Seneca: EPISTULAE MORALES AD LUCILIUM

[1] Post longum intervallum Pompeios tuos vidi. In conspectum adulescentiae meae reductus sum; quidquid illic iuvenis feceram videbar mihi facere adhuc posse et paulo ante fecisse.

[1] After a long interval I saw your Pompeii. I was led back into the sight of my adolescence; whatever I had done there as a young man I seemed to myself still able to do, and to have done only a little before.

[2] Praenavigavimus, Lucili, vitam et quemadmodum in mari, ut ait Vergilius noster,

[2] We have pre-navigated, Lucilius, life; and just as on the sea, as our Vergil says,

terraeque urbesque recedunt,

and the lands and the cities recede,

sic in hoc cursu rapidissimi temporis primum pueritiam abscondimus, deinde adulescentiam, deinde quidquid est illud inter iuvenem et senem medium, in utriusque confinio positum, deinde ipsius senectutis optimos annos; novissime incipit ostendi publicus finis generis humani.

thus in this course of the most rapid time we first hide away childhood, then adolescence, then whatever that thing is which is the middle between a young man and an old man, placed on the confine of each, then the very best years of old age itself; last of all the common end of the human race begins to show itself.

[3] Scopulum esse illum putamus dementissimi: portus est, aliquando petendus, numquam recusandus, in quem si quis intra primos annos delatus est, non magis queri debet quam qui cito navigavit. Alium enim, ut scis, venti segnes ludunt ac detinent et tranquillitatis lentissimae taedio lassant, alium pertinax flatus celerrime perfert.

[3] We think that to be a rock, most witless: it is a port, at some time to be sought, never to be refused, into which, if someone has been borne within his earliest years, he ought no more to complain than one who has sailed quickly. For one person, as you know, sluggish winds play with and detain and weary with the tedium of the slowest tranquillity, another a pertinacious blast carries through most swiftly.

[4] Idem evenire nobis puta: alios vita velocissime adduxit quo veniendum erat etiam cunctantibus, alios maceravit et coxit. Quae, ut scis, non semper retinenda est; non enim vivere bonum est, sed bene vivere.

[4] Think the same to befall us: life has brought some most swiftly to where one had to come even if hesitating, others it has emaciated and cooked. Which, as you know, is not always to be retained; for it is not living that is the good, but living well.

Itaque sapiens vivet quantum debet, non quantum potest.

Therefore the wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.

[5] Videbit ubi victurus sit, cum quibus, quomodo, quid acturus. Cogitat semper qualia vita, non quanta sit. [sit] Si multa occurrunt molesta et tranquillitatem turbantia, emittit se; nec hoc tantum in necessitate ultima facit, sed cum primum illi coepit suspecta esse fortuna, diligenter circumspicit numquid illic desinendum sit.

[5] He will see where he is going to live, with whom, in what manner, what he is going to do. He always considers of what quality life is, not of what quantity it is. [sit] If many things occur that are troublesome and disturbing tranquility, he releases himself; nor does he do this only in the ultimate necessity, but as soon as Fortune has begun to be suspect to him, he carefully looks around to see whether perhaps he should cease there.

Nihil existimat sua referre, faciat finem an accipiat, tardius fiat an citius: non tamquam de magno detrimento timet; nemo multum ex stilicidio potest perdere.

He judges that nothing concerns his own account, whether he makes an end or accepts one, whether it be done more slowly or more quickly: he does not fear as though about a great detriment; no one can lose much from a stillicide, a mere drip-by-drip.

[6] Citius mori aut tardius ad rem non pertinet, bene mori aut male ad rem pertinet; bene autem mori est effugere male vivendi periculum. Itaque effeminatissimam vocem illius Rhodii existimo, qui cum in caveam coniectus esset a tyranno et tamquam ferum aliquod animal aleretur, suadenti cuidam ut abstineret cibo, 'omnia' inquit 'homini, dum vivit, speranda sunt'.

[6] To die sooner or later does not pertain to the matter; to die well or badly does pertain to the matter; and to die well is to escape the danger of living badly. And so I consider most effeminate the voice of that Rhodian, who, when he had been cast into a cage by a tyrant and was being kept as though some wild animal, to someone advising him to abstain from food, said: 'everything for a man, so long as he lives, is to be hoped.'

[7] Ut sit hoc verum, non omni pretio vita emenda est. Quaedam licet magna, licet certa sint, tamen ad illa turpi infirmitatis confessione non veniam: ego cogitem in eo qui vivit omnia posse fortunam, potius quam cogitem in eo qui scit mori nil posse fortunam?

[7] Granted this be true, life is not to be purchased at every price. Although certain things may be great, although they may be sure, nevertheless I will not come to them by a shameful confession of infirmity: am I to think that, in the case of one who lives, Fortune can do all things, rather than think that, in the case of one who knows how to die, Fortune can do nothing?

[8] Aliquando tamen, etiam si certa mors instabit et destinatum sibi supplicium sciet, non commodabit poenae suae manum: sibi commodaret. Stultitia est timore mortis mori: venit qui occidat, exspecta. Quid occupas?

[8] Sometimes, however, even if certain death impends and he knows the punishment destined for him, he will not lend his hand to his own penalty: he would lend it to himself. It is stupidity to die from fear of death: the one who will kill comes—wait. Why do you pre-empt?

quare suscipis alienae crudelitatis procurationem? utrum invides carnifici tuo an parcis?

Why do you undertake the procuration of another’s cruelty? Do you envy your executioner, or do you spare him?

[9] Socrates potuit abstinentia finire vitam et inedia potius quam veneno mori; triginta tamen dies in carcere et in exspectatione mortis exegit, non hoc animo tamquam omnia fieri possent, tamquam multas spes tam longum tempus reciperet, sed ut praeberet se legibus, ut fruendum amicis extremum Socraten daret. Quid erat stultius quam mortem contemnere, venenum timere?

[9] Socrates could finish his life by abstinence and die by fasting rather than by poison; nevertheless he spent thirty days in prison and in the expectation of death, not with this mind as though all things could be accomplished, as though so long a time would recover many hopes, but in order to present himself to the laws, to give to his friends the final Socrates to be enjoyed. What was more foolish than to contemn death, to fear the poison?

[10] Scribonia, gravis femina, amita Drusi Libonis fuit, adulescentis tam stolidi quam nobilis, maiora sperantis quam illo saeculo quisquam sperare poterat aut ipse ullo. Cum aeger a senatu in lectica relatus esset non sane frequentibus exsequis - omnes enim necessarii deseruerant impie iam non reum sed funus -, habere coepit consilium utrum conscisceret mortem an exspectaret. Cui Scribonia 'quid te' inquit 'delectat alienum negotium agere?' Non persuasit illi: manus sibi attulit, nec sine causa.

[10] Scribonia, a grave woman, was the aunt of Drusus Libo, an adolescent as stolid as he was noble, hoping for greater things than anyone in that age could hope, or than he himself could in any. When, sick, he had been carried back from the senate in a litter, not indeed with very numerous exequies - for all his intimates had impiously deserted not now the defendant but the funeral -, he began to deliberate whether he should self-inflict death or wait. To him Scribonia said, 'why does it delight you to manage another’s business?' She did not persuade him: he laid hands upon himself, and not without cause.

Nam post diem tertium aut quartum inimici moriturus arbitrio si vivit, alienum negotium agit.

For after the third or fourth day, if one about to die lives at the enemy’s discretion, he is conducting another’s business.

[11] Non possis itaque de re in universum pronuntiare, cum mortem vis externa denuntiat, occupanda sit an exspectanda; multa enim sunt quae in utramque partem trahere possunt. Si altera mors cum tormento, altera simplex et facilis est, quidni huic inicienda sit manus? Quemadmodum navem eligam navigaturus et domum habitaturus, sic mortem exiturus e vita.

[11] Therefore you cannot pronounce in general about the matter, when an external force denounces death, whether it should be seized or awaited; for there are many things which can draw one to either side. If one death is with torment, and the other simple and easy, why not lay a hand upon this one? Just as I choose a ship for navigating and a house for inhabiting, so I choose a death for exiting from life.

[12] Praeterea quemadmodum non utique melior est longior vita, sic peior est utique mors longior. In nulla re magis quam in morte morem animo gerere debemus. Exeat qua impetum cepit: sive ferrum appetit sive laqueum sive aliquam potionem venas occupantem, pergat et vincula servitutis abrumpat.

[12] Moreover, just as a longer life is not necessarily better, so a longer death is certainly worse. In no matter more than in death ought we to humor the mind. Let it go out where it has taken its impulse: whether it seeks the iron, or the noose, or some potion seizing the veins, let it go on and break the bonds of servitude.

Vitam et aliis approbare quisque debet, mortem sibi: optima est quae placet.

Each person ought to approve his life to others, his death to himself: the best is that which pleases.

[13] Stulte haec cogitantur: 'aliquis dicet me parum fortiter fecisse, aliquis nimis temere, aliquis fuisse aliquod genus mortis animosius'. Vis tu cogitare id in manibus esse consilium ad quod fama non pertinet! Hoc unum intuere, ut te fortunae quam celerrime eripias; alioquin aderunt qui de facto tuo male existiment.

[13] Foolishly are these things thought: 'someone will say that I have done not bravely enough, someone too rashly, someone that there was some kind of death more high-spirited.' Will you consider that the counsel is in your hands, to which fame does not pertain! Fix your gaze on this one thing, that you snatch yourself from Fortune as swiftly as possible; otherwise there will be those who think ill of your deed.

[14] Invenies etiam professos sapientiam qui vim afferendam vitae suae negent et nefas iudicent ipsum interemptorem sui fieri: exspectandum esse exitum quem natura decrevit. Hoc qui dicit non videt se libertatis viam cludere: nihil melius aeterna lex fecit quam quod unum introitum nobis ad vitam dedit, exitus multos.

[14] You will find even those who have professed wisdom who deny that force should be brought to their own life and judge it nefarious that a man become the slayer of himself: that the exit which nature has decreed must be awaited. He who says this does not see that he is shutting the way of liberty: the eternal law has made nothing better than this, that it gave us one entrance into life, many exits.

[15] Ego exspectem vel morbi crudelitatem vel hominis, cum possim per media exire tormenta et adversa discutere ? Hoc est unum cur de vita non possimus queri: neminem tenet. Bono loco res humanae sunt, quod nemo nisi vitio suo miser est. Placet?

[15] Should I wait for either the cruelty of disease or of a man, when I can make my exit through the very midst of torments and dispel adversities? This is the one reason why we cannot complain about life: it holds no one. Human affairs are in a good condition, because no one is miserable except by his own vice. Does it please?

vive: non placet? licet eo reverti unde venisti.

live: does it not please? it is permitted to return whence you came.

[16] Ut dolorem capitis levares, sanguinem saepe misisti; ad extenuandum corpus vena percutitur. Non opus est vasto vulnere dividere praecordia: scalpello aperitur ad illam magnam libertatem via et puncto securitas constat. Quid ergo est quod nos facit pigros inertesque?

[16] To alleviate pain of the head, you have often let blood; to extenuate the body a vein is opened. There is no need to divide the vitals with a vast wound: with a scalpel a way is opened to that great liberty, and security is established by a puncture. What, then, is it that makes us slothful and inert?

Nemo nostrum cogitat quandoque sibi ex hoc domicilio exeundum; sic veteres inquilinos indulgentia loci et consuetudo etiam inter iniurias detinet.

No one of us thinks that at some time he must go out from this domicile; thus the indulgence of the place and custom detains even old tenants, even amid injuries.

[17] Vis adversus hoc corpus liber esse? tamquam migraturus habita. Propone tibi quandoque hoc contubernio carendum: fortior eris ad necessitatem exeundi.

[17] Do you wish to be free with respect to this body? Live as though about to migrate. Set before yourself that at some time this cohabitation must be dispensed with: you will be stronger for the necessity of exiting.

Sed quemadmodum suus finis veniet in mentem omnia sine fine concupiscentibus?

But how will their own end come into mind to those desiring all things without end?

