Seneca: DE CONSOLATIONE

1. Saepe iam, mater optima, impetum cepi consolandi te, saepe continui. Vt auderem multa me inpellebant: primum uidebar depositurus omnia incommoda, cum lacrimas tuas, etiam si supprimere non potuissem, interim certe abstersissem; deinde plus habiturum me auctoritatis non dubitabam ad excitandam te, si prior ipse consurrexissem; praeterea timebam ne a me uicta fortuna aliquem meorum uinceret. Itaque utcumque conabar manu super plagam meam inposita ad obliganda uulnera uestra reptare.

1. Often already, best mother, I took up the impulse of consoling you, often I restrained it. To dare, many things impelled me: first I seemed about to lay aside all incommodities, since I would at least in the meantime have wiped away your tears, even if I could not have suppressed them; then I did not doubt that I would have more authority for rousing you, if I myself had first arisen; furthermore I feared lest Fortune, conquered by me, might conquer someone of mine. And so, however I could, with my hand placed upon my own wound I tried to crawl toward binding up your wounds.

2. Hoc propositum meum erant rursus quae retardarent: dolori tuo, dum recens saeuiret, sciebam occurrendum non esse ne illum ipsa solacia inritarent et accenderent — nam in morbis quoque nihil est perniciosius quam inmatura medicina; expectabam itaque dum ipse uires suas frangeret et ad sustinenda remedia mora mitigatus tangi se ac tractari pateretur. Praeterea cum omnia clarissimorum ingeniorum monumenta ad compescendos moderandosque luctus composita euoluerem, non inueniebam exemplum eius qui consolatus suos esset, cum ipse ab illis comploraretur; ita in re noua haesitabam uerebarque ne haec non consolatio esset sed exulceratio. 3. Quid quod nouis uerbis nec ex uulgari et cotidiana sumptis adlocutione opus erat homini ad consolandos suos ex ipso rogo caput adleuanti?

2. This plan of mine had, in turn, things that delayed it: I knew that one ought not to confront your grief while, fresh, it was raging, lest the consolations themselves irritate and inflame it — for in illnesses too nothing is more pernicious than an immature medicine; I was therefore waiting until it should break its own strength and, softened by delay for enduring remedies, would allow itself to be touched and handled. Moreover, when I was turning over all the monuments of the most illustrious wits composed for restraining and moderating griefs, I did not find an example of one who had consoled his own when he himself was being bewailed by them; thus in a new matter I hesitated and feared lest this be not a consolation but an exulceration. 3. What of the fact that there was need of new words, and of an address not taken from the vulgar and everyday, for a man lifting his head from the very pyre to console his own?

Omnis autem magnitudo doloris modum excedentis necesse est dilectum uerborum eripiat, cum saepe uocem quoque ipsam intercludat. 4. Vtcumque conitar, non fiducia ingenii, sed quia possum instar efficacissimae consolationis esse ipse consolator. Cui nihil negares, huic hoc utique te non esse negaturam, licet omnis maeror contumax sit, spero, ut desiderio tuo uelis a me modum statui.

Yet every magnitude of grief that exceeds measure must needs snatch away the choice of words, since it often even intercludes the voice itself. 4. However I may strive, it is not from confidence in genius, but because I can, as the very equivalent of the most efficacious consolation, be myself the consoler. To him to whom you would deny nothing, to this one you will surely not deny this, although all mourning is contumacious; I hope that, for your longing, you will wish a measure to be set by me.

II.

1. Vide quantum de indulgentia tua promiserim mihi: potentiorem me futurum apud te non dubito quam dolorem tuum, quo nihil est apud miseros potentius. Itaque ne statim cum eo concurram, adero prius illi et quibus excitetur ingeram; omnia proferam et rescindam quae iam obducta sunt. 2. Dicet aliquis: 'quod hoc genus est consolandi, obliterata mala reuocare et animum in omnium aerumnarum suarum conspectu conlocare uix unius patientem?' Sed is cogitet, quaecumque usque eo perniciosa sunt ut contra remedium conualuerint, plerumque contrariis curari.

1. See how much, on the strength of your indulgence, I have promised myself: I do not doubt I shall be more potent with you than your grief, than which nothing is more potent among the wretched. And so, lest I at once confront it head-on, I will first attend to it and apply the things by which it is stirred up; I will bring everything to light and tear open what has already been drawn over. 2. Someone will say: 'what kind of consoling is this, to recall obliterated evils and to place the mind in the sight of all its hardships, scarcely able to endure even a single one?' But let him consider that whatever are to such an extent pernicious that they have grown strong against the remedy are for the most part cured by contraries.

Omnis itaque luctus illi suos, omnia lugubria admouebo: hoc erit non molli uia mederi, sed urere ac secare. Quid consequar? ut pudeat animum tot miseriarum uictorem aegre ferre unum uulnus in corpore tam cicatricoso.

Therefore I will bring before him all his griefs, all the lugubrious trappings: this will be to heal not by a soft way, but by burning and cutting. What shall I achieve? That the spirit, victor over so many miseries, be ashamed to bear with difficulty a single wound in a body so scarred.

3. Fleant itaque diutius et gemant, quorum delicatas mentes eneruauit longa felicitas, et ad leuissimarum iniuriarum motus conlabantur: at quorum omnes anni per calamitates transierunt, grauissima quoque forti et inmobili constantia perferant. Vnum habet adsidua infelicitas bonum, quod quos semper uexat nouissime indurat.

3. Let them, therefore, weep longer and groan, whose delicate minds
long felicity has enervated, and who collapse at the stirrings of the very lightest injuries:
but those whose every year has passed through calamities,
let them endure even the most grave things with strong and immobile constancy. One good thing continual misfortune has,
that those whom it always vexes it at last hardens.

4. Nullam tibi fortuna uacationem dedit a grauissimis luctibus, ne natalem quidem tuum excepit: amisisti matrem statim nata, immo dum nasceris, et ad uitam quodam modo exposita es. Creuisti sub nouerca, quam tu quidem omni obsequio et pietate, quanta uel in filia conspici potest, matrem fieri coegisti; nulli tamen non magno constitit etiam bona nouerca. Auunculum indulgentissimum, optimum ac fortissimum uirum, cum aduentum eius expectares, amisisti; et ne saeuitiam suam fortuna leuiorem diducendo faceret, intra tricesimum diem carissimum uirum, ex quo mater trium liberorum eras, extulisti. 5. Lugenti tibi luctus nuntiatus est omnibus quidem absentibus liberis, quasi de industria in id tempus coniectis malis tuis ut nihil esset [haberes] ubi se dolor tuus reclinaret.

4. Fortune gave you no exemption from the most grievous griefs, not even did she spare your birthday: you lost your mother as soon as you were born, nay, while you were being born, and you were, in a certain way, exposed to life. You grew up under a stepmother, whom indeed by every obedience and piety, as great as can be observed even in a daughter, you forced to become a mother; yet even a good stepmother did not come to anyone without great cost. A most indulgent maternal uncle, a best and bravest man, when you were expecting his arrival, you lost; and lest Fortune make her savagery lighter by spacing it out, within the thirtieth day you carried out to burial your dearest husband, by whom you were the mother of three children, you carried out. 5. While you were mourning, a grief was announced to you, with all your children indeed absent, as if on purpose your troubles had been cast into that time, so that there was nothing [you might have] on which your grief could recline.

Transeo tot pericula, tot metus, quos sine interuallo in te incursantis pertulisti: modo modo in eundem sinum ex quo tres nepotes emiseras ossa trium nepotum recepisti; intra uicesimum diem quam filium meum in manibus et in osculis tuis mortuum funeraueras, raptum me audisti: hoc adhuc defuerat tibi, lugere uiuos.

I pass over so many perils, so many fears, which, assailing you without interval, you endured: only just, into the same bosom from which
you had sent forth three grandsons, you received the bones of three grandsons; within the twentieth day
after you had buried my son, dead in your hands and in your kisses, you heard that I was snatched away:
this up to now had been lacking to you, to mourn the living.

III.

1. Grauissimum est ex omnibus quae umquam in corpus tuum descenderunt recens uulnus, fateor; non summam cutem rupit, pectus et uiscera ipsa diuisit. Sed quemadmodum tirones leuiter saucii tamen uociferantur et manus medicorum magis quam ferrum horrent, at ueterani quamuis confossi patienter ac sine gemitu uelut aliena corpora exsaniari patiuntur, ita tu nunc debes fortiter praebere te curationi. 2. Lamentationes quidem et eiulatus et alia per quae fere muliebris dolor tumultuatur amoue; perdidisti enim tot mala, si nondum misera esse didicisti.

1. The gravest, of all that have ever descended into your body, is the recent wound, I confess; it did not rupture the surface skin, it split the breast and the very viscera. But just as tyros, though lightly wounded, nevertheless vociferate and shudder at the hands of the physicians more than at the iron, whereas veterans, although run through, endure patiently and without a groan to have themselves cured, as though their bodies were alien, so you now ought bravely to present yourself to the treatment. 2. Remove laments and wailings and the other things by which, for the most part, womanish grief makes a tumult; for you have lost the profit of so many ills, if you have not yet learned to be wretched.

Ecquid uideor non timide tecum egisse? nihil tibi subduxi ex malis tuis, sed omnia coaceruata ante te posui.

Do I seem to have dealt with you not timidly? I have taken nothing away from your evils, but I have set them all, heaped up, before you.

IV.

1. Magno id animo feci; constitui enim uincere dolorem tuum, non circumscribere. Vincam autem, puto, primum si ostendero nihil me pati propter quod ipse dici possim miser, nedum propter quod miseros etiam quos contingo faciam; deinde si ad te transiero et probauero ne tuam quidem grauem esse fortunam, quae tota ex mea pendet.

1. I did that with great spirit; for I determined to conquer your grief, not to circumscribe it. I shall conquer, however, I think, first if I show that I suffer nothing on account of which I myself can be called miserable, still less on account of which I make even those whom I touch miserable; then if I turn to you and prove that not even your fortune is grave, which hangs wholly upon mine.

2. Hoc prius adgrediar quod pietas tua audire gestit, nihil mihi mali esse. Si potuero, ipsas res quibus me putas premi non esse intolerabiles faciam manifestum; sin id credi non potuerit, at ego mihi ipse magis placebo, quod inter eas res beatus ero quae miseros solent facere. 3. Non est quod de me aliis credas: ipse tibi, ne quid incertis opinionibus perturberis, indico me non esse miserum.

2. I will first take up this which your piety is eager to hear, that there is nothing bad for me. If I can, I will make manifest that the very things by which you think me to be pressed are not intolerable; but if that cannot be believed, still I shall please myself the more, because I shall be happy among those things which are wont to make men wretched. 3. There is no reason for you to believe others about me: I myself, lest you be disturbed by uncertain opinions, declare to you that I am not wretched.

Adiciam, quo securior sis, ne fieri quidem me posse miserum.

I will add, that you may be more secure, that I cannot even be made miserable.

1. Bona condicione geniti sumus, si eam non deseruerimus. Id egit rerum natura ut ad bene uiuendum non magno apparatu opus esset: unusquisque facere se beatum potest. Leue momentum in aduenticiis rebus est et quod in neutram partem magnas uires habeat: nec secunda sapientem euehunt nec aduersa demittunt; laborauit enim semper ut in se plurimum poneret, ut a se omne gaudium peteret.

1. We are born under a good condition, if we do not desert it. Nature has arranged that for living well no great apparatus is needed: each person can make himself happy. Adventitious things carry slight momentum and have no great power in either direction: neither favorable things elevate the wise man nor adverse ones cast him down; for he has always labored to place the most in himself, to seek all joy from himself.

2. Quid ergo? sapientem esse me dico? Minime; nam id quidem si profiteri possem, non tantum negarem miserum esse me, sed omnium fortunatissimum et in uicinum deo perductum praedicarem: nunc, quod satis est ad omnis miserias leniendas, sapientibus me uiris dedi et nondum in auxilium mei ualidus in aliena castra confugi, eorum scilicet qui facile se ac suos tuentur.

