Seneca: EPISTULAE MORALES AD LUCILIUM

[1] Has that fellow already persuaded you that he is a good man? And yet a good man can neither be made so quickly nor be understood. Do you know whom I now call a good man?

hunc secundae notae; nam ille alter fortasse tamquam phoenix semel anno quingentesimo nascitur. Nec est mirum ex intervallo magna generari: mediocria et in turbam nascentia saepe fortuna producit, eximia vero ipsa raritate commendat.

this man of the second rank; for that other perhaps, like the phoenix, is born once in the five-hundredth year. Nor is it a wonder that at intervals great things are generated: mediocre things and those being born into the crowd fortune often brings forth, but the exceptional indeed she commends by their very rarity.

[2] Sed iste multum adhuc abest ab eo quod profitetur; et si sciret quid esset vir bonus, nondum esse se crederet, fortasse etiam fieri posse desperaret. 'At male existimat de malis.' Hoc etiam mali faciunt, nec ulla maior poena nequitiaest quam quod sibi ac suis displicet.

[2] But this fellow is still far distant from that which he professes; and if he knew what a good man is, he would not yet believe himself to be one, perhaps he would even despair that it could come to be. 'But he judges badly about the bad.' This too the bad do, nor is there any greater punishment of wickedness than that it is displeasing to itself and to its own.

[3] 'At odit eos qui subita et magna potentia impotenter utuntur.' Idem faciet cum idem potuerit. Multorum quia imbecilla sunt latent vitia, non minus ausura cum illis vires suae placuerint quam illa quae iam felicitas aperuit. Instrumenta illis explicandae nequitiae desunt.

[3] 'But he hates those who use sudden and great power immoderately.' He will do the same when he can do the same. Because the powers of many are feeble, their vices lie hidden, no less about to dare when their own forces have pleased them than those which good fortune has already laid open. The instruments to them for unfolding wickedness are lacking.

[4] Sic tuto serpens etiam pestifera tractatur dum riget frigore: non desunt tunc illi venena sed torpent. Multorum crudelitas et ambitio et luxuria, ut paria pessimis audeat, fortunae favore deficitur. Eadem velle [subaudi si] cognosces: da posse quantum volunt.

[4] Thus safely even a pestiferous serpent is handled while it is rigid with cold: not then are its venoms lacking but they are torpid. The cruelty of many and ambition and luxury, that it may dare things equal to the worst, is failed by the favor of fortune. You will recognize the same will [supply 'if'] cognosces: grant to be able as much as they wish.

[5] Meministi, cum quendam affirmares esse in tua potestate, dixisse me volaticum esse ac levem et te non pedem eius tenere sed pinnam? Mentitus sum: pluma tenebatur, quam remisit et fugit. Scis quos postea tibi exhibuerit ludos, quam multa in caput suum casura temptaverit.

[5] You remember, when you were affirming that a certain man was in your power, that I said that he was volatile and light and that you were holding not his foot but a pinion? I lied: a down-feather was being held, which he released and fled. You know what games he afterwards exhibited for you, how many things he attempted that were about to fall upon his own head.

Non videbat se per aliorum pericula in suum ruere non cogitabat quam onerosa essent quae petebat, etiam si supervacua non essent.

He did not see himself rushing through the perils of others into his own ruin; he did not consider how onerous were the things he was seeking, even if they were not superfluous.

[6] Hoc itaque in his quae affectamus, ad quae labore magno contendimus, inspicere debemus, aut nihil in illis commodi esse aut plus incommodi: quaedam supervacua sunt, quaedam tanti non sunt. Sed hoc non pervidemus et gratuita nobis videntur quae carissime constant.

[6] Therefore this we ought to inspect in the things which we affect, to which we contend with great labor, either that there is nothing of advantage in them or more of disadvantage: certain things are superfluous, certain are not worth so much. But this we do not see through, and gratis things seem to us which cost most dearly.

[7] Ex eo licet stupor noster appareat, quod ea sola putamus emi pro quibus pecuniam solvimus, ea gratuita vocamus pro quibus nos ipsos impendimus. Quae emere nollemus si domus nobis nostra pro illis esset danda, si amoenum aliquod fructuosumve praedium, ad ea paratissimi sumus pervenire cum sollicitudine, cum periculo, cum iactura pudoris et libertatis et temporis; adeo nihil est cuique se vilius.

[7] From this our stupor may appear, that we think only those things are bought for which we pay money, we call those gratuitous for which we ourselves expend ourselves. Those things we would not wish to buy if our house our own had to be given for them, if some pleasant or fruitful estate, to those we are most ready to arrive with solicitude, with peril, with the jettison of pudor and liberty and time; thus nothing is to each person himself cheaper.

[8] Idem itaque in omnibus consiliis rebusque faciamus quod solemus facere quotiens ad institorem alicuius mercis accessimus: videamus hoc quod concupiscimus quanti deferatur. Saepe maximum pretium est pro quo nullum datur. Multa possum tibi ostendere quae acquisita acceptaque libertatem nobis extorserint; nostri essemus, si ista nostra non essent.

[8] Therefore let us do the same in all counsels and matters as we are wont to do whenever we have approached the shopkeeper of some merchandise: let us see this which we desire for how much it is offered. Often the greatest price is that for which nothing is given. I can show you many things which, acquired and accepted, have extorted freedom from us; we would be our own, if those things were not ours.

[9] Haec ergo tecum ipse versa, non solum ubi de incremento agetur, sed etiam ubi de iactura. 'Hoc periturum est.' Nempe adventicium fuit; tam facile sine isto vives quam vixisti. Si diu illud habuisti, perdis postquam satiatus es; si non diu, perdis antequam assuescas.

[9] Therefore turn these things over with yourself, not only when it will be a matter of increment, but also when it is about loss. 'This will perish.' Indeed it was adventitious; you will live without that as easily as you have lived. If you have had that for a long time, you lose it after you are satiated; if not long, you lose it before you grow accustomed.

'Pecuniam minorem habebis.' Nempe et molestiam.

'You will have less money.' Indeed—and less annoyance.

[10] 'Gratiam minorem.' Nempe et invidiam. Circumspice ista quae nos agunt in insaniam, quae cum plurimis lacrimis amittimus: scies non damnum in iis molestum esse, sed opinionem damni. Nemo illa perisse sentit sed cogitat.

[10] 'Less favor.' Indeed, and envy. Look around at those things which drive us into insanity, which we lose with very many tears: you will know that it is not the loss in them that is troublesome, but the opinion of loss. No one feels those things to have perished but thinks it.

Qui se habet nihil perdidit: sed quoto cuique habere se contigit? Vale.

He who has himself has lost nothing: but to how many to each has it befallen to have himself? Farewell.

XLIII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

43. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Quomodo hoc ad me pervenerit quaeris, quis mihi id te cogitare narraverit quod tu nulli narraveras? Is qui scit plurimum, rumor. 'Quid ergo?' inquis 'tantus sum ut possim excitare rumorem?' Non est quod te ad hunc locum respiciens metiaris: ad istum respice in quo moraris.

[1] How this has reached me, you ask, who has told me that you are considering that which you had told to no one? He who knows the most, rumor. 'What then?' you ask 'Am I so great that I can excite rumor?' There is not reason for you, looking toward this place, to measure yourself: look to that one in which you are staying.

[2] Quidquid inter vicina eminet magnum est illic ubi eminet; nam magnitudo non habet modum certum: comparatio illam aut tollit aut deprimit. Navis quae in flumine magna est in mari parvula est; gubernaculum quod alteri navi magnum alteri exiguum est.

[2] Whatever among neighboring things stands out is great there where it stands out; for magnitude does not have a fixed measure: comparison either raises it or depresses it. A ship which is great in a river is very small at sea; the rudder which for one ship is great, for another is exiguous.

[3] Tu nunc in provincia, licet contemnas ipse te, magnus es. Quid agas, quemadmodum cenes, quemadmodum dormias, quaeritur, scitur: eo tibi diligentius vivendum est. Tunc autem felicem esse te iudica cum poteris in publico vivere, cum te parietes tui tegent, non abscondent, quos plerumque circumdatos nobis iudicamus non ut tutius vivamus, sed ut peccemus occultius.

[3] You now in the province, although you may contemn yourself, are great. What you do, in what manner you dine, in what manner you sleep, is inquired into, is known: therefore you must live the more diligently. Then, however, judge yourself to be happy when you will be able to live in public, when your walls will cover you, not conceal you, which we very often judge, as surrounding us, not that we may live more safely, but that we may sin more secretly.

[4] Rem dicam ex qua mores aestimes nostros: vix quemquam invenies qui possit aperto ostio vivere. Ianitores conscientia nostra, non superbia opposuit: sic vivimus ut deprendi sit subito aspici. Quid autem prodest recondere se et oculos hominum auresque vitare?

[4] I will say a thing from which you may estimate our morals: you will hardly find anyone who can live with the door open. Janitors our conscience, not pride has posted: thus we live such that to be caught is to be suddenly seen. What, however, does it profit to hide oneself and to avoid the eyes and ears of men?

[5] Bona conscientia turbam advocat, mala etiam in solitudine anxia atque sollicita est. Si honesta sunt quae facis, omnes sciant; si turpia, quid refert neminem scire cum tu scias? O te miserum si contemnis hunc testem!

[5] A good conscience summons a crowd, a bad one even in solitude is anxious and solicitous. If the things which you do are honest, let all know; if shameful, what does it matter that no one knows when you know? O wretched you if you despise this witness!

Vale.

Farewell.

XLIV. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

44. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Iterum tu mihi te pusillum facis et dicis malignius tecum egisse naturam prius, deinde fortunam, cum possis eximere te vulgo et ad felicitatem hominum maximam emergere. Si quid est aliud in philosophia boni, hoc est, quod stemma non inspicit; omnes, si ad originem primam revocantur, a dis sunt.

[1] Again you make yourself small to me and say that Nature first, then Fortune, has dealt more malignly with you, when you can take yourself out from the common crowd and emerge to the greatest felicity of humankind. If there is any other good in Philosophy, this is it: that it does not inspect pedigree; all, if they are recalled to their first origin, are from the gods.

[2] Eques Romanus es, et ad hunc ordinem tua te perduxit industria; at mehercules multis quattuordecim clausa sunt, non omnes curia admittit, castra quoque quos ad laborem et periculum recipiant fastidiose legunt: bona mens omnibus patet, omnes ad hoc sumus nobiles. Nec reicit quemquam philosophia nec eligit: omnibus lucet.

[2] You are a Roman Equestrian, and your own industry has brought you to this order; but, by Hercules, to many the fourteen are closed, the curia does not admit all, the camps too choose fastidiously those whom they will receive to toil and danger: a good mind is open to all, for this we are noble. Philosophy neither rejects anyone nor selects: it shines for all.

[3] Patricius Socrates non fuit; Cleanthes aquam traxit et rigando horto locavit manus; Platonem non accepit nobilem philosophia sed fecit: quid est quare desperes his te posse fieri parem? Omnes hi maiores tui sunt, si te illis geris dignum; geres autem, si hoc protinus tibi ipse persuaseris, a nullo te nobilitate superari.

