum permittere aciem iubet; iuuat enim ex alto relicta respicere. 3. Sic itaque te, Marcia, gere, tamquam sub oculis patris filique posita, non illorum, quos noueras, sed tanto excelsiorum et in summo locatorum.

2. He draws to himself his grandson — although there, to all, everything is kin — rejoicing in the new light, and he teaches the courses of the neighboring stars, and, skilled not by conjecture but in truth about all things, he gladly leads him into nature’s arcana; and as the pointer-out of unknown cities is welcome to a guest, so to one asking about the causes of the heavenly things he is a domestic interpreter. And he bids him to let his gaze plunge into the depths of the earth; for it delights to look back from on high at what has been left behind. 3. Thus, therefore, conduct yourself, Marcia, as though placed under the eyes of your father and your son, not of those whom you had known, but of men so much more exalted and set in the highest place.

Erubesce quicquam humile aut uolgare cogitare et mutatos in melius tuos flere! Aeternarum rerum per libera et uasta spatia dimissi sunt; non illos interfusa maria discludunt nec altitudo montium aut inuiae ualles aut incertarum uada Syrtium: omnia ibi plana et ex facili mobiles et expediti et in uicem peruii sunt intermixtique sideribus.

Blush to think anything low or vulgar, and to weep for your loved ones who have been changed for the better! They have been sent forth through the free and vast spaces of eternal things; not do seas laid between shut them off, nor the height of mountains or pathless valleys or the uncertain shallows of the Syrtes: there all things are level and easy to traverse and unencumbered and mutually passable, and they are intermingled with the stars.

XXVI.

26.

1. Puta itaque ex illa arce caelesti patrem tuum Marcia, cui tantum apud te auctoritatis erat quantum tibi apud filium tuum, non illo ingenio, quo ciuilia bella defleuit, quo proscribentis in aeternum ipse proscripsit, sed tanto elatiore, quanto est ipse sublimior, dicere: 2. 'Cur te, filia, tam longa tenet aegritudo? Cur in tanta ueri ignoratione uersaris, ut inique actum cum filio tuo iudices, quod integro domus statu integer ipse se ad maiores recepit suos? Nescis quantis fortuna procellis disturbet omnia?

1. Therefore suppose from that celestial citadel your father, Marcia, who had as much authority with you as you have with your son, not with that disposition with which he bewailed the civil wars, with which he himself proscribed the proscriber to eternity, but with one so much more exalted as he himself is more sublime, to say: 2. 'Why, daughter, does so long a grief hold you? Why do you move in so great an ignorance of the truth, that you judge it unjustly done with your son, because, with the status of the household intact, he himself, intact, betook himself to his ancestors? Do you not know with how great storms Fortune disturbs all things?

Quam nullis benignam facilemque se praestiterit, nisi qui minimum cum illa contraxerant? Regesne tibi nominem felicissimos futuros, si maturius illos mors instantibus subtraxisset malis? an Romanos duces, quorum nihil magnitudini deerit, si aliquid aetati detraxeris?

To whom has she shown herself benign and easy, unless to those who had contracted the least with her? Shall I name for you kings who would have been most felicitous, if death had more timely withdrawn them from the evils pressing upon them? or Roman leaders, from whose magnitude nothing would be lacking, if you subtract something from their age?

an nobilissimos uiros clarissimosque ad ictum militaris gladi composita ceruice curuatos? 3. Respice patrem atque auum tuum: ille in alieni percussoris uenit arbitrium; ego nihil in me cuiquam permisi et cibo prohibitus ostendi tam magno me quam uidebar animo scripsisse. Cur in domo nostra diutissime lugetur qui felicissime moritur?

or the most noble men and most illustrious
bowed with neck arranged for the stroke of the military sword? 3. Look back to your father
and your grandfather: that one came under the discretion of another’s executioner; I permitted nothing
over me to anyone, and, prohibited from food, I showed that I had written with as great a spirit as I seemed.
Why in our house is he who dies most happily mourned for the longest time
to die?