2. What then? Do I say that I am a wise man? By no means; for if indeed I could profess that, I would not only deny that I am miserable, but would proclaim that I am the most fortunate of all and brought into nearness to god: now, what is sufficient to assuage all miseries, I have given myself over to wise men and, not yet strong enough to aid myself, have taken refuge into a foreign camp, namely, of those who easily defend themselves and their own.

3. Illi me iusserunt stare adsidue uelut in praesidio positum et omnis conatus fortunae, omnis impetus prospicere multo ante quam incurrant. Illis grauis est quibus repentina est: facile eam sustinet qui semper expectat. Nam et hostium aduentus eos prosternit quos inopinantis occupauit: at qui futuro se bello ante bellum parauerunt, compositi et aptati primum qui tumultuosissimus est ictum facile excipiunt.

3. They have ordered me to stand constantly, as though posted in a garrison, and to foresee all the attempts of Fortune, all her onsets, long before they charge in. She is grievous to those for whom she is sudden; he easily sustains her who always expects her. For the advent of enemies too throws down those whom it has seized unawares; but those who have prepared themselves for the war to come before the war, composed and fitted, first the blow which is most tumultuous they easily receive.

4. Numquam ego fortunae credidi, etiam cum uideretur pacem agere; omnia illa quae in me indulgentissime conferebat, pecuniam honores gratiam, eo loco posui unde posset sine motu meo repetere. Interuallum inter illa et me magnum habui; itaque abstulit illa, non auulsit. Neminem aduersa fortuna comminuit nisi quem secunda decepit.

4. I never trusted Fortune,
even when she seemed to be making peace; all those things which she was most indulgently
conferring upon me—money, honors, favor—I placed in such a place whence she could without any movement
on my part, reclaim them. I kept a great interval between those things and myself; and so she took
them away; she did not tear them off. Adverse Fortune crushes no one except him whom Prosperous Fortune
has deceived.

5. Illi qui munera eius uelut sua et perpetua amauerunt, qui se suspici propter illa uoluerunt, iacent et maerent cum uanos et pueriles animos, omnis solidae uoluptatis ignaros, falsa et mobilia oblectamenta destituunt: at ille qui se laetis rebus non inflauit nec mutatis contrahit. Aduersus utrumque statum inuictum animum tenet exploratae iam firmitatis; nam in ipsa felicitate quid contra infelicitatem ualeret expertus est. 6. Itaque ego in illis quae omnes optant existimaui semper nihil ueri boni inesse, tum inania et specioso ac deceptorio fuco circumlita inueni, intra nihil habentia fronti suae simile: nunc in his quae mala uocantur nihil tam terribile ac durum inuenio quam opinio uulgi minabatur.

5. Those who loved her gifts as if their own and perpetual, who wished to be looked up to on account of them, lie prostrate and mourn when the false and shifting amusements abandon their empty and childish spirits, ignorant of every solid pleasure: but that man who did not inflate himself with glad circumstances nor contract when they changed. Against both conditions he holds an unconquered mind of already-tested firmness; for in felicity itself he has tried what would avail against infelicity. 6. And so I have always judged that in those things which all desire there is nothing of true good present; then I found them empty and daubed over with a specious and deceptive paint, having within nothing like their façade: now, in those things which are called evils, I find nothing so terrible and hard as the opinion of the crowd threatened.

Verbum quidem ipsum persuasione quadam et consensu iam asperius ad aures uenit et audientis tamquam triste et execrabile ferit: ita enim populus iussit, sed populi scita ex magna parte sapientes abrogant.

The very word itself, by a certain persuasion and consensus, now comes more harshly to the ears and strikes the hearer as something sad and execrable: for thus the people has ordered; but the wise, for the most part, abrogate the people’s decrees.

VI.

1. Remoto ergo iudicio plurium, quos prima rerum species, utcumque credita est, aufert, uideamus quid sit exilium. Nempe loci commutatio. Ne angustare uidear uim eius et quidquid pessimum in se habet subtrahere, hanc commutationem loci sequuntur incommoda, paupertas ignominia contemptus.

1. Therefore, with the judgment of the many removed, whom the first appearance of things, however it is believed, carries off, let us see what exile is. To wit, a change of place. Lest I seem to constrict its force and subtract whatever worst it has in itself, inconveniences follow this change of place, poverty, ignominy, contempt.

Aduersus ista postea confligam: interim primum illud intueri uolo, quid acerbi adferat ipsa loci commutatio.

Against these things I shall contend later: in the meantime I wish first to consider this, what harshness the change of place itself brings.

2. 'Carere patria intolerabile est.' Aspice agedum hanc frequentiam, cui uix urbis inmensae tecta sufficiunt: maxima pars istius turbae patria caret. Ex municipiis et coloniis suis, ex toto denique orbe terrarum confluxerunt: alios adduxit ambitio, alios necessitas officii publici, alios inposita legatio, alios luxuria opportunum et opulentum uitiis locum quaerens, alios liberalium studiorum cupiditas, alios spectacula; quosdam traxit amicitia, quosdam industria laxam ostendendae uirtuti nancta materiam; quidam uenalem formam attulerunt, quidam uenalem eloquentiam. 3. Nullum non hominum genus concucurrit in urbem et uirtutibus et uitiis magna pretia ponentem.

2. 'To lack the fatherland is intolerable.' Just look, come now, at this throng, for which the roofs of the immense city scarcely suffice: the greatest part of that crowd lacks a fatherland. From their municipalities and colonies, from, finally, the whole orb of lands, they have flowed together: some ambition has brought, others the necessity of public office, others an imposed legation, others luxury seeking a place opportune and opulent for vices, others a desire for liberal studies, others spectacles; certain men friendship has drawn, certain men industry, having found a lax material for displaying virtue; some have brought beauty for sale, some eloquence for sale. 3. No kind of men has failed to run together into the city, which sets great prices upon both virtues and vices.

Iube istos omnes ad nomen citari et 'unde domo' quisque sit quaere: uidebis maiorem partem esse quae relictis sedibus suis uenerit in maximam quidem ac pulcherrimam urbem, non tamen suam. 4. Deinde ab hac ciuitate discede, quae ueluti communis potest dici, omnes urbes circumi: nulla non magnam partem peregrinae multitudinis habet. Transi ab iis quarum amoena positio et opportunitas regionis plures adlicit, deserta loca et asperrimas insulas, Sciathum et Seriphum, Gyaram et Cossuran percense: nullum inuenies exilium in quo non aliquis animi causa moretur.

Order that all those men be cited by name and ask each, ‘from what home’ he is: you will see that the greater part are those who, their seats left behind, have come into the greatest and most beautiful city indeed, yet not their own. 4. Then depart from this city, which can be called, as it were, common; go around all the cities: not one fails to have a great portion of a foreign multitude. Pass on from those whose pleasant site and the opportunity of the region attract more people, to the deserted places and the roughest islands, reckon up Sciathus and Seriphus, Gyarus and Cossura: you will find no exile in which there is not someone who stays for the sake of the mind.

5. Quid tam nudum inueniri potest, quid tam abruptum undique quam hoc saxum? Quid ad copias respicienti ieiunius? Quid ad homines inmansuetius?

5. What can be found so naked, what so abrupt on every side as this rock? What, to one regarding supplies, more jejune? What more untamed toward men?

Quid ad ipsum loci situm horridius? Quid ad caeli naturam intemperantius? Plures tamen hic peregrini quam ciues consistunt.

What is more horrid with regard to the very site of the place? What with regard to the nature of the sky is more intemperate? Yet more foreigners than citizens are settled here.

Vsque eo ergo commutatio ipsa locorum grauis non est ut hic quoque locus a patria quosdam abduxerit. 6. Inuenio qui dicant inesse naturalem quandam inritationem animis commutandi sedes et transferendi domicilia; mobilis enim et inquieta homini mens data est, nusquam se tenet, spargitur, et cogitationes suas in omnia nota atque ignota dimittit, uaga et quietis inpatiens et nouitate rerum laetissima. 7. Quod non miraberis, si primam eius originem aspexeris: non est ex terreno et graui concreta corpore, ex illo caelesti spiritu descendit; caelestium autem natura semper in motu est, fugit et uelocissimo cursu agitur.

To such an extent, therefore, the very commutation of places is not grievous that this place too has led certain persons away from their fatherland.
6. I find those who say there is a certain natural irritation in souls for changing seats and transferring domiciles; for a mobile and unquiet mind has been given to man, it holds itself nowhere, it is scattered,
and it sends out its thoughts into all things known and unknown, wandering and impatient of rest, and most delighted with the newness of things.
7. Which you will not marvel at, if you look upon its first origin: it is not concreted from an earthy and heavy body,
it descends from that celestial spirit; moreover the nature of celestial things is always in motion, it flees and is driven with most rapid course.

Aspice sidera mundum inlustrantia: nullum eorum perstat. <Sol> labitur adsidue et locum ex loco mutat et, quamuis cum uniuerso uertatur, in contrarium nihilo minus ipsi mundo refertur, per omnis signorum partes discurrit, numquam resistit; perpetua eius agitatio et aliunde alio commigratio est. 8. Omnia uoluuntur semper et in transitu sunt; ut lex et naturae necessitas ordinauit, aliunde alio deferuntur; cum per certa annorum spatia orbes suos explicuerint, iterum ibunt per quae uenerant: i nunc et humanum animum, ex isdem quibus diuina constant seminibus compositum, moleste ferre transitum ac migrationem puta, cum dei natura adsidua et citatissima commutatione uel delectet se uel conseruet.

Look upon the stars illuminating the world:
none of them stands fast. <Sun> glides continually and changes place from place, and,
although it is turned with the universe, nonetheless it is carried back in the contrary direction to the world itself;
it runs through all the parts of the signs, it never halts; its agitation is perpetual
and its migration from one place to another. 8. All things are in revolution always and are in transit;
as law and the necessity of nature has ordained, they are borne from elsewhere to elsewhere;
when they have unfolded their orbits through fixed spaces of years, again they will go through
the places by which they had come: go now and suppose that the human mind, composed from the same seeds
of which divine things consist, bears ill transition and migration, when
the nature of god by constant and most rapid change either delights itself or preserves itself.

VII.

1. A caelestibus agedum te ad humana conuerte: uidebis gentes populosque uniuersos mutasse sedem. Quid sibi uolunt in mediis barbarorum regionibus Graecae urbes? Quid inter Indos Persasque Macedonicus sermo?

1. From celestial things, come now, turn yourself to human things: you will see nations and peoples, all of them, have changed their seat. What do Greek cities want for themselves in the midst of the regions of the barbarians? What is the Macedonian speech among the Indians and Persians?

Scythia et totus ille ferarum indomitarumque gentium tractus ciuitates Achaiae Ponticis inpositas litoribus ostentat: non perpetuae hiemis saeuitia, non hominum ingenia ad similitudinem caeli sui horrentia transferentibus domos suas obstiterunt. 2. Atheniensis in Asia turba est; Miletus quinque et septuaginta urbium populum in diuersa effudit; totum Italiae latus quod infero mari adluitur maior Graecia fuit. Tuscos Asia sibi uindicat; Tyrii Africam incolunt, [in] Hispaniam Poeni; Graeci se in Galliam inmiserunt, in Graeciam Galli; Pyrenaeus Germanorum transitus non inhibuit — per inuia, per incognita uersauit se humana leuitas.

Scythia and
that whole tract of wild beasts and of untamed nations displays cities of Achaea set upon the Pontic
shores: neither the savagery of perpetual winter, nor the temperaments of men shuddering to the likeness of their sky, stood in the way of those transferring their homes.
2. There is an Athenian throng in Asia; Miletus poured forth into diverse places a people of seventy-five
cities; the whole side of Italy which is washed by the lower sea was Greater Greece. Asia claims the Tuscans for itself; the Tyrians inhabit Africa,
into Spain the Carthaginians; the Greeks launched themselves into Gaul, into Greece the Gauls;
the Pyrenean did not inhibit the transit of the Germans — through pathless places, through unknown regions human levity turned itself about.