[3] Socrates was not a patrician; Cleanthes drew water and, by irrigating a garden, hired out his hands; philosophy did not receive Plato as noble but made him so: what reason is there for you to despair that you can become equal to them? All these are your ancestors, if you conduct yourself worthy of them; and you will do so, if you at once persuade yourself of this, that you are surpassed by no one in nobility.

[4] Omnibus nobis totidem ante nos sunt; nullius non origo ultra memoriam iacet. Platon ait neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum, neminem non servum ex regibus. Omnia ista longa varietas miscuit et sursum deorsum fortuna versavit.

[4] For all of us there are just as many before us; the origin of no one lies beyond memory. Plato says that no king is not sprung from slaves, that no slave is not from kings. All that long variety has mixed things, and Fortune has turned them up and down.

[5] Quis est generosus? ad virtutem bene a natura compositus. Hoc unum intuendum est: alioquin si ad vetera revocas, nemo non inde est ante quod nihil est.

[5] Who is noble? One well composed by nature toward virtue. This one thing is to be looked to; otherwise, if you refer back to the olden things, there is no one who is not from that point before which there is nothing.

A primo mundi ortu usque in hoc tempus perduxit nos ex splendidis sordidisque alternata series. Non facit nobilem atrium plenum fumosis imaginibus; nemo in nostram gloriam vixit nec quod ante nos fuit nostrum est: animus facit nobilem, cui ex quacumque condicione supra fortunam licet surgere.

From the first origin of the world up to this time an alternating series has led us through the splendid and the sordid. An atrium full of smoke-darkened images does not make one noble; no one lived for our glory, nor is what was before us ours: the animus makes one noble, for whom it is permitted, from whatever condition, to rise above fortune.

[6] Puta itaque te non equitem Romanum esse sed libertinum: potes hoc consequi, ut solus sis liber inter ingenuos. 'Quomodo?' inquis. Si mala bonaque non populo auctore distineris.

[6] Suppose therefore that you are not a Roman knight but a freedman: you can this achieve, that alone you may be free among the freeborn. 'How?' you ask. If you do not distinguish bad and good on the people's authority.

Intuendum est non unde veniant, sed quo eant. Si quid est quod vitam beatam potest facere, id bonum est suo iure; depravari enim in malum non potest.

One must consider not whence they come, but whither they go. If there is anything that can make a blessed life, that is good in its own right; for it cannot be depraved into evil.

[7] Quid est ergo in quo erratur, cum omnes beatam vitam optent? quod instrumenta eius pro ipsa habent et illam dum petunt fugiunt. Nam cum summa vitae beatae sit solida securitas et eius inconcussa fiducia, sollicitudinis colligunt causas et per insidiosum iter vitae non tantum ferunt sarcinas sed trahunt; ita longius ab effectu eius quod petunt semper abscedunt et quo plus operae impenderunt, hoc se magis impediunt et feruntur retro.

[7] What, therefore, is it in which they err, since all desire a blessed life? That they take its instruments in place of it itself, and while they seek her they flee her. For since the sum of a blessed life is solid security and its unshaken confidence, they gather causes of solicitude and along the insidious road of life they not only carry baggage but drag it; thus they always withdraw farther from the effect of that which they seek, and the more effort they have expended, by so much they hamper themselves and are borne backward.

Quod evenit in labyrintho properantibus: ipsa illos velocitas implicat. Vale.

What happens in a labyrinth to those hurrying: the very speed entangles them. Farewell.

XLV. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

45. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Librorum istic inopiam esse quereris. Non refert quam multos sed quam bonos habeas: lectio certa prodest, varia delectat. Qui quo destinavit pervenire vult unam sequatur viam, non per multas vagetur: non ire istuc sed errare est.

[1] You complain that there is a scarcity of books there. It does not matter how many, but how good, you have: certain reading profits, varied delights. He who wishes to arrive whither he has destined should follow one road, not wander through many: that is not to go thither, but to stray.

[2] 'Vellem' inquis ' magis consilium mihi quam libros dares.' Ego vero quoscumque habeo mittere paratus sum et totum horreum excutere; me quoque isto, si possem, transferrem, et nisi mature te finem officii sperarem impetraturum, hanc senilem expeditionem indixissem mihi nec me Charybdis et Scylla et fabulosum istud fretum deterrere potuissent. Tranassem ista, non solum traiecissem, dummodo te complecti possem et praesens aestimare quantum animo crevisses.

[2] 'I would wish,' you say ' that you would give me counsel rather than books.' Indeed I am prepared to send whatever I have and to shake out the whole granary; I too would transfer myself to that place, if I could, and if I did not hope that you would soon obtain an end of duty, I would have declared this senile expedition for myself, nor could Charybdis and Scylla and that fabulous strait have deterred me. I would have swum those, not only ferried across, provided that I could embrace you and, being present, appraise how much you had grown in spirit.

[3] Ceterum quod libros meos tibi mitti desideras, non magis ideo me disertum puto quam formonsum putarem si imaginem meam peteres. Indulgentiae scio istud esse, non iudici; et si modo iudici est, indulgentia tibi imposuit.

[3] As for the fact that you desire my books to be sent to you, I no more for that reason think myself eloquent than I would think myself handsome if you were asking for my image. I know that this is indulgence, not judgment; and if indeed it is judgment, indulgence has imposed upon you.

[4] Sed qualescumque sunt, tu illos sic lege tamquam verum quaeram adhuc, non sciam, et contumaciter quaeram. Non enim me cuiquam emancipavi, nullius nomen fero; multum magnorum virorum iudicio credo, aliquid et meo vindico. Nam illi quoque non inventa sed quaerenda nobis reliquerunt, et invenissent forsitan necessaria nisi et supervacua quaesissent.

[4] But whatever they are, you read them thus as though I were still seeking the truth, not knowing it, and as though I were seeking it contumaciously. For I have not given myself over to anyone, I bear no one’s name; I trust much to the judgment of great men, and I also vindicate something to my own. For they too left to us not things found but things to be sought, and they would perhaps have found the necessary things if they had not also sought the superfluous.

[5] Multum illis temporis verborum cavillatio eripuit, captiosae disputationes quae acumen irritum exercent. Nectimus nodos et ambiguam significationem verbis illigamus ac deinde dissolvimus: tantum nobis vacat? iam vivere, iam mori scimus?

[5] Much of their time has cavillation of words snatched away, captious disputations which exercise ineffectual acumen. We tie knots and fasten ambiguous signification to words and then dissolve them: have we so much leisure? do we already know how to live, already how to die?

Tota illo mente pergendum est ubi provideri debet ne res nos, non verba decipiant.

We must proceed with that whole mindset where it ought to be provided that things do not deceive us, not words.

[6] Quid mihi vocum similitudines distinguis, quibus nemo umquam nisi dum disputat captus est? Res fallunt: illas discerne. Pro bonis mala amplectimur; optamus contra id quod optavimus; pugnant vota nostra cum votis, consilia cum consilis.

[6] Why do you distinguish for me the similarities of words, by which no one ever was caught except while disputing? Things deceive: discern those. In place of goods we embrace evils; we desire against that which we desired; our prayers fight with prayers, our counsels with counsels.

[7] Adulatio quam similis est amicitiae! Non imitatur tantum illam sed vincit et praeterit; apertis ac propitiis auribus recipitur et in praecordia ima descendit, eo ipso gratiosa quo laedit: doce quemadmodum hanc similitudinem possim dinoscere. Venit ad me pro amico blandus inimicus; vitia nobis sub virtutum nomine obrepunt: temeritas sub titulo fortitudinis latet, moderatio vocatur ignavia, pro cauto timidus accipitur.

[7] Flattery, how similar it is to friendship! It not only imitates that but overcomes and goes beyond; it is received with open and propitious ears and descends into the inmost breast, pleasing by that very thing by which it wounds: teach how I can discern this similitude. A flattering enemy comes to me in place of a friend; vices steal upon us under the name of virtues: rashness lies hidden under the title of fortitude, moderation is called sloth, in place of the cautious man the timid is accepted.

In his magno periculo erramus: his certas notas imprime.

In these we err with great peril: upon these imprint certain notes.

[8] Ceterum qui interrogatur an cornua habeat non est tam stultus ut frontem suam temptet, nec rursus tam ineptus aut hebes ut nesciat tu illi subtilissima collectione persuaseris. Sic ista sine noxa decipiunt quomodo praestigiatorum acetabula et calculi, in quibus me fallacia ipsa delectat. Effice ut quomodo fiat intellegam: perdidi lusum.

[8] Moreover, he who is asked whether he has horns is not so stupid as to feel his own forehead, nor again so inept or dull as not to know you by a most subtle collection persuade him. Thus these things deceive without harm just as the little cups and counters of prestidigitators, in which the very fallacy delights me. Bring it about that how it is done I may understand: I have lost the game.

Idem de istis captionibus dico - quo enim nomine potius sophismata appellem? -: nec ignoranti nocent nec scientem iuvant.

I say the same about those captious devices - for by what name rather should I call them sophisms? -: they neither harm the ignorant nor help the knowing.

[9] Si utique vis verborum ambiguitates diducere, hoc nos doce, beatum non eum esse quem vulgus appellat, ad quem pecunia magna confluxit, sed illum cui bonum omne in animo est, erectum et excelsum et mirabilia calcantem, qui neminem videt cum quo se commutatum velit, qui hominem ea sola parte aestimat qua homo est, qui natura magistra utitur, ad illius leges componitur, sic vivit quomodo illa praescripsit; cui bona sua nulla vis excutit, qui mala in bonum vertit, certus iudicii, inconcussus, intrepidus; quem aliqua vis movet, nulla perturbat; quem fortuna, cum quod habuit telum nocentissimum vi maxima intorsit, pungit, non vulnerat, et hoc raro; nam cetera eius tela, quibus genus humanum debellatur, grandinis more dissultant, quae incussa tectis sine ullo habitatoris incommodo crepitat ac solvitur.

[9] If indeed you wish to disentangle the ambiguities of words, teach us this: that the blessed man is not the one whom the vulgar crowd calls such, to whom great money has flowed together, but that man for whom every good is in the mind, erect and exalted and trampling wonders, who sees no one with whom he would wish to be exchanged, who values a human by that only part in which he is a man, who uses Nature as teacher, is conformed to her laws, lives thus as she has prescribed; from whom no force wrests away his goods, who turns evils into good, sure in judgment, unshaken, intrepid; whom some force moves, no force perturbs; whom Fortune, when she has hurled with the greatest force the most noxious missile she had, pricks, does not wound, and this rarely; for the rest of her missiles, by which the human race is warred down, rebound in the manner of hail, which, dashed upon roofs, crackles and is dissolved without any inconvenience to the inhabitant.

[10] Quid me detines in eo quem tu ipse pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum compositum est? Ecce tota mihi vita mentitur: hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, redige. Necessaria iudicat quorum magna pars supervacua est; etiam quae non est supervacua nihil in se momenti habet in hoc, ut possit fortunatum beatumque praestare.