[18] Nullius rei meditatio tam necessaria est; alia enim fortasse exercentur in supervacuum. Adversus paupertatem praeparatus est animus: permansere divitiae. Ad contemptum nos doloris armavimus: numquam a nobis exegit huius virtutis experimentum integri ac sani felicitas corporis.

[18] No meditation of anything is so necessary; for others perhaps are exercised to no purpose. The mind has been prepared against poverty: riches have remained. We have armed ourselves for the contempt of pain: the felicity of an intact and healthy body has never exacted from us a trial of this virtue.

Ut fortiter amissorum desideria pateremur praecepimus nobis: omnis quos amabamus superstites fortuna servavit.

We enjoined upon ourselves to bear bravely the longings for the lost: fortune has preserved all whom we loved alive.

[19] Huius unius rei usum qui exigat dies veniet. Non est quod existimes magnis tantum viris hoc robur fuisse quo servitutis humanae claustra perrumperent; non est quod iudices hoc fieri nisi a Catone non posse, qui quam ferro non emiserat animam manu extraxit: vilissimae sortis homines ingenti impetu in tutum evaserunt, cumque e commodo mori non licuisset nec ad arbitrium suum instrumenta mortis eligere, obvia quaeque rapuerunt et quae natura non erant noxia vi sua tela fecerunt.

[19] The day will come which demands the use of this one thing. Do not suppose that only great men had this strength by which they broke through the bars of human servitude; do not judge that this can be accomplished by none except Cato, who, since he had not let out his spirit by iron, drew it forth by his hand: men of the most wretched lot have by a huge impulse escaped into safety, and when it was not permitted to die with convenience nor to choose at their own discretion the instruments of death, they snatched up whatever was at hand, and things which were not noxious by nature they made into weapons by their own force.

[20] Nuper in ludo bestiariorum unus e Germanis, cum ad matutina spectacula pararetur, secessit ad exonerandum corpus - nullum aliud illi dabatur sine custode secretum; ibi lignum id quod ad emundanda obscena adhaerente spongia positum est totum in gulam farsit et interclusis faucibus spiritum elisit. Hoc fuit morti contumeliam facere. Ita prorsus, parum munde et parum decenter: quid est stultius quam fastidiose mori?

[20] Recently, in the school of the beast-fighters, one of the Germans, when he was being prepared for the morning spectacles, withdrew to relieve the body — no other privacy was granted him without a guard; there he stuffed wholly into his gullet the stick which is set there for cleansing the obscene parts, with a sponge adhering, and, his throat blocked, he forced out his breath. This was to put contumely upon death. Yes indeed, not very cleanly and not very decently: what is more foolish than to die fastidiously?

[21] O virum fortem, o dignum cui fati daretur electio! Quam fortiter ille gladio usus esset, quam animose in profundam se altitudinem maris aut abscisae rupis immisisset! Undique destitutus invenit quemadmodum et mortem sibi deberet et telum, ut scias ad moriendum nihil aliud in mora esse quam velle.

[21] O brave man, O worthy one to whom the choice of fate might be granted! How bravely would he have used the sword, how spiritedly would he have plunged himself into the profound depth of the sea or of a sheer-cut cliff! Forsaken on every side, he found both how he ought to pay death to himself and a weapon, so that you may know that for dying nothing else stands in the way but to will it.

Existimetur de facto hominis acerrimi ut cuique visum erit, dum hoc constet, praeferendam esse spurcissimam mortem servituti mundissimae.

Let it be judged about the deed of a most resolute man as it shall have seemed to each, provided this stands: that the filthiest death is to be preferred to the most clean servitude.

[22] Quoniam coepi sordidis exemplis uti, perseverabo; plus enim a se quisque exiget, si viderit hanc rem etiam a contemptissimis posse contemni. Catones Scipionesque et alios quos audire cum admiratione consuevimus supra imitationem positos putamus: iam ego istam virtutem habere tam multa exempla in ludo bestiario quam in ducibus belli civilis ostendam.

[22] Since I have begun to use sordid examples, I will persevere; for each person will exact more from himself, if he sees that this matter can be contemned even by the most contemptible. We think the Catos and the Scipios, and others whom we are accustomed to hear with admiration, are set above imitation: now I will show that that virtue has as many examples in the beast-fighters’ school as in the commanders of the civil war.

[23] Cum adveheretur nuper inter custodias quidam ad matutinum spectaculum missus, tamquam somno premente nutaret, caput usque eo demisit donec radiis insereret, et tamdiu se in sedili suo tenuit donec cervicem circumactu rotae frangeret; eodem vehiculo quo ad poenam ferebatur effugit.

[23] When a certain man was lately being carried, under guard, to a morning spectacle to which he had been sent, he, as if nodding under the pressure of sleep, lowered his head so far that he inserted it into the spokes, and he kept himself in his seat until, by the rotation of the wheel, he broke his neck; by the same vehicle by which he was being borne to punishment he escaped.

[24] Nihil obstat erumpere et exire cupienti: in aperto nos natura custodit. Cui permittit necessitas sua, circumspiciat exitum mollem; cui ad manum plura sunt per quae sese asserat, is dilectum agat et qua potissimum liberetur consideret: cui difficilis occasio est, is proximam quamque pro optima arripiat, sit licet inaudita, sit nova. Non deerit ad mortem ingenium cui non defuerit animus.

[24] Nothing hinders one who longs to burst forth and to go out: in the open nature guards us. For him whose own necessity permits, let him look around for a gentle exit; for him who has at hand several means by which he may assert himself, let him make a selection and consider by what he may most of all be freed; for him whose occasion is difficult, let him seize whatever is nearest as best, though it be unheard-of, though new. Ingenuity for death will not be lacking to one to whom courage has not been lacking.

[25] Vides quemadmodum extrema quoque mancipia, ubi illis stimulos adegit dolor, excitentur et intentissimas custodias fallant? Ille vir magnus est qui mortem sibi non tantum imperavit sed invenit. Ex eodem tibi munere plura exempla promisi.

[25] You see how even the lowliest bond-slaves, when pain has driven the goads into them, are roused and trick the most intent guards? That is a great man who not only commanded death for himself but even invented it. From the same bounty I have promised you more examples.

[26] Secundo naumachiae spectaculo unus e barbaris lanceam quam in adversarios acceperat totam iugulo suo mersit. 'Quare, quare' inquit 'non omne tormentum, omne ludibrium iamdudum effugio? quare ego mortem armatus exspecto?' Tanto hoc speciosius spectaculum fuit quanto honestius mori discunt homines quam occidere.

[26] At the second spectacle of the naumachia, one of the barbarians plunged the lance which he had taken up against his adversaries wholly into his own jugular. 'Why, why,' he said, 'have I not long since escaped every torment, every mockery? why do I, armed, await death?' By so much was this a more splendid spectacle as men learn more honorably to die than to kill.

[27] Quid ergo? quod animi perditi quoque noxiosi habent non habebunt illi quos adversus hos casus instruxit longa meditatio et magistra rerum omnium ratio? Illa nos docet fati varios esse accessus, finem eundem, nihil autem interesse unde incipiat quod venit.

[27] What, then? Shall not those whom long meditation and Reason, mistress of all things, has equipped against these mishaps have what even depraved and criminal souls possess? She teaches us that fate has various approaches, the end the same, and that it makes no difference whence that which comes begins.

[28] Eadem illa ratio monet ut si licet moriaris quemadmodum potes, et quidquid obvenerit ad vim afferendam tibi invadas. Iniuriosum est rapto vivere, at contra pulcherrimum mori rapto. Vale.

[28] That same reason advises that, if it is permitted, you should die in whatever way you can, and that you should seize upon whatever occurs to apply force to yourself. It is wrongful to live by rapine, but, on the contrary, most beautiful to die by what is snatched. Farewell.

LXXI. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

71. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Subinde me de rebus singulis consulis, oblitus vasto nos mari dividi. Cum magna pars consilii sit in tempore, necesse est evenire ut de quibusdam rebus tunc ad te perferatur sententia mea cum iam contraria potior est. Consilia enim rebus aptantur; res nostrae feruntur, immo volvuntur; ergo consilium nasci sub diem debet.

[1] From time to time you consult me about individual matters, forgetful that a vast sea divides us. Since a great part of counsel lies in timing, it must needs happen that on certain matters my opinion is then carried to you when already the contrary is the stronger. For counsels are adapted to things; our affairs are borne along—nay, they are rolled; therefore counsel ought to be born for the day.

Et hoc quoque nimis tardum est: sub manu, quod aiunt, nascatur. Quemadmodum autem inveniatur ostendam.

And this too is too tardy: let it be born under the hand, as they say. Moreover, I will show how it may be found.

[2] Quotiens quid fugiendum sit aut quid petendum voles scire, ad summum bonum, propositum totius vitae tuae, respice. Illi enim consentire debet quidquid agimus: non disponet singula, nisi cui iam vitae suae summa proposita est. Nemo, quamvis paratos habeat colores, similitudinem reddet, nisi iam constat quid velit pingere.

[2] Whenever you wish to know what is to be fled or what is to be sought, look back to the highest good, the purpose of your whole life. For whatever we do ought to consent to that: he will not dispose the particulars, unless the sum of his life has already been set before him. No one, although he may have prepared colors, will render the similitude, unless it is already agreed what he wishes to paint.

Ideo peccamus quia de partibus vitae omnes deliberamus, de tota nemo deliberat.

Therefore we err because we all deliberate about the parts of life, while about the whole no one deliberates.

[3] Scire debet quid petat ille qui sagittam vult mittere, et tunc derigere ac moderari manu telum: errant consilia nostra, quia non habent quo derigantur; ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est. Necesse est multum in vita nostra casus possit, quia vivimus casu.

[3] He who wishes to send an arrow ought to know what he seeks, and then to direct and moderate with his hand the missile: our counsels err, because they have nothing toward which they may be directed; to one ignorant of what port he seeks, no wind is his own. It is necessary that chance have much power in our life, because we live by chance.

[4] Quibusdam autem evenit ut quaedam scire se nesciant; quemadmodum quaerimus saepe eos cum quibus stamus, ita plerumque finem summi boni ignoramus appositum. Nec multis verbis nec circumitu longo quod sit summum bonum colliges: digito, ut ita dicam, demonstrandum est nec in multa spargendum. Quid enim ad rem pertinet in particulas illud diducere?

[4] But it happens to some that they are unaware that they know certain things; just as we often look for those with whom we are standing, so for the most part we are ignorant that the end of the supreme good is set before us. You will not gather what the supreme good is either by many words or by a long circuit: it must be, so to speak, pointed out with a finger and not scattered into many things. For what does it pertain to the matter to draw that out into particles?

cum possis dicere 'summum bonum est quod honestum est' et, quod magis admireris, 'unum bonum est quod honestum est, cetera falsa et adulterina bona sunt'.

since you can say 'the highest good is that which is honorable' and, what you may admire more, 'there is one good, which is the honorable; the rest are false and adulterine goods'.

[5] Hoc si persuaseris tibi et virtutem adamaveris - amare enim parum est -, quidquid illa contigerit, id tibi, qualecumque aliis videbitur, faustum felixque erit. Et torqueri, si modo iacueris ipso torquente securior, et aegrotare, si non male dixeris fortunae, si non cesseris morbo, omnia denique quae ceteris videntur mala et mansuescent et in bonum abibunt, si super illa eminueris. Hoc liqueat, nihil esse bonum nisi honestum: et omnia incommoda suo iure bona vocabuntur quae modo virtus honestaverit.

[5] If you persuade yourself of this and have loved virtue ardently—for to love is too little—whatever shall have befallen her, that, whatever it may seem to others, will be for you propitious and felicitous. And even to be racked, provided you have lain more secure while he himself is racking you, and to be sick, if you do not speak ill of Fortune, if you do not yield to the disease—all things, finally, which seem evils to others will both grow gentle and pass over into good, if you rise superior to them. Let this be clear: nothing is good except the honorable; and all disadvantages, by their own right, will be called good, so long as virtue has made them honorable.

[6] Multis videmur maiora promittere quam recipit humana condicio, non immerito; ad corpus enim respiciunt. Revertantur ad animum: iam hominem deo metientur.