3. Liberos coniugesque et graues senio parentes traxerunt. Alii longo errore iactati non iudicio elegerunt locum sed lassitudine proximum occupauerunt, alii armis sibi ius in aliena terra fecerunt; quasdam gentes, cum ignota peterent, mare hausit, quaedam ibi consederunt ubi illas rerum omnium inopia deposuit. 4. Nec omnibus eadem causa relinquendi quaerendique patriam fuit: alios excidia urbium suarum hostilibus armis elapsos in aliena spoliatos suis expulerunt; alios domestica seditio summouit; alios nimia superfluentis populi frequentia ad exonerandas uires emisit; alios pestilentia aut frequentes terrarum hiatus aut aliqua intoleranda infelicis soli uitia eiecerunt; quosdam fertilis orae et in maius laudatae fama corrupit.

3. They dragged along children and spouses and parents heavy with old age. Others, tossed by a long wandering, chose their place not by judgment but, from weariness, seized the nearest; others by arms made for themselves a right in a foreign land; some peoples, when they sought the unknown, the sea drank up; some settled there where the lack of all things set them down. 4. Nor was there the same cause for all of leaving and of seeking a fatherland: some the destructions of their cities, having slipped from hostile arms, drove into alien lands, despoiled of their own; others domestic sedition removed; others an excessive frequency of an overflowing people sent out to lighten its strength; others pestilence or frequent gapes of the earth or certain intolerable vices of an unlucky soil cast out; some the fame of a fertile shore, praised to the greater, corrupted.

5. Alios alia causa exciuit domibus suis: illud utique manifestum est, nihil eodem loco mansisse quo genitum est. Adsiduus generis humani discursus est; cotidie aliquid in tam magno orbe mutatur: noua urbium fundamenta iaciuntur, noua gentium nomina extinctis prioribus aut in accessionem ualidioris conuersis oriuntur. Omnes autem istae populorum transportationes quid aliud quam publica exilia sunt?

5. Different causes stirred different people from their homes: this at any rate is manifest, that nothing has remained in the same place where it was born. There is an assiduous circulation of the human race; every day something in so great an orb is changed: new foundations of cities are laid, new names of nations arise, the former having been extinguished or turned into an accession of a stronger. But all these transportations of peoples—what else are they than public exiles?

6. Quid te tam longo circumitu traho? Quid interest enumerare Antenorem Pataui conditorem et Euandrum in ripa Tiberis regna Arcadum conlocantem? Quid Diomeden aliosque quos Troianum bellum uictos simul uictoresque per alienas terras dissipauit?

6. Why do I drag you by so long a circuit? What is the point of enumerating Antenor, the founder of Padua, and Evander placing the realms of the Arcadians on the bank of the Tiber? What of Diomedes and others whom the Trojan War, the conquered and the conquerors alike, scattered through alien lands?

7. Romanum imperium nempe auctorem exulem respicit, quem profugum capta patria, exiguas reliquias trahentem, necessitas et uictoris metus longinqua quaerentem in Italiam detulit. Hic deinde populus quot colonias in omnem prouinciam misit! ubicumque uicit Romanus, habitat.

7. The Roman Empire, indeed
regards as its author an exile, whom, a fugitive with his fatherland captured, dragging scant remnants,
necessity and the fear of the victor, seeking far‑off regions, into Italy
brought. Then this people—how many colonies it sent into every province! Wherever
the Roman conquered, he dwells.

Ad hanc commutationem locorum libentes nomina dabant, et relictis aris suis trans maria sequebatur colonos senex. 8. Res quidem non desiderat plurium enumerationem; unum tamen adiciam quod in oculos se ingerit: haec ipsa insula saepe iam cultores mutauit. Vt antiquiora, quae uetustas obduxit, transeam, Phocide relicta Graii qui nunc Massiliam incolunt prius in hac insula consederunt, ex qua quid eos fugauerit incertum est, utrum caeli grauitas an praepotentis Italiae conspectus an natura inportuosi maris; nam in causa non fuisse feritatem accolarum eo apparet quod maxime tunc trucibus et inconditis Galliae populis se interposuerunt.

To this commutation of places they were gladly giving in their names, and, their own altars left behind, the old man would follow the colonists across the seas. 8. The matter indeed does not require the enumeration of more; yet I will add one thing that thrusts itself upon the eyes: this very island has already often changed its cultivators. That I may pass over the more ancient things which antiquity has shrouded, the Greeks who now inhabit Massilia, Phocis having been left behind, first settled in this island, from which what drove them to flight is uncertain—whether the heaviness of the climate, or the sight of over‑powerful Italy, or the nature of a harborless sea; for that the savagery of the neighbors was not the cause is apparent from this, that they then placed themselves especially among the savage and unformed peoples of Gaul.

9. Transierunt deinde Ligures in eam, transierunt et Hispani, quod ex similitudine ritus apparet; eadem enim tegmenta capitum idemque genus calciamenti quod Cantabris est, et uerba quaedam; nam totus sermo conuersatione Graecorum Ligurumque a patrio desciuit. Deductae deinde sunt duae ciuium Romanorum coloniae, altera a Mario, altera a Sulla: totiens huius aridi et spinosi saxi mutatus est populus! 10. Vix denique inuenies ullam terram quam etiamnunc indigenae colant; permixta omnia et insiticia sunt.

9. Then the Ligurians crossed over into it, and the Spaniards crossed over too, as appears from the similarity of rite; for there are the same coverings of the head and the same kind of footwear as among the Cantabri, and certain words; for the whole speech, through the converse of Greeks and Ligurians, has defected from the native one. Then two colonies of Roman citizens were established, the one by Marius, the other by Sulla: so often has the people of this arid and thorny rock been changed! 10. Finally, you will scarcely find any land which even now the natives till; everything is mixed and insititious.

Alius alii successit: hic concupiuit quod illi fastidio fuit; ille unde expulerat eiectus est. Ita fato placuit, nullius rei eodem semper loco stare fortunam.

One succeeded another: this one coveted what that one found distasteful; that one was ejected from the place whence he had expelled others. Thus it pleased fate, that the fortune of no thing should stand always in the same place.

VIII.

1. Aduersus ipsam commutationem locorum, detractis ceteris incommodis quae exilio adhaerent, satis hoc remedii putat Varro, doctissimus Romanorum, quod quocumque uenimus eadem rerum natura utendum est; M. Brutus satis hoc putat, quod licet in exilium euntibus uirtutes suas secum ferre. 2. Haec etiam si quis singula parum iudicat efficacia ad consolandum exulem, utraque in unum conlata fatebitur plurimum posse. Quantulum enim est quod perdimus!

1. Against the very change of places, with the other inconveniences removed which adhere to exile, Varro, the most learned of the Romans, thinks this remedy sufficient: that wherever we arrive, the same nature of things must be made use of; M. Brutus thinks this sufficient: that it is permitted for those going into exile to carry their virtues with them. 2. These things, even if someone judges each individually too little efficacious for consoling the exile, both brought together into one he will confess can do very much. For how little is that which we lose!

duo quae pulcherrima sunt quocumque nos mouerimus sequentur, natura communis et propria uirtus. 3. Id actum est, mihi crede, ab illo, quisquis formator uniuersi fuit, siue ille deus est potens omnium, siue incorporalis ratio ingentium operum artifex, siue diuinus spiritus per omnia maxima ac minima aequali intentione diffusus, siue fatum et inmutabilis causarum inter se cohaerentium series — id, inquam, actum est ut in alienum arbitrium nisi uilissima quaeque non caderent. 4. Quidquid optimum homini est, id extra humanam potentiam iacet, nec dari nec eripi potest.

Two things, the most beautiful, will follow us wherever we move ourselves: common nature and our own proper virtue. 3. This was brought about, believe me, by that One, whoever was the framer of the universe—whether he is a god powerful over all, or an incorporeal reason, the artificer of vast works, or a divine spirit diffused through all things, greatest and least, with equal intention, or fate and the immutable series of causes cohaering among themselves—this, I say, was brought about, that nothing should fall into another’s discretion except the most worthless things. 4. Whatever is best for a human lies outside human power; it can neither be given nor snatched away.

Mundus hic, quo nihil neque maius neque ornatius rerum natura genuit, <et> animus contemplator admiratorque mundi, pars eius magnificentissima, propria nobis et perpetua et tam diu nobiscum mansura sunt quam diu ipsi manebimus. 5. Alacres itaque et erecti quocumque res tulerit intrepido gradu properemus, emetiamur quascumque terras: nullum inueniri exilium intra mundum <potest; nihil enim quod intra mundum> est alienum homini est. Vndecumque ex aequo ad caelum erigitur acies, paribus interuallis omnia diuina ab omnibus humanis distant.

This world, than which nature of things has brought forth nothing neither greater nor more ornate, <and> the mind, the contemplator and admirer of the world, its most magnificent part, are ours as a possession and perpetual, and will remain with us as long as we ourselves shall remain. 5. Therefore, cheerful and uplifted, wherever circumstance has borne us, let us hasten with an unafraid step, let us traverse whatever lands: no exile within the world <can be; for nothing which within the world> is alien to man. From wherever the gaze is raised to the sky on equal terms, by equal intervals all divine things are distant from all human things.

6. Proinde, dum oculi mei ab illo spectaculo cuius insatiabiles sunt non abducantur, dum mihi solem lunamque intueri liceat, dum ceteris inhaerere sideribus, dum ortus eorum occasusque et interualla et causas inuestigare uel ocius meandi uel tardius, spectare tot per noctem stellas micantis et alias inmobiles, alias non in magnum spatium exeuntis sed intra suum se circumagentis uestigium, quasdam subito erumpentis, quasdam igne fuso praestringentis aciem, quasi decidant, uel longo tractu cum luce multa praeteruolantis, dum cum his sim et caelestibus, qua homini fas est, inmiscear, dum animum ad cognatarum rerum conspectum tendentem in sublimi semper habeam, quantum refert mea quid calcem?

6. Accordingly, so long as my eyes are not led away from that spectacle of which they are insatiable, so long as it is permitted me to gaze upon the sun and the moon, so long as I may cling to the other stars, so long as I may investigate their risings and settings and their intervals and the causes of their going either more swiftly or more slowly, to behold through the night so many stars twinkling, and some immobile, others not going out into a great space but turning themselves within their own track, some bursting forth suddenly, some with molten fire dazzling the sight as if they were falling, or flying past with a long trail and much light, so long as I may be with these and, with the celestials, be intermingled, so far as it is permitted to a human, so long as I may always hold my mind on high, tending toward the view of cognate things—how much does it matter to my concern what I tread upon?

IX.

1. 'At non est haec terra frugiferarum aut laetarum arborum ferax; non magnis nec nauigabilibus fluminum alueis inrigatur; nihil gignit quod aliae gentes petant, uix ad tutelam incolentium fertilis; non pretiosus hic lapis caeditur, non auri argentique uenae eruuntur.' 2. Angustus animus est quem terrena delectant: ad illa abducendus est quae ubique aeque apparent, ubique aeque splendent. Et hoc cogitandum est, ista ueris bonis per falsa et praue credita obstare. Quo longiores porticus expedierint, quo altius turres sustulerint, quo latius uicos porrexerint, quo depressius aestiuos specus foderint, quo maiori mole fastigia cenationum subduxerint, hoc plus erit quod illis caelum abscondat.

1. 'But this land is not fertile in fruit-bearing or luxuriant trees; not irrigated by great nor navigable channels of rivers; it produces nothing which other peoples would seek, scarcely fertile for the safeguarding of the inhabitants; here no precious stone is quarried, no veins of gold and of silver are dug out.' 2. The mind is narrow which earthly things delight: it must be led away to those things which everywhere equally appear, everywhere equally shine. And this must be considered, that these things obstruct true goods through things false and perversely believed. The longer they shall have deployed porticoes, the higher they shall have raised towers, the wider they shall have extended streets, the more deeply they shall have dug summer grottoes, the more, with a greater mass, they shall have underpinned the gables of dining-rooms, so much the more there will be that which hides the sky from them.