Coimus omnes in unum uidemusque non alta nocte circumdati nil apud uos, ut putatis, optabile, nil excelsum, nil splendidum, sed humilia cuncta et grauia et anxia et quotam partem luminis nostri cernentia! 4. Quid dicam nulla hic arma mutuis furere concursibus nec classes classibus frangi nec parricidia aut fingi aut cogitari nec fora litibus strepere dies perpetuos, nihil in obscuro, detectas mentes et aperta praecordia et in publico medioque uitam et omnis aeui prospectum uenientiumque?

We all come together into one, and we see, not enclosed by deep night, nothing among you, as you suppose, desirable, nothing exalted, nothing splendid, but all things low and weighty and anxious and perceiving only some portion of our light! 4. What shall I say—that here no arms rage in mutual clashes, nor fleets are shattered by fleets, nor parricides either forged or even conceived, nor the fora to resound with lawsuits for perpetual days, nothing in the dark, minds laid bare and hearts opened, and life in public and in the midst, and a prospect of all ages and of things to come?

5. 'Iuuabat unius me saeculi facta componere in parte ultima mundi et inter paucissimos gesta. Tot saecula, tot aetatium contextum, seriem, quicquid annorum est, licet uisere; licet surrectura, licet ruitura regna prospicere et magnarum urbium lapsus et maris nouos cursus. 6. Nam si tibi potest solacio esse desideri tui commune fatum, nihil quo stat loco stabit, omnia sternet abducetque secum uetustas.

5. 'It delighted me to compose the deeds of a single age in the farthest part of the world and deeds carried out among a very few. So many ages, so much the context of ages, the series, whatever of years there is, one is permitted to behold; one is permitted to look upon kingdoms about to rise, about to fall, to survey the downfalls of great cities and the new courses of the sea. 6. For if to you the common fate can be a solace for your longing, nothing will stand in the place where it stands, antiquity will level all things and carry them off with itself.

Nec hominibus solum (quota enim ista fortuitae potentiae portio est?), sed locis, sed regionibus, sed mundi partibus ludet. Totos supprimet montes et alibi rupes in altum nouas exprimet; maria sorbebit, flumina auertet et commercio gentium rupto societatem generis humani coetumque dissoluet; alibi hiatibus uastis subducet urbes, tremoribus quatiet et ex infimo pestilentiae halitus mittet et inundationibus quicquid habitatur obducet necabitque omne animal orbe submerso et ignibus uastis torrebit incendetque mortalia. Et cum tempus aduenerit, quo se mundus renouaturus extinguat, uiribus ista se suis caedent et sidera sideribus incurrent et omni flagrante materia uno igni quicquid nunc ex disposito lucet ardebit.

Nor upon humans alone (for what portion, indeed, is that of fortuitous power?), but upon places, upon regions, upon the parts of the world, it will make sport. It will press down whole mountains and elsewhere force forth new crags up on high; it will absorb seas, it will divert rivers, and, the commerce of nations broken, it will dissolve the society and assembly of the human race; elsewhere with vast yawning chasms it will draw away cities, it will shake them with tremors and from the lowest depths send out breaths of pestilence, and with inundations it will cover whatever is inhabited and will kill every animal with the globe submerged, and with vast fires it will scorch and will set ablaze mortal things. And when the time shall have come, at which, in order to renew itself, the world will extinguish itself, these things by their own forces will strike themselves, and stars will run upon stars, and with all matter blazing, in one fire whatever now shines by ordered disposition will burn.

7. Nos quoque felices animae et aeterna sortitae, cum deo uisum erit iterum ista moliri, labentibus cunctis et ipsae parua ruinae ingentis accessio in antiqua elementa uertemur.'

7. We too, happy souls and allotted to eternity, when it shall seem good to god again
to set these things in motion, with all things sliding away, even we ourselves, a small addition to the vast ruin,
shall be turned into the ancient elements.'