[6] To many we seem to promise greater things than the human condition admits, not without cause; for they have regard to the body. Let them return to the mind: now they will measure the man by a god.

Erige te, Lucili virorum optime, et relinque istum ludum litterarium philosophorum qui rem magnificentissimam ad syllabas vocant, qui animum minuta docendo demittunt et conterunt: fies similis illis qui invenerunt ista, non qui docent et id agunt ut philosophia potius difficilis quam magna videatur.

Rouse yourself, Lucilius, best of men, and leave that grammar‑school game of the philosophers, who call the most magnificent thing down to syllables, who by teaching minutiae lower and wear down the mind: you will become like those who discovered these things, not those who teach and contrive that philosophy seem rather difficult than great.

[7] Socrates, qui totam philosophiam revocavit ad mores et hanc summam dixit esse sapientiam, bona malaque distinguere, 'sequere' inquit 'illos, si quid apud te habeo auctoritatis, ut sis beatus, et te alicui stultum videri sine. Quisquis volet tibi contumeliam faciat et iniuriam, tu tamen nihil patieris, si modo tecum erit virtus. Si vis inquit 'beatus esse, si fide bona vir bonus, sine contemnat te aliquis.' Hoc nemo praestabit nisi qui omnia prior ipse contempserit, nisi qui omnia bona exaequaverit, quia nec bonum sine honesto est et honestum in omnibus par est.

[7] Socrates, who recalled all philosophy to morals and said that this is the sum of wisdom: to distinguish goods and evils, 'follow,' he says, 'those, if I have any authority with you, in order that you may be happy, and allow yourself to seem foolish to someone. Whoever shall wish may do you contumely and injury; you, however, will suffer nothing, if only virtue is with you. If you wish,' he says, 'to be happy, if in good faith (bona fide) a good man, allow someone to despise you.' No one will accomplish this unless he has first himself contemned all things, unless he has made all goods equal, because neither is good without the honorable, and the honorable is equal in all things.

[8] 'Quid ergo? nihil interest inter praeturam Catonis et repulsam? nihil interest utrum Pharsalica acie Cato vincatur an vincat?

[8] 'What then? Is there no difference between Cato’s praetorship and a repulse? Is there no difference whether, in the Pharsalian battle-line, Cato is conquered or conquers?

hoc eius bonum, quo victis partibus non potest vinci, par erat illi bono quo victor rediret in patriam et componeret pacem?' Quidni par sit? eadem enim virtute et mala fortuna vincitur et ordinatur bona; virtus autem non potest maior aut minor fieri: unius staturae est.

Was this his good, by which, with his party defeated, he cannot be vanquished, equal to that good by which, as victor, he would return to his fatherland and compose peace?' Why should it not be equal? For by the same virtue both evil fortune is conquered and good fortune is ordered; but virtue cannot become greater or less: it is of a single stature.

[9] 'Sed Cn. Pompeius amittet exercitum, sed illud pulcherrimum rei publicae praetextum, optimates, et prima acies Pompeianarum partium, senatus ferens arma, uno proelio profligabuntur et tam magni ruina imperii in totum dissiliet orbem: aliqua pars eius in Aegypto, aliqua in Africa, aliqua in Hispania cadet. Ne hoc quidem miserae rei publicae continget, semel ruere.'

[9] 'But Cn. Pompeius will lose his army; but that most beautiful trimming of the republic, the Optimates, and the front line of the Pompeian faction, the senate bearing arms, will be crushed in a single battle; and the ruin of so great an empire will splinter into the whole orb: some part of it will fall in Egypt, some in Africa, some in Spain. Not even this will be granted to the wretched republic, to collapse once for all.'

[10] Omnia licet fiant: Iubam in regno suo non locorum notitia adiuvet, non popularium pro rege suo virtus obstinatissima, Uticensium quoque fides malis fracta deficiat et Scipionem in Africa nominis sui fortuna destituat: olim provisum est ne quid Cato detrimenti caperet.

[10] Let all things happen: let Juba in his own kingdom not be aided by knowledge of the places, nor by the most obstinate valor of his compatriots for their king; let even the loyalty of the Uticans, broken by misfortunes, fail, and let the Fortune of his name abandon Scipio in Africa: long ago it was provided that Cato should incur no detriment.

[11] 'Victus est tamen.' Et hoc numera inter repulsas Catonis: tam magno animo feret aliquid sibi ad victoriam quam ad praeturam obstitisse. Quo die repulsus est lusit, qua nocte periturus fuit legit; eodem loco habuit praetura et vita excidere; omnia quae acciderent ferenda esse persuaserat sibi.

[11] 'He was defeated, however.' Count this too among Cato’s repulses: he will bear with such magnanimity that something had stood in his way to victory as to the praetorship. On the day he was rejected he played; on the night he was going to perish he read; he held it the same for the praetorship and for life to fall away; he had persuaded himself that all things which befall must be borne.

[12] Quidni ille mutationem rei publicae forti et aequo pateretur animo? quid enim mutationis periculo exceptum? non terra, non caelum, non totus hic rerum omnium contextus, quamvis deo agente ducatur; non semper tenebit hunc ordinem, sed illum ex hoc cursu aliquis dies deiciet.

[12] Why should he not endure the mutation of the commonwealth with a brave and equable spirit? For what is exempt from the peril of mutation? Not the earth, not the heaven, not this whole context of all things, although it is led with God acting; it will not always hold this order, but some day will cast it down from this course.

[13] Certis eunt cuncta temporibus: nasci debent, crescere, exstingui. Quaecumque supra nos vides currere et haec quibus innixi atque impositi sumus veluti solidissimis carpentur ac desinent; nulli non senectus sua est. Inaequalibus ista spatiis eodem natura dimittit: quidquid est non erit, nec peribit sed resolvetur.

[13] All things go by fixed times: they ought to be born, to grow, to be extinguished. Whatever you see running above us, and these things on which we are leaned and set as if upon the most solid, will be worn away and will cease; to none is its own senescence lacking. With unequal spans nature dismisses these to the same end: whatever is will not be, nor will it perish but will be resolved.

[14] Nobis solvi perire est; proxima enim intuemur, ad ulteriora non prospicit mens hebes et quae se corpori addixerit; alioqui fortius finem sui suorumque pateretur, si speraret, omnia illa, sic vitam mortemque per vices ire et composita dissolvi, dissoluta componi, in hoc opere aeternam artem cuncta temperantis dei verti.

[14] For us, to be dissolved is to perish; for we look at what is nearest, and the dull mind that has addicted itself to the body does not look ahead to things farther off; otherwise it would more bravely endure the end of itself and of its own, if it were to hope, all those things, so life and death go by turns, and things composed are dissolved, things dissolved are composed, and that in this work the eternal art of the god tempering all things comes into play.

[15] Itaque ut M. Cato, cum aevum animo percucurrerit, dicet, 'omne humanum genus, quodque est quodque erit, morte damnatum est; omnes quae usquam rerum potiuntur urbes quaeque alienorum imperiorum magna sunt decora, ubi fuerint aliquando quaeretur et vario exitii genere tollentur: alias destruent bella, alias desidia paxque ad inertiam versa consumet et magnis opibus exitiosa res, luxus. Omnes hos fertiles campos repentini maris inundatio abscondet aut in subitam cavernam considentis soli lapsus abducet. Quid est ergo quare indigner aut doleam, si exiguo momento publica fata praecedo?'

[15] And so, as M. Cato, when he has run through the age in his mind, will say, 'the whole human race, both what is and what will be, is condemned to death; all the cities that anywhere hold dominion over affairs, and which are great ornaments of others’ empires, it will sometime be asked where they were, and they will be removed by various kinds of destruction: some wars will destroy, others sloth and peace turned into inertia will consume, and luxury, a thing ruinous amid great opulence. All these fertile fields a sudden sea’s inundation will conceal, or a collapse of settling soil will draw them off into a sudden cavern. What reason is there, then, why I should be indignant or grieve, if by a slight moment I precede the common fates?'

[16] Magnus animus deo pareat et quidquid lex universi iubet sine cunctatione patiatur: aut in meliorem emittitur vitam lucidius tranquilliusque inter divina mansurus aut certe sine ullo futurus incommodo, si naturae remiscebitur et revertetur in totum. Non est ergo M. Catonis maius bonum honesta vita quam mors honesta, quoniam non intenditur virtus. Idem esse dicebat Socrates veritatem et virtutem.

[16] Let the great spirit obey god and endure without hesitation whatever the law of the universe commands: either it is sent forth into a better life, to remain more lucid and more tranquil among divine things, or surely it will be with no inconvenience at all, if it is remixed to nature and returns into the Whole. Therefore for M. Cato an honorable life is not a greater good than an honorable death, since virtue is not intensified. Socrates used to say that truth and virtue are the same.

Quomodo illa non crescit, sic ne virtus quidem: habet numeros suos, plena est.

Just as that does not increase, so neither does virtue: it has its own numbers; it is full.

[17] Non est itaque quod mireris paria esse bona, et quae ex proposito sumenda sunt et quae si ita res tulit. Nam si hanc inaequalitatem receperis ut fortiter torqueri in minoribus bonis numeres, numerabis etiam in malis, et infelicem Socraten dices in carcere, infelicem Catonem vulnera sua animosius quam fecerat retractantem, calamitosissimum omnium Regulum fidei poenas etiam hostibus servatae pendentem. Atqui nemo hoc dicere, ne ex mollissimis quidem, ausus est; negant enim illum esse beatum, sed tamen negant miserum.

[17] Therefore there is no cause for you to marvel that goods are equal, both those which are to be taken by design and those which are, if circumstances so carried it. For if you admit this inequality—that you number being bravely racked among the lesser goods—you will also number it among evils, and you will call Socrates unlucky in prison, Cato unlucky as he re-handles his wounds more spiritedly than he had inflicted them, and Regulus most calamitous of all, paying the penalties of faith kept even to enemies. And yet no one, not even of the very soft, has dared to say this; for they deny that he is blessed, yet nevertheless they deny that he is wretched.

[18] Academici veteres beatum quidem esse etiam inter hos cruciatus fatentur, sed non ad perfectum nec ad plenum, quod nullo modo potest recipi: nisi beatus est, in summo bono non est. Quod summum bonum est supra se gradum non habet, si modo illi virtus inest, si illam adversa non minuunt, si manet etiam comminuto corpore incolumis: manet autem. Virtutem enim intellego animosam et excelsam, quam incitat quidquid infestat.

[18] The ancient Academics admit indeed that one is happy even amid these tortures, but not to perfection nor to fullness—something that can in no way be admitted: unless he is happy, he is not in the supreme good. The supreme good has no step above itself, provided that virtue is present in him, provided that adversities do not diminish it, provided that it remains uninjured even with the body shattered: and it does remain. For I understand virtue to be high-spirited and exalted, which whatever assails it incites.

[19] Hunc animum, quem saepe induunt generosae indolis iuvenes quos alicuius honestae rei pulchritudo percussit, ut omnia fortuita contemnant, profecto sapientia [non] infundet et tradet; persuadebit unum bonum esse quod honestum, hoc nec remitti nec intendi posse, non magis quam regulam qua rectum probari solet flectes. Quidquid ex illa mutaveris iniuria est recti.

[19] This spirit, which youths of generous nature often assume, whom the beauty of some honest thing has struck, so that they contemn all fortuitous things, wisdom surely will not infuse and hand over; it will persuade that the one good is that which is honorable, that this can be neither relaxed nor tightened, no more than you will bend the rule by which the straight is wont to be proved. Whatever you alter from it is an injury to the straight.

[20] Idem ergo de virtute dicemus: et haec recta est, flexuram non recipit; [rigidari quidem amplius intendi potest]. Haec de omnibus rebus iudicat, de hac nulla. Si rectior ipsa non potest fieri, ne quae ab illa quidem fiunt alia aliis rectiora sunt; huic enim necesse est respondeant; ita paria sunt.

[20] The same, therefore, we shall say about virtue: it too is straight, it does not admit a flexure; [indeed, to be made rigid it can be further intensified]. This judges all things, about this none. If it itself cannot be made straighter, then not even the things that are done by it are some more straight than others; for they must correspond to this; thus they are equal.