[10] Why do you detain me on that which you yourself call the pseudomenon, about which so many books have been composed? Behold, my whole life lies to me: arraign this, bring this back to the true, if you are acute. It judges as necessary those things of which a great part is superfluous; even that which is not superfluous has nothing of weight in itself for this, that it can render one fortunate and blessed.

Non enim statim bonum est, si quid necessarium est: aut proicimus bonum, si hoc nomen pani et polentae damus et ceteris sine quibus vita non ducitur.

For a thing is not immediately a good, if it is necessary: or we cast away the good, if we give this name to bread and polenta, and to the others without which life is not conducted.

[11] Quod bonum est utique necessarium est: quod necessarium est non utique bonum est, quoniam quidem necessaria sunt quaedam eademque vilissima. Nemo usque eo dignitatem boni ignorat ut illud ad haec in diem utilia demittat.

[11] What is good is assuredly necessary; what is necessary is not assuredly good, since indeed certain things are necessary and at the same time most cheap. No one is to that extent ignorant of the dignity of the good as to demote it to these day-by-day utilities.

[12] Quid ergo? non eo potius curam transferes, ut ostendas omnibus magno temporis impendio quaeri supervacua et multos transisse vitam dum vitae instrumenta conquirunt? Recognosce singulos, considera universos: nullius non vita spectat in crastinum.

[12] What then? Will you not rather transfer your care, so that you may show to all that with a great expenditure of time superfluities are sought, and that many have passed through life while they are acquiring the instruments of life? Re-examine individuals, consider the whole: Everyone’s life looks to the morrow.

[13] Quid in hoc sit mali quaeris? Infinitum. Non enim vivunt sed victuri sunt: omnia differunt.

[13] You ask what evil there is in this? Infinite. For they do not live but are about to live: they defer everything.

Etiamsi attenderemus, tamen nos vita praecurreret; nunc vero cunctantes quasi aliena transcurrit et ultimo die finitur, omni perit.

Even if we were attentive, nevertheless life would outrun us; but now, as we delay, it runs past as if it were another’s, and on the last day it is finished, it wholly perishes.

Sed ne epistulae modum excedam, quae non debet sinistram manum legentis implere, in alium diem hanc litem cum dialecticis differam nimium subtilibus et hoc solum curantibus, non et hoc. Vale.

But lest I exceed the measure of a letter, which ought not to fill the left hand of the reader, I will defer to another day this dispute with the dialecticians—excessively subtle and caring for this alone, not for this as well. Farewell.

XLVI. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

46. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Librum tuum quem mihi promiseras accepi et tamquam lecturus ex commodo adaperui ac tantum degustare volui; deinde blanditus est ipse ut procederem longius. Qui quam disertus fuerit ex hoc intellegas licet: levis mihi visus est, cum esset nec mei nec tui corporis, sed qui primo aspectu aut Titi Livii aut Epicuri posset videri. Tanta autem dulcedine me tenuit et traxit ut illum sine ulla dilatione perlegerim.

[1] I received your book which you had promised me, and, as though about to read at leisure, I opened it and wanted only to taste it; then it coaxed me itself to proceed farther. Which—how eloquent it was—you may understand from this: it seemed light to me, though it was of neither my nor your style, but such as at first glance might seem either Titus Livy’s or Epicurus’s. Moreover, with such sweetness it held and drew me that I read it through without any delay.

Sol me invitabat, fames admonebat, nubes minabantur; tamen exhausi totum.

The Sun was inviting me, hunger was admonishing me, the clouds were menacing; nevertheless I exhausted the whole thing.

[2] Non tantum delectatus sed gavisus sum. Quid ingenii iste habuit, quid animi! Dicerem 'quid impetus!', si interquievisset, si intervallo surrexisset; nunc non fuit impetus sed tenor.

[2] Not only was I delighted but I rejoiced. What genius that man had, what spirit! I would say 'what an impetus!', if he had rested, if by an interval he had risen; now it was not an impetus but a tenor.

Compositio virilis et sancta; nihilominus interveniebat dulce illud et loco lene. Grandis, erectus es: hoc te volo tenere, sic ire. Fecit aliquid et materia; ideo eligenda est fertilis, quae capiat ingenium, quae incitet.

Composition virile and sacred; nonetheless that sweetness kept intervening, and in its place gentle. Grand, erect you are: this I want you to maintain, thus to go. The material too did something; therefore a fertile one must be chosen, which may accommodate genius, which may incite.

[3] libro plura scribam cum illum retractavero; nunc parum mihi sedet iudicium, tamquam audierim illa, non legerim. Sine me et inquirere. Non est quod verearis: verum audies.

[3] the book I shall write more when I have gone over it again; for now my judgment sits ill with me, as if I had heard those things, not read them. Allow me also to inquire. There is no cause for you to fear: you will hear the truth.

O te hominem felicem, quod nihil habes propter quod quisquam tibi tam longe mentiatur! nisi quod iam etiam ubi causa sublata est mentimur consuetudinis causa. Vale.

O you happy man, that you have nothing on account of which anyone would lie to you from so far away! unless that now even where the cause has been removed we lie for the sake of custom. Farewell.

XLVII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

47. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Libenter ex iis qui a te veniunt cognovi familiariter te cum servis tuis vivere: hoc prudentiam tuam, hoc eruditionem decet. 'Servi sunt.' Immo homines. 'Servi sunt ' Immo contubernales.

[1] I gladly learned from those who come from you that you live familiarly with your slaves: this befits your prudence, this your erudition. 'They are slaves.' Rather, human beings. 'They are slaves ' Rather, contubernals.

'Servi sunt.' Immo humiles amici. 'Servi sunt.' Immo conservi, si cogitaveris tantundem in utrosque licere fortunae.

'They are slaves.' Rather, humble friends. 'They are slaves.' Rather, fellow-slaves, if you consider that just as much is permitted to Fortune against both.

[2] Itaque rideo istos qui turpe existimant cum servo suo cenare: quare, nisi quia superbissima consuetudo cenanti domino stantium servorum turbam circumdedit? Est ille plus quam capit, et ingenti aviditate onerat distentum ventrem ac desuetum iam ventris officio, ut maiore opera omnia egerat quam ingessit.

[2] Therefore I laugh at those who deem it disgraceful to dine with their slave: why, unless because the most supercilious custom has surrounded the master as he dines with a throng of slaves standing? He eats more than he can contain, and with immense avidity he loads down a distended belly and one now unaccustomed to the belly’s office, so that with greater labor he ejects everything than he ingested.

[3] At infelicibus servis movere labra ne in hoc quidem ut loquantur, licet; virga murmur omne compescitur, et ne fortuita quidem verberibus excepta sunt, tussis, sternumenta, singultus; magno malo ulla voce interpellatum silentium luitur; nocte tota ieiuni mutique perstant.

[3] But for the unfortunate slaves to move their lips not even in this, that they may speak, is permitted; the rod quells every murmur, and not even fortuitous things are excepted from beatings, a cough, sternutations, hiccup; with great penalty any voice that interrupts the silence is paid for; through the whole night they remain fasting and mute.

[4] Sic fit ut isti de domino loquantur quibus coram domino loqui non licet. At illi quibus non tantum coram dominis sed cum ipsis erat sermo, quorum os non consuebatur, parati erant pro domino porrigere cervicem, periculum imminens in caput suum avertere; in conviviis loquebantur, sed in tormentis tacebant.

[4] Thus it happens that those talk about the master to whom it is not permitted to speak in the master’s presence. But those to whom there was discourse not only in the presence of their masters but with them, whose mouth was not sewn up, were ready to stretch out the neck for their master, to turn away imminent danger onto their own head; at banquets they spoke, but under torments they were silent.

[5] Deinde eiusdem arrogantiae proverbium iactatur, totidem hostes esse quot servos: non habemus illos hostes sed facimus. Alia interim crudelia, inhumana praetereo, quod ne tamquam hominibus quidem sed tamquam iumentis abutimur. [quod] Cum ad cenandum discubuimus, alius sputa deterget, alius reliquias temulentorum subditus colligit.

[5] Then a proverb of the same arrogance is bandied about, that there are just as many enemies as slaves: we do not have them as enemies but we make them. Other meanwhile cruel, inhuman things I pass over, because we abuse them not indeed as though they were men but as though they were beasts of burden. [that] When we have reclined to dine, one wipes away spittle, another, stationed beneath the couch, gathers the leftovers of the drunken.

[6] Alius pretiosas aves scindit; per pectus et clunes certis ductibus circumferens eruditam manum frusta excutit, infelix, qui huic uni rei vivit, ut altilia decenter secet, nisi quod miserior est qui hoc voluptatis causa docet quam qui necessitatis discit.

[6] Another scinds precious birds; through the breast and the haunches, circling with set strokes his erudite hand, he shakes out the fragments, unhappy, who lives for this one thing, that he may neatly cut up fattened fowl, except that more wretched is he who teaches this for the sake of pleasure than he who learns it from necessity.

[7] Alius vini minister in muliebrem modum ornatus cum aetate luctatur: non potest effugere pueritiam, retrahitur, iamque militari habitu glaber retritis pilis aut penitus evulsis tota nocte pervigilat, quam inter ebrietatem domini ac libidinem dividit et in cubiculo vir, in convivio puer est.

[7] Another minister of wine, adorned in a womanly manner, wrestles with age: he cannot escape boyhood, he is drawn back, and now, in military habit, smooth, with the hairs rubbed away or completely plucked out, he keeps vigil the whole night, which he divides between the master’s ebriety and his libido, and in the bedchamber he is a man, at the banquet he is a boy.

[8] Alius, cui convivarum censura permissa est, perstat infelix et exspectat quos adulatio et intemperantia aut gulae aut linguae revocet in crastinum. Adice obsonatores quibus dominici palati notitia subtilis est, qui sciunt cuius illum rei sapor excitet, cuius delectet aspectus, cuius novitate nauseabundus erigi possit, quid iam ipsa satietate fastidiat, quid illo die esuriat. Cum his cenare non sustinet et maiestatis suae deminutionem putat ad eandem mensam cum servo suo accedere.

[8] Another, to whom the censure of the dinner‑guests has been permitted, persists, unhappy, and waits whom flattery and intemperance, either of the gullet or of the tongue, will call back for the morrow. Add the caterers, to whom the knowledge of the master’s palate is subtle, who know by the savor of what thing he is excited, by the sight of what he is delighted, by the novelty of what, nauseated, he can be raised up, what by satiety itself he already finds distasteful, what on that day he hungers for. With these he does not endure to dine, and thinks it a diminution of his majesty to approach the same table with his slave.

Di melius! quot ex istis dominos habet!

Gods, grant better! How many masters he has from among those!

[9] Stare ante limen Callisti domi num suum vidi et eum qui illi impegerat titulum, qui inter reicula manicipia produxerat, aliis intrantibus excludi. Rettulit illi gratiam servus ille in primam decuriam coniectus, in qua vocem praeco experitur: et ipse illum invicem apologavit, et ipse non iudicavit domo sua dignum. Dominus Callistum vendidit: sed domino quam multa Callistus!