3. In eam te regionem casus eiecit in qua lautissimum receptaculum casa est: ne [et] tu pusilli animi es et sordide se consolantis, si ideo id fortiter pateris quia Romuli casam nosti. Dic illud potius: 'istud humile tugurium nempe uirtutes recipit? iam omnibus templis formosius erit, cum illic iustitia conspecta fuerit, cum continentia, cum prudentia, pietas, omnium officiorum recte dispensandorum ratio, humanorum diuinorumque scientia.

3. Chance has cast you into that region in which the most sumptuous lodging is a hut: do not you [also] be pusillanimous and sordidly consoling yourself, if for that reason you bear it bravely because you know the hut of Romulus. Say this rather: 'Does that humble hovel indeed receive virtues? Already it will be more beautiful than all temples, when there justice has been beheld, and continence, and prudence, piety, the rule of rightly apportioning all duties, and the knowledge of human and divine things.'

Nullus angustus est locus qui hanc tam magnarum uirtutium turbam capit; nullum exilium graue est in quod licet cum hoc ire comitatu.'
4. Brutus in eo libro quem de uirtute composuit ait se Marcellum uidisse Mytilenis exulantem et, quantum modo natura hominis pateretur, beatissime uiuentem neque umquam cupidiorem bonarum artium quam illo tempore. Itaque adicit uisum sibi se magis in exilium ire, qui sine illo rediturus esset, quam illum in exilio relinqui. 5. O fortunatiorem Marcellum eo tempore quo exilium suum Bruto adprobauit quam quo rei publicae consulatum!

No place is narrow that holds this crowd of such great virtues; no exile is grievous into which it is permitted to go with this retinue.'
4. Brutus, in that book which he composed on virtue, says that he saw Marcellus at Mytilene, exiled, and, so far as the nature of man would allow, living most happily, and never more desirous of the good arts than at that time. And so he adds that it seemed to him that he himself was going the more into exile—he who would return without him—than that that man was being left in exile. 5. O Marcellus more fortunate at that time when he made his exile approved to Brutus than when he gave the consulship to the commonwealth!

Quantus ille uir fuit qui effecit ut aliquis exul sibi uideretur quod ab exule recederet! Quantus uir fuit qui in admirationem sui adduxit hominem etiam Catoni suo mirandum! 6. Idem Brutus ait C. Caesarem Mytilenas praeteruectum, quia non sustineret uidere deformatum uirum.

How great was that man, who brought it about that someone seemed to himself an exile because he was departing from an exile! How great was the man who led a man into admiration of himself, a man to be marveled at even by his own Cato! 6. The same Brutus says that Gaius Caesar sailed past Mytilene, because he could not bear to see the man disfigured.

Illi quidem reditum inpetrauit senatus publicis precibus, tam sollicitus ac maestus ut omnes illo die Bruti habere animum uiderentur et non pro Marcello sed pro se deprecari, ne exules essent si sine illo fuissent; sed plus multo consecutus est quo die illum exulem Brutus relinquere non potuit, Caesar uidere. Contigit enim illi testimonium utriusque: Brutus sine Marcello reuerti se doluit, Caesar erubuit. 7. Num dubitas quin se ille [Marcellus] tantus uir sic ad tolerandum aequo animo exilium saepe adhortatus sit: 'quod patria cares, non est miserum: ita te disciplinis inbuisti ut scires omnem locum sapienti uiro patriam esse.

Indeed, the senate obtained his return by public prayers, so anxious and mournful that on that day all seemed to have the spirit of Brutus and to be pleading not for Marcellus but for themselves, lest they be exiles if they were without him; but he achieved much more on the day when Brutus could not leave that man an exile, and Caesar could not see him. For the testimony of both befell him: Brutus grieved to return without Marcellus, Caesar blushed. 7. Do you doubt that so great a man [Marcellus] often thus exhorted himself to endure exile with an even mind: 'that you lack your fatherland is not miserable: you have so imbued yourself with disciplines that you would know every place to be a fatherland for a sapient man.'

Quid porro? hic qui te expulit, non ipse per annos decem continuos patria caruit? propagandi sine dubio imperii causa; sed nempe caruit.

What then? This man who expelled you—was he not himself for ten continuous years
without his fatherland? For the sake, without doubt, of propagating the empire; but indeed
he was without it.

8. Nunc ecce trahit illum ad se Africa resurgentis belli minis plena, trahit Hispania, quae fractas et adflictas partes refouet, trahit Aegyptus infida, totus denique orbis, qui ad occasionem concussi imperii intentus est: cui primum rei occurret? cui parti se opponet? Aget illum per omnes terras uictoria sua.

8. Now behold, Africa draws him to itself, full of the menaces of a resurgent war; Spain draws him, which re-warms the broken and afflicted parties; faithless Egypt draws him; finally the whole world, which is intent upon the occasion of a shaken empire: to what affair will he first run to meet? to which party will he set himself in opposition? His own victory will drive him through all lands.

Illum suspiciant et colant gentes: tu uiue Bruto miratore contentus.'

Let the nations look up to him and honor him: you, live
content with Brutus as your admirer.'

10.

1. Bene ergo exilium tulit Marcellus nec quicquam in animo eius mutauit loci mutatio, quamuis eam paupertas sequeretur; in qua nihil mali esse, quisquis modo nondum peruenit in insaniam omnia subuertentis auaritiae atque luxuriae intellegit. Quantulum enim est quod in tutelam hominis necessarium est! et cui deesse hoc potest ullam modo uirtutem habenti?

1. Therefore Marcellus bore exile well, and the change of place altered nothing in his mind, although poverty followed it; in which there is nothing evil, as anyone understands who has not yet come into the insanity of avarice and luxury subverting all things. For how very little is that which is necessary for the maintenance of a human being! and can this be lacking to anyone who has any virtue at all?

2. Quod ad me quidem pertinet, intellego me non opes sed occupationes perdidisse. Corporis exigua desideria sunt: frigus summoueri uult, alimentis famem ac sitim extinguere; quidquid extra concupiscitur, uitiis, non usibus laboratur. Non est necesse omne perscrutari profundum nec strage animalium uentrem onerare nec conchylia ultimi maris ex ignoto litore eruere: di istos deaeque perdant quorum luxuria tam inuidiosi imperii fines transcendit!

2. As for me indeed, I understand that I have lost not wealth but occupations. The body’s desires are scant: it wishes the cold to be warded off, hunger and thirst to be extinguished by nutriments; whatever beyond this is coveted, one toils for vices, not for uses. It is not necessary to scrutinize every profound depth, nor to load the belly with the slaughter of animals, nor to dig up the shellfish of the farthest sea from an unknown shore: may the gods and goddesses destroy those whose luxury transcends the confines of so invidious a dominion!

3. Vltra Phasin capi uolunt quod ambitiosam popinam instruat, nec piget a Parthis, a quibus nondum poenas repetimus, aues petere. Vndique conuehunt omnia nota fastidienti gulae; quod dissolutus deliciis stomachus uix admittat ab ultimo portatur oceano; uomunt ut edant, edunt ut uomant, et epulas quas toto orbe conquirunt nec concoquere dignantur. Ista si quis despicit, quid illi paupertas nocet?

3. Beyond the Phasis they want to seize what might equip an ambitious kitchen, nor do they shrink from the Parthians, from whom we have not yet exacted penalties, to seek birds. From everywhere they convey all things known to a fastidious gullet; what a stomach dissolved by delights can scarcely admit is carried from the farthest ocean; they vomit that they may eat, they eat that they may vomit, and the banquets which they seek out from the whole world they do not deign to digest. If someone despises these things, what harm does poverty do to him?

Si quis concupiscit, illi paupertas etiam prodest; inuitus enim sanatur et, si remedia ne coactus quidem recipit, interim certe, dum non potest, illa nolenti similis est. 4. C. Caesar [Augustus], quem mihi uidetur rerum natura edidisse ut ostenderet quid summa uitia in summa fortuna possent, centiens sestertio cenauit uno die; et in hoc omnium adiutus ingenio uix tamen inuenit quomodo trium prouinciarum tributum una cena fieret. 5. O miserabiles, quorum palatum nisi ad pretiosos cibos non excitatur!

If anyone covets, poverty even profits him;
for he is cured against his will, and if he does not accept the remedies even when compelled, meanwhile
at any rate, while he cannot, he is like one unwilling. 4. C. Caesar [Augustus],
whom it seems to me Nature produced in order to show what supreme vices
could do in supreme fortune, dined at the cost of ten million sesterces in a single day; and in this,
aided by the ingenuity of all, he scarcely yet found how the tribute of three provinces
might be made into one dinner. 5. O miserable are they whose palate is not roused except by costly foods!

Pretiosos autem non eximius sapor aut aliqua faucium dulcedo sed raritas et difficultas parandi facit. Alioqui, si ad sanam illis mentem placeat reuerti, quid opus est tot artibus uentri seruientibus? quid mercaturis?

But it is not an exquisite savor nor any sweetness of the gullet that makes things precious, but rarity and the difficulty of preparing. Otherwise, if it should please them to return to a sane mind, what need is there of so many arts subservient to the belly? what need of merchandizings?

quid uastatione siluarum? quid profundi perscrutatione? Passim iacent alimenta quae rerum natura omnibus locis disposuit; sed haec uelut caeci transeunt et omnes regiones peruagantur, maria traiciunt et, cum famem exiguo possint sedare, magno inritant.

what of the devastation of forests? what of the scrutiny of the deep? Aliments lie everywhere
which the nature of things has arranged in all places; yet they pass these by as if blind
and roam through all regions, they cross seas, and, though they could assuage hunger with a little,
they greatly provoke it.

6. Libet dicere: 'quid deducitis naues? Quid manus et aduersus feras et aduersus homines armatis? Quid tanto tumultu discurritis?

6. It pleases me to say: 'why do you launch ships? Why do you arm bands
both against wild beasts and against men? Why do you run to and fro with so great a tumult?

Quid opes opibus adgeritis? Non uultis cogitare quam parua uobis corpora sint? Nonne furor et ultimus mentium error est, cum tam exiguum capias, cupere multum?

Why do you heap up riches upon riches? Will you not cogitate how small your bodies are? Is it not madness and the utmost error of minds, when you can hold so little, to crave much?

Licet itaque augeatis census, promoueatis fines, numquam tamen corpora uestra laxabitis. Cum bene cesserit negotiatio, multum militia rettulerit, cum indagati undique cibi coierint, non habebitis ubi istos apparatus uestros conlocetis. 7. Quid tam multa conquiritis?

Although therefore you may augment the census, promote the boundaries, never, however, will you enlarge your bodies.
When commerce has turned out well, when the militia has brought back much,
when foods hunted down from everywhere have come together, you will not have where to place those
apparatus of yours. 7. Why do you seek so many things?

Scilicet maiores nostri, quorum uirtus etiamnunc uitia nostra sustentat, infelices erant, qui sibi manu sua parabant cibum, quibus terra cubile erat, quorum tecta nondum auro fulgebant, quorum templa nondum gemmis nitebant; itaque tunc per fictiles deos religiose iurabatur: qui illos inuocauerant, ad hostem morituri, ne fallerent, redibant. 8. Scilicet minus beate uiuebat dictator noster qui Samnitium legatos audit cum uilissimum cibum in foco ipse manu sua uersaret — illa qua iam saepe hostem percusserat laureamque in Capitolini Iouis gremio reposuerat — quam Apicius nostra memoria uixit, qui in ea urbe ex qua aliquando philosophi uelut corruptores iuuentutis abire iussi sunt scientiam popinae professus disciplina sua saeculum infecit.' Cuius exitum nosse operae pretium est. 9. Cum sestertium milliens in culinam coniecisset, cum tot congiaria principum et ingens Capitolii uectigal singulis comisationibus exsorpsisset, aere alieno oppressus rationes suas tunc primum coactus inspexit: superfuturum sibi sestertium centiens computauit et uelut in ultima fame uicturus si in sestertio centiens uixisset, ueneno uitam finiuit.