[21] 'Quid ergo?' inquis 'iacere in convivio et torqueri paria sunt?' Hoc mirum videtur tibi? illud licet magis admireris: iacere in convivio malum est, iacere in eculeo bonum est, si illud turpiter, hoc honeste fit. Bona ista aut mala non efficit materia sed virtus; haec ubicumque apparuit, omnia eiusdem mensurae ac pretii sunt.

[21] 'What then?' you ask 'to recline at a banquet and to be racked are equal?' Does this seem a marvel to you? You may admire this more: to recline at a banquet is an evil, to lie on the rack is a good, if that is done basely, this honorably. Those goods or evils are not effected by the material but by virtue; wherever this has appeared, all things are of the same measure and price.

[22] In oculos nunc mihi manus intentat ille qui omnium animum aestimat ex suo, quod dicam paria bona esse honeste iudicantis quod dicam paria bona esse eius qui triumphat et eius qui ante currum vehitur invictus animo. Non putant enim fieri quidquid facere non possunt; ex infirmitate sua ferunt de virtute sententiam.

[22] Now he brandishes his hand in my face, that man who estimates everyone’s spirit from his own, because I say that the goods of one who judges honorably are equal because I say that the goods of him who triumphs and of him who is carried before the chariot, unconquered in spirit, are equal. For they do not think anything can be done which they cannot do; from their own weakness they give judgment about virtue.

[23] Quid miraris si uri, vulnerari, occidi, alligari iuvat, aliquando etiam libet? Luxurioso frugalitas poena est, pigro supplicii loco labor est, delicatus miseretur industrii, desidioso studere torqueri est: eodem modo haec ad quae omnes imbecilli sumus dura atque intoleranda credimus, obliti quam multis tormentum sit vino carere aut prima luce excitari. Non ista difficilia sunt natura, sed nos fluvidi et enerves.

[23] Why do you marvel if to be burned, to be wounded, to be killed, to be bound pleases—sometimes indeed even is welcome? For the luxurious man, frugality is a penalty; for the sluggish, labor is in the place of punishment; the delicate man pities the industrious; for the idle man, to study is to be tortured. In the same way we believe these things—toward which we are all weak—to be hard and intolerable, forgetting how for many it is torment to go without wine or to be roused at first light. These things are not difficult by nature, but we are flaccid and enervated.

[24] Magno animo de rebus magnis iudicandum est; alioqui videbitur illarum vitium esse quod nostrum est. Sic quaedam rectissima, cum in aquam demissa sunt, speciem curvi praefractique visentibus reddunt. Non tantum quid videas, sed quemadmodum, refert: animus noster ad vera perspicienda caligat.

[24] One must judge of great matters with a great mind; otherwise what is our fault will seem to be a defect of theirs. Thus certain things that are most straight, when lowered into water, render to onlookers the appearance of being curved and broken. Not only what you see, but in what manner, matters: our mind grows dim for discerning the true.

[25] Da mihi adulescentem incorruptum et ingenio vegetum: dicet fortunatiorem sibi videri qui omnia rerum adversarum onera rigida cervice sustollat, qui supra fortunam exstet. Non est mirum in tranquillitate non concuti: illud mirare, ibi extolli aliquem ubi omnes deprimuntur, ibi stare ubi omnes iacent.

[25] Give me an adolescent incorrupt and vigorous in ingenuity: he will say that the one seems more fortunate to him who, with a rigid neck, lifts up all the burdens of adverse affairs, who stands out above Fortune. It is no wonder, in tranquility, not to be shaken: marvel at this—that someone is lifted up where all are pressed down, that he stands where all lie.

[26] Quid est in tormentis, quid est in aliis quae adversa appellamus mali? hoc, ut opinor, succidere mentem et incurvari et succumbere. Quorum nihil sapienti viro potest evenire: stat rectus sub quolibet pondere.

[26] What is there of evil in torments, what in other things which we call adverse? This, I suppose: that the mind is cut down, bent, and succumbs. None of which can befall a wise man: he stands erect under whatever weight.

Nulla illum res minorem facit; nihil illi eorum quae ferenda sunt displicet. Nam quidquid cadere in hominem potest in se cecidisse non queritur. Vires suas novit; scit se esse oneri ferendo.

No thing makes him lesser; nothing among the things that must be borne displeases him. For he does not complain that whatever can befall a human has fallen upon himself. He knows his powers; he knows himself to be for bearing the burden.

[27] Non educo sapientem ex hominum numero nec dolores ab illo sicut ab aliqua rupe nullum sensum admittente summoveo. Memini ex duabus illum partibus esse compositum: altera est irrationalis, haec mordetur, uritur, dolet; altera rationalis, haec inconcussas opiniones habet, intrepida est et indomita. In hac positum est summum illud hominis bonum.

[27] I do not lead the wise man out from the number of human beings, nor do I ward off pains from him as from some rock admitting no sensation. I remember that he is composed of two parts: one is irrational—this is bitten, scorched, it hurts; the other is rational—this has unshaken opinions, is intrepid and indomitable. In this is placed that supreme good of man.

Antequam impleatur, incerta mentis volutatio est; cum vero perfectum est, immota illi stabilitas est.

Before it is fulfilled, there is an uncertain rolling of the mind; but when indeed it is perfected, there is to it an unmoved stability.

[28] Itaque inchoatus et ad summa procedens cultorque virtutis, etiam si appropinquat perfecto bono sed ei nondum summam manum imposuit, ibit interim cessim et remittet aliquid ex intentione mentis; nondum enim incerta transgressus est, etiam nunc versatur in lubrico. Beatus vero et virtutis exactae tunc se maxime amat cum fortissime expertus est, et metuenda ceteris, si alicuius honesti officii pretia sunt, non tantum fert sed amplexatur multoque audire mavult 'tanto melior' quam 'tanto felicior'.

[28] And so the one who has begun and is proceeding toward the highest things, a cultivator of virtue, even if he approaches the perfect good but has not yet put the finishing hand upon it, will meanwhile go by degrees and will relax something from the intention of his mind; for he has not yet crossed beyond uncertainties, even now he moves on the slippery. But the blessed man, with virtue perfected, then loves himself most when he has been most stoutly tested, and the things fearful to others—if they are the prices of some honorable office—he not only bears but embraces, and much prefers to hear 'so much the better' than 'so much the more fortunate'.

[29] Venio nunc illo quo me vocat exspectatio tua. Ne extra rerum naturam vagari virtus nostra videatur, et tremet sapiens et dolebit et expallescet; hi enim omnes corporis sensus sunt. Ubi ergo calamitas, ubi illud malum verum est?

[29] I now come to that point whither your expectation calls me. Lest our virtue seem to wander outside the nature of things, the wise man too will tremble and will feel pain and will grow pale; for all these are sensations of the body. Where then is the calamity, where is that true evil?

illic scilicet, si ista animum detrahunt, si ad confessionem servitutis adducunt, si illi paenitentiam sui faciunt.

There, of course, if those things drag down the mind, if they lead to a confession of servitude, if they cause him to repent of himself.

[30] Sapiens quidem vincit virtute fortunam, at multi professi sapientiam levissimis nonnumquam minis exterriti sunt. Hoc loco nostrum vitium est, qui idem a sapiente exigimus et a proficiente. Suadeo adhuc mihi ista quae laudo, nondum persuadeo; etiam si persuasissem, nondum tam parata haberem aut tam exercitata ut ad omnes casus procurrerent.

[30] The wise man indeed conquers Fortune by virtue, yet many who have professed wisdom have sometimes been terrified by the very lightest threats. In this matter the fault is ours, we who demand the same from the sage and from the proficient. I still counsel myself toward those things which I praise; I do not yet persuade myself; and even if I had persuaded myself, I would not yet have them so prepared or so exercised that they would run out to meet all contingencies.

[31] Quemadmodum lana quosdam colores semel ducit, quosdam nisi saepius macerata et recocta non perbibit, sic alias disciplinas ingenia, cum accepere, protinus praestant: haec, nisi alte descendit et diu sedit et animum non coloravit sed infecit, nihil ex iis quae promiserat praestat.

[31] Just as wool takes certain colors at a single dipping, but others it does not thoroughly imbibe unless, having been more often macerated and reboiled, so too with other disciplines minds, when they have received them, immediately display them: this one, unless it has gone down deep and sat long and has not colored the mind but dyed it through, delivers nothing of the things it had promised.

[32] Cito hoc potest tradi et paucissimis verbis: unum bonum esse virtutem, nullum certe sine virtute, et ipsam virtutem in parte nostri meliore, id est rationali, positam. Quid erit haec virtus? iudicium verum et immotum; ab hoc enim impetus venient mentis, ab hoc omnis species quae impetum movet redigetur ad liquidum.

[32] This can be conveyed quickly and in the fewest words: that virtue is the one good, certainly no [good] without virtue, and that virtue itself is situated in the better part of us, that is, the rational. What will this virtue be? A true and unmoved judgment; for from this the mind’s impetuses will come; by this every appearance that moves an impetus will be reduced to a clear state.

[33] Huic iudicio consentaneum erit omnia quae virtute contacta sunt et bona iudicare et inter se paria. Corporum autem bona corporibus quidem bona sunt, sed in totum non sunt bona; his pretium quidem erit aliquod, ceterum dignitas non erit; magnis inter se intervallis distabunt: alia minora, alia maiora erunt.

[33] In accord with this judgment it will be to judge all things that are touched by virtue both as good and as equal among themselves. But the goods of bodies are indeed goods for bodies, yet taken in the whole they are not good; to these there will indeed be some price, but dignity there will not be; they will stand apart from one another by great intervals: some will be smaller, others greater.

[34] Et in ipsis sapientiam sectantibus magna discrimina esse fateamur necesse est: alius iam in tantum profecit ut contra fortunam audeat attollere oculos, sed non pertinaciter - cadunt enim nimio splendore praestricti -, alius in tantum ut possit cum illa conferre vultum, nisi iam pervenit ad summum et fiduciae plenus est.

[34] And we must needs confess that even among those themselves who pursue wisdom there are great distinctions: one has advanced to such a degree that he dares to lift his eyes against Fortune, but not pertinaciously - for they fall, dazzled by excessive splendor -, another so far that he is able to compare his countenance with hers, unless he has already reached the summit and is full of confidence.

[35] Imperfecta necesse est labent et modo prodeant, modo sublabantur aut succidant. Sublabentur autem, nisi ire et niti perseveraverint; si quicquam ex studio et fideli intentione laxaverint, retro eundum est. Nemo profectum ibi invenit ubi reliquerat.

[35] The imperfect must needs slip, and now advance, now slip down or give way. Yet they will slip down unless they shall have persevered to go and to strive; if they relax anything from zeal and faithful intention, it is necessary to go retrograde. No one finds progress where he had left it.

[36] Instemus itaque et perseveremus; plus quam profligavimus restat, sed magna pars est profectus velle proficere. Huius rei conscius mihi sum: volo et mente tota volo. Te quoque instinctum esse et magno ad pulcherrima properare impetu video.

[36] Therefore let us press on and persevere; more remains than we have already put to rout, but a great part of progress is to will to progress. Of this I am conscious: I will it, and with my whole mind I will it. I see that you too are stirred by an instinct and hasten with great impetus toward the most beautiful things.

Properemus: ita demum vita beneficium erit; alioquin mora est, et quidem turpis inter foeda versantibus. Id agamus ut nostrum omne tempus sit; non erit autem, nisi prius nos nostri esse coeperimus.

Let us hasten: only then will life be a benefit; otherwise it is delay, and indeed a shameful one for those engaged among foul things. Let us aim at this, that all our time be ours; but it will not be, unless first we have begun to be our own.

[37] Quando continget contemnere utramque fortunam, quando continget omnibus oppressis affectibus et sub arbitrium suum adductis hanc vocem emittere 'vici'? Quem vicerim quaeris? Non Persas nec extrema Medorum nec si quid ultra Dahas bellicosum iacet, sed avaritiam, sed ambitionem, sed metum mortis, qui victores gentium vicit. Vale.