[9] I saw his master stand before Callistus’s threshold and the man who had fastened upon him the title-placard, who had brought him forth among trifling wares, the chattel-slaves, to be shut out while others were entering. That slave, cast into the first decury, paid him back the favor, in which the praeco tests the voice: and he himself in turn sent him his apologies, and he himself did not judge him worthy of his house. The master sold Callistus: but for the master how many things Callistus!

[10] Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum. Variana clade multos splendidissime natos, senatorium per militiam auspicantes gradum, fortuna depressit: alium ex illis pastorem, alium custodem casae fecit.

[10] Do you wish to consider that man whom you call your slave as sprung from the same seeds, to enjoy the same sky, to breathe equally, to live equally, to die equally! just so you can see him freeborn as he can see you a slave. In the Varian disaster fortune cast down many most splendidly born, who were aspiring to the senatorial rank through soldiery: it made one of them a shepherd, another a guardian of a cottage.

Contemne nunc eius fortunae hominem in quam transire dum contemnis potes.

Despise now the man of that fortune into which, while you despise, you are able to pass.

[11] Nolo in ingentem me locum immittere et de usu servorum disputare, in quos superbissimi, crudelissimi, contumeliosissimi sumus. Haec tamen praecepti mei summa est: sic cum inferiore vivas quemadmodum tecum superiorem velis vivere. Quotiens in mentem venerit quantum tibi in servum liceat, veniat in mentem tantundem in te domino tuo licere.

[11] I do not wish to thrust myself into a vast field and to dispute about the use of slaves, toward whom we are most superb, most cruel, most contumelious. Yet the sum of my precept is this: thus live with an inferior as you would wish a superior to live with you. Whenever it shall come into your mind how much is permitted to you over the slave , let it come into your mind that just as much is permitted over you to your master.

[12] 'At ego' inquis 'nullum habeo dominum.' Bona aetas est: forsitan habebis. Nescis qua aetate Hecuba servire coeperit, qua Croesus, qua Darei mater, qua Platon, qua Diogenes?

[12] 'But I,' you say, 'have no master.' A good age it is: perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba began to serve, at what Croesus, at what the mother of Darius, at what Plato, at what Diogenes?

[13] Vive cum servo clementer, comiter quoque, et in sermonem illum admitte et in consilium et in convictum.

[13] Live with your slave clemently, courteously as well, and admit him into conversation, and into counsel, and into companionship.

Hoc loco acclamabit mihi tota manus delicatorum 'nihil hac re humilius, nihil turpius'. Hos ego eosdem deprehendam alienorum servorum osculantes manum.

At this point the whole band of the pampered will shout to me, 'nothing more lowly than this matter, nothing more shameful'. These same men I will catch kissing the hand of other people’s slaves.

[14] Ne illud quidem videtis, quam omnem invidiam maiores nostri dominis, omnem contumeliam servis detraxerint? Dominum patrem familiae appellaverunt, servos - quod etiam in mimis adhuc durat - familiares; instituerunt diem festum, non quo solo cum servis domini vescerentur, sed quo utique; honores illis in domo gerere, ius dicere permiserunt et domum pusillam rem publicam esse iudicaverunt.

[14] Do you not see even this, how our ancestors removed all odium from masters, all contumely from slaves? They called the master father of the household, the slaves - which even in the mimes still endures - familiars; they instituted a feast day, not one on which alone the masters would dine with the slaves, but one on which, in any case; they permitted them to bear honors in the house, to pronounce law, and they judged the home to be a little republic.

[15] 'Quid ergo? omnes servos admovebo mensae meae?' Non magis quam omnes liberos. Erras si existimas me quosdam quasi sordidioris operae reiecturum, ut puta illum mulionem et illum bubulcum.

[15] 'What then? shall I bring up all the slaves to my table?' No more than all my children. You err if you suppose that I will reject certain persons as of a somewhat sordid service, for instance that muleteer and that oxherd.

Non ministeriis illos aestimabo sed moribus: sibi quisque dat mores, ministeria casus assignat. Quidam cenent tecum quia digni sunt, quidam ut sint; si quid enim in illis ex sordida conversatione servile est, honestiorum convictus excutiet.

I will not assess them by ministrations but by mores: each person gives himself his mores, the ministrations chance assigns. Some should dine with you because they are worthy, some so that they may be; if anything indeed in them from sordid conversation is servile, the fellowship of more honorable people will shake it off.

[16] Non est, mi Lucili, quod amicum tantum in foro et in curia quaeras: si diligenter attenderis, et domi invenies. Saepe bona materia cessat sine artifice: tempta et experire. Quemadmodum stultus est qui equum empturus non ipsum inspicit sed stratum eius ac frenos, sic stultissimus est qui hominem aut ex veste aut ex condicione, quae vestis modo nobis circumdata est, aestimat.

[16] It is not, my Lucilius, that you should seek a friend only in the forum and in the curia: if you pay careful attention, you will find him at home too. Often good material lies idle without an artificer: try and make trial. Just as a fool is he who, when about to buy a horse, inspects not the animal itself but its saddlecloth and bridle, so most foolish is he who estimates a man either from his garment or from his condition, which is a garment merely wrapped around us, estimates.

[17] 'Servus est.' Sed fortasse liber animo. 'Servus est.' Hoc illi nocebit? Ostende quis non sit: alius libidini servit, alius avaritiae, alius ambitioni, , omnes timori.

[17] 'He is a slave.' But perhaps free in mind. 'He is a slave.' Will this harm him? Show who is not: one serves libido, another avarice, another ambition, , all to fear.

Dabo consularem aniculae servientem, dabo ancillulae divitem, ostendam nobilissimos iuvenes mancipia pantomimorum: nulla servitus turpior est quam voluntaria. Quare non est quod fastidiosi isti te deterreant quominus servis tuis hilarem te praestes et non superbe superiorem: colant potius te quam timeant.

I will present a consular man to a little old woman serving, I will present to a little maidservant a rich man, I will show the most noble youths as slaves of pantomimes: no slavery is more disgraceful than voluntary. Wherefore there is no reason why those fastidious men should deter you from showing yourself cheerful to your slaves, and not arrogantly as a superior: let them rather honor you than fear you.

[18] Dicet aliquis nunc me vocare ad pilleum servos et dominos de fastigio suo deicere, quod dixi, 'colant potius dominum quam timeant'. 'Ita' inquit 'prorsus? colant tamquam clientes, tamquam salutatores?' Hoc qui dixerit obliviscetur id dominis parum non esse quod deo sat est. Qui colitur, et amatur: non potest amor cum timore misceri.

[18] Someone will say now that I am calling slaves to the pileus and casting masters down from their eminence, because I said, 'let them rather cultivate the master than fear him.' 'So' he says 'entirely? let them cultivate as clients, as salutators?' He who would say this will forget that for masters it is not too little what is enough for a god. He who is cultivated, is also loved: love cannot be mixed with fear.

[19] Rectissime ergo facere te iudico quod timeri a servis tuis non vis, quod verborum castigatione uteris: verberibus muta admonentur. Non quidquid nos offendit et laedit; sed ad rabiem cogunt pervenire deliciae, ut quidquid non ex voluntate respondit iram evocet.

[19] Therefore I judge you to act most rightly, that you do not wish to be feared by your slaves, that you use verbal castigation: by blows the mute are admonished. Not everything that offends and harms us; rather, to rabid rage do our delicacies compel us to come, so that whatever does not answer according to our will calls forth anger.

[20] Regum nobis induimus animos; nam illi quoque obliti et suarum virium et imbecillitatis alienae sic excandescunt, sic saeviunt, quasi iniuriam acceperint, a cuius rei periculo illos fortunae suae magnitudo tutissimos praestat. Nec hoc ignorant, sed occasionem nocendi captant querendo; acceperunt iniuriam ut facerent.

[20] We assume to ourselves the spirits of kings; for they too, forgetful both of their own powers and of another’s weakness, thus flare up, thus rage, as if an injury they had received, and from the danger of this thing the greatness of their fortune renders them most secure. Nor are they unaware of this, but they angle for an occasion of harming by complaining; they have received an injury in order to do one.

[21] Diutius te morari nolo; non est enim tibi exhortatione opus. Hoc habent inter cetera boni mores: placent sibi, permanent. Levis est malitia, saepe mutatur, non in melius sed in aliud.

[21] I do not wish to detain you longer; for you have no need of exhortation. This, among other things, good morals have: they are pleasing to themselves, they are permanent. Malice is light; it is often changed, not for the better but into something else.

Vale.

Farewell.

XLVIII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

48. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Ad epistulam quam mihi ex itinere misisti, tam longam quam ipsum iter fuit, postea rescribam; seducere me debeo et quid suadeam circumspicere. Nam tu quoque, qui consulis, diu an consuleres cogitasti: quanto magis hoc mihi faciendum est, cum longiore mora opus sit ut solvas quaestionem quam ut proponas? utique cum aliud tibi expediat, aliud mihi.

[1] To the letter which you sent me from the journey, as long as the journey itself was, I will write back later; I ought to withdraw and look around as to what I should advise. For you also, who consult, long considered whether you should consult; how much more must I do this, since a longer delay is needed to solve a question than to propose it? especially since what is expedient for you is one thing, for me another.

[2] Iterum ego tamquam Epicureus loquor? mihi vero idem expedit quod tibi: aut non sum amicus, nisi quidquid agitur ad te pertinens meum est. Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia; nec secundi quicquam singulis est nec adversi; in commune vivitur.

[2] Am I again speaking as though an Epicurean? For my part, the same thing is expedient for me as for you: or else I am no friend, unless whatever is being done, pertaining to you, is mine. Friendship makes a consortium of all things between us; nor is anything of the favorable anyone’s individually, nor of the adverse; we live in common.

Nec potest quisquam beate degere qui se tantum intuetur, qui omnia ad utilitates suas convertit: alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere.

Nor can anyone live happily who looks only at himself, who converts everything to his own advantage: you must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself.

[3] Haec societas diligenter et sancte observata, quae nos homines hominibus miscet et iudicat aliquod esse commune ius generis humani, plurimum ad illam quoque de qua loquebar interiorem societatem amicitiae colendam proficit; omnia enim cum amico communia habebit qui multa cum homine.

[3] This society, diligently and sanctly observed, which mixes us men with men and adjudges that there is some common right of the human race, advances very much also the cultivation of that inner society of friendship, about which I was speaking; for he will have all things in common with a friend who has many with a human being.

[4] Hoc, Lucili virorum optime, mihi ab istis subtilibus praecipi malo, quid amico praestare debeam, quid homini, quam quot modis 'amicus' dicatur, et 'homo' quam multa significet. In diversum ecce sapientia et stultitia discedunt! cui accedo?

[4] This, Lucilius, best of men, I prefer to have prescribed to me by those subtle types: what I ought to render to a friend, what to a man, rather than in how many modes 'friend' is said, and 'man' how many things signifies. In opposite directions behold sapience and foolishness depart! To which do I accede?

in utram ire partem iubes? Illi homo pro amico est, huic amicus non est pro homine; ille amicum sibi parat, hic se amico: tu mihi verba distorques et syllabas digeris.

into which part do you bid me to go? For that one a human is in place of a friend, for this one a friend is not in place of a human; that one prepares a friend for himself, this one himself for a friend: you distort words for me and digest syllables.