Surely our ancestors, whose virtue even now sustains our vices, were unfortunate, who prepared food for themselves with their own hand, for whom the earth was a couch, whose roofs did not yet gleam with gold, whose temples did not yet shine with gems; and so then people swore religiously by earthen gods: those who had invoked them, about to die against the enemy, returned, lest they should deceive. 8. Surely our dictator lived less happily, who hears the legates of the Samnites while he himself with his own hand was turning the most common food on the hearth — with that hand with which he had already often struck the enemy and had laid the laurel in the lap of Capitoline Jove — than Apicius lived within our memory, who in that city from which at one time philosophers were ordered to depart as if corrupters of youth, professing the science of the cookshop, infected the age with his discipline. Whose end it is worth the effort to know. 9. When he had thrown 100,000,000 sesterces into the kitchen, when he had drained in single carousals so many donatives of princes and the huge revenue of the Capitol, overwhelmed by debt he was forced then for the first time to inspect his accounts: he computed that 10,000,000 sesterces would remain to him; and, as if he were going to live in utter famine if he had lived on 10,000,000 sesterces, he ended his life with poison.

10. Quanta luxuria erat cui centiens sestertium egestas fuit! i nunc et puta pecuniae modum ad rem pertinere, non animi. Sestertium centiens aliquis extimuit et quod alii uoto petunt ueneno fugit.

10. What a luxury it was, for whom ten million sesterces was poverty! Go now and suppose that the measure of money pertains to the thing, not to the mind. Someone shrank in dread from ten million sesterces, and what others seek by vow he fled by poison.

Illi uero tam prauae mentis homini ultima potio saluberrima fuit: tunc uenena edebat bibebatque cum inmensis epulis non delectaretur tantum sed gloriaretur, cum uitia sua ostentaret, cum ciuitatem in luxuriam suam conuerteret, cum iuuentutem ad imitationem sui sollicitaret etiam sine malis exemplis per se docilem. 11. Haec accidunt diuitias non ad rationem reuocantibus, cuius certi fines sunt, sed ad uitiosam consuetudinem, cuius inmensum et incomprensibile arbitrium est. Cupiditati nihil satis est, naturae satis est etiam parum.

For that man of such depraved mind the last draught was most salubrious: then he was eating and drinking poisons,
when by immense banquets he was not only delighted but gloried, when he displayed his vices,
when he was converting the commonwealth into his own luxury, when he was enticing the youth
to the imitation of himself—also, even without evil examples, teachable in itself. 11. These things befall those who do not call riches back to reason, whose limits are fixed,
but to vicious custom, whose arbitrament is boundless and incomprehensible. For cupidity nothing is enough; for nature even a little is enough.

Nullum ergo paupertas exulis incommodum habet; nullum enim tam inops exilium est quod non alendo homini abunde fertile sit.

Therefore the poverty of an exile has no disadvantage; for no exile is so destitute as not to be abundantly fertile for nourishing a man.

XI.

11.

1. 'At uestem ac domum desideraturus est exsul.' Haec quoque ad usum tantum desiderabit: neque tectum ei deerit neque uelamentum; aeque enim exiguo tegitur corpus quam alitur; nihil homini natura quod necessarium faciebat fecit operosum. 2. Sed desiderat saturatam multo conchylio purpuram, intextam auro uariisque et coloribus distinctam et artibus: non fortunae iste uitio sed suo pauper est. Etiam si illi quidquid amisit restitueris, nihil ages; plus enim restituto deerit ex eo quod cupit quam exsuli ex eo quod habuit.

1. 'But the exile will miss clothing and a home.' He will miss these also only for use only for use: neither a roof will be lacking to him nor a covering; for equally by a small amount the body is covered as it is nourished; nothing for man that nature made necessary did she make laborious. 2. But he longs for purple saturated with much murex, interwoven with gold and marked with various colors and with arts: not by fortune's fault is this man poor, but by his own. Even if you restore to him whatever he lost, you will accomplish nothing; for more will be lacking to the one restored from what he desires than to the exile from what he had.

3. Sed desiderat aureis fulgentem uasis supellectilem et antiquis nominibus artificum argentum nobile, aes paucorum insania pretiosum et seruorum turbam quae quamuis magnam domum angustet, iumentorum corpora differta et coacta pinguescere et nationum omnium lapides: ista congerantur licet, numquam explebunt inexplebilem animum, non magis quam ullus sufficiet umor ad satiandum eum cuius desiderium non ex inopia sed ex aestu ardentium uiscerum oritur; non enim sitis illa sed morbus est. 4. Nec hoc in pecunia tantum aut alimentis euenit; eadem natura est in omni desiderio quod modo non ex inopia sed ex uitio nascitur: quidquid illi congesseris, non finis erit cupiditatis sed gradus. Qui continebit itaque se intra naturalem modum, paupertatem non sentiet; qui naturalem modum excedet, eum in summis quoque opibus paupertas sequetur.

3. But he desires furnishings gleaming with golden vessels, and silver noble with the ancient names of artificers, bronze made precious by the madness of a few,
and a throng of slaves which, although large, narrows even a great house, the bodies of draught animals stuffed full and compelled to grow fat, and stones from all nations: though these be heaped together,
they will never fill an unfillable mind, no more than any moisture will suffice
to sate one whose desire arises not from want but from the heat of burning viscera; for that is not thirst but a disease. 4. Nor does this happen in money
only or in nourishment; the same nature belongs to every desire which arises not from want but from vice: whatever you heap upon him, it will be not the end
of cupidity but a step. Therefore he who will contain himself within the natural measure
will not feel poverty; he who exceeds the natural measure, poverty will follow him even amid the highest resources.

Necessariis rebus et exilia sufficiunt, superuacuis nec regna. 5. Animus est qui diuites facit; hic in exilia sequitur, et in solitudinibus asperrimis, cum quantum satis est sustinendo corpori inuenit, ipse bonis suis abundat et fruitur: pecunia ad animum nihil pertinet, non magis quam ad deos inmortalis. 6. Omnia ista quae imperita ingenia et nimis corporibus suis addicta suspiciunt, lapides aurum argentum et magni leuatique mensarum orbes, terrena sunt pondera, quae non potest amare sincerus animus ac naturae suae memor, leuis ipse, expeditus, et quandoque emissus fuerit ad summa emicaturus; interim, quantum per moras membrorum et hanc circumfusam grauem sarcinam licet, celeri et uolucri cogitatione diuina perlustrat.

For necessary things even exiles suffice, for superfluous ones
not even kingdoms. 5. It is the mind that makes men rich; this follows into exiles, and
in the roughest solitudes, when it has found as much as is enough for sustaining the body,
itself abounds in and enjoys its own goods: money pertains nothing to the mind, no
more than to the immortal gods. 6. All those things which untaught minds and those too much
addicted to their bodies look up to—stones, gold, silver, and the large and smoothed
table-tops—are earthly weights, which a pure mind and mindful of its own nature cannot love,
itself light, unencumbered, and, whenever it shall have been released, about to dart forth to the heights;
meanwhile, so far as is permitted by the delays of the limbs and this heavy pack that surrounds it,
with swift and winged divine thought it traverses and surveys.

7. Ideoque nec exulare umquam potest, liber et deis cognatus et omni mundo omnique aeuo par; nam cogitatio eius circa omne caelum it, in omne praeteritum futurumque tempus inmittitur. Corpusculum hoc, custodia et uinculum animi, huc atque illuc iactatur; in hoc supplicia, in hoc latrocinia, in hoc morbi exercentur: animus quidem ipse sacer et aeternus est et cui non possit inici manus.

7. And therefore he can never go into exile, free and kin to the gods and a peer to the whole world and the whole aeon; for his thought goes around the whole heaven, is sent into all time past and future. This little body, the custody and bond of the mind, is tossed here and there; in this punishments, in this brigandages, in this diseases are exercised: the mind itself, however, is sacred and eternal, and one on which no hand can be laid.

XII.

12.

1. Ne me putes ad eleuanda incommoda paupertatis, quam nemo grauem sentit nisi qui putat, uti tantum praeceptis sapientium, primum aspice quanto maior pars sit pauperum, quos nihilo notabis tristiores sollicitioresque diuitibus: immo nescio an eo laetiores sint quo animus illorum in pauciora distringitur. 2. Transeamus [a pauperibus, ueniamus] ad locupletes: quam multa tempora sunt quibus pauperibus similes sint! Circumcisae sunt peregrinantium sarcinae, et quotiens festinationem necessitas itineris exegit, comitum turba dimittitur.

1. Do not think that, to alleviate the inconveniences of poverty, which no one feels as grave except the one who thinks it so, I am using only the precepts of the wise; first, look at how much the greater part are poor, whom you will note by no means sadder and more solicitous than the rich: nay, I do not know whether they are the more cheerful for this very reason, that their mind is constrained to fewer things. 2. Let us pass [from the poor, let us come] to the wealthy: how many times are they like the poor! The baggage of travelers is cut down, and as often as the necessity of the journey has exacted haste, the throng of companions is dismissed.

Militantes quotam partem rerum suarum secum habent, cum omnem apparatum castrensis disciplina summoueat! 3. Nec tantum condicio illos temporum aut locorum inopia pauperibus exaequat: sumunt quosdam dies, cum iam illos diuitiarum taedium cepit, quibus humi cenent et remoto auro argentoque fictilibus utantur. Dementes!

How small a portion of their belongings do men in military service carry with them, since camp-discipline removes all equipment! 3. Nor does merely the condition of the times or the want of places make them equal to the poor: they choose certain days, when a weariness of riches has already seized them, on which they dine on the ground and, with gold and silver put away, make use of earthenware. Madmen!

hoc quod aliquando concupiscunt semper timent. O quanta illos caligo mentium, quanta ignorantia ueritatis * * * exercet, quam uoluptatis causa imitantur! 4. Me quidem, quotiens ad antiqua exempla respexi, paupertatis uti solaciis pudet, quoniam quidem eo temporum luxuria prolapsa est ut maius uiaticum exulum sit quam olim patrimonium principum fuit.

This which they sometimes covet, they always fear. O how great a darkness of minds, how great an ignorance of truth
* * * torments them, which they imitate for the sake of pleasure! 4. As for me, as often as I have looked back to ancient exemplars, it shames me to use the solaces of poverty, since indeed
the luxury of the times has slipped to such a point that the travel-money of exiles is greater than once
the patrimony of princes was.

Vnum fuisse Homero seruum, tres Platoni, nullum Zenoni, a quo coepit Stoicorum rigida ac uirilis sapientia, satis constat: num ergo quisquam eos misere uixisse dicet ut non ipse miserrimus ob hoc omnibus uideatur? 5. Menenius Agrippa, qui inter patres ac plebem publicae gratiae sequester fuit, aere conlato funeratus est. Atilius Regulus, cum Poenos in Africa funderet, ad senatum scripsit mercennarium suum discessisse et ab eo desertum esse rus, quod senatui publice curari dum abesset Regulus placuit: fuitne tanti seruum non habere ut colonus eius populus Romanus esset?

It is well agreed that Homer had one slave, Plato three, and Zeno none,
from whom the rigid and virile wisdom of the Stoics took its beginning:
will anyone therefore say that they lived miserably, without he himself on this account seeming to everyone most miserable? 5. Menenius Agrippa, who between the Fathers and the plebs was the broker of public favor, was buried by money collected (by public subscription). Atilius Regulus, when he was routing the Punics in Africa, wrote to the senate that his hired man had departed and that his farm had been left deserted by him, which it pleased the senate to have cared for publicly while Regulus was away: was it of such worth not to have a slave, that his tenant-farmer was the Roman People?

6. Scipionis filiae ex aerario dotem acceperunt, quia nihil illis reliquerat pater: aequum mehercules erat populum Romanum tributum Scipioni semel conferre, cum a Carthagine semper exigeret. O felices uiros puellarum quibus populus Romanus loco soceri fuit! Beatioresne istos putas quorum pantomimae deciens sestertio nubunt quam Scipionem, cuius liberi a senatu, tutore suo, in dotem aes graue acceperunt?