[37] When will it befall to contemn both fortunes; when will it befall, with all passions suppressed and brought under one’s own authority, to utter this cry: 'I have conquered'? Whom I have conquered, you ask? Not the Persians, nor the farthest confines of the Medes, nor, if anything warlike lies beyond, the Dahae; but greed, but ambition, but fear of death—which has conquered the conquerors of nations. Farewell.

LXXII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

72. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETINGS

[1] Quod quaeris a me liquebat mihi - sic rem edidiceram - per se; sed diu non retemptavi memoriam meam, itaque non facile me sequitur. Quod evenit libris situ cohaerentibus, hoc evenisse mihi sentio: explicandus est animus et quaecumque apud illum deposita sunt subinde excuti debent, ut parata sint quotiens usus exegerit. Ergo hoc in praesentia differamus; multum enim operae, multum diligentiae poscit.

[1] What you ask of me was clear to me—so thoroughly had I learned the matter—per se; but for a long time I have not re-tested my memory, and so it does not easily follow me. What happens to books sticking together from mildew, I feel has happened to me: the mind must be explicated, and whatever has been deposited with it ought to be shaken out from time to time, so that they may be ready whenever use shall exact it. Therefore let us defer this for the present; for it calls for much work, much diligence.

Cum primum longiorem eodem loco speravero moram, tunc istud in manus sumam.

As soon as I shall have hoped for a longer stay in the same place, then I will take that in hand.

[2] Quaedam enim sunt quae possis et in cisio scribere, quaedam lectum et otium et secretum desiderant. Nihilominus his quoque occupatis diebus agatur aliquid et quidem totis. Numquam enim non succedent occupationes novae: serimus illas, itaque ex una exeunt plures.

[2] For there are certain things that you can even write in a carriage, and certain things that demand a couch and leisure and privacy. Nevertheless, even in these busy days let something be done—and indeed for whole days. For new occupations will never fail to succeed: we sow them, and thus out of one more issue forth.

Deinde ipsi nobis dilationem damus: 'cum hoc peregero, toto animo incumbam' et 'si hanc rem molestam composuero, studio me dabo'.

Then we ourselves grant ourselves a delay: 'when I have finished this, I will apply myself with my whole mind' and 'if I have settled this troublesome matter, I will give myself to study'.

[3] Non cum vacaveris philosophandum est, sed ut philosopheris vacandum est; omnia alia neglegenda ut huic assideamus, cui nullum tempus satis magnum est, etiam si a pueritia usque ad longissimos humani aevi terminos vita producitur. Non multum refert utrum omittas philosophiam an intermittas; non enim ubi interrupta est manet, sed eorum more quae intenta dissiliunt usque ad initia sua recurrit, quod a continuatione discessit. Resistendum est occupationibus, nec explicandae sed summovendae sunt.

[3] One must not philosophize when you have found leisure, but you must make leisure so that you may philosophize; all other things must be neglected so that we may sit by this, for whom no time is great enough, even if life is prolonged from boyhood up to the longest limits of the human age. It does not matter much whether you omit philosophy or intermit it; for it does not remain where it was interrupted, but, after the manner of things which, when stretched taut, spring apart, it runs back to its beginnings, that which has departed from continuity. We must resist occupations, and they are not to be explicated but to be removed.

Tempus quidem nullum est parum idoneum studio salutari; atqui multi inter illa non student propter quae studendum est.

No time, indeed, is too little suitable for salutary study; and yet many, in the midst of those very things, do not study on account of the very things for which one ought to study.

[4] 'Incidet aliquid quod impediat.' Non quidem eum cuius animus in omni negotio laetus atque alacer est: imperfectis adhuc interscinditur laetitia, sapientis vero contexitur gaudium, nulla causa rumpitur, nulla fortuna; semper et ubique tranquillus est. Non enim ex alieno pendet nec favorem fortunae aut hominis exspectat. Domestica illi felicitas est; exiret ex animo si intraret: ibi nascitur.

[4] 'Something will occur that will impede.' Not, indeed, for him whose spirit is glad and lively in every business: while things are still imperfect, gladness is broken off; but the wise man’s joy is woven together—by no cause is it ruptured, by no Fortune; he is always and everywhere tranquil. For it does not depend on what is another’s, nor does it await the favor of Fortune or of man. His felicity is domestic; it would go out from the mind if it had entered: there it is born.

[5] Aliquando extrinsecus quo admoneatur mortalitatis intervenit, sed id leve et quod summam cutem stringat. Aliquo, inquam, incommodo afflatur; maximum autem illud bonum fixum est. Ita dico, extrinsecus aliqua sunt incommoda, velut in corpore interdum robusto solidoque eruptiones quaedam pustularum et ulcuscula, nullum in alto malum est.

[5] Sometimes from outside there intervenes something to admonish him of mortality, but it is light and only grazes the outermost skin. By some inconvenience, I say, he is breathed upon; but that greatest good is fixed. Thus I say, from outside there are some inconveniences, just as in a body sometimes robust and solid there are certain eruptions of pustules and little ulcers; there is no evil in the deep.

[6] Hoc, inquam, interest inter consummatae sapientiae virum et alium procedentis quod inter sanum et ex morbo gravi ac diutino emergentem, cui sanitatis loco est levior accessio: hic nisi attendit, subinde gravatur et in eadem revolvitur, sapiens recidere non potest, ne incidere quidem amplius. Corpori enim ad tempus bona valetudo est, quam medicus, etiam si reddidit, non praestat - saepe ad eundem qui advocaverat excitatur: semel in totum sanatur.

[6] This, I say, is the difference between a man of consummate wisdom and another who is advancing, the same as between one who is sound and one emerging from a grave and long-lasting disease, for whom, in place of health, there is a lighter remission: the latter, unless he pays heed, is from time to time made worse and rolled back into the same; the wise man cannot relapse, nay, not even fall into it again. For good health is for a time in the body, which the physician, even if he has restored it, does not guarantee—often he is summoned again to the same man who had called him: is once for all healed entirely.

[7] Dicam quomodo intellegas sanum: si se ipse contentus est, si confidit sibi, si scit omnia vota mortalium, omnia beneficia quae dantur petunturque, nullum in beata vita habere momentum. Nam cui aliquid accedere potest, id imperfectum est; cui aliquid abscedere potest, id imperpetuum est: cuius perpetua futura laetitia est, is suo gaudeat. Omnia autem quibus vulgus inhiat ultro citroque fluunt: nihil dat fortuna mancipio.

[7] I will say how you may understand one who is sound: if he is content with himself, if he has confidence in himself, if he knows that all the vows of mortals, all the benefactions that are given and sought, have no weight in the blessed life. For that to which something can be added is imperfect; that from which something can be taken away is not perpetual: let him whose joy is going to be perpetual rejoice in what is his own. But all the things at which the crowd gapes flow to and fro: Fortune gives nothing in absolute ownership.

Sed haec quoque fortuita tunc delectant cum illa ratio temperavit ac miscuit haec est quae etiam externa commendet, quorum avidis usus ingratus est.

But these fortuitous things also then delight, when that reason has tempered and mixed them; this is what even commends external things, the use of which is ungrateful to the avid.

[8] Solebat Attalus hac imagine uti: 'vidisti aliquando canem missa a domino frusta panis aut carnis aperto ore captantem? quidquid excepit protinus integrum devorat et semper ad spem venturi hiat. Idem evenit nobis: quidquid exspectantibus fortuna proiecit, id sine ulla voluptate demittimus statim, ad rapinam alterius erecti et attoniti.' Hoc sapienti non evenit: plenus est; etiam si quid obvenit, secure excipit ac reponit; laetitia fruitur maxima, continua, sua.

[8] Attalus was accustomed to use this image: 'Have you ever seen a dog, at morsels of bread or meat sent by his master, catching them with open mouth? Whatever he has caught he at once devours entire, and he is always gaping in hope of what is to come. The same happens to us: whatever Fortune has thrown to us as we stand in expectation, that we let down immediately without any delight, raised up and agog for the snatching of the next.' This does not happen to the wise man: he is full; even if anything comes his way, he receives it securely and puts it aside; he enjoys a joy that is greatest, continuous, his own.

[9] Habet aliquis bonam voluntatem, habet profectum, sed cui multum desit a summo: hic deprimitur alternis et extollitur ac modo in caelum allevatur, modo defertur ad terram. Imperitis ac rudibus nullus praecipitationis finis est; in Epicureum illud chaos decidunt, inane sine termino.

[9] Someone has good will, has made progress, but is still far from the summit: this man is by turns pressed down and lifted up, and now is raised to heaven, now is carried down to earth. For the unskilled and the rude there is no end of precipitation; they fall into that Epicurean chaos, an inane without terminus.

[10] Est adhuc genus tertium eorum qui sapientiae alludunt, quam non quidem contigerunt, in conspectu tamen et, ut ita dicam, sub ictu habent: hi non concutiuntur, ne defluunt quidem; nondum in sicco, iam in portu sunt.

[10] There is still a third kind of those who allude to wisdom, which they have not indeed attained, yet they have it in sight and, so to speak, within striking distance: these are not shaken, nor do they even drift; not yet on dry land, already in harbor.

[11] Ergo cum tam magna sint inter summos imosque discrimina, cum medios quoque sequatur fluctus suus, sequatur ingens periculum ad deteriora redeundi, non debemus occupationibus indulgere. Excludendae sunt: si semel intraverint, in locum suum alias substituent. Principiis illarum obstemus: melius non incipient quam desinent.

[11] Therefore, since there are so great distinctions between the highest and the lowest, and since those in the middle too are accompanied by their own surge, accompanied by a vast danger of returning to worse things, we ought not to indulge occupations. They must be excluded: if once they have entered, they will substitute others in their place. Let us oppose their beginnings: it will be better that they do not begin than that they should end.

Vale.

Farewell.

LXXIII. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

73. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Errare mihi videntur qui existimant philosophiae fideliter deditos contumaces esse ac refractarios, contemptores magistratuum aut regum eorumve per quos publica administrantur. Ex contrario enim nulli adversus illos gratiores sunt, nec immerito; nullis enim plus praestant quam quibus frui tranquillo otio licet.

[1] They seem to me to err who suppose that those faithfully devoted to philosophy are contumacious and refractory, despisers of magistrates or of kings, or of those through whom public affairs are administered. On the contrary, none are more welcome to them than these, and not without good reason; for to none do such men render greater service than to those to whom it is permitted to enjoy tranquil leisure.

[2] Itaque ii quibus multum ad propositum bene vivendi confert securitas publica necesse est auctorem huius boni ut parentem colant, multo quidem magis quam illi inquieti et in medio positi, qui multa principibus debent sed multa et imputant, quibus numquam tam plene occurrere ulla liberalitas potest ut cupiditates illorum, quae crescunt dum implentur, exsatiet. Quisquis autem de accipiendo cogitat oblitus accepti est, nec ullum habet malum cupiditas maius quam quod ingrata est.

[2] Therefore those for whom public security contributes much to the purpose of living well must honor the author of this good as a parent, much indeed more than those restless and set in the midst, who owe much to princes but also impute much to them, for whom no liberality can ever so fully meet the case as to satiate their cupidities, which grow while they are being filled. Whoever, moreover, thinks about receiving has forgotten what he has received, nor has cupidity any greater evil than that it is ungrateful.

[3] Adice nunc quod nemo eorum qui in re publica versantur quot vincat, sed a quibus vincatur, aspicit; et illis non tam iucundum est multos post se videre quam grave aliquem ante se. Habet hoc vitium omnis ambitio: non respicit. Nec ambitio tantum instabilis est, verum cupiditas omnis, quia incipit semper a fine.

[3] Add now this: that none of those who are engaged in the republic looks at how many he vanquishes, but at by whom he is vanquished; and for them it is not so pleasant to see many behind themselves as it is grievous to see someone before themselves. Every ambition has this vice: it does not look back. Nor is ambition alone unstable, but every cupidity is, because it always begins from the end.

[4] At ille vir sincerus ac purus, qui reliquit et curiam et forum et omnem administrationem rei publicae ut ad ampliora secederet, diligit eos per quos hoc ei facere tuto licet solusque illis gratuitum testimonium reddit et magnam rem nescientibus debet. Quemadmodum praeceptores suos veneratur ac suspicit quorum beneficio illis inviis exit, sic et hos sub quorum tutela positus exercet artes bonas.