[5] Scilicet nisi interrogationes vaferrimas struxero et conclusione falsa a vero nascens mendacium adstrinxero, non potero a fugiendis petenda secernere. Pudet me: in re tam seria senes ludimus. [Vale.

[5] Of course, unless I construct the most crafty interrogations and by a false conclusion constrain a mendacity nascent from the true, I shall not be able to separate the things to be sought from the things to be fled. I am ashamed: in so serious a matter we old men play games. [Farewell.

SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM.]

SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS.]

[6] 'Mus syllaba est; mus autem caseum rodit; syllaba ergo caseum rodit.' Puta nunc me istuc non posse solvere: quod mihi ex ista inscientia periculum imminet? quod incommodum? Sine dubio verendum est ne quando in muscipulo syllabas capiam, aut ne quando, si neglegentior fuero, caseum liber comedat.

[6] 'The mouse is a syllable; the mouse moreover gnaws cheese; therefore the syllable gnaws cheese.' Suppose now that I cannot solve that: what danger threatens me from that ignorance? what inconvenience? Without doubt it is to be feared lest sometime I catch syllables in a mousetrap, or lest sometime, if I should be more negligent, a book eat the cheese.

Nisi forte illa acutior est collectio: 'mus syllaba est; syllaba autem caseum non rodit; mus ergo caseum non rodit'.

Unless perhaps that sharper collection is: 'mus is a syllable; a syllable however does not gnaw cheese; mus therefore does not gnaw cheese'.

[7] O pueriles ineptias! in hoc supercilia subduximus? in hoc barbam demisimus?

[7] O puerile follies! for this have we raised our eyebrows? for this have we grown a beard?

hoc est quod tristes docemus et pallidi? Vis scire quid philosophia promittat generi humano? consilium.

Is this what we, sad and pallid, teach? Do you wish to know what philosophy promises to the human race? Counsel.

Alium mors vocat, alium paupertas urit, alium divitiae vel alienae torquent vel suae; ille malam fortunam horret, hic se felicitati suae subducere cupit; hunc homines male habent, illum dii. Quid mihi lusoria ista componis? non est iocandi locus: ad miseros advocatus es. Opem laturum te naufragis, captis, aegris, egentibus, intentae securi subiectum praestantibus caput pollicitus es: quo diverteris?

Another death calls, another poverty burns, another riches torment whether another’s or his own; that man shudders at bad fortune, this one desires to withdraw himself from his own felicity; this one men ill‑treat, that one the gods. Why do you compose those playthings for me? it is not a place for joking: you have been called as advocate to the wretched. You have promised to bring help to the shipwrecked, to the captured, to the sick, to the needy, to those presenting a head set beneath the poised axe: whither do you turn aside?

quid agis? Hic cum quo ludis timet: succurre, quidquid Ålaqueti respondentium poenisÅ. Omnes undique ad te manus tendunt, perditae vitae perituraeque auxilium aliquod implorant, in te spes opesque sunt; rogant ut ex tanta illos volutatione extrahas, ut disiectis et errantibus clarum veritatis lumen ostendas.

what are you doing? This man with whom you play is afraid: come to the rescue, whatever the noose of those responding by punishments. All on every side stretch their hands to you, hands reach out, lives ruined and about to perish implore some help, in you are their hopes and resources; they ask that you draw them out from so great a tossing, that to the scattered and wandering you show the clear light of truth.

[9] Dic quid natura necessarium fecerit, quid supervacuum, quam faciles posuerit, quam iucunda sit vita, quam expedita illas sequentibus, quam acerba et implicita eorum qui opinioni plus quam naturae crediderunt *** si prius docueris quam partem eorum levatura sint. Quid istorum cupiditates demit? quid temperat?

[9] Say what nature has made necessary, what superfluous, how easy the it has set, how pleasant life is, how unencumbered for those following them, how bitter and entangled that of those who have believed opinion more than nature *** if first you have shown which part of them they are going to lighten. What removes the desires of these men? what moderates them?

Utinam tantum non prodessent! nocent. Hoc tibi cum voles manifestissimum faciam, comminui et debilitari generosam indolem in istas argutias coniectam.

Would that at least they did not benefit! they harm. This I will make most manifest to you whenever you wish, that the generous disposition, cast into those quibbles, is broken up and debilitated.

[10] Pudet dicere contra fortunam militaturis quae porrigant tela, quemadmodum illos subornent. Hac ad summum bonum itur? per istud philosophiae 'sive nive' et turpes infamesque etiam ad album sedentibus exceptiones?

[10] I am ashamed to say what weapons they put into the hands of those who are to wage war against Fortune, how they suborn them. Is this the way to the highest good? through that philosophy’s 'sive nive' and the shameful and infamous exceptions even for those seated at the album?

Quid enim aliud agitis, cum eum quem interrogatis scientes in fraudem inducitis, quam ut formula cecidisse videatur? Sed quemadmodum illos praetor, sic hos philosophia in integrum restituit.

For what indeed else are you doing, when you, knowing, lead the one whom you question into fraud, than that he may seem by the formula to have fallen? But just as the praetor restores those, so philosophy restores these to integrity.

[11] Quid disceditis ab ingentibus promissis et grandia locuti, effecturos vos ut non magis auri fulgor quam gladii praestringat oculos meos, ut ingenti constantia et quod omnes optant et quod omnes timent calcem, ad grammaticorum elementa descenditis? Quid dicitis?

[11] Why do you depart from enormous promises and, having spoken grand things, that you will bring it about that not more the splendor of gold than of the sword will dazzle my eyes, that with immense constancy I meet the finish-line (chalk-line) which all desire and which all fear, you descend to the grammarians’ elements? What are you saying?

sic itur ad astra

thus one goes to the stars

Hoc enim est quod mihi philosophia promittit, ut parem deo faciat; ad hoc invitatus sum, ad hoc veni: fidem praesta.

For this is what philosophy promises me, that it make me a peer to a god; to this I have been invited, to this I have come: keep faith.

[12] Quantum potes ergo, mi Lucili, reduc te ab istis exceptionibus et praescriptionibus philosophorum: aperta decent et simplicia bonitatem. Etiam si multum superesset aetatis, parce dispensandum erat ut sufficeret necessariis: nunc quae dementia est supervacua discere in tanta temporis egestate! Vale.

[12] As much as you can therefore, my Lucilius, bring yourself back from those exceptions and prescriptions of philosophers: open and simple things befit goodness. Even if much of life were left, it had to be dispensed sparingly so that it might suffice for necessities: now what madness is it to learn superfluous things in so great a poverty of time! Farewell.

XLIX. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

49. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Est quidem, mi Lucili, supinus et neglegens qui in amici memoriam ab aliqua regione admonitus reducitur; tamen repositum in animo nostro desiderium loca interdum familiaria evocant, nec exstinctam memoriam reddunt sed quiescentem irritant, sicut dolorem lugentium, etiam si mitigatus est tempore, aut servulus familiaris amisso aut vestis aut domus renovat. Ecce Campania et maxime Neapolis ac Pompeiorum tuorum conspectus incredibile est quam recens desiderium tui fecerint: totus mihi in oculis es. Cum maxime a te discedo; video lacrimas combibentem et affectibus tuis inter ipsam coercitionem exeuntibus non satis resistentem.

[1] He is indeed, my Lucilius, supine and negligent who is brought back into a friend’s memory only when admonished by some region; yet the desire reposed in our mind is sometimes evoked by familiar places, and they do not render a memory extinguished, but irritate one that lies quiet, just as the grief of mourners, even if mitigated by time, is renewed by the loss of a familiar household servant, or of a garment, or of a house. Behold Campania, and especially Naples, and the sight of your Pompeii—it is incredible how fresh a longing for you they have made: you are altogether before my eyes. At this very moment I am parting from you; I see you drinking down your tears and, as your affections go forth even amid their very coercion, not resisting them enough.

[2] Modo amisisse te videor; quid enim non 'modo' est, si recorderis? Modo apud Sotionem philosophum puer sedi, modo causas agere coepi, modo desii velle agere, modo desii posse. Infinita est velocitas temporis, quae magis apparet respicientibus.

[2] Just now I seem to have lost you; for what indeed is not 'just now', if you recall? Just now I sat, as a boy, with the philosopher Sotion, just now I began to plead causes, just now I ceased to want to plead, just now I ceased to be able. Infinite is the velocity of time, which more appears to those looking back.

Nam ad praesentia intentos fallit; adeo praecipitis fugae transitus lenis est.

For it deceives those intent on the present; so gentle is the transition of time’s headlong flight.

[3] Causam huius rei quaeris? quidquid temporis transit eodem loco est; pariter aspicitur, una iacet; omnia in idem profundum cadunt. Et alioqui non possunt longa intervalla esse in ea re quae tota brevis est.

[3] You ask the cause of this matter? Whatever time passes is in the same place; it is beheld equally, it lies as one; all things fall into the same depth. And otherwise, there cannot be long intervals in a thing which is altogether brief.

Punctum est quod vivimus et adhuc puncto minus; sed et hoc minimum specie quadam longioris spatii natura derisit: aliud ex hoc infantiam fecit, aliud pueritiam, aliud adulescentiam, aliud inclinationem quandam ab adulescentia ad senectutem, aliud ipsam senectutem. In quam angusto quodam quot gradus posuit!

A point is what we live, and even less than a point; but nature has mocked even this minimum with a certain appearance of a longer space: from this she made one part infancy, another boyhood, another adolescence, another a certain inclination from adolescence to old age, another old age itself. In how narrow a space she has set so many steps!

[4] Modo te prosecutus sum; et tamen hoc 'modo' aetatis nostrae bona portio est, cuius brevitatem aliquando defecturam cogitemus. Non solebat mihi tam velox tempus videri: nunc incredibilis cursus apparet, sive quia admoveri lineas sentio, sive quia attendere coepi et computare damnum meum.

[4] Just now I have seen you off; and yet this 'just now' is a good portion of our age, whose shortness we should sometimes think will fail. Time was not accustomed to seem so swift: now an incredible course appears, either because I feel the finish lines being brought near, or because I have begun to attend and compute my loss.

Eo magis itaque indignor aliquos ex hoc tempore quod sufficere ne ad necessaria quidem potest,

All the more, therefore, I am indignant that some take from this time, which cannot suffice even for necessities,

[5] etiam si custoditum diligentissime fuerit, in supervacua maiorem partem erogare. Negat Cicero, si duplicetur sibi aetas, habiturum se tempus quo legat lyricos: eodem loco dialecticos: tristius inepti sunt. Illi ex professo lasciviunt, hi agere ipsos aliquid existimant.

[5] even if it has been guarded most diligently, to expend the greater part upon superfluities. Cicero denies, if his lifespan were doubled for him, that he would have time to read the lyric poets: in the same place the dialecticians: they are inept in a sadder fashion. Those wanton by profession, these think that they themselves are doing something.