6. The daughters of Scipio received a dowry from the treasury, because their father had left them nothing: by Hercules, it was fair that the Roman people should contribute a tribute to Scipio once, since it was always exacting it from Carthage. O happy husbands of the maidens for whom the Roman people was in the place of a father-in-law! Do you think those men, whose pantomimes marry for a million sesterces, more blessed than Scipio, whose children received from the senate—their guardian—a heavy sum in dowry?

7. Dedignatur aliquis paupertatem, cuius tam clarae imagines sunt? Indignatur exul aliquid sibi deesse, cum defuerit Scipioni dos, Regulo mercennarius, Menenio funus, cum omnibus illis quod deerat ideo honestius suppletum sit quia defuerat? His ergo aduocatis non tantum tuta est sed etiam gratiosa paupertas.

7. Does someone disdain poverty, whose images are so illustrious? Does an exile grow indignant that something is lacking to him, when to Scipio a dowry was lacking, to Regulus a mercenary, to Menenius a funeral, since for all those men that which was lacking was on that account supplied more honorably because it had been lacking? With these, then, called in as advocates, poverty is not only secure but even in high favor.

XIII.

13.

1. Responderi potest: 'quid artificiose ista diducis quae singula sustineri possunt, conlata non possunt? Commutatio loci tolerabilis est, si tantum locum mutes; paupertas tolerabilis est, si ignominia abest, quae uel sola opprimere animos solet.' 2. Aduersus hunc, quisquis me malorum turba terrebit, his uerbis utendum erit: 'si contra unam quamlibet partem fortunae satis tibi roboris est, idem aduersus omnis erit. Cum semel animum uirtus indurauit, undique inuulnerabilem praestat.

1. It can be answered: 'why do you artfully draw apart those things which, taken singly, can be sustained, but, when collected, cannot? A change of place is tolerable, if you only change the place; poverty is tolerable, if ignominy is absent, which even by itself is wont to oppress spirits.' 2. Against this man, whoever will try to terrify me with a throng of evils, these words must be used: 'if you have strength enough against any single part of Fortune, the same will be against all. Once virtue has hardened the mind, it renders it invulnerable on every side.

Si auaritia dimisit, uehementissima generis humani pestis, moram tibi ambitio non faciet; si ultimum diem non quasi poenam sed quasi naturae legem aspicis, ex quo pectore metum mortis eieceris, in id nullius rei timor audebit intrare; 3. si cogitas libidinem non uoluptatis causa homini datam sed propagandi generis, quem non uiolauerit hoc secretum et infixum uisceribus ipsis exitium, omnis alia cupiditas intactum praeteribit. Non singula uitia ratio sed pariter omnia prosternit: in uniuersum semel uincitur.' 4. Ignominia tu putas quemquam sapientem moueri posse, qui omnia in se reposuit, qui ab opinionibus uulgi secessit? Plus etiam quam ignominia est mors ignominiosa: Socrates tamen eodem illo uultu quo triginta tyrannos solus aliquando in ordinem redegerat carcerem intrauit, ignominiam ipsi loco detracturus; neque enim poterat carcer uideri in quo Socrates erat.

If avarice, the most vehement pest of the human race, has dismissed you, ambition will not cause you delay; if you look upon your last day not as a penalty but as a law of nature, from the moment you have cast the fear of death out of your breast, no fear of any thing will dare to enter into it; 3. if you consider that libido was given to man not for the sake of pleasure but for propagating the race, that secret and ruin fixed in the very entrails, which has violated no one not at all, every other desire will pass you by untouched. Reason does not prostrate the several vices but all alike: taken as a whole, they are overcome at a single stroke.' 4. Do you suppose that ignominy can move any wise man, who has placed everything in himself, who has withdrawn from the opinions of the crowd? More even than ignominy is an ignominious death: yet Socrates, with that same countenance with which he once single‑handed brought the Thirty Tyrants to order, entered the prison, about to strip the place itself of ignominy; for indeed it could not seem a prison in which Socrates was.

5. Quis usque eo ad conspiciendam ueritatem excaecatus est ut ignominiam putet Marci Catonis fuisse duplicem in petitione praeturae et consulatus repulsam? ignominia illa praeturae et consulatus fuit, quibus ex Catone honor habebatur. 6. Nemo ab alio contemnitur, nisi a se ante contemptus est.

5. Who is so far blinded to the beholding of truth as to think it an ignominy
for Marcus Cato that he suffered a double repulse in his candidacy for the praetorship and the consulship?
The ignominy belonged to the praetorship and the consulship, which derived honor from Cato.
6. No one is contemned by another, unless he has first been contemned by himself.

Humilis et proiectus animus est isti contumeliae opportunus; qui uero aduersus saeuissimos casus se extollit et ea mala quibus alii opprimuntur euertit, ipsas miserias infularum loco habet, quando ita adfecti sumus ut nihil aeque magnam apud nos admirationem occupet quam homo fortiter miser. 7. Ducebatur Athenis ad supplicium Aristides, cui quisquis occurrerat deiciebat oculos et ingemescebat, non tamquam in hominem iustum sed tamquam in ipsam iustitiam animaduerteretur; inuentus est tamen qui in faciem eius inspueret. Poterat ob hoc moleste ferre quod sciebat neminem id ausurum puri oris; at ille abstersit faciem et subridens ait comitanti se magistratui: 'admone istum ne postea tam inprobe oscitet.' Hoc fuit contumeliam ipsi contumeliae facere.

A humble and cast-down spirit is opportune to that contumely; but he who indeed lifts himself up against the most savage casus and overturns those evils by which others are oppressed, holds the miseries themselves in place of fillets, since we are so affected that nothing seizes upon as great admiration among us as a man bravely wretched. 7. Aristides was being led at Athens to punishment, at the sight of whom whoever met him cast down his eyes and groaned, not as though animadversion were being made upon a just man but upon justice itself; yet there was found one who spat into his face. He could on this account have taken it ill, since he knew that no one of a pure mouth would dare that; but he wiped his face and, smiling, said to the magistrate accompanying him: 'admonish that fellow not to gape so improperly hereafter.' This was to do contumely to contumely itself.

8. Scio quosdam dicere contemptu nihil esse grauius, mortem ipsis potiorem uideri. His ego respondebo et exilium saepe contemptione omni carere: si magnus uir cecidit, magnus iacuit, non magis illum contemni quam aedium sacrarum ruinae calcantur, quas religiosi aeque ac stantis adorant.

8. I know that some say that nothing is more grievous than contempt,
that death seems preferable to them. To these I will reply that even exile often is free from all contempt:
if a great man has fallen, he has lain great, he is no more contemned
than the ruins of sacred edifices are trampled on, which the religious adore equally as when standing.

XIV.

14.

1. Quoniam meo nomine nihil habes, mater carissima, quod te in infinitas lacrimas agat, sequitur ut causae tuae te stimulent. Sunt autem duae; nam aut illud te mouet quod praesidium aliquod uideris amisisse, aut illud quod desiderium ipsum per se pati non potes.

1. Since on my account you have nothing, dearest mother, that would drive you into boundless tears, it follows that your own causes stimulate you. There are, moreover, two; for either this moves you, that you seem to have lost some safeguard, or that you cannot endure the longing itself, per se.

2. Prior pars mihi leuiter perstringenda est; noui enim animum tuum nihil in suis praeter ipsos amantem. Viderint illae matres quae potentiam liberorum muliebri inpotentia exercent, quae, quia feminis honores non licet gerere, per illos ambitiosae sunt, quae patrimonia filiorum et exhauriunt et captant, quae eloquentiam commodando aliis fatigant: 3. tu liberorum tuorum bonis plurimum gauisa es, minimum usa; tu liberalitati nostrae semper inposuisti modum, cum tuae non inponeres; tu filia familiae locupletibus filiis ultro contulisti; tu patrimonia nostra sic administrasti ut tamquam in tuis laborares, tamquam alienis abstineres; tu gratiae nostrae, tamquam alienis rebus utereris, pepercisti, et ex honoribus nostris nihil ad te nisi uoluptas et inpensa pertinuit. Numquam indulgentia ad utilitatem respexit; non potes itaque ea in erepto filio desiderare quae in incolumi numquam ad te pertinere duxisti.

2. The former part must be lightly grazed by me; for I know your spirit loves nothing among its own except the persons themselves. Let those mothers look to it who exercise the power of their children with womanly incontinence, who, because it is not permitted to women to bear honors, are ambitious through them; who both drain and fish for the patrimonies of their sons; who weary eloquence by lending it to others: 3. you have rejoiced very greatly in the goods of your children, used them least; you have always imposed a measure on our liberality, when you would impose none on your own; you, a daughter of the household, of your own accord contributed to your wealthy sons; you administered our patrimonies in such a way as to work as though on your own, to refrain as though from others’; you spared our favor, as though you were using another’s property, and from our honors nothing pertained to you except pleasure and expense. Indulgence never looked to utility; you cannot, therefore, desire in a son snatched away those things which, while he was unharmed, you never judged to pertain to you.

XV.

15.

1. Illo omnis consolatio mihi uertenda est unde uera uis materni doloris oritur: 'ergo complexu fili carissimi careo; non conspectu eius, non sermone possum frui. Vbi est ille quo uiso tristem uultum relaxaui, in quo omnes sollicitudines meas deposui? Vbi conloquia, quorum inexplebilis eram?

1. To that must all consolation be turned for me, whence the true force of maternal sorrow arises: ‘therefore I am bereft of the embrace of my dearest son; I cannot enjoy his sight, nor his discourse. Where is he, at the sight of whom I relaxed a sad countenance, in whom I laid down all my anxieties? Where are the colloquies, of which I was insatiable?’

Vbi studia, quibus libentius quam femina, familiarius quam mater intereram? Vbi ille occursus? Vbi matre uisa semper puerilis hilaritas?' 2. Adicis istis loca ipsa gratulationum et conuictuum et, ut necesse est, efficacissimas ad uexandos animos recentis conuersationis notas.

Where
the pursuits, in which I took part more gladly than a woman, more familiarly than a mother? Where is that encounter? Where, at the sight of his mother, was the ever boyish cheerfulness?' 2. You add to these the very places of congratulations and convivialities and, as is necessary, the most efficacious reminders of the recent conversation for vexing the spirits.

Nam hoc quoque aduersus te crudeliter fortuna molita est, quod te ante tertium demum diem quam perculsus sum securam nec quicquam tale metuentem digredi uoluit. 3. Bene nos longinquitas locorum diuiserat, bene aliquot annorum absentia huic te malo praeparauerat: redisti, non ut uoluptatem ex filio perciperes, sed ut consuetudinem desiderii perderes. Si multo ante afuisses, fortius tulisses, ipso interuallo desiderium molliente; si non recessisses, ultimum certe fructum biduo diutius uidendi filium tulisses: nunc crudele fatum ita composuit ut nec fortunae meae interesses nec absentiae adsuesceres.

For this too against you fortune cruelly contrived: that she wished you to depart, secure and fearing nothing of the sort, only three days before I was struck. 3. Well the remoteness of the places had divided us, well an absence of several years had prepared you for this ill: you returned, not that you might take pleasure from your son, but that you might lose the consuetude of longing. If you had been away much earlier, you would have borne it more stoutly, the very interval softening the longing; if you had not withdrawn, you would at least have taken the last fruit of seeing your son for two days longer: now cruel fate has so arranged it that you were part of neither my fortune nor did you grow accustomed to absence.

4. Sed quanto ista duriora sunt, tanto maior tibi uirtus aduocanda est, et uelut cum hoste noto ac saepe iam uicto acrius congrediendum. Non ex intacto corpore tuo sanguis hic fluxit: per ipsas cicatrices percussa es.

4. But the harder these things are, the greater a virtue must be called to your aid, and, as with a known and already often conquered enemy, you must engage more sharply. This blood has not flowed from your untouched body: you have been struck through the very scars.

XVI.

16.