[4] But that man sincere and pure, who has left both the curia and the forum and every administration of the commonwealth so that he might secede to ampler things, loves those through whom it is permitted for him to do this safely, and he alone renders to them a gratuitous testimonial and owes a great debt to men who are unaware. Just as he venerates and looks up to his preceptors, by whose benefit he makes his way out into paths impassable to others, so also under the tutelage of these men, in whose protection he is placed, he exercises the good arts.

[5] 'Verum alios quoque rex viribus suis protegit.' Quis negat? Sed quemadmodum Neptuno plus debere se iudicat ex iis qui eadem tranquillitate usi sunt qui plura et pretiosiora illo mari vexit, animosius a mercatore quam a vectore solvitur votum et ex ipsis mercatoribus effusius ratus est qui odores ac purpuras et auro pensanda portabat quam qui vilissima quaeque et saburrae loco futura congesserat, sic huius pacis beneficium ad omnis pertinentis altius ad eos pervenit qui illa bene utuntur.

[5] 'But the king also protects others by his forces.' Who denies it? Yet, just as among those who have enjoyed the same tranquility, he judges himself to owe more to Neptune who has conveyed more and more precious things by that sea, the vow is paid more spiritedly by a merchant than by a passenger, and even among the merchants he is reckoned more effusive who was carrying odors and purples and goods to be weighed out in gold, than he who had heaped together the cheapest odds and ends, destined to serve as ballast; so the beneficium of this peace, though pertaining to all, reaches more deeply those who use it well.

[6] Multi enim sunt ex his togatis quibus pax operosior bello est: an idem existimas pro pace debere eos qui illam ebrietati aut libidini impendunt aut aliis vitiis quae vel bello rumpenda sunt? Nisi forte tam iniquum putas esse sapientem ut nihil viritim se debere pro communibus bonis iudicet. Soli lunaeque plurimum debeo, et non uni mihi oriuntur; anno temperantique annum deo privatim obligatus sum, quamvis nihil in meum honorem *** discripta sint.

[6] For many indeed are among these toga-wearers for whom peace is more toilsome than war: or do you suppose that those who expend it on ebriety or libido, or on other vices which ought to be broken even by war, owe the same on behalf of peace? Unless perhaps you think the wise man so iniquitous as to judge that he owes nothing man-by-man for the common goods. To the sun and the moon I owe very much, and they do not rise for me alone; to the year and to the god tempering the year I am privately obligated, although nothing in my honor has been *** assigned.

[7] Stulta avaritia mortalium possessionem proprietatemque discernit nec quicquam suum credit esse quod publicum est; at ille sapiens nihil magis suum iudicat quam cuius illi cum humano genere consortium est. Nec enim essent ista communia, nisi pars illorum pertineret ad singulos; socium efficit etiam quod ex minima portione commune est.

[7] The foolish avarice of mortals distinguishes possession and proprietorship, and believes that nothing is its own which is public; but the wise man judges nothing more his own than that of which he has a consortium with the human race. For these things would not be common, unless a part of them pertained to individuals; even what is common by reason of the smallest portion makes one a partner.

[8] Adice nunc quod magna et vera bona non sic dividuntur ut exiguum in singulos cadat: ad unumquemque tota perveniunt. E congiario tantum ferunt homines quantum in capita promissum est; epulum et visceratio et quidquid aliud manu capitur discedit in partes: at haec individua bona, pax et libertas, ea tam omnium tota quam singulorum sunt.

[8] Add now this: that great and true goods are not divided in such a way that something exiguous falls to individuals; to each and every one they arrive whole. From a congiary men receive only as much as has been promised per head; a banquet and a visceration and whatever else is taken by hand breaks up into parts: but these indivisible goods, peace and liberty, are whole as much the goods of all as of individuals.

[9] Cogitat itaque per quem sibi horum usus fructusque contingat, per quem non ad arma illum nec ad servandas vigilias nec ad tuenda moenia et multiplex belli tributum publica necessitas vocet, agitque gubernatori suo gratias. Hoc docet philosophia praecipue, bene debere beneficia, bene solvere; interdum autem solutio est ipsa confessio.

[9] Accordingly he considers through whom the use and usufruct of these things befalls him, through whom public necessity does not summon him to arms nor to keep watches nor to guard the walls and to the manifold tribute of war, and he gives thanks to his governor. This is what philosophy teaches especially: to owe benefits well, to discharge them well; sometimes, however, the very acknowledgment is the payment.

[10] Confitebitur ergo multum se debere ei cuius administratione ac providentia contingit illi pingue otium et arbitrium sui temporis et imperturbata publicis occupationibus quies.

[10] He will confess therefore that he owes much to him by whose administration and providence there falls to him rich leisure and the arbitrium of his own time and a repose unperturbed by public occupations.

O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit;
namque erit ille mihi semper deus.

O Meliboeus, a god has made these leisures for us;
for indeed he will be to me always a god.

[11] Si illa quoque otia multum auctori suo debent quorum munus hoc maximum est,

[11] If those leisures also owe much to their author, whose gift has this as its greatest feature,

ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum
ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti,

he permitted my cattle to wander, as you see, and me myself
to play whatever I wished on the agrestic reed,

quanti aestimamus hoc otium quod inter deos agitur, quod deos facit?

How highly do we estimate this leisure which is conducted among the gods, which makes gods?

[12] Ita dico, Lucili, et te in caelum compendiario voco. Solebat Sextius dicere Iovem plus non posse quam bonum virum. Plura Iuppiter habet quae praestet hominibus, sed inter duos bonos non est melior qui locupletior, non magis quam inter duos quibus par scientia regendi gubernaculum est meliorem dixeris cui maius speciosiusque navigium est.

[12] Thus I say, Lucilius, and I call you to heaven by a shortcut. Sextius used to say that Jupiter is not able to do more than a good man. Jupiter has more things which he can bestow upon human beings, but between two good men the wealthier is not the better, no more than, among two for whom the knowledge of governing the helm is equal, you would call better the one who has the larger and more splendid ship.

[13] Iuppiter quo antecedit virum bonum? diutius bonus est: sapiens nihilo se minoris aestimat quod virtutes eius spatio breviore cluduntur. Quemadmodum ex duobus sapientibus qui senior decessit non est beatior eo cuius intra pauciores annos terminata virtus est, sic deus non vincit sapientem felicitate, etiam si vincit aetate; non est virtus maior quae longior.

[13] In what does Jupiter precede the good man? He is good for a longer time: the wise man esteems himself not a whit the less because his virtues are enclosed within a shorter span. Just as, out of two wise men, he who departed this life the elder is not more blessed than the one whose virtue was terminated within fewer years, so god does not surpass the wise man in felicity, even if he surpasses him in age; virtue is not greater for being longer.

[14] Iuppiter omnia habet, sed nempe aliis tradidit habenda: ad ipsum hic unus usus pertinet, quod utendi omnibus causa est: sapiens tam aequo animo omnia apud alios videt contemnitque quam Iuppiter et hoc se magis suspicit quod Iuppiter uti illis non potest, sapiens non vult.

[14] Jupiter has all things, but indeed he has handed them over to others to be held: to himself this one use pertains, that he is the cause of the using of all: the wise man sees all things with others and both beholds and scorns them with as even a mind as Jupiter, and on this account he esteems himself the more, that Jupiter cannot use them, whereas the wise man does not wish to.

[15] Credamus itaque Sextio monstranti pulcherrimum iter et clamanti 'hac

[15] Let us, therefore, trust Sextius as he points out the most beautiful route and cries out 'this way

itur ad astra,

one goes to the stars,

hac secundum frugalitatem, hac secundum temperantiam, hac secundum fortitudinem'. Non sunt dii fastidiosi, non invidi: admittunt et ascendentibus manum porrigunt.

this way according to frugality, this way according to temperance, this way according to fortitude'. The gods are not fastidious, not envious: they admit and extend a hand to those ascending.

[16] Miraris hominem ad deos ire? Deus ad homines venit, immo quod est propius, in homines venit: nulla sine deo mens bona est. Semina in corporibus humanis divina dispersa sunt, quae si bonus cultor excipit, similia origini prodeunt et paria iis ex quibus orta sunt surgunt: si malus, non aliter quam humus sterilis ac palustris necat ac deinde creat purgamenta pro frugibus.

[16] Do you marvel that a human goes to the gods? God comes to humans—nay, what is closer, he comes into humans: no mind is good without a god. Divine seeds are scattered in human bodies; if a good cultivator receives them, they come forth similar to their origin and rise equal to those from which they sprang; if a bad one, it kills them no otherwise than sterile and palustrine soil does, and then produces refuse in place of fruits.

Vale.

Farewell.

LXXIV. SENECA LUCILIO SUO SALUTEM

74. SENECA TO HIS LUCILIUS, GREETING

[1] Epistula tua delectavit me et marcentem excitavit; memoriam quoque meam, quae iam mihi segnis ac lenta est, evocavit. Quidni tu, mi Lucili, maximum putes instrumentum vitae beatae hanc persuasionem unum bonum esse quod honestum est? Nam qui alia bona iudicat in fortunae venit potestatem, alieni arbitrii fit: qui omne bonum honesto circumscripsit intra se felix .

[1] Your letter delighted me and roused me from sluggishness; it also summoned back my memory, which now for me is dull and slow. Why should you not, my Lucilius, consider as the greatest instrument of a blessed life this persuasion—that the one good is what is honorable? For whoever judges other things to be goods comes into the power of Fortune, becomes of another’s arbitrament; he who has circumscribed all good within the honorable is happy within himself.

[2] Hic amissis liberis maestus, hic sollicitus aegris, hic turpibus et aliqua sparsis infamia tristis; illum videbis alienae uxoris amore cruciari, illum suae; non deerit quem repulsa distorqueat; erunt quos ipse honor vexet.

[2] Here one is mournful over children lost, here another solicitous for the sick, here another sad at disgraceful things and at some infamy scattered abroad; you will see this man tortured by love for another’s wife, that one by love for his own; there will not be lacking someone whom a repulse wrenches; there will be those whom honor itself vexes.

[3] Illa vero maxima ex omni mortalium populo turba miserorum quam exspectatio mortis exagitat undique impendens; nihil enim est unde non subeat. Itaque, ut in hostili regione versantibus, huc et illuc circumspiciendum est et ad omnem strepitum circumagenda cervix; nisi hic timor e pectore eiectus est, palpitantibus praecordiis vivitur.

[3] That, indeed, is the greatest throng of the wretched out of the whole populace of mortals, whom the expectation of death agitates, hanging over from every side; for there is nothing from which it does not creep in. And so, as in hostile territory moving about, here and there one must look around, and at every noise the neck must be turned about; unless this fear has been cast out from the breast, life is lived with the precordia palpitating.

[4] Occurrent acti in exsilium et evoluti bonis; occurrent, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est, in divitis inopes; occurrent naufragi similiave naufragis passi, quos aut popularis ira aut invidia, perniciosum optimis telum, inopinantis securosque disiecit procellae more quae in ipsa sereni fiducia solet emergere, aut fulminis subiti ad cuius ictum etiam vicina tremuerunt. Nam ut illic quisquis ab igne propior stetit percusso similis obstipuit, sic in his per aliquam vim accidentibus unum calamitas opprimit, ceteros metus, paremque passis tristitiam facit pati posse.

[4] You will encounter men driven into exile and stripped of their goods; you will encounter—than which kind of indigence there is none heavier—those destitute amid riches; you will encounter shipwrecked men, or men who have suffered things like shipwreck, whom either popular wrath or envy, a pernicious weapon against the best, has scattered—unsuspecting and secure—in the manner of a squall which is wont to emerge at the very confidence of serenity, or by a sudden lightning-stroke at whose blow even those nearby have trembled. For just as in that case whoever stood nearer to the man smitten by the fire is astounded, like the stricken one, so in these happenings through some force calamity crushes one, fear the rest, and it makes those who may suffer feel a sadness equal to that of those who have suffered.