[6] Nec ego nego prospicienda ista, sed prospicienda tantum et a limine salutanda, in hoc unum, ne verba nobis dentur et aliquid esse in illis magni ac secreti boni iudicemus. Quid te torques et maceras in ea quaestione quam subtilius est contempsisse quam solvere? Securi est et ex commodo migrantis minuta conquirere: cum hostis instat a tergo et movere se iussus est miles, necessitas excutit quidquid pax otiosa collegerat.

[6] Nor do I deny that those things are to be foreseen, but to be foreseen only and saluted from the threshold, for this one end: lest words be dealt out to us and we judge that there is in them something of great and secret good. Why do you twist and waste yourself in that question which it is subtler to have contemned than to solve? It is for one secure and migrating at his convenience to collect minute things: when the enemy presses from the rear and the soldier has been ordered to move, necessity shakes out whatever idle peace had gathered.

[7] Non vacat mihi verba dubie cadentia consectari et vafritiam in illis meam experiri.

[7] I have no leisure to pursue words falling dubiously, and to try my own cunning in them.

Aspice qui coeant populi, quae moenia clusis
ferrum acuant portis.

Behold what peoples come together, what walls, with the gates closed,
sharpen iron.

Magno mihi animo strepitus iste belli circumsonantis exaudiendus est.

With great spirit, for me, the din of the war resounding around must be listened to.

[8] Demens omnibus merito viderer, si cum saxa in munimentum murorum senes feminaeque congererent, cum iuventus intra portas armata signum eruptionis exspectaret aut posceret, cum hostilia in portis tela vibrarent et ipsum solum suffossionibus et cuniculis tremeret, sederem otiosus et eiusmodi quaestiunculas ponens: 'quod non perdidisti habes; cornua autem non perdidisti; cornua ergo habes' aliaque ad exemplum huius acutae delirationis concinnata.

[8] Mad I would seem to all with good reason, if, while old men and women were heaping stones for the muniment of the walls, while the youth within the gates armed was awaiting the signal of a sally or was demanding it, while hostile missiles were quivering at the gates and the ground itself was trembling from under-minings and tunnels, I should sit idle and posing little questions of this sort: 'what you have not lost, you have; but you have not lost horns; therefore you have horns' and other things fashioned to the example of this acute delirium.

[9] Atqui aeque licet tibi demens videar si istis impendero operam: et nunc obsideor. Tunc tamen periculum mihi obsesso externum immineret, murus me ab hoste secerneret: nunc mortifera mecum sunt. Non vaco ad istas ineptias; ingens negotium in manibus est.

[9] And yet you may equally think me demented if I expend effort on those matters: and now I am besieged. Then, however, the peril, to me besieged, external would impend, a wall would separate me from the enemy: now the mortiferous things are with me. I do not have leisure for those ineptitudes; an immense business is in hand.

Quid agam? mors me sequitur, fugit vita.

What shall I do? death follows me, life flees.

[10] Adversus haec me doce aliquid; effice ut ego mortem non fugiam, vita me non effugiat. Exhortare adversus difficilia, [de aequanimitate] adversus inevitabilia; angustias temporis mei laxa. Doce non esse positum bonum vitae in spatio eius sed in usu posse fieri, immo saepissime fieri, ut qui diu vixit parum vixerit.

[10] Against these things teach me something; bring it about that I do not flee death, that life does not flee me. Exhort against difficult things, [on equanimity] against inevitable things; loosen the straits of my time. Teach that the good of life is not placed in its span but in its use; that it can come to be, nay most often come to be, that he who has lived long has lived little.

Dic mihi dormituro 'potes non expergisci'; dic experrecto 'potes non dormire amplius'. Dic exeunti 'potes non reverti'; dic redeunti 'potes non exire'.

Say to me, as I am about to sleep, 'you can not awaken'; say to the awakened one, 'you can not sleep any longer'. Say to the one going out, 'you can not return'; say to the one returning, 'you can not exit'.

[11] Erras si in navigatione tantum existimas minimum esse quo morte vita diducitur: in omni loco aeque tenue intervallum est. Non ubique se mors tam prope ostendit: ubique tam prope est. Has tenebras discute, et facilius ea trades ad quae praeparatus sum.

[11] You err if in navigation you think that only the very least exists by which life is drawn apart from death by : in every place an equally thin interval exists. Not everywhere does death show itself so near: everywhere it is so near. Dispel these shadows, and you will more easily hand me over to those things to which I am prepared.

Dociles natura nos edidit, et rationem dedit imperfectam, sed quae perfici posset.

Nature has brought us forth docile, and has given us reason imperfect, but such as could be perfected.

[12] De iustitia mihi, de pietate disputa, de frugalitate, de pudicitia utraque, et illa cui alieni corporis abstinentia est, et hac cui sui cura. Si me nolueris per devia ducere, facilius ad id quo tendo perveniam; nam, ut ait ille tragicus, 'veritatis simplex oratio est', ideoque illam implicari non oportet; nec enim quicquam minus convenit quam subdola ista calliditas animis magna conantibus. Vale.

[12] Dispute with me about justice, about piety, about frugality, about both pudicities, both that whose is abstinence from another’s body, and this whose is care of one’s own. If you will not wish to lead me through byways, I shall more easily reach that whither I tend; for, as that tragic poet says, “the discourse of truth is simple,” and therefore it ought not to be entangled; nor indeed does anything less befit than that sly cunning for minds attempting great things. Farewell.

L. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

L. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Epistulam tuam accepi post multos menses quam miseras; supervacuum itaque putavi ab eo qui afferebat quid ageres quaerere. Valde enim bonae memoriae est, si meminit; et tamen spero te sic iam vivere ut, ubicumque eris, sciam quid agas. Quid enim aliud agis quam ut meliorem te ipse cotidie facias, ut aliquid ex erroribus ponas, ut intellegas tua vitia esse quae putas rerum?

[1] I received your letter after many months after you had sent it; therefore I thought it superfluous to ask from the one who was bringing it what you were doing. For it is of very good memory, if he remembers; and yet I hope you now live in such a way that, wherever you are, I know what you are doing. For what else are you doing than that you make yourself better every day, to lay aside something from your errors, to understand that your vices are the ones which you think to be of things?

Quaedam enim locis et temporibus adscribimus; at illa, quocumque transierimus, secutura sunt.

For we ascribe certain things to places and times; but those, wherever we pass, will follow.

[2] Harpasten, uxoris meae fatuam, scis hereditarium onus in domo mea remansisse. Ipse enim aversissimus ab istis prodigiis sum; si quando fatuo delectari volo, non est mihi longe quaerendus: me rideo. Haec fatua subito desiit videre.

[2] Harpaste, my wife's fool, you know has remained an hereditary burden in my house. I myself, indeed, am most averse from those prodigies; if ever I wish to be delighted by a fool, he is not to be sought far from me: I laugh at myself. This foolish woman suddenly ceased to see.

Incredibilem rem tibi narro, sed veram: nescit esse se caecam; subinde paedagogum suum rogat ut migret, ait domum tenebricosam esse.

An incredible thing I tell you, but true: she does not know that she is blind; repeatedly she asks her paedagogue to move, she says the house is tenebrous.

[3] Hoc quod in illa ridemus omnibus nobis accidere liqueat tibi: nemo se avarum esse intellegit, nemo cupidum. Caeci tamen ducem quaerunt, nos sine duce erramus et dicimus, 'non ego ambitiosus sum, sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere; non ego sumptuosus sum, sed urbs ipsa magnas impensas exigit; non est meum vitium quod iracundus sum, quod nondum constitui certum genus vitae: adulescentia haec facit'.

[3] Let it be clear to you that this which we laugh at in her happens to all of us: no one understands himself to be avaricious, no one covetous. The blind, however, seek a guide, we without a guide wander and we say, 'I am not ambitious, but no one can live otherwise at Rome; I am not extravagant, but the city itself exacts great expenses; it is not my fault that I am irascible, that I have not yet established a fixed kind of life: youth does this'.

[4] Quid nos decipimus? non est extrinsecus malum nostrum: intra nos est, in visceribus ipsis sedet, et ideo difficulter ad sanitatem pervenimus quia nos aegrotare nescimus. Si curari coeperimus, quando tot morborum tantas vires discutiemus?

[4] Why do we deceive ourselves? Our evil is not extrinsic: it is within us, it sits in the very viscera, and therefore with difficulty we reach health, because we do not know that we are ill. If we begin to be cured, when shall we shake off the such great forces of so many diseases?

Nunc vero ne quaerimus quidem medicum, qui minus negotii haberet si adhiberetur ad recens vitium; sequerentur teneri et rudes animi recta monstrantem.

Now indeed we do not even seek a physician, who would have less business if he were applied to a recent vice; tender and rude minds would follow one showing the straight way.

[5] Nemo difficulter ad naturam reducitur nisi qui ab illa defecit: erubescimus discere bonam mentem. At mehercules, turpe est magistrum huius rei quaerere, illud desperandum est, posse nobis casu tantum bonum influere: laborandum est et, ut verum dicam, ne labor quidem magnus est, s modo, ut dixi, ante animum nostrum formare incipimus et recorrigere quam indurescat pravitas eius.

[5] No one is brought back to nature with difficulty except the one who has defected from it: we are ashamed to learn a good mind. But, by Hercules, if it is shameful to seek a teacher of this matter, this must be despaired of, that so great a good can flow into us by chance: one must labor, and, to speak the truth, not even is the labor great, provided that, as I said, we begin beforehand to form our mind and to re-correct it before the pravity of it hardens.

[6] Sed nec indurata despero: nihil est quod non expugnet pertinax opera et intenta ac diligens cura. Robora m rectum quamvis flexa revocabis; curvatas trabes calor explicat et aliter natae in id finguntur quod usus noster exigit: quanto facilius animus accipit formam, flexibilis et omni umore obsequentior! Quid enim est aliud animus quam quodam modo se habens spiritus?

[6] But neither do I despair of hardened things: nothing is there which pertinacious effort and intent and diligent care do not overcome. Hardwoods you will call back to the straight, although bent; heat unbends curved beams, and things born otherwise are molded into that which our use demands: how much more easily the mind receives a form, flexible and to every humor more compliant! For what else is the mind than spirit, in a certain manner, subsisting?

vides autem tanto spiritum esse faciliorem omni alia materia quanto tenuior est.

You see, moreover, that spirit is so much more facile than any other matter, the more tenuous it is.

[7] Illud, mi Lucili, non est quod te impediat quominus de nobis bene speres, quod malitia nos iam tenet, quod diu in possessione nostri est: ad neminem ante bona mens venit quam mala; omnes praeoccupati sumus; virtutes discere vitia dediscere .

[7] That, my Lucilius, is not what should impede you from hoping well concerning us, that malice already holds us, that it has long been in possession of us: to no one does a good mind come before a bad one; we are all preoccupied; to learn virtues is to unlearn vices.

[8] Sed eo maiore animo ad emendationem nostri debemus accedere quod semel traditi nobis boni perpetua possessio est; non dediscitur virtus. Contraria enim male in alieno haerent, ideo depelli et exturbari possunt; fideliter sedent quae in locum suum veniunt. Virtus secundum naturam est, vitia inimica et infesta sunt.

[8] But with so much the greater spirit we ought to approach the correction of ourselves, because the good once handed over to us is a perpetual possession; virtue is not unlearned. For the contraries cling badly in what is alien, therefore they can be driven off and expelled; those things sit faithfully which come into their own place. Virtue is according to nature, vices are inimical and hostile.

[9] Sed quemadmodum virtutes receptae exire non possunt facilisque earum tutela est, ita initium ad illas eundi arduum, quia hoc proprium imbecillae mentis atque aegrae est, formidare inexperta; itaque cogenda est ut incipiat. Deinde non est acerba medicina; protinus enim delectat, dum sanat. Aliorum remediorum post sanitatem voluptas est, philosophia pariter et salutaris et dulcis est.

[9] But just as the virtues, once received, cannot go out and the guardianship of them is easy, so the beginning of going toward them is arduous, because this is proper to a weak and ailing mind, to dread things untried; and so it must be compelled to begin. Then it is not a bitter medicine; straightway indeed it delights, while it heals. Of other remedies, the pleasure is after health; philosophy is at once both salutary and sweet.

Vale.

Farewell.

LI. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

51. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS

[1] Quomodo quisque potest, mi Lucili: tu istic habes Aetnam, nobilissimum Siciliae montem - quem quare dixerit Messala unicum, sive Valgius, apud utrumque enim legi, non reperio, cum plurima loca evomant ignem, non tantum edita, quod crebrius evenit, videlicet quia ignis in altissimum effertur, sed etiam iacentia -, nos, utcumque possumus, contenti sumus Bais; quas postero die quam attigeram reliqui, locum ob hoc devitandum, cum habeat quasdam naturales dotes, quia illum sibi celebrandum luxuria desumpsit.

[1] As each person can, my Lucilius: you there have Aetna, the most noble mountain of Sicily - why Messalla called it unique, or Valgius, for in both I have read it, I do not find, since very many places vomit forth fire, not only elevated ones, which more frequently happens, evidently because fire is borne up to the highest, but also low-lying ones -, we, however we can, are content with Baiae; which on the next day after I had reached them I left, a place to be avoided on this account, although it has certain natural endowments, because luxury has taken it up for herself to be celebrated.

[2] 'Quid ergo? ulli loco indicendum est odium?' Minime; sed quemadmodum aliqua vestis sapienti ac probo viro magis convenit quam aliqua, nec ullum colorem ille odit sed aliquem parum putat aptum esse frugalitatem professo, sic regio quoque est quam sapiens vir aut ad sapientiam tendens declinet tamquam alienam bonis moribus.

[2] 'What then? Is hatred to be proclaimed for any place?' Not at all; but just as some garment befits a wise and upright man more than some other, and he hates no color but deems some scarcely apt for one who has professed frugality, so there is also a region which a wise man or one tending toward wisdom declines as alien to good morals.

[3] Itaque de secessu cogitans numquam Canopum eliget, quamvis neminem Canopus esse frugi vetet, ne Baias quidem: deversorium vitiorum esse coeperunt. Illic sibi plurimum luxuria permittit, illic, tamquam aliqua licentia debeatur loco, magis solvitur.

[3] And so, thinking about a retreat, he will never choose Canopus, although Canopus forbids no one to be frugal, not even Baiae: they have begun to be a lodging-house of vices. There luxury permits to itself the very most, there, as if some license were owed to the place, it is more loosened.

[4] Non tantum corpori sed etiam moribus salubrem locum eligere debemus; quemadmodum inter tortores habitare nolim, sic ne inter popinas quidem. Videre ebrios per litora errantes et comessationes navigantium et symphoniarum cantibus strepentes lacus et alia quae velut soluta legibus luxuria non tantum peccat sed publicat, quid necesse est?

[4] We ought to choose a salubrious place not only for the body but also for morals; just as I would not wish to dwell among torturers, so not even among taverns. To see drunkards wandering along the shores, and the comessations of sailors, and lakes resounding with the songs of symphonies, and other things which, as if loosened from the laws, luxury not only sins in but publicizes—what need is there?

[5] Id agere debemus ut irritamenta vitiorum quam longissime profugiamus; indurandus est animus et a blandimentis voluptatum procul abstrahendus. Una Hannibalem hiberna solverunt et indomitum illum nivibus atque Alpibus virum enervaverunt fomenta Campaniae: armis vicit, vitiis victus est.

[5] We ought to do this, that we flee the incitements of vices as far away as possible; the spirit must be hardened, and be drawn far away from the blandishments of pleasures. One winter-quarters loosed Hannibal, and the fomentations of Campania enervated the man untamed by snows and the Alps: by arms he conquered, by vices he was conquered.

[6] Nobis quoque militandum est, et quidem genere militiae quo numquam quies, numquam otium datur: debellandae sunt in primis voluptates, quae, ut vides, saeva quoque ad se ingenia rapuerunt. Si quis sibi proposuerit quantum operis aggressus sit, sciet nihil delicate, nihil molliter esse faciendum. Quid mihi cum istis calentibus stagnis?

[6] We too must do military service, and indeed a kind of warfare in which never is rest, never leisure granted: pleasures must first and foremost be vanquished, which, as you see, have snatched even savage natures to themselves. If anyone has set before himself how great a work he has undertaken, he will know that nothing is to be done delicately, nothing softly. What have I to do with those hot pools?

quid cum sudatoriis, in quae siccus vapor corpora exhausurus includitur? omnis sudor per laborem exeat.

What have I to do with sudatories, into which dry vapor, about to exhaust bodies, is shut in? Let all sweat come out through labor.

[7] Si faceremus quod fecit Hannibal, ut interrupto cursu rerum omissoque bello fovendis corporibus operam daremus, nemo non intempestivam desidiam, victori quoque, nedum vincenti, periculosam, merito reprehenderet: minus nobis quam illis Punica signa sequentibus licet, plus periculi restat cedentibus, plus operis etiam perseverantibus.

[7] If we were doing what Hannibal did, such that, with the course of affairs interrupted and the war set aside, we were giving our effort to the fostering of our bodies, no one would fail deservedly to reprehend the untimely idleness, dangerous even to a victor, much less to one conquering: less is permitted to us than to those following the Punic standards, more danger remains for those yielding, more work even for those persevering.

[8] Fortuna mecum bellum gerit: non sum imperata facturus; iugum non recipio, immo, quod maiore virtute faciendum est, excutio. Non est emolliendus animus: si voluptati cessero, cedendum est dolori, cedendum est labori, cedendum est paupertati; idem sibi in me iuris esse volet et ambitio et ira; inter tot affectus distrahar, immo discerpar.

[8] Fortune wages war with me: I am not going to do what has been commanded; I do not accept the yoke, nay rather—what must be done with greater virtue—I shake it off. The mind is not to be softened: if I yield to pleasure, I must yield to pain, I must yield to labor, I must yield to poverty; ambition and anger will want the same right over me as well; among so many passions I shall be torn apart, nay, torn asunder.

[9] Libertas proposita est; ad hoc praemium laboratur. Quae sit libertas quaeris? Nulli rei servire, nulli necessitati, nullis casibus, fortunam in aequum deducere.

[9] Liberty has been set forth; for this reward we labor. What is this liberty, you ask? To serve no thing, to serve no necessity, to serve no chances, to bring fortune down to level ground.

Quo die illam intellexero plus posse, nil poterit: ego illam feram, cum in manu mors sit?

On the day I have understood that she can do more, she will be able to do nothing: shall I bear her, when death is in my hand?

[10] His cogitationibus intentum loca seria sanctaque eligere oportet; effeminat animos amoenitas nimia, nec dubie aliquid ad corrumpendum vigorem potest regio. Quamlibet viam iumenta patiuntur quorum durata in aspero ungula est: in molli palustrique pascuo saginata cito subteruntur. Et fortior miles ex confragoso venit: segnis est urbanus et verna.

[10] Intent on these cogitations, one ought to choose places serious and sacred; excessive amenity effeminates the spirits, and without doubt the region can do something toward corrupting vigor. Beasts of burden endure any road whose hoof has been hardened on the rough; in soft and marshy pasture, those fattened are quickly worn down. And a soldier is stronger who comes from the rugged; the urban and the homeborn slave are sluggish.

Nullum laborem recusant manus quae ad arma ab aratro transferuntur: in primo deficit pulvere ille unctus et nitidus.

No labor do the hands refuse which are transferred to arms from the plough: at the first dust the oiled and shining one fails.

[11] Severior loci disciplina firmat ingenium aptumque magnis conatibus reddit. Literni honestius Scipio quam Bais exulabat: ruina eiusmodi non est tam molliter collocanda. Illi quoque ad quos primos fortuna populi Romani publicas opes transtulit, C. Marius et Cn. Pompeius et Caesar, exstruxerunt quidem villas in regione Baiana, sed illas imposuerunt summis iugis montium: videbatur hoc magis militare, ex edito speculari late longeque subiecta.

[11] Severer discipline of the place strengthens the character and makes it apt for great enterprises. At Liternum more honorably Scipio was in exile than at Baiae: a downfall of this kind is not to be so gently arranged. Those also to whom first the fortune of the Roman people transferred the public resources, Gaius Marius and Gnaeus Pompeius and Caesar, did indeed construct villas in the Baian region, but they placed those upon the highest ridges of the mountains: this seemed more military, from a lofty place to keep watch far and wide over what lay beneath.

Aspice quam positionem elegerint, quibus aedificia excitaverint locis et qualia: scies non villas esse sed castra.

Look upon what position they have chosen, in what places they have raised edifices and of what sort: you will know they are not villas but camps.

[12] Habitaturum tu putas umquam fuisse illic M. Catonem, ut praenavigantes adulteras dinumeraret et tot genera cumbarum variis coloribus picta et fluvitantem toto lacu rosam, ut audiret canentium nocturna convicia? nonne ille manere intra vallum maluisset, quod in unam noctem manu sua ipse duxisset? Quidni mallet, quisquis vir est, somnum suum classico quam symphonia rumpi?

[12] Do you think that M. Cato would ever have lived there, to count adulteresses sailing by and so many kinds of skiffs painted with various colors, and the rose floating over the whole lake, to hear the nocturnal revilings of the singers? would he not have preferred to remain within a rampart which in a single night by his own hand he himself had thrown up? Why should he prefer, whoever is a man, that his sleep be broken by the clarion rather than by a symphony?

[13] Sed satis diu cum Bais litigavimus, numquam satis cum vitiis, quae, oro te, Lucili, persequere sine modo, sine fine; nam illis quoque nec finis est nec modus. Proice quaecumque cor tuum laniant, quae si aliter extrahi nequirent, cor ipsum cum illis reveliendum erat. Voluptates praecipue exturba et invisissimas habe: latronum more, quos 'philêtas' Aegyptii vocant, in hoc nos amplectuntur, ut strangulent.

[13] But we have litigated with Baiae long enough, never enough with vices; which, I beg you, Lucilius, pursue without measure, without end; for for them too there is neither end nor measure. Cast away whatever lacerates your heart, which, if otherwise they could not be extracted, the heart itself along with them had to be torn out. Pleasures especially drive out and hold as most hateful: after the manner of bandits, whom the Egyptians call 'philêtas', for this they embrace us, that they may strangle.

Vale.

Farewell.

LII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

52. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Quid est hoc, Lucili, quod nos alio tendentes alio trahit et eo unde recedere cupimus impellit? quid colluctatur cum animo nostro nec permittit nobis quicquam semel velle? Fluctuamur inter varia consilia; nihil libere volumus, nihil absolute, nihil semper.

[1] What is this, Lucilius, that, while we are tending to one direction, draws us to another, and drives us toward that from which we desire to recede? What is it that wrestles with our mind and does not permit us to will anything once for all? We fluctuate amid various counsels; we want nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing always.

[2] 'Stultitia' inquis 'est cui nihil constat, nihil diu placet.' Sed quomodo nos aut quando ab illa revellemus? Nemo per se satis valet ut emergat; oportet manum aliquis porrigat, aliquis educat.

[2] 'Folly,' you say, 'is that in which nothing stands firm, nothing pleases for long.' But how shall we, or when, tear ourselves away from it? No one by himself is strong enough to emerge; it is necessary that someone extend a hand, someone lead us out.

[3] Quosdam ait Epicurus ad veritatem sine ullius adiutorio exisse, fecisse sibi ipsos viam; hos maxime laudat quibus ex se impetus fuit, qui se ipsi protulerunt: quosdam indigere ope aliena, non ituros si nemo praecesserit, sed bene secuturos. Ex his Metrodorum ait esse; egregium hoc quoque, sed secundae sortis ingenium. Nos ex illa prima nota non sumus; bene nobiscum agitur, si in secundam recipimur.

[3] Epicurus says that certain people have come forth to the truth without anyone’s aid, have made a way for themselves; these he especially praises, those whose impetus was from themselves, who put themselves forward: certain people need another’s help, not going if no one has gone before, but following well. Of these, he says, is Metrodorus; this too is outstanding, but an intellect of the second sort. We are not of that first stamp; it goes well with us, if we are received into the second.

Ne hunc quidem contempseris hominem qui alieno beneficio esse salvus potest; et hoc multum est, velle servari.

Do not even despise the man who can be saved by another’s benefit; and this too is much, to be willing to be saved.

[4] Praeter haec adhuc invenies genus aliud hominum ne ipsum quidem fastidiendum eorum qui cogi ad rectum compellique possunt, quibus non duce tantum opus sit sed adiutore et, ut ita dicam, coactore; hic tertius color est. Si quaeris huius quoque exemplar, Hermarchum ait Epicurus talem fuisse. Itaque alteri magis gratulatur, alterum magis suspicit; quamvis enim ad eundem finem uterque pervenerit, tamen maior est laus idem effecisse in difficiliore materia.

[4] Besides these you will still find another kind of men, not to be despised either, of those who can be driven to the right and compelled, who have need not only of a leader but of a helper and, so to speak, an enforcer; this is the third color. If you seek an exemplar of this too, Epicurus says that Hermarchus was such. And so he congratulates the one more, he esteems the other more; although indeed each has arrived at the same end, yet greater is the praise to have effected the same in a more difficult material.

[5] Puta enim duo aedificia excitata esse, ambo paria, aeque excelsa atque magnifica. Alter puram aream accepit, illic protinus opus crevit; alterum fundamenta lassarunt in mollem et fluvidam humum missa multumque laboris exhaustum est dum pervenitur ad solidum: intuentibus quidquid fecit *** alterius magna pars et difficilior latet.

[5] Suppose, in fact, two edifices have been raised, both equal, equally lofty and magnificent. The one received a clean area, there at once the work grew; the other its foundations were wearied, sent down into soft and fluid soil, and much labor was exhausted until one reaches solid ground: to onlookers whatever the one did *** a great and more difficult part of the other's lies hidden.

[6] Quaedam ingenia facilia, expedita, quaedam manu, quod aiunt, facienda sunt et in fundamentis suis occupata. Itaque illum ego feliciorem dixerim qui nihil negotii secum habuit, hunc quidem melius de se meruisse qui malignitatem naturae suae vicit et ad sapientiam se non perduxit sed extraxit.

[6] Certain natures are easy, unimpeded; some, by hand, as they say, must be made and are taken up with their own foundations. Therefore I would call that man more fortunate who had no trouble with himself, this man indeed to have deserved better of himself, who conquered the malignity of his nature and to wisdom himself did not lead but extracted himself.

[7] Hoc durum ac laboriosum ingenium nobis datum scias licet; imus per obstantia. Itaque pugnemus, aliquorum invocemus auxilium. 'Quem' inquis 'invocabo?

[7] You may know that this hard and laborious temperament has been given to us; we go through obstacles. Therefore let us fight, let us invoke the help of some. 'Whom,' you say 'shall I invoke?

Hunc aut illum?' Tu vero etiam ad priores revertere, qui vacant; adiuvare nos possunt non tantum qui sunt, sed qui fuerunt.

'This one or that one?' You indeed, even turn back to the earlier ones, who are at leisure; those who are can aid us not only, but those who were.

[8] Ex his autem qui sunt eligamus non eos qui verba magna celeritate praecipitant et communes locos volvunt et in privato circulantur, sed eos qui vita docent, qui cum dixerunt quid faciendum sit probant faciendo, qui docent quid vitandum sit nec umquam in eo quod fugiendum dixerunt deprehenduntur; eum elige adiutorem quem magis admireris cum videris quam cum audieris.

[8] From these, however, let us choose not those who hurl forth words with great speed and turn over commonplaces and are circulated in private, but those who teach by life, who, when they have said what must be done, prove it by doing, who teach what must be avoided and never are found in that which they said was to be fled; choose as a helper the one whom you admire more when you have seen than when you have heard.

[9] Nec ideo te prohibuerim hos quoque audire quibus admittere populum ac disserere consuetudo est, si modo hoc proposito in turbam prodeunt, ut meliores fiant faciantque meliores, si non ambitionis hoc causa exercent. Quid enim turpius philosophia captante clamores? numquid aeger laudat medicum secantem?

[9] Nor for that reason would I forbid you to listen to these also, those for whom it is customary to admit the people and to discourse, provided only that they go forth into the crowd with this purpose: that they may become better and make others better, if they do not practice this for the sake of ambition. For what is more shameful than philosophy hunting for clamors? does a sick man praise a medic while he is cutting?

[10] Tacete, favete et praebete vos curationi; etiam si exclamaveritis, non aliter audiam quam si ad tactum vitiorum vestrorum ingemescatis. Testari vultis attendere vos moverique rerum magnitudine? sane liceat: ut quidem iudicetis et feratis de meliore suffragium, quidni non permittam?

[10] Be silent, be favorable and submit yourselves to the curation; even if you exclaim, I will hear no otherwise than if at the touch of your vices you groan. You wish to testify that you attend and are moved by the magnitude of the matters? by all means let it be permitted: in order that indeed you may judge and cast your suffrage for the better, why should I not permit it?

Apud Pythagoram discipulis quinque annis tacendum erat: numquid ergo existimas statim illis et loqui et laudare licuisse?

With Pythagoras, for the students, for five years silence was required: do you then think that straightway it was permitted to them both to speak and to laud?

[11] Quanta autem dementia eius est quem clamores imperitorum hilarem ex auditorio dimittunt! Quid laetaris quod ab hominibus his laudatus es quos non potes ipse laudare? Disserebat populo Fabianus, sed audiebatur modeste; erumpebat interdum magnus clamor laudantium, sed quem rerum magnitudo evocaverat, non sonus inoffense ac molliter orationis elapsae.

[11] How great, moreover, is the madness of the man whom the shouts of the inexpert send out from the auditorium cheerful! Why do you rejoice that by these men you have been praised whom you yourself cannot praise? Fabianus used to discourse to the people, but he was listened to modestly; from time to time there burst forth a great clamor of those praising, but one which the magnitude of the matter had summoned, not the sound of a speech that had slipped out inoffensively and softly.

[12] Intersit aliquid inter clamorem theatri et scholae: est aliqua et laudandi elegantia. Omnia rerum omnium, si observentur, indicia sunt, et argumentum morum ex minimis quoque licet capere: impudicum et incessus ostendit et manus mota et unum interdum responsum et relatus ad caput digitus et flexus oculorum; improbum risus, insanum vultus habitusque demonstrat. Illa enim in apertum per notas exeunt: qualis quisque sit scies, si quemadmodum laudet, quemadmodum laudetur aspexeris.

[12] Let there be some difference between the clamor of the theatre and of the school: there is also some elegance in praising. All things, in all matters, if they are observed, are indications, and an argument of character may be taken even from the smallest things: the shameless man is shown both by the gait and by the moved hand and sometimes by a single reply and by the finger carried to the head and by the flex of the eyes; a laugh shows the wicked, the countenance and the habitus show the insane. For those things come forth into the open through marks: what sort each person is you will know, if you have looked at how he praises, how he is praised.

[13] Hinc atque illinc philosopho manus auditor intentat et super ipsum caput mirantium turba consistit: non laudatur ille nunc, si intellegis, sed conclamatur. Relinquantur istae voces illis artibus quae propositum habent populo placere: philosophia adoretur.

[13] On this side and on that the hearer stretches a hand to the philosopher, and above his very head the amazed crowd takes its stand: he is not now being praised, if you understand, but is being clamored over. Let those voices be left to those arts which have as their purpose to please the people: let philosophy be adored.

[14] Permittendum erit aliquando iuvenibus sequi impetum animi, tunc autem cum hoc ex impetu facient, cum silentium sibi imperare non poterunt; talis laudatio aliquid exhortationis affert ipsis audientibus et animos adulescentium exstimulat. ad rem commoveantur, non ad verba composita; alioquin nocet illis eloquentia, si non rerum cupiditatem facit sed sui.

[14] It must sometimes be permitted to young men to follow the impulse of their spirit—namely then when they will do this out of impulse, when they will not be able to impose silence upon themselves; such praise brings a certain exhortation to the hearers themselves and stimulates the spirits of adolescents. let them be moved to the matter, not to composed words; otherwise eloquence harms them, if it creates not a desire for things but for itself.

[15] Differam hoc in praesentia; desiderat enim propriam et longam exsecutionem, quemadmodum populo disserendum, quid sibi apud populum permittendum sit, quid populo apud se. Damnum quidem fecisse philosophiam non erit dubium postquam prostituta est; sed potest in penetralibus suis ostendi, si modo non institorem sed antistitem nancta est. Vale.

[15] I will defer this for the present; for it requires a proper and long exsecution, how one ought to discourse to the people, what he should permit to himself before the people, what to the people with respect to himself. There will indeed be no doubt that philosophy has done damage after it has been prostituted; but it can be shown in its penetralia, if only it has found not a huckster but a priest. Farewell.