1. Non est quod utaris excusatione muliebris nominis, cui paene concessum est inmoderatum in lacrimis ius, non inmensum tamen; et ideo maiores decem mensum spatium lugentibus uiros dederunt ut cum pertinacia muliebris maeroris publica constitutione deciderent. Non prohibuerunt luctus sed finierunt; nam et infinito dolore, cum aliquem ex carissimis amiseris, adfici stulta indulgentia est, et nullo inhumana duritia: optimum inter pietatem et rationem temperamentum est et sentire desiderium et opprimere. 2. Non est quod ad quasdam feminas respicias quarum tristitiam semel sumptam mors finiuit (nosti quasdam quae amissis filiis inposita lugubria numquam exuerunt): a te plus exigit uita ab initio fortior; non potest muliebris excusatio contingere ei a qua omnia muliebria uitia afuerunt.

1. There is no reason for you to use the excuse of the feminine name, to which an almost immoderate right in tears has been conceded—yet not an immense one; and therefore the ancestors gave to men in mourning a space of ten months, so that by a public constitution they might cut short the stubbornness of womanly grief. They did not prohibit lamentation but set a limit; for to be affected with infinite sorrow when you have lost someone of your dearest is a foolish indulgence, and with none an inhuman hardness: the best temperament between piety and reason is both to feel the longing and to suppress it. 2. There is no reason for you to look to certain women whose sadness, once assumed, death ended (you know some who, having lost sons, never doffed the mourning clothes once put on): life, stronger in you from the beginning, demands more; the womanly excuse cannot befall one from whom all womanly vices have been absent.

3. Non te maximum saeculi malum, inpudicitia, in numerum plurium adduxit; non gemmae te, non margaritae flexerunt; non tibi diuitiae uelut maximum generis humani bonum refulserunt; non te, bene in antiqua et seuera institutam domo, periculosa etiam probis peiorum detorsit imitatio; numquam te fecunditatis tuae, quasi exprobraret aetatem, puduit, numquam more aliarum, quibus omnis commendatio ex forma petitur, tumescentem uterum abscondisti quasi indecens onus, nec intra uiscera tua conceptas spes liberorum elisisti; 4. non faciem coloribus ac lenociniis polluisti; numquam tibi placuit uestis quae nihil amplius nudaret cum poneretur: unicum tibi ornamentum, pulcherrima et nulli obnoxia aetati forma, maximum decus uisa est pudicitia. 5. Non potes itaque ad optinendum dolorem muliebre nomen praetendere, ex quo te uirtutes tuae seduxerunt; tantum debes a feminarum lacrimis abesse quantum uitiis. Ne feminae quidem te sinent intabescere uulneri tuo, sed ~leuior~ necessario maerore cito defunctam iubebunt exsurgere, si modo illas intueri uoles feminas quas conspecta uirtus inter magnos uiros posuit.

3. Not you has the greatest evil of the age,
immodesty, brought into the number of the many; not gems, not pearls
have bent you; riches have not flashed for you as though the greatest good of the human race;
not you, well trained in an ancient and austere household, did the dangerous imitation of worse people,
harmful even to the upright, turn aside; never were you ashamed of your fecundity, as if it reproached
your age, never, in the manner of others, for whom every commendation is sought from form,
did you hide a swelling womb as an indecent burden, nor did you crush within
your own bowels the conceived hopes of children; 4. you did not pollute your face with colors
and allurements; never did a garment please you which, when it was put on,
bared no less than if it were taken off: your sole ornament, the most beautiful form subject to no age,
seemed to you to be chastity. 5. You cannot therefore put forward the womanly name to secure grief,
since your virtues have drawn you apart from it; you ought to be as far from women’s tears as <a> from vices.
Not even women will allow you to waste away at your wound, but, with ~lighter~ necessary
mourning quickly discharged, they will bid you to rise up, if only you will be willing to look upon
those women whom conspicuous virtue has placed among great men.

6. Corneliam ex duodecim liberis ad duos fortuna redegerat: si numerare funera Corneliae uelles, amiserat decem, si aestimare, amiserat Gracchos. Flentibus tamen circa se et fatum eius execrantibus interdixit ne fortunam accusarent, quae sibi filios Gracchos dedisset. Ex hac femina debuit nasci qui diceret in contione, 'tu matri meae male dicas quae me peperit?' Multo mihi uox matris uidetur animosior: filius magno aestimauit Gracchorum natales, mater et funera.

6. Fortune had reduced Cornelia from twelve children to two: if you wished to number Cornelia’s funerals,
she had lost ten; if to estimate, she had lost the Gracchi. Yet, with people weeping around her and execrating her fate,
she interdicted them from accusing Fortune, who had given her the sons, the Gracchi. From such a woman there ought to have been born
the one who would say in the assembly, 'Do you speak ill of my mother who bore me?' Much the voice of the mother seems to me more high-spirited:
the son highly valued the natal days of the Gracchi, the mother also the funerals.

7. Rutilia Cottam filium secuta est in exilium et usque eo fuit indulgentia constricta ut mallet exilium pati quam desiderium, nec ante in patriam quam cum filio rediit. Eundem iam reducem et in re publica florentem tam fortiter amisit quam secuta est, nec quisquam lacrimas eius post elatum filium notauit. In expulso uirtutem ostendit, in amisso prudentiam; nam et nihil illam a pietate deterruit et nihil in tristitia superuacua stultaque detinuit.

7. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile, and was bound by affection to such a degree that she preferred to suffer exile rather than longing, nor did she return into the fatherland before she returned with her son. The same man, now brought back and flourishing in the Republic, she lost as bravely as she had followed him, nor did anyone observe her tears after her son had been carried out. In his expulsion she showed virtue, in his loss prudence; for neither did anything deter her from piety, nor did anything detain her in superfluous and foolish sadness.

Cum his te numerari feminis uolo; quarum uitam semper imitata es, earum in coercenda comprimendaque aegritudine optime sequeris exemplum.

I want you to be numbered with these women; whose life you have always imitated, and whose example, in the coercing and compressing of grief, you follow most excellently.

XVII.

17.

1. Scio rem non esse in nostra potestate nec ullum adfectum seruire, minime uero eum qui ex dolore nascitur; ferox enim et aduersus omne remedium contumax est. Volumus interim illum obruere et deuorare gemitus; per ipsum tamen compositum fictumque uultum lacrimae profunduntur. Ludis interim aut gladiatoribus animum occupamus; at illum inter ipsa quibus auocatur spectacula leuis aliqua desiderii nota subruit.

1. I know the matter is not in our power nor does any affect serve, least of all that which is born from grief; for it is ferocious and contumacious against every remedy. Meanwhile we wish to overwhelm and swallow down groans; yet through the very composed and feigned countenance tears are poured forth. Meanwhile we occupy the mind with the games or gladiators; but even among the very spectacles by which it is called away, some slight mark of longing undermines it.

2. Ideo melius est uincere illum quam fallere; nam qui delusus et uoluptatibus aut occupationibus abductus est resurgit et ipsa quiete impetum ad saeuiendum colligit: at quisquis rationi cessit, in perpetuum componitur. Non sum itaque tibi illa monstraturus quibus usos esse multos scio, ut peregrinatione te uel longa detineas uel amoena delectes, ut rationum accipiendarum diligentia, patrimonii administratione multum occupes temporis, ut semper nouo te aliquo negotio inplices: omnia ista ad exiguum momentum prosunt nec remedia doloris sed inpedimenta sunt; ego autem malo illum desinere quam decipi. 3. Itaque illo te duco quo omnibus qui fortunam fugiunt confugiendum est, ad liberalia studia: illa sanabunt uulnus tuum, illa omnem tristitiam tibi euellent.

2. Therefore it is better to conquer
it than to deceive it; for he who, having been deluded and carried off by pleasures or occupations,
rises again and from the very quiet gathers an impulse to rage: but
whoever has yielded to reason is composed in perpetuity. Therefore I am not going to show you those
things which I know many have used, that by travel you either
detain yourself long or delight yourself with pleasant travel, that by diligence in taking accounts, by the administration of your patrimony
you occupy much time, that you always entangle yourself in some new business:
all these things profit for a scant moment and are not remedies of grief but
impediments; but I prefer that it cease rather than be deceived. 3. Therefore
I lead you there whither it is necessary for all who flee Fortune to take refuge, to the liberal
studies: they will heal your wound, they will pluck out all sadness for you.

His etiam si numquam adsuesses, nunc utendum erat; sed quantum tibi patris mei antiquus rigor permisit, omnes bonas artes non quidem comprendisti, attigisti tamen. 4. Vtinam quidem uirorum optimus, pater meus, minus maiorum consuetudini deditus uoluisset te praeceptis sapientiae erudiri potius quam inbui! non parandum tibi nunc esset auxilium contra fortunam sed proferendum.

Even if you had never become accustomed to these things, now use had to be made of them; but, so far as my father’s ancient rigor permitted you, you did not indeed comprehend all the good arts, yet you touched them. 4. Would that indeed the best of men, my father, less devoted to the custom of the ancestors, had wished you to be educated by the precepts of wisdom rather than merely to be imbued! There would not now be help to be prepared for you against fortune, but to be brought forth.

Propter istas quae litteris non ad sapientiam utuntur sed ad luxuriam instruuntur minus te indulgere studiis passus est. Beneficio tamen rapacis ingenii plus quam pro tempore hausisti; iacta sunt disciplinarum omnium fundamenta: nunc ad illas reuertere; tutam te praestabunt. 5. Illae consolabuntur, illae delectabunt, illae si bona fide in animum tuum intrauerint, numquam amplius intrabit dolor, numquam sollicitudo, numquam adflictationis inritae superuacua uexatio.

On account of those women who do not use letters for wisdom but are trained toward luxury, he allowed you less to indulge in studies. Yet by the benefit of a rapacious ingenium you drew in more than the time warranted; the foundations of all disciplines have been laid: now return to them; they will render you safe. 5. They will console, they will delight; if they enter your mind in good faith, never again will pain enter, nor solicitude, nor the superfluous vexation of ineffectual affliction.

Nulli horum patebit pectus tuum; nam ceteris uitiis iam pridem clusum est. Haec quidem certissima praesidia sunt et quae sola te fortunae eripere possint.

To none of these will your breast be open; for to the other vices it has long since been shut. These indeed are the most certain safeguards, and the only ones that can snatch you from Fortune.

XVIII.

18.

1. Sed quia, dum in illum portum quem tibi studia promittunt peruenis, adminiculis quibus innitaris opus est, uolo interim solacia tibi tua ostendere. 2. Respice fratres meos, quibus saluis fas tibi non est accusare fortunam. In utroque habes quod te diuersa uirtute delectet: alter honores industria consecutus est, alter sapienter contempsit.

1. But since, while you make your way into that port which your studies promise to you, there is need of supports on which you may lean, I wish meanwhile to show you your own solaces. 2. Look upon my brothers; with them safe, it is not right for you to accuse Fortune. In each you have what may delight you by diverse virtue: the one has obtained honors by industry, the other has wisely contemned them.

Adquiesce alterius fili dignitate, alterius quiete, utriusque pietate. Noui fratrum meorum intimos adfectus: alter in hoc dignitatem excolit ut tibi ornamento sit, alter in hoc se ad tranquillam quietamque uitam recepit ut tibi uacet. 3. Bene liberos tuos et in auxilium et in oblectamentum fortuna disposuit: potes alterius dignitate defendi, alterius otio frui.

Be at peace with the dignity of one son, with the quiet of the other, with the piety of both. I know my brothers’ inmost affections: the one cultivates dignity to this end, that he may be an ornament to you, the other has withdrawn himself to a tranquil and quiet life to this end, that he may be free for you. 3. Fortune has well disposed your children both for help and for delight: you can be defended by the dignity of the one, and enjoy the leisure of the other.

Certabunt in te officiis et unius desiderium duorum pietate supplebitur. Audacter possum promittere: nihil tibi deerit praeter numerum.

They will vie in services toward you, and the longing for one will be supplied by the piety of the two. I can boldly promise: nothing will be lacking to you except the number.

4. Ab his ad nepotes quoque respice: Marcum blandissimum puerum, ad cuius conspectum nulla potest durare tristitia; nihil tam magnum, nihil tam recens in cuiusquam pectore furit quod non circumfusus ille permulceat. 5. Cuius non lacrimas illius hilaritas supprimat? Cuius non contractum sollicitudine animum illius argutiae soluant?