[5] Omnium animos mala aliena ac repentina sollicitant. Quemadmodum aves etiam inanis fundae sonus territat, ita nos non ad ictum tantum exagitamur sed ad crepitum. Non potest ergo quisquam beatus esse qui huic se opinioni credidit.

[5] The minds of all are disquieted by others’ and sudden evils. Just as even the sound of an empty sling terrifies birds, so we are agitated not only at the blow but at the crack. Therefore no one can be happy who has entrusted himself to this opinion.

Non enim beatum est nisi quod intrepidum; inter suspecta male vivitur.

For nothing is happy unless it is intrepid; life is lived badly amid suspicions.

[6] Quisquis se multum fortuitis dedit ingentem sibi materiam perturbationis et inexplicabilem fecit: una haec via est ad tuta vadenti, externa despicere et honesto esse contentum. Nam qui aliquid virtute melius putat aut ullum praeter illam bonum, ad haec quae a fortuna sparguntur sinum expandit et sollicitus missilia eius exspectat.

[6] Whoever has given himself much to fortuitous things has made for himself an immense and inextricable material of perturbation: this is the single way for one going toward safety, to look down on externals and to be content with the honorable. For he who thinks anything better than virtue or any good apart from it opens his lap to those things which are scattered by Fortune and anxiously awaits her missiles.

[7] Hanc enim imaginem animo tuo propone, ludos facere fortunam et in hunc mortalium coetum honores, divitias, gratiam excutere, quorum alia inter diripientium manus scissa sunt, alia infida societate divisa, alia magno detrimento eorum in quos devenerant prensa. Ex quibus quaedam aliud agentibus inciderunt, quaedam, quia nimis captabantur, amissa et dum avide rapiuntur expulsa sunt: nulli vero, etiam cui rapina feliciter cessit, gaudium rapti duravit in posterum. Itaque prudentissimus quisque, cum primum induci videt munuscula, a theatro fugit et scit magno parva constare.

[7] Set before your mind this image: Fortune is putting on games and, into this gathering of mortals, is shaking out honors, riches, favor—of which some have been torn to pieces among the hands of the despoilers, others divided by a faithless partnership, others, once seized, to the great detriment of those into whose hands they had fallen. Of these, some dropped in upon people while they were busy with something else; some, because they were too eagerly hunted, were lost, and, while they are greedily snatched, were driven away: but to no one, even to him for whom the rapine turned out happily, did the joy of the thing snatched endure for the future. And so each most prudent man, as soon as he sees the little gifts being led in, flees from the theater and knows that small things cost dear.

Nemo manum conserit cum recedente, nemo exeuntem ferit: circa praemium rixa est.

No one joins battle with one retreating, no one strikes one going out: the quarrel is around the prize.

[8] Idem in his evenit quae fortuna desuper iactat: aestuamus miseri, distringimur, multas habere cupimus manus, modo in hanc partem, modo in illam respicimus; nimis tarde nobis mitti videntur quae cupiditates nostras irritant, ad paucos perventura, exspectata omnibus;

[8] The same happens in those things which Fortune tosses down from above: we seethe, we are distracted, we desire to have many hands, now we look to this side, now to that; the things which irritate our desires seem to be sent to us too slowly, destined to reach a few, awaited by all;

[9] ire obviam cadentibus cupimus; gaudemus si quid invasimus invadendique aliquos spes vana delusit; vilem praedam magno aliquo incommodo luimus aut [de] fallimur. Secedamus itaque ab istis ludis et demus raptoribus locum; illi spectent bona ista pendentia et ipsi magis pendeant.

[9] we desire to go to meet the falling; we rejoice if we have invaded anything, and a vain hope of invading some has deluded us; we pay for cheap prey with some great inconvenience, or we are deceived. Let us withdraw, therefore, from those games and give place to the plunderers; let them look at those goods pending, and let they themselves hang all the more in suspense.

[10] Quicumque beatus esse constituet, unum esse bonum putet quod honestum est; nam si ullum aliud existimat, primum male de providentia iudicat, quia multa incommoda iustis viris accidunt, et quia quidquid nobis dedit breve est et exiguum si compares mundi totius aevo.

[10] Whoever shall resolve to be happy, let him think there is one good, that which is honorable; for if he esteems any other, first he judges ill of Providence, because many inconveniences befall just men, and because whatever has been given to us is brief and exiguous if you compare it with the age of the whole world.

[11] Ex hac deploratione nascitur ut ingrati divinorum interpretes simus: querimur quod non semper, quod et pauca nobis et incerta et abitura contingant. Inde est quod nec vivere nec mori volumus: vitae nos odium tenet, timor mortis. Natat omne consilium nec implere nos ulla felicitas potest.

[11] From this lamentation it is born that we are ungrateful interpreters of the divine: we complain that things do not always befall us, and that what does befall us is few, uncertain, and destined to pass away. Hence it is that we wish neither to live nor to die: hatred of life holds us, fear of death. Every counsel is adrift, nor can any felicity fulfill us.

Causa autem est quod non pervenimus ad illud bonum immensum et insuperabile ubi necesse est resistat voluntas nostra quia ultra summum non est locus.

The cause, however, is that we have not arrived at that immense and insuperable good, where it is necessary that our will stand fast, because beyond the supreme there is no place.

[12] Quaeris quare virtus nullo egeat? Praesentibus gaudet, non concupiscit absentia; nihil non illi magnum est quod satis. Ab hoc discede iudicio: non pietas constabit, non fides, multa enim utramque praestare cupienti patienda sunt ex iis quae mala vocantur, multa impendenda ex iis quibus indulgemus tamquam bonis.

[12] You ask why virtue needs nothing? She rejoices in present things, she does not covet things absent; for her, whatever is enough is great. Depart from this judgment: neither piety will stand fast nor faith; for many things among those which are called evils must be endured by the one who desires to render both, and many must be expended from those things to which we indulge as though they were goods.

[13] Perit fortitudo, quae periculum facere debet sui; perit magnanimitas, quae non potest eminere nisi omnia velut minuta contempsit quae pro maximis vulgus optat; perit gratia et relatio gratiae si timemus laborem, si quicquam pretiosius fide novimus, si non optima spectamus.

[13] Courage perishes, which ought to hazard itself; magnanimity perishes, which cannot stand out unless it has despised all things as though minute which the crowd desires as the greatest; gratitude and the repayment of gratitude perish if we fear labor, if we know anything more precious than faith, if we do not look to the best.

[14] Sed ut illa praeteream, aut ista bona non sunt quae vocantur aut homo felicior deo est, quoniam quidem quae cara nobis sunt non habet in usu deus; nec enim libido ad illum nec epularum lautitia nec opes nec quicquam ex his hominem inescantibus et vili voluptate ducentibus pertinet. Ergo aut credibile est bona deo deesse aut hoc ipsum argumentum est bona non esse, quod deo desunt.

[14] But in order that I may pass those by, either those things are not good which are so called, or a human is more fortunate than God, since indeed God does not have in use the things that are dear to us; for neither lust pertains to him, nor the luxury of banquets, nor wealth, nor anything out of these that ensnare a human and lead by cheap pleasure. Therefore either it is credible that goods are lacking to God, or this very fact is an argument that they are not goods, namely that they are lacking to God.

[15] Adice quod multa quae bona videri volunt animalibus quam homini pleniora contingunt. Illa cibo avidius utuntur, venere non aeque fatigantur; virium illis maior est et aequabilior firmitas: sequitur ut multo feliciora sint homine. Nam sine nequitia, sine fraudibus degunt; fruuntur voluptatibus, quas et magis capiunt et ex facili, sine ullo pudoris aut paenitentiae metu.

[15] Add this, that many things which want to seem good befall animals more plenarily than man. They use food more avidly, they are not equally wearied by venery; for them strength is greater and firmness more even: it follows that they are much happier than man. For they live without worthlessness, without frauds; they enjoy pleasures, which they both seize more and readily, without any fear of shame or repentance.

[16] Considera tu itaque an id bonum vocandum sit quo deus ab homine, vincitur. Summum bonum in animo contineamus: obsolescit si ab optima nostri parte ad pessimam transit et transfertur ad sensus, qui agiliores sunt animalibus mutis. Non est summa felicitatis nostrae in carne ponenda: bona illa sunt vera quae ratio dat, solida ac sempiterna, quae cadere non possunt, ne decrescere quidem ac minui.

[16] Consider, then, whether that should be called good by which God is conquered by man, . Let us keep the Supreme Good in the mind: it grows obsolete if from the best part of us it passes to the worst and is transferred to the senses, which are more agile in mute animals. The sum of our felicity is not to be placed in the flesh: those are the true goods which reason gives, solid and sempiternal, which cannot fall, not even decrease or be diminished.

[17] Cetera opinione bona sunt et nomen quidem habent commune cum veris, proprietas [quidem] in illis boni non est; itaque commoda vocentur et, ut nostra lingua loquar, producta. Ceterum sciamus mancipia nostra esse, non partes, et sint apud nos, sed ita ut meminerimus extra nos esse; etiam si apud nos sint, inter subiecta et humilia numerentur propter quae nemo se attollere debeat. Quid enim stultius quam aliquem eo sibi placere quod ipse non fecit?

[17] The rest are good by opinion, and indeed have a name in common with the true [goods], but the property of good is not in them; therefore let them be called conveniences, and, to speak in our own tongue, by-products. For the rest, let us know that they are our slaves, not our parts, and let them be with us, yet in such a way that we remember that they are outside us; even if they are with us, let them be numbered among things subjected and lowly, on account of which no one ought to exalt himself. For what is more foolish than for someone to be pleased with himself because of that which he himself did not make?

[18] Omnia ista nobis accedant, non haereant, ut si abducentur, sine ulla nostri laceratione discedant. Utamur illis, non gloriemur, et utamur parce tamquam depositis apud nos et abituris. Quisquis illa sine ratione possedit non diu tenuit; ipsa enim se felicitas, nisi temperatur, premit.

[18] Let all those things accede to us, not adhere, so that, if they are carried off, they may depart without any laceration of us. Let us use them, not glory in them, and let us use them sparingly, as things deposited with us and about to depart. Whoever has possessed them without reason did not hold them long; for felicity itself, unless it is tempered, presses.

Si fugacissimis bonis credidit, cito deseritur, et, ut deseratur, affligitur. Paucis deponere felicitatem molliter licuit: ceteri cum iis inter quae eminuere labuntur, et illos degravant ipsa quae extulerant.

If he has trusted in the most fugacious goods, he is quickly deserted, and, so that he may be deserted, he is afflicted. To few has it been permitted to lay down felicity gently: the rest slip with those very things among which they had stood out, and the very things that had raised them weigh them down.

[19] Ideo adhibebitur prudentia, quae modum illis ac parsimoniam imponat, quoniam quidem licentia opes suas praecipitat atque urget, nec umquam immodica durarunt nisi illa moderatrix ratio compescuit. Hoc multarum tibi urbium ostendet eventus, quarum in ipso flore luxuriosa imperia ceciderunt, et quidquid virtute partum erat intemperantia corruit. Adversus hos casus muniendi sumus.

[19] Therefore prudence will be applied, which will impose measure and parsimony upon them, since indeed license precipitates and urges on its own wealth, and never have immoderate things endured unless that moderating Reason restrained them. This the event of many cities will show you, in whose very bloom luxurious empires fell, and whatever had been brought forth by virtue collapsed through intemperance. Against these contingencies we must be fortified.

Nullus autem contra fortunam inexpugnabilis murus est: intus instruamur; si illa pars tuta est, pulsari homo potest, capi non potest. Quod sit hoc instrumentum scire desideras?

However, no wall is impregnable against Fortune: let us be equipped within; if that part is safe, a man can be battered, he cannot be captured. Do you desire to know what this instrument is?

[20] Nihil indignetur sibi accidere sciatque illa ipsa quibus laedi videtur ad conservationem universi pertinere et ex iis esse quae cursum mundi officiumque consummant; placeat homini quidquid deo placuit; ob hoc ipsum suaque miretur, quod non potest vinci, quod mala ipsa sub se tenet, quod ratione, qua valentius nihil est, casum doloremque et iniuriam subigit.

[20] Let him resent nothing as befalling himself, and let him know that those very things by which he seems to be harmed pertain to the conservation of the universe and are among those which consummate the world’s course and office; let whatever has pleased god be pleasing to man; for this very reason let him marvel at himself and what is his, that he cannot be conquered, that he holds evils themselves beneath him, that by reason, than which nothing is more puissant, he subjugates chance, pain, and injury.

[21] Ama rationem! huius te amor contra durissima armabit. Feras catulorum amor in venabula impingit feritasque et inconsultus impetus praestat indomitas; iuvenilia nonnumquam ingenia cupido gloriae in contemptum tam ferri quam ignium misit; species quosdam atque umbra virtutis in mortem voluntariam trudit: quanto his omnibus fortior ratio est, quanto constantior, tanto vehementius per metus ipsos et pericula exibit.

[21] Love reason! The love of this will arm you against the hardest things. The love of their whelps drives wild beasts onto the hunting-spears, and ferocity and an unconsidered impulse renders them untamed; youthful spirits the desire of glory has sometimes sent into contempt both of steel and of fires; the mere appearance and shadow of virtue thrusts some into voluntary death: by how much reason is stronger than all these, by how much more constant, by so much the more vehemently will it go forth through the fears themselves and the dangers.

[22] 'Nihil agitis' inquit 'quod negatis ullum esse aliud honesto bonum. non faciet vos haec munitio tutos a fortuna et immunes. Dicitis enim inter bona esse liberos pios et bene moratam patriam et parentes bonos.

[22] 'You accomplish nothing,' he says 'by denying that there is any other good than the honorable. This munition will not make you safe from Fortune and immune. For you say that among goods are pious children and a well-ordered fatherland and good parents.

Horum pericula non potestis spectare securi: perturbabit vos obsidio patriae, liberorum mors, parentum servitus.'

You cannot behold the perils of these things with security: the siege of the fatherland, the death of your children, the servitude of your parents will perturb you.'

[23] Quid adversus hos pro nobis responderi soleat ponam; deinde tunc adiciam quid praeterea respondendum putem. Alia condicio est in iis quae ablata in locum suum aliquid incommodi substituunt: tamquam bona valetudo vitiata in malam transfert; acies oculorum exstincta caecitate nos afficit; non tantum velocitas perit poplitibus incisis, sed debilitas pro illa subit. Hoc non est periculum in iis quae paulo ante rettulimus.

[23] I will set down what is wont to be answered on our behalf against these; then I will add what, moreover, I think ought to be answered. There is a different condition in those things which, once taken away, substitute in their place some incommodity: for example, good health, when vitiated, is transferred into bad; the acuity of the eyes, once extinguished, afflicts us with blindness; not only does velocity perish when the hamstrings are cut, but debility comes up in its stead. This is not the peril in those things which we a little before recounted.

Quare? si amicum bonum amisi, non est mihi pro illo perfidia patienda, nec si bonos liberos extuli, in illorum locum impietas succedit.

Why? If I have lost a good friend, perfidy is not to be endured by me in his place; nor, if I have borne good children to the grave, does impiety succeed into their place.

[24] Deinde non amicorum illic aut liberorum interitus sed corporum est. Bonum autem uno modo perit, si in malum transit; quod natura non patitur, quia omnis virtus et opus omne virtutis incorruptum manet. Deinde etiam si amici perierunt, etiam si probati respondentesque voto patris liberi, est quod illorum expleat locum.

[24] Then, there, it is not the death of friends or of children, but of bodies. However, the good perishes in only one way, if it passes into evil; which nature does not permit, because every virtue and every work of virtue remains incorrupt. Then even if friends have perished, even if children approved and answering to the father’s vow, there is that which fills their place.

Quid sit quaeris? quod illos quoque bonos fecerat, virtus.

You ask what it is? Virtue, which had made them good as well.

[25] Haec nihil vacare patitur loci, totum animum tenet, desiderium omnium tollit, sola satis est; omnium enim bonorum vis et origo in ipsa est. Quid refert an aqua decurrens intercipiatur atque abeat, si fons ex quo fluxerat salvus est? Non dices vitam iustiorem salvis liberis quam amissis nec ordinatiorem nec prudentiorem nec honestiorem; ergo ne meliorem quidem.

[25] This allows no place to be vacant; it holds the whole mind, removes the longing for all things, is by itself sufficient; for the force and the origin of all goods are in it itself. What does it matter if the running water is intercepted and goes away, if the spring from which it had flowed is safe? You will not say that life is more just with the children safe than with them lost, nor more orderly nor more prudent nor more honorable; therefore not better either.

Non facit adiectio amicorum sapientiorem, non facit stultiorem detractio; ergo nec beatiorem aut miseriorem. Quamdiu virtus salva fuerit, non senties quidquid abscesserit.

The addition of friends does not make one wiser, the subtraction does not make one more foolish; therefore neither happier nor more wretched. So long as virtue remains intact, you will not sense whatever has departed.

[26] 'Quid ergo? non est beatior et amicorum et liberorum turba succinctus?' Quidni non sit? Summum enim bonum nec infringitur nec augetur; in suo modo permanet, utcumque fortuna se gessit.

[26] 'What then? Is he not happier, girded with a throng of both friends and children?' Why should he not be not? For the supreme good is neither infringed nor augmented; it remains in its own mode, however fortune has conducted herself.

Sive illi senectus longa contigit sive citra senectutem finitus est, eadem mensura summi boni est, quamvis aetatis diversa sit.

Whether a long old age has befallen him or he has ended short of old age, the same measure of the summum bonum remains, although the age is different.

[27] Utrum maiorem an minorem circulum scribas ad spatium eius pertinet, non ad formam: licet alter diu manserit, alterum statim obduxeris et in eum in quo scriptus est pulverem solveris, in eadem uterque forma fuit. Quod rectum est nec magnitudine aestimatur nec numero nec tempore; non magis produci quam contrahi potest. Honestam vitam ex centum annorum numero in quantum voles corripe et in unum diem coge: aeque honesta est.

[27] Whether you draw a greater or a smaller circle pertains to its space, not to its form: though the one may have lasted long, the other you may at once have drawn over and have scattered the dust on the surface in which it was drawn, each was in the same form. What is right is assessed neither by magnitude nor by number nor by time; it can no more be extended than contracted. Take an honorable life from a total of one hundred years, as much as you please, and compress it into a single day: it is equally honorable.

[28] Modo latius virtus funditur, regna urbes provincias temperat, fert leges, colit amicitias, inter propinquos liberosque dispensat officia, modo arto fine circumdatur paupertatis exsilii orbitatis; non tamen minor est si ex altiore fastigio in humile subducitur, in privatum ex regio, ex publico et spatioso iure in angustias domus vel anguli coit.

[28] Now virtue is diffused more broadly, it tempers kingdoms, cities, provinces, bears laws, cultivates friendships, dispenses duties among kinsfolk and children; now it is encompassed by the narrow limit of poverty, exile, bereavement; yet it is no less if from a loftier pinnacle it is drawn down into the humble, into private from royal, from public and spacious jurisdiction it contracts into the straits of a house or even a corner.

[29] Aeque magna est, etiam si in se recessit undique exclusa; nihilominus enim magni spiritus est et erecti, exactae prudentiae, indeclinabilis iustitiae. Ergo aeque beata est; beatum enim illud uno loco positum est, in ipsa mente, stabile, grande, tranquillum, quod sine scientia divinorum humanorumque non potest effici.

[29] Equally great it is, even if it has withdrawn into itself, shut out on every side; nonetheless it is of great and erect spirit, of exact prudence, of indeclinable justice. Therefore it is equally blessed; for that blessed thing is set in one place, in the mind itself, stable, grand, tranquil, which cannot be effected without the science of things divine and human.

[30] Sequitur illud quod me responsurum esse dicebam. Non affligitur sapiens liberorum amissione, non amicorum; eodem enim animo fert illorum mortem quo suam exspectat; non magis hanc timet quam illam dolet. Virtus enim convenientia constat: omnia opera eius cum ipsa concordant et congruunt.

[30] Next follows that point which I was saying I would answer. The wise man is not afflicted by the loss of his children, nor of his friends; for he bears their death with the same spirit with which he awaits his own; he no more fears this than he grieves that. For virtue consists in consonances: all its works concord and are congruent with itself.

Haec concordia perit si animus, quem excelsum esse oportet, luctu aut desiderio summittitur. Inhonesta est omnis trepidatio et sollicitudo, in ullo actu pigritia; honestum enim securum et expeditum est, interritum est, in procinctu stat.

This concord perishes if the mind, which ought to be lofty, is lowered by grief or longing. Every trepidation and solicitude, and sloth in any act, is dishonorable; for the honorable is secure and unencumbered, it is intrepid, it stands in battle array.

[31] 'Quid ergo? non aliquid perturbationi simile patietur? non et color eius mutabitur et vultus agitabitur et artus refrigescent?

[31] 'What then? Will he not suffer something similar to perturbation? Will not even his color be changed and his countenance be agitated, and will not his limbs grow cold?

et quidquid aliud non ex imperio animi, sed inconsulto quodam naturae impetu geritur?' Fateor; sed manebit illi persuasio eadem, nihil illorum malum esse nec dignum ad quod mens sana deficiat.

and whatever else is carried out not by the command of the mind, but by some unadvised impulse of nature?' I admit; but the same persuasion will remain to him, that none of those things is an evil nor worthy at which a sound mind should fail.

[32] Omnia quae facienda erunt audaciter faciet et prompte. Hoc enim stultitiae proprium quis dixerit, ignave et contumaciter facere quae faciat, et alio corpus impellere, alio animum, distrahique inter diversissimos motus. Nam propter illa ipsa quibus extollit se miraturque contempta est, et ne illa quidem quibus gloriatur libenter facit.

[32] He will do all the things that will have to be done audaciously and promptly. For who would say that it is proper to stupidity to do the things it does ignavely and contumaciously, and to impel the body one way, the mind another, and to be drawn asunder among the most diverse motions? For on account of those very things by which it extols and admires itself, it is contemned; and not even those things in which it glories does it do willingly.

Si vero aliquod timetur malum, eo proinde, dum exspectat, quasi venisset urguetur, et quidquid ne patiatur timet iam metu patitur.

But if indeed some evil is feared, then, while it is awaited, he is pressed by it as if it had come, and whatever he fears lest he suffer, he already suffers by fear.

[33] Quemadmodum in corporibus infirmis languorem signa praecurrunt - quaedam enim segnitia enervis est et sine labore ullo lassitudo et oscitatio et horror membra percurrens - sic infirmus animus multo ante quam opprimatur malis quatitur; praesumit illa et ante tempus cadit. Quid autem dementius quam angi futuris nec se tormento reservare, sed arcessere sibi miserias et admovere? quas optimum est differre, si discutere non possis.

[33] Just as in infirm bodies signs anticipate the languor — for a certain sluggishness is enervate, and there is a lassitude without any toil, and oscitation and a horror running through the members — so the infirm mind is shaken long before it is oppressed by evils; it anticipates them and falls before the time. What, moreover, is more demented than to be anguished at future things and not to reserve oneself for the torment, but to summon miseries to oneself and bring them near? which it is best to defer, if you cannot dispel them.

[34] Vis scire futuro neminem debere torqueri? Quicumque audierit post quinquagesimum annum sibi patienda supplicia, non perturbatur nisi si medium spatium transiluerit et se in illam saeculo post futuram sollicitudinem immiserit: eodem modo fit ut animos libenter aegros et captantes causas doloris vetera atque obliterata contristent. Et quae praeterierunt et quae futura sunt absunt: neutra sentimus.

[34] Do you wish to know that no one ought to be tormented by the future? Whoever has heard that punishments are to be suffered after the fiftieth year is not perturbed unless he has leapt over the intervening span and plunged himself into that solicitude to be, a generation later: in the same way it comes about that minds gladly sick and catching at causes of grief distress themselves with things old and obliterated. Both the things that have passed and the things that are to come are absent: we feel neither.

Non est autem nisi ex eo quod sentias dolor. Vale.

There is not, moreover, pain except from that which you feel. Farewell.