4. From these look also to your grandsons: Marcus, a most charming boy, at whose sight no sadness can endure; nothing so great, nothing so recent rages in anyone’s breast which he, surrounding, does not soothe. 5. Whose tears does not that one’s cheerfulness suppress? Whose mind, contracted with solicitude, do not his wittinesses loosen?

Quem non in iocos euocabit illa lasciuia? Quem non in se conuertet et abducet infixum cogitationibus illa neminem satiatura garrulitas? Deos oro, contingat hunc habere nobis superstitem!

Whom will that lasciviousness not call forth into jests?
Whom will that garrulity, satisfying no one, not turn to itself and draw away, even one fixed in thoughts?
I pray the gods, may it befall us to have him surviving for us!

6. In me omnis fatorum crudelitas lassata consistat; quidquid matri dolendum fuit, in me transierit, quidquid auiae, in me. Floreat reliqua in suo statu turba: nihil de orbitate, nihil de condicione mea querar, fuerim tantum nihil amplius doliturae domus piamentum. 7. Tene in gremio cito tibi daturam pronepotes Nouatillam, quam sic in me transtuleram, sic mihi adscripseram, ut possit uideri, quod me amisit, quamuis saluo patre pupilla; hanc et pro me dilige. Abstulit illi nuper fortuna matrem: tua potest efficere pietas ut perdidisse se matrem doleat tantum, non et sentiat.

6. Let all the cruelty of the fates, wearied, settle upon me; whatever was to be mourned by the mother, let it pass onto me, whatever by the grandmother, onto me. Let the remaining company flourish in its own state: I will complain of nothing about bereavement, nothing about my condition, provided only that I may have been the expiation of a house that is to grieve no more. 7. Keep in your lap Novatilla, soon to give you great-grandchildren, whom I had thus transferred to myself, thus ascribed to myself, so that it can seem that she has lost me, though with her father safe, a ward; love her also for me. Fortune has lately taken her mother from her: your piety can bring it about that she grieve only that she has lost a mother, and not also feel it.

8. Nunc mores eius compone, nunc forma: altius praecepta descendunt quae teneris inprimuntur aetatibus. Tuis adsuescat sermonibus, ad tuum fingatur arbitrium: multum illi dabis, etiam si nihil dederis praeter exemplum. Hoc tibi tam sollemne officium pro remedio erit; non potest enim animum pie dolentem a sollicitudine auertere nisi aut ratio aut honesta occupatio.

8. Now compose her character, now her form: precepts descend more deeply which are imprinted in tender ages. Let her grow accustomed to your speech, let her be fashioned to your judgment: you will give much to her, even if you give nothing except an example. This so solemn duty will be a remedy for you; for a devoutly grieving mind cannot be turned away from solicitude except either by reason or by honorable occupation.

9. Numerarem inter magna solacia patrem quoque tuum, nisi abesset. Nunc tamen ex adfectu tuo qui illius in te sit cogita: intelleges quanto iustius sit te illi seruari quam mihi inpendi. Quotiens te inmodica uis doloris inuaserit et sequi se iubebit, patrem cogita.

9. I would number among great solaces your father as well, if he were not absent. Now, however, from your affection consider what his toward you is: you will understand how much
more just it is that you be preserved for him than expended on me. As often as an immoderate force
of grief invades you and bids you to follow after it, think of your father.

Cui tu quidem tot nepotes pronepotesque dando effecisti ne unica esses; consummatio tamen aetatis actae feliciter in te uertitur. Illo uiuo nefas est te quod uixeris queri.

To whom you indeed, by giving so many grandsons and great-grandsons, have effected that you not be the only one; nevertheless the consummation of a life spent turns felicitously upon you. While he lives, it is impious for you to complain that you have lived.

XIX.

19.

1. Maximum adhuc solacium tuum tacueram, sororem tuam, illud fidelissimum tibi pectus, in quod omnes curae tuae pro indiuiso transferuntur, illum animum omnibus nobis maternum. Cum hac tu lacrimas tuas miscuisti, in huius primum respirasti sinu. 2. Illa quidem adfectus tuos semper sequitur; in mea tamen persona non tantum pro te dolet.

1. I had thus far kept silent your greatest solace, your sister, that most faithful breast to you, into which all your cares are transferred as an undivided whole, that spirit maternal to all of us. With her you mingled your tears; upon her bosom you first breathed again. 2. She indeed always follows your affections; yet in my own person she grieves not only for you.

Illius manibus in urbem perlatus sum, illius pio maternoque nutricio per longum tempus aeger conualui; illa pro quaestura mea gratiam suam extendit et, quae ne sermonis quidem aut clarae salutationis sustinuit audaciam, pro me uicit indulgentia uerecundiam. Nihil illi seductum uitae genus, nihil modestia in tanta feminarum petulantia rustica, nihil quies, nihil secreti et ad otium repositi mores obstiterunt quominus pro me etiam ambitiosa fieret. 3. Hoc est, mater carissima, solacium quo reficiaris: illi te quantum potes iunge, illius artissimis amplexibus alliga.

By her hands I was borne into the city,
by her pious and maternal nursing I, ill for a long time, convalesced; she,
on behalf of my quaestorship, extended her favor and—she who did not endure the boldness even of conversation or of a clear greeting—on my behalf indulgence overcame modesty. Nothing in her of a withdrawn manner of life, nothing her rustic modesty in the midst of so great petulance of women,
nothing her quiet, nothing the habits of seclusion and laid up for leisure stood in the way,
to prevent her from becoming ambitious even for me. 3. This is, dearest mother, the solace
by which you may be refreshed: to her join yourself as much as you can, to her closest embraces
bind yourself.

Solent maerentes ea quae maxime diligunt fugere et libertatem dolori suo quaerere: tu ad illam te, quidquid cogitaueris, confer; siue seruare istum habitum uoles siue deponere, apud illam inuenies uel finem doloris tui uel comitem. 4. Sed si prudentiam perfectissimae feminae noui, non patietur te nihil profuturo maerore consumi et exemplum tibi suum, cuius ego etiam spectator fui, narrabit.

Mourners are wont to flee those things which they most love and to seek liberty for their own grief: to her do you betake yourself, whatever you have resolved; whether you will to preserve this habit or to lay it down, with her you will find either an end of your grief or a companion. 4. But if I know the prudence of that most perfect woman, she will not suffer you to be consumed by grief that will profit nothing, and she will recount to you her own example, of which I too was a spectator.

Carissimum uirum amiserat, auunculum nostrum, cui uirgo nupserat, in ipsa quidem nauigatione; tulit tamen eodem tempore et luctum et metum euictisque tempestatibus corpus eius naufraga euexit. 5. O quam multarum egregia opera in obscuro iacent! Si huic illa simplex admirandis uirtutibus contigisset antiquitas, quanto ingeniorum certamine celebraretur uxor quae oblita inbecillitatis, oblita metuendi etiam firmissimis maris, caput suum periculis pro sepultura obiecit et, dum cogitat de uiri funere, nihil de suo timuit!

She had lost a most dear man, our maternal uncle, to whom, a maiden, she had been married, in the voyage itself; yet she bore at the same time both grief and fear, and, the tempests overcome, shipwrecked, she carried out his body. 5. O how the outstanding deeds of many lie in obscurity! If to this simple woman there had fallen an antiquity befitting admirable virtues, with what a contest of talents would the wife be celebrated, who, forgetful of weakness, forgetful even of the things to be feared of the sea by the stoutest, cast her own head into dangers for the sake of sepulture and, while she was thinking of her husband’s funeral, feared nothing for herself!

Nobilitatur carminibus omnium quae se pro coniuge uicariam dedit: hoc amplius est, discrimine uitae sepulcrum uiro quaerere; maior est amor qui pari periculo minus redimit.

She is made famous by the songs of all who gave herself as a vicarious substitute for her husband: this is something more, to seek a sepulcher for her husband at the crisis of life; greater is the love which, with equal peril, redeems less.

6. Post hoc nemo miretur quod per sedecim annos quibus Aegyptum maritus eius optinuit numquam in publico conspecta est, neminem prouincialem domum suam admisit, nihil a uiro petit, nihil a se peti passa est. Itaque loquax et in contumelias praefectorum ingeniosa prouincia, in qua etiam qui uitauerunt culpam non effugerunt infamiam, uelut unicum sanctitatis exemplum suspexit et, quod illi difficillimum est cui etiam periculosi sales placent, omnem uerborum licentiam continuit et hodie similem illi, quamuis numquam speret, semper optat. Multum erat, si per sedecim annos illam prouincia probasset: plus est quod ignorauit.

6. After this, let no one be astonished that during the sixteen years in which her husband held Egypt she was never seen in public, she admitted no provincial into her house, she asked nothing from her husband, she allowed nothing to be asked from herself. And so the province, loquacious and ingenious in contumelies against prefects, in which even those who have avoided fault have not escaped infamy, looked up to her as a singular example of sanctity and, what is most difficult for that land to which even dangerous sallies are pleasing, it restrained all license of words and today it always desires one like her, although it never hopes for it. It would have been much, if for sixteen years the province had approved her: it is more that it remained ignorant of her.

7. Haec non ideo refero ut laudes eius exequar, quas circumscribere est tam parce transcurrere, sed ut intellegas magni animi esse feminam quam non ambitio, non auaritia, comites omnis potentiae et pestes, uicerunt, non metus mortis iam exarmata naue naufragium suum spectantem deterruit quominus exanimi uiro haerens non quaereret quemadmodum inde exiret sed quemadmodum efferret. Huic parem uirtutem exhibeas oportet et animum a luctu recipias et id agas ne quis te putet partus tui paenitere.

7. I do not for this reason relate these things, to prosecute her praises,
which to circumscribe is thus to run through so sparingly, but that you may understand of great
spirit to be the woman whom neither ambition nor avarice, companions of all power
and plagues, conquered; nor did the fear of death, with her ship already unarmed, her own shipwreck
in view, deter her, as she clung to her lifeless husband, from seeking not how she might get out from there
but how she might carry him out. It is fitting that you display equal virtue to hers,
and that you recover your spirit from mourning, and take care that no one think you repent of your childbearing.

XX.

20.

1. Ceterum quia necesse est, cum omnia feceris, cogitationes tamen tuas subinde ad me recurrere nec quemquam nunc ex liberis tuis frequentius tibi obuersari, non quia illi minus cari sunt sed quia naturale est manum saepius ad id referre quod dolet, qualem me cogites accipe: laetum et alacrem uelut optimis rebus. Sunt enim optimae, quoniam animus omnis occupationis expers operibus suis uacat et modo se leuioribus studiis oblectat, modo ad considerandam suam uniuersique naturam ueri auidus insurgit. 2. Terras primum situmque earum quaerit, deinde condicionem circumfusi maris cursusque eius alternos et recursus; tunc quidquid inter caelum terrasque plenum formidinis interiacet perspicit et hoc tonitribus fulminibus uentorum flatibus ac nimborum niuisque et grandinis iactu tumultuosum spatium; tum peragratis humilioribus ad summa perrumpit et pulcherrimo diuinorum spectaculo fruitur, aeternitatis suae memor in omne quod fuit futurumque est uadit omnibus saeculis.

1. However, since it is necessary that, when you have done everything, your thoughts nonetheless
again and again return to me, and that now no one from among your children presents himself to you more frequently
—not because they are less dear, but because it is natural to bring the hand more often
back to that which hurts—receive what sort of man you are to imagine me: cheerful and brisk, as if
in the best circumstances. For they are the best, since the mind, free from every occupation,
has leisure for its own works, and now it entertains itself with lighter studies, now, greedy for truth, rises to consider
its own nature and that of the universe. 2. First it inquires into the lands and their site,
then the condition of the surrounding sea and its alternate courses
and returns; then it surveys whatever, full of dread, lies between heaven and the lands,
and that tumultuous expanse with thunder, lightning, blasts of winds, and with the hurling of storms, snow,
and hail; then, the lower regions traversed, it bursts through to the heights
and enjoys the most beautiful spectacle of divine things; mindful of its own eternity, it goes, through all ages,
into all that has been and